For a quick and comprehensive guide to the show, please watch this short, 5 minute, film Alice has made about the work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vbtpl9EAwGo
Experts Radio Lab is a live radio show where young people are interviewed as the expert. Commissioned by Imaginate for their Family Encounters, the interactive pop-up show is hosted by performer Alice Mary Cooper and her brilliant team of hosts. Set within a fun colourful 80’s style radio studio, the Lab invites young people to talk about what they know about. The interviews are broadcast live to an audience in a specially designed listening area. Accompanying the main Expert Radio booth is a Listening Station, located elsewhere, where audiences can use earphones to listen to former experts, for a more intimate listening experience.
Touring Notes
Ideally the touring party would be Alice (Lead artist/performer) and one other performer. Depending on the local context and the size of the gig, Alice would work with the venue/promoter/festival to recruit one to two local performers (to the place they are performing) who will work with her on the performance day as co-host. For example, Alice could work with a local Gaelic speaking host so the children have the option to be interviewed in the language they feel more comfortable in. When the work toured to Cairo for the Hakawy Children’s Festival, Alice successfully worked with local hosts, so the show was performed in Arabic, English and French.
This work is durational and usually run as an an all day (5 hour) event, 11-4pm with a one hour lunch break. Timings and duration can be negotiated to suit the venue’s needs. The event is free and ‘drop in’ for participants so suits events and spaces where people are already in the vicinity (making it great for festivals). Alice is very experienced running this event in a variety of national and international festivals and local art galleries and halls.
