Thursday, 10 September 2009
51. 9-12 Sept Peter and Simon Bowes Artists-in-Residence at Leeds Met Studio Theatre
Catch up on this when we get back from Leeds. x
50. WIP Showing at the Bluecoat / On "Converse": Face-to-face with Rules and Regs Artists
Catch up on this when we get back from Leeds. x
Sunday, 30 August 2009
49. Forest Fringe Spectacular! 75th Birthday! Award Shortlist (Close But No Cigar! - but Nevermind...)
Catch up on this when I get back from Leeds. x
Monday, 24 August 2009
48. Kings of England at Forest Fringe + Dad's 75th Birthday
Kings of England will be showing "Where We Live & What We Life For" at Forest Fringe, 6PM-6.30, August 27th-28th, Forest Cafe, Bristo Place £Pay-What-You-Can!
Promises to be a good couple of shows, especially since on the 28th Dad will celebrate his 75 Birthday.
This will be out last "in-development" show before our residency at Leeds Met Studio Theatre where we will tighten it up for touring (details soon). On Tuesday 25th we will be joined by my Brother, over from Canada for a few weeks and Dad, Mum, David and I will pile into Dad's Honda Jazz for a ROAD TRIP, six arse-numbing hours to look forward to, but the arrival will be worth it.
Wednesday, 19 August 2009
47. Two month residency in Lisbon! Acceptance to The Cycle: Tracks, Traces and Leftovers: Documentation Practices in Contemporary Creation
Good News!
I have been accepted to do a two-month (£paid) residency in Lisbon in 2010. The residencies come under the heading "The Cycle: Tracks, Traces and Leftovers: Documentation Practices in Contemporary Creation", and will be hosted by Atelier Real.
The proposal I submitted was to write and perform in response to an obscure branch of my family archive (archive, in this case, is a grand word for an envelope of photographs of an old Liverpudian family, the Furbers, relatives of my grandfathers).
This is on the back of the little work-in-progress I have shown in Carlisle (for the LANWest tour in february) and Manchester (for Sometimes...'s night at greenroom), entitled "IF".
IF is a companion piece to "Where We Live & What We Live For", concerning my grandfather, and particularly the three years he spent in captivity during World War II, but also more general themes of survival, longevity, speed, velocity and trajectory.
I have been accepted to do a two-month (£paid) residency in Lisbon in 2010. The residencies come under the heading "The Cycle: Tracks, Traces and Leftovers: Documentation Practices in Contemporary Creation", and will be hosted by Atelier Real.
The proposal I submitted was to write and perform in response to an obscure branch of my family archive (archive, in this case, is a grand word for an envelope of photographs of an old Liverpudian family, the Furbers, relatives of my grandfathers).
This is on the back of the little work-in-progress I have shown in Carlisle (for the LANWest tour in february) and Manchester (for Sometimes...'s night at greenroom), entitled "IF".
IF is a companion piece to "Where We Live & What We Live For", concerning my grandfather, and particularly the three years he spent in captivity during World War II, but also more general themes of survival, longevity, speed, velocity and trajectory.
46. Very belated reports of CPT & Performing Lives Gigs
PART ONE: SPRINT FESTIVAL AT CAMDEN PEOPLE'S THEATRE
First night at Camden People's Theatre, about ten in the audience, mostly on comps. A quiet show but do-able. Difficult to get warmed up when there's three quarters of the seats empty, but it was alright. We got through it. Top drinks afterwards with Sylvia, who we were double-billed with, Kate A and my mates Em and Paul (Banjo). Plus, Sylvia really pulled out the stops. I had seen her show at SPILL but this was really, relly funny, bringing out a humour and warmth for us and, I think, for the Sylvia that was there, but not there, in 2003. Anyway, it was fucking fantastic.
Second night four people showed up, three of whom had already seen it. We decided to pull it, so Sylvia and I were taken out by Matt Ball and Robert Pacitti (thanks chaps!) and, I for one, was drunker than I care to be by the end of it. The next day was all anxiety attacks and difficult travelling. I heard that Sprit was poorly attended throughout, which seemed like nobody's fault, just London summer, expensive tickets, a culture of 'A Night Less Ordinary' and a cheaper West End to contend with. So, the Kings are writing that off to experience.
For our trouble, Sylvia and I received £10.70 in ticket sales, which we have promised to keep in special envelopes and open them when we next drink togther. I hope it isn't too long, what with inflation and everything.
PART TWO: PERFORMING LIVES CONFERENCE
A quiet conference and a split panel meant we performed to about ten people, again, but it was fairly well-received But we took the low turnout on the chin. and I got to meet Simon Ellis and the estimable Kristin Frederickson, who is performing her own Dad show, which was literally astonishing. Dad, the bloody hero, came down & up again in a day. I stopped off at my cousins, which was grand, and stayed in the next day and watched about seven episodes of The Wire Series 1, which was probably better than sight-seeing.
First night at Camden People's Theatre, about ten in the audience, mostly on comps. A quiet show but do-able. Difficult to get warmed up when there's three quarters of the seats empty, but it was alright. We got through it. Top drinks afterwards with Sylvia, who we were double-billed with, Kate A and my mates Em and Paul (Banjo). Plus, Sylvia really pulled out the stops. I had seen her show at SPILL but this was really, relly funny, bringing out a humour and warmth for us and, I think, for the Sylvia that was there, but not there, in 2003. Anyway, it was fucking fantastic.
Second night four people showed up, three of whom had already seen it. We decided to pull it, so Sylvia and I were taken out by Matt Ball and Robert Pacitti (thanks chaps!) and, I for one, was drunker than I care to be by the end of it. The next day was all anxiety attacks and difficult travelling. I heard that Sprit was poorly attended throughout, which seemed like nobody's fault, just London summer, expensive tickets, a culture of 'A Night Less Ordinary' and a cheaper West End to contend with. So, the Kings are writing that off to experience.
For our trouble, Sylvia and I received £10.70 in ticket sales, which we have promised to keep in special envelopes and open them when we next drink togther. I hope it isn't too long, what with inflation and everything.
PART TWO: PERFORMING LIVES CONFERENCE
A quiet conference and a split panel meant we performed to about ten people, again, but it was fairly well-received But we took the low turnout on the chin. and I got to meet Simon Ellis and the estimable Kristin Frederickson, who is performing her own Dad show, which was literally astonishing. Dad, the bloody hero, came down & up again in a day. I stopped off at my cousins, which was grand, and stayed in the next day and watched about seven episodes of The Wire Series 1, which was probably better than sight-seeing.
Monday, 22 June 2009
45. Camden People's Theatre 24th/25th June / Father's Day Belated
Hello!
Okay so 24th / 25th June (Weds / Thurs) Me & Dad on at Camden People's Theatre. Looking forward to it. Double Bill with Sylvia Rimat (happily).
Yesterday we went down the Royal for a father's day pint-and-a-half (I had some kind of Dunham Massey, he had Hydes Original) (picture soon). There's a bookshelf by the chairs we always sit at and on it there's a copy of Redgrave's Factory Act (1966). Dad is more familiar with earlier versions but it used to be The Bible when he worked as a draughtsman in the steel trade. So he got it off the shelf (like he always always does) and told me some Trade Union trivia. And he asked me what books I'd been reading (I said: "The Book Thief") and he said he had been reading the Grapes of Wrath. And He told me how sad it was. He doesn't tend to get sad or sentimental about things so it was was sort of enjoyable to seeing him acting like that.
More soon.
Okay so 24th / 25th June (Weds / Thurs) Me & Dad on at Camden People's Theatre. Looking forward to it. Double Bill with Sylvia Rimat (happily).
Yesterday we went down the Royal for a father's day pint-and-a-half (I had some kind of Dunham Massey, he had Hydes Original) (picture soon). There's a bookshelf by the chairs we always sit at and on it there's a copy of Redgrave's Factory Act (1966). Dad is more familiar with earlier versions but it used to be The Bible when he worked as a draughtsman in the steel trade. So he got it off the shelf (like he always always does) and told me some Trade Union trivia. And he asked me what books I'd been reading (I said: "The Book Thief") and he said he had been reading the Grapes of Wrath. And He told me how sad it was. He doesn't tend to get sad or sentimental about things so it was was sort of enjoyable to seeing him acting like that.
More soon.
Thursday, 28 May 2009
44. Burst '09
Belatedly, a post about our two-night run at BAC as part of Burst '09: 51 Reasons for Living.
Overall I think it went well. We did about 40 minutes on the first night and cut it down to 30 on the second. The show is - currently - a little too text-heavy, but we restructured it and worked in some new material. For now, it's OK, but we will be working on some more new stuff for the showing at CPT on June 24th and 25th (double billed with Sylvia Rimat).
On the first night the audience seemed well up for it, quieter on the second night but that was partly my fault. After three and a half hours sleep (I was woken up by Dad snoring, particularly, and London in general), it was much harder to muster up the right amount of gusto. But I got lots of feedback from producer / audience-folk, enough to allow me suppose that we're on the right track. Particular thanks to Sunita Pandya and Richard Dufty, Katherina Radeva, her friend James, and Kates Ashman and Rowles, for their support & crit, and to Liz, our technicial, for lighting us.
Overall I think it went well. We did about 40 minutes on the first night and cut it down to 30 on the second. The show is - currently - a little too text-heavy, but we restructured it and worked in some new material. For now, it's OK, but we will be working on some more new stuff for the showing at CPT on June 24th and 25th (double billed with Sylvia Rimat).
On the first night the audience seemed well up for it, quieter on the second night but that was partly my fault. After three and a half hours sleep (I was woken up by Dad snoring, particularly, and London in general), it was much harder to muster up the right amount of gusto. But I got lots of feedback from producer / audience-folk, enough to allow me suppose that we're on the right track. Particular thanks to Sunita Pandya and Richard Dufty, Katherina Radeva, her friend James, and Kates Ashman and Rowles, for their support & crit, and to Liz, our technicial, for lighting us.
Saturday, 16 May 2009
43. Carousel / Slide
Carousel
Bought a Kodak Carousel Slide Projector off eBay the other day. Hundred Quid, 2 lenses, hard case, spare bulb and... remote control! Should be arriving on Tuesday. Alex told me I should get a slide projector, although I had been committed to OHPs. Well Alex, you win! I got the bug for slides after finding a load of old ones a wardrobe a couple of days ago, and I started to feel I was missing something if I didn't check them out. That said, the piece is quite reliant on photographs at the moment and I want to balance that out. But I want each section to have a title, like "Article (...) Nowhere but Here, 2009". And furthermore, I found a place that converts digital images to 35mm slides for about £2.00 each, which seems reasonable. So now with the Carousel I can look forward to lugging more ungainly equipment on trains, buses, the tube, and on foot, very soon.
But I think my interest in slides was started off watching Episode 1/13 of Mad Men, where the character Don Draper is pitching ideas to Kodak for their new projector. He says:
Nostalgia.
It’s delicate, but potent…
Teddy told me that in Greek, nostalgia literally means the pain from an old wound.
It’s a twinge in your heart, far more powerful than memory alone.
This device… isn’t a spaceship, it’s a time machine.
It goes backwards, forwards.
It takes us to a place where we ache to go again.
It’s not called the Wheel.
It’s called the Carousel.
It lets us travel the way a child travels.
Around and around and back home again, to a place where we know we are loved - www.imdb.com/title/tt1105057/quotes.
Viewfinder
So I spent part of the day with the old 35mm Olympus taking pictures of signage for the titles for each section. It will be trial and error, I've never used slide film before and I don't know if I exposed it right but anyway, here are some pictures from from the digital, through the viewfinder of the film camera. They're very student-y but I quite like them, so here you go:
Two Slides/-
Bought a Kodak Carousel Slide Projector off eBay the other day. Hundred Quid, 2 lenses, hard case, spare bulb and... remote control! Should be arriving on Tuesday. Alex told me I should get a slide projector, although I had been committed to OHPs. Well Alex, you win! I got the bug for slides after finding a load of old ones a wardrobe a couple of days ago, and I started to feel I was missing something if I didn't check them out. That said, the piece is quite reliant on photographs at the moment and I want to balance that out. But I want each section to have a title, like "Article (...) Nowhere but Here, 2009". And furthermore, I found a place that converts digital images to 35mm slides for about £2.00 each, which seems reasonable. So now with the Carousel I can look forward to lugging more ungainly equipment on trains, buses, the tube, and on foot, very soon.
But I think my interest in slides was started off watching Episode 1/13 of Mad Men, where the character Don Draper is pitching ideas to Kodak for their new projector. He says:
Nostalgia.
It’s delicate, but potent…
Teddy told me that in Greek, nostalgia literally means the pain from an old wound.
It’s a twinge in your heart, far more powerful than memory alone.
This device… isn’t a spaceship, it’s a time machine.
It goes backwards, forwards.
It takes us to a place where we ache to go again.
It’s not called the Wheel.
It’s called the Carousel.
It lets us travel the way a child travels.
Around and around and back home again, to a place where we know we are loved - www.imdb.com/title/tt1105057/quotes.
Viewfinder
So I spent part of the day with the old 35mm Olympus taking pictures of signage for the titles for each section. It will be trial and error, I've never used slide film before and I don't know if I exposed it right but anyway, here are some pictures from from the digital, through the viewfinder of the film camera. They're very student-y but I quite like them, so here you go:
Two Slides/-
Friday, 15 May 2009
42. Line-Learning / Songs
A couple of interesting things.
