On Saturday we saw the National Theatre touring production of 'One man two Guvnors,' by Richard Bean based on The Servant with Two Masters by Carlo Goldoni, with songs by Grant Olding.
The auditorium of the Wales Milennium Centre was packed with a very appreciative audience of over 1800. North Walian actor,Owain Arthur played the lead role of 'the man/servant' He was OTT at times ( I guess he was supposed to be but his laughing at himself messing up got on my nerves after a while) and some of the so-called audience participation bits seemed a bit too rehearsed. Coming out of the tradition of Commedia dell 'Arte it was like watching a 'Carry On' piece. In fact in the programme there's a picture of Barbara Windsor in 'Carry On Camping.'
The audience loved it. I enjoyed it although some of the romantic relationships I found hardly credible.. It's certainly something very different from NT touring productions I've seen before. I wondered if I'd have enjoyed it more with James Corden in the lead?
Monday, 28 January 2013
Thursday, 10 January 2013
ARTES MUNDI 5- 3 days left!
The National Museum says that,
'Artes Mundi is Wales' biggest and most exciting visual art exhibition. It's the UK's largest art prize and one of the most important in the world...explores social themes from across the globe with insight,compassion and humour. From popular culture to politics, from death to displacement, the use of painting, sculpture,installation,photography, film and performance offers an artistic platform for commentary on the world we live in today.'
We'd missed all the events associated with the exhibition at the Museum and at venues across Cardiff, that started in October 12 and finishes this Sunday,13th of Janaury 2013. What a pity! This is such a thought provoking exhibition and has developed considerably over the years. This is the fifth bi-annual exhibition. If you can't make it by Sunday, downloadable audio tours are available from ww.artesmundi.org, but I'm not sure how long these will be available.
We decided to take the reality tour and were lucky to have an outstanding guide, Heloise Godfrey. Art of now can be very challenging and it's easy enough to dismiss it without understanding its context and meaning. Heloise didn't lecture us, she asked us questions,'How does this make you feel?','What's your immediate reaction?,' What do you think?' She helped us see the multi-layeredness of the pieces about what it is to be human, and come to our own conclusions. The tour was informative, the exhibition fascinating, intriguing, moving and as ever made me ask of some pieces,'But is it art?'
Artists include Swedish Miriam Backstrom,Cuban Tania Bruguera,Phil Collins, Indian Sheela Gowda, Mexican Teresa Margolles, Darius Miksys, and Apolonija Sustersic. The judges' winner was Teresa Margolles, whose macabre and moving pieces set in a morgue are about violent deaths caused by drug gangsters in Mexico.
While we were on the tour, the audience vote was being counted. My suspicion is that the audience vote will go to Miriam Backstrom. Her piece is a huge tapestry of cotton, wool, silk and lurex woven in Flanders. It depicts figures in a room composed of mirror fragments, creating millions of reflections. The more you look into it the more there is to see and think about. The reason I think this will win the audience vote is because of the sophistication of the medium and becuase it is so well crafted. It reminded me of Grayson Perry's work- a combination of interesting ideas, an original narrative and extremely well crafted.
For me the photography of Phil Collins is not unlike the work of Martin Parr, and therefore not particularly original; Sustersic's Tiger Bay Project is more like social history. I liked Tania Bruguera's performance piece of police on real horses in the Museum foyer(we watched the video) on the subject of power and control. I admire her Immigrant Respect political campaign. But overall, I think I'm with Grayson Perry, that to stand up as serious art, the piece not only has to ask questions and challenge but should also include craftmanship in the process. Tell me what you think!
'Artes Mundi is Wales' biggest and most exciting visual art exhibition. It's the UK's largest art prize and one of the most important in the world...explores social themes from across the globe with insight,compassion and humour. From popular culture to politics, from death to displacement, the use of painting, sculpture,installation,photography, film and performance offers an artistic platform for commentary on the world we live in today.'
