“Can you help me a bit?” A spotlit Jane Horrocks revolves through the space where the audience is standing, hemmed in by three giant screens. She waves her arms. Her white floaty dress floats. It’s a clear case of Kate Bush-itis, but the paramedics are busy reviving audience members who have become faint from standing in the crowded arena of this atmospheric but hot market hall. Horrocks, unhelped, returns to the stage. Here, she is once more spotlit – and backlit, through her flimsy frock – as she sings and dances in front of three male musicians, who appear and disappear, as spotlights determine. The effect is amateurish. It shouldn’t be.
The words deserve better: they echo the pleas of Manchester factory workers suffering appalling hardships in the “cotton panic” of 1861-5, yet still standing in solidarity with the as-yet unfreed slaves of the then disunited states of America. This is the subject of what is billed by Manchester international festival as an “industrial music drama”, but is redefined by a publicist on the eve of press night as “a gig”. It comes across as a collage of songs (folk, pop, blues and hymn) montaged with samples of 1860s texts, presented within a soundtrack of soft-focus industrial synthpop, provided by Wrangler (the trio, including Stephen Mallinder, formerly of Cabaret Voltaire, are credited with co-creation, alongside Horrocks and her partner, writer Nick Vivian; Wils Wilson directs).
On the three screens are projected images of cotton blown in the air, of moving figures, including choreographer-dancer Lorena Randi, often with wind machine-blown clothes and hair (Chris Turner is credited with visuals). Among the images are performers not present. Although absent, their presence is powerful: gigantic, in closeup, they movingly deliver texts or simply stare towards the auditorium, listening to hard facts. Most are not white. Their names are difficult to decipher in the fanzine-style, poorly reproduced programme and are not included in the credits on MIF’s website.
The event approaches the present with a reportage-style film (to the Clash’s White Riot), featuring Black Lives Matter placards. Manchester workers in the 1860s believed this. So should we, and it matters that we recognise one another as equals. Here are the names, as given, smudgily, in the paper programme and not at all on the website, of those who appeared on film (some familiar, others less so): Fehinti Balogun, Isaura Barbé-Brown, Fiston Barek, Amy Bell, Teresa Cendon-Garcia, James Heron, Eva Hladaj, Ajibola Ibidapo-Obe, Glenda Jackson, Deborah Rock, William Thompson.
