Category Archives: Music

Top Tunes with Christian Patterson

Hi Christian, great to meet you, can you give our readers some background information on yourself please?

Born and raised by my maternal grandparents in Clydach, Swansea. I’m an actor, writer and director. I trained at Welsh College of Music and Drama and did what most graduates do after leaving college…moved to London! I missed Wales way too much and now live in Alltwen with my wife (Actress Michelle McTernan) my son Dylan and my dog Dodger.

This chat is specifically about music and the role it has played in your personal and professional life. Firstly to start off what are you currently listening to? 

I LOVE MUSIC! There’s pretty much something playing all the time…whether it’s in the background or something I specifically want to listen to. My wife is going through a bit of a Nina Simone period at the moment so the house is pretty much a Simone Zone! I have to say I’m a big Nina Simone fan (I saw her live at the Royal Festival Hall…she was INCREDIBLE!) so that’s fine by me.

Left to my own devices my music tastes are incredibly varied and eclectic. I achieved a life long ambition recently and managed to see Nile Rodgers and Chic live! IT WAS ABSOLUTELY AMAZING! So, at the moment I’m pretty much a disco devotee! Having said that I love songs that speak to you or capture a period in time…my son introduced me to a song called ‘Ban Drill’ by Krept & Konan and I found it really moving. It’s a great track. I’ve also discovered something about myself whilst compiling this list…I’m very ‘Riff’ led!

Music is also a big part of my professional career with the forthcoming tour of Peggy’s Song from National Theatre Wales. I was really drawn to this play for 3 reasons…written by Kath Chandler, directed by Phil Clark and the beautiful, bittersweet characters at the heart of it.

I play Danny Walkman, a local hospital DJ who loves him job. Music is so much more important to him that just songs…it’s his friend, his family, his passion and his life. He loves people and he truly believes they feel the same way about him…until he meets Peggy! Danny & Peggy have nothing and everything in common…they are two lonely people who only have each other… and the challenge to figure out Peggy’s Song!

We are interviewing a range of people about their own musical inspiration, can you list 5 records/albums which have a personal resonance to you and why? 

 1. Here Comes the Sun – Obviously I love the Beatles version but the Louise Dearman version has a very special place in my heart. We lost our son Harry in a tragic accident when he was just 5 years old. We played Louise’s version as Harry’s coffin entered the church. That song means a lot to me because it is intrinsically linked to my memories of Harry.

2. Sweet Home Alabama – I have always LOVED this track! As soon as I hear the counting at the top of the song I’m already getting excited about hearing the guitar riff! It is just AMAZING! It is also linked to memory for me. My father died a few weeks before his 52nd birthday…he loved this song and we listened to it on many car journeys! I remember the journey to his funeral. I was sat in front of the funeral car and even though I was deeply upset I was keeping it together…then…as the crematorium doors open I heard Sweet Home Alabama and burst into tears. Music does that.

3. Le Freak – It would be almost impossible for me to not include a Nile Rodgers and Chic song! I think Nile Rodgers is a bona fide musical genius! When I saw him live I couldn’t take my eyes off him! It was a real “You are my hero!” moment! The entire gig was totally magical and I’ll remember it for the rest of my life. I was born in 1972 so disco was a huge part of my youth…I loved it then and I still love it now!

4. Superstition – Stevie Wonder is another one of those people that I think is a true genius! For me the guitar riff of Superstition is one of if not the greatest guitar riffs of all time! I could choose so many Stevie Wonder tracks but Superstition is a real classic!

5. Immigrant Song – One word…WOW! The first time I heard this track I felt like I already knew it! The riff (told you…Riff led tastes!) is the absolute epitome of rock, the vocal is incredible…it has it all! It’s only 2m 26s…I can’t listen to it just the once! Jimmy Page and Robert Plant are ROCK GODS! 

Just to put you on the spot could you choose one track from the five listed above and tell us why you have chosen this? 

This is tough. Very tough. They all mean so much to me for so many different reasons. I suppose I’d have to choose a track that I can put on repeat and be happy every time I hear it. I’m going to go with Sweet Home Alabama…I think it is an incredible track…it makes me feel happy. Yep! That’s the one!

