Number 9 Bus to Utopia

The above film was made for TEDx Brighton in January 2011 and is a 20 minute lecture version of the No9 Bus to Utopia…

The No9 Bus to Utopia from david bramwell on Vimeo.

Short promo filmed in the Earth Ship, May 2010

ABOUT THE SHOW

Simply executed with just a table, chair, coat-stand and a hot tub, the No 9 Bus to Utopia takes the audience on a roller-coaster ride through the history and philosophy of some of the West’s most fantastical communities combined with my own autobiographical adventures and insights into how, practically, we could all bring a greater sense of community back to our city lives.

The show premiered in the secluded beauty of Brighton’s Earth Ship in Stanmer Park and played to full houses throughout the Brighton Festival 2010. It combines theatre, comedy, anecdote and lecture-style slide shows, and pays tribute to the storytelling styles of such performers as Ken Campbell, Claire Dowie and Spalding Gray.

From the fantastical time-travel cathedral in the Italian mountains, Damanhur, to Copenhagen’s hippy (ex-)drug haven Christiania, via the hot-tubs of California’s Synanon and a dominatrix-led castle in the Czech Republic – David Bramwell’s tireless search for Utopia sounds like a Boy’s Own adventure. That he manages to convey his travel tales, thoughts and experiences and keep his audience engaged and entertained is quite a feat. He carries it off with natural charm, fluency and wit.

It’s lovely storytelling; not rambling and not patronising to the communities he visits (however easily parodied). It has the zeal of a real enthusiast for alternative ways of living, albeit one with a hot-tub obsession, and is well directed, with a natural feel for the subject matter and an eye for a visual joke by Emma Kilbey.

Lisa Wolfe, Total Theatre