Fevered Sleep

Friday 26th April 2019

Fevered Sleep

Interrupted sleep. I wake at 4am. I need to visit the loo, but first I have to take my mask off. I think I've slept well, at least so far (I usually wake up earlier than this).

Fevered Sleep. The house lights go down and the four male dancers settle stage left; the nine girls stage right. There is a large sheet centre stage, made up of pages of newspaper stuck together with thick white tape. The wall at the back of the stage is covered in newspaper, and there are pieces of screwed up newspaper littered beneath it.....from which a fifth male dancer covered from head-to-toe in newspaper and tape, like a well-read Worzel Gummage, suddenly emerges and teeters toward centre stage.

I switch the Continuous Positive Airway Pressure machine off; the whirring whooshing stops as the supply of pressurised air is cut off. I slip the elasticated headband over the top of my head, and the nasal 'pillow' falls away, taking the pipework with it...I'm free to head for the convenience.

The dancers, adult and pre-teen, meet centre stage and lift the sheet of newspaper off the floor. It billows like a wave, then suddenly falls in a simple act of stage trickery over the head of one of the male dancers, transforming him into a shapeless monster....the girls squeal in delighted terror and dodge frantically about the stage, daring themselves to land the odd blow on the meandering beast. I'm transported back in time to a vision of my father pulling his baggy woollen jumper over his head, the emptied sleeves turning into monstrous elephantine trunks, and my sister and I laughing and screaming at the same time as the thing chased us about the house.

I'm back in the bedroom. I sit on the edge of the bed and take a sip of water from the bottle on my bedside table. I don't usually don mask and pipework again at this point, as my sinuses are usually a bit blocked up, which interferes with my breathing through my nose, but tonight things feel clear, and I re-position the mask, head strap, and pipework, switch the machine back on, and get back under the bedclothes.

The girls mimic the movements of one of the professional dancers, straining their bodies into unfamiliar shapes, smiling the while; they get their own back later, as they voice movement directions through microphones which the male dancer has to attempt to emulate.

I have to confess that me and my CPAP machine don't get on terribly well. The machine was donated to me by the NHS following a diagnosis for chronic sleep apnoea. While I'm very grateful, the machinery makes for an uncomfortable night of interrupted sleep. 

Fevered Sleep; a ground-breaking theatre company headed by David Harradine, a canny and inventive Yorkshireman who happens to live in the flat below our friend Katrina in Clapton, east London, with his husband, the actor Carl Hawkins. Their website describes the work as experimental, risk-taking art, developing "brave, thought-provoking projects that challenge people to rethink their relationships with each other and with the world". The final section of the piece sees myriad dance formations filling the stage from left, right and centre, the girls being hurled through the air at speed, the unbounded joy of the experience reflected in their bright eyes. It works like a fevered dream.


https://vimeo.com/153937408

L-R Lesley Allan; Katrina Duncan; Aki;
Me enjoying pre-show tapas in the Norfolk Arms