To mark the proms

Pigeon Song

London, did you have to
take my child away?
you buried him under
rent and low pay.
I've been cycling in circles
round your empty streets.
i've been searching
in the pouring rain.

I've been going alone
to the cinema
I've been stealing all my food
from the electric avenue
now the pigeons gather
round my feeding hand.
and we talk til the evening fades.

I have learnt how it goes
what you wait for never shows
and what you least wanted
holds you down like a stone.
just like a stone.

Now i feed the birds.
day after day.
only they can hear me pray for
a lighter heart. a lighter load
to be moving. moving. moving
my way home

Spin Cycle - As promised, here are images from the performance...

MORE TO FOLLOW

Justin King and Andy McKee

A pianist in the attic

Well, here i am again at the Manchester International Festival for this week's entertainment. On the agenda this week are two eagerly awaited performances, The Pianist and Pretend you have Big Buildings.

Based on Wladyslaw Szpilman's story of survival, The Pianist is better known by Roman Polanski's film. This performance, by director and writer Neil Bartlett, is narrated by actor Peter Guinness and features renditions of Chopin and Szpilman's music by Mikhail Rudy.

The choice of venue struck me and my accompanying friend as somewhat unusual until we arrived, having finally parked and found our way through the cold mancunion streets. The warehouse attic of the Museum of Science and Industry provided the ideal atmospheric backdrop for a powerful tale of survival narrated with sardonic verve and compassion. Mikhail Rudy's performance was heavenly, an angelic aphrodisiac.

Tonight's play, Pretend you have Big Buildings, by 26 year old Ben Musgrave, promises to be equally inspiring. Until then, i shall sketch to some Edith Piaf, Chopin, and, in anticipation of Sunday's Rise Festival, The Holloways.

Cooking chicken curry for a friend:)

The Vanishing

Apologies to all readers who are a bit fed up of crying over spilt milk. I would like to, instead, draw your attention to some music, a festival and a film.

Namely, the Manchester International Festival. A recent trip to the city yielded a visit to a performance called The Vanishing by Michael Mayhew, a live artist based in Manchester. In this particular instance, Mayhew sought to record and represent stories of vanishings in people's lives, the bigger project having him question notions of invisibility, and involving travel to Australia to track down a missing sibling as well as collaborating with a magician on illusions. The day's performance resulted in a sonic representation of recordings of people's stories as shared with the individual performers; audio that rose and fell and boomed within the high ceilings and mosaiced floors of the town hall, a whisper rising to a crescendo to a rasp, a momentary silence shattered by the sound of waves crashing, and chanted stories blurted, shouted, scrawled on the black clad performers walking the globe they had mapped in their heads. I closed my eyes and relaxed while one of the performers, in this instance a friend, writhed beside me, her eyes shut tight as she chanted, chanted, chanted...

Also featured in the festival were two rising stars of British music, Bat for Lashes and Kid Harpoon who, caught my ear, but, i missed.....i missed.....i missed.....

As for my latest trip to the cinema; Marion Cotillard is phenomenal in La Vie En Rose. Her large, expressive eyes coupled with the little sparrow's soulful voice are delightfully haunting. I'll play some music and let it fester.