Interview: Ian Kershaw, writer of By Far The Greatest Team

"We're all trainspotters," writer Ian Kershaw tells me during our interview about his contribution to Monkeywood Theatre's most recent production, By Far The Greatest Team. "We may laugh at the old bloke at the end of the platform, with his notepad and corduroys, but we are all passionate about something. All watching something and waiting for the next time. We're all trainspotters in our own way."

Four Mancunian writers explore what it is to be a football fan with four brand new plays. Told in a game of two halves, we hear stories of both Manchester City and Manchester United, identity, community, belonging and the passion that drives it all. Now Then spoke with one of the MVPs, Ian Kershaw, to tell us more about the beautiful game he and his fellow writers have created.

Hi Ian, can you tell us briefly about the production and how much football can we expect? 

It’s on at the Lowry between 18 September and 20 September, and it's made up of four plays written by four writers about football - two of them by Manchester City fans and the other two by Manchester United fans. The four plays have an overall running time of 90 minutes and the performance space has been decked out to look like a football stadium. We’ve asked the audience to come dressed in their footy colours, so it might kick off a bit - people might be fighting in the car park.

What we are wishing for is that there will be football fans who have never been to theatre before who come along, and equally, so that theatre fans are so caught up in the stories that they want to go to a match, we want the two worlds to inspire each other. I guess really we are trying to create an understanding from two sides, especially between the two teams, and just show that we are all in the same thing. We are all passionate and we both live and die for Saturday.

How were the stories for the production created?

Martin Gibbons (one third of the Artistic Directors of Monkeywood) sent a call out for writers some time ago, and I thought it sounded great and wanted to get involved. He then assembled the final four - luckily we all know each other through different Manchester connections - and he asked use all to meet up at the National Football Museum. Martin gave us an open brief and said we could write about anything we wanted, within a football scenario. Once we delivered our first drafts, we started thinking of the play as a whole, and how we could bring these four stories together where it wouldn’t be a case of one play, lights out, next play, lights out. So we tried to create a production that resembled football as an entity, but also had a journey.

Manchester celebrated the second Football Writing Festival last week. Was By Far The Greatest Team a part of that?

No, I think that was a happy accident. By Far the Greatest Team has been a long time in the making and in Martin’s head for a number of years. Martin is actually a Middlesbrough fan and he was at a home game against a much lesser team. Middlesbrough were losing, so the fans all began singing, “We’re by far the greatest team the world has ever seen". It was evidently not true. They weren’t even the greatest team on the field. But it was that passion and love of the game, and that has parallels to theatre which then inspired the project.

How has it been working in collaboration with other writers?

It’s been the best of both worlds. Being a writer, it’s a very solitary profession, so I’ve had the flip side of that which allowed me to have meetings and good times with other people. The other writers are all brilliant, and what’s been refreshing is that usually it can be quite competitive being in a team and you want to be the best. There's been nothing like that. Instead I've just wanted to be as good. It’s great.

What's been your favourite part of the process?

I think what I’ve most enjoyed is that we are all mates and there’s been a lot of winding up going on - little bits of gentle needling and a lot of banter. David Judge is a United fan and is the main actor in my play. He plays a die-hard City fan, so it’s been a lot of fun winding him up. The closer we get to opening night, I tell him, “I cant wait to see you wear that City shirt and kiss that badge".

Words by Kate Morris
Images courtesy of Monkeywood Theatre

By Far The Greatest Team is on at The Lowry from 18-20 September, kicking off at 7.30pm each night.

Tickets are available here

King Lear @ The Lowry, 05.05.2015

George Bernard Shaw said “no man will ever write a better tragedy than Lear,” These words reside in my thoughts upon leaving The Lowry, after watching the Northern Broadside’s performance of the Shakespeare tragedy. Directed by Jonathan Miller, King Lear is a brutal play packed with betrayal, cruelty, madness and disaster. It’s a wonder if any of the audience can leave with their nerves in tact.

