The Post Show Party Show

Tour Dates

2011-07-15T14:30:00.000-07:00

Friday 14 October 2011 7.30pm
Lincoln Performing Arts Centre
www.lpac.co.uk

Thursday 1 September 2011 7.30pm
Hull Truck Theatre
www.hulltruck.co.uk

Friday 8 July - Sunday 10 July 2011 7.45pm
Southbank Centre, London
www.southbankcentre.co.uk

Friday 1 April 2011 8pm
The Carriageworks, Leeds
www.carriageworkstheatre.org.uk

Tuesday 30 November 2010 8pm
Lincoln Drill Hall
www.lincolndrillhall.com

Thursday 11 November 2010 8.30pm
mac, Birmingham
www.macarts.co.uk

Friday 1 October 2010 8pm
Lakeside Arts Centre, Nottingham
www.lakesidearts.org.uk

Thursday 4 & Friday 5 March 2010 8pm
SPRINT Festival, Camden People's Theatre, London
www.cptheatre.co.uk

Friday 26 February 2010 8pm
The Junction, Cambridge
www.junction.co.uk

Wednesday 17 February 2010 2pm
The Playroom, Nottingham Playhouse
www.nottinghamplayhouse.co.uk

Wednesday 3 February 2010 7.30pm
University of Chester
www.chester.ac.uk

Thursday 3 December 2009 7.30pm
The Basement, Brighton
www.thebasement.uk.com

Friday 20 November 2009 8pm
Double bill with Kings of England
greenroom, Manchester
www.greenroomarts.org

Monday 9 November 2009 8pm
Double bill with Kings of England
Nuffield Theatre, Lancaster
www.nuffieldtheatre.com

Friday 30 October 2009 7.30pm
Arnolfini, Bristol
www.arnolfini.org.uk

Thursday 8 October 2009 8pm
Colchester Arts Centre
www.colchesterartscentre.com

Monday 24 August – Saturday 29 August 2009 12pm (Midday)
Theatre Workshop Scotland, Edinburgh
www.theatre-workshop.com

Saturday 18 July 2009 8pm
Déda, Derby
www.deda.uk.com

Tuesday 26 / Wednesday 27 May 2009 7.30pm
BURST Festival, Battersea Arts Centre, London
www.bac.org.uk

Thursday 12 February 2009 1.30pm / 7.30pm
The Point, Eastleigh
www.thepoint-online.co.uk

Tuesday 24 February 2009 7.30pm
Alsager Arts Centre
www.alsagerartscentre.org.uk

Friday 5 December 2008 7.30pm
Saturday 6 December 2008 7.30pm
Theater Frascati, Amsterdam
www.frascati.nl

Thursday 23 October 2008 7.30 pm
Leeds Met Studio Theatre
www.leedsmet.ac.uk/arts

London Literature Festival - Review

2011-07-15T08:42:00.000-07:00

It was not the hills but the Spirit Level that was alive with the sound of music during an entertaining performance of The Post Show Party Show by turns hilarious and poignant, in which award-winning writer and performance artist Michael Pinchbeck, with his mother and father, recreates the post-show party at which his parents met after an amateur dramatic production of The Sound of Music. This performance is complete with its own unique interpretations of that classic soundtrack which filled the childhoods of so many.

“We are renacting this for the first time tonight”, said the father, “We have reanacted it before but not in this way”, and indeed the performance wonderfully brought out the sense intrinsic in theatre – in contrast to film – that each show is a unique performance. ”I have confidence in confidence itself”, say the duo, and this is indeed a confident performance. With only three actors, the intimacy of theatre is used to atmospheric effect as the blood-red lighting creates the sense of a reality bathed in the hues of memory.

There’s a sense that the “post” in the title also refers to the post-modern techniques used to great effect in the show, including the awareness of audience, who are brought in through direct questions to us: “Would you like to see us recreate the postshow party without words?” and “Are you thinking?”. They stop to reflect upon the progression of the narrative, pausing halfway to consider what has been and what is still to come whilst towards the end it is commented: “we are standing in the wings of the story”.

As the show races through scenes and songs interpreted from the Sound of Music, particularly powerful ones are ‘scene 8, ‘Climb Every Mountain’. “Follow every rainbow until you find your dream”, sees father racing around son as he clutches his guitar. A synopsis of “The Sound of Music” details the novice young nun Maria arriving at her new employer’s to find tension between the children desperate for their father’s love and attention.

The actors make comically effective good use of the available props: “Climb every mountain”, for example, sees chairs stacked three high which the son climbs, chairs which are then dismantled and used in a counting game to “do ray me fah”.

“This is a map of the present on the stage of the past” says the son, whose mother Vivienne (Michael’s mother and Tony’s wife) has a cameo speaking part. There is a gentle nostalgia brought out in the lyrics they select to to sing: ‘somewhere in my youth or childhood I must have done something good”.

In the final act, “So long, farewell”, the intimacy of the show is brought out brilliantly as many of the audience members get a personalized farewell. The lights dim to leave a single spotlight illuminating a guitar, emphasizing the profound effect music has on memory, music which lingers pleasantly long after this performance is over.

Anita Sethi, London Literature Festival blog

Creative Nottingham - Review

2010-11-15T06:33:00.000-08:00

Yesterday at the Midlands Arts Centre (MAC) in Birmingham, who amazingly have already hit 500,000 visitors in six months since reopening, I experienced Michael Pinchbeck’s Post Show After Party a playful interactive show where Pinchbeck performs with his parents, jumping backwards and forward in time drawing on a real life situation from 1970. The real life scenario is a post show party where his Dad met his Mum after an amateur performance of the Sound of Music. It’s cleverly delivered and picks up on the new wave of audience expectation. Today audiences increasingly want to be more than being a spectator. There is a growing shift in roles and identity. Choice, distraction and purpose is blurring and growing. Audiences are shifting to becoming producers of their own work, inspired perhaps through the democratising of society through the internet, technology and UK’s vibrant arts and cultural scene. Pinchbeck’s unconventional performance takes this risk and plunges, experimenting with the fourth wall. We must protect such excellence and risk I’ve drawn on above and therefore not as an artistic landscape homogenise to mainstream expectations or lose investment on what is really working and growing.

