Five Reasons To See … A Night On The Tiles
Manchester-based theatre collective Pen-ultimate follow their critically acclaimed 2007 Edinburgh Fringe debut and performances at the Contact Theatre, Bristol Old Vic and The Big Chill festival with A Night On The Tiles, a Tarantino-esque tale of revenge, murder and Devonshire cream teas.
Here Pen-ultimate’s Ben Mellor gives us five reasons you should come and see the show.
1. You won’t need a babysitter (or a nursing home)
A Night On The Tiles is a show for the whole family. During its Manchester run, it entertained audiences aged from 8 to 80. Literally.
2. A Night On The Tiles is multi-media. But don’t let that put you off!
The show is written entirely in verse, but has a well-crafted plot and engaging characters and uses clever but subtle video and animation without being reliant on them.
3. It features five unique talents formed into one fearsome force
Pen-ultimate is made up of writers, poets, MCs and actors, Martin Visceral, Frisko Dan, Niven Ganner, Lucidity and Ben Mellor. The show was written and is performed by all five of them collaboratively. Tipped in The Sunday Times as a company to watch, catch them now while they’re still cheap!
4. It’s linguistically ambitious without being hampered by tautologous sesquipedalian verbosity
Despite being written by a bunch of pretentious wordsmiths, working with hip hop theatre pioneer Will Power as a dramaturg means that the show is highly accessible, is led by the story and characters and is not obscured by language.
5. It looks nice too
Director Montserrat Gili (as seen on Channel 4’s Young, Autistic & Stagestruck) has injected an impressive amount of physical comedy, dance sequences and visual imagery played out on an ingenious set designed by Lucy Frost.
A Night On The Tiles plays The Broadway, Barking on 4 March and Tara Arts, Earlsfield from 8 to 12 March 2011.