Regarded as one of Shakespeare’s monumental pieces the play depicts the titular character’s decent into madness, and the tragic consequences this brings. Stepping down from the throne Lear decides to divide his kingdom amongst his three daughters, the portion size equating to the measure of their love. Flattering their father with dishonest words, daughters Goneril and Regan are prized with rule of the kingdom while the youngest and most devout daughter Cordelia is banished as she “cannot heave her heart into her mouth” to express her love.

With an already bold and dramatic narrative to tell, I would think it wise to keep the production’s design as simple as possible; an opinion clearly shared by designer Isabelle Bywater. The actors are placed in the Jacobean period and are starkly lit from the front casting everything in the periphery into darkness. This has the effect of focusing attention solely on the dialogue. This no-fuss approach makes it apparent that Miller’s concern is with the text, which the cast conveys through their strong performances.

Helen Sheals and Nicola Sanderson play the king’s elder daughters, the epitome of cruelty and without a strand of loyalty to anything but their own desires. They are completely aloof to their own crassness and conniving ways. Their ability to emulate these qualities in their roles reminds me of how my dad would measure an actor’s skill and talent by how much he hated the individuals they were playing. Helen and Nicola, it is a compliment to your ability: well done!

But if we are going to talk about evoking emotions then the showstopper is Lear himself, played by Barrie Rutter. His performance is flawless, breezing through the fast paced script with ease – reaching all the emotive peaks and troughs. Ruttler is also the company’s founder and director, and has gained a reputation for making Shakespeare more accessible. King Lear is a brilliant example of how he has managed to achieve this. The evident ethos to deliver the narrative with clarity paid off resulting in a bold, emotive and refreshing take on one of literatures greatest tragedies.

Words: Kate Morris

Image: Courtesy of The Lowry

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time @ The Lowry, 09.01.15

Mark Haddon's novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time received a lot of attention when it was published. This was partly because it was a very good book, becoming a best seller, but also because its central character is a boy (Christopher) with a condition on the autism spectrum. Some overlooked the fact that the character is clever, charming and complicated and focused instead on this label. The stage adaptation, first running in the West-End and now on a national tour, makes this mistake impossible to make, portraying Christopher as the one label that definitely applies: human.

For those who have not read the book, a brief preamble: Christopher discover his neighbour's dog has been killed, and decides - against the advice of his Dad and his teacher - to try and find the killer. This leads him on an unexpected journey into his past, along with difficult confrontations in the present. As Christopher doesn't like strangers or being touched, and finds the sensory overload of the modern world hard to cope with, these are plentiful and make for both funny and painful viewing.

The successful portrayal of Christopher is key to the play and, in Joshua Jenkins, the production has an actor who can meet the demands of the role. Jenkins has Christopher's character down, from the constrained movements he makes to the liberated flights his imagination takes. The supporting cast, particularly his school teacher played by Geraldine Alexander, help deliver on the promise of Haddon's story, depicting both affection and infuriation with Christopher that mirrors the audience's own response.

The staging breaks Christopher's world down into lines like an electronic graph paper, showing the mathematical lens through which he understands reality. It also makes for a very playful space, one which can light up and be drawn on, and that the audience must use their imagination to make whole. Cute moments, like the chorus animating objects Christopher finds under his Dad's bed or acting out the private lives of his various neighbours at double speed, are inventive and slightly twisted, much like Christopher's own interpretation of events. All of this, accompanied by the strong performance of the cast, indicates a director - Marianne Elliott - at the top of her game, taking an already strong text and translating it with her own twists and touches to taste.

Given the popularity of the book, and the acclaim the play has already accumulated, tickets for the rest of the tour are probably hard to come by. But, given how good this play is, it is well worth trying to get them.

Words: Andrew Anderson

Images: Courtesy of The Lowry

Russell Brand’s The Pied Piper of Hamelin @ The Lowry, 04.11.2014

Russell Brand’s outspoken opinions have seen him draw flak from both the left and right of the establishment he fervently condemns. The media lackeys despise him, yet they can’t resist exposing him exposing them as cannibals for their own salacious flesh. In the red corner, left wing academics question his authenticity and generally continue to put working class people off political involvement with their affronted People’s Front of Judea routine.

