The Gorbals Vampire returns to Glasgow - Britannia Panopticon October 12th!!!

Just gearing up for the epic month of spooky storytelling which  the Halloween month of October will inevitably usher in. I'll be performing two nights running at Glasgow's Britannia Panopticon music hall on October 11th & 12th. On the 11th. I'm performing as part of BBC Radio Scotland's IN THE DARK show, which will be recorded for Halloween broadcast. And then on October 12th. there's THIS....

THE GORBALS VAMPIRE
A dramatic storytelling show by Marty Ross.

12th October 7pm at Britannia Panopticon, 113 – 117 Trongate, Glasgow G1 5HD.
Venue contact: 0141 553 0840 / info@britanniapanopticon.org

Tickets £8 / Concession £6

To Book Tickets, here's the link... http://tickets-scotland.com/events.html?event_method=viewevent&event_id=574466b5-6b9d-11e6-b2cc-22000b75ede9

Ghoulish and gallus... Gothic and grotesque and blood-glugging... gaun yirsel' – spend an evening with Glasgow's very own Gorbals Vampire!

Glasgow's very own vampire legend comes to disturbing dramatic life in this unique performance by master storyteller and playwright Marty Ross at Glasgow's most atmospheric and historic performing space ... just the thing to get Glasgow in the mood for Halloween, after sell-out success at this year's Southside Fringe.

It was in the 1950s that kids in Glasgow's Gorbals became convinced that the Southern Necropolis was haunted by an iron toothed vampire with a taste for children. Mass hysteria erupted among both young and old, kids embarking nightly on vampire hunts, wooden stakes in hand, while panicked adults called the police and demanded a ban on the US horror comics perceived  - erroneously, modern historians believe - to be responsible: much more authentically local traditions were involved.

But this true story ended rather anti-climatically: there doesn't,
disappointingly, seem to have been a real vampire in the graveyard.
But Marty Ross' drama asks: what if? What if there actually was a
"something" there, very ancient and strange and terrible? And what if one vampire mad boy found himself in the vampire's clutches?

Thus the Gorbals gets its very own full blown Gothic horror myth, a story aspiring to do for Glasgow's south side what Dracula did for
Transylvania, what the Phantom did for the Paris Opera, as a
disturbing tale is spun of innocence lost and - possibly – regained.
This won't be Glasgow's only Gorbals Vampire show this Halloween, but Ross' show came first (premiering at 2015 Edinburgh Fringe) and is a very different vampiric beast -- an edgy, under-your-skin, in-your-face, full-blooded modern horror story, extreme and grotesque even in its humour.

Those who have attended Ross' previous dramatic storytelling
performances, whether at the Edinburgh or Southside Fringes, at the Britannia Panopticon or the London Horror Festival, or at any of his other regular venues, will know that storytelling with Ross is far removed from the comfy chair Jackanory clichés of this oldest, yet suddenly newest, of theatrical forms. Rather his style is boldly
theatrical and expressionistic - and finds an ideal venue in the rough and ready grandeur of Glasgow's grand old Victorian music hall. How can you resist the spell of this very Glaswegian vampire?

“Marty Ross has mastered this art of storytelling...” TVBomb,
Edinburgh Fringe 2015

“Ross is a master craftsman who never turns down the pressure,
painting vile pictures and weaving a grotesque spell... Trainspotting
meets Gothic horror” Broadway Baby, Edinburgh Fringe 2013

“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 the native Glasgow rhythm.” The Scotsman. Edfringe 2013.

MARTY ROSS is a playwright and storyteller with a long track record in radio and audio drama, particularly for the BBC, for whom he has written drama ranging from the Radio 4 series The Darker Side Of The Border to the popular serials Ghost Zone and Catch My Breath to one-off dramas such as Rough Magick, My Blue Piano, Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, The Dead Of Fenwick Moor and Moyamensing: Scenes From The Life, Death & Dreams of Edgar Allan Poe. He has also written two Doctor Who audio dramas and an award-nominated Dark Shadows drama. He has also written drama for the Wireless Theatre Company, including two
plays commissioned by, and performed at, the Buxton Festival, Redder Than Roses and The Woman On The Bridge. This year has seen the release of his most acclaimed production yet, Romeo And Jude, an epic love story for Amazon Audible featuring Owen Teale (Game of Thrones) and Nick Moran (Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels) He also performs widely as a live storyteller in venues great and small ranging across Britain and Ireland.

