Latest / The Downing Arts Podcast / ET25.9 May Week Preview

Transcript

ET25.9 May Week Preview · The Downing Arts Podcast

• 0:00
  Welcome to the Downing Arts Podcast.
• 0:08
  May week is just beginning and there are lots of lovely events for everyone to
• 0:12
  enjoy, not least the Chapel Choir's annual recital. This evening the Organ
• 0:16
  Scholars will be directing a mixed program of music by William Bird,
• 0:19
  Eleanor Daly, Gerald Finzi and many more. Come along to the chapel at 5:30
• 0:23
  for 45 minutes of choral classics. Admission is free.
• 0:27
  The DDS production of as yous like it also starts tonight and we'll be hearing
• 0:32
  from them in just a second or two. Another date for your diary is the
• 0:35
  Griffin Singer's Barbershop Quartet concert on Friday at 5. Also in the chapel,
• 0:46
  the Dramatic Society are getting ready for their Shakespeare production opening
• 0:50
  this evening. And here to talk a bit about it are Lily Ellis and Joe
• 0:53
  Short. Welcome. Hello. Thank you. So you're going to be performing
• 0:57
  as yous Like It. Could you tell us a little bit about the show and
• 1:00
  your take on it? Yeah. So as yous like it is a
• 1:04
  comedy by Shakespeare written in 1599. So it's
• 1:08
  just kind of around this 425 year mark.
• 1:11
  We follow Rosalind and her friend
• 1:16
  Celia as they enter the Forest of Arden to kind of escape
• 1:20
  this, I guess, controlling and claustrophobic
• 1:25
  environment at the court. And kind of in that process, we follow them as
• 1:29
  an audience in this kind of process of found family.
• 1:33
  And we're choosing very much to kind of focus because that
• 1:36
  finding oneself in the forest on this idea of queerness and queer
• 1:41
  joy and the kind of release, I guess, of that
• 1:44
  kind of away from this slightly more challenging other
• 1:48
  environment, if that makes sense. Brilliant. So what are your. You've both
• 1:52
  got different roles in the production. What are you each doing?
• 1:56
  So my role is very logistical and sort of sorting out
• 2:01
  a lot of organizational things, coordinating the
• 2:05
  team and managing the fundraising side of this
• 2:09
  production. So we are fundraising for a charity called Mermaids,
• 2:12
  which supports trans and non binary and gender non conforming young
• 2:17
  people and their families. And I think we're very
• 2:21
  passionate about the charity element of this production, especially insofar
• 2:25
  as it sort of one relates to the creative vision of
• 2:29
  the show and what we're trying to do with it. And also in
• 2:33
  the current political climate, it's a time in which charities
• 2:37
  like these need as much support as possible. But yeah, that's my role.
• 2:41
  Fantastic. And Jo, what are you. Yes, I'm so I'm
• 2:45
  directing. I'm doing sort of slightly unusual
• 2:49
  exercises of my cast, but they've been very patient with me and
• 2:53
  very giving with their time. I know it's
• 2:58
  been a really lovely process. We've been rehearsing in the Downing East Lodge Garden,
• 3:02
  which is this beautiful kind of outdoor lawn.
• 3:06
  I'm not used to this kind of luxury as a Lucy Cav student, but,
• 3:09
  yeah, it's been really, really lovely to do. And, yeah, just a lot
• 3:13
  of conversations about, you know, these. These are characters that are very performative and
• 3:17
  are aware of the fact that they're very kind of exaggerative, but then also
• 3:21
  kind of how can we draw out the people under that and how can
• 3:25
  we kind of, I guess, get across that genuineness and that excitement to kind
• 3:29
  of be there? Which I think has been especially kind of interesting
• 3:33
  and challenging, given that a lot of us, you know, obviously very, very close to
• 3:37
  starting now, and some of us haven't even finished exams. You know, it's all been.
• 3:41
  It's all been a bit kind of busy, busy. So it's been, you know,
• 3:44
  to the real credit of the cast, that they've been able to do that.
• 3:47
  And what are the particular challenges? I mean, Lilly, you've talked
• 3:51
  about the logistical side of things, I guess, with it being outside. I mean,
• 3:54
  I remember. What was it you did a couple of years ago? Much Ado about
• 3:57
  nothing, and we all had to run for cover when it poured with the rain.
• 4:01
  So how do you were there for that show? Yeah, yeah, I remember them.
