Credible Likeable Superstar Role Model @ Bristol Old Vic (Studio)

The basic message of this post is going to be go see this show if you can! This was one of the stand out shows at the Edinburgh Fringe that I unfortunately never got to see. Luckily the show came to Bristol from the 20th-22nd of February so I jumped at the chance to go!

Bryony Kimmings, along with her 9 year old niece Taylor, have created a truly incredible performance of discovery that looks at how young ‘tweens’, particularly girls, are targeted by the media. Having spent time with her niece over the last year, Kimmings was able to look at the world through a nine year-old’s eyes, and see what a truly terrifying prospect it presents for their future. Uncontrolled access to a virtual world where violent and sexual images are more than easy to find for their curious minds; targeted marketing telling girls that they have to be famous, attractive and sexual to be valued in the world; what the curious and sponge-like mind of a 9 year old actually perceives – all this was explored within the space of an hour through song, dance, monologue, and stories.

What really got to me about this performance, and genuinely made me well up, was the sadness and desperation that you feel from Kimmings – she is trying to fight against a world that is not obviously going to change. Although I have always and will always advocate a feminism that allows a woman to dress and act however they want as long as it is their choice (and doesn’t hurt anyone, but that is a general life rule I feel), Credible Likeable Superstar Role Model really made me question this. The popstars that young girls look up to – Jessie J, Katy Perry, Beyoncé – almost exclusively wear tight, short, or revealing outfits and dance sexually. While this is their absolute right – women should be able to be as sexual as they choose – the way this comes across to a young and malleable mind is that the only way to be famous and successful (and as Kimmings relays in a monologue, the two are now equated more than ever in the minds of tweens) is to act in this way. The element of choice is taken out of the equation.

I happened to be looking at dance videos on YouTube the day after seeing the performance, and stumbled across a National Dance Competition in America. What I saw really quite disturbed me – girls as young as 8 in tiny hotpants and tight crop tops gyrating, grinding on the floor and displaying their crotches to the audience and judges in a supposed ‘Jazz’ routine. If they were above the age of 16 I probably wouldn’t have a problem with any of these dance moves. But they were young children who really did not need to be dancing like that in order to win a competition. While they were fantastic at the technical jazz dance moves, these added extras seemed totally inappropriate, and born of a culture where younger and younger children are taught to act in a disturbingly sexual way. Kimmings touches on this idea – when Taylor shows us the dance she learnt to a Katy Perry song, Kimmings does the actual routine behind her, showing just how sexualised Taylor’s idols are. Similarly, the show opens and closes with a dance to Jessie J’s song Domino. At the beginning Kimmings dances along with Taylor, happy to be joining in with something that her niece loves. But at the end, after this journey of discovery, Kimmings looks on upset, as she sees how Taylor is moving and singing along to a song that is far too grown up for her young mind.

This idea that children and tweens (a term I really dislike) need a role model that doesn’t exclusively talk about sex, fame and money lead to the creation of Catherine Bennett – a palaeontologist/ popstar who sings about the things she cares about: friendship, polar bear, the future, her neighbourhood. She is managed by 9 year old Taylor, who helps her come up with song and video ideas. She works in a museum when she isn’t singing, she likes to read and hang out with her dog Cookie, and she likes to be silly so that others know it is ok. Towards the end of Credible Likeable Superstar Role Model, Catherine is introduced to the audience, and we all join in with the actions to Animal Kingdom – this is a really fun element to the show that really showcases how great the Catherine Bennett project is. As Catherine sings Taylor to sleep, Kimmings comes out of character and speaks to us frankly, all while Taylor has her ears covered by noise cancelling headphones (which are used in the more adult sections of the performance). She laments how Taylor is already growing out of Catherine Bennett, and will soon have to face the real world, away from the magical glen they have created together. Kimmings talks about what she might pack into Taylor’s backpack so she can face this journey: feminist awareness, creativity, faith in herself. While we would expect all parents to want to give their children these tools, Kimmings reminds us that it cannot just be up to those who have produced children to take on this responsibility. We must all play a part in creating a better, safer, more equal world to which the younger generations can bring a fresh outlook, and maybe a new hope for the future.

Credible Likeable Superstar Role Model is beautiful, powerful, funny, tear-inducing and possibly the most thought provoking performance piece I have seen in the last 5 years.

Go see it if you can.

If not please support the Catherine Bennett project, and get Taylor the 1 million YouTube hits she deserves!

https://www.facebook.com/socatherinebennett

Radio

Burst Radio (Bristol University Student Radio) is up and running!! I am really proud of how the first week is going, and would love if you nice people could give it a listen. There is a huge variety of programmes, so there is something for everyone.

As well as presenting The Culture Club on Tuesday’s at 5PM (http://www.burstradio.org.uk/shows/the-culture-club/), I am also Co-Head of News this year. As well as being responsible for producing the pre-recorded news segments that play every hour, this year we have introduced a longer, live news segment at 1PM. This is the first time there have been ‘newsreaders’ on Burst Radio, and we are very proud of how it is going so far.

