GARGANTUA at Morden Tower

Event information

Gargantua, a brand new 'vaudeville of the imagination' from the beautifully scrambled brains of UK polymath Ergo Phizmiz, tours the UK in March 2013 –full dates and info below.

A multi-sensory feast and genuinely unique patchwork of artistic disciplines, Gargantua plunders history and culture and places them in a boiling pot ready for explosion. A devilish mix of storytelling, performance, animation, puppetry, moving image collage and masks, all garlanded by an original music score that's equal parts contemporary electronic, medieval and 1930s British dance band.

If 'F is for Fake' then 'E' could be for 'Ergo'. This hallucinatory odyssey through time and culture tells three simultaneous stories: one a detective story on the disappearance of the giant King Gargantua, another of an adventure by French writer Francois Rabelais across Europe, the third a strange, elliptical board game that draws these threads together, in a story told by the more than reliable Gargantuan narrator Orson Welles...

As one portal gives you access to insider knowledge, a trapdoor opens and leaves you wonderfully displaced, and so it goes. Grey matter is constantly electrified and eyes lavished by Terry Gilliam-esque architectural constructs, political sensibilities are enlightened by meta-narratives, absurd social commentary echoes Thomas Pynchon or Felix Kubin and limbs and laughing muscles loosen as if being tackled by a crack tag-wrestling team of Andy Kaufman and Phil Kay. If you haven't visited before, welcome to
the world of Ergo Phizmiz.

The Gargantua blog features details of said board game, video/audio clips, remixes and pictures of the production in progress. Visit here - http://gargantuadisappears.blogspot.com – and get yer bookmarks out.


More info on Ergo Phizmiz

Ergo Phizmiz is a UK based radio producer, collagist, writer, composer, and filmmaker, who has worked across radioplays, installations, opera, songwriting, animations, and performance. His work is characterised by restless change and playful toying with history, art, music, science, and the limits between creativity & charlatanism, facts & fictions, copyrights & copywrongs, words & music. He likes Laurel & Hardy, and Kurt Schwitters, and Paul Klee, and Cervantes, and Morecambe & Wise.

His theatre work has included the experimental electronic multimedia operas “The Mourning Show”, "Fulcanelli's Shoes”, and “The Third Policeman” (based on the Flann O' Brien novel of the same name), which have toured UK & Europe to critical acclaim.

He has released critically acclaimed songwriting on Care in the Community Recordings, and has also released music with Soleilmoon Recordings, Touch Music, EgoTwister Records, Womb Records, Sonic Arts Network, and many others. His new album "Eleven Songs" was released in December 2012.

His visual art has included the collage exhibition "Families, Intimate Situations, Opium Architecture & the Behemoth" at the Depozitory, Isle of Wight, and the installations "Forest : Part One" for Venn Festival, "The Invention of Birds" for Soundart Radio's First Spark Festival, and "Reconstructing Scarborough" for Sonic Arts Network.

Among the artists with whom Ergo has collaborated are Pete Um, Patrick Sims, Denis Kundic/Vernon Lenoir, People Like Us, Frankie Boyle, Safety Scissors, The Bees, Hilary Jeffery, DJ Lenar, Oblivian Substanshall, Joel Cahen, The The, and Christian Marclay.


Press Quotes on Ergo Phizmiz

“I would be almost concerned if you had witnessed anything like it before. He is a burst of imagination, colour and noise, which has in the past left me sitting jaw collapsed on the floor, speechless as to how someone can so beautifully map out such madness” - Tom Ravenscroft, The New Statesman on “The Third Policeman”

“We can't decide whether he's the new Viv Stanshall, a young Eno, a British Zappa, or a replacement for Frank Sidebottom” - The Guardian

“A truly English original who we should cherish deeply” - Sound Projector

“Mad, but mesmerising” - The Times on “The Third Policeman”

"One of the most inventive composers around...a musical equivalent to Chris Morris" - BBC Radio 3