HAT
Words by Ian McMillan - Music by Billy Jenkins
From the avant garde to the W.I. - a part improvised and part
scripted performance of
words, music and knitting. A child's woollen hat is knit and
placed on the head of a new
born world.
Four monologues written and performed by Ian McMillan
with music composed
and performed by Billy Jenkins.
Featuring Andy Diagram (ex James) on trumpet, loops and
samples
and Angie Harrison (ex Hallé) on viola and knitting needles.
HAT was commissioned by
The Shed
with funds from Yorkshire Arts.
HAT was produced by Simon Thackray.
HAT blew off on a whirlwind 'Breaking Borders' Tour
supported by Yorkshire Arts, Northern Arts, North West Arts
and the Arts Council Of England. knocking the socks off
audiences in Halifax, Newcastle and York, who were invited to
knit during the performance.
HAT was last doffed at the V&A in London in MArch 2004
. Patten for knitting your own Elvis wig here!
Hat review in The Guardian
Friday November 23, 2001
by Alfred Hickling
***
Knitting is man's work - at least it was in South Yorkshire in the
1950s,
when it was not unusual to see men working dexterously with their
needles on
the way to the mill. To celebrate this lost world, and make a new
case for
knitting as a performance art, Ian McMillan, the Bard of Barnsley,
has
stitched together four interlocking yarns about interlocking yarn.
He
performs these with a little help from a strange assortment of
friends.
This is a crossover project that draws together personnel from
the worlds of
rock, poetry, classical music and avant-garde jazz. McMillan's
words are
accompanied by a tapestry of sound generated by the cornet
player and
electronics wizard Andy Diagram (from James), viola player Angie
Harrison
(from the Hall Orchestra) and the jazz guitar improviser Billy
Jenkins (who
comes from his own planet entirely).
Jenkins is primarily responsible for the strange mutations of
the score,
which lurches capriciously from his own Howling-Wolf-on-steroids
stylisms to
Diagram's digitally treated trumpet. Harrison mediates with the
mellow tones
of her viola, though every so often she puts her instrument
aside and picks
up her knitting.
The idea is that while McMillan completes his surreal
extemporisations on
great pieces of knitwear - such as the mythical output of
One-Handed Alice -
each member of the ensemble produces their own woolly hat.
Harrison, who
claims to have knitted in all the great concert venues of the
world, comes
up with a very creditable beanie. Jenkins, whose knitting turns
out to be as
free-form as his guitar improvisations, produces spaghetti.
It's good fun, but it never really gets beyond its own
kookiness. There are
brilliant flashes of individual inspiration, but guitar, viola,
sampled
brass and a South Yorkshire raconteur hardly make for a stable
sonic
combination. But for sheer originality of this uncompromising
one-off you have to take your hat off to
them.
See 
for field-reports and links to reviews.