Birmingham theatre company Stan’s Cafe commemorate 100 years since the death of renowned French composer Erik Satie with an evening celebrating his life and work on Saturday 5 July 2025 (Our Facility, Selly Oak, Birmingham).
Satie 100 features live music alongside a surprise revival of Memoirs Of An Amnesiac.
First performed in 1992, Memoirs Of An Amnesiac was the second stage production from the then recently established Stan’s Cafe. Having debuted as part of Birmingham’s Towards The Millennium Festival, it went on to successfully tour the UK, with stop-offs including Cheltenham International Festival and London’s ICA.
A strange, dark and funny biographical play about obsession, delusion, identity, and hero worship Memoirs Of An Amnesiac finds eccentric loner Eric Smith guiding imaginary visitors around his bedsit Satie museum, and narrating fake film footage of his hero. But then the boundaries between Smith’s interior world and the walls of his room start to become increasingly blurred, and the questioning voices in his head become more difficult to ignore …
The one-night-only revival of Memoirs Of An Amnesiac reunites the production’s original cast of actor Graeme Rose and musician Richard Chew, and is accompanied by recitals of Satie’s piano music played by a range of local pianists, and a ‘Dada Buffet’ (guests are advised to eat before they come). Further ‘bonus material’ is also promised, and a ‘Paris 1920s’ dress code is encouraged.
James Yarker, Director and co-founder of Stan’s Cafe, said: “The piece will be a time capsule, going back to our younger selves, early ’90s Birmingham and a pre-digital age.
“A whole strand of the show is about trying to connect with unobtainable people, so this attempt at time travel will be especially poignant and powerful.”
Recalling early performances of the production 33 years later, performer and Stan’s Cafe co-founder Graeme Rose added: “Memoirs Of An Amnesiac was the first piece of theatre that I fell in love with. It got under my skin and I adored it.
“Of course, it helped that others liked it too, but I knew that whatever the reaction was we’d made something very beautiful; I knew without a shadow of a doubt coming off stage that we’d nailed it.”
Though a divisive figure during his lifetime, Erik Satie’s influence continues to be felt today thanks to such works as Socrate (based around text by Plato) and emotive solo piano pieces Trio Gymnopédies and Gnossiennes.
Born in north west France in 1866, Satie was aligned to the Dada and Surrealist movements, resided in a single room for most of his adult life, and fashioned a series of visually distinct personas for himself. After his death, on 1 July 1925 (the result of alcoholism), over 100 umbrellas were found in his room.
◼ Satie 100 takes place on Saturday 5 July 2025 at Stan’s Cafe, Our Facility, Oakdale Centre, Umberslade Road, Birmingham B29 7RZ. Tickets (which are limited) are £15, from: https://stans.cafe/
Saturday 5 July 2025
Stan’s Cafe: Satie 100
Commemorating 100 years since the death of composer Erik Satie. With live music, Dada Buffet and a revival of Stan Cafe’s landmark 1992 production Memoirs Of An Amnesiac, featuring the original cast.
Stan’s Cafe, Our Facility, Oakdale Centre, Umberslade Road, Birmingham B29 7RZ
£15
7pm
Tickets & information: https://stans.cafe
Direct ticket link: https://stans.cafe/project/satie-100-memoirs-of-an-amnesiac/
ABOUT STAN’S CAFE
Stan’s Cafe is a theatre company (and charity). We make our work collaboratively, following exciting ideas wherever they take us, sometimes into theatres.
We love working in schools with students and teachers. Often we help out other people because we love seeing other people make great art.
We started in 1991 and we are more excited than ever before.
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