I think student radio has given me and everyone involved such valuable experience and I am so happy to have had the chance to discover what I think I want to do professionally post graduation.

Did you get involved in any extracurriculars that ended up being your career?

Comedy Night @ The Anson Rooms (UBU)

One of the first Fresher’s events this year was a comedy night with Carly Smallman, The Noise Next Door, and Mat Ewins as compere. Seeing as I hadn’t managed to get to any of their shows in Edinburgh I jumped at the chance to see them for free in the new and improved Student Union venue.

As an MC Mat Ewins does a decent job of getting to know the crowd and embarrassing enough people to get everyone in the mood for audience participation. His actual stand up got a mixed response but generally went down well – indeed one of our favourite palindrome based jokes was his!

Carly Smallman was great – a lovely mixture of stand up and musical comedy that she tried to relate well to the student audience, despite its more adult nature. Two of her songs were absolutely perfect. Firstly “Love song to myself” which was just lovely, and I think everyone should write their own. “I’m in love with my brother” wasn’t a complete hit with the audience, I think it was a little too twisted for some sensitive freshers, but my friend and I found it completely hilarious! 

The Noise Next Door are extremely good at what they do – improvised musical and sketch comedy – plus are absolutely lovely guys! With lots of audience participation I was nervous the sets might not work with a load of freshers but everyone got in the spirit and we came up with some hilarious scenarios for them to act/ sing out. I think I prefer the acting improv that they do, purely because it seems less set up than the songs, which while equally impressive have a very obvious structure. What I really love about the Noise Next Door is that they put absolutely everything into each scene – they aren’t afraid of any accent or scenario thrown out, they are great even when corpsing, and their dance moves are fantastically over the top.

Overall I think UBU organised a great freshers event, that for once wasn’t based around drinking!

Edinburgh #3

The last two weeks in Edinburgh were very busy, and I’m pleased to say I kept to my promise of seeing a lot more shows! I also unfortunately succumbed to the inevitable, and got Fringe flu, but now I am back home and recovering. I have seen a really great mix of shows, so lets get on with the list:

McNeil & Pamphilon Go 8-bit – this was one of our shows that I was very excited to see. Essentially it consisted of a group of comedians playing old video games, drinking and doing forfeit challenges. Despite the fact that I am too young to remember any of the games played (the original Mario Kart, Streetfighter and Bomberman) I got really into the show, shouting and chanting with everyone else.

Ben Moor: Each of us – this is probably my favourite show of the fringe. Ben Moor is billed as a comedian, but the show is more performance storytelling than anything else. All I can really say is that Moor delivers a truly beautiful show, and I am exceedingly glad that he was selling a book of it, because there were so many lines I had wanted to note down.

John Kearns (winner of best newcomer) – I was taken to see Kearns straight after seeing Ben Moor and the contrast was staggering. Equally brilliant, Kearns’ show was a strange mixture of character comedy, stand up and general weirdness – all of which he acknowledges through the show. Even though I didn’t really understand what I had seen, I knew I loved it!

The Wrestling II – The Wrestling is a one off show where comedians and professional wrestlers actually wrestle each other. It is a weird and wonderful combination that makes for a very high intensity night if screaming and laughing.

Johnny & the Baptists – A very good musical comedy show with plenty of talent and laughs! They are also very lovely guys, which always helps.

Cariad & Paul – This improv duo (one of ours) are absolutely fantastic at what they do. Taking one word from the audience as a prompt to get the creative juices flowing, they invent a show based around the development of a few scenes over an hour. Not only does this in itself just blow my mind, but the actual scenes were also really entertaining and different enough that it didn’t ever feel like they were falling back on stock material.

Men – This play was done by TapTap Theatre which is a Bristol based theatre company. The acting and story were all very good, but I found the play in general overly sweary. It very much felt that the writer had equated anger and intensity with swear word, which I often find lessens their effect. However considering the playwright was 20 when she wrote Men I can understand this slightly immature approach to realism.

Bristol Revunions: Elegant Nymphs – One of my very good friends is in the Bristol sketch comedy group, and I was really happy to be able to see him perform! I really liked the show in general, although I think the framing device of having it be Nymphs trying to break out of their stereotype was a bit misused.

Tim Key: Work in Progress – I only saw Tim Key because I had some time to kill while my friend finished her shift, and he wasn’t sold out. I am very glad I did! The show was a mixture of stand up, weird poetry and general bizarreness (including a woman periodically appearing from a mattress on stage and dancing). It was a great show, and I would love to see the finished product.

Bo Burnham: What – I thought Bo Burnham was genius, and he is definitely in the running for my favourite show! His songs are extremely clever, his poems hilarious and his sarcastic and cynical personality really works with my sense of humour.

Take it Interns – this was a musical brought up by a student run production company (1945 productions) from Bristol. Overall I thought it was really good – the story line, following a group of badly chosen interns at an advertising company, was silly and clever at the same time. For the most part the musical performances were solid, although a few of the actors were clearly not natural singers, and some of the harmonies were not to my taste.

