The Irrepressibles 22 Mar Town Hall Birmingham Fierce Festival
Birmingham Town Hall is set to play host to an evening of theatrical performance art and an evening of silent films with live accompaniment on 22nd and 24nd March when the city’s ground-breaking Fierce and Flatpack festivals get underway.
Theatrical performance artists The Irrepressibles present their bold Mirror Mirror spectacle live in Birmingham on Tuesday 22nd March following a recent sell out show at London’s Barbican Hall.
The 10-piece ensemble will recreate the 12 tracks from critically acclaimed album Mirror Mirror in the majestic grandeur of the Grade I listed Town Hall, amongst a lavishly dressed set where choreography, LED and strip lighting, mirrors and mirror balls, sumptuous costumes and orchestral art-pop will merge into one incredibly stylised live experience.
The Irrepressibles are made up of classically-trained and pop musicians turned performance artists and are fronted by composer Jamie McDermott, whose striking falsetto vocals and flamboyant showmanship have drawn comparisons to Antony Hegarty and David Bowie.
The London-based group have presented and performed spectacles at the V&A Museum, the Paris Quartier Festival, the Latitude Festival, the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, at Motel Mozaique in Rotterdam and Nuits Botanique in Brussels amongst others. Support for the Town Hall show comes from Sarah Johns.
Fierce Festival returns after two years and the appointment of new Artistic Directors Laura McDermott and Harun Morrison. True to tradition, spectacular projects and public interventions will collide with the kind of agenda setting performances and wild parties on which the festival’s ten-year reputation rests.
Buster Keaton's Sherlock Junior 24 Mar Town Hall Birmingham Flatpack Festival
A screening of Buster Keaton’s Sherlock Junior (1924) starring the American comic actor as a movie projectionist and detective-in-training is the feature presentation at the Town Hall as part of this year’s Flatpack Festival, taking place on Thursday 24th March.
Renowned musician and broadcaster Nigel Ogden will provide live accompaniment to Sherlock Junior from the Town Hall’s magnificent William Hill organ.
Three short films will be screened during the first half of the concert – US and Dutch city symphony shorts Manhatta (1921) and Rain (1921) plus French surrealist movie Entr’acte (1924), accompanied by celebrated jazz pianist Alcyona Mick.
This year Flatpack Festival pays tribute to Birmingham-born writer and archivist Iris Barry, who wrote fortThe Spectator and the Daily Mail about film in the 1920s. Before World War II she travelled Europe rescuing many great films (as well as helping many people to escape to the US) and became a pioneer in the field of film preservation. Sherlock Junior was selected for preservation by the US National Film Registry and is widely regarded as a classic silent comedy film.
Tickets for both events are £15 each and can be purchased from the Town Hall and Symphony Hall Box Office, tel: 0121-780 3333 or online at www.thsh.co.uk
