Theatre / show of strength
Review: Blood, Booze and Buccaneers
I’ll level with you: I volunteered for this gig because I realised I knew disgracefully little about Bristol’s most famous buccanneer, even though I first started reading about him when I was four years old. It just never occurred to me that Captain Blackbeard could have been a real person!
Going on this walking tour – sorry, promenade theatre performance – was like attending a matinee comedy show, but instead of being cramped into a stuffy auditorium for two hours we had the run of the harbourside, kicking off at Redcliffe’s Golden Guinea pub. It also meant that instead of one interval, we got five!
Combining Sheila Hannon’s excellent research with Gerard Cooke’s charismatic delivery and characterisation, Blood, Booze and Buccaneers took us on a journey into the seventeenth century. This was immersive and participatory theatre of the most natural kind, as we inhabited the same spaces where masts would have been rigged, canvas sewn, beer quaffed and the fearsome press gang (hopefully) eluded. We looked out across Bathurst Basin and I could practically smell the cooking tar, hear the sails flapping and feel a little thrill of vicarious terror for the carpenters suspended 60 foot up and hanging by a thread on the rigging.
is needed now More than ever
Pics: Zuleika Henry
Captain Blackbeard is inevitably a romantic figure, and as the summer’s hot wind blew across the water the appeal of rounding up a crew of fast-living miscreant rogues, prepared to risk life and limb for the chance of treasure, was never greater. The golden age of piracy on the high seas coincided with the early days of colonialism, and alongside the enjoyable stories of buccaneering adventure, we intersected with a darker and more shameful past.
The beauty of the promenade format was that it revealed the historical forces which created much of Bristol’s present landscape. By inhabiting the same spaces as the historical characters, the tour took us beyond academic facts – which buildings were financed by the slave trade, etcetera – and invited us to imagine how the social relations between the sailors, naval officers and colonial subjects would have played out.
As we walked between ancient pubs and imagined ourselves sat on the same benches, drinking similar ales, the past seemed closer than ever. Our group of 20 was an intermingling of tourists, history buffs and the assorted casually curious. As we talked, drank and contemplated we discussed how our own personalities were being shaped by big historical forces – and, more to the point, would any of us have cut it as a pirate?
Blood, Booze and Buccaneers continues on Wednesdays (7pm) and Saturdays (3pm) until Sept 12. For more info, visit b247.staging.proword.press/whats-on/theatre/show-of-strength/blood-booze-buccaneers
Pic: Zuleika Henry
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