The performer, Mark Farrelly, who also wrote the piece, captivated the audience the moment he walked on stage. He had a spell-binding presence. And he used the enchantment to full effect, interacting with us, ad-libbing and even getting two chaps up on stage and and third providing the lighting. His physical performance was remarkable.
The performance was thoroughly integrated with sound and light effects, perfectly timed, for which credit should go to Camber Sands.
We learned the story of Derek Jarman from his birth to unsympathetic parents, his tough time at private school, and his education at the Slade School of Art. His break into feature films came when he was production designer for Ken Loach’s The Devils; he subsequently made Sebastiane, a homo-erotic film about the gay icon St Sebastian whose dialogue was entirely in Latin (and which starred Richard Warwick, one of the rebellious schoolboys in Lindsay Anderson's If...); a film based on Shakespeare’s The Tempest; a biopic about Caravaggio which included a host of well-known actors including Sean Bean and Tilda Swinton; War Requiem starring Laurence Olivier; Edward II; and Blue. He also made pop videos including It’s a Sin for the Pet Shop Boys. Towards the end of his life (he died aged 52 from AIDS) he bought Prospect Cottage on the beach at Dungeness and became created a garden there.
He was a remarkable man and this telling of his life was also remarkable. My only criticism is that I felt a little too long was spent on the final years, in which he was suffering from HIV and related illnesses. Perhaps by then I was exhausted from being bewitched for so long.
I left the theatre feeling as if I had been inundated by a tsunami of experience and with a need to explore Derek Jarman's films.
Wizardry of the highest order.
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