First: If you have seen our show, or if you have been reading this, you will know that one of our central themes is memory loss. We are trying to reclaim a lost hour, after a trans-ischemic attack, where my Dad could not remember where he was or how he had got there. Today I was trying to coach Dad through a fairly long text (about a page's worth) that I wrote after finding William's - Bill's - his father's - paintings. I wanted to suppose that the paintings depicted the Wilderness that my Dad found himself in in 1970. And I wanted to suppose that one painting, in particular, depicted a way out. So we tried working on the rhythm of the text: "The-old-man / myoldman /strickeninthechest aged sixty / fin-ally went above-ground". After a few repetitions we were fiding our stride. I don't know if he will remember the text any better tomorrow but today he remembered a whole paragraph without prompting. We stood very close to each other and looked each other straight in the eye: "Thedoctorsaid takeyour-rest, relax / this (...) is how-he-didit / took a clerking job in the pitoffices / settled behind a-desk/ paintedpicturesonsundays after church".
First: If you have seen our show, or if you have been reading this, you will know that one of our central themes is memory loss. We are trying to reclaim a lost hour, after a trans-ischemic attack, where my Dad could not remember where he was or how he had got there. Today I was trying to coach Dad through a fairly long text (about a page's worth) that I wrote after finding William's - Bill's - his father's - paintings. I wanted to suppose that the paintings depicted the Wilderness that my Dad found himself in in 1970. And I wanted to suppose that one painting, in particular, depicted a way out. So we tried working on the rhythm of the text: "The-old-man / myoldman /strickeninthechest aged sixty / fin-ally went above-ground". After a few repetitions we were fiding our stride. I don't know if he will remember the text any better tomorrow but today he remembered a whole paragraph without prompting. We stood very close to each other and looked each other straight in the eye: "Thedoctorsaid takeyour-rest, relax / this (...) is how-he-didit / took a clerking job in the pitoffices / settled behind a-desk/ paintedpicturesonsundays after church".
* * *
Second: Mum and Dad doing a bit of washing up. Dad puts on the alarm-clock / CD player and plays a CD of me singing our signature tune. I run downstairs to find them both singing it and I join in. A singsong, there in the Kitchen, and if you knew my Mum you'd know how little confidence she has in her voice.
So - a simple pleasure, fairly short-lived but adequate to its moment, then, Me and my Mum and My Dad singing in the Kitchen, washing up, stopping the clock.
So - a simple pleasure, fairly short-lived but adequate to its moment, then, Me and my Mum and My Dad singing in the Kitchen, washing up, stopping the clock.
Thursday, 14 May 2009
41. Rehearsals for Burst at BAC / A Kind of Rant / Promotional Material from A-to-M.com
Dad and I have been hard at work rehearsing in the front room towards 30 minutes of material for our gig at Burst, BAC (20th /21st May 9-9.30PM £5/3 Concs). We are getting there, having restructured the piece quite a lot. Until a couple of days ago I was bricking myself but I think we have a fair chance at doing a decent show. Mum is off for a walking holiday with her mates on Sat, so we will have a few days to ourselves to graft away. As ever, Dad remains dedicated to his task, but it would be wrong to suggest that it is all plain sailing. Working together this closely intensifies our different approaches and attitudes. We are sometimes irascible, belligerent, un-accepting. And other times we are devoted to the ease and comfort of the other. But either way, the work comes slowly.
* * *
The work is taking on a literary quality, more so perhaps than before, as we deepen our concern for a text that is by now central to the show, from Yevgeny Vinokurov ("Sometimes I'd like to write a book / a book all about time..."). And we are trying somehow to give this book our elders, ancestors (who no longer need it). It is all wishful thinking, but I wonder if that what we know now, from trying to reconstruct this unwritten book, might have helped them. Has it helped me? Vinokurov says that the past and the future are one continuous present, that everybody, those who have lived, those living, and those who are yet to live, are alive now. So one grandfather is still working down the mine, another on a railway and a farm. According to the Russian, they are still labouring to support us long after they have disappeared. I wonder if that possibility, which I have tried to give as a gift, is a possibility worth entertaining, or a gift worth receiving. Last January I saw my grandfather (on my mother's side), the features retreating from his face, become unrecognizable. The pace at which he aged in his last three weeks seem comparable to the pace a child grows in his first.
The show seems based on a conceit, one that I consider has quite hopeful implications, but at times it feels unnecessary - as if I am trying to lighten a load that was born fairly and squarely - honourably - and without complaint.
Anyway - how can we ever measure up to these people? That isn't the point though, is it? The point is to show that impossibility. If ultimately the show is autobiographical, which many people I've talked to think it ultimately is, it is an autobiography of everything I am not or am unlikely to be - as modest, godly, hardy and independent as the grandfathers.
* * *
Above is the promotional material by Mike Fallows at Manchester design Company a-to-m.com. Mike is one of the old gang, founder of Sometimes..., and it is always a pleasure to work with him.
Wednesday, 13 May 2009
40. Testimonial from Lois Keidan, Live Art Development Agency.
From Lois Keidan, Live Art Development Agency.
Kings of England’s Where We Live & What We Live For was without doubt one of my highlights from the recent SPILL Festival national performance platform – a refreshing, entertaining, charming and moving work about love and loss, about family and memory, and about we and me.
Where We Live …used many of the now familiar tropes of contemporary performance – family members, personal photos, song and dance – but Simon Bowes reimagined the potential of these materials and in the process reignited the possibilities of performance in original and deeply poignant ways. I genuinely cannot wait to see what he does next.
So what next?
20th & 21st May - Burst Festival at BAC 9PM, £5/3 Concessions www.bac.org.uk
24th & 25th June - Sprint Festival at Camden People's Theatre, Times & Ticket Prices TBC www.cptheatre.co.uk/
So what next?
20th & 21st May - Burst Festival at BAC 9PM, £5/3 Concessions www.bac.org.uk
24th & 25th June - Sprint Festival at Camden People's Theatre, Times & Ticket Prices TBC www.cptheatre.co.uk/
Saturday, 25 April 2009
39. Good Crit. From spilloverspill.blogspot.com
(Notes by Alex Eisenberg).
Alex Eisenberg, writer and performance-maker, gave a fair crit. of our show on the 19th. To read it in full go here.
Thursday, 23 April 2009
38. St. George.
Happy St. George's day to Kings of England everywhere! Dragons begone. Interesting to note that St. George's Day seems to be celebrated all over the world so in Bulgaria they'll be eating Roast Lamb, in Serbia they'll be going on morning picnics, and in Catalonia they'll be performing the Sardana, a national dance, in the Place Sant Jaume (don't ask me how I know this).
Tuesday, 21 April 2009
37. SPILL Festival (National Platform)
Yes!
We are returned from a good gig at SPILL Festival National Platform. It was a classic 20-minute performance of "Where We Live & What We Live For". I think we needed a morale booster after a slightly rocky residency at the Nuffield, and we made it. Dad said he wanted to play it for laughs and he did. He was funnier than ever and it was a pleasure to see him enjoy it. Mum seemed to enjoy playing her part too - making sure the world still turns while Dad and I work through the show & tell.
It was a privilege to show work alongside friends old and new. Neil Callaghan and Simone Kenyon did a good run of their "Mokado" show, and Sylvia Rimat's Being Here While Not Being Here" was excellent but particularly useful for me to see as it addressed broadly similar concerns as our show. Sylvia will be on the same bill as us for SPRINT at Camden People's Theatre in June. My personal highlights from new people I hadn't seen before were: Mamoru Iriguchi's "PREGNANT?" Taylan Halici's "Introduction to Floodlondon" and Sara Popowa's "Stick Piece". Predictably, I didn't see everything - busy with nerves and preparatory line-learning, so I'm sure there was a lot of good stuff I missed out on.
Hopefully some good will come out of doing the show. I'm down in the hole financially over it but a lot of programmers and London Artsvolk saw it, so that can't do any harm. But I'm still concerned about the development of the show overall. Not quite sure of the direction we will take but we are committed to showing 30 minutes of mostly new material for Burst at BAC May 20th / 21st, which is a scary prospect. We have to move outside of the comforts of the old show now. But despite being a show that plays o our fears, we made it quite hospitable for ourselves.
Also, a sad weekend - said a kind of goodbye to an old friend, someone who has shaped the course of my life. And I am wondering who I will be in their absence. But like the song says: "the best of friends must part sometimes / any why not you and I?" Nevertheless, I'm hurting. But so what?
But that aside it remains to say a big thankyou to Robert and everyone at Pacitti Company for a wonderful time.
Big Love. x
Photographs from rehearsal:
We are returned from a good gig at SPILL Festival National Platform. It was a classic 20-minute performance of "Where We Live & What We Live For". I think we needed a morale booster after a slightly rocky residency at the Nuffield, and we made it. Dad said he wanted to play it for laughs and he did. He was funnier than ever and it was a pleasure to see him enjoy it. Mum seemed to enjoy playing her part too - making sure the world still turns while Dad and I work through the show & tell.
It was a privilege to show work alongside friends old and new. Neil Callaghan and Simone Kenyon did a good run of their "Mokado" show, and Sylvia Rimat's Being Here While Not Being Here" was excellent but particularly useful for me to see as it addressed broadly similar concerns as our show. Sylvia will be on the same bill as us for SPRINT at Camden People's Theatre in June. My personal highlights from new people I hadn't seen before were: Mamoru Iriguchi's "PREGNANT?" Taylan Halici's "Introduction to Floodlondon" and Sara Popowa's "Stick Piece". Predictably, I didn't see everything - busy with nerves and preparatory line-learning, so I'm sure there was a lot of good stuff I missed out on.
Hopefully some good will come out of doing the show. I'm down in the hole financially over it but a lot of programmers and London Artsvolk saw it, so that can't do any harm. But I'm still concerned about the development of the show overall. Not quite sure of the direction we will take but we are committed to showing 30 minutes of mostly new material for Burst at BAC May 20th / 21st, which is a scary prospect. We have to move outside of the comforts of the old show now. But despite being a show that plays o our fears, we made it quite hospitable for ourselves.
Also, a sad weekend - said a kind of goodbye to an old friend, someone who has shaped the course of my life. And I am wondering who I will be in their absence. But like the song says: "the best of friends must part sometimes / any why not you and I?" Nevertheless, I'm hurting. But so what?
But that aside it remains to say a big thankyou to Robert and everyone at Pacitti Company for a wonderful time.
Big Love. x
Photographs from rehearsal:
Friday, 10 April 2009
36. ACE-Funded Residency at the Nuffield Theatre, Lancaster (Week 2)
Kings of England have finished our residency at the Nuffield Theatre, Lancaster, and are getting ready to perform at SPILL National Platform next weekend (19th April). So for now it remains for me to reflect on our our process and a modest 15-20 minute showing in the Playroom on Wednesday 8th.
At the moment, developing the show with Dad seems all difficulty. Since I cannot approach it sensibly you will have to make do with some fragments:
000/-
We have made a moderately successful - and conceptually, quite tight - 15-20 minute show (circa YaYW5, Bristol, Oct 08 / Pilot Nights, Birmingham, Nov 08). So it feels quite uncomfortable to disrupt the sequence of events we have built around the jump (1958) and the fall (2001).
000/-
The show begun as a search for the other in ourselves - the unknowable things that are the often considered converse of memory and imagination (types of knowledge) but which might more accurately be considered part of them.
000/-
Framing the show within a larger research project, we have put a question to ourselves: "Where We Live & What We Live For". It might be best to keep this clearly focused on father and son, but inevitably this begins to point outwardly, towards houses, inns and other buildings, walks or journeys, friendships and whichever kind of relationships that might constitute "home" or make it hospitable. But our beginnings are always shadowed by an end. Homeliness, like Selfhood, might often be considered an historical practice - even if home is not bound to an architecture or a particular geography, it may nevertheless be bound to by tradition. The conception of Home, like the conception of Self seems to require a history; one that can be, in some significant part, be known by us (though never entirely).
000/-
This way of talking about it strays. We are being paid to make a popular show that people like, not to do Academic research (though I do consider this Practice-as-Research).
000/-
I think about the twinkle in my father's eye, and the twinkle in his father's father's eye, and so on and I want to meet the nameless men and women, not forgotten but now entirely unknown, that might, in some way, have born as many resemblances to us as differences.
000/-
The first toast was "to the passing of time" (and to the dead). The second toast - only implied - was to the the life of the living as he "is now, has been, and, perhaps, shall be". In the showing, the third toast was "to the other, old world, the one before us". It might never have existed before Niépce, Daguerre, Florence, Talbot, Eastman, Bayard, who taught us the trick of the instant, documenting, alongside portraits and landscapes, fractures of the rhythm of work and other business of living; I mean the Victorian Scenes where we encounter strangely matter-of-fact kinds of evidence that to the effect that such and such married so and so, begat such and such, and that they, in particular, led slowly to us. To the other, old world, the one before us. And, on the back of a documentary I once watched and a conversation with a friend, I might consider that we disrupt world prior to us and the world after, as if the world during us breaks a certain continuity that our absence reverts to.
000/-
But straying.... when I was doing postgrad I was a wayward researcher and I like the idea of picking up another thread - searching for William, Dad's Dad, who I never had the privilege of meeting, and Olliver, Mum's Dad, who I did. Prior to the residency I had been writing about these two men, who courted and married between the Wars. But as yet we found no way of working them in.
000/-
Much of our work concerns the impossibility of facing the past or, of being out of step with the present. The picture, below, from rehearsals in Week 2, refers to the walk that Peter, my father before he was my father, made with William, his father, in 1952, aged 17 or 18.
I notice the straightness of our legs, the bend in our left arms. In these details alone, perhaps, we are similar.
000/-
Other Pictures:
That's All for Now. More Soon.
At the moment, developing the show with Dad seems all difficulty. Since I cannot approach it sensibly you will have to make do with some fragments:
000/-
We have made a moderately successful - and conceptually, quite tight - 15-20 minute show (circa YaYW5, Bristol, Oct 08 / Pilot Nights, Birmingham, Nov 08). So it feels quite uncomfortable to disrupt the sequence of events we have built around the jump (1958) and the fall (2001).
000/-
The show begun as a search for the other in ourselves - the unknowable things that are the often considered converse of memory and imagination (types of knowledge) but which might more accurately be considered part of them.
