Line-up Announced for Ipswich Pulse Festival

The line-up for this year’s Pulse fringe festival, which runs from 26 May to 11 June 2011 in Ipswich, has been announced.

Boasting “one of the finest fringe programmes south of the Scottish border”, artists and companies appearing this year include Dancing Brick, Inspector Sans, Hoipolloi, Greg McLaren, Bryony Kimmings, Slung Low, nabokov, Cartoon de Salvo and Talawa. Performances will take place in venues ranging from traditional theatres to someone’s kitchen.

Some of the stars of last year’s Edinburgh Fringe will also perform, including Caroline Horton’s You’re Not Like the Other Girls Chrissy, Little Bulb with Operation Greenfield and Laura Mugridge’s Running on Air, a one-woman show performed inside a VW Campervan.  

Festival premieres this year include Dancing Brick’s work in progress Captain Ko and The Planet of Rice, made in collaboration with Shunt filmmaker Suzanne Dietz, on the nature of memory and neurological disorders caused by ageing. 

The multi award winning Inspector Sans will ‘scratch’ their new piece A Life in 22 Minutes, on the facts and statistics of one woman’s life, and Show + Tell will present John Peel’s Shed, a “live literature ode to record players, British Radio and of course the late John Peel”.

Other highlights include poet and author Tim Clare’s How To Be A Leader for “all those wishing to crush the enemy”, Dan Canham’s 30 Cecil Street, on the life of a theatre once it has closed its doors to the public, and Barometric, newly arrived from Camden People’s Theatre Starting Blocks scheme, present Escape Velocity (bye bye bye) on “space travel and loneliness”. There will also be a number of “mini performances” take place on tricycles courtesy of Bootworks Theatre.  

The New Wolsey Theatre, which acts as the main venue and hub of the festival, marks its 10th anniversary this year. Pulse is supported by Escalator, an Arts Council initiative which aims to identify, nurture and develop artistic talent in the East of England.