At arm's length - review of Chorus, by Ray Lee

Photograph courtesy of The Corn Exchange, Newbury

Chorus, by Ray Lee, in Newbury Market Place on Friday, April 26 and Saturday, April 27

THE LATEST presentation in The Corn Exchange’s Outdoor Programme sang in the new season with a more simple performance than many of its predecessors, as artist and composer Ray Lee brought his tripod-legged choir to the Market Place for six performances in dusk and night over the weekend.

As each performance began, speakers on rotating arms on top of the high tripods began to rotate, each emitting a pulsing drone at a different pitch, creating a changing and individual composition of sounds for the visitors who moved beneath and among them. The eye was drawn upwards to the rotating red LED lights on the end of each arm; all visually identical but made unique by their own tonal identities.

Unlike most past Outdoor Programme presentations, there were no fireworks, no live performers, and no real explanation for what was going on. And yet, it was mesmerising: the half-hour performance felt like five minutes, as the soundscape became immersive; so loud and all-pervading, yet surprisingly relaxing and meditative. Although moving between the structures created the most variety of sound, even standing still created its own orchestra, picking out the tones and pulses, each taking turns to come to the forefront of the overall wash of sound.

Chorus didn’t end with a climax, but with an eventual coming-together of the drones in a chord both atonal and harmonic, before each rotating arm began to slow, stop and fall silent at different times, and the Market Place fell back into stillness. It may not have been the most jaw-dropping of the Outdoor Programme’s series of performances, but it was provoking, transfixing, stunning in its starkness - and most certainly memorable.

• First published in the Newbury Weekly News on Thursday, May 2, 2013

For whom the bell tolls - review of The Bell by Periplum

The Bell, presented by Periplum, in Newbury Market Place on Friday, August 10

AFTER the uplifting oddity of The Berkshire Giant earlier in the summer, The Corn Exchange’s Outdoor Programme took a darker turn on Friday, when performance theatre company Periplum brought together an international cast and local volunteers to present The Bell, the tale of hope arising from war and death.

Crammed into the Market Place, spectators were fully part of the action as a ragtag band of brothers, speaking in English and Spanish, fought an evil force set on devastating their unnamed land. Fires burned as demonic, inhuman invaders swept their way through the crowd, causing fear and mayhem as they passed.

Hooded torchbearers drove paths through the crowd, splitting it asunder, as fireworks shot into the sky and bloodied bodies hung from scaffolds, while a soloist pronounced her pure song of peace from the Town Hall balcony.

Eventually, a sign of strength arose from the ashes, as flags were thrust into the hands of strong-armed spectators and a massive rocking structure was brought across the Market Place. On it, a fiery bell was forged and raised, representing the resilience and hope of the defeated people.

While The Berkshire Giant was devised specifically to be performed locally, Periplum have been presenting The Bell in international settings for a number of years. However, such thoughtful use of the Market Place setting, excellent lighting and staging and the intensity of being among the action created a unique experience from which everyone present would take their own emotions and sensations.

As thoughts turn to Autumn, the final two events in The Corn Exchange’s Outdoor Programme for 2012 are the anarchic Halloween Hullabaloo on October 28, and the Festival of Light Lantern Procession on December 16.

• First published in Newbury Weekly News on August 16, 2012

John's Final Footsteps - review of The Berkshire Giant

Photograph copyright: Farrows Creative. For more photos from the event, please visit http://theberkshiregiant.blogspot.co.uk

The Berkshire Giant: John’s Final Footsteps, in Newbury town centre, on Saturday, June 23

THE town had been buzzing all week with the story of John Ever Afraid, with whispers of strange happenings in Aldworth and on Snelsmore Common spreading like wildfire, exacerbated by announcements from milk floats and the distribution of news pamphlets announcing his coming.

And so, on Saturday evening, as darkness fell, a large crowd braved the drizzle to line Northbrook Street to greet the fabled giant, hidden in the walls of Aldworth Church for hundreds of years before finally arising and trekking the 10 miles to Newbury to face his destiny.

His arrival was heralded by a doom-tinged rock & roll band atop a bus, flanked by the devil’s acolytes, stilted skeletal crows who pranced and poked at the crowd as they led the procession through the town and into the Market Place, where the music of a devilish mardi gras band welcomed John himself.

And what a darling John turned out to be. An ungainly figure, with the most soulful blinking blue eyes, he was not to be feared but was himself as timid as a kitten, as he prepared to face his destiny with the devil.

His supporters tried to fight off the acolytes but without success, and John was bowed by his fear, his head in his hands. But through the crowd came the spirit creatures of the forest, - a stag, bear, hare and horse - to save John, festooning him with colour, and bestowing him with antlers of his own.