The internet, narcissism’s great recruitment tool, doesn’t help matters. The nature of the web lends itself to contrarian posturing; a battleground to bash your keyboard in tandem with or against whatever is trending, distorting perceptions and pumping misinformation through this proud nation’s veins.

That’s why it is important to get a fresh look at things, free from the online mind pollution that clouds your judgement with Britain First memes and cat videos.

Although many people sully the reputation of the school playground with comparisons to Westminster, tonight’s book reading was full of well-behaved kids and it was refreshing to gauge a child’s perspective on the latest controversy surrounding this divisive figure.

Society’s latest point of contention with the gobby comedian? His children’s book. Not a pornographic novel or Holy Scripture, just a kids’ book. A silly rewrite of a fairytale with some mind blowing illustrations to prompt your imagination along.

Such is Brand’s current state of infamy that this book is garnering some of the most scathing attacks on his person. Granted, it is shameless in its encouragement of free thinking and critical of said establishment, but that doesn’t make it Mein Kampf for Penguin Beginners. Nicholas Tucker’s review in particular is so laughably austere that he comes across as a moralist from a bygone age, completely missing the point about what kids love.

The scatological, the grotesque and the rip roaring silliness of anarcho-rats spraying their ‘bum custard’ had the kids in stitches and, although I’m not a children’s literature lecturer like Tucker, it was obvious that these “pre-adolescent schoolchildren” were not “firmly stuck at the anal stage of their psychosexual development”.

Him on the other hand… But enough of this bum custard slinging.

The room was full of youngsters who’d been dragged along by excitable mums (and about three dads) all kept waiting in a hot room whilst some weird, hairy man whom they didn’t recognise was stuck in traffic. If you wanted an honest critical reaction free from the bile of the internet, then this was the place to get it.

Initially, Brand entered the room shame faced for his late appearance and then briefly chatted to a few children with a look of mortification, realising that he’d have to tone down his lewd persona. However, tone down his message he did not. He spoke to the kids with a shared curiosity and it quickly became apparent that this wasn’t just a vanity project. He didn’t patronise and in return the kids didn’t mock him for using big words, unlike the banter waging trolls of social media.

The book actively encourages vocabulary expansion with a glossary included. Afterwards, I spoke to Ollie (11) and Sam West (8), two brothers who loved how there was a rat in the corner of each page directing them to new words and meanings. When I asked them if they found any of it hard to understand, they shook their heads vigorously, eyeballing me like the condescending grownup that I am. Both are fans of Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake – there is a mischievous correlation with Brand’s delivery and Chris Riddel’s illustrations.

As Christmas draws near, people are encouraged to buy their kids computer games glorifying war, mobile phones, and other debris from capitalism’s shelves, and nobody bats an eyelid. When this book appears, the opposite is true. If this state of affairs doesn’t sit well with you, I’d recommend you buy Brand’s book for a relative.

Michael Gove’s jingoistic syllabus is more likely to lead your children into danger than the Pied Piper, so do them a favour and prepare them to question what they’re being spoon fed. Who knows, they may grow up being less selfish than their adult counterparts.

Words: Nathan McIlroy

Photo: courtesy of The Lowry

A Farewell To Arms @ The Lowry, 13.11.14

What's that on the stage: is it a film? Is it a play? No, it's A Farewell To Arms, the latest production from mixed-media masters Imitating The Dog. An adaptation of Hemingway's breakthrough novel, the show stirs radio-style narration, cinematic expansiveness and straight up drama together to create a new theatrical concoction.

Set in World War One the play tells the tale of Frederic Henry (Jude Monk McGowan), an American volunteer in the Italian Ambulance service. After being blown up by a shell Henry finds himself in hospital receiving treatment from English Nurse Catherine Barkley (Laura Atherton) and as he heals their love for one another grows. Unfortunately for them the cynicism, hurt and pain of the war is never far away, and eventually the relationship becomes just another casualty of it.

