HAS there ever been a more cynical, anti-arts, pro-insurance industry posh pals statement from Prime Minister Johnson than yesterday’s first Coronavirus daily briefing?
For one so notoriously careless with words, despite his love of a luxuriant lexicon, his careful avoidance of enforcing a shutdown of pubs, clubs, theatres etc, in favour of merely recommending “avoiding unnecessary social” interaction, effectively amounts to washing his and his Government’s hands of the future of one of the power houses of British life: the entertainment industry.
No formal closures means no chance of insurance pay-outs. In an already increasingly intolerant, Right-veering Britain, with its Brexit V-sign to Europe, could it be this is another way to try to suffocate and stifle our potent, provocative, influential, politically challenging, counter-thinking, all-embracing, anti-divisive, collective-spirited, often radical, always relevant, life-enriching, rather than rich-enriching, font of free expression, protest and empowerment?
Was this the day the music died?
History shows that the arts, the pubs, the theatres, the counter-culture, has always found a way to bite back, to fight back, often at times of greatest repression and depression. No Margaret Thatcher, no Specials’ Ghost Town.
We and our very necessary social interactions shall be back, hopefully after only a short break. Meanwhile, we are all in the hands of science, that equally progressive bedfellow to the arts.
CITY Screen, York, will mark International Women’s Day on
March 8 with an exclusive Picturehouse preview of Radioactive, the biopic of pioneering
Polish scientist Marie Curie starring Rosamund Pike.
Marie discovered the radioactive elements radium and
polonium. Working with her husband, Pierre Curie (played by Sam Riley), she was
the first woman to receive a Nobel Prize and would become the only person to
receive two.
Throughout her life, Marie showed a steely reserve in the
face of xenophobia and institutional hostility, but her discoveries and legacy
came at a price, not only for the woman herself but also for the world.
Next Sunday’s 1.30pm preview will be followed by a Q&A
with Rosamund Pike and director Marjane Satrapi, broadcast live from the Curzon
Mayfair, London.
On general release from March 20, Radioactive (12A) is based
on Lauren Redniss’s book Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie: A Tale Of Love And
Fallout and is director Satrapi’s first film to be sourced from a graphic novel
not written by herself.
The Iranian-born director is best known for Persepolis, her 2008 film about her life in pre-revolutionary and post-revolutionary Iran and then in Europe. Based on her graphic novel of the same title, it traces Satrapi’s growth from child to rebellious, punk-loving teenager.
Tickets are available in person from the City Screen box office, in Coney Street, on 0871 902 5747 or at picturehouses.com/cinema/city-screen-picturehouse. Please note, the film screening will start promptly at 1.45pm.
A RUSH of ticket sales has prompted a change of venue for The Rock Goes
To The Movies evening with BAFTA-winning filmmaker Tony Palmer next month in
Harrogate.
This exclusive Harrogate Film Festival event on March 12 will switch from RedHouse Originals art gallery to The Clubhouse at Cold Bath Brewing Co, on Kings Road, only five minutes from the original location on Cheltenham Mount.
“The evening sold out all its stickers at £12 a pop so quickly that we’ve have had to move to a bigger location,” says Harrogate Advertiser journalist and Charm event promoter Graham Chalmers, a stalwart of the Harrogate music scene, who will be hosting the Q&A with the legendary film-maker, now 77.
“That means extra tickets have been put on sale and are available via the box office at Harrogate Theatre.”
All existing tickets are still valid for the new venue for the 7pm event that will combine a film screening with the Q&A session about Palmer’s work with The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Leonard Cohen, Rory Gallagher, Cream, Frank Zappa, The Who, Donovan and many more.
The London-born film-maker and cultural critic has more than 100 films to his name, ranging from early works with The Beatles, Cream, Jimi Hendrix, Rory Gallagher (Irish Tour ’74) and Frank Zappa (200 Motels), to his classical profiles of Maria Callas, Margot Fonteyn, John Osborne, Igor Stravinsky, Richard Wagner, Benjamin Britten, Ralph Vaughan Williams and more besides.
Over the past 50 years, Palmer has received more than
40 international prizes, including 12 gold medals from the New York Film
Festival, along with numerous BAFTAs and Emmy Awards.