000/-
Framing the show within a larger research project, we have put a question to ourselves: "Where We Live & What We Live For". It might be best to keep this clearly focused on father and son, but inevitably this begins to point outwardly, towards houses, inns and other buildings, walks or journeys, friendships and whichever kind of relationships that might constitute "home" or make it hospitable. But our beginnings are always shadowed by an end. Homeliness, like Selfhood, might often be considered an historical practice - even if home is not bound to an architecture or a particular geography, it may nevertheless be bound to by tradition. The conception of Home, like the conception of Self seems to require a history; one that can be, in some significant part, be known by us (though never entirely).
000/-
This way of talking about it strays. We are being paid to make a popular show that people like, not to do Academic research (though I do consider this Practice-as-Research).
000/-
I think about the twinkle in my father's eye, and the twinkle in his father's father's eye, and so on and I want to meet the nameless men and women, not forgotten but now entirely unknown, that might, in some way, have born as many resemblances to us as differences.
000/-
The first toast was "to the passing of time" (and to the dead). The second toast - only implied - was to the the life of the living as he "is now, has been, and, perhaps, shall be". In the showing, the third toast was "to the other, old world, the one before us". It might never have existed before Niépce, Daguerre, Florence, Talbot, Eastman, Bayard, who taught us the trick of the instant, documenting, alongside portraits and landscapes, fractures of the rhythm of work and other business of living; I mean the Victorian Scenes where we encounter strangely matter-of-fact kinds of evidence that to the effect that such and such married so and so, begat such and such, and that they, in particular, led slowly to us. To the other, old world, the one before us. And, on the back of a documentary I once watched and a conversation with a friend, I might consider that we disrupt world prior to us and the world after, as if the world during us breaks a certain continuity that our absence reverts to.
000/-
But straying.... when I was doing postgrad I was a wayward researcher and I like the idea of picking up another thread - searching for William, Dad's Dad, who I never had the privilege of meeting, and Olliver, Mum's Dad, who I did. Prior to the residency I had been writing about these two men, who courted and married between the Wars. But as yet we found no way of working them in.
000/-
Much of our work concerns the impossibility of facing the past or, of being out of step with the present. The picture, below, from rehearsals in Week 2, refers to the walk that Peter, my father before he was my father, made with William, his father, in 1952, aged 17 or 18.
I notice the straightness of our legs, the bend in our left arms. In these details alone, perhaps, we are similar.
000/-
Other Pictures:
That's All for Now. More Soon.
Friday, 3 April 2009
35. ACE-Funded Residency at the Nuffield Theatre, Lancaster (Week 1)
Me and My Old Man are on a residency at the Nuffield Theatre, Lancaster, 30th March - 9th April. It is funded by the Arts Council England. We would have announced this on the Monday but there are Wonky internet connections a the University AND at my digs in town.
I had the intention of working Mum into the show a lot more to expand on the talk I gave in Carlisle about my Granddad (her Dad) (see Post 28), but, for now, we need to focus on the paternal link between William (Dad's Dad), Dad, and myself.
Top-to-Bottom:
Before 1966 he worked below ground as a coal face worker, a shot firer, then a deputy (a kind of shift foreman). But after his heart attack he had to take a clerking job. And I like to think of him working on sunny days, with the light streaming in through the windows. I wonder whether he looked at the world any different after the heart attack, and after taking up painting. A lot of our work so far has been about instants, partricularly in how photographs inform how we think about the instant, and how resonant photographs are when we look at them (like Roland Bathes saying that he doesn't believe in lifelike photographs, that the photo is in no way animated, but that it animates him). But William's paintings slow down how we look, if we appreciate the physicality of how he might have painted, brushstrokes, of course, but also moving around it, leaning in towards and away from it. I was watching a documentary recently "The Genius of Photography" (BBC2?) I only watched the fourth one, but one of the interviewees was talking about photographers as "not Gods, but Angels", recording rather than conceiving. But I look at William's paintings, amateurish, and often very bright. But I think that after 46 years working underground, that the brightness is fitting. Dad says he started off copying the pictures that you used to get on Chocolate boxes, but he thinks that he graduated to making his own. So I wonder why he painted what he did when he stopped copying.
From that world - the one in the nineteen pictures - I want to try to create a space in performance that we, my Dad and I, could now inhabit. So, for example, the picture we have on the stream by the river becomes the bank my father crossed as he came out of the Wilderness, in 1970. But it also gives me a space to image how his thoughts might have formed themselves, to insinuate an aesthetic sensibility into our history. But obviously this has can only be at the limit of my own likes and abilities. So it's a self-consciously futile gesture, but it creates a sort of dialogue between then and now, and might be one way of trying to meet William (he died two years before I was born). 
Number 5. William Bowes "The Light I Walked Towards and Walked Back From (It Was Not Bright Enough)".
Because I say it is, this is now the archetypal reprieve painting in the Archives*.
It has been a slow week and not without its problems. Dad has been by turns patient, enthusiastic, diligent (he has led me to expect nothing else). But prior to the residency our longest rehearsal had been about an hour. Now we have full days to fill, and we are averaging about six cups of tea per day. We have our own kettle and a generous supply of Yorkshire Tea ("Like Tea Used To Be").
I had the intention of working Mum into the show a lot more to expand on the talk I gave in Carlisle about my Granddad (her Dad) (see Post 28), but, for now, we need to focus on the paternal link between William (Dad's Dad), Dad, and myself.
We have been taking a lot of pictures on the little digital I bought with Hauserwages just before Christmas, but also some nice 35mm stuff. I got myself an old Olympus OM10 from Real Camera in Manchester (the shop is amazing, but they are substantially pricier than London Camera exchange). Using Colour ISA800 film and a tripod, I've manaaged to get some pretty decent pictures of Dad under theatre lights. The ones below are from digital:
Top-to-Bottom:
Mum 'Being Mum', Monday.
Detail from Text "To The Pines" (Bascom Lamar Lunsford) Thursday.
Speech Bubble Texts "Two Lovers on a Park Bench" (Samuel L. Johnson, "Einstein on the Beach, Knee Play 5). Thursday.
Simon in Bespoke Handmade Felt Crown. Thursday.
Peter in Bespoke Hansmade Felt Crown. Thursday.
Dad drinking a pint of Wainright in the Sun Hotel, Thursday.
One of the greatest things so far has been working on a recent rediscovery I made of William (Dad's Dad)'s paintings. It would be a stretch to call him a painter, but between 1966 and 1978 he made several paintings (we have 19, and a drawing he made). He took it up after having a heart attack, the Doctor told him to relax, and that's how he tried to do it. The paintings document a kind of reprieve, a second chance (and the show is all about reprieves and recoveries). But also, it points towards a different way of looking, or a letting in of light.
Before 1966 he worked below ground as a coal face worker, a shot firer, then a deputy (a kind of shift foreman). But after his heart attack he had to take a clerking job. And I like to think of him working on sunny days, with the light streaming in through the windows. I wonder whether he looked at the world any different after the heart attack, and after taking up painting. A lot of our work so far has been about instants, partricularly in how photographs inform how we think about the instant, and how resonant photographs are when we look at them (like Roland Bathes saying that he doesn't believe in lifelike photographs, that the photo is in no way animated, but that it animates him). But William's paintings slow down how we look, if we appreciate the physicality of how he might have painted, brushstrokes, of course, but also moving around it, leaning in towards and away from it. I was watching a documentary recently "The Genius of Photography" (BBC2?) I only watched the fourth one, but one of the interviewees was talking about photographers as "not Gods, but Angels", recording rather than conceiving. But I look at William's paintings, amateurish, and often very bright. But I think that after 46 years working underground, that the brightness is fitting. Dad says he started off copying the pictures that you used to get on Chocolate boxes, but he thinks that he graduated to making his own. So I wonder why he painted what he did when he stopped copying.
From that world - the one in the nineteen pictures - I want to try to create a space in performance that we, my Dad and I, could now inhabit. So, for example, the picture we have on the stream by the river becomes the bank my father crossed as he came out of the Wilderness, in 1970. But it also gives me a space to image how his thoughts might have formed themselves, to insinuate an aesthetic sensibility into our history. But obviously this has can only be at the limit of my own likes and abilities. So it's a self-consciously futile gesture, but it creates a sort of dialogue between then and now, and might be one way of trying to meet William (he died two years before I was born).
For now, I submit the following:
Number 5. William Bowes "The Light I Walked Towards and Walked Back From (It Was Not Bright Enough)".
Because I say it is, this is now the archetypal reprieve painting in the Archives*.
*"What is an Archive? Its shaped like a box, it used to have shoes in it, and it's where you put all the things you can't bear to look at anymore" - SB to AB, 30.3.09.
Wednesday, 18 March 2009
34. Kings of England Accepted to SPRINT Festival, Camden People's Theatre, Some Time In June
Yes!
Kings of England have been accepted to perform at the SPRINT Festival at Camden People's Theatre in June. Dates / times are as yet unconfirmed, but we will fill out this post with the specifics once we have them.
Kings of England have been accepted to perform at the SPRINT Festival at Camden People's Theatre in June. Dates / times are as yet unconfirmed, but we will fill out this post with the specifics once we have them.
Thursday, 5 March 2009
33. Kings of England Accepted to SPILL National Platform, April
Yes. We have been!
7PM, Sunday 19th April, National Theatre, London £FREE. Our show, about half an hour long, will retain the working title of: "Where We Live & What We Live For": Narrations and micro-performances by Simon Bowes (29) and his Dad (74), exploring love, loss, happiness, and the passing of time.
SPILL National Platform is an event showcasing artists who have been working for "up-to-three years" (i.e. "emerging artists" which I most certainly am).SPILL is curated by Pacitti Company.
7PM, Sunday 19th April, National Theatre, London £FREE. Our show, about half an hour long, will retain the working title of: "Where We Live & What We Live For": Narrations and micro-performances by Simon Bowes (29) and his Dad (74), exploring love, loss, happiness, and the passing of time.
SPILL National Platform is an event showcasing artists who have been working for "up-to-three years" (i.e. "emerging artists" which I most certainly am).SPILL is curated by Pacitti Company.
Saturday, 21 February 2009
32. "The Wilderness" / Ue O Muite Aruko (002)
This morning Dad and I drove over to the woods to try and document "The Wilderness". On the way we played a CD of "Ue O Muite Aruko" ("I Look Up When I Walk"), by Kyu Sakamoto, and after Dad and I had come out of The Wilderness I took 24 exposures of 200ASA film of Dad walking, looking up, willing the planes above fly straight and true.
We only have a low-quality scanner here but I thought I'd do a rough one so you can get to see what he looked like. More on this soon.
We only have a low-quality scanner here but I thought I'd do a rough one so you can get to see what he looked like. More on this soon.
Friday, 20 February 2009
31. Ue O Muite Aruko (001)
Not sure how to work this in, but yesterday birthed a new obsession, the very beautiful "Ue O Muite Aruko" ("I Look Up When I Walk"), Lyrics by Rokusuke Ei, Music by Hachidai Nakamura, Recorded & Performed by Kyu Sakamoto. You can see a video of it on YouTube or hear it on imeem. Read about it on Wikipedia.
This might make it into the show with Dad, but will more likely be part of a lecture on Mum's side of the family (see Post 28).
This might make it into the show with Dad, but will more likely be part of a lecture on Mum's side of the family (see Post 28).
Monday, 16 February 2009
30. Kings of England BAC BURST Commission
Kings of England have been offered a small commission and a chance to perform at BURST, the Battersea Arts Centre's Annual Flagship platform for theatre / performance, live art and all that. We gladly accept. Our gigs will be on the 20th / 21st May, so diary it if you are London based or somewhere close by. Unfortunately Mum can't make it as she will be on a walking holiday, but Dad and I are excited. The bonus is that this time, it should be worth a week's wages, a bit of expenses and a 50/50 box-office-split. More details "soon".
Big Love,
K of E. x
Big Love,
K of E. x
29. Kings of England Accepted to Performing Lives Conference, Kingston University
Kings of England have been accepted to present at the Performing Lives Conference, Kingston University, 6 - 8 July 2008.
Go here for more info.
The proposal read:
(In response to the question: “WHOSE LIFE?”):
Since April 2008 I have been performing alongside my 74-year-old father under the name “Kings of England”. Our show, “Where We Live & What We Live For” has been scratched at five times and has confirmed for support by the BAC, the Nuffield Theatre and Leeds Met Studio Theatre in 2009.
I found a picture of my father (before he was my father) jumping from the rocks toward the sea. The picture, taken off the South coast of France in 1958, catches him partway down.
In 2001 he suffered a transient-ischemic attack, falling of a bicycle in the hillsnear home. My mother reports that for an hour, he did not remember his name, now where he was; nor where he lived.
I asked him about his fall, and about his landing, and he seemed to be unable to remember much at all except for “how clear the water was” and “all these little fishes”, he said: “talk about a clear blue sea”.
In response he has given me license to reclaim that lost hour, writing invention and supposition into the spaces created in the event of forgetting.
We may accord these inventions and suppositions certain ethical significance, drawing a Blanchotian treatment of the verb “to research” through Levinasian treatment of the unknowable-ness of the other: inventing fictions to replace lost facts, we aim to preserve the dignity of the unknown as unknown, as a point of convergence between us.
For ‘Performing Lives’ we propose to show 15 minutes of performance followed by 15 minutes Q & A.
Go here for more info.
The proposal read:
(In response to the question: “WHOSE LIFE?”):
Since April 2008 I have been performing alongside my 74-year-old father under the name “Kings of England”. Our show, “Where We Live & What We Live For” has been scratched at five times and has confirmed for support by the BAC, the Nuffield Theatre and Leeds Met Studio Theatre in 2009.
I found a picture of my father (before he was my father) jumping from the rocks toward the sea. The picture, taken off the South coast of France in 1958, catches him partway down.
