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Recent Press (Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne)

Added on by Stuart Bowden.

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REVIEWS

SHE WAS PROBABLY NOT A ROBOT - ADELAIDE

★★★★★ "Delightfully quirky, lo-fi weirdness from a truly gifted performer." Adelaide Theatre Guide 

★★★★ "A sight to behold" - The Clothesline

★★★★ "An off-beat, absurdist, endearingly funny one-man show" Kryztoff

★★★★ "fantastical, ludicrous, funny and heartfelt." Indaily

SHE WAS PROBABLY NOT A ROBOT - MELBOURNE

★★★★ and 1/2 "Bowden is a talented theatre maker. His piece is punchy, he boasts some seriously decent vocal chords, does great things with looping vocals, and he manages to tell a completely absurd tale in a compelling manner." - Arts Hub

"In this darkly hilarious and utterly charming show, Bowden has crafted an absolute winner" - Squirrel Comedy

Some nice things people have said about Before Us as part of Soho Solo

Added on by Stuart Bowden.

I'm doing Before Us at Soho Theatre. 

It's a theatre/storytelling/comedy/live music/monologue/silly/strange/sad/happy kind of thing. 

You can get tickets here.

And to get you in the mood here are some nice things people have said about it so far:

'An impeccable performance, endearing in his total weirdness.' ★★★★ Everything Theatre

'I have died & been reborn in a single show...dying from fits of laughter.' A Younger Theatre

'A strange but beautiful way to spend a theatrical hour.' British Theatre Guide

'Before Us is a joyfully irreverent look at the big themes that impact on all of us.' ★★★★ views from the gods

There's only 4 shows left.


Some nice things that people have said about my work

Added on by Stuart Bowden.


She Was Probably Not A Robot


★★★★★
"he creates a hilarious, bittersweet and completely enthralling world"
Three Weeks, UK

★★★★★
"utterly compelling from the start to finish"
Broadway Baby, UK

★★★★★
"Phenomenal one man wonder show... Stuart Bowden is an absolute genius... With live music, bizarre storytelling and perfect physical comedy, She Was Probably Not A Robot will leave you with a skip in your step and a smile on your heart"
Edinburgh Guide, UK

★★★★
"gorgeous notes of melancholia"
The Scotsman, UK

"a subliminal masterpiece"
The Stage, UK

★★★★
"Deliciously bleak humour... laugh out loud funny and heartbreakingly poignant"
Exeunt, UK

The Beast

★★★★
'A story that'll work its way into your soul. Quietly beautiful, a gift'
The List, UK

'An enchanting and very different slice of storytelling'
The Stage, UK

★★★★
'laugh out loud humour, sparks of surreal brilliance and moments of touching melancholy. Unfolding like a dream, this is an off beat gem'
Three Weeks, UK

'effortlessly strong performer... He has us enraptured'
Fest, UK

'an hour of innocent, heartfelt fun with some truly inventive musical interludes... displaying a perfect gift for pathos'
Scotsman, UK

★★★★
'Touching in simplicity'
The Adelaide Advertiser, AUS

★★★★
'Unique and charming'
The Adelaide Theatre Guide, AUS

'Bowden confirms my opinion he is one of the most prepossessing and honest storytellers we have the pleasure of seeing once a year'
No Plain Jane, AUS

The World Holds Everyone Apart, Apart From Us

★★★★
'narrative ingenuity and boundless charm as a performer… casts a heady spell and for an entire hour, Bowden holds everyone together in silent reverie'
Metro, UK

★★★★
'This is an utterly charming one-man show, but it is not just an exercise in theatrical whimsy, it is thoughtful and thought-provoking… a glowing endorsement for DIY theatre-making…Bowden will be one to watch as his fusion of live music-making and storytelling is joyous and full of sparkle'
Fringe Review, UK

★★★★★
'Stuart Bowden creates a show of such beauty it will take your breath away… full of wit and charm, this is low-fi DIY storytelling theatre at it’s very best'
Three Weeks, UK

