Arts & Culture

November brings a highly original and very funny show to Oxford in the form of a biography about a down-at heel flat in the suburbs of Birmingham. The Forensics of a Flat (and other stories) is told by a woman about her beloved home as it is about to be ‘improved’ by the landlord.

 

Sarah Millican-Slater has fallen in love with her flat: the row of shops it sits above and the community it part of; what it used to be, what it will become and the people that have lived in it.  She wants to capture this before the landlord replaces the wooden walls, the doors that lock on the outside and the 70s decor with a shiny new look.

 

Through tracing small stories, Francesca hints at larger themes of locality, loss, the community and the inevitability of change. Blending informality with lyricism, a touch of stand up and a power point presentation, her inevitably doomed love affair is serenaded by classic karaoke (the landlord regularly holds Karaoke parties in the empty shop below her flat).

 

Tracing stories from 1920s to the present day, the building is shown as a microcosm of the city with the stories it holds and the ghosts it contains. Performed like a chat with your next door neighbour over a glass of wine (there is even a cheese and wine interlude) that descends into a karaoke night, it is designed to make audiences smile, reminisce and hopefully sing along.

 

Forensics of a Flat (and other stories) is written and performed by Francesca Millican-Slater and produced by Pippa Frith in association with Birmingham Repertory Theatre, supported by the Arts Council, England and The Sir Barry Jackson Trust.

 

Forensics of a Flat (and Other Stories)

At Pegasus, Magdalen Road, Oxford OX4 1RE

On Thursday 5 November, 7.30pm

Tickets £13, £9 concessions, £6 U18s

Box Office 01865 812 150

http://pegasustheatre.org.uk/?post_type=shows&p=9033

 

Trailer: http://tinyurl.com/m5yvlrf