The Hallelujah Moon

 My guess is Stephen Cheatley took this. It's Blackpool, last night. I saw the crescent myself over Shepherd's Bush roundabout, as I'd finally let myself out for a walk, and I'd been looking out for it because I'd just learnt that it signaled Eid. That's not why the crescent moon's the symbol of Islam though - strictly speaking there actually is no "symbol" for Islam. The founder of the New Crescent Society, Imad Ahmed, gives a beautiful account of his coordination of nationwide sightings of this moon in the episode of Ships, Sea and the Stars below, for which I provide a reading of one of the happier moments in Ernest Shackeltons' life. Beyond its Judeo-Christian roots I'd always known next to nothing about Islam, other than a conversation I'd had in Berlin where I was corrected on an assumption made that Muslims also believed that God was Love: "I don't believe that. I believe God is Time." And according to Ahmed, the Arabic word for crescent moon, hilal, comes from a Semitic root meaning 'to scream out for joy', the same root in fact as hallelujah.

 Still on the subject of outlines, last week's episode featured this map of British shipping routes from 1937. I found it extraordinary to suddenly look upon the land as negative space...

 And the episode's packed with wonderful instances of making the invisble visible. There's a lot about shipping containers to, and the history of Greenwich, so obviously I was reminded quite a bit of The Boy who Climbed Out of His Face, and I'm reading some Conrad in this one (Heart of Darkness was one of the inspirations for the show, besides The Water Babies) and a poem called "Cargoes", which appears to have been something of a set text, but was new to me.

Sung Blog Sunday! "O, What a Spill"

 Look, nothing's going to beat "Je Suis Mermaid", I peaked too early. But ploughing on, here for the Ides of March is something older, sadder, and I've only just realised, also quite mermaidy. I came up with this dirge a few years ago while helping to devise shunt's The Boy Who Climbed Out Of His Face, a promenade through shipping containers inspired simultaneously by both Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, and Charles Kingsley's The Water Babies (whose cover I notice strongly resembles what audiences saw of Tom Lyall above)...

 It wasn't for me, but a suggestion of something Tom might sing from his island at the end. The guitar loop's based on a passage from Rosinni's "William Tell Overture" most familiar for accompanying sunrises in old cartoons. And Tom made his own brilliant work from it, a hypnotic piece lasting half an hour during which he would slowly undress (to look even more like the cover) six times an evening. Maybe all that background's best forgotten though. Like the song says, no questions. This was recorded tonight, with renewed apologies for still using a laptop mic. Still, attempt enjoyment, listeners! Cover art by Lynn Hatzius.

 

A history of the water

More flotsam from the devising process for shunt's "The Boy Who Climbed Out Of His Face". The first line is taken from Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" which was meant to be one of the show's sources, and which opens a little further down the Thames. The final line is from Charles Kingsley's "The Water Babies", which was meant to be the other source. The rest is based on the timeline of Greenwich history that's pasted along the railings leading to the jetty upon which the show was performed.

 

A history of the water

This too has been one of the dark places of the earth.

The first stirrers are giant mammals. Facilities in those days were scarce or non-existent.  They wait for the intended replacements. Finally they sink.

A new gang.

When asked if they had come together, if anyone had been there to ask if they were together, they would have said yes. The first crude attempt at an apparatus is made. The size of a small shrine, it has no moving parts. They wait for the intended replacements.

A new gang. More stirring.

There are cesspits filled with fish. A waterside wall encloses the Northern settlement, protecting it from sea-faring marauders. Forests are managed. Straight wood is generated by planting trees close together. Curved wood encouraged by planting trees far apart. Hundred-metre-long fish traps span the water.

A new gang.

More stirring. The first wharf is recorded. A new apparatus is attempted, in the shape of a bridge, but the builders do not allow for the flow of tides so “bridge shooters” must be employed to navigate the rapids. They wait for the intended replacements.

A new gang. The beginnings of encroachment.

Waterfront property increases. Building into the water becomes commonplace. Water-bearers wear pointed shoes stuffed with moss. Pilgrims cast metal badges into the water.

A great frost.*

A new gang.

Another apparatus is attempted.  Water is pumped through pipes made from a series of hollow elm trunks. There are fewer than twenty public taps and it is forbidden to approach them with a weapon. “Plashy places” are avoided by the strategic placing of cloaks. A mermaid is discovered, a comb in one hand, a looking glass in another. A plague. More stirring. They wait for the intended replacements.

A new gang.

They live on boats to avoid the plague. Shipping thrives. Gibbeting sites are marked out where bodies of pirates are hung in chains until three tides have passed over them. Further encroachment. There is a five pound reward for any information concerning what’s happened to all the swans. A time-ball is installed. A certain flush with every pull. A man walks underwater for twenty feet wearing a soft apparatus covering his face, with two small bull’s eyes to see.

Its eyes are the colour of a peacock’s tale.

