2010 Edinburgh Fringe

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The Times' Top Ten Literary Star Of The Year and Time Out Award Winner combines animation with poetic lyricism in his true-story battle with the self-fulfilling prophecy. This is his journey from tabloid hack to timeline altering saboteur.

Ross Sutherland's job is to predict the future. Working for a well-known national newspaper, Ross spends his days surrounded by people speculating on Britain's imminent collapse. As far as his office is concerned, The Future is already written, and it doesn't look good.

Each night, Ross attempts to repair the damage he has done to the timeline. He trawls the stages of cabaret clubs, asking audiences to help him full up a time capsule, sending objects, stories and poems to help out their future selves. But when the recession hits, Ross finds himself out of a job and on his way back to Essex to live with his parents. Trapped in his own past, warring with his old enemy (the local Spar), Ross must use his time capsule as a means of escape. But How? Does the secret to understanding the future lie in a yellow pill-munching character from his past?

Sutherland's debut solo show mixes a darkly comic narrative with stark animation and dexterous verse. A performance that uncannily combines intimacy and humour with a bleak otherworldliness.

Video Trailer

Reviews for the London run...

Here are some reviews for the London run of The Three Stigmata Of Pacman in January 2010:

"Performance poetry is no longer the stuff of lank-haired new romantics breathing heavily into microphones. In the extraordinarily assured hands of Ross Sutherland it has the verbal urgency of rap, the wry self-mockery of stand-up and a linguistic inquisitiveness all of its own" Time Out, Critic's Choice Show Of The Week (21/1/10)

"Thoughtful, articulate and very funny" Bruce Dessau, Evening Standard

"The talented Ross Sutherland brings philosophy, physics and fun together in a highly entertaining view of society, which transcends the obvious, scintillates with originality and packs a hard-hitting intellectual punch" FIVE STARS - Broadway Baby

Biography

Ross Sutherland is an award-winning stand-up poet and journalist, who has produced countless collaborative live shows encompassing poetry, performance and mixed media in recent years.

He is a noted video game expert, lecturing at the University Of Liverpool. He recently completed a thesis on computer-generated poetry.
Most notable has been his work as part of poetry collective Aisle 16 (Time Out Critics' Choice Of The Year Award Winners).

His work has been aired on Radio 1's Colin Murray Show, Radio 3's The Verb, a co-written Radio 4 documentary and performed by actor Damien Lewis on BBC2's Newsnight Review.

He released his debut poetry collection in 2008, entitled Things To Do Before You Leave Town (Penned In The Margins).