Our editor Donald Hutera meets a performer, all-round creative being and, until recently, long-time Winchester resident with plenty of get-up-and-go.

James Rose is a most determined young man. Earlier this year the 29 year-old was hugely glad to be cast in Rosemary Lee’s latest outdoor venture, Under the Vaulted Sky. The piece is in essence, he says, a celebration of the Cathedral of Trees (a park based on the layout of Norwich Cathedral) and its immediate environment. Lee herself is a rightly esteemed British choreographer with an acute sensitivity for people and places, and especially how they connect and resonate.

The trouble is that Under the Vaulted Sky is being staged outdoors as one of the lynchpin productions of this year’s edition of IF: Milton Keynes International Festival. And, until about two weeks ago, James was for 18 years a resident of Winchester. It is, in total, a five-hour daily commute between the two cities. What made it even more problematic or, at the very least, expensive is that James has cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair and, as a result, requires an assistant to travel with him.

The total cost for James to reach Milton Keynes on the train (26 return journeys at £120 each) was £3,120, with an additional £3,900 to cover the daily £150 needed by his assistant. Being an enterprising fellow, James put out a call for help via Wefund. It worked, too, netting him from between £5 to £1,000 in donations from 52 different people for a grand total of £3,005. In the online video James evinced a cheeky charm. ‘So give me your money,’ he said, ‘…and a kiss.’

James is plainly no slouch when it comes to either fiscal smarts or cultural pursuits. He’s been a member of a youth theatre group in nearby Eastleigh, made and edited films (one of which was broadcast on the community channel in 2011) and performed in three out of four Olympic ceremonies in 2012. And he’s got plans. ‘I’m currently writing a symphony,’ says James, adding, ‘I conduct music using my head. I’ve always been interested in dance, theatre and performance. I listened to a lot if Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals when I was younger, automatically imagining how they looked onstage. Even now, whenever I listen to music, I see the staging and design of the piece being performed. My intention for both my symphony and the musical I’m writing is to incorporate multiple art forms and media to make it accessible to non-traditional audiences.’ Performance, he feels, ‘is a powerful tool to convey different ideas and emotions which some of society may have lost touch with.’

James is currently interviewing with the BBC and a number of theatre companies regarding full-time employment. Although he no longer lives in Winchester, he’s quick to sing the praises of its promotion of the arts in many forms. ‘The Theatre Royal has supported me in the past,’ he explains, ‘with an R&D project working around inclusive dance. The city has a good reputation for culture, being renowned on the street performance circuit as a receptive place to perform.’

James met Rosemary Lee, or Rosie as she’s commonly known, at a seminar in Eastleigh. He was impressed, enough so to jump at the chance to become involved with Under the Vaulted Sky when he heard about it. ‘The taster session for the project was fantastic,’ he enthuses. ‘Like the rest of her team, Rosie is a people person and this really shone through.’ James will be featured in two of the piece’s sections, one of which entails other cast members creating a dance around him. ‘I won’t say any more!’ says James, meaning you’ll just have to travel to Milton Keynes to see it and him. Performances are July 18-20.

Fortified by Bucks Fizz, Rebecca JS Nice braves the elements for Chesil’s Musketeers.

Celebrating its 150^th anniversary, The Chesil Theatre presents The Three Musketeers. This open-air production runs from 8-12 July in the private garden of the new Bishop’s Palace, in the grounds of Wolvesey Castle. Willis Hall’s adaption of Alexandre Dumas’ novel is directed by the Chesil’s Martin Humphrey with a cast of twenty-eight.

The gardens of the Bishop’s Palace are transformed by a hungry audience, eager to dine al fresco in this privileged spot. Immaculately kept, and surrounded by flower borders, the trim lawn spreads the breadth of the Bishop’s stately home. Gates open ninety minutes before the performance, encouraging picnickers to enjoy this secret garden normally hidden from public view behind large medieval walls. The location gives this play wide appeal, the joy of the surroundings shared by cast, crew and audience members alike.