Rather than altering the book for the stage Imitating The Dog use a chorus to narrate the descriptive passages, meaning that Hemingway's choppy but evocative expositions are not lost. The second function of the chorus is that of filmmakers, as they operate cameras that capture the action as it happens. This footage is then projected onto the set itself, meaning that each line is delivered both by the actors and by their cinematic selves.

As is often the case with work like this the worst and best bits stemmed from the same source. The projected images had a slight delay, which meant that the actors' voices were out of sync with the footage behind them. Rather like a rattling noise in a car it was a minor irritation you knew you should ignore but just couldn't. However, some of the projections were truly transporting, as when Frederic and Catherine were rowing across a lake, their faces combined with a scene of shimmering moonlit water. Further, the directors (Andrew Quick and Pete Brooks, who also adapted the text) and actors chose to deliver the dialogue in a deadpan manner. In some places this worked well, capturing the hard nature of Hemingway's prose, but at other times it was so stunted that it became comical. This was particularly an issue for Atherton, whose delivery didn't quite work for much of the play, causing Catherine to come across as rather flat and frantic.

This production does exactly what it needed to: it tried out experimental storytelling ideas, and proved that these techniques can work and are worthwhile. Rarely have I felt that I, and the people I was with, had so much to say about a play, and while not all of it was positive much of it was. Finally, they did justice to a great book that can not have been easy to adapt to the stage - this is, in fact, the first time such a production has ever been put on in England.

Imitating The Dog are onto something here and, once they iron out a few technical issues, I am sure they will be making more interesting mixes with this technique sometime soon.

Words: Andrew Anderson

Images: Ed Waring

Preview: Not I, Footfalls and Rockaby @ The Lowry, 23/09/14 - 27/09/14

Lisa Dwan’s critically-acclaimed star performances at the Royal Court Theatre in London were successfully sold-out, and now we have the privilege of watching her in this Beckett trilogy at the Lowry in September in Not I, Footfalls and Rockaby under the direction of Walter Asmus.

Asmus knows Beckett better than anyone in the profession as he actually worked with Beckett in theatre and television, as his assistant, and later they collaborated on many productions until his death in 1989. Thus, we can look forward to these pieces showing us intense insight into how Beckett would have wanted his writings to be presented to us, as well as how Lisa Dwan undertakes the great challenge as Mouth in Not I.

Not I was originally performed by Jessica Tandy in 1970s New York and Billie Whitelaw in 1970s London. According to Professor James Knowlson, a friend and biographer of Beckett, Not I should work at speed on the nerves of the audience, rather than their intellect. Billie Whitelaw has also coached Lisa Dwan in how to perform Beckett’s characters, adding a further direct connection to Beckett.

Footfalls, which also originally starred Billie Whitelaw (as did Rockaby), focuses on the middle-aged May’s conversation with her sick mother. Rockaby, one of Beckett’s last works, explores the theme of loneliness and finality through the character of a prematurely old woman with unkempt grey hair sitting on a rocking chair.

The tour is visiting the Lowry Theatre in Salford from 23 to 27 September and will go onto tour internationally.

Words: Sadia Habib

Images: Courtesy of The Lowry

Icarus @ The Lowry, 03.07.14

Sometimes when you look up at the sky you get a glimpse of infinity, a notion of being a speck of nothingness out in the black night of the universe. Faced with this we try to fight it, try to do something that will write our name in eternity, never to be forgotten. We seek meaning and significance away from the comfort and security of home. It is this very human urge that is the subject of Icarus, a new play from Square Peg Theatre.

Even the most misanthropic and solipsistic among us would surely not wish to say goodbye to everything and everyone forever. But that is the proposition facing Anna (played by Katie Robinson) as she prepares to leave for Mars, part of a one-way mission to establish the first colony there. Her journey is reality TV meets Apollo 13, with the launch funded by the sale of television rights and the crew’s every move (and mishap) broadcast back to earth for all to see. Tensions mount, intimacies build up and break apart, while the existential crisis of facing infinity lurks ominously in every shadow.