Creative Nottingham

The weasel under the cocktail cabinet - Review

2010-11-15T06:27:00.000-08:00

The Post Show Party Show sees Michael and Tony Pinchbeck, his father, investigate how the latter met the former’s mother Vivienne, also appearing as their prompt, at a post show party in 1970.

With the original show having been The Sound of Music it is only right that this performance is also shaped around the same soundtrack; Rodgers and Hammerstein’s songs unerringly camp and kitsch with many phrases commonplace are wittily used by the actors – Indeed, how do you solve a problem like Maria? Even the form of the songs is well known and this is expertly subverted in Do-Re-Mi where the performing von Trapps’ rounds of song are transformed into a motif about Tony Pinchbeck’s tongue-tiedness when asking Vivienne whether she needed a lift home. This cleverness pervades the whole event: the Shloer, presented to each entering audience member with a careful insistence that it was sparkling grape juice, is wonderfully observed, encouraging those watching into fully partaking in the pseudo-post show. The man-made mountain too, complete with snow storm, is a lo-tech gem and evokes the same flurry of flakes created in a tourist knick-knack. The presentation of artefacts from both then and now again is a wonderful device to give both worlds a physicality, the simple difference of showing an LP and a CD demonstrates forty years passing very skilfully.

This is a show with great personal depth but is overly complex in its dealings with some of the past-present relationships. The mapping of the Lincoln theatre’s back-stage spaces felt extra, it was impersonal and didn’t translate. It was the memories of personal moments which gave the piece real heart and its core idea, a life created from a meeting where another ended, is genuinely poetic. It is rare to see a show with such a tangible personal link to all involved and this is one which tells this in an interesting and imaginative way, neatly moving between explorations like the record between the tracks or from Do to Re to Me.

In these two shows, which beautifully consider the relationships we have with all those close to us, it is wonderful to see them performed by these small ‘family’ ensembles and even better to watch them together as double-bill. Whilst both do well as stand alone pieces, as a pair they combine to create a special evening which allows you to consider what friends and family have done or will do for you and more personally what you would do for them.

The weasel under the cocktail cabinet ****

British Theatre Guide - Review

2010-03-09T04:06:00.000-08:00

As an opener to the Camden People's Theatre's 2010 Sprint Festival these two works could not have been more of a contrast in concept. The Post Show Party Show by Michael Pinchbeck recreated the minutiae moment his parents met at an After Show Party with charm, wit and the most deadpan, ironic 1970's humour you will ever experience in 55 minutes. GuruGuru (by Ant Hampton in collaboration with Joji Koyama and Isambard Khroustaliov) involved only five audience members who entered a room and follow instructions from a set of headphones each, and explored the idea of our socially conditioned responses to situations.

In the first piece, The Post Show Party Show, writer Michael Pinchbeck performs with his father and mother. Dressed identically in brown shirts and black trousers, father and son set out stools in perfectly taped white boxes on the floor in what becomes a kind of rather beautifully choreographed OCD dance. They are recreating an ill-fated party after an amateur dramatic production of The Sound of Music in 1970, where a performer died, but his parents started the journey that would produce not only Michael but also this show. This is, as Michael says, 'the story of how he came to be'. While father and son perform, in the background is the rather serene and exquisite presence of his mother, who, while looking extremely nun-like all in black, has the position of technician, like some benign god who flicks the switches of the lighting board and controls the sound.

Playing with time, humour and turning Edelweiss into the delightful 'Ill advice', the sixteen scenes correspond to the different songs of the musical and each one gets fascinatingly reconstructed into different ways of looking at this eventful evening forty years ago. Keeping flat-toned voices, which is at first disconcerting but becomes endearing, we hear that father Tony 'was a nazi and she was a nun', and all three performers effortlessly win you over with their non-performative, surreal performance. While the mind at first boggles at the multi-faceted perspectives of a moment (told through the eye of The Sound of Music, as it were) the heart rejoices in this simple and complex story of 'girl meets boy' distorting 'time and space'. What could be more straightforward?

If nothing else, fans of The Sound of Music will love this wonderfully ironic twist on their favourite show, and anyone else will simply be charmed by the beauty of a family under construction in the past and still creating today.

British Theatre Guide

Cambridge Tab - Review

2010-01-15T09:43:00.001-08:00

The concept of this play is that Pinchbeck’s parents met in an amateur dramatic production of The Sound of Music, at the post show party. This ‘show’ is about the ‘post show party’ – hence the name. There are also clever other meanings you can get from the title, which I will leave you to consider quietly. Pinchbeck’s parents, along with the man himself, are the only performers; onstage throughout – Dad acting (more on this later) and Mum teching. The parents are lovely (or profoundly cruel people with the talent for appearing innocuous that is unique to the seasoned sociopath). The plot is simple – at the party, the post show party, the male actors, who have had little to do in the production, sing songs parodying the musical. Edelweiss becomes Idle Vice, for example. One of the men collapses mid-song, and eventually dies. The party called to a halt, Pa Pinchbeck takes the future Ma Pinchbeck home and they share an intimate kiss. Michael is pre-conceived.

The concept is an interesting one – the equivalent of a found poem. Much of the playwright’s job has been done for him. However, I’m not one of those people who complain about modern art or the BBC’s liberal Zionist bias etc, so that isn’t really a problem. Art is employment. And the elements of the story were employed quite well. The balletic repetition of the singer’s collapse, for example, and the rich connections between father and son which made for an onstage chemistry of a sort I’ve never seen before. Their moments of interchange were great. Pinchbeck’s father has the charisma of a theatrical knight tempered with an avuncular (ironic I know) humbleness. This actually works very well in combination with his son’s Dave Gorman levels of quiet smugness. I don’t know why I’m being cruel to Michael Pinchbeck – he has written a play about the Bodyline scandal, which is a fantastic thing to do. And he has produced an accomplished piece of event theatre. But I feel no guilt, for some reason.

