Matchstalks Remastered

Presented by Lowry + Word of Warning

This is a show about a song about a painter performed to the score of the song.

Matchstalks Remastered is a playful and inventive music-theatre performance inspired by Matchstalk Men and Matchstalk Cats and Dogs, the 1978 hit written about the artist L. S. Lowry by folk-pop duo Brian & Michael. Two performers, joined by a live jazz musician and a record player, attempt to keep pace with a relentlessly scrolling animated score that dictates their every move in this farcical re-telling of ‘Lowry's Song’. As they follow its instructions, they weave together compelling stories, machine-like movement and slapstick humour. Transforming into different characters, they shift between performers, songwriters, Mr Lowry and the figures in his paintings.

Remastering the biographies of Lowry and the band, Egan & Pinchbeck translate the song’s verse-and-chorus structure into a series of theatrical scenes exploring identity, memory and how artists process the world around them. The production follows the needle of the record player and Lowry’s footsteps around Manchester to ask how painting becomes music, music becomes theatre, and people become performers. To commemorate the 50th anniversary of Lowry’s death, Matchstalks Remastered reimagines his evocative landscapes through a musical score, reflecting on their continuing relevance to contemporary debates around community, creativity and place. 

Presented by Lowry and Word of Warning. Supported by hÅb, Manchester School of Art, the Performance Research Group and the School of English at Manchester Metropolitan University.