Race Against Time

So, ‘Spring-Heeled Jack in Everton’ was over, and so were the patchy mid-summer downpours (I wished that they were April showers, but August’s not that versatile…) – so, going by the original plan, my time with Hope Street was over, right?

Not quite – see, I’d enjoyed myself so much that I ended up asking if I could stay on for the rest of the project. There was a bit of humming and hawing, but our producers John and Montse eventually relented and I was belatedly welcomed to the programme full-time. And, after a day or two of catching up on business matters and the like, we were straight into our next project – ‘Race Against Time’, an immersive theatrical game directed by Adam McGuigan of Zambia’s Barefeet Theatre.

At this point, I was to discover that the four weeks we had been given to make ‘Spring-Heeled Jack’ were a veritable luxury – here, we had just three weeks to pull together a show that required participants to run around the city, visiting various landmarks and unpicking fragments of the story. Fortunately, Adam had his head screwed on and knew exactly what he wanted of everyone.

Well, everyone except one guy.

Yep, Sunny Jim here hadn’t been at the R&D, so Adam had no idea I even existed until the first day of rehearsals when he was essentially told “Guess what – we got you a researcher! Happy Christmas”. To his credit, he made an effort to include me and to utilise my skills to the best of my abilities, but by the end of the first week I was beginning to feel disenchanted, useless, and pondering whether I might have made a mistake in carrying on. I feel at pains to point out this wasn’t Adam’s fault – I enjoyed working with him, and it was delightful to see the way my fellow EAPs gelled on this project. There just didn’t seem to be space in it for the little niche I’d expected to fill.

As it happened, my niche was in a different area entirely. We had originally had two stage managers, but one of them had vanished before I even started on ‘Spring-Heeled Jack’, and Christos was still in South Wales. Fortunately, we found the equally heroic Ellie to join us, and were joined for this project by the eminently capable Sonia and Kate, but ‘Race Against Time’ was a very production-heavy show, and it was very much a case of ‘all hands on deck’.

As the first week melded into the second, Adam’s tasks for me were moving away from pure research and into more production-based matters. By Wednesday of the second week, I was liaising directly with our production manager, Sian. I was hardly doing complex stuff, but I was being useful – tracking down stopwatches, finding a red carpet, getting quotes for stretch limousines – and it was a nice way to polish up some skills I’d never been all that good at.

Also, I got asked to do acting. Glory in my wooden generAmerican accent. And while you’re at it, check out the lovely folks at Draw&Code, who worked wonders with the multitudinous audio-visual elements we demanded of them.

And so to show week, where alongside my roles of cold-calling various businesses to beg for things and aggravating Sian, I was once again called upon to provide music for the evening. Nothing quite so arduous as last time; Luke had once again written some delightful music (seriously, is there any genre that boy can’t compose in?), and I just had to make sure I played the right notes. There were a few moments of stress – not being able to find a bass player, for one – and we did have to cheat slightly on strict historical accuracy when it came to the guitar (a subject on which I could go on for hours, and you should be glad I’m not), but come Saturday we were set. We had an hour’s worth of playing at the delightful Liverpool Medical Institute, just around the corner from Hope Street Ltd and the birthplace of one of my heroes, William Roscoe; then, while the rest of the company were dashing round the city centre, dressing venues, resetting scenes and getting out, we adjoined to the aftershow venue over the road and had a very comfortable few hours eating, drinking and commenting on Mark Reckless’ defection to UKIP.

For some reason, when it came to the actual aftershow I decided to improvise my own character – the bandleader Edwin Costello, from Tupelo, Kansas. I even ended up doing a rendition of ‘Cry Me A River’ (the Julie London version, not Justin Timberlake’s). And then I drank a lot of whiskey, we all went to Magnet, I met Lee Mavers, and we made Adam cry. It was a good night.

