Review - Scott Matthews at Telford's Warehouse, Chester

As silence descends, soft and haunting sounds begin to drift from the stage, echoes delicately produced by a glass slide on electric guitar strings, which usher us into an almost trance-like state.

Ahead of the release of his sixth album, Home Part 2, later this month, the award-winning singer-songwriter Scott Matthews has returned to Telford’s Warehouse in Chester to give us a spellbinding solo performance like no other.

As ever, it is truly remarkable how Scott’s voice seems to transform itself and resonate with the quality of a cello as he sings. The effortless fluidity of his vocal range and his graceful vibrato never fail to send shivers running up and down the spine.

Playing around with the songs we know so well is a habit of his, and, every time he begins, we never quite know which one will suddenly emerge from each meandering intro. As well as favourites like ‘City Headache’, ‘Eyes Wider than Before’, ‘Sunlight’, and ‘Virginia’, we’re treated to a handful of songs from his upcoming album and the first from his new label, Shedio Records – created by Scott himself.

With greater creative freedom than ever before, he has been able to put together a piece of work that meaningfully reflects on his evolution as an artist.

“Sonically, I wanted to create a very broad canvas this time around,” he reveals. “Home Part 2 bears similarities to my debut album, Passing Stranger, in the sense that there has been a desire to return to the roots where my musical seeds were planted. Almost like a need to rekindle a relationship with the artist I was ten years ago, but joining forces with the artist I am today.”

Local folk trio, Mountainface (Sam Rowlands Photography) 

Scott will be heading on the road with his band, immediately after his solo tour, to play at venues across the UK before heading to tour in Europe. Also promised later this year is a special edition LP of Passing Stranger to mark the anniversary of its release ten years ago. 2016 has proven to be an exciting and busy year for the artist, something which his dedicated fan base is no doubt thankful for.  

Supporting Scott before his Telford’s gig were the boys from local folk trio, Mountainface, featuring the particularly skilled mandolin playing from Matthew Youds,  rhythm guitar and reedlike lead vocals from David Weir, and lead guitar and backing vocals from Tom Winch. The group’s passion for their music is clearly visible as they perform, and marries with their undeniable energy.

Scott Matthews’s single, ‘The Lantern Flower’, is available now; His album, Home part 2, is released 19^th September, 2016 and is available for pre-order here (including a free download of new single 'Drifter')

To find out more about Scott, visit scottmatthews.uk

EXPLORE: The Contemporary art gallery, Chester

Chester's newest gallery is the very picture of success.

Local founder of The Contemporary, Jonathan Shingfield, originally planned to open six pop up galleries in different cities, including Chester - but this all changed when a beautiful townhouse on Watergate Street caught his eye whilst he was out driving one day. 

After that came the six-week-long challenge of stripping back the building and transforming it into a minimalist art space, before finally opening its doors to the public two months ago.  

Now, The Contemporary's three floors are home to over one hundred pieces of art from stunning original paintings and bespoke commissions to limited edition prints.

Jonathan reveals that, while at university, he blew all the money he earned from work placements on art, then just kept on buying. “I started collecting too much. My missus would come home and I’d say: ‘Look! I just bought this, it’s really cool!’ And her reply was: ‘I’m sure it is, but we haven’t got room for the ones you’ve already got’ – which is when I came up with the idea of renting out my collection.” 

This concept took shape a year and a half ago as the art rentals service ‘Hung’, and would go on to form the founding principles of the new gallery, with its pieces now available to rent from as little as £10 per month.

Admission is free, the aim being to encourage people from all walks of life to really engage with modern art. Jonathan hopes to expand and open numerous commercial galleries across the North West, starting with a site in Knutsford, whilst retaining the Chester location as The Contemporary’s flagship site: “we’re going to have loads of originals here, loads of shows, loads of fun.”

