Death Actually, Toynbee Studios - music review

Effectively three concerts for the price of one, Death Actually was conceived by director Thomas Guthrie as a musical contemplation of death’s dominion. First, Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin, accompanied not by piano but by a delightful combination of guitars, strings and percussion. The arrangement was Guthrie’s, as was the idea of having baritone Robert Murray sing while manipulating a puppet. At first the puppet seemed inexpressive but the mind soon began to project the songs’ emotions onto its immobile features.

If the effect gradually diminished over the length of the cycle, Murray’s performance, both singing and puppeteering, was winningly intense.

To follow were three Bach motets, sung by nine singers, mostly to the accompaniment of organ and cello. Atheists among us might point out that, far from confronting death, Bach’s motets draw on the comforting myth of life after death, and Guthrie and choreographer Sarah Dowling’s bare-bones staging, all slo-mo movement and flickering tea-lights, added little, but the performers’ commitment was not in doubt.

The evening climaxed in a cheerfully boozy re-creation of a 17th-century alehouse wake. Most of the music was of the right vintage but, with dashes of flamenco, jazz and knockabout thrown into the mix, the mood was more like a rowdy after-hours pub singalong. Death Actually? Not really, but no one was complaining. Nearly four hours of exuberant musicianship saw to that.