#BJC2015 review for Orinoco.

Little Paul - 2015-04-07 09:23:39 UTC #

#BJC2015 review for Orinoco...

BJC2015
Friday
After a surprisingly relaxing journey (despite seeing 3 near-miss accidents on the motorway due to lane changes) I arrived a little early, in time to spend an hour envelope stuffing making up the arrival packs. Happy to be useful, I did have to wonder why with such a short setup time available on-site (about 3 hours to prep the site and get the doors open) that was being done at the last minute and hadn’t been done a couple of days before… but hey ho!

The evening was spent mostly catching up with old friends, and meeting a few new ones. Drinking beer, chatting, getting people to try balancing a golf ball on their nose You know, the usual. I drank more beer than was possibly sensible, given that the hangover lasted pretty much all day.

Saturday
Woke up late with a mahoosive hangover, which was partially rescued by the tale end of a fried breakfast (all they had left was bacon beans and mushrooms) I wasn’t up to much beyond sitting around watching other people juggle, trying to work out how much of Wes/Tony’s outfits were parody and how much is what they seriously think is everyday wear. We came to the conclusion that they’d been watching goldie looking chain videos.

The 5-ring circus Youth Circus show was a good example of a youth circus show. I like that youth circus exists, and think it fills a very important role in the UK circus scene, but well… I just don’t like kids that much. The clowns had some good bits, and there was some pretty impressive macro/tumbling - but most of the show did nothing for me, so I wandered off to look around the traders.

The traders were in a great room this year, enough space to wander around without falling over anyone, and space to try things out. I got the chance to try out some Freaks Unlimited knives for the first time in about 15 years. I will always have a soft spot for freaks products, although Paul seems to have started putting staples in his fire eating wands. He used to stitch the wicks which seems like a much better way to construct an eating wand to me.

We dodged the raindrops to get our way onto one of the earlier show busses at about 4pm with M, J, Charlie and Alex’s nephew Max for the long drive into sheffield. After much faffing about trying to find an eatery that wasn’t already crammed full of jugglers, we squeezed in to a pizza express and gorged ourselves. Then it was on to the show.

I apologise for not having made any notes about the acts, this is from memory so doesn’t include anyones names incase I cock them up:

Compere - he was fun, although telling a long story before the interval was an odd thing to do. He’d have been better off doing that in his intro, but that’s a minor quibble.
chinese pole and clubs (Great act, could have done with a little more pole and a little less club fondling for me though)
1st female ball juggler (nice routine but a bit droppy, I’d love to see her on a good night)
??? I genuinely can’t remember what act came next, there must have been one though. It was probably a hoop act, there’s always a bloody hoop act.
2nd female ball juggler (wonderful bit of physical comedy, ball juggling and table wrestling, with a nice surprise at the end.)
Diabolo guy closed the first half. He had some really exciting moves. I know "just enough" about diabolo to have some concept of how complex it was, without actually being able to describe that. Also the 2 diabolo combination of norma/vertax on the same string was new to me, and very nice.
** interval ** (I had ice cream)
The second half was entirely Water on Mars. It split the audience. I don’t think I was in quite the right frame of mind, I was tired and still a little hungover so had difficulty giving it the focussed attention it needed. I think if I’d gone to see it as a show (rather than the second half of a show) I’d have enjoyed it more.

The bus ride home involved steve mills wearing a wig, then there was a lot more beer, bed far too late. I don’t remember seeing any of the Renegade.

Sunday
The clocks changed, which screwed up my breakfast plans as everything happened an hour before it should have done. Dalton College catering staff were an hour ahead of me!

The afternoon was the Circus Geeks show, which was frankly awesome. So much fun in that show, and frankly I didn’t realise Arron Sparks could pull faces like that. The highlights for me were the 10 ring passing section, the jugglers lexicon, and Jon Udry’s rant about wanting to be in “The Water Boys” - made more special for me because I was sat across the isle from tony/patrik/wes (or as “Johno” wanted to call them ‘Pesto, Emo and Pee… erm…”)

I skipped the fire show, I have no idea if the alternative games happened but I didn’t see those either. I did show Tiff the golf club trick, and once he got it he showed off by maintaining it long enough to qualify 3 balls under it. Which was just showing off really.

Monday
Another slow start for me. I missed the Toorwood Wheelers show as I was spending a very pleasant 3 hours talking to Steve Mills, Cindy Marvell, Juggly Jane and Suzy Oddball in preparation for the OldSkool Panel. I was genuinely surprised how lovely, thoughtful and talkative they all were. I’d been hesitant about talking to Steve as everyone has been telling me for years that he’s a bit of a handful, but once you get chatting to him and he gets comfortable talking to you he came across as a really sweet guy. Cindy, well - I’m even more in awe of her having talked to her than I was before I met her. My god she’s got a sharp mind on her, and some awesome stories to tell.

