Following a sell-out Edinburgh Festival Fringe run, a BE Festival Audience Award, and various international awards, We’ve Got Each Other comes to the Vault Festival in London before a UK wide tour. Hold on to your mullet for the spectacular Bon Jovi jukebox musical… except, it’s up to the audience to imagine it all, with the help of just one man: theatre maker Paul O’Donnell.
Modern jukebox musicals usually involve a multi-talented cast, an orchestra, opulent sets, decadent costumes, extravagant routines, dramatic key changes and the odd hydraulic lift or two. We’ve Got Each Other has none of these things (they cost lots of money), but Paul will still try to create an all-singing, all-dancing spectacle simply using the power of imagination.
Through entertaining descriptions of the show as it unfolds, and 180+ lighting cues, Paul will invite the audience to ‘fill in the gaps’, imagining the breath-taking and tragic love story of Tommy and Gina. Expect glitter balls, high camp and one incredibly catchy 80’s tune. This feel good show celebrates the community that is formed when artist and audience meet, and the extraordinary things that we can achieve when we come together, if we just… believe.
We’ve Got Each Other won the BE Festival Audience Award 2018 as well as the Young FITT Festival’s Audience Award and Best Performer Award in Spain. In 2017, the show was awarded BE Festival Early Ideas Award and China Plate’s First Bite Commission. The show sold-out at the Pleasance at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
Paul says, “I have always admired the musical theatre genre; swept away by the spectacle of it all, the extravagance of it all, and the audience’s ability to completely lose themselves in the fiction of it, if only for an hour or two. There is something rather magical about spending two hours in a room lost in the most fantastical large scale musical, and I was curious to see if I could capture this experience in my own small scale work.”
Paul O’Donnell is a theatre maker and producer, based in Coventry. We’ve Got Each Other combines his childhood love of musical theatre with his training Contemporary Theatre and Performance. His work aims to expose the ‘ordinary’ in a ‘spectacular’ fashion. Paul’s work to date includes an all singing all dancing harem of ‘Pauls’ exploring our human need to feel like a ‘something’ (Nothing!), one very 'real' cowboy in a very 'real' saloon (So Far West), and a mime artist who is trying to break free of his glass box (One Thing On His Mime). Paul has worked with Arcola Theatre’s Over 50’s Community group and Belgrade Theatre’s community and education department. He is Associate Artist at Birmingham Repertory Theatre and Theatre Absolute. He also co-founded and produces Shoot Festival, a platform supporting up and coming artists in Coventry and Warwickshire.
@podonnell2 | #WeveGotEachOther | www.podonnell2.co.uk
Running Time: 60 minutes | Suitable for ages 12+
Company Information
Created and performed by Paul O’Donnell
Dramaturgy by Nick Walker Lighting Design by Arnim Friess
Listings information
06 – 10 Feb 2019 Vault Festival, London
Leake St, Lambeth, London SE1 7NN
Tues-Sat 7.45pm, Sat matinee 4.45pm | £15
vaultfestival.com
12 April
Carriageworks, Leeds
3 Millennium Square, Leeds LS2 3AD
www.carriageworkstheatre.co.uk | 0113 376 0318
13 April Hull Truck, Hull
50 Ferensway, Hull HU2 8LB
8pm
www.hulltruck.co.uk | 01482 323638
23 – 27 April Birmingham Repertory Theatre, Birmingham
Broad St, Birmingham B1 2EP
8pm, Sat Mat 2.30pm
www.birmingham-rep.co.uk | 0121 236 4455
10 May Warwick Arts Centre, Coventry
University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL
7.45pm
www.warwickartscentre.co.uk | 024 7652 4524
16 – 18 May Battersea Arts Centre, London
Lavender Hill, London SW11 5TN
www.bac.org.uk | 020 7223 2223
23 – 25 May Beaford Arts Rural Touring, Devon
Crown Yealm House, Pathfields Business Park, South Molton, EX36 3LH https://beaford.org | 01769 572573
7 June Lawrence Batley Theatre, Huddersfield
Queen St, Huddersfield HD1 2SP
8pm
www.thelbt.org | 01484 430 528
8 June Wolverhampton Arena, Wolverhampton
Wulfruna St, Wolverhampton WV1 1SE
7.30pm
https://wlv.ticketsolve.com/shows | 01902 321000
20 – 21 October HOME, Manchester (Orbit Festival)
https://homemcr.org/ | 0161 200 1500
17 October Harrogate Theatre, Harrogate
https://www.harrogatetheatre.co.uk | 01423 502116
More dates to be added