Peggy’s Song tour Wales later this year. You can book tickets at the links below

Riverfront Newport – 25 September, 7.45pm BOOK NOW

Pontardawe Arts Centre – 26 September, 7.30pm & 27 September, 1pm & 7.30pm BOOK NOW

Theatr Brycheiniog, Brecon – 1 October, 7.30pm BOOK NOW

Grand Pavilion, Porthcawl – 2 October, 7.30pm BOOK NOW

Theatr Hafren, Newtown – 3 October, 7.45pm

Taliesin Arts Centre,  Swansea – 4 October, 7.30pm BOOK NOW

Theatr Richard Burton, Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama, Cardiff – 5 October, 7.30pm BOOK NOW

Borough Theatre, Abergavenny – 7 October, 7.30pm BOOK NOW

Blackwood Miners Institute – 8 October, 7.30pm BOOK NOW

Torch Theatre, Milford Haven – 9 October, 7.30pm BOOK NOW

Ffwrnes, Llanelli – 10 October, 7.30pm BOOK NOW

Lyric, Carmarthen – 11 October, 7.30pm BOOK NOW



An Invite to Visit the Magical Place

Get the Chance are working with new theatre company YEAH YEAH to support audiences to attend a sharing of an in development piece of work and then discuss their thoughts. The sharing will take place at Chapter Arts Centre on Saturday the 13th July at 7.30pm.

Please get in touch of you would like to attend.

https://www.chapter.org/whats-on/performance/magical-place-yeah-yeah/3532

YEAH YEAH are a new Cardiff theatre company developing uplifting gig theatre. A crossover for those that might enjoy a musical, tribute band, stand-up comedy, or a touch of ballet.

The work in development (working title) ‘Magical Place’ is free to attend.

Expect iconic songs you know and love plus drums, keytar, lycra, laughs, dance and the biggest pyrotechnics they can afford, Magical Place is a new work still in development and the company welcome your feedback

Please note, that this is a sharing of a work in progress, and therefore not the complete anticipated production. Sections of the work will be performed, with the aim to gather audience feedback. Audience members participating in feedback will earn two Tempo Time Credits for volunteering their time.

Tori is here to perform a musical, Morgan is here to perform a rock show.

So expect iconic musical and rock songs you know and love; comedy, dance, live drums, keytar and lycra.”

Age 16+

Duration: 1hr (which will include optional audience feedback)

Performers & Devisors: Tori Johns, Morgan Thomas

Director: Hazel Anderson

Dramaturg: Chelsey Gillard

Lighting & Sound: Gavin Hales

A co-production with RCT Theatres / Angela Gould

Funded by Arts Council Wales

Review Yesterday by Kevin Johnson

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The latest film Directed by Danny Boyle and written by Richard Curtis is an interesting and very amusing ‘what if?’ idea about everyone in the world forgetting about the songs written by The Beatles, apart from one man.

That man is Jack Malik, aspiring musician, who’s tried to make it big for over ten years and failed. Now the key to success is in his hands, the ‘poison chalice’ of fame and money is offered to him, but is he ready to pay the price for it when the price is his integrity, his self-respect and his true love?

Of course he is! 

What follows is a funny, charming and well-made film, which makes some good points about how art becomes ‘product’, and how success changes people. There’s also some touching moments that avoid overt sentimentality (just), while still being very moving. Including one scene towards the end that’ll make you misty-eyed, but more on that I cannot say. You’ll know it when you see it.

There’s also a nice running joke about other things that have disappeared along with Lennon & McCartney’s music, and a decent cameo from Ed Sheeran. You can’t say fairer than that.

Boyle shows a visual flair, enhancing a script that is polished Curtis, giving it a more universal feel than the usual middle-class London scene, and it’s all the better for it. But it does have flaws.

Hamesh Patel is endearing as Jack, even though his motivation seems muddled at times. While Lily James as his longtime friend/love interest doesn’t really have a lot to do. And her surprise visit to Jack in Liverpool is so confusing to him (and us) that it makes you sympathetic as to why Jack never realised her true feelings.

There’s a good supporting cast, such as Sanjeev Baskhar as Jack’s dad, but Kate McKinnon is wasted as the stereotypical greedy agent, whose sole aim seems to be to buy up all of Malibu. I’ve yet to see her in a role that does justice to her talent.

The ending is also a little odd, and a good cameo from Sarah Lancashire hints at an interesting plot line that is never developed.

However, despite promising more than it delivers, there’s plenty to enjoy here. The film has an innovative idea at its heart, and the real star of the show is the music of the Beatles. Seen in one go, so to speak, you realise just how wonderful the songs are. Who can blame Jack when he decides to ‘re-discover’ them?

Top Tunes with Phil Clark

Hi Phil, great to meet you, can you give our readers some background information on yourself please?

I am a professional Theatre Director , I work Internationally. I also work as a visual artist.

Brecon Beacons (Gouache)

This chat is specifically about music and the role it has played in your personal and professional life. To start off what are you currently listening to?

I am listening to the songs of Irving Berlin. I’m about to direct Noel Cowards play BLITHE SPIRIT at Aldeburgh Jubilee Hall, Suffolk. The production runs from Tue 23rd July 2019 – Sat 31st August 2019.

