Poetry knight… The Alliterative Morte Arthure, St James’ Church

This was an evening of candle-lit re-connection with the medieval spirit of both location and subject matter; we started off sat in our pews – nursing complimentary port - and ended up standing spellbound following the three performers as they paced this ancient space playing out this eternal chivalric drama. It’s no mean feat to bring archaic language and sentiment to life but Michael Smith achieves is with a mix of painstaking diligence and pure passion. This is not to be confused with earnestness, as his work here as with Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, is always infused with wit and a sense of mischief: this is how these stories can best be experienced, as live entertainment.

Poetry performed in public, much like silent film, finds a new dimension with the combination of audience, venue and live accompaniment, here provided by Jon Banks, a multi-instrumental medievalist who is a musical director at the Globe Theatre as well as being a noted scholar. Jon added flavour and support to the narrative sat amongst his lute, dulcimer, trumpet, percussion and, crucially, a “rain stick”!

The poem was performed by Michael Smith, Alex Young and Stuart Handysides, the three carrying torches to illustrate their scripts in the low light of St James’ , built early in the 12^th Century. The church is only open four times a year and looked magical with freshly restored walls flickering in the candlelight, shadows cast over the artefacts of so much faith and hope.

Alex Young, Michael Smith,  and Stuart Handysides

The church pre-dates the poem by two centuries but not the complicated history of the Arthurian legends which, dating from the 6^th Century were first encoded by Geoffrey of Monmouth in Historia Regum Britanniae (c. 1138) and which were embellished with fresh characters such as Lancelot, Percival and Yvain by French poet, Chrétien de Troyes in the later 12^th Century. The Alliterative poem was penned by an unknown author and dates from about 1400 and adds the Roundtable and other elements to Monmouth’s story.

Michael has been translating the poem from its Lincolnshire dialect for some two years and the results will be published in 2020 strikingly illustrated by his original linocuts. Tonight, was the premier of the work in a theatrical setting directed by Mike Ashman, a former director of the Royal Opera House who knows a thing or two about the dramatic dynamics of myths and legends.

Mr Ashman had the players using every corner of St James, from the pulpit to the altar and they walked up and down the transept throughout the performance: theatre in the round that surrounded the audience, surprising us with action and unfolding meaning. The poem is definitely a "PG" and during key battles the players walked up and down the aisle waving their torches like swords, remarkably effective and quite startling when a bowel is pierced or a sword enters a skull mere inches from where you are standing!

Michael Smith 

After Michael Smith had set the scene and explained the background to the story, the play began with a rousing performance of early 19^th Century song, All Around My Hat (I Will Wear the Green Willow), as the players sang their way the length of the church before the verses began.

This story has some less familiar episodes to the well-trodden paths of recent books and films… Arthur travels to Rome to meet the challenge of Emperor Lucius who has sent emissaries demanding fealty. Arthur has always been apart of this island’s self-definition and you only have to glance at 12^th Century politics to understand the drivers for this war on mainland Europe.

Queen Guinevere is left in the care of Sir Mordred (Arthur’s nephew) as he heads off to battle and whilst he may be victorious the seeds of future defeat in the longer war for Albion are sown… Arthur’s crusade is a "just" one dedicated to overthrowing a pagan Emperor but war makes him cruel and he levels Metz with excessive force. His dreams are troubling and he fears his own pride - "surquedry" - may doom him as he looks beyond the fight for independence to becoming Holy Roman Emperor.

Sir Gawain by contrast is shown to be impeccably chivalrous earning the respect of even his deadliest foes. Arthur is not an inflexible leader, he can learn from his knights as well as from experience and dreams...

Jon Banks

All builds up to a rousing, battling finish as the body count accelerates and Arthur defines his nobility against the odds by deed and word. He has but scores of his knights against Mordred’s thousands, but right as well as might is on his side.

Whilst Arthur’s story is so familiar in terms of action what Mr Smith has done is to explain how it was felt by Britons in the 1400s… an entirely different age in which the concept of self was so different and yet in which essential human values were perhaps not so different?

All three leads gave forceful performances Mr Young so firm of voice, Mr Handysides resolute and fluent with Mr Smith leading the line with intensity and conviction; as he phased across the centuries talking the medieval walk with relish. At the finish the cold, un-heated space was warmed by an extended ovation; St James’ had been animated again as had the memory of the Once and Future King; performative history from the medieval mind-set.

IThankYou Theatre Rating: ***** A thrilling glimpse inside the medieval mind and a new appreciation of the importance of Arthurian legend from one of its oldest, most accomplished sources.

The Alliterative Morte Arthure is published in September 2020 and you can pre-order from the publisher, Unbound, website.

Here’s to more medieval adventures in 2020!

One of Michael Smith's linocuts for the new book

Another green world… Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Michael Smith and Company, St Leonard’s Church, Hertford

The fascination of medieval literature is in truly understanding the mind of those who wrote it; we may not know the name of the person who wrote Gawain but we know a lot about how he thought and what his preoccupations were.

