Adrian Jackson arrives first then, in need of refreshment, sets off to find the Bagel shop which I mentioned as an incentive in my invitation but which has inconveniently moved across the roundabout. Dan Copeland arrives and follows Adrian back down and across. Then Sandy and Fran. While I wait for them to bagel up I reflect that at least someone has turned up. So what have we got? - a previous associate director who developed work with Augusto Boal, an actor who illuminated our outdoor work with presence and clarity, a once Chair of the Board and ex theatre writer (Sandy) and someone who worked with London local authorities before devoting her time to looking after green spaces (Fran). That’s a fair representation of the alliances that Bubble relied on when making promenade shows.
A text lands. Eric MacLennan - actor, artist and another good friend - he is waiting just inside Valentines Park. Clutching bagels and coffee we set off to meet him.
From 1993 to 2007 Valentines was the park where Bubble opened its summer season. From the last tent season in 1993, via the change to promenading in 1994, from community cast shows through to the ACE withdrawal of funding in 2007, the Bubble would be resident in this Ilford green space for at least a week before setting off to circle some of the rest of outer London. We started our season here and we will start the walks here.
Eric greets us with his customary warmth and we set off across Valentines to the tree.
Promenade shows mark outdoor spaces like dogs mark lampposts. Watching a scene played out below trees or by water creates a memory that is fusion of nature, story and performance. Or is this just me - it might well be as Adrian doesn’t remember anything about this place despite having directed a show here.
Back on the trail like dogs we catch the scent of previous visits. Baucis and Philemon played in the sandpit there. Mosquitos bit the Lidell family in their boat on that lake there. Pericles’s stage started to tilt as it took to the seas, there.
And we arrive at the tree.
Trees become the theme of this walk. They provide a backdrop, shelter, focus, lighting grid, making for quick changes - and points of suspension. From this tree we dangled a victorian chaise longue. In it reclined a caterpillar smoking a hookah. Courtest of designer Keith Khan, caterpillar Linda dobell and flying by Tim Anger. The tree - a wonderful mature fir, looked down over many scenes over the years, but for some reason it's Linda as the caterpillar that is caught in my memory.
We stride off, past where base camp sat and on towards Forest Gate. Not only is the conversation good the task of linking up bits of London that you may not know, and certainly didn’t know connected, is strangely satisfying. Eric and Adrian leave us at Wanstead Flats - a vast expanse that the council claims as part of Epping Forest - we were not convinced. Michael Breakey - designer, maker, teacher, performer - joins us at West Ham Park. We’ve done four miles now - have I misjudged the task? Sandy talks to an ice cream man, then to a caterer and then joins one of the four cricket teams who seem to be playing on the same cricket pitch, 8 batsmen and 8 bowlers working alongside each other, but in the field can there really be 38 fielders or are they playing for more than one team?
…we find the Greenway - a new path on top of an underground sewer that takes us to our destination, Three Mills Island in Bow.
This was a venue we only played a few times but it represents some of the less lush spaces Bubble animated. Here the trees are in their infancy. The grassed area is flat and perfectly circular. There are no undulations to offer sight lines, no bushes to hide props in, nothing to obscure one scene from another. But the local authority were happy we came and delivered part of their cultural plan - and that was our remit.
We part. I leave Dan at the bus stop and walk on to Mile End station. The streets are quiet - this is late lockdown remember. There’s a Fullers pub open but I resist the call of a pint of Pride and find that the Bow Road seems to be a bit longer than I remember it.
So has the first one worked? For me, yes - something has been shed, perhaps left in the locations we visited. And some emotional connection has been tested, some memory that perhaps I didn’t fully believe has been checked. The tree was still there - perhaps a bit bored now - but it was a witness, and it testified.
No comments:
Post a Comment