The Antonius Players present Larkin’ About, The Market Theatre, Ledbury, Herefordshire, 09/07/2013 (part of Ledbury Poetry Festival).

Now in its fifteenth year Ledbury Poetry Festival is one of the best established and most successful of its kind in the UK. It’s an appropriate setting for such an event, the peaceful Herefordshire market town was the home town of John Masefield (1878-1967), Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom from 1930 until his death. Nearby lived members of the early 20th century literary group the Dymock Poets, among them Rupert Brooke, Robert Frost and Edward Thomas.

Like the Hay literary festival on the other side of the county Ledbury Poetry Festival has also developed a music strand, often blending music with the written and spoken word. As a paying customer I remember enjoying a performance by drummer Seb Rochford’s group Polar Bear in a one off jazz and poetry collaboration. The following year Polar Bear’s eccentric electronics artist Leafcutter John returned to the town to perform an eclectic duo set with Fulborn Teversham singer Alice Grant.

The 2013 Festival includes musical performances by Mike Heron, Cerys Matthews, Jah Wobble and others. Among these was this joint production staged by Ledbury Poetry Festival and the town’s Market Theatre. This small but delightful modern theatre was opened in 2000 and is administered by the local Ledbury Amateur Dramatic Society (or LADS). It replaced the “tin shed” on the same site which had been home to LADS (formed 1938) for more than forty years.

Larkin’ About is a touring show that celebrates the life and work of the poet Philip Larkin (1922-85).  I first discovered Larkin’s work back in the 1970’s - as a teenager I could easily relate to poems such as “Toads” and “This Be The Verse” with its immortal opening line “They fuck you up, your Mum and Dad”. Forty years later it all still rings horribly true.

Later, when I got into jazz, I discovered that Larkin had been a jazz critic for the Daily Telegraph and purchased “All What Jazz”, a collection of his Telegraph columns between 1961 and 1971 subtitled “A Record Diary”. Larkin’s favourite jazz period was largely before the 1940’s bebop revolution, he never quite got Charlie Parker, Miles Davis and co. and struggled even more with John Coltrane and his successors (Archie Shepp, Albert Ayler etc) but the collection charts his attempts to come to terms with these later developments. For all his reputation as a curmudgeon the book reveals that Larkin kept an open mind, even if he was quite prepared to speak it about something he didn’t like. I dread to think what he might have thought about some of the stuff that Tim Owen and I have covered on here.

The Larkin’ About show is performed by members of the Antonius Players,  a company comprising of both actors and musicians. Scripted and directed by Sue Wilson it promised a mix of poetry, prose and music and the presence of two actors from the cast of The Archers helped to ensure that the Market Theatre was totally sold out. Sunny Ormonde plays the Archers character Lilian Bellamy while John Telfer is the Rev Alan Franks. Their words were complemented by Matt Platt on piano and occasional cello plus company founder Ilone Antonius-Jones on flute and occasional piano. The two musicians took to the stage first with Antonius-Jones picking out the melody of The Beatles’ “She Loves You” on the flute, a witty reference to the opening line of one of Larkin’s most famous poems “Annus Mirabilis” (“Sexual intercourse began in 1963…). 

As its jokey title might suggest “Larkin’ About” was presented as a kind of revue with Ormonde and Telfer swapping words and anecdotes in the manner of a double act with Platt and Antonius-Jones providing musical illustrations and interludes. Sometimes the actors would vocalise above a musical backdrop, usually semi spoken/semi sung recitation, neither could accurately be described as a “jazz singer”, and I’m sure neither would regard themselves as such (although Telfer has sung in rock bands and at times sounded authentically bluesy, he even played kazoo at one point) . Nonetheless several of these episodes were both effective and moving.

The show was effectively an account of Larkin’s life and primarily of his relationships with women.  The bespectacled Telfer was essentially Larkin, with Ormonde acting both as narrator and as one of a cast of numerous females of Larkin’s acquaintance. The wittily scripted show drew on Larkin’s poems and diaries, plus the biography of his life by his close friend the former Poet Laureate Sir Andrew Motion (“Philip Larkin; A Writer’s Life”).

Ormonde and Telfer began by tracing Larkin’s life from an unhappy childhood spent in his native Coventry and at Warwick School through his years at Oxford University and his immersion in the music of jazz . His love of Louis Armstrong was illustrated by Platt’s playing of “Dallas Blues” .

