Review: Double bill – The Beginning & 30 Cecil Street

Thursday 29 March, 7.30pm

Michael Pinchbeck – The Beginning
&
Dan Canham – 30 Cecil Street

Leeds Met Gallery & Studio Theatre at Northern Ballet

This double bill was the perfect swan song for one of Leeds most consistently innovative performance programmes. Since the loss of their venue in 2009 the Gallery & Studio Theatre have been running their programme from other spaces, most recently Northern Ballet’s Stanley and Audrey Burton Theatre.

As a former employee it is hard for me to separate the demise of my favourite venues in Leeds without getting a little emotional, and it was certainly an emotional night. The two pieces beautifully complement each other topping and tailing as they do with theatrical beginnings and endings.

Drawing heavily musically and thematically from the Histoire de Melody Nelson, a concept album by Serge Gainsbourg in which a middle-aged Gainsbourg unintentionally collides his car with Melody Nelson’s bicycle, and a Lolita-esque seduction and romance ensues. Michael Pinchbeck’s The Beginning is playful and warm. He, along with Ollie Smith and Nicki Hobday, extends the invitation for us to walk on stage and “look like an ass” – the first of many references to A Midsummer Night’s Dream – and the promise that if you leave they will leave with you. I am momentarily tempted to put them to the test, except I can’t leave,  I have this review to write.

It’s all part of the game. The performers appear to be enjoying themselves, and each other. The Beginning is an ode to theatre itself and it feels like it is just for me. At this point I wonder if that means that it isn’t for other people? An average theatre goer might feel like they weren’t ‘in’ on the joke.

Like the previous part in Michael’s trilogy, The End, The Beginning is cyclical, and as we reach the end the stage is reset, the slate wiped clean, so we can start all over again. A new beginning and I could happily have watched it all over again.

After the interval we turn our attention to endings with Dan Canham’s beautifully crafted 30 Cecil Street. This dance theatre piece aptly memorialises a closing theatre.

From an empty stage, fragments of past events and interviews with audiences and staff play out. We hear the pre-recorded voices of distant ghosts, of clinking glasses and murmuring crowds, as Canham builds his theatre from scratch using nothing but masking tape. It is delicate, mesmerising as he moves through the space embodying the differing atmospheres and histories of each of the spaces.

Deceptively simple as it is, I am immediately drawn in by the subtle emotion of the piece. Canham does not emote, he is the impartial observer, the documenter. His expressive movement is controlled and timed to perfection as he retreads the squeaky boards of the derelict Theatre Royal in Limerick, yet the overall effect is surprisingly moving.

Of course it is hard not to remember we are also witnessing the end of a different theatre. Leeds Met Gallery & Studio Theatre is ‘closing it’s doors’ to the public after 20 years. Although we said goodbye to the physical studio theatre, which is now obliterated in order to make room for yet more student accommodation, some years ago. As the lights begin to dim I must admit to shedding a tear, what a fitting exit for this great venue.

Jaye Kearney
@Yorkshirebint