Perhaps it is because the ideas, chiefly that Garden of Forking Paths, Sound of Thunder (and, if you must, Butterfly Effect) conceit of the present’s shaky contingency on the past, are not taken to any particularly new conclusions. It is personal, but nowhere near enough to be called confessional (not that this is a criticism really; experimental theatre has too many Plaths and not enough ovens). It is a charming curio with aspirations. Noble enough, but ultimately unremarkable. That said, it is worth seeing for the palpable family pride at the curtain call.

Cambridge Tab ****

Platform - Review

2010-01-15T08:17:00.001-08:00

On friday evening I saw Michael Pinchbeck's 'Post Show Party Show'. The story is about Michael Pinchbeck, his dad and his mum: performed by him, his dad and his mum. In it, he and his dad re-enact the post-show party where his parents met in 1970. Kind of.

The show jumps backwards and forwards in time and place. Each of the sixteen scenes is set to a track from The Sound of Music. The show is remarkable to watch, very carefully strucuted, sometimes it seems to be a dance. It is tight yet loose. The story comes through in fragments. Repeated actions and phrases begin to make sense.

It is the story of one night in 1970 that could have faded into obscurity - the post show party of an amatuer dramatics group in Lincoln. Except that two things happened of great significance - the ending of one life and a meeting that would lead to the beginning of another. I was fascinated to watch Michael Pinchbeck and his father Tony on stage. There was a great playfulness between them and their lip-synch was perfect.

I watched the two men, one young, one old, one swift, one stiff - going through the same movements and words. There was a beauty in it. Layers of story are told without words, we are here and now, there and then. It is not the telling of someone elses story but a remembering of their own story. But through attempting to remember it becomes something new.

Platform

Edinburgh Guide - Review

2010-01-15T08:07:00.000-08:00

"Let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start." Altogether now, Doe, a deer, a female deer, ray, a drop of golden sun....

Love it or hate it, The Sound of Music has been a musical phenomenon for 50 years, from stage musical to film, from cult gay Singalong shows (reputedly created in an Inverness old people's home), to a BBC talent series leading to West End and UK tour revivals.

Now we have a Fringe show about the people, backstage drama and future consequences after a production of the musical. Just like Maria and Captain Von Trapp and his troupe of children, this is a true story.

The audience is greeted at the theatre entrance by Tony, Michael and Vivienne Pinchbeck and offered a glass of Shloer apple juice. Welcome to the party! The plot of the play is about what happened on 4 December, 1970 when Tony met Vivienne at the post show party after they had both performed (playing a Nazi and a Nun) in an amateur production of The Sound of Music. It's all about fate, as Michael explains at the start, " If Tony had not been in the show, I wouldn't be here."

Father and son (Tony and Michael), dressed identically in brown shirts and black slacks, then proceed to re-enact the dramatic and romantic events of that party. Vivienne observes from the prompt desk, in charge of all the perfectly timed music cues. Against the soundtrack from the Julie Andrews movie, the narrative for the play echoes the lyrics of each song from "I have Confidence in Me" to Tony singing his oldie version, "I am 60 going on 70."

But this show is more than just a light-hearted comedy. Michael's aim in researching the story of his parent's first brief encounter, was to question their hazy memories of that night and the changing roles they played both on and off stage. Likewise Michael and Tony switch between real and imaginary people, playing characters in the musical as well as "acting" themselves, both past and present. Their professional skill at performing in an amateur manner without a trace of ham acting or send up, is a fine art indeed.

Sixteen brilliantly choreographed scenes are played out in an energetic blend of mime, dance, conversational sketches, song lyrics, physical theatre and direct interaction with the audience. With a touch of farce and crystal-sharp, intelligent wit, this innovative show is performed in the style of a Brechtian-inspired Morecambe and Wise double act. I had a permanent smile on my face throughout.

Edinburgh Guide *****

The Scotsman - Review

2010-01-15T08:03:00.000-08:00

There is something emotionally affecting about seeing a fully grown man perform on stage with his real-life mother and father. Outside the circus or village hall, this is not something you often get to witness – and even in these instances it's rarely made into a narrative focal point in the way it is here.

The show tells the story of how Michael Pinchbeck's parents, Tony and Vivienne, met in 1970 at the final night party of an amateur dramatics production of The Sound of Music.

All three family members star in the piece in which past and present, fact and fiction are blurred together in a playfully self-referential way. It could be either horribly painful or truly brilliant. Delightfully, it's the latter.

Sixteen scenes take their themes from individual songs from the musical, including Climb Every Mountain, Maria and So Long, Farewell.

Within these numbers Michael (Total Theatre Award winner in 1999) and Tony incorporate dance and physical theatre, play with narrative structure, and tell us how the performance we're now watching came to exist.

There's a wonderfully facetious moment when Michael steps out of the action and asks us whether we think the narrative is too slow, too fast, too like radio or could do with more dancing.

Father and son portray all the characters, including the entire cast of The Sound of Music and each other, with a compelling matter-of-fact honesty. It's a very unsentimental, yet touching piece in which the importance of family is conveyed without ever being said. Vivienne is in the middle of the stage throughout – the central figure around which the action revolves – silently managing the sound system.

The show is essentially a celebration of the kind of seemingly insignificant moments that lead to monumental changes in one's life, as well as a tribute to the often unrecognised enjoyment that amateur theatre brings to those involved in it.

As Michael points out, if it hadn't been for a two-week run of a small-scale production in Lincoln, his parents would never have met, he would never have been born and we wouldn't be sitting here watching this show now – and there's something quite lovely about all of that.

The Scotsman ****

The Guardian - Review

2009-10-28T04:43:00.000-07:00

Michael Pinchbeck's parents met through an amateur production of The Sound of Music in Lincoln in 1970. Almost 40 years later, Michael's dad, Tony, still hasn't got over the frustration of only having one line to say: "Ulrich, block ze driveway." But the post-show party was real enough. A chap called Arthur, who had played the Baron, keeled over and died.

