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The power’s gone. The speakers are dead. You blew a fuse. The moon is full. Candle light and batteries. You live alone. With friends. Kitchen camp-fire. I just want to sit here by the window. It’s the whole block, blackout. Silent night, holy night. The city is a constellation. It’s a sleeping monster. I don’t want the lights to ever come back. I like it like this.

National Art Service (a fictional organisation) bring you an opportunity to stand down, find your pulse and hear yourself breathing. The latest experimental, atmospheric dramatic work from the internationally acclaimed arts company, taking place entirely in the dark.

Written and Directed by Alan Fielden
Performers: Alan Fielden, Neil Keating, Louise Kemeny, Chris Lynch, Sean McKenna, Kumiko Toda, Madaleine Trigg.

"Unlock the secrets of this well-loved story in an enchanting total theatre experience. Unearth the light within the darkness as you wind your way through the corridors of Misselthwaite Manor... "

Written & Co-Directed by Alan Fielden

The Reactivity Season, Tristan Bates Theatre, 4th-23rd of January


"Listen.


This is the sound of an audience waiting for a play to start."


Silence is golden, yet silence is free, and in endless supply. 'In The Dark' is the last step you can take with your eyes closed. Use your imagination.



A spoken word piece for black, soundless spaces.


Written, devised and performend by Alan Fielden

Scratchwerk, The Accidental Festival 2008, ICA

From the website:
"Scratchwerk' is an evening which aims to showcase and develop raw and unsolicited work from some of the most exciting and fresh new emerging theatre talent."

From James Grogan of the Observatory:

"The Skratchwerk platform of staged readings of new writing and recently devised work has been one of the highlights of The Accidental Festival so far this year. The sheer variety of work on show was perhaps the most impressive element. Everything from a staged scene from a film set in Somerset, to a movement piece about the joy in a well constructed sandwich was there for viewing..."

On 'Milieu':
"Perhaps the most literary of the works we heard all night, Alan Fielden's text was a study in considered storytelling. Three characters find themselves on a balcony while the social cogs turn inside, backed into a corner alone, perhaps none of them feel as though they belong elsewhere. Not connected by class, occupation or interests, these three storytellers are brought together by self-deselection from the social world elsewhere. In the hands of actors and a director who really understand Fielden's words, this work would soar above all others. As with many of the pieces seen in this exceptional night of performances, the script on display here bodes well for the reinvigoration and continuing diversity in theatre today."

'Milieu' written by Alan Fielden
Performed by Dan Cecil, Rose Lewenstein, Rory Mannion, Sean McKenna

"All kinds of performers come together for an evening of exploration into nothingness in art, music and literature at the Louise T Blouin Institute in London.

Visitors will be able to freely move around a series of aural, visual and participatory events, ranging from string quartets and performance artists to sound installations, film viewings and poets and artists creating live works.

The audience and performers will be exploring others' ideas, writings and thoughts on nothingness and attempting to present 'nothing' in its many forms. This happening is a demonstration of nothing and nothingness where the audience will be able to experience and assimilate the presented ideas and find their own meanings whilst constantly being challenged to consider this complex subject."

n&n composition 1

Facilitated and Co-Ordinated by Matthew Knowles

From the programme:

"Weaving incongruent artistic expressions, LDR have rendered, in sfumato, a patch-work narrative of experiences of the city. Through stories in opera, dance, music and narrative sfumato depicts a composite image of human relationships. 
In intimate proximity with the performance, the audience will discover characters in search of a common language. Premiered here at the Victoria & Albert Museum, sfumato, with its emphasis on scenography and collaboration, finds a perfect home at the Friday Late Collaborate."

Sfumato Programme.doc


Collaboratively devised by LDR (Alan Fielden, Neil Keating, Dan Marsden, Sean McKenna)
Performed by Alan Fielden, Neil Keating, Louise Kemey, Sean McKenna

From Press Release:
"A new festival of arts celebrating a variety of art forms and artists from established companies to undiscovered talents."