“Artists are an absolute pleasure to deal with,” says Jonathan, “they’re so lovely, so accommodating – it’s unbelievable how cool they are.” The collection is currently exhibiting work by internationally renowned British artists – including former Vivienne Westwood designer, Magnus Gjoen – as well as by several local artists, one of whom specifically wishes to remain anonymous so as to gauge what the public really thinks of his work at exhibitions. Chester’s very own answer to Banksy will be creating pieces for a Street Art show at the gallery next year, where graffiti classes will also be on offer.

 “It’s like having kids, isn’t it?” Jonathan confesses when asked if he has any favourite paintings amongst those on display. “It changes all the time. My favourite piece at the moment is a big Michael Jackson painting by Mike Edwards that is covered in kind of diamond dust. It’s the first piece I've commissioned myself though, so I’m biased!”

Starting in 2015, The Contemporary will be holding monthly art shows, starting with an exhibition of work from students at Sir John Deane’s College, and going on to focus on a different featured artist at each event.

 The gallery will also be hosting a special VIP Christmas gathering with mulled wine and mince pies on the 4^th December, from which 10% of any sales proceeds will go to the Baby Grow appeal aiming to raise funds to build a new Neonatal Unit at The Countess of Chester hospital.

“Art is getting bigger and better in the city all the time and the more the economy recovers, the more confident people are in art and wanting to invest in it. We are here to show Chester something different and engaging and look forward to exhibiting things it has never seen before.”

To find out more about purchasing/renting art from The Contemporary, to arrange a private tour of the gallery, or to join the guest list for its upcoming Christmas event, call 01244 950553, visit www.thecontemporarychester.com

The Contemporary, 92 Watergate street, Chester, CH1 2LN

Floating Audrey by Pure Evil

Abraham & Isaac by local artist, Jay Hurst

Divine Retributuion by Marcus Gjoen,
former Vivienne Westwood designer

REVIEW: CHESTER POETRY PUB TOUR

A night at the pub has a new way with words

This week sees Chester Performs make its quest to cultivate Cestrian culture a late night affair as it launches its first ever Poetry Pub Tour.

    Tim Clare, the award-winning, popular stand-up poet and presenter of the Channel 4 series How To Get A Book Deal, is our host for the evening; an engaging, hilarious and talented wordsmith, Clare was also the creator of the Poetry Takeaway which featured at the 2012 Essar Chester Literature.

    We start at The Bear and Billet, then zigzag our way through rhyme, past metaphor and up Lower Bridge Street via The Cross Keys and Ye Olde Kings Head, before finally ending up at the Marlbororough (Yep, that is spelt correctly) Arms.

    The formula is a winning one: everyone buys a drink, we sit, Tim chats to us and makes us laugh a lot, reads us one or two of his brilliant poems, we chat some more, then move on to the next pub... Sounds simple? Maybe so, but the best things always are.

    To kick things off at the Bear and Billet, Tim recites a poem he has composed about a servant locked in a room for laziness and left to starve, whose ghost is still supposedly heard sobbing to this day. Since the pub, we learn, was the birthplace of John Lennon’s grandmother, the poet cleverly inserts one or two of said Beatle’s lyrics into the verse. To counter any surfeit doom and gloom at the Cross Keys Clare reads a piece, from his first published poetry collection, about ‘Beer Ghost’ – that strange phantom that only ever seems to visit and turn your room upside down when you’ve had a heavy night out.

    Later at Ye Olde King’s Head, with a dozen of us gathered round him and with his trusty uke in hand, Tim delights us with the musical tale of one peculiar, old gent , a row boat and a quest to thwart the Oxbridge boat races, from his album of spoken and sung verses, Jesus buys me Cigarettes.

    The fact that this evening’s event was the first of its kind means that the time spent at each venue is perhaps a little more rigorously observed at first than it should be, but after a pub (and pint) or two the night happily reaches a more natural pace.

   It’s so incredibly refreshing to pass an evening with a mix of such warm and friendly faces from every age group, come together through a love of poetry to share laughs over a drink and learn about the fascinating, and often grisly, history of the city’s pubs in the process.