And, just like that, it all changed. We had one more project to go, but there would be no lead artists, no mentors, and no pre-formed vision. It was time for us to put all we’d learned to use, and show what good the last few months had done…

Spring-Heeled Jack in Everton: An Epilogue

So, it… kind of took me a while to get back to this. I’ll explain in a bit.

When I left off, we were at the end of the first week of rehearsals for our end-of-August extravaganza. What happened next was that real life intervened. As well as writing the three updates I promised, I had to collect, collate and organise all of the research I’d done for SHJ up to that point and forward it to Tessa in order that she could write the actual storyline (which was kind of important, not gonna lie), and work two shifts for my muggle job. And I had to do all this by Saturday evening, before heading up to Edinburgh for two days at the Fringe. Needless to say, blog posts got shifted pretty rapidly to the bottom of the pile.

After getting back from Edinburgh (inadvertently discovering I had ceased to be a Young Person six days earlier than anticipated) on the Tuesday morning, I was thrust into a chaotic environment in desperate need of a guiding hand. Unfortunately, that environment was the entirely unfulfilling muggle job, where I was desperately covering shifts for colleagues who were ill or on holiday. I wouldn’t make it back to Hope Street until Thursday, and as a result was entirely absent when the key dramaturgical decisions were taken. I still haven’t quite forgiven my employers; even writing about it now, at a remove of three months, I still feel more than a little pissed off.

By the start of the third week, my role as a researcher was starting to wind down, and not being able to partake in the dramaturgy meant I was essentially exiled from the production team. Not to worry, though; thanks to the vision of Andy Gledhill and Luke Thomas, our musical directors, I was soon busy memorising trombone parts for the procession, and – far more dauntingly – teaching myself to play the accordion. The blog had, by this point, completely fallen by the wayside, but I made a vow to write an epilogue once the dust had settled and I had finished my time at Hope Street.

Midway through the third week, another task was handed to me – scriptwriting. The event on the 31st was to begin with a walking tour, led by four of our performers, and they needed a framework for them to work off; and, as the guy who knew the most stuff about the legend of Spring-Heeled Jack in Everton, I was evidently the guy to write it. I’d never written a script before, and what I wrote certainly wasn’t a script in the traditional sense – it was mostly paragraphs of talking for the actors to chop up and use as they felt best – but it was excellent fun to do.

And then they asked me to be a character on the tour.

I’m not saying I did a bad job here – I certainly think I entertained people and added an extra dimension to the story, which was my main reason for being there – but, looking at it now, with the benefit of hindsight and with my dramaturg hat on, I can see the questions that little segment in particular raised and the issues it created with the story – mainly because my character, a sceptic academic (sounds like an Arctic Monkeys song, that) who didn’t believe the myth of Spring-Heeled Jack, was only scripted for that little segment, but I kept showing up in costume throughout the rest of the event. Still, it was a speedy job; I wrote it on the Wednesday, amended it to Tessa’s suggestions on Thursday, and scooted back up to Edinburgh on Friday for the August Bank Holiday.

And so to week four – Tech Week. Here I was all of a sudden wearing three hats at once; musician, actor and production team appendix (our legendary stage manager, Christos, left to go and spend a month with Welsh National Opera, so I offered my rusty stagehand skills in whatever capacity they were needed). Chaos abounded – we had a walking tour, a promenade, a procession and a carnival to perfect by the Sunday, the weather was against us, and nobody was quite sure who would turn up and whether we’d have a show for them. We managed it – just; I can still remember watching the final bits of choreography being rehearsed in a showery Everton Park on the morning of August 31st, awaiting a drenching downpour. And then, at about two in the afternoon, the clouds vanished and the sun blazed in the azure welkin, and it suddenly seemed like we might just pull it off.

