The Journal
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Show works brilliantly
The Novocastrian Philosophers’ Club at the Lit & Phil, Newcastle, until Sunday...
AND now for something completely different, as they used to say on Monty Python. The Python team – Cleese, Palin and the rest – would no doubt have found inspiration in the figure of Capt Henry Deasy, Victorian explorer. Here he is a central character in a 90-minute theatrical perambulation which takes us into the nooks and crannies of the venerable Literary & Philosophical Society and adjoining Mining Institute on Newcastle’s Westgate Road.
Audiences consist of 15 people who are “processed” (it’s painless) and then led by guides up staircases and along walkways to witness unfolding chapters in a whimsical tale inspired – and so we are led to believe – by the lives lying dormant in the books on the shelves, Deasy’s included.
I joined last night’s 7pm audience, possibly knowing more of what to expect than other people but still largely in the dark. Our guides ushered us firmly but politely hither and thither. We sat around a beautifully laid table in the committee room as Deasy outlined his forthcoming journey – the one which would take him away from the librarian for whom he was experiencing faint stirrings. Or maybe the stirrings were hers. Victorian stiff upper lips evidently got in the way of many a happy relationship.
We travelled from the upper rooms to the bowels of the building, mimicking and witnessing Deasy’s travails in the jungle. We passed through a mini-rainforest into a haze-filled Mining Institute to witness one of the most arresting tableaux, a beautiful owl (a real one) flying across the void of the hall.
At one point we donned ponchos and were offered cups of tea. Later there was a game of roulette. It all ended in a lecture theatre, Deasy – older and wiser – reflecting on his travels. As a way of bringing old buildings to life, the show, with its surprisingly large cast, works brilliantly. The only problem is that the old buildings will strive to distract you and may occasionally succeed. All those books, all that history!
For those who see it, this show will be the talking point for years to come. For tickets, tel (0191) 2305151, although you will be lucky to get one now.
David Whetstone
METROLIFE
Friday, September 7, 2007
www.metro.co.uk
THEATRE REVIEW
THE NOVOCASTRIAN PHILOSOPHERS’ CLUB *****
In simplistic terms, The Novocastrian Philosophers’ Club is a tale of derring-do, love and romance, all set in the surprisingly fevered Lit & Phil. But, taking the form of a guided tour, the small audience is privy to one of the most multilayered (philosophically and literally) productions the region has seen for some time.
At its heart are explorer Captain Deasy and frustrated librarian Beatrice; with their most intimate conversations revolving around the weather, you immediately know that they fancy each other. We follow them, often feeling uneasily voyeuristic, as Deasy embarks on his travels and Beatrice brushes her hair in the hope he will return to run his hands through it. What the production does best, though, is to use and abuse the atmosphere of the building. Places from the basement to the lecture rooms are brought alive to glorious effect, and such oddities as talking books and a lone chess player add to the adventure. Producer Cinzia Hardy and director Alison Andrews have created a genuine sire-specific production that has taken its lead from an atypical setting, superbly weaving in beautiful facts, fiction and a dose of dottiness.
Bev Stephenson
The British Theatre Guide
September 2007
www.britishtheatreguide.info
Review by Gail-Nina Anderson
Cinzia Hardy and the Literary & Philosophical Society, in collaboration with Northern Stage Literary and Philosophical Society Library and Mining Institute, Newcastle
It’s not often one emerges from a theatrical performance smelling of lavender, but then there’s more than a touch of the faded photograph and buried memory about this endeavour. I’m reluctant to give it a name – not really a play, certainly not a guided tour but still totally evolved from the buildings that host it, The NPC smacks as much of those audience-involvement fests we didn’t much enjoy in the 1970s, but infinitely classier. The structure is less dramatic than architectural – this is a trip through the mind of what the building might represent in the form of an internalised journey – if you see what I mean.
Groups of only fifteen are welcomed into the foyer with much fuss and mumbling and it becomes apparent that everyone you see, from the ubiquitous cleaners to the librarians and the cast of unexpected visitors, is playing a part. Possibly for Lit and Phil regulars this creates a certain confusion – isn’t that Kay Easson who usualy runs the place putting things into ominously numbered cardboard boxes and handing me strange little tickets? Suspension of disbelief would be difficult if this wasn’t clearly a game into the realism of which we all have to committ for the duration of the evening.
Depending on your state of mind, it’s either whimsical or enlivening to hand in tickets at the desk and be given capsules of proverbial wisdom in exchange, to tell your favourite colour (black not allowed, alas) and to shuffle between the chess players and the assistants diligently labelling every book as The Waterfall.
Shuffling is rather the mode of the evening – this is an old building and we have to be guided round it with great care. A slip on an uneven step would certainly ruin the mood. So we go upstairs and down, into rooms that are a theatrical event in themselves. Love-lorn librarians give place to bold explorers and tea-ladies (who actually serve us tea). There is a journey, both ours and the explorer’s, and it involves dinner tables and small jungles (waterproof poncho provided) and finally a meeting in the lecture-theatre where journey’s end is signalled and we’re left bemused but entertained.
It was mildly uncomfortable (too much dry ice for asthmatics), rather tiring and quite bewildering, but that last in a totally good way. It sparked ideas and I suspect it animated the buildings for those seeing them for the first time. As an old Lit and Phil hand, this sense of wonder and discovery was not available, but still I stood amazed at the transformation of one space into a casino complete with gorgeous James bond type! There was a most captivating live owl and a sense of cameraderie and a little box instead of a programme that provided the lingering valedictory aroma of lavender.
Architectural heritage meets Ripping Yarns/Alice in Wonderland – hardly hard-edged drama but a performance of gentle relevation, exploration and surprising, eye-opening beauty.
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