Entry tags:

conventions, redemption

Redemption, the media con that's run like a lit con. I've been to all of these, and this year's was the best yet.



We (which is to say, the lovely i_smell_shite and myself) decided to drive down to Hinckley for Redemption '07, rather than fly. This decision was made mainly on economic grounds, but it did have the advantage that we could take various things down for sugoll and katlinel that they didn't want to take on the plane - bags of swords, and the like. The original plan had been to get everything packed the night before, then drive down just after rush hour on the Thursday morning. This plan has never been fulfilled before, and this occasion was no exception. I was up till 2:30 on Thursday morning finishing off all sorts of things that really really needed to be sorted before the weekend, and it was nearly 11 o'clock before we left the Burgh. The drive down was tedious, though it became a little more bearable after I broke my coffee moratorium in an anonymous service station on the A1.

Arrival was much more pleasant. We found several friends already esconced in the hotel reception cafe: a particularly welcome sight as it meant we could press-gang katlinel, sugoll and the ever-helpful glitterboy1 into helping to unload the car. I had been speculating on just how little fun it would be trying to carry i_smell_shite's "portable" massage table all the way to our hotel room, but the resourceful sugoll acquired a porter's trolley, to my unbounded relief.

There's a certain amount of instant domesticity required when taking temporary possession of a hotel room. Kilts were hung up, toiletries dispersed across shiny surfaces, and I busied myself awhile with my ironing. These rituals being completed, we rejoined our friends for some gentle chit-chat over refreshments, followed by an evening meal which was marked by inexplicable hotel mismanagement. i_smell_shite and I retired early, as continued wakefulness was proving impossible. Of course, the rest of the hotel was blissfully unaware that we were trying to sleep, ad I listened to the lively chit-chat through the walls for quite a while until it gradually flowed into a deep, deep dream.

Friday started with a gentle waking and a decent breakfast, then it was time to get dressed up. Well, for me at least: I got into my black leather kilt, while i_smell_shite decided to wait awhile before getting into her finery. The con committee had arranged with the hotel to have some decent bottled beers (Old Speckled Hen, Hobgoblin, Spitfire and, intermittently, Adnam's Bitter) available at a decent price (£2.50 a pop), and I felt I would be ungrateful if I failed to fully appreciate this opportunity.

We then went down to register for the con, and after a pleasant while chatting to our friends while the registration desk was set up, we did so. No sooner had I collected my badge and con pack than steverogerson accosted me with a purple sash and announced that I had been appointed leader of the Purple Drazi Faction for the duration of the convention. Bastard.

A while ago, sugoll and I decided it would be a good idea to do a panel on how to run a panel - not that we're particularly experts, but we had enough thoughts and anecdotes to be of help to anyone who hasn't done that kind of thing before, and Redemption has a strong ethos of doing everything possible to encourage broad participation by the members. This, of course, meant we were doing one of the first panels of the con. It seemed to be a worthwhile exercise, judging by the response of the people who had turned up to join in. The main points were all about encouraging participation by everyone who wants to contribute, making sure everyone has a chance to have their say, and ensuring that no one comes out of the panel feeling that they've just wasted an hour of their life.

The opening ceremony was next, expertly compered as usual by the_magician. I was called on stage in my capacity as Purple leader, but before I could speak steverogerson announced that it was my birthday, and everyone sang "Happy Birthday" to me as I stood blinking into the spotlights. Then, over the hollers of partisan chants, I had to give a brief speech as Purple leader. I reproduce it here in full:

"In a spirit of reconciliation, I would like to invite all of you, regardless of badge colour, to give your points to me. I have three demands for this contest: that the competition is free and fair, that all the points are counted, and the total humiliation of the perfidious Greens."

I was enjoined to wear my Purple sash prominently, so that congoers with purple badges could hand to me the points they earned for winning various competitions throughout the con in the hope that they would outstrip the point earned by the green-badged half of the membership. This would prove more challenging than it at first appeared.