We did, of course. The sun shone and the crowds came, and we had a marvellous time (except for our town crier, Danny, who was accidentally hospitalised after inhaling a large amount of artificial smoke). We got everything packed down under the kind of glorious sunset that only Merseyside can really do, and then we all went and got gloriously drunk. Which may not have been the best idea when we had to finish a get-out from West Everton Community Council at 9am the next morning…

So ended (for now, at least) the tale of Spring-Heeled Jack in Everton. Why, then, has it taken me three months to write this? Well, I might’ve been done with Jack, but Hope Street wasn’t done with me…

“Spring-Heeled Jack in Everton” #8 – In My Mappy Place

Another early blog – I’m in work with my muggle job this evening, and I don’t fancy writing another zombie post this evening.

We’ve just had our first dramaturgical meeting, discussing what’s come out of this week’s developments, and by Monday we should have a structure (I keep on wanting to call it a plot, but given the nature of the work that’s not really accurate). When that happens I’ll have a better idea of what research needs I’ll have for next week, and how to focus my dramaturgical energies. Right now, though, I’m ordering old OS maps of various areas of Liverpool in order to have a geographic resource for when we start planning in earnest.

I’m also going to be away over the weekend, enjoying the delights of Edinburgh – but fear not! I will have blogs for you, thanks to the magic of the ‘schedule posts’ feature on WordPress. I do know how you’d hate to be without them.

“Spring-Heeled Jack in Everton” #6 – Post-Work Quickie #1

Quick update, because it’s late and I’ve been at work.

Delving into other methods of research now – the aim with the research my fellow EAPs are doing is to find something of their given storytelling tradition that interests them and produce something for our show from that. That means that, whilst I’m pointing people towards the resources I’ve found, which are mainly academic, I’m also pointing them towards other resources, whether it’s fantasy novels, Saturday night TV, or Discworld (I’m particularly keen on pushing Discworld. Everyone should read Discworld. Everyone). I’m also beginning to get into the wider bits of dramaturgy, beginning to draw the show together and giving us a framework to hang our story on.

I’m also keeping an eye out for weather reports, because I have a feeling I’m going to be spending a significant chunk of tomorrow wandering around Everton Park. It’s a good job I like the view.

“Spring-Heeled Jack in Everton” #5 – Dramaturgid Waters

Today has been a good day.

It’s also been a very busy day, which is why I’m writing this at my kitchen table with a Maccies’ milkshake trying to desperately beat a self-imposed midnight deadline. I spent my morning running my Incredible Ever-Condensing Hope Street Limited Library, giving my fellows advice on where to look for their own research, and my afternoon and evening working on musical projects in various far-flung corners of Everton (and even managed to sneak in some writing of my own, which hasn’t happened in ages). Basically, today’s been my first proper taste of being a working dramaturg.

At this point I have to address a question I’m almost certain you’re asking: What on earth is a dramaturg? Truth be told, I’m still asking that myself.

The difficult thing about describing the role of a dramaturg is that nobody agrees on what a dramaturg’s role actually is. From what I’ve found out by doing some reading around the role, every dramaturg has their own definition of what their role is, and I get the feeling that every show has a different role for a dramaturg (and, of course, lots of shows have no need for them at all).

The role of dramaturg (in its modern form) was developed by Gotthold Lessing in the eighteenth century, as a kind of ‘font-of-all-knowledge’ about the historical background of plays and operas. Of course, the eighteenth century was a long time ago, and things have changed a fair bit since then. For a lot of people – especially those who don’t work with dramaturgs – it’s still a predominantly research-based role; another definition common amongst dramaturgs themselves is that it focuses on advising the development of new works for the stage. Some dramaturgs see their role as being the representation of the author in the production, whilst others consider themselves ‘designated outsiders’, people who offer different perspectives on shows. And some people consider it an ever-changing grab-bag of whatever roles other people didn’t want, a kind of ‘odd-job man’ of the production team.

So, with that in mind, here’s my definition of ‘the dramaturg’s role’: to ensure the coherence and cohesiveness of a production. That means research, definitely, and also probably taking on a lot of odds and ends that don’t quite fall into anyone else’s job remit but nonetheless need doing to make sure the production works. It means I may occasionally have to stand up to the other members of the production if something they really want doesn’t work, and that I will basically turn into a massive continuity geek over the next month. Well, I say ‘turn into’. I mean ‘unleashing the slathering continuity-porn addict that lurks deep within my psyche, usually shackled with shatterproof bonds to prevent him ruining Discworld for me’.

