Action Plans

‘See why this maverick company, with its engaging DIY aesthetic, is attracting so much attention.’ Guardian

Action Hero are one of the most exciting and original performancecompanies working in the UK today. Exploring the epic and the banal,they create performance that is intimate and invigorating. Their ongoing interests lie in the iconography of popular culture and its use; both as a weapon and as a shared cultural memory. The audience become co-conspirators in work which is playful yet intellectually rigorous. The distinctive and accessible aesthetic developed through their 10-year collaboration is now influencing a new generation of theatre-makers.

Their work has been performed in theatres, galleries, bars and public spaces across five continents. Action Hero is Gemma Paintin and James Stenhouse. They live and make their work in Bristol, UK.

Introduction by Professor Carl Lavery, University of Glasgow.

Contains the pieces: A Western, Watch Me Fall, Frontman, Hoke's Bluff, Slap Talk and Extraordinary Rendition.

Gemma Paintin and James Stenhouse have been working together as Action Hero since 2005. They create events that use the audience as the co-creators of the work. They are interested in ideas that link audiences together and unify them as part of a live event, and the building of temporary communities. Limited resources have created an aesthetic of roughness and intimacy that has become central to their work. They also have a long standing obsession with America and pop culture. They have performed all across the UK and in the U.S, Brazil, China, Germany, Austria, Bosnia, Thailand, Canada, Portugal, Spain and France.