We'd missed all the events associated with the exhibition at the Museum and at venues across Cardiff, that started in October 12 and finishes this Sunday,13th of Janaury 2013. What a pity! This is such a thought provoking exhibition and has developed considerably over the years. This is the fifth bi-annual exhibition. If you can't make it by Sunday, downloadable audio tours are available from ww.artesmundi.org, but I'm not sure how long these will be available.
We decided to take the reality tour and were lucky to have an outstanding guide, Heloise Godfrey. Art of now can be very challenging and it's easy enough to dismiss it without understanding its context and meaning. Heloise didn't lecture us, she asked us questions,'How does this make you feel?','What's your immediate reaction?,' What do you think?' She helped us see the multi-layeredness of the pieces about what it is to be human, and come to our own conclusions. The tour was informative, the exhibition fascinating, intriguing, moving and as ever made me ask of some pieces,'But is it art?'
Artists include Swedish Miriam Backstrom,Cuban Tania Bruguera,Phil Collins, Indian Sheela Gowda, Mexican Teresa Margolles, Darius Miksys, and Apolonija Sustersic. The judges' winner was Teresa Margolles, whose macabre and moving pieces set in a morgue are about violent deaths caused by drug gangsters in Mexico.
While we were on the tour, the audience vote was being counted. My suspicion is that the audience vote will go to Miriam Backstrom. Her piece is a huge tapestry of cotton, wool, silk and lurex woven in Flanders. It depicts figures in a room composed of mirror fragments, creating millions of reflections. The more you look into it the more there is to see and think about. The reason I think this will win the audience vote is because of the sophistication of the medium and becuase it is so well crafted. It reminded me of Grayson Perry's work- a combination of interesting ideas, an original narrative and extremely well crafted.
For me the photography of Phil Collins is not unlike the work of Martin Parr, and therefore not particularly original; Sustersic's Tiger Bay Project is more like social history. I liked Tania Bruguera's performance piece of police on real horses in the Museum foyer(we watched the video) on the subject of power and control. I admire her Immigrant Respect political campaign. But overall, I think I'm with Grayson Perry, that to stand up as serious art, the piece not only has to ask questions and challenge but should also include craftmanship in the process. Tell me what you think!
Wednesday, 9 January 2013
ART IN NATURE 2- DAVID NASH
David Nash is one of my favourite environmental artists. His studio is in North Wales but he has recently completed a residency at Kew Botanic Gardens and this exhibition is situated both inside the gallery and within the grounds. In his catalogue the artist says,
'...we cannot separate ourselves from the natural world. Our actions, from everyday activities to essential industrial work have an impact on it. My work invites the same consideration. Nature is the essence of our continued existence-it guides us spiritually and takes care of us practically. Wood, specifically, is a fundamental survival material, providing us with material to build homes and with fule to keep us warm. The art that I create is fed by such a union, and should always be observed with this essential, unique and sometimes challenging relationship in mind.'
As well as some monumental pieces, there are some smaller objects crafted from recycled wood found in Kew- beautiful shapes, beautifully crafted. What I particularly enjoyed was a short contemplative film about the journey of a boulder of an ancient oak tree from the forest in the Ffestiniog hills down to Cardigan Bay. Filmed over several years the boulder takes on a personality of its own-lonely, courageous, determined, solid. In Cardigan Bay there is evidence of ancient forests buried by the sea. When the boulder reached the estuary, there was almost a feeling of it coming home. Its journey isn't over yet. Who knows when and where else it may turn up?
The exhibition is on until April 2013. I urge you to go and experience it. For more info see www.kew.org
'...we cannot separate ourselves from the natural world. Our actions, from everyday activities to essential industrial work have an impact on it. My work invites the same consideration. Nature is the essence of our continued existence-it guides us spiritually and takes care of us practically. Wood, specifically, is a fundamental survival material, providing us with material to build homes and with fule to keep us warm. The art that I create is fed by such a union, and should always be observed with this essential, unique and sometimes challenging relationship in mind.'
