Fuel Festival - OPENING TOMORROW!

Congratulations to the lucky winner of the festival show pack. Gary and Susan have scored a double pass to every festival show including the stunning performance of The Butler. We'll be in contact soon!
 

The Butler – Sexy, Stunning and Satirical
 

Lyttelton on a cold winter’s day – the kind of place where you wrap your scarf tight and hunker down to keep out the chill wind. It’s hard to imagine it being the home of scantily-clad acrobats and one of the sexiest shows on stage in New Zealand!

Best known as a port town outside Christchurch where houses climb the hills and signs point to walking tracks. Markers highlight points of interest where first settlers arrived and I can’t help thinking it was lucky they arrived in December and didn’t know what winter here would be like!

Almost incongruous in amongst the cafes and second-hand shops is the vibrant home of The Loons where clippings and posters on the walls point to the success of The Butler. There’s a performance tonight, but tickets are already sold out.

Hamilton is the next stop on the tour for this sexy and visually stunning show, before The Loons take The Butler to London for a season at one of the city’s leading fringe theatres, The Pleasance.

The Butler started life as a small-scale work combining circus with theatre after director Mike Friend was asked to direct the end of year showcase for Christchurch’s CircoArts, but Mike realised it could become something more and together with friend and writer Joe Bennett, he worked it scene by scene into a larger scale production.

In a recent feature in Christchurch’s The Press, Joe Bennett talks about how The Butler became the cult hit it is today.

“We’d take the dogs out for a walk after dark each night and together work out what an individual scene meant. I’d scribble down small pieces of dialogue which Mike would take in the following day,” says Joe. “The work was still embryonic when it opened, but people seemed to love it. It is such a high energy work, but at the same time it contains considerable satirical grunt. “It’s dark, but it’s not good comedy unless there is darkness beneath. If you don’t see the world as a tragic-comedy then you’re blind.”

Joe describes the work as a satire... “a play performed by circus performers ... something which is not just froth and bubble.”

Its pivotal figure is the butler. “There’s a lovely juxtaposition at play. He’s all solemnity. He’s put upon, shat upon, by these brittle, shallow and ultimately vulnerable dinner guests. He’s obliged to play the role of servant but ultimately he manipulates them all.”

The Butler has its final New Zealand performances at the Fuel Festival of New Zealand Theatre this Thursday and Friday nights. Writer Joe Bennett also has a new play at Fuel Festival – Stuck Up The Alley has one performance only on Saturday 26 June. Don’t miss these two gems!
 

Fire up your winter and get your tickets for Fuel Festival 2010 now. Book at Ticketek outlets or by phoning 0800 TICKETEK (842 538) or at www.ticketek.co.nz

For full details of the programme, visit www.fuelfest.co.nz