The death was real and so was the post-show party, but this re-creation of the party in 16 scenes (going on 17), using the soundtrack of The Sound of Music, is not, even though it features Michael and his parents. Mum played a nun in that original production, but she doesn't speak much here, except to point out that Michael and Tony have run out of ideas.

Actually she's wrong. This is a teasing, gently witty and entertaining piece about the shifting nature of reality, and it has no shortage of ideas. However, they are not always fully realised in a show in which the hills are alive with deadpan, self-conscious irony. More honesty and less clever layering would lend emotional ballast, as the people we are watching pretending to be themselves seem more elusive as every moment passes.

Perhaps there is something here in the ephemeral nature of performance and of life itself, and certainly in the way that Pinchbeck, now 60 going on 70, was younger than his son is now on that fateful night. But any wistfulness is crushed by the constant game-playing; in its current form this play is intriguing and rich with promise, but never quite beguiling.

The Guardian ***

Three Weeks - Review

2009-03-20T03:32:00.000-07:00

As a performer, allowing your parents to join you on tour may be considered valiant. Michael Pinchbeck, however, strides one step further and has allowed his to perform with him. It might be an unusual concept for a show, but his family's background in theatre, as well as their dedication to turning their classic story into a creative success, make for a surprisingly engaging performance.

Through the medium of 'The Sound of Music' soundtrack, Michael and his parents take their audience on a trip down memory lane as they recall how they met and how Michael came into existence. While curiously intriguing and a walk further than the central venues, the closeness of this family makes for an amiably soothing outing.

Three Weeks ***

Edinburgh Festivals Magazine - Review

2009-02-10T00:17:00.001-08:00

The post show party of CAODS’s 1970 amateur dramatic production of The Sound of Music proved to be a beginning for some (it was here his parents’ romance began) and the end for others (another actor collapsed whilst playing the guitar, eventually dying that same evening). His father was a Nazi, his mother a nun. His father only had one line: “Ulrich block the driveway!” Yet ultimately, had it not been for this post show party, Michael Pinchbeck would not be here, nor would he, alongside his mother and father, be recreating the events of that winter evening thirty years ago.

The Post Show Party swings back and forth between the past and present, to the soundtrack of The Sound of Music. Memory, nostalgia and personal emotions are central, with Pinchbeck often halting his father in his tracks and questioning “where were you standing? What were you thinking?” A vivid sense of place is aroused as the father and son pair intricately move chairs on the stage, and weave between the characters in the musical, and themselves both past and present. The repetition of the guitar playing thespian falling off the chair and onto the floor in slow motion is a particularly clever motif that runs throughout the play.

The idea behind the play is a beautifully construed one but it was oddly stifled in its execution, seeming at times overindulgent and at others disjointed to the point of distraction. Well portrayed sentiment, but somehow unsatisfying.

Edinburgh Festivals Magazine ***

Time Out - Review

2009-02-10T00:14:00.003-08:00

Michael Pinchbeck’s ‘The Post Show Party Show’ is a family affair, performed by Pinchbeck and his dad (in identical brown shirts and black slacks), with mum manning the sound desk for a sort of heavily stylised dwelling upon the night his parents met. It was an eventful evening: an after party for a production of ‘The Sound Of Music’ they both had minor roles in, at which one of the actors suffered a heart attack and died. Set in real time to the musical’s soundtrack, each song effectively delineates the boundaries of a little vignette performed by the Pinchbeck men. These run all the way from charming and adorable, with cutesy choreography, a mountain made of stools, and a good measure of lip syncing all making appearances.

As it goes on, the tone becomes more contemplative, the heart attack constantly returned to, Pinchbeck Jnr musing on how he is on some level a continuation of these events. It also gradually runs out of steam. The use of the soundtrack wears thin after a while, and though repetition might be important to the structure, it still feels like Pinchbeck might have benefited from not having to come up with a segment to accompany every song. It’s also odd how it shies away from details about his parents’ meeting. Maybe the point is about the sensation of dwelling upon a moment rather than anything more personal, but I still left thinking that despite being onstage for the duration, the senior Pinchbecks were somewhat underused.

Time Out ***

Carousel of Fantasies - Review

2009-02-10T00:14:00.001-08:00

Had the hills never been alive with the sound of music, Michael Pinchbeck would not have come to be. At least, Michael Pinchbeck would not exist had the County Amateur Operatic and Dramatic Society not performed The Sound of Music in November 1970. His father was a Nazi and his mother a nun. His father had one line: “Ulrich, block ze drive-vay.” His mother, it seems, had none. One assumes that it did not make for particularly convincing theatre. Yet as the result of such pretence, something real occurred. For it was at the post show party – just after Arthur Hunter (a guitar-playing Nazi) had keeled over – that his mother and father first kissed.

And so, in 2009, Michael Pinchbeck, 32, takes to the stage with Tony Pinchbeck, sixty going on seventy, to recapture something of that past. Having set the film’s soundtrack in unstoppable motion, the pair work their way through sixteen songs, alternately half-dancing, half-acting, half-re-enacting and lipsyncing. They move stools around the space like checkers and deliver meditative lectures on present and past, absence and presence in the solemn whispers of nature commentators.

For all its pensive contemplation, however, The Post Show Party Show is dragged down by the clumsiness of its meta-theatrics. Pinchbeck seems in so love with the duality of which the stage is capable that he skirts the issue with a mumble where philosophic oration is needed. The absent echoes of 1970 never materialize and, as such, multiplicity collapses into flat monochrome.

Undoubtedly, Pinchbeck shows promise. He handles text with a deft turn of phrase, careful use of repetition and a smidgen of absurdity, but lacks the requisite gutsiness to nail any particular point. The result teeters between the whimsical and the arbitrary. With tightening, volume and some rigorous reflection, The Post Show Party Show could blossom. As it is, however, it lacks the punch to spike.

