Speedball is an exciting and original collaboration between artists of different disciplines, using jazz not as a tool but as an essential form in the process.

The work evolved through creative response: the artists were each given a collection of material, including recordings, interviews, biography and photographs, and asked to respond as they wished. The responses were broad, including text and dialogue, new composition, photography and film, and helped generate a first draft script.  During the rehearsal process all artists and performers contribute to the development of an organic, seamless relationship between music, text and performance. The script is revised daily to respond to the musical and performative improvisations and the original music and jazz standards are arranged to incorporate the responses to text and performance.

What is performed is a dynamic adaptation of the original source material, a performative response to a life once lived which visits themes of romance and desperation in equal measure. Our viewing of a William Claxton photograph of a young Chet becomes a haunting riff, a subtle gesture. Our listening to My Funny Valentine moves us to poetry and lyricism.  Improvisation is the key to a process that takes in sources as wide as the Guy Barker scenes in The Talented Mr Ripley to the Athena postcards of the 1980's where the audience come to bear witness to our creative engagement with a jazz icon.