Palmer, who served an apprenticeship with Ken Russell and
Jonathan Miller, made the landmark film All My Loving, the first ever about pop
music history, first broadcast in 1968.
He was responsible too for the iconic live film Cream
Farewell Concert, shot at the supergroup’s last-ever show at the Royal Albert
Hall: a memorable night with Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker in 1968.
Harrogate Film Festival founder Adam Chandler says: “Tony Palmer’s glittering career deserves such an event, so we can’t wait to welcome him. We’re delighted this film-making legend is so popular and are grateful to our venue partners, Cold Bath Brewing Co and RedHouse Originals, for enabling this exciting event to happen.”
Host Chalmers says: “Palmer is the greatest arts documentary filmmaker Britain has produced in the past 50 years and personally knew most of the greatest figures in the classical music world, as well as rock music.
“The fact he’s making the journey to Harrogate as a stand-alone event shows how highly regarded Harrogate Film Festival is nationally and shows that Harrogate, despite appearances, is a town with a genuine rock’n’roll pedigree.”
RedHouse Originals gallery previously has played host to Pop Art doyen Sir Peter Blake and still will be involved in next month’s event, hanging classic 1960s’ artwork and photography at The Clubhouse and curating the music playlist for the after-show party.
Presented by Chalmers in conjunction with Harrogate Film Society, Rock Goes To The Movies will feature a rare screening of Palmer’s film about The Beatles that featured in his All You Need Is Love TV series, with a script by Fab Four insider Derek Taylor, plus clips from Palmer’s Cream Farewell Concert film.
Tickets available from harrogatetheatre.co.uk, on 01423 502116 or in person from the Harrogate Theatre box office.More information on the 2020 Harrogate Film Festival at harrogatefilm.co.uk.
Any profits from the evening will go to Harrogate Film Society and Harrogate Film Festival.
Tony Palmer’s ten music films
1. All You Need Is Love,1975-1976,17-part series on the history of American
Popular Music from Bing Crosby to The Beatles.
2. Bird On A Wire, 1972, featuring Leonard.
3. All My Loving,1968, including The Who, The Beatles and more.
4. Cream Farewell Concert 1968.
5. 200 Motels – Frank Zappa,1971.
6. Rory Gallagher – Irish Tour,1974.
7. A Time There Was, 1979, profile of composer Benjamin Britten.
8. Tangerine Dream – Live In Coventry Cathedral,1975.
9. Ginger Baker In Africa,1971.
10. Wagner – By Charles Wood, music conducted by Georg Solti, photographed
by Vittorio Storaro; with Richard Burton, Vanessa Redgrave and Laurence Olivier,1983.
ITALIAN film director
Federico Fellini will be the focus of a Vintage Sundays retrospective season at
City Screen, York, from March 8.
Dave Taylor, City
Screen’s marketing manager, says: “We’re delighted to present five films from
the maestro of Italian cinema on Sundays at midday throughout March and
stretching into April.”
First up, on March 8, will be Fellini’s first international success, 1953’s I Vitelloni (PG), a nakedly autobiographical film, set in his hometown of Rimini, that follows the lives of five young vitelloni, or layabouts.
1956’s Night Of
Cabira (PG), on March 15, bridges the transition between Fellini’s early
neo-realist period and his later more fantastical works. His bittersweet and
eloquent glimpse into the life and dreams of an eternally optimistic prostitute
in Rome later provided the inspiration for the musical Sweet Charity.
La Dolce Vita (12A), from 1960, is an era-defining sensation that chronicles seven nights and seven dawns in the life of gossip journalist Marcello in a vast widescreen fresco of the glitterati of Rome at the height of Italy’s post-war economic boom. Marcello Mastroianni and Anita Ekberg star.
Fellini’s 1963 film, 8½ (15), on March 29, is a semi-autobiographical portrait of creative block and one of the great films about film-making. Beleaguered auteur Guido is unable to finish the film he has planned, luxuriating in his inner conflicts.
The Fellini finale
will be 1965’s Juliet Of The Spirits (15) on April 5. His first colour feature
is an exercise in the neuroses and fantasies of a woman, played by Fellini’s
wife, Giulietta Masina, who suspects that her husband is betraying her.
