Watch This Space

Families immediately adopted the Astroturfed seats, and delighted children clambered energetically over them for weeks. Dubbed – of course – Armchair Theatre, the giant furniture has raised questions about the identity of a hitherto unknown installation artist. Its purpose was, in fact, to hint playfully at what was to come: the three-month festival of alfresco entertainment known as Watch This Space . For the green sitting-room was nothing less than an auditorium in disguise.

Angus MacKechnie, now in his fourth year as the Producer of the National’s summer festival, declares modestly that there was no artist: “It was just me scribbling on a piece of paper and asking my production manager to make the pieces three times life-size”. Which sounds like the definition of an artist to me. Be that as it may, MacKechnie takes his main role very seriously indeed. He spends months “shopping” at festivals all over Britain and Europe, from Edinburgh to Catalonia, Italy to Poland, to achieve the optimum mix of dance, drama, music, circus, comedy, street performance and spectacle. For the second year running, Watch This Space is supported by the European Commission Representation in the UK, which has allowed for even more groups from across the channel to be included alongside the home-grown ones – from France, Germany, Spain, Belgium, Poland and the Netherlands as well as Ireland. But the festival welcomes – particularly in the music, programmed by Alessandra Satta – contributors from the rest of the world too: from Ghana, Zimbabwe, Cuba, Brazil and Australia.

The theatre building itself – inside and out – features more than ever this year. The popular late-night Green Room, with resident DJs Bring&Share, again provides a relaxing end to the evening in the Terrace Bar, until 1am on Fridays and Saturdays. But there are now also HubNights, providing pockets of entertainment in the foyers and, for some, tours of hidden parts of the building.

On certain evenings in July and August an open-air cinema, sponsored by Kirin Ichiban Beer, materialises as the Olivier fly tower becomes a screen for short films. These include Rabbit, described as “an after-dark fairy tale” made up of animated 50s educational stickers, and Heavy Metal Drummer, a comedy about a metal fan set in Morocco. Let no-one say this festival lacks variety.

But the main focus is on outdoor live entertainment and, for the first time, another  performance area has been – well – “discovered”. On the corner of the building between the stage door and the river, Square2 provides space for two European shows: The Threepenny Ring Cycle from France and Macbeth: Who is that Bloodied Man? devised by the Polish Teatr Biuro Podròzy. Both will play, in English, to several hundred spectators at a time.

Les Grooms’ piece is a speedy 79-minute version of Wagner’s 16-hour epic, including (nice touch, given the composer’s anti-Semitic tendencies) Jewish klezmer music. It will be performed in a tent by three very busy opera singers and an ambiant brass band. And when it comes to the Rhine overflowing, as ever with Watch this Space, it is best to expect the unexpected.

The Polish company have toured their strange and innovative pieces to 40 countries and are making their sixth visit to the National’s festival. Previous works include Carmen Funebre, Pigs (inspired by Animal Farm), and Heart of Darkness, based on the Conrad novel, a show which premiered in Watch This Space in 2007. Before they arrive in London they will take their Macbeth, which has already been to Iran and India and was a sell-out at last year’s Edinburgh Festival, to Elsinore, Hamlet’s castle.

Marta Strzalco, one of the directors of Teatr Biuro Podròzy, says the company was founded in 1988, a time when things were just beginning to change politically in Poland, but theatres were empty. “It was a transition period. People were focused on consuming rather than the arts, so we have always gone out to meet audiences, not the other way around. We performed in the open air in small towns and villages then and still enjoy attracting accidental spectators. Watch This Space is a very friendly, open festival and it’s in the heart of London so it’s always busy.”

The Macbeth company is 17-strong, including two people responsible for the motor bikes. Yes, motor bikes. Strzalco argues logically that they are “a strong device and very noisy, the best theatrical way for a strong man to travel”. There are other surprises in the show, among which even stilt-walking weird sisters may not be the most spectacular. The company is said to have an unforgettable way with fire. Do they worry about the weather? Strzalco is confident: “We’ve played in snow, wind, tropical storm – English rain is nothing!”.

