Mayfest 2016: full lineup announced

Programmers MAYK have announced the programme for Mayfest 2016, Bristol’s contemporary theatre festival, featuring over 30 shows from the very best theatre makers in Bristol, the UK and beyond. 

As ever, Mayfest spills out across the city with an array of new work from artists with distinct voices. Highlights include the world premiere of Selina Thompson’s new work salt (Arnolfini, May 12-13 & 18-19), which examines how big concepts like grief, ancestry, home, forgetting and colonialism can all converge on to one body and one story. It follows a journey currently being undertaken by Thompson, on board a cargo ship, along one route of the Transatlantic Trade Triangle, taking her from the UK to Ghana and finally Jamaica.

Some of this year’s overseas highlights include the UK premiere of Irish company Dead Centre’s Chekhov’s First Play (Bristol Old Vic, May 12-14), which radically re-stages Chekhov’s famously unstageable first work Platonov, and opens at Mayfest prior to a major international tour. Another UK first from Ireland, It Folds by brokentalkers and Junk Ensemble (Bristol Old Vic Studio, May 20-22), offers a poignant and humorous portrait of life in a modern city and the tragicomic events that shape our everyday lives. From Canada, Theatre SKAM bring Fashion Machine to Arnolfini (May 21-22), inviting audience members to have their clothes ‘re-worked’ by young children on stage.

Locally-sourced highlights include the visit of emerging Bristol company Massive Owl, whose Castle Rock (Bristol Old Vic Studio, May 14-15) is inspired by the film Stand By Me; Impermanence Dance Theatre with Dada-Darling (Kings Weston House, May 19-20), one of The Observer’s top ten dance shows of 2015; Symphony, an intimate performance for one audience member at a time by the brilliant Verity Standen (May 18 & 20-22); and The Castle Builder (Trinity, May 12-14), Vic Llewellyn and Kid Carpet’s new show about outsider art. There’s a return, meanwhile, for Still House’s Of Riders and Running Horses (May 19-22), which wowed audiences at 2015’s festival.

Mayfest will also be showing work-in-progress performances by Sh!t Theatre and Jamal Harewood (2016’s Spring Festivals commission), while the brilliant Spymonkey and Tim Crouch collaborate on The Complete Deaths (Bristol Old Vic, May 17-18), a whistle-stop dash through Shakespeare’s 74 onstage deaths. Elsewhere, Mayfest Radio makes a return for its third year. An audio accompaniment to the live programme, Mayfest Radio’s aim is to create a meeting point for arts, theatre, performance, music and discussion, in the form of a temporary internet radio station during the festival and then in its archives, hosted on Mixcloud.

MAYK’s Kate Yedigaroff and Matthew Austin comment: “At a time when we are being asked to question ideas of place, identity, nationhood and community, it has never felt more important to champion those voices that speak about difference, individuality and defiance. Mayfest 2016’s programme celebrates the power and connection of the live event, and asks audiences to look closely and carefully at the world around them.”

Mayfest 2016 runs from Thursday, May 12 to Sunday, May 22 at venues around town. For more info, visit www.mayfestbristol.co.uk

Pictured top: The Complete Deaths

Read more: Interview: Matthew Austin, Mayfest