QUENCH
★★★★

Loosely based on Alfred Hitchock and Ernest Lehman’s unfinished script, “The Blind Man”, Double Vision is a thrilling Murder mystery/ gig which is new on the scene at the Festival of Voice. Co-produced by the Millennium Centre and Cardiff Theatre Company Gagglebabble the female-led production showcases Gagglebabble’s signature dark humour and haunting original scores.

From the moment we step in the theatre, the audience is immersed in the interactive experience of life aboard the exclusive ocean liner, the Empress, as it sets on its disastrous course to Havana.

To begin with, everything is plain sailing as we are introduced to Bar Maid Mel (Mared Jarman), singer Serena (Lisa Jên Brown) and a comical cast of self-absorbed passengers – from the plastic surgery-obsessed retirees to the obnoxious honeymooners. However, as a storm hits, the liner is pitched into chaos and as events become more sinister, characters disappear and perspectives begin to change.

The show is certainly a treat all for the senses and lighting and vision director Joshua Pharo truly outdoes himself. His stunning use of lighting and projection simultaneously allows fully sighted audience members to appreciate how Serena’s ‘sees’ throughout the show, whilst also making the show more accessible to visually impaired audience members.

Furthermore, the 1950s esk use of silhouette projection allows each character to develop a visual, as well as emotional, identity. Singer Serena is continually portrayed in a goddess manner, bathed in blue light in loose flowing gowns. Meanwhile, grotesque skeletal and bloated dummies are skilfully used to elderly portray the passengers.

This reduced visibility also works to make the audience appreciate other aspects of the show even more.  The haunting original soundtrack perfectly suits the story development, morphing from a blend of Celtic harmony and light cocktail party music to overwhelming Hispanic rumba rhythms in the denouement.

My only point of complaint would be with regards to the plot, which was truly reminiscent of Hitchcock in terms of its’ simplicity – more characters development is definitely needed for the show to be classified as a true ‘whodunit’ or mystery.

Overall though Double Vision was an elegant and inclusive show with a stunning soundtrack and visual element. I can only hope that Gagglebabble releases the soundtrack for the show as soon as possible!

June 16, 2018 by Ilona Cabral

arts scene in wales

Gagglebabble return to the stage with Double Vision, a technically ambitious production for the Festival of Voice that is part murder mystery, part gig. Lucy Rivers and Hannah McPake once again toy with the macabre and revel in vulgarity. They are a raffish creative duo, delighting in dark themes and ugly urges, interweaving a mature and serious commitment to art with infectious playfulness.

As the title might suggest, duology is a repeated theme.  The audience is ostentatiously greeted by the staff of the cruise ship Empress of the Sea, garishly crimson in Hayley Grindle’s mid-century costumes, sporting joke spectacles that satirise double vision.  We become fellow passengers, an onboard audience of the Hitchcockian plot that plays out on silver-screen like gauze, in a skilful blend of live action, shadow-work and silhouette. This tantalising, opaline surface facilitates a cunning trick of perspective, and coerces a disorienting shunt into diplopia.  It both veils the action, cataract-like, and provides a surface upon which Joshua Pharo’s projection can flicker in large-scale.

Inspired by Alfred Hitchcock and Earnest Lehman’s unfinished screen play, The Blind Man, the plot centres around the conceit that the eyes will retain a memory of everything they see. To this end, the eyes of a murder victim will hold forever the indelible image of the person who killed them.

Cocktail waitress Mel (Mared Jarman) narrates a twisting tale that takes in the bustle of the ship’s Dahl-esque passengers, who orbit grotesquely around the singularity that is the beautiful, near-blind Serena (Lisa Jên Brown), the ship’s singing sensation and Mel’s personal focus-pull. Brown, front singer of alt-folk group 9Bach is vocally beguiling and particularly mesmerising in the effervescent opening scene. Jarman is an assured story-teller, warmly expressive, with a disarming stage presence, her physical precision astounding in the light of her own visual impairment.

Rivers and McPake joyfully embody a raft of flamboyant characters whose obscene excesses enhance the fragility of the central character. They are joined by the fearless Francois Pandolfo, a performer who delights in discomfort. And there is discomfort.

