Imagine a spoken word production featuring two of the country's top young performance poets, a production that starts off in an iconic 13th century dining hall then takes you on an open-top bus tour around the streets of Norwich, a journey which is punctuated with more poetry and performance at each of the four pre-planned stops before returning you to the start point. This, basically, was the experience enjoyed by myself and several hundred others over the last four days of this year's Norfolk & Norwich Festival.
Norwich Cathedral (viewed from The Great Hospital)
Halifax-based IOU Theatre had chosen Norwich for the world premiere of 'Rear View' - part poetry, part theatre and part sight-seeing tour. Audiences were invited to meet outside The Great Hospital in Bishopgate, within sight of the spire of Norwich Cathedral. Founded in 1249 by Bishop Walter de Suffield, and still functioning today as a sheltered housing complex, The Great Hospital site includes no less than fifteen listed buildings, and features the UK's only surviving swanpit (a water-filled enclosure where swans were fattened and eventually killed for human consumption). The refectory, which has been transformed into a life-art studio for the purposes of 'Rear View' still exhibits a gruesome looking goose quarterer, which could presumably also have been used to section up swans as well.
The Great Hospital refectory (setting for the life-drawing class)
The Goose Quarterer
It is during this life-drawing class that the audience are introduced to the model, and it is where the performance's tagline, 'If at 65 you could say something to yourself at 23, what would it be?', takes shape and form. Performance poets Cecilia Knapp and Jemima Foxtrot assume the role for alternate shows, each delivering their own take on a story that uses reflection, prediction and observation to blur the lines between reality and fiction.
The IOU bus prepares to leave
From the life-art studio the audience is led to IOU's specially converted double-decker bus, an eye-catching silvery open-topped vehicle that has been fitted out with ten rows of tiered, rear-facing seats, each equipped with a pair of headphones. During the 45 minute tour around the cathedral quarter of Norwich the bus will stop four times, and more of the story is gradually revealed, via Cecilia or Jemima's own words, performed on location and relayed via wireless microphones to the headsets. In between locations, a soothing musical backtrack plays, creating the illusion that the audience is, in some way, being transported through a dream that is forever slipping away from them.
Cecilia Knapp performing 'on location'
I am lucky enough to get a seat on the bus on the Friday evening, the 8.30 performance, and the last of the day. I have been volunteering with the company since rehearsal run-throughs on the Wednesday afternoon, with duties ranging from guarding on-location props to replacing the batteries in the headphone sound limiters on the bus, to audience meet-and-greet. I've seen bits and pieces of the show, and caught some of both Cecilia and Jemima's spoken verse, but not had the opportunity to see or hear an entire performance.
Each of the poets has their own distinctive prosaic style, but it is Jemima Foxtrot who we meet in the refectory 'art class'. I have seen her perform her poetry before, both at Latitude Festival and at Norwich Arts Centre, and remember well her distinctive voice and powerful delivery.
The bus takes us up Bishopgate and along Palace Street towards the Maids Head Hotel. It has been a glorious sunny day, and it is the beginning of the Spring Bank Holiday weekend. A lone skateboarder grabs the rear rail of the bus and hitches a ride for the entire length of Palace Street before letting go and peeling off left along Tombland as the bus makes a right into Wensum Street. The city is coming to life, with evening revelers making their way between the pubs, bars and restaurants of this vibrant area. People wave, shout and even dance along the pavement as our bus crosses the river into Fye Bridge Street, and then turns right into Fishergate, and the first performance location. Despite all the attention that we are attracting we still feel strangely cocooned, cossetted by the calming music coming through the headphones. It is slightly surreal, dreamlike and detached, the journey punctuated by each of the four stops where Jemima has managed to appear magically ahead of us, ready to imbibe us with more recollection and rumination.
