Litfest


The King and The Corpse

by Andy Darby. Average Reading Time: almost 3 minutes.

Performance Storytelling
by TUUP

Sitar & Percussion
by Sheema Mukherjee

Venue: The Auditorium, The Storey
Date: 1st February
Time: 7.30pm

A king is obliged to carry the corpse of a hanged man on his back – but the corpse is not dead, it is possessed by a storytelling vampire, whose enigmatic puzzles threaten to burst the King’s head into a thousand pieces…

With customary charismatic style, The Unorthodox, Unprecedented, Preacher – TUUP – takes to the stage with sitar virtuoso, Sheema Mukherjee, to tell transglobalised versions of these stunning, 2,000 year old tales. As much an encounter as a performance, this formidable collaboration by two core members the wild world music collective Transglobal Underground, brings an 11th Century Indian fairytale to the contemporary stage.

Enter a place of metaphor, magic and ritual.

Audience comments:

fabulous

not sure what I was expecting, but that was magic…I mean it…in fact I’m not sure what just happened – are we still in Soho?

that is one of the most amazing shows I have ever seen

TUUP

TUUP

Cow Foot – performing variously in London at The Soho Theatre, Rich Mix & the Albany. A festival favourite, TUUP has travelled the world, telling stories all over Europe and in both Northern and Southern Africa. In his role as a creative lyricist, poet, percussionist and vocalist with the highly influential dance music collective, Transglobal Underground, he has performed throughout Europe, Central Asia, Asia and North and South America.
TUUP has worked extensively in education and museums. In the late 80s, TUUP formed The Tellers of Time with Flora Devi, he has contributed stories to the StorySpinners educational audio CDs, and he works with Everyday Magic taking storytelling into a pyramid of schools in London. TUUP regularly works at the British Museum and famously created the character Joseph Johnson (‘the man with the ship on his head’) for the Museum of London.

SHEEMA MUKHERJEE

Sheema

Sheema has collaborated with internationally renowned artists such as Sir John Tavenor, Martin Carthy, Bobby Mcferrin, Boris Grebenshikov, Natacha Atlas, Noel Gallagher & Cornershop, Mercan Dede, the Bulgarian Folk singer Yanka Rupkina. Another significant collaboration is with UK saxophonist Courtney Pine and Sheema has been featured on his albums Back in the Day and Devotion and was a guest artist on the ‘On Track’ tour – a project for the UK Commonwealth Games. She has toured the world widely and key performances include The World Music Festival (Chicago), Montreux Jazz Festival and the Olympia-Halle (Munich), supporting Jimmy Page and Robert Plant throughout their European tour (1998), the Olympics Arts Festival for Sydney 2000 and also makes regular appearances at WOMAD (UK) with her own ensembles.
A versatile and creative musician, Sheema Mukherjee is continually evolving both as a composer and as a collaborator. Recent work has included an Indian Classical performance for Elton John’s Black Tie & Tiara Ball, an improvisation with Australian recorder virtuoso Genevieve Lacey in Westminster Abbey for The Queen on Commonwealth Day, and a creative development role in composition and song writing in Beijing, Hong Kong and Gateshead as part of the PRS Foundation and Composers and Authors Society of Hong Kong Creative Exchange Project. Larger scale work has included composition for full orchestra, for theatre, including Wuthering Heights (Tamasha), The Cornershop Project (Black Country Touring & Foursight), West Yorkshire Playhouse (Northern Exposure).

Ticket: £7.50/£6.00 concessions
Box Office: 01524 62166
Online: Sales