Literary Performance Groups

Print

BOILED STRING
CONTACT NAME: John Goodby
ADDRESS: 26 Sketty Park Drive, Swansea, SA2 8LN
TELEPHONE NO: 01792 412696
EMAIL ADDRESS: goby-goodby@ntlworld.com
GENRES: Poetry , Multi-media, Drama, Music 
DATE ESTABLISHED: June 2007
GROUP MEMBERS: John Goodby, Angela Coldrick, Margot Morgan, Peter Williams  
PAST EVENTS: Performances of uncaged sea at the Dylan Thomas Festivals of 2003 and 2007, and at the Cardiff Millennium Centre in summer 2007
FORTHCOMING EVENTS: Performance of Eclogue for the World’s Year’s End, 19.30, 11 December, 2007 at the Dylan Thomas Centre, Swansea. For a flyer about this event, click here
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF GROUP:
A multimedia poetry performance group specialising in innovative, contemporary works and adaptations of twentieth century long poems in English by Welsh poets.
ABOUT THIS GROUP:
Boiled StringBoiled String is a multimedia poetry performance outfit christened in the summer of 2007 after a performance of John Goodby’s uncaged sea, a long work which rewrites Dylan Thomas’ Collected Poems 1934-53 in accordance with the text-sampling procedures of John Cage’s Roaratorio. In an earlier, nameless, incarnation, a version of this group first performed uncaged sea at the Dylan Thomas Festival of 2003, only taking on a name at the suggestion of (and inspired by) the poet and Welsh Academi Chief Executive Peter Finch. The term ’boiled string’ derives from Dylan Thomas’ antics at the London International Surrealist Exhibition of 1936, at which he was observed bearing a tray containing a teapot of boiling water and a cup full of string as he accosted visitors with the question "Weak or strong?"

Boiled StringInitially founded to perform new works by John (a widely-published poet and winner of the 2006 Cardiff International Poetry Competition), Boiled String have widened their repertoire to include other innovative and experimental work, as well as adaptations and versions of the many neglected poetic masterpieces by twentieth century Welsh poets- among them Idris Davies’ The Angry Summer, David Jones’ The Roman Quarry, Lynette Roberts’ Gods with Stainless Ears, Glyn Jones’ The Dream of Jake Hopkins and Vernon Watkins’ The Ballad of Mari Lwyd. Their next performance is on 11 December 2007, when they will present a performance of John’s latest piece, a homage to Louis MacNeice entitled Eclogue for the World’s Year’s End, at the Dylan Thomas Centre in Swansea.

Boiled StringBoiled String performances combine the spoken word, pre-recorded and arbitrary sound, live music and visual displays in a heady mix that blurs the boundaries between poetry and other arts. Neither poetry bas ’the new rock ’n’ roll’, nor solemn celebrators of heritage, Boiled String combine something of dada with 1950s jazz-and-poetry readings and a Sixties happening. Their permanent members are John Goodby (artistic director), Angela Coldrick (actress), Margot Morgan (actress and chanteuse) and Peter Williams (composer-in-residence and musician). All four have many years of experience and acclaim in the practice of their various crafts, in Wales and beyond.

The mission of Boiled String is to promote experimental writing and innovation Welsh poetry in these islands and beyond; to tease audiences into thought by way of amusement, provocation and entertainment; and to banish the glazed look that typically greets the dread words ’poetry’ and ’reading’.
 

Boiled String flyer

REVIEWS:

"…First seen during the 2004 Dylan Thomas Festival, this is a remarkably absorbing piece - best described as poetry performance - written by poet, translator and Dylan Thomas scholar John Goodby. The work uses seemingly disjointed extracts from the writings of Dylan Thomas, arranged in such a way that the central letters of each line spell out the writer’s name: the narrative is totally meaningless yet strangely compelling, an the effect is enhanced by the contributions from a quartet of performers who call themselves Boiled String.

The group comprises John Goodby himself, Margot Morgan, Angela Colderick and bass player/compose Peter Williams, all of whom pull together to produce a truly cohesive piece of work with great dramatic impetus.

On a lighter note, the work incorporates a ’soundscape’ which was recorded not in a state-of-the-art sound studio but in my favourite watering hole, the Vivian in Sketty: not only did I recognise the squeak of the door leading to the Gents, but I was even able to pick out the highly distinctive voice of one of the bar staff. A nice touch, which added a human element to a work which, in less skilled hands, could easily have seemed totally inaccessible…"  

Graham Williams, Swansea Evening Post, 29 October 2007
PUBLICATIONS:
uncaged sea (Waterloo Press, 2008)

Uncaged Sea"…As readers of his restlessly inventive poetry know, John Goodby’s distinctive intelligence asserts itself in unexpected, self-effacing ways—through other voices, formal games and, in the case of uncaged sea, a faithful and yet mischievous (you might say faithfully subversive) immersion in another poet’s words. What he produces by his close attention and responsiveness to the stray energies of language is an engaging, addictive performance, whether enacted in sound and Uncaged Seaspoken word on stage or in the imaginative ‘translation’ of that experience to print. The version laid out on the page is a performance of another kind, with the same teasing / enticing effect of continuity and discontinuity in a carefully unstable balance—giving the reader space both to think and enjoy, a sense of joining in the game…"
Philip Gross

 "…Immigrant (fox-skin cap / embroidered cloak) scholiast (Susan Howe)
A cloak of rags and patches showing a lost text by glimpses. Recurring segments of spine around which lines whirl without fastening. A moth’s wing pattern through which the lost and beloved object is recovered. A sheer glow on which signal multiplies like bacteria on fruit…" 
Andrew Duncan
"…John Goodby’s remarkably sustained uncaged sea whips you up into a state Uncaged Seawhere you want to ’smother the sweet haggard in the glass’. What can one say of such a ’tusked ramshackling’ work? All I could say after reading it was: ’like dramatic sea I have been a ball of lakes.’ A prodigious unconscionable downright desperate poem..!"
John Hartley Williams

 "...Dylan Thomas was always near the edge. The reworkings by John Goodby and Boiled String show just how close. This is Thomas thrust into the post-modern maelstrom, pulled by process, mashed by manipulation and riveted by rearrangement. Down here in the micro-memes that Goodby uncovers are some twenty-first century rockets set-off unknowingly by Wales’ best-known twentieth century master..."
Peter Finch

 



 

Eligible Writers on Tour subjects offered:

1. Own and specially-commissioned innovative/experimental poetic works
2. Adaptations of neglected long poems by twentieth century Welsh poets

AGE RANGE: 15+
SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS: Need good sound system and (occasionally) facilities for visual projection

 To view a flyer on what Boiled String can offer you, please click here

BOILED STRING

PAVANE & MATTHEW FRANCIS

TALL TALES