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Preview: Flight 5065, London Eye, South Bank

Fair Trade takes flight on the Eye

Charlotte Cripps
Tuesday 14 June 2005 00:00 BST
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Do you fancy being trapped in a glass capsule with Beth Orton while she sings? In each of the 32 capsules on the London Eye, there will be live performances of theatre, comedy and music, mainly by African performers. Flight 5065 is Cafédirect's African awareness mini-festival on the London Eye to campaign for Fair Trade.

Do you fancy being trapped in a glass capsule with Beth Orton while she sings? In each of the 32 capsules on the London Eye, there will be live performances of theatre, comedy and music, mainly by African performers. Flight 5065 is Cafédirect's African awareness mini-festival on the London Eye to campaign for Fair Trade.

Damon Albarn will be taking one capsule to curate new African music with Honest Jon's, his record label. The hip-hop artist Jonzi D is bringing over three South African rappers to perform in a capsule. He will also collaborate with the British jazz saxophonist Soweto Kinch.

Jo Brand will do a comedy routine. "Through the admittedly rather odd activity of locking twenty people in a glass pod high above central London and then making them laugh, I hope to raise the odd eyebrow and more importantly lots of awareness for Fair Trade justice," Brand says.

The National Theatre production in a capsule, To Bridge the World, is written by the actress Adjoa Andoh (currently in Blood Wedding at the Almeida). Starring Colin Salmon, with music composed by Dominique le Gendre (associate artist, ROH), the play is about Andoh's father's journey from Ghana to Britain in the 1930s.

Other performances in the sky include Banana! A Slippery Opera; puppet theatre performed by Soup and the Sudanese rap artist Emmanuel Jal and Turin Brakes performing alongside the African drummers Mez Paridjanian, Simon Rowe and Henri Gaobi. The Royal Court will present a series of one-minute plays, representing their personal response to the subject of Africa.

There will be three cycles of shows, boarding at 7.30pm, 8.15pm and 9pm, with 20 passengers in each capsule, each cycle taking half an hour. Although there will be 96 performances, the audience will not know which performance they will watch until they board the London Eye.

21 June (08700 600 100; www.flight5065.com)

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