Red Sparowes:
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IT LOOKS LIKE THE YOUTH OF SCOTLAND ARE SERIOUS ABOUT CREATING GOOD THEATRE
by Alasdair Gillon
here’s a packed programme at Perth’s Horsecross Theatre for the second weekend in October (6th-8th) but then, what else should we expect at the 2006 National Festival of Youth Theatre? The festival is bringing in groups from all over Scotland, plus guests Kildare Youth Theatre (YT) from Ireland, to stage a feature production each during the weekend, while they enjoy background workshops, training from experts and meet performers from other groups. Run by umbrella organisation Promote YT, the festival is only in its second year, but with eight groups and more than 300 people aged between 14 and 22 taking part, it’s already the biggest annual event for youth theatre in Scotland. Of course, it’s just a selection of what’s out there – there are several hundred youth theatre organisations in Scotland. But if it’s really representative, then it looks like the youth of Scotland are serious about creating good theatre. The line-up confirms this. The feature productions include leading playwright Gregory Burke’s ‘Liar’, a drama about a “new boy” at school, to be performed by Fife’s Behind the Scenes YT. Burke was commissioned to write the play for the (English) National Theatre’s Shell Connections festival earlier this year. Another is ‘Citizenship’ by Mark Ravenhill (performed by Ireland’s Kildare YT), but all the other productions have been devised by the participating groups
what the festival offers – behind the scenes, it’s youth theatre itself that stands to benefit. Experts on hand include the National Theatre of Scotland (NTS), the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama (RSAMD) and Borderline Theatre. They will work with the young people taking part in the intensive theatre weekend, who get the chance not only to learn but also to watch seven other groups perform.
The Festival of Youth Theatre in action themselves – West Lothian YT has created an interactive street play, ‘Finding Home’, which it will take to the shoppers of Perth on October 7th, a Saturday afternoon; it was originally produced for an international street festival theatre in Holland. The RSAMD YouthWorks Drama team up with Brunton YT to open the festival with an ambitious offering, ‘Giacomo’s Circus of the Fantastic’, an “electro-score musical” on a large scale
– with “an evil army of hip-hop clowns” and chorus of grizzly bears. Other participants include experimental theatre group Junction 25, from Glasgow’s Tramway theatre, East Ayrshire YT and Toonspeak Young People’s Theatre – all staging productions written, directed and performed by themselves.
ometimes a good night’s sleep is everything. In the case of Phil Nichol, winning the first ever if.commeddies award meant he could recover from Edinburgh’s heady August festivities in comfort.
by Ali Maloney
“IT’S ALL JUST ONE PIECE OF ART TO US. THERE’RE SO MANY LEVELS.”
ike a wordless wail through an endless void, the Red Sparowes are spearheading the post-metal genre. Using guitars for emotional textures rather than riffs, they avoid the slump into acoustic twadle, leaping instead, from the front of the metal steamroller.
and screaming to keep the sparrows in flight. “The theme is basically to question what people tell you,” he mutters. “Don’t blindly listen to people, think for yourself.” Having created a visual flow to accompany the ‘Every Red Heart Shines Toward The Red Sun’ live show, Josh is confident that seeing them play is an engrossing experience, quite removed from seeing just another heavy band.
The behemoth that is Neurosis has been paving this way for over 15 years; Red Sparowes are very much from the same stable, led by Josh Graham, who creates and manipulates all the visual effects for Neurosis’ current live shows. The Skinny caught up with Josh while he was in Hungary photographing for the new Neurosis album artwork to talk about the forthcoming Red Sparowes album, ‘Every Red Heart Shines Toward The Red Sun’. “This new record captures our live show better,” Josh points out. “It’s heavier, darker and little bit more erratic.” Wholly instrumental, Red Sparowes waft a dense spell that refuses to be ignored. “Because we don’t need to leave space for vocals, we have a chance to experiment with levels of being totally quiet or loud, or utterly pretty or chaotic,” he enthuses. And for this new album, Josh has crafted the songs around a story that took place in communist China in the 1950s: “Mao Tse Tung decided that sparrows must be
“The visuals substitute for having a singer, or a frontman,” he says. “The visuals and the music together create their own lyrical story, and people can zone out, they don’t just have to look at five dudes playing. It’s all just one piece of art to us. There are so many levels.”
exterminated in order to maximize grain production. So villagers were told to scream and bang pots, keeping the birds in flight until they died of exhaustion. But now the locust had no natural predator, and they decimated China’s crops.” The result was one of the worst famines in human history. “Meanwhile the Government authorities falsified agricultural reports to avoid Mao’s wrath, and he sent out soldiers out to find
the grain that he believed the farmers were hiding. Thousands of villagers were tortured and murdered in pursuit of this false grain.” This powerful story also inspired the album artwork which exudes a very pseudo-communist aesthetic. I ask Josh if, as well as the element of grotesque human tragedy, the album was also informed by the very sonic aspect of the story, namely the farmers banging pots
Excited about bringing the live show back to the UK, Josh is also upbeat about what the future holds for the Sparowes. “We’ve been discussing the idea of doing an album with all guest vocalists, which would be cool and take on a whole new meaning. “We’re motivated and constantly working towards whatever happens next.” ‘EVERY R ED H EART S HINES TOWARD THE R ED S UN’ IS OUT NOW. R ED S PAROWES PLAY THE BARFLY, G LASGOW ON O CT 18 WWW. NEUROTRECORDINGS .COM
ROSS NOBLE,
THE PLAYHOUSE, EDINBURGH, SEPTEMBER 9
by Diana Kiernander
comic talent. Like so many of his award-winning contemporaries, Nichol’s latest performances are largely based on stories, not sketches. “It’s just what’s fashionable just now on the comedy circuit. I think it’ll swing round again and shows will be more sketch-based in the future,” he comments.