Not everyone can afford to be so carefree. Vicki Amedume of Upswing Aerial says that, despite a love of the immediacy of working outdoors, her group can’t do their act in the rain. Putting circus in a modern context, they present an unusual mixture of hip hop, urban dance and circus skills with bungee breakin’ at the core. This is neither jumping off the NT building, nor preening in spangly costumes, but perfectly timed dance using bungee ropes. Upswing Aerial, who also showcase individual short dance pieces, are offering workshops for a few enthusiasts who would like to learn the – er – ropes, but they need to sign up on the day.

Vicki Amedume knows that her act and the chance to learn some of her company’s skills  are likely to appeal to the young and perhaps to people who might not be National Theatre regulars. Nevertheless, Watch This Space is part of the National’s summer activities and festival-goers and theatre audiences are likely to mingle in Theatre Square. The plays being seen in the main auditoriums are listed for each day on the festival brochure and Angus  MacKechnie is particularly pleased when interval audiences line the terraces to watch what is happening below or find themselves drawn into another performance when they thought they were on their way home. There are times when Watch This Space develops an all-encompassing festival-style party atmosphere.

One of MacKechnie’s long-term aims is to encourage the exchange of skills with international companies so that perhaps, one day, a National Theatre-produced piece might visit festivals in other countries.The National has, in fact, already provided time at its Studio for the development of ideas and instigated new festival work, one example of which is coming home this summer.

Nothing could be much closer to base than Waterloo Bridge, the subject of The Bridge performed by Mimbre, an all-female UK-based group consisting of two Swedes and an Italian who met while training at Circus Space in London. Lina Johanson describes how the name Mimbre came about: “It is the Spanish for wicker, the plant for basket weaving, and it is also the name of a move linking two acrobats with a third through them.” Their physical theatre, dance and acrobatics piece began with the story that Waterloo Bridge was built by female labour in the Second World War, but it has since developed to encompass other ideas about connection and control and has been played in many countries. Audiences familiar with repressive regimes have responded especially enthustastically to the sequence in which the bridge-crossing is blocked by a border guard.

These are just a few glimpses of what is on offer over the summer… How about Faunèmes , performed by Théâtre de l’Elephant Vert from France featuring a family who swallow sounds and then use them to absorb your secret thoughts? Or Home LiveArt’s Alternative Village Fete – Morris dancing and cake stalls with an urban twist? Or a whole bank holiday weekend of dance to mark the handing over of the Olympic flame? Or the miniature lost world of Indian film-maker Shanta Rao Dutt explored by nutkhut in Movieplex?

But even so this isn’t any old Watch This Space year. Its tenth anniversary, celebrated on 30 August, involves not just fireworks, but fire, water and mayhem. On the menu that day are many old favourites from previous years, as a tribute to former programmers Jonathan Holloway and Caterina Loriggio, including The Insect Circus Museum, featuring acrobatic ants; Mario, Queen of the Circus , a juggling tribute to Freddie Mercury; Bells by Akademi, the innovative Indian dance company; Avanti Display’s Spurting Man, which promises to be drenching and – not at the same time – The Guardian Angels by Bängditos, firemen who oversee outbursts of spontaneous combustion.

This festival is longer than most, with an astonishing 587 participants, so however determined the cumulonimbus clouds over Waterloo, a good deal of fun, spectacle and (sometimes) frissons of terror are guaranteed before the end of September. But from the beginning of July, Angus MacKechnie can’t quite get isobars and wind speeds out of his mind: “I have the BBC Weather website permanently open on my desktop all summer. And if it looks threatening we’ve been known to go out on to the terrace and talk to the clouds.” Let’s hope the MacKechnie incantations are successful and that the sun shines brightly all summer on the weird and wonderful activities in Theatre Square.

© Heather Neill 2008

Heather Neill is a freelance critic and feature writer

Tickets are £10 for Square2 and all other events are free.