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The show, The Candidate, examined and subverted the concept of ‘the family’. This concept was derived from the Langham Club, which for many years has functioned as a communal, intergenerational living room, with all the love and fall-outs, gossip and giggles, fond memories and baggage you’d find in any tight-knit community with a lot of history. The show involved about 25 performers, aged 21–84, five live musicians and several designers. A couple of the club’s long-standing members performed in the show too, including the bingo lady, who starred as herself. The club was open to members during show nights, so the audience were never quite sure who was a performer and who was a punter, or what was spontaneous and what was rehearsed.
The Candidate was a site-specific, immersive theatre piece that was devised and staged by Persona Collective in 2019 at The Langham Club; a traditional working mens club on Green Lanes, near where we all live in Haringey, north London. The club has existed for over 100 years but its numbers are really declining. We became members and spent several months hanging out there, getting to know the regulars and attending bingo nights before developing the show.
The Candidate is the first and last piece of a perpetual cycle. It is a surreal exploration of the family concept, where characters act as family members to fabricate a false reality.
The story is a metaphor for a failed socio-political and financial system in which the role of the family is to prepare themselves to form part of an absurd and competitive system, with no way out. Here, the strange pathologies of human behaviour are dissected and the characters find themselves falling down a symbolic rabbit hole, slowly losing control of events and culminating in an intoxicated awakening that is a celebration of human affairs and rituals.
The Candidate was a site-specific, immersive theatre piece that was devised and staged by Persona Collective in 2019 at The Langham Club; a traditional working mens club on Green Lanes, near where we all live in Haringey, north London. The club has existed for over 100 years but its numbers are really declining. We became members and spent several months hanging out there, getting to know the regulars and attending bingo nights before developing the show.
The Candidate is the first and last piece of a perpetual cycle. It is a surreal exploration of the family concept, where characters act as family members to fabricate a false reality.
The story is a metaphor for a failed socio-political and financial system in which the role of the family is to prepare themselves to form part of an absurd and competitive system, with no way out. Here, the strange pathologies of human behaviour are dissected and the characters find themselves falling down a symbolic rabbit hole, slowly losing control of events and culminating in an intoxicated awakening that is a celebration of human affairs and rituals.
The Candidate was a site-specific, immersive theatre piece that was devised and staged by Persona Collective in 2019 at The Langham Club; a traditional working mens club on Green Lanes, near where we all live in Haringey, north London. The club has existed for over 100 years but its numbers are really declining. We became members and spent several months hanging out there, getting to know the regulars and attending bingo nights before developing the show.
The Candidate is the first and last piece of a perpetual cycle. It is a surreal exploration of the family concept, where characters act as family members to fabricate a false reality.
The story is a metaphor for a failed socio-political and financial system in which the role of the family is to prepare themselves to form part of an absurd and competitive system, with no way out. Here, the strange pathologies of human behaviour are dissected and the characters find themselves falling down a symbolic rabbit hole, slowly losing control of events and culminating in an intoxicated awakening that is a celebration of human affairs and rituals.
The Candidate was a site-specific, immersive theatre piece that was devised and staged by Persona Collective in 2019 at The Langham Club; a traditional working mens club on Green Lanes, near where we all live in Haringey, north London. The club has existed for over 100 years but its numbers are really declining. We became members and spent several months hanging out there, getting to know the regulars and attending bingo nights before developing the show.
The Candidate is the first and last piece of a perpetual cycle. It is a surreal exploration of the family concept, where characters act as family members to fabricate a false reality.
The story is a metaphor for a failed socio-political and financial system in which the role of the family is to prepare themselves to form part of an absurd and competitive system, with no way out. Here, the strange pathologies of human behaviour are dissected and the characters find themselves falling down a symbolic rabbit hole, slowly losing control of events and culminating in an intoxicated awakening that is a celebration of human affairs and rituals.
> the halfway house / behind the scenes
> the halfway house / behind the scenes
The Halfway House was a site-specific, immersive theatre piece that was devised and staged by Persona Collective in the Old Central Saint Martins campus on Southampton Row, Holborn. The Koppel Project kindly invited Persona Collective – to develop and stage a theatre show at their Koppel Project Campus, which was conceived as an experimental, cross-disciplinary education and arts facility in the former Saint Martins. It has been vacant for many years and is eventually due to be redeveloped as a high-end hotel. The live show took place from 21st September to 4th October 2020
The narrative revolved around three storylines, each unfolding in ‘The Halfway House’ - a fictional hotel. The building and its residents are stuck between two worlds, paralysed by nostalgia and slipping into real and fabricated versions of their past, but equally seduced by and drawn into this absurdly ill-fitting new reality of a ‘luxury’ hotel, which is in the process of being constructed but already feels extremely makeshift, seedy and tired.
