Some of Scotland’s most distinctive novelist, poets, musicians, songwriters, playwrights and you: a nation of people, awake in the dark, waiting for the light to come.
Whatever Gets You Through The Night is an ambitious new multi-disciplinary live event featuring actors, visuals by Kim Beveridge, aerial work, new writing by some of Scotland’s top novelists, poets and playwrights, and a whole album’s worth of original music by acclaimed Scottish musicians, some of whom will perform live in the show. Read more …
Created by Cora Bissett with Swimmer One and David Greig, the show will be quite unlike anything else – a visual and aural banquet blending circus, cabaret, and a host of stories – all of which take place across Scotland between the hours of midnight and 4am. A heartfelt goodbye on the shore of Loch Lomond, an Skype affair between two people who never meet, a man searching for a lover in ‘the palace of light’, a character lost in a virtual reality game world, and an homage to the joys of chips and cheese… Come and meet lost souls, party animals and dreamers in a snapshot of an entire nation at its most vulnerable and revealing.
As well as the live show, this unique, groundbreaking project also takes the form of a book, an album (released by Biphonic Records) and a film (directed by Daniel Warren) which will premiere at the Summerhall venue during this year’s Edinburgh Fringe before going on tour.
The mood and ideas are not new, and the non-musical writing sometimes seems a shade lightweight. In the end, though, this is a fiercely likeable evening of theatre, rich in talent and musical inspiration; and as elegant, intelligent and touching as Suspect Culture ever was, at its world-beating best.
There's real heart to this poignant and touchingly funny series of musical snapshots of how we live now.
From the throwaway to the bittersweet, these fragments take us dreamily through the night.
On their own some of the texts feel a little slight, but there are many moving moments here in which the bare pieces of prose, poem or song, are sent soaring by the complementary elements of performance, music and film.
Whatever Gets You Through the Night: Black Magic
A little help from my friends
Groundbreaking dawns
Whatever Gets You Through the Night--artist interviews
Cora Bissettand David Greig on multi-platform project Whatever Gets You Through the Night
The Arches, Glasgow from Tuesday June 26, 2012, until Friday June 29, 2012. More info: www.thearches.co.uk