MY AUTUMN SCHEDULE

Just updating the blog with some details of what I'll be up to over the next few months. First of all, I'm involved with writing another epic audio drama production for Amazon Audible, who commissioned my epic love story ROMEO & JUDE last year (via Wireless Theatre Company). More on that later (hint, hint) - don't want to give too much away while still only about a third of the way through a first draft. 

But in terms of storytelling performance, the Halloween month of October is going to be very busy. On October 11th. I'm performing as one of a series of Scottish storytellers in the show IN THE DARK. This will be performed live at Glasgow's glorious Britannia Panopticon Music Hall and recorded there for Halloween transmission on BBC Radio Scotland. The live performance is 'invitation only', but is I think free: check BBC Scotland for more info nearer the time.

Then, the very next night, October 12th, at the very same Victorian music hall, I'm performing my solo show THE GORBALS VAMPIRE, which sold out at this year's Glasgow Southside Fringe. The show is inspired by Glasgow's urban legend of an iron toothed vampire haunting the city's Southern Necropolis. More details on the background to that show are available elsewhere on this blog, i.e: HERE....

http://martyrossstoryteller.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/me-gorbals-vampire.html

And here's the link for the Britannia Panopticon's website, which has ticket details -

http://www.britanniapanopticon.org/what-s-on/

Then on Halloween weekend itself I'm performing The Gorbals Vampire at my old haunt of the No.28 arts centre in Belper, Derbyshire: that's on Sunday 30 October. 

That's a change of date, because the show I WAS going to be doing on the Sunday has been shifted to the SATURDAY...

SO... on Saturday 29 October, I'm performing old favourite 21st CENTURY POE: FALLING FOR THE USHERS, which I've performed to great acclaim just about everywhere except where I'm performing it this October: at my regular performing base of CAT: Chilwell Arts Theatre. 

And by the end of this year, there should be something BIG coming from Amazon Audible (big as several dinosaurs, hint hint!)

W A T C H   T H I S   S P A C E ! ! !

GORBALS VAMPIRE at Southside Fringe now SOLD OUT

Just a quick note to anyone who might be thinking of coming along to my Southside Fringe show THE GORBALS VAMPIRE tomorrow night Sat 14 (see preceding posts), the show is now SOLD OUT and as things stand I'm afraid there won't be much point in coming to the door on the night. IF there are any cancellations and any more tickets become available, I will let you know, but tickets are currently unavailable.

BUT THE GORBALS VAMPIRE will return. I'm currently booked to perform the show in Glasgow again at the Britannia Panopticon Music Hall in Argyll Street. That's in October, just ahead of Halloween, so watch this space for further details.

Tickets for THE GORBALS VAMPIRE at Glasgow Southside Fringe -- now available at Brown Paper Tickets

Further to my last post concerning my upcoming show at the Southside Fringe in my native Glasgow, just spreading the word that tickets are available both at the Southside Fringe box office, which this year is going to be located in The Art Village in Shawlands' main shopping centre on the main Kilmarnock Road, you can also get hold of tickets online at BROWN PAPER TICKETS. I'll post the LINK here -- http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/2544456 Remember... tickets are STRICTLY LIMITED for this very intimate venue.

Meanwhile, here's a rough draft of the poster!

THE GORBALS VAMPIRE returns - to Glasgow Southside Fringe Sat 14 May 2016

Yes, after successful performances at last year's Edinburgh and Nottingham Fringes, I'm bringing my show about Glasgow's very own Gorbals Vampire back where it belongs... to his and my native turf on the South Side of Glasgow at this year's Southside Fringe, where my 21st Century Poe shows were well received last year. I'll attach here a link to a previous post giving a little bit more of the historical background to the story.... here's the LINK below....

http://martyrossstoryteller.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/me-gorbals-vampire.html

And here I'll paste in the press release for the Southside show. Bear in mind this is a small, intimate venue and tickets will be strictly limited! Tickets are available from both the Southside Fringe Box Office at Art Village in the Shawlands Shopping Centre at 104 Kilmarnock Road in Glasgow, or from the Brown Paper Tickets website (link here): http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/2544456

PS: Here's a link to a SOUNDCLOUD "trailer" recording from my rehearsals... https://soundcloud.com/user-752957699/the-gorbals-vampire-trailer

THE GORBALS VAMPIRE

A dramatic storytelling show by Marty Ross for Glasgow Southside Fringe 2016.

