The Strolling Theatricals
Encyclopedia
The Strolling Theatricals is a British
theatre
company, located primarily in York
.
. William, who was enjoying his gap-year in South America, suggested to his brother that they should take a sketch-show up to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. However, no sketches were ever written. Instead (along with friends Owen Sogelar, Daniel Quinn, and Adam Neil-Jones) they put together a production of Samuel Beckett
's Waiting For Godot
, and took it to Edinburgh, where it was named as an official sell out.
The following year William started a three year course at the University of York
. He wanted to continue the success of The Strolling Theatricals and recruited some of his fellow students into his 2006 Edinburgh Fringe
production, 'Bouncy Castle Hamlet', which also featured actors from York St John University
and the National Youth Theatre
. 'Bouncy Castle Hamlet' instantly became the centre of a media explosion, and was later hailed as a 'triumphant success' by The Guardian
. In 2007 the company produced 'Bouncy Castle MacBeth
', which was featured in The Times
'100 Best Things to See at the Fringe', and later appeared on ITV's Britain's Got Talent
. The Strolling Theatricals are scheduled to perform 'Bouncy Castle Dracula' at the 2008 Festival. In 2008 William Seaward
and Becca Atkey officially became joint partners of the Strolling Theatricals.
. While staying with family in Argentina
on his gap year he attended his cousin's birthday party, at which there was a bouncy castle. Still under the belief that 'The Strolling Theatricals' were to put on a sketch show at Edinburgh, William saw the bouncy castle and realised its comic potential. A year later he bought a bouncy castle, lavishly decorated it with skulls and turrets, and 'The Bouncy Castle Experiment' was born.
, the idea being that tragedy plus bouncy castle would equal hilarious physical farce. In this show few of Shakespeare's words were changed, giving the illusion of a 'serious' theatre company. Visual gags included a miniature bouncy castle for use as a stage in the famous 'play within a play' scene; the Ghost being played by an inflatable sex doll; and the use of other inflatables at every possible opportunity - most famously, Hamlet beating Polonius to death with an inflatable armchair. In practice, the original lines were supplemented by a great deal of Pantomime
-style ad libbing. The show attracted a great deal of media attention, featuring several times on national television.
, and the play began with an endorsement from the 'ghost of William Shakespeare', also made out of balloons. Birnham Wood was represented by several inflatable palm trees, with which Macbeth and Macduff went on to violently beat each other at the end of the play. There was also a bouncing Highland Fling
. The show was performed at the 2007 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, featured in The Times
'100 Best things to see at the Fringe', was previewed in The Scotsman
and later featured on the second series of ITV
's Britain's Got Talent
.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
theatre
Theatre
Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...
company, located primarily in York
York
York is a walled city, situated at the confluence of the Rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. The city has a rich heritage and has provided the backdrop to major political events throughout much of its two millennia of existence...
.
Company history
The Strolling Theatricals was founded in 2005 by brothers John and William SeawardWilliam Seaward
William Vincent Seaward is a director and actor. Co-founder and director of The Strolling Theatricals, a theatre company based in the United Kingdom.-Early life:Born in London to two barristers, Martin and Siobhan Seaward, he is the eldest of 4 siblings...
. William, who was enjoying his gap-year in South America, suggested to his brother that they should take a sketch-show up to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. However, no sketches were ever written. Instead (along with friends Owen Sogelar, Daniel Quinn, and Adam Neil-Jones) they put together a production of Samuel Beckett
Samuel Beckett
Samuel Barclay Beckett was an Irish avant-garde novelist, playwright, theatre director, and poet. He wrote both in English and French. His work offers a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human nature, often coupled with black comedy and gallows humour.Beckett is widely regarded as among the most...
's Waiting For Godot
Waiting for Godot
Waiting for Godot is an absurdist play by Samuel Beckett, in which two characters, Vladimir and Estragon, wait endlessly and in vain for someone named Godot to arrive. Godot's absence, as well as numerous other aspects of the play, have led to many different interpretations since the play's...
