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Double EnderWho owns history? Who gets to share it?
Double-Ender is a new collaboration between visual artist Jez Dolan and playwright Joshua
Val Martin who each perform a fast-paced and entertaining monologue. Hear the stories of rubber-men tax inspectors, a memorial for a gay male nun, and how cottaging can lead to long-term love. Jez and Joshua share their candid personal stories, and how they relate to the changing experiences of queer people living within a rapidly regenerating city. Award-winning playwright Joshua Val Martin (Bruntwood Prize, Royal Exchange Theatre, Arcola, Bolton Octagon, Northampton Royal and Derngate), set up and runs Free Manchester Walking Tours. He has an ambivalent love-hate relationship with Manchester and its history. He shares tales of tour guide turf wars, and the stories of the people who’ve joined him over five years walking the city’s streets. Part stand-up, part lecture, Jez Dolan (work seen in London, Reykjavik, New York and Berlin) explores the world of Polari: the “lost language of gay men” used in England between the 1920s and 1970s. Jez weaves his own experiences with the story of Polari and its crucial role as both a disguise and a space for identification and pride. Audiences: Double-Ender will attract an LGBTQIA+ and a contemporary theatre audience, as well as people interested in history and our evolving city. “Jez Dolan [is] an outstanding conceptual artist whose work is already well known on the national and international stage. At a time when nationalist populisms and silos of identity politics seem to be emerging at greater ferocity, Dolan’s work is an important antidote to this cultural condition.” – Professor Johnny Golding, Royal College of Art |
Creative Team
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Joshua Val MartinWriter/PerformerJoshua Val Martin is a playwright from Bolton. His first play Strangeways was taken to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2014 by the University of Manchester, winning a ‘pick-of-the-fringe’, before going on to tour nationally. Since then his work has included an immersive play in a drag bar, two full-length musicals for Central School of Speech and Drama, and a collaboration with writers Jonathan Harvey, Patrick Wilde and Jonathan Kemp on a collection of short plays that marked the partial decriminalisation of homosexuality in England and in Wales.
His play This Is Not America won the commendation prize at the 2017 Bruntwood Prize - Europe’s biggest prize for playwriting. Other work includes his play A Vocation: 49 Scenarios for Gay Men, that has been performed a number of times nationally, and a piece of narrative art for the exhibition Ten Instructions for Queer Artists (Gallery 78, Reykjavik). Next year, his documentary play 60 Miles by Road or Rail will be revived at Northampton’s Royal and Derngate; his play In A Town Somewhere North of Milton Keynes will tour England; and his musical A Permanent State of Emergency is going into development with Hope Mill Theatre. Aside from theatre, Val has been commissioned to write an episode for a new SKY TV drama, and he is studying for a History MA part-time at the University of Manchester. https://www.unitedagents.co.uk/joshua-val-martin |
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Jez DolanWriter/PerformerJez Dolan is a visual artist and theatre-maker based in Manchester. For the past decade Jez’s practice has underlined the intersections between queerness, sexuality, identity and memory. These interests are expressed in a range of mediums including, drawing, installation, printmaking and performance, utilising the medium which best expresses the message for each individual work.
His performance works have been seen at a diverse range of venues including: The Aldeburgh Festival; Bury Art Museum; Contact and HOME, Manchester; the National Gallery of Iceland, Reykjavik; and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. He has recently shown work at: Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery; The Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art, New York City; The People’s History Museum, Manchester; The Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool; and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. He has work in public and private collections internationally including The British Museum, The (UK) Government Art Collection; and The Schwules* Museum, Berlin. https://jezdolan.com |
Josh Coates
Director/Dramaturg
Josh Coates is a theatre maker, director and event organiser from Bolton. He was a supported artist at the Royal Exchange in 2015 and has worked alongside Belarus Free Theatre, Blast Theory and Daniel Bye.
As a solo maker he has presented work at Paines Plough Roundabout, Northern Stage and Progkunstefestivalen in Norway.
Josh is also a member of Powder Keg, a Manchester based performance company. Their show Bears won the 2016 Hodgkiss Award, and their debut show Morale is High toured nationally and was presented as part of the Northern Stage showcase at Summerhall during
the Edinburgh Fringe in 2017.
He runs ZeenZeenZeen, a live zine distributor that has put on events at HOME, Camden People’s Theatre and Katzpace. These events are all about performing fandom through live art.
https://joshuajcoates.wixsite.com/josh
As a solo maker he has presented work at Paines Plough Roundabout, Northern Stage and Progkunstefestivalen in Norway.
Josh is also a member of Powder Keg, a Manchester based performance company. Their show Bears won the 2016 Hodgkiss Award, and their debut show Morale is High toured nationally and was presented as part of the Northern Stage showcase at Summerhall during
the Edinburgh Fringe in 2017.
He runs ZeenZeenZeen, a live zine distributor that has put on events at HOME, Camden People’s Theatre and Katzpace. These events are all about performing fandom through live art.
https://joshuajcoates.wixsite.com/josh
TourTour details will be announced in Autumn 2020
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Double Ender received funding from:
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