Following a critically acclaimed UK tour of their award-winning family show Bedtime Stories, Upswing creates a tale of a family creating, building, inventing and reinventing to achieve their goal of living happily and safely together. Reflecting a world on the cusp of big change, the bright and growing young family use all their skill and ingenuity to keep their rickety house together in show about solving problems and never giving up. Three multi-skilled circus artists will balance, climb, juggle, swing, slide and swoop to tell the story of the family’s ups and downs and, with a little bit of pluck and courage, things will turn out right in the end.
A tale without words, The Ramshackle House makes us consider the dynamics of family life and how adults and children help each other negotiate the changes that are within our influence and those that are beyond our control. The show has been created and developed with families across the U.K to tell a story which audiences can relate to, reflecting contemporary society today. A diverse, international cast who are experts in aerial, acrobalance, rope and trapeze have been selected to perform in The Ramshackle House, carefully chosen to represent a multi-talented and multi-cultural Britain.
Upswing’s Artistic Director Vicki Amedume says, “I wanted to make a show that speaks fluently to both adults and children. So we have decided to make a piece of work with no words but rather uses movement, humour and tenderness to celebrate family life even through the complexity and instability we can, at times, feel in the world around us. We want the show to touch on these challenging themes but at the same time be full of the joy, thrills, excitement and danger that we look for in circus.”
The Ramshackle House is at Stratford Circus Arts Centre 4th– 24th December 2017.