    Were Chester Performs to make the tour a monthly occurrence, with an ever changing list of venues and visiting poets, the night would quickly become an absolute city favourite both for locals and for curious tourists after something a little different.

   To find out more about Tim Clare and purchase some of his poetry and other writing, visit
http://www.timclarepoet.co.uk/

THEATRE REVIEW: A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM ~ Grosvenor Park Open Air Theatre

A dreamy way to spend a Midsummer's night

Though rain begins to fall with aptly theatrical timing, nothing can dampen the spirits of the audience members as they sit munching their picnics, eagerly awaiting Chester Perform’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream to commence at Grosvenor Park Open Air Theatre. It wouldn’t be a British Summer without a shower or two , but luckily the clouds quickly pass to make way for this intriguing interpretation of a timeless work.

In a performance that reiterates the notion of reflection and contrast, we soon learn that the actors playing mortal rulers Hippolyta and Theseus are also cast as the flighty rulers of Faery, Titania and Oberon.  Clever use of actor twins Danielle and Nichole Bird means that Puck, the nimble trickster sprite, appears to zip around the earth in the twinkle of an eye, speedily rushing off stage in one direction only to zoom past again from the other seconds later. Though the two later come to be on stage at the same time, admittedly shattering the ingenious illusion, the production’s duality motif is further highlighted by the antics of the mischievous pair.

The most striking embodiment of this counterpart imagery appears when the acting troupe of simple tradesmen first depart, lifting up a giant metal ring from around the circular stone podium in the midst of the theatre - a symbolic loosening of the girdle of reality and reason - to float in ethereal mimicry of the earthbound mortal world. Only now that this strange doorway in the air is manifest, and the deliciously atmospheric full moon gleams amid the real storm clouds above, can the Fairies enter; attired like a motley gypsy band, they bring no end of mayhem and mischief in their wake, not to mention spark a veritable explosion of carnal yearning in the mortals with which they choose to toy for a night’s sport. . . With the juice of an intoxicating flower smeared about their eyes, we see rival suitors Lysander and Demetrius snarling and writhing like hounds as they hump the earth (as well as the leg of a very bewildered Helena) in a burst of pure animalistic passion.

 The result is a riotous fight scene with a rainbow spectrum of powder paint bombs blooming in the air with Fairies devilishly providing the unwitting humans with ammunition. Whilst hilarious, it has to be said that the dismayed sense of sisterly betrayal Shakespeare penned in the quarrel between Helena and Hermia is somewhat disappointingly drowned out in the uproar.

Nevertheless, the combined efforts of director Alex Clifton and choreographer Imogen Knight ensure that the Bard’s elegant and ornate Elizabethan words are colourfully expressed in a manner that is enormously entertaining to all the family.  Spectacle is very much the order of the day and we are given it in abundance: lords and ladies chant in candlelit procession; Fairies crow a rustic lullaby on folk instruments; the humble workemens' troupe performs its play-within-a-play to the newly-weds (now seated, like the audience, with drink and picnic in hand) along with a sprightly Morris dance, at both of which the audience continually roar with laughter, clapping and stomping away to the music.

Actors and audience alike delight in the frequent interaction with the gathered onlookers: lordly Oberon smears the charmed flower’s aphrodisiacal juice upon the noses of an elderly couple and cheekily wishes them a good night, whilst Bottom runs about as an ass with a Fairy entourage to steal a swig of prosecco or a mouthful of grapes from stunned picnickers, and lovelorn Helena chases her would-be sweetheart through the seated crowd to take a perilous dive off the terrace above.

Shakespeare’s work continues to speak to us through the ages of the unifying and transcendental power of love whilst convention is well and truly turned on its head, and this production remains faithful to these themes whilst instilling it with a fresh and original vibrancy.

CULTURE PRESERVATION: Help save Chester's historic Kaleyard Gate from destruction

Chester's heritage suffered enormously during the twentieth century, when much was destroyed to make way for its ring road and for modern commercial structures.