“The show is a bonus for us,” or so the couple next to me claim as they ply me with Bucks Fizz. Settled on blankets at the side of the garden, they add, “We just came for the picnic!”  As swallows dart across the sky and the evening draws in, it’s easy to forget that there is indeed a play to watch. The audience forms orderly rows with their garden chairs, champagne glasses in hand as King Louis XIII sits idly on his throne playing cup and ball. The rest of the cast enter onto a hessian-covered stage from behind the Bishop’s bushes, and Humphrey’s well-rehearsed production goes by without a hitch. Playing the young D’Artangnan, Michel Perlmutter is commendable but tense in his use of voice and physicality in stark contrast to the mature musketeers. Occasionally breaking the fourth wall might’ve allowed the cast to draw comic value from this and other performance hurdles.

Sword fighting brings a breath of life into the play, particularly when it spreads out to the garden and involves groups of ten or more combatants. The action is well-choreographed even if the actors play it safe. The physicality of men who fight to survive, and the rowdy camaraderie, that goes with that, isn’t quite reached. Perhaps the old Bishop’s Palace – the Wolvesey Castle ruins, would’ve provided a setting better suited to the boisterous, rough-and-tumble atmosphere the performance needs.

After a downpour in the interval the play resumed, the cast completely unfazed. Their attitude was refreshing, particularly after a rainy Hat Fair where performances were continually being rescheduled or cancelled. In true English fashion the Musketeers battled and bantered to a sea of tiny faces peeping out from raincoats and hoods. Tez Cook’s Porthos and Alec Walters’s Aramis kept the whole enterprise on a roll. Various older actors appeared only for moments; ironically, some of these minor roles held more presence than the main cast conveyed. Chesil’s Three Musketeers runs for two and half hours including a twenty minute interval, so it’s worth bringing a portable chair. Some judicious cutting wouldn’t go amiss, but a delightful evening nonetheless.

Running 8-12 July.  For more information visit the Chesil Theatre website.

I lost my Hat Fair virginity this past weekend, selectively dipping in and out of the 40th anniversary edition of this outdoor theatre festival. Was it a satisfying experience? Not entirely, at least not if judged by the sometimes so-so artistic content of the five and a half (to be explained) shows I took in over the course of three days. A mere handful of performances is, I know, a drop in the bucket, given that there were four dozen or so items on offer. Still, that’s what I could manage. And in the bigger picture I’m grateful to the Hat Fair. Setting questions of aesthetics aside, for me the event was a fine excuse to get to know better not only several companies and/or artists but also Winchester itself. Below are my chronologically organised responses….

‘The Legend of Hamba’ by Tiata Fahodzi (translation: ‘theatre of the emancipated’) Location: Chapter House Lawn

Co-commissioned by Without Walls, Brighton Festival, GDIF, Hat Fair and Watford Palace Theatre, this Afro-British production’s strongest feature was its costumes and makeup. The four performers (three men and one woman) each wore boldly colourful garb, gabbling away in Ndbele (one of Zimbabwe’s three official languages) as they charged into a setting anchored by yellow plastic barrels and crates. What ensued was a somewhat dramaturgically muddy morality tale of greed, war and religion, but put across with no little brio. The physical spectacle they provided didn’t need refining but rather, perhaps, greater clarification.

‘The Lift’ by Wet Picnic  Location: Abbey Gardens

Now eight years young, Winchester’s own Wet Picnic was one of the companies presented under the umbrella of Hat Fair’s Anglo-French partnership with the Zepa 2 project. How glad I am to have seen it. The sole set-piece – a handsome, quasi-quaint lift on wheels – was immediately entrancing as it was propelled across the paths and grass of Abbey Gardens. The show’s premise is interactivity, with individual audience members invited by a cast of three bonkers bellboys to each pick one of nine floors at which this magical lift might stop. The actors were wonderfully good manipulators, inducing the assembled audience’s participation in such shenanigans as synchronised dancing, a barking international spy romp and a soppily kitsch romance. The culmination was a wedding celebration. I grinned my way throughout ‘The Lift,’ delighted by its perfectly contained manic wit (including verbal) and air of silly-smart invention.