Carousel of Fantasies

Total Theatre - Review

2008-09-29T07:03:00.001-07:00

The title of this performance hints at the self-reflective complexities about to take place. The audience being offered a drink by the performers on their way into the auditorium confirmed it, and Michael Pinchbeck's acknowledgment of actors and audience made it a certainty. This is a show about a show of a show.

The concept is to reenact moments from the post-show party of an amateur operatic and dramatic society production of The Sound of Music from 1970 in which Pinchbeck's parents first met. Pinchbeck is joined in the performance by his parents creating a complex mix of the here and now, the then and there and times before, in between and after.

Pinchbeck plays with the notions of time and place and amateur and professional in an energetic performance in which father and son act out conceptual representations of the sixteen songs from The Sound of Music. These representations consist of both performers moving small wooden stools around the stage from one demarcated square to another, often in symmetry and in time with the song which plays in the background. Past and present frequently overlap. During the reenactment of 'Do-Re-Mi', the lyrics are swapped for the thoughts of Pinchbeck senior as he wonders whether to offer a lift home to his future wife Vivienne.

This is a complex production with many performances taking place in the same show, but complex becomes confusing as time, place, character, song and stool blur into one. For all Pinchbeck junior's ingenuity, matched by his father's energetic exuberance, the conceptualisations appear at times unhinged from any central thesis. Ultimately, perhaps this show speaks of itself too often, in too many languages to be fully understood.

Total Theatre

The Press Release

2008-08-18T08:16:00.000-07:00

For immediate release
Thursday 23 October, 7.30pm
Michael Pinchbeck| The Post Show Party Show

Michael Pinchbeck’s parents, Tony and Vivienne, met in 1970 after an amateur dramatic version of The Sound of Music. He was a Nazi. She was a nun. Tonight Michael is on stage with his mum and dad to remember the post show party where it all began.

Mixing genuine performance memories from the past with the iconic soundtrack to the musical, this poignant re-enactment asks what is professional and what is amateur, what is present and what is absent?

The Post Show Party Show receives its UK premiere at Leeds Met Studio after a sell-out performance at Springdance in Holland. Join us for a glass of Shloer and a sing-song as we stand in the wings of the story. You are invited to the post show party.

Michael first worked with his father as part of his Masters Degree when he devised a piece of work with his father’s amateur dramatic group and enjoyed the natural rapport they had. He then started working with his Dad on recreating his own christening and ended up delving even further into the past.

The Post Show Party Show is performed by Michael and Tony with Michael’s mother Vivienne taking a non-performance role operating the lights and sound from on stage and tells the story of the dramatic post show incident that led to the start of his parent’s relationship.

For further information, images or tickets to review contact Jaye Kearney on 0113 812 5997 or J.Kearney@leedsmet.ac.uk

The Flier

2008-08-05T23:09:00.000-07:00

Image: Julian Hughes

Publicity copy

2008-07-04T06:35:00.000-07:00

We are backstage. We are offstage. We are standing in the wings of the story. We are inviting you to help us to remember. We are pretending to be characters in a musical. We are pretending to be ourselves. We are pretending to be each other.

Award-winning writer and performance maker Michael Pinchbeck takes his parents on tour to recreate the post-show party where they met in 1970 after an amateur dramatic version of The Sound of Music. His mum was a nun. His Dad was a Nazi.

Mixing text from the past and present with movement to the real-time soundtrack of The Sound of Music, Michael Pinchbeck asks what is present and what is absent, what is professional and what is amateur. The Post Show Party Show receives its UK premiere after a sell-out performance at Springdance in Utrecht, Holland.

Produced by Spiel and supported by Dance 4, Nottingham.

Image: Julian Hughes

Portrait

2008-07-04T06:32:00.000-07:00

Photos: Anna van Kooij

Landscape

2008-05-19T03:25:00.000-07:00

Photos: Anna van Kooij

Review

2008-04-30T14:09:00.000-07:00

The brand new performance The Post Show Party Show of the British theatre maker Michael Pinchbeck is about structures of telling and uses a classic as a starting point. Together with his (touchingly willing) father and mother Pinchbeck recreates how his parents 'found' each other after an amateur production of the Sound of Music in which they both played a minor part. In a series of small scenes father and son remember. Past and present and themselves constantly shift roles, using a set of chairs that are representing characters, music notes or a mountain. It's an utmost subtle and humoristic juggle with language and concepts, performed by charismatic performers.

Volksrant 28 April 2008

Photo: Anna van Kooij

The Post Show Party Show - SpringDance

2008-04-29T01:20:00.001-07:00

Photos: Anna van Kooij

The Sound of Music

2008-02-09T08:49:00.000-08:00

Ill Advice

2008-02-09T08:48:00.000-08:00

The Programme

2008-02-09T04:45:00.000-08:00

The Chorus

2008-02-09T04:43:00.000-08:00

Tony Pinchbeck - my Dad - is second from the left on the back row. Vivienne Pinchbeck - my mum - is second from the right on the floor.

Arthur Hunter

2008-02-09T04:40:00.001-08:00

Arthur Hunter - who was playing guitar at the post-show party before he collapsed - is sitting in the centre here dressed as Baron Elberfeld.

Climb every mountain

2008-02-07T06:40:00.001-08:00

Michael what are you doing?

I thought I would build myself a mountain and then climb it!

I wonder Michael if you can take us to where you are now?

Well I’m over here – but not here – here somewhere else – and you aren’t there. And these people aren’t watching. And it’s dark and it’s cold.

Tony walks to mic and turns light to blue

How cold is it?

It’s colder than it was earlier – it must be the altitude

Tell us what you see Michael?

This is what I see. I can see you and you can see me. We can see each other. This is where I stand when I say this and this is where I am when I hear or see it. This is where we are here. This is a map of the present on the stage of the past and at the moment we’re a bit lost. The show is nearly over.

