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PRESS RELEASE

 
SLAP AND TICKLE smashes through all the taboos associated with growing old and being sexy. Commenting on the associations surrounding women of all ages and the efect they have on our daily lives, Liz Aggiss’ latest work is empowering, liberating and moving”
https://arthursseat.net/slap-and-tickle-zoo-review/

“The hilarious tickle never undermines the serious slap in this solo – sheer brilliance.” Mary Brennan The Glasgow Herald
http://www.heraldscotland.com/arts_ents/15240739.Dance_review__Dance_International_Glasgow_at_Tramway__Glasgow/?ref=fbshr

“Visibly shocking, Slap and Tickle is an exercise in the grotesque – but one that you can’t seem to take your eyes off of”
http://www.edfestmag.com/slap-and-tickle/
 

“With the spit of punk and the polish of ballet, Liz Aggiss transformed into a singular provocateur.” Lorna Irvine Exeunt Magazine
http://exeuntmagazine.com/reviews/review-slap-tickle-tramway-glasgow/

 

“drenched in raucous, uninhibited humour, all of which nonetheless unmasks a very real world of gendered prejudices” Róisín O’Brien
http://www.seeingdance.com/liz-aggiss-25102016/

 

“If you want to see something more challenging and outrageous, then Liz Aggiss’s Slap and Tickle is a far more pointed and bawdily funny exploration of what it means to refuse to act your age.”

Lyn Gardner

https://www.theguardian.com/stage/theatreblog/2017/mar/10/older-actors-roles

 

“Slap & Tickle is the fart in the church of feminist discourse…….….a performance of performativity”. Ka Bradley

http://exeuntmagazine.com/reviews/review-slap-tickle-place/

 

“A dancer, she is a chameleon, her work delighting in switches and lurches of tone, and sudden moves in and out of form. It splices together dance, text and song with various kinds of garrulous, high or low, outraged or outrageous theatricality. Ideas of dense sophistication are explored through populist (‘vulgar”) forms in a work that is vulnerable, personal, homemade, and exceptionally finely honed. This is work that interferes with you. It is never neutral. It is charged with challenging expectations and unexpected possibilities. I loved it” Robert Jarman The Mercury Tasmania

 

“Aggiss rummages in the bin bag of invidious nonsense perpetrated to limit the aspirations of young girls and suppress any sign of spirited independence. She pulls out plum after plum; and in case this isn’t rich enough territory, there’s the added subtext of who should occupy centre stage and why older women are either invisible, or are to be pitied and patronised………….personal, pertinent and potent.” Sarah Kent

http://londondance.com/articles/reviews/liz-aggiss-slap-and-tickle-the-place/

 

“Slap and Tickle is a courageously daring representation of women’s lives and their bodies. It is sidesplittingly funny, entertainingly choreographed and spectacularly devoid of ordinariness or political correctness for more learn more about thatscleanmaids.com. There is a refreshing irreverence to Liz Aggiss’s performance that is rarely exhibited by female performers. As such, she resists all conventional gender stereotypes ascribed to what defines femininity, how it should be talked about, and how it should be performed”  Niki.McWilliams

http://www.theatrebubble.com/2016/06/slap-and-tickle-at-the-place/

 

 “Aggiss has spent her life preparing this work and it is in the editing of her material that she manages to concentrate that experience in such a rich, seamless format.………..Her rendition of Klaus Nomi singing The Cold Song in a black and white costume reminiscent of Nomi’s own signature suit, is not only beautifully crafted but is consistent with her theme of bringing the body into line with the unfettered mind: ‘…the body and voice are tethered by an invisible umbilical vocal cord that swings abruptly through buried truths and nasty realities, whilst simultaneously and repeatedly slamming against the on/off button.’ It’s a battle, ‘push and pull’, and if it gets too much, ‘Let’s all go down the Strand – Have a banana!’ Foreplay has turned into punishment and reward.”  Nicolas Minns

http://writingaboutdance.com/performance/liz-aggiss-slap-tickle-2/

 

“Slap and Tickle is dance/comedy/art (delete as appropriate) that makes the audience snort, howl and cackle with laughter. It’s a rich and visual collage of womanhood and even though Aggiss actively embraces the maverick tag, she’s exploring and presenting a world that every woman can relate to.” Ian Abbott

http://writingaboutdance.com/performance/liz-aggiss-slap-tickle/

 

“Ultimately, this is a show about female visibility and self-determination. A fabulously funky show that on the 40th anniversary of punk reminds us that perhaps the best feminist rallying cry of all time was Oh Bondage, Up Yours. There’s a place for calm, rational argument – but this isn’t that place. This is a brash and blowsy women’s room with obscenities scrawled on the mirrors in red lipstick, discarded knickers on the floor, and a virtual strap-on waiting to be harnessed. Look John Look / See John See / Janet found her cock / Eventually” 
Dorothy Max Prior

http://totaltheatre.org.uk/liz-aggiss-slap-and-tickle/

 

“A thoughtful, yet highly accessible and entertaining solo performance in three acts……………Aggiss’s desire was to ‘maintain female visibility, to snatch the dance performance space from the clutches of youth’ – and with this show she has achieved that and more. This work gets under the skin, beneath the words, and viscerally helps the audience to understand how society has prevented women from being seen and heard. The message is clear – we need to examine our own cultural expectations, watch out for the platitudes and look forward to aging ‘(dis)gracefully’, dancing in Ibiza and blowing up motorbikes” Sue Bradley

http://fringereview.co.uk/review/brighton-festival/2016/slap-tickle/

 