When the play shifts to Serena’s perspective, the gauze falls, exposing the stage in a fleetingly uncomfortable way. There is a marked shift in tone and pace as we are disgorged from the closely-packed cruise ship onto the Havana shores. Here the narration-come-audio description is less effective, as Brown both describes and performs the action. It is a clunky mix that fails to flow as freely as it should and could be sharpened by further development of the script. The plot is rather obvious too, though not necessarily weakened by it, and some opportunities in this “other half” for more glorious grotesqueness are missed. Startled portholed eyes could yield their violent memories as well as being alluded to in the text, for example.

River’s multifactorial, impassioned, sultry composition, performed live by Rivers, McPake and musicians Mark O’Connor and Paul Jones, is an unfailing highlight. Throughout, the voice plays a pivotal role, manipulated, echoed, enhanced and projected as it is around the auditorium.  It is a medium that evokes imagery as vivid as any visuals, but where there is a huge reliance on technology, one runs the inevitable risk, when this threatens to fail, of leaving performers and their created world painfully unsupported.

Gagglebabble have been ambitious here and they should be applauded for this, undoubtedly.  They present a fully accessible, multi-sensorial, technically layered production that has the potential to go beyond ambition born of restricted resources, into the more desirous territory of true creative innovation. But this relies on a binary system, a partnership between brave artists with leading-edge vision and the funding bodies that support them. Innovation takes time and money and I fervently hope Wales’ arts infrastructure can rise to the challenge posed.  Welsh companies are either getting gutsy or are getting out and Gagglebabble are arguably spearheading a rightful desire for more.

an organised mess

After falling hook, line and sinker for Lucy Rivers’ for The Sinners Club, one of my must-sees for Cardiff’s Festival of Voice 2018 was the co-production between Gagglebabble and WMC. Gagglebabble, a company founded by Hannah McPake and Lucy Rivers, warranted a great deal of expectation in the talented duo. Double Vision by Gagglebabble lives up to expectation.

The premise may be Hitchcock and Lehman, influenced by David Lynch and Roald Dahl, for me there was a book cover in my mind. Malcolm Pryce’s Last Tango in Aberystwyth was left etched on my mind. All bar the elusive detective, Double Vision has all the trademarks demanding the noir detective, plus music, puppetry and fantastic lighting design.

Double Vision achieved what was promised. The aural experience was positioned at the heart of this story. Immersed from the off in an interactive experience, your mind is constantly piecing the story together and enjoying the journey. Joshua Pharo’s lighting and projection design is fantastic in bringing perspective and suspense, complementing the storyline in embracing the suspense.Whilst the plot may be a little lacking in today’s world of seeing life through multiple lens, the visual and aural stimulation is a joy. Telling the story of life aboard the Empress of the Sea. A luxury cruise liner which doubles as an escape for cosmetic surgery. The injection of humour is appreciated as an escape from the day.

Initially introduced to the story through the voice of Mel, the cocktail waitress on board the ship, there is much humour to be found in the passengers on board The Empress. Hannah McPake, Francois Pandolfo and Lucy Rivers create fantastic humour in these characterisations. Balancing the suspense to maintain an overriding feeling of enjoyment.

In meeting Serena, the cruise ship singer, so the aural experience is positioned even more strongly through Lisa Jên Brown. Visually created as a mythical creature in flowing greens, there is so much beauty in the voice that a heroine is created. From the initial narrative of Mared Jarman’s Mel to the removal of the lens, and the perception of Serena. This feels, like a sudden rush to the senses, raw. From the streets of Havana to the starkness of modern life. The change in gaining vision is felt in double, the sound as blinding as light.

Through a strong cast of actors and musicians, Double Vision achieves. There is so much to be appreciated in escapism, so much to be respected in brave decisions. Gagglebabble feels like it’s making these decisions with an intent to entertain. 

