Review: Flit

Colston Hall, Wednesday October 26

Lau’s Martin Green is establishing a reputation as an ambitious composer. Last year he brought Crow Bones, his Gothic reconstruction of grim British folk songs to St George’s with a stark tableau of branches and bones and now there’s Flit, a more complex production on the themes of migration and resettlement. Despite the lightness of the title this was literally a gloomy experience, the lighting designed to allow animated projections to play an integral part alongside recorded speech samples and live music. The low-lit stage was set for a drama, the rough-hewn surfaces of a cave layered behind a variety of handmade musical devices – a rack of saws, a winding wheel, a highly strung framework – and an impressive wooden zoetrope wheel at the centre

In near darkness it began, with a disembodied Geordie voice singing heartily about pit closures in traditional style while the live performers filed into place. Then, after Green’s preamble about his own family’s history as Jewish refugees, principal singers Becky Unthank and Adam Holmes took over as the first animations began: crumpled paper brought to expressive life as characters moved across the scenery. The music built from mainly electronic sources with Adrian Utley’s spare and sweeping guitar and Dominic Aitchison’s methodical bass rarely overstating the rhythms and Green providing synth and occasional accordion. The harsh artificiality of the sound was a marked contrast with the raw naturalness of the vocals, perhaps an intentional reflection of the dislocations involved in migration and asylum. Thus This Place Was Once So Fine combined the rhythms of factory machinery with a simple traditional-sounding pastoral song, the diminutive Becky Unthank rising on the balls of her feet beside Adam Holmes’ rangy figure, their voices perfectly balanced.

A more conscious migratory music followed as guitar and bass chugged a loose ‘desert blues’ groove for a song about Saharan refugees, while the animations told a tale of storming destruction and desperate shelter to a massive crashing soundscape, its oppression finally relieved by a breathy solo Unthank vocal about Scottish migrants finding luxuries of wood washed ashore in Canada. It was a rare moment for the audience to applaud – not because the performances hadn’t warranted it but the seamless flow of sound and image had hardly paused. Another burst of supporting clapping followed Green’s escalatingly angry rant comparing the British response to the Kindertransport of child refugees in the 30s to the disgraceful events in Calais going on as we sat there – a good point well made. Things ended on a happier note, however, with the recorded voices of now-settled refugees talking of their success and security.

It had been an evening of fine moments – well-crafted songs and sound design throughout, amazingly vivid and original animation from whiterobot and good use of stage set and lighting (the whirling rumble of the zoetrope and its compelling animated characters was an especial treat). The performances were excellent, too, especially the all-important vocals. The only problem might have been holding the whole thing together as a piece – despite the seamless flow of events the different songwriting styles (four people had contributed) and the breadth of the topic made it more of an umbrella compilation than a coherent piece of drama. But, having said that, it was a damn fine umbrella and what could be more metaphorically appropriate, anyway?