The final stop ends with Jemima wistfully following us down Cotman Fields, and with the bus returning to our starting point at The Great Hospital. As the sun begins to set behind the city sky-scape and the warm evening air envelopes us like a comforting gossamer shawl, the entire experience has been beautiful. No, better than beautiful, it has been hauntingly gorgeous, and I am sure that Cecilia Knapp has been equally spellbinding in her shows. It has been a rear view, not just physically, but lyrically and metaphorically as well. This is not just a bus trip, it is way, way more. If you get the chance, buy a ticket and take the journey too.
The front view of 'Rear View'
I return again on the Sunday for one last time to The Great Hospital for my final shift as volunteer steward for the last five, fully sold-out, performances of 'Rear View' at this year's Norfolk & Norwich Festival. The weather has held out magnificently, despite violent thunderstorms having passed through just a couple of miles west of Norwich on the Saturday.
Sunday also sees the Google Maps 'Street View' car driving down Bishopgate, passing both The Great Hospital and the IOU bus parked outside The Red Lion pub, where Cecilia is performing her set piece. (Check out Google Maps once the new data has been uploaded - I should be standing in the main gateway). We also fortuitously manage to avoid tangling ourselves with the 'Beating Of The Bounds' procession, led each year on Rogation Sunday around the perimeter of the cathedral grounds by the Bishop of Norwich and his officials and congregation immediately after the cathedral's Rogantide Service. (This following another slickly organised stewarding operation on the Friday evening when the IOU audience were escorted out of The Great Hospital and onto the bus just as 100+ doctors and partners were arriving for a formal reception and banquet in the Birkbeck Hall. All part of the fun of being a festival volunteer!).
IOU Theatre returns briefly to Halifax before setting off to other Festival locations throughout the Summer. Next stop is the Greenwich+Docklands Festival in London from June 29th to July 2nd. Check out later destinations via their website at http://www.ioutheatre.org/
It was the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche who wrote, "There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness". Soprano Carolyn Sampson and pianist Joseph Middleton took this quote, and used it when compiling their list of songs for 'Reason In Madness', the collective title given to their recital at St Peter Mancroft on Monday. The concert formed part of the music programme to this year's Norfolk & Norwich Festival In a programme of twelve songs, no less than five take as their inspiration the ill-fated story of Ophelia from Shakespeare's Hamlet. Yet it is the German legend of Faust that opens the evening, in a rendition of Schubert's Gretchen am Spinnrade (Gretchen at the Spinning Wheel) - in the legend Gretchen is seduced by Faust and gives birth to his bastard child. It is only the rhythm of the spinning wheel that manages to keep her rooted to reality. Four further songs, all beautifully sung in German by Sampson, and with an almost telepathic connection to Joseph Middleton's piano, follow - three inspired by Ophelia (including a towering version of Strauss' Der Lieder der Ophelia that reveals the sad truth of Ophelia's abandonment), before ending the first half with Hugo Wolf's Mignon Lieder. In the second half we are treated to six pieces from French composers, including Saint-Saens and Chausson's takes on the Ophelia story, but first we hear Henri Duparc's take on the story of Mignon from Goethe's 'Kennst du das Land' (Do You Know The Land?). Debussy's Chansons de Bilitis, three erotically charged songs based on the poetry of Pierre Louÿs, is probably my highlight of the second half, although the decadent tale of Poulenc's La dame de Monte Carlo, which ends with her throwing herself into the Mediterranean, provides a suitably dramatic climax. St Peter Mancroft proved a splendid venue to the concert, with the stained glass window behind the altar, and the gentle pink glow from the stage lighting providing a sensitive and calming backdrop. Only the occasional roar of an engine from the designated motorcycle parking area next door managed to intrude on what was a delightful evening. A short distance away in The Assembly House the Norfolk & Norwich Festival audience for The Voice Project would be bedding down for the first performance of their somnifacient ten and a half hour production, 'In the Arms of Sleep'. I instead purchase a copy of Carolyn and Joseph's 'Fleurs' album, which they both kindly sign. I get home and place the disc in the CD player of the hi-fi in my bedroom. I too drift off to sleep listening to beautiful music. But I have inadvertently set the disc to 'repeat', meaning that for the entire night I am also drifting in and out of sleep, and am aware of Carolyn's singing and Joseph's piano playing right the way through until morning. My own personal version of 'In the Arms of Sleep'.
