12 minutes | Tuesday, 4 March 2025
Xan Phillips: Lovely.
You're listening to Southampton's Voice FM. My name is Xan and welcome to Arts and Culture. And the show we're just about to talk about is coming directly from the West End to Mayflower Studios. For one night and one night only, Trash, a high energy and percussion and recycling musical, will be on stage in Southampton.
It's set in a recycling centre. Four workers give new life to waste and rubbish, including propane tanks, umbrellas, balls, two boxes, horns and big bags. horns and bin bags by using percussion movement and slapstick in various musical sketches. Here to tell us more about it is the artistic director, David Ottone.
David, a very good afternoon to you. How are you?
David Ottone: Fantastic. And you said everything about the show in the introduction.
Xan Phillips: There's nothing else to talk about.
David Ottone: It's exactly, exactly that. I mean, it's got all that.
Xan Phillips: Well, no, I'm sure there's more to talk about though, because but I think first of all I know, and, and, and almost I'll say every child knows, but there's a child in me that if you bang something, it makes a noise.
And if you bang a couple of things, you think that's really good fun. But when did you first think that banging various bits and pieces could be actually turned into a very successful stage show.
David Ottone: Well, I mean, I think there's two things in this show, how the way we created it. Not first, I mean, we've been investigating for a long, long time about this, this kind of objects, you know, we, we have a career in, in, in in physical comedy and in music, you know, I'm blending it together.
So we, we already knew. That, you know, it could be done. And they were it's like the imagination, no? How do you create instruments from things that they are actually waste? But this is what one aspect. And another aspect was a very important one that is the, the. Where we are going as a society, you know, I mean, the world is going to tatters.
Really, the world is really in a situation that is very, very dangerous. The climate change the environmental situation is very, very, very, very complex and very, very it's an issue that we have to raise. So we try to combine the two of them. I mean, so basically we took all these inventions and we, we, we knew that they could work musically and as a comedy pieces.
And at the same time, We tried to blend it with this message about, about the environment. So the two together put together came trash as a show. So the show tries to deal with that. I mean, first it's a very funny show. It's an entertaining show. It's musically, it's beautiful. It's very inventive, but at the same time without preaching.
It tackles the issues about, you know, that are very, very important is the environmental problems that we are facing as a society.
Xan Phillips: So if a chance you break something, let's say you know, your toolbox breaks, you hit it too hard or something. Do you then have to scour the local area to find some more rubbish to hit?
How do you go about it?
David Ottone: No, I mean, the thing is, every, every element and every instrument and every piece that we have in the show is very, very well studied, you know, and it's very, very tuned and is very but we use a few things, I mean, especially in the, in the process of investigation on the process that we, it took like a three, four months to, to play with things and stuff like that.
It's true that, I mean, we went through the streets and finally we saw something for it to the studio. play with it. Oh, fantastic. No. So, I mean, we were scouting, you know, around the streets and we could find something that it was kind of useful, no? But then when we created a show, everything is very, very, very well studied to, to create the effect that we wanted to create.
Xan Phillips: So how do you tune a propane tank then?
David Ottone: It's incredible, but it works so, so beautifully. It's one of the most poetic moments in the show, actually. No, it sounded like, I mean, we, well, basically, I mean, it's engineering. Really, we had like people that they are really engineers and and we, we tuned it. And it's, it's, it's one of the most poetic moments because it's, it's, it's alone.
This, this amazing performer with two propane tanks and it creates like a beautiful, beautiful moment. And and this is an example that we did with the rest of the show. There's so, so many other things that are so, so surprising, how something that is already discarded and you think that, you know, it hasn't any new use, suddenly becomes something so useful and so beautiful and so powerful.
Xan Phillips: So, the story, the show is set in a recycling centre, is there actually a story to it, a sort of a beginning, a middle and an end? Not
David Ottone: so much, I mean, it's the characters that they take their story through, I mean, it's not a big story, a complex story, basically, it's these four very, very, I mean, kind of like I could say funny and very, you know, I kind of yeah, you could say funny characters know that basically they are on each character is called their personality.
There's the boss and there is the guy who's a bit goofy, stuff like that. And with those four characters, we, we kind of like go through all these elements that I arrive into this Recycling center and they are trying to see if it's worth it or not worth it. And so they play around with them. And of course the sense that, I mean, there's a stories because the characters, there's little interactions between them that and, and there is a small story within them, but it's not a story.
It's not like a story beyond the characters that they take it through. I dunno if I, if I make myself understood .
Xan Phillips: No, it's fine. Well, I've got another question for you actually, but it, so is this like a silent movie with music?
David Ottone: Yeah, basically. I mean, this comes from a company's called Ana. We've been for 34 years creating physical comedy.
We've been in North Broadway with a show and, and I mean we, we've, we've toured around 46 countries around the world. So what we, the main thing, what we do is, is physical comedy. So the whole show is, is nonverbal. So, and and we use basically our bodies, our music and, and gesture, that's the only thing we use.
