Prague Fringe Festival diary, 24th-31st May 2008

Day 1, Sunday 25th May

9.30 a.m.
Even in the heart of Prague's buzzing old town it's quiet at this time on a Sunday morning. Choir members gather in blue tour t-shirts as the mastermind behind the week Mike Brogan (bari) issues stern warnings that flyering and busking without a license are illegal. Players hover cautiously under the arches that line one side of the little square as waiters from the outdoor café look on stony-faced. There is a license for just four to busk, twenty are present, fistfuls of flyers are being handed around and Nigel (MD, soprillo) is clearly itching to break the law.

Busking in Prague's Old Town

Big un's busking

But he exercises restraint, at least initially. The quartet opens its programme in front of the fountain; the acoustic is beautiful and the players are on great form. Passers-by stop to listen and the café begins to fill up. Flyers are discretely handed out and CDs are rather less discretely promoted. Richard (conductor, spoons) and his sons Dominic and Rory willingly join the lawbreakers. Nigel’s will snaps and the full Choir is ordered out into the centre of the square and the crowds swell, blocking the horse-drawn carriages and vintage cars. The waiters do not go so far as to smile but they are now full engaged as the fountain-side café reaches capacity. There is no sign of the police...The NSC has hit Prague.

High-pressure CD sales

Gosh! It is really jolly big!

It is Richard's contact Tereza Krausova who has negotiated the busking slot and permits. She has also arranged the Music Centre rehearsal (see below) and sourced percussion, and during the course of the week translates, arranges a local meal and joins the Choir on alto for the theatre shows. Local knowledge can make or break a tour and in this case it most definitely makes it.

Noon
There's a short break (very short for those hauling the mighty bass and contrabass across the city's congested centre) and the Choir reconvenes at Divadlo Na Prádle, the theatre around which the Fringe Festival Praha (Prague Fringe Festival) is based. It's quiet here in the Malá Strana, to the west of the great river Vltava and feels like a pretty residential suburb of a much smaller city. Some players speculate - with justification, it turns out – whether audiences will make their way here.

2 p.m.
It's the Fringe Opening. In the theatre bar which overlooks the little stage (Kavarna) it is cramped, dark and smoky, but friendly. The Fringe acts which have just a few moments to promote their shows range from the hilarious and obscene to downright incomprehensible, and while this may not be the obvious context for six minutes of Bolero, the NSC is greeted with wild enthusiasm. Claire Tomsett and her contrabass are met with near hysterical wonderment and delight, but there is no time to bask in glory or draw breath before the bigger saxes are whipped off into a van, destined for the suburbs, and Music City.

Prague Fringe Festival, opening show

5.30ish
The remainder of the Choir follow on Prague's impressive, Soviet-style metro. Ticket procedures and the frighteningly fast escalators are negotiated without incident, but there is delay as the players numbly follow each other off at the wrong stop. When it's finally located, Music City is an impressive, modern set of studios set in a development area which is part wasteland, part derelict building and part modernistic new build. Richard conducts a two-and-a-half hour rehearsal with his usual energetic and energizing verve but stamina is failing, and the journey back to food, drink and apartments in Mala Strana, is subdued.

Day 2, Monday 26th May

4 p.m.
The Choir gather at Kostel sv. Jana Krtitele Na Prádle, a tiny church one minute's walk nearer to the river than the theatre. It's set in an enclosed courtyard approached via a tiny door in a wooden gate and it seems to turn its back on city life – not a prominent venue for the NSC's first four Fringe shows. Nigel has cannily found a first floor apartment accessed off the courtyard and lurks behind the geraniums that fringe the balcony, beadily eyeing up any latecomers to the three-hour sound check.

Inside, the simple, cream-painted walls and height give the church a dignity unexpected in such a tiny building, and the acoustic is lovely, resonant and cool. Its amplifying quality makes it even more important than usual to control volume, and this becomes the recurring theme of the pre-concert briefing sessions. Space is very limited; the Choir stand in a tight U-shape around the apse, there is no room for staging and much of the three hours is spent rehearsing exits and entrances from the front pews. The Ingham boys stage-manage their father’s stand and the small boulder required to raise the contrabass the necessary height off the ground.