The hotel had laid on a special cheap meal for the con, which contained protein and carbohydrate, and then it was time for the panel on "Survivors: what do you do when it all goes wrong", featuring i_smell_shite and myself. We talked about various collapse-of-civilisation scenarios - a Survivors-esque plague, nuclear war, hordes of zombies - and how one might go about surviving the immediate disaster, and the long-term aftermath. It turned out to be an interesting discussion, with lots of participation by everyone. (I'm trying to avoid the word "audience", as the whole point of Redemption panels is that they aren't about a bunch of panelists talking in fornt of a passive audience, but are open discussions with the panelists acting as facilitators.) These sorts of discussions often go down the route of how people could arm themselves against attack in a post-collapse society, so it was quite refreshing that, on this occasion, a consensus developed around the theme of avoiding conflict and getting together into cooperative groups. Towards the end, I shut the door and said "Right, that's it. The disaster has happened, and we, in this room, have to somehow survive it together. What skills and knowledge do we have that could help us survive?" It transpired that there was one man in the room with a range of practical survival skills, and one woman with reasonable childbearing potential. The rest of us were pretty well fucked.

By this time, i_smell_shite had got into her magnificent red corset and layered skirt ensemble. I was glad I had been able to swan around in my own finery for a few hours before she completely upstaged me. Not to worry, I had my secret weapon for Saturday all lined up.

After our panel, I went off to the first of communicator's SF Monologue workshops. The idea was for all participants to rehearse a monologue taken for SF/Fantasy TV, film or literature, and to perform it in the Saturday evening cabaret. An ambitious project. I had been planning to do a monologue from the first episode of Survivors, in which a sadly doomed schoolmaster explains to the lead character just what she'll need to do to survive after a devastating global plague, but that all went out the window when I saw in communicator's collection of monologues a wonderful passage from Lord of the Rings. It was the bit when Theoden leads the charge of the Rohirrim in the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, an absolutely wonderful piece of prose when read aloud, rich with the rhythms of Anglo-Saxon poetry but not weighed down by them. Besides, the sadly absent altariel had apparently insisted that I perform it, so I really had no option.

There was a ceilidh on the Friday evening. I didn't dance, but I did sit about with sugoll drinking beer in the general vicinity. I don't think I'll ever forget the look of sheer delight on merrymaia's face as she whirled around the dance floor.

i_smell_shite and I had planned to do a Torchwood skit at the Saturday night cabaret, but I had developed grave doubts about this. Because we'd been so busy, we hadn't rehearsed it and neither had we assembled any of the necessary costumes and props apart from a black novelty wig that katlinel had kindly lent to i_smell_shite. I needed a greatcoat: kalypso_v offered her military-style coat, but then we noticed Smitty (who has an LJ, but I can't remember her username immediately and anyway do you know how fucking tedious it is typing out all this "lj user=" stuff everytime you want to refer to somebody? Yes, of course you do, silly question) wearing a very nice army greatcoat that looked just the job. She very generously agreed to lend it to us, but not until just before the cabaret as she needed it to shield herself against the icy blast of the hotel's air conditioning.

OK, clothes sorted. Next problem: rehearsal. We grabbed a few spare minutes on Friday evening and Saturday morning for this. We were confident with the lines fairly quickly: we were, after all, just doing a series of three two-line sketches. The big issue - all right, my big issue - was the accents. I was playing Jack, while i_smell_shite - oh, fuck it, can I just call her Joanna? thanks - was playing Gwen. I'm basically crap at any accent but my own: Joanna has a fair repertoire of accents, but Welsh is, unfortunately, not among them. This issue was resolved by Joanna convincing me that our accent incapacity was unimportant, and to stop being such a bloody perfectionist.

My final stumbling block was the requirement for two toy guns - that made some kind of firing noise - for the last of the three skits. There were some fellow congoers who had such things: unfortunately, none of them had brought them to the con. Damn. I ended up driving into Hinckley first thing on Saturday morning, where fate brought me to the only non-full car park in the town, underneath a shopping centre that featured a local chain store - a sort of downmarket Woolworths - where I obtained two gaudy plastic pistols with a satisfying sound effect for 99p each. They even came with batteries.

