Direct from a totally sold out Edinburgh run, Perrier Award Winner LAURA SOLON (BBC ONE’s Ruddy Hell! It’s Harry and Paul, ITV1’s Al Murray’s Multiple Personality Disorder and Radio 4’s Talking and Not Talking) returns to the Soho Theatre with her brand new multi-character narrative comedy. Performing a two week run of the critically acclaimed Rabbit Faced Story Soup she will be at the Soho Theatre between 6th and 17th October, before embarking on a 46-date national tour in Spring 2010.
So….. It’s all gone tits down at Black Publishing. The company’s on the brink of financial collapse and star author Harriet G. Scott has gone AWOL without completing her latest blockbuster. Tepid-shot publisher Diana Lewis is scrambled to find a writer to finish the book and save the company from crisis. Her obstacles include an American Super Agent, a lightly tanned boss, a call centre worker, a diversity officer, The French and a dead rabbit called Ian.
It’s like The Wire. But with character comedy. And EVERYTHING from The Wire taken out.
LAURA SOLON won the Perrier Award, Edinburgh Festival Fringe's highest accolade, with her debut solo show in 2005, and has since established herself as one of the fastest rising writers and performers working in comedy. Series three of her Radio 4 series, Talking and Not Talking, is to be broadcast later this year, whilst her television work has seen her perform prominently alongside the UK’s leading comic acts such as HARRY ENFIELD, JESSICA HYNES, AL MURRAY, DAVID TENNANT and PAUL WHITEHOUSE. She is currently developing a new scripted comedy for Radio 4 which will pilot later this year.
ends
www.laurasolon.co.uk
Laura Solon’s Rabbit Faced Story Soup is at the Soho Theatre from Tuesday 6th to Saturday 17th October 2009 (not 11th & 12th). Box Office: 0207 478 0100 or www.sohotheatre.com
Spring 2010 Tour dates below.
Faultless performance aside, Solon has written a script that's been polished until it flashes and gleams, and which evinces an Iannucci-like gift for steering a sentence off the main road and into a cul de sac of surrealism. She is frighteningly talented.
Nicholas Barber, Independent on Sunday
A masterclass.
Stephen Armstrong, Sunday Times
Solon’s unfair advantage is that she can not only do it all - the writing, the performing, the characters, the accents - but do it all so well…Solon always finds her mark, and in the most entertaining way. Do see her if you can.
Mark Monahan, Daily Telegraph
For more information please contact: Jo Cross or Dan Lloyd at Avalon on 020 7598 7222 / joc@avalonuk.com or danl@avalonuk.com
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OTHER THINGS THE PRESS SAID ABOUT
…Rabbit Faced Story Soup (Edinburgh 2009)
Entertaining, character-driven yarn, full of wryly smart lines and performed with subtle aplomb… With her long-overdue comeback, Solon is striving for the simple, yet often elusive, aim of a classy, delightfully funny hour. Job done.
★★★★
Steve Bennett, Chortle
It's an entertaining and unusual tale, teeming with vivid characters. Its script is densely populated with acerbic one-liners: Solon has retained her facility for articulate defamation.
★★★★
Brian Logan, The Guardian
Reminds us what we’ve been missing.
★★★★
Dominic Maxwell, The Times
This is gag-driven, no-extra-fat character comedy... A real vindication of the faith that was put in her four years ago.
★★★★
Julian Hall, The Independent
Solon fits loads of characters into her one-hour slot and equal, painstaking thought has been given to each one. She also paints amazing comic imagery, with just one carefully chosen word turning a good line into a great one. Throw in a cute white rabbit called Ian and you've got a show that is imaginative, innovative and inventive.
★★★★
Micky Noonan, Metro
Rabbit Face Story Soup is tightly structured and thrillingly, almost bewilderingly dense…It's superbly written, incorporating a seemingly endless stream of intelligently surreal imagery and unexpected collisions of ideas that frequently brings to mind the work of Douglas Adams… A show that delivers some of the most satisfying narrative and comic punches that I've seen at the Festival this year.
★★★★
Tom Hackett, Fest
An even more impressive showcase for the 30-year-old’s talent for understated character comedy than her award-winning debut… Solon’s joke-rich writing is as sharp and nuanced as her performance, full of barbed observations and elegant turns of phrase, the finest of which must surely be her new name for stilettos: tart stilts.
★★★★
Steve Bennett, Mail on Sunday
Somebody needs to give this woman a TV show soon. There are more great one-liners and imagination in this one-woman, one-act play than in the entire annual output of BBC Three… The constant stream of gold-plated gags and well-drawn characters make it a delightful hour of entertainment.
