Theatre / Bristol old vic
Guided by Voices
Verity Standen’s Mmm Hmmm evokes everyday life in all its intricacy… through the medium of song.
It’s one of the pieces we’d most heartily recommend to Bristol theatre audiences this month – hell, this autumn. And yet you have to be quire relaxed about your definitions to even call it theatre in the first place.
Rather than a piece of text, circus or physical theatre, Verity Standen’s Mmm Hmmm is a series of self-contained songs, sung by three unaccompanied voices. The way the song cycle comments on and sheds light on our everyday lives, though – not to mention its composer’s high standing in Bristol theatrical circles – makes it an easy show to recommend.
is needed now More than ever
A Bristol-based composer and choir leader, Verity has written celebrated compositions for Bristol Old Vic, Living Structures and Tobacco Factory Theatres among others. This year she has also toured her own original work, building upon critically acclaimed performances at the Edinburgh Fringe. Critics and audiences alike have been totally beguiled by her musical/theatrical compositions.
“Sound rose and fell in waves until it felt as if I was drenched in music that had seeped its way into every organ in my body, and maybe even found my soul,” praised The Guardian’s theatre critic Lyn Gardner of Verity’s last piece Hug, in which blindfolded audience members were individually hugged by a singer, experiencing the performance through sound, breath and vibrations of the body as the choir of voices delivered the song.
Back, though, to Verity’s latest. “Mmm Hmmm is a series of self-contained songs, sung by three unaccompanied voices,” explains Verity’s producer Tom Spencer.
“Each song takes inspiration from a moment or feeling encountered in everyday life. Through music, these moments are played with, exaggerated, pulled apart and spliced back together.”
For example, the lyrics of one song are constructed entirely from automated messages from contemporary life: ‘You have entered an incorrect password’, ‘Have you swiped your Nectar Card?’ and the like.
“I think of that one as holding up a magnifying glass to the ridiculous, awkward conversations we go through every day,” Tom explains.
“And then, as the piece develops, language gives way. One song towards the end is a wordless expression of a sudden change in feeling – like the smack in the stomach we feel when we’re given an awful piece of news, or the overwhelming sensation when we first hear a piece of music that surprises us with its beauty.”
As Tom explains, the human voice is able to evoke a vast repertoire of scenes, moods and atmospheres, more than most of us realize. “This show is just three unaccompanied voices. Yet audiences who saw the show in development, or through its run at Edinburgh this summer, came out with widely varying ideas about what the show was about.
“Some read an entire story threading through it, others recognised characters in individual songs. I love how music can do that, especially vocal music – it opens up entire worlds and lets our mind fill in the blanks.”
And what would Verity and Tom like to send audiences away thinking and feeling? “I hope that audiences find moments they can relate to, and moments that take them by surprise. Some of it is wonderfully weird, and I hope that’s fun too. And if people enjoy the intricate vocal techniques, rich harmonies and detailed choreography along the way that’s even better, because those bits take a lot of rehearsal!”
November 18-30
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