LONDON TIDE – theatre play with original songs by PJH

[TheNightingale]

From Twitter:

PJ Harvey has collaborated with Ben Power to create original songs for 'London Tide', directed by Ian Rickson and based on Charles Dickens' 'Our Mutual Friend'. The world premiere will be in the Lyttelton theatre, London in April 2024.

https://twitter.com/PJHarveyUK/status/1 ... 0633933824

Some of you might recall that pictures and videos from workshops popped up on Polly's Instagram back in 2018 and 2019; I guess the production was delayed due to Covid.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BqA0ZDXgXcA/
https://www.instagram.com/p/BqHJxopgMac/
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bz8d4rFHKvn/
https://www.instagram.com/p/B0L2Tr4HNAP/

[Sebastiano Boina]

PJ writes:

Tickets will go on sale this 9 November for 'London Tide' at the Lyttelton Theatre, London, from April 2024.
Based on Charles Dickens' 'Our Mutual Friend', it is directed by Ian Rickson, adapted by Ben Power and features original songs written by PJ Harvey and Ben Power.

i wonder if said songs will be published on PJ's youtube channel in the near future.


mmmh, if they call it specifically songs and not "score" or "soundtrack" it may mean they are all singed compositions? or maybe i'm just getting confused, apologies, i'm exhausted .

[TheNightingale]

Yes, it’s was described as a musical “play with songs” at one point, so this is not just an instrumental score — there will be actual songs written by Polly and sung by the cast.

[Romario11]

https://www.instagram.com/p/C5Y6pX0It6c/
It will probably be recorded with the cast rather than Polly, but we can hope.

@sarahflossyanderson - sure thing yeah! we’ll record the album in may. And there will be a film of the show too. X

[TheNightingale]

It will probably be recorded with the cast rather than Polly, but we can hope.

For sure, but maybe an original demo or two performed by Polly will surface as well, like with All About Eve

[Romario11]

[Sebastiano Boina]

Polly says:

Whenever I approached writing a song for a character I would discuss with Ben and Ian what the character is going through at that time, and what emotion needed to be expressed through the music. We would talk about what had happened immediately before, what was going to happen next, time of day or night…

As the play evolved we began to see how we could make the songs work hard for us in a way that meant that Ben could edit text from the body of the play as the song had expressed much of it.

Jamael has been wonderful to work with and understands all of the emotions that needed to be conveyed within the song.

Ian Rickson says:

I loved watching Polly feel into the distinctive sensibilities of different characters at key moments in their lives, and find music for them. The music has a timeless directness that transcends genre and style, so evocative in our stage world.

Ben Power says:

It's been the most enormous pleasure and thrill to work with Polly on these lyrics and to watch her create this timeless and transcendent music. The songs in London Tide jump out of the play to express character, emotion and theme, combining Dickens' vast portrait of the city with Polly's extraordinary musical imagination.

Dulcis in fundo:



https://youtu.be/nMS5UJkz6HE


as they say, ask and it will be given.

[TheNightingale]

By the way, according to an op-ed by Ian Rickson in the Evening Standard, the play features 13 new songs co-written by Polly and Ben Power.

[sallytbyml]

I was lucky enough to see London Tide last night. Songlist and opinion hidden as spoilers below

Spoiler! :

There are indeed 13 new PJ Harvey songs and it feels closer to a full musical than just a play with a couple of songs and score (like All About Eve). These are full songs not just instrumentals and musically could fit into any of her post-White Chalk albums (with maybe a little bit of UHH - I definitely hear some Pocket Knife). The lyrics are co-written and often serve as inner-monologues for each character rather than advancing the plot - most of them start as solos and then evolve into full-cast vocal arrangements. There are three musicians on stage throughout and the first half is mostly acoustic guitar (with some piano, percussion and atmospheric ambient bits) with electric guitar arriving in the second half. Lyrically some of it is very Polly, especially themes of water and the sensory experience of grubby Victorian London, quite poetic; but some of the lyrics are a bit more banal to me - I guess because they directly state a character’s emotions and are therefore broader and less ambiguous/complex than the best Polly lyrics. I would say that every song sounds VERY much like a PJ Harvey song - you can 100% hear her singing them all and that’s what I want! None of the cast are “singers” and the vocals are intentionally rough and ready, sounding more like a sung version of natural speech - this works because the songs emerge naturally from the characters rather than breaking you out of the story and announcing themselves as a musical number, if that makes sense? However, because any PJ fan can so clearly imagine her singing them, it’s really hard not to hear what they could be and how much her vocals would add… I would love these recordings to be released by her but I think we are probably going to get a cast album - fair enough but it would be a shame not to basically get a brand new PJ Harvey album out of it! I would say an album like that would be regarded as a minor PJ record just because of the lyrics being a bit compromised and because there is a lot of repetition of her previous material (teetering on self-parody at moments imo, depending how much mileage you personally get out of repetitive minor-key piano chords, which are wearing a bit thin on me now...) and we all know how she hates to repeat herself!

These are the song titles:
London Song
Embers and Ash
London, My Beautiful
The Burning Boat
Lizzie Alone
Bradley Headstone
Evening
Eugene Alone
The City and The Field
Holloway
Upstream
Deptford Creek
Homecoming

Edited to add names of musicians: Ian Ross - piano and guitars, Alex Lupo - drums, Sarah Anderson - keyboards

In the programme there’s a 3-page feature about the music with interview snippets from Polly, Ian Rickson and Ben Powers - I’ll post these later today.

If there’s anything specific you want to know I’ll do my best to answer!

[sallytbyml]

As promised here are photos of the programme interview with Polly, Ian and Rickson and Ben Powers
https://ibb.co/NZyf8Pj
https://ibb.co/FJBxvLM
https://ibb.co/6Fb4MvG
https://ibb.co/ZmCRspD

[TheNightingale]

Thank you for the review and the scans, much appreciated!

[bruise]

Yes, thanks so much for the insight! I was afraid this was going to be left for a few lucky goers and go undocumented. Fingers crossed we're going to get all the songs. The demo for "Eugene Alone" is already on youtube, so it doesn't seem so unlikely.

[Romario11]

Thank you for these and the review!

[alonbp]

Thank you so much for the details!

[Sebastiano Boina]

post-White Chalk albums (with maybe a little bit of UHH - I definitely hear some Pocket Knife

mmmh interesting.




thank you!