THEATRE
HNNNNGGGDADDY: a sketch show
Co-written and directed by Jasper Frost and Alex Stenhouse
Alex and Jasper first met at a sketch writing group. A year later, they wrote a play about a gay door, and then another about an invisible horse. Now they're back with a vengeance - a vengeance conveyed through the medium of a sketch comedy show.
Writers of The Outciders and Love is an Open Door: Adoorable, Jasper Frost and Alex Stenhouse (known as Adoorable productions in homage to their first play), created a 45-minute sketch comedy show, inspired by Bo Burnham, The Mighty Boosh, Monty Python, TomSka and Aunty Donna.
The show mostly featured sketches around the theme of fatherhood and riffed on life's small difficulties. It culminated in a sketch about bees, and helped raise money for Friends of the Earth, a charity helping to save the bees - an important issue in the piece.
CAST: Patrick Swain, Sarah Dean, Kat Child, Stuart Duncan, Samuel Nicholls
The Outciders
Co-written by Jasper Frost and Alex Stenhouse
Directed by Holly Williams
Set in the wild wild West Country, aspiring cider-maker Leslie Strongbow buys an orchard in Aspall valley. However, she discovers one day that her apples have been stolen. But she begins to put two and two together when she meets the famous cider-maker The Old Mout, whose invisible horse Somersby has gone missing.
Inspired by The 39 Steps, tropes of old Western films and Devon itself, this surreal comedy featured 11 characters, 10 of which were multiroled by 2 of the performers. And most of them were onstage throughout.
CAST: Theresa Dunthorne, Patrick Swain, Bethany Lakin
This play was written for and produced by Theatre With Teeth.
Love is an Open Door: Adoorable
Co-written by Jasper Frost and Alex Stenhouse
Directed by Reece Fitzgerald
A door is starting his first day at a human high school. Naturally he is nervous because he is a usually inanimate object in a world of people. However Nigel (the door) learns to overcome his worries, bullies, and his sexual insecurities in a hilarious romp.
Love Is An Open Door: Adoorable was inspired by coming-of-age films, teen dramas, and the absurd comic style of Bojack Horseman. It featured the original song 'Adoorable', with lyrics by Frost and Stenhouse and music by Fitzgerald.
CAST: Will Jarvis, Grace O'Brien, Laura Humphries, Alice Clarke, Lily Freeman, Osian Dixon
This play was written for and produced by Theatre With Teeth.
Kelvin
Written by Jasper Frost
Co-directed by Jasper Frost and Simon Marshall
Sub-zero temperature. Four scared people. A locked door. The Cloud is descending. What happens at 270 Kelvin?
Kelvin is a play set in a post-apocalyptic world, where an airborne virus causes those who touch it to 'go blank'. Having locked themselves in the walk-in fridge of a supermarket, four strangers pray they are safe. But is what's outside the real danger?
Inspired by the works of Dennis Kelly and Sarah Kane, Kelvin explores themes of façade, loyalty and morality. It premiered in Thornlea Studios in Exeter in May 2015 to rave reviews.
CAST: Rosa Day-Jones, Lucas Bailey, Joe Miller, Nick Cope
PRODUCTION TEAM:
Technical Manager - Sarah Sharp
Sound Assistant - Sorcha Wynne
This play was originally performed under the title of 270 Kelvin.
Sketchup
Jasper was a writer for the 5-star comedy show Sketchup, which was produced by the Exeter Revue.
The sketch show was performed to critical acclaim at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival after a run at the M&D Room in Exeter.
"Superbly witty, wonderfully imaginative and expertly written" - Yuppee
"A comedy masterclass" - Exeposé
"A series of clever sketches make for a very enjoyable hour" - Broadway Baby
RADIO PLAYS
The Larder
A short ghost story written for radio.
A man and his wife arrive at a cottage in Scotland in the pouring rain. Their host only tells them one thing:
"Stay out of the larder. My mother won't be pleased if she catches you in it."
All it takes is a restless night's sleep to discover the menace lurking within the walls.
Inspired by the works of M.R. James and The Woman in Black, this radio play was developed with the help of Mark Ravenhill in 2019.
POETRY
Suckers [work in progress]
By Jasper Frost (writing as J.W. Frost)
Suckers is a novel in verse that is currently being written.
It is written from the perspective of Rocco, a Giant Pacific octopus that has been captured and is the subject of laboratory tests to understand the intelligence of cephalopods. From Rocco's perspective, he is a prisoner. And thus begins his plan to escape.
However, Giant Pacific octopuses are a very lonely species. Rocco has never seen another of his kind. So when other cephalopods are brought into the lab for experimentation, he finds his sense of identity affected in a way that may well ruin his chances of escape.
The style of writing is inspired by tropes of thrillers, to appropriately convey the urgency of the protagonist's journey. The inspiration for the story came from Peter Godfrey-Smith's Other Minds, a work of non-fiction detailing instances of octopuses assaulting specific researchers and shorting out light fittings by squirting water across the room.
The Hanging Man
By Jasper Frost (writing as J.W. Frost)
This crime novel in verse is written from two perspectives: Grayson, a gardener who delights in serial murder, and Jared Winters, the detective investigating the killings on the Isle of Wight.
At first, Grayson takes the life of someone he knows - an irritant, no one important. But soon he begins to fear that something (or someone) is coming for him. And he'll keep killing if it means feeling in control of himself.
Jared Winters has been in the game too long. Feeling himself wearing thin after thirty years of detective work, and feeling suffocated by the confines of the island, he is haunted by someone he shouldn't have pulled the trigger on. He takes the case, but soon he feels age catching up with him sooner than expected.
Where Are You Now?
By Jasper Frost (writing as J.W. Frost)
A convict working the prison library. A boy welcoming his damaged veteran of a father home. A political extremist planning a terrible mission from his bedroom.
Where Are You Now? is a sequence of poems written around the concept of location, and what it means to have a place.
