A
Wee Bit Of How Do You Do
- Tour
Director -Gerry Mulgrew
Devised by Gerry Mulgrew and Gordon Dougall (Artistic Director, Sounds
of Progress) from interviews with the band
Company - Sounds of Progress
Songs - composed by Gordon Dougall apart from World Forgot, World
Forgetting by Claire Cunningham, Gordon Dougall and Anne-Marie Murray
Dates
- toured originally 28 Feb -16 March 2001 in Central Belt, then in Summer
2001
25
& 26 July at 7:45pm Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh 0131
248 4848
27 & 28 July at 8pm Cottier Theatre Glasgow 0141 339
8383
31 July - 2 August at 8pm Dundee Rep Theatre 01382 223530
Reviewer
Thelma Good
We're in an abandoned Institute for Social Inclusion where the former
inmates sing and share with us their pasts, their dreams and their gifts.
This is the setting in which the Sounds of Progress Band have placed
their new show. The theatre in the Arches is a rather cramped space
for all of the band's instruments, and 12 performers, but by working
in such a tight space the company underline how interdependent we all
are on the way others respond to us and may organise the world around
us.
Most of the company for the production have had obstacles to overcome
in pursuing or discovering their talents, obstacles which resulted in
some being sent to what were bizarrely named "Special" Schools,
or to boarding schools at 2 or being patted on the head for saying you
wanted to be an actor. Listening and watching to beautiful voices and
skilled musicians in A Wee Bit of How Do You Do we experience
talents the world has nearly thrown aside by seeing the impairments
and not the gifts.
These gifts are shown in vignette scenes linked with and containing
monologues and songs based on the band members' experiences. An aria
from the Marriage of Figaro is sung by Claire Cunningham,
a trained classical singer, over a chilling scene in which one by one
the able bodied attendants drugged the inmates bodies and individualities.
Kerry McGregor, a singer with a voice you could drown in, remarks
at one point as a disabled person to be included at all in the "Normal"
world your ability calls you to, you always have to do things better.
A remark that hit home with its pain to me, a dyslexic writer who struggles
with words as Kerry struggles with her legs.
This band has within it superb singers and musicians, some of whom have
also toured, sung and been recorded in other bands. All of them have
acted and performed in previous SOP productions. They are joined here
by Gerda Stevenson and Forbes Masson and it is striking that there is
no distance between the quality of any of the performances. Each person
on the stage has their particular moments when the attention is solely
on them. This is a fine ensemble - knowing when to support and when
to shine. The rest of the company are Bob Brown, Michael Cannon,
Joseph Delaney, Paul Fullarton, Eddie Green, Kevin Howell, Ellen McMahon
and Anne-Marie Murray. Everyone in the company should be
better known - it is to our society's shame that they are not.
© Thelma Good 1 March 2001
