DEEP BLUE
with The Shout
Lighting Adam Crosthwaite
Songs of the sea. Herrings, whales, albatrosses, wrecks, mutiny, drowning, resurrection.
‘Full fathom five thy father lies,
Of his bones are coral made:
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea nymphs hourly ring his knell.
Ding-dong.
Hark, now I hear them: ding-dong, bell.’
A DAY IN THE LIFE
The Shout Christmas Show.
Diary entries for Christmas Day - Francis Kilvert, Captain Robert Scott, Sophia Litwinska, Rosa Luxemburg, James Woodforde, Joan Wyndham, Jean Cocteau, and others – introduce carols and songs, some serious, some playful.
Christmas Day, 1941. Auchwitz. (Sophia Litwinska)
The whole truck was tipped over in the way they do it sometimes with potatoes or coal loads, and we were led into a room which gave me the impression of a shower-bath. There were towels hanging around, and sprays, and even mirrors. I cannot say how many were in the room altogether, because I was so terrified, nor do I know if the doors were closed. People were in tears; people were shouting at each other; people were hitting each other. There were healthy people, strong people, weak people and sick people, and suddenly I saw fumes coming in through a very small window at the top. I had to cough very violently, tears were streaming from my eyes, and I had a sort of feeling in my throat as if I would be asphyxiated. I could not even look at the others because each of us concentrated on what happened to herself.
At that moment I heard my name called, I had not the strength to answer it, but raised my arm. Then I felt someone take me and throw me out of that room.
Christmas Day 1952. (Jean Cocteau)
The more hairs fall out, the more antennae grow in.
Journalist: What would you like to see hanging on your Christmas tree?
Me: Journalists.
THE SHOUT - LAST GIG
The last Shout gig was our 10th anniversary bash – more of a wake than a birthday celebration. A complex mixture of emotions – pride, fury, excitement, exhilaration, disappointment. We could all see the end coming, but no one, least of all me, was ready to accept it.
The gig came at the end of an intense period of work in Stavanger and Linz (Europe had kept us alive, those were the days); so, apart from being a retrospective, it plundered this recent material, notably Mike Henry’s excellent Fever / Way To Burn from the Linz extravaganza Raketensymphonie.
Watch also:
Actually, not quite the last gig. The Shout rose up briefly, at Kings Place, in 2014. And may rise up again.......