The Great tePOOKa / Big Red Door Yard Sale

AS many of you know tePOOKa is auctioning off many of the Lawson Household possessions to help the Lord in his time of financial troubles.

IN addition to the general items and costume on display in the Big Red Door, there will be a grand sale of audio, lighting and video equipment. The following items will be for sale on Thursday 26th Aug.

1. Tempus 2G-12 lighting controller desk
2. Yamaha EMX3000 Powered Desk (300W Stereo or 600W bridged) 12 Channel + FX
3. Numark CD MIX-2 with hard flight case
4. Two 10-channel Tempus 10A/15 dimmer packs
5. Pair of Yamaha Cabs on tripod stands (250w PGM / 500w Max ; 8ohms)
6. Sanyo high power video projector with wide throw lens, and hard flight case
7. InFocus LitePro 500LS Video Projector
8. Canon camcorder with soft case
9. Samsung Hi8 camcorder in hard case
10. PA-888 Mono Power Amp
11. Toshiba SD-330E DVD player
12. Hitachi DVD player
13. Javelin Pro Series JQC424 High Res Colour Quad Processor
14. 12-Channel XLR multicore snake with stage box

Download an illustrated list (PDF)

Three, maybe four nights left

Yo folks,

General call for all friends old and new to come and USE the space for what it loves best, making shows and making merry. There is this weekend and the next and then we are outtahere. The entrance hall is full of stuff for sale, we have racks of costume and clothing ready to be pawed through, the ship is sailing and the POOKa are dreaming of the woods once more.  Ropemonkey has a list of technical stuff for sale he will be posting directly and the debate continues as to weather we auction off the cats on the last night or not.

It was very sad last night, the place is looking wonderful again, lovely paintings all around, special little touches, love and time and care. People came, people played, I did some of the best close up I’ve ever done, and some dodgy standup stuff, it was typical red door, but TOO QUIET!!!!

Common you madmen, you dogs, you reactionaries and dancers and wild women RUN come find us, before the mists close over this (mis?)adventure….

ruggcat

p.s. The next person to say ‘its the end of an era’ to me wins a special prize!*

*may contain knuckles

End of the World – OFFICIAL!

Hey Guys,

The News

The Big Red Door, as run by tePOOKa, will close at the end of August.

The Landlords have started the process, we don’t have £45,000 (the full arrears) and so we are outtahere! Its a relief in many ways, but sad of course. There are people who plan to try and keep the space for the community, and the POOKs wish then every luck, but we need to get the past out of the way if the building is to have a future.

What does this mean for YOU?

All this month we are gonna be having the craziest, undergroundest, nakedest, funniest, happiest celebrations of mischievousness in a series of END OF THE WORLD PAGENTS, PARADES AND PARTIES! We will open Friday, Saturday, Sunday nights on a BYOB basis and will aim to entertain your socks off (as long as you join in of course).

But the Big Red is about much more than parties, so during the day all week and weekend there will be a cafe and open play space, with toys and tutors on hand, come hang and admire all the new to-spec wiring we just had installed, have a raw chocolate smoothy and catch up on your juggling practice. sweet. Also on Saturday Mornings there will be a Craft Market in the entrance hall, come have a look then boom down to the farmers market for the fresh and local organic food.

If you are lucky enough to be a Member of the BRD then I am very pleased to announce the reinstatement of Members Mondays!!! Hush hush!

One More Thing

We will be Auctioning off a huge amount of costumes props and set pieces, as well as more mundane objects throughout the next month. check the twitter feed @TheBigRedDoor for latest items going under the rubber hammer.

Its been swell, there are a few more posts to come before the end, and an awful lot of drinking. see you there.

ruggcat

Lazy Saturday Afternoon

Humm, FREAK is turning out to be pretty chilled in the daytime, with the mural coming on nicely and a few people hanging out and using the space for practice and learning, its all terribly creative.

I’m smiling because I taught two lovely ladies how to do the french drop, for those unacquainted its what yer granddad did when he vanished a coin and pulled it out of your ear. I’m smiling for two reasons, one is they picked it up really well, and that’s nice for a teacher, the other is the crystallization of my own technique that teaching brings. Its these things that remind me of the good this place does.