All the films will start at 12 noon. Bookings can be made on 0871 902 5747, at picturehouses.com or in person at the Coney Street Picturehouse cinema.
THE National Centre for Early Music’s 20th
anniversary spring season in York opens not with the raising of a glass of
champagne, but with a Cuppa & A Chorus.
Led by community musician Chris Bartram, the 2pm to 4pm
session on February 24 is an opportunity to sing in a relaxed environment and
enjoy a cup of tea, a slice of cake and a friendly chat.
Up to 50 singers attend each monthly gathering to sing “songs you know and love and explore new ones from around the world”, and further sessions of “Connecting Through Singing” will follow on March 30, April 20, May 18 and June 22. The charge is £3.50 each time; booking is recommended and more details can be found at ncem.co.uk/cuppachorus.
2020’s concert programme opens with the University of York
Song Day, an afternoon and evening of three concerts under the title The Year
of Song on Leap Year Saturday, February 29. The focus falls on romantic lieder
in the 19th century company of Robert Schumann at 12.30pm; Robert
and Clare Schumann at 3pm and their protégé Johannes Brahms, along with Robert,
at 7pm.
Soprano Bethany Seympour, mezzo-soprano Helen Charlston,
tenor Gwilym Bowen and fortepiano player Peter Seymour perform the first and
last concerts; soprano Emily Tindall, bass Jonty Ward and fortepiano player
Nicky Losseff, the middle one.
Silent Films At The NCEM return with Franz Osten’s 1928 epic
Shiraz: A Romance Of India (cert U) on March 8 at 7.30pm, telling the story
behind the creation of the Taj Mahal, screened in a BFI restoration with a
score by Anoushka Shankar.
As part of the Yorkshire Silent Film Festival, running from May 5 to 17 with live music in village halls, theatres, cinemas and the NCEM, a double bill of Funny Business (U) at 4pm and The Woman One Longs For (PG) at 7pm will be shown on May 10.
Jonny Best’s piano accompanies Laurel & Hardy and comedy’s greatest female clown, Mabel Normand, in Funny Business; Best is joined by violinist Irine Rosnes for Curtis Bernhardt’s 1929’s German film, The Woman One Longs For, wherein Marlene Dietrich shines in her first starring role as a mysterious femme fatale in a steamy tale of erotic obsession.
Folk At The NCEM has two concerts to be presented in association with York’s Black Swan Folk Club: Urban Folk Quartet, supported by Stan Graham, on March 9 and Kathryn Roberts & Sean Lakeman’s On Reflection show on April 22.
Urban Folk Quartet’s high-energy, multi-instrumental
virtuosos Joe Broughton, Paloma Trigas, Tom Chapman and Dan Walsh combine
Celtic tunes and traditional song with Afrobeat, Indian classical, funk and
rock.
2020 marks 25 years of husband-and-wife duo Kathryn Roberts
and Sean Lakeman making music together. To celebrate this anniversary, they
take a whistle-stop tour through their past, revisiting and reinterpreting
songs from the early days of folk supergroup Equation to latest album Personae,
via a nod or two to their extra-curricular musical adventures.
Scottish traditional folk duo Aly Bain & Phil Cunningham,
who have toured together since 1986, play on March 29 and folk guitarist,
composer and ukulele player Richard Durrant returns to the NCEM on June 14 as
part of his Music For Midsummer tour that will take him 860 miles by bicycle
from Orkney to Sussex.
On his fourth and longest Cycling Music adventure, travelling with his guitar and ukulele, he will be showcasing his new album Weald Barrows. “I’ll be cycling down from Orkney alone this year and this will, for me at least, introduce a magic and a concentration to the music,” says Durrant, whose 7.30pm concert will be featured in the York Festival of Ideas.
On May 25, the NCEM plays host to Youth Sampler Day from 11am to 4pm, a chance for 12 to 18-year-old musicians to play by ear, develop their creativity and discover more about the National Youth Folk Ensemble.
