Kings of England - Where We Live & What We Live For

Simon and Peter Bowes are Kings of England. In a series of short narrations and little performances a father and son deconstruct their family archive journeying back and forth across the years. Inventing what they cannot remember, they go off in search of beloved places, people and things, imagining a careworn, aesthetic world where words can be un-said, deeds un-done, and deaths un-died.

Kings of England is an ongoing research project coursing bloodlines and genealogies back to the Other, Old World. This research process sometimes results in performances.

The first of these, "Where We Live & What We Live For" was devised and performed by myself and my father.

A typical spiel goes like this:

In 1958 he (my father, before he was my father), jumped from the rocks toward the sea. The photograph catches him partway down. In 2001, he suffered a transient-ischemic attack, fell from the bike he was riding, and could not remember his name, nor where he was, nor where he lived. In response, we reclaim this lost hour, folding the space of the jump (which was voluntary) into the space of the fall (which wasn't), celebrate the moment in which we know we have survived.

Through a series of short narrations and little performances, Simon Bowes and his 75-year-old-dad rework their family archives into a series of meditations on love, loss, happiness and the passing of time

Whilst in development we performed at: Freshly Scratched Festival (BAC, Sept '08); You and Your Work 5 (Easton Community Centre, Bristol, Oct '08)Pilot Nights (Custard Factory, Birmingham, Dec '08); New Year New Spaces(BAC, Jan '09), SPILL National Platform (April '09), Burst: 51 Reasons For Living (BAC, April '09); Camden People's Theatre as part of Sprint Festival, 24th / 25th June, rounding off with an uproarious 75th Birthday gig at Forest Fringe, Edinburgh, on the 28th August.

The second performance "IF" is a solo that points towards some possible orgins of my family and drinks a toast: To the Other, Old World, the one before us, we were nothing, yet, but possibility.

"WWL&WWLF" was commissioned by the Nuffield Theatre (Nuffield New Works); Battersea Arts Centre (BAC Scratch); Leeds Met Studio Theatre, The Bluecoat, Liverpool. Between April and September 09 Kings of England were supported by Arts Council England.