Anyway, tonight we are having the John Langan Band at 8 and the Caberave 10 -1 (ish) and if your really lucky, i will preview one of my new stage tricks for the fringe

But first.. a lazy little disco-nap

ruggcat

EDIT: to get you salivating for festival madness I present Amanda F. Palmer with the Horndog Brass Band  from a secret gig at the BRD last year:

The BRD, F.R.E.A.K. and the Festival!

Hello lovely denizens of the internet!

Well its been a little while since we last blogged, that’s cos the ruggcat has been away playing with other people for a change, but is back for festival madness! expect a lot more activity!!

So what’s been going down?

Well the whole building has been for a re-fit, the walls are whitewashed, the toilets redecorated, the stage moved and the garden turned into a place of loveliness once more. (actually that last bit is a lie, its currently full of stuff from everywhere else) The electrics have been cleared up but Ken still hasn’t had a haircut.

The Too Much Fun Club, a local posse of excellent graffiti artists have taken up residence in the light studio  and are currently helping with the mural in the hallway.

The music room is now fully equipped with amps and organs and has had its acoustics adjusted. I’ve been in there lots learning kit in the quiet times

Our computers have been updated! Big thanks to Andy, Jean-Luc and Gavin for putting linux Mint on all our machines and clearing up decades of disorganised hard drives. This one runs like butter in the sun, and takes less than 1/2 an hour to load Firefox. *GRIN*

So things are coming together once more, tell your friends, the BRD is BACK and in effect!

For FREAK timetable see our events page.

So very nice to be typing to you all again, see you on the wrong side crazy….

Ruggcat

P.S. WE ARE ON TWITTER!!! @TheBigRedDoor for all the latest news

NEW!!! BELTAN!!!!

Hello There!

Are you bored with your skin color? wish you could look a little more sexy, have the confidence to go nekid through the middle of a city?

NOW YOU CAN!!

With BELTAN!!!!

check out these amazing before and after pics!

Before:

and after a session in the BELTAN!!

Yeah Baby!

Ruggcat

a change is as good as a rest…

yo folks,

so as you may have herd most of the evening events are off until the 26th of April, the exceptions being Stunners this Saturday and the Howl nights on Wednesdays. Daytime classes and workshops will go on as usual.

Why is this happening? well because we are trying to get our license back! woot woot! but there’s lots of stuff needed done first including large scale renovation of the fire alarm system, If anyone out there could help with that, would be cool. But yeah we gonna give our limited core team more time to get the necessary changes made. And speaking of core teams…

Other news!!! Cos its been ages since we posted anything, but i see we still get visitors every now and then.

so lemme see… we didnt manage to pay rent last month.

I busted out with a broken heart, still trying to limp back into the air.

Mim has resigned and is no longer taking an active interest.

Jess is on leave too, and will be back in a few weeks.

We have had a few new additions to the core team (and by that we mean people who show up and do stuff) Chris and Becca being prominent entries for noob of the week

If you haven’t seen it already, there is now a volunteers page on facebook http://www.facebook.com/?sk=nf#!/group.php?gid=110074869010973

I don’t know if ill be there much more, The feeling and ethos of the door has changed, it used to be a very respected and respectful place, a sanctuary of silliness, stupidity and synchronicity. An acoustic venue that believed in local produce, moderate intoxication, entertainment, experimentation and interaction. It was about producing great theater in all forms, street, wood, inner city festival.

It was that performance freedom that gave the door its great vibes, made it the place to have an amazing party, but the point was in the practice, not the party, that was a side effect.

I think this has been lost a bit of late, there are few practitioners and we increasingly go for the party without the performance, or the performance being subservient to the party. Remember the Halloween festival, ‘A Wake for All Souls’ ?

So this is my call, my last try. People who want to make things, dance, puppets, singing, happening, costuming and characterizing. Get your ass over there and use it! while you can.

see you round.

Ruggcat