The play is set in the 1940s so I’m immersing myself in the music of the period. I use music in my work all the time. I often direct shows created by actor/musicians.

In the Autumn this year we will be remounting the National Theatre Wales production of PEGGY’S SONG by Welsh playwright Katherine Chandler and starring Christian Patterson. This is one of a series of plays by Welsh writers in response to the anniversary of the NHS and the unique vision of the glorious Nye Bevan.

The play centres around a character who is a volunteer within the NHS. A volunteer DJ who, by his very being, proves that music can be a healer and how music is essential to our existence because unlike tablets it can touch, disturb and mend our soul. To know more. Come and see us on tour this Autumn. Its a great night out!

We are interviewing a range of people about their own musical inspiration, can you list 5 records/albums which have a personal resonance to you and why?

1 BLUE Joni Mitchell This is the record of my teenage years

2 EVERYTHING MUST GO  Manic Street Preachers. I directed Patrick Jones play of the same name that used the music of the Manics

3 TAKE THAT GREATEST HITS….because!!!!!!

LADY IN SATIN  Billie HolidayI have everything that Billie ever recorded

5 WEST SIDE STORY Original Soundtrack The greatest musical of all time

Just to put you on the spot could you choose one track from the five listed above and tell us why you have chosen this?

STRANGE FRUIT Billie Holiday  A beautiful song that perfectly brings together form and content. Amazing. Never ceases to move me

Top Tunes with Patrick Jones

Image credit Lucy Purrington

Hi Patrick great to meet you, can you give our readers some background information on yourself please?

Hello I am a  writer living in South Wales. I write plays poetry and film scripts. I have hadd and left or lost 20 jobs before finally going full time writing in 1998. I have three beautiful sons Ethan, Evan and Elian who are my guiding lights. My work includes the plays Everything Must Go, Unprotected Sex and Before I Leave which I am currently adapting into a feature film. 

The cast of Before I Leave, NTW
Image Credit Farrows Creative

My books include Fuse, Darkness is Where The Stars Are and  just published by Rough Trade Books My Bright Shadow and spoken word albums Tongues for A Stammering Time, Commemoration, Amnesia and new work Renegade Psalms in collaboration with John Robb released in September on Louder Than War Records. 

I am currently writer in residence with The Royal College of Psychiatrists in Wales and take words to neglected sections of the community. I live small. I think skies.

Image credit Lucy Purrington

Music has always played an important part in my life and writing. I obsessively collect albums, still listen to my vinyl collection and create a playlist for every play I create. Music was always playing in our house as kids from Abba to Demis Rossous to Neil Diamond. It gives me happy thoughts to think of those summer evenings with Sweet Caroline blasting through the 6 ft long grampophone player in our living room! I play guitar badly but throw in a fuzz box and a flange pedal and no one knows the difference.

Image credit Lucy Purrington

My favourite lyrics would be ;

All that rugby puts hairs on your chest. What chance have you got against a tie and a crest.’

Eton Rifles  The Jam

and

One likes to believe
In the freedom of music
But glittering prizes
And endless compromises
Shatter the illusion
Of integrity,…”

The Spirit of Radio   Rush

This chat is specifically about music and the role it has played in your personal and professional life. Firstly to start off what are you currently listening to? 

The Membranes ‘What Nature Gives Nature Takes Away”

Godspeed you Black Emperor  “ Luciferian Towers”

Hole ‘ Live Through This’

We are interviewing a range of people about their own musical inspiration, can you list 5 records/albums which have a personal resonance to you and why? 

1 A Farewell To Kings  by Rush – bought  from a friend in school when I was 15,  as needed to find my band and wanted to fit in! It was £2.50 which was a lot then. Started my journey into heavier music and to follow the band themselves. Opening track A Farewell to Kings just burst through my speakers and I was lost and found.  When I saw it was recorded in Rockfield in Wales I talked my Dad into driving out there to see if we could find the studio. We  didn’t! I just wanted to be Alex Lifeson! The guitar sound, lyrics to Closer to The Heart, the epicness of Xanadu and the gatefold photo just connected with me somehow. I still listen to it now.

2 The Indigo Girls  The Indigo Girls Certain albums have a strange quality that makes them timeless yet acutely of the moment. I first heard this when I lived in Chicago in 1989. I had left Wales to write the great American novel, was  madly in love and spent days wandering the Windy City streets in search of Kerouacian inspiration. Didn’t last forever as such wonder never can but it was a beautifully exciting visceral time. My American wife (though no one knew we were married as we had tied the knot in secret so I could stay in the country ( sorry U.S Immigration)  and we carve a life together) liked the Indigo Girls and this had just come out. So it reminds me of another life another place- happy in my neon  loneliness, my little apartment by the train tracks, coffee shops, cats, minus 20 Winters,  huge pizzas and slam poetry nights in downtown Chicago. I loved their acoustic sound and the lyrics were so personal and human.