If you’re reading this, and you think I’ve completely missed the point of dramaturgy, drop a note in the comments section. I fancy having a lively debate about this (a lively debate is probably the last thing I need right now, but to hell with stupid niggling things like necessities).

“Spring-Heeled Jack in Everton” #4 – Changing Jack

Today was my first day working with the EAPs – my fellows on Hope Street‘s Emerging Artists Programme. A lot happened.

My role from here on out is going to be changing; I’ll be moving away from doing the research myself and starting to guide my fellow performers in research of their own – of which, more anon. This post is going to be dedicated to reflecting on my research so far, and looking at where I go from here.

Tessa sent me a very long list of storytelling traditions to have a look at, and over the past (very hectic) weekend I’ve been digging up stuff on as much of that as I can – there was even one point where I pulled my laptop out at a house party and spent an hour boning up on the traditions of mummers’ plays, which may account for the paucity of my social calendar come September. In the process I found loads and loads of really interesting stuff, including Ewan MacColl’s account of the making of the radio ballads, a National Theatre video series on Commedia dell’Arte, and a blog about penny dreadfuls and the increase in literacy in Victorian England. This is only scratching the surface of what I’ve found, and I haven’t had the chance to more than skim-read the stuff I’ve found. If I ever manage to finish the vast pile of experimental literature I’ve acquired I’ll still not want for reading material for weeks at the least.

So that’s the story so far. I’m not going to say that my research endeavours have ceased – and I will doubtless come back to them in the coming days and weeks, because there’s three weeks of research currently sat on my computer and I can’t adequately detail it all in the space of four posts (though I have tried). But my day-to-day activities are going to be a bit different – I’ll be spending less time hunched over my laptop on my own, rifling through census details for Kirkdale in 1891, and more time actually communicating with real live people. I’ve even got a desk; it’s in a library and everything (or at least it is when Hope Street’s admin staff don’t keep nicking it). In other words, I’m becoming less of a pure researcher, and moving into the murky waters of dramaturgy.

This is where the fun starts. I hope.

“Spring-Heeled Jack in Everton” #3 – Lurkin’ on the Railroad

I talked yesterday about the websites I’ve been using to do my historical research, and about how the available material affects the nature of my research. There’s been another aspect of this, which has been digging into the history of the area going back before Spring-Heeled Jack’s reign of terror, and in the years since he disappeared.

Some of this comes from the research I’ve already dug up; the history of High Park Street Reservoir, for example, is fascinating – a serious architectural undertaking, and one that was still in use during my lifetime. Other areas can be a bit more tangential – for example, when researching the character of ‘A. Guthrie’, a temperance advocate and vocal letter-writer to the Liverpool Mercury, very critical of John Houlding, I found that the building from which he addressed his letters was the headquarters of the Cheshire Lines Committee. Being a massive train buff, I knew that the Cheshire Lines Committee had built two lines through this part of North Liverpool in the 1880s to compete with the commuter lines run by the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway. Was it possible that ‘Spring-Heeled Jack’ could be part of a land-war between two rival companies seeking dominance in this quarter of the city?

Alas, it’s unlikely – the North Liverpool Extension and the Southport Extension were never very profitable, and they eventually closed in the 1960s. Still, it was an interesting diversion, and I’m pretty sure that there’ll be some use for that information in some form.

My research now is starting to move away from the local history aspect and into folklore and folk traditions – I have a big, big list provided by Tessa from the Suitcase Ensemble of themes that they’d like to see included in the show, and there’s going to be more to come, almost certainly, as people develop their own ideas and start pursuing their own paths of inquiry. That means the resources I use will change, but some of the methods will carry over. Just last night I managed to find an excellent brief documentary on mummers’ plays in Ireland by typing a few choice terms into Google.