, and took it to Edinburgh, where it was named as an official sell out.
The following year William started a three year course at the University of York
University of York
The University of York , is an academic institution located in the city of York, England. Established in 1963, the campus university has expanded to more than thirty departments and centres, covering a wide range of subjects...
. He wanted to continue the success of The Strolling Theatricals and recruited some of his fellow students into his 2006 Edinburgh Fringe
2006 Edinburgh Festival Fringe
-Events:2006 was the first Fringe following the introduction of the new legislation banning smoking indoors. During a photocall at the Assembly Rooms for a play in which he was playing Winston Churchill, the actor Mel Smith lit a cigar, flouting the ban...
production, 'Bouncy Castle Hamlet', which also featured actors from York St John University
York St John University
York St John University York St John University York St John University (formerly known variously as York St John University College (2004), York St John College (2001), Ripon and York St John: a College of the University of Leeds (c. 1996), University College of Ripon and York St John...
and the National Youth Theatre
National Youth Theatre
The National Youth Theatre is a registered charity in London, Great Britain, committed to creative, personal and social development of young people through the medium of creative arts....
. 'Bouncy Castle Hamlet' instantly became the centre of a media explosion, and was later hailed as a 'triumphant success' by The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
. In 2007 the company produced 'Bouncy Castle MacBeth
Macbeth
The Tragedy of Macbeth is a play by William Shakespeare about a regicide and its aftermath. It is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy and is believed to have been written sometime between 1603 and 1607...
', which was featured in The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
'100 Best Things to See at the Fringe', and later appeared on ITV's Britain's Got Talent
Britain's Got Talent
Britain's Got Talent is a British television talent show competition which started in June 2007 and originated from the Got Talent series. The show is produced by FremantleMedia's TalkbackThames and Simon Cowell's production company SYCOtv. The show is broadcast on ITV in Britain and TV3 in Ireland...
. The Strolling Theatricals are scheduled to perform 'Bouncy Castle Dracula' at the 2008 Festival. In 2008 William Seaward
William Seaward
William Vincent Seaward is a director and actor. Co-founder and director of The Strolling Theatricals, a theatre company based in the United Kingdom.-Early life:Born in London to two barristers, Martin and Siobhan Seaward, he is the eldest of 4 siblings...
and Becca Atkey officially became joint partners of the Strolling Theatricals.
Waiting For Godot
Produced in 2005, this was The Strolling Theatricals' first production. Rather than performing this play in its usual sombre way, the company emphasised its comedic potential. The show was on for over two weeks, and was named as an Official Sell Out Production for the 2005 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. All members of the cast and crew for this show were under 20.The Bouncy Castle Experiment
The concept for 'The Bouncy Castle Experiment' was devised by William SeawardWilliam Seaward
William Vincent Seaward is a director and actor. Co-founder and director of The Strolling Theatricals, a theatre company based in the United Kingdom.-Early life:Born in London to two barristers, Martin and Siobhan Seaward, he is the eldest of 4 siblings...
. While staying with family in Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
on his gap year he attended his cousin's birthday party, at which there was a bouncy castle. Still under the belief that 'The Strolling Theatricals' were to put on a sketch show at Edinburgh, William saw the bouncy castle and realised its comic potential. A year later he bought a bouncy castle, lavishly decorated it with skulls and turrets, and 'The Bouncy Castle Experiment' was born.
Bouncy Castle Hamlet
This was, as its name suggests, Hamlet, staged entirely on a Bouncy Castle. It was first of the Bouncy Castle shows, and was taken to the 2006 Edinburgh Festival Fringe2006 Edinburgh Festival Fringe
-Events:2006 was the first Fringe following the introduction of the new legislation banning smoking indoors. During a photocall at the Assembly Rooms for a play in which he was playing Winston Churchill, the actor Mel Smith lit a cigar, flouting the ban...
