Theatre - Theatr
Christmas Champions
A new show fromChris Wood & Hugh Lupton commissioned by BBC Radio 3 Late Junction & The Sage Gateshead.
The English Mummer's Play is our most enduring piece of seasonal drama. Deeply earthy, proudly vernacular, English voodoo at it's most robust. Each year the characters are reinvented to more closely fit their roles for a new generation, 'Beelzubub' becomes 'Old Greedy Guts the dot com millionaire'.
Chris Wood & Hugh Lupton won the BBC Folk Award for Best New Song with One in a Million, their contemporary ballad of love set in a fish & chip shop. Christmas Champions is their new show and it builds upon the music of midwinter both choral and instrumental with new songs and reworkings
of established carols. They are joined by Robert Harbron - Voice/ Concertina; John Dipper - Voice/ Violin; and Olivia Ross - Voice/ Viola. What sets the show apart is the way in which their voices are worked into field recordings of Herbie Smith's reminiscences of mumming in the Medway valley at the turn of the last century. Hugh Lupton's narrative constantly contextualises the music and the singers reciprocate, weaving and compounding imagery, parable and drama.
"It's rare to hear work as powerful as Chris Wood and Hugh Lupton's. With beautifully sculpted prose and carefully honed music they seduce the minds of those who listen, skillfully drawing on the past to make sense of the present. This is welcome nourishment for people who like to think for themselves." VERITY SHARP, LATE JUNCTION, BBC RADIO 3
PLEASE NOTE - NEWS JUST IN (as of 3 December):
Sadly, Hugh Lupton has been taken ill and is unable to take part in the Christmas Champions tour. With the help of director Tim Dalling, the role of narrator has been shared among the rest of the cast and the show will continue as planned albeit without Hugh. Apologies for any inconvenience this may cause, but we're sure the evening will still be a fantastic one. We send our get-well messages to Hugh.