There are many things to commend here; the actor’s movements were wonderfully languid and unrestricted, proving you don’t need wires, gadgets or gimmicks to recreate weightless space. Using cast members not involved directly in any given scene to hold objects, floating and bouncing them around, was a brilliant directorial touch from Michael White (who also wrote and acted in the play). The intercutting of past and present with newsreel, film and audio gave the story a feeling of permanence and momentum. The dialogue was believable, and the accents – American and Russian – were convincingly performed (a particular nod here to Dominic Myerscough, who played a Russian and an American with equal aplomb). It wasn’t all angst and eternity either, as the play was peppered with some cute one-liners that lightened the mood, as when Anna (watching Jaws for the first time) naively noted that, “They’re going to need a bigger boat.”

Based on the true story of an ongoing campaign to get a team of ordinary people to Mars, Icarus has power, celebrity, intimacy and intrigue in spades. Perhaps the only criticism one could level is that it failed to sustain its early momentum, tailing off somewhat at the end and leaning slightly too heavily on the profundity of quoted poetry rather than its own internal meaning.

The most touching moment came when Anna realised she’d never own a dog, a simple childhood dream that now could never be. It is these small things we miss when we leave home – of course we miss our family and friends, but somehow the minor details make it real. That’s the problem with leaving home to seek your place in infinity: what you actually discover is where you are from, and what was really meaningful all along.

Words: Andrew Anderson

Image: Courtesy of The Lowry & Square Peg Theatre

He Had Hairy Hands @ The Lowry, 05.06.14

Picture the scene: 1950s London, a backstreet abortion clinic, an actor in a sailor's suit and a woman giving birth to a particularly hairy baby... It certainly doesn't sound like the start of any ordinary piece of theatre, does it? It is, in fact, the beginning of He Had Hairy Hands, the first original production to come from acting company Kill The Beast, previously known for its adaptation of Tom Baker's The Boy Who Kicked Pigs, which received rave reviews.

Back treading the Lowry boards, the group has done it again, selling out both shows for He Had Hairy Hands, a production that definitely doesn't disappoint... if you're into a taste of the macabre, the supernatural, the weird but utterly wonderful, that is. Think League of Gentlemen-style humour without the more disturbing elements.

A 1970s mystery thriller set in the aptly named rural town of Hemlock-under-Lye, the story centres on the puzzling deaths of some of the townsfolk and Detective Eglentine Whitechapel, queen of the supernatural, who is called in to crack the case. At just over an hour in length, the high-octane play moves at lightning speed, so keep your ears open or you'll miss some amazing lines, and watch out for the slick costume swaps and scene changes, which are seriously impressive and make the production particularly original. There are only four actors but God knows how many characters in the play and the cast's ability to move between their different parts seamlessly is quite a feat.

Whether you're a firm believer in the paranormal or have both feet firmly in this world, you'll definitely leave He Had Hairy Hands a big fan of Kill The Beast. After all, as Detective Whitechapel would say, "if there's no such thing as the supernatural... then, how come there is?"

Words: Sarah Adie

Pictures: Richard Davenport

Broken @ The Lowry, 28.01.14

We live our lives surrounded by gadgets and gizmos, engaging with the world through a laptop or a lens. We cocoon ourselves in synthetic fabrics and concrete houses, kept separate from nature while eating our processed dinners. But although we live in this mechanised and man-made world our bodies and spirit are anything but: we are alive, organic and part of an endless flowing continuum of life. It is this idea that Motionhouse's Broken at the Lowry explored so successfully as the dancers documented the struggles, trials and triumphs of modern humans and the Earth we are born from.

Motionhouse have become known for their highly physical shows that mix multiple mediums and Broken was no different; this was not a dance performance accompanied by film and music but a blend of all three, each element inseparable from the others. When dancers would reach for branches in the sky, unseen hands would send forth poles perfectly timed to greet their grasp. When the performers dived through the permeable film screen a cinematic splash would ripple outward in sympathy. The energy, expression and timing of the dancers was exemplary, leaving one to wonder at how they managed to sustain such levels for over an hour.