Mission acomplished, it was time to get into the silver kilt. There's a bit of a story about this. Last year I was in 21st Century Kilts in Edinburgh, where I saw on display a magnificent kilt and jacket ensemble in silver PVC. I fell in love with this, and asked a sales assistant how much it would cost? "Oh, you can't buy that," he said, "it's a one-off. Howie made it years ago for his wedding, I don't think he'd make another, and anyway you probably can't get the material any more." Howie being the fantstic designer behind 21st Century Kilts, who made the black leather number I was in on the Friday. I was a little disappointed, but it turned out that Howie could certainly make me a silver kilt in a slightly different fabric, given enough notice. We left it at that, but then a couple of months ago Joanna decided she would buy me a silver kilt as a combined birthday and wedding present, in time for Redemption. She ordered it, but then a couple of weeks ago Howie contacted me, very apologetically, to tell me that he was having problems obtaining the material, and he didn't think he would get it in time. He than asked what size I was, and, when I told him, said "That's about the same as me. Do you want to borrow my kilt for the weekend?" That sounded good to me, and when I went into the shop the day before we set off, there was a bag sitting there for me with the complete suit - silver kilt and matching jacket. I tried it on when I got home and it fit perfectly. I was delighted, and Joanna seemed pretty pleased as well.

Anyway, I got into this splendid outfit just in time to make it to communicator's SF Monologues rehearsal. We did some fairly compressed work on both vocal technique and performance - two hours isn't vey much time to get eight actors up to performance level, starting from scratch, but communicator did a fabulous job of encouraging, instructing and inspiring the assembled company. In such circumstances, you generally see the perfomance that comes most naturally to the individual actor, hence teawith's loudly comic Vila, Joanna's disturbingly coquettish Davros, and gfk88's horribly creepy Spike. The idea was to find new angles on the text, to divorce it from the interpretation that might have been put on it by some TV or film actor, and in so doing to find meanings in the text that might otherwise have remained buried. That was certainly illustrated by katlinel's harsh and coldly furious reading of a River Tam monologue.

It's at this point that I have to consult the programme to find out what the hell I was doing on Saturday. I really ended up completely overloaded on the Saturday afternoon. Joanna and I got in early to the cabaret rehearsal, and had a chance to go through our sketches on stage a few times before the technical rehearsal started for the monologues. There was much worry about microphones: I would have been happy enough to do without, but everyone else wanted to use a handheld mic and so I felt I couldn't go unamplified - it would just have seemed strangely jarring. i did, however, insist on a mic stand: the kind of measured, epic reading I was doing just wouldn't have worked if delivered into a handheld.

Joanna then had to shoot off to her massage workshop, and i joined her in order to set up the table. I had originally planned to be her massage subject as well, but it turned out that sveral of the people who had come along to the workshop were quite keen on being massaged themselves, so I sloped off back to the rehearsal for a bit.

I returned at the end of the session to put the table away again, and then we were instantly into the start of the Man of Iron script reading. "Man of Iron" is a truly dreadful script for season 4 of Blake's 7, written by lead actor Paul Darrow. Chris Boucher, the script editor, claims never to have seen it. I have. He's lucky. Characterisation, plot, structure, premise, dialogue; all are abysmal. Anyway, some time long ago someone obtained a copy of the script and it has been a tradition ever since to perform a staged reading at each Redemption. I had never seen it, but I ended up joining the cast as Tarrant at short notice due to gaps in the roster of performers, along with Joanna who played Dayna. The reading was organised by kalypso_v, who agreed to lend me her curly novelty wig to enhance my performance. It was all terrific fun, with energetic and entertaining performances all round. Kudos to pinkdormouse, who carried on despite being inadvertently punched in the nose by an exuberant co-star. As an inadequately-rehearsed performance with no opportunity for retakes, in which the actors use all their performing skill to inject life into a dire script, it was an only slightly exagerated version of the production conditions of a number of Blake's 7 episodes, although I fear the general hilarity may have masked its educational value.

Following this performance, I was quite looking forward to a couple of hours' recovery before the cabaret in which I was due to go on stage a total of four times. Then I looked in the programme booklet, and found that I was on a panel immediately before the cabaret, on making an SF show to a budget. Fuck. The panel was my idea, too. I really am interested on the interaction between bugetary and artistic imperatives in production-line TV, but I was just too knackered to do the subject justice. My co-panelists, Ben Jeapes and Jane Killick, had plenty of interesting things to say, and the people who had come along also contributed to a good discussion, but I was conscious of zoning out from time to time. Not quite as badly as temeres, who slept through most of the panel, woke up about three quarters of the way through to make a very pertinent point about Monty Python, then promptly dozed off again, but still I felt I wasn't giving of my best.