• 4:05
  Yeah. Hiding in the. In the tent or sort of, you know. Yeah. So,
• 4:08
  I mean, how do you. How do you mitigate for those kind of eventualities?
• 4:12
  I mean, honestly, it's just about being adaptable.
• 4:15
  And generally for the last.
• 4:19
  The past few weeks, we've just been crossing our fingers and hoping and praying
• 4:23
  for the weather. But, yeah, the. The show you mentioned was a
• 4:27
  couple of years ago when we did a much do about nothing and the heavens
• 4:30
  opened halfway through the show. And we all. I mean, luckily, because of the
• 4:35
  Downing May Ball that year, there was a tent that we all ran to.
• 4:39
  But yeah, I think when you're performing a play outside, it's just obviously
• 4:44
  there's not the sort of capacity of like the technical elements of
• 4:48
  theatre or like the same capacity to sort of build a set and
• 4:52
  create a world in that way. But Shakespearean comedies
• 4:57
  very well to this kind of show because often, I mean, in as yous like
• 5:01
  it, we go off to the forest, often we're in a garden, and so
• 5:05
  we're sort of able to immerse the audience in
• 5:09
  the outside sphere. Yeah. Jo, what do you think?
• 5:13
  Yeah, I think there's a certain amount with any show.
• 5:17
  Right. Of kind of suspending your disbelief. Obviously, with, like, whether you're not
• 5:21
  asking people to suspend their disbelief, but certainly you're asking them to be a bit
• 5:25
  forgiving. But I feel like I've deliberately programmed a couple
• 5:29
  of beats in the show where we're kind of like, this is
• 5:33
  a bit. This is a bit rushed. Or this is a bit, you know,
• 5:35
  kind of. Obviously, it's not literally rushed. It's been delicately rehearsed and well plotted.
• 5:40
  But it's like, you know, we got a few things that
• 5:43
  seem a bit roughshod on purpose to kind of, I guess,
• 5:47
  just get the audience a bit on side, too. As Lily says, this kind of
• 5:51
  slightly more just kind of going with it thing
• 5:55
  of performing outside, which has been really fun. But again,
• 5:59
  there are a lot of things that are normally in your control in a theater
• 6:02
  that just aren't. So it's both freeing and a little bit terrifying.
• 6:05
  Yeah. I mean, I find it lovely because you sort of
• 6:09
  slightly mitigate that audience performer
• 6:13
  divide because you're not raised up on a stage, the audience aren't sat
• 6:17
  in the dark, like, everyone can see each other. And it feels a bit more.
• 6:21
  I don't know, like, we're in more community with each other, which I think is
• 6:24
  nice. Yeah. The plan is that we're having a kind of semicircular
• 6:30
  formation towards the top of the garden. So hopefully
• 6:34
  kind of immersing people as much as possible. And there'll be a break down
• 6:37
  the middle. And not to spoil too much any of the kind of sort of
• 6:41
  vague plans for interactivity, but we're hoping we can get some people quite
• 6:46
  interestingly involved, either vocally or gesturally.
• 6:51
  So that'll be fun. But no, just kind of. I guess the thing
• 6:55
  as well is, like, Downing's huge. And specifically the east
• 6:59
  lodge is way bigger than I thought it was gonna be for some reason in
• 7:02
  my head. So actually, it's been quite interesting figuring out
• 7:05
  how we kind of afford that level of intimacy of an audience
• 7:10
  watching. Cause it's quite a, you know, again, the way we're sort of reinterpreting it
• 7:13
  slightly. It's kind of a slightly more personal or,
• 7:17
  you know, internal trajectory that's quite important to a lot of
• 7:21
  us. So, again, not kind of losing the intimacy of that story in what,
• 7:25
  like, a huge amount of green space and downing.
• 7:28
  So it's been interesting to kind of try and figure that out as well.
• 7:31
  Brilliant. So do you want to just tell us when the show is happening?
• 7:35
  How can we get tickets? All that kind of Stuff. Okay, so we are performing
• 7:39
  on Thursday the 19th, Friday the 20th and Saturday
• 7:43
  the 21st of June at 6 o' clock starting tonight. Starting tonight,
• 7:48
  6pm tonight and on Friday night and then 4pm
• 7:52
  on Saturday. You can get tickets via Tessera
• 7:56
  link in the show notes. But yeah, tickets are
• 8:00
  available. We're donating 90% of our ticket sales
• 8:04
  to Mermaids, the charity that I mentioned earlier. And yeah, we'd love to
• 8:08
  see you there, hopefully. Fingers crossed in the sun.
