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Touch the Zeitgeist
The inaugural Zeitgeist Theatre Grand Slam in October was meant to be a toe-dipping exercise, to see if the people of south west London fancied a bit of fringe theatre above a pub, performed by enthusiasts, and maybe the odd professional.
Tickets flew out of the box office like food from a Red Cross helicopter, the difference being you can go back for seconds with Zeitgeist, which returns to the Bedford on Sunday for another Grand Slam. No doubt it will sell out again.
The night is a theatrical battle of the bands, effectively, with fourteen plays lasting a maximum of ten minutes each vying for the audience's affections. The winner is crowned best new play', which was won last time by Le Sub-text by Caroline Gold - a sitcom script writer for the BBC.
But, as main organiser Zia Trench says, this is not an elitist, nepotistic exercise, despite her background as a political journalist and presenter/reporter for BBC, Sky and ITV.
"We have such a broad mix of people," says Zia, 35. "On the one hand you have Dominic Mitchell, who has been through the Royal Court and Soho Theatre and will go on to be a professional playwright. He has written Little Tin Gods, which is set in job centre and just a five-minute thing he had fun with.
"Then there is Judy Walker, who is 55 and has never written anything before. Her play is just wonderful, it's called Frail Elderly and is about an old man who is patronised by the district nurse, so one day he grabs her tits. It shows how we just patronise old people - this guy in his day was really successful and owned his own factory."
Other titbits you can encounter on Sunday is a play about a junior office worker in a hospital who puts a kidney in the internal post and a farmer whose goat has been possessed by Satan.
A valuable addition to the Bedford's roster of musical showcases and established comedians, Zeitgeist's Grand Slam was a revelation last winter, an injection of chutzpah into the south London theatre scene that followed Zia's move to Balham.
She adds: "I didn't expect October's show to be completely full, let alone get 150. Apart from on the night, I got emails and a couple of cards saying how much they enjoyed it and what an unusual event it was.
"It is unique - I don't know of any other night like it in south London, and putting on a unique event has its own charm, but also short plays are just fantastic. You get such a great sense of what you can achieve in five minutes, how much you can move people, and because there are 14 plays, you give the audience such a range."
Zeitgeist Theatre; Bedford Globe Theatre, 77 Bedford Hill, Balham, SW12 9HD, 8pm-9.30pm, £6 (inc programme and voting card), for reservations email info@zeitgeisttheatre.com (recommended).
11:05am Thursday 7th February 2008
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