Thank you to everyone who came along to our performances of It Takes A City at Coventry Cathedral on November 15th, and extra special thanks to all those who stepped up to recreate Si Gardner’s 40 metre walk. This selection of Andy Moores’ photos gives a good flavour of the day.
Sometimes an idea, or story, or image stays with you, asking you to find a way to share it in your work – and sometimes it takes a while to explore that idea. You have to hold it up to the light and look at it from different angles to work out what about it is important, how you can best share it.
It Takes A City is one of these – grown from a scrap of a story about a young bomb disposal officer who slowly, carefully, walked 40 metres across a building site in the centre of Coventry cradling an unexploded bomb .
It tells this story of care and courage, alongside the story of another bomb, and another bomb disposal crew, and how conflict and destruction shaped Coventry’s peacemaking.
In working out how to tell these stories, we have spent time thinking deeply about how a city can be both a centre of peace and reconciliation and a manufacturer of weapons; mapping the entanglement of conflict and climate; and exploring how ordinary people work to bring about peace – in the hope that this performance will move our audiences to consider how such things relate to their own lives.
Productions like this rely on a lot of different collaborators – thank you to you all!
Cast: Amy Kakoura & Richard Colvin, with Mai Worth and John Witcombe
Musicians: Liam Condon (Harmonium, Organ), Derek Nisbet (Violin)
Community Cast: Laura Liimatta, Philippa Cross, Tani Fakile, Ruth Elizabeth Hamblett, Dayah Sagoo, Eve Jordan, Cassie Simpson, Liz Warde, Mina (Asimina) Tsentourou, Helen Bradford, Nell Nisbet, John Nee
Director: Orla O’Connor
Lyrics: Andrea Mbarushimana
Text assembled by: Derek Nisbet
Music: Derek Nisbet (with additional material by Amy Kakoura & David Colvin)
Design: Janet Vaughan
Co-Musical Directors: Amy Kakoura & Derek Nisbet
Sound: Bungle
Stage Manager: Harry Cook
Graphic Design & Photography: Andrew Moore
Video documentation: Jon Randle
Talking Birds General Manager: Melissa Jordan
Talking Birds Co-Artistic Directors: Janet Vaughan & Derek Nisbet
Thanks to the journalists who reported on these events, and those that commented on them.
Special thanks to the Whitley Local History Group and their publication 7 Brave Men by Reg Kimber which told us Sandy’s story; to Coventry Archives; to Adrian Dwyer of the Royal Engineers Bomb Disposal History Group for generously sharing his expertise; to Paul & Denise Duncombe, who told us Si’s story; and to Simon Gardner, the man who carried it.
Respect and gratitude to all at Coventry Cathedral, who have said yes to this idea and enabled it to happen – particularly Dean John Witcombe & Head of Events Georgia Cowie and their teams. Thanks too to all those who helped us in the R&D of this project, and to our voluntary stewards. Finally, much thanks, as ever, to the Talking Birds Board.
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