Memories of FatE, 2009. Day 2

Seven AM. Some children and stewards are up having breakfast. Thoughtless, noisy darlings. Food, dressed, I rehearse The Nose on my own in the ashes of last night's bonfire. I'd watched the Soho version of this show on video a week or so beforehand, and that was really useful in terms of highlighting where the holes were in the imaginary geography, and revealing which characters needed a re-build. Happier with where it was, I fought my way to the Green Tent.

Hunting the Giant’s Daughter. Michael Harvey doing the telling, Lynne Denman singing in Welsh and Stacey Blythe on piano, harp and whatever else needed playing. This was quite a production. I described Michael as being restrained, throwaway, but that wasn’t really what I meant. He was playful. Insouciant. Puckish. (Pwyllish?) Hunting the Giant’s Daughter is the oldest surviving Arthurian legend from Wales and where the round table stretches into those rolling hills the seats are misshapen and filled with strange, strange knights. The first-half is brilliant. The second half falls into a heraldic rhythm: Impossible quest. Knight undertakes quest. Knight succeeds. That gets a little repetitive.

This piece has a really similar shape to Adverse Cambers last show, The Middle Yard, and having seen both it's easy to see what's missing from Hunting the Giant's Daughter. There's a lack of consequence, a lack of character development. Kai leaves Arthur’s court, but he never feels missed. The Giant rightly points out that Arthur made all these impossible tasks possible, but this remark rings empty as the hero never has to manage anything without his second cousin/hairdresser-King on standby. Rousing ending, glorious absurd twist. Well deserved standing ovation. It was brilliantly performed, embodying the source material to its fullest. I just didn't come away feeling as emotional moved as I was after Michael and Lynne's version of Branwen's Story at Beyond the Border 2007.

(Tangent: What is it with eyelids? This was the first of three stories I heard over the weekend in which hideous beasts had eyelids so heavy they couldn’t lift them on their own. How odd!)

I lunch, no eskovitch fish. The weather is fine and I could have gone and seen a lot of great stuff. But at this point I made the sensible decision to go to my bed and sink into a sort of creative daze, desperately trying to re-write Queen of Claywood Flats to fit into an hour. It’s tricky, I have trouble thinking through that show with all of St Petersburg bumbling through my mind.

I don’t see Joanne Blake’s “Smiling Fox”. I don’t see Dovie doing “The Spirit Survives”. I don’t see Jan Blake and the Serebas doing “The Old Woman, The Buffalo and The Lion of Manding.” I lie on my back and I rehearse and I drift in and out of a trance like sleep, and I get increasingly nervous. Increasingly nervous. My belly begins to tighten. My throat grows dry and ragged. Increasingly…

I grab a program, looking for a distraction from it all. Oh look, Xanthe Gresham is doing the second part of the Goddess trilogy, “Isis is you sis.” To the Red Tent!

This is why Xanthe rocks: She moves effortlessly and without transition from Sex-in-the-City-esque stylings of being a creative type in London to an entrancing performance of Isis and Osiris that captures and makes sense of that divine tale. Set sodomizing Horus on the field of war is performed with the same vigour as the comic interlude in which her cat is spayed.

Xanthe is late starting, because she needs electricity. There’s a further delay when she's done because of cat litter. I’m already in my dress coat and shirt, barefoot, so without further ado, I give them The Nose. The Nose!

Of the two performances of The Nose I’ve given, I’m happier with this one. My anger at the end was more convincing, I even expressed my full discontent at the Festival Directors for booking such a performance. I deviated further from the text in this show than I did in Soho, and I’m happy with the composition. (I've taken to borrowing a little from "Dead Souls" and throwing it in here and there. I think Gogol would have approved.) Some of my physicality was off, my voices weren’t 100% but for a festival performance I think I got away with it. The audience lapped it up. Some very dear people gave some very fine praise after. Lynne came over with: “Oh, so that’s what you do with your clothes on.” Giles Abbott described it as “The maddest thing I’ve ever seen.” I would have blushed more, but Jo Blake was on with her “We are pathmakers.”

Jo was a little late, as I didn’t make up much time. There were further complications in that she also needed some electricity, but when none turned up she decided to get on without it. I don’t think she missed it.

Joanne told stories about shoes, drawing on the history of Northampton, and on archaeological footprints from 3.8 million years ago, and on folklore. I haven’t seen her tell since 2007, when she was performing very much in the traditional form. Good, but adhering rigidly to the tales we inherit. In “We are pathmakers” there’s a strong sparkle of herself as well. She’s improved across the board, pacing, intensity, the lot, but it’s her framing that makes the show come alive.

I have some food. Possibly in the Green Room. I get changed into my Queen of the Court of Claywood Flats outfit. I practice with my bell. I feel quite calm. I know the stories. It won’t be as polished as I’d have liked, but there’s an enormous energy comes off the festival audience and I hope to get carried away in it.