14^th. May at Number 6, 6 Carment Drive, Shawlands G41 3PP.

Venue contact: 07761 299 717

8pm (for 8.30). Tickets £10 (includes food)

Ghoulish and garrulous... Gothic and grotesque and blood-glugging... gaun yirsel' – spend an evening with Glasgow's very own Gorbals Vampire!

Glasgow's very own vampire legend comes to disturbing dramatic life in the latest performance by master storyteller and playwright Marty Ross... What better show to chill spines at this year's Glasgow Southside Fringe?

Well received at last year's Southside Fringe was Ross' 21st Century Poe, in which he not only updated two classic terror tales by Edgar Allan Poe, but relocated them to the streets of his native Glasgow. Now he goes one better, by building this new show around a native horror legend of Glasgow's South side.

It was in the 1950s that local kids in Glasgow's Gorbals became convinced that the vast graveyard of the Southern Necropolis was haunted by an iron toothed vampire with a taste for children. Mass hysteria erupted among both young and old, kids embarking nightly on vampire hunts, wooden stakes in hand,  while panicked adults called the police and demanded a ban on the US horror comics perceived - erroneously, modern historians agree - to be responsible: much more authentically local traditions were involved.

But this true story ended rather anti-climactically: there doesn't, disappointingly, seem to have been any real vampire in the graveyard. But Marty Ross" drama asks: what if? What if there actually was a "something" there, very ancient and strange and terrible? And what if one vampire mad boy found himself in the vampire's clutches?

Thus the Gorbals gets its very own full blown Gothic horror myth, a story aspiring to do for Glasgow's south side what Dracula did for Transylvania, what the Phantom did for the Paris Opera, as a tale is spun - dramatic, theatrical, darkly humorous but deeply disturbing, of innocence lost and - possibly - regained.

Those who have attended Ross' previous dramatic storytelling performances, whether at the Edinburgh Fringe or Southside Fringe or the London Horror Festival, or any of his other regular venues, will know that storytelling with Ross is far removed from the comfy chair Jackanory clichés of this oldest, yet suddenly newest, of theatrical forms. Rather his style is boldly theatrical and expressionistic - and here finds itself a fascinating new venue at No. 6 in Shawlands, a performance space combining the intimacy of a domestic fireside setting - so traditional for storytelling - with the room to create a startling one man theatrical spectacle. Please note the £ 10 ticket price also includes food and drink both before and at the interval of the show.

How can you resist the spell of this very Glaswegian vampire?

“Marty Ross has mastered this art of storytelling...” TVBomb, Edinburgh Fringe 2015

“Ross is a master craftsman who never turns down the pressure, painting vile pictures and weaving a grotesque spell... Trainspotting meets Gothic horror” Broadway Baby, Edinburgh Fringe 2013

“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 the native Glasgow rhythm.” The Scotsman. Edfringe 2013.

MARTY ROSS is a playwright and storyteller with a long track record in radio and audio drama, particularly for the BBC, for whom he has written drama ranging from the Radio 4 series The Darker Side Of The Border to the popular serials Ghost Zone and Catch My Breath to one-off dramas such as Rough Magick, My Blue Piano, Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, The Dead Of Fenwick Moor and Moyamensing: Scenes From The Life, Death & Dreams of Edgar Allan Poe. He has also written two Doctor Who audio dramas and an award-nominated Dark Shadows drama. He has also written drama for the Wireless Theatre Company, including two plays commissioned by, and performed at, the Buxton Festival, Redder Than Roses and The Woman On The Bridge. This year has seen the release of his most acclaimed production yet, Romeo And Jude, an epic production for Amazon Audible featuring Owen Teale and Nick Moran. He also performs widely as a live storyteller in venues great and small ranging across Britain and Ireland.

ATLANTIC IN OUR BONES Chapter 3 of my Scottish thriller.

Pasting here third chapter of my new Glasgow-based thriller ATLANTIC IN OUR BONES which I'm currently in the process of revising. If you want to HEAR me read the chapter on Soundcloud, them here's a link: L I N K

And here's the text of the third chapter....

3./ "You sure you're alright?" the man in the driving seat asks.

Mhairi, gaze searching the mountainous darkness for any hint of Loch Lomond, is slow to turn round.

"What?" she asks.

"That bump I gave you."

He looks kind enough, a wee bit sagged and rumpled and middle-aged; maybe, she surmises, a bit sad about something at the far back of his mind.

