Seven times me

Slo to the Mo has been in Australia with poet Kat Francois, he sent us his account of the trip.

The plane touches down on a very dry and dusty Adelaide tarmac. It’s not rained here since well before Christmas. And it’s about to get dryer. After a few days, in what’s supposed to be South Australia’s autumn, the weather grows hotter, and so starts a record run of consecutive days with the temperature over 35C.

I’ve not travelled much in my life, so coming to terms with such a long journey takes time. It was Saturday evening when I left a chilly West London. It’s now Monday morning in the Southern Hemisphere. The highlight of the journey was discovering the stopover at an impressive Singapore Airport was home to the first banana smoothie I ever tried... and I was hooked.

I never liked banana in anything before, just too strong a flavour, but after a 14 hour leg to Singapore, my taste buds were tantalised by such a refreshing change of scene. Yes... I do need to get out more....travel more!! Then again travelling... I’m only 6 foot 2. I say only.... I’m a ball player, of course I say only. But 6 foot 2 and economy seats play havoc with me. It’s not just the leg room. How’s my back supposed to relax in a chair like this? How’s a guy supposed to sleep. No wonder NBA teams own or charter their own planes.

Yao Ming’s seat must recline forever, in fact he must have to remain horizontal at all times just to fit on a plane. Maybe they stretcher him in. I digress. My bad. I’m not actually here to discuss hoop, much as I’d love to. No this trip is about something else.

It’s three years since I started writing poetry. Three years since I discovered poetry wasn’t about sonnets and perfect grammar. Since I discovered that hip hop lives and breathes on a vibrant London scene that preaches positivity and change. A verbal revolution (that is not televised) that doesn’t need a beat yet it has more in common with Common, Talib Kweli (did someone say true hip hop) than your half a dollar currency of hate and disrespect.
Three years since I discovered that musicians and singers on this underground open mic circuit pack more talent into one soulful key than any X Factor winner could dream of.
Where people who passionately care for their community, youth, womenhood, transform that caring into writing plays. Theatre that matters. Theatre that gives a voice that forces itself on the ears of Babylon. This is a place where art and performance makes a difference. Where art isn’t about pretentious abstract crap that only white liberal intellectuals understand when they discuss it over dinner and fine wine. A place where respect for others starts with respecting and loving yourself. This is true, living, fighting, revolutionary, enlightening in your face passion.... I think you get the picture.

On the back of this scene, I started doing technical direction and support for a one woman theatre play called SEVEN TIMES ME. Written, performed and directed by Kat Francois, BBC3 and former World Slam Champion.... no the girl don’t dunk. Slam Poetry... think rap battle without the vinyl and beats, and you’re getting close. The play, an autobiographical account of growing up and living in London, deals with domestic violence, racism, relationships, police brutality, family life and more. This is the reason I’m in Adelaide. After a successful run at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival last summer, it’s time to put some issues out there in Australia. A nation fresh from apologising to its indigenous people.

We arrive at our apartment. We went on a budget, but on the internet, the apartment seemed like it would cater for everything. Then we realised we hadn’t just gone budget. We’d gone pokey. Never mind, at least there was air conditioning and the belief in what we were doing.

After a day’s sleep it was time to explore Adelaide, deliver flyers to an unsuspecting Australian public, and get bums on seats for the show starting a few days later.... oh yes and apply sun block... a pale guy can’t be too careful.

Fringe theatre is a strange animal. It is what it says it is... on the fringe of major art festivals already going on in the city (as with the Edinburgh Festival and Fringe), but the fringe part grows so much and attracts so many artists, that the public then come to see new talent, to discover fresh and vibrant art. Of course being this format, the public have to be convinced to see your show over anyone elses and this is where good chat in the street with a good flyer, and good press reviews to back you up... all counts. There is a whole load of bad theatre out there. SEVEN TIMES ME is an exceptional piece of theatre. An important piece of theatre. If it wasn’t, I wouldn’t be here. I believe in the message it’s conveying as much as how it is performed. It matters.

