It may be the name, though The Darkening is simply the local term for “twilight”, but advance publicity tended to emphasise the dark, brooding Northumbrian past. In fact, though those elements were present, it was overall a joyous evening, notably varied, which would undoubtedly have led to dancing had the space been available.
Kathryn Tickell has, in fact, assembled a remarkable band which is well equipped to deal with the diversity of material on offer. Drummer Joe Truswell is straight from the Dave Mattacks school of folk-rock drumming and ebullient guitarist/mandolinist Kieran Szifris can move from folk song delicacy to signs that he’d love to be a rock star! Stef Conner offers wordless vocals as well as re-creations of Hadrian’s Wall songs accompanying herself on lyre – her singing displays a remarkable range and blends beautifully with the pure-voiced vocals of the wonderful Amy Thatcher, accordion whiz and clog dancer extraordinaire.
Then there is Kathryn Tickell on the Northumbrian small pipes, playing as part of the ensemble, but essaying a few solos of rare beauty, and taking the roof off the Howard Assembly Room playing fiddle on jigs and reels, with the Darkening building to a climax in support. In some of her more restrained moments, the teamwork of pipes and accordion owes something to the fact that each creates a drone for the other.
Kathryn Tickell’s introductions are often fascinating, notably when she talks of the Roman Wall songs, settings of words found there, set with a decidedly Middle Eastern musical flavour. She is enthralled at the idea of people from the Middle East and North Africa settling in her much loved Northumbria, in order to keep out the locals: “We are the barbarians!”, she announces. Stef Conner’s singing of three Hadrian’s Wall songs, with the Darkening in full support, is a re-introduction to the music after the interval.
However, there is far more to the evening than identifying with the strangers who repelled the barbarians nearly 2,000 years ago: a setting of a poem by Kathryn Tickell’s father, Amy Thatcher clog-dancing with jaunty expertise to a fiddle accompaniment, Stef Conner singing a Cambridgeshire folk song collected by Ralph Vaughan Williams. And then there’s “O-U-T Spells Out”, a complicated, audience-participatory variant on a children’s counting game.
With plenty of original material from Tickell and Thatcher this was not only musically very satisfying and unexpectedly diverse, but also a surprisingly jolly evening.
Reviewed on 22nd October 2022.
