Our Line : a review, by Chris Lloyd
spring 2018
‘THIS,” said the voice in my ear as the story reached its climax, “is the moment when Nora makes a choice.” And just to underline the drama of the moment, the 14.54 from Bank Top Darlington plunged into the blackness of the Shildon Tunnel.
Playing in my ear – and in the ears of 20 or 30 others in the rattling carriage – is a digital pop-up theatre performance written specifically for the 26 minute journey from Bank Top to Bishop Auckland.
It’s like a podcast that you download onto your phone, but it only starts when the train is nearing Platform 4, and it finishes at the end of the line and disappears from your phone, never to be heard again.
It is called Our Line because the play is based on the memories of people who have used the Bishop Line throughout their lives, and because the story helps the writer, Hannah Bruce, trace her line back to her great-grandmother, Nora.
Nora was born in Arkengarthdale in 1884 but moved to Shildon when she was 15.
Just as you follow the story on a journey between Darlington and Bishop, so you follow the story of a journey as Hannah goes in search of Nora. And just as the train journey is broken up by stops at the stations of North Road, Aycliffe and Heighington, so the story is broken up by musical interludes, with bursts of songs by artists such as Kathryn Tickell and Beyonce.
“The landscape is threaded through the story, and as you move through the landscape you hear human stories that are linked to the landscape,” said the writer Hannah. “Places like North Road shops and the Shildon works are referred to, and they are put in context by people telling their memories of the railway.”
The screen on the phone is deliberately black so there’s nothing to look at – except the view out of the window, little glances of which are worked into the story.
“Where are you?” asks one of the characters in the play, and the chatty reply is: “I’m on a train, just coming up to Shildon now.” No sooner is the line spoken through the headphones than the guard on the tannoy announces that Shildon is the next stop.
At one point, a woman in a brilliant fluorescent orange jacket took to the front of the carriage and began to perform exaggerated waving motions in front of the audience. I expected Nora to say a tearful goodbye in the story, but after a few seconds I realised that the orange jacket had the Northern Rail logo on it and the woman was not an actor but a cleaner wiping the fingerprints off the glass screen at the carriage-end.
The idea for the performance came from a chance conversation between Bishop Line community rail officer Bob Whitehouse and Caroline Pearce, of the Jabberwocky Market theatre group. “We met at Darlington Business Club and I said that the line was too short for a beer train or folk train or curry train, but could we do a theatre train, and Caroline said: ‘I like the idea…’.”
Caroline approached Hannah, who specialises in sound stories. “A lot of my work doesn’t happen in theatres but in unusual buildings or outsides, although this is the first time I’ve worked on a train,” said Hannah, who is working on a story to be told by Bluetooth at the Barbican in London.
There is a wow to the technology and the binaural sound is sumptuous – wear closed headphones rather than in-ear ones to block out the rattle and hum of the train – but the old-fashioned story is gripping, told with some lovely phrases and ideas.
The writer, of course, is a product of the digital age where everyone has megabytes of selfies stored on great computing clouds, and yet no photo of her great-grandma survives – a bit of saucy scandal in the story explains why there might not even have been pictures of Nora’s wedding. So Our Line tries to make a connection through time with Nora’s “fingers peeling potatoes as fast as mine tap out a text”.
“It’s about how different generations imagine each other, and it’s about how the choices you make in your life are influenced by the places you live,” said Hannah.
DID Nora make the right choice? We burst out of the darkness of Shildon Tunnel into the light, with the broad expanse of the Dene Valley all around us and the tower of South Church standing proud above the trees in the slight sunlight.
“Please take all your bags with you,” said the tannoy. “Bishop Auckland is your next station. Thank-you for travelling with Northern Rail.”
The story was over and the journey had come to an end. And yet waiting to board was a lady with a transparent plastic plate surgically taped over her eye accompanied by a younger lass of asian origin and jet black eyes with a shiny military-shaped peaked cap on her head.
What tale did they have to tell? It just goes to show you can find some amazing stories on Our Line.
l Our Line runs on Thursdays and Saturdays from tomorrow until April 28, with performances starting at Bank Top Station at 10.35am, 12.35pm and 6.05pm, where there will be stewards to help you master the technology. It is free to book at jabberwockymarket.org.uk, where there are details of how you download the app, which must be done in advance (don’t be scared of the technology). You must buy a train ticket to Bishop Auckland (£4.30 single or £4.50 return).