I’m technical director. Yes I write, but performing is new to me. Kat performs on a world stage and has banter down to a fine art. She soon engages Australian folk in shopping malls (next to more outlets selling banana smoothies, hey it’s hot out here), while I use my 6 foot 2 frame to hold up a banner advertising the show. The sun beats down. My 76ers cap is beaten down from being packed tight in the suit case. I’m not feeling it anymore. Hey, I’m still feeling the Sixers, I mean it’s the hat... busted up. My head is jagged enough without being mocked by out of shape coverage. Saved by a Footlocker. I pop in, check out the style of shoes out there... priority viewing right, I mean we all know the Aussies men and women can play serious ball. Decent and different selection.... but prices make that one a no no. Find an Air Jordan hat that works for me, and I’m off out again with the banner.

Manage to catch some women’s Australian hoop on TV. Adelaide Lightning won the semi and then the final. Pretty decent standard as you’d expect from the world champions, but all their major players are playing in Europe. Funny thing is, everybody goes on about how sporting the Australians are, but I didn’t see one outdoor court the whole time I was there.

Show night comes. A hit. Kat has taken the show to a new level since Edinburgh. Her performance is mind blowing. We’ve also done a lot to the technical side, putting in some tunes I remixed and using Powerpoint for slides running in the background. The small theatre space does well for us. The audience love it. The press love it. What, you think that’s it? I forgot to say, this is a two week run.

It then becomes ground hog day, handing out flyers, and doing the show, with occasional hanging out with a couple of friends in the area, and coping with the heat.

At the Edinburgh Festival, there is a part of the city devoted to all the artists selling their wears in the streets to get the public to see their show. Punters go to the Royal Mile specifically to be sold to. In Adelaide, there is nothing like that. After Edinburgh, Adelaide is the biggest Fringe Festival in the world.... but somebody needs to tell the city that. There are so many major festival activities going on, including an international weekend music festival, there seems a limit to the number of people able or willing to put themselves out to Fringe Theatre. The city has oversubscribed itself to a festival fever, that if spread over the year and not in a 6 week period, it might have worked.

However, great reviews in the national press should mean SEVEN TIMES ME gets people in. It’s highlighted as a unique show dealing with issues that need to be tackled. But maybe that’s also part of the problem. Australia maybe doesn’t want to face issues. The bums on seats that should have materialised after great press coverage, didn’t happen. Kat still passionately put the play out there, but the numbers were low. Audiences were wowed, crying and laughing. But lack of numbers.....This was not the shows fault.

Adelaide itself baffled me. Here I was, more than ten thousand miles from home, in a climate naturally alien to my body, yet I was so welcome here. It was just so British. And that was the problem. Aborigine people in their own country were hardly to be seen. They were not even on TV. Nothing. Not serving in shops or banks. A people not just marginalised, but excluded from society. Excluded from a European consciousness. This was very disturbing and blatant. This was redneck territory. Adelaide has seen a recent influx of “refugees” from Africa, mainly Congo and Sudan. Adelaide was claiming to be multi-cultural. This was a city where people who weren’t white seemed on the back foot. It was a city that needed to see the play. That needed educating. This a country where 2.5 percent of the population are indigenous yet they account for 25 percent of deaths in police custody. A country that celebrates its European founders yet to others they are simply invaders. A country that is not willing to come to terms with its past... where with my own eyes I saw that an apology to the Aborigine people means nothing. But this is a European culture. A British culture. And to view that is to hold up a mirror that exaggerates the very issues we have in Britain. Or does it exaggerate them...A country where a third of young black males have their DNA records held by police. Where you are 6 times more likely to be stopped by police if you are black. Where custodial deaths run at 600 a year, but the authorities do not record the ethnic breakdown of such deaths. That is Britain in 2008. Where a country does not accept its past or the legacy of the history not taught in the classroom.

I travelled to the other side of the world, and understood more about my own people than I ever expected.

Slo aka Rob Covell