Line-up Announced For January's Ferment Fortnight
By: Stephi Wild
Marking its 10-year anniversary, bi-annual work-in-progress festival Ferment Fortnight is back in The Weston Studio and ready to showcase some of the finest innovation-seekers and theatre-makers the South West has to offer.
Ferment Fortnight highlights Bristol Old Vic's 2020 Year of Artists pledge to champion creativity in everyone and stage work by the most outrageous talent Bristol has to offer. The 2-week festival will introduce the budding ideas of artists from across the South West, allowing audiences to engage with work that is still being made and feedback on scratch performances from emerging and established local theatre-makers. This year's line-up includes a welcome return to Bristol Ferment for the hugely popular Seamas Carey, Sharp Teeth, The Devil's Violin and Sleepdogs alongside new friends like Florence Espeut-Nickless, Audrey Productions, Madeline Shann & Malaika Kegode, Jakabol and Jenny Davies - to name just a few. Ferment's mission is not only to support work at this initial stage but to help nurture these early sparks into a fully-fledged production. Over the last ten years, artists and companies have staged their work at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, The National Theatre, the Wardrobe and Tobacco Factory Theatres and toured across the UK and internationally. In 2019, the Jan and Jul Ferment Fortnights supported 24 new works in progress, including:- FullRogue's debut show Wild Swimming, subsequently programmed for a two week run in the Weston Studio after a sell-out Edinburgh run.
- Ad Infinitum's Extraordinary Wall of Silence, which was welcomed back with rave reviews for a full run in the Weston Studio.
- Edson Burton and Ruth Ramsay's Anansi and the Grand Prize, currently playing in the Weston Studio over Christmas.
- The Wardrobe Ensemble's The Last of the Pelican Daughters, scheduled to stop by the main house in April on a UK-wide tour.
As always at the Ferment Fortnight, the audience will play a crucial part of the process as they are invited to feedback on each work-in-progress to help the artists and companies develop and grow.
Ben Atterbury, Ferment Producer today said, "This programme represents the beginning of a decade of Bristol Ferment. Ten years of supporting brilliant South West artists and companies to develop and present brilliant work here in the region, around the country and around the world. The Fortnight has always been a crucial element of our programme of artist support, so we'll start as we mean to go on; by asking our Supported Artists and Companies to invite the audience into their experiments and ask for their help to find a way forwards together. We hope this programme signals the beginning of another ten years of Ferment joy as we look over the coming year to make our support bigger, better and more meaningful than ever before; the South West is brimming with extraordinary artistic talent (those already discovered alongside those yet to be found). The artists and companies Ferment is working with are just getting started, and this is your chance to see where it all begins." Tickets to Ferment Fortnight are just £5 and are on sale to Priority Bookers from today (16 Dec) with general tickets going on sale at noon Tue 17 Dec.