A late start, no ultra-late meetings, so nothing to hold me up. I left in decent time, left my coat in the office because of the unseasonable weather, was almost at the bus stop.. remembered I'd left my Oyster card in my coat! Back upstairs, back down again. Crossing the road again, I checked, and my phone was of the opinion that I hadn't missed a bus, with my shenanigans - sure enough, as I approached the stop, the people there started to move. There was a bus coming up behind me.. and it was the very one I wanted, lo and behold! Excellent. At the theatre, I picked up my ticket with 10 minutes to spare, and was informed that the house was just open.
As it happened, who should be getting into the lift as I passed but Martin Shaw and someone else.. so I was up with them. Of course, muggins here pressed the wrong button to start with.. never mind, we did get there, and in time for me to grab a front-row seat, albeit near the end. The front row filled up quickly, although at that stage the house was practically empty; it had literally only just opened, and took a few minutes to fill properly. The guy that ended up sitting at the end of the row turned out to be a huge fan of tonight's performer, Tim Dalling, and had found out about this by chance - never heard of the Crick Crack Club, never been to Soho Theatre. Hell, but he was looking forward to the show, though!
I'd never heard of Tim Dalling. On the basis of this show, I have to conclude that he's completely bonkers. Which tends to be a good thing. He comes on, cloaked in a duvet (of invisibility?) through which pokes an umbrella handle, and playing the accordion. Under the duvet, you can just see a tartan jacket, a clashing tartan kilt (torn in front), and spotty socks inside Docs. He does shed the duvet pretty quickly, which goes to form part of the backdrop as he entertains us.
I got an interesting email tonight, advertising a storytelling workshop - now, I'm busy that night anyway, but they do have an interesting intro about storytelling:
The art of storytelling is essential. Humans are story-driven creatures. We need stories to convey meaning, values and hopes. Human knowledge is based on stories and the human brain is a sort of cognitive machine necessary to understand, remember and tell stories. Stories mirror human thought, as humans think in narrative structures and most often remember facts in story form. Neurologists confirm that when a human hears straight data, only the language parts of our brains work to decode the meaning of this data. But when we hear a story, all the parts of the brain that we would use if we were actually experiencing that story light up and become active.
So, we need stories, and we need storytellers. Tim Dalling is a natural-born storyteller. Over the course of the evening, he switches continually between heartfelt stories about his family - and, most poignantly, his troubled brother - and fantastical tales of coyote, the ancient trickster. You can tell when he's switching to the latter, because he dons an animal-skin headdress.. topped with that same umbrella handle. Surreal isn't the word. And beware - as a member of the front row, you are likely to be asked to participate - over and above the group participation everyone has to do, which involves jumping, and howling.
He's a natural performer, with a terrific ability to draw verbal pictures for us, perfectly evoking the idea of the teensy spider that helps coyote, or the image of a dishevelled man at a train station. And the whole evening is punctuated with his songs. A very honest, very real show, which he's now touring for the rest of the month in the north of England - recommended, for an alternative evening. Contains naughty language, and nudity. You have been warned.
Afterwards, back to the office, on a bus full of people whose bags apparently needed seats too. And tomorrow, back with Up in the Cheap Seats for my only Meetup this week, Pinter at the Pinter.. Pinter plays at the Pinter Theatre! Our particular combination is One for the Road / New World Order / Ashes to Ashes / Mountain Language. I bought my ticket for this one from another member who couldn't go - Ticketmaster, so hopefully there won't be a problem with me picking up the ticket.
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