For Valour! Catherine Ireton and Everyday Bravery
It was the summer of 2014, and youtube suggested I watch a video by a band called God Help the Girl. In fact they weren't even a band at all, this was the cast of the 2014 film - Emily Browning, Olly Alexander (of Years & Years) and Hannah Murray. I indulged, and fell in love with it. When I delved deeper, I realised that this film had a grounding in an actual band, a project of Belle and Sebastian's Stuart Murdoch. The self-titled album came out in 2009 along with three singles and an EP. I remember reading comments on the youtube videos about the film which all said vaguely the same thing: 'Catherine Ireton should've been cast in the film.' But who is Catherine Ireton?
Although there are several lead vocalists across the God Help the Girl material, you could argue that Catherine Ireton is the lead vocalist. Out of the band's twenty-three released songs, she sings lead in thirteen of them. The fascinating thing about diving down the rabbit hole of a career investigation, is that you inevitably get more than you bargained for. Catherine Ireton isn't just a talented singer, but an actress and writer too. Her performances are unconventional and for the most part, involve small audiences. They focus on the connections of people.
Where The Light Falls takes place through a former Seoul railway station, so the audience are actually in the location of the story's setting. What Is It About That Night is a musical that occurs not on the stage, but backstage, in the moments a performer gears up for the evening - this was performed in several theatres, though audience numbers are minute, of course. Leaving Home Party, a piece I wasn't aware of until speaking with Catherine, is inspired by her own exit of her home in Ireland. In Good Hands takes place in a hairdressers, and is an interactive piece celebrating the very human role of a hairdresser and all that entails with more than just cutting hair.
Even Catherine's less theatrical work, Treasure Tracks, is a lesson on how to entice an audience before a single note is played. Treasure Tracks were a series of four gigs in secret locations around Brighton in 2012. Audience members had to track down the locations using clues Ireton posted on her blog (https://treasuretracks.wordpress.com/), and at the end of every gig, there would be a link given out to download one song in the Treasure Tracks EP.
Finally, we come to For All The Fires Not Yet Lit, where our story begins. I have a rule about theatre, and that is I do not read about it beforehand. No reviews, no synopses. I followed Catherine Ireton, and that was all I needed to know I wanted to see this. This was a tour, a theatre one-woman show lasting an hour. The tour would visit Limerick, Castlebar, Ennis, Farnham, Bedford, Norwich, Harlow, Margate, Reading, Brighton, Penryn, Aldershot and Weston-Super-Mare. I had a ticket to see the Margate show at the glorious expense of £14.
Whenever Ireton arrived at a new stop on the tour, her instagram showed a tiny car with a lit sparkler on it placed on a map showing the location. Though its meaning is obvious, the meaning behind the methodology would become more apparent once I'd seen the show. While walking through Margate earlier in the day, my companion and I spotted Ireton walking around, taking in the sights. She did this for most, if not all the dates on the tour.
As we walked into the theatre, a lady told us that although our tickets had seat numbers on them, we could sit anywhere we wanted to as long as it was close to the stage. We sat front row and centre. On stage was a keyboard to the left, no stool. And on the right was a table with a tiny draw in the front. There was a white sheet there too. The lights dimmed, and Catherine Ireton walked out on stage dressed in black leggings and a shirt with birds on it. She had cut her hair shorter for this tour. The play - was it a play? The leaflet describes it as a 'Sung Story', not a play, not a musical. It went between narration from Ireton, to a song at the piano in several styles. Her voice was suited to many styles. Ireton played a few different characters, speaking with varied accents.
Claire was a woman who was wrapped up in a world where decisions were made for her, and she didn't take much of her own destiny in her hands. She had awoken the morning after a get-together with her and her partner's parents. Her flat was a mess, and they were out of milk. Whilst leaving their flat to buy some milk, the unsuspecting Claire is taken on a journey that lasts twenty-four hours. Through courage and bravery - two things she didn't think she had, she overcame her fears, crossed boundaries (even a literal one) and takes charge of her life. Originally I'd written a synopsis on virtually the whole story, but you know? I think the storyteller here is Catherine Ireton, so if you wish, and I insist you do, please watch the entire performance below. It's better than I could ever describe it.