I love the Adnams Spiegeltent. I love the ambiance, the excited audiences, the welcoming hosts, and I love the range of events it plays host to during its annual two week visit. It is indeed a 'Salon Perdu', a lost room to enter and enjoy. Many of the acts that I have seen in here over the years were new to me, names that, if it had not been for the Norfolk & Norwich Festival, might have forever slipped me by. Others were acts that drew me in by curiosity or recommendation from other festival hawks. Nadine Shah, though, was different. Having seen her three times live, and bought both the first two albums, this was an artist that I knew and loved. And was definitely not going to miss.
I've been in Chapelfield Gardens all day, stewarding and volunteering on the virtual reality swings. At the end of my shift I had swapped by blue Norfolk & Norwich Festival volunteer t-shirt for a red one and rushed down to catch Billy Bragg perform a free show at Norwich Arts Centre for the Labour Party campaign workers of Norwich South. Labour candidate Clive Lewis was there, and Bragg joked that every politician he has ever met secretly wanted to be a rock and roll star. Lewis did not sing tonight, although ironically Billy Bragg's grey hair and beard is beginning to make him look a lot like Jeremy Corbin.
Anyhow, I digress. I am back at the Spiegeltent before 10pm and a long line is patiently queuing in the late evening drizzle, awaiting the doors to the Spiegeltent to open. Nadine Shah is backed tonight by a four piece band who are tight and provide just the right intensity to suit both the material and the venue. Let's be honest here. The new album Holiday Destination is Shah's best work to date, but it pulls no punches in exploring its themes and messages, and tonight's set list features virtually every track from it. This is a 'tell-it-like-it-is' attack on those who think that the refugee crisis, and migration, are issues that Britain can somehow duck out of its humanitarian and moral obligations over. As Shah points out, we are all migrants. 'There is no such thing as indiginous English people. We are all immigrants'. She uses an expletive to hammer home the point that whilst her father may have been born in Pakistan, she was born in South Shields, and is therefore English. Quite right.
But, as well as being politically charged Nadine Shah is a delightful and engaging performer. She likes a drink and makes no secret of it. Her Tyneside accent gives her a grounded appeal that wins over audiences instantly. Yet, like the moment when she accidentally bangs her tooth on the microphone just before the start of a number, she also displays a vulnerability that is also present in her music.
We get three songs from Fast Food to keep the 'play-something-we-know brigade happy' - the title track plus Stealing Cars and Fool, and the saxophone player gets a chance to deliver a few blistering solos, but the evening really belongs to Nadine and Holiday Destination. Attitudes need to change, and it is albums like this and artists like Nadine Shah that have the ability to help do it.
Congratulations to Norfolk & Norwich Festival for the courage and conviction to book an act like this for the prime Saturday night spot.
If you went to the Theatre Royal on Friday expecting American Style to be a synergistic fusion of the avant-garde, or a boundary-breaking exploration of new territories, then I guess you were in for a disappointment, and deservedly so. If, however, you were ready to embrace a collaborative 'state of the world' cultural collage from two of the most iconic figures from the American music and arts scene, then this was a beautiful and engaging performance.
Yes, this was the hottest ticket in town, the must-see performance from Philip Glass and Laurie Anderson, and one that turned the Norfolk and Norwich Festival booking line red-hot when seats went on sale back in February.
Neither is this a schmaltzy greatest hits show - there are no 'O Superman' moments or Bowie-inspired piano arrangements. Instead, this is a coalescent commentary on the past, the present and the future with contributions from Glass and Anderson based respectively on memory, uncertainty and concerns. Joining them on stage is guest cellist Rubin Kodheli.
