Preston venue The Ferret is this month hosting a comedy theatre show through the eyes of a bearded lady.
The unique and mischievous comedy performance ‘The Adventures of The Bearded Lady’ centres around gender and is coming to Preston for a one-off performance on Thursday 28 October.
The Adventures of The Bearded Lady had a successful run at Edinburgh Fringe, Brighton Fringe and toured the Perth Fringe festival in Australia.
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Artist Theodora van der Beek makes live performances and short films challenging the gender binary and explores the mechanics of power and privilege.
The show has been described as both hilarious and thought-provoking, examining gender expectations through performance and comedy.
It follows various five-star rated contemporary performances, which have come to Preston in recent years. They include Fck You Pay Me by Joana Nastari, Oh Yes, Oh No by Louise Orwin, Catch 22 Years by Katie O’Brien, Women Who W*nk by Joanne Tremarco, Skank by Clementine Bogg-Hargroves and Welcome to Paradise by Ship of Fools.
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Performed by Theodora van der Beek, the show is a coming-of-age fairytale about The Bearded Lady, who runs away from the circus and embarks on a voyage transcending time, space and sex.
The show follows The Bearded Lady’s struggles to understand the societal limits on her gender and her eventual self-acceptance as a woman.
With references to several famous Leonardos, from da Vinci to DiCaprio, the show is a gender-bending journey in a world that asks people to hide or change who they are.
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The show was first performed at Camden People’s Theatre in 2018 and went on to Dumfries Big Burns Supper, Brighton Fringe and a run at the Edinburgh Fringe, programmed by acclaimed venue programmer Gilded Balloon.
In January 2020, headhunted by producer Chris Dodd, The Bearded Lady travelled halfway across the world for Perth Fringe, performing in four venues, including her first circus tent.
Artist Van der Beek uses a mix of art forms, pop references and wild outlandish characters to tell fantastical stories that invite the audience to laugh and then recoil in horror as they see themselves reflected. Mischievous, joyful and messy, her work delights in the bleakness of the human condition.
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Van der Beek creates different worlds in which strange things seem normal and vice versa so that the audience must look at this world with fresh eyes.
Supported by Arts Council England, van der Beek’s five solo shows, My Death, Egg, The Adventures of the Bearded Lady, Drink Your Pink and Ram of God, have been programmed at global fringes and theatres.
The Ferret gig follows sell-out shows by poet Tony Walsh and Annabel York, who performed The Indecent Musings of Miss Doncaster 2007.
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The Preston show has been organised by Garry Cook, whose Enjoy The Show events organisation has brought some of the world’s best contemporary performers to the city, including Mike Garry, Hollie McNish, Katie O’Brien and Joanne Tremarco.
For tickets, visit – https://www.skiddle.com/whats-on/Preston/The-Ferret/The-Adventures-of-the-Bearded-Lady
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Will you be attending the show? Let us know in the comments below