NWN-18062020

NEWBURY NEWS ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT n 2

Thursday, June 18, 2020 36

Newbury Weekly News

EDM the way to goofomraTy

First electronic dance music album produced in lockdown

studying A-levels at St Bart’s School and has been balancing homework with the production of this album in his bedroom during the lockdown. The album includes a vast mix of different kinds of electronic dance music. Earlier in the year, he released an EP and single to experiment and find out what genre suited his production style best. In these earlier tracks, he wrote and sang about current affairs such as Covid-19. After gaining feedback from friends, Thomas has decided EDM was the way forward. He began his musical journey in 2015 when he began taking drum lessons at Hogan Music. Since then, he has performed in numer- ous shows at both Trinity and St Bart’s and is currently preparing to take his Grade 7 exam once lockdown ends and, at some point, would like to teach. His rapid progression meant that he discovered many different kinds of genres that he had not previously listened to, including the more niche genre of drum and bass. As a result of his acceptance into the music technology A-level course last summer, Thomas thought he would get a head start and begin teaching himself the basics of digital music production. IF, as Jonathan Holloway suggests in his adaptation of HG Wells’ 1895 novella The Time Machine , performed live online via Zoom, that in some alternative universe Winston Churchill, Albert Einstein and Wells have managed to build a viable time machine before the Nazis did, would you use it? Would a time machine benefit humankind or destroy it? In a thought-provoking, interactive performance, the cast takes the audience on a journey into the future, raising ethical questions that the audience members get to consider in a break-out session facilitated by one of the actors, if they choose to go there. This is another innovative production by Oxford’s Creation Theatre Company, whose use of Zoom technology enables cast, creatives and audience members to share, and watch each other share, the performance. The show was originally staged for small groups in the London Library, and was halted due to lockdown.

On April 5, he released his first EDM track Canjuna . Having been listened to in over 30 countries and racking up almost 3,000 streams on Spotify alone, it has been his most successful track to date. Sticking to this theme, his new album explores the world of EDM even further. Each song tells another story and reflects how he was feeling at the time of writing it. Thomas says he sees music as a way of channelling his emotions and loves to get lost in what he creates. Despite it only being a hobby, he is hoping to gain some more traction in the industry over time and is looking to work in collaboration with a female singer in future. Unlike professionals, he cannot afford a mastering engineer and so he has to mix and master his songs himself. This can be quite a challenge, however, as he does not own studio-quality speakers and is working with basic software. The character on his latest album cover was drawn by Daniel Jackson of Trinity School. You can find his music on Spotify, Apple Music, iTunes, Youtube, Bandcamp and many other streaming platforms.

NEWBURY teenager Thomas Moores has just released his first album Trip.P under his stage name Tomay. The 17-year-old drummer is currently

Thomas mixing and mastering his music at home and, inset, drumming with the b and

Thomas Moores AKoAmTay

Zooming to the feutur Online theatre is being revolutionised and Creation is at the forefront

The Re’ps done it READING Rep theatre company has now raised more than £500,000 for the company’s first permanent home in Reading, meaning the new cultural arts hub with a 168-seat auditorium in Kings Road will open next year. The state-of-the-art space will house the multi-award-winning Reading Rep Theatre, led by founder and artistic director Paul Stacey and executive director Nick Thompson, and provide the facilities for the company to continue producing critically acclaimed and increasingly ambitious work as Reading’s only year-round professional producing theatre, as well as delivering outreach opportunities to those with least access to the arts. As well as a 168-seat theatre, there will be a permanent education and learning centre, backstage areas, new front of house facilities and a café/bar. Hedley Swain, ACE area director of the South East, said: “This is an exciting time for culture in Reading and Arts Council England is really pleased to be able to support this initiative, which will provide a much-needed venue for some of the town’s excellent theatrical work.” www.readingrep.com

Theatre

her to the present. We are exhorted to rub our hands together and then wave an item of enduring value at our computer’s camera to boost the actors into the future. Amusingly, standing in front of a virtual backdrop akin to Doctor Who’s time tunnel, they shout out the magic word ‘zoom’ as they travel through time. The narrative embraces our current coronavirus outbreak by envisaging a world devastated by a pandemic that began in pigs before transferring to humans. Holloway, developing Wells’ role as a Cassandra, warns of vaccine wars, economic collapse and hordes desperate to escape disaster. As in the novel, the far future sees people divided into the subterranean morlocks and the ground- dwelling eloi, the have-nots and the haves, with the total population miniscule compared to now. Humans have flirted with danger in animal husbandry, whilst the military have weaponised people’s bodies. In developing themes suggested by the Socialist Wells, our profit-focused existence is found failing. It’s not all doom and gloom though, as the narrative brings in actor Oliver Hardy, writer Thomas Hardy and New York’s psychedelic disco Studio 54 with a soundtrack of Donna Summer’s 70s hit I Feel Love. The cast performs in front of green screens for special effects, with one actor wearing a green outfit so that his head can be superimposed on various virtual backgrounds. This production enables Creation’s regular team of Ryan Dawson Laight (costumes and set), Matt Eaton (sound) and Ashley Bale (lighting) to create theatrical magic (and be paid for it). Many in the cast have worked for Creation before, whilst Welsh actor Rhodri Lewis joins the company directly from Big Telly’s Operation Elsewhere, reviewed in this paper last month. It is good to see Leda Douglas again, an actress I reviewed last year at the North Wall’s tiny studio space in Nuclear Future, another vision of dystopia. She is a compelling actress. Online theatre is being revolutionised and Creation is at the forefront of the movement. JON LEWIS

Now, Natasha Rickman’s production can reach a global audience without any diminution of the ethical questions raised after Holloway interviewed members of Oxford’s Wellcome Centre for Ethics and Humanities and incorporated their research findings into his script. As with the novel, characters’ names are anonymised. We are led by The Time Traveller and the Computer (huffily rebuking the Time Traveller for calling him Hal, from Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey ) in a quest to the year 2300 to find the Director of Research Scepticism and Innovation and return Creation Theatre: The Time Machine in front rooms everywhere, May 27 to June 21

Derek Ansell in lockdown at his Greenham home last week

Ref: 24-0220D

Dark seecrts uncoverd in Comedian

THERE’s a new novel just out by N2 ’s jazz reviewer Derek Ansell. Comedian follows the private detective work carried out by a woman whose husband, a fading comedian, is found dead at his hotel after a week’s gig in Wales. “With help from the hotel manager, who is attracted to her, the two discover that her late husband was a serial abuser,” explains Derek. “Although the marriage had been bad, Joanne had not suspected the unpleasant truth about her late husband. “Digging deeper, after the original shock they discover something much worse and then something completely unexpected that has to be confronted.” Published by Blossom Spring Publishing, Comedian is available from Amazon, Waterstones online, all other online book sales and bookshops. Paperback £7.75 and ebook £2.10.

Impression of the new hub

T he Time Machine