Back to the Red Tent. I didn’t lose myself, not like I did in The Nose earlier. I was acutely aware of the clock in the back of the room, I was chopping bits out to fit. As I near the end I realise I’ve done nearly the entire show without the Queen speaking a word, and I decide to make that a feature. The imagery is good, I find a very comfortable depth of detail. I regret not putting an age restriction on the piece, as there’s clearly some parts that the parents don’t think are particularly appropriate for the kids they've brough. (I’m aiming for simply nonsensical rather than mentally scarring, so I don’t think I’ll be sued.) And then we’re done. All things considered, I’m happy with how it went. Some folk describe it as the best thing they’ve seen all weekend. There’s not much you can say to that, and I realise I’m developing a repertoire of responses to compliments. This is good for me, as I’m very bad at receiving praise. The Cambridge Young Storytelling Group inform me that they are going to do the entire show themselves in ten minutes, and I wish them luck.

At some point, Mai Lin Li tells me that she has a commission she wants me to do for Huddersfield Lit Fest, which was why she was being so critical of my work schedule. Apparently I pull a face full of dread and try and run away. She spends the next few days apologising for the sleight. Hilarious.

I’m knackered at this point. Cold and exhausted. One last performance of the night, around the bonfire with Belgian Jo and Cat Weatherill. Cat’s been going since ten this morning, she puts me to shame. Jo isn’t telling in his first or second language. The fire is nice. I want to dance in the coals, and at some point I will do a backwards Cinderella story that starts with the punishment of the step-mother.
There and then, I just tell "Graham’s Star" with the new ending. It’s a suitably dream like tale.

Cat gives us something ghastly with more heavy eyelids, and ghosts. Huzzah. Jo opens and closes the night, playing off what we’re doing. This is how good they are: I’m sitting in the smoke because I wanted a seat close to the fire and the only space was inside the smoke cloud. I’ve stopped breathing to protect my throat, and my eyes are tight shut, hood up. When these two start telling, I can’t help myself, my eyes open of their own volition, and I am so lost in it all I don’t realise I'm red-eyed and weeping from the smouldering damp wood until the tales are done.

And relax. Drinks. I chat to Simon Heywood about the Huddersfield commission. I walk Giles back to his tent, knowing that even though he keeps mistaking me for Wilf it's one of the most enviable tasks of the festival. The hours get smaller. I head bedwards, and find that someone has invaded my room. The rotter! I wanted all ten bunks to myself! If my companion makes any sounds in his slumber they are lost to me. Sleep.

Memories of Fate, 2009. Day 1

So, this weekend was profoundly magical. I don’t normally blog anymore, but I wanted to keep a sort of record of the who and the what and the where. Let's see if I can do three posts over three days, shall we?

Friday. I arrive early, train to Stockport, train to Shrewsbury, bus to Much Wenlock. Easy. Light rain and the last of the orchids. I’m in a barn this weekend, rather than camping out in the mudflats. I do a celebratory little dance on account of the weather, the green room is quiet, full of tense looking stewards. I make a judgement call about sleeping arrangements, figuring that the noisy bunks over the sleeping quarters will be better off than the quiet one with all the windows because a) I intend on being late to bed and noisy myself and b) I can’t abide too much light at dawn.

This decision gives me a room of ten bunks to myself. Rock. I spread out. Whilst getting changed, Maureen of Artist’s Liaison and Lynne Denman wander in. I’m two thirds naked.

“Hello,” says I, “I think the plan is for women to take the downstairs rooms, and men to take… OH MY GOD! Lynne Denman? I saw you doing Branwen’s story back in 2007! I’m so excited about Hunting The Giant’s Daughter.”

We chat a little. Eventually I have to kick them out because, really, it’s not proper to be having this conversation when I’m not dressed.

Some commotion with the washing of towels. This is The Bad Shepherd’s rider; fresh new towels, washed once to soften the fibres. That’s not very punk, is it? Later I find out that they didn’t even leave their tour bus because they had no wellies.

The Green Tent, (the big one) Mike Rust is MC, but he’s been forced into telling a little tale himself. During the sound check he does a bit of fall of King Vortigern, and it’s the best I’ve ever seen him tell. When he settles into the MC role he’s back to his usual jokes and anecdotes. He’s a charm, but I’m gonna have to call him on it next time I see him. “Mike,” I shall say “you’re better than the stories you’re telling.” I forget the order of tellers, but I remembered well what Eric Boreas taught me in Belgium in 2008. (He showed me photos of the faces I pull when I’m on stage whilst someone else is telling. In my defence, I pull these faces because I’m nervous and because I’m normally running through what I intend to tell in my head, but it’s no excuse.) Friday night, I look enraptured.

It wasn’t too hard.

Cat Weatherill tells a story I make a mental note to pinch. A Welsh blacksmith, his mute daughter, a necklace and a rusty nail. She’s stylised in her performance. Theatrical. Emphatic. I tell alongside her around the bonfire on Saturday, and she’s much the same then, measured. Precise. Talented. I would have liked to see her performing one of her own shows, rather than just pieces in group performances, but there’s not enough weekend to see everyone.

