In this brand new collaboration between crime writer
Mark Billingham and Americana/Country duo My Darling Clementine (all of whom
have roots in Brum) the love lives of various regulars in a backstreet Memphis
bar come dribbling out like a leaky beer tap.
The set up for the first half of
the show’s an interesting concept, with Billingham reading the story (inspired
by My Darling Clementine’s music) on one side of the stage pausing from time to
time for My Darling Clementine to deliver a suitable song from their back
catalogue, making this part gig/part play/part Jackanory (albeit a Jackanory
influenced by Jim Jarmusch).
Billingham did a fine job of evoking the
atmosphere of the bar and sketching out its inhabitants, positioning a washed
up showgirl turned waitress called Marsha at the centre of the piece and you
can tell he is/was an actor as he’s perfectly capable of tossing off a fairly
authentic southern accent. Not sure that the occasional faded archive photos
projected onto the screen added much to proceedings.
Part of the joy of fiction
is that the reader (or in this case the listener) can use their own imagination
to ‘see’ the characters (it’s a minor quibble but it has to be said that the
Marsha image looked considerably older than the 50 something woman that was
being described too.). Given that the story was based on the band’s music the
chopping and changing from spoken to sung word worked particularly smoothly though
and the only gripe was that there could have been more of it. Who knows, could
there be a movie in there somewhere? Hmmm...not ‘alf.
The second part of the evening was a more traditional
gig from My Darling Clementine (real life ‘other half’s’ Lou Dalgleish and
Michael Weston King of course) featuring a dozen or so tracks including a spirited
cover of a Ray Price song called Heartaches By The Number which saw Mark B
return to the stage for a little warbling. He can sing as well as write, act
and...no doubt...make a pretty decent Victoria Sponge too. Damn him.
Happily some
of The Clementine’s self penned material’s every bit as strong as the classic
artists they’re influenced by, with both I Bought Some Roses and 100,000 Words in
particular capturing one of Country’s favourite themes...specifically relationships
going down the tubes. Dalgleish and Weston King did their best to reflect this
in some suitably bitchy in between song banter, the likes of which you can
generally only get away with when you’re either totally comfortable with your
other half or on the verge of a messy divorce (I’m fairly sure it’s the former!).
All in all it’s an interesting mash up between two
worlds that ends up being more than the sum of its two halves.
The
Other Half is on at The Islington in London tonight (11th November)
and Crossing Border Festival in The Hague on Friday 14th November.
