Wednesday, November 30, 2011

More Sea Men Than I Could Cope With


Port Isaac's Fisherman's Friends
Colston Hall, Bristol 25 Nov 2011




Fisherman's Friends do what Fisherman's Friends do very well indeed. But that really is all they do. The trouble with seeing them headlining their own gig (as opposed to doing a set at a festival) is that you get twice as much Fisherman's Friends for your money. And it turns out that there are only so many rollicking bollocking buggering shuggering however it goes songs of the high sea a man can cope with in a single sitting.

There are some attempts to change the tempo. In between the shanties, we get a medley of Methodist hymns. From Sankey's Hymnal: "We used to find that name funny when we were kids....we still do, apparently." The trouble is that what Fisherman's Friend's are doing is basically chapel singing (er, "a capella") and the chosen song is a spiritual with a nautical theme. (“Row for shore sailor, row for the shore, heed not the rolling waves but lean to the oar”)  So it isn't really that much of a change of tempo. "The Cornish Methodists were like the Taliban, only without the sense of bonhomie and good fun".

When you go to hear the same bands more than once, you naturally expect to hear the same jokes as well as the same songs. (I probably know Robin Williamson’s story about putting his harp in the lift as well as he does.) But Jon's patter has become an elephants graveyard of double entendre. "We asked if we could appear on the Parkinson show. He wrote back and said 'No, you can't.' I didn't know he was dyslexic." Despite being famous, they haven't acquired any groupies. There are application forms for us to fill out in the foyer "And for the ladies as well." To the least tall member of the group: "Are you happy?" "Not really, no." "Well, which one are you then?" And, every time someone coughs "Do you want to suck a Fisherman's Friend?....That joke always leaves a nasty taste in the mouth."

The role call at the end of the show pointedly tells us what the boys day jobs are – fisherman, ex-fisherman, ship builder, potter... Now, I don't know what songs Cornish Fishermen really sing at work, but I'm guessing not ones about South Australia or Mexico. I imagine they listen to Radio 1. These are songs from the British and American navies that have become standards. There aren’t about fishing. There is a song about whaling, but it's a modern thing showing sympathy for the poor ickle cephalapod cetacean. (“Last night I heard the cry of my companion / the roar of the harpoon gun and then I was alone.") Any melancholy mood is immediately dispersed by Jon: "It's all right, it's only a big lump of sushi.” His schtick is to apologise that some of the songs are too depressing. The sad ones are actually welcome relief from all the rollicking and bollocking.

Jackie "Jim's Brother" Oates opened with a nice trad folkie set, including a Cornish version of the sublime The Trees They Grow So High – "my pretty lad is young, but he's growing". It sounded exactly as if someone had heard "my bonny boy" once and reproduced it from memory, not quite getting the point. You can really imagine some fishwives singing it while working on their lad's nets. There is more authenticity here than in any number of roared out choruses of What Shall We Do With A Drunken Sailor? The Captain's Daughter was a whip: "Give him a taste of the Captain's daughter." Not "Throw him into bed with the Captain's Daughter". (Have you seen the Captain's daughter? Ha-ha.)

But anything they lack in authenticity the make up for in volume. When they get going on Bound For South Australia or A Sailor's Ain’t A Sailor Ain’t A Sailor Any More it would be churlish not to say "Arrr" and join in the actions. ("Don't  haul up the rope, don't climb up the mast, if you see a sailing ship it might be your last.") Or Pay Me My Money Down. Or Woo Woo Bully In the Alley. Or the penultimate encore, Sloop John B. ("The Beach Boys sang this, and now we've immortalized it.") Last time, I mentioned that Les Barker once raised a question which has always troubled me: what happened to the Sloop John A? But it now occurs to me that this was Nassau, and it was probably actually the Sloop Jumbie. A Jumbie being a corpse that a witch doctor has brought to life. Prone to dancing back to back belly to belly. Serves you right for paying attention to me.