“This is a fantastic opportunity for young musicians to
learn from inspiring professional musicians, with no experience of folk music
necessary, and there’ll be opportunities to take part in a short audition for
the ensemble too,” says NCEM director Delma Tomlin.
Jazz At The NCEM presents the returning Italian guitarist Antonio Forcione on April 26; legendary London and New York drummer Jeff Williams’ Bloom trio, featuring pianist Carmen Staaf and bass guitarist Michael Formanek, on May 17, and University of York Jazz Orchestra, directed by James Mainwaring, with composer John Low on piano, in a May 29 programme spanning quasi-classical textures to full-on big band sounds.
The jazz line-up continues with innovative trumpet player and composer Byron Wallen’s Four Corners, with Rob Luft, on guitar, Paul Michael on bass and Rod Young on drums, on June 10, when they will be taking part in the York Music Forum Showcase too.
In a concert embraced by the York Festival of Ideas, Wallen
will be putting his new album Portrait in the spotlight, conceived when sitting
in the central square in Woolwich and being struck by the community around him
with its mixture of ages and nationalities. Wallen last played at the NCEM last
October as a member of Cleveland Watkiss’s band.
Acoustic Triangle blur the boundaries between classical, jazz music and the avant-garde on their return to the NCEM on June 23 with their adventurous repertoire of compositions by band members Tim Garland (saxophone, bass clarinet) and Gwilym Simcock (piano), plus Kenny Wheeler, John Taylor, Bill Evans, Olivier Messiaen and Maurice Ravel. Double bassist Malcolm Creese completes their line-up.
World Sound At The NCEM welcomes more returnees, Scottish
combo Moishe’s Bagel, on March 27 with their cutting-edge, intoxicating,
life-affirming Eastern European and Middle Eastern folk and klezmer music.
Everything stops for tea at 7.30pm on June 9 in the second
World Sound event, Manasamitra’s Tea Houses: Camellia Sinensis, a show that
tells the story of tea as new live music mixes with lighting and soundscapes,
participatory tea rituals and ambisonic technology that captures the audience’s
emotional responses in the performance space.
Creator Supriya Nagarajan uses her experience of synaesthesia to explore the interplay between sight, sound, taste and smell in a multi-media show that directly engages the 7.30pm audience in a musical interpretation of a tea ceremony that now forms part of the York Festival of Ideas.
Early Music At The NCEM has two highlights: the Early Music Day on March 21 and the University of York Baroque Day on May 2.
Three concerts in one day make up the Early Music Day, featuring harpsichordist playing JS Bach’s 48 Preludes & Fugues Part 1 at 1pm at the NCEM; recorder ensemble Palisander, with the NCEM’s Minster Minstrels, presenting Double, Double Toil And Trouble at 3.30pm at the Unitarian Chapel, St Saviourgate, and The Brabant Ensemble’s Cloistered Voices at 6pm at the NCEM. Previously known as the European Day of Music, the Early Music Day will be streamed across Europe.
The University of York Baroque Day is likewise divided into three concerts, taking the theme of Airs and Graces: A Musical Miscellany. At 12.30pm, trumpeter Crispian Steele Perkins joins Yorkshire Baroque Soloists for theatre music by Purcell and a flamboyant arrangement of Vivaldi’s La Follia; at 3pm, harpsichordist Masumi Yamamoto plays works by Handel, Scarlatti and Aime; the University Baroque Ensemble rounds off the day at 7pm with Scottish airs arranged by James Oswald and Geminiani.
Families At The NCEM brings Leeds company Opera North to York for 11.30am and 2pm performances of Dr Seuss’s Green Ham And Eggs in an introduction to opera for four to seven-year-old children and their families.
Two opera singers and a nine-piece orchestra begin their short
performance with an interactive workshop introducing families to the music,
instruments and themes within the piece, before they bring to musical life Dr
Seuss’s tale of the persistent Sam-I-Am’s mission to persuade a grumpy grouch
to try a delicious plate of green eggs and ham.
