Category: Review
In Short: St Peter as never seen before…
Daniel Morden’s new storytelling show The Empty Hand is a 3monkeys commission and a departure from most of his current work. He’s performing solo and telling neither Greek Myths nor tales from the violin fuelled heartoftheforest European wonder tale tradition.
These are tales of how far people will go for love. They’re folk tales with named characters rooted in particular places. And they include some of those fascinating tales which feature the Apostles as characters.
I’m not likely to forget the ludicrous image of St Peter hauling his mother up out of hell on the end of a mouldy carrot. Nor the young woman climbing out with a host of desperate souls clinging to her frame. As ever Daniel takes us on great swoops from comedy to tragedy.
It’s an early version and there are things I’m a little bit unsure about – I’d rather see the free physical movement (which included a 3 foot leap off the floor in the middle of 2011’s The Singing Bones) than the stylised movement/poetry crossover which awkwardly frames this piece. But on the whole it’s really exciting to see this kind of material being brought to life in a vibrant and dynamic contemporary form.
Vital Stats:
Show: The Empty Hand
Company: Daniel Morden
Venue: Drill Hall, Chepstow
Date: Friday 7th June 7.30pm
Event: NaCOT Poetry on The Border
In Short: Listen closely, it is worth it…
There is a certain kind of storytelling in performance which I tend to describe as needing my Radio 4 listeners’ brain.
By which I mean I have to make an active choice to listen, to pay attention, but if I do, it can be very rewarding. Canadian Storyteller Jan Andrews adaptation of Rosemary Sutcliff’s novel Sun Horse, Moon Horse, fell into that category for me.
Jan is a small woman, sitting still on a stool, using just a few sketched had gestures, and simply speaking this tale of the making of a White Horse and the artist’s sacrifice. The performance happens in a thin layer, with light and shade and emotion present, but ever so subtly so. Once the choice to follow, to focus, has been made, Jan unwinds the story, playing with our sympathies and expectations – we sense, even know, from very early on how the tale will end, but are still gripped, listening to it inexorably unfold. There are beautiful recurring phrases, characters that win our hearts and a deep sense of ancient Englishness.
True, I’d prefer the work to be done for me, I’m a lazy listener at heart, but I’m very glad I saw this.
Vital Stats:
Show: Sun Horse, Moon Horse
Company: Jan Andrews
Venue: Stubbings Wharf
Date: Friday 31st May 8pm
Event: Shaggy Dog Storytellers Monthly Night
In Short: Izzard at last…
I was nervous about going to see Eddie Izzard live. I haven’t watched his dvds for years, and though I have a deep rooted affection for ‘le singe dans l’arbre’ and ‘bunch of flowers’ I was nervous that it would turn out that my love for his comedy was, as I discovered in disappointment with Father Ted, a product of the substances I was smoking in the mid 90’s not the genius of the original.
I needn’t have worried. I laughed, giggled and snorted. I enjoyed his cleverness, the ever-present wraparounds to earlier characters, the extended references to previous materials, and the half done physical comedy that is far far funnier than anything more accomplished would be.
On the other hand, I can’t remember what it was about. Even just a few days afterwards I had forgotten. The encore, I remember, had me in stitches, and reminded me I think that Izzard knows geeks and nerds inside out but I couldn’t tell you how beyond it having something to do with The Hobbit. Given Izzards political leanings, I’d hoped to be carrying something away from the evening. Something more than well exercised stomach muscles.
Maybe I expect too much.
Vital Stats:
Show: Force Majeure
Company: Eddie Izzard
Venue: Motorpoint Arena, Cardiff
Date: Wednessay 29th May 7.30pm
Event: Force Majeure Tour
In Short: Street gaming with stories, oh my!
In 2011 I played Everwake. Despite its flaws I loved it. So my expectations for Reverie, the sequel were pretty damn high.
The pre-game began with a very simple code to unlock a website, a series of video diaries (which brilliantly combined info on h&s, game mechanics and a gripping storyline). The evening of play took us in teams of six to parts of the city you might overlook (Cardiff Lightship, staircases in the DNA of the Wales Millennium Centre, an old office entered by fire escape)and – ware the red men! – our attention was focused all around us as we were warned of pursuit. Small mini games played in each location were varied, the characters we met quirky and the tech worked smoothly.
Between the games came cut sequences – small pieces of theatre driving the story on (though shutting us out of it!). At the end a twist from the video diaries made me gasp – and it was great to discover that the central choice we made had changed the ending of the story – even though we lost!
It didn’t quite live up to the atmosphere and theatrical power of Everwake, but I can’t wait to play episode three.
In Depth:
Interested in street game design? Read my more in depth critique of the gameplay.
Vital Stats:
Show: Reverie
Company: Yellobrick & Hoffi
Venue: Cardiff Bay
Date: Thursday 30th May 7pm
Event: standalone
In Short: Curiosity is just not enough
I like to head into a performance feeling kind of curious. To peer at the surroundings (council meeting room?) and the paraphernalia (headphones that remind me of primary school language labs) and wonder what is going to unfold.