"It wasn't much," she shrugs. "I’m okay."

"The guy in that other car, he was hasslin' you?"

She roves her stare past the flashings-by of headlit trees.

"He gave me a lift. Got a bit creepy."

"I bet," says the man. "What you doing, taking lifts off creeps?"

She faces him again, sees him show a lop-sided grin. "I exempt myself, of course, from classification as a creep," he says.

"You sure?" she asks.

"Absolutely. Took the blood test for creepiness last month. Got the all clear. Want to see my certificate?"

"I trust you."

His grin hardens past humour. "Really?" he asks. "How come?"

She shrugs again. "People's hearts aren't so hard to see into."

"Yeah... well... I’d look extra close if you're going to make a habit of hitch-hiking."

"I don't plan to."

“You know anyone in Glasgow?"

"I’ll be okay," she mutters.

"It's not the best place to be stuck without a friend."

"I know someone," she says. "Don't worry."

"A someone who knows you're coming?"

"A someone I can trust."

"Well, I hope that someone doesn't go to bed early. It's going to be the wee small hours by the time we hit town."

He sounds as if he cares. A trick? The closer she lets him take her to Glasgow, the better placed she'll be if she has to make a run for it. The hand furthest from him checks the weapon in her fleece's pocket.

"I’m not gonna drop in out of the blue. I’ll... I’ll sort something else out tonight."

"Yeah. Glasgow's full of parks. You'll find an empty bench, I’m sure."

"Maybe..." she ventures, "...maybe you know somewhere I could...?"

His eyes fix upon her, so tightly she fears he'll forget the road ahead and kill them both.

"What island did you come from?" he says.

"Island - ?"

"Your accent. It's - what? - from the Orkneys, the Hebrides, someplace like that, huh? And your general approach to getting by in this big bad world, which floating rock of hopeless naivety did that swim in from?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, sweetheart, watch what suggestions you make with that lilt and them fluttering eyes, when you're sat in a car with a guy who could be anyone."

"What suggestion was I making?" she says.

"The fact you don't know makes it makes it all the more dangerous."

"Was I making it at all?"

"Huh?"

"Maybe it's something you made up inside your own head."

She twitches down the first couple of notches on the zipper of her fleece's pocket.

"Guess what, darling," he says, "there's worse heads than mine in Glasgow. So the point is... take care."

"You don't trust that place, sounds like."

"Bitter experience."

"What sort of experience?"

"Too bitter for talking about this time of night. Listen, we... um… I do hate to think of you sleeping rough.... I, um, I live just north of the city. Got a spare room. You could kip there for the night. I could drive you into Glasgow in the morning. Strictly innocent, I assure you."

"I believe you," she says, staring past the shadows of the branches as they stream across his face.

ROMEO & JUDE - my new drama from Audible & Wireless Theatre

This week sees the release of my biggest audio drama yet, the five hour epic of love against the odds, ROMEO & JUDE, which has been produced by Wireless Theatre Company for Audible.co.uk the audiobooks wing of Amazon. This is one of the biggest opportunities I've had to show what I'm made of as a dramatist, so I'm hoping it's well received. In effect, it's exactly what Audible asked for in the first place, a contemporary gay version of Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet - and I've taken my key inspiration from the fact that, of course, in the original production Shakespeare himself would have overseen, Juliet would have been played not by a female actor (heaven forbid a woman should set foot on the Elizabethan stage!), but rather by a beautiful feminine young man. In my own storytelling, I'd directly experienced the power of performance to liberate one from conventional boundaries of gender or sexuality and really wanted to celebrate, the get under the skin, of this process. 

Directed by David Runacre Beck, who also directed my Buxton Festival play THE WOMAN ON THE BRIDGE, now available as an audio download from Wireless Theatre's website, the drama features performances from the likes of wonderful Welsh actor Owen Teale, currently best known for Game Of Thrones, seriously talented newcomer Matthew Tennyson, Nick Moran of Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels & Telstar fame, plus Ricky Norwood from Eastenders, stormingly nasty as the play's equivalent to Tybalt, and wonderful Sarah Whitehouse who was so brilliant in the lead role of the above mentioned Woman On The Bridge and is equally sensitive and moving here. 

Here's a link to the appropriate page on the Audible website.....

R O M E O & J U D E L I N K

And here below is the 'behind the scenes' trailer for the play on YouTube...

Hoping the world loves it like I loved writing it!