‘Clunk’ by Dante or Die/Peut-Etre Theatre Location: Friary Gardens

Commissioned by Small Wonders, ‘Clunk’ is a wee charmer of a piece designed to tap into the rhythmic and musical impulses of under-5s. It took awhile for comfort levels to be established in the nicely secluded but, in truth, slightly off-the-beaten-track Friary Gardens. With gentle diligence the brightly orange-clad cast of three (two women and one man) worked to elicit the engagement of a small gathering of children and adults, all sitting on tiny red plastic benches adorned with spongy faux instruments. Although the musician-performers’ intentions and methods may not have initially been clear enough, their efforts gradually yielded results. By the end we were all joining in the creation of a song accompanied by movement. Sweet and, ultimately, winning.

‘The House’ by Le Collectif G. Bistaki Cooperatzia Location: The Broadway

Part of the Hat Fair’s festival-within-a festival La Fête Franglais, G. Bistaki is a handful of juggler-dancers launched in 2006. Wearing long coats, the five performers attracted quite a numerically substantial crowd, too, with a show utilising handbags and especially roof tiles with precision-style risk and humour (e.g., when attached to leads the tiles functioned like dogs taken on walkies). Apparently ‘The House’ went on for an hour but, alas, I simply couldn’t stay for more than half of it because I wanted to catch something else (see below) across town. Repeatedly the cast allowed the energy they conjured to drop, with sequences set to music followed by spots of relative inactivity sans a soundtrack or much discernible drive. My overriding impression of the first 30 minutes of ‘The House’ was of a highly adept company that may have erred on the side of self-indulgence.

‘Soul of Fado’ by Nuno Silva Location: The Great Hall

I was looking forward to Nuno Silva’s outdoor complement ( another Without Walls commission) to his recent full-length dance-theatre production ‘A Darker Shade of Fado.’ As a bare-chested and seductively manipulative demon/god with a vocal gift, Silva didn’t disappoint. This experienced, muscularly graceful Portuguese-born performer has an immensely powerful stage presence. I was, however, less sure about the work itself. Silva, with black markings on his face, played a mysteriously mythical figure whose literal and would-be fiery encounters with a couple (a bearded musician-dancer transformed into an only semi-convincing bull, and a singing-dancing woman) eventually led to their escape via a metal boat. Flames were a big feature of this late-night show – in pots, pool-like tracings on the playing area’s paving stones, and at one juncture snaking up on the boat itself. Less effective was storytelling which failed to make me either believe in or care much about what I was witnessing. Some of the movement was simply too uncommunicatively posey, while the boat (steered by a bulky technician in a hoodie and black eyemask) was a pretty clunky device. I was also left unenlightened about fado, the mournfully beautiful Portuguese national song-style from which Silva was supposedly drawing inspiration (and which he vocalises beautifully; more would’ve been welcome). A sizable chunk of credit for the show’s aural atmosphere belongs to composer and musician Sabio Janiak, stationed behind the other performers. But despite several potentially captivating elements I was unable to truly sense this show’s soul.

‘[i]land’ by Marc Brew Company Location: The Great Hall

Like Nuno Silva, Marc Brew has a core background in dance. Devised by the choreographer-director with his cast, this three-hander (also partly instigated by Without Walls) can boast of an attractive island setting composed mainly of sand. The island might also be construed as a boat, given the mast jutting up out of the centre and the web-like weave of rope attached to it. What we have here is a triangular relationship between a ginger-bearded man (Rob Heaslip, sturdy); a second fellow (Brew himself, gaunt) who materialises, strikingly, from the sandy set’s secret centre; and a woman (Rebecca Evans, winsome) who could be the red-lipped embodiment of the sea. They appear one by one, interact a bit in a vaguely, playfully dance-y manner, and then construct together a wheelchair with sails in which Brew drifts away. Evans slips away, too, leaving Heaslip once again on his lonesome… There are themes at work in ‘[i]land’ – loneliness, solidarity, evanescence and so on – that for me didn’t quite add up in terms of metaphorically telling, poetically resonant impact. As with Silva’s show I couldn’t emotionally claim the experience. That’s not to negate what was nevertheless a pleasant and not unmemorable attempt to convey something profound; I just didn’t feel it. Still, thumbs up to the cast, the ingenuity of designer Will Holt and Scott Patterson’s unobtrusively engaging recorded score in a soft-rock style.

So, to sum up my first Hat Fair: one big and one considerably smaller hit, a half-baked larger-scaled diversion plus a trio of mixed-response but not negligible misses.