Then,  fast forward to 2017 and a  complicated love affair which was destined to fail and  I turned to these songs to give me hope and to help to salve the sadness. Driving along the M4 listening to Blood and Fire which seemed to be written for the situation –

 “I am looking for someone, who can take as much as I give,
Give back as much as I need,
And still have the will to live.
I am intense, I am in need,
I am in pain, I am in love.
I feel forsaken, like to things I gave away.”

I get shivers just thinking about that song. So, 32 years apart but those songs timeless yet indelibly etched upon my mind.

3   U2  ‘War’ Special on many levels. 1983. I was 18 just finished my A Levels and had surprisingly passed with 3 ‘B’s”  and about to go to Swansea University. My Mother and Father had promised to buy me a guitar if I passed so me and my Dad drove to Cardiff ( quite a rare thing in those days – big shopping trip and my Dad never liked shops!) I will always  remember it was a cloudy overcast Summer day. The Fender acoustic was £75 ( bloody fortune when I think of it now) and my parents had saved £80 so there was a  fiver left over and my Dad said if I wanted  anything for University. I had been taping songs from the radio off the album so got the real thing. Oh that stark black white and red cover. The lyrics inside. Gatefold sleeve. A work of art in itself. Before memes, hashtags, likes and trolls just four people in a room making music.

New Year’s Day. Sunday Bloody Sunday. Drowning Man.

It got me thinking about politics, about loss, about how we treat each other and  about how can I get my hair cut like Bono! And of course The Edge’s shimmering guitar sound.

Still have it and still listen to the full album no skipping on CD. ‘A world in white gets underway”,

An album that resonates on the personal level as it reminds me of parental love and struggle and on a more political societal level it awoke my interest in writing about how the world works and fails.

4 Setting Sons The Jam Had always  loved The Jam. Always remember Going Underground  straight into at number 1 double A side in 1979 as I was in hospital with a shattered elbow feeling low and that song lifted me.

The cover, again pulled me in. It looked epic. Sad but strong. Those faces. There was a little record shop in Blackwood,  Martin Luther’s- it was where the cool people would hang out on a Saturday, flipping through the racks and then walking down the high street with the plastic bag that signified you had been there AND bought something! Then talk about it in school on Monday. This album reminds me of those days. Saving up for weeks to buy an album after taping the single from the Charts on Sunday. School discos on a Saturday night that would invariably end up with the hard kids  who didn’t go to the school but would find a way in and cause a massive fight and the night would finish early because of blood and smashed glass. So Eton Rifles reminds of not so much class war but tribal gangs rucking against each other on a Saturday night when alI I wanted  was to slow dance with a girl I had been fancying but too scared to ask out, for 3 months!  Little Boy Soldiers, Burning Sky  and of course Eton Rifles painted this battered landscape of late 70’s Britain. Wasteland and Saturday’s Kids connected to my own working class childhood. 10 songs that educated and entertained me for many a lonely rainy night in Blackwood. I recently bought the deluxe edition which has Going Underground on it. The missing piece finding its home on one of the most perfect albums ever made.

5 Lou Reed ‘Magic and Loss’ I came to Lou Reed late in life. So this 1992 offering didn’t reach me till a few years ago. Again something about the cover spoke to me. It features the musician dressed in black  upon what could be a road or a coffin with the text in Red. Looks like Winter. With a stripped back sound and many lyrics spoken it is a monument to two of Reed’s friends who had recently died. Personal yet easily accessible and universal in tone the 14 tracks act as a sort of concept album- linked by the magic and the loss. I would just put it on and drive the A470  that links North and South Wales during a period of my life where I was confused, angry and experiencing my own searching for magic in losing. His voice reaches in and pulls out your stomach. No hit singles on there just brutal  truth.  ‘Sword of Damocles’  which opens with spine tingling cello, tells of cancer treatment- 

‘to cure you they must kill you’

and  ‘Cremation’, one of the most beautiful tracks, tells of  the sea as keeper of souls

Well the coal black sea waits for me me me

 The coal black sea waits forever

 The waves hit the shore

Crying more more more

A bleak yet beautiful work of sonic art. It helped me feel unalone at a very difficult time and gave me strength to carry on and look to the future out of the detritus of the present.

As Shelley said ;

“Our sweetest songs are those of saddest thought.” 

Just to put you on the spot could you choose one track from the five listed above and tell us why you have chosen this?

