Theatrical rejects work on the hoof

Apr 24 2008 by Philip Key, Liverpool Daily Post

The Everyman Theatre, Hope Street, Liverpool _320

THE Liverpool theatre company Rejects Revenge may have been killed off earlier this year by Arts Council cuts but the name is lingering on.

The group some time ago linked up with a fellow Liverpool company Spike Theatre to create Hoof!

This was a new idea in British theatre, a show totally improvised on the spot each night and for which the performers prepared with the Hothouse Improv Studio in Los Angeles where the idea originated.

Hoof! did not take suggestions from the audience or work on a theme. Instead, the five suited performers and one musician walked on stage and did whatever came into their heads.

It has returned to the same venue a few times since and amazingly, each show was totally different.

Now it is to get a two-night run at the Liverpool Everyman Theatre on May 9-10.

Ann Farrar, co-founder of Rejects Revenge Theatre Company and one of the ensemble founders of Hoof! (so named as the shows are created “on the hoof”), said the show had already had success touring the UK and the US.

“It is building up quite a following,” she says.

“But we are really glad that the biggest following has been built from the outset in our home city of Liverpool.”