Broken does not follow a narrative structure, but rather paints abstract images through which the overall theme becomes apparent. The central motif is that of the earth and our relationship with it, be that as giver of life, as a source of mineral wealth or as bringer of destruction. The dancers flowed together, their bodies forming rigid rocks and disparate clouds with equal ease. Arms jutted out like mineral seams, fingers and hands reached upwards to become branches blooming forth from the soil, while ethereal beings edged onto the stage, like the ghosts of mother earth herself. As the piece ended in the present day our precarious place was illustrated by the power of an earthquake that shook all that had been made down into dust.

I normally find it quite easy to be concise in a review, but with Broken there is so much to say that it is a struggle. Of course that is the point of dance - it says complex, intricate and beautiful things in a way that words simply cannot. Praise must go to artistic director Kevin Finnan for assembling and directing such a strong team and harnessing their talents into this unified piece. Broken is a magnificent synthesis of many disciplines, accessible for those unfamiliar with dance and, above all, a moving and fun experience.

Words: Andrew Anderson

Images: Chris Nash

Wanted! Robin Hood @ The Lowry, 14.12.13

Who didn’t grow up watching Robin Hood movies? Well, if you did, you will love the current offering of Robin Hood directed by Amy Leach and produced by the Library Theatre Manchester. And if you didn’t, go already and watch this fantastic action-packed stage production. Schools are out. Holidays are in. If you have children, nieces or nephews they will be thrilled by the antics of the Merry Men led by Robin (Ciaran Kellgren). But don’t get me wrong, it isn’t just for children; adults will love this lively play too.

Wanted! Robin Hood gives you great admiration for the multiple talents of the actors as they take on more than one role in the play. For instance, Peter Landi plays Friar Tuck, Sir Guy of Gisborne and a soldier throughout the production. The designer (Hayley Grindle) has totally wowed us with a most impressive stage: a grand castle replica where Walter Fitzwarren (Emilio Doorgasingh) resides, and where his betrothed Marion of York (Amelia Donkor) is confined. The numerous arched doorways and windows should provide a way out for Marion, but alas, she is still trapped.

The costumes are befitting the characters: the furs and skins from rabbits and deer sported by the men, and the uniforms and spears and helmets worn by the soldiers. Marion’s beautiful dresses, stunning red overcoat and red headgear all make for a gorgeous Marion (Amelia Donkor).

The action, adventure and witty banter are appreciated by the happy audience, who want to see how the play will unfold…will the wanted Robin be caught and hung by the wicked Fitzwarren (the Sherriff of Nottingham)? Will Marion of York be forced into a marriage to the same evil Sherriff? Will Matty and Robert who we meet in the beginning ever be reunited? A must-watch family show of adventurous and action-packed frolics in the forest. Get yourselves to The Lowry before the finish date.

Words: Sadia Habib

Photos: Courtesy of Jonathan Keenan

In Doggerland @ The Lowry, 07.11.13

Identity is a difficult thing to define; we are the sum of our physical and spiritual selves, existing in a continuum with the people we love and care for. We call our hand ‘my hand,’ using the possessive, or confess to ‘owning’ a short temper. When it comes to friends and family we do the same thing, saying ‘he’s got your eyes,’ or even ‘my heart belongs to her.’ So what happens when you lose part of that identity, say a hand to injury, or a loved one who dies? The new Box Of Tricks production In Doggerland by Tom Morton-Smith gets to grips with this complex question and tries to find some answers.

The storyline follows parallel problems. Twenty-something Marnie (Jennifer Tan) was born with a heart condition, one that meant she could die prematurely without a transplant. After years of waiting she finally got her new heart, but rather than relieved she now feels wretched, worrying that her spiritual centre has been lost forever. Meanwhile Kelly (Natalie Grady) has seen her twin sister killed in a car crash, and neither she nor her father (Clive Moore) are coping. As the play progresses the two stories become intertwined and each character must deal with loss, letting go and living on.