At an early point during Laurie Anderson's visual projections there appears a sobering message on agiant chalkboard - 'Empire is ending... as all empires do'. Later, as the trio are about to perform an improvisation piece, Anderson addresses the audience with the joke about the couple who finally decide to divorce upon reaching their nineties. It is no 'stand-up' moment, but as Anderson explains, the whole of America now appears to be improvising, making everything up on a day-to-day basis.
Philip Glass recalls his friendship with poet Allen Ginsberg, and plays against a sound recording of Ginsberg reading from his anti-war poem Wichita Vortex Sutra. Later the voice of Lou Reed is heard, and, later still, the words of Leonard Cohen are added to Glass' soundtrack of reminiscence.
The building of the wall between heaven and earth in Aristophanes' 'The Birds' is recounted in a seated reading from Anderson. Her sultry and rhythmic automaton-like delivery is as hypnotically seductive as ever. She also recalls the time when, as a student seeking election to the college council, she wrote to Jack Kennedy for advice, and received a reply. There are stories about whales asking if all oceans have walls, the revelation that 99% of all catalogued animal species are now extinct, and the reminder that most animals spend their entire living in fear. Yet animals exist in the moment.
Anderson plays violin to Glass' piano and Kodheli's cello during the instrumental passages and, whilst arguably the music occasionally behaves as little more than a conduit to the next link, it is the contextual beauty of the entire show that leaves a lasting memory long after any critical nit-picking has concluded.
American Style is an experience as much as it is a performance. It is reflective and prophetic, classical as well as contemporary. We are all so wrapped up in the moment that the one hour forty five duration passes without us even noticing the absence of an interval. There is no encore either, but to be quite honest nothing else was required. Just an ovational appreciation from those fortunate enough to be present.
It cannot be easy producing a piece of public theatre that delivers a powerful message about issues concerning refugees, asylum seekers and global displacement, yet still contain humanity, warmth and an ironic twist, but that is exactly what Berlin-based Theatre Fragile presented to us in Norwich this week as part of the 2017 Norfolk & Norwich Festival.
Two shows in The Forum, enacted beneath Luke Jerram's beautiful Museum of the Moon (rain unfortunately managed to scupper planned outdoor performances on both evenings) pull no punches in portraying the trauma and danger involved in escaping a war-torn homeland and seeking safe passage to a foreign land. This theatrical collage of masked performers and soundtrack commentary begins with a lone, spinning black box representing a boat at sea. Two masked survivors make it to land, only to find the relief of safety tainted by resentment and hostility.
As the refugees find their feet, learn our language, and begin to contribute, both culturally and economically, something rather beautiful happens. In the closing scenes of We Meet In Paradise it is they that are welcoming us, and offering the hand of friendship. What better inverted metaphor could there be for tolerance, friendship and shared humanity?
We Meet In Paradise manages to turn bleakness and despair into camaraderie and warmth within the space of just over an hour, and the welcome and discussion continues long after. Performed by a small cast from the company together with local actors and volunteers, the show is presented by IN SITU, an organisation of 24 partners (Norfolk & Norwich Festival being one) with a remit to produce and present art in the European public space.
I was present for both shows, firstly as a volunteer festival steward on the Wednesday, then returning on the Thursday to fully engage with the performance. The only disappointment had to be the weather. Whilst the audiences that packed into The Forum's main atrium were treated to a memorable and personal performance, many would clearly have already been enlightened to the themes and issues involved. Local members of Amnesty International were on hand with leaflets and banners, but one wonders how many extra minds and attitudes could have been swayed and changed on a pleasantly warm and dry May evening?
A huge thank you to Marianne Cornil, Luzie Ackers and the cast of Theatre Fragile for bringing such a relevant and thought-provoking performance to the Norfolk & Norwich Festival. It was certainly one that will leave an impression on those present that will persist long after the festival concludes.
