PRESS
"Richard Dedomenici is an excellent example of the best that live art has to offer."
"Clever, tremendously funny, powerfully political and - unlike some of his contemporaries in the live art field - unafraid to be accessible."
"He is a satirist of the highest order."
"Think of comic activist Mark Thomas crossed with TV satirist Chris Morris, and you have something approximating Dedomenici."
Richard Comments: All the above quotes are actually from the same review by Mark Brown in The Sunday Herald in February 2008. Thanks Mr Brown, these will keep me going for years, although anyone who reads them will be massively disappointed if they actually see my work. It's a double-edged sword.
"Randomly, accidentally, juxtaposing acts of witness occur in swift and often unlikely successions that can suddenly tear away prior certainties of taste and judgement, and even send basic common sense into such freefall that, at one point, a fire alarm is thought, by some, to be an intentional part of a performance. Mind you, when the ever-resourceful Richard DeDomenici trundled through with a trolley-load of tasty sweets, it turned a possible crisis into a morsel of street theatre – very DeDomenici, very National Review!"
Richard Comments: I include the above excerpt as a curiousity; Despite not performing at NRLA '07, they still saw fit to print my photo and website address alongside this review - very bad form, British Council! Below is another 2007 National Review of Live Art review in which I get namechecked. It's with mixed emotions that I report that my most volumous write-ups are from years I wasn't even on the bill.
"Whilst the NRLA has presented numerous companies and artists over the years (such as Forced Entertainment and Richard Dedomenici) who have a mission to engage, others seemed determined to lapse into what appears to be self-parody."
Richard Comments: Thanks again Mr Brown, although I, too, am determined to lapse into self-parody.
"Beautiful acts of absurdity highlighting more serious issues."
Richard Comments: There is a slight conflict of interest here, in that I knew Rhodri before he wrote this article. In the interests of full disclosure, I supported his band The Free French at the Windmill Pub in Brixton in 2002, with the debut performance of my lecture Watford: the WAy To move FOrwaRD.
‘Resolutely enjoyable art... his future is bright.”
Arena, April ‘05
"This is the Future."
Time Out, 05
Richard Comments: I have scans of the above two articles somewhere, also one from The Face that has no harvestable quotes, and will upload them as soon as I can extricate them from my archive.
"Frighteningly Effective."
The Guardian, August '05
Blueprint, May ‘03
Richard Comments: I've never actually managed to find the original article from which this quote is sourced. The only proof that it's not made up is from the publicity for my lecture Embracing Failure at the Wellcome Trust, an event related to my project rosAliND for their Four Plus:Writing DNA exhibition.
"Completely Unfunny."
Leader, Daily Mail, Aug '03
Richard Comments: This was in reaction to my Sexed-Up project. I have a scan somewhere that I will upload when I find it. Below is a more considered review - by none other than Mark Brown.
Sunday Herald Review 19 September 2004
Sunday Herald Review 19 September 2004
Sexed-Up - The Arches, Glasgow (four stars out of five)
There's satire of a tidier sort in Richard Dedomenici’s Sexed-Up: A Study Into The Potential Threat Posed By Weapons Of Mass Destruction Lying Dormant In Our Midst. The 20-something performer’s work lies on the cusp between theatre and comedy. Imagine a cross between Dave Gorman and Mark Thomas, and you have something approximating Dedomenici.
His hour-long performance takes the shape of an illustrated lecture, using a variety of video footage and props to convey his earnest attempts to alert the British state to the very real dangers of its own equipment being used by terrorists.
Dedomenici caused some controversy at the Edinburgh Fringe last year, when he gave lectures on the possibility of a cannon at the Castle being utilised by al-Qaeda to attack the Holyrood parliament. He made himself equally popular with the authorities when he suggested creating a performance in which the gun turret of HMS Belfast (which is anchored in the Thames as a tourist attraction) would be rotated to prove that terrorists could use it to attack his mother’s house in Watford. He tried a similar stunt at a US military visitor centre, but was put off by all the men with firearms.
Beneath Dedomenici’s laid-back affability there are some explosive implications. By suggesting that even the obsolete weapons of the tourist industry might come in handy for terrorists, he cleverly subverts the fears of evil-doers getting their hands on US or UK weapons of mass destruction. The result is a wonderfully absurd satire of David Blunkett’s contribution to the much-vaunted “war on terror”, and a penetrating questioning of the very definition of “terrorism”.
***ENDS***
Quotes from and links to other less favourable articles coming soon!
