As I write, Simon Gane and Brodie Murray are moving the truss for the staging up to the venue at Glenbuchat.  This afternoon is the get in.  The prequel to a week of rehearsal and, eventual, performance.

Over the last week I’ve been very conscious of the shift in effort and attention to detail involved in putting on a performance of this type.

Yes:  I am used to the finnicky detail of editing poems – the notorious shifting and re-shifting of commas and nuancing of words – and the even greater scrutiny involved in proofing, typesetting and design.  I have been blessed with a great publishing team in Sheila Wakefield, Elizabeth Rimmer and Gerry Cambridge at Red Squirrel Press who share a passion for perfection and vast amounts of patience.

And I am familiar with the excruciating attention involved in printing and painting – especially in portraiture – where a millimetre displacement or an increment of hue can make or break a piece.

But, as a writer and visual artist, I’ve never had to worry much about COVID risk assessment, feeding the crew, the availability of First Aiders: let alone whether anyone can actually see or hear me!

And yet here Pibroch is, in a real space – Glenbuchat Hall in West Aberdeenshire – at a real time – a Saturday night in January in the second year of a global pandemic – working with real people – performing to real people – with musical accompaniment by Fraser Fifield and visuals developed in collaboration with Graeme Roger – in a setting created by Simon Gane.

And we are ready and it has come together through the skills and effort of all of the team, not least the directorial inputs of Mark Thomson, the support of Martin Aitken, marketing nous of Lucy Stroud and mentoring of Lesley-Anne Rose of Open Road Ltd.

The journey from idea to text to a visual concept has been long but these last weeks have been intense.  How do we make these ideas and elements play, in an exciting and engaging manner, within the real space?  Where do I stand?  How do I avoid getting in the way of projection?  Am I lit – visible – audible – ‘appropriate’? 

I began with naïf assumptions about the space – especially the stage – the options for lighting and projection (and exit routes and social distancing) but, day by day, the team has solved and resolved each issue – proposing, critiquing, collaborating, reworking.

A key design decision was to use a vertical rather horizontally aligned projection mode (think portrait rather than landscape).  This played off of the available stage area and the projector throw necessary to achieve appropriate height to width ratios.

And the stage footprint – and no-go zones defined by the projection beams – constrained the lighting opportunities and, as I am sure will emerge, where I can actually ‘be’ on the stage at any moment in the performance.

Our decision not to use a stage mic frees me from the stand – and the simplifying constraint of a single narrow footprint as in cabaret performance. But now I am interacting with the lights, the projection beam and the challenge of not falling off the stage whilst speaking the text in a relaxed, powerful and (ideally!) coherent and audible manner.  Hmm.  I’m not sure I’m in Kansas anymore.

I have previous theatrical experience – I know how to find a light and follow notes – project and present.  But, after almost a decade of working and performing as a poet and spoken word performer, it feels like this new project has taken my experience and practice to a new level of discipline and sophistication.  All of which I owe to the Pibroch team who have acted not only as enablers to the work but patient mentors in each aspect of the craft.  They have my eternal gratitude.

It was an idea and now it’s possible…and that is the art.  A week from now we will be striking the set in that space and looking for future programming opportunities for Pibroch through 2022.

I have been working on this project since Autumn 2019 and I can honestly say – I am excited!

Watch this space for more updates as the week progresses.