Peacock & Gamble: Heart-Throbs – I don’t think this comedy duo are really my thing. Although I generally enjoyed the show, their odd brand of sketch/ double act comedy didn’t really appeal to me on the night. It was really funny though to see them make each other corpse, a part of comedy shows that I often enjoy the most!

Set List (With Paul Foot, Adam Bloom, Ahir Shah, Matt Okine & others) – I really liked the concept of Set List – comedians are given random items from their imaginary set lists and have to perform stand-up about it. The only problem is that stand-up comedians aren’t known for their improv skills, so you get a very mixed bag of success. Luckily on my night a couple people really rose to the challenge, in particular Ahir Shah and Paul Foot.

Beardyman: One Album Per Hour – Pretty much all I have to say about Beardyman is WOW. Not only is he an incredible beat-boxer, singer, rapper, producer and general lovely guy – he can genuinely create a completely improvised album in an hour. It blew my mind.

Fullmooners (Paulmooners) – This was a charity gig for Paul Byrne, Ed Byrne’s brother who was very sadly diagnosed with cancer on the 2nd day of the Fringe. The Fullmooners concept was created by Paul with Andrew Maxwell and so they put a benefit gig together in just 2 weeks. It was a fantastical funny and emotional gig, with many of the comedians giving little speeches at the end of their sets about Paul.

Comedy Countdown – this show is effectively a low budget Countdown with comedians. Paper and a clipboard are used instead of letter cards, and the clock is in fact David Morgan. It was a really fun set up, and yet again, I got far too into the spirit of the game.

Ben Van der Velde: Chain Letter – My final Edinburgh show was that of my now good friend Ben. Part stand-up, part storytelling, Chain Letter is the story of his attempt to reinvent the hand written letter. It was a funny and heartwarming show that left me very happy. A perfect way to end the Fringe!

An Update

I’m back! Apologies for the complete lack of posts over the last couple of weeks. I was in Cuba for the last week of June and the beginning of July, where there is almost no Internet access whatsoever,  so the final 30 Day Snap posts will be coming in the form of a travel picture diary. The day after our 18 hour journey home, I drove to Bristol to move into my beautiful new flat for second year. A lot of heavy lifting, furniture moving and throwing out freshers leaflets was involved, but I am now officially renting my first ever flat! It has been a very exciting, fun and tiring couple of weeks, but now that I have settled down at home for July I am back on the internet. Coming up is my Cuba diary, a couple of reviews and a little plug for the shows I am representing at the Edinburgh Fringe.

30 Day Snap #18

This evening I went to see Matt Corby play at The Fleece in Bristol. The gig was fantastic – he has such an amazing voice, great variety in his songs, and is pretty easy on the eyes!

30 Day Snap #15

Yesterday evening we went out for a flat meal at The Brass Pig in Clifton. I had the Big Pig Sandwich, which was bacon and sausage on toasted bread! So good – also would be a fantastic hangover cure if you’re ever looking for an idea! I was also so pleased that we had reserved a table, not because it was particularly busy, but because I got a sign with my name on it…

30 Day Snap #12 & #13

Yesterday and the day before was spent preparing for the Bristol Summer Ball, which was held at Leigh Court. I finally got my outfit together, got ready, and then went and had an amazing night. There were fairground rides, circus acts, and Everything Everything were the fantastic headline act! However most of my night was spent in the Burst Radio tent, which was incredibly successful and fun, and I was really proud of my friends who had organised it all. So here are my snaps for those two days!

My dress (Topshop), Shoes (H&M) and Necklace (New Look) 

Everything Everything playing the main stage

The massive, glowing Burst Radio sign at the back of their tent, here with Tropics dj-ing.

30 Day Snap #10

Yesterday day was spent doing lots of chores that I had put off for post-exams, so I don’t have any exciting pictures from then. However, in the evening I went out to a friends party, and these are some of the drinks we got from Turtle Bay in Bristol. I love when cocktails are really well presented, and these were so pretty I had to take a picture!

Impromptu Day Trip

On Saturday, three flatmates and I decided to make the most of our new found freedom and the sun, and took a spontaneous trip to Weston-super-Mare, about an hour long bus journey from Bristol.

We spent the afternoon wandering along the pier, finding large amounts of rock (the sweet), lying on beach, playing with frisbees/ tennis balls, and building a tunnel in the sand (credit going to two of the group who could be bothered to move). I had such a nice time, and couldn’t help saying ‘I’m so happy’ all the time! Here are a few of my favourite pictures from the day.

  

Beautiful parts of Clifton on our walk to the bus stop in Hotwells

The harbour in Bristol looking lovely in the sun

The ferris wheel and carousel in Weston                

Our view of the beach from the pier

The Grand Pier – arcade and food at Weston        

 Rock – a must buy sweet at the seaside         

So happy to be at the beach!

The sand tunnel my friends built

The sea was surprisingly warm, we had a good paddling session

Having never been to Weston-super-Mare before, I can now say I would thoroughly recommend it. The beach is big enough that even on a very sunny Saturday in June we managed to get a decent spot. There is also so much more to do, on the pier and in the Grand Pier building, plus the town has lots of little shops and some really good fish and chips!