There is a big Cornish Flag over the stage. They play up to Cornish stereotypes straight out of central casting. It's not surprising they ended up advertising fish fingers: Cleave’s stage persona is basically Captain Bird’s Eye. So, they are staunch local people who want us to laugh with them at they grokles and turrists and Americans who visit their village in the summer. "Tin-taggle? Can you imagine King Arthur riding out of Tin-taggle? That's where a fairy would come from. It's Tin-taj-il" "Yes dear. But put the fish knife down." (A pedant would point out that King Arthur didn't ride out of Tintagil, although in the most militantly Welsh version of the story, he was conceived there, so I have.)  On the other hand, they play up to all the nasty jokes that the rest of England makes about Wesk Untry. Port Isaac has just been made a world heritage site for inbreeding. High six!

This makes their rendering of Cousin Jack a little uncomfortable. Steve' Knightley's a serious singer; he's allowed to drag you through dark places in his songs. Fisherman's Friends are a novelty band, and arguably shouldn’t. Steve imagines a 19th century emigre seeing modern Cornwall and despairing "I see the English....living on our house...I see the Spanish....fishing in our seas...." (Although he often now changes it to "these seas".) The Fishyfriends put it back into the main singalong verse "the English they live in our houses / the Spanish they fish in our seas". If anyone is allowed to be annoyed about international fishing regulations, its a working fishermen. Peter Roe, the oldest member of the group (he's 78, as we keep being told) does a song he wrote himself about how the fishing trade ain't what it used to be due to European regulations. It's no Tiny Fish For Japan, but it comes from the heart. But in the context of rollicking, bollocking, swuggering and buggering, it feels a little uncomfortable for Cleave to put his hand over his heart when he get to "the Spanish they fish in our seas" and very uncomfortable for another member of the group to make what seems to be a clenched fist salute.

I assume you all all saw Jamie Oliver doing his chirpy cockney thing from St Pauls last week? The lady with the stew sells me my coffee in the library canteen, so she does, and sometimes banana cake as well. There's only so many times you can say "vibrant" and "multicultural" in one cookery show; but I did think he was spot on. Saffron doesn’t grow anywhere in England. Think of a famous story set in Cornwall: Jamaica Inn. Think of a typical Jamaican street food: patties. St Piran's flag seems to be an invention of 19th century Cornish language revivalists.

There comes a point where irony gives out. After seventeen or eighteen jokes, you start to think "That's not part of a jolly jack tar persona; that's simply a dirty joke." And then you start asking yourself to what extent the audience are in on the irony. They are certainly enthusiastic. A lot of them stood up at the end. I didn't stand up for Chris Wood. I'm certainly not going to stand up for what is basically a quite good male voice choir.

As a 45 minute festival band, there's no-one to touch them.

7 comments:

  1. Cephalapod?

    Am I missing a hilarious joke or did you just get overexcited and mean cetaceans?

    Agree with your view of the band, though, obvo.

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  2. (A pedant would point out that King Arthur didn’t ride out of Tintagil, although in the most militantly Welsh version of the story, he was conceived there, so I have.)

    Not really so. Arthur is said to hold his court at Tintagil in some medieval tales.

    The German medieval romance known as Diu Krône ‘The Crown’ by Heinrich von dem Türlin describes a great Chistmas feast held by Arthur at Tintagil to which a strange, fishy dwarf comes, described in a way that makes him seem close kindred to Namor’s people as early drawn by Bill Everet, riding on a steed that is half seal and half dolphin.

    Following the feast, Gawain and most of Arthur’s knights take off in secret to a nearby tournament not telling Arthur, for they fear that Arthur would forbid them go. Only three knights are left behind with Arthur, apparently knights that are so unpopular that they have not been let in on the joke: Sir Kay, Gales the Bald, and Amauguin. Then Arthur is indeed described as riding forth from Tintagil with these three kmights seeking an encounter with the non-Arthurian knight Gazozein of Dragoz, whom Guenevere has praised for riding in the cold of winter without armour dressed only in a light tunic as though it were the height of summer.

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  3. Still, I think the identification of Tintagil with Camelot is pretty much a product of Victorian romanticism. And I can find little canonical justfication for the existence of King Arthur's Car Park. Or the consumption of Excaliburgers.

