Bite 08
Part of Bite’s 10th Anniversary
Ida Barr: So This is Christmas
Christopher Green
Written, Produced and Performed by Christopher Green
Featuring Mark Raffles, Jess Robinson and Godslove Mensah
Director Cal McCrystal
Set Designer Alex Craig
Costume Designer Jack Britton
Lighting Designer Andy Purves
Barbican Pit
10 – 23 December, 2008
 ary Couzens
A review by Mary Couzens for EXTRA! EXTRA!
Christopher Green is a man of many guises and the one he’s assumed for this show, Ida Barr, is a surreal mixture of music hall performer, 1970’s sit-com character and the rather bleak realities of many down, but not out elderly people, who are all too often, the butt of senseless, insensitive jokes, which are in actual fact, decidedly unfunny. Green’s present act could be seen as ‘surreal’ because during the course of it, he is effectively turning a mirror on the audience, giving them some of what they’re used to perhaps, and, as a result, what they think they want, but with a knowing inner wink.
The above represents my first impression of Chris Green’s present show. Below you will find a more informed account of my reaction to Ida Barr: So This is Christmas, based on research into what Green is actually doing and who his show is really inspired by.
The real Ida Barr (1884 – 1967) was a music hall performer who had some international success with her own versions of the songs ‘Oh, You Beautiful Doll’ and ‘Everybody’s Doin’ It Now,’ which she performed in the U.K. , America, Australia and elsewhere. Green’s first encounter with Barr was through a recording of her performing, which he discovered in the British Library. He was immediately captivated by her accent, which, he claims, was ‘fake posh with a bit of cockney,’ and her inimitable singing style. On further research, Green discovered that Barr was only an inch shorter than him and that, like him she was a red-head, which further inspired Green’s transformation! Determined to resurrect this unique performer, who had sung in East End pubs in her later years, Green decided to give his revival of her a new spin, especially as he takes his Ida Barr into schools in order to teach children what he terms, ‘Artificial Hip-Hop.’
During his act as Ida Barr, Green raps, chats and gyrates, and never lets Londoners, be they newcomers to the Big Smoke or natives, forget their roots, in that, every so often, he shouts out the phrase, ‘Doin’ the Lambeth Walk!’ to which the audience is meant to obediently respond, ‘Oi!’ Green’s reasoning for this obligatory, automatic response? ‘Culture – use it or lose it!’
Framed in the format of a chat show, with D.J. Godslove Mensah providing great scratching in the background, blended with music spanning nearly every genre and time period, Barr talks to guests ‘singer/songwriter’ Jess Robinson, whom Green/Barr claimed to have seen in Iceland and promised her mother she could ‘have a gig’, and veteran magician Mark Raffles, a performer who’s been combining magic, mime and comedy for seventy years. Over the course of the show Barr helps Robinson ‘blossom,’ while Mr. Raffles charmingly and comically makes skilled light of his seemingly, blundering magical prowess. The audience gets to do their bits too, most of them voluntarily, with a fellow in the front row being advised to stop Barr from telling jokes, while other audience members play musical chairs, and nearly everyone in the audience participates in a sing a long and mass ‘Hokey Cokey.’ This is all part of the plan, and helps people loosen up to the point that Green, still in character as Barr, advises the audience to go and have fun on their own now, departing without a whimper. But he hasn’t left before he’s shown, through Ida Barr, the loneliness of many elderly people as well, including those who routinely put a brave face on it, which leaves us with something to remember and perhaps, act upon in future.
Bawdy, endearing, and thoroughly intelligent and insightful humour, yes, humour... And I’m still not sure whether Santa Claus sleeps with his whiskers over or under the sheets!
75 minutes/no interval
www.barbican.org.uk
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