Other Events Reviews 2007
Anecdotes Publishing - Book launch - A Season with Vivien Leigh
Dilys Gater well respected medium and author held her official book launch in the atmospheric surroundings of the Shrewsbury room in the Old Hall Hotel. Dilys' book marked the 40th Anniversary of the death of Vivien Leigh and was not only a tribute and celebration of Leigh's past life, work and achievements but also an instrument for Vivien herself to provide a biographical retrospective from beyond the grave. Subtle and reticent not wishing to bombard the small and intimate gathering, Dilys only alluded to her controversial and unorthodox psychic methods which was the impetus for the novel. The event after all was to be a celebration of Vivien, who according to Gater is a forgotten and somewhat un-acclaimed mid 20th Century actress forever in the shadow of her iconic husband Lawrence Olivier.
Gater, whilst relaying her own anxiousness immediately before the book launce, divulged how she was comforted by Vivien herself who reassured Dilys not to worry 'I'll take care of it.' This certainly seemed to be the case; you could not help but be distracted by the overbearing presence of Vivien, pictures of her beautiful face peering down from every corner of the Shrewsbury room.
Dilys Gater began her speech by reassuring the audience she was not there to prove there was 'something' after death or persuade sceptics to take her seriously. Why should she? Dilys has no need or desire to prove herself to anyone after all she is a well respected and popular medium who has been helping people for over fifteen years, moreover she has written over one hundred books, which is no small achievement. She has been critically acclaimed for her first Dinas book: A summer with Bax and a testament to her credibility is manifest in the foreword for A Season with Vivien Leigh written by Ray Johnson a professor in Film Heritage & Documentary at the University of Staffordshire. Johnson who gracefully opened the book launch, expressed his delight that the new book goes someway to commemorate Vivien Leigh for her largely forgotten contribution to the golden age of movie making. As he notes 'Vivien Leigh is ripe for reassessing as a creative artist and Dilys' work can only be helpful to this end.'
Certainly Gater has brought the timeless actress back to centre stage, back in the limelight and has given Leigh a chance to perform yet again. Dilys revealed that not only was the book undoubtedly Viviens show, but that she was the one in control throughout the whole process even down to thinking of the names for the different interview sessions; 'she envisaged the book as a theatrical production.' Vivien's chosen interview titles, it became apparent were all plays from the great playwright and Leigh's entrusted confidant; Noel Coward.
Whether you truly believe Vivien is speaking from the grave, Dilys has undoubtedly highlighted the importance of Vivien Leigh and in doing so has opened up fresh dialogue, allowing the actress or should we say actor to be examined in the light of modern ideologies. Moreover the book is grounded by in-depth, thorough research collated by Dilys' dedicated husband Paul Gater which provides an interesting basis and build-up before the interviews are introduced.
Dily Gater paints a picture of Vivien as a beautiful and accomplished, determined actress and yet a 'brittle' utterly fragile human being. Plagued with insomnia and manic hysteria, she is not unlike the character of Tennessee Williams' Blanche Dubois, a role for which she won an Oscar. It became evident that the eighteen month process Gater endured, whilst under the instruction of Vivien Leigh was a gruelling and exhausting experience. It appears Leigh is as demanding in death as she was in life.
Jenny and Helen Mather
Manchester Circle of Magicians - Close Up Magic Evening
Harry Potter is about to explode upon the nation's cinema screens and bookstands saving souls and stopping tyrants with a cursory wave of his wand - this is serious magic.
Harry Robson approaches one of the seven occupied tables in the Paxton Suite in a blaze of mustard-blazered colour, full of chuckles and grins - this is fun magic.
Don't get me wrong, the seven members of Manchester's Magic Circle take their craft very seriously - Andy Dean's two minute card routine probably took two months to perfect - but, like any competent performer, they make it look so easy and enjoy baffling their close-up audience. That's the strength of a good performer: to make it look easy.
Compere, Neil Fletcher introduces each Magician to his table in a parody of speed-dating, each brings his own skills and personality with the ultimate aims to charm and of course distract and misdirect us. But that's part of the fun.
Seldom have I heard so much laughing and spontaneous applause at a Fringe event. And this is fun, fun, fun! Forget TV Magicians for a moment with their glitzy spandex-clad starry-eyed assistants, this is the raw comedic conversation between performer and audience. As Buxton's very own Gary Williams sums up, "I've got no cards! How can I perform magic without cards you might ask, like this, pick a spoon from this pack, Sir?"
"How did he do that?" asks one audience member, Dan Wardle a 14 year old apprentice from Chapel-en-le-Frith. "Very well I think you'll find!" says Harry. And he's right as he deals just as easily with cards and gasps of amazement.
Philip Partridge comes to the table with foam balls coming out of his ears. More camp than a row of tents, "one L in Philip, he announces, except at Christmas when it's Noel." And that's the flavour of it.
The Tommy Cooper factor is alive and well. Peter Roberts, Phil Tilson and Ian Hallsworth complete the deck. This event's for you even if you don't like magic because the comedy and the fun make it an ideal way to spend an evening.
David Carlisle
Margaret Robinson - St Anne's Flower Festival
One of the strengths of the Fringe is its diversity. As well as the usual collection of drama, music and art events, it is pleasing to know that there is still room for something like ... well, a flower festival.
The downside of such variety is that it's not always easy to find reviewers who are expert in all of the art forms on offer, and so I hold up my hand and say that my knowledge of floristry is thin. Nonetheless, I will attempt to do the event justice - just don't expect any Latin names of the flowers on show!