It is a while since I last attended a concert performance by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. In fact, it was so long ago that Simon Rattle was still their chief conductor (for the last fifteen years Rattle has been principal conductor with the Berlin Philharmonic). Tonight, though, at St Andrews Hall in Norwich, it is one of Sir Simon's own mentees from the Berlin Philharmonic, the virtuoso violinist turned conductor Karina Canellakis, who is wielding the baton for her debut appearance with the CBSO. Classical music performance, like life, can have its own cyclic twists and turns.
In a programme that starts with César Franck's symphonic poem La Chasseur maudit (The Accursed Huntsman), continues with Karen Gomyo as soloist in Felix Mendelssohn's essential Violin Concerto in E minor, and concludes after an interval with Sergei Rachmaniov's Symphonic Dances, the Norfolk and Norwich Festival audience get a chance not only to experience sensitive Ms Cannellakis' conducting for the first time, but also to enjoy first-hand Karen Gomyo's fiery violin playing.
Karen Gomyo
It is a 7pm start, somewhat earlier than the stalwart NNF audiences may be used to, hence there is quite the small crowd of latecomers huddled together at the rear of St Andrews Hall. Having missed the Franck, then have to stand just inside the main doors for the Mendelssohn. During the interval they are able to join the sold out audience and take their seats for the Rachmaniov.
But stand or sit, this entire evening was an unmissable treat, thanks to the supreme quality of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, and the rhythmic elegance of Karina Canellakis' conducting - beautiful to watch, yet leaving no member of the orchestra in any doubt what was expected of them. Whilst the appearance of Karen Gomyo added yet another tier of delight - her captivating interpretation of the Andante during the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto matched any live performance I have heard - the climax of the programme had to be the Slavonic Dances, after which the ovation from this appreciative audience demanded Canellakis' return to the podium three times.
A memorable evening in this much-loved venue, with a world-class orchestra under the direction of a new star rising. Wonderful.
Introduction
One thing that you learn as you get older is that time is limited, and life should not be taken for granted. As a friend once advised me, 'Live every day as if it is your last, because one day it will be'.
As anyone who has lost a partner will know, their passing can act as a watershed moment in terms of what you decide to do with the rest of your own life. Personally, I just kept working to pay the bills, and for seven years adopted the role of single parent, just long enough to see my two children complete their education and leave home. And then, finally, came the chance for a bit of me-time. I was off!
I walked out of my job, a good ten years before any sniff of a pension was due, fortunate in having a modest nest-egg tucked away - enough to eke out a frugal existence, and decided to spend the rest of my days only doing things that I really love. More important to live life now, I thought, than to worry about the future.
And I guess that was one of the salient messages that came out of Quarantine Theatre Company's epic quartet 'Summer. Autumn. Winter. Spring', the seven-hour performance piece that dominated the opening weekend of this year's Norfolk and Norwich Festival programme. Quarantine are based in Manchester, and specialise in creating works that explore the here and now. 'Summer. Autumn. Winter. Spring' does that. But it also seizes the chance to check back as well as look forward.
Summer. Autumn. Winter. Spring - A Quartet Performance by Quarantine Theatre Company
'Summer. Autumn. Winter. Spring' is inspired by the story of Mandy. Mandy was diagnosed with terminal cancer, and in the moving film 'Winter' Mandy is asked a variety of questions about her day. She talks more about the importance of the present than about time she has left, but in so doing reveals concerns about her dogs and her children, and the state of her back garden, rather than about herself. It is an unselfishness brought into focus by the realisation and acceptance that she might not be around next summer, or the summer after that. As, albeit in a more unpredictable and indeterminate manner, neither might any one of us.
So, let me now take you back two seasons, and also a couple of months, to April of this year, my first introduction to 'Summer'.