Also, at some point, I think I’m going to have to take a trip to Antrobus to find out what ‘soul-cakes’ are.

“Spring-Heeled Jack in Everton” #1 – Facts On The Ground

For the rest of this month, I’m going to be working as a researcher on Hope Street Limited’s community project Spring-Heeled Jack In Everton. It’s a bit daunting – I’ve done research projects before, but nothing quite on this scale, where my work is essentially responsible for the basis of the project. Parts of my brain are screaming slightly.

The purpose of this blog is to keep a log of my research discoveries and methods, and of the results of my work – it’s perceived as part of the project’s legacy, which is another terrifying prospect. Personally, I’m also hoping that the process of sitting down and writing about my experiences will help me draw together plot-lines and spot coincidences and patterns in what I’ve found. I’m becoming increasingly aware that my role is almost as much that of a dramaturg as a researcher – a can of worms I intend to open further in short order.

I’ve been doing drips and drops of research over the past few weeks, with the help of my professional mentor Seamus Rush, and have somehow managed to amass a fair bit of information. Most of it is about Liverpool at the time of Spring-Heeled Jack’s sightings there during the last twenty years of Victoria’s reign – like most urban legends, hard facts about Spring-Heeled Jack himself are notoriously thin on the ground. Nevertheless, Tessa Buddle of the Suitcase Ensemble, the lead artists on the project, asked me to put together a ‘fact’-sheet that can be taken into the community workshops, and I figured this would be a good way to start off this blog – the first, and last, time I’ll discuss Spring-Heeled Jack as fact.

So:

*Spring-Heeled Jack was first seen in London in 1837, and terrorised areas of England throughout the Victorian period
*His name comes from his ability to leap astonishingly high – far higher than any human
*He was reported to attack young ladies, especially servant girls, and shred their clothes
*Other reports mention him having glowing red eyes, claws, breathing fire and having a strange light emanate from his chest
*Jack was seen in various towns across Britain during the Victorian era, including *Sheffield, Warrington, Northamptonshire, Aldershot and Lincoln
*In 1888, he was reportedly seen leaping off the roof of High Park Street Reservoir in Toxteth
*Jack was said to have terrorised the area around All Saints’ Church and the Bloody Acre in Childwall not long after
*Then, later that year, he appeared on the spire of St Francis Xavier’s Church in Everton, before leaping off and vanishing
*In 1904 Jack was once again reported to have appeared in William Henry Street, running across the rooftops and evading the police in what is considered his last proper sighting in England
*In the intervening years, Spring-Heeled Jack has become a part of the fabric of English horror and folklore, appearing in novels, comics and films
*He’s mostly remembered as a bogeyman and a way of making unruly children behave *Theories abound as to what he really was – a spaceman from another world, a monster from Hell, a mischievous aristocrat or inventor…

That may not be the list as it ends up, as Tessa may want me to change it – such is what I’m here for, after all!

I also threw together a few quotes from people I interviewed at Out Of The Blue festival in Everton last month, chosen because they illustrated important or commonly-held beliefs about Jack (or because they entertained me):

*“He had springs on his heels and he’d go jumping over walls scaring kids”
*“He used to leap out and frighten women – don’t think he murdered anyone though”
*“It’s a kid’s story – not to be taken seriously”
*“There was a rumour he was ‘the Devil in disguise’”
*“My dad used to use him as a way if he didn’t want me to go down certain streets, he’d tell me Spring Heeled Jack’d get me”
*“He was kind of the first free-runner”

These also illustrate the main focus of this project – it’s not the ‘facts’ about Spring-Heeled Jack that matter, so much as the stories we tell about him. If this project is about anything, it’s about storytelling.

My aim is to update this blog once a day for the entirety of August. Keep your eyes peeled, keep vigilant, keep watching the skies.

Ladies and gentlemen, Jack is back.