As well as some monumental pieces, there are some smaller objects crafted from recycled wood found in Kew- beautiful shapes, beautifully crafted. What I particularly enjoyed was a short contemplative film about the journey of a boulder of an ancient oak tree from the forest in the Ffestiniog hills down to Cardigan Bay. Filmed over several years the boulder takes on a personality of its own-lonely, courageous, determined, solid. In Cardigan Bay there is evidence of ancient forests buried by the sea. When the boulder reached the estuary, there was almost a feeling of it coming home. Its journey isn't over yet. Who knows when and where else it may turn up?
The exhibition is on until April 2013. I urge you to go and experience it. For more info see www.kew.org
ART IN NATURE
While in London this new year we went to two really interesting exhibitions.
The first at The Whitechapel Gallery, is called 'Urban Nature': Four seasons of events on art,nature and the city inspired by the Bloomsberg Commission: Guiseppe Penone, Jan-March 2013.
'Italian artist, Giuseppe Penone presents Spazio de Luce, a twelve metre bronze cast of a tree with a radiant gold-leaf interior specially conceived for the Whitechapel Gallery.Conceived around the structure of a tree-from roots to base, trunk to branch, it invites artists, activists, architects,philosopher and scientists to engage in four seasons of discussions and actions.'
It is an intriguing and magical piece. It made me feel a bit like Alice in Wonderland peering down the golden hollow interior of this man-made tree, spiralling to its roots and to the infinity of the imagination.
Check the exhibition and programme out at www.whitechapelgallery.org
The first at The Whitechapel Gallery, is called 'Urban Nature': Four seasons of events on art,nature and the city inspired by the Bloomsberg Commission: Guiseppe Penone, Jan-March 2013.
'Italian artist, Giuseppe Penone presents Spazio de Luce, a twelve metre bronze cast of a tree with a radiant gold-leaf interior specially conceived for the Whitechapel Gallery.Conceived around the structure of a tree-from roots to base, trunk to branch, it invites artists, activists, architects,philosopher and scientists to engage in four seasons of discussions and actions.'
It is an intriguing and magical piece. It made me feel a bit like Alice in Wonderland peering down the golden hollow interior of this man-made tree, spiralling to its roots and to the infinity of the imagination.
Check the exhibition and programme out at www.whitechapelgallery.org
THE DARK EARTH & THE LIGHT SKY
This is the first really good play I've seen for a while. It is the story of Edward Thomas, a poet writing at the time of WW1, seen through the eyes of his wife, Robert Frost, Eleanor Farjeon and his father. It's an excellent script written by Nick Dear. I've just read the review by Michael Billington in the Guardian which nicely summarises much of my own views so rather than repeat less eloquently, I'm reproducing it below. It's made me keen to read Thomas's poetry.
Oh, Billington doesn't mention the superb lighting design by Peter Mumford. Peter lived in the same village and our children went to the same school. We've lost touch now but it's great to see he's still producing great work.
'.... Nick Dear overcomes the difficulties in this probing, intelligent piece about Edward Thomas, who produced a formidable body of work between 1914 and his death at Arras in 1917. Dear makes no attempt to disguise the jagged awkwardness of Thomas's depressive personality; what he does is explore the impulses that drove Thomas to write, in a way that makes you want to reread the poetry itself.
Avoiding the traps of the bio-play, Dear presents Thomas's life from multiple perspectives. To his free-spirited wife, Helen, appalled by his decision to enlist in the war in his late 30s, he was a source of anguished passion. To his mentor Robert Frost, who shared his vision of a poetic diction hewn from everyday speech, he was someone driven less by a death wish than a desire to test his own worth. To his adoring friend, Eleanor Farjeon, he was someone who found his inspiration in a harsh, accidental nature. But, although it offers a welter of explication, Dear's play leaves us free to make up our own minds about Thomas. What we see is a fractious figure who inspires great love, a cricket-loving traditionalist who becomes a poetic modern, a patriot who apparently seeks his own death. There's a perpetual mystery about Thomas that the play rightly never resolves.