In 2001 he suffered a transient-ischemic attack, falling of a bicycle in the hillsnear home. My mother reports that for an hour, he did not remember his name, now where he was; nor where he lived.
I asked him about his fall, and about his landing, and he seemed to be unable to remember much at all except for “how clear the water was” and “all these little fishes”, he said: “talk about a clear blue sea”.
In response he has given me license to reclaim that lost hour, writing invention and supposition into the spaces created in the event of forgetting.
We may accord these inventions and suppositions certain ethical significance, drawing a Blanchotian treatment of the verb “to research” through Levinasian treatment of the unknowable-ness of the other: inventing fictions to replace lost facts, we aim to preserve the dignity of the unknown as unknown, as a point of convergence between us.
For ‘Performing Lives’ we propose to show 15 minutes of performance followed by 15 minutes Q & A.
28. Kings of England at MAP LIVE, Source Cafe, Carlisle
The following extracts were delivered as a short lecture at the Source Cafe as part of a night organized by the excellent Di Clay from Matrix Art Projects, combining Regional and National work with the ACE-funded LANWest tour. Also on the bill were: Leentje van de Cruys, Andy Wilson, Krissi Musiol, Katy and Peter Merrington, and Chris Fitzsimmons.
INTRODUCTION:
Good Evening and welcome to the first of tonight’s lectures, which concerns, for the most part, the passing of time.
We are looking for a way out, an escape, an evasion, it could be a door but more likely a window, mark the exits for your safety {point} and it seems that the event of performance is the place in which we are least likely to find it. We are gathered here on the condition that we will disperse. We will go home, sooner or later, more or less directly, for a night cap or a cup of tea, supper, take the dog for its late-night walk, get some sleep before work. To leave and arrive returned, to put distance between here and there, will somehow relate to us that ‘familiar story, the old, old story of…’ time told by the ticking of seconds, minutes and hours.
Article 1/-
You are sick, the doctors say no fluids, and I tell you that when you get out of there were going to going to get you drunk as a Lord. You like the sound of that and for a last time, you laugh. Three or four days later, you die. A toast, then, to the passing of time, and furthermore, to dead dogs, dead children, dead lovers, dead heroes and how good it is to be alive.
Article 2/-
24th January 1915 - 12th January 2008. Thirty-three thousand, five hundred and sixty-eight (33,568) days have gone by.
Articles 4 and 5/-
{first picture}
He is in the third of his ninety-three years. He is already a quiet boy, belying the modest and humble man he will become. He has a lifetime of hard work ahead of him, several disappointments. But for now there is time, as the shutter clicks and the powder flares and the shadow is cast, to be witnessed blameless and free, as the shadow lengthens on the curtain backdrop.
{last picture}
He is in the last of his ninety-three years. It is the last picture in which you can clearly see his face, or rather, his features, as they had been, consistent, to the form that had shaped them, belonging to his twenties and thirties as much as to his eighties and nineties.
He can’t hold much food down and has been troubled by a urine infection to which he will finally succumb. He is visited regularly by his two daughters, their husbands, but he has not seen his youngest grandson for months, and he has not seen his eldest for years. But he is, at least, outwardly, without complaint, and although his wife has died and his memories are receding, and his lodgings are more than can be afforded, he never breathes a word of these losses, not one. You see there are some men who are born complainers, these men have been bested and find no glory in hardship, and little reward. And there are some men, once capable men, who count themselves fortunate. These men have been bested and take pleasure in giving respect.
Article 6/-
Between the first and the last presented with a kind of incontrovertible evidence, if we accept that the first and the second are indeed two points of a continuum, two images of the same person, old man, little boy.
To think that time can be cut and mended, looped, ribboned, tangled and unpicked, is to beg a kind of freedom from the advancing of hours. But I look at your blood that collects in the bag, dirty black blood, and the greyish whites of your eyes and they tell me: don’t believe it. To love time and aging is to understand and accept consequence. The wish to stop time, or open it forever, reflects a desire for a life without consequences, in which mistakes can be rectified, words unsaid, deeds undone, deaths un-died. But then you turned to me and you asked me “is there another world” and the last thing I tell you is “Yes”.
Article 7/-
There are some things that we don’t talk about, because we no longer believe that we need to. Some things we are square with, or else they cannot be squared. And there are some things that we don’t ask about, but because we are young and have boundless love of questions and have not yet been told not to, we ask:
When I asked him, he looked at me and answered.
I wanted him to point and show me and say: “I killed these men”, but they were buried somewhere, far off, where the rivers and forests and villages had names I couldn’t pronounce.
The simple “Yes” satisfied me, even then, and it satisfies me now. He killed those men, got captured, starved for three years. Amongst hundreds of thin men they called him “the thin man” and because he could fix the trucks, the guards thought he was useful and so he survived it, and having secured for himself a reasonable chance of a future for himself, he returned to his wife, raised two daughters, who each had a son and from then he lived as if it were peacetime, kindly, and very decently. And that’s it, and that’s all.
Except for this:
Article 8/-
{Picture of the cover of A Brief History of Time}
In the end, someone else wrote the book and I like to think that the old man, had he of read it, would have enjoyed the nuances, the subtleties, and found the treatment worthy.
Last week I was in London on a residency and I wanted to put the book into flight, so I made a paper aeroplane out of each page, but when I threw them they flew less impressively, the paper was too heavy, the design was all flawed and they nosedived. So the book could not be read in the way it was intended, a series of short durations; ways of coming to land.
I put the aeroplanes in the shredder, a bed for mice, or a kind of snow. And I would like to invite you to file out of the building and congregate in the street, so I can, finally, throw the book out of the window.
INTRODUCTION:
Good Evening and welcome to the first of tonight’s lectures, which concerns, for the most part, the passing of time.
We are looking for a way out, an escape, an evasion, it could be a door but more likely a window, mark the exits for your safety {point} and it seems that the event of performance is the place in which we are least likely to find it. We are gathered here on the condition that we will disperse. We will go home, sooner or later, more or less directly, for a night cap or a cup of tea, supper, take the dog for its late-night walk, get some sleep before work. To leave and arrive returned, to put distance between here and there, will somehow relate to us that ‘familiar story, the old, old story of…’ time told by the ticking of seconds, minutes and hours.
Article 1/-
You are sick, the doctors say no fluids, and I tell you that when you get out of there were going to going to get you drunk as a Lord. You like the sound of that and for a last time, you laugh. Three or four days later, you die. A toast, then, to the passing of time, and furthermore, to dead dogs, dead children, dead lovers, dead heroes and how good it is to be alive.
Article 2/-
24th January 1915 - 12th January 2008. Thirty-three thousand, five hundred and sixty-eight (33,568) days have gone by.
Articles 4 and 5/-
{first picture}
He is in the third of his ninety-three years. He is already a quiet boy, belying the modest and humble man he will become. He has a lifetime of hard work ahead of him, several disappointments. But for now there is time, as the shutter clicks and the powder flares and the shadow is cast, to be witnessed blameless and free, as the shadow lengthens on the curtain backdrop.
{last picture}
He is in the last of his ninety-three years. It is the last picture in which you can clearly see his face, or rather, his features, as they had been, consistent, to the form that had shaped them, belonging to his twenties and thirties as much as to his eighties and nineties.
He can’t hold much food down and has been troubled by a urine infection to which he will finally succumb. He is visited regularly by his two daughters, their husbands, but he has not seen his youngest grandson for months, and he has not seen his eldest for years. But he is, at least, outwardly, without complaint, and although his wife has died and his memories are receding, and his lodgings are more than can be afforded, he never breathes a word of these losses, not one. You see there are some men who are born complainers, these men have been bested and find no glory in hardship, and little reward. And there are some men, once capable men, who count themselves fortunate. These men have been bested and take pleasure in giving respect.
Article 6/-
Between the first and the last presented with a kind of incontrovertible evidence, if we accept that the first and the second are indeed two points of a continuum, two images of the same person, old man, little boy.
To think that time can be cut and mended, looped, ribboned, tangled and unpicked, is to beg a kind of freedom from the advancing of hours. But I look at your blood that collects in the bag, dirty black blood, and the greyish whites of your eyes and they tell me: don’t believe it. To love time and aging is to understand and accept consequence. The wish to stop time, or open it forever, reflects a desire for a life without consequences, in which mistakes can be rectified, words unsaid, deeds undone, deaths un-died. But then you turned to me and you asked me “is there another world” and the last thing I tell you is “Yes”.
Article 7/-
There are some things that we don’t talk about, because we no longer believe that we need to. Some things we are square with, or else they cannot be squared. And there are some things that we don’t ask about, but because we are young and have boundless love of questions and have not yet been told not to, we ask:
When I asked him, he looked at me and answered.
I wanted him to point and show me and say: “I killed these men”, but they were buried somewhere, far off, where the rivers and forests and villages had names I couldn’t pronounce.
The simple “Yes” satisfied me, even then, and it satisfies me now. He killed those men, got captured, starved for three years. Amongst hundreds of thin men they called him “the thin man” and because he could fix the trucks, the guards thought he was useful and so he survived it, and having secured for himself a reasonable chance of a future for himself, he returned to his wife, raised two daughters, who each had a son and from then he lived as if it were peacetime, kindly, and very decently. And that’s it, and that’s all.
Except for this:
Article 8/-
{Picture of the cover of A Brief History of Time}
In the end, someone else wrote the book and I like to think that the old man, had he of read it, would have enjoyed the nuances, the subtleties, and found the treatment worthy.
Last week I was in London on a residency and I wanted to put the book into flight, so I made a paper aeroplane out of each page, but when I threw them they flew less impressively, the paper was too heavy, the design was all flawed and they nosedived. So the book could not be read in the way it was intended, a series of short durations; ways of coming to land.
I put the aeroplanes in the shredder, a bed for mice, or a kind of snow. And I would like to invite you to file out of the building and congregate in the street, so I can, finally, throw the book out of the window.
27. Kings of England at BAC New Year New Spaces
Between 26th and 31st Jan we were on a residency at BAC as part of New Year, New Spaces, along with LOTS of other artists including the splendid Levantes Dance Theatre, Dancing Brick, and These Horses.
Between Monday and Wednesday I worked with an old friend and collaborator, Kate Rowles, whose work with her own family in the context of visual performance (primarily photo, video and AV installation) inspired K of E's initial scratch at BAC last September. We tried out some movement and writing exercises and by the end of the Wednesday we had the beginnings of something which, hopefully, will turn into a scratch piece in the future.
You can explore Kate's excellent work here.
Mum & Dad turned up on Thursday afternoon giving us a day and a half to pull the show together, which we did. Essentially it was a 10-minute performance lecture with Dad reciting poetry, singing a song, and dancing with Mum.
To offer an idea of the central concerns in the BAC show, we should note that Dad had been married before he married my Mum. I wanted to talk about how it was possible for him to recover from the disappointment of losing one woman by finding another. He didn't want to talk about it, or at least, not in any detailed terms. So in response we had to think of a way of Dad played out the notion of recovery or reorientation in the most general terms. It resulted in the following text, which I think is about Dad but which Mum thinks is about me:
NB. "The Pilgrim Stranger" is also called "There is a Land of Pleasure" and I found it on a website called "American Memory" run by the Smithsonian. You can listen to Warde Ford singing it here.
The last line of the text is Adapted from Thoreau, Walden, Ch2: "Where I lived and What I Lived For". I'll put a proper reference in soon.
Photos of the Show:
Top-to-bottom:
"Style is the answer to everything..."
Dad comes out of The Wilderness singing an old hymn "The Pilgrim Stranger"
Dad dances with Mum to "I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free" arranged by John Fahey & His Orchestra.
Response to Applause.
Photographs Kate Rowles.
Setting Up:
Top-to-bottom:
1&2 Mum & Dad re-lay the tape that made up our set.
2-5: A Brief History of Time, by Stephen Hawking, each page made into a paper Aeroplanes and put into flight by my father in the Council Chamber, by the Ayes Door 30th January 2009.
NB. The Aeroplanes flew poorly. They were too heavy and nosedived. We were going to start the show with the aeroplanes but didn't. But I did something else with them at Carlisle (see post 28).
Between Monday and Wednesday I worked with an old friend and collaborator, Kate Rowles, whose work with her own family in the context of visual performance (primarily photo, video and AV installation) inspired K of E's initial scratch at BAC last September. We tried out some movement and writing exercises and by the end of the Wednesday we had the beginnings of something which, hopefully, will turn into a scratch piece in the future.
You can explore Kate's excellent work here.
Mum & Dad turned up on Thursday afternoon giving us a day and a half to pull the show together, which we did. Essentially it was a 10-minute performance lecture with Dad reciting poetry, singing a song, and dancing with Mum.
To offer an idea of the central concerns in the BAC show, we should note that Dad had been married before he married my Mum. I wanted to talk about how it was possible for him to recover from the disappointment of losing one woman by finding another. He didn't want to talk about it, or at least, not in any detailed terms. So in response we had to think of a way of Dad played out the notion of recovery or reorientation in the most general terms. It resulted in the following text, which I think is about Dad but which Mum thinks is about me:
Article 4. "The Wilderness. 1970"/-
He had been out in the wilderness for some time – too long – and dark was the night, cold was the ground, walking until morning and sleeping by day in the dark holler. On leaving civilization, he had imagined some sort of dominion over the animals of the forest. He had foreseen a land of plenty, or, at least, just enough. But by the end of January he conceded that he had been starving for weeks, or had been starving himself. Whilst once a civilised man, he now lacked every refinement he had prided himself on. He now longed for a good meal, a warm bed, and maybe a woman, if he could think of enough to say to trick one of them. His journal entries, growing infrequent, lapsed, and finally he began to tear out the pages to kindle his fires. When the journal was gone he begun with his hymn book, and at last his eyes rested on a familiar passage that his Father, a devout and abstemious man, had taught him many years before.