This isn’t part of the act

The Photographs

2008-02-05T18:07:00.000-08:00

Image: Kevin Edwards

The Work in Progress

2008-01-26T09:27:00.000-08:00

Michael Pinchbeck and Tony Pinchbeck present a work in progress of The Post Show Party Show at Preset, Dance 4 on Tuesday 5 February 2008 at 5pm. You are invited to the party. The show. The post-show party. The Post Show Party Show. Whatever it's called. You're invited.
Image: Julian Hughes

The Concept

2008-01-23T00:11:00.000-08:00

We are backstage. We are offstage. We are standing in the wings of the story. We are inviting you to help us to remember. We are pretending to be characters in a musical. We are pretending to be ourselves. We are pretending to be each other.

Michael Pinchbeck will work with his father - Tony Pinchbeck - to recreate the post-show party at which his parents met in December 1970. His mum was a nun. His Dad was a Nazi. It was an amateur dramatic version of The Sound of Music. At the post-show party, the men sang songs they had written backstage and the women danced. Arthur Hunter, who was playing Baron Elberfeld, collapsed leading to the end of the party and the beginning of Pinchbeck’s parents' relationship. It wasn't until afterwards they learned he had died.

The Post-Show Party Show starts at the end of the show and the beginning of the post-show party. Taking place somewhere between then and now, onstage and offstage, to the real-time soundtrack of The Sound of Music, the piece explores notions of performance and the nature of the father and son relationship. Reliving the real life event and revisiting the songs the men had written backstage, The Post Show Party Show asks what is professional and what is amateur, what is present and what is absent, what is dance and what is not dance.

Image: Julian Hughes

Photoshoot

2008-01-08T10:03:00.000-08:00

Rehearsal

2008-01-08T09:47:00.000-08:00

Image: Julian Hughes

The introduction

2007-12-30T04:32:00.000-08:00

We are at a post-show party. Tony and Michael are dressed in 70s clothes. They serve Shloer. There is a buffet table with 70s snacks. A hedgehog with cheese and pineapple on sticks and mini-sausages etc. A record plays on a record player - The Sound of Music. There are sixteen stools onstage / offstage. When everyone has a drink Michael stops the record abruptly. Tony steps forward to address audience.

Tony: Is there a Doctor in the House?

Michael: Ladies and Gentlemen please return to your seats and keep calm

Tony: The party’s over

Michael: The show has begun

Tony: Scene One

Michael: The Prelude

Tony: My name is Tony

Michael: My name is Michael

Tony: I am his father

Michael: I am his son

Tony: I will be playing my son

Michael: I will be playing my father

Both: We are father and son

Tony: This is the show

Michael: The the Post-Show Party

Tony: The Post-Show Party Show

Michael: Show them where we are

Tony: We are at a show

Michael: We are at a party

Tony: A post-show party

Michael: The show is over

Tony: The party has begun

Michael: We hope you enjoy the show

Tony: The party

Michael: The post-show party

Both: The post-show party show

The Synopsis

2007-12-30T04:14:00.000-08:00

For people who don’t know the story my Dad has written a synopsis

In pre-war Austria at Nonnberg Abbey, Salzburg, Maria a young novice Nun wants to aspire to Holy Orders but is constantly distracted by the Musicality of the surrounding Hills and other fascinations. Her Mother Superior is sympathetic and decides to place her as Governess to a local family – 7 children with a widower father, Capt Georg von Trapp, who is engaged to a Baroness, Elsa Schraeder, and is a naval disciplinarian. He has a regular friend, Max, who is often found staying with him.

Georg is a staunch Austrian and has no love for the threatening Nazi influence. Georg’s eldest daughter, Liesl (16) is fondly attached to local telegraph boy Rolf Gruber who is about to be recruited into the Hitler Youth machine and, being only slightly older than Liesl, tells her she is still rather too young.

Maria arrives to find a family tension among the children, desperate for their father’s attention and love; she quickly befriends them, guides them with music, home-made clothes and outings and other favourite things and generally brings warmth to the whole house. During a family party at which Georg ruffles a few Nazi feathers and the children perform a specially prepared song, the Captain comes to realise this and that he has become attracted to Maria, a fact which the Baroness is quick to spot. She manipulates Maria’s sudden departure from the house.

Max, who is as cynical about love as he is about politics, and has no strong political conviction, is engaged in preparing a Concert for the community and wants the Children to take part as the von Trapp family singers. He is still an Austrian at heart though showing a neutral attitude to the imminent Anschluss.

The children are pining for Maria while the Captain and Elsa proceed with plans for their marriage. Maria has gone back to the Abbey convent, but Mother Abbess persuades her that convent life is not to be used as an escape from the realities of life and love. Maria returns to the family, to the children’s great joy and Elsa’s realistic chagrin. The Captain declares his love and they marry in style at the Abbey.

The Anschluss occurs while they are away on honeymoon, and the concert goes ahead on their return. To avoid a command from Berlin to take up a post in the German Navy Georg sings with the family at the Concert and escapes before the final curtain via the Convent. Rolf, despite his former affections, is instrumental in getting the chase under way, but the Nuns find ways of immobilising Nazi cars and Mother Abbess bids the entire family godspeed as they “Climb Every Mountain” to Switzerland and safety. Everyone lives happily ever after.

The Pratt Family Singers

2007-12-30T04:12:00.000-08:00

A gentle but spirited musical protest by Male members of an Amateur Operatic Society* at the lack of involvement in the choice of its annual production viz. “The Sound of Music” – presented as a cabaret item at the Society’s post-show party in Lincoln in December 1970. [This event, although containing tragedy, was to change the lives of at least two people in a very happy way for ever.]

MAX : Excuse me, Ladies and gentlemen, I have an announcement that concerns you. “The Sound of Music” like the Kalsburg Festival has come to its conclusion; except of course that you don’t know quite what that conclusion is. We have all enjoyed the wonderful and successful production over the last two weeks, but I would like very humbly to suggest that you have not quite heard everything. And so, at tremendous expense and at very great personal danger, I ask you to give a very warm welcome to The Pratt Family Singers…

[Enter chorus, singing to guitar accompt.]

