House Mother Normal - Site Specific

Friend (if I may call you friend), these are also our friends. 

Ron, Rosetta, Ivy, Charlie, Gloria, Sarah, Sioned and George. Under the watchful eye of House Mother, eight residents of the strangest care home recall their pasts and narrate their terrifying present: the twitcher, the song, the Christmas Crackers, the Pass the Parcel, and Ralphie’s ‘long, probing, red tongue’. Nine faces. Nine voices orchestrated into a spoken-word symphony of old age and absurdism. 

In the early 1970s, BS Johnson was at the forefront of the English literary avant-garde. Marking its fiftieth anniversary this year, his celebrated novel House Mother Normal is given the equivalent of a digital remastering by Brighton artist and ‘the country’s pre-eminent experimental playwright’ (The Stage), Tim Crouch. This is a filmed installation to be experienced online and, from Mon 17 May, in physical space.

This filmed site-specific installation is also available to experience online from Wed 5–Mon 31 May.

‘New Perspectives has been a pioneer during the theatre shutdown.’ Lyn Gardner, Stagedoor