Manchester Day Parade, 10/6/12

East Manchester Academy

I’ve just finished a spot of volunteering for the Manchester Day Parade 2012, and the parade itself was a wonderful end to an enjoyable and rewarding experience.

The first Manchester Day Parade took place in 2010, with Walk the Plank, a brilliant arts and events company, engaged to produce it. I volunteered, and enjoyed it so much they’ve not been able to get rid of me since!

The Parade website has lots of information about the event and its background (and you might stumble across a video with a bit of me on!) but at its heart it is a celebration of the spirit and diversity of Manchester, with people from all walks of life involved in its creation. Each year has a theme, the year was The Sky's the Limit, and community groups work with artists to turn their ideas into some amazing creations.

My Nest!

As a volunteer, my involvement started in May with attendance at a couple of Mas Camp weekends, where some of the artists, community groups, and volunteers, work on elements of the parade. I really enjoy the making side, so have always asked if there is any extra help needed outside these weekends, and this year did quite a bit of ‘extra’ volunteering in evenings and weekends. It’s so interesting to see everything start to take shape and to get involved, and you meet such a great mix of people. Towards the later stages of preparation, I mainly helped one of the artists, Brian, as he had a lot of work on making costumes for three separate groups, and constructing an 18 foot air hostess! Many of the costumes used lots of colourful florists ribbon, which I loved working with, and so much of my time at the workshop was spent in what I came to term ‘ribbon corner’. In fact Jan, one of the project managers, did suggest I was making a nest out of florists ribbon, and I have to say, that’s not a bad idea!

It all comes together on Parade day, which is the first time you see all the elements of the parade assemble. Many have been made away from the workshop, for example, with the community groups, so it's only on the day when the sheer scale of it becomes truly apparent. I somehow managed to be appointed volunteer team leader at the workshop, although I’m not sure how much actual leading was taking place from me (apart from sneakily cherry picking a few people at registration who I knew would be good!) The real organisation on the day is done by the production team, and ‘my’ volunteers were fabulous, getting stuck in where they were needed with little intervention from me , moving stuff up to the parade start, and even getting involved in some last minute making (including creating balloon structures and emergency superhero finishing!)

LGBT Youth

The busiest time for me was as Brian’s groups started to arrive, as I was helping get them into their costumes, especially as the largest group with the most complex costumes, the lovely ladies from the East Manchester Academy, were not arriving until nearly 1pm. Although this was slightly crazy, as I had helped with many of the elements of the costumes, it was great to see them be worn, and by the skin of our teeth, and with lots of people pitching in to help, we managed to get everyone up to their starting positions in time and in costume.

Flying High!

During the parade I helped to marshal, it was a wonderful atmosphere, the sun came out, the crowds were huge and seemed to be enjoying themselves, and my group, the Manchester Carers, looked beautiful as they danced through the streets.

Superheroes of the future

With a couple of my former MIF buddies, Michelle and Alison, who had also volunteered (mainly through my badgering), I ended the day with a well earned drink, bizarrely on a beach in Castlefield, and we all agreed it had been a great day. Looking back at the many photos on the internet (some of the best I've seen are here), I’m so happy to have been part of it once again, and proud of my involvement. Fingers crossed there is a 2013 parade, and they let me back!

Toxic Bankers, Lowry Studio 25-5-12

‘A new musical comedy exploring the sordid world of London’s financial heart’ – come on, who could resist that, especially if like me you love theatre, like to support new work, and (whispers) work in a bank!

Having said all that, I really didn’t know what I was letting myself in for with this show, but sometimes that leads to a great experience, and that proved to be the case tonight.

Set in SMS Ethical Investments, the plot centres on the sensitive and put upon analyst Fiona (Helen Gardner) who tries to do the right thing in a corrupt and complicated world. Her boss Tony (Jonathan Dryden Taylor) is your typical bullish investment banker who tells Fiona to ‘grow a backbone’. His loyal Risk Manager Helen (Donnla Hughes) who puts her work above her family and dotes on her boss, and the somewhat camp Investment Manager Joe (Stuart Saint) make up the ‘staff’. Added to the mix are the comedic concierge company Personal Liberty, who Tony employs to ensure his employees can devote maximum time and effort to swelling his bank balance, but are they all they seem?

