Somewhere Else in performance
The rich have turned away.
These floods are somewhere else –
As far off as Japan,
Brazil or Bangladesh;
Not nearby Burford Drive,
Not Huntsman’s Lodge, next door,
Or here.
Yet these homes are, for me,
So near.
I know this corridor
The waters swirl in; I’ve
Visited in the flesh
Rooms on the News; I can
Imagine nothing else
But what the poor must pay.
Somewhere Else was performed twice on 13 August 2016, along with the other five pieces which made up Eastern Angles’ contribution to the Future Floodlands event, directed by Poppy Rowley of Eastern Angles. The video is an excerpt showing the performance by Fiona Putnam (as Fiona) together with John Shields (as Victor):
The audience ranged from the elderly to the very young, who did not seem at all willing to go when they were called away by their parents. The interest of the children in 90 minutes of often demanding theatre shows how live performance can captivate in a way that television cannot. Few of those children would have sat quietly in front of the television watching these pieces, I'm sure.
As the photographs below show, the variety was quite amazing. Beside the Seaside by Olivia Jones was a comic dialogue set on a car park beach in Peterborough-by-the-Sea. In In the Wake of the Flood by Elaine Ewart, Ely was again an island, with a new Hereford the Wake trying to gain support for rebellion. Spilling Convention by Clare Currie was dialogue between Water (played by three women) and Humanity (played by two men). Losing It by Vikki Touzel compared the memories of one woman who saw the flooding start and another who worked on an agricultural skyscraper. Finally, in On Such a Full Sea by Hilary Spiers, an elderly woman who keeps alive the memory of before the flooding, is given news by her grand-daughter which shows that the water is receding again.