“……. Slap And Tickle by the delectable performance art goddess that is Liz Aggiss and oh what a pleasure she is! Delving deep into the myriad of labels and restrictions that are thrust upon women of all ages she tackles subjects such as pubic hair, pregnancy, breasts et al. It is a multi-layered tapestry that Aggiss weaves in this unapologetic feminist stance……..and it is terribly thought provoking and achingly funny. Aggiss gives us a veritable feast of Slap And Tickle and she never lets up.” Amanda Wignall

http://www.thestateofthearts.co.uk/features/dance-review-bend-yorkshire-dance-gorgeous-colourful-masterpiece/

 

Early scratch performance extract during FemFresh Queen Mary University 2014

………a very funny solo piece looking at the ageing female body by Liz Aggiss called A Bit of Slap and Tickle, was one of the highlights of the day. No need for Aggiss to bemoan the lack of opportunities facing older women in the theatre, because she puts herself centre stage through her live art practice.
Lyn Gardner
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Steakhouse link:
http://www.steakhouselive.com/liz-aggiss/ 

Calm Down link: Camden peoples Theatre
http://www.cptheatre.co.uk/show/old_dears.php

Exeunt magazine link:
http://exeuntmagazine.com/features/programming-risk/

IMAGES FOR DOWNLOAD

HIGH RESOLUTION IMAGES OF THE ENGLISH CHANNEL FOR DOWNLOAD

ENGLISHCHANNELPRESSRELEASE

Aggiss’ mission here is not to shock……It does, however, serve the valuable function of making the easily-forgotten visible. Age, utillity, gender politics and what Julia Louis-Dreyfuss recently described as ‘fuckability’ are subjects open to discussion and dissection in this joyful floor show, with a side order of spangled flapper dresses and a generous helping of comic relief
Lisa Smith (londondance.com 24 April 2015)
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Aggiss, flashing her thighs as she shimmies and struts and tells us she is now 60, is one of those glorious wild cards who grounds her eccentricities in a bedrock of serious cultural and social information – all astutely accrued over years of creating, performing and teaching. Aggiss has never dodged away from putting herself, under scrutiny and the gaze of others, and this solo performance gets its claws into you – you laugh at the time, but afterwards you realise how moving and honest it was.
Mary Brennan (Herald Scotland Feb 4 2014)
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To say that Liz is unafraid would be an understatement. The English Channel is an inspiring irreverent clever solo performance that looks at age, beauty and being seen and very definitely heard.
Zoe Parker (Culturevulture.com, June 9 2013)
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The English Channel is a celebration of defiance, of not sitting down quietly, of asserting an identity that refuses to be categorized……….Aggiss’ ability to resist transparency, to evade being easily boxed…..and in doing so she is constantly deconstructing what it is to be a woman, to be a certain age, a performer, watcher or watched. Aggiss never fails to amuse, bemuse and generally reassure that there is still place for profundity coming out of a sheer outrageous confirmation of being alive.
Laura Burns (Exeunt Magazine Feb 8 2014)
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English Channel features an idiosyncratic appropriation of Too Drunk to Fuck that interjects the Dead Kennedys punk into Nouvelle Vague rhythms. It takes the juxtaposition of the two styles into the reinterpretation of the song, that sees a very agile Aggiss jump from an over toxicated women to one that’s perfectly sober but shattered and equally not in the mood. Rather than using it as a gimmick, Aggiss employs Too Drunk to Fuck to go where not much of pop culture has gone: a place where a woman over 50 can still be sexual, active, picky and indeed drunk.
Bojana Jankovic (Exeunt Magazine 26 September 2014)
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She’s the queen of postmodern performance – and there sure is a lot of that about, but the difference between Queen Liz and so many of those who followed in her footsteps is the skill and the love – her work is chock-full of allusions, a pick-n-mix from a hundred years of high and low art and popular culture, and there is certainly irony and humour, but we feel the respect, note the knowledge, admire the very clever interweaving of references. More than the sum of its parts, is this.
Dorothy Max Prior (Total Theatre Magazine, November 2014)
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5 stars……..this is a many spangled one finger to the ageing process and mortality–and a shout out to spirited females everywhere. She wears her eccentricities wilfully–and she’s hilarious and badass. She’s performance artist, go-go dancer and bouffon, but with the grace of a ballet coryphée and spit of punk. And today, us old women over 40 who refuse to settle down, plus a new audience of young kids, fell a little bit in love with her.
Lorne Irvine (Across the Arts 27 August 2015)
www.acrossthearts.co.uk/news/artsblog/festival-review-liz-aggiss–the-english-channel

Meticulously constructed and perfectly polished but playing entirely by its own rules The English Channel is imbued with a sort of crazy, magnificent wildness. Gerry Harris Drama Queens Review 5/12/15
http://dramaqueensreview.com/2015/12/09/old-dears-at-the-chelsea-theatre-london-november-2015-part-1/

https://dramaqueensreview.com/2015/12/14/part-2-old-dears-at-the-chelsea-theatre-london-27th-and-28th-of-november-2015/

http://artyfactsblog.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=The+Works+–+advice+banned