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  4. Still, I think the identification of Tintagil with Camelot is pretty much a product of Victorian romanticism.

    I am unaware of anyone, a Victorian or otherwise, who has identified Tintagil with Camelot. They are always, so far as I know, distinguished from one another in accounts where both appear (none of which are probably historical).

    And I can find little canonical justfication for the existence of King Arthur's Car Park. Or the consumption of Excaliburgers.

    Quite agreed. Some people are always, (and have always) been ready to create fraudulent traditions to attract the tourists and then to embellish those fraudulent traditions to an absurd level. But sometimes invented traditions turn out to be true, in the sense that they are congruent with genuine traditions (not of course in the sense that those traditions are proved to be true).

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  5. It's some years since I went there, but I got the impression that the tourist industry very definitely wants you to think that Tintagil is Camelot. (There's the "hall of the round table" on the high street, which I have to say I really like, even though it's pure kitsch.) I think the town now tries to style itself as Glastonbury by the sea -- crystal and Tarot shops, rather than Ye Olde Knightes of the Rounde Table theme park. I seem to think that C.S Lewis said the same thing in the 1920s -- popular imagination made it Camelot, although its really the home of King Mark in the Tristan story.

    There's a theory, isn't there, that "Camelot" meant "wherever King Arthur was" -- so he might "hold" Camelot at Winchester one year and Glastonbury next year. But I am not actually sure if there is an scholarly basis for this other than the Pendragon role playing game...

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  6. It does seem that some moderns like to suggest that Tintagil might actually be Camelot, which is just silly.

    For one thing, Camelot, in the medieval romances, when details are given, is always an inland city, not on the seacoast. Indeed, in many romances Tintagil is a city of King Mark’s, not a city of King Arthur’s.

    But still, Tintagil does sometimes appear as a city where King Arthur holds court. One such romance is Erec et Enide by Chrétien de Troyes which has been translated many times into English (unlike many medieval Arthurian romances) and is likely to have actually been read by some of those in Tintagil who try to connect Arthur with Tintagil.

    In this romance, towards the end, Erec and his wife Enide and their friend Guivret remain in Arthur’s court until the death of Erec’s father. Then messengers are sent from the court of Erec’s father to seek for Erec whom they find at Tintagil with Arthur.

    There's a theory, isn't there, that "Camelot" meant "wherever King Arthur was".

    There may be such theory, but I do not know it. Arthur holds court at many different cities in the medieval romances. In the early poems it is Cardueil (probably Carlisle) where Arthur most often holds court. Camelot only appears once in Chrétien de Troyes’ Lancelot and once in Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parzival. It is in the later prose romances and some poems derived from them that Camelot appears as the city where Arthur mostly holds court. But even in those late romances Arthur often holds court in other cites, following the custom of the kings of the 12th century.

    Camelot is there clearly a city, distinguished from other cities like London, Cardueil, Carlion, and Tintagil, not a term for just any place where Arthur holds court. It is situated on the river of Camelot by the forest of Camelot which is not much help in locating it.

    J. Neale Carman in his A Study of the Pseudo-Map Cycle of Arthurian Romance thinks that in the medieval French Mort Artu the author means to identify Camelot with Westminster, which in the 12th century when the work was written waa a major royal residence but not yet part of the city of London. Arthur takes two days to travel from London to Winchester, spending the night at the castle of Escalot, then returns from Winchester to Escalot, but goes from Escalot to Camelot, not to London. Escalot would obviously then be Guildford, approximately halfway between London and Winchester. which in the 12th century was also a royal holding.

    The barge containing the dead maiden of Escalot floats from Escalot to Camelot and is so laken to be thought to be floating on the Thames which runs by Guildford and Westminster.

    Carman makes it quite clear that he does not believe that the author of the Mort Artu was necessarily correct in his surmise and that this apparent identification of Camelot with Westminster is probably not a genuine one.

    Malory identifies Camelot with Winchester. But there is no particular reason to think that identification is correct or that any modern identification is correct, or that anything in any medieval Arhurian romance is historical.

    Still some medieval Arthurian tales do have Arthur hold court in Tintagil.

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