By the end of the performance I want that feeling of curiosity to have given way to something else. Something bigger. With Still Night it didn’t.
There was cleverness here – a lantern lit city scape built into the front of a dress and revealed as a performer arched over a chair. There were entertainingly surreal moments – Marco Polo’s horse playing guitar. But ultimately the show felt like a weak construct put together to display not particularly impressive elements of visual theatre alongside mildly humorous but barely interesting imaginings about Bristol. The headphones seemed entirely unnecessary – as a static audience we could simply have listened to a voiceover. The show claimed to be inspired by Calvino’s Invisible Cities. I haven’t read it. Maybe that would have helped.
The best I can say is it just about held my attention – I wasn’t bored. That said Still Night took up an hour I’d rather like to have back – an expensive hour at £10 a ticket.
Vital Stats:
Show: Still Night
Company: Gemma Brockis and Silvia Mercuriali
Venue: Bristol City Hall
Date: Tuesday 21st May 7pm
Event: Mayfest
In Short: Storytelling like gentle rain
If the opulent setting of the chapel at Tyntesfield is anything to go by, the Museums at Night series opened up some interesting spaces. The chapel played host to storyteller Martin Maudsley and singer/musicians the Sin Sisters for an intimate performance of Wayland and the Swan.
The space is rich and warm and the voices swell under the Bath stone. Luckily Martin has a deft touch, clear diction and a fine sense of rhythm seperating out the individual moments whilst letting the chapel absorb and contain the whole. For audiences who love to be entranced this is a near perfect show. With each movement of the story – the legendary Smith’s childhood, his training, settling in the valley and the events that unfold – the focus is on the description of place and emotion, then between times the telling gives way to the music – beautiful original songs which tell of their own worlds but match the mood of the main tale.
This is a gentle evening. A ‘wonder tale hero’ Wayland, grounded in right action, with some of the dark and vile excesses of the Norse epic removed. Purists may not like it, but it works on its own terms.
Vital Stats:
Show: Wayland and the Swan
Company: Martin Maudsley and The Sin Sisters
Venue: the Chapel at Tyntesfield NT, near Bristol
Date: Saturday 18th May 7pm
Event: Museums at Night
In Short: Expected theatre got a great concept album…
Being in Bristol in mid/late May is a bit like being at Edinburgh Fringe, which means that you see things at the wrong time of day. At 2pm on a Saturday afternoon Trinity Arts Centre was a little too empty and the sky outside a little too bright for Banana Bag and Bodice rambunctious onslaught on Beowulf.
Featuring a seven piece band with King Hrothgar at the piano, Grendel masquerading as a floppy haired academic and the hero himself sporting a leather corset that can’t quite hold in his gut, this show uses Beowulf as its chew toy to deliver belting songs in cabaret styles with clarinet, accordion, trombone, strings and power vocals all part of the fabulous cacophany. Academia bears the brunt of the mockery but the patriarchal hero culture doesn’t come off unscathed. And if deep resonances of the story filtering through to create genuine emotion from time to time seems mostly incidental it definitely isn’t accidental – the company know their source material inside out.
The show is tight, the performances are solid, and can only be described as a decidedly unique rendition of the epic. Enjoy with mates and a drink at a local mead hall!
Vital Stats:
Show: Beowulf – a Thousand Years of Baggage
Company: Banana Bag and Baggage
Venue: Trinity Arts Centre
Date: Saturday 18th May, 2pm
Event: Mayfest
Website
In Short: Compelling Compassion
Kate Tempest knows what she’s doing with rhythm and words. Absolutely undeniable.
She can rap, she can rant in a classic performance poetry style – and she does both in her Ted Hughes Poetry Prize winning work Brand New Ancients. But more than that she delivers utterly spellbinding contemporary storytelling, building vivid word pictures as she weaves dreary hopeful everyday city lives into Homerian/Shakespearian patterns.
Utterly winning, she’s not daunted by the theatre, but she’s determined to draw the audience into more intimate communion – breaking away from technology to talk to us directly more than once. She tugs and twists at her shirt as she pushes her poetry through her body – grins at her own words from time to time . She handles so many changes – flipping styles then giving way to let four superb musicians and a great deal of bass take over – but also shifting mood with lightning speed. Kate as narrator is by turns aggrieved, optimistic, raging, sorrowful even self-deprecating and not to mention sharply, incisively funny.
It’s a masterpiece. Not because of the skill – although skill is there in abundance. But because it resonates with crazy defiant compassion that makes me ashamed to be a cynic.
Vital Stats:
Show: Brand New Ancients
Company: Kate Tempest, Kwake Bass, Jo Gibson, Natasha Zielazinski and Raven Bush
Venue: Bristol Old Vic
Date: Friday May 17th, 7.30pm
Event: Mayfest
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