A tight script, with extremely well observed characters that rang more than a few bells with me,  sharp comedy,  fabulous musical numbers, and a very strong cast, made for a fantastic piece of theatre. Whilst the main slant was comedy, there were some extremely touching moments, especially when centred on the fragile Fiona – with Helen Gardner giving a brilliant performance throughout. But it seems wrong to single out a particular member of the cast in this show as they were all excellent, both in terms of the wonderful singing, and the sharp performances throughout.

The disappointingly small audience at the Lowry studio were vocal in their approval and rightly so, this really was a great night out. I left the theatre with a smile on my face and would gladly see the show again. And my little party of a Risk Manager (gulp – I’m Helen!), an accountant, and a private banker all agreed it had been an absolute treat, if a little close to the bone! Thoroughly recommended

Happy Birthday Blog

Happy Birthday Blog

Well my little blog is one year old today – hasn’t time flown. I couldn’t let this momentous occasion go by without a little blog entry to reflect on what I have discovered from my first year of blogging;

•  It’s been a positive experience for me. Since I was first challenged by the Library Theatre to write my first blog, I have discovered I like the process of attempting to document my thoughts, and it has also been incredibly helpful in remembering the detail of shows I have seen.

• Readerships  are unpredictable, but can be immensely helped by retweets from theatres and theatre companies! Blogger has this ‘audience tracker’ function that I am a little too obsessed with. I seem to average out about 20 regular readers (over 4 continents – hello Russia!), but if I get a retweet from say a theatre my readership can be much higher. When Sheffield Crucible and Daniel Evans (Artistic Director) retweeted my Company blog last year I immediately hit triple figures. And when Happystorm theatre put quote from, and a link to my blog on their website I was so thrilled. However, I haven’t yet worked out what Steerage (part of last year’s 24:7 festival) did, as they top my ‘page views’ chart and have since I first blogged their show.

• Feedback is hard to come by. Apart from family and friends who have been forced to read my blog, I actually don’t have a clue who reads it on a regular basis and what they think. If you are reading my blog please log a comment sometime letting me know what you think.

• Blogging as close as possible to the event is much easier. There have been a couple of things in the last year that never got blogged because I left it too long and couldn’t think of what to say.

•  I should have thought of a snappier name for the blog – even I struggle to recall the web address at times, and it takes up way too many characters.

Anyway, thank you followers, for reading my ramblings, there will be more to come very shortly

Alison x

Oh and if you were to buy the blog a birthday present, new readers and comments would be top of its wish list!

The Hound of the Baskervilles 19/5/12 Buxton Opera House

A little trip across the border today to Derbyshire and one of the most gorgeous theatres I know, the Buxton Opera House, to see the Oldham Coliseum / Imitating the Dog touring production of The Hound of the Baskervilles. 

This was a very cleverly designed production. A simple set with minimal stage furniture, was transformed into the various settings by the innovative use of digital back projection, meaning the action could move seamlessly between the many locations. This, combined with atmospheric lighting, and excellent sound, together with sharp performances from the cast, ramped up the tension brilliantly, whilst never detracting from the action.

The production stuck to the original story, but the staging gave it a modern, almost filmic slant. There was even a ‘pre-credits’ sequence that quickly established the tone of the piece. I enjoyed the way the projection and use of the simple set allowed different locations to be immediately established. However, the design didn’t limit itself to straight scenery, I loved the sections with the Laura Lyons character, a typist, where the original text was appearing to be typed across the set, and then falling and fading, and the billiards scene used the technology in a fun way. The sound was designed well, and I think there may have been an element of surround sound in there (either that or someone snuck a very large dog into the auditorium for one scene!)

Whilst the technology and staging was great, this never overshadowed the performances. Gwynfor Jones and Leigh Symonds as Holmes and Watson were a good pairing, with just the right mix of seriousness and humour. There were just three other cast members, Amy Ewbank, Steven  O’Neill and Robin Simpson playing all the other characters and this worked really well.

The only disappointing thing in the whole performance was the size of the audience, I have never seen the Opera House so empty. It was a matinee performance and I can only hope that the evening shows were better attended as this production deserved to be packed out. People of Buxton, you missed an absolute treat.