Horrifyingly, Chester Cathedral recently proposed a masterplan for the redevelopment of its surrounding area, which includes the destruction of Chester's ancient pedestrian Kaleyard Gate on Abbey Street in order to make way for car access to a Free School soon to be created in Abbey Square. Chester's walls, including the ancient pedestrian Kaleyard Gate, are a Grade I Scheduled Monument, and for the Dean and Chapter to have suggested this is utterly disgraceful and is in violation of English Heritage legislation. 

 Below is a template email to be sent to English Heritage requesting their intervention in this matter in order to preserve Chester's unique and already dwindled history. The message can be edited as you see fit, and can optionally be altered in order to send it to the Cathedral's project team director.

I'd be extremely grateful if you could find take a minute or two to either send a copy of this email to English Heritage or even write a few words of your own expressing your opposition. PLEASE, help save our history!

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LETTER:

To whom it may concern,

As you will be aware, Chester’s historic buildings and monuments suffered colossal blows during the twentieth century, with much of its heritage being erased in the name of “Progress”. 

It is as a concerned citizen of Chester and eager defender of history that I am writing to you. Nearly all of the city walls, including its pedestrian Kaleyard Gate (situated on Abbey St), are a Scheduled Monument with Grade I listing; however, the Dean and Chapter of Chester Cathedral have audaciously proposed the Gate’s destruction as part of a project for redevelopment that has had to be altered once already due to its infringements on heritage conservation.

Operations director for the Cathedral’s master plan, Simon Warburton, recently described the gate as nothing but a ‘hole’ in an interview for the Chester chronicle, appearing to be totally ignorant of the fact that the Kaleyard Gate has existed for almost seven and a half centuries and has, from the very beginning, been part of the history of the Cathedral, with the monks having requested its creation in order to access their vegetable garden. The tradition of the gate being locked at the 8 o’ clock curfew each evening, originally to prevent the attacks from marauding Welshmen, has also been observed since that time, and always by the Cathedral.

Incredibly, it now wishes to turn its back on all this and seeks to destroy one of the city’s ancient gateways for the benefit of those attending a Free School soon to be created in Abbey Square in partnership with the University of Chester. It is unimaginable that the Cathedral could condone destroying a piece of the city’s already dwindled heritage which is so completely bound to itself in order to shave a few minutes off the school run for a select minority dropping off its children at a school that will no doubt endure for a sum of years that is paltry in comparison to that of the Gate’s age. In light of the fact that Gorse Stacks car park is less than five minutes away, and a car park is in existence on the other side of the Kaleyard Gate in which private parking could be easily developed, it is baffling to think that the notion of bulldozing a large hole in the walls has even been considered.

It is already devastating enough to learn that the plans also include building luxury houses on the city’s sole surviving ancient green, beneath which lie the remains of the Deva Roman fortress barracks rediscovered in the 1920s; this further recklessness cannot be allowed.

I implore English Heritage to intervene and protect the Kaleyard Gate from this madness – for this proposal surely is madness – at all costs and preserve this unique portion of Chester’s illustrious history for future generations.

Yours sincerely,

[INSERT NAME]

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To contact English Heritage: northwest@english-heritage.org.uk 

To contact Chester Cathedral's project team: amie.williams@chestercathedral.com

For further details of the Cathedral proposal: http://www.chestercathedral.com/news/cathedral-masterplan.html

For more about the facinating history of the Kaleyard Gate and surrounds visit: http://www.chesterwalls.info/kaleyard.html

THEATRE REVIEW:CYRANO DE BERGERAC ~ Grosvenor Park Open Air Threatre, July 2013

Cyrano’s success as plain as the nose on his face


The Grosvenor Park Open Air Theatre has been delighting its audiences since its launch back in 2010 by champions of Cestrian culture Chester Performs. With nine critically acclaimed productions under its belt, the open air group goes to show it only improves with age as it wows us with this year’s outstanding productions of Othello,A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Cyrano de Bergerac.