Steve and Cindy were defy my “crush” for the week.

Next year, I’ll see if we can get the pre-chat recorded and possibly crowbarred into some form of podcast.

British stage. I didn’t take any notes about this, and as such can only remember 4 acts.
Hillbilly juggler character act (nice club work, but a character act should extend beyond costume/music choice. The juggling/movement just didn’t fit the character at all.)
Diabolo and rabbit “act” (2 minutes of material crammed into 20 minutes, total lack of awareness of the energy they were sucking out of the room. Notable because the comperes basically came out afterwards and pretty much started a show again)
Tom Senior did some awesome bounce juggling, including use of a V shaped surface to bounce off. Afterwards, Ewan pretty much persuaded Tom to go to Broxford as that’s were the gandini cube is currently stored.

The highlight of the show for me was Tom Derrick, doing Ballet with Big Blue Balls. Tom, as ever, hit every single musical cue you could possibly find in the music. I talked to him about it afterwards and he said he had to use a spreadsheet to work out all the throw timings, and then learn it throw by throw to make sure he hit them. Bloody good job Tom. :)

The Old Skool Panel itself went off OK, although was interrupted several times by tannoy announcements. The first couple were annoying trivialities, but the “everybody stop what you’re doing and check your tents now, half of them have blown down” once cleared out 50% of the audience. Luckily we were near the end anyway.

I don’t think the “britovision” game advertised in the program happened, I think everyone was too busy panicking about the site being blown away.

Tuesday
I have no notes about Tuesday at all. The site was still being battered by the wind, more and more tents being destroyed or taken down. An emergency accommodation plan was hastily drawn together (which is something Perth have promised they’ll do in advance - nice to have a disaster plan even better if you never have to use it)

BYJOTY. Mark Watson was great at compering as ever (I’d love to see him do a public show. Rumour has it he’s played the dame in Panto, and personally I’d love to see a Dame compere a BJC public show… I may be on my own with that one) Tiff, Void and Mamph were judging.

The first 6 acts were pretty good, and the audience were in a supportive mood. We did however notice that a lot of them were circomedia students, and none of those students took a bow at the end of their acts. They all finished their routine by walking off through the curtains ignoring the audiences appreciation. I guess "taking applause” is in one of next terms modules.

The 7th act came on and blew them out of the water though. I think his name was Luke something, a few rough edges, but he used the whole space, did some extraordinary juggling, and really got the audience going. He looked like a clear winner, but Eddie Bacon (sp?) was up next and took it up another notch again. Bags of character, great costume/makeup and an all round polished act. Eddie won the audience vote.

I ended up helping out with the "performers buffet” for the BYJOTY entrants afterwards, and it was interesting to watch Luke collar each judge in turn and ask them some really important questions about what he could have done better, taking it all very seriously and really taking notice of the responses. He’s one to keep an eye on I think.

Line dancing happened around me, and then it was fight night. I didn’t see much of fight night, but what I did see was very entertaining.

Wenesday
Again no notes, but looking at the program it was the Youth Cabaret (I think Nigel said that happened, but clashed with the business meeting? Even if it hadn’t clashed I’d probably not have watched it, see my earlier comments about kids) the Business meeting was interesting as usual. Perth sounds *awesome* and I’m already looking at transport/accommodation options. 2017 sounds like it’ll be Devon, or possibly Cornwall, or possibly some combination of teams/venue depending on who gets what sorted when.

I saw some of the games, but spent most of it talking to Suzy Oddball. I could talk to her for ages.

The international show happened (despite rumours that a certain diva kicking up a fuss about the lighting) I didn’t make any notes, but do remember that Wes was well, Wes. Tony and his fishing net routine was a lot of fun (He’s got more moves with those than Nick Gatto ever did) Florent Lestage did his walking stick and club routine, which is *gorgeous* - lovely moves, excellent physical comedy, a great unhinged clown character alternately shouting at everyone and singing to himself to great effect. There were some other acts as well, but again, I didn’t take notes.

That evening, we also got the farewell email/facebook post from Mike Bridge. A lot of tears, hugs and memories were shared.

As soon as I got to bed, by head filled with snot and I came down with the worst bout of manflu I’ve had in a while. Great. Just in time for the 4 hour drive home.

Thursday
We were packed up and off site by 11, the site was supposed to be clear by 12, but from the looks of it when we left there was no way that was going to happen.

Anyway, so there we go. Orin, I hope this review is long enough to make up for you not being able to post one, I've not proof read it, and autocorrect has probably done some awful things along the way, but there you go.