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Absurdity
Desperate Men’s early work played with absurdity, surrealism and all manner of physical preposterousness.
Audiences
Desperate Men are adept at welcoming the audience in to shows and animations and inviting them to play, as this clip from Builth Wells Hobby Fair demonstrates.
Animals
Audiences can include animals.
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Background
Jon and Richie discuss the background and origins of the Pipe People on these early videos.
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Creating characters
War (Jo Kessell) from The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
Pestilence (Vic Llewellyn) from The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
Famine (Jo Smith) from The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
Death (Richard Headon) from The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
Costume
Creating costumes for The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
BBC Inside Out follows Battle for the Winds costume designer Sarah Dicks
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Directing
Richie Smith discusses the skills involved in directing Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
Disturbing
Some of our work addresses serious issues – Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse aimed to leave audiences feeling unsettled.
Desperanto
We invented our own polyglot comedic language, Desperanto, for The Fountain.
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Eggs
Eggs played a significant role in Desperate Men’s early work.
Engaging with audiences and communities
Engagement and participation play a huge role in our work, whether we’re drawing audiences into a story or engaging the communities who take part in large-scale pieces like the Severn Project or Battle for the Winds.
Engaging audiences with The Severn Project
Engaging the community with The Severn Project
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The Ghastly Family
Gatherings
The lead-up to Battle for the Winds saw Wind Gatherers collecting wind across the South West.
Generations
Here is the official film of the 2022 Generations project featuring the full show from the last day of the tour at Greenwich & Docklands International Festival.
Ghosts – Something Rotten
Desperate Men return to Helsingør to investigate reported otherworldly psychic paranormal phantasmagoria.
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History and Heritage
We are particularly skilled at bringing history and heritage to life, whether by animating historical characters or creating work that responds to and illuminates local landscapes, industries and communities.
History and Heritage in The Severn Project
Heroes
Our heroes come in all shapes, sizes and species, from the Bear in the Miracle Show to the valiant River Inspectors (and indeed the Sturgeon) in the Severn Project.
The Breathers – Battle for the Winds. Breathe Company, formed of 64 disabled and non-disabled artists, represented the crucial South West Wind in Battle for the Winds, and their breath helped defeat stone – hearted Doldrum. This documentary, produced by Colourburn, charts Breathe Company’s journey to Weymouth.
Bruno – The Miracle Show
The River Inspectors
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Improvisation
The ability to improvise is essential when you’re working outdoors with a live audience.
Musical improvisation at Builth Wells.
… and here’s the video for the original song:
Impossible ideas
We like to make impossible ideas possible.
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Landscape
As outdoor artists, we have to be able to respond to and work with the landscape – whether it’s urban, rural, on land or aquatic.
There’s nothing artistic about the humble urban bin – until you climb into one carrying a torch and wheel it through the streets of Valladolid in Spain.
Landscape in the Severn Project
Lada
For years the Lada was a faithful standby for Desperate Men shows, until it was blown up live on TV by Richard Hammond.
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Music
We incorporate music into our work wherever possible – choral, instrumental, orchestral, folk, classical, jazz, banjos, ukuleles, euphoniums, pianos, strings, a capella – and many Desperate Men shows feature original soundtracks by our musical director Shirley Pegna.
Desperate Men’s musical director Shirley Pegna discusses the music from the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
Music from The Lighthouse
Music from The Fountain
Early work – Hair
Marshmallows
Marshmallows form an unusual instrument of torture in this clip from In The Arms of an Angel.
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Our Lady of the Bears
Our Lady of the Bears was the miraculous, milk-spurting saint of The Miracle Show.
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Propaganda – early work
Play
Jon discusses the importance of play at Footsbarn Theatre’s 25th anniversary bash.
We also tried playing around with video in our early days (Fish Song).
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Questioning
We like to question aspects of life that people take for granted or never usually think about. In the Miracle Show, which followed a family of refugees, we asked audiences for their identity cards before they could enter and performed random checks on them.
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Royal Marines
The Royal Marines supported Battle for the Winds, providing the most spectacular entrance for Doldrum.
Re-interpretation
Portugal’s Teatro Del Mar put together their own production of The Fountain, complete with a Portugese-influenced version of Desperanto.
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Sensational
Sensational ending to The Severn Project 2007
Science
CSI Clowns, Everything Gets Eaten and Darwin and the Dodo are all science-based shows.
Darwin and the Dodo at Lyme Regis Fossil Festival
CSI Clowns
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Tragedy
Tragedy in The Fountain
Tragedy in The Lighthouse
Torch Waders
Battle for the Winds ended with the awesome, primal sight of 2012 volunteers wading into the sea with torches. This video shows the first tryouts for the torch wading.
This BBC footage gives some idea of the scale of the final Torch Wade on July 28.
Testimonials
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Unexpected
Part of the joy in creating shows and animations is in unleashing the unexpected onto audiences. Life is always improved by the sudden introduction of an exploding tomato or a bunch of pipe-worshipping eccentrics into a quiet afternoon.
Exploding tomato
Becoming a mermaid (The Lighthouse)
Pipe People at Builth Wells Hobby Fair
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Villains
We’ve had some great villains in Desperate Men shows over the years. Here’s The Mayor being dastardly in The Miracle Show.
Doldrum emerges at Lyme Regis Fossil Festival
The Sturgeon Hunters from the Severn Project
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Working together
Putting together large-scale shows like The Severn Project and Battle for the Winds requires bringing many different partners and agencies, from local authorities to community groups, to the same table. This can be of great benefit to all these stakeholders, creating links between local, regional and national groups who might otherwise never interact. We are experienced in facilitating these link-ups and helping people work together.
Working together / collaboration – The Severn Project
The Wye Valley River Festival
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Xtreme!
Rick Dick and Vic – Extreme! – Towel dance
Rick Dick and Vic – Extreme! – Jane Fonda – inspired routine. Check out the dance-off at 2 mins 15.
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Why do we do it? For the beer and the mermaids! And because we love performing, creating shows, inviting audiences to play, as these clips from the Festival of Desperation show.
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Zephyrs
Aeolus calls the winds to gather for Battle for the Winds
Geoff Dunlop’s beautiful Windscapes videos, inspired by Alice Oswalds’ Conversations with the Wind poems which we commissioned for Battle for the Winds
