A Midsummer Night’s Dream: The Floor Federation - Music for the Masses {Part 1} [Norwegian Cat Mix] (4 October 1992)

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On September 7 1992, I started a 2 year BTEC Diploma in Performing Arts at Cornwall College.  When explaining it to people at the time, I would emphasise that the diploma was equivalent to 2 A-Levels, but looking back on it, I just remember a sense of delight and wonder that I was going to be doing drama for 2 years and in a non-school environment.
There were a few things about that first day at college which showed me how different the environment I was in now.  Firstly, the course featured a large number of students who were closer to 40 and 50 years old than 21.  One of them, John Carthew, said on arrival at our studio space, “I think the kids on the bus thought I was the driver’s dad.”  Secondly, at the end of the first day, which was mainly taken up with induction related content, the course leader, David Gregg, put on a video to fill the last hour of the day. At one point, he left the room and everyone continued to watch the video in respectful, silent attention.  At school this had usually been the signal for a million different conversations to break out and general anarchy, but here it brought home to me that I was now learning in an adult setting and even those in their late teens on this course were proper grown ups.

I didn’t know anybody on the course, but I made friends easily and drama is a subject in which barriers come down pretty quickly because they have to if productions are going to work.  The mix of personalities and ages on the group was fascinating and some interesting dynamics emerged.  Conflict could rear up and then die down quite quickly, but the conflicts could be far more emotionally violent than those I’d witnessed at school simply because people were bringing different levels of experience and expectation to what they were doing.  The group bonded well on a social level and through the autumn of 1992, I started to find myself regularly going into places that I’d not previously spent much time such as pubs and clubs.  I was also learning a lot about life and the human condition - indeed I feel I came out of the course as a slightly better informed human being
than I did an actor - while taking a ringside seat while people on the course went through marriage breakups, bereavements and a miscarriage.  I saw people at their worst and at their best.  I got closer to people (and women) than I ever had before though still remained something of an innocent through it all.  My sense of humour changed, principally due to hanging around with Tim Rolfe whose wonderfully sarcastic and sardonic view on life had me laughing louder and longer than anything had previously.  I grew accustomed to sights and smells that I’d never previously seen or sampled but which bore into my brain and are still evocative to me now: roll-ups, lots of roll-ups smoking tobacco and sometimes stronger substances (I didn’t partake); the lightless, black environment of a theatre’s bare stage; paint - slopped on scaffolds and backdrops; women’s perfume and the nape of Kate’s neck as I kissed it...but we’re getting ahead of ourselves there....
Most intoxicating of all, I got used to receiving praise from my contemporaries.  In activities, in
drama exercises, in readings, in auditions - I wasn’t getting mocked or having the piss taken out of
me, there were none of the bullshit hierarchies that dominate and control a school environment. This felt like a democracy and to hear people tell me that I was good at what we were doing and that I was a good person too...well, I thought I was in utopia, probably because I was. I’d reached a beacon of adulthood despite the fact that I was still only 16 years old.  The bullshit that comes with all of that was still to come, and I saw plenty of people on the course going through such bullshit, but somehow it seemed so much better than the bullshit one went through at school, because in this adult environment,  I felt that I had agency in a way I never had done before

Aside from classes, the BTEC diploma would have seen our group stage 6 productions over the two years of the course - one a term.  Year 1 would see us stage a Shakespeare play, a contemporary play and a group written “community” play.  Year 2 would see us stage a pantomime and two productions of our own choice.  The group was tasked with coming up with a name for the company for publicity purposes as “BTEC National Diploma Students present...” was felt to be a bit bland.  Everyone tossed in opinions and eventually we came up with the name, Castaway Theatre Company.  I’m guessing as a rift on “cast” in a play.  Don’t blame me, it wasn’t my suggestion.
In terms of our first play, given the enormous number of people on the course - it was the first year that the college had run it, so naturally they accepted everyone who applied.  I think there were 33 people on it at its most bloated - we looked for a Shakespeare play which could accommodate a large cast.  Admittedly that’s all of them, but David Gregg felt that A Midsummer Night’s Dream would be a good choice, not least because it offers three distinct groups of characters: the lovers, the mechanicals and the fairies.  Three members of the group took on responsibility for directing each group of characters and together with David formed the audition panel for the show.  I auditioned for a number of different parts, but the one I wanted was Oberon, the Fairy King.  I worked hard for it and it paid off as I got the role.  I was delighted, but knew that it marked a major step up in terms of complexity compared to roles I had previously done, but coming in off the back of another Shakespeare play, I felt in good shape for it.  The Second Merchant in The Comedy of Errors had
been a good warm up for this.  Now I was ready to tackle one of Shakespeare’s meatiest roles.

All the prep had taken place through September.  In my recollection, rehearsals started properly in the first week of October, though this may not quite be the case.  Nevertheless, it seems as good a point as any to rejoin John Peel and this rare mix of Music for the Masses by The Floor Federation, a brief, if Discogs is to be believed, excursion into performance by David Newton.  I’m guessing that this
was the Norwegian Cat mix based on the timings compared to the radio edits or more widely shared original mixes.  This one loses the vocalisations and slightly more dated synth sounds; instead going in a slightly more heavy piano led direction.  I love the layering of the pianos, the urgent staccato hammering of the keys and the way in which Newton winds the silky modulated synth lines in counterbalance to the pianos. Compared to some of the other mixes, it changes up chill for impact and is all the better for it.

Video courtesy of Webbie and taken directly from Peel’s BFBS show on 4/10/92.