    Edmund Rostund’s renowned play follows the tale of the nobleman Cyrano, chief Cadet in the French army’s Gascon company and wordsmith extraordinaire who can melt or enflame a heart by merely opening his mouth; he has nevertheless afflicted by an overly large nose. Our hero’s cousin and secret love, the fair Roxanne, is smitten by a handsome but inarticulate new Cadet and so Cyrano embarks on the heart-breaking quest to woo the lady on his friend’s behalf.

      Having previously written for the Grosvenor Park theatre, Glyn Maxwell makes a triumphant return with this striking, new adaption directed by Lucy Pitman-Wallace; no mean feat, with the writer having to tackle a the original work's forty threenamed parts – as well as a host of soldiers, courtiers, poets and more – all inhabiting five utterly different sets, from a baker’s shop to a war-zone, and somehow transform it all into twelve actors performing in one single outdoor space.

   Shuffling the play’s chronology, the nun’s from Act V are ingeniously brought forward to the opening (thus seamlessly framing the plot) as they begin to recount the tale of the soldier-bard from some fifteen years before. Before long, we see the nun’s take on the roles of many of those in the story, suddenly arming themselves and donning plumed hats as they riotously merge with other figures that enter now from all directions in sumptuous period costume, along with the titular protagonist himself played by Edward Harrison. The actor's portrayal of de Bergerac and his legendary panache is superb: sporting a stylised nose cleverly crafted from parchment covered in poetry, Harrison is charismatic, witty and collected with the most perfect theatrical timing.

   Indeed, the whole cast ought to be praised for their stellar performances, not least the nuns with their ever-changing roles; perhaps most notable amongst them being the talented twins Danielle and Nichole Bird. Many of the cast also had a chance to showcase their musical accomplishments: during a rousing and rustic Gascon anthem played to lighten the lift hearts before battle; Katherine Toy’s pleasing accordion interludes between and even during scenes; the emotive and truly haunting a capella chanting of what seemed to be a Latin mass during the dual between Cyrano and one hundred men, skilfully choreographed in slow motion by Sue Nash.

   With actors scaling the seating and livelily interacting with audience members happily picnicking mere feet away, Cyrano de Bergerac is an outstanding performance – at times brimming with humour, at others poignant and heart-rending – that is sure to thrill this summer’s theatre goers.

 For more information on this or any other performance, visit: http://www.grosvenorparkopenairtheatre.co.uk/

CULTURE: Rogues’ Galleries ~ Storyville

Rogues’ Galleries Storyville: Exploring the art in life’s artefacts

Whilst wandering along Chester’s high street and historic Rows, one passes an alarming and ever-growing number of vacant premises, despite its long-time renown as a ‘shopping city.’ In its on-going efforts to revive the areas failing cultural aspects, local arts producers Chester Performs recently commissioned The Rogues’ Galleries, a whole host of art installations, workshops and projects to breathe life into said empty sites and turn the notion of shopping on its head.

                Two such creative rogues, collaborative performance artists Katherina Radeva and Alister Lownie, have decided to set up their living room on the upper floor of a venue on Watergate Row in a piece they have named Storyville. Visitors are encouraged to come and peruse the motley collection of a lifetime’s bric-a-brac: ribbons and buttons, an ironing board, love letters, paintings, theatre props, boots, books, keys, clothes… And amid it all lays a couch, on which the duo invite you to sit for a cup of tea and a natter. They are so warm and charming that their infectious chattiness and contemplative air soon have you sharing, and reflecting on, snapshots of your own life’s history. During my time there, I found myself discussing the surprising violence of water polo one moment and examining the ghostly images from a brain scan the next. Other visitors came and went, and I found it such a refreshing and novel experience to be able to chat with perfect strangers as they shared their own stories or showed off the spoils of a day’s shopping.

Katherina Radeva and Alister Lownie sit amid their relocated belongings at

 Storyville, their most recent artistic endeavour.

