Bob And Helena’s Excellent Adventure

Bob And Helena’s Excellent Adventure

Complete with Vomiting Bridesmaids, Stolen Cash And Singing

Silo Theatre presents
MIDSUMMER
[a play with songs]
By David Greig and Gordon McIntyre.

With mega stage shows like Wicked and Chicago storming Auckland at the end of the year, 2013 has become the unofficial year of the musical. As usual, Silo Theatre takes the non-traditional approach as they present the low-fi indie hit MIDSUMMER [a play with songs]. Think Bonnie and Clyde meets Flight of the Conchords - this is the musical for people who don’t like musicals. No high kicks have been planned and jazz hands have been outlawed. Sophie Roberts directs this wildly funny romp, playing the Q Theatre Loft from October 24th.

Helena is a divorce lawyer with a taste for other people’s husbands. She’s in a bar sipping overpriced sav blanc. She’s been stood up by Mr. Wrong - again. Bob’s a total shambles, a two-bit petty crim working for a gangster called Big Tiny Tam. He’s nursing a beer and reading Dostoevsky. She’s totally out of his league; he’s not her type at all. They absolutely should not sleep together. Ever. Which is why they do.

And so begins a wild 24 hour spending spree in which our think-me Bonnie and Clyde step out of their rubbish lives and reinvent themselves in a haze of bleary magic.

Fashioned as a rough and tumble rom com, MIDSUMMER isn’t your archetypical Hollywood piece of fluff; its portrayals of drunken recklessness, clumsy fumbles and near-hits shed light on the contemporary existential dilemmas many thirtysomethings find themselves facing. What am I doing with my life? How did I get here? Is this how it’s all gonna play out? Is there no future?

First produced at the Traverse in 2008, MIDSUMMER was a smash hit at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. It won four Critics Awards for Theatre in Scotland in 2009, including best play and best production. Since then the show has had massive international success, touring the UK, US, Ireland, Canada and Australia.

Penned by award winning playwright David Greig (this year’s Auckland Arts Festival hit The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart) and with a soundtrack crafted by Gordon McIntyre, of Scottish indie-folk outfit Ballboy, the characters express their innermost feelings through Grieg’s scribing and McIntyre’s witty ditties – performing a live soundtrack to theatregoers with McIntyre’s wry humour shining throughout.

Silo welcomes Aidee Walker’s return to the stage, last seen in their 2006 production of The Jungle. Television audiences may remember her as Draska Doslic from Outrageous Fortune, but it’s her recent film work which is currently earning her major plaudits – winning the 48Hours 2013 with The Sleeping Plot and directing the short-film Friday Tigers (NZ International Film Festival, Melbourne Film Festival and Palm Springs Film Festival).

Also returning is Dan Musgrove – known to many as “Mr Asia”, Marty Johnstone in Underbelly: Land of the Long Green Cloud. Since his last Silo production, 2009’s Holding The Man, Musgrove has continued to work with Natalie Medlock, creating a series of well-received plays that have led to the NZ Film Commission giving them funding to develop a full length feature, as part of their Accelerator programme.

MIDSUMMER is the “anti-musical” – with songs about lost youth and malaise alongside scenes of petty theft, awkward sex and tickle-me-Elmo’s. Accompanying themselves on guitar and ukulele, Aidee and Dan are all set to take on The Song of Oblivion, Hangover, Japanese Rope Bondage and The Song of Bob’s C*ck.

“…Exhilarating. You float out laughing as if you've swallowed sunshine on a spoon…” – The Guardian

MIDSUMMER plays:
24th October – 23rd November 2013
Q Theatre Loft, 305 Queen Street,
Preview: Thursday 24th October
Opening Night: Friday 25th October
Tickets: $25 - $49 (service fees apply).
Bookings: Q Theatre – www.qtheatre.co.nz or 09 309 9771

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