Insightful and conceptual exploration of ‘beat’ through verbatim
Beat, the verbatim song cycle centred around “what it means to be alive” was an insightful experience into the unsung melodies we experience in our everyday lives with hints of ground-breaking medical work and NHS.
The atmosphere was very relaxed, but an intimate theatre offered the opportunity to really experience the sound quality the musicians played. The group played through the hour as musical conversations unfurled between instruments. The world-building of each song as part of the cycle was effectively communicated as many sound effects were creatively weaved into many pieces.
Within the song cycle, the songs ‘Frozen Frog’, ‘What makes your blood boil? Which really captured society’s overwhelm with everyday life, ‘City beat’ as a comedic relief with some heavier topics, ‘Swipe Right’ additionally as comical using embodied knowledge of dating app replies and ‘Palliative Care’ which was a gorgeous piece that explored what a ‘good death’ looks like.
Gorgeous soprano vocals from Olivia Bell, demonstrating her strong vibrato with clean notes and delightful diction. Olivia also gave some expressive and often comical facial expressions to support the mood of each of the songs, and reminded me a lot of Julie Andrews. Lydia Kenny on the Sax had many impressive riffs and gave personality in her musicality, with Kathryn Titcomb on the bass clarinet and offered a perceptive understanding of the group’s pace and timing,communicated well and had a gorgeous sense of control. Equally, Mared Pugh-Evans with the Harp showed a plethora of care and precision with clarity in every note and Robbie Wills on percussion and the vibraphone conquering the challenging task of multi-tasking many instruments with ease and confidence.
I would love to see an exploration of themes being grouped among song order, maybe a medical section? Maybe an everyday ‘beats’ section? This could open up more clarity with mood or audience understanding, but obviously it’s so difficult to keep the mood from dipping too low so I understand mixing it up to keep things fresh.
In all, a very entertaining show. This is such a great example of a group of talented individuals coming together to create a new and inviting piece to provoke conversation and a new layer to the world of music and song cycles. I am intrigued to see if any particular pieces could offer space to produce new works of musicals or plays as there were many themes not often explored in the theatrical world.