Featuring: Performance and workshop led by New York-based performer Beth Kurkjian; puppetry, digital media and live performance from Tessellate Theatre, round table discussion: Can Verbatim and Political Theatre Change the World? hosted by Toby Young and much more."

Current Accidental Festival website.


Artistic Director of Accidental Festival 2007 - Alan Fielden

From Sean McKenna/Press Release:

"Blind" speaks with lucidity and tenderness about the way our lives collide and how we form each other. This new production sees Son et Lumiere introduce their design-centric aesthetic to explore the text in a more open format: discovering in it some of the ideas buried deep beneath its sparse surface.

"'Blind' occurs in a place away from our knowledge. Here, three people encounter each other in the darkness, reaching toward something they cannot find. They can only touch the web-work of their irrationally but inextricably enmeshed lives. Amid the maelstrom of confused perception, dreams, violence and control there is a strangely beautiful oblivion."




Written by Alan Fielden
Produced & Directed - Son et Lumiere/Dan Marsden
Costume Design - Sarah Floyd
Dramaturgy - Sean McKenna
Lighting Design - Jack Knowles
Movement Direction - Siret Paju
Sound Design - Donato Wharton
Performers - Daniel Cecil, Alan Fielden, Louise Kemey, Madaleine Trigg

"Verdict - You don't really need 1 from me. What does 1 buy you? A lottery ticket or 4 and a half minutes of this. What can you do in 4.5 minutes? Run a mile or watch this. Only one of those options is likely to make you smile and not leave you desperately short of breath.

Clocking-in at half a watch face under the 5 minute mark, this short piece involves Sitting-Chap (Alan Fielden) & Standing-Chap (Sean Mckenna). Despite the appropriated character names, it's not a show about the repression of the Native American Indian by various Paleface's, but rather the horsiest of Hors Derv containing some surreal humour/observations - perfect fringe fair. Both performers are students of Central School of Speech & Drama, but don't let that put you off.

For that reason it won't appeal to all 'n' sundry (well not in totality) - but it did make me smile a few times and as far as my stone skips, that's job done. Tempt you? Well there's a singing muskrat (which you get to hear) and Freddy Kruger's passing is mourned. Oh and someone/something called Pedro gets told to French Connection Off a few times.

The piece was penned by Sitting-Chap and on a couple of occasions he did indeed speak with a forked tongue as the odd word was lost in mumbling or possibly too soft a voice (when competing with the sound track).

As we are (reliably) informed, "You can't say a lot in 4.5 minutes." True, but half a dozen laughs in that time for the cost of hiring a shopping trolley ain't bad.

Freddie Star ate my Muskrat any1?"

The Buxton Fringe Festival Review.

Written by Alan Fielden
Performed by Alan Fielden, Sean McKenna, Louise Kemeny

"The first few lines of dialogue (by a young blind man) whilst setting a serious tone for this thought provoking production do nothing to suggest the intensity of exactly what follows later in the piece. The theme is prejudice or "belief systems" - disability, colour, mental illness, race are all randomly thrown into the ring via a series of brief monologues by the excellent cast of three with occasional physical interaction during the speeches.

Things start out fairly hunky dory 'twixt the blind man and his lover who appear to be a 'model' couple - despite the exposure of certain fault lines. It is their subsequent rupturing that take the audience by surprise, especially the severity and swiftness.

To render you with any plot detail regarding the third cast member would spoil the piece's "Carrie Ending" moment - suffice to say that both appearances by this individual are truly memorable, the second painfully so. The stark stage setting and minimalist lighting combined with a slightly un-nerving soundtrack heighten the sombre atmosphere which sees things deteriorate irreversibly. There is some unevenness in the initial dialogue in terms of dramatic effect, though this is down to the inevitable need to scene set; however once the blue touch paper is lit...
The power of the piece lies in the fact that every person in the audience would empathise with some of the points made...some may indeed may have been a victim themselves, sad but true. Eye-Opening, recomended."

The Buxton Fringe Festival Review.

Written by Alan Fielden
Performed by Alan Fielden, Louise Kemeny, Sean McKenna