Covent Garden
October 9, 2011
harrassing the mobile guy
Last week I went to Covent Garden and came away with a very ‘British experience’ – I say that only because most of the characters in this act were probably British.
I love the street theatre in London and Covent Garden is apparently a popular spot for such activities.
London was enjoying a brief spurt of an ‘Indian summer’ in the last week of September; huge crowds had come out to enjoy the sun.
Only one week ago, but it feels like a far away memory already, given how cold the weather has turned now.
We saw three different performers that day at various points in covent garden and every performer tried to tell the crowd in different ways why ‘street performance’ is still powerfully alive or even necessary for this country.
It democratises music and drama, especially in London where every play or an act costs several expensive pounds at a theatre. Street performances, on the other hand, are almost free. Here, people pay after the performance, if they want to, mostly because they have loved it, and balance out for others who probably found it equally joyful but are too broke to spare money (like me).
Or as one performer said, we could even pay with ‘love’.
I have this particular memory of a singing troupe trying to wheedle some coins out of the gathered crowd on this Sunday afternoon. The lead singer of the troupe had just spotted a chap talking on his cellphone. Till then he had restrained himself to calling out “don’t just walk away, you!” and other variations of “how rude”. But now he got his entire band, playing beautiful music on their crafty huge violins, to surround the mobile-man and out-disturb him. Even the crowd was firmly with them, which only meant that things got jollier and noisier, given that the crowd was already absolutely friendly by then.
At another point, this singer picked out an audience member, fished out his CD and sang “I want your money”, “please buy this CD” (only 10 pounds).
This audience guy was most probably british. He was round and portly, in a deep blue beach shirt wearing sunglasses, sitting with two other companions – one man, and another woman. The three of them were old with significant greying hair, probably were also retired, but together they looked like those rich bankers one sees on television.
He was certainly not overwhelmed or dumb founded with this attention – within three choruses of ‘I want your money’; this banker looking guy joined the singer in a duet.
“I don’t have money,” he sang. “To buy me your CD”.
“Someone, please give me money, for I want his CD”.
blurred image of the audience chap singing
For those of us who had gathered there, this was a moment plucked out of time, as clichéd as it sounds. In recent times, I’ve felt this way at least once before; like some act was unfolding in front of me, spontaneously, without the benefit of invisible puppet masters.
We were having a jolly good time already because of the band, but this random chap, with his amateur – off key at parts – singing, had taken the act to another inspiring level. Definitely worth someone’s 10 pounds. Ofcourse it could entirely be possible that it was a staged marketing event targeted at sentimental types like me, as a friend later suggested. But my gut says it really was something spontaneous.