Setting up in the church, Kostel na Pradle

7.30 p.m.
The first show. The programme has been carefully selected for the size and character of the venue, and includes two quartets (playing Largo al factotum or Figaro and Sax in the City) and an octet (The Lone Ar-ranger), saving the glory of the full Choir for just five numbers. Repertoire is more than usually orientated towards the spiritual (Aria), dignified (Nimrod), lush (Oblivion), calming (Orphanata) and heartfelt (Eclogue), though Nessun Dorma provides full-on passion, Rumanian Dances full-on energy and Crazy Rag, with its new choreography, full-on zaniness.

Although the church has a capacity of 70, the crowd of 40 is so vocal and enthusiastic that it seems to fill the space. Players face beaming listeners whose grins widen throughout the show, which closes to a standing ovation. It's heady stuff – almost too good for an opening night. The Choir pours out of the church and spontaneously serenades the departing audience with Somewhere over the Rainbow.

Day 3, Tuesday 27th May

6 p.m.
The show is earlier today and audience numbers are slightly down on the first night, though the reception is still warm and very enthusiastic. Residents of neighbouring flats come out onto their balconies for a second evening to applaud the al fresco Rainbow (and do so for the remainder of the run here).

Later
Tereza directs the Choir across the Charles Bridge for that essential element of any music tour, a communal meal. Here, in the cellar of a traditional pub, the food is also traditional (excellent pork-and-dumplings and goulash) as are the prices (not inflated for tourists) and the waiter (unsmiling).

Day 4, Wednesday 28th May

12.15 p.m.
A Choir contingent led by Nigel pitch up at the British Embassy, together with scores of other Fringe participants – the Fringe is largely, though not exclusively, an ex-pat phenomenon. The group is escorted off the steep and cramped street leading up to the castle, up through the Embassy building and out into a lush and beautifully tended private garden, where canapés and a tempting amount of alcohol are waiting. Presumably it's unusual for the Ambassador to entertain such a bohemian bunch, and although there are a few performances (though not from the NSC, unfortunately), there are no diva antics, with most participants intent on networking and schmoozing. Nigel scores on this front, and persuades Topping that he and Butch simply must have their photos taken with the Choir (See Day 6.)

6.30 p.m.
Meeting early for the 7.30 show, players receive their debrief from Nigel, and go into the church to be arranged, re-arranged and unarranged for publicity shots. The tour photographer is Gareth, one of several groupies (players' partners) who perform a variety of essential roles, shifting saxes, guarding cases, supervising cash and more – there's no such thing as a free ride on this trip. Gareth takes literally hundreds of photos over the week, providing an invaluable and revealing record of the tour.

Formal in church

There are more in the audience tonight, and yet again, they grin and whoop throughout the hour-long show. Patterns begin to emerge: the ‘Figaro’ quartet's performance becomes progressively more ebullient as does that of the three tenors in Nessun Dorma, and Richard starts to introduce percussionist Trevor as an egg virtuoso - with good reason, as his egg-shaker accompaniment to Sax in the City is quietly awesome. There are some lapses of concentration as players find themselves on the wrong side of the stage or even in the wrong piece; memorizing music has been one of the season’s big achievements, but this clearly needs to be extended to programme order too. Mike 'arachnophobe' Brogan has a very nasty scare indeed as a tiny spider eyes him up from the floor of the church.

Trev with the Sax in the City quartet

Day 5, Thursday 29th May

11.30 a.m.
The weather is warming up (it will break records for May by the end of the week), and this three hour staging and lighting rehearsal in the theatre is the start of a long day. Backstage conditions at the Divadlo Na Prádle (minimal lighting, trailing curtains and flexes, low headroom and a warren of rooms with unexpected steps) would keep an entire team of Health & Safety operatives busy for months in the UK. There is pressure on the lighting technician's time, but Nigel's drilling in stagecraft techniques pays off, and players navigate hazards efficiently – only two injuries by the end of the week - to sort out the choreography successfully.

Afternoon
After a snatched sandwich, players head for Kampa Island (a leafy green park on the river side) for more informal publicity shots and a spontaneous (and unlicensed) mini-busking session. Another of Nigel's strategies (memorizing half the programme) proves its worth, and, free of stands and music, instruments are out of cases and the Choir is playing within seconds. CDs are peddled to onlookers who are at first bemused, and very quickly intrigued.