Even if there is an ambivalence about Thomas's personality, there is absolute clarity to Richard Eyre's excellent production: against a Bob Crowley backcloth that beautifully reflects the shifting colours of an English sky, we witness Thomas's seemingly inexorable progress towards death. Pip Carter, as the poet, is both the obsessive note-taker about nature and a haunted figure communing with some unseen spirit. Hattie Morahan brilliantly conveys the fraught sensuality of his wife, and there is good support from Shaun Dooley as Frost and Pandora Colin as the devoted acolyte. By modern standards, it's a quiet play – but it poignantly reflects the contradictions of a poet whom Ted Hughes called "the father of us all".'
Oh, Billington doesn't mention the superb lighting design by Peter Mumford. Peter lived in the same village and our children went to the same school. We've lost touch now but it's great to see he's still producing great work.
'.... Nick Dear overcomes the difficulties in this probing, intelligent piece about Edward Thomas, who produced a formidable body of work between 1914 and his death at Arras in 1917. Dear makes no attempt to disguise the jagged awkwardness of Thomas's depressive personality; what he does is explore the impulses that drove Thomas to write, in a way that makes you want to reread the poetry itself.
Avoiding the traps of the bio-play, Dear presents Thomas's life from multiple perspectives. To his free-spirited wife, Helen, appalled by his decision to enlist in the war in his late 30s, he was a source of anguished passion. To his mentor Robert Frost, who shared his vision of a poetic diction hewn from everyday speech, he was someone driven less by a death wish than a desire to test his own worth. To his adoring friend, Eleanor Farjeon, he was someone who found his inspiration in a harsh, accidental nature. But, although it offers a welter of explication, Dear's play leaves us free to make up our own minds about Thomas. What we see is a fractious figure who inspires great love, a cricket-loving traditionalist who becomes a poetic modern, a patriot who apparently seeks his own death. There's a perpetual mystery about Thomas that the play rightly never resolves.
Even if there is an ambivalence about Thomas's personality, there is absolute clarity to Richard Eyre's excellent production: against a Bob Crowley backcloth that beautifully reflects the shifting colours of an English sky, we witness Thomas's seemingly inexorable progress towards death. Pip Carter, as the poet, is both the obsessive note-taker about nature and a haunted figure communing with some unseen spirit. Hattie Morahan brilliantly conveys the fraught sensuality of his wife, and there is good support from Shaun Dooley as Frost and Pandora Colin as the devoted acolyte. By modern standards, it's a quiet play – but it poignantly reflects the contradictions of a poet whom Ted Hughes called "the father of us all".'
- The Dark Earth and the Light Sky
- Almeida,
- London
- Until 12 January
- Box office:
020-7359 4404 - Full details
JENNY HAMES
My dear friend Jenny Hames died on 2nd January 2013 after a battle with cancer. We met in Athens in 1974, when we were both working there. She was the New Zealand consul and a very talented photographer. We made many trips together across Greece and had a lot of fun. A memorial service is being held at the end of January in Auckland.
Janet Daniel
A TRIBUTE TO JENNY HAMES
Terracotta and blue
define your memory.
Colours of earth, sky, sea
run through your veins,
germinate in your soul;
surface
as warmth, light, depth, vision,
and grow
in all that you are,
loved by all whom you know.
2 January 2013
Saturday, 17 November 2012
BLUE SKY
Last night the audience for Blue Sky, a political thriller by Clare Bayley in Theatre 2 at the Sherman was very small but very appreciative. The play produced by Pentabus Theatre, a Shropshire based community theatre company was first performed at Hampstead Theatre Downstairs in London last month. 'Blue Sky' investigates what might be happenening in the English countryside at the dead of night. Isolated airports,secret landings...' it asks the questions, How much do we really know about what our governments are involved in? And do we want to know-or is it easier to turn a blind eye?'
