Chorus of booze fuels one-woman show

But by spending seven days drunk and turning it into a performance piece, Bryony Kimmings is following in a long tradition of artists working under the influence of alcohol.

Hemingway enjoyed a drink or ten. Zola and Lautrec were partial to absinthe, Oscar Wilde would probably have drunk champagne all day and every day in his search for hedonism and Bukowski could barely function without a drink in hand.

Miss Kimmings, 31, is bringing 7 Day Drunk to Sheffield tonight for the only Yorkshire date of the national tour of the show, which premiered at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe last year.

“I describe the show as an animated cabaret performance lecture. With a bit of participation thrown in,” said Miss Kimmings. The other aspect of the show features a female member of the audience – if they agree – brought on to the stage and give enough alcohol to become drunk.

Miss Kimmings says her work always features elements of social research. Her previous performance piece was about sexually transmitted diseases and involved her tracking down former partners.

“The idea for the show began when I moved in with an alcoholic. I was also drinking quite a lot socially at the time, ” she says.

“It got me thinking about the connection between creativity and alcohol and how within the artistic community somehow drinking is sometimes seen as acceptable, the argument being that it aids your creativity.”

Miss Kimmings approached the Jerwood Foundation, a charity which supports artists and the arts, to fund the research element of the piece.

She was given funding to work with scientists and space to carry out the research for the show.

She then set to getting drunk in a studio space provided by the foundation. “I would go there in the morning, just like a normal day in the studio, to create work. The only difference was that I would create and perform under the influence of alcohol,” she says.

“I would have vodka in the morning to get myself to a certain blood-alcohol level and then that would be monitored and I would be kept at that level through the day while making my work.”

Two film-makers were on hand to record all the proceedings, and the week’s work was then turned into a one-woman show.

It is at Sheffield’s Lantern Theatre, tonight. Tickets 0114 255 1776 or at www.lanterntheatre.org