MIFfed

I've got a bit of a dilemma.  It's a nice dilemma to have, and I know which way I'm leaning, but someone may tell me I'm being a fool.  They're wrong, but it's not quite as clear-cut as I thought it would be.

First things first: I love Manchester, and one of the things I love about Manchester is the Manchester International Festival.  It's two weeks of new and interesting art and culture, and even when a show doesn't work, as with Damon Albarn's Wonder.land a couple of years ago, it's still something that makes me proud to be a part of the city.

When tickets for MIF17 went on sale, I immediately went and spent an unholy amount on them.  I've crammed all the things I'm going to go to see into the second week of the Festival, because during the first week, I'll be in France.  This is at the invitation of one of my closest friends and her family; she lives in Australia now, so I only get to see her (and them) every couple of years.  So the final few days of June and the first few days of July are going to be packed, but great.  I'm really, really looking forward to them.

Except...


I noticed something about one of the shows I'm going to go to see just after I'd booked it.  It's called Fatherland, and it's a collaboration between Frantic Assembly, Simon Stephens, and Karl Hyde.  Hyde is best known as being half of Underworld.  If you don't know Underworld, this is what they sound like:

More famously, they did the music for the "Pandemonium" section of the London 2012 opening ceremony, and that still gives me the shivers.  In short, Underworld are great.

So I'm quite excited about seeing the show.  But what I noticed was that they were going to be auditioning people to be in it.  The only requirement was that you're an adult male.  How could I resist that?

Now, I knew that I wouldn't actually be able to be in the show.  I'd either be out of the country, or in another part of the city watching something else.  But I thought it'd be fun to go along to the audition anyway, just to see what it was all about, because... well, because.  Yes, I'd be acting in bad faith, but there you go.

That's how it came to pass that I spent a good chunk of Saturday singing and dancing doing some movement work in a studio in Manchester and trying not to look fazed as the bloke who gave the world "Born Slippy" wandered around the place.  Inasmuch as that my job involves a fair amount of showing off in front of strangers, that wasn't as big a deal as it might have been for some - but I've not sung since I was about 13.  (I was in a choir then; my voice began to break about a year before we were going to do a concert at the Royal Albert Hall, so I just mimed to 12 months.  At the RAH, nobody could hear me.)  And, what do you know?  It turns out to have been fantastically good fun.  And better yet, it would appear that they want me in the company.

Better yet, but worse; because if I take up the offer, then that'll mean I can't go and stay with my friend, and it'll mean that I can't go to see most of the shows I've booked tickets for.  Being in the show would be a Very Good Thing; but it would also mean missing out on a number of Very Good Things.  I'd like to have it all, but obviously can't.  Result?  I'm torn.  We have to let them know by tomorrow what we're going to do.

Well, not completely torn.  Will it be the Manchester Festival option A, or the Manchester Festival option B?

I think I know which I'm going to choose.  I more than think I do - I know what I'm going to choose.  But I'd expected it to be an easy decision, because I'd made it before the audition even began.  But there'll be a tiny bit of regret there that I hadn't expected that I'd encounter.  And I'll be sitting in the theatre in July looking at the people on the stage, wondering what it'd be like to be one of them.

Next time.