Belt Up and The Boy James

Over the past few years I have been consistently impressed and surprised by the quirky compelling plays produced by the theatre troupe Belt Up, who normally perform at Southwark Playhouse, near London Bridge as well as at the Edinburgh Fringe. Audience participation is usually compulsory, at least to some extent.

Belt Up have performed The Trial in the vast disorientating space under the London Bridge underground in almost pitch black. Blind folded when you entered the space, one at a time, you were placed in the room away from whoever you had come with and forced to listen to eery music until everyone else had entered. I sneeked a peek under my blindfold, but there was little use as the room was so dark. We had to follow the lanterns that appeared between scenes to find our way in the dark to the next scene. The confusion and darkness of the space was perfect for a dramatisation of Kafka, whose common theme in his works is his protagonist's complete bewilderment about where he is, who has power and what the rules are.

They have performed a fantastically funny version of Moliere's Tartuffe with funny French men in berets, wonderful slapstick and use of props. The audience was seated on sofas and comfy chairs and I had a cuddly toy lion, larger than me, by my side. It was impossible to avoid getting involved in the play as the actors were remarkably persuasive about getting the audience up on stage at certain points.

In a couple of weeks I will see Belt Up perform Macbeth, not in Southwark Playhouse, but in an old prison! I expect it will be very dark...

Belt Up performed a wonderful dreamlike play a year ago which I remember particularly vividly as I unexpectedly had a key role in it. It was called The Boy James, based on the story of Peter Pan. This came recommended by Stephen Fry who tweeted about how much he had enjoyed it. This play was particularly special for me as I was the main audience member to participate in the play. I read a poem about flying at the beginning and a letter from an adult James to the boy James at the end. So I kind of started and ended the play inadvertently.

The play was partly so perfect because the actor playing the boy - based on Peter Pan perhaps - and the setting created a very childlike atmosphere. On the way into the space we could see pages of books hanging from the ceiling and greenery suggesting a wood with a safe haven inside, perhaps the lost boys den. Once inside the surprisingly small space, we sat on cushions on the floor and sofas behind. It was very cozy and intimate and there was barely any floor space for a stage. 


The only actor on stage was a boy in his pyjamas, who told us all to make friends with the people beside us and then asked if we'd made a new best friend. Then he asked who wanted to read a poem and picked me as my hand was up. The poem was about flying and was very reminiscent of the start of Peter Pan. Then he asked us who knew how to play It. He got a group of four to say two words each in turn to describe the rules. He made us play the game in a circle, then he told us to use the whole room and then he turned the game into Stuck in the Mud. The actor managed this all in a cute boyish voice in his pyjamas.

It is partly the unscripted feel of the play that made it powerful, you felt the main actor was genuinely interacting with the audience, wanting to play. Making the audience talk to each other and play games, and the intimate space where everyone was sitting cross legged on the 'front row' all around the 'stage' meant it was very gripping and hard to distance yourself. 

Next the boy told us to hide behind our coats or other clothing. We did this for a while making silly noises in a circle as the actor playing the adult James - presumably J M Barrie the author of Peter Pan - came in and left.

Then the boy talked about imaginary worlds and adventures and ran out of the space to enter via a cupboard. He gave one audience member a button and one some purple thread. He told the audience and a new character- a girl who appeared from the fireplace, and who he'd apparently met in the park - that we would go on an adventure with James next.

But when James came back he wanted to leave for good. He had contributed to the books and furniture and sheets from the ceilings and passwords but now he picked up his suitcase and tried to leave. He'd written a letter to the boy James explaining why he had to leave but the boy could not read. The boy kept jumping on the man's back to try and stop him leaving until the girl slammed the man James' head on the table so he passed out on the floor.

The girl - presumably based on Wendy - was violent, bossy and tried to kiss and seduce the boy James, showing him how to kiss and saying they had to take their clothes off, which made him curl into a foetal position and sob. She also wanted to play pirates and Tiger Lily. 

The man James recovered from being knocked out, hugged the boy James and left. The boy then asked if anyone could read him the letter. I had wanted to read the letter to the boy since he received it and been so sad that he could not read it. I was so involved in the action I had almost forgotten it was not real. So I got up and sat in the chair next to the boy on the floor and read the letter to him tenderly, emphasising the fact that the man James loved him dearly. Then the boy held my hand and told me to show people out. It was incredibly moving and he was clutching the letter and sobbing til the end. I ruffled his hair out of sympathy.

Afterwards in the bar an elderly couple said me reading the letter was the best bit of the play. They wanted to know if I had been planted in the audience! Another couple also said I was very good. I thought it would be nice to get a copy of the letter I had read as it had made me quite tearful so I snuck back near the dreamlike theatre space. I asked a staff memeber if I could have a copy of the letter and he took me to the changing room and asked. The actor that played the boy James looked surprised but had a pile of the letters and gave me one. He was in a vest and the pyjama trousers but he looked much older and cockier. It threw me out of the make believe world in which I had believed this man in his 20s was an incredibly vulnerable boy. But it was lovely to get a copy of the letter. Here is an extract from it:

To the boy James,

I have to leave you.

It's not that I don't love you, I do. And I know you love me.

I hold a million memories so near and dear. Some lit by the brightest of sunlight on sunny afternoons; others hidden in pockets of moonlight, sneaking past the post-curfew gazes of midnight.