• 8:11
  Fingers crossed. Fingers crossed. Brilliant. Well, break a
• 8:15
  leg as they say and yeah, hope all goes well. Thank you very much.
• 8:19
  Thank you so much.
• 8:25
  In the studio with me are the Griffin Singers, Barbershop Quartet.
• 8:29
  Welcome Dom, George, Harry and Joe. Hello.
• 8:33
  Great to have you here. So how did you all get together in
• 8:36
  the first place? Like where did the idea come from for a barbershop quartet?
• 8:40
  I. My first memory of this being formulated was I myself
• 8:44
  and George happened to see Sam Ryder, the Eurovision Song Contest winner,
• 8:48
  on King's Parade and it was on the walk back. I vaguely knew George
• 8:52
  from. From jazz band, but we hadn't really spoken much. I knew
• 8:57
  George was a fresher atami and I don't know why, but I must have asked
• 9:00
  George if he wanted, if he fancied doing a barbershop and I think he was
• 9:04
  a bit non committal or maybe you said I did well at school. That'd be
• 9:07
  nice. Well, this is just the joy of barbershop. It just crops up in any
• 9:10
  conversation you have. I mean, you can be talking about anything and it just.
• 9:14
  It just crops up. So it just cropped up. I remember we were walking
• 9:17
  by the Fitz Museum and then I started sort of thinking and formulating who
• 9:21
  else might be interested. And I spoke to Dom once when I was.
• 9:24
  You asked me over, over and beer at the dining bar.
• 9:28
  I was serving you and beer at the bar. Yes. And I was like originally,
• 9:32
  I was like, I probably would not be that keen. And then you weren't very
• 9:36
  keen. I could see the look of your eyes. Yeah. He said, just come along.
• 9:39
  I was like, okay. So, yeah, I organized a time and a place after
• 9:43
  exam. I said, you have no excuse, please just come and try it. And it
• 9:46
  was George, Dom and Jude at the time and
• 9:50
  I think everyone enjoyed it sufficiently to then. Then we
• 9:54
  got started, obviously. Then Jude graduated last year and that's when we had
• 9:59
  to audition for a new member. And Joe was fantastic in the audition
• 10:02
  and hence he was recruited and that's the current formation.
• 10:06
  So yeah, it was very sort of serendipitous in a way.
• 10:09
  And also simultaneously orchestrated entirely by me.
• 10:16
  So Joe, how's it been? Stepping into Jude's shoes, as it were.
• 10:19
  Yeah, it's been great. So what sort of stuff do you sing? Apart from
• 10:23
  barbershop obviously, but do you have any kind of favourite songs or hits
• 10:27
  that you do? We definitely have some not favourites and some
• 10:31
  favourites, to be fair. We try to do a mix. I'd say we do quite
• 10:35
  a lot of barbershop. Well, we call them barbershop bangers. And then we try to
• 10:38
  do some. Basically any piece that like any of us sort of suggest is something
• 10:42
  we'd like to do. And we try and see if we can find arrangement or.
• 10:46
  Or make it work really. Yeah, My personal favorite is one we're doing actually at
• 10:50
  the moment called Coney island or Goodbye My Coney Island Baby.
• 10:53
  Having spoken to a few people who vaguely know about barbershops, they sort
• 10:58
  of say it's. It's a popular. It's a popular number. I think a lot of
• 11:01
  people have it as their favorite, but it's just like for me it embodies the
• 11:05
  complete nonsense of barbershop along with the good sort
• 11:10
  of close harmony as well. But I don't know what your guys favourites are
• 11:13
  in terms of your classics. There aren't that many. So there's been an instance where
• 11:17
  we were doing a gig last year and we actually started receiving requests.
• 11:22
  Someone walked up to us and they said, do you happen to know Shaboom?
• 11:26
  And we played it off, we said, oh no, we don't know it
• 11:30
  that well but we'll give it your best shot. So we sang it brilliantly and
• 11:34
  they received it mediocrely but it was fine.