Tonight, what better place to reconnect with the medieval mind than inside an 11^th Century church that predates the Conqueror and which opened its doors three hundred years before Sir Gawayn and þe Grene Knyȝt was composed. In this place there’s a Saxon window beyond an exquisite Norman arch and the walls are covered with frescoes of Christ and crucifixion drawn by hands in fear and wonder. St Leonard’s is Hertford’s oldest building and has lived a life, from the time of King Cnut the Great to Cromwell using it to keep horses during the Civil War and its modern-day restoration.

It is a beautiful, slightly pagan place and the perfect venue for tonight’s performance. Michael Smith is a man of Cheshire and he has spent years crafting a new translation of this alliterative poem written by that unknown hand from the same county. These words run deep and for the Warrington-born medievalist, writer, performer and print maker, there’s a connection with soil and soul.

This was the second performance of Smith’s new translation and the production has advanced very quickly into a tightly-wrought folk-theatre. The director is Mike Ashman, who in addition to a CV including stints directing at the Royal Opera and Welsh Opera, is Hertford born and grew up opposite this very church. His direction saw the players use the full length of the church to superb effect, pulling in a packed house to this wondrous but not necessarily immediately-accessible world.

Jon Banks and Mike Smith

Musical accompanist Jon Banks has an international profile too and is a medieval multi-tasker playing countless arcane instruments whether as Musical Director of the Globe Theatre, a member of the Burning Bush (who did the music for the BBC series Inside the Medieval Mind) and the Dufay Collective. Tonight, Jon’s improvisations weaved around the words, under-scoring with practiced precision as well as adding dramatic weight to the swing of axe and the fall of head.

Michael Smith took the lead role as speaker and was ably supported by Stuart Handysides (now there’s a name with some ancient heritage!) as second speaker and the mighty Alex Young as Narrator, a role created to bridge parts of the original narrative in order to enable more concise word play.

The three were fascinating to watch as the poem flowed between them and I really enjoyed the overlapping segments of the original (and enjoyably impenetrable) Middle English (North Western dialect) and the new translation: you felt the translation was happening afresh in front of your very eyes. The audience was face to face with the actors as they read mostly underneath that Norman arch, which was bathed in bright green lighting for the evening. With Jon Banks set up behind them it created a focused poetic momentum that pulled us in and drove us on.

Stuart Handysides and Michael Smith

The story involves the testing of Sir Gawain, the youngest of King Arthur’s knights who takes up a deadly challenge when the imposing Green Knight arrives in Camelot on New Year’s Day. The Green Knight weilds a huge axe and, refusing to fight any of the knights on the grounds that they are too weak, he offers to exchange a single strike of the axe in exchange for a return blow in a year’s time. Sir Gawain duly slices the axe down clean through the Knight’s proffered neck but, still standing, he picks his head up and, climbing back on his green steed, tells Gawain he will see him at the Green Chapel to complete the exchange.

Sir Gawain sets off in search of the Chapel and has many adventures en route, travelling through North Wales, Anglessey, “Holy Head” (not Holyhead but more probably Holywell near Flint) and from there across the wastelands of the Wirral (have you seen some of the fairways on Heswall Golf Course?!).

It’s not hard to imagine how treacherous these paths would have been for a single traveller, even one armed with sword and on horseback: Gawain is all alone and his real trials have yet to begin. Eventually he arrives at the estate of Lord Bertilak de Hautdesert (possibly Swythamley near Macclesfield) who tells him the Green Chapel is close by and that he can stay as his guest until his appointment with green. Also present is Lady Bertilak and a mysterious old lady. Soon there is much sport as Gawain goes hunting with the Lord and is sorely tempted by his Lady… these are tests of chastity, chivalric honour and Christian faith; in the Fourteenth Century there was little more important.

Michael Smith

How Gawain conducts himself give fascinating insights into the rules of the game and his life and his soul, will depend on it.

Mr Smith’s translation brings this language and its true eloquence to life and the vigour of the performance brought a visceral edge to medieval mannerisms. The three speakers worked very well as they took turns in carrying the narrative and I was particularly impressed as Messrs Handysides and Smith handled the amorous teasing of the good Lady B. It’s a play with humour as well as honour which, together with faith, were pretty much the whole world for men and women of the 1300s.

Michael Smith’s illustrated translation featuring his unique linocuts, is published on 26^th July and is available from Unbound (where you can still get the high-quality collectors first edition), Penguin online and Amazon – I look forward to reading the full story and relishing this uncanny tale.

Hopefully there’ll be more performances though as this is language that really must be recited and performed – a living link to ancient concerns that drive us still!

IThankYou Theatre Rating: ***** A visceral meeting of modern and medieval mind.

Green light through yonder window glaze...

Three watchers without

Frescoes drawn from fear and faith