And and with that, I mean, we've been able to go, I mean, the show has been running in Paris for three, three months, we've took it to Milan, we took it to Portugal, we've been to Korea. I mean, so we, we, we cover the world and the world and always has been.
Xan Phillips: I'm sure you've been asked this question before because you've toured around Europe with this show.
Do, do different nations react differently to certain bits of the comedy or is it, are you able to span every, every desire and every thought?
David Ottone: Yeah, we, we, we managed to create yeah, to, to the, to our surprise always. I mean, we, we've been doing this for 34 years, so we kind of know how to create a show that speaks to humans, you know, not, not to cultures, you know, in the sense that, I mean, it's more I mean, all, all, we humans, we are very, very we are very, very similar.
I mean, we perform in Korea, we perform in China, and, and we, of course. I mean, there is this, perhaps it's the way that they react. I mean, perhaps in, in, in Japan, for example, they are more quieter, quieter and stuff like that as a response. But I mean, they always, they always we always have find that they, they understand perfectly well and their reaction is kind of always the same.
So for us, he said, I mean, we've done it in France. I mean, hopefully now in England. It's, it's going to be a hit as well. So hopefully, yeah.
Xan Phillips: So you're using physical comedy. Which is the funniest part of the body?
David Ottone: The bones. Funny, we always say funny bones. Yeah. It's using the body. It's using the, you have funny bones in the way you, the movement, the bones are the best, you know, and it's the way you combine the movements of the bones is what makes things funny.
Xan Phillips: Right. Excellent. I mean, I, I, and, and do you, I mean, have you actually recorded this into an album? Do you think this is something that people could take away and listen to, or is this something that you definitely need the, the physical action to, to bring it all to life?
David Ottone: I think, I think it's very important.
The visual is very, very important. The visual, I mean, percussion. I mean, because one of the things we do here, I mean, there, there's certain shows, for example, I mean, you can take us an example of some stomp. For example, an example, you know, Stomp is one of, you know, one of the most famous, famous percussion based shows.
I mean, there are many, many, many, many shows of this this kind of like style, no? And what we tried to do, it was to do something different from them, no? Trying to investigate and trying to do, even if you could see, okay, it's kind of, kind of Stomp, but it's different, no? So we managed to create something completely different.
Very, very different. And we use songs as well. I mean, we, we have a beautiful moment, for example, where we do with toolboxes. We will rock you or there is with we do something for example, with the screwdrivers and finally we play Magalena. This is one, one song from Carlitos Brown. Batucada, you know, so we create, this is one of the things, for example, that we managed to create that is a stamp that is different from all the rest of the shows that they are around is, is that we open musically to a different dimension as well.
So there's moments, for example, they are more melodic, you know, it's true. And you could listen into a record or something like that, but in general, you know, they're like a, like 70 percent of the show is very, very percussion based. And I don't think you will enjoy it if you don't see what is happening.
Xan Phillips: No, I totally understand that. And as far as the audience is concerned, are people coming away sort of feeling different about recycling and rubbish or are people just coming away feeling much, much better about themselves in life? No,
David Ottone: the first thing, the first thing is they have a good time, a good time.
One of the things, for example, that happens in the show is, I mean, we don't try to preach. You know, it's kind of like it's a different way of in the same speech or, or, or like, you should do this and you should do that. No, but it's true that, I mean, just seeing that really we sometimes, I mean, we are in this, I mean, as a society, even myself, I mean, you are, we're buying constantly things.
I mean, we are using them and we are not really reusing things. So I think it's an example that they show, you know Shows that, I mean, there is so much that damage we're doing to our world because we are not really thinking too much about how we, you know, very, very, very easily we discard things.
I mean, and this show, basically what it does is showing that, I mean, it's got so much possibilities. The elements that we sometimes think that they are already a waste, they are not. No, so I don't know. It makes people kind of like think, but at the same time they are re entertained. So, but I mean, our main, main objective is for them to have a great, great time and open themselves to the imagination.
Xan Phillips: And so you're on the West End in between February and then. Then the next stop is Southampton after Southampton, presumably a UK tour. But are you hoping to hope to get to Broadway?
David Ottone: Hopefully, yeah. Yesterday when we arrived here in London, and actually we open tomorrow in London and and we, we said this is the first stop to, towards Broadway.
We did it. I mean, we did we did already with one of our shows, 666, we perform at the Villetta Lane Theatre for three months at Off Broadway. It was an amazing experience and and of course, yes, I mean, we want to, we want to learn this as one of our objectives.
Xan Phillips: That's fantastic. Well David Ottone thank you so much for speaking with us.
He's the artistic director of Trash, which is coming to Mayflower Studios on Tuesday, the 4th of March 2025. for one night and one night only. And so make sure you get your ticket because I'm sure it's going to set out very quick. Thank you very much for your time, sir.
David Ottone: Okay. Thank you. Good to you.
Bye.