This Friday, celebrated spoken word artist and Chill Pill co-founder Deanna Rodger returns to the Albany as part of Hatched, our programme for supporting artists’ development. She will be presenting her first ever full-length theatre piece ‘London Matter’ this Friday, 7 March at 7pm, which explores the relationship between love and darkness, and ultimately aims to answer the question “why aren’t London’s lights ever switched off?”.
Leading up to the one-night show, we sat down to ask her some questions of our own:
What was your first experience with spoken word?
Attending a workshop at Lyric Hammersmith in January 2007 and seeing Dean Atta and Joseph Coelho perform.
What inspired you to pose the question about London’s lights never switching off?
I was walking around at night a lot in summer 2012, going out and trying to shake myself from myself and I couldn’t. I couldn’t escape seeing myself. I wanted everything to switch off so that I could disappear. I wanted to become part of the universe. It got me thinking about how we connect with other people and how we trust. I had called quits on a relationship, it was an emotional time.
What do you hope the audience will take out from this performance?
I hope that the story is clear.. There’s loads that I’ve put into this and this sharing will really be about the narrative. And really cool lighting, thanks to Ben! [Ben Wallace, our Technical Manager]
When you are conceiving a new piece, is there a method to your writing?
Madness! And acceptance of all the rubbish that comes with writing every little thing in my head.
If you could meet anyone throughout history, living or dead, who would it be? And most importantly what would you ask them?
Hmm, the first human to ever be in existence though I’m not sure that means I could ask them anything. I think I would like to ask the Queen what she thinks of homelessness in the 21st century.
Find out more about Deanna Rodger’s ‘London Matter’ and book tickets here. As tickets are now limited, you can also see Deanna in Chill Pill Big One on Thursday, 24 April at 7:30pm.
The Albany, Deptford 