HOME's Orbit Festival Brings Some Of The Most Exciting Theatre Companies In The UK To Manchester 

HOME Manchester's annual Orbit Festival, one of the city's leading theatre festivals, is bringing a taste of the Edinburgh Festival to Manchester, gathering together a host of theatre-makers and performers whose work spans comedy, dance, drama, spoken word and music.

"We're delighted to be bringing to the city such a varied, interactive, and thought-provoking range of productions", says Kevin Jamieson, HOME's Head of Programming. "The world is an uneasy place at the moment, and the best of contemporary theatre reflects that. These companies all have something to say about how we can hope to reconcile our differences to everyone's benefit."

ORBIT FESTIVAL - 2019 PROGRAMME Clean Break and HOME presents Propel Wed 18 Sept 19:00 - £7 Propel is HOME's platform for artists to play with new ideas and experiment with new ways of working. Curated by award-winning theatre company Clean Break,

this evening's theme is 'speaking truth to power'. See pieces at the beginning of being made, some you might love and some that might leave you with more questions. Take a front-row seat in helping to shape the theatre of the future.

Paul O'Donnell presents We've Got Each Other Thu 19 Sept 19:00; Fri 20 Sept, 21:00 - £12.50 (£10) The modern jukebox musical traditionally comes a multi-talented cast - a live band, opulent sets and decadent costumes, extravagant dance routines, dramatic key changes and the odd hydraulic lift or two. We've Got Each Other, an all-singing all-dancing spectacle, has none of these things (they cost a lot of money).

Clean Break and Sites of Resistance at Manchester Metropolitan University presents Sweatbox Thu 19 Sept - Sat 21 Sept 17:30, 18:00, 19:30, 20:00, 20:30 - £5 Sweatbox invites audiences to enter the back of a real prison van in which three women share their stories of arrival and anticipation as they are transported from court to prison and back again. Written by Liverpool playwright Chloë Moss, it is performed by three Clean Break members in an intimate production for audiences of just 12. Set up in 1979 by two women prisoners who believed that theatre could bring the hidden stories of imprisoned women to a wider audience, Clean Break remain true to their roots in their 40th anniversary year, inspiring playwrights and captivate audiences with their ground-breaking plays on the complex theme of women and crime.

ThePappyShow presents Care Fri 20 Sept 19:00; Sat 21 Sept 14:15, 19:00 - £12.50 (£10) How in 21st century Britain have we become the most in debt, obese, addicted and medicated people in history? Care looks at how care is given in the National Health Service. This brand-new show is ThePappyShow's follow-up to Boys, which ran in last year's Incoming Festival at HOME.

La JohnJoseph presents A Generous Lover Tue 24 Sept 19:00; Wed 25 Sept 21:00 - £12.50 (£10) This is the true and very queer tale of one soul's journey through mental illness. Brimming with psychedelic proletarian prose and trenchant wit, A Generous Lover recounts the pandemonium of navigating mental health services on behalf of a loved one, whilst being gender queer, and occasionally being mistaken for a patient. La JohnJoseph, an associate artist at HOME, works at the intersection of artist film and live performance.

Sh!t Theatre presents Sh!t Theatre Drink Rum With Ex-Pats Thu 26 Sept 19:00; Fri 27 Sept 21:00; Sat 28 Sept 19:00 - £12.50 (£10) Celebrating their final year as Europeans, island-monkeys Rebecca Biscuit and Louise Mothersole from Sh!t Theatre (Women's Hour, Letters To Windsor House, and Dollywould) get invited to the 2018 European Capital of Culture in Malta, having missed out on Hull last year. An Edinburgh Festival Fringe First winner, Sh!t Theatre Drink Rum With Ex-Pats is that experimental fringe theatre show about Malta you've all been waiting for!

YESYESNONO presents the accident did not take place Fri 27 Sept 19:00; Sat 28 Sept 21:00 - £12.50 (£10) The other side of the world. A plane is falling from the sky. You can see it on your laptop screen. You can watch it on YouTube. You can hit refresh and watch it burning on repeat. With a new guest performer taking to the stage each night, the accident did not take place from award-winning YESYESNONO (5 Encounters on a Site Called Craigslist, [insert slogan here]) is a dance-filled deconstruction of digital information. YESYESNONO are Pleasance Theatre Associates for 2019.

Jamal Harewood presents Word Mon 30 Sept 19:00; Tue 1 Oct 20:30 - £12.50 (£10) They're pretty special. They give a person the opportunity to express themselves. They can be read. They can be heard. They can be spoken. They allow us to communicate. Become the contestant or host in an audience-led gameshow that puts the words we use under a magnifying glass. Following The Privileged (Orbit Festival 2016), Jamal Harewood returns to HOME with Word.

Nouveau Riché presents Queens of Sheba Tue 1 - Thu 3 Oct 19:00; Fri 4/Sat 5 Oct 21:00 - £12.50 (£10) Based on the true story of a group of women who hit the headlines after being turned away from a nightclub for being 'too black', Jessica L Hagan's debut play sheds an unrelenting light on the lives of everyday women battling the collision of racism and misogyny. Nouveau Riché is a multi-award-winning arts production company and an ever-expanding creative movement who won the 2018 Edinburgh Stage Award and The Untapped Award.

HOME, and Journeys Festival International presents Phosphoros Theatre's Pizza Shop Heroes Fri 4 Oct 19:00; Sat 5 Oct 14:15, 19:00 - £12.50 (£10) Phosphoros Theatre features four refugee young men who made the arduous journey to the UK on their own as children from Afghanistan, Eritrea and Albania.

From the precinct of a pizza shop, embark on a journey across time and continents to explore how they got here, where they're going, and what they've learnt along the way. Powerful, celebratory, affirming, authentic; this is your chance to hear their stories in a piece of theatre that puts refugees centre stage.

AT A GLANCE PROGRAMME

We've Got Each Other presented by Paul O'Donnell, Thu 19/Fri 20 Sept Sweatbox presented by Clean Break, Thu 19 Sept - Sat 21 Sept Care presented by ThePappyShow, Fri 20/Sat 21 Sept A Generous Lover presented by La JohnJoseph, Tue 24/Wed 25 Sept Sh!t Theatre Drink Rum With Ex-Pats presented by Sh!t Theatre, Thu 26 Sept - Sat 28 Sept the accident did not take place presented by YESYESNONO, Fri 27/Sat 28 Sept Word presented by Jamal Harewood, Mon 30 Sept/Tue 1 Oct Queens of Sheba presented by Nouveau Riché, Tue 1 - Sat 5 Oct Pizza Shop Heroes presented by Phosphoros Theatre, Fri 4/Sat 5 Oct

We are also delighted to announce that 'Amazing Men', a series of short films from Manchester-based theatre company and sketch group Eggs Collective and supported by commissioning and development organisation The Space, will be premiered in HOME's film programme during this year's Orbit Festival. The three films, which explore gender politics and toxic masculinity, are drawn from the company's second live show, Late Night Love, which was filmed in various locations across the city, including at HOME. The films will be released weekly across Eggs Collective's YouTube and Facebook channels from Thu 19 September.

https://homemcr.org/event/orbit-festival-2019/

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