Complicated plots like this have to move nimbly, but the text of In Doggerland, although poetic, sometimes sounded cumbersome in the mouths of the actors, clashing with the realism of the staging and directing. Lines like, “death by a thousand cuts,” and, “I’m the prince of white lies,” are very pretty, but jar unless used sparingly; too often the dialogue felt rehearsed rather than conversational, slowing the pace of the play down.

The actors themselves gave good performances, with Benjamin Blyth charming as Marnie’s brother and Clive Moore pitching the guilt-ridden Dad just right. Director Hannah Tyrell-Pinder made efficient use of the stage, neatly transforming it into a flat, a street and a seaside cliff. This was possible because of the design of Rachel Wingate, who had done a lot with very little, making something that the actors and director could be believe in and be creative with.

The enigma of identity remains, but In Doggerland succeeds in stimulating thought on the subject, even if some elements were slightly flawed.

Words: Andrew Anderson

Photos: Devin Ainslie

Best of BE Festival @ The Lowry, 06.11.13

If there was one thing you could recapture from childhood what would it be? I think I’d go for that feeling of play: chasing breathlessly after someone in tag, saying hello to a stranger without fear of embarrassment, experimenting with a world full of brand-new things. It is just this spirit that unified the three performances at The Best of BE Festival at The Lowry, resulting in a fascinating, thoughtful and fun evening of theatre.

The BE Festival (which stands for Birmingham European – when I first heard the title I thought it was a beekeepers convention) is an annual event that offers artists a chance to perform new half-hour works. The concept is that borders are there to be broken, be they between performer and audience, dance and theatre or the European nations themselves.

Opening group Betti Combo from France performed Al Cubo, a piece with a simple premise; the three performers had a dozen or so white plastic buckets, which they had to stack ceiling high. On the face of it that sounds quite boring – a sort of Poundland version of Brancusi’s endless column – but there was tension when the tower looked like toppling, awe at their ability to juggle buckets so artfully and laughter when it all went just a bit wrong (at one point this reviewer got hit in the head by a deflected paper pellet fired from a pea shooter).

A darker, more serious tone was struck by Tao Te (performed by Hungarian artists Ferenc), which began with two men sat on the floor furtively eating bread, accompanied by the sound of spitting rain and fire. Suddenly their bodies came under the control of the noise, being snapped back and forth by a mixture of musical and machine-like tones. Over the next thirty minutes they scratched, scrabbled and strode across the stage, fighting and feeling for one another as they danced, drawing you into a world of mimicry and disturbing dreams.

The death of a neighbour who, ‘lives so close, but we don’t know each other at all,’ triggers Danish performer Ivan Hansen (Out of Balanz) to journey back through his life in the closing act of the evening titled Next Door. Mortality , friendship, the grip of the past, the pull of the future, the endless questions that everyday life throws up; all of these and more are covered in Ivan’s wide-eyed narrative, with the charming dramatic accompaniment of Pekka Räikkönen, whose nose-picking and sword-wielding was a treat to watch.

Although disappointing for any actual apiculturists (there were no bees to be seen) the evening had great merit; new artists were introduced from different cultures and countries, using different styles and approaches, and the whole thing had a wonderful child-like enthusiasm that was very refreshing. If the rest of the BE festival is anywhere near this good it must be something special to see.

Words: Andrew Anderson

Photos: Courtesy of BE Festival

The Tin Ring @ The Lowry, 15.10.13

“You become someone you didn’t know you were,” says Zdenka Fantlova at the start of The Tin Ring. That is what she felt when the Nazis denuded her of clothes, family and friends, violating her body, dignity and love. All that was human in her was killed, until she was barely a person at all. What remained was a shred of hope, embodied in a tin ring on a string around her neck.

