Talkaoke is coming to Boston, Lincolnshire alongside MONUMENT as part of a new theatre festival! More details coming soon!

Talkaoke – 14th October

Created by The People Speak, is our flagship live, television-style talk show and a creative communication format. Talkaoke is non-hierarchical – it is up to the participants to decide on the topics. For us, the conversation is a creative medium and a journey from one unexpected subject to another. It can be topical, funny, deep, surreal, or something else. The participants generate the subjects and the host in the middle keeps everybody engaged. The format is simple: the host sits in the middle of an illuminated round table, and you sit around the outside and talk about whatever comes up. Just grab the microphone and air your views.

Watch What is Talkaoke? by In Situ our partners in Lancashire.

The People Speak

We are a group of international artists, cultural producers, science communicators and activists based in East London, UK. We have 28 years’ expertise in helping people to understand each other and collectively process the complexity of the world. Our aim is to create a backdrop for culture of participation through listening to each other, celebrating diversity of experiences & perspectives.

photo by Brian Whar

MONUMENT – 15th October

A one-woman comedy show with audience participation using rap, drag and pickled gherkins. Written and performed by The People Speak’s Margot Przymierska, MONUMENT is set at mysterious construction sites in Czechoslovakia and the UK, the show asks questions about the real cost and purpose of hard-work.

Bogdan is a relatable everyman and a hard worker involved in a mysterious construction project. Following a typical migrant path he’s focused on earning money and imagining the future ahead. So far it’s not looking great. Bogdan is desperately looking for real love and connection. Caught in a work-sleep routine, he fills his loneliness and lack of life purpose with dating apps and doom scrolling on social media, interrupted by a barrage of news from the wider world. Bogdan begins to question the aim of his hard work and wants to find out what he’s building. Bogdan’s life is juxtaposed with the tragi-comic true story of the largest monument of Stalin in the 1950s Czechoslovakia through the eyes of a Soviet Apparatchik, who will do everything to make the monument a success.

Positioned side by side, two stories of Bogdan & Soviet Apparatchik create a dialogue between two individuals, two societies and two moments in history, encouraging the audience to think about the individual and collective power in shaping the world around us.

More about MONUMENT on Margot’s website.

Photo by Luminous Photography

MONUMENT at The Curve Venue, Slough