Back to work at last

This week the Government freed us to have live events again.  Of course there are provisos, risk assessments as long as your arm and hoops and hurdles.  But there may yet be time in 2020 to dust off the props, do a few stretches and take to the road. 

 

I warmly welcome the notion even though it will be very different from the years BC (Before Covid).  No more Pirate Song, prizes or cash in the hat. No finger chopper. Audiences in discreet bubbles. Hand sanitiser. A very different affair.  As is life now, despite all that many people are doing and pretending in the crazy drive to re-monetise our stricken economy.  I drove through Chester yesterday and there was not one face mask to be seen as they walked past photos of Boris wearing one on front page headlines saying ‘Wear masks in shops’.  What is it about our stupid pride that makes us not take a simple precaution that would save thousands of lives?

 

I had thought that the August Bank Holiday Isle of Wight Steam Show would be the first one back but we will have to wait for the announcement.  I’m sworn to secrecy.  But I do have Fylde Show in pen in the diary for September 12^th and 13^th. It’s a new show for me, run by another septuagenarian, a vintage tractor collector and a stalwart fellow.  He is determined to carry on and I will be there, hopefully with Martin on the keyboards alongside, carrying on our noble and time-honoured tradition of entertainment and amusement, divertissements and badinages. And hopefully no bandages for those who may have misread that!

 

The shows will have to adapt and change to suit the Covid detachment.  They will have to be more visual and perhaps more stylised.  But we will adapt and develop in the new world as we have always done in the popular performing arts.  I hope that our colleagues in the formal live theatre can find a way to adapt to the new world.  How would you direct a scene that involved close up contact between two characters when the two actors playing them were from different bubbles?  One of the  many many such problems facing serious theatre.  I hope they find the solutions but I fear that theatre, as many things, will never be quite the same again.

 

My new streaming show will be available later this week once I have checked a few final things with the software.  I will announce it on the website and on my Facebook page, but I thought you, my faithful blog readers, would like to know about it first.  If you’d like to pencil in a show drop me a line by email to david@mralexander.co.uk.  Be amongst the first to witness it. I will do each 30 minute spot by arrangement with up to four different families or bubbles via Zoom and there will be a chance to watch some live stunts, play some games and magic as well as see some filmed extracts from the stage show.  Prizes will be posted to all the children. There will not be any admission fees as such but of course the virtual top hat (https://mralexander.co.uk/donate) will be placed casually and unobtrusively in front of you as you leave! I’m looking forward to it.  It will be the closeup and personal dimension that will be have to be missing from the stage show.   There will be a chance to chat, share lockdown stories and see Mr A in his emporium of entertainment and wonder.  And when Martin comes back there will also be live music. 

 

It seems to have taken me a long time to adapt to the changes.  Maybe it’s age.  Children and young people can just go with the flow and take the changes as they arrive without worrying too much.  I worry about them in the new world though.  For those of us who have good memories we will always have those sunny days of Pirate Songs and finger chopper routines, of closeup live magic and crowds sitting crammed into every square inch in the summer sunshine.  Will they only ever have face masks and digital onscreen communication with people other than those in their own bubbles?  Will they grow up believing that life has always been like this and read uncomprehendingly of the days when we could shake hands, hug a long lost friend and share a drink from the same bottle of water?

 

All the best, at last, from a road near you,

 

Mr Alexander

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Islands in the stream

Hemmingway or Parton?  I didn’t know it was the title of a posthumously published novel by him until I googled it. Well, a mixture of both artists then as we all watch life passing by with all this continuing time on our hands.  Hemingway’s novel is a review of his life and the 2019 Netflix documentary Here I Am, about Dolly Parton, is a review of hers.  I recommend the latter as a fascinating study of the performance persona at work.  Some great music of course as well, classic tunes which flowed from her prolific pen.

 

Islands in the Stream.  It feels like a life review, the flow of life a river that we all bump along with other islands coming and going.  The islands themselves seem more like floating driftwood pushed and pulled by the tide of the river.  Sometimes together, sometimes apart.

 

That’s is how it has felt recently.  I heard that a good friend’s Mum had died.  Margaret was a strong-minded, witty and kind-hearted person I admired and met annually, like many of my acquaintance. I will miss her, her sharp mind and twinkling eyes. It was good but very sad to watch her streamed funeral service. Islands in the stream.

 

I also learned that a good friend with whom I shared two happy years many years ago has Parkinson’s.  Luis and I are the same age and in his illustrious life he achieved all he promised he would do in the world of theatre, opera, film and literature in Portugal, his home.  Time and life drifted us apart and I hadn’t heard about him for nearly fifty years.  And then in my ongoing life review I looked him up on Facebook to discover the news which came as a sad and salutary shock. Islands in the stream. His timeline has since gone silent again. I send him my love along with very happy memories.

 

Back to Dolly Parton whose performance persona has taken over her life.  It’s hard to know where the real person is behind the wigs and makeup, and yet the persona is so tangible and real that we accept that as who she really is.  A fascinating phenomenon.  Those who have come to know me will also know of my fascination (bordering sometimes on obsession) with my own performance persona.  I have been grappling with Mr A recently.  Sometimes it felt like a real fight as he and I found that playing to a camera in the Covid era just wasn’t right. 

 

We both came to the conclusion that a live audience is an active collaborator in our creative process. That collaboration is part of the appeal of the travelling showman who has become me (or is it that I have become?) You, the audience are pulled into the strange world of the show and your reactions contribute to its process and growth.  It’s pretty obvious really.

 

I watched a fascinating short documentary (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdrBT0YxQwo&feature=youtu.be) on the subject and found I wasn’t alone in being ambivalent about internet shows.

 

But it is a niggle as we are all having to deal with that other stream in our lives.  So if making video recordings doesn’t work, what might?  I offered this week to perform some live magic to two families via Zoom.  Suddenly something started to happen and the half hour flashed by. The feedback was very positive, despite the poor quality of the connection and the picture through the laptop webcam.  But definitely something came alive and it gave me heart and hope for another try with streaming technology.  I think I could offer shows to small family groups with a live streaming connection.  I’ve discovered some appropriate software with a wealth of online teaching and learning.  I’m enjoying the process as I think I can see a way  forward with it.  I see it as a marketed personalised show run live via Zoom but which plays specifically to a few separate families at a time.  A closeup live chat with Mr A in his emporium.  People would book and make a small contribution for attendance and the show would be personalised to those attending by maybe giving them some choice as to which (pre-recorded) video sections I showed and also some live closeup magic, chat, physical interaction and maybe some games.  A family party show but personalised to those attending. Sanitised prizes sent through the post, and the whole available for watching again later. 

 

It’s still very early days but there is something in it. Let me know your thoughts and ideas.  After all you’re a collaborator in it too.

 

All the best from a stream near you,

 

Mr Alexander