• 11:38
  So that's one of my favourites, I think. Shaboom. I remember
• 11:42
  you singing that in a concert in Connecticut. Actually when we were
• 11:46
  on tour with the chapel choir during the summer you had your
• 11:50
  international debut shot to stardom in Greenwich in
• 11:54
  Connecticut. Joe, I remember a concert.
• 11:57
  Was it the choir members recital last time? Jo, you did an extraordinary
• 12:02
  barbershop related maneuver just before the concert. Oh no.
• 12:07
  Do you want to tell us about that? So I'd gone to rehearsal that
• 12:11
  day, so I'd gotten my haircut three days before.
• 12:14
  But because I hadn't done it in rehearsal, I was wearing a beanie
• 12:18
  or something. Yeah, so I was in rehearsal with the beanie and
• 12:22
  then I didn't know what time the concert started, so I thought it started 15
• 12:26
  minutes later than it did. So I showed up a little late and because I'd
• 12:30
  taken the beanie off. They all thought I'd got my hair cut.
• 12:35
  So they were like, oh, barbershop moment.
• 12:38
  And it's a day that she'll live in infamy. I guess I was convinced you'd
• 12:42
  been and had a haircut and it had overrun and then you'd been late to
• 12:45
  the concert. But yeah, you played as like a. I don't
• 12:49
  know what the phrase is. Accordion. Yeah,
• 12:52
  no, it was, it was quite a moment. And so you're giving a recital
• 12:56
  this coming week. Would you like to tell us about it? Yes. So we've
• 13:00
  got, we've got a couple gigs lined up. Actually. We have one concert, our annual
• 13:04
  concert on Friday 20th June and we're going to be doing.
• 13:08
  That's our final concert together. And the title of it is Griffin Singer's the Greatest
• 13:12
  Hits. So it's going to be all of our favorite songs we've done over the
• 13:15
  couple of years. A few new ones, as Harry said, like Coney Island Baby,
• 13:19
  a couple of other ones by people who arrange music, like Tom Gentry
• 13:23
  and people who perform. And there's a really good guy on YouTube who we all
• 13:27
  love called Tim Warwick. He's just a fantastic bloke and he basically records himself
• 13:31
  singing all four parts better than all of us and then put it on YouTube
• 13:35
  and we often use him to listen to the songs. So, yeah, really excited.
• 13:38
  We got that concert coming up on Friday and. Have you found the hat that
• 13:41
  you lost? Didn't you lose a hat at some point? We did lose a hat.
• 13:44
  My wardrobe ate the hat is what happened. Um,
• 13:48
  before the last concert we. I sent a frantic message saying,
• 13:51
  where are all the hats? And we came to the conclusion that they must be
• 13:54
  in the chapel. And then lo and behold, we arrived in the chapel and there's
• 13:56
  only three hats. I then came home and it turned out my wardrobe,
• 14:01
  the hat got eaten. Effectively. I won't bore you with the details, but no,
• 14:05
  I now, I now know where the hat is and I'm fairly confident that I
• 14:09
  will bring it and we will be wearing the hats this time. Although, Jonathan,
• 14:12
  the hats just don't fit. I was just about to say the hats are probably
• 14:15
  the most nerve wracking part of our performances. They just don't stay on your head
• 14:18
  and you mostly spend a lot of the performance adjusting said hat so it
• 14:22
  doesn't fall off. And a lot of our choreography is. Well, if you've not seen
• 14:26
  this before, a lot of our choreography is quite aspirational is the word. I'd use.
• 14:29
  And that does provide challenges with the hat. Sometimes there
• 14:33
  might be some mishaps or. Mishats, you might say. So with your choreography, I mean
• 14:36
  your. Kind of your chat and your choreography is always brilliant.
• 14:40
  Hilarious. Do you spend a lot of time figuring
• 14:44
  it all out or how much of it is sort of off the cuff?
• 14:47
  So sometimes we agree on, you know, certain things that we're gonna do,
• 14:51
  but sometimes it just happens. So we were doing Coney island as we were talking
• 14:56
  the other day, sort of. It was just something happening in that room. You know,
• 14:59
  just many, many, many different sort of things bouncing
• 15:03
  off each other. It was all just happening. And we came up with an end
• 15:07
  product that was. Was pretty substantial, we thought, and we're
• 15:11
  gonna run with it. So sometimes it comes out of the music. Sometimes it's sort
• 15:15
  of like pre chosen. You never. You never really know with the choreography.
