http://ow.ly/i/1QqvC Just had a splendid week with Gaulier and people who were “not extremely boring”
articulate elbow
Articulate Elbow is a theatre company founded by Susan Swanton. It produces theatre that is physical, female and funny.
Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2013
Hallo all
It’s official. Mother F is going to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2013. Let me know if you are going too.
Royal Exchange Studio, Manchester Production Shots by Lesley Chalmers
Last week we had three performances at the Manchester Royal Exchange Studio that were sold out. It was a great pleasure playing to a home crowd and Isabel Ford and myself enjoyed ourselves as much as our audience. Here are some of the fantastic photos by Lesley Chalmers.
We are the Babies! The stand -up babies from ‘Mother F’
Bing bong! Avon Calling!
“Mama, doesn’t even have an inkling…That I left them all in Antwerp and I’m touring on my own.”
Susan Swanton in ‘Don’t Tell Mama’ from ‘Mother F’
Mothers Meeting Royal Exchange
We met so many mothers with wonderful relationships. Recorded here with Lesley Chalmer’s photographs. Here are some of them.
Mothers Meeting
We at Articulate Elbow have been holding Mothers Meetings around the country near or in the venues where we are performing ‘Mother F,’ our comedy about mothers.
Meeting mothers face to face and talking to them has been an enlightening experience and all participants had a photo taken by professional photographer Lesley Chalmers.
Grandmother, mother and child, Halifax
Lesley Chalmers photography at a Mother’s Meeting, Halifax as part of the marketing tour promoting Mother F show. This is grandmother, mother and child.
Motherf invited audience
Invited audience to a rehearsal of the first half of Motherf. Testing the material to see if it works.
The Pram
My mum had a Silver Cross pram just like this one only bigger. It was like a boat on wheels. There was always a small baby in it lying on its back as in this picture but also probably two toddlers balanced at the foot end. When I got older, and more siblings came along (there were eight children in my family and I was third eldest lost in the middle somewhere) I graduated to holding onto one side of the silver handles and when I got older still I would walk beside my mother and eventually walked in front of the pram or ran on ahead. Underneath the pram was a white, gridded, oblong basket for shopping and PE bags and coats. We walked everywhere with that pram. My mother would ‘park’ it outside the bakery and the butcher’s and the green grocer’s. No one stole the big, boat pram or the baby from outside the shops. They were different times. You never went on the bus with the Silver Cross pram. It never folded up. It was the boat- on- wheels pram. And when all of the babies grew up we took off the wheels and made a go-kart and raced up and down the street. Yes, we played outside. And on Guy Fawkes night we made a dummy, took the go-kart made out of Silver Cross Pram wheels and did ‘Penny for the Guy’ which my mother hated us doing because it was like begging.
Now, the prams are ‘buggies’ or I prefer a ‘pushchair.’ Tiny egg like pods balanced on an aerodynamic frame with a choice of wheels. They collapse into a handbag shape in colours to match your outfits. It is a fashion statement. The Bugaboo of Gwyneth, the Mamas and Papas of the middle class mother, the spindly bendy tangle of a supermarket homebrand buggy. They all say something about us and our children. Personally, I like the Silver Cross although I never had one for my children. It’s vintage chic. A reminder of a more liberating time for children. But you still can’t get on a bus with one.