I think it would be ‘Eton Rifles’ by The Jam. Still so relevant now. A perfect fusion of melody anger and hope.

Plus I can play it on guitar!

Review, Cabaret Pontio with Gareth Bonello, Georgia Ruth & Toby Hay, Pontio Arts Centre by Gareth Williams

 out of 5 stars (4 / 5)

Considering they had never played together before, Gareth Bonello, Georgia Ruth and Toby Hay seemed like a long-established trio. Their first gig as a three-piece was certainly an enjoyable one. Coming together from Cardiff, Ceredigion, and Rhayader respectively, these three folk musicians brought real warmth to what was a pretty wet night in Bangor. With songs inspired by land, place and people, this concert, as part of Pontio’s Cabaret series, was a gently inspiring, fairly lucid affair. Transforming Theatr Bryn Terfel into a downtown night club, the ambient lighting and tight staging made this a really intimate experience. It felt refreshing, relaxed, and played well to a hushed and attentive audience.

Taking the form of a songwriters round, the evening began with Bonello, who performed a straight-up folk number before handing over to Hay. The highly-accomplished guitarist began with a short piece, inspired by home, before providing us with a wonderfully atmospheric version of his song ‘Starlings’. Hitting such high, soft and delicate notes on the guitar, the addition of Ruth’s harp and Bonello on the harmonium created an incredibly visual sound that hung in the air long after the last note was played. It was then over to Ruth for a performance of her song ‘Terracotta’. Its hauntingly beautiful tones struck me as being very reminiscent of 9Bach’s ‘Anian’, and was just as good. It was then the turn of Bonello again for a performance of his song ‘Pen Draw’r Byd’ before we returned to Ruth for what was, for me, one of the highlights of the night. Watching Ruth’s fingers gliding gracefully across the strings of the harp during ‘Clychai Aberdyfi’ was mesmerising. And with Bonello keeping a steady beat on duitara and then double bass respectively, and Hay strumming gently on the guitar, it made this a song to savour, both visually and aurally. To finish the first half, Bonello played a song written as a tribute to his grandmother, who used to pick cockles down by the local river. The low notes of the double bass and deep echo of the electric guitar, along with the yellow lighting, created a truly evocative scene of a river at sunset. It made ‘Merch y Morfa’ a beautiful tune with which to close before the break.

The second half opened up with Bonello performing ‘Y Deryn Pûr’ before handing over to Hay for another double header. Asked by his fellow singers to choose a traditional folk song from his home county to perform, a lack of forthcoming material meant that we were treated to two originals by Hay himself instead, both inspired by his local landscape. The first, ‘Radner Lily’, was gorgeously performed under glowing lightbulbs hung from the ceiling. The gentle grace of the electric guitar and accompanying harp led to a delightful skip into the second song, ‘Water Breaks Its Neck’, from Hay’s forthcoming album. Ruth then performed ‘Week of Pines’ from her latest album to rapturous applause and cheering from the audience – a clear fan favourite. Bonello then treated us to two tunes written specially as part of his PhD on the duitara. This Indian folk instrument proved a fascinating listen on both ‘Maid Marian’ and ‘Diamonds’, the former’s medieval associations really evoked by the sound of this four-stringed cousin of the guitar. It was then back to Hay for a performance of an as-yet-untitled song that I recognised from his recent gig at Focus Wales. It was excellent then, and with the addition of the double bass here, it was by far another standout moment of the night.

To finish, Bonello, Ruth and Hay took to the forefront of the stage to perform off mic. With only the harmonium for company, once Bonello had found the right vocal range, the three performed a gorgeous final number that was received extremely well by the audience. It rounded off an impressive night. They left the audience wanting more. Any nerves they may have been feeling did not show. There was no sense of awkwardness or any hint that this was their first time performing together. And after such a positive reaction, my guess is that it won’t be the last. Keep your eye out for future dates. I’d be surprised if there isn’t more to come.

gareth

Review Rocket Man by Rhys Payne

 out of 5 stars (5 / 5)

Rocketman is a drama/biography about the life of Elton John and his rapid rise to mainstream fame. The director of this film Dexter Fletcher, managed to perfectly blend the flamboyant , over-the-top campiness of Elton’s life with the seriousness of his battle with mental health and addiction which I imagine took a while to plan and execute appropriately. It was fun-filled and joyous but also emotional with serious message to all the viewers watching.

