'YES' - The Adrian Mitchell Show

    Breckland Theatre Festival
    Swanton Morley Village Hall
    Manns Lane
    Swanton Morley
    Dereham
    Norfolk NR20 4PX

    August 14
    Doors open at 7.00pm
    Show starts at 7.30pm
    Tickets £6 adults / £3 under 16
    Box office 01362 692 032

"If you like a poem of mine, learn it, recite it, sing it or dance it" - Adrian Mitchell

'Yes' is a celebration of the life and work of Adrian Mitchell, one of our best loved, funny, passionate and political poets. This specially created programme of his poems and songs was commissioned by The Poetry Trust and premièred to a sell out audience in the 2009 Aldeburgh Poetry Festival, at the Cambridge Wordfest and The Cut Halesworth. This glittering cabaret includes Adrian’s wife, actor Celia Hewitt, his daughter, singer Sasha Mitchell, actors Matt Prendergast and Roger Lloyd Pack (Only Fools and Horses, Vicar of Dibley and The Old Guys) as well as two brilliant musicians Miguel Tantos (trombone) and Paul Tkachenko (multi instrumentalist). A triumphant, anarchic synthesis of words, jazz and rock'n'roll.

"Fantastic! witty, moving, inspirational – please bring it back" Juliet Stevenson, actor

"Mitchell once remarked: ‘My poetry likes to say yes.’  How fitting, then, that over a year after his death, his poetry is saying yes more resolutely than ever." Ashley Smith, The Poetry Society

Current and Previous Wonderful Beast shows

‘Now and Then’  was an intergenerational performance based project in partnership with Suffolk Artlink, with residents from the Mary Warner Homes (almshouses) in Boyton and the children of Hollesley Primary School. It got off to a joyful start in July when the school children bicycled over to Boyton and sang and played their trumpets to the residents and where they all enjoyed getting to know each other. Workshops and sharing sessions took place throughout the year in which the participants worked with Beeja Indian dance company, Suffolk stepdancers, and with poet Dean Parkin from the Poetry Trust. This culminated in two public performances on 12 February in Hollesley Village Hall in which the young, the old performed their own poems, danced and sang and took part in a dramatised version of Cape of Rushes (an East Anglian version ofCinderella). They were joined by the stepdancers, traditional singers, Beeja dance company and artists from Wonderful Beast .

Wonderful Beast in the community