The play follows the story being researched by an investigative journalist who uses her old friend and others to help her gain information for her scoop which involves the alleged kidnapping of an innocent British man in Pakistan by the CIA, who is taken to Jordan, interrogated by American and a British agent, and possibly tortured. We discover the journalist's own demons and morals that motivate her but leave her emotionally detached. Woven into her story is that of her friend,an old flame, and now a staid plane spotter with a history of radical politics and his relationship with his daughter, studying media at university, who is on a mission to learn more about her dead mother from El Salvador.
The play is gripping, well performed, totally convincing, except for the couple getting it on towards the end-I saw no chemistry or tension building there. The simple set works well and the sound track adds to the action.
Please go and support Pentabus. They have been so disapppointed with the small aaudiences.Tonight is the last night. It starts at 8pm. See www.shermancymru.co.uk 029 2064 6900.
The play follows the story being researched by an investigative journalist who uses her old friend and others to help her gain information for her scoop which involves the alleged kidnapping of an innocent British man in Pakistan by the CIA, who is taken to Jordan, interrogated by American and a British agent, and possibly tortured. We discover the journalist's own demons and morals that motivate her but leave her emotionally detached. Woven into her story is that of her friend,an old flame, and now a staid plane spotter with a history of radical politics and his relationship with his daughter, studying media at university, who is on a mission to learn more about her dead mother from El Salvador.
The play is gripping, well performed, totally convincing, except for the couple getting it on towards the end-I saw no chemistry or tension building there. The simple set works well and the sound track adds to the action.
Please go and support Pentabus. They have been so disapppointed with the small aaudiences.Tonight is the last night. It starts at 8pm. See www.shermancymru.co.uk 029 2064 6900.
Monday, 12 November 2012
ON BECOMING A FISH
On Saturday we attended the successful launch of Emily Hinchelwood's new book of poems, entitled 'On Becoming a Fish' in the theatre of Pontardawe Arts Centre. The book, published by Seren, a leading Welsh publisher, was inspired by a series of walks around the 186 mile Pembrokeshire coastal path in West Wales over a period of seven years. The result is a lively collection of witty, amusing and moving moments that cover history, myth, legend, the environment, climate change, personal experiences of walking, skinny dipping and discovering a Las Vegas of glow worms. The title poem won the Envoi International Open Poetry Competition.
Emily read her poems to an audience of over 100 enthusiastic supporters, accompanied by Delyth Jenkins on the harp and with a back drop of Emily's own animations and photographs.
It was a wonderful evening. Emily is a modest person of many talents and strengths, well liked and respected by everyone who knows her, always encouraging others to be creative. Emily is also a playwright. She has a play in the finals of Pontardawes' scriptslam to be held on November 28th 2012. She is an environmental activist working with her partner,Dan McCallum in a community energy project, Awel Aman Tawe, and is committed to raising awareness about climate change. She has recently walked the length of the Heart of Wales railway line gathering people's opinions on the subject.
I wholeheartedly recommend her poetry collection to you. To order copies of 'On Becoming a Fish', priced at £8.99, see www.serenbooks.com
Emily read her poems to an audience of over 100 enthusiastic supporters, accompanied by Delyth Jenkins on the harp and with a back drop of Emily's own animations and photographs.
It was a wonderful evening. Emily is a modest person of many talents and strengths, well liked and respected by everyone who knows her, always encouraging others to be creative. Emily is also a playwright. She has a play in the finals of Pontardawes' scriptslam to be held on November 28th 2012. She is an environmental activist working with her partner,Dan McCallum in a community energy project, Awel Aman Tawe, and is committed to raising awareness about climate change. She has recently walked the length of the Heart of Wales railway line gathering people's opinions on the subject.
