Ahhh. Well, that was tasty. We did our first proper run through today. Spaghetti headphones, tape noodles, salt and letter… we made a pretty cool meal (thanks Chef!)
We can’t show you any photos yet, because that would probably ruin the illusion before tomorrow, but how about a little insight into the Backbone Bistro facts:
Backbone Bistro is an interactive performance experimenting with diverse ways of storytelling. Six people at a time are invited to join us for dinner and experience our freshly made menu. It is nowhere near a final result. It is more like a trial, a teaser, a taster if you wish.
DISCLAIMER: If you are planning to see the show, have actual food before you come. We do not serve food, but stories. And we don’t want you to get cranky or disappointed because you didn’t get what you were expecting!
The menu consists of a series of stories that we have sourced from our friends. The topic that we decided to discuss was “inspirational heroes”. We asked them to tell a story about them and we even interviewed a hero of Andrea’s – Martyn Sibley. On top of this, we also wanted to do our own rendition to the storytelling concept, so we introduced an extract from Beckett’s Endgame as the starter. To us it is important to honor the great storytellers that came before us!
So, now the task was to set up an environment in which these stories could be told. We’re sure you can already tell that we love the concept behind cuppa tea conversations and this is where the idea of a restaurant came from. Natalie suggested “have a cup of tea with your hero” and from then onwards, we were on a mission to make people feel comfy and then began a Bistro! Why Bistro? Not sure if it’s the European thing or the fact that we love the letter B -BackBone, Bush, Bounce, Beckett…-
Anyway. The show runs for 15min and takes place inside the wonderful Bush Theatre library (fitting, huh?). Before choosing from our menu of stories, you are asked to pay for your bill in advance; we are running low on ingredients lately – since people don’t share that many stories any more – and sometimes we need a little kick starter.
After that, your are served a three course meal, each composed of a story. Basic, we know. Simple, we know. Easy, IT IS NOT.
The thingy about short, interactive performance is that everything has to be planned to the millimeter so as to be able to fit the wonderful fun that it is improvisation. We are also dealing with technology and this can sometimes be as tricky as it is powerful. Today for example, we had one mp3 player device that after finishing the story began to play the next one. Cheeky! They didn’t pay for two mains!!!
But it was simply wonderful for us to have six beautiful, talented people coming to see it. They all sat down with us afterwards to give us some incredibly constructive feedback and for that we THANK YOU. So now we are in the process of tightening things up so that it is as wonderful as it can possibly be for the next batch of customers coming. We cannot wait to meet you!
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Oh go on! Just an old photo then…
See you at the Bistro!
BACKBONE THEATRE AND FILM 