Becoming involved in 'Summer'
I have been a part of the volunteer team at the Norfolk and Norwich Festival for the last four years now. It was one of the first activities that I signed up for after walking out of that treadmill job at the end of 2013 - it was an attempt to engage myself with the local arts scene, make the acquaintance of like-minded souls, and also stretch out my savings by perhaps getting to see performances for nothing.
Back in March of this year an e-mail went out to last year's volunteers inviting us to apply be a part of 'Summer', the opening section of Quarantine's performance for this year's Festival. 'No previous experience required', read the message, 'You merely need to follow instructions, and be yourselves. We are looking for a complete cross-section of ages and backgrounds'.
I registered my interest, and soon after received a telephone call from Quarantine's Artistic Director, Richard Gregory, who explains a little more about the show, and asks a few details about my own back story. Next, a meeting is arranged for the second weekend in April to give members of the company a chance to meet the newly assembled volunteer cast of 'Summer' for the very first time.
Ironically, this falls on the anniversary of my own wife's death in 2007, and my children had already suggested that the family gather on the pier at Cromer where, ten years previously, we had sprinkled La Maman's ashes into the sea. I therefore do not get a chance to make everybody's acquaintance until the first rehearsal proper, on April 22nd, exactly three weeks before our first scheduled performance.
Rehearsals for 'Summer'
Rehearsals are held in a large empty retail unit on the first floor of Castle Mall Shopping Centre in Norwich. To fit around those who work full-time, or are at school or college, these are arranged for weekday evenings or weekends, and generally last around three hours. They generally start with a shared meal, either a hot vegan lunch or dinner, or a delicious range of cereals, fruit and pastries for the mornings. It gives us all a chance to sit down together, chat informally and share stories prompted from questions written on cards and distributed across the tables.
The serious work always starts with a gentle work-out led by our choreographer Jane. We are coached in the art of 'exploring the space', 'feeling the presence' and 'sharing the moment'. She also gets our blood circulating with some more energetic dance moves, during which we do our best to keep up, with varying (not always age-determined) degrees of success.
'Summer' rehearsals - photo by Sharon Hulbert
Over the next couple of weeks this motley crew of 30 gradually bonds, becoming a cohesive band of friends as well as performers, whilst we are coached in the techniques of standing alone in front of an audience, being comfortable and relaxed when using a microphone, and in performing and moving together as a group within the space.
There are questions thrown at us, often with recurring themes, the significance of which gradually become clearer to us as we approach the final performances. We are asked to bring in a book, or a piece of writing, that has changed our lives, and to assemble a box of objects, items that, to us, hold personal relevance and significance. We have to nominate a song that reminds us of Summer. I choose 'Light My Fire', by The Doors.
As the week of the performances approaches we transfer to The Space, a large event and function suite to the north of the city. Tuesday's rehearsal is the 'technical set-up and rehearsal'. It is all about getting the sound and lighting levels adjusted, timing the music, synchronising the projected instructions, and sorting out our entrances and exits.
Oh, and for us to become 'comfortable within the space'. It is much larger than where we had been rehearsing, and the bank of tiered seating at the rear or the room brings home to us that this is for real, and in four days time those seats will be filled with a real live audience. Thanks to Jane's patience and hard work we seem to have become quite adept at walking and running around the floor area as a group, without colliding or tripping over each other.
Wednesday is our final gathering before the show proper. We still have not experienced any of the other three 'seasons', although by now we have been given a good idea of what to expect. Tonight is the full 'dress rehearsal' of 'Summer', a chance for us to perform in front of friends, family, festival staff and volunteers, and to really savour the experience of standing in front of a real audience for the first time. I think it is fair to say that we all loved it. There is something indescribably exhilarating that occurs when the release of adrenaline courses through the blood and, throwing caution to the wind, we submit ourselves to the mercy of a live audience. Call it thrill-seeking, the challenging of personal demons of self-consciousness or fear, or simple straightforward exhibitionism, nothing else replicates that excitement of stepping out on stage. Bring on Saturday!