There were three main protagonists and storylines: The Porter, an immaculately-presented professional who works in the hotel but is haunted by his dark past; The Maids – one experiencing her first day at the hotel and the other running a voyeuristic side-business, charging visitors to secretly observe guests in their rooms; and The Resident, who is trapped in a hazy, melancholic and opium-fuelled love story where boundaries between reality and fantasy have become indistinguishable.
There will be a film released this year, which will open it up to a much bigger audience and also allow those who did attend to see the show from the perspective of the other characters.
poster design by ©Emily George
Cast & Creators
Jean-Charles Wadja
Mélanie Gautier
Michael Hall
Emily George
Olga Lagun
Tom Kim
Francesca Costa
Georgia Leefe
Anna Fil
Valia Katsis
Cameron Lee-Allen
Charly Monreal
Sally Plowman
Daniel Seifu
Michael Sookhan
Host & Collaborator - The Koppel Project
Venue - The Old Central St. Martins
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Special Thanks to -
Abigail Adams
Marcela Iriarte Villalobos
Directors
Rocío Ayllón - Artistic Director & Producer
Elina Akhmetova - Movement Director & Choreographer
Karolina Burlikowska - Photographer & Art Director
Satu Streatfield - Lighting Design Director
Finn Boxer - Sound Designer & Cinematographer
Sami Sabik - Creative Technologist
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more info: www.personacollective.co.uk
Assistant Directors
Elina Akhmetova
Michael Hall
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Production Team
Alice Wilson
Clare McAndrew
Rocío Ayllón
Elina Akhmetova
Emma LD
Tom Kim
Tom Wheeler
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Lighting Technicians
& programmers
Steve Lowe
Thomas Blackburn
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Lighting Designers
Technicians & Operators
Laura Arroyo
Gaia Crocella
Steve Lowe
Luciana Martinez
Tom Wheeler
Alice Wilson
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Art installations & Collaborations
Jack Wates - Storm Room
Charly Blackburn - The Lab
Will Langstone - Cello
Set Designers
Emma Wilson
Emily George
Clary Montero
Alice Wilson
Emma LD
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Graphic Designers
Emily George
Emma LD
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Sound Assistants
Waris Albakri
Femi Oriogun- Williams
Cinematographers
Finn Boxer
Olga Lagun
Hamish Nichols
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Location Sound Recordist
Florence Woolley
Alice Wilson
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Research
Satu Streatfield, Emma LD, Karolina Burlicowska,
Clare McAndrew, Rocío Ayllón
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Community
Holborn Association
Dragon Hall
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Chaperones
Abigail Adams,
Juan Sanchez Plaza,
Rocio Chacon, Clary Montero, Femi Oriogun – Williams,
Anna Chiarin
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Show - Preview Mentors
Jo Danzig, Vanya Gostev,
Florence Greensmith
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Sponsors Lighting
White Light
Enliten Architectural Lighting
Mike Stoane Lighting
iGuzzini illuminazione
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Lighting, Effects &
Logistics Equipment
Shakespeare’s Globe
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Audio Equipment
Orbital Sound
Shakespeare’s Globe
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Film Equipment
Direct Digital
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Costumes
Putney Theatre
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Props
Phoebe BP
Lobster Records
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Prints
Duplikat Press
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cinematography by ©Finn Boxer
"The experience was something between watching a fragmented movie, being in a haunted house, and being in touch with your memories all at once, as the story that was being told was not in chronological order. The interactive way that we walked through the building added an extra element of voyeurism and mystique, as if the events were all happening parallel to each other and not for an audience to witness.
A fact I wish I had known before watching, is that this beautiful, eerie building is soon to be torn down to build a hotel, adding another layer of tragedy to the events we were seeing, as the dialogue shifted from an old arts school to a hotel multiple times throughout the story.
I think the hints were there in the beginning, as we entered the first room, which was a modern room filled with swivelling desk chairs. The story flips real life on its head, by playing with the idea of ghosts in a very “sixth sense” manner, without giving any real clues about which storyline is present or past until the very end, which even then can be debated"
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- Kelly Samuel
Photos by ©Karolina Burlicowska
"I cannot tell you how much I enjoyed it. Snatches and glimpses still drift through my mind: a porter pulling a man to shore; clandestine talks in bedrooms and on doorsteps; a cardigan pulled on and off; flirtations and aggravations across space; an impressive thunderstorm; infinite refills at breakfast; dances alone, together, bare-chested; a voice in the distance, then singing in your ear, eerie: ‘don’t you want me baby?’; a curtain lifting, a majestic ghost, a curtain falling. My god, it was so good"
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- Flo Ray
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