Third Angel, Class of '76

Review in Issue 15-4 | Winter 2003

Alexander Kelly bought a long mac when he was a teenager. He wanted to be a detective. Now he can be 'Class of '76' being that final speech in which loose ends are tied up and the narrative collapses into one per son's or one plot's fault. Except that Third Angel's suspensor is rather dirferent, consisting of particles of light in the air above the stage, coalescing into young faces whenever Kelly inter poses a small sheet of white paper into the beam. The projection is of him and his young schoolmates - the class of '76, Chuckery Infants School. It's a magical and beautiful device that unifies the piece, an elusive and allusive metaphor of memory that we only ever catch in hovering fragments.

In 1999 Third Angel constructed an imagined performance based on the photograph - making up fibs about what had happened to the children. But this time it's for real. Alexander Kelly is presenting what he's been able to ferret out about his classmates. Even perform it back to them. So he says.

The cool, friendly, de-analysed presentation of the children's stories -businesses they run, children they now have, illness and dubious honours - all this creates space for the audience to make their own pattems. To ask questions and wonder about their own early school memories and about the gaps and clues in this one. A warm and engaging show appreciated by a large audience.

Presenting Artists
Presenting Venue
Date Seen
  1. Oct 2003

This article in the magazine

Issue 15-4
p. 28