The Minefield and The Triumph – a Buzzing show in Birmingham

Murphy’s Law – all that can go wrong, will go wrong

So it had been around a month since the previous tour show, and there was fear of being rusty for the performance, so the plan was to arrive at the venue early and knuckle down to a good run through before the evening performance.

One component of the day to navigate was a Q&A / debate hosted by Punch Records, a development agency for performers and musicians, to which our guys had been invited to sit on the panel and answer questions through our partners Apples and Snakes. This turned out to be a fantastic little event, some great discussions came up about careers in performance poetry and performing arts, the art, if you like, of doing what you love and loving what you do. The general message was if you have the passion and the skill, given time and a good dose of hard graft, you will succeed in some form.

Punch Records run a series of these events, excellent value and also a great networking opportunity for those arts collaborators out there!

But returning to Murphy’s Law, everyone had managed, independently, to run late. Jason had cab trouble, the sort where they don’t turn up, which was delayed the two of us by so much I made preparations for the others to arrive first. As it happened, we were there first, as they were stuck in a taxi rank queue at Birmingham rail station.

Finally all were in and ready to go. Hold on. Our guest poet hadn’t arrived, you’d think with them being local, travel shouldn’t be such an issue. I ran out to call…and discover…that he was stuck, of all places, in London!

We would have to make do with four poets on the bill, there was substantial disappointment, amongst the complaints at no time to rehearse, but at least we had an extra weapon on this occasion. Ben Gwalchmai, a long standing Poet in the City volunteer who happens to also be a dab hand at theatre and direction, gave some great tips and encouragement to the guys. I have to thank him for this, and I was glad I had someone there I could really rely on, because unfortunately there were other, much more boring matters to attend to!

The MAC in Birmingham is a fantastic venue, in a gorgeous lake-side setting. It’s a complex of several performance spaces, a cinema, galleries and workshop spaces, with the ability to host a wide range of interesting happenings at a time. It appeared to be cherished by its visitors and is undoubtedly a jewel in Birmingham’s art scene. It is clearly signed by the entrance as being funded by both the Arts Council and the Lottery. This money is doing very well, and the community is benefiting from it.

However, for us this meant two problems, related to the preconceptions of a ‘poetry night’.

1) In the run up to the event, it became quite apparent that the expectations for bums on seats was very low, and three weeks before the show the venue had sold seven tickets. Seven. Now, if they had not been funded, if they needed to cover their cost for the show taking place, something tells me they may have been a little more concerned. This is my interpretation, bring to it what you will, but we had clearly been assumed as a loss making exercise from the start, and this concerns me. How can we raise the profile of poetry to a well produced and well recognised performance art, when those that stage it presume it is a second rate product?

2) Because we were regarded as a secondary, or even tertiary, element to that day’s programming at the MAC, our technical support was not well managed. By that I take nothing from the lovely, well meaning student who worked with us. She did all she could. But we ought to have been appointed a technician who had been properly trained, experienced and knowledgable because this is not your standard POETRY NIGHT. The Spoken Word All Stars show requires as much sound tech-ing as staging a live band, and it’s a set of many shifts between tempos, sounds, musical and vocal elements.

Now seven tickets was a shock. Seven. And here demonstrates the power of collaboration, internet marketing and using your contacts! Those three weeks brought on an intensive campaign through contacting local promoters and asking them to distribute an e-flyer, sending a discount offer to selected organisations, and working closely with Apples and Snakes, and Punch Records so that everyone going to the Tuned On session was encouraged to come to the evening show. Some people even thought the gap between shows was a two-hour interval! Not the case but if it meant they were there, all’s good.

So Murphy’s Law onto a law of positive karma – This may be a personal thing but it has gotten me through many a bad day – I’ve always liked to believe that a bad day will balance out with a great evening, that only so much bad can happen before some greater good comes out of it.

The show went down a storm, we ended up with a full house (the surprise on the venue staff’s faces at the queue for tickets was quite something) and the atmosphere was electric. Having four instead of five didn’t diminish the quality or the energy of the show and the guys worked in beautiful harmony. There were a few sound issues, refer to point 2), but I still feel that the response from the crowd, the engagement and the buzz were the best we’d had on the tour so far.

[cue anthem]
From being feared as a potential disaster, from a minefield of logistical set backs and a certain level of disregard, we had proven to be the hottest ticket that night at the MAC, and the night was hailed as one of the great challenges and successes of the tour.

Go us.

And … phew!