Claudia Jefferies

In response to the current pandemic and it’s inevitable impact on live theatre, I have  produced the following short film using text from Stranger Danger.

Stranger Danger is a new piece of work that examines the way we treat unknown people on a cultural and personal level. It asks what it is that drives people to unite over common (perceived) enemies to the point where we end up with organisations like the EDL and how the psychology of individualism feeds into modern day, Western tribalism. It will examine the various ways prejudice is transmitted as well as exploring the loneliness epidemic, Empathy Fatigue and the threat of the sentient robot or alien in sci-fi. It will comment on the psychology of borders, xenophobia and elitism, presenting and dissecting grotesque stereotypes of ‘self-made’ men and aggressive racist nationalists (among others).  

When finished,  it will take the form of a play-length piece of poetic verse that will be sung, spoken and punctuated with choreographed movement.  It will have an aesthetic that is somewhere between Punk and Cabaret Voltaire, with Dadaist masks and costumes.

The intention is to develop the work so that it can be delivered both as a solo piece and as an ensemble, with a group of dancers / speakers who move in unison and punctuate the text throughout. 

Stranger Danger will be developed in February 2019 during an Artist’s residency with Theatre Delicatessen as part of FemFest 2019 with a Scratch performance to be held on 02/03/2019. 

PURCHASE TICKETS HERE 

More dates to follow.

• 25/01/18 – Camden People’s Theatre (London) as part of Calm Down Dear Festival of Feminist Performance.  Tickets on sale now.  
• 07&08/02/18 – The Bike Shed Theatre (Exeter) as part of Calm Down Dear Exeter Tickets on sale now
• 08/03/18 – Tom Thumb Theatre, Margate as part of POW! (Power Of Women Festival) Thanet 2018 PLUS post-show discussion chaired by Journalist and Feminist Activist Rachel Bell .  Tickets on sale now

Filmed and edited by Rosie Powell

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️”…a visceral takedown of sexist social mores.” Read full review here 

Syd&Sylvia  will be at Edinburgh Festival Fringe this year.  Dates: 5-7, 9-14, 16-21 & 23-26 August.  Venue: Silk (Free Fringe venue 444), 28a King’s Stables Rd, Edinburgh EH1 2JY. See EdFringe website for more info. Please note ed fringe website lists different dates. Dates displayed here are the correct ones. 

London preview date:    *****ONE NIGHT ONLY*****   

Friday 14th July.  Hackney Showroom, Hackney Downs Studios, Amhurst Terrace, E8 2BT.

Tickets: £8

Book online or telephone 020 3095 9747

Filmed 06/12/16 by Katy Jalili. Edited by Paul Asher Frankl. 

“This show is a face-punch right in the patriarchy…brutal, honest, uncompromising and urgent… one of the best pieces I’ve seen this year. Everyone should have a chance to see it” – Jen Smethurst, SPILL National Platform Project Manager & General Manager, Sh!t Theatre

Syd and Sylvia  will be performed on Tuesday 06/12/16 at Carnesky’s Finishing School, Soho as part of a double bill with live artist Jo Hauge 

6-12 Manette Street, London W1D 4AT.  Doors open at 7pm for an 8pm start.

Tickets £5 in advance or On The Door

The year is 1987. Infamous club owner and compere Syd and his long-suffering wife, club singer and entertainer Sylvia, have been performing the same old routines at their Eastbourne working men’s club for 15 years. However, since taking up an evening class in Women’s Studies, Sylvia has been taking liberties with some of the material, much to the disapproval of her abusive husband…

Syd and Sylvia is a one-woman show about control, expectation and the crap that women face every day, told through gender bending, karaoke and bad jokes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Previous audience feedback:

“…violent and harrowing and kind of raw. If we’re talking brush strokes, it isn’t light watercolours. It’s clay. It’s painting with a hammer. And I really, really love that.”

