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Spike brings curtain down on Hoof!

Liverpool-based international physical theatre company Spike Theatre returns to the Everyman theatre for its final performances of improvisational production Hoof! in the city.

The company, based in Hope Street in the city centre, make the short trip to the Everyman for two nights at the end of the week.

Over the last six years the show has established itself as one of the UK’s most unique live events. A bare stage transforms into a visual, verbal and musical feast as five performers and two musicians catapult the audience into a totally improvised world.

During its two-day run, Kate Crossley, Jamie Greer, Mark Smith, Denise Kennedy, Paul Duckworth, Simon James (on music), and Matthew Wood (music) will be performing on the Friday, while Keddy Sutton and Ann Farrar replace Crossley and Duckworth on the Saturday.

Following sell out success at Liverpool’s Unity Theatre and a trans-Atlantic trip to play in Hollywood, the ensemble is now bringing the curtain down on the original Hoof! show with two final Liverpool dates at the Everyman.

Spike has become known for its spontaneous ‘long-form’ improvisation style, known as ‘The Beast’, having developed it in Liverpool in collaboration with Rejects Revenge theatre company and The Hothouse Improv Studio from Hollywood, and claim to be the only company in the UK to perform this ‘cutting-edge-of-your-seat’ method.

The company has also now developed a very special matinee event for younger audiences and their families called Hoof Jnr!. What begins as an improvised fairytale soon morphs and starts borrowing from other genres as the young audience decides the title, who the heroes are, and who the villains are and – after all is said and done – they have the final word too!

Each evening there will be two Hoof! performances of approximately 40 minutes with an interval between the two, giving audiences the chance to see that each show really is created on the hoof!

The production is not sketch comedy or improv games. Nothing is planned. No two performances can ever be the same.

Hoof! and Hoof Jnr! appears at the Everyman theatre on Friday 19 and Saturday 20 February.

- by Michael Hunt

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