The Tin Ring tells the story of holocaust survivor Fantlova, who wrote a book of the same name on which this one-person show is based. Narrated by Jane Arnfield (who adapted the book along with director Mike Alfreds), the play is split into three distinct passages, with her imprisonment in concentration camps, her love life and her post-war recuperation all addressed. Switching between first and third person narration, holding conversations with herself, Arnfield gives a performance becoming of the text: she is assured and dignified, with just a hint of a twinkle in her eye. Being in the audience took me back to infant school, where we would gather around the legs of our teacher’s chair to hear her tell stories. Fantlova’s words have that same power of wisdom from someone infinitely more experienced in life than yourself.

It is a story that requires little ornament for the telling, one where words conjure up images that you’re glad your eyes don’t have to see. That is not to say that Arnfield is static; her and director Alfreds make excellent use of her physical presence as she strides proudly, crawls abjectly and lays wearily. The single chair on which she sits becomes a door that is being kicked in by the Nazis, a machine at which she labours and a bed for her aching body, the nakedness of the prop emphasising the power of the actions. One scene in particular, where Fantlova is reunited with her lover, filled the theatre with passion and tension as Arnfield simulated their long-awaited embrace.

As the applause died away many remained in their seats; it seemed odd to be pulling on jumpers, talking to friends and getting ready to go home. It was jarring to return to a world of comfort, having heard the words of one so impoverished. In the end, The Tin Ring does not leave you feeling uplifted because Fantlova survived the holocaust, just very sad that it ever happened at all.

Words: Andrew Anderson.
Photos: Courtesy of The Lowry.

Re:play festival presents: Hidden @ The Lowry Theatre, 17.01.13

The existential crises created by 21st Century living – worries about sex, jobs and the meaning of it all – build up pressure in each of the six characters in this play from Black Toffee, with entertaining outcomes. Hidden deals with a very modern problem: what happens when the secret voices in our heads overwhelm us?

Writers Peter Carruthers and Laura Lindsey, who also played all of the parts, certainly have a flair for the humorous, particularly when dealing with the mundane. Their characters are comic exaggerations, but they contain just enough truth that we are willing to believe that we ourselves, or people very much like us, might act the same in similar circumstances. Who hasn’t bashed out an abuse-laden email to a co-worker, only to delete it at the last moment? Who hasn’t written a romantic novel in their own head, projecting sexuality onto people we have never even spoken to? Perhaps we have not all taken a pregnancy test and anxiously awaited the result – but we probably know someone who has.

The key to this play, as the name suggests, is that you get to hear the hidden thoughts of the characters. They make you squirm, laugh and feel embarrassed, but above all they draw you to their humanity. The monologue-driven approach allows Lindsey and Carruthers to deal with intensely personal situations, like the strains put on a young woman by an unwanted pregnancy, or the longing for companionship and love felt by a trapped office worker.

Perhaps less believable, and therefore less effective, were the scenes dealing with more off-the-wall characters; for example, one of the early acts involved a man who appeared to be an English Josef Fritzl. This flight from normality was much less real than, for example, a supermarket checkout assistant preoccupied with sex, and so seemed out of place.

The staging itself was plain, necessarily so in a play that moved so quickly between quite different settings and moods. Director Martin Jameson had a difficult job in how to approach a work that contains so much in such a short time, and by keeping things simple he prevented it from becoming confusing and difficult on the eye. The music and sounds were understated too, with a recurring melody signalling the changes of scene, a useful marker when there is no obvious demarcation between one character and another.

It is a relief and a pleasure to find out that so many worries are universal, and that many of the things that trouble us most have a funny side to them. While Hidden might run slightly long it also provides a lot of laughs and does it indeed reveal much that is normally hidden. I suggest that you keep an eye out for any future performances of this very funny play, and for any new work produced by Black Toffee.

Words: Andrew Anderson
Images: Courtesy of Library Theatre Company

Re:play festival continues until Saturday 26 January with all productions taking place at the Studio theatre at The Lowry. The festival showcases its picks of Manchester’s independently produced fringe theatre from the past year. Visit their website for more information.

A version of this review first appeared on the Manchester Mule website.