Puckering up for the camera on the Kampa

Performance over, it only takes another few seconds to pack up and move on to the foot of Charles Bridge, probably one of the busiest tourist spots in the city. This time a crowd gathers almost immediately to listen, blocking traffic, and (horror!) a police car cruises past, but does not stop.

Busking at the foot of Charles Bridge

6 p.m.
There is scarcely time to change before the final concert in the church. The audience is the smallest of the week, but as ever is very appreciative, and includes members of the British Embassy and British Chamber of Commerce in Prague. Performing for audiences who are clearly enjoying themselves is enormously satisfying, but it is frustrating that the Choir isn’t reaching more people here, especially as the busking (partly an end in itself, partly a means of advertising the show) also seems to be so well-received.

Day 6, Friday 30th May

6 p.m.
The Choir gathers pre-concert for more publicity shots, this time with Topping and Butch, a charmingly smutty Fringe act who appear with whips in barely decent amounts of red leather. Players clearly enjoy themselves (inner divas are allowed free rein), but there is some speculation is to when the shots will be used – education workshops perhaps?

Acoustically the theatre is very different from the church and absorbs a lot of sound, requiring the players to crank up to maximum volume, a sharp contrast to the restraint of the past four days. The programme reflects this, presenting the NSC's big-blowing, set-piece memorized pieces (Mrs Malcolm, Under the Veil, Bolero) and lighter and high-energy items (Bohemian Rhapsody, Carnival, Shetland Sequence); the exuberant Waltzing Soprillda replaces Eclogue as the soprillo feature. As ever, this proves a highlight with the audience; the emotional blowout of Bo Rhap gets a good response too, as do the antics of Crazy Rag, a particular favourite of Margaret's son Mike. The beauty and intensity of Sally's soprano and Cat's alto playing in Aria already seem a very long way away.

In the theatre, Divadlo na Pradle

Later
Instruments and music are quickly stowed and the Choir re-assemble for the second group meal of the week at the Karmelita, a restaurant/bar that has seen a lot of NSC custom during the Fringe. The show consumes a lot of energy, and there is a definite urgency about the eating and drinking.

There is also a party to get to at Richard and Margaret's. They entertain royally in their sophisticated and spacious apartment, and the boys are exemplary hosts. There are the by now traditional – though sincere and genuinely moving – thanks, and the rather more flippant awards. As ever they are absolutely apposite – the GPS award to the player who couldn't navigate their way to the right side of the church, for example, an Incy Wincy title for Mike and a Marcel Marceau tag for the tenor who had to mime an entire piece. The groupies all get awards too and the three boys get blow up saxophones. Everyone chills and mellows and eventually weaves their way back to their own apartments...

Day 7, Saturday 31st May

10 a.m.
Complexions are noticeably pasty as players gather the next morning, back where the week started, for a busking session in the Small Square of the Old Town. Having escaped any serious attention from the law so far an amiable policeman materializes promptly to inform Nigel that players could be fined without a license. There is a license, but it's only for the quartet so it's perhaps fortunate that it's been left in one of the apartments; by the time it's retrieved the policeman has disappeared and does not return. It's baking hot by now and players have to be shaded with umbrellas or cool themselves in the fountain, but still play for a full two hours.

Underneath the arches, a last busk in Prague

6 p.m.
The theatre is almost full for the final show which runs without incident until Trev breaks a finger with an over-enthusiastic rimshot; with true stoicism he continues drumming until the end of the piece, when his fingers are bound backstage with masking tape. Commitment and concentration are sustained until the final note of Rainbow fades away. The audience applauds - and suddenly, it's all over.

Postscript

The consensus is that the week's been a great success musically. The Choir's reaping the benefits of Nigel's memorization drive (8 pieces under the belt now) which allows a lot more creative staging, and working with Richard for a week has been a delight. (Perhaps some Choir members don't fully appreciate how lucky they are to benefit from the attention of two alpha musicians working together in harmony.) Audience reaction has confirmed that programme choice and presentation was spot-on. It was a very happy week socially, too.

The frustrations are familiar from Edinburgh Fringe appearances – under-capacity venues, money worries and little press attention. It's all about profile, publicity and funding, not the quality of the product, and that trio represents the NSC's next big challenge.

Photographs: Gareth Layzell

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