Raspberry is a musical inspired by the life and times of legendary disabled performer, Ian Dury. Written by award-winning playwright Garry Robson of Fittings Multimedia Arts, the play is showing at Oval House Theatre, London - 1 February to 19 February. (See DAO listings for details) This blog by members of the cast, follows on from a series of blogs posted when Fittings toured the UK with the show for six weeks in 2010.

Chris Bruno drops in to sees Nick Dear's Frankenstein at the National Theatre... and ruminates on perceptions of the 'freak'

10 February 2011

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It’s the first rainy day since I’ve been in London, just about three weeks now, and even though it’s Thursday, I can’t get that old Carpenters tune out of my head. It’s been a curious one, this second time round revisiting Raspberry in a new city, a new venue and with new eyes. Reconnecting with the Raspberry family after months of being away has, curiously enough, been much like reuniting with close blood relatives you haven’t seen for a while. Almost...

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Garry Robson inspires not a few Raspberry Ripples

4 February 2011

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It's four in the morning, late on in January, I’m writing this blog on a tired Olivetti, London is cold but i like where I’m living, there’s music at the Oval House on every evening (well Tues to Saturday to be precise) And Jayne.... Bloody 'ell. Lenny Cohen i must be feeling melancholy. Curiously enough i always find him really uplifting. Must be an age thing. Here i am sans the English Capital again, in what after another lovely time at Theatre Royal Stratford East is...

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Chris Bruno gives an affectionate account of touring the UK with Fittings Multimedia's Raspberry

6 May 2010

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Those of you who’ve been following Raspberry in these pages for the last two months, know the character of Rita is played by an American; specifically an American from the bustling, cacophonous, overcrowded metropolis that is New York City. Obviously, then, reserved is not a word I’d use to describe myself. More like “opinionated with a big heart.” So performing in cities, large and small, around the UK, I’ve often felt as though I stick out like the proverbial...

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Garry Robson gets excited about the response to Raspberry in Manchester

25 April 2010

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“Arseholes, b_st_rds, f_ckin, c_nts and pr_cks” - now aint that one of the greatest first lines of a song ever written. The fabulous Mr Dury leaves the listener in no doubt of what he thinks. As well as all the fabulous people you meet on tour you also meet a few like that. So I’d like to dedicate it to the bouncers on the door of the Underground night club in Dundee who refused the lovely Sally Clay entry ‘cause she was a fire risk. They said unsuspecting punters would...

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Garry Robson loves bringing out the raspberry ripple in his audiences

15 April 2010

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'Spasticus meets Dennis the Menace' “I love it! That memory will stay with me till the day I die” Thus spake one ecstatic audience member at the Traverse, Edinburgh, last week as a crowd of mainly non-disabled people sang along to ‘I love to be a Cripple, not a Raspberry or a Ripple but a downright dirty Cripple!!’” Marvellous! Brothers and Sisters it is indeed a wondrous moment when so many take up the opportunity to get a little bit of cripple inside them. My...

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Christine Bruno gets excited as she gets the part of Rita in Fittings new musical 'Raspberry' - by internet audition 6,000 miles away!

1 April 2010

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Six degrees of separation is a funny thing… you never realize it’s working its magic as it’s happening. But when you look back on the sequence of events that lead up to the event in question, it seems so obvious you ask yourself how you could have missed it. The world is small - and getting smaller every day. The world of theatre? Even smaller. When the amazingly talented Liz Carr approached me last spring to direct the current incarnation of her one-woman show, It...

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