★★★★
Neil McEwan, Edinburgh Evening News
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…Laura Solon’s 2005 Perrier Award winning show
Solon's twisted imagination means that the show is jam-packed with delights. Her performance(s) are expertly differentiated… And there are countless killer one-liners.
The Guardian
A strikingly original, darkly funny series of monologues… Studded with finely wrought one liners, this is the year's most impressive debut.
The Times
…Talking and Not Talking
Any sketch show - any comedy show, with the exception of the ever-brilliant Bleak Expectations in fact - would struggle to compete against Solon.
Chris Campling, The Times
Sometimes observational, at other times strangely surreal, the sketches all benefit from being created by a writer who has placed the English language in a cocktail shaker and poured out an intoxicating mix of wit and words.
Jane Anderson, Radio Times
Seemingly poised for stardom for creating instantly memorable and grotesque comic characters, one might dub Laura Solon the next Catherine Tate. What makes her different is that she specialises in brilliantly written verbal comedy, displayed at length in this latest Radio 4 series. Almost every sketch is a showcase for ultra-deft characterisation and surprising gags. There's a real sense of superior craftsmanship, making her seem more like a successor to the tradition of Fry & Laurie than anyone more contemporary. Her various alter egos allow Solon to mix it up a bit, with some characters offering delicate observational comedy (check out the divorcee entrepreneur perched forever on the verge of tears) and others diving headlong into the surreal (her demented Teutonic heiress, forever plotting coups in the company of a china model lion, is a blindingly original highpoint). Following her memorable cameos in Harry And Paul, Solon's surely going to be bringing this stuff to TV soon; this release shows exactly why she deserves it.
James Kettle, ‘The Guide’ The Guardian
Laura Solon has a streak of genuine originality…The joke lies partly in the speed of delivery Solon rarely pauses; and she is one of the few comics around prepared to use silly voices to get a laugh…I wonder whether radio light entertainment is the right place for Solon: she’s a little too clever and a little too dark. I don’t suppose they’d let her present the Today programme?
Robert Hanks, ‘The Week in Radio’ The Independent
Very interesting it is too: the scripts are dark, sharp and entirely devoid of punchlines, but still manage to contain more laughs than most comedy half-hours.
Lisa Mullen, Time Out
If you’re in search of a laugh on Radio 4, then Talking and Not Talking, Laura Solon’s new comedy sketch show, is (whisper it) rather good. A bit Catherine Tate, a bit Green Wing. You know: funny.
Miranda Sawyer, The Observer
Is she the new Catherine Tate? Alan Bennett? Victoria Wood? Nobody seems sure. But one thing is certain: Perrier Award-winning comedian Laura Solon is destined for great things. In her new sketch show Talking and Not Talking she lays into the smug moneyed middle classes with laser-guided precision. She’s a remarkable talent; BBC2 undoubtedly beckons.
Maxton Walker, ‘G2’ The Guardian
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…Laura, Ben and Him
This rapid-fire sketch delivers the comic goods. Laura Solon, Ben Willbond and Him - aka Marek Larwood - dish up a refreshingly daft election of sketches from a smart running gag about Narnia to a sly spoof of all those ambulance-chasing lawyer ads you get on daytime TV. Mitchell and Webb should be made to watch and take notes.
Ceri Thomas, Evening Standard / London Lite
Whatever else these funny, well-observed sketches are about their subject is the middle class, its faults and its prejudices. There is the horsey woman who keeps a pony in the office, the clown who is suing over health-and-safety issues and the character with Narnia in his wardrobe (when the council would not even give him permission for a conservatory). It is written by Marek Larwood and the Perrier Award-winners Laura Solon and Ben Willbond. Their pedigree shows.
Sally Kinnes, ‘Culture’ The Sunday Times
It’s obvious why this trio have a clutch of awards between them, as the combination of funny looking characters and silly humour is a definite winner. Laughter lines in episode one come from the clown who points at his red nose and says ‘from drinking’, the tradesman who remarks ‘the best thing about being a bed-wetter is that I don’t find it hard to get up in the morning’, and the man who has made a ‘slag trap’ from a cardboard box filled with ciggies and a bottle of Hooch. It’s naughty but nice.
