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.