E4 Udderbelly Returns to Southbank for Ten Weeks

After its inaugural London season last summer, Edinburgh Fringe staple the E4 Udderbelly will return to the South Bank this year for an extended ten weeks (See Photos, 28 May 2009), previewing work ahead of its move (or should that be mooove?) north of the border for the Edinburgh Festival in August.

The Southbank Centre season, running from 9 May to 18 July 2010 in the 400-seat theatre inside an enormous upside-down purple cow, will comprise a full programme of comedy, theatre, circus, dance, music, magic, spoken word and children’s shows.

Showstopper! The Improvised Musical, the popular Edinburgh and London Fringe musical theatre improvisation, launches the schedule from 9 May to 13 June, and is followed by Brazil! Brazil!, which headlines the Udderbelly season from 15 June to 18 July (previews from 11 June).

Part of the Southbank’s larger Festival Brazil Programme, which continues until 5 September with other events across the Centre’s Royal Festival Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Hayward Gallery and the riverfront, Brazil! Brazil! is a “spectacular” tribute to Brazilian football (coinciding with the World Cup), dance and music.

The show combines the Brazilian martial art of Capoeira with Carnival music and dance and street football skills. The performers include many escapees of the country’s gangland warfare (masters of Capoeira). Brazil! Brazil! makes its London debut at the Udderbelly, following a sell-out tour of Australia and New Zealand.

Also on the Udderbelly’s London line-up are international circus troupe Controlled Falling Object, cabaret duo Frisky and Mannish, vocal harmonists and beatboxers The Magnets, children’s show Stick Man, mindreader Philip Escoffey, classical pianist James Rhodes and comedians including Pete Firman, Adam Bloom, Carl Donnelly and Pete Johansson, Tommy Tiernan, Gina Yashere, Ardal O’Hanlon, David O’Doherty, Andrew Lawrence, Sarah Millican, Jack Whitehall and Jimeoin.

The Udderbelly will be situated on the Hungerford Car Park between the Royal Festival Hall and Jubilee Gardens, where last year it had an eight-week London residence which marked the largest outdoor arts event to be staged around the Southbank Centre since the reopening of the Royal Festival Hall in 2007.