Performing 'Summer'
One thing that we have learnt from our time with Richard and the Quarantine company is that, in the same way that every performance of 'Summer' is intentionally unique, no two rehearsals would ever be the same either. He was constantly changing the instructions, switching the order in which we make our entrances, swapping who is made to dance to their 'summer song', and mixing up who answers the questions thrown at us by Sonia and Leentje. There was no reason to doubt that our 'real' performances would again hold a few more surprises.
Performing 'Summer' in Norwich (photo by Quarantine)
Some elements of 'Summer' remain constant. The opening music - 'Mr Blue Sky' by the Electric Light Orchestra. The huge bank of lights that rises from behind a giant wall. The instruction to stand and look at the audience looking at us. A sequence that sees us pacing haphazardly yet purposefully around the floor before morphing into a cyclic swirl of running bodies to the accompaniment of Lucy Rose's 'Bikes'. An extended stage-fighting class taught by Leentje, in which the techniques of striking, kicking and hair-pulling are practiced, before assuming a darker more sinister significance as the strains of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas take over from our own conversations and vocal effects. The sequence in which we all carefully unpack and arrange our own personal 'box of objects', only to have them re-categorised and re-assembled elsewhere by fellow cast members. The 'closed eyes dancing', in which we all find ourselves a personal space in which to block out the light, lose ourselves and move to pop music in our own safe and secure way.
In between these set-pieces comes the 'on the spot' unpredictability of those interview questions, and a 'chaos' sequence during which we attempt to follow the projected instructions - silently arranging ourselves into rows or groups based on age, or height, or place of birth; lying on the floor; dancing inside a cardboard box; letting off a confetti cannon. Whilst much of 'Summer' might appear random and unconnected, subtle nuances in these ideas cognitively re-appear in later parts of the performance.
Engaging in 'Autumn'
'Autumn' is probably best described as a two hour interval, during which the audience is offered the chance to engage in one or more of ten activities set out amidst the performance space. As members of 'Summer' we are encouraged to mingle and interact with the audience as, together, we choose between listening to a history of the world, joining in a discussion on 'identity', boogieing to a 'silent disco', helping prepare and eat Vietnamese pancake rolls under the supervision of Jaki from Papaya Verte, or trying out any or all of another five activities. At 'The Library' table we attempted to make a list of every book that we had ever read, as well as discussing the individual texts that we, the members of 'Summer', had been asked to bring in. I contributed a volume of circular walks around Norfolk, many of which La Maman and I had taken great pleasure in completing, along with the children, during the years when they were growing up at home. I guess that, in the same way that 'Summer' focused on the immediate and the 'now', 'Autumn' provided an interlude during which to reflect on, and to appraise, our own lives so far.
Watching and Listening to 'Winter'
The audience is back in their seats, and we are ready for 'Winter'. A giant screen is wheeled out from the wings and the lights are dimmed. Over the next 35 minutes we are in the company of Mandy in a candid and deeply moving insight into a woman who knows that she is going to die from her lung cancer. From my personal memories of around the time when La Maman was diagnosed with inoperable bowel cancer, I know that the first thing that a lot of the audience will be thinking is that Mandy does not look like she is about to die.
La Maman was diagnosed in July, shortly before we were about to go on a summer holiday to Bulgaria. She was tanned and, ironically, had lost a bit of weight (the pressure of the tumour on her stomach had, in effect, been having the same effect as a gastric band, unknowingly reducing her appetite by making her feel 'full' much quicker). She was told that, with chemotherapy, she could be lucky and get a life extension of anything up to two years. As with Mandy in the film, this immediately changed her entire perspective on what had always been a fairly nebulous concept - 'The Future'. Suddenly plans became obsolescent, and energies were very much transferred to 'The Present'. She assumed an appreciation of the minutiae of life, and any worries became focused on making sure that the children and I would be OK. In the same way that Mandy is shown being concerned about tidying up the back garden, Jan became obsessed about getting our hall decorated - what we now refer to as the Memorial Hall.