ALL : The hills are alive with the sound of music,
With songs they have sung for a thousand years;
The hills fill my heart with the sound of music,
My heart wants to sing every song it hears;

My heart wants to beat like the wings of the bird that rise
From the lake to the trees
My heart wants to sigh as the chime that flies
From a church on the breeze;
To laugh like a drain when it gurgles on
Through the sewers broad and deep,
To slurp through the night
And stop people getting their sleep.

We take to the pills when our hearts are lonely
We just can’t conceive – what else can we do ?
Our hearts are quite sad with The Sound of Music
For we can sing too !

CAPT : Maria, darling, will you still love me when I get old ?
“MARIA” : Why don’t you get old and see ?

CAPT : I am Sixty going on Seventy
There’s life in the old dog yet;
Better beware, be canny and careful
Better go see the vet.
You are Seventy going on Eighty,
Baby, you’re just my type.
Even though you are slightly askew
You’re certainly over-ripe.

Totally unprepared are you to face a world of Men;
If I were you I’d think it wise to start all over again.

You need someone younger and wiser
Telling you what to do
I am Sixty going on Seventy,
I’m nearly past it too !

“MARIA” : But how did we get into this mess ?
CAPT. : It’s a very long story…….

ALL : Let’s start at the very beginning
A very good place to start.
When you read you begin with ABC
When you sing you begin with Do-Re-Mi.
Do-Re-Mi.
Do-Re-Mi-Fa-So-La-Ti…….

Dough, the cash that caused it all
Ray, the driver’s mate who got
Me, a nice young innocent girl,
Far away in some dark spot.
So, I had to call for aid,
“La !”, I shouted all in vain;
“Tee-hee !”, he cried, “I’ve got it made !”.
Now he’s short of Dough again ! [& Repeat from “Dough”]

MAX : But, Captain, if only we’d been properly advised

ALL : ILL ADVICE, ILL ADVICE
Every moment you haunt me,
Right or wrong, What a song,
Only serves to taunt me.

Blossom of snow,
What a blooming show,
Blooming show this autumn;

ILL ADVICE, ILL ADVICE,
What a lesson we’ve taught ‘em.

[ & Repeat]

CAPT. : Yes, Max, but how can we put things right ?
MAX : Listen, and I’ll tell you.
[to audience]Are you all sitting comfortably, then I’ll begin…

MAX : No little chorus to sing have we,
No chance to show our great repartee,
ALL : How can men survive ?
MAX : Still, though our musical souls still ache,
We’ll carry on for the “County’s”* sake,
There’s a table to shift and a bed to make;
ALL : That’s how men survive.

ALL : On with the desk, then take a short rest
Till it’s time for Act One Scene Five;
Then, oh my Heck, it’s all hands on deck,
And the stage teems with men like a bee-hive.

Not very far off the beam are we,
Quaint and bizarre as a team are we,
Well-dressed young men of Propertee,
We’re keeping our hopes alive,
Dashing young men of Propertee,
We’ll make sure men survive.

CAPT. : Well, Max, if that’s the way you go about it the sky’s the limit.
MAX : How do we get there, Captain ?
CAPT. : We all know that. There’s only one way.

ALL : Climb every mountain, search high and low,
Follow every by-way, every path you know
Climb every mountain, ford every stream
Follow every rainbow, till you find your dream.

A dream that will need all the love you can give.
Every day of your life, for as long as you live.
Climb every mountain, ford every stream
Follow every rainbow, till you find your dream.

[& Repeat from “A dream”]

THE END

[* County Amateur Operatic and Dramatic Society – the “County”]

The Amateur

2007-12-30T04:09:00.000-08:00

Garden furniture and oh yes there was a desk in Mother Superior’s study. And there was a make-believe hill which Maria started off on for “Hills are Alive” I don’t know what happened to that. It may have reappeared at the end for Climb Every Mountain. Much of the wings were used for storing stuff rather than allowing people to stand and watch. There was a bedroom scene where the desks had to be shifted. Then there was a party. In the second act I don’t think we featured in anything until the Edelweiss concert. Amateur shows then – you hired the costume from a famous place in Leeds – you also hired the set. There were so many scene changes in each show. You hired backdrops. They dropped down at different times. They all had to be bundled out. The get out on Saturday. Where furniture was required that was shunted on. The seats and things I suppose. Seats in the house scenes. It may have been a central staircase. We had to construct the bed and then deconstruct it to store it away. We’re talking November 1970. I think when this was happening which is only 37 years ago. I can remember bits of each of the shows. The performance was a fortnight and if you imagine all the rehearsals you had to commit.

The first dance

2007-12-30T04:08:00.004-08:00

They used to have an annual dance in the Assembly Rooms. I tried my hand at dancing there. Not very successfully. It was only a one off. I went to the dance to make up a foursome but that didn’t materialise into anything. I spent most of my time on the sidelines before making the occasional foray onto the dance floor. But I think whatever music was being played at the dinner dance after the meal. It must have enabled people to do waltz or quickstep or slow quickstep to it. I don’t think it was the solo style dancing which has been the style now for the last generation or two where you’re standing out of hold. I did make a comment. “It’s always hard for a lady to dance with a chap who doesn’t know how to lead.” Which is a precursor of Strictly Come Dancing fever we have now. In that first dance. In that talk we established what we each did. I was in the legal profession and Mum was a teacher. So we got onto nodding terms before the cabaret and then we sort of gravitated to each other in the aftermath of the aborted cabaret. Do you remember what that first dance you would have had? It would have been a Waltz, One, two, Three or Quickstep, Slow. Slow. Quick. Quick. Slow. I don’t know if I can simulate it with a chair. We’ve since gone on to more ambitious things. We still haven’t acquired the glitz and the glamour that the professionals have and we don’t aspire to their wardrobe either.

