A Celebration of the heroes of the French Resistance
Nets, fur and wine: Odd combination, a lot of hindsight. Chrissy Bishop (@friendly_bishop) and her friend Louise review On The Edge at Trinity Arts …
Experiencing an Audio Visual treat in a stunning piece of architecture, when you’re not sure if you’re at a religious ceremony or a soup kitchen come humanitarian relief bunker, adds to what I like to call ‘Leeds Appreciation’. On The Edge produced one such prime example, ‘Heroes of the European Resistance’, in the newly refurbished Trinity Arts, the kind of venue that supplies any event with an extra injection of zing, the surroundings and venue itself accounting for about 65% of the audiences positive experience. My friend Louise and I were lucky enough to experience this event, and we’ve both written completely different reviews. Luckily Louise focuses on the performances, while I indulge in frantic over-analysis, excited by the aesthetic combo of my fur coat and note pad, secretly imagining I was a modern Marjory Proops. This is how it went….
Louise
“The best audience is intelligent, well-educated and a little drunk.”
Alben W. Barkley
I can’t speak for the entirety of the audience but the above 3 attributes somewhat modestly describe me on the night of the Resistance cabaret, making me the perfect audience member on paper. Myself and my good friend Chrissy, giddy as a pair of bluebirds, went to enjoy an evening of alternative entertainment at trinity arts, Leeds.
Upon entering (slightly late – blame my ‘not wanting to be the first at the party” mentality) I was aware of some actors in resistance-style costume threatening to take over Australia, then singing the theme tune to neighbors. This tickled me greatly, followed by a weird sense of familiarity that I had seen this sketch before. However, I am from Norfolk and everyone knows there is a silicone border surrounding that county preventing most alternative culture from permeating into the flat lands. Therefore the only logical conclusion is that I was a member of the French Resistance movement in a previous life. Cool.
Having found a seat and some wine I watched the end of a parody of a ‘homeless response team! J ! J ! J’ and auctioning off the concept of ‘The scream’ by Edvard Munch. Having, in my more recent past as a teenage ‘hip Christian’ been a reluctant member of such a team, I found this painfully funny and accurate. Solution to homelessness ‘you need a hug!/some love!’. Cringe.
Eventually, I managed to catch the start of a performance, thus making me far more informed of the context. Kirsty Taylor took to the altar and presented some exceptional performance poetry. My words to my compatriot were ‘She is explaining everything that is wrong with the world in such a eloquent fashion!’. Due to my fixation on the stage during her performance, I noticed the low hanging camouflage net over the front of the church, giving the large church hall a cosy, militia-style feel. (This also reminded me of being part of the ‘hip Christian’ movement in my teens- if God won’t get the kids in to church, Camo nets will.) What struck me most about Kirsty’s performance was her canny ability to laugh at herself in her former years – hence why I’m sharing anecdotes from my teenage years with you- trust me, I cringe as much as you.
Mid-way through her performance we were approached by a chick wanting us to join the resistance movement. WE agreed but didn’t hear back from her- I think she sensed our weak will and mild intoxication would hamper the effort.
A highlight were the singers Georgette Hilton & Sarah Dooberry. What beautiful voices. Sadly I don’t speak French so the semantics behind her emotional performance were lost on me, but my French speaking companion seemed moved. We really loved her. Later on a choir sang a moving, eerie and pitch perfect version of the French National Anthem, and we got rather over excited and gave them a standing ovation, which for some reason was not reciprocated throughout the room. What can I say – I’m fiercely temporarily patriotic to any country that can provide a good evening of entertainment. On the night, the words written on my notepad were ‘French Nat Anthem- Amaaaze! Where would we be without the French?’ I have no idea what that means.
A dance performance by 70/30 split brought some much needed comedy after the sombre rendition of La Marseillaise. 70/30 split were outrageously entertaining and talented, but I was too busy posing like a trainspotter filming it for Chrissy at the front of the room to take note of many specifics. All I can say is the music and images are still very much on constant auto play in my head which made for an interesting Easter Sunday with the family.
The band that closed the night were super, but any musical expression that uses a xylophone is excellent in my book. I especially enjoyed their French crowd calls throughout the night – even I could understand and respond to those well known French classics such as ‘Ca va?’ ‘Vive la france!’ etcetera.
I had a fantastic time and my only regret is not being there at 6pm waiting for the doors to open so I didn’t miss a snippet of the joy that ensued.
Chrissy
The accuracy of my interpretations as the night went on were severely compromised. So much so that my memory of the night drawing towards the end were not dissimilar to a booze fueled rave. That conclusion was definitely enhanced by the abundance of wine, so cheap I’m almost certain that bathing in it would have cost less than sniffing the air in Sky Lounge.
Realistically speaking the ‘denouement’ was more like a gig, but I don’t think viewing an event like this realistically would have enabled a good time. When in such a remarkable building, surrounded by imaginative installations, exaggerated by the twangs of a guitar and the lusty tones of The Understudies emanating in the air, bewilderment serves as the catalyst to make an event such as this something only the audience can fully appreciate and describe. This was definitely true to Holy Trinity’s mission statement, ‘To develop arts events for young people and disadvantaged groups by working collaboratively with other organizations’.
Along with Louise’s innocent narrative attempt at nailing the concept. I cant help but wish ‘On the Edge’ could have utilized the venues eerie and harrowing attributes combined with the modern talent to portray some of the real courageous, gritty and often brutal acts of the resistance movement; such as tampering with railway tracks for German supply trains, assassination of German officers, working in collaboration with MI6, sending French speaking women and men to France to act as agents feeding info on Germans back to British forces, or portraying the tense, prolonged act of spying on German movements and the constant fear of betrayal.
Consequently, if you went along intent on thesis inspiration or an educational hammering you may have felt like a surplus peseta. The cynic may have questioned the focus on the French resistance, when in reality 80% of combat occurred on the Eastern front with a much more hard core, bloody resistance being fought by the Russians behind enemy lines which seemed to have no appearance in this event. After the war the French resistance were often glamorized as some cool, aloof 1940‘s chic existentialists with vendetta against the Nazis and Gestapo, like some glittery French vogue models, playing a game of Chinese whispers which somehow contributed to ending the war. The ‘Maquisard’ was FAR from a dominant force. For every resistance fighter there was a collaborator feeding pacification with a ‘if you cant beat them join them’ mentality, fueled by the horrors of work camps, back breaking labour, perishing starvation and generally horrendous times.
In conclusion both myself and Louise thought the night was enjoyable, entertaining, talented and original, yet we remained pessimistically aware the French resistance wasn’t all as chipper as a Toulouse Sausage sandwich. Granted I would probably be teaching most of the audience that evening to suck eggs, but I think I have a point here. With inequality remaining a central issue in modern warfare it would be better for society that events such as this portray a realistic account of all suffering as well as victories and make it more accessible, continuously adding to public awareness and education. At the end of the day its not a glamorous country we need to remain strong in the future, it’s a smart one.