DAD sings "The Pilgrim Stranger".
That night he walked, as was his custom, but neglected his usual routes, which turned and turned about, listlessly, and instead he tended towards more or less straight lines that befitted a man with newly found sense of purpose.
By morning he is standing at the edge, and in the distance he sees, farmed lands, ordered hedgerows and dry stonewalls, and, squinting, he could see the smoke from chimneys, little houses dotted on the horizon.
He took out his old binoculars and surveyed the land, which looked splendid accordingly and he said to himself:
DAD: “Well, now, there I might live”…
And there he did live, for an hour, a summer and a winter life; saw how he could let the years run off, wait the winters through and see the spring come in again.
NB. "The Pilgrim Stranger" is also called "There is a Land of Pleasure" and I found it on a website called "American Memory" run by the Smithsonian. You can listen to Warde Ford singing it here.
The last line of the text is Adapted from Thoreau, Walden, Ch2: "Where I lived and What I Lived For". I'll put a proper reference in soon.
Photos of the Show:
Top-to-bottom:
"Style is the answer to everything..."
Dad comes out of The Wilderness singing an old hymn "The Pilgrim Stranger"
Dad dances with Mum to "I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free" arranged by John Fahey & His Orchestra.
Response to Applause.
Photographs Kate Rowles.
Setting Up:
Top-to-bottom:
1&2 Mum & Dad re-lay the tape that made up our set.
2-5: A Brief History of Time, by Stephen Hawking, each page made into a paper Aeroplanes and put into flight by my father in the Council Chamber, by the Ayes Door 30th January 2009.
NB. The Aeroplanes flew poorly. They were too heavy and nosedived. We were going to start the show with the aeroplanes but didn't. But I did something else with them at Carlisle (see post 28).
Thursday, 1 January 2009
26. Happy New Year / New Year Plans
Dear You All -
Happy New Year from Me & My Dad!
It seems fitting to announce our plans for 2009, which are largely the result of the five scratch shows we performed between September and December the last. In November Battersea Arts Centre offered us a week's residency between 26th and 31st January, for their the New Year, New Spaces programme which will culminate in 2 evenings of showings. Shortly after the BAC invitation, we were offered a £2000 commission and residency the Nuffield Theatre in Lancaster to develop the work into a half-hour show for festivals and studio spaces. Effectivey, the Nuffield money pays for the time at BAC, extending the time we will have to make the work to three weeks. After the Nuffield Commission was in place, we were also offered a residecy at Leeds Met Studio Theatre in September, as well as the chance to show a WIP for the new student intake at Leeds Met, and other venues have expressed an interest in booking the work upon completion.
All this is formimg the basis of an application to Arts Council England Grants for the Arts, which we will submit at the end of the first working week in January. Most of December was given over to tweaking the ACE bid, with Christmas, Bargaintide and New Year providing a welcome break from spreadsheets and the like.
More news on this soon, but for now, thanks to everyone who supported us in 2008 and Happy 2009!
Happy New Year from Me & My Dad!
It seems fitting to announce our plans for 2009, which are largely the result of the five scratch shows we performed between September and December the last. In November Battersea Arts Centre offered us a week's residency between 26th and 31st January, for their the New Year, New Spaces programme which will culminate in 2 evenings of showings. Shortly after the BAC invitation, we were offered a £2000 commission and residency the Nuffield Theatre in Lancaster to develop the work into a half-hour show for festivals and studio spaces. Effectivey, the Nuffield money pays for the time at BAC, extending the time we will have to make the work to three weeks. After the Nuffield Commission was in place, we were also offered a residecy at Leeds Met Studio Theatre in September, as well as the chance to show a WIP for the new student intake at Leeds Met, and other venues have expressed an interest in booking the work upon completion.
All this is formimg the basis of an application to Arts Council England Grants for the Arts, which we will submit at the end of the first working week in January. Most of December was given over to tweaking the ACE bid, with Christmas, Bargaintide and New Year providing a welcome break from spreadsheets and the like.
More news on this soon, but for now, thanks to everyone who supported us in 2008 and Happy 2009!
Friday, 19 December 2008
25. Kings of England at Pilot Night No. 15
Good News!
Dad and I are back after a grueling lot of trains and buses to get to-and-from Birmingham for Pilot Night No. 15 (curated by Talking Birds) at the Custard Factory.
Sometimes it looked improbable - Dad had a very bad cough and had had two mainly sleepless night prior to the gig. I was thinking of calling it off but he insisted that it would be alright on the night and, I think its fair to say, he was right. He didn't cough once throughout the whole show (!) and was indeed on good form. His dance was probably the best it had been and most of his lines got big laughs from the audience, who seemed like a kindly and generous bunch. We got lots of people coming and saying nice things so all in all it was pretty rewarding. It was tiring though, and I found it a hard one to perform on that particular night. But Dad's can-do attitude impresses me continually. Mum said: "well, he always liked showing off", and I think now that its my job to give him opportunities to show off in ways that an audience can take heart from. I think we did that last night.
The Bristol-based performer Edward Rapley wrote a little post about us on his blog, which I quote in full:
Photos of The Show:
Dad's Big Dance.
Dad on the Bike.
In the Aeroplane Over The Sea.
...Talk About A Clear Blue Sea
Response to Applause
Photos of our Journey and Waiting:
Top-to-bottom:
Instructions for Wooden Bike Construction
Dad dismantling the bike, very early morning 18.12.08
Sandwich time for Dad, train: Stockport to Birmingham (mum made these - Tuna Mayonaisse)
Sandwich Foil and Clingfilm
Typical view-from-the-train from my camera
Bored Shitless in the dressing room, several hours before the show
Dad reading Birmingham Post or whatever the local rag is called, The Kitchen, Custard Factory, 6.15PM, 18.12.08
Pilot Night had a profesh stills photographer so we should be in receipt of some nice digital pix after Christmas & New Year.
Jaime Scowcroft
A special mention to my friend from primary school, Jaime Scowcroft, whom I drink with pretty regularly these days and whom, I am sure, is not a theatre / performance enthusiast as such. He drove down from Manchester after work to meet his brother (he lives in Brum) and see the show. And Just after I'd finished the show, he walked through the door to the bar. I couldn't believe I was seeing him, although this is exactly his style. Usually if he wants to go for a beer he texts me saying at 8.15 with: "Beer 8.30" or "we're in the pub, you coming?" A shame he missed the show but it is, indeed, the thought that counts. It was good to see him and the effort he made to come and see it is a compliment so thanks Jay. King of England.
Sneezecount
Lastly, I should say that my personal highlight of Pilot Night 15 was Peter Fletcher's lecture "On Reflections on the Counting of Sneezes" was very very good, so if you ever get the chance to go and see him, do. A great writer, calm and understated performer, great piece.
Dad and I are back after a grueling lot of trains and buses to get to-and-from Birmingham for Pilot Night No. 15 (curated by Talking Birds) at the Custard Factory.
Sometimes it looked improbable - Dad had a very bad cough and had had two mainly sleepless night prior to the gig. I was thinking of calling it off but he insisted that it would be alright on the night and, I think its fair to say, he was right. He didn't cough once throughout the whole show (!) and was indeed on good form. His dance was probably the best it had been and most of his lines got big laughs from the audience, who seemed like a kindly and generous bunch. We got lots of people coming and saying nice things so all in all it was pretty rewarding. It was tiring though, and I found it a hard one to perform on that particular night. But Dad's can-do attitude impresses me continually. Mum said: "well, he always liked showing off", and I think now that its my job to give him opportunities to show off in ways that an audience can take heart from. I think we did that last night.
The Bristol-based performer Edward Rapley wrote a little post about us on his blog, which I quote in full:
Kings of England presented Where We Live & What We Live For, they are Simon (imagine Simon Munnery crossed with a razor blade) and his engaging father Peter. Very much in the tradition of live art performance, this direct and contemplative piece was my kind of work. I really did like it, but was that little bit that prevented me from really feeling like I got it, the world they created didn't include me.In response I consider that the concept of family is inherently exclusive, in some ways, and with your family is a bit like showing a stranger your slides from your holiday, but I think that the exclusivity isn't wholly negative, although we can't be complacent about what we've made and probably need to re-think the points between particularity and generality. As a maker I would agree with Rapley in that I don't really get it all, but don't expect to. But there are a lot of intuitive decision-making which is a largely unexamined at this point (strange perhaps since I consider this a research project). More on this after some thinking.
Photos of The Show:
Dad's Big Dance.
Dad on the Bike.
In the Aeroplane Over The Sea.
...Talk About A Clear Blue Sea
Response to Applause
Photos of our Journey and Waiting:
Top-to-bottom:
Instructions for Wooden Bike Construction
Dad dismantling the bike, very early morning 18.12.08
Sandwich time for Dad, train: Stockport to Birmingham (mum made these - Tuna Mayonaisse)
Sandwich Foil and Clingfilm
Typical view-from-the-train from my camera
Bored Shitless in the dressing room, several hours before the show
Dad reading Birmingham Post or whatever the local rag is called, The Kitchen, Custard Factory, 6.15PM, 18.12.08
Pilot Night had a profesh stills photographer so we should be in receipt of some nice digital pix after Christmas & New Year.
Jaime Scowcroft
A special mention to my friend from primary school, Jaime Scowcroft, whom I drink with pretty regularly these days and whom, I am sure, is not a theatre / performance enthusiast as such. He drove down from Manchester after work to meet his brother (he lives in Brum) and see the show. And Just after I'd finished the show, he walked through the door to the bar. I couldn't believe I was seeing him, although this is exactly his style. Usually if he wants to go for a beer he texts me saying at 8.15 with: "Beer 8.30" or "we're in the pub, you coming?" A shame he missed the show but it is, indeed, the thought that counts. It was good to see him and the effort he made to come and see it is a compliment so thanks Jay. King of England.
Sneezecount
Lastly, I should say that my personal highlight of Pilot Night 15 was Peter Fletcher's lecture "On Reflections on the Counting of Sneezes" was very very good, so if you ever get the chance to go and see him, do. A great writer, calm and understated performer, great piece.
Tuesday, 16 December 2008
24. Rehearsals for Custard Factory Gig
Two images of my Dad that I quite liked, from today's rehearsals for the Pilot Night gig at Custard Factory, this Thursday. The top one is of the handlebars of the superlightweight wooden bike that he and Mum built for the show. Re: the bottom picture, when I showed it to my Dad he said "My Dad had a crease in the back of his neck. Maybe you'll get one too." Went well today - looking forward to showing it again.
Simon. x
Sunday, 14 December 2008
23. Residency Confirmed at BAC / Ideas
Kings of England have a confirmed residency at Battersea Arts Centre in January (26th-31st) as part of their New Year, New Spaces initiative, which gives me space for a week and open doors on the last two days so that Audiences can see our process and a showing.
So I need some ideas. I have been working on some new texts for K of E, concerning decisive moments in our family's history, the things that escape ellipsis and make ot into the chronology.
How to leave or get left, and how to recover (the work has already begun to concern recoveries). And I want to show that some were possible, were achieved. But each recovery we make is miraculous, singular and exceptional, learnt from experience, so consequently it is hard to teach how-to-recover.
The 2008 scratch shows (BAC / You and Your Work 5 / Greenroom / Bluecoat / Custard Factory) concerned loss of memory. We performed to raise a question against the forgotten. So father sang for us "The Aeroplane Over The Sea", whistling in the wind.
But my interest is turning toward other, earlier recoveries. John Berger wrote something like (and I'll check this later): "the world of circumstance and contingency into which I had been born long ago". I can look at my father's life and see the proprieties, circumstances or contingent events that had to occur in order for the story, or the chronology, to be what is is. Were it not for ABC, no XYZ. And that chronology, at a certain point, permitted me.
From "Chapter 2": 1970.
The year sounds more recent that we might have initially supposed, although we are sure that the maths is accurate. Very well, grant us this moment, which, very well, elapsed in 1970. Forgetful of the precise date, so we elect April 17th.
There are thousands and thousands of songs we could pick, to sound out this moment, since the disappointment is of a very common type. And yet: it is singular, exquisitely and painfully so, so that his could never be like mine, and mine could never be like yours. And perhaps in this respect there is no need to debate particulars.
Top 5 All-Time Undisputed Best Breaking-Up-and-Getting- Over-It Songs (by Male American Recording Artists):
5. “Adieu False Heart” by Arthur Smith Band; 4. “Headless Horseman”, by The Microphones; “Don’t Think Twice It’s Alright” by Bob Dylan; 2. “Martha” by Tom Waits; 1. “It Doesn’t Matter any More” by Buddy Holly.
He doesn’t even like Buddy Holly, but these songs, they somehow are sufficient, useful, and for those of you in the audience with a broken heart, please, take instruction. These are the songs that you need.
So I need some ideas. I have been working on some new texts for K of E, concerning decisive moments in our family's history, the things that escape ellipsis and make ot into the chronology.
How to leave or get left, and how to recover (the work has already begun to concern recoveries). And I want to show that some were possible, were achieved. But each recovery we make is miraculous, singular and exceptional, learnt from experience, so consequently it is hard to teach how-to-recover.
The 2008 scratch shows (BAC / You and Your Work 5 / Greenroom / Bluecoat / Custard Factory) concerned loss of memory. We performed to raise a question against the forgotten. So father sang for us "The Aeroplane Over The Sea", whistling in the wind.
But my interest is turning toward other, earlier recoveries. John Berger wrote something like (and I'll check this later): "the world of circumstance and contingency into which I had been born long ago". I can look at my father's life and see the proprieties, circumstances or contingent events that had to occur in order for the story, or the chronology, to be what is is. Were it not for ABC, no XYZ. And that chronology, at a certain point, permitted me.
From "Chapter 2": 1970.
The year sounds more recent that we might have initially supposed, although we are sure that the maths is accurate. Very well, grant us this moment, which, very well, elapsed in 1970. Forgetful of the precise date, so we elect April 17th.
