Hold on to your mullet because the Bon Jovi jukebox musical is here. Except, it's up to the audience to imagine it all, with the help of just one man: theatre maker Paul O'Donnell.
Modern jukebox musicals usually involve a multi-talented cast, an orchestra, opulent sets, decadent costumes, extravagant routines, dramatic key changes and the odd hydraulic lift or two. We've Got Each Other has none of these things (they cost lots of money), but Paul will still try to create an all-singing, all-dancing spectacle simply using the power of imagination.
Through entertaining descriptions of the show as it unfolds, and 180+ lighting cues, Paul - making his Edinburgh Fringe Festival debut - will invite the audience to 'fill in the gaps', imagining the breath-taking and tragic love story of Tommy and Gina. Expect glitter balls, high camp and one incredibly catchy 80's tune. This feel good show celebrates the community that is formed when artist and audience meet, and the extraordinary things that we can achieve when we come together, if we just... believe.
We've Got Each Other won the BE Festival Early Ideas Award 2017 and China Plate's First Bite Commission 2017. It toured to eight venues, including Camden People's Theatre, in autumn 2017 and early 2018 and is set to tour through Spring 2019.
Paul says, "I have always admired the musical theatre genre; swept away by the spectacle of it all, the extravagance of it all, and the audience's ability to completely lose themselves in the fiction of it, if only for an hour or two. There is something rather magical about spending two hours in a room lost in the most fantastical large scale musical, and I was curious to see if I could capture this experience in my own small scale work."
Paul O'Donnell is a theatre maker and producer, based in Coventry. His work aims to expose the 'ordinary' in a 'spectacular' fashion. Paul's work to date includes an all singing all dancing harem of 'Pauls' exploring our human need to feel like a 'something' (Nothing!), one very 'real' cowboy in a very 'real' saloon (So Far West), and a mime artist who is trying to break free of his glass box (One Thing On His Mime). Paul has worked with Arcola Theatre's Over 50's Community group and Belgrade Theatre's community and education department. He is Associate Artist at Birmingham Repertory Theatre and Theatre Absolute. He also co-founded and produces Shoot Festival, a platform supporting up and coming artists in Coventry and Warwickshire.
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