By Donald Hutera, arts journalist and editor of the Win_Guide.

Once the ancient capital city of Wessex, Winchester’s castle is now barely visible except for the West Gate, Great Hall and some ruins. Henry III built the Great Hall in 1222 as part of a much larger Motte and Bailey castle complex that’s hard to imagine, especially when standing on its original site which is now largely dwarfed by the county council offices and imposing law courts. King Henry renovated the existing castle, adding fireplaces, latrines, painted walls and comfortable royal chambers and thus living in the lap of medieval luxury of which the Great Hall was the epicentre.

It was the place to be. Here kings made decisions, troubadours sang, jesters joked, retinues ate, visitors were received, criminals condemned and marriages celebrated. (And no King Arthur did not sit at his round table here; hanging above your head on the West wall is a plain 13^th century table painted by Henry VIII as Tudor propaganda!) Entering the hall on a hot summery day, the environment felt somewhat dark, cold and oppressive.  But, as my eyes adjusted to the light and a bunch of chattering tourists burst through the new 19^th century entrance, the Hall came alive. The acoustics bouncing off the stone surfaces and the general hubbub gave what can only be a hint of the buzz that would’ve permeated it in medieval times in the 13^th century.

During the 14^th and 15^th centuries the Hall’s function as a legal and administrative centre grew and dominated for a further 700 years – that is, until the courts were moved to the foreboding courthouse adjoining the East wall in 1974. Countless figures were condemned at these courts, and public executions saw the heads of heretics displayed before the castle gates. Spare a little thought as you wander below the West Gate towards the Great Hall for those who met a grisly death there. According to historian Martin Biddle, the earl of Kent in 1330 stood all day in front of the castle gate waiting for someone to be found to execute him for planning a rebellion against Queen Isabella (Edward II’s wife, sometimes described as the She-wolf of France) and her lover, Roger Mortimer.

Although the Hall has been dominated by courts and justice for over seven centuries, I want to draw your attention back to its everyday use in the medieval era for feasting and entertainment. Your next visit might be as part of Winchester Hat Fair, and as you laugh and applaud, remember your predecessors who may have done just that in this space hundreds of years ago.

From Friday 4^th to Sunday 6^th July the Great Hall becomes a centre of activity once again in a celebration of dance, theatre and street performance. Bouchée à la reine by Push Plus are a company of six clowns who’ll enact a high-class dinner party in order to comment on society’s shortcomings – a form of class mockery that’s changed little since medieval times. For Grime Ramshacklicious will construct a strange fortification directly above castle ruins hidden beneath the cobbled courtyard. They say an Englishman’s home is his castle, and this wooden structure balanced above a burger van will certainly bring the grimy realities of everyday working life to such majestic surroundings. Marc Brew Company will transform the area into a mirage as three dancers bask, play and dream of escaping their sandy (i)land,  a place stranded far from the ocean and surrounded by stone. Whether inside, beneath the Hall’s expansive arches, or in the courtyard surrounded by cool grey architecture, this strange and eerie scene is bound to unnerve and entice.

Nuna Silva’s Soul of Fado promises to close the Hat Fair with a sensual and fiery showstopper (as featured in Giant Olive’s inaugural GOlive Dance and Performance Festival curated by Donald Hutera and a hot hat fair tip from the WinGuide.) Combining contemporary dance with traditional Portuguese song on a stage marked by flaming gondolas, it will certainly look the part as the night closes in. Silva’s fado, a form of music expressing loss and melancholy, suggests a dramatic and powerful scene might confront the nighttime spectator. If it’s anything like last year’s grand finale, Bad Taste Company’s Faust, then Soul of Fado will enliven the senses with passion and highly physical choreography. It draws the Hat Fair to a close at the most important centre of the old capital city, The Great Hall of Winchester.

by Rebecca JS Nice

Writer, dance critic, history geek and Winchy lover. Rebecca is a mature student at The University of Winchester studying Choreography and Dance combined with History. After teaching for eight years, she now writes for various publications and blogs about dance and all things arty-farty, whilst drinking copious amounts of tea and day dreaming in Winchester’s many café windows. @rebeccajsnice