By no means a definitive list, a selection of audience members from the last 15 years have nominated and commented on some of the stand-out memorable performances witnessed at the Isle of Dogs venue. We’d like to recognise every performer that has added to the history of the venue, from lead roles to third spear-carrier from the left, from virtuoso musicians and legendary comedians to theatre companies taking their first steps, we thank you for entertaining our audiences.
Come and see some more performances at our Fifteen Theatre Festival!
I Think, You Stink!, Little Fish and Magnus Muldoon
10-12 in a series of 15 memorable performances celebrating 15 years at the Space
Nick Helm and Rob Stott in I Think, You Stink!
A co-production between the boys from Bad Ash Productions and the Space, this show went to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2008, came back to the Space for a Christmas Special and has since performed in a number of London venues. Nick and Rob created a series of shows that they performed in Edinburgh and St Albans, where the two first met whilst at secondary school. They first performed at the Space with Stroke and then went on to manage our longest running comedy programme, A Night at the Dogs. I Think, You Stink! was a series of horror comedy vignettes, all set to music opening with ‘Welcome to the Hypnozone’, a trippy attempt to hypnotise the audience into believing they were terrified, and culminating with the rock opera, ‘Boyfriend From Hell’. Rob’s most memorable performance was as the ‘Tesco Chainstore Manager’, an uptight jobsworth who cracks under the pressure of running a supermarket and dismembers all of his customers whilst Nick’s ‘Joe Cocker growl’ in Beast Boy was a tour de force, his performance as Satan in a red romper suit had to be seen to be believed! Rob’s versatility as a performer came to the fore in future Space Productions, from a camp ugly sister to the sinister Krogstad in A Doll’s House, whilst Nick has just been awarded the funniest gag at the 2011 Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
Little Fish
Little Fish swim in dark waters, girls shrink to the size of matchboxes, and a blind creature sings deep in the woods…
Lizzie Montgomery and Amy Lumsden met whilst volunteering at the Space in 2006. Initially brought in to assist on that year’s Enterprise festival, the two of them stayed on to help manage our 10th anniversary celebrations. When they teamed up with playwright Sarah-Liisa Wilkinson, Pact Imagination was born and became one of the resident theatre companies at the Space.
Little Fish, written by Sarah-Liisa was shortlisted for the Old Vic New Voices Award in association with Theatre 503 in 2009 and performed as a work in progress at the Space in January 2009. The company returned in 2010 for an extended run.
Cici lives through the stories she tells her brother Jamie but their fairy-tale existence is shattered when sister Claire, a reality TV star, pays an unexpected visit.
Performed superbly in the full run by Helen Clapp, Damian Cooper and Lucy Laing, Little Fish enchanted audiences as can be seen by the following selection of quotes.
‘Fantastic Production, very fresh, engaging and a brilliant night out’
‘The Show was absolutely brilliant, the best piece of theatre I have seen in a long time’
‘I thought the whole experience was wonderful… the play was good, the story held interest all the way through and the cast was excellent…’
‘It was beautifully acted, written, and directed piece that really showed the best in fringe theatre. A touching experience.’
‘A brilliant, original play, fantastic cast, superb soundtrack and excellent, thought-provoking twists and turns. Magical!’
Andrew Broadhurst as Magnus Muldoon
In the same bill as Dogg’s Hamlet (no 2 in our series) was Tom Stoppard’s other canine related piece ‘The Real Inspector Hound’. There were a number of memorable performances:- Justin Davey and Richard Sandle-Keynes double act as theatre critics Moon and Birdboot, Sophie Scott and Melanie Gray vying over Andrew Venning’s Simon Gascoyne and Space intern, Brandon Keller’s motionless corpse (despite lying in a puddle of tea one night!), but one particularly stands out in the mind of one of our regular audience members:-
‘Ask any member of my family what their most memorable performance was at the Space and they will all give you the same unhesitating answer Andrew Broadhurst’s 2007 portrayal of Magnus Muldoon, the wheelchair bound Major in The Real Inspector Hound. The mad eyes, the frantic manipulation of the wheelchair and, above all, the furtive pushing up of the false moustache have entered family folklore and, even four years later, the mere twitch of fingers towards mouth produces instant recognition. Muldoon’s revelation as Hound/ Lord Albert/ Puckeridge was a priceless piece of theatre that will stay with us forever.’