Harland Works tenant's Third Angel launch their new book: There's a Room

Last week I went to an Off the Shelf event which was being held to launch Third Angel’s (one of our tenants) new book “There’s a Room”.

I don’t go to the theatre very often - although I feel bad admitting that… I know it’s something Sheffield does really well and we ought to go more often. But I did go and see their Department of Distractions production when it was on in Sheffield …. and for someone with a limited theatrical attention span, who was badly put off by over-exposure far too many very DULL Shakespeare theatrical productions when I was young … I was riveted and absolutely loved it. (Around the same time I also absolutely loved the production about Park Hill “Standing at the Sky’s Edge” so maybe Theatre Sheffield-style could be a safe refuge for people like me?).

The basic premise of The Department of Distractions is that there’s a whole secret, underground Government department which is tasked with coming up with creative distractions which are so puzzling and engaging that people are diverted into focusing their attention on them, rather than something else. The art and craft of good distractions is that they also need to appear so ‘normal’ that people have no clue that they are actually manufactured distractions, and not just normal, everyday events.

The things that we, the unsuspecting public, are being distracted from are left unspecified. I presumed that they were not-such-great things that the Government is up to and that they think we wouldn’t like. A sort of institutional version of the ‘it’s a good day to bury bad news’ sort of approach that some civil servants apparently favour at points of national crisis.

The fact that the show was on in the midst of Brexit negotiations made you wonder if perhaps the escalating ridiculousness of Brexit-ness could not be a vast Department of Distractions-style plot to distract us from ongoing austerity? As Sheffield is reported to be the worst city in the UK for high death-toll of homeless people, this feels like this could be as logical an explanation for Brexit as anything else.

Anyway, Department of Distractions was my intro to Third Angel shows. If I liked that, would I also like their new book?

And yes, I loved it. Or at least their intro to it at their launch where they read extracts from scripts (while explaining that they don’t often actually use scripts) and told stories about how the shows came to be. Many of them seemed to be - like Department of Distractions - a product of noticing things, and thinking about them, creatively. Often collaboratively with other people.

This creative attention to detail means the scripts include people talking about details that really resonate with me … how much of my life will I spend searching for things in the fridge, and is that time well spent? And yes, I too would love to have some pills which I could pop in the morning to help me feel pleased to see someone I need to be pleased to see, but am not…

These are the ‘small stories’ that are as gripping to me as large, important (Shakespearean?) themes that sometimes leave me a bit cold. Each production did have a larger narrative ark as well - but the extracts they performed made me feel reassured that I was in very safe hands with a Third Angel Show - and left me wanting the chance to see more.

The scripts in the book are designed to allow other theatre companies to perform the shows - so perhaps there will be future opportunities to see them in Sheffield? Meanwhile, you can buy the book on their website here and do the second best thing and read the scripts.

If you’d like to know more about Third Angel, including ways to financially support them, then there’s lots of information on their website, particularly as they have recently announced they have become a charity.

They are also looking for Trustees - applications open until Friday 1st November. Which sounds like a great role (and they have their Board meetings in a very nice events space at Harland Works I happen to know ;))

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Harland Works tenant's Third Angel launch their new book: There's a Room