★★★★
What’s On Stage, UK

The Lounge Room Confabulators

the narrative ingenuity behind this performance — infinitely clever, insidious and beguiling — is a rare treat.’  
The Age, AUS

★★★★
‘Awesomely talented’
The Herald Sun, AUS

★★★★
'Magical'
The List, UK

★★★★
'Masters of their craft'
Metro, UK

★★★★
'They are by turns funny, touching, macabre and ridiculous'
The Arts Desk, UK

Dr Brown Brown Brown Brown Brown and His Singing Tiger

★★★★★
Fest, UK

★★★★★
The List, UK

★★★★★
The Skinny, UK

★★★★
Three Weeks, UK

★★★★
Chortle, UK

★★★★
The Herald Sun, AUS

★★★★ from Exeunt - She Was Probably Not A Robot and The World Holds Everyone Apart, Apart From Us

Added on by Stuart.

"Deliciously bleak humour... laugh out loud funny and heartbreakingly poignant"

Exeunt, UK

The World Holds Everyone Apart, Apart From Us/She Was Probably Not a Robot at Brighton Dome

3rd November 2013

Reviewed by Tracey Sinclair

Four.

Two short plays about the end of the world might not sound like the most cheerful of experiences, but Stuart Bowden’s work wins you over with its surreal humour and lo-fi whimsy. Both of these seemingly slight pieces manage, in their own way, to be laugh out loud funny and heartbreakingly poignant.

The World Holds Everyone Apart, Apart From Us

 is set in an unhappy future where self-announced space explorer Avian sees the ills of mankind as a reflection of the fact the Earth itself is lonely. He sets out to remedy this by finding a friendly planet and towing it into our galaxy. Since loneliness is also the solo spaceman’s worst enemy, first he must train himself to withstand it, by abandoning the cities and going to live in the desert. But, as he discovers, life – and love – has a way of seeking you out, no matter how far you run.

The second, and more recent of the pieces, 

She Was Probably Not a Robot

, is initially bleaker still. It’s set in the aftermath of the apocalypse, and Bowden’s lone survivor spends the first few minutes standing on a bare stage, merrily telling members of the audience how they met their deaths. It’s darker, funnier and faster paced, as the lycra-clad, slacker protagonist seeks to avoid destruction, hurling himself around the auditorium on an inflatable mattress – a genuinely precarious endeavour in the intimate confines of a studio theatre.Out of what might sound like a fairly silly story, Bowden weaves an engaging tale, using nothing more than a handful of crates and a couple of musical instruments to pull us in to his deftly crafted world, ably switching between four different roles. The smart script is well married to Bowden’s affable, slightly bumbling persona, which disguises an adept, subtle use of physical comedy. There are occasional moments of heavy handedness – his spaceship is called The Story, and people are continually being invited into or out of it or getting lost inside it – but overall this is a funny, melancholic meditation on love and loneliness.

Its deliciously bleak humour once again relies heavily on Bowden’s likeability, but luckily he’s charismatic enough to carry it (you can’t imagine many performers telling a story about putting their dead girlfriend’s head on a stick and taking it for a walk, and managing to make it both hilarious and actually quite romantic). But this, too, is a weightier tale than it at first seems; as the story progresses, we see that even the end of the world has not stripped away the survivor’s delusions, as he fetishizes the girlfriend who had left him and the relationship he never, in fact, really had. The apocalypse, ironically, has let him create the life he always wanted and freed him from the inconvenience of everyday existence: dead girlfriends can’t leave you, dead dogs can’t run away.

So when an alien who has been painstakingly constructing a replacement planet (Bowden with a silver cardboard box on his head, entertainingly dotty) offers him a second chance, which he ruthlessly snatches (happily murdering his doppelganger so he can take his place) you wonder if his new life is as much an artificial construct as the world he lives it out on.

Though both shows work as standalone pieces – and have been performed separately – together their cumulative charm is considerable. If you’re going to be stranded at the end of the world, you couldn’t wish for better company.