"THIS SHOW SHOULD NOT EXIST"

The latest version of The Primitive Streak divided audiences at Warwick Arts Centre. At the post-show feedback session, we were met with a mix of wide-eyed enthusiasm, hungry debate, cold-shoulders and the news that one member of the audience had had a panic attack and left part way through.


Certainly the show had a different tone from the tongue-in-cheek absurdism and snappy dialogue of its previous outing. The intervening process was one of stripping back the text, heightening the tension and slowing down the pace. The result was a disturbing, menacing brand of Pinter-realism that gave the on-stage action the horror that we were seeking.

The reaction of the Warwick audience is one that we'd never encountered before. Not only in relation to our own work but in post-show foyer hub-bubs throughout our theatre-going lives. We'd heard myths of riots in theatres (at the premiere of Alfred Jarray's Ubu for example) but such instances seemed like they could only happen 'back then'.

So in conclusion, we feel like we're onto something.

THANKS

We're etremely grateful to Simon Day and his organisation 'The B Theatre' for supporting the development of this piece. Having established The B Theatre - a brilliant working support initiative for new theatre in the West Midlands - Simon is now seeking pastures new and whoever gets him is bloody lucky.


THE SHOW

Transaction is the purest form of human exchange. It is clear cut: I give you x, you give me y. Everyone and everything has its price. Nothing is above transaction and nothing lies beyond its reach. No thing, no need, no want. Mr Necker

Mr Necker (Gerard Matthews), Jim Spicker (Matthew Hill), Kathy Pearls (Antonia Windsor)

Iconic songstress Kathy Pearls needs something sorted, and discreetly. Her usual channels exhausted, she turns to unlicensed practitioner Mr Necker. He looks at reality with an unflinching eye, and isn’t afraid of getting his hands a little dirty.

And a little bloody.


Credits

Mr Necker Gerard Matthews
Jim Spicker Matthew Hill
Kathy Pearls Antonia Windsor

Music by Anton Maiof
Directed by Richard Kingdom
Written and devised by Demonstrate

Supported by Arts Council England South East, The B-Theatre and South Hill Park
With thanks to The Blue Elephant Theatre and Jumble It Up

Performances to date

2007 (as work-in-progress)
Tue 9 Oct	It Came From PILOT, Warwick Arts Centre, Coventry
Fri 29 June	Jumble It Up, Burton Taylor, Oxford
Wed 27 June	PILOT #11, Custard Factory, Birmingham