I wholeheartedly recommend her poetry collection to you. To order copies of 'On Becoming a Fish', priced at £8.99, see www.serenbooks.com
MEDEA
Last week The Sherman welcomed Headlong Theatre to its main stage to perform a new version of Euripides' Medea, written by Mike Bartlett. Set on a new build estate in middle England, Medea is having a nervous breakdown. It is the eve of her ex's wedding to the 19 year old daughter of her landlord. Her neighbour is helping out-taking her son to school and picking him up. A colleague from work calls. The young boy,Tom, sits or lies on his bed, disturbingly silent throughout, playing his computer games while drama unfold around him. A workman hangs around menacingly,saying almost nothing. Medea is behind with the rent and has been given notice to quit. She belittles all help. She rants about her ex,Jason, to whoever will listen, and to him, accusing him of replacing her with a newer model and tighter sex, but he replies that Kate, his fiance, is kinder, more caring, just nicer than Medea. We witness Medea descend into psychological turmoil. We see her need to feel something, to overcome her mental numbness as she plunges her hand into boiling vegetable water, and later seduces Jason to spend his last night as a single man with her. Tension mounts and she secretly plots her revenge on him and Kate at their wedding party, and her own getaway.
Until this point I was totally enthralled by her, but her leap from woman scorned to child murderer didn't work for me. She doesn't want Jason to have Tom. It seems that she doesn't want Tom or does she? Does she love Tom? I felt affection but not maternal love. She's certainly incapable of looking after him. I needed to see and feel more internal conflict before she commits that ultimate act. She uses a kitchen knife and her Dad's axe. She tell us it's the only thing of his she has left, that he travelled away alot and when he came home he liked to chop animals into bits-for fun. She tells us until that morning she believed in God but now she knows there is nothing. At the end she gives God a last chance. The light breaks through the cloud and we hear police sirens.
It's a powerful adaptation, well performed, and makes me want to go back and read the original. In this version is the writer suggesting that Medea's a witch with supernatural powers personifying evil? Was that what Euripides thought? If so, that takes away some of the play's impact for me. Today, sadly, there have been several cases reported in the press of distraught fathers who can't stand the thought of their ex -wives with new partners, and who are deeply grieving for the loss of their family, seek revenge, kill their children and then commit suicide. This seems to be Medea's motivation. Her life time punishment may be worse.
It did also make me wonder about the vulnerability of Tom, the actor, the little boy. Seeing him later sitting on his dad's lap in the foyer, he looked pale. I hope he's not traumatised.
Until this point I was totally enthralled by her, but her leap from woman scorned to child murderer didn't work for me. She doesn't want Jason to have Tom. It seems that she doesn't want Tom or does she? Does she love Tom? I felt affection but not maternal love. She's certainly incapable of looking after him. I needed to see and feel more internal conflict before she commits that ultimate act. She uses a kitchen knife and her Dad's axe. She tell us it's the only thing of his she has left, that he travelled away alot and when he came home he liked to chop animals into bits-for fun. She tells us until that morning she believed in God but now she knows there is nothing. At the end she gives God a last chance. The light breaks through the cloud and we hear police sirens.
It's a powerful adaptation, well performed, and makes me want to go back and read the original. In this version is the writer suggesting that Medea's a witch with supernatural powers personifying evil? Was that what Euripides thought? If so, that takes away some of the play's impact for me. Today, sadly, there have been several cases reported in the press of distraught fathers who can't stand the thought of their ex -wives with new partners, and who are deeply grieving for the loss of their family, seek revenge, kill their children and then commit suicide. This seems to be Medea's motivation. Her life time punishment may be worse.
It did also make me wonder about the vulnerability of Tom, the actor, the little boy. Seeing him later sitting on his dad's lap in the foyer, he looked pale. I hope he's not traumatised.
Friday, 9 November 2012
INCUBATOR
'Incubator' is a Wales Millennium Centre initiative that encourages new theatre work with grants and opportunities to show work in progress to their audiences and get feedback. Last night two pieces of work were shared: 'The Gretel Files,' a reimagining of the classic Brothers Grimm tale,Hansel and Gretel', written by Mali Tudno Jones, and Mercury Theatre Wales' devised piece, written by Bethan Morgan and Lynn Hunter, which explores the rise of Welsh club culture in the 1990s, entitled 'Spangled'.
