Reasons to be Cheerful - again!

Last night I went to Nottingham Playhouse to see a fantastic performance by Graeae Theatre Company. Ten of us went. Their marketing co-ordinator is my friends’ daughter, and we wanted to support her.
The show is called Reasons to be Cheerful, and as I write this, they will be warming up for their last performance of the run.
It’s a play based on Ian Dury and the Blockhead’s music.
There’s a story threaded through, set back in the late 70s. There’s a family coping with terminal illness, a desperate desire to get tickets to see Ian Dury and the Blockheads, and some late teen rites of passage.
Graeae Theatre Company are an inclusive theatre company, and this means some of their performers could be described as disabled.
Suspend your preconceptions about musicals. Suspend your preconceptions about what might be meant by disability.
This show is a message for our times, in spite of being set in the 70s. Politically we are all facing the same problems. And Ian Dury’s music, and the themes of the story resonate just as powerfully in 2012.
There is more to this show than a great back catalogue of songs threaded through a story, imaginatively and enthusiastically performed. The choreography incorporates signing. A character in the corner appears to be on an old payphone, but he’s describing the action on stage for those who can’t see it. There’s a screen that’s used for projections of the script as it’s spoken and some brilliantly chosen images and photographs to enhance the action. The main vocalist has Ian Dury’s jacket slung over the back of his wheelchair, given to him by the Blockheads in recognition of what they are all doing for Ian’s legacy.
Seeing the lyrics on screen makes you realise what an exceptional poet and wordsmith Ian Dury was. Every word, every little phrase expresses multiple meanings and conjures up images and connections. A rap artist, an artist, a performer, a poet, a vocalist. It’s very powerful. When I spoke to one of the signers after the show, he said the most difficult thing is to express the nuances and innuendoes – it’s a challenge to sign such clever and intricate wordplay.
They have played Hackney Empire, with the Blockheads in the front row. ‘Oi, Oi’.
It’s a celebration and a tribute. A rediscovery and an affirmation of everything he stood for.
‘Spasticus Autisticus’ was banned from airplay by the BBC, fearful of offending. It’s an anthem and a battle cry. Maybe they just didn’t want something so powerful broadcast far and wide. As the band on stage perform it, there’s a montage of images on the screen, all terrifyingly familiar from my youth. Collection boxes for cripples. Models of a boy in callipers, holding a collecting box for your loose change. They used to be on every counter and outside the high street shops with a conscience. And then you look at the people on stage, and you recall Ian Dury, white silk scarf, black leather glove, silver topped cane. Part teddy boy, part dandy, part Sweet Gene Vincent. Razorblade earring and slicked back dark curly hair. A beautiful, stylish and charismatic man by any standards.
I met him twice. Once backstage at an Edgar Broughton Band gig in London in 1973, and later at Les Prior’s funeral in Heptonstall. Les was in Alberto y los trios Paranoias, and died too soon of cancer. The Albertos were on Stiff records and they became close.
I saw Ian Dury and the Blockheads in 1977, when I went to see the Stiff tour in Rochdale. We weren’t encouraged to dance in the aisles back then, but last night I got my chance to leap up and dance for the joy of it all to Sex and Drugs and Rock ‘n’ Roll. It’s been a long wait. I felt privileged to see Ian back in ’77 and I feel privileged to have seen the show last night.