Standing Waves - Delia Derbyshire In The 60's
The extraordinary story of Delia Derbyshire - the ground breaking electronic music composer and member of the legendary BBC Radiophonic workshop who was most famously responsible for the incredible Dr Who theme music.
'Standing Wave' ran at the Tron in Glasgow in October 2004. There are no currrent plans for further touring.
http://www.reelingwrithing.com/wave/index.htm
Travel back in time with Delia
A co-production between the Tron Theatre Company and Glasgow-based drama team Reeling & Writhing, Standing Wave is one of the most intriguing new plays of the current season. Subtitled, with deliberate inaccuracy, Delia Derbyshire In The 60s, it is a clever and witty dramatisation of the ideas and events which shaped the most explosive period in the life of the woman behind the path-breaking theme tune for Dr Who.
Beginning in 1974, with Derbyshire holed up in the gallery of her lover, Japanese artist Li Yuan-chia, the play transports us backwards through the years, with the inevitable assistance of a certain time-travelling doctor. The destination is November 23, 1963, the day when the composer’s distinctive theme tune put the BBC Radiophonic Workshop on the musical map. By means of the good doctor’s not entirely reliable yearometers, 1970s Derbyshire (Abigail Davies) moves steadily back through her eventful life, while her 1964 self (Luisa Prosser) plays out the difficult year which followed the Dr Who success.
Derbyshire’s lonely monologue at New Year 1974 paints a picture of an intelligent and poetic character, with a child-like enthusiasm, who is also vulnerable and somewhat erratic. The structure of Nicola McCartney’s subtle, beautifully weighted script creates a different kind of intrigue. We are interested not in where Derbyshire goes from here, but in how she arrived at this point.
There is something very rewarding about such backwards biography. The reverse anticipation has the unusual effect of making events explications, rather than developments in the plot. So, for example, when the composer suffers the most appalling moment in her marriage to former miner David Hunter, we already know that things went pear-shaped between the couple.
As with a Tarantino movie, however, the removal of the suspense of a linear narrative does nothing to lessen the dramatic impact. Katherine Morley’s astute and unhurried direction is attuned brilliantly to the shape of the text, generating a gentle yet compelling piece that is as focused on the workings of Derbyshire’s mind as on the personal and political happenings which influenced her.
The composer moves back through her disastrous, alcohol-dependent relationship with White Noise pioneer David Vorhaus , her involvement in the women’s rights movement and her horror at the BBC’s embracing of synthesisers. As she does so, the theme of her almost spiritual combination of art and science recurs.
She rages at a misheard comment to the effect that beautiful sounds cannot be made electronically, giving a passionate and convincing defence of electronic music as mathematics transformed into an emotive artform. Everything about the piece, from the tremendous closing speech (about the sounds that generated a sense of musicality in the young Derbyshire) to Moley Campbell’s excellent set (a fine combination of modern domesticity, chaotic working environment and 1960s sci-fi futurism), encapsulates the idea of science as art.
The cast has a superb handle on the unconventional pace and tone of the piece. Gary McInnes does a great job of playing all of the male roles, as well as Derbyshire’s matronly teacher. Prosser, as the younger Derbyshire, has the combination of intense intellect, angry defensiveness and personal warmth, which we recognise in Davies’s exceptional playing of the composer as she travels back from the mid-1970s.
No drama about Derbyshire would be complete, however, without a strong musical score. Pippa Murphy has created an outstanding soundtrack, reflecting the composer’s experiments, and weaving her music intricately into the fabric of the play itself.
By Mark Brown, 17 Oct 04