Still, no time to worry any more about it as I had a cabaret to go to. Some last-minute dashing around located my greatcoat, then we were all set. Claire Goodall had stepped in at the last minute to act as stage manager, despite also being the first performer in the cabaret, and I was very grateful for her professionalism. We had a while to wait before going on, and I don't remember ever being so nervous before a performance. I felt like every muscle was quaking. Claire came off stage, the_magician announced "Torchwood, by George Lucas", and Joanna bounded onto stage with me following behind. I swished my greatcoat, we assumed the Torchwood Pose, and the audience erupted in laughter. I think that particular moment was the highlight of Redemption for me. We did our lines, got a laugh, then dashed off stage to rejoin the queue of performers immediately behind katlinel. This at least allowed us to see some of her dance, even if it was from behind, and it looked spectacular. I wish I'd got to see it properly. Then it was "Torchwood, by JRR Tolkien", the only one where I had significant dialogue. I got through it, people laughed, and I was so relieved. We got back into the queue, and as we listened to the audience enjoy other performances as we got our weapons ready for "Torchwood, by Chris Boucher". Joanna did her closing line, "Merry... Christ... mas..." wonderfully, but we couldn't relax because we then had to join the monologue actors for the closing performance of the cabaret. We di manage to peek through a side door at fifitrix doing a great singing job despite being rather poorly, but then we had to get our final act together. It all seemed to go very well, and all credit to communicator for pulling off such a challenging project. Lots of people have said this year's cabaret was particulary good: I wish I'd seen more of it.

In the finest theatrical tradition, we went straight to the bar afterwards. I hadn't performed on stage for a while, and I'd forgotten how quickly you get pissed afterwards, what with all the stress and adrenaline. I was half-cut after just a couple of pints, which was slightly unfortunate insofar as I had to congratulate Joanna's sister over the phone on her newly-announced pregnancy. The evening continued, I had a good chat to communicator, gfk88, tlanti and others over a few more beers, then Joanna and I retired to the upper floor of the Rotunda where katlinel, sugoll, metamorphosa and glitterboy1 were chilling out. In conversation with metamorphosa I established a robust data point in support of the hypothesis that attempts to explain the relationship between mathematics and the physical structure of the universe are not enhanced by six pints of Old Speckled Hen and a blueberry muffin.

Sunday started slowly. Just as well. I did make it to sugoll's backsword workshop, and I was very glad I did. He took us through a series of attacks and defences, which we practiced with our partners using plastic poles with handguards fashioned from plastic salad containers. I was partnered with darkside_doris, who proved a determined opponent. It was great fun, although my shoulder was complaining a bit afterwards.

The afternoon was mainly given over to some chilled-out chatting, with temeres's tales of first-generation B7 fandom being a particular highlight. I then had to attend the closing ceremony in my capacity as Purple leader. It was clear that the Greens had won the contest, so I had come prepared with my concession speech:

"Brave warriors of the Purple faction, you have fought with honour and courage. Unfortunately, you have failed to secure victory over the perfidious Greens. As a result, I regret to announce that you are all fired."

I derive some small measure of consolation from the fact that, if con reports I have seen recently are any guide, the phrase "perfidious Greens" has entered the common vocabulary.

You might think this was the end of the con, but oh no. sugoll and I still had to do our final panel, on the apparent dearth of modern children's SF. It was an interesting panel, although I think the fact that so little currently-published children's SF was mentioned is illustrative of the issue. But then, as sugoll said, if kids are enjoying fantasy and spy stories, does it realy matter to anyone except us that they're not reading SF?

There were things I had fancied going to on the Sunday evening, but when it came right down to it I was unable to pull myself out of the comfy chair I had settled into in the Rotunda. We gradually drifted off to bed.

Monday was a frenzy of packing, followed by a short spell of chatty relaxation before we dragged ourselves reluctantly off into the car for the drive home. Which was exactly as we'd left it.

It really was a tremendous weekend. My thanks to all the committee, to the panelists and performers, to the costumers and conversationalists. There is stil more I could say about the con, but this report is already too long. Roll on Orbital '08, and Redemption '09.