Life, Love, Song
VICTORIA KINGHAM
Earlier this year we saw Bev Lee Harling’s work about her father’s final years performed in St John’s Church Hall at St Leonards. Six months or so later, a new, polished, and streamlined version of this unique presentation played for two nights at The Stables as part of Hastings’ Storytelling Festival.
Harling talks to her father on the tree phone
The title has changed – Hey Good Lookin’ was a working title, and also the title of one of Bev’s father’s favourite songs. The show has been retitled Things I Know and Things I Don’t – a line from one of Harling’s own songs about the realisation and final acceptance that, dancing with her father towards the end of his life, she could only relate to him in terms of the present.
This performance was slicker, streamlined: every moment considered and employed – the new back projections (shadow cutouts – the shadows of what were once memories) carefully placed so that they appeared to the audience within the curve of the lovely tree of life. The order of songs was changed a little, and full use was made of the additional excellent sound facilities of The Stables.
What struck me, perhaps even more than before, was the expression of absolute and unconditional love between Harling and her father. It’s not something you often sense on stage over and above the clichés and the sometimes sentimental connotations, and to be honest I’m not sure how it becomes apparent (and when I think about performative expressions of love the one that comes immediately to mind is between the protagonists of Colin From Accounts. Clearly, that’s a digression, but it’s something to do with the depth of their communication). But the love is there – between Harling and every memory she relates of her unseen father, and in the very musical connection between her and her partner Frank Moon. Her own songs are skillfully interspersed with songs that her father loved and could still remember even when he no longer remembered whether he’d had dinner, so that the whole thing becomes one – one relationship between father and daughter, one life.
Things I Know and Things I Don’t showed at The Stables on 23 and 24 October. There are plans to take it on tour nationally. Full details of cast, crew, and sponsors at stablestheatre.co.uk/things-i-know-and-things-i-dont
We hope you have enjoyed reading this article. The future of our volunteer led, non-profit publication would be far more secure with the aid of a small donation. You can also support local journalism by becoming a friend of HIP. It only takes a minute and we would be very grateful.
Leave a Reply