Looking ahead to the autumn, concerts in the NCEM diary already are folk trio Faustus (Benji Kirkpatrick, Saul Rose, Paul Sartin) on October 13; Chiaroscuro Quartet’s Mozart String Quartets, November 18; Unearth Repeat, with Sam Sweeney, Jack Rutter, Louis Campbell and Ben Nicholls, November 23, and Lady Maisery: Awake Arise, A Christmas Show For Our Times, with Jimmy Aldridge and Sid Goldsmith, December 18.
In this 20th anniversary year, “this spring we
are undertaking an essential refurbishment programme, in part to upgrade some
of the facilities that are showing the strain of so much usage,” says Delma, as
new loos and a kitchen take shape.
“We’ll be celebrating the anniversary fully in the autumn, especially
with a commission that will engage Early music with digital technology and field
recordings from Askham Bog. Yorkshire Wildlife Trust will be involved, as will
gamba player Liam Byrne this autumn.”
Tickets for the NCEM spring season are on sale on 01904 658338 and at ncem.co.uk.
LOVERS going potty for each other on Valentine’s Day are invited to bond over romantic pottery classes at Cineworld York, Kathryn Avenue, Huntington, York, tomorrow.
Happy Valentine’s Clay can be enjoyed by dating duos who book for the 6pm
ViP screening of Ghost on the 30th anniversary of the 1990 American movie.
This will be the chance for courting couples or pairs of just friends to channel their inner Patrick Swayze or Demi Moore by re-creating Ghost’s iconic pottery scene – soundtracked to The Righteous Brothers’ Unchained Melody, as in the film – in the exclusive ViP lounge before sitting down to a romantic three-course meal. Ticket holders will then watch Ghost in luxury reclining seats.
Ghost’s pottery moment
sees the shirtless
Swayze’s Sam Wheat sitting behind Moore’s Molly Jensen as she carefully sculpts
the wet clay. He reaches out and ruins her vase, so they begin a new one
together, his hands interlaced with hers, before abandoning
the wheel in favour of a loving embrace.
Those who want to avoid messy pottery-making a deux still can partake in the ViP Valentine’s Day screening experience in the intimate screening room, with access to the ViP Lounge private bar 45 minutes before the show and complimentary dining and unlimited nachos, hot dogs, popcorn and soft drinks, all included in the ticket price.
Ghost guests should arrive an hour before the 6pm screen time for their romantic pottery and dinner date.Tickets cost £32 at cineworld.com.vip.
YORK author
Fiona Shaw will discuss the screen adaptation of her novel Tell It To The Bees
after the 6.30pm screening of Annabel Jankel’s film at City Screen, York, on
March 4.
This live
question-and-answer session will mark the conclusion of LGBT History Month,
when Fiona will be interviewed by Dr Hannah Roche, lecturer in 20th
century literature and culture at the University of York.
Under
discussion will be Fiona’s 2009 book and its ten-year journey from page to
screen, and the audience will have the chance to ask questions.
Tell It
To The Bees is set in small-town 1950s’ Britain as a doctor develops a
relationship with her young patient’s mother. Lydia Weekes (played by Holliday
Grainger) is distraught at the break-up of her marriage, but when her young
son, Charlie (Gregor Selkirk), makes friends with the local doctor, Jean
Markham (Anna Paquin), her life is turned upside down.
Charlie
tells his secrets to no-one but the bees, but even he cannot keep his mother’s
friendship to himself. In the claustrophobic 1950s, however, the locals do not
like things done differently. As Lydia and the doctor become closer,
rumours start to fly, threatening to shatter Charlie’s world.
Fiona will
be selling and signing copies of Tell It To The Bees after the screening,
along with copies of her most recent novel, 2018’s Outwalkers.
In
addition, she has volunteered to visit book groups in York and the surrounding
area. If interested, please contact Fiona via her website, fiona-shaw.com.
Tickets for March 4’s event are on sale on 0871 902 5726 or at picturehouse.com.
TONY Palmer, one of Britain’s greatest-ever music film-makers, will make a rare appearance at an exclusive event at next month’s Harrogate Film Festival.
The BAFTA-winning director, now 77, will reflect on working with a glittering array of Sixties and Seventies musicians in their heyday in Rock Goes To The Movies at the RedHouse Originals Gallery, Cheltenham Mount, Harrogate, on March 12.