Adrian Lobb, ‘We Love Telly’ Daily Mirror
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TOUR DATES
January
Friday 29th: CAMBRIDGE The Junction 01223 511 511
Saturday 30th: CHORLEY Little Theatre 01257 264 362
Sunday 31st: WARWICK Arts Centre 02476 524 524
February
Tuesday 2nd: CARDIFF St Davids Hall 029 2087 8444
Thursday 4th: FAREHAM Ashcroft Arts 01329 223 100
Friday 5th: READING South Street Arts 0118 960 6060
Saturday 6th: WADHURST (Sussex) The JV Barn 01892 783 775
Wednesday 10th: NORWICH Arts Centre 01603 660 352
Friday 12th: ABERDEEN The Lemon Tree 01224 641 122
Saturday 13th: BERWICK-UPON-TWEED The Maltings 01289 330 999
Monday 15th: LEICESTER Y Theatre 0116 2557 066
Thursday 18th: BATH Rondo Theatre 01225 463 362
Friday 19th: ALDERSHOT West End Centre 01252 330 040
Saturday 20th: SOUTHSEA Kings Theatre 023 9282 8282
Thursday 25th: BLACKBURN King George’s Hall 08448 471 664
Friday 26th: LONDON Battersea Arts Centre 020 7223 2223
Saturday 27th: WYCOMBE Swan Town Hall 01494 512 000
Sunday 28th: MAIDENHEAD Norden Arts Farm 01628 788 997
March
Wednesday 3rd: LONDON 606 Club 01892 783 775
Friday 5th: NEW MILTON Forest Arts Centre 01425 612 393
Saturday 6th: WINDSOR Firestation Arts Centre 01753 866 865
Sunday 7th: LONDON Leicester Square Theatre 0844 847 2475
Tuesday 9th: DURHAM The Gala Theatre Studio 0191 332 4041
Wednesday 10th: LEEDS The Library 0113 244 0794
Thursday 11th: DERBY Darwin Suite 01332 255 800
Friday 12th: SALISBURY Arts Centre 01722 321 744
Saturday 13th: NOTTINGHAM Lakeside 0115 846 7777
Sunday 14th: YORK Hyena Lounge Comedy Club 0871 704 2054
Monday 15th: TIVERTON New Hall 01884 250 066
Thursday 18th: LANCASTER Grand 01524 64 695
Friday 19th: SELBY Town Hall 01757 213 758
Saturday 20th: GLASGOW Tron Theatre (Gilmore Hill G12) 0844 395 4005
Sunday 21st: NORFOLK Kings Lynn 01553 764 864
Monday 22nd: CHELTENHAM Town Hall 0844 576 2210
Tuesday 30th: HULL Truck Theatre 01482 224800
April
Thursday 1st: TONBRIDGE Queen’s Hall Theatre 01580 711 856
Friday 2nd: FOLKESTONE Quarter House 01303 858 500
Saturday 3rd: COLCHESTER Arts Centre 01206 500 900
Thursday 8th: NORTH DEVON Croyde Hall 01271 890804
Friday 9th: NORTH DEVON Molland Village Hall 01769 550643
Saturday 10th: DIDCOT Cornerstone 01235 515144
Friday 16th: SWINDON Arts Centre 01793 614 837
Saturday 17th: CHELMSFORD Cramphorn Studio 01245606271
Friday 30th: TAUNTON Brewhouse 01823 283 244
May
Saturday 1st: TORRINGTON Plough Arts Centre 01805 624 624
June
Friday 4th: LYDNEY EAST Village Hall 01594 842180
Sunday 6th: BRENTFORD The Watermans Theatre 020 8232 1010
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AVALON PROMOTIONS
Avalon Promotions Limited is one of the leading promoters of live comedy in the UK. Productions include: NEWMAN & BADDIEL in the first comedy show ever to be staged at Wembley Arena; FRANK SKINNER’s record-breaking performance to an audience of 6,000 at the Battersea Power Station; Jerry Springer The Opera at the National Theatre, at the Cambridge Theatre in London’s West End, on national tour and at New York’s Carnegie Hall; HARRY HILL at the Palace and Dominion Theatres in London; and Dave Gorman’s Googlewhack Adventure at the Sydney Opera House, at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, on national tour and at the Village Theatre, New York (nominated for Drama Desk Award 2004).
The last 12 months has seen Avalon Promotions: present multi-award winning comics JENNY ECLAIR, RICHARD HERRING, RUSSELL HOWARD and FRANK SKINNER on sell-out runs; produce AL MURRAY, THE PUB LANDLORD live at the O2 and RUSSELL HOWARD at Wembley Stadium; introduce some of the fastest-rising stars in comedy such as KRISTEN SCHAAL & KURT BRAUNOHLER and ISY SUTTIE; produce stage shows, such as Frank Skinner’s Credit Crunch Cabaret and Grumpy Old Women Live, which has toured the UK three times and performed a highly successful run in Australia; and present 20 acts at the Edinburgh Festival, where it has promoted a total of five Perrier Award winners and 18 Perrier Award/Edinburgh Comedy Award nominees in just 21 years.
