HOST: Light of My Life

By Jess Thom and Matthew Pountney
Commissioned and produced by The Nightingale
Supported by Brighton Dome and Battersea Arts Centre

What do lamposts smell like? Following the success of Backstage in Biscuitland (Brighton Festival 2015), writers Jess Thom and Matthew Pountney present Light of My Life, a new work commissioned by The Nightingale for its relay performance project HOST.

HOST is a format that allows a performance of any discipline to be passed from one person to another in the style of a relay. Its first incarnation was in May 2014, when Tim Crouch's An Act of Union was performed to and by Brighton Fringe audiences.

While remaining a relay performance, these previews will test a new structure that further explores the viral nature of the HOST project.

In Light of My Life, Jess and Matthew invite audiences to step into Jess's world through a script that playfully and poetically explores Jess's daily interactions with a lamppost she can see from her bedroom window.

Jess Thom is an artist and playworker who has Tourettes syndrome, a neurological condition that causes involuntary physical movements and noises called tics. She and Matthew Pountney have been friends for more than ten years and are the cofounders of Touretteshero, which celebrates the humour and creativity of Tourettes.

“A cleverly constructed one-on-one piece…can be passed on forever.” The Guardian, on HOST: An Act Of Union

“The overwhelming gift of this free show is its extraordinary potency as an experience, immediately intimate and arresting…HOST raises all kinds of intriguing questions about the nature of performance as well as that of art as exchange.” Total Theatre, on HOST: An Act of Union.

“A cleverly constructed one-on-one piece…can be passed on forever.” The Guardian, on HOST: An Act Of Union