Clap your hands
One of the coolest things I saw at last year’s summer festivals were a number of performances by the amazing and astonishing human beatbox, Beardyman. In fact, I ended up seeing him at so many festivals it was beginning to feel as though one of us was stalking the other! I even thought I saw him at an office furniture London store a few weeks after Glastonbury, but it turned out to just be the shop manager who had neglected to have a shave that morning…
Human beatboxing (if that is actually a real word) isn’t for everyone, but even if you don’t find it particularly entertaining there’s no denying it’s a very special skill. Not everyone can contort their vocal chords and face so that they can sound like an entire set of drums, with a miniature Casio keyboard playing over the top. Yet even the incomparable Beardyman would be put to shame by the latest piece performed by the National Youth Orchestra.
HandsFree, developed by the young composer Anne Meredith, is a full orchestral piece played without using a single musical instrument. Instead, human beatboxes, along with clapping, stamping and all the other noises that the body can make, mean that the show at Liverpool’s Philharmonic Hall promises to be something of an innovation in every sense of the word. I thought I’d seen the weirdest orchestra ever when I saw the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain performing “Smells Like Teen Spirit” at the Edinburgh Fringe, but I think HandsFree would steal the crown! Following its première, the show will be moving to the Barbican in London and I might just be persuaded to buy myself a ticket to see if the show lives up to the hype. What is the betting I see Beardyman in the audience too?
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