Hi everyone,
Just wanted to let you know about Andy's new Picturehouse tour. Details below...
PICTUREHOUSE CINEMAS present…
ANDY KIRKPATRICK’S “BEYOND EXTREME”
UK Picturehouse Tour
27 Sep – 9 Oct
What’s the toilet etiquette when you’re dangling from a cliff edge? And what if the only place to go is on someone else’s distant head? And what’s all this got to do with Willy Wonka’s chocolate river?
Andy Kirkpatrick, solo climber extraordinaire, answers everything you always wanted to know about vertical mountain wall climbing but were afraid to ask...
After a summer tour which gleaned rave reviews and packed cinemas, maverick rock climber and comedian Andy Kirkpatrick returns to embark upon a full nationwide Picturehouse tour.
Armed with a killer stand up routine the bucolic Northerner regales audiences with tales of high octane climbs into the heights of the Patagonia mountains, where strapped to vertical rock faces unable to see the ground he slips into acute mental turmoil. About what? Falling? Death? Insanity? Well there is that, but actually it’s also whether pouring out the baked bean tin full of his 2-day old piss will cause an awkward situation when it hits the Americans climbing below.
In the flesh Andy shifts paradigms with a performance that includes an intoxicating mix of side spitting humour, bum-clenching fear, an open and honest insight into the high adrenaline world of mountaineering accompanied by amazing images and film footage. ‘Beyond Extreme’ is part stand-up comedy routine, part stunning slide show, part poignant talk, part extreme sport event with anecdotes from his stint as Stunt coordinator on the set of the Tim Burton / Johnny Depp production of ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ thrown in for equal measure. It’s a story that takes in his humble beginnings in his council flat in Hull, his first ascents in the Patagonian winter, mile high walls in California and ticking off the hardest routes in the Alps.
I rang Andy Kirkpatrick a few months ago to find out more about ‘Beyond Extreme’. “Sorry, he’s not here. He’s on a mountain in Alaska,” came the female voice on the other end of the line. That’s the reality of being the wife of Kirkpatrick, a writer, photographer and film maker as well as one of the UK’s most accomplished mountaineers and ‘big wall’ climbers (big walls are mountain walls of over 1000 metres). It’s also part of the reason why Andy’s talks are so engaging and appeal to more than just avid climbing fans or those whose appetite for mountain tales were wetted by Touching the Void or Herzog’s Grizzly Man. Granted there are people who can’t help but be impressed by the fact that he has vertical-climbed Yosemite’s El Capitan, the most difficult mountain wall in America, over ten times and completed a 12 day solo of the Reticent Wall: the hardest climb ever soloed by a British climber. But here is also the story of a husband, a father, a man of whom his fellow climber Allan Mullins said:
“This mad drive into the jaws of death sits abruptly amid a self-professed white trash existence in urban Sheffield, the normalness of which is almost as shocking as the madness of his in between adventures. Now a father of two, (‘it’s not rare for me to be changing Ella’s nappy one day and then literally shitting my own trousers a day later’) these domestic episodes seem to fuel an ever more desperate search for the extreme.”
The Picturehouse cinema begins in Greenwich on 27 September. Andy Kirkpatrick is available for interview and stunning hi resolution images available on request
“…his combination of relaxed, curiously wired, brilliantly timed cracks, phenomenally dramatic shots of Patagonian winter climbing epics and terrifyingly realistic wind impressions, effortlessly beguiled the audience” – Royal Geographical Society
“The cold is indescribable. I can smell my own body consuming its muscle – making me want to vomit – and I would if only I had any food in my belly. All I can do is close my eyes and wait… Why? The very question repeats itself in my mind every second I wait. What are my rewards? Money, fame, success? The only answer I find worthy of the pain is that I suffer all these things in order to gain something I already have – but only by doing so am I able to see its beauty.” - Andy Kirkpatrick
ALL THE DATES...
All tickets £10.50 / Members £8.50
Wed 27 Sep - Greenwich Picturehouse
Screening Room & Basement Bar
180 Greenwich High Road
SE10 8NN
08707 55 00 65
Doors 7.30pm
Thu 28 Sep - Clapham Picturehouse
76 Venn Street
London SW4 0AT
08707 55 00 61
Doors 8.15pm
Fri 29 Sept – The Ritzy, Brixton
Brixton Oval, Brixton, London SW2 1JG
08707 55 00 62
Doors 8.15pm
Sat 30 Sept – Exeter Picturehouse
51 Bartholomew Street West
Exeter EX4 3AJ
08707 551238
Doors 8.15pm
Sun 1 Oct – Harbour Lights Picturehouse, Southampton
Ocean Village
Southampton
SO14 3TL
08707 55 12 37
Doors 8.15pm
Mon 2 Oct - Bath Little Theatre
St Michael's Place, Bath, BA1 1SF
08707 55 12 41
Doors 8.15pm
Tue 3 Oct – Phoenix Picturehouse, Oxford
57 Walton Street
Oxford OX2 6AE
08707 58 32 18
Doors 8.15pm
Thu 5 Oct - Picturehouse at FACT, Liverpool
88 Wood Street
Liverpool L1 4DQ
08707 58 32 17
Doors 8.15pm
Sat 7 Oct - City Screen, York
13-17 Coney Street
York YO1 9QL
08707 58 32 19
Doors 8.15pm
Sun 8 Oct - Cameo Cinema, Edinburgh
38 Home Street
Edinburgh EH3 9LZ
08707 55 12 31
Doors 8.15pm
Mon 9 Oct - The Belmont Picturehouse, Aberdeen
49 Belmont Street
Aberdeen AB10 1JS
01224 343536
Doors 8.15pm
www.picturehouses.co.uk
