My favorite ladies in the W.I. The Dalston Darlings invited me to host their event at the Land of Kings. Land of Kings is Dalston’s music, film, comedy and performance festival that truly highlights how diverse and creative Dalston is. Taking over many of Dalston’s incredible venue’s including The Curve Garden that the Darlings decked out, making it a party fit for any King. Carrying on our royal theme we decided to run a May Day Queen of Dalston competition which was compered and hosted her Royal Highness Queen Elizabeth II (aka me in a dress and granny wig). Local club promotors, trannies and resident Queen’s of Dalston Sink the Pink were on hand to dress up our lovely contestants and help encourage the sunshine to come out and play. A lovely day with great food, great cocktails and some very funny guys in dresses. A right royal rave up!

I met with Stewart Charlesworth and Luke Freddicks from Morphic Graffiti and they explained their vision for the production, the dark content and their plans to have multimedia imagery throughout the performance. I had to create a video that reflected their bold tendencies. A contemporary ident that dealt with the dark subject matter and establish the performences’ identity. The key elements I wanted to explore were transformation, obsession and the haunting of London.

Storyboard 

I started with a Mood Board then moved on to Storyboarding. Luckily we were all on the same page and Morphic Graffiti were excited about my ideas. Here’s a few examples of the work that went into the storyboard. Everything from concept, lighting, shots and camera angles, narrative and reasoning behind it are outlined clearly for cast and crew. 

The Concept

Jekyll struggles, a man possessed, plagued by the demonic voice and the impulses of his alter-ego. We look at his obsession for Lucy, driven by primal urges of lust and rage. He is beast like, no longer human. We reference the landmarks of the musical, his father’s watch, the telephone he uses to murder the Bishop and see him transform into Hyde. A predator. Ever present and lurking in the shadows unnoticed. I play on the fears we have today. The fear we carry when we walk home late at night. Hyde feeds on these fears. He leaves Lucy his calling card, a symbol of death that signifies he is not through with her yet, but her fate is still undetermined because our production has not yet started.

I scouted for locations in London that Hyde may possibly use to pray on his victims. Getting inside the mind of a killer like this I soon realised that no where was safe. We filmed Jekyll transformation into Hyde in a flat. A great shoot where I got to have lots of fun with fake blood and black out the windows with plastic bags. God knows what the neighbours thought was happening. I was lucky to get Leon Lopez of Brown Boy Productions on camera and we managed to achieve all our locations in one day of filming. Joining us on the day was our Lucy played by Louise Olley who was a pleasure to direct. Helping me and Leon with the final edit and creating our sound scape of demonic noises was Ben Walden. I hope you like it. Here’s the final product. 

To read more about the behind the scenes making of Morphic Graffiti’s Jekyll and Hyde visit their blog. 

To find out more about Bearded Kitten, who the hell they are and what on earth they do just ask. But if you’re shy, you can visit their website instead. 

Yes it was that magic time of year, a day when daffodils dance, when hot cross bunnies mate like rabbits and when we stand at the top of Primrose Hill and scream EGG!!!! untill we are yellow in the face. It was Lost & Found’s 7th year of Egg Roll and this year we really EGGhausted all the egg puns with our theme of Rock & Egg Roll. I was (as always) the funny guy on the megaphone organising and hosting all the EGGciting events on the day, this year dressed as EGGy Pop. I had my beautiful co- host EGGberta from NorwEGG and we whisked and separated our eggs for our games on the hill. First up was ‘The Best Dressed Egg’ compettion and this year our contestants took it to a new level so EGGtreme it gave me a nose bleed to look up at their efforts. Our winner was the Damien Hirst inspired ‘The physEGGl impossiblity of an omlette in the mind of a chicken’ which scambled many a hungover brain and and smashed the competition of the ‘EGGorist’, ‘EGGzepline’, ‘The EGGs-Factor’ and ‘Britain’s Got Lent’. It was all jugded fairly and each year we ask a random passer by to walk by and rate our EGGtempts. This year we were fortunate to find a man with a head shaped like an egg andstrangley he was called Ouef. Next it was time to roll starting with the little ones in the kids race which we affectionately call the ‘The Mini Egg’. Then it’s the chance for the adults to stampede down the hill, most of them dropping their eggs and with that ruining their chances of victory. We moved on to ‘The Three LEGGegged Spoon Race’ and this year we had a new record as some wallies attempted to do a four legged. They failed but did it with style. Last up was the incrEGGible battle bewteen Man vs EGG or Russian RoEGGlette. The idea is simple, boils some eggs and leave a few soft. Man then headbutts the egg to see weither he can destory it or if his hopes will be scrabbled and he will be left with Egg on his face. Many came, some conquerored but Egg had the final say. All that’s left for me to say is, “Who left the homeless guy incharge of the wet wipes”. No yoking about! For more news on Lost & Found and our silliness why not join the facebook groups. Pics by Jim Hanner.

So we did it. We threw an epic party of International proportions that took over 2,300 revelers ‘Around the World’ and finally crash landed in fun town. It took two full days to build, incorporated walk-about theatre performance, interactive games, a marching band, amazing DJ’s and was host to lots of very funny people that poured their heart and soul into creating this monster event. Bearded Kitten truly showed everyone why they are the UK Festival Award winners.

Myself and the BK production crew built an Airport backdrop in London’s Pulse Night Club complete with Departure Lounge, Duty Free, Bureau de Change, Mile High Club, Security Check Points and Interrogation Room. I compèred the Lost Luggage Lounge with the comedy duo Robin and Partridge where we played all manner of holiday themed games and took over the main stage for some inflight entertainment that put a smile on even the most well discerning passenger. I was Bernice, a 65 year pre-op transexual that worked in the baggage claim because I was too ugly to get on a plane, but Bernice still had big dreams and hoped one day she would join the beautiful people in the Mile High. Bernice mostly caused havoc giving out pants as prizes and swapping them for people’s virginity.

Thanks to all that came down to play with us. It was mega. Keep your eye out for Bearded Kitten at UK music festivals this summer, who knows Bernice my be there as well.

Photos by Jim Hanner