Just pasting in the press release for my next storytelling show....
21st.
CENTURY POE: FALLING FOR THE USHERS
Lee
Rosy's Tea Shop, 17 Broad Street, Nottingham NG1 3AJ.
31st.
October 2014, 20.00. Tickets £3.50 (pay on door)
Descend
into the basement at Lee Rosy's to spend Halloween with Edgar Allan
Poe -- as celebrated Scottish storyteller & playwright Marty Ross
(BBC Radio horror; Doctor Who audio) drags The Fall Of The House Of
Usher kicking & screaming into the modern world, in a show
already a hit at the Edinburgh Fringe & London Horror Festivals!
Halloween
is fast approaching, and what better way to celebrate the creepiest
night of the year than with the art of the terror tale in its oldest,
purest, most 'unplugged' form, that of live storytelling? Descend
into a cosy basement with a modern master of the art of the
storyteller's art, as he gives his unique modern retelling of the
most famous tale of the greatest horror writer of all - and with a
good bracing cuppa within easy reach!
Edgar
Allan Poe's The Fall Of The House Of Usher is long-established as a
classic horror tale, but Marty Ross is a ‘modernist’ on the live
storytelling scene, keen to rescue this resurgent form from backward
looking quaintness. Thus, in his version, Falling For The Ushers,
haunted, incestuous twins Roderick and Madeline Usher have left
behind the misty gothic manor of the original story to become
superstars of Glasgow's contemporary art world, thanks to their
macabre conceptual installations in the manner of Damien Hirst and
the Chapman Bros. But when Madeline’s old art school admirer Ed
shows up, their tragic downfall is as inescapable as ever. And Marty
Ross's unique performing style, combining evocative language with
expressionistic mime and gesture, makes full-blown theatre out of the
story as he embodies a whole cast
list of larger than life characters.
FALLING
FOR THE USHERS has already been a hit at the Edinburgh Fringe and
London Horror Festivals, as testified by the reviews it received:
“Insanely
good storytelling… a master craftsman who never turns down the
pressure… Ross’ violently impressive performance make this a
heart-pounding triumph… Trainspotting meets gothic horror….” –
Broadway Baby *****
“…What
Marty Ross does with literature’s most mystical and macabre works
is make them sing with new energy and beguile an audience all over
again…. poetically re-worked ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’
manages, in its modernisation, to preserve and revere the original,
even intensifying its impact… a bewitchingly good story that leaves
a haunting reminder long after the lights have gone down.” - 3
Weeks ****
“Ross
has a great aptitude for suspense and terror, and he hurls himself
into his tale with energy and passion, in words which ring with
Glasgow rhythm. An accomplished piece of work… a chilling
conclusion.” – The Scotsman
“Visceral.
A compelling narrator and onstage presence. … left you thinking as
well as reeling… theatre that kept you on edge… an immensely
entertaining ride that scared and shocked in equal measure – a fair
ground ghost ride for the 21st Century….” – Fringe Review
Well
established as a playwright, particularly with dark drama for BBC
radio (Ghost Zone, Catch My Breath, Darker Side Of The Border, Rough
Magick & Lady Macbeth Of Mtsensk; another Poe show, Moyamensing,
is to be BBC Radio Scotland's big Halloween show this year, with
another new play, The Dead Of Fenwick Moor, to be broadcast in the
new year), plus Doctor Who & award-nominated Dark Shadows audio
drama, as well as Blood And Stone, nominated for a 2012 Rondo Award
(horror fandom’s Oscars), Ross also regularly performs as a live
storyteller, particularly in Scotland, his native country, and in the
East Midlands, where he currently lives, this year having already
seen him perform The Blackwater Bride in Nottingham and Derbyshire,
and 21st
Century Poe: Moyamensing at this year's Edinburgh Festival. Two plays
of his have been commissioned for the last two Buxton Festivals –
Redder Than Roses: A Glimpse Of Mary, Queen Of Scots & The Woman
On The Bridge.