• 15:19
  But it's a beautiful thing. I was gonna say, I think sometimes
• 15:23
  it feels like we. We are interpretively dancing in
• 15:28
  the rehearsal and out of that sometimes comes comes choreo
• 15:33
  and. Yeah, and. And I'd say it's a form of. It's a form of art.
• 15:36
  It's like word painting almost. It's. What about next year? Because we're losing George and
• 15:41
  Dominic. Yeah. So next year I think this
• 15:45
  probably will be the. The. The end of the Griffin Singers at the end of
• 15:49
  this term, to be honest with you. We. We've had a fantastic couple of years,
• 15:53
  but I don't know. I. I think it. We. We could recruit new members,
• 15:57
  but I'm not sure if the essence of the Griffin Singers
• 16:01
  would remain, you know, so it's a difficult decision. I mean,
• 16:05
  I'm not necessarily sure that is final yet and we'll see. But I think most
• 16:09
  likely I want to treat this as if it's the last concert. Certainly. Obviously it's
• 16:13
  the last concert in this. In this formation for sure. So it's definitely. There's a
• 16:17
  feeling of finality about it. So we've kind of brought this unique point to Barbershop,
• 16:21
  which has kind of come from the vibe of originally the three of us.
• 16:25
  And then Joe coming in very much in auditions. It was like Joe was the
• 16:28
  one who really caught the vibe straight away and we're like bouncing off each other
• 16:31
  and. Yeah, it's like quite hard to maintain quite a special thing because
• 16:35
  we're such good friends. I don't know if we said already, but we all in
• 16:39
  the Downing Chapel Choir, so we already knew each other quite well from
• 16:43
  that. So there's a certain kind of bond that we all have together already.
• 16:46
  Yeah. Which I think is irreplaceable in a way, in making music and
• 16:50
  stuff. So. Yeah, that's the answer to that. Well, you've got a busy
• 16:54
  few days coming up, haven't you, with the concert tomorrow,
• 16:58
  Friday and then Saturday Donors garden
• 17:01
  party. No, not donor's garden party. The reception before the donor's lunch.
• 17:05
  You're going to be singing and then any May balls. We were
• 17:09
  singing at Downing May Ball, which is fantastic.
• 17:13
  At the drinks reception. So if you're a VIP ticket holder,
• 17:16
  you'll be fortunate enough to hear us sing. We were.
• 17:21
  Unfortunately, we got an offer to sing at John's May Ball, which was,
• 17:24
  well, not unfortunate. It was very fortunate. Lovely. But it was on the same day
• 17:27
  as Downing and we couldn't make the two work together. So just Downing.
• 17:31
  You've got your priorities right then, obviously.
• 17:34
  Downing. Yeah. Great. Well, thanks very much for chatting today.
• 17:37
  It's great to have you on the show and good luck with the final Greatest
• 17:42
  Hits concert tomorrow. Thank you. Bye bye. Bye then.
• 17:50
  This week is certainly a packed one as we heard the Chapel
• 17:54
  choir present their end of year concert tonight, 5:30 in the chapel. When that's
• 17:59
  finished, there's just time to race over to the East Lodge Garden to catch the
• 18:02
  opening night of the Dramatic Society's production of as yous like it at 6 o'
• 18:05
  clock. It's on again on Friday at 6 and on Saturday at 4.
• 18:09
  Also tomorrow at 5 is the Griffin Singers concert which will
• 18:13
  be quite a treat. On Saturday everyone is welcomed to an organ recital in
• 18:17
  the chapel at 3.15pm for half an hour featuring our two lovely organ
• 18:21
  scholars. And on Thursday 26 June, there is an event in the gallery featuring members
• 18:26
  of the Chapel choir singing some of Gillian Ayre's favourite music music. It's also a
• 18:29
  good chance to catch the exhibition. The Music Society present their May week concert at
• 18:34
  2pm on Friday 27 June in the Masters Lodge, followed by
• 18:38
  refreshments. Details of all events are in the show notes. There are certainly
• 18:42
  plenty to choose from.
• 18:48
  Thank you so much to everyone who has contributed to this first ever
• 18:51
  series of the Downing Arts podcast. Join me next week for the final episode.
• 18:55
  I'll be interviewing a very special guest as we round off the term and if
• 18:59
  you'd like to take part in future series, drop me a line on artspodcastao.com.ac.uk
• 19:05
  thanks for listening.