THE MINISTRY OF STEAMPUNK
Friday Evening
DecoDance
The Drill
doors 7pm | event start 7:30pm | age 16+
Informal seating in the auditorium and adjacent bar
A rose between two thorns!
The fifth Asylum DecoDance will be held at The Drill on Friday evening with performances by the wonderful Thomas Benjamin Wild Esq., the fabulous Alice Strange and the inimitable Mr. B The Gentleman Rhymer.
First up will be Tom Wild, minstrel and storyteller extraordinaire making a very welcome return to the Asylum and to the DecoDance. Tom is always a fabulous live performed and guaranteed to make you smile while you tap your feet or make some serious (or not so serious) shapes on the dance floor.
Next up, this will be Alice's second DecoDance performance; when she played the event in 2022 (see photo) it was to a rapturous welcome and she ensured that the dance floor was filled through her entire set.
Mr.B The Gentleman Rhymer has long been a favourite of the Steampunk community but this will be his first performance at DecoDance and he's sure to entertain and mesmerise the audience with his extreme musical talents, humour and music that you can't really sit still to.
So what is the Decodance?
The (fictitious) Dieselpunk era followed the (fictitious) Steampunk era, based around the aesthetics of the diesel-powered technology of the interwar period through to the 1950s. See more about Dieselpunk here.
The MoS coined the name ‘DecoDance’ from ‘Decadence’ which in turn came from mixing up [Art] ‘Deco’ and Decadence. The first two Asylum DecoDances took place at The Assembly Rooms, but last two years we moved to the larger space and amazing music venue that is The Drill.
The colour images below were all taken on the dance floor at DecoDance 4 in 2023 - you will find some other images of an earlier DecoDance on the 'Dieselpunk and the Decodance page here.
The evening will be hosted by Nimrod Lancaster, ably abetted by his wife Fiona who lets him dress up this one night of the year...
As for what you should wear to the Decodance, the choice is entirely yours. You can come in steampunk, dieselpunk, 20's or 30's style, high heels or whatever takes your fancy.
Just be sure to wear or bring along your dancing shoes.
Lady Elsie's Fashion Show
The Assembly Rooms
doors 7pm | event start 7:30pm | age 14+ after 9 pm
Fully seated
Lady Elsie & the Steamstress Squadron present the 2024 Fashion Show!
Hosted by Lady Elsie and supported and presented by the members of the Steamstress Squadron and their models.
This year Belly Fusion Dance Collective will be coming along to perform and to give you an opportunity to see some of their amazing outfits up close.
We will also have the ever so slightly risqué Lady Violet Hugh with her songs about gin, baps, cucumbers and other entirely innocent subjects.
Grab your tickets now!
The Magic of Terry Pratchett and Dr Corvus Marconi
The Venue
doors 7pm | event start 7:30pm | age 14+
Theatre style seating for all
Join author and comedian Marc Burrows on a journey through the life and work of Sir Terry Pratchett, based on his Locus Award-winning biography and officially endorsed by the author's estate. Explore Pratchett's life, influences, impact, wit and wisdom, from his days as a school librarian to his time as a trainee journalist to his untimely death from Alzheimers in 2015.
Celebrate the 40th anniversary of Discworld and discover the joy, anger, and delicious cock‘n' bull stories of one of the greatest storytellers of all time. Warning: includes bad puns and unnecessary footnotes.
But that is not all!
Tonight you will also be treated to “a study in headology” from Steampunk's own Dr Corvus Marconi.
Be prepared for a dash of mystery and a hint of fun and more than a tablespoon of running screaming from the ichorous beasts that populate the dungeon dimensions...
