Beatboxing Day: Take a beatboxing adventure

Merry Christmas from Breakin' Convention! With turkey remains to pick at, mountains of mince pies left over and cold Christmas pudding, there's nothing left to do now and put our feet up and relax.

As it's 26 December, Boxing Day, we thought we'd put a festive freestyle on the occasion and present you with 'Beatboxing Day' and a feature length video of Boxed: A Beatboxing Adventure, the beatboxing theatre production from Shlomo and The Vocal Orchestra, for your viewing pleasure.

The entire Boxed show is available to watch below for free, plus we have a short Q&A with Shlomo himself as a Boxing Day bonus.

Don't forget: Breakin' Convention Education offers beatboxing lessons - if you want to learn how to beatbox like Shlomo with our resident beatboxer, Marv-ill Superlungs, check out our Education section and get in touch!

Watch out for future runs of Boxed and other Shlomo shows at www.shlo.co.uk

Shlomo and the Vocal Orchestra - Boxed: A Beatboxing Adventure

What's the story/concept behind Boxed?
Boxed is beatbox theatre. It follows the story of Lonely Joe, a boy who can't speak. One day he meets a crazy beatboxer called Afro who takes him into the beatbox underworld where all the beatboxers hang out. They build this human time machine and go back to the 90s and sing an amazing medley of awful 90s tunes. It's basically a mad musical adventure and a big old excuse to have a load of fun onstage!

Who makes up the cast?
There's 9 of us in the cast (see credits, below), all beatboxers, vocalists and some incredible singers. I wanted to create beatboxing's answer to Stomp or Into the Hoods and this is what we created.

Simeon Qsyea from Birdgang was involved. How was he involved?
Simeon is our choreographer and movement director. It's been great to work with him - we aren't all dancers (especially me!) so we've had a lot of fun adding movement into the routines.

Boxed credits

Recorded live at Bristol Old Vic, November 2010
The Vocal Orchestra are:
Shlomo
Alyusha Chagrin
Claudia Georgette
Johannah Jolson
Grace Savage aka Gracious B
Andy Brooks aka Testament
Robin Bailey
Matthew Featherstone
Understudies: DJ Walde and Chewy

Credits
Written and directed by Shlomo
Sound – Speth Hughes
Lighting Design – Tom Richmond
Stage Manager – Surenee Chan Somchit
Assistant Creative Director – DJ Walde
Movement Director – Simeon Qsyea
AV Design – Chris McGill and Tim Baxter at Dusthouse
Costume Supervisor – Nadia Malik
Filmed and edited by Roswitha Chesher
Produced by Bristol Old Vic, Southbank Centre and Shlomo

Special thanks to
PRS Foundation, Tom Morris, Daffyd Launder, Emma Stenning, Jude Kelly, Simon Godwin, Irit Kahn