I'm not sure what I expected from this event - possibly the entire church to be bedecked in a carpet of flowers. That's not what was on show at St Anne's but what is there is equally effective. Nine displays around the walls of the church represent various Christian festivals, from Mardi Gras to Nativity. These are interspersed with smaller, Japanese-style displays. Some are quite literal in their interpretation (a dove of flowers in the Whit Sunday display, a manger full of flowers in the Nativity display), but I preferred the displays which are slightly more abstract (the shock of colour to represent Mardi Gras, the autumnal oranges and yellows of Harvest Festival).
The most expressive part of these displays, however, is the scent which even to my less than powerful olfactory sense was particularly enjoyable.
So, a Christian flower festival - how does that fit with what one usually imagines to be a Fringe event? Well, surely if anything, the Fringe should be about different groups getting together to display their talents and that is what we have here.
Robbie Carnegie
Underground Events - One-Minute Theatre Festival
Buxton Fringe are proud to present for the first time this year the theatrical free-for-all that is One Minute Play festival. It is a veritable festival within a festival and a chance to see the shortest plays in England in the smallest theatre in England.
If variety is your thing, then this is for you. If there were a Fringe Festival "57 Varieties" award, then OMP would win it outright. A dazzling variety of plays and staged activities ranging from dieting foxes to gyrating Jesus'.
When the offer goes out for playwrights short on length to capture the welcoming Fringe audience in the shortest possible time, anything can happen. Sadly, the opening night crowd were let down by absent performers - it wasn't just the AWOL Theatre Company who simply failed to appear!
Thought-provoking and highly entertaining, we were however entertained and quizzed in equal measure by Sophie Davies's, Secret Service and Tom Crawshaw's, Dreams Come True. We also learned about the reasons why badgers see things only in black & white.
Sophie's play asked "Who can you turn to when you need someone to keep a highly personal secret?" The answer staggeringly obvious is her Secret Service. Local award winning playwright, Tom's piece fused the boundary between dreams and reality, leaving the onlooker wondering if a dream could last forever.
David Carlisle
King Sterndale Slides with Music - King Sterndale Slides with Music
Kingsterndale Village Hall has had a makeover; a fresh coat of paint and some upholstered chairs have transformed it. But Johnny Dagger's equipment is refreshingly unchanged. There is still the manually operated 35 mm slide projector slightly lopsidedly propped up on telephone directories, the wires snaking across the floor to the audio player parked inconveniently under a table, requiring Johnny to have to get down on his hands and knees to make tape changes, and the familiar accumulation of dust on the slides.
The formula is also the same - as delightful and charming as ever. Johnny is still an inveterate photographer and he has not lost his considerable skill in matching music to his new photographs. To have chosen Pink Floyd to accompany dramatic shots of Madeira was a masterstroke. The variety of pictures was astonishing. We were swept from Kingsterndale Pet Show to Hong Kong post the handover and then to Copenhagen train station via the Calanques near Marseilles accompanied by music ranging from the BBC's All Creatures Great and Small to selections from Gyaneh by Katchurchurian.
All this and coffee and biscuits too!
P.L.
One more performance at Kingsterndale Parish Hall on 12 July at 8.00pm
Nice Venues - The Wall - Poetry Slam
Now this is a brilliant idea - simple but I'm not sure it's been done at Buxton before.
As you enter the Old Clubhouse from St John's Road there is a wall on your left. On The Wall you'll find scraps of poetry - verse, limericks, haiku (well three line poems anyway). Read them and vote for the one you like most.
Much of this is ephemera of the most fleeting nature and simply expresses how someone felt about the rain today or how grateful they are to Alice.
Poetry is the genre that many people turn to at times of stress and high emotion and so it will be interesting to see what appears on The Wall over the coming days. What will writers respond to and how? Will writers gain in confidence as they become accustomed to this opportunity and will the writing become braver and more daring in turn?
I don't expect any great poetry but I expect it will be honest. Some of it might be induced by alcohol - well the Old Clubhouse is a pub! Fringe romances may blossom and fade as we watch. Actors and singers may report success or disappointment. Or it may simply carry on raining and we'll get a succession of splishy-splashy poems.
The editors of The Wall may find they've unleashed a bit of a beast here and will have problems keeping it tidy and selecting/collecting the best writing for the final-day performance. I guess they'll be happy to accept that problem.
Keith Savage
Jennie Ainsworth - Blue Badge Guide. - Guided Walk - Vera Brittain's Buxton
Jennie Ainsworth's guided walk is a Fringe institution almost as old as the Fringe itself. Though Jennie herself is far too sprightly to be an institution just yet I am sure we will get her own plaque alongside her beloved Vera's in time.
Jennie is a Blue Badge Guide so thoroughly knowledgeable about Brittain's life, letters, diaries and Testaments that she doesn't really need her card index of quotations. Her walk is the embodiment of the Platonic method as she gently ambles from one point another using each to prompt reflection and exposition on her hero's life and times. Particularly stimulating is Jennie's deep understanding of Vera's social context, its mores and restrictions and the way she links that to her developing resistance to its ethos. I once described Vera Brittain as "a galloping snob". I now know this was unfair. She was a snob but more intellectually than I had understood. She was spectacularly rude about the petit bourgeois, prattling existence of her contemporaries in Buxton (and this may in part explain the town's reluctance to sanction a blue plaque till very recently) but this was from the position of a fiercely intelligent and independent young woman who wanted nothing of their supine submission to a patriarchal convention. As such we moderns must have some sympathy for her.
As Jennie pauses on her perambulation she produces visual aids to illustrate her many points and these tend to stimulate chatter among the small group. Political or social viewpoints may be expressed and discussion proceeds with interest and some hilarity, guided by Jennie's gentle erudition and wit.
The whole trip is most enjoyable and stimulating. I've been an amateur guide myself and am humbled by the skill of a professional. Long may Jennie and Vera continue to enlighten the Fringe. Don't miss one of the Fringe's longest running shows!
John Wilson