Elton John was played by Taron Egerton who performed an excellent and tasteful tribute to the icon and I was pleasant surprise by the performance skills that Taron possessed. Having known Egerton from Kinsmen where he played a ruffian who becomes part of a secret resistance force, known as the kinsmen, but his role in this was the almost complete polar opposite. If I was Taron , I would have been very afraid when given this role as it deals with real-life , close to the bone issues such as addition and mental health issues and being able to do these scenes and making them as realistic as possible would have been very daunting. Also being a straight man and having to act as the wonderfully camp homosexual Elton must have been difficult. I feel as if when doing an impression of someone you have to be very careful to not make it an over the top caricature but at the same time it needs to contain as many as the mannerisms and characteristics of the person you are imitating which I personally would not be able to do. Taron did a spot on tribute of Elton which was incredible to watch and he deserves mountains of praise for doing it so well. He was able to perform the showman Elton as well as the often hidden dark side of Elton excellently.

The costumes in this film were incredible. The designer must have spent hours and hours trying to recreate some of Elton most iconic looks while also making them as modern as possible. One of my personal favorites is the sequined baseball outfit that look flawless and looked as if it took hours to make. Another one of my favorites was the opening and closing outfit of the big red costume. This outfit , I believe was meant to point to deeper aspects of Elton’s character. When he wears it in the beginning , he talks about his drug addiction , mental health issues, sex addiction and his anger management problems and at this point the costume is meant to signify him as an almost evil character who is in a really dark place. I think it suppose to resemble the devil which allusion to him living it what he would describe as his own personal hell. Towards the end of the film the same costume is used but the is an exaggeration of the use of feather is the outfit. On top of this the song, “I’m still standing is playing’ which is an up beat song about getting through dark times, I think this costume was supposed to signify an Phoneix who famously raise from he ashes and in many stories bring new life. This was the show the audience that since then Elton has been sober and turned his life around and so the use of the mythical creature is apt.

Despite this film being
about Elton John’s life it deals with issues that affect everyone at one time
or another. One of the main messages of the entire story is accepting yourself
and who you are. Elton through his life dealt with many people who wanted to
change him or wanted him to suppress who he really was (including himself) and
he eventually become the Elton we all know and love today but ignoring all
these negative comments. One of the most iconic lines in the whole film is “why
should other people care about you when you don’t even care about yourself?”
which is obviously a way to remind people that they need to love themselves
before other people can love them which is incredibly empowering and is
obviously a concept that Elton himself felt strong about.

In general , this film
was phenomenal. It blended fun musical numbers with serious real life issue
effortlessly as well as educating viewers of the issues and struggles Elton
dealt with behind the curtain. It is a fascinating watch with incredible
costumes, a talented cast and superb acting. I would rate this production 5 out
of 5 stars. This is a film that you have to watch especially if you ever heard
any of Elton John’s songs (and that’s most people) so don’t miss out because
you’ll regret it!

Ones To Watch from Focus Wales 2019 by Gareth Williams

Focus Wales in one of the nation’s premier music showcase festivals. Held in Wrexham, it brings together some of the best people in the music industry for three days of talks, meetings, and, of course, musical sets. The best of both emerging and more established talent from Wales and beyond featured on various stages around the town centre. Headliners on Friday night, 9Bach were excellent, as per usual. But apart from these giants of the Welsh folk scene, who else stood out? Here are my personal ‘ones to watch’ from this year’s festival:

Hannah Willwood

Hailing from Snowdonia and currently studying in Leeds,
Hannah Willwood and her band created the most incredible sound during their
set. Blending jazz, folk and indie, her music is at once familiar yet fresh and
unique. With resonances of an earlier era, it is a sound that intrigues,
mesmerises, and captivates. This girl is going places.

Katie Mac

If I had to pick a winner for Best Performance at this
year’s festival, I would award it to Katie Mac. The singer-songwriter from
Huyton played an absolute blinder from start to finish. She delivered such an
enthralling set that I became completely absorbed in the experience. Here was a
prime example of quality songwriting overlaid with some incredibly accomplished
musicianship.

Albert Jones

He proved popular with the Old Bar No.7 crowd. And it wasn’t
just his interaction with the audience that made this performer standout. Take
a listen to Albert Jones and you will find a vocal that is incredibly soulful and
wonderfully versatile. Comparisons with James Morrison are inevitable. But to
try and pin down his sound is much more difficult. Whether blues, country, folk
or pop, it seems that Jones can turn his hand to anything. A really engaging
performer.

The Dunwells

What a stonker of a set from The Dunwells. Full of energy, enthusiasm and real excitement, every
song seemed to be a crowd-pleasing anthem. They not only succeeded in winning
over a raucous, increasingly drink-fuelled crowd. They managed to encourage
some well-judged audience participation that only added to the feel-good
factor, rounding off the festival (for me at least) in style.