“Brave, funny, unlike anything I’ve ever seen”

“…Mighty Boosh with a strong moral compass”

Syd will be performed at Carnesky’s Finishing School ‘s pop-up venue in Soho on Tuesday 25th October as part of CFS’s Alumni shows programme, which runs on Tuesdays until the end of the year.  

Venue address: 

(Old) Foyle’s basement, 6-12 Manette Street, London W1D 4AT. Doors 7pm for an 8pm start. Tickets are £5 in advance, £8 OTD 

This is a call-out to women.  A call to arms.  A call-out about cat-calls.  About the obvious and subtle ways that you experience the negative effects of patriarchy in your life.  About manspreading, cat-calling, being ignored and talked over, being second-guessed.  Being followed, threatened, assaulted, abused.  Patronised.  About being called a ‘girl’ when you’re a fully grown woman.  About having to work twice as hard for half the recognition.  About ‘darling’, ‘sweetheart’, ‘love’ and all of that shit.  About wolf whistling.  About how it feels to walk alone at night.  About looking over your shoulder.  About that invisible feeling that descends over you in a group of men.  About the men in your life who take it upon themselves to speak on your behalf.  About the annoying douche bag who thinks your Ok Cupid profile must have been written ‘…by a bloke…cos there’s no way a woman could be that cool’ or something.   About that hollow laugh that street harassers deploy when you finally snap and show them your anger.  About the times when you’ve been yelled at or reprimanded (or worse) for damaging a man’s pride.  About the men who think it’s ‘cute’ when your angry.  About the fact that TV comedy panel shows only ever seem to have one woman on there…because they have to.  And they pick the most boring-as-fuck women they can find, seemingly to prove some kind of point.  About those dudes who take ‘sly’ photos of you when you exercise in public.  About the teenage boys half your age who sniff your hair on the back of the bus and laugh at you, making you feel half your age in the worst possible way.  About all those opinions you didn’t ask for.  About the lads in the pub who yell ‘Go on, get it on!’ when you and your female friend are laughing louder and having more fun than they deem acceptable.  About that flabergasted look in some posh old twat’s eyes when you dare to talk back to them.  About that low, anxious hum which follows you around when you’re out in public…that you may or may not experience, but I know I do.

 

I’m calling harassment of women what it is: bullying.  Exclusion.  Stuff that happens in school when you’re a little kid that we’re all taught is unacceptable behaviour.  And yet, as women, we are bullied constantly.  But no-one calls it that.  If we take the sex out of it – along with the fucking ridiculous notion that it’s a ‘compliment’ – what we’re left with is, I think, very clearly bullying.  We’re being picked on, made to squirm and feel self-conscious.  Having our moods ruined and the illusion that we can simply go about our lives minding our own business and getting away with it shattered.

 

I’m making a show about it.  I’m dressing up in a moustache and a glittery dress.  I’m calling myself Syd and speaking in a gruff voice.  In between telling bad jokes and doing gorilla impersonations, I’m talking about things that have happened to me as a woman, but as though I’m a man speaking.  I want to see if we take these incidents and behaviours more seriously when the speaker’s image and identity is altered / ‘mascified’ (I just made up a word and I don’t care).

 

I hesitated for a long time about asking other women for their input, as I have always felt (somewhat self-righteously) that there’s something cheaty about theatre that makes work out of stories collected from other people…. But after I did a work-in-progress show last November, one piece of feedback that I kept getting from women was that it was cathartic to hear these stories and that it made them want to tell their own stories.  And, on a personal level, I’m starting to come to terms with the fact that I really need to reach out more to other people in my career and stop being such a frigging loner who tries to do everything their self and, ultimately, falls short.

So, as part of my research for Syd, I’m asking fellow women to help me out by sending me their stories.  Stories about all the things I mentioned in the first paragraph and more. I want to start a conversation about how we can claim space. About the difference in the power that a (cishet, masculine seeming) man has when he walks down the street and that a woman has(n’t).  About unconscious, inherited power and power that is deliberately abused.  About how we modify our behaviour in order to get by.

Please send your stories here.  You can do so anonymously.