* * *
There are thousands and thousands of songs we could pick, to sound out this moment, since the disappointment is of a very common type. And yet: it is singular, exquisitely and painfully so, so that his could never be like mine, and mine could never be like yours. And perhaps in this respect there is no need to debate particulars.
Top 5 All-Time Undisputed Best Breaking-Up-and-Getting- Over-It Songs (by Male American Recording Artists):
5. “Adieu False Heart” by Arthur Smith Band; 4. “Headless Horseman”, by The Microphones; “Don’t Think Twice It’s Alright” by Bob Dylan; 2. “Martha” by Tom Waits; 1. “It Doesn’t Matter any More” by Buddy Holly.
He doesn’t even like Buddy Holly, but these songs, they somehow are sufficient, useful, and for those of you in the audience with a broken heart, please, take instruction. These are the songs that you need.
Thursday, 11 December 2008
22. Dad Rehearsing for Choir
A common sight in our house, Dad rehearsing for choir on his space-age-looking Casio keyboard. I've been wanting to snap it for a while but never got around to it until today. the headphones are open-backed, which is annoying for other people if you're on a train or something, but it means that you can hear what he plays as you walk past him and usually he is singing something but often its the notes to the song not the words. It always gives me a bit of a pang to see him practice. He had piano lessons when he was a kid and hated them, apparently, but now, of course, regrets not keeping it up.
Other news is that I'm working on a new set of texts for the BAC and over the weekend Dad and I will begin rehearsing for our Custard Factory gig on the 18th.
Tuesday, 25 November 2008
21. New Offices for Bowes Industries
On Sunday after Me & Dad got back from the Activator gig, Mum proposed something that had not occurred to me in the many months I have been "at home".
Between 1985 and 2001 Dad ran a business, from home and the room he ran it from has ever been "the office". Since K of E has had some initial successes, and since I am now a "freelance artist", she proposed to turn the office over to my purposes and today, it was done.
We spent the morning moving bits of furniture in and out, down and up the stairs. Surely, there were arguments over what goes where (Mum is an expert space-saver), but not so many arguments that we fell out. I am no longer just a 28-year old man who lives with his parents. I am a 28-year old man who lives with his parents and has an office. It is a modest improvement, but an important one.
The office, hereafter "Bowes Industries", overlooks the back garden, a field, and a hill; a view which, in this late Autumn, early Winter light, looks quite remarkable. Today I feel like a lucky man rather than a cornered one.
Between 1985 and 2001 Dad ran a business, from home and the room he ran it from has ever been "the office". Since K of E has had some initial successes, and since I am now a "freelance artist", she proposed to turn the office over to my purposes and today, it was done.
We spent the morning moving bits of furniture in and out, down and up the stairs. Surely, there were arguments over what goes where (Mum is an expert space-saver), but not so many arguments that we fell out. I am no longer just a 28-year old man who lives with his parents. I am a 28-year old man who lives with his parents and has an office. It is a modest improvement, but an important one.
The office, hereafter "Bowes Industries", overlooks the back garden, a field, and a hill; a view which, in this late Autumn, early Winter light, looks quite remarkable. Today I feel like a lucky man rather than a cornered one.
Monday, 24 November 2008
20. A Good Weekend
Well, it's over, and I am having a day off (sort of, except for this post).
This was probably K of E's busiest weekend so far in terms of gigs, but we got through it, a showing at GreenRoom and a showing at the Bluecoat (for NWN's Activator programme).
The GreenRoom gig was slightly off-tone, I was rather stressed, home crowd, couple of knobheads in the audience but overall, pretty good.
By contrast, the little safe-space artistic-community showing at the Bluecoat was really relaxed, and an absolute pleasure to perform. At both gigs we got great feedback to help us tighten things up and think about contexts for future showings. And, of course, Dad did well, both times.
Squiffy after drinking wine in the show, and the excellent Sunday Lunch (I has Salmon, Dad had Chicken) provided by the Bluecoat, Dad and I went down the Royal to celebrate a couple of modest victories. Then back at home, Salmon for a second time (!), cooked (quite remarkably) by a Wife & Mother who had just walked 17 miles for a British Heart Foundation walk. So the Boweses had a pretty good weekend, all things considered.
It is too early to write a proper report but it seems there might be a couple of opportunities coming our way as a result of the last few months' hard work, so, for now... Now on to Pilot Night at Custard Factory, Birmingham, December 18th.
This was probably K of E's busiest weekend so far in terms of gigs, but we got through it, a showing at GreenRoom and a showing at the Bluecoat (for NWN's Activator programme).
The GreenRoom gig was slightly off-tone, I was rather stressed, home crowd, couple of knobheads in the audience but overall, pretty good.
By contrast, the little safe-space artistic-community showing at the Bluecoat was really relaxed, and an absolute pleasure to perform. At both gigs we got great feedback to help us tighten things up and think about contexts for future showings. And, of course, Dad did well, both times.
Squiffy after drinking wine in the show, and the excellent Sunday Lunch (I has Salmon, Dad had Chicken) provided by the Bluecoat, Dad and I went down the Royal to celebrate a couple of modest victories. Then back at home, Salmon for a second time (!), cooked (quite remarkably) by a Wife & Mother who had just walked 17 miles for a British Heart Foundation walk. So the Boweses had a pretty good weekend, all things considered.
It is too early to write a proper report but it seems there might be a couple of opportunities coming our way as a result of the last few months' hard work, so, for now... Now on to Pilot Night at Custard Factory, Birmingham, December 18th.
Friday, 21 November 2008
19. Tonight's the Night
Well, we have been rehearsing, I have managed to learn all my lines, Mum & Dad spent all yesterday constructing a bicycle and arguing about it, and now there's just a few hours before our homecoming gig at Manchester's GreenRoom. Highlights this week have been seeing Mum beaming when she saw Dad rehearsing his Great Big Dance, and Me & Dad's field trip to the local accountants to learn how we can recoup the deductable from this fun, but loss-making, enterprise.
The butterflies just flew in and it could be some time before they fly out again, but it has been a good week and I'm looking forward to the showings.
I'll post up a few documents from the process, and tonight's show, when I have the time.
x
The butterflies just flew in and it could be some time before they fly out again, but it has been a good week and I'm looking forward to the showings.
I'll post up a few documents from the process, and tonight's show, when I have the time.
x
Tuesday, 18 November 2008
18. Rehearsals for Green Room 21st and Bluecoat 23rd November
Today we had a first proper rehearsal for the Manchester (Greenroom, this Friday) & Liverpool (Bluecoat, New Work Network Activator Sunday Lunch Programme this Sunday*) versions of Where We Live & What We Live For. And it went alright. Mum sat in and laughed herself silly when Dad busted out with the Big Dancing in the third section of "I Wish I Knew How it Would Feel to be Free", which is a good sign. And we still have Wednesday, Thursday and Friday Morning. As I write this, mum is downstairs making cardboard objects for the show (thanks, Mum). The Manchester gig is one I'm particularly looking forward to, home crowd for the last ever Volume night, hosted by my good Friends at Sometimes...
Hopefully we will be as tight at we were at the BAC and You and Your Work. But for now, down the local to learn my lines over pint. x X x
*Not open to the public.
Hopefully we will be as tight at we were at the BAC and You and Your Work. But for now, down the local to learn my lines over pint. x X x
*Not open to the public.
Thursday, 6 November 2008
17. Kings of England Accepted to Pilot Night, 18th December, Custard Factory, Birmingham
Good News!
Kings of England have been accepted to Pilot Night, a evening of scratches, at The Custard Factory, Birmingham. The night is curated by Coventy-based company Talking Birds. We will do a 15-minute cut of "Where We Live & What We Live For".
Also on the bill are Stan's Cafe, Peter Fletcher, Millions and Pliers, untied artists and Instant Opera Company.
A good line up, and we're proud to be on.
Kings of England have been accepted to Pilot Night, a evening of scratches, at The Custard Factory, Birmingham. The night is curated by Coventy-based company Talking Birds. We will do a 15-minute cut of "Where We Live & What We Live For".
Also on the bill are Stan's Cafe, Peter Fletcher, Millions and Pliers, untied artists and Instant Opera Company.
A good line up, and we're proud to be on.
Friday, 10 October 2008
16. Mum Returns from the Lakes / Report on the past weeks activities
Mum has just returned from the lakes after a week of reasonable weather and good walking (welcome home Mum). In the meantime Dad and I have been lazy and contented, no rehearsals sie our return from Bristol. I have filling out job application forms and Dad has been rehearsing his singing a bit for the MVC and the mixed choir. So I have been doing the cooking a bit more than usual and, overall, enjoying it. If I remember rightly, Monday was salmon and veg, Tuesday was sausage and Mash, Wednesday was mushroom pasta with Lemon, parsley and parmesan, and Thursday was Cullen Skink. This is really the extent of the looking after Dad needs. Tonight it is Tuna steak. As you can see, we eat fairly posh at Bowes Towers. Mum has imbibed the healthy-eating shtick from television chefs and it is rubbing off. Dad and I tend to get on pretty well when mum's not around (I annoy her a lot more than him because she and I are equally stubborn. Dad, wanting a quiet life, is much more relaxed).
On Tueday after Dad's choir we met up in the Royal for a pint and a half of Fine Fettle and talked over "what next". Looking up Thoreau's "Where I Lived and What I lived for" (Chapter 2 from Walden), I edited a bit to adapt it into a new version of the show.
Here is a draft:
K of E. x
On Tueday after Dad's choir we met up in the Royal for a pint and a half of Fine Fettle and talked over "what next". Looking up Thoreau's "Where I Lived and What I lived for" (Chapter 2 from Walden), I edited a bit to adapt it into a new version of the show.
Here is a draft:
Adapted from Henry David Thoreau: "Walden", Chapter 2: "Where I Lived and What I Lived For".The complete, unabridged "Walden" can be found free of charge, on-line at: www.gutenberg.org/etext/205. Happy reading.
Key: // indicates an edit, (…) indicates an abridgement.
// I walked and wherever I walked //, I thought: there I might live, and the landscape radiated from me accordingly (…) Well, there I might live, I said; and there I did live, for an hour, a summer and a winter life; saw how I could let the years run off // wait the winters through // and see the spring come in.
But I retain / the landscapes, each of them, and with respect to them, “I am monarch of all I survey,” // but I encourage you, my friends, when you walk, to say the same to yourselves.
(…) I do not propose to write an ode to dejection, but to brag as lustily as chanticleer in the morning, standing on his roost, if only to wake my neighbors up (…)
Morning is when I am awake and there is a dawn in me. Moral reform is the effort to throw off sleep (…) To be awake is to be alive // and yet // I have never yet met a man who was quite awake. How could I have looked him in the face?
We // learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake // by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us in our soundest sleep (…) (And yet) Still we live meanly, like ants; though the fable tells us that we were long ago changed into men // and when we fight // it is error upon error, clout upon clout.
(…) The winds which pass over my dwelling // bear // the broken strains, or celestial parts only, of terrestrial music, but few are the ears that hear it.
(My friends…) Be it life or death, we crave only // another, or others //. If we are really dying, let us hear the rattle in our throats and feel cold in the extremities; if we are alive, let us go about our business // and be astonished by one another //.
// There is a // stream I go // fishing in. I drink at it; but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains. I would drink deeper. I cannot count // from nothing to // one. I // do not // know not the first letter of the alphabet. I have always been regretting that I was not as wise as the day I was born. The intellect is a cleaver; it discerns and rifts its way into the secret of things. I do not wish to be any more busy with my these, hands than is necessary. My head is hands and feet. I feel all my best faculties concentrated //. My instinct tells me that my head is an organ for burrowing, as some creatures use their snout and // paws, and with it I would mine and burrow my way through these hills.
I think that the richest vein is somewhere hereabouts; so by the divining rod and thin rising vapors I judge; and here I will begin to mine.
K of E. x
Saturday, 4 October 2008
15. Kings of England Ace You and Your Work 5 / Beer Festival with Jaime, Vicky and Andy / Mum in the Lakes
YAYW5
Kings of England performed last night at Easton Community Centre, Kilburn St, Bristol, as part of You and Your Work 5. We developed "Recent Falls" into "Where We Live and What We Live For", a 20-minute text that structured a few short performances from Dad, most notably, a song and dance, which he pulled off with his customary panache.
"Where We Live..." cited or otherwise appropriated writings by Henry David Thoreau (the title is adapted from a Chapter from Walden), Charles Bukowski, John Berger, Yevgeny Vinokurov, Garrison Keillor, Larry McMurtry, and Tobias Wolff. This won't tell you much about the show but a copy of the text is available on request, just email me at the address in the 'about us' section.
For now, here is an excerpt from the introduction:
But I have to thank the organizers and the wonderful people we met, old friends or new: Birgit Binder; Sylvia Rimat; Katherina Radeva (who held up Dad's cue-cards); Jo Bannon; Chris Collier, Ella Good and the Tinned Fingers gang; Duncan Speakman; Jo Britcher; Zoe Collins; Katrina Horne; Hannah and Maritea from Pennyblack, and the excellent technician (who I think was called Michael). And most of all, big thanks to Dad, for his dilligence and care. After the gig we went back to our digs, a B&B on Fishponds Rd, noisy with the traffic, cracked a bottle of wine and talked for an hour or two like best mates, before 4 hours ragged sleep and then up.
Top-to-bottom:
Introduction
"How Good It Is To Be Alive" Still
Dad arrives in the 'Jump' position.
Photos by Laura Montag.
Beer Festival
Last night: I went out with Jaime and Vicky and Andy to the 16th Annual Beer Festival at the Royal. It was rather a quiet night, things were obviously winding down, but we went through several, but not all, of the 17 pumps. My winning beer was definitely "Fine Fettle" by the Osset Brewery, described as "A strong yet refreshing pale ale with a crisp clean flavour and citrus fruity aroma". We talked our way through Catterick (the Vic&Bob tv-show) George Clooney, the Cohen Brothers, the new Batman, Jaime's cars (he has several), and the house he is doing up.
