November Club
The Common Room, Newcastle
22 March 2024
I'm not sure if I should be reviewing this as a regular concert, because it wasn't really. I knew it wasn't going to be, and I wasn't sure if it would suit me, but I'm glad I took the chance because it was an amazing evening.
The November Club is a theatre group based in Northumberland, and the evening was a run-through of some of the songs in their new work-in-progress musical, Josey. Without the funds to fully stage a musical production, they opted to present some of the songs in a concert format, using just two singers instead of a full cast, and just three musicians (piano, violin, and drums/electric guitar), the musicians also forming the chorus. From the programme:
Those of you familiar with my reviews will have spotted why I'm here.
Without staging and full dialogue, we had extensive programme notes to let us understand the plot. But more than that, the entire first half of the event was a talk by historian Jane Robinson, who wrote this book:
But I need to take a step back...
Josephine Butler was a hugely important 19th century crusader for the rights of women and social justice. I can't begin to tell you about her good works and important political accomplishments—read the book. It's a story everybody should know... and I suspect very few people do, because before last night I barely knew more than her name. This isn't the kind of history that gets taught in school, and I think it should be because it's vastly more important than, say, how many wives Henry VIII had (divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived... see, I did study history). But that's enough of me on my soap box, let's get back to last night.
Jane Robinson talked for about 50 minutes about the life and work of Josephine Butler, and it was fascinating, eye-opening stuff, important in its own right and not just as scene-setting for the music.
After a short interval, the music started and lasted about 40 minutes. Both vocalists are remarkable, not just strong singers but also doing a good job of acting their parts despite the limitations of a static concert with no staging and barely any dialogue. Special credit goes to Chloe Millar, who gets the bulk of what dialogue there is between songs and sells her character and the situation with complete conviction.
The songs ... I'm not going to attempt to describe the songs, but they are just beautiful, they are dramatic, they have a very "modern musical" feel to them, and the music and lyrics are packed with emotional punch.
The songs are by Katie Doherty, and of course that's why I'm here. Though she's not singing them, and though they are in the distinctive voices of the two actors, you can hear that they are her songs, you can hear her voice throughout them. Katie Doherty just writes the best songs.
This was a truly remarkable evening in every way. This story deserves to be widely heard, and I hope that the November Club can find the funding they need to continue with the project. If they ever do this again—with whatever level of staging they can manage—I'll be there.