Storytime for the Hungry

Porridge is for dinner, but these peculiar strangers must entertain for their supper…

Binge Culture Collective presents

Storytime for the Hungry

Don’t be alarmed! Before you ask- the strange folk who have appeared on your streets won’t be tamed, can’t be predicted, and might not be strictly human. But they won’t harm you. In fact, once you’ve gotten to know them on neutral territory, you’re invited back to their hiding place for Storytime For The Hungry: a desperate smorgasbord of tall tales, twisted bedtime stories and precious porridge served while the sun slowly dies. Come on in, you must be hungry…

“We want to become totally fearless as performers,” says director Rachel Baker, “so we’re going way out of our comfort zones.” The result is a month of manic, clowning-inspired street theatre culminating in three free performances in a mystery location (to be announced on www.bingeculture.co.nz in February).

Binge Culture Collective are no strangers to Wellington’s streets. You might have seen them creating a life-sized Facebook page in Cuba mall, building a cardboard model of the city onstage in Drowning Bird Plummeting Fish, or as jovial street reapers promoting Downstage’s Good Night The End. This Fringe, the company are taking time to train in clowning, then will leave the safety of the theatre behind and take to the streets to make the entire city their stage. Armed with only their personal clowns and an unquenchable curiosity, they’ll be roaming central Wellington, discovering the city and the people in it. If you see them, feel free to come and make their acquaintance!

2009’s Drowning Bird Plummeting Fish won "Best Newcomers" at the NZ Fringe and "Most Original Concept" at the Dunedin Fringe and led to an invitation to “gatecrash” Downstage's Pick of the Fringe. Binge Culture’s next show, Animal Hour, was described as "the kind of underground theatre that is at once the fount, the boundary and the acid test for the wider arts community it lurks beneath" (theatreview).The company makes performance which is “serious fun”; dangerous, immediate and surprising devised work with young Wellington audiences and the real world in mind. They have performed at dance festivals, city streets, public parks, and theatres. Check out the wide range of pictures, news, writing and video on their website, www.bingeculture.co.nz

“Binge Culture get my award for the most exciting new company. Brave, expressive, energetic, hilarious. Their work is messy and explodes off the stage. It's unusual, thorough and uncomfortable - everything theatre should be.” –Jo Randerson

Performers: Joel Baxendale, Simon Haren,
Claire O’Loughlin and Gareth Hobbes.
Directed by Rachel Baker, produced by Ralph Upton
7.00pm, 1-3 March
FREE

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