* Tissa David's animation for PBS' "Simple Gifts" (1977) - a passage from Virgina Woolf's "Orlando" narrrated by Hermione Gingold. That's some classy programming, PBS! I'd love to know if Sally Potter saw this before making her own adaptation.

You Don't Have To Be Mad To Work Here

Here's a little something for your peripherals:

Rules for Replacements

Okay, let's write a bit about shunt.

Much of "The Boy Who Climbed Out of his Face" was devised in the old Guardian Building in Farringdon. You knew this because the word "Guardian" was still readable in the shadows on the lobby wall, like the shadow around a stolen painting in some old farce. In the first two weeks of rehearsals we spread ourselves about a bit, finding whatever rooms were free and making up material to show each other, as is usual. Then we all watch it. And it's great, really great - in fact it constitutes some of the happiest memories I've had of watching theatre; I laugh a lot. Of course far more stuff is made than ends up useful to the final piece, but seeing what you've got when you lose that stuff is also a kind of making, and the stuff you've made and lost was still great to make, because you could take it in any direction you wanted, and that was interesting, and you were getting paid. And of course you can always put the flotsam on a blog.

I knew that in the first room which the audience entered there'd be three monitors, a long desk, and a table, and so, in the hour assigned to come up with something for this room, I thought I'd try and make an idea of something to be playing on those monitors - something which might suggest to the audience that they were replacements*, something which might indicate some standards of behaviour expected of them, and something they probably wouldn't be paying much attention to. And I knew we'd be wearing masks, so I made the headgear out of gaffer tape and a photocopy stuck to the wall of - so I was told - Antonin Artaud. I'd also just downloaded Trent Reznor's soundtrack to the film "The Social Network", which is what you can hear playing. It's a great default soundtrack - which reminds me of what I should post next...

* "There's genuinely an assumption made about the audience... And actually the shows that haven't gone so well, or maybe taken longer to resolve, have been ones where we haven't had complete clarity of what the fuck the audience were doing."  This interview with David Rosenberg, given a couple of years ago, is great.

How I Plug

Well, "Exciting Space Adventures" are all well and good, but what have you been up to?

What do you mean? Who are you?

You did another series of John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme, didn't you?

Oh! Yes! Yeah, but I assumed anyone who read this blog would already know about –

 

Can that still be heard?

Yes. Absolutely. It's up on, erm – Oh, some episodes have gone now – but there's still some left on iplayer. Yeah, it's great. So good. Listening back, I feel I could have maybe toned it down for some of the sketches, but –

 

You're not happy with your work on it?

No no no! It's – Not at all. It was really – Oh, and the Quasimodo sketch is up now on something called Radio 4 in Four.

 

The Jake Yapp thing!

Oh. No.

 

Have you heard the Jake Yapp thing?

 

Yes. 

 

It's great.

Uh-huh.   

Nice picture.

Oh yes! We got pictures done.

 

What was that like?

 

What? Um... Yeah. It was really fun. I think the original shot of John drawing a beard on his own reflection is maybe more original, and better suited for press, but it –

 

You'd rather not appear in the publicity?

No! No, it's great! A huge compliment. And if you buy the CD you can see some of our feet. No. I just –

 

You didn't post a link to the CD.

Oh. Sorry.

 

HOW much?!

 

I mean, it's probably cheaper on amazon, but I didn't want to –

 

And I presume it's also available in the BBC shop.

Apparently not... But yeah, no, I was so lucky. Nice to feel part of a gang.

 

And you did another shunt show?

 

What? Oh...

 

Is that right?

 

Sort of. Ow.

 

 

The Boy Who Climbed Out Of His Face – The Build by Floro Azqueta

 

Okay. You've written a lot about shunt on this blog. Want to talk about it?

Um. Wouldn't you rather hear another Exciting Space Adventure?

 

Do you not want to talk about theatre any more?

No! No no! Actually there's a few interesting things from the rehearsal I'd like to put up. And I did Ring. Again. And I've done – er, actually I've done a couple of shows, as a part of the London Horror festival. Just one-offs.

 

Where can we see them?

Um. They're – They've – They happened. Back in October. Yeah! But no, I had great fun doing –

 

Okay. Where can we see you next?

What? Oh! I'm in a panto. Well, it's more of a musical. A company called the Mighty Fin do one nearly every year or so, and Susannah Pearse writes the songs, and John Finnemore's in it as well, which is actually how we met, and it will be brilliant. Yes. You can get tickets... Oh wait, you can't. It's sold out.

 

Okay.

But there's 17 tickets still available for the dress rehearsal.

 

Should I bother to ask what it's called?

I mean... It's in the link. I just thought –

 

Okay. Well, thanks very much –

Oh, AND, I've popped my panel show cherry! Yes, I was invited to take part in the excellent transatlantic comedy podcast "International Waters". It went online on Monday, and you can hear me laughing my "dad laugh" on it, and plugging stuff even more poorly than I've just done here. Thank you, and MERRYCHRISTMAS!

 

 Fredandsharonsmovies.com  are still open for business, don't forget.