FALLING FOR THE USHERS returns to No. 28, Belper

Big thing this week is the return to Number Twenty Eight Belper of 21st. CENTURY POE: FALLING FOR THE USHERS this coming Saturday, February 28th. I'll paste in the details below...

21^st. CENTURY POE: FALLING FOR THE USHERS

No. 28 Belper, Market Square, Belper. Saturday 28^th. February 2015. 7.30 pm.

Tickets £7 / £5 concession.

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!

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 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 Strange Tale Of The Glasgow Golem & Falling For The Ushers in Nottingham. Previously in Belper he has performed Falling For The Ushers & The Blackwater Bride. 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. A new play has been commissioned by Cromford Mill for premiere in October of this year. 

FALLING FOR THE USHERS: My show for Nottingham LIGHT NIGHT!

Just posting details of FALLING FOR THE USHERS, the storytelling show I'm performing for Nottingham Light Night at Nottingham Central Library on Fri Feb 6th.

21^st. CENTURY POE: FALLING FOR THE USHERS

Nottingham Central Library, Light Night, February 6th, 7.30pm. Tickets £2.50. To book: 0115-915-2825 or email:

enquiryline@nottinghamcity.gov.uk

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!

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 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, BBC Radio Scotland's 2014 Halloween show this year, as well as 2014's The Dead Of Fenwick Moor, 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 his latest show The Strange Tale Of The Glasgow Golem at Chilwell Arts Theatre, Nottingham. 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.

THE STRANGE TALE OF THE GLASGOW GOLEM - Coming Soon to Chilwell Arts

JUST PASTING PRESS RELEASE FOR MY LATEST STORYTELLING SHOW, WHICH PREMIERES AT CHILWELL ARTS THEATRE, NOTTINGHAM ON 31st. JANUARY 2015.


THE STRANGE TALE OF THE GLASGOW GOLEM
A Storytelling Show by MARTY ROSS (BBC Radio drama; Doctor Who audio;
Edinburgh Fringe)

Chilwell Arts Theatre, Saturday 3st. January 2015, 7.30pm. Tickets £8 / £6

Before Frankenstein, there was... The Golem! A medieval Jewish legend
comes to life again in late 1970s Glasgow in the latest storytelling
show by Chilwell Arts Centre's very own Marty Ross.

For a couple of years now, storyteller and playwright Marty Ross has
been entertaining Chilwell audiences with his very modern take on the
very ancient art of live storytelling, presenting shows based around
classic ghost stories, the tales of Thomas Hardy and, most
spectacularly, his epic Gothic melodrama The Blackwater Bride. For his
latest show, he transports an ancient Mittel-European legend to his
own home town of Glasgow, creating a modern fairy tale mingling
thrills and humour, fantasy and gritty reality, the magical and the
moving.

When lonely, bullied 13 year old Joe helps an old man push a
mysterious box up the stairs of the tower block in which both are
living, little does he realise he is being given access to a strange,
magical power - in the form of the mighty stone man The Golem who once
saved the Jewish ghetto in Prague from its oppressors. Perhaps The
Golem can rescue Joe from his tormentors - or will this almost human
creature with a good heart but a very short temper prove more trouble
than he's worth?

One way or another, audiences are guaranteed a unique theatrical
experience, for Marty Ross is not the sort of storyteller who sits in
a comfy chair and reads from a storybook - rather, he forms a sort of
one man theatre company, vividly enacting a whole cast of
larger-than-life characters, employing movement and gesture as much as
powerfully evocative words, plus music, a specially designed set and,
in the case of this show, video projections to conjure a whole
dramatic world for his audience.

"Insanely good storytelling... a master craftsman" - Broadway Baby;

"A compelling narrator and onstage presence... immensely entertaining" -
Fringe Review.

21st CENTURY POE: FALLING FOR THE USHERS at No. 28 Belper

Just announced - a week after my Halloween show 21st. CENTURY POE: FALLING FOR THE USHERS at Lee Rosy's, Nottingham, I'll be performing the same show at No. 28 Belper, where I performed The Blackwater Bride back in the spring. Here's the details...

21^st. CENTURY POE: FALLING FOR THE USHERS

No. 28 Belper, Market Square, Belper. Saturday 8^th. November 2014. 7.30 pm.

Tickets £7 / £5 concession.

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!

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 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 21^st 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.

CONTACT: 07989-746641.

21st Century Poe: Falling For The Ushers at Lee Rosy's, Nottingham, this Halloween!

Just pasting in the press release for my next storytelling show....

21^st. CENTURY POE: FALLING FOR THE USHERS

Lee Rosy's Tea Shop, 17 Broad Street, Nottingham NG1 3AJ.

31^st. 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 21^st 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.

21st Century Poe: Moyamensing continues at Edfringe

My Edinburgh Fringe show 21st Century Poe: Moyamensing is doing well at this year's Edinburgh Fringe. We filled the venue, Paradise In The Vault, the old vault of St. Augustine's Church in other words, on the first two nights and Friday and Saturday look like they'll be similairly packed with decent sized audiences inbetween. No disasters or catastrophes to report and I've got a great tech to back me up this year in Craig Black. Audience members I've spoken to seem to have enjoyed the show. It's a challenging piece: where last year's 21st Century Poe stories were essentially straightforward horror tales, this show is more complex, more allusive, more poetic, more surreal, its logic the associative logic of nightmare rather than conventional A + B = C plotting, a portrait of the inside of a the soul of a very complex man, not just a blunt 'boo!" shouting shocker. It's directly based on Poe's own reports of the dreams and hallucinations he suffered while imprisoned in Philadelphia's Moyamensing prison. Some incidents which might seem like ghoulish invention on my part (live dissection! Prospective cannibalism!) are actually pretty much verbatim from Poe's own reports. Anyway, here's a couple of backstage photos. The show continues at Venue 29 till 17 August. Here's a link for tickets: TICKET LINK

21st Century Poe: Moyamensing photos

Just before setting off for Edinburgh for my super spectacular storytelling show 21st Century Poe: Moyamensing at this year's Edinburgh Fringe, I trimmed up my brand new moustache (which my wife hates, by the way) and got into costume for a few photos. Frankly, the resemblance between me and the Divine Edgar is starting to look slightly creepy.... Tickets for the show can be booked HERE....