...

To the fond memory of all our times at each other's side,

James

Recent Cultural Experiences in London

Last month, I saw a cacophany of fantastic different cultural events in London, including plays, comedy, pantomime and film. It is amazing how culturally rich the capital is.

I saw the wonderful film The Artist, a black and white silent movie with an amazingly talented dog, that marks the change from silent films to the 'talkies'. A star of the silent movies, and a fantastic performer, the main character refuses to jump onto the talking bandwagon. However, he is dismayed to see his fame diminishing in favour of a new talking star, ironically a young hopeful actress he had recently helped get noticed by filmmakers. The film is full of humour, extremely engaging, often very moving and makes me wonder why the genre of silent movies is not more popular.

I saw a queer pantomime, Cinderella, featuring evil stepmother Baroness Thatcher with her sons Boris and David, a gay princess and a polyamorous Cinderella. Simply put together and one night only, the play had an amateur feel. However, the jokes and songs were fresh, with some hilarious political satire, and it was a very enjoyable experience - especially as I knew the actress playing Buttons.

I saw the Ladykillers with the fantastic Peter Capaldi from The Thick of It. This was hilarious and very well put together. It was doubly interesting for me as the playwright, Graham Linehan (who cowrote the fantastic sitcom Father Ted), lives on my road! The comedy, adapted from the 1955 film, revolves around a old lady living in a topsy turvy house with only a sick parrot for company and who often contacts the police with stories about aliens and her newsagent being a Nazi, and a gang of criminals who masquerade as musicians who come and live with her. She is delighted to have musicians in the house and wants them to play for her friends, who have found her boring of late. They however, want to rob a bank and trick the old lady into unsuspectedly helping them. Finally, the old lady finds out and the criminals determine to murder her. Chaos and hilarity ensues. Even from our seats right at the back of the theatre, the comedy and wit was sensational, with a great mix of slapstick, fantastic character actors and bizarre scenarios.

I saw the comedian Adam Riches at Soho Theatre and was very glad I was not too near the front as this show was all about audience participation - he asked two audience members to kiss and snogged one audience member himself - and avoiding being hit by large props members of the audience were asked to wave around. It was highly entertaining whilst often extremely difficult to watch because of the embarrassing topics or scenarios. Adam Riches played a variety of completely different parts, a lazy man in a wheelchair who used a catheter because he could, a squash player, and he was accompanied by two helpers who were seemingly willing to do anything he said including being covered in water. He is great at talking to the audience and responding to them as well as getting people to do things you would think they would be too embarrassed to do. All in all a fantastically funny, laugh out loud covering your eyes and entirely fresh show. Sit at the far back if you want to avoid being forced to be part of the show!

I saw the political documentary Tory Boy about a filmmakers stint at running for MP in the North up against a Labour MP in a safe seat, despite the Labour MP's appalling record for the local area. The film showed how many northerners will vote Labour despite knowing that the candidate is terrible, just because they always have. It exposed how it was impossible for constituents to contact or get a response from their MP. It also depicted the grim reality of campaigning for 6 months in an unwinnable seat, the election tactics, the highs and the lows. Supplementing the filming of events, all filmed live, was some fun animation, some of which explained certain political ideas. Whilst I dislike the character of the filmmaker, this is a very engaging film which gives many insights into the world of local campaigning.

I also saw The Muppets, a fantastic feelgood film that I throughly recommend, the musical Mamma Mia, a lovely light comedy with a great female lead, the political play 3 Days in May, which details a critical point during WW2 when Churchill had to make an important decision about the UK's role in the war, and the wonderful French animation, Monster in Paris, a delightful comic story set in Paris.

All in all, a great month to live in London.

You must watch these TV shows

A friend alerted me to the recent children's three part drama The Bleak Old Shop of Stuff, which as the name suggests is Dickensian in nature. It is set in Victorian times with a star cast of famous comedians and is a great comedy about a poor family who sell curiousities, who are conned by an evil man into going into business with him. Bent on destroying the family, the evil man proceeds to send the son to boarding school where he is beaten daily, the daughter is given a horrible governess who is only interested in her posture and will not let her see her parents and he then exposes the secret past of the mother, Mrs Secret-Past. The drama is fabulous because of the all the detail in the scripting, with fabulous one liners and satire on everything from the financial sector to the French to Cockney. I was devastated to discover there were only three episodes as this is a truly unique children's drama. The series finished at the beginning of March.

As someone who has done lots of law work experience, I was intrigued to hear of the new comedy Suits about high flying lawyers. It is far better than I expected. It presents very interesting cases including some pro bono cases, especially interesting to me because of my work as an adviser at Citizens Advice. I imagine this is partly because a client facing eviction is more dramatic than a merger between two businesses. The witty banter and the intellectual stimulation of trying to work out how the lawyers will handle the specific cases, as well as the personal life and struggles of the main character Mike (who you instantly sympathise with as he has no law qualifications and is winging the whole thing!), make this one of the most engaging and definitely the most intelligent TV sitcom I have seen. As it is American it is hard for me to know what strategy the lawyers can take as the law and legal system there is very different, but it is all the more interesting for it as I can compare the two systems. Slickly filmed, with fantastic opening music and excellent characters, this is a must watch. It is aired on Dave every Tuesday evening and you can watch it on UKTV catch up for the following week.