The Sound of Music

2007-12-30T04:08:00.003-08:00

The girl who played Liesl - her mother happened to be Joan Turner and she offered her services to do a half hour midnight half an evening of a midnight show. Someone had the bright idea for the other half can’t we do a potted version of the Sound of Music. Which is fine. Bear in mind that this is the Wednesday after the fortnight. By which time some of the cast were unavailable. Including the chap who played Rolf. So I was dragooned into playing Rolf for the scene where he delivers the telegram. Part of the problem was having young people performing at that time of night. I think there was a problem.

This quote from an interview with my Dad made me wonder how we might be able to do a 'potted version of The Sound of Music' a whistle-stop tour of the musical using the songs to structure our story and revisit The Post-Show Party in 1970 at which Arthur Hunter died and my parents met. I will be playing him remembering and he will be playing me helping him to remember. Father and son. Onstage and offstage. Show and post-show. The making of me and The Sound of Music.

Dance history

2007-12-30T04:08:00.001-08:00

My dance history. Not very spectacular and very limited. My first musical was Song of Norway which called for some dancing manoeuvres. In fact it called for a ballet to the tune of a Grieg’s Piano Concerto. They wanted four young men to do dancing so we were dragooned into rehearsals with the dancing girls to get toned up in order to do that. I think it was the waltz. In the course of that they tried to teach us the rudiments of the fox-trot which didn’t really click and the quick step/slow quickstep. That would have been instilled in me up to a point which would have given me little confidence in asking someone to dance. I think on an earlier occasion.

Waiting in the wings

2007-12-30T04:07:00.003-08:00

We were just standing around and the children do their bit and all I remember is the children are dancing around and all the men have to sing ‘Good night’ it was a bit of a raw deal really. It was a good show to do, but I think the men felt a bit out of it. I think a few years later not when I was in it. They did “Paint your Wagon” which redressed the balance a bit. Were you waiting in the wings? In the wings and in the green room which was off to the side. There wasn’t much room in the wings. You couldn’t really congregate there until you were about to go on. How deep was the stage? Changing rooms were up some stairs up there so it wasn’t like Co-op Arts where you change under the stage. My memories a complete blur. Do you want to have another coffee?

The Line

2007-12-30T04:07:00.001-08:00

Do you remember the line you had? “Ulrich, block the driveway !”. I am supposed to be a Nazi on guard on one end of the stage. When the Von Trapps don’t appear I’m supposed to be calling out to the guards. Do you remember how you did that? Could you try and walk it through. I was just standing. In fact we had to be careful because a backcloth came down and we had to be careful we were standing on the right side of it. This all dates long before the Christening but it’s all germane to what you’re doing. You know how they award the prizes. First prize. Second prize. I think Mum came on as one of the members of the choir that won a prize. Came out of her nun’s habit for that. She was a novice mum. Mum had a dancing part in the party she was dancing with a teacher chap. Can we just try you’re a standing guard. There are two Nazi guards on stage. We’re beside a backdrop that comes down. We’re supposed to make sure the Von Trapps don’t escape. We realise that they’re not coming on and I shout Ulrich – block the driveway. Then it cuts to the graveyard where they are hiding behind gravestones or whatever where they escaped to.

The Songs

2007-12-30T04:06:00.000-08:00

Were you singing the songs that you’d written in the wings? We’d had a few evenings to prepare. We used to rehearse in a clubhouse behind a pub in Clasketgate, Lincoln. The Crown I think it was. We were in the pub putting these things together at the same time as rehearsals to fine-tune it. I don’t think the ladies were aware of what was going on. We tried to keep it a bit of a surprise. Arthur Hunter had a small speaking part. Austrian Baron is at the party. He played the guitar at the cabaret. I still have the piece of cardboard with his guitar chords written on.

Side One

1 Prelude And The Sound Of Music 2:48
2 Overture And Preludium (Dixit Dominus) 3:16
3 Morning Hymn And Alleluia 2:04
4 Maria 3:19
5 I Have Confidence in Me 3:29
6 Sixteen Going On Seventeen 3:20
7 My Favorite Things 2:21
8 Climb Ev'ry Mountain 2:18

Side Two

9 The Lonely Goatherd 3:13
10 The Sound Of Music 2:13
11 Do-Re-Mi 5:36
12 Something Good 3:19
13 Processional And Maria 2:30
14 Edelweiss 1:53
15 So Long, Farewell 2:57
16 Climb Ev'ry Mountain (Reprise) 1:21

The Cabaret

2007-12-30T04:05:00.000-08:00

Can you remember the room. I can’t remember whether it was live music or record. I think there must have been live music because there was a piano there. They had someone try and play the piano for our bit. For the cabaret bit. That would be down there. The tables would have been all cleared away to the sides. We would have been round there. The music bit would have been here. The street there. I know the collapse happened half way through our bit. Mum joined us at our table talking about the bits we haven’t done. At some point music struck up. We were all urged to get up and dance to break the air a bit. Then it was decided to end the event early because obviously it was a serious heavy mood. That’s when we sorted ourselves out into taxis and instead of going home with Delia and Uncle David. Mum allied herself to my party. Went to St Giles to take a girl home called Lorraine. Then to North Hykeham to take Alywn home then finished up at Thorney.

The Concept

2007-12-30T03:52:00.000-08:00

In 2008, Pinchbeck will work with his father – Tony - to recreate the post-show party at which his parents met in 1970. His mum was a nun. His Dad was a Nazi. It was an amateur dramatic version of The Sound of Music. At the post-show party, the man playing the baron collapsed leading to the end of the party. For The Post-Show Party Show the show starts at the end of the show and the beginning of the post-show party.

Michael Pinchbeck is a writer, live artist and performance maker based in Nottingham, UK. His work is an exit strategy from the everyday. He operates autobiographically by using self and site-as-source to illustrate loss and explore absence. He aims to challenge the boundaries of text, performance and installation. He is interested in moments when work ceases to mean and how we reconfigure the meaning at these moments.