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Play preview: Riot, Rebellion, and Bloody Insurrection in Oswaldtwistle (From Lancashire Telegraph)
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Play preview: Riot, Rebellion, and Bloody Insurrection in Oswaldtwistle
4:25pm Monday 14th December 2009
By Caroline Taylor »
IT’S hard to imagine other musicians who’ve had the success of Chumbawamba’s Boff Whalley touring working men’s clubs with an adult panto based on his ancestor’s past.
But Boff Whalley isn’t most musicians.
And his latest project, Riot, Rebellion and Bloody Insurrection — A Musical Comedy, tells the 200-year-old story of Lancashire Luddite rebel Elsie Proud.
“I find local history absolutely fascinating,” said Boff (the nickname was given to him by co-workers in Supasave supermarket in Burnley, where Boff worked after leaving school, and is short for ‘College Boffin’.) “When I was at school I learned history all about the kings and queens, but it was only after I left school I realised that there was the parallel history of normal people and what they got up to in everyday life. I love all that stuff.
“The story of the play is based on true events in 1825.
"People think Luddites are those against technology, but they were just people who were against the fact that new machinery was being brought in and putting them out of work.
"In those days they ended up having their kids taken away and sent to poor houses, so they’d smash up the machinery at night to keep their jobs.”
To be fair, Chumbawamba have never been a conventional band.
After their chart success with Tubthumping they took a more folksy approach to music and went down the acoustic route.
Never interested in merely making money, the band famously turned down $1.5 million from Nike in the late 1990s to use Tubthumping in a World Cup advertisement.
“From the very beginning we’d always known we never wanted to get bored or make our audience bored,” said Boff.
“So every three or four years we say: ‘Let’s try something different. What would our audience be shocked at us doing?’ “This theatre thing is part of that really. It’s something that’s never been done before.
"The band are on the stage and it’s very interactive. It’s getting away from this notion that a night at the theatre involves sitting there very politely, watching a show and then going home.
“I love that people might see the poster and think: ‘Chumbawamba, I know them, they sang about getting knocked down, we’ll go and see that’. But they’ll be completely shocked.
“We’ve always really admired bands who change. The Beatles are the ultimate example of that. They changed constantly. Most bands find a sound then stick to it.”
Boff, 48, is fiercely proud of his East Lancashire roots, and believes artists have a responsibility to use the platform they have to promote their home towns.
“There’s still a slightly snotty attitude towards northern small town culture and it really winds me up,” he said.
“There are fantastic things going on all over East Lancashire. It’s a place full of stories and ideas, but people tend to dismiss something if it’s from somewhere small and not absolutely cosmopolitan.
“You even see it when Blackburn and Burnley football clubs are on TV. They go to the grounds and there’s still talk about cloth caps and whippets and the biting cold of the north. And they love to show us shots of old mill chimneys, even though there’s hardly any of them left. I think that’s so stupid.
“I live in Leeds now and it saddens me that people still say ‘Leeds had the first Harvey Nichols outside of London’. I just think that’s such a terrible thing to be known for when there’s so much great culture going on.”
Tellingly, Boff, describes Riot, Rebellion and Bloody Insurrection as: “For an audience looking for a world beyond TV talent contests and multi-millionaires taking multi-million pound pensions in this winter of recession.”
What does he mean?
“When we look back to the '60s, '70s, '80s and '90s, there are certain things that typify the culture.
"In the '60s it was Flower Power and The Beatles, in the '90s it was dance music.
"I’m scared that people will look back at the last 10 years and think that it was the decade of Simon Cowell, The X Factor and stage school wannabes who all disappeared once they’d got fame. But that’s our dominant culture and it’s really sad. I don’t want our kids going: ‘How could you let that happen?’”
As for Boff, he plans to carry on making music, highlighting important issues through his work, and telling the world about his East Lancashire roots.
“I look back on my days growing up in Burnley very fondly,” he said.
“It was a time in my life when I really changed and learned a lot. Those years in Burnley were pivotal really. It was an amazing time.”
* Riot, Rebellion, and Bloody Insurrection is at Oswaldtwistle Civic Theatre on Friday, January 8. Tickets cost £10 or £8 for concessions. Call the box office on 01254 380293 or check out www.hyndburnentertainment.com
Play preview: Riot, Rebellion, and Bloody Insurrection in Oswaldtwistle
TUBTHUMPER: Chumbawamba’s Boff Whalley in action
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