Yesterday morning I received a text from M17. It said,
' For the next 24hours you are an elite member of mi7. Be vigilant,be procative. Briefing at 7pm. In the meantime www.mi7files.wordpress.com.' On the website I was told that MI7 is the British branch of the Ministry of Intelligence that protects characters and locators of myths and legends. In this show, 'The Gretel Files', 'the group have been working to combine traditional storytelling methods and new media platforms in order to deliver an exciting interactive storytelling experience.' The show is intended for children and their families. We were designated special agents and were invited to follow the characters Gretel, the Witch, Narcissus and Echo around the WMC, looking for clues, asked to take photographs, receiving classified information via twitter and text on our mobile phones, moving the story on to find the recipe for the best gingerbread in the world.. It was the only show I've been to where you are invited to keep your mobile phone turned on and the volume up loud. I can imagine children would love to be special agents, getting coded messages, running riot in a building with secret passages, setting out to solve a mystery. But by the end of the small piece shared I'd forgotten what the mystery was but it was fun.
'Spangled' invited us into a 1990s club. We had our hand stamped, a neon bracelet snapped on our wrist and our coats taken. We walked into a smoky room with flashing lights, pulsating garage music and a young woman dancing on a table. The action moved round the club and we were directed/hoarded towards the action as the characters developed and interacted: The girl who wanted to be a DJ, the boy who sold drugs, the boy who didn't want to take drugs, the DJ, the boy who was bullied at school, the stepfather with two lovers wanting to protect his anorexic step daughter. It all built to an ecstatic crescendo as actors and clubbers danced together; or clubbers looked embarressed as wild actors invaded their space.
The problem was with so many 'clubbers' you couldn't always hear the conversations or see the action, and so missed some of the story unfolding fast and furious. I can see the show would appeal to a teenage audience. I came out with more insight into why it would have been so exciting to have taken ecstacy at a rave. If I hadn't already done zumba and pilates that day I might have joined in.
For further info about 'Incubator' email simon.coates@wmc.org.uk.
Yesterday morning I received a text from M17. It said,
' For the next 24hours you are an elite member of mi7. Be vigilant,be procative. Briefing at 7pm. In the meantime www.mi7files.wordpress.com.' On the website I was told that MI7 is the British branch of the Ministry of Intelligence that protects characters and locators of myths and legends. In this show, 'The Gretel Files', 'the group have been working to combine traditional storytelling methods and new media platforms in order to deliver an exciting interactive storytelling experience.' The show is intended for children and their families. We were designated special agents and were invited to follow the characters Gretel, the Witch, Narcissus and Echo around the WMC, looking for clues, asked to take photographs, receiving classified information via twitter and text on our mobile phones, moving the story on to find the recipe for the best gingerbread in the world.. It was the only show I've been to where you are invited to keep your mobile phone turned on and the volume up loud. I can imagine children would love to be special agents, getting coded messages, running riot in a building with secret passages, setting out to solve a mystery. But by the end of the small piece shared I'd forgotten what the mystery was but it was fun.
'Spangled' invited us into a 1990s club. We had our hand stamped, a neon bracelet snapped on our wrist and our coats taken. We walked into a smoky room with flashing lights, pulsating garage music and a young woman dancing on a table. The action moved round the club and we were directed/hoarded towards the action as the characters developed and interacted: The girl who wanted to be a DJ, the boy who sold drugs, the boy who didn't want to take drugs, the DJ, the boy who was bullied at school, the stepfather with two lovers wanting to protect his anorexic step daughter. It all built to an ecstatic crescendo as actors and clubbers danced together; or clubbers looked embarressed as wild actors invaded their space.
The problem was with so many 'clubbers' you couldn't always hear the conversations or see the action, and so missed some of the story unfolding fast and furious. I can see the show would appeal to a teenage audience. I came out with more insight into why it would have been so exciting to have taken ecstacy at a rave. If I hadn't already done zumba and pilates that day I might have joined in.
For further info about 'Incubator' email simon.coates@wmc.org.uk.
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