Larkin was the son of an overbearing father and a neurotic mother and Telfer dispensed the infamous “This Be The Verse” fairly early on by way of illustration. His upbringing affected his relationships with girls and he didn’t have his first serious girlfriend until he took up a job as a librarian in Wellington, Shropshire after leaving Oxford. A solo piano piece written by the famously lascivious Jelly Roll Morton was an ironic comment on his sexual frustration.

The fast moving script recounted Larkin’s ultimately doomed relationship with Ruth Bowman. Ormonde recited the lyrics to ” I Could Be Happy With You” from the musical “The Boyfriend” above flute and piano accompaniment. The couple shared a love for this particular musical -  but if this brought them together then parental disapproval from both sides plus Larkin’s own indifference forced them apart. The poem “Go” represented the ending of the relationship.

Larkin’s next library job was at Leicester University where he met the lecturer Monica Jones who was a constant presence throughout the rest of his life. A further move to Belfast was depicted by two sprightly jigs played on flute and piano. Here Larkin became part not so much of a love triangle as a love polygon, simultaneously conducting relationships with three women, Jones back in Leicester, Irishwoman Winifred Arnold and the larger than life American Patsy Strang, wife of Larkin’s friend Colin Strang. Ormonde posited that he was faithful to all three in his own way with Fats Waller’s “Ain’t Misbehavin’” providing ironic comment. Telfer’s reading, to piano accompaniment, of Larkin’s “Reference Back” concluded an enjoyable and informative first half.

Larkin wasn’t just a jazz lover. Platt and Antonius-Jones returned to the stage first to perform Handel’s “Largo” on flute and cello. Larkin pronounced himself an admirer of Handel’s “Englishness” (it’s not clear whether he was being ironic) and he loved the music of Elgar too.

Even more surprisingly he and Jones shared a fondness for the children’s books of Beatrix Potter (hence his nickname for Jones of “Bun”). A flute and piano reading of the song “On The Sunny Side Of The Street” reflected both the couple’s happiness and Larkin’s lighter side.

In 1955 Larkin moved to take up the position of chief librarian at the University of Hull, the city with which he is perhaps most commonly associated. He also began to write jazz reviews for the Daily Telegraph, these also covering his love of early blues, Platt’s playing of Bessie Smith’s “I’m Down In The Dumps” referencing a particular Larkin favourite. However the poet’s all time jazz hero was saxophonist/clarinettist Sidney Bechet for whom Larkin actually wrote a poem. Telfer performed Larkin’s poetic evocation of New Orleans “For Sidney Bechet”, for this jazz fan one of the highlights of the show.   

At Hull Larkin became involved with a member of his staff, Maeve Brennan, who was some ten year younger. Jones reacted unfavourably to this and Larkin was back in tempestuous “love triangle” territory, illustrated perhaps a little too obviously by Platt’s rendition of the tune “Stormy Weather”. The flute and piano duet “These Foolish Things” offered further commentary.

A particular bone of contention was Larkin’s decision to publish the 1961 poem “Broadcast”, written specifically about Brennan and a work Jones had implored him to withhold. Naturally Telfer read it here.

Larkin continued to play Jones and Brennan off against one another for the rest of his life, adding a further layer of complication by becoming involved with his assistant Betty McAreeth, her broad Yorkshire accent another for Ormonde to enjoy tackling following the Welsh Jones, Irish Arnold and American Strang.

Inevitably the show concluded with Larkin’s death. Despite his numerous relationships Larkin never married although he was once engaged to Bowman and regularly referred to Jones as his “wife”. It seems that the famously grumpy Larkin was simply afraid of, or reluctant to face, commitment. However the women involved seemed to accept their situation with a remarkable degree of sangfroid.

The finale of Larkin’s 1943 poem “Love, We Must Part Now” recited by Ormonde and Telfer above melancholy piano and cello accompaniment was genuinely moving and ended an otherwise generally light-hearted evening on a sombre note. This was no bad thing as it made the audience focus on Larkin’s humanity, the man behind the often barbed but witty words.

This was a clever, amusing and informative show which was warmly appreciated by the Ledbury crowd. It was a theatre performance rather than a music event but nonetheless there was plenty for the music fan to enjoy with Platt, in particular, impressing at the piano. It would be interesting to him stretching out in a full jazz context. The actors played parts very different to their radio selves and were thoroughly convincing. As Larkin John Telfer got to deliver some particularly juicy lines and did so with obvious relish. The show has sent me back to my copies of “Collected Poems” and “All That Jazz”. This was a warm hearted tribute to a complex and often difficult man who nevertheless possessed a keen sense of humour and remains one of the best loved poets in the English language.         

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