Under discussion at 7pm will be The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Leonard
Cohen, Rory Gallagher, Cream, Frank Zappa, The Who, Donovan and many more,
complemented by a special screening of rarely-seen footage of The Beatles, shot
at the height of the 1960s by the influential and ground-breaking Palmer.
The festival event will be hosted by stalwart Harrogate Advertiser journalist Graham Chalmers, promoter of Charm events in Harrogate, in conjunction with Harrogate Film Society.
The London-born film-maker and cultural critic has more than 100 films to his name, ranging from early works with The Beatles, Cream, Jimi Hendrix, Rory Gallagher (Irish Tour ’74) and Frank Zappa (200 Motels), to his classical profiles of Maria Callas, Margot Fonteyn, John Osborne, Igor Stravinsky, Richard Wagner, Benjamin Britten, Ralph Vaughan Williams and more besides.
Palmer, who served an apprenticeship with Ken Russell and Jonathan
Miller, made the landmark film All My Loving, the first ever about pop music
history, first broadcast in 1968.
He was responsible too for the iconic live film Cream Farewell Concert, shot at the supergroup’s last-ever show at the Royal Albert Hall: a memorable night with Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker in 1968.
All You Need Is Love, Palmer’s prime-time, 17-part TV series documenting popular music in the 20th century, was hailed as “the best and most important television survey of popular music ever” when first shown in 1977.
Among more than 40 international prizes Palmer has won over the past 50 years are 12 gold medals from the New York Film Festival, along with numerous BAFTAs and Emmy Awards.
Rock music aficionado Graham Chalmers will conduct a question-and-answer session with Palmer, and all eyes will be on the rare screening of Palmer’s Beatles film, featuring All You Need Is Love and a script by Fab Four insider Derek Taylor. Clips from Cream Farewell Concert 1968 will be shown too.
Rock Goes To The Movies with Tony Palmer is the latest in an ever-expanding line of contemporary culture events at the independent RedHouse Originals gallery, home to original artwork and limited-edition prints by international artists since 2010. Pop artist Sir Peter Blake, rock music photographer Gered Mankowitz (of The Rolling Stones and Hendrix fame) and Wirral rock band The Coral have made appearances there.
Tickets are on sale at harrogatefilm.co.uk, on 01423 502116 or in person from Harrogate Theatre. More information on the 2020 Harrogate Film Festival at harrogatefilm.co.uk.
JOKER – Live In Concert will bring Todd
Phillips’s award-laden film to York Barbican with live orchestral accompaniment
of Hildur Guðnadóttir’s score on May 17 at 7.30pm.
Preceded by the world premiere at the Eventim
Apollo, London, on April 30, the international tour has further Yorkshire shows
at Hull Bonus Arena on May 16 and Sheffield City Hall on June 24.
Central to the emotional journey Joaquin
Phoenix’s character Arthur Fleck takes through Phillips’s film is Guðnadóttir’s
beautifully haunting, BAFTA and Golden Globe-winning and Academy Award- nominated
score.
The fusion of looming industrial
soundscapes with raw, emotive string-led melodies – led by a lone cello – creates a melancholic shroud
marked with moments of hope, unfolding gradually to become a fever pitch of
disquieting tension.
Phillips’s music will be brought to life by a full orchestra to build a “vivid, visceral and entirely new Joker viewing experience”.
The London premiere will be conducted by Jeff Atmajian, the conductor and orchestrator of the original soundtrack; Senbla’s Dave Mahoney will take over for the UK tour dates, including York Barbican.
Hildur Guðnadóttir, the first-ever solo female winner of the Golden Globe for Best Original Score, also won a Grammy for her score for HBO’s miniseries Chernobyl. “I’m thrilled to get to see and hear Joker in the cinema with a live orchestra,” she says.
“When we recorded the music, the
orchestra brought such depth and detailed attention to the performances that we
were all literally holding our breaths during most of the recording sessions.
It was a beautiful trip. I’m so happy to get to go there again and for an
audience to experience that too.”
Director Todd Phillips says: “I speak for the entire Joker team when I say how thrilled we are to be working with Senbla and Ollie Rosenblatt on Joker – Live In Concert. I think it’s a wonderful way for audiences to experience Hildur Guðnadóttir‘s haunting and immersive score, while bearing witness to Joaquin Phoenix’s descent into madness as Arthur.”
