Norfolk and Norwich Festival The Chipolata's!

Chipolata's


1. 2. 3. Jasper Juggling sketch at the Theatre Royal Norwich. Drawn in the back row in the dark. Sketched with feeling and expression. 3B pencil. 39 years of practice drawing. In 1986 Dick Condon who ran the Theatre Royal when I was at City College, let me, Holly and Becky draw from the Audience the shows and the inside of the theatre for 3 weeks solid. This is where drawing shows all began for me and here I am reunited with my starting out point in life and this time with the performance group who gave me my first costume job in Bradford 1994 on stage and here I am drawing them. At City college Brenda and Mike taught us to also draw blind folded and wonder around the college blind folded.

Magic! Sketch of Chipolatas at the Theatre Royal Norwich.

Timing is everything! Chipolatas sketch Theatre Royal Norwich.

Oh Nose! Chipolatas Sketch Theatre Royal Norwich of Jasper.

Bloomin Heck! Sketch of Chipolatas Norwich Theatre Royal.

A festival is about joy and to take time out from are ritualistic lives, stuck in the domestication of our mundane habitual numb self reliant reality that is put upon us by the system.

At some point in a narrow minded general system, steam needs to be let off. Thanks to a handful of nice people in the UK that devote there time to organizing festivals for everyone to enjoy, local or visiting we can have an opportunity in the system, to let off steam and have some fun. General happiness is a good cure for a happy life is my motto. If everyone is happy I am happy.

One group of people that came together thanks to Norwich festival was the Chipolatas and was I pleased to see them. The chips had found me all over the world and cheered me up in previous decades and if it hadn't been for the chipolatas I wouldn't be where I am today.

Bradford Festival 1994, was the first time they got me out of strife. I was up to my eyeballs managing the Java continental cafe, it was long hours and very much 24/7. The only vegetarian restaurant in the north of the UK, so it had ques all the way to London and back. I was thrown a job one night, By Linda and Joe The Elderly Blind Date Show, sets and costumes. Crikey. When do I make all this. Instantly I took up juggling, from making coffees, cooking, doing the till, to making costumes on the 20 metre long vegan cakes counter and managing the festival cafe with 10 metre wide queue and so thick I never saw the end. 

When the costumes were needed I took them back stage to Sam and Chips and they wore them on stage and the local press gotta a cute picture of the winning blind date contestants with Sam hosting as Cupid. Down under and beyond I was walking down the main drag In Sydney I bump into the chipolatas, who jumped off a moving bus, upon spotting me on the pavement. We hung out on the roof top of the old weetabix factory in Chippendale and saw a whole view of the moon and Sydney where I lived with Sydney artists and performers. Then I am up at Woodford festival in far north Queensland building a giant whale tent and see them again. They all stayed with me when I moved to an old bullet and lucky charm factory near the harbour. The place was so big with giant corrugated doors and enormous sewing room and giant group workshop space and a shop front that I renamed with Phil Free the poet who helped me take the sign down and painted and my shower in the nude for a free feed, wine and some poetry.

The sign became polluted planet and had all sorts of rubbish stuck to it. The kitchen was in a stone cave that was underneath the shop. I had no shelves so everything was kept on the floor. The place was a hive of activity, Stephen juicing fruit in the kitchen, me sewing, the trapeze swinging, Esmeralda making things, Burkurr being a chicken, music being played and huge party's and circus's stopping over while they were performing in town and cousins staying and were cooking in top restaurants.

The Chipolatas blended in so well at the warehouse I didn't even notice they were there, plus they were out doing shows in Sydney. Wow! So they played in Norwich to for the Norfolk and Norwich Festival. I got in contact with the chips via there website and I organised a wee gathering of a barbie in my back garden.

I took a group of friends along to see there show at the Theatre Royal and I was really happy to see my friends joining in with the show and having a whale of a time. The chipolatas show was top class, down to earth. There comedy, music, performance can be matched with all the greats but better. Chipolatas is a trio group that have been together for 17 years, hopping round the world. For Norwich they put on a special show with 3 extra performers.

Tune in tomorrow for photos of the chipolatas having fun in Norwich.