Lucy May Hind, dressed in a baby pink velour tracksuit runs on stage in front of a projected film, exuding the eagerness of a small child desperate to please; she grins inanely, her demeanour is sycophantic.
Extra-Ordinary’s tagline is catchy and effective: ‘One with no legs, one with no clue’. It encapsulates the performance, but leaves the content to be unfolded by the performers. David Toole’s stage presence isn’t defined by his lack of legs, but by his reluctance to engage with Lucy. He is distant, grumpy and dour, and made more so by the exaggerated enthusiasm that pours from Lucy. She is his biggest fan and claims that seeing him perform was her inspiration to embark on a life of dance. Yet David clearly doesn’t think she can dance, and is disgruntled that his dancing might be responsible for her being on the stage.
The plot weaves a simple tale of a starry-eyed woman who has been bequeathed some money that she is using to create her ultimate dream: to dance with her idol on stage. But her idol isn’t playing ball. Instead, a series of comical and pathetic attempts to dance with David, and subsequently his wheelchair, result in Lucy getting stuck in the chair. It is all quite embarrassing to watch, you want to avert your gaze, tell her to go home. David clearly wants to be elsewhere and his grumpy retorts turn into aggressive insults. As Lucy crumbles under the onslaught, David begins to mellow; he talks of his life, his progression into dance, his battle with having “to be better than everyone else because they expect me to fail”.
It is at this point of the performance that Lucy and David settle into their roles. They move through a series of emotional interchanges with a genuine intensity, blurring, for the first time, the line between script and reality. Lucy’s sudden outburst, throwing her grandmother’s radio across the floor, brought me to tears as I plummeted with her into shattered dreams. It is with a sense of cathartic relief that you watch the two performers start to move together to create a beautiful and poignant final dance sequence across the studio floor.
Extra-Ordinary is part of Development Lab at Theatre in the Mill on the campus of Bradford University. Tucked away and quite hard to find, this small venue is a hidden gem. It is part of a wider Arts on Campus programme at the University which was established when the university was created in 1966. Despite Bradford University focusing on science and technology, the idea that art has a role to play in university life has held over the last forty-four years.
But it hasn’t stayed still over that time, development and strategic thinking have moved the Arts on Campus programme forward. “We can’t afford to be ‘ivory towers’, expecting people to come to us; people’s expectations of entertainment have changed”, explains Iain Bloomfield, Artistic Director of Theatre in the Mill and Head of Arts on Campus. So the theatre goes out there and takes the work to the audience, utilising public spaces and buildings around the university.
On the flip side, however “There are very few places where you are expected to sit and partake of something respectfully, but this is an important life-skill to have” says Iain. As a result much of the programming at Theatre in the Mill explores what it means to be a member of the audience. Initially a receiving house for prêt-a-porter productions, Theatre in the Mill is now in a position where it can support performers to try something new. It has become an incubation space where performers and audience are put together without the financial pressure of having to get specific numbers of bums on seats. This gives the artists a space to make mistakes, and a right to fail, says Iain “That right to fail is absolute, and you can do it at spaces like ours”.
Tonight’s Development Lab show, however, is already booked to go to The Lowry in Salford, Hull Truck Theatre, and then on to South Africa. I guess they were banking on it not failing, and I’m pleased to say it didn’t.
nice post. thanks.