June 19, 2018

get the chance

Double Vision is a brand-new thriller co-produced by Wales Millennium centre and the award-winning theatre company Gaggle Babble for Festival of Voice 2018. This is a very ambitious and multi-sensory show which is predominantly set on a luxury cruise liner called The Empress of the Sea.

As you take your seat in the auditorium you can already sense you are about to embark on a journey filled with humour and a surreal feeling, as you are seated by ushers played by members of the cast, who don’t seem to know when the show is about to start.

The show opens with the amazing voice of Lisa Jen Brown who is a member of the welsh folk band 9Bach who plays Serena in the show. The show has no interval but there is a definite sense of it being split into two halves.

The first half begins with the weird and wonderful guests boarding the cruise liner, this half of the show is performed behind a white gauze sheet, which reduces the visual nature of the show for the audience. Mel played by Mared Jarman works in the Bijoux bar on board with Serena who mesmerises the guests with her haunting voice as the singer in the bar. You get the sense that the women are good friends and get a sense from Mel’s character that she is very fond of Serena and is very protective of her. This makes sense a bit later in the show when you find out that Serena is blind. One night after performing at her usual spot in the bar Serena tells Mel that she is looking to leave the ship once it docks in Miami, this throws Mel who does not want her to leave. Another point in the show where again you feel Mel is protective over Serena is when the ship docks in Havana and the women get separated. This scene is in the middle of a nightclub where there are steamers which are released on to the audience and balloons printed with a single eye that are thrown into the audience.

In the second half of the show the white sheet is dropped making the view clearer to the audience. The atmosphere onboard changes from a light humour, to one of terror and danger as the ship is caught up in a storm. We learn that one of the passengers have fallen overboard and with this the story takes a dark turn of a surreal nature.

I was lucky enough to catch the last showing of this production which for me contained amazing singing, music and performances from all the cast. This show was very accessible for visually impaired people as a detailed touch tour was provided before every show and also the cast did an amazing job with integrating audio description into the show. I hope to see more work like this in the future and feel that Gaggle Babble have set the bar quite high. I look forward to attending the next production by this theatre company and see where they take it from here.

27 June, 2018 by Tafsila Khan

MIKE SMITH

Gagglebabble takes the Tales of the Unexpected genre that the company explored during the Roald Dahl’s celebration to create Double Vision, a twisted story looking at what we see and how we see it.

While it is pretty easy to work out what the denouement of the story will be – we can see it coming – to some extent it does not matter as it is how the central character Serena discovers this, and the secrets of her dedicated friend the cocktail waitress Mel played by Mared Jarman, that is the fun.

Also playing with vision is the use of silhouettes with the players moving behind a screen (which is also part of the 50s cinema experience employed by the show) and this also enable the small cast to create a rick array of characters. This is also a success for lighting and vision designer Joshua Pharo.

The mystery is set on a cruise ship where Serena, who has lost her sight, is  beautiful cabaret singer and indeed Lisa Jên Brown sings the torch songs exquisitely and it is the first half of the show, with more of the cabaret scenes, that are most enjoyable.

There are fun caricature personalities on the ship, equally fun puppetry and little macabre shockers along the way (and slightly eyebrow-raising Cuban stereotyping that is in keeping with the other way races were portrayed in that medium) but the work is made special and most enjoyable by the score and the signing.

Joining Lisa Jên Brown realising Lucy River’s composition, is the composer herself with Hannah McPake and Francois Pandolfo with the band musicians Mark O’Connor and Paul Jones.

KELLYALLANwriter.com

My next adventure was through the gloriously designed Double Vision by Gagglebabble. This play was a feast for the senses, with shadows, sounds and lighting effects. The story was dark and sinister, but it also had a comedic edge to it.

I loved all the little details within this performance and I particularly liked its David Lynch influence! The storyline was dark and intense, with strong performances from Lisa Jên Brown as Serena and Mared Jarman as Mel.

There were some very intense moments, plus a lot of humour. I loved the dark nightmare-ish elements as well as the visual and multi-sensory creations running throughout the show. It really is a performance packed full of imagination, vision and voice. 

This production is made possible by the generous support of the Arts Council of Wales.
Photography by Kieran Cudlip