Sheila Stewart, aged Scottish tinker, sings a ballad. I carry her chair, and feel right privileged. She’s one of the few survivors who can speak in the traveller cant. She talks of Stanley Robertson, whose diabetes has led to gangrene in his feet. There was a time when she’d have said “But ye cannae keep the travelling folk dahn.”

Jess Smith, poor dear, is introduced as being the replacement Sheila Stewart for when Sheila is no longer with us. Well, alright, they don’t put it as bluntly as that, but it’s the crux of it. She carries herself well, “I’ll tell you one that Duncan would ne have tald you.” launching into hearthside Scottish wisdom. Lovely.

Dovie Thomason. Dovie. I haven’t seen her in nearly twenty years. Dovie, Lakota tribeswoman, adopted by the Apache after the death of her parents if my childhood memories serve me right. I can remember her very well in spite of the decades and she’s matured. She slips in the odd story about herself, her own life, into the her usual mix of traditional tales. It seems mad to me to watch someone so incredible evolve, adapt, improve. She talks about her grandmother, Dove, who was very critical of having to live in a square house. She has this smile.

Hugh Lupton. Hugh tells one of his chestnuts, the story from West Africa about four brothers. I’ll forgive him, he’s doing about five different shows over the course of the weekend, tough pieces as well, like the Duncan Williamson tribute piece, and his mind must be jammed to bursting with it all.

And here I have a revelation. When I was ten, or thereabouts, you could have asked me where I wanted to be, and I might well have said I wanted to be on a stage with Dovie Thomason and Hugh Lupton. It’s a dream I forgot for a decade or so, but it all comes swelling back inside me. I get a little bit ecstatic.

Me. Mike Rust introduces me like this. “So there was this youngster, right, and we had him up in Whitby running this club in the Ship, you know. And I’d not heard him, but he’d won some competition or something, so I thought he’d be alright, and by the Tuesday or Wednesday people started coming up to me telling me about him. How he...” and Mike freezes for a moment and struggles for something to say, “… how he has great diction. Anyway, it’s a pleasure to introduce him. Tim Ralphs.” Great diction. Ah well, there's worse. I tell Tom Garside’s story about Jack meeting the Devil out hunting, only I’ve re-written it to include a fox hunt first and some poetry I composed on the bus up there. I get up with the intention of holding my own. I do that, I reckon.

So, that was Stories of Welcome. It was telling with microphones, which I don’t like, and I was a bit on cloud nine and giddy, trying to work out how much of a mini Hugh Lupton I look in my waistcoat. I keep bumping into people I know.

Let’s leave the Green Tent. It’s not where the magic of the weekend happened. The real genius went off in the Red Tent, the smaller tent, the acoustic tent. (And such acoustics! Though, perhaps, I'm a little biased by virtue of having been on there myself.)I potter over, having got changed again into something muddy, and I grab a seat for Mike O’Connor’s commission.

Wait up! En route, I meet up with Mai Lin Li and Amy Minns. Mai Lin ran The Tree of Life in Kirklees. She asks what’s going on, how I’m doing. She enquires as to what I’m working on, and has the audacity to remark that I don’t sound very busy. That stung at the time, she said it in a quiet, contemplative way. I didn’t really think
much of it, but it will become relevant later on. Where were we? Ah yes.

Mike O’Connor. The first time I’ve seen him in his element. Mike is not entirely of this world, but he’s also something of an academic and tonight he tells his "Of Gods and Men". A hypothetical meeting of Charles Darwin and William Brookes. The material is very dear to my heart, the conflict between science and religion, and their fundamental humbling before the common rights of humanity. I can’t think of anyone else who could have nailed this, Mike drifts into music of the time on the fiddle, he embodies the two learned men. He calls up a storm and bids it be quiet.

It’s canny. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea. It’s Red Tent material. I make the fireside humming noise. (Later, I am amazed that Mike and Michelle O’Connor have identical knees. Creepy.)

Sticking in the Red Tent more or less, I nip out for a beer with Tom Croft, Effie and her partner, Ruthie and Freja, but I’m back in time for Xanthe Gresham.

A friend of mine mentioned Xanthe before, and it went like this: The friend lit up, she made like she was about to burst into song, she tried to put Xanthe into words, paused and deflated. Xanthe is not easy to describe. The morning after, I lend Ms Gresham a hair brush with all the eagerness of a spaniel. Late on Sunday night I find
myself, very drunk, trying to explain to anyone who will listen that it is never going to work between Xanthe and I. I’m not entirely certain she knows my name. Anyhow, she does the first part of her Goddess cycle. Aphrodite and the real red shoes.

Let’s make this clear. I don’t love Xanthe for the indecently short skirt and the thigh high patent red leather boots that she allegedly stole from Coco de Mer. You cheapen our love when you make that accusation. I love her for her innovation. Her energy. Her ability to vanish the fourth wall. Her audacity.

Soup. Chatter. Jo and Fred are over from Belgium. Jan Blake is going on about spinach, having a hypothetical spinach washing workshop. Sometime approaching three I find my bed. Sleep.