Dad was out with the village choir doing "Trial by Jury" by Gilbert and Sullivan. About 9.45 I saw a bloke at the bar dressed in a tux, he said to the barman he'd just finished singing . I said "D'you sing with my Dad? Peter Bowes?" He said "Yes". So I rang home, he's just got back. He came over and I treated him to a pint and a half of "Fine Fettle", while he talked enthusiastically about all sorts of things (he could not be stopped), but it felt really good, really normal, he was on form, and pretty funny. And he got to answer question about his third career as a performer, which he was modest about, but clearly made up after Bristol.
Mum in the Lakes
We got up too early, with hangovers, and had a breakfast of almost soft-boiled eggs and soldiers, which Dad described as "warming". I have had headaches all morning and hardly left bed all day (for which I congratulate myself). Mum is in the Lakes so I am in charm of dinners this week. Left to his own devices Dad would probably have beans on toast three meals a day until her return. We took two pieces of salmon out the freezer for tonight so hopefully I can make something else good to complement it. No word from Mum today but she is probably in her element with dry, crisp weather, and doubtless doing no less than twelve miles a day.
Go Team!. x
Kings of England performed last night at Easton Community Centre, Kilburn St, Bristol, as part of You and Your Work 5. We developed "Recent Falls" into "Where We Live and What We Live For", a 20-minute text that structured a few short performances from Dad, most notably, a song and dance, which he pulled off with his customary panache.
"Where We Live..." cited or otherwise appropriated writings by Henry David Thoreau (the title is adapted from a Chapter from Walden), Charles Bukowski, John Berger, Yevgeny Vinokurov, Garrison Keillor, Larry McMurtry, and Tobias Wolff. This won't tell you much about the show but a copy of the text is available on request, just email me at the address in the 'about us' section.
For now, here is an excerpt from the introduction:
“Good Evening, and welcome to the (third) of tonight’s performances, which concerns, for the most part, the passing of time, we were kestrels and starlings, the passing of time, let’s drink to that, the passing of time, and furthermore, to dead dogs, dead children, dead lovers, dead heroes and how good it is to be alive.We got lots of positive feedback over drinks afterwards, and everyone asked what we're going to do next, encouraging us to develop the work. I think Dad was quite surprised how well it was received and I could see his confidence soar as all the young people took the time to thank him. He was, as ever, gracious and kind, pretty quick after two glasses of wine, great to see him enjoy our work, and the others shows too. I think in his old age he is becoming a live art enthusiast.
“We dedicate this, our third show, to a memory of one morning hour spent with a lost friend (and to him) in the summer 2001. And shortly my father will present – in lieu of everything else – a song and dance, mothered by all sorts of hardy emotions and a curiosity see how he moves these days, to hear what he sounds like these days, to reconsider who he is, who he has been, and who, perhaps, he shall be" (...)
But I have to thank the organizers and the wonderful people we met, old friends or new: Birgit Binder; Sylvia Rimat; Katherina Radeva (who held up Dad's cue-cards); Jo Bannon; Chris Collier, Ella Good and the Tinned Fingers gang; Duncan Speakman; Jo Britcher; Zoe Collins; Katrina Horne; Hannah and Maritea from Pennyblack, and the excellent technician (who I think was called Michael). And most of all, big thanks to Dad, for his dilligence and care. After the gig we went back to our digs, a B&B on Fishponds Rd, noisy with the traffic, cracked a bottle of wine and talked for an hour or two like best mates, before 4 hours ragged sleep and then up.
Top-to-bottom:
Introduction
"How Good It Is To Be Alive" Still
Dad arrives in the 'Jump' position.
Photos by Laura Montag.
Beer Festival
Last night: I went out with Jaime and Vicky and Andy to the 16th Annual Beer Festival at the Royal. It was rather a quiet night, things were obviously winding down, but we went through several, but not all, of the 17 pumps. My winning beer was definitely "Fine Fettle" by the Osset Brewery, described as "A strong yet refreshing pale ale with a crisp clean flavour and citrus fruity aroma". We talked our way through Catterick (the Vic&Bob tv-show) George Clooney, the Cohen Brothers, the new Batman, Jaime's cars (he has several), and the house he is doing up.
Dad was out with the village choir doing "Trial by Jury" by Gilbert and Sullivan. About 9.45 I saw a bloke at the bar dressed in a tux, he said to the barman he'd just finished singing . I said "D'you sing with my Dad? Peter Bowes?" He said "Yes". So I rang home, he's just got back. He came over and I treated him to a pint and a half of "Fine Fettle", while he talked enthusiastically about all sorts of things (he could not be stopped), but it felt really good, really normal, he was on form, and pretty funny. And he got to answer question about his third career as a performer, which he was modest about, but clearly made up after Bristol.
Mum in the Lakes
We got up too early, with hangovers, and had a breakfast of almost soft-boiled eggs and soldiers, which Dad described as "warming". I have had headaches all morning and hardly left bed all day (for which I congratulate myself). Mum is in the Lakes so I am in charm of dinners this week. Left to his own devices Dad would probably have beans on toast three meals a day until her return. We took two pieces of salmon out the freezer for tonight so hopefully I can make something else good to complement it. No word from Mum today but she is probably in her element with dry, crisp weather, and doubtless doing no less than twelve miles a day.
Go Team!. x
Wednesday, 1 October 2008
14. Kings of England Ace BAC Freshly Scratched Festival
A belated post, after a mad week rehearsing with Hauser in Leeds on the submarine show...but Good News!
Dad and I ACED the BAC Freshly Scratched festival with a 10-minute showing of recent work. We took to the stage our vintage swimwear (go here for a description), and I narrated through a jump, a fall and a recovery that dad made in 1958, 2001 and 2007 respectively. At the end, Dad sang 'The Aeroplane Over the Sea" by Neutral Milk Hotel, his first solo he gave up being a choirboy sixty-one years ago, while I picked the guitar part. I was struck by his bravery and dedication to getting it right, which he did. Despite some pre-performance nerves, he was fantastic, keeping his composure throughout and, he said, genuinely enjoying being up there.
We were joined on stage by Mum who helped out holding texts for Dad and doing other tasks, not a big part but really good to have her there in the background. Saw some other good work by an bunch of ex-Dartington volk called Tinned Fingers, who are based in Bristol.
So it looks like we want to continue with this Kings of England business. We are booked to do a showing in November for peer review as part of the New Work Network Activator programme, run by Peter Petralia of Proto-type theatre, and there is a Pilot Night coming up in Birmingham curate by Talking Birds, which we will also apply for.
So... onward. Next up is "Where We Live & What We Live For", which is just "Recent Falls" +, with added texts and some dancing, at You and Your Work 5, Easton Community Centre, Bristol, this coming Friday, at 6.30PM.
K of E. x x
Dad and I ACED the BAC Freshly Scratched festival with a 10-minute showing of recent work. We took to the stage our vintage swimwear (go here for a description), and I narrated through a jump, a fall and a recovery that dad made in 1958, 2001 and 2007 respectively. At the end, Dad sang 'The Aeroplane Over the Sea" by Neutral Milk Hotel, his first solo he gave up being a choirboy sixty-one years ago, while I picked the guitar part. I was struck by his bravery and dedication to getting it right, which he did. Despite some pre-performance nerves, he was fantastic, keeping his composure throughout and, he said, genuinely enjoying being up there.
We were joined on stage by Mum who helped out holding texts for Dad and doing other tasks, not a big part but really good to have her there in the background. Saw some other good work by an bunch of ex-Dartington volk called Tinned Fingers, who are based in Bristol.
So it looks like we want to continue with this Kings of England business. We are booked to do a showing in November for peer review as part of the New Work Network Activator programme, run by Peter Petralia of Proto-type theatre, and there is a Pilot Night coming up in Birmingham curate by Talking Birds, which we will also apply for.
So... onward. Next up is "Where We Live & What We Live For", which is just "Recent Falls" +, with added texts and some dancing, at You and Your Work 5, Easton Community Centre, Bristol, this coming Friday, at 6.30PM.
K of E. x x
Wednesday, 10 September 2008
13. Kings of England Accepted to 'You and Your Work 5' at Easton Community Centre, Bristol, 3rd October
Good News!
Kings of England applied to 'You and Your Work 5' and have been successful. YAYW is a platform for performance and live art in Bristol run by Birgit Binder and Sylvia Rimat, the forthcoming platform, their fifth, will be held at Easton Community Centre, on the 2nd and 3rd of October.
Dad and I have been working on the BAC show and this Bristol gig will be substantially longer at 25 minutes. So we had better get cracking.
Kings of England applied to 'You and Your Work 5' and have been successful. YAYW is a platform for performance and live art in Bristol run by Birgit Binder and Sylvia Rimat, the forthcoming platform, their fifth, will be held at Easton Community Centre, on the 2nd and 3rd of October.
Dad and I have been working on the BAC show and this Bristol gig will be substantially longer at 25 minutes. So we had better get cracking.
Tuesday, 9 September 2008
12. Research Trip to Auntie Doris's for Forthcoming Residency
This morning my Mum and Dad and I drove over to Liverpool to see my Auntie Doris. The visit was long overdue (I haven't seen her since Grandad's Funeral in January). As well as a social call it was a research session to plan a forthcoming residency at Lena Simic and Gary Anderson (TwoAddThree)'s Institute for the Art and Practice of Dissent at Home, run out of their Everton address.
Earlier this year I applied with a proposal called 'Several Stories', a two day residency using The Institute as a base to explore the streets on which my Grandma and Grandad lived, an act of mourning for some much-loved relatives. I was accepted and am due to undertake the residency next Monday and Tuesday (15th / 16th), prior to Kings of England's BAC show on the 18th. Not strictly a Kings project, the residency will nonetheless explore notions of family, time, the performance of memory and forgetting.
It was good to see Doris. She is now in her eighties, a widow. She survives her son John who died in 1991 in a road accident.
One thing I will always remember about her is that at Grandad's funeral she was the life of the party, quick to joke and smile, obviously sad but brave with it too. I was considered too young to go to John's funeral but Mum said she was exactly the same at his, too.
Said that not a day goes by that she and her friend Shirley don't think of him, meaning my Grandad. We looked though three albums, she said she got rid of the rest, that nobody was interested. And she said that Paul, her grandson, has got mad at her when she told him she has ripped up the photos. I said, as kindly as I could, that I would have been mad at her too. She showed us the three remaining albums, pictures of my mother aged 6, 9, 13, 16, that I had never seen before. She looked like a fierce child, or perhaps just impatient. But the photographs confirmed what I have always thought, that two lives might not be enough for her. We looked at the picture of Doris in her wedding dress, all the family around, and she said: "Everyone in that picture is dead except for the children. And me".
Visiting Grandad was a part of their weekly routine. He used to say "You girls been to any wild parties lately?" He'd say it every week. And Doris said "I'd say: Ollie, if only. Our wild parties were years ago", and she gave a little shimmy in her chair, reminding us that she is still a dancer. Then she said: "That's one thing I'll say about 'round here. You don't hear any parties. If there was one I'd probably knock on the door. Ask to come in".
Doris, thank-you. You made my day. x x
Earlier this year I applied with a proposal called 'Several Stories', a two day residency using The Institute as a base to explore the streets on which my Grandma and Grandad lived, an act of mourning for some much-loved relatives. I was accepted and am due to undertake the residency next Monday and Tuesday (15th / 16th), prior to Kings of England's BAC show on the 18th. Not strictly a Kings project, the residency will nonetheless explore notions of family, time, the performance of memory and forgetting.
It was good to see Doris. She is now in her eighties, a widow. She survives her son John who died in 1991 in a road accident.
One thing I will always remember about her is that at Grandad's funeral she was the life of the party, quick to joke and smile, obviously sad but brave with it too. I was considered too young to go to John's funeral but Mum said she was exactly the same at his, too.
Said that not a day goes by that she and her friend Shirley don't think of him, meaning my Grandad. We looked though three albums, she said she got rid of the rest, that nobody was interested. And she said that Paul, her grandson, has got mad at her when she told him she has ripped up the photos. I said, as kindly as I could, that I would have been mad at her too. She showed us the three remaining albums, pictures of my mother aged 6, 9, 13, 16, that I had never seen before. She looked like a fierce child, or perhaps just impatient. But the photographs confirmed what I have always thought, that two lives might not be enough for her. We looked at the picture of Doris in her wedding dress, all the family around, and she said: "Everyone in that picture is dead except for the children. And me".
Visiting Grandad was a part of their weekly routine. He used to say "You girls been to any wild parties lately?" He'd say it every week. And Doris said "I'd say: Ollie, if only. Our wild parties were years ago", and she gave a little shimmy in her chair, reminding us that she is still a dancer. Then she said: "That's one thing I'll say about 'round here. You don't hear any parties. If there was one I'd probably knock on the door. Ask to come in".
Doris, thank-you. You made my day. x x
Sunday, 7 September 2008
11. Dylan's Christening.
This post is dedicated to my friend Dan, his Son Dylan, and Shane, their father and grandfather respectively. This morning at 9.25 I went along to St. George's to see Dylan Christened. Whether we believe or do not believe we sat and stood and sat and stood, trying to sing unfamiliar hymns, perhaps weakly. But it was a privilege to be there. I looked at the three of them together, and their wives and mothers, and I wanted that dedication, and sense of purpose, even that faith. What we saw today was something very old being renewed. Maybe you can call it religion or instead you might call it a sense of decency and goodwill or lovingkindness.