Joker already has won the Golden Globe, BAFTA and Critics’ Choice awards for Best Actor and Best Original Score and is nominated for 11 Academy Awards, more than any other film. Those nominations for the Oscars awards ceremony include Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor and Best Original Music/Score.
Tickets for Joker – Live In Concert at York Barbican go on sale at Friday at 10am on 0203 356 5441, at yorkbarbican.co.uk or in person from the Barbican box office; Hull, 0844 858 5025 or bonusarenahull.com; Sheffield, 0114 278 9789 or sheffieldcityhall.co.uk.
YORK
composer, pianist, busker, tutor and Buster Keaton aficionado Kieran White will
be Breaking The Silents at Helmsley Arts Centre on February 1.
Accompanied by White’s expressive,
playful, gag-driven piano score, the Stoneface silent classic Steamboat Bill,
Jr, will be shown at 7.30pm “as it was originally intended to be seen in an
authentic re-creation of the early cinema experience in the picture houses of
the 1920s”.
Let Kieran make his case for why someone would want to see a black-and white, silent 1928 Buster Keaton film in 2020, the age of endless reheated Disney classics and myriad Marvel movies.
“We live in an instant world. A world governed by consumerism
and technology. What we want, we can get just by clicking a mouse. We have
forgotten how to slow down. How to breathe,” he says.
“But Buster takes us back to a time when
time itself was a different thing entirely. A time when moments were savoured,
rather than squandered.”
From past experience of his Breaking The Silents shows, White
anticipates a largely middle-aged and older audience, but he believes Keaton’s
comedic elan should appeal to “anyone with a love of history, a nostalgia for
days of yore and an unfettered imagination”.
“Breaking The Silents offers a wonderful evening for all the
family,” he says. “A lot of belly laughs. An appreciation of Buster’s
incredible athleticism and craftmanship but, most of all, a reawakening of that
state of wonderment that children have but never know they have.”
The relentless pace of Keaton’s comedy on screen leaves no gap, no rest, no breath, in White’s score, but still he finds room for quickfire references to the Steptoe And Son theme music, Porridge and The Barber Of Seville.
“The joy of Steamboat Bill, Jr is the raw energy,” says Kieran.
“You know that if the stunts went wrong then would be no take two.”
White’s piano has accompanied screenings of Keaton’s 1927 film The
General at locations as diverse as Helmsley Arts Centre, the Yorkshire Museum
of Farming at Murton Park and City Screen, Fairfax House and the Joseph
Rowntree Theatre in York.
Last September, he presented a Breaking The Silents double bill
of The General in the afternoon and Steamboat Bill, Jr in the evening at the
JoRo. White’s labours of love had necessitated 11 days of writing for The
General, a little longer for Steamboat Bill, Jr, drawing on his love of both
Keaton’s comic craft and the piano.
“I was very inspired by my grandfather,” he says, explaining why
piano was his instrument of choice. “He was a superb pianist and made the most
complex music sound effortless.
“Ever since a very early age, I’ve been fascinated by puzzles
too, particularly chess. Watching Pop play was like sitting inside a gigantic
engine, seeing gears mesh, listening to the sound of tiny hammers. Music chose
me!”
Where next might Breaking The Silents venture? “I think what I
do is unique. Ultimately, I’d love to perform all over the world,” says Kieran.
In the meantime, here is a recommendation from York filmmaker
Mark Herman, director of Brassed Off and Little Voice, to head to Helmsley Arts
Centre on February 1 for the Keaton and White double act.
“Kieran White’s score and his live accompaniment raises an already almost perfect film to fresh heights,” he said after seeing The General. “It’s a shame that Buster Keaton never knew that his flawless performance could actually be enhanced.”
The next film to receive the White piano touch will be Alfred Hitchcock’s The Lodger. “It’s another silent but not laugh dependent!” says Kieran. Watch this space for updates on its progress to a screen near you.
Tickets cost £12, under 18s £6, on 01439 771700 or at helmsleyarts.co.uk.