             What makes the whole thing even more fascinating is that every item in the room is for sale. The fact that that the performers are sacrificing their personal belongings and keepsakes highlights the whole purpose of the installation: to have us, and indeed themselves, question how and why we apply value to things; not merely monetarily, but emotionally. The significance we apply to an object, the moment in time it encapsulates, how the look or touch of something makes us feel, how we value the lives and experiences of others and ourselves. Kat and Alistair were also particularly keen to find out what the future has in store for each once cherished item: who is it for? How will it be used? What will it mean to the individual?

           For my own part, I was drawn to the intriguing miniature of a woman made of wire and painted plaster that I discovered whilst rummaging through Kat’s sewing box. She seemed delighted that I had found it and carried on digging around until she had produced several other such figures. She revealed to me how she had once designed and made the costumes/set for a dance piece in London and that these had been the 1:50 ratio scale models she had used in the process. The naïve charm and stylised form of each little figure along with the memories and pride that each contained won my heart and I bought them on the spot.

           And what will their future hold? They’ve got pride of place on my bookshelf to bring a smile to my face and remind me of an enjoyable and unexpected hour I once spent in the company of two delightful people whose humble art piece made such a powerful and lasting impression on me.



Far Left/tight: The dancers of theatrical dance piece Daffodils (2005, stood in Radeva's costume creations.
Centre: The tiny figurines used in the design process for the same performance

 Katherina Radeva and Alister Lownie of Two Destination Language create performance works which focus on identity and community. Their work includes theatre shows, interactive installations, one-on-one works and fun participatory projects. Their work has been presented in venues across the UK and internationally. http://www.twodestinationlanguage.com/

For more information on the Rogues' Galleries, visit http://www.roguesgalleries.co.uk/

THEATRE: EQUUS, 2013 ~ Review

Equus proves to be a one-horse race

Tip Top Productions’ five-night performance (5th-9th March, 2013) of Peter Shaffer’s classic play Equus, led by innovative guest director John Young at the Forum Theatre Chester,  goes to show that though Shaffer claimed ‘life is only comprehensible through a thousand local gods’, all you actually seem to need is a handful of local talent.

          The play focuses on psychiatrist Martin Dysart as he deals with Alan Strang, a reserved seventeen year-old who has committed a horrible and seemingly senseless act of violence against several horses. As treatment progresses and Alan’s motives and desires unfold, Dysart starts to find himself questioning his own inhibitions…

The production opens with a silent, bare-chested figure slowly entering into view to place nothing but a mask upon his head in order to portray the fundamental essence of a horse. This, in many ways, epitomises the nature of Young’s interpretation of the play as a whole: stripped back to its raw and most potent elements. Subtly reminiscent of the archetypal masks of Greek Theatre, the abstract simplicity of the headgear’s design echoes the drawing style of Jean Cocteau, renowned for his obsession with the myths of Classical Greece - myths that, like Shaffer’s play, lay bare the truths of the human psyche.

The set does much to channel the themes of the play: a raised wooden dais to evoke the idea of a stable and reiterate the significance and authority of Shaffer’s curious horse god, Equus, the embodiment of worship, forever stamping his hoof to make himself known; an arch framed on either side by bars, through which audience and actors alike enter and exit the venue, to evoke horse stalls and allude to the playwright’s notions of freedom versus imprisonment through society’s accepted norms.

Versatile and carefully employed lighting brings great depth to the piece. At one moment, it offers a subdued fragility to the sex scene (and ensures the nakedness of the actors is tastefully done, without taking away from the strikingness of the image); the next, it imbues the confrontation between Alan and Equus with real menace as a hellish red glare cast up from below merges with smoke that rises suddenly to circle about the actors.

Local thoroughbreds: the cast of Tip Top Productions' Equus

                Though amateur, the actors’ performances remained mostly strong and poignant throughout, and the choreography was always captivating and effective, particularly with its clever use of different levels and heights to tackle the venue’s limited space and ensure the piece is visually stimulating even when the actors aren’t moving.

A bold and thoroughly thought-provoking production, it promises great things from director Young in the near future.