HORSE

The award-winning Flick Ferdinando unleashes a stable of unstable characters into a deliciously dark physical comedy. Prepare to reassess how far one woman’s passion for all things equine can go, in a show where the horse obsessed become the horse possessed.

Flick Ferdinando is an extremely versatile performer where theatrical disciplines are seamlessly woven together to produce her own unique style of performance.

HORSE is a brand new one-woman show from the critically acclaimed theatre company, Company FZ. Ferdinando´s consummate performance shifts effortlessly from theatre, to aerial spectacular, to comedy with a deftness as light as her quick-fire wit. Whether she´s sitting provocatively astride a bale of hay in jodhpurs, or rising Venus-like from a drinking trough – complete with genuine water – in a glittering evening gown, Ferdinando´s comic pace slows not for an instant. An established performer and director in the UK, Flick Ferdinando has most recently directed Marisa Carnesky’s Magic War and Kim Noble in Kim Noble is Going To Die at Soho Theatre. She has recently toured with Peepolykus in Spyski, has directed for La Clique and continues to perform her solo cabaret act A Tribute to Margot Fonteyn. Flick is one third of the cult festival show Bramble FM. Last seen at the 2010 Salisbury International Festival (UK), HORSE started life at the Horse Hospital (London, UK) and was then performed as work in progress showings at Pulse Festival (Ipswich, UK) and CityCirc (London, UK). The show premiered at the 2009 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, where it received a Total Theatre Award Nomination for Devised Performance.

HORSE will make its international debut at Festival Praha.

Company FZ are renowned for their unique synthesis of comedy, visual imagery, circus inspired choreography and text. An artistic partnership between Flick Ferdinando and John-Paul Zaccarini, with Ferdinando directing Zaccarini in their first show Throat, performed at the 2002 and 2003 Edinburgh Fringe Festival and winning the Total Theatre Award for Innovation and Excellence in 2002. The show toured the UK and was seen in Europe, Africa, China and the U.S where it was received with critical acclaim and was photographed for Paris Vogue. In their Tenth Anniversary, HORSE is a reverse parallel to their very first show, with Zaccarini doing initial direction with Ferdinando in a female solo.

Since then they have produced: Loser, which was performed at the 2005 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and (which) toured the UK and Europe and Besame Mucho Cabaret, which has been performed for three consecutive years at the Watch This Space Festival and has been developed at The National Theatre Studio. In 2006 From Where I´m Standing, Company FZ´s collaboration with Gravity and Levity, was shown on Channel Four Television. In 2008 they collaborated with The Greenwich and Docklands Festival on Aqua in Trafalgar Square and with Knutkut for the London Mela Festival. Their first mid-scale show We Can Be Heroes toured in Autumn 2009.

Company FZ´s Co-Artistic Director John-Paul Zaccarini is well known on the cabaret circuit with his infamous rope act, having most recently performed in La Clique at the London Hippodrome. He has also performed with DV8 on two tours of Enter Achilles and directs for The Gandini Project.

Directing HORSE is David Bernstein. David is Artistic Director for Strangelings, creating and touring nationally and internationally with small to large-scale outdoor work for the past 12 years. He has created commissions for the opening of Walsall Art Gallery, the re-opening of Manchester Museum and Alnwick Gardens. His other performance and devising work includes Bernie and Clive, Ladies and Gentlemen where am I, Meat and Two Veg with Cartoon De Salvo. World Cup Final 1966 produced by Tom Morris and Emma Stenning, touring nationally. He was commissioned under the Scratch development at Battersea Arts Centre to create Heroic Deaths using the building site specifically.