Mandy was the favourite aunt of Lisa, one of the co-devisers of 'Summer.Autumn.Winter.Spring'. Staring at the screen during the opening and closing sequences, with us looking into Mandy's face as she stares back at us, provides one of the most moving and poignant moments of this work, as moments from 'Summer' and 'Autumn' silently fall into place. Questions asked in 'Summer' suddenly take on a new relevance, and choices offered in 'Autumn' demand a new focus and sense of purpose.
Singing with the babies in 'Spring'
A respectful one hour interval separates the closure of 'Winter' and the opening of 'Spring'. I take myself out for a walk in the late Sunday afternoon sunshine, a stroll that takes me to the deserted car parks of a nearby retail park. The deserted spaces, and those stark empty temples of soft furnishings, bedroom furniture, fitted kitchens and bathrooms, seem to silent smirk at our collective failure to appreciate the transience of life and the inconsequentiality of material goods.
'Spring', by contrast, establishes a joyous, almost party-like atmosphere. A glitzy backdrop, and karaoke-style lyrics appear on the overhead screen. The familiar strains from Salt'n'Pepa's 'Push It' deliver a wholly appropriate introduction to this, the final season, celebrating the delivery of new life. A group of mothers and their babies, and mums-to-be, take it in turns to step up to the microphones and take us through a selection of familiar songs from Britney Spears' 'Hit Me Baby (One More Time)', to Nirvana's 'Never Mind'. And in between the songs come those interview questions from Sonia and Leentje, reminding us again that, even as new life begins, the circle of life is still peppered with memories and experiences.
The babies are, of course, absolute scene stealers, melting our hearts as they explore the stage, grabbing at balloons and microphone stands with screams of laughter and interactive abandon. And as we enjoy the music, the singing, and the babies, we are being primed for a final bombastic stream of projected questions about our own role and attitudes towards parenthood, our children, and how we will bring them up and look out for them. A mixture of the vital and the trivial, the serious and the comedic, happy and sad, personal and comparative, all relevant and pertinent to any parent, or parent-to-be.
And finally, just as we think 'Spring' is over, Leentje begins to explain how Greg from the production team is about to rig up a confetti barrel that will spill its contents over the stage floor, and describes what will happen after the last piece of confetti has touched the floor. What we will be doing one minute later, in five minutes, ten minutes, half an hour, one hour, two hours, twelve hours, next day, next week, next month and next year.
Greg primes the barrel and throws the switch. A fan engages and the barrel spins, spewing out a prolonged golden shower of metalised foil pieces. And as the foil pieces spin towards the ground we are reminded of the closing scene in 'Winter' where, as the credits roll, a sequence depicting white confetti gently falling against a black background concludes when the final piece has passed out of shot, leaving the screen in complete darkness.
We watch as the final piece of golden foil touches the ground, and we know that the cycle is complete.
Afterwards
The response of the audience to 'Summer. Autumn.Winter.Spring' is quite extraordinary. People come up and say how beautiful it was. How brave we were to take part in it. How we had presented ourselves so openly, exposing ourselves to the scrutiny of an audience of complete strangers? The credit for this, though, is all down to Richard and the Quarantine team for the way in which we were taken through the rehearsal process. The relationship that developed between performer and producer was achieved through trust - we knew that he would never to anything to embarrass us or make us uncomfortable on stage, and it also allowed a close bond to grow within the group. We opened up to each other in a way that rarely happens during such brief encounters. There was a mutual comfort and honesty that would have taken much longer to acquire in different circumstances. Some of us will almost certainly cross paths again in and around Norwich, others may only stay in touch via social media, and others may simply melt away. But we will never forget the time we spent together this Summer with Quarantine.
Thank you, Quarantine. From the cast of 'Summer' 2017