Afterwards, a few reunions. Old friends, old girlfriends. People who otherwise I wouldn't have seen month to month or even year-to-year. Paul, an electrical engineer, has two sons now; Matt, a recruitment consultant, has moved and is engaged. None of us said that much to each other but what we said was sufficient, because it suggested promises. Soon... more weddings, nights out, drunkenness, couplings, boredoms, arguments, laughing, shouting, things to be remembered and smiled over. Wiltshire, Wilks, Pegram, Dubajic, Bowes.
Afterwards, a few reunions. Old friends, old girlfriends. People who otherwise I wouldn't have seen month to month or even year-to-year. Paul, an electrical engineer, has two sons now; Matt, a recruitment consultant, has moved and is engaged. None of us said that much to each other but what we said was sufficient, because it suggested promises. Soon... more weddings, nights out, drunkenness, couplings, boredoms, arguments, laughing, shouting, things to be remembered and smiled over. Wiltshire, Wilks, Pegram, Dubajic, Bowes.
Friday, 5 September 2008
10. Rehearsal & Singsong
Re-drafted the text for the show today, and worked on a few movements and delivery. Dad used to do public speaking a lot for his job (Redundancy consultant, late eighties until late nineties), and its difficult to move out of that formal register into something softer, more intimate, but were getting there. We tried working in some singing today and it went well, even better than I expected. Dad sings in two choirs and has always had a good voice. His voice tires easily these days, and sometimes he surprises me by sounding old. But I have to say some of the best performances I have seen have been his choirs, exclusively over-sixties, belting out old classics. When I go and hear them sing I hear something lively and vital, and usually I consider it more exciting than a lot of the experimental performance I am obliged to see.
Anyway, despite being un-confident with a new song, Dad was in fine voice today. Mum was hovering by the door listening in and I could see that she was happy to hear us jamming. What we're doing is hardly perfect but I'm enjoying us both trying for something in common.
Anyway, despite being un-confident with a new song, Dad was in fine voice today. Mum was hovering by the door listening in and I could see that she was happy to hear us jamming. What we're doing is hardly perfect but I'm enjoying us both trying for something in common.
Thursday, 4 September 2008
9. Post-Rehearsal Discussion and Family Meal
Having rehearsed with Dad then re-read the notes for the show we chatted it through over dinner. Mum made a good meal, some kind of unnamed white fish, and veg, and the three of us talked about what the performance should say. Mum was a bit tired after a long rainy walk with her Thursday Walk friends today, but she still gave us a stiff critique. After Dinner, Dad got down on the floor and started showing her some of his positionings and movements we'd been working on. When he was moving around, I thought to myself: that's exactly why I wanted to make this work. The show may or may not be good but at least we're animating the family.
Since dinner I have been doing the half-drudging, half-fun stuff that performance-makers have to do, messaging London friends on Facebook, arse-ing around in the name of work. But today was a good day.
More soon.
Since dinner I have been doing the half-drudging, half-fun stuff that performance-makers have to do, messaging London friends on Facebook, arse-ing around in the name of work. But today was a good day.
More soon.
8. First Rehearsal for BAC / A Belated Happy Birthday to Dad.
Dad and I have just finished our first rehearsal for the BAC in the conservatory at home. I say 'rehearsal' but it was more an extended conversation and script read-through, with illustrative examples. Dad seems comfortable with the material and we are negotiated what we will do physically. Certainly, this little scratch piece is text-based but ideally it should begin to bring physical movement into our practice.
Dad illustrated how he gets up from a sitting position, and the effort that it takes will bring a certain quality to anything he does on-stage. We have been talking over costume and ideas about how we might stage our different physical presences. Dad said that he was fine with his body but concerned about mine. Charming. But his 74 years notwithstanding, he is probably in better shape than I am.
(Dad gesticulates with the hands as he takes issue with something).
Dad illustrated how he gets up from a sitting position, and the effort that it takes will bring a certain quality to anything he does on-stage. We have been talking over costume and ideas about how we might stage our different physical presences. Dad said that he was fine with his body but concerned about mine. Charming. But his 74 years notwithstanding, he is probably in better shape than I am.
* * *
And anyway, here's to his continuing good health! This is a belated "Happy Birthday" to my Dad. Last week he did indeed turn 74. I was away rehearsing with Hauser, but I got to sing "Happy Birthday" to him over the phone. Last saturday we went to the Royal for a couple of pints at the Fortnightly General Meeting. They had on a great Marble beer (1332) a Dunham Massey, so we were both happy. In Manchester yesterday, and having been paid for my labours, I picked up my Dad a belated birthday present, a copy of a choral work by William Byrd. Dad seemed pleased with the gift but every time I buy him a record (I always by him a record) he listens to it once and then put is in the garage with all the others but I am un-dissuaded about the importance of buying him more (if not new) music. Anyway, Happy Birthday, Dad!
(Dad gesticulates with the hands as he takes issue with something).
Wednesday, 3 September 2008
7. Kings of England at the BAC, Thursday 18th Sept, 7.15PM
Good News!
Dad and I have been accepted for a ten-minute slot at the Battersea Arts Centre's Freshly Scratched 'Family' themed weekend and will be performing on Thursday the 18th September. The event starts at 7.15PM sharp. We have been working to revise the 'Recent Falls' lecture over the last week or so and are looking forward to performing for a first time - together at least - in the Big Smoke. If you are skint, don't be deterred! It is a "pay-what-you-can" event.
Hope to see you there.
In the meantime, rehearsals start tomorrow, at 2.15PM, in the conservatory. Usually this is where Dad reads the paper and does the crossword. We can only hope that our rehearsal process will be similarly edifying.
K of E. x x x
Dad and I have been accepted for a ten-minute slot at the Battersea Arts Centre's Freshly Scratched 'Family' themed weekend and will be performing on Thursday the 18th September. The event starts at 7.15PM sharp. We have been working to revise the 'Recent Falls' lecture over the last week or so and are looking forward to performing for a first time - together at least - in the Big Smoke. If you are skint, don't be deterred! It is a "pay-what-you-can" event.
Hope to see you there.
In the meantime, rehearsals start tomorrow, at 2.15PM, in the conservatory. Usually this is where Dad reads the paper and does the crossword. We can only hope that our rehearsal process will be similarly edifying.
K of E. x x x
Tuesday, 2 September 2008
6. Brother Returned Back
This post is a bit late but just a note to say that my brother got back to Canada safe & sound after his three-week visit. Living in an oil-rich province, he told us all about the oil industry, and his trucking business, driving dangerous goods. On many subjects he is an easy conversationalist, and is well informed about world politics, economics and such. On the last night he was here we got thoroughly drunk on Glenfiddich and I think he beat me in a few arguments concerning What is Wrong With the World, but... it kept me humble. He left as he arrived, almost a stranger, but that last night was a good one. I want to send his a copy of the Recent Falls lecture (extracts here), but I keep putting it off.
Maybe tomorrow.
Maybe tomorrow.
Monday, 4 August 2008
5. Brother Returned
My Father, before he was my Father, had a son and a daughter. David was 18 when I was born, and Fiona was, I think, 16. When I was 10 or 12, David, who never lived with us, moved to Canada. Now he owns a transportation company, two trucks and several trailers, has built his own house, is a volunteer for the local fire department. And now he is returned, for twenty days. He arrived this morning at about 8, I went downstairs and met him, a stranger from half-way 'round the world.
Friday, 1 August 2008
4. Back home
Just back from the Cupola Bobber Summer School after a great week (see t-h-r-o-w-i-n-g for a full post, when I get the chance). Dad has taped BBC2's 'The Tudors' on VHS for some context, and I watched a bit of it last night. It's not that bad a show, but it has a lot of sex and shouting in it and it's still quite dull. In fact, neither of us like it that much, but we still watch it, as if life wasn't short at all but really really long.
Dad has been reading 'A Book of England' and 'Afoot in England' (I am building up a library of books with 'England' in the title), and maybe he will find some interesting stuff to make a show about. Other news is that the Battersea Arts Centre are holding a scratch night for live art / performance that concerns the family, deadline in mid-August, which we are going to apply for. No idea what the shape of the show will be but the slots are 10 minutes each.
More soon. SB.
Dad has been reading 'A Book of England' and 'Afoot in England' (I am building up a library of books with 'England' in the title), and maybe he will find some interesting stuff to make a show about. Other news is that the Battersea Arts Centre are holding a scratch night for live art / performance that concerns the family, deadline in mid-August, which we are going to apply for. No idea what the shape of the show will be but the slots are 10 minutes each.
More soon. SB.
Friday, 11 July 2008
3. Short Stories
This weekend, I am setting my Dad the following tasks: To read Tobias Wolff's short story 'Bullet in the Brain' and to watch the short film of the same title. I remember watching the short late at night after a film marathon with my old friends Emily Williams and Dan Reynolds years ago, and our response was a protracted moment of silence, which rang with a sort of "yes". Last night I remembered this silence, and thought it might be a good connection to make.
Wonderfully, the text is available here as a downloadable.pdf, and the short is up on YouTube here, and there is also an mp3 of another author, called T. Coraghessan Boyle, reading it aloud here. So...you can research-along with my father this weekend while you wait for the rain to stop. I'll add to this post with some of Dad's responses soon.
Happy reading, happy viewing.
K of E might well be on hold for 2 or 3 weeks, since I am off rehearsing with Hauser in Lancaster and then doing a 5-day Summer School with Cupola Bobber in Ulverston. But keep an eye on t-h-r-o-w-i-n-g, if you miss me, might be some posts up there.
Wonderfully, the text is available here as a downloadable.pdf, and the short is up on YouTube here, and there is also an mp3 of another author, called T. Coraghessan Boyle, reading it aloud here. So...you can research-along with my father this weekend while you wait for the rain to stop. I'll add to this post with some of Dad's responses soon.
Happy reading, happy viewing.
K of E might well be on hold for 2 or 3 weeks, since I am off rehearsing with Hauser in Lancaster and then doing a 5-day Summer School with Cupola Bobber in Ulverston. But keep an eye on t-h-r-o-w-i-n-g, if you miss me, might be some posts up there.
Friday, 4 July 2008
2. All Time Top 5 from the olden days
I asked Dad to list his top 5 all-time favourite songs and, on the back of an envelope, he listed eight:
(Hey! You can right- click on the image, or whatever, to get it big and legible.)
The bottom one on the list you might note "Alexander's Ragtime Band", composed by Irving Berlin. If you go to the Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project and search for the track you can find a version recorded in 1911, performed by Billy Murray.
Doing a quick search I found that 'Alexander's Ragtime Band' is hardly ragtime at all, but lyrically, there's a lot of references to emerging African American Music.
I just listened to the track and there's a kind of percussive thump to the way he sings, belting it out. In the olden days before microphones you used to have to sing into a metal horn to record. Interestingly, Murray's career started to wane when microphones came in. On The Billy Murray Article at Wikipedia (yeah) it says, his '"hammering" style, as he called it, essentially yelling the song into the recording horn, did not work in the electronic era, and it took him some time to learn how to soften his voice'.
But the ragtime connection is a good one. The term is a corruption of 'Ragged time', referring to syncopation, the musical practice of playing off-beat. Ragtime might be one one of the last musical styles to emerge before the advent, or at least widespread use, of recording technology, although it was typical for ragtime compositions to be printed. But all this points towards something old-world.
I found some interesting modern guitar rags on the 'Crumb' soundtrack by Craig Ventresco, (he plays in quite a forthright style, really twanging the strings) but if you're don't know anything about ragtime but want to, then Scott Joplin, Jelly Roll Morton, are early(-ish) standard examples.
(Hey! You can right- click on the image, or whatever, to get it big and legible.)
The bottom one on the list you might note "Alexander's Ragtime Band", composed by Irving Berlin. If you go to the Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project and search for the track you can find a version recorded in 1911, performed by Billy Murray.
Doing a quick search I found that 'Alexander's Ragtime Band' is hardly ragtime at all, but lyrically, there's a lot of references to emerging African American Music.
I just listened to the track and there's a kind of percussive thump to the way he sings, belting it out. In the olden days before microphones you used to have to sing into a metal horn to record. Interestingly, Murray's career started to wane when microphones came in. On The Billy Murray Article at Wikipedia (yeah) it says, his '"hammering" style, as he called it, essentially yelling the song into the recording horn, did not work in the electronic era, and it took him some time to learn how to soften his voice'.
But the ragtime connection is a good one. The term is a corruption of 'Ragged time', referring to syncopation, the musical practice of playing off-beat. Ragtime might be one one of the last musical styles to emerge before the advent, or at least widespread use, of recording technology, although it was typical for ragtime compositions to be printed. But all this points towards something old-world.
I found some interesting modern guitar rags on the 'Crumb' soundtrack by Craig Ventresco, (he plays in quite a forthright style, really twanging the strings) but if you're don't know anything about ragtime but want to, then Scott Joplin, Jelly Roll Morton, are early(-ish) standard examples.
1. Note on the name & a thematic concern
I have been talking with my Dad about starting a company in which both he and I are principle devisers and performers. As of yesterday, we are agreed. And as of today, we have named ourselves...
"Kings of England".
We are currently writing up a pitch for some cash but in the meantime, we are modestly underway. A conversation we had a couple of weeks ago as I was researching 'Recent Falls', prompted him to quote me the following, from Alan Bennett's 'Writing Home':
Which, essentially, is what our first work will be about - the fictions that will have to stand in for fact, in the event of forgetting.
"Kings of England".
We are currently writing up a pitch for some cash but in the meantime, we are modestly underway. A conversation we had a couple of weeks ago as I was researching 'Recent Falls', prompted him to quote me the following, from Alan Bennett's 'Writing Home':
...the dull distorting effects of time, in phrases which sound right but aren’t…He said: Oh, I don’t know, I don’t remember, then he says: one always forgets the most important things, it’s the things one can’t remember that stay with you (Bennett, 1998, p258)
Which, essentially, is what our first work will be about - the fictions that will have to stand in for fact, in the event of forgetting.
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