Wot? No Fish!! – Preview

Published On January 30, 2014 | By Kathleen Steeden | Theatre & Arts Reviews & Previews

The Old Market Theatre
20-21st  February 2014
£12/10 conc.

For nearly 60 years shoemaker Ab Solomons drew a cartoon on his weekly wage packet for his wife Celie. Through these visual musings he documented their family life from 1926–1982, a weekly chronicle of an East End Jewish couple’s marriage through some of the most defining decades of the twentieth century.

Doodled in ink on the back of envelopes and intended simply as a shared joke with his wife, Ab couldn’t have dreamt that his artistic creations would ever be seen or appreciated by anyone else. But after discovering the artworks in an old shoebox his great nephew, touched by his great uncle’s witty observations and creative talent, has found a way to share these drawings and the story they tell through his moving solo show Wot? No Fish!!

Written and performed by Danny Braverman and directed by Nick Philippou the show is part performance, part lecture, part onstage biography. It premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2013 where it was celebrated as a ‘touching everyday love story’ (The Scotsman, 2013) and now comes to Brighton as part of a national tour.

Using a projector to reveal the drawings to the audience Danny tells the story of couple’s marriage, with all its ups and downs, and reflects on his own journey of discovery along the way. At times hilarious, at others painfully honest, represented in these tiny drawings is a lifetime of love and pain. There is romance, marriage, poverty, babies, illness and heartbreak; through these cartoons Danny has discovered more about his relatives’ lives than he ever could have gleaned from a family photo album. Now he wants to share these personal revelations with us.

http://wotnofish.wordpress.com/
www.facebook.com/Wotnofish
@DannyBraverman

 

About The Writer

is a Brighton-based writer, editor and bibliophile. She writes mainly about food culture, sustainability and travel (sometimes all at the same time) although her only real criterion for taking on work is that it must be interesting. She has recently decided to put all the time she spends daydreaming about food to good use, and as well as writing about the local dining scene for We Love Brighton she regularly compiles features for Sussex Food and Drink Guide and the British Curry Club’s Chaat! magazine. She is on a mission to drink beers in as many exotic places as possible. You can see further examples of her writing at www.kathleensteeden.co.uk