If God Were a Woman / Beta Test

The inaugural Focus Wales Short Film Festival had an excellent shortlist of eight films. All independent, all made to a high standard, my personal front-runners were If God Were a Woman and Beta Test. The former is a provocative and thought-provoking spoken word from Evrah Rose, made all the more so by the choice of director Joe Edwards to film in a derelict Church. The latter is an American production that is very much in the mould of Black Mirror. It sees Eric Holt enter into a simulated world to relive some of his favourite memories. But then a glitch in the programme leaves him facing much darker stuff.

gareth

The Sound of Robinson, The Other Island, Behind the Curtains, Part 2 By Eva Marloes

The immersive sounds of Robinson. The Other the Other Island capture the struggle with loneliness of Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe and the sensual writing of Michel Tournier’s Friday with softly spoken pages from the book, water dripping, waves, and a mosquito buzzing in your ear. What makes this rendering of Robinson original and innovative is the sound system used that mimics human hearing through binaural recording and the sense of urban isolation as the audience listens to the play through headphones. The architect of the sound world of Robinson is John Norton, artistic director of Give It A Name

(l-r Matt Wright, John Norton, Give It A Name) Photo by Jorge Lizaldo @ Studio Cano

John says ‘hello’ to the recorder on my phone. He’s disappointed that there are no sound waves. He is an actor, director, sound designer, and has spent many years as DJ. He writes audio drama and experiments with sound. Married to theatre director Mathilde Lopez, he often designs the sound world for her plays, as he did, in collaboration with Branwen Munn, for the recent Les Misérables.

getthechance.wales/2019/03/26/behind-the-curtains-of-les-miserables-by-eva-marloes/

This time, John has created a three-dimensional sound experience with binaural mics for the play Robinson. The Other Island, bringing voices, sounds, and music directly into the ears of each audience member

getthechance.wales/2019/05/11/review-robinson-the-other-island-give-it-a-name-by-eva-marloes/

Binaural recording aims to reproduce human hearing. Each of
our ears perceives sound differently. We hear a sound coming from one direction
first with the ear closer to the source of the sound. Binaural recording is fed
into headphones making possible to hear different sounds in each ear and the
location of their source. A sound can come not only from the left or the right,
but also top, bottom, front, or behind the listener. This technique allows a
three-dimensional experience of sound. Usually, binaural recording utilises two
mics inside a ‘dummy head’ that replicates an average human head. For Robinson,
John has used in-ear mics to get the experience of the actor into the ears of
the audience.

John researched immersive sound for theatre after being granted an Arts Council Wales, Creative Wales Award in 2012-2013. He tried different techniques, but was taken in particular by the possibilities of binaural. He tells me, ‘What I really loved about binaural is that it really is how we hear. I got very excited.’ After the research period, he ‘played around’ with in-ear binaural mics for various projects. The choice of in-ear mics, instead of dummy head recording, offers the advantage of hearing what actors hear in their ears. He explains, ‘What I like about having an in-ear mic is having the internal perspective of the actor live. What you will never have with the dummy head is when Luciana (Luciana Chapman plays Bianca in Robinson) swallows the water, you hear it as if it’s inside your own head. For me that’s just another level of crazy intimacy that I was intrigued by. That’s one of the reasons why we went for that for this show.’

Enthusiastic of the technique is also Jack Drewry, composer, sound designer and theatre maker, who is sound designer and tech on Robinson. Jack tells me that the use of movable in-ear binaural mics is what is most innovative and exciting of Robinson’s sound experience. He says, ‘The use of wireless transmission through the ears is the immersion into the actor, the Reader’s (Bianca) world. That’s the thing that is new and exciting. What happens if you choreograph the sound around the actor as the microphone? The actor becomes the microphone. Whatever happens around the actor you hear from the actor’s perspective, you hear what they’re hearing.’

Jack Drewry image credit Kitty Wheeler Shaw

This technique
captures the solitude of urban life amidst contrasting noises. John says, ‘We felt that putting the audience in headphones is a really good image
of contemporary solitude. If you look at the bank of audience you can easily
mistake them for commuters on a train, in their own headphones. There’s
something interesting in isolating each audience member while they have shared
experience.’ Robinson immerses you in the solitude of a man stranded on
an island for 28 years and of a young woman living alone in a city. The
loneliness of Robinson Crusoe leads him to have auditory hallucinations,
something John experienced as a child. I realise that the chaotic music of the
book club moments in the play may suggest that sense of auditory
disorientation.

The soundscape in Robinson not
only serves to immerse the audience in the actor’s perspective, but it also
creates a sound world, the environment where the actor is placed. The sounds
are suggestive of Bianca’s flat and of Robinson’s island. For the latter,
mostly Caribbean music has been used to evoke the image we often have of an
island. In addition, John tells me, environmental sounds, such as the traffic
outside the flat and the waves of the sea, help listeners tune their ears to
sounds. Gentle sounds, such as rustling or crinkling sounds, are also used in Robinson
to elicit in some listeners a tingling sensation through ASMR, or autonomous sensory
meridian response. Robinson is an all-round sound experience.