Little Clay Men

So I was walking to work on Wednesday morning, in my own little world, when something caught my eye at the side of the building. A curious artwork, little clay men commuters, all in a line heading to work.  There were more of them round the bottom of Robert Owen's statue outside my office. The security guard and I had a chat about them, he said he had seen more all over the complex, we both thought they were great, but a complete mystery.

This is where the power of social media comes into play, I tweeted a couple  of pictures and within minutes one lovely lady had solved the mystery for me, it turns out it was an art installation called Human Resources. 8000 little clay men had been placed across the city centre overnight, and the public were encouraged to interact with the artwork.

Although I was one of the people who immediately went to ‘adopt’ some of them, and the public were actively encouraged to, I almost wish I’d seem more of them when they first appeared, they looked great in situ, lots of little worker ants on their daily commute. Although as pointed out by a pal, in that first picture you can see a rebel who has decided to go home!

But having said that, one of the great things about this project, was seeing how people did react to, and interact with, the concept as the day wore on, again mainly via twitter. Some little clay men had started office jobs, one had made it up the Beetham tower, one was in peril in a fountain clinging onto a rock, one travelled down for a day in London, and one had even acquired a Man City scarf! It is amazing how quickly a small piece of clay can acquire a personality and a backstory.

Meet my initial two adoptees- Happy and Grumpy. Happy looks almost excited to be going to work, he's going to nail that new client today, Grumpy looks like he's dreading the day, there's no joy left in his job, he's just going through the motions. I'm worried about Grumps and keeping a close eye on him! I went for a meeting mid morning and spied a third new friend, Colin – he’s quite mysterious and I have yet to discover his personality.

I have experienced something a bit like this in London once, a lot of small figures had appeared in Russell Square, although they were just standard stick people, not little clay commuters. The actual effort in placing them all overnight must have been quite something, and it was a fabulous thing to experience in Manchester. Thanks Lawrence Epps (the artist) and FutureEverything (the festival it was part of).

Miss Julie, Royal Exchange Manchester 14/4/12

Miss Julie is a play written in 1888 by Swedish playwright August Strindberg. It tells the story of a Midsummer night in the life of the aristocratic Miss Julie (Maxine Peake), and her household, in particular her infatuation with her father’s valet Jean (Joe Armstrong).

Maxine Peake is the obvious draw for this production, and she doesn’t disappoint. She fabulously portrays a highly complex character, in parts manipulative, cruel, passionate, possibly possessed of madness, but ultimately vulnerable. Her performance is delightfully agile, effortlessly portraying the many facets of her character, and quite mesmerising to watch. I have had the good fortune to see Maxine Peake on stage a couple of times now, and in her numerous TV roles, and I think she is one of the most exciting actresses out there.

Her interaction with Jean over the course of the evening and into the next morning is almost like a dance, with the balance of power shifting between the two as Jean initially appears to fall under her spell, but then the status of their relationship changes and he becomes the manipulator, ultimately holding her fate in his hands. Joe Armstrong gave an excellent performance of an again complex role and was well matched with Peake’s Julie.

Carla Henry makes up the main cast as kitchen maid and Jean’s ‘fiancé’ Kristin, who initially appears to be a very meek character, but ultimately shows great strength and morality as the relationship between her employer and her fiancé breaks through into her world.

This production uses a new English version of the script written by David Eldridge. The language works really well in portraying the different classes of the participants, being accessible to a modern audience without feeling ‘out of its time’.

The set is simple but effective, and the lighting clever, bathing the scenes in gorgeously soft light from a large balloon like structure suspended high above the stage.

Having said all that, for me personally I found it a tricky play, maybe because Strindberg is new to me. It was hard to understand the motivations of the main protagonists, whilst Miss Julie is tinged with some level of mania, which maybe explains how her actions and emotions can vary so, it is less clear where Jean is coming from. Initially he appears to be under her spell having worshipped her from afar in his youth, yet later he appears manipulative and without compassion, and you question whether everything you have seen from him in the earlier stages of the play was an act. Ultimately the strength of the performances and the staging lead to a truly memorable experience, but I’m not sure it will have me rushing to the Strindberg back catalogue!