, the idea being that tragedy plus bouncy castle would equal hilarious physical farce. In this show few of Shakespeare's words were changed, giving the illusion of a 'serious' theatre company. Visual gags included a miniature bouncy castle for use as a stage in the famous 'play within a play' scene; the Ghost being played by an inflatable sex doll; and the use of other inflatables at every possible opportunity - most famously, Hamlet beating Polonius to death with an inflatable armchair. In practice, the original lines were supplemented by a great deal of Pantomime
Pantomime
Pantomime — not to be confused with a mime artist, a theatrical performer of mime—is a musical-comedy theatrical production traditionally found in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Jamaica, South Africa, India, Ireland, Gibraltar and Malta, and is mostly performed during the...
-style ad libbing. The show attracted a great deal of media attention, featuring several times on national television.
Bouncy Castle Macbeth
Again, this show kept to Shakespeare's original text, this time much edited. Memorable features of this production included Macbeth's 'dagger of the mind' being replaced with a giant bloodstained inflatable banana; Lady Macbeth being played by a man; and all the weaponry and armour being constructed entirely from modelling balloons. The sex doll, this time on a fishing line, made a comeback as BanquoBanquo
Banquo is a character in William Shakespeare's 1606 play Macbeth. In the play, he is at first an ally to Macbeth and they are together when they meet the Three Witches. After prophesying that Macbeth will become king, the witches tell Banquo that he will not be king himself, but that his...
, and the play began with an endorsement from the 'ghost of William Shakespeare', also made out of balloons. Birnham Wood was represented by several inflatable palm trees, with which Macbeth and Macduff went on to violently beat each other at the end of the play. There was also a bouncing Highland Fling
Highland Fling
This dance is now performed at dance competitions and events around the world. It is no longer danced on a shield, but it is still the goal of the dancer to stay in the same spot throughout the dance. The Highland Fling is danced at almost all competition levels, from Primary to Premier. It is also...
. The show was performed at the 2007 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, featured in The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
'100 Best things to see at the Fringe', was previewed in The Scotsman
The Scotsman
The Scotsman is a British newspaper, published in Edinburgh.As of August 2011 it had an audited circulation of 38,423, down from about 100,000 in the 1980s....
and later featured on the second series of ITV
ITV
ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...
's Britain's Got Talent
Britain's Got Talent
Britain's Got Talent is a British television talent show competition which started in June 2007 and originated from the Got Talent series. The show is produced by FremantleMedia's TalkbackThames and Simon Cowell's production company SYCOtv. The show is broadcast on ITV in Britain and TV3 in Ireland...
.
Bouncy Castle Dracula
The first play in the Bouncy Castle series to veer away from Shakespeare, this production was devised by the cast and crew of the show. It was performed at the 2008 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.Credits
- 2005 - Waiting For GodotWaiting for GodotWaiting for Godot is an absurdist play by Samuel Beckett, in which two characters, Vladimir and Estragon, wait endlessly and in vain for someone named Godot to arrive. Godot's absence, as well as numerous other aspects of the play, have led to many different interpretations since the play's...
, by Samuel BeckettSamuel BeckettSamuel Barclay Beckett was an Irish avant-garde novelist, playwright, theatre director, and poet. He wrote both in English and French. His work offers a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human nature, often coupled with black comedy and gallows humour.Beckett is widely regarded as among the most... - 2006 - Bouncy Castle Hamlet, adapted from William ShakespeareWilliam ShakespeareWilliam Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
's 'HamletHamletThe Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601...
' - 2007 - Bouncy Castle Macbeth, adapted from William ShakespeareWilliam ShakespeareWilliam Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
's 'MacbethMacbethThe Tragedy of Macbeth is a play by William Shakespeare about a regicide and its aftermath. It is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy and is believed to have been written sometime between 1603 and 1607...
' - 2008 - Bouncy Castle Dracula, devised by cast and crew of the company