Jack tells me that ‘normally sound
supports the action; it’s not front and centre. In this project the sound world
is a big part of the show and the actors are always feeding into it. It’s much
more of a magnifying glass of my design that it has ever been. In this project
the sound from the mixing deck doesn’t go to speakers but to everyone’s ears,
directly streamed into the audience.’ As I watched and listened to the show, I
noticed sounds made by Robinson came from the back to my right although he was
in front of me on the left. The experience of the eyes doesn’t necessarily
match that of the ears. For some, this might be a little too confusing, however
Robinson is not a traditional play but a meditative experience that at
times is best felt with one’s eyes closed.

For more on spatial audio, please check BBC Academy h

Review Saethu Cwningod/Shooting Rabbits, PowderHouse by Eva Marloes

 out of 5 stars (2.5 / 5)

‘If I Can Shoot Rabbits, I Can Shoot Fascists,’ is the strapline of the first play by PowderHouse in association with the Sherman Theatre and Theatr Genedlaethol Cymru. It comes from the Manic Street Preachers’ song ‘If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next,’

https://youtu.be/cX8szNPgrEs

This in turn is inspired by the involvement of Welsh volunteers in the Spanish Civil War. The play Shooting Rabbits seeks to evoke the experience of a young Welshman travelling to Spain to fight against fascism in the 1930s while seemingly hinting at a similarity between fighting the authoritarian oppressor in Spain and the strife of Irish, Welsh, and Basque nationalism, given a new life by Brexit. Such an unwieldy subject matter could only fail on stage, especially when it is conveyed through a stream of consciousness dramaturgy that leaves the audience confused. Nonetheless the play succeeds in capturing the ambiguity of any proclamation in the name of ‘the people.’ 

Production Images credit Studio Cano

Shooting Rabbits co-directed by Jac Ifan Moore and Chelsey Gillard begins with a Northern Irish actor auditioning for a role in Wales. The casting director asks him to do a ‘more Irish’ accent, meaning one that is from the Republic of Ireland. The director expresses sympathy with the Irish, ‘Solidarity with you,’ ‘Wales stands with you,’ ‘Your people.’ The ‘solidarity’ is borne of the alleged ‘shared struggle’ against the ‘neighbours across the borders.’ The actor, played by Neil McWilliams, launches into a tirade questioning the very premise of ‘the people.’ Who are his people? Republicans, Nationalists, the IRA, Unionists, the DUP? The reduction of the heterogeneous reality of a country to one group betrays not just an ignorant and condescending attitude, but one that delegitimises whoever does not fit the image of the country, a country that is always an ideal, never a complex reality. This is nowhere more evident than in the impassioned and seductive speech of Francisco Franco performed by Alejandra Barcelar Pereira in Spanish. It appeals to the defence of the country and faith in the country, but it is a country that repudiates all those who do not abide by the script.

The appeal to ‘the people’ is a dangerous weapon that is wielded against the very people it professes to protect. ‘The people’ erases people as a heterogeneous empirical reality, disregards and delegitimises theirs diversity, their different perspectives, lifestyles, values, customs, and, above all, their overlapping identities. This is what the European Union aims to promote: unity in diversity. That is why Catalan, Basque, Scottish, and Welsh nationalist movements, to name a few, are often supportive of the EU. Thus, the EU does indeed undermine the nation state, conceived as a unitary and homogeneous entity, by giving voice to communities inside nations and across them. Today, the EU is embattled, but the crisis is not a battle between fascism and liberal democracy; rather it is more the result of established structures and politics being out of step with contemporary society and economics. That is why it is risky to draw any comparisons between today’s crises and the 1930s, as Shooting Rabbits seeks to do.

Shooting Rabbits is at its best when it exposes the naivete of the romantic ideal of fighting against fascism and of claiming to represent a ‘people.’ The young Welshman in 1930s Spain does not know what to do and begs to be told what to do. In front of the horror of the civil war, the volunteers of the International Brigade repeat that it was not meant to be this way. The play makes fun of political divisions and polarisations that create enemies. It is evocative and exhilarating. It is acted beautifully in Spanish, Basque, Welsh, and English by Alejandra Barcelar Pereira, Gwenllian Higginson, and Neil McWilliams, and it is supported by the music performed live by Sam Humphreys. It is also a missed opportunity. Shooting Rabbits flounders due to a superficial historical analysis and a stream of consciousness structure that disorients the spectator instead of bringing clarity.