a war-free world, and his sympathetic siding with life’s angry, bewildered losers, Nichol insists he is not a hippy. “I’m not, I’m not,” he repeats as we finish our chat; perhaps harrowing memories of the contradictory Canadian countryside are still all too clear. Those familiar with Nichol’s work will know some of his best material encompasses fantasies about fictitious, but fair, world leaders. Nichol, as an official ‘comedy leader’, makes a charmingly reluctant bohemian hero.
“I’ve been doing this for so long, travelling around the clubs and not getting much recognition, winning was a total surprise.”
Over the years, Nichol has worked on everything from voice-over to film, and for years he was part of a comedy trio before branching out on his own. In his work, poignant political grumblings nestle innocently alongside everyday tales of relationship bust-ups and individual insecurities. “I’m not a very political comedian. I don’t study facts and figures. But I do try to bring what’s happening in the world into my work,” he explains.
Improved sleeping conditions may help Nichol out in other ways too. The underlying current of his Fringe show ‘The Naked Racist’ highlighted the hilarious emotional exchanges that occur between Nichol and his girlfriend when they live together in a confined space. More comfortable environs must surely equal a better, more harmonious relationship.
Nichol’s private world was shaped by his upbringing in rural Canada, where he spent many of his formative years living next to a nuclear plant. “It made me realise Canada was not a peaceful place,” he recalls wearily. “There’s this idea,” he continues, “that Canada is somehow more relaxed than America, but I disagree. There are gangs and fighting there too.”
“People only get angry about little things when something big is really wrong in their life,” he tells me, “In London especially, I see people getting mad at strangers on the street or in shops and I wonder what it is that’s making them so unhappy.” His strikingly sensitive take on the anguish and upset caused by modern life makes Nichol an inspiring and thoughtful
Nichol hasn’t lived in Canada for years, yet the setting seems to have cast a shadow over his latent political self, carving out a certain hippy sensibility within. A conversation with Nichol smacks of a considered, yet understated, composite of dreamy aspirations and abstract ideals. Despite his obvious on and off-stage hope for
A replacement for the Perrier Award, given to the outstanding comedy performance at the Fringe, the if.commeddies come with a considerable cash prize. “I bought a new mattress because I’ve just moved flats,” he says, sounding sparky rather than sleepy, as he reflects on his Edinburgh success from aboard a packed London bus.
RUNS OCTOBER 6-8. BOOK TICKETS AT HORSECROSS THEATRE 0845 612 6319 WWW.HORSECROSS.CO.UK WWW.PROMOTEYT.CO.UK
Tickets for shows are available now, but what the public gets to see on-stage is just part of
COMEDY Bohemian Like Few S
Organiser Promote YT says that youth theatre in Scotland is “very much alive and well”. Certainly, with 8000 people taking part in different theatre groups across Scotland each week, there is no shortage of interest. Promote YT was set up two years ago as a network through which groups could form links and share information, resources and training. It recognises youth theatre’s important “contribution to the personal and social development of young people.” But youth theatre also serves to nurture interest and talent with a mind to Scotland’s future theatre scene, and Promote YT’s flagship event is now a calendar fixture for Scotland’s theatre professionals as well as youth amateurs.
Shining T’wards the Red Sun
SOUNDS
THEATRE Festival of Youth Theatre 2006
“I feel like a cros s bet ween Elvis and B ill Oddie,” Ross Noble mused in front of his set of gargantuan rocks from a Kirk-era Star Trek set. He was in particularly animated form, and seemed to playfully teeter on the edge of his own sanity, let alone that of his audience; Noble can hardly fail to appeal to the imagination of even the most jaded of souls. If there was a danger this performance might veer away into no man’s land, following the (now picture this) hilarious consequences of imaginary owls being punted around the venue, the show was saved from what might have been a lethal dose of surrealism by the abrupt exit of one patron and a scrap between another two. Noble momentarily stood back on both occasions, wide eyed and confused, soaking in what he had just witnessed. The freestyling that ensued wa s excel l ent, a nd what Noble is best at: applying a bizarre new context to the most pedestrian acts of social behaviour. “ Wow. We l l t h a t ’s the first time that’s happened. And that ’s the weirdest fight I’ve ever seen!” And so follows an extra half hour of crowd interactive comedy that couln’t possibly be replicated on any ot h e r n i g ht of the tour. Could Elvis really r if f l i ke t h i s ? [Dave Kerr]
Phil Nichol & his tasty cherries
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