As John rose back up to the cheers of the crowd, lanterns and fireworks lit up the sky, and a message appeared on the bank building behind him: “I am not afraid anymore”.

Visually stunning, moving, strange and wonderful, this was the culmination of The Corn Exchange’s first large-scale outdoor arts project produced in-house from scratch by creative producer Simon Chatterton, with input from Irish outdoor theatre company Macnas and a host of local volunteers.

The most ambitious project so far in the theatre’s two-year Arts Council-funded outdoor events programme, with additional funding from Greenham Common Trust and West Berkshire Council, it is really quite stunning that a community as outwardly sensible as West Berkshire can come up with something as wonderfully outlandish and beautiful as this.

I don’t know about you, but I rather like the fact that West Berkshire is a little bit weird these days. It rather suits us.

• First published in the Newbury Weekly News on Thursday, June 28, 2012

Invasion of the supersized minibeasts - review of Sarruga, Insectes - A Night Carnival

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Insectes - A Night Carnival, in Newbury town centre on Saturday, July 16

LESS than a week after the “real” Newbury Carnival, the concept was turned on its head on Saturday night as mini beasts became supersized for an eerie and atmospheric crawl through the town centre. The darkening air was filled with hissing smoke, glowing lights and banging tunes, as the crowd screamed with delight and fear as two giant ants, a spider and a praying mantis crept among them as if searching for prey, their spiky legs forever moving as they made their way up Northbrook Street and into the Market Place. 

There was no escape even for those cowering behind, as a tenacious venus flytrap swung over the heads of the crowd, snapping its fearsome jaws close to them.

The parade culminated in the Market Place, with a deadly showdown between the spider and the praying mantis, as slowly the other  insects and plants stopped moving and dimmed their lights. With the cyclists powering the mechanisms hidden from view, and the audience gathering in a more unstructured manner than they had been along the route, it truly looked like the beasts were walking over the heads of the crowd, until finally the praying mantis became the victor. It may have had a little trouble getting over the water bridge, but in the battle between mantis and spider, the mantis had the edge.

Hosted by The Corn Exchange and funded by Greenham Common Trust, Spanish artists Sarruga presented the Insectes carnival with the help of local volunteers who helped to build and cycle the machines. With the rain stopping just in time for the event, the parade was a ray of dark light for the community. With funding cuts for arts projects fast taking hold nationwide, the input of the Greenham Common Trust to make such thrilling and exciting free events happen in Newbury is to be welcomed and applauded. Long may it continue, as the people of West Berkshire wait with anticipation to see what amazing experience will next bring the crowds flooding into the town.

• First published in Newbury Weekly News on Thursday, July 21, 2011

A darkness descends on Newbury - Periplum, Arquiem review

What an atmosphere... I love a party with a happy atmosphere...

Arquiem, by Periplum, Newbury town centre, Friday, September 3 and Saturday, September 4

THERE were very strange goings-on afoot in Newbury town centre over the weekend, as a cart trundled its way from the Market Place, through Mansion House Street and Bridge Street and into Northbrook Street, and back again, telling a dark story of love, murder, and execution.

The crowd was shifted constantly by the cart, stiltwalkers and mysterious perambulators, and glowing pyrotechnics, as they were transformed by the performance from curious modern-day locals into a mob from another era, first hunting down and then baying for the blood of a teenage boy who has apparently killed the girl he loved to preserve her perfection.

Presented by Periplum as part of The Corn Exchange’s outdoor arts programme funded by the Greenham Common Trust, Arquiem was a free 45-minute performance based on Blake’s Songs of Innocence & Experience and Browning’s Porphyria's Lover, combining theatre, acrobatics, doom-laden music and stunning imagery into an unsettling and memorable experience. Corpses twitched underneath veils, condemning priest-like figures stalked through the crowd, and a manic-eyed executioner asked who present had not been tempted to commit such a crime, while taunting the boy as if a rag doll.

As a white balloon soared skywards - the killer’s soul, or that of his love? - the boy protested his innocence, but it was to no avail - the crowd had seen the crime committed for themselves, the shadows cast large on the walls of the tall Bridge Street buildings. The revelation of his very young age - just 13 - came too late. The crowd had spoken, and the boy was hung.

It was not always been easy to see and hear the performers owing to the size of the crowd and the layout of Newbury’s darkened streets, and it appeared that an unfortunate fault with the sound on Friday night rather muted the actual moment of the accused’s hanging, leaving some of the crowd more baffled than baying. However, many said they would return the next night, and more prepared, weave their way closer to the action to truly sense the terrifying, yet vibrant atmosphere of this fascinating performance.

• First published in Newbury Weekly News, September 9 2010