Even though the For All The Fires Not Yet Lit tour was almost three years ago, it was a wonderful surprise to see the full footage released on youtube in 2020. That's what inspired the writing of this article, and for the first time, I spoke with an artist over the phone about their work. The interview came with a disclaimer from Catherine that we might be interrupted by her son escaping an afternoon nap, and shortly after, the prophecy came true! For an artist focusing on the beauty of human connections, I expected nothing less.
Terry Woods: So I'll start from the beginning, it seems out of nowhere you uploaded some of your music to bandcamp, this was a couple of weeks ago.
Catherine Ireton: Yeah!
T.W.: And along with that came the full performance of For All The Fires to youtube, what inspired all of that to happen?
C.I.: Well you know, I was sort of looking through my old material, I think it's lockdown really, it's like people going through their attics and sorting things, like you're at home, you're kind of forced with all these things around you. So I started going through- and actually I had thought that some of those things were already out there, I was like "Oh no". That music - I had put it out there, but only I think for subscribers or something, I was like "Oh I'll just make that public", it's such a nice thing to be able to do it. I don't know why I hadn't done it before, and then on the back of that, because I got some lovely responses from people, from that- and I never expect anything from my work, I just put things out and I never- so I was really surprised with people getting in touch and thanking me and buying the music. I get lovely emails from bandcamp when people buy my music so that was such a lovely feeling and then I was like "What am I doing here? I've got other material." I had the full footage on youtube, and it was just a private link that I could share with other people if they were interested in the show, and I was like "I'll just make it public, what am I doing?" And I think also because with lockdown, the kind of...what would you call it? The technical finesse on things is not great. We're all having these things like watching zoom chats or watching things where the technical things aren't the best, it's sort of a bit levelling, so when I look at the footage of For All The Fires I think previously I would've been like "Oh it's not professional enough, the sound quality is awful", and with lockdown it's like actually, it doesn't matter? Just put it out there, people might wanna watch it and if the sound quality annoys them too much then they'll just turn it off, so yeah I think it's kind of freeing in that way, it's a bit of a leveller.
T.W.: Well I didn't actually think the sound quality was bad at all. I watched the whole performance again last night.
C.I.: Oh. Oh my god.
T.W.: Yeah! I was pleasantly surprised by the- because it's dubbed as "raw footage" and I thought "ok", you know- but no I was pleasantly surprised by how good it sounded.
C.I.: Oh that's sweet thank you.
T.W.: So I re-read my journal entry from that time and I remembered that I actually saw you walking through town and I remembered that you did this on every stop of the tour. You walked round through the town to sort of get your bearings?
C.I.: Yeah, yeah I would do that. That's right actually. Yeah, and I would take photos or- yeah!
T.W.: Do you remember what your favourite place was that you went to in that respect?
C.I.: In Margate, or?
T.W.: Oh no, no, just anywhere round the tour.
C.I.: There was a lovely moment, I was in Ennis in County Clare and I went to a chipper probably for my tea before the show, could it have been after the show? And there was a girl in pyjamas in there. (both laughing). That was really nice, that was just such a nice moment.
T.W.: Did she sort of come in costume for your show?
C.I.: Yeah, yeah exactly. But it's nice, I think it's kind of a strange thing being on tour, on your own. I mean I was with the tech as well, Lovisa (Korling) and she was great but you kind of need to get yourself into a good- I need to get myself into a headspace before I perform so I would just walk if the weather was good. And I'm pretty sure in Margate I was walking along the beach. I'd performed in the Theatre Royal a few times but I do remember walking along the beach there. That was pretty nice.
T.W.: Yeah it was a nice day actually.
C.I.: Yeah!
T.W.: I remember, considering it was mid-October, you could've gotten it any way really, any other way. So I wanted to know, was Claire, or Claire's life based on anything in reality or was that- you know, the whole thing just fiction?
C.I.: No it's pretty much fiction. I guess she definitely comes from my own experience of like her story of being a bride-to-be and all that, but I wrote her before I even met my now-husband. I think at the time I was performing it, we had gotten engaged but I had written it before I had even met or started to write it and started to write that whole scene about this kind of overbearing mother and this very timid daughter before I met my husband. So I guess none of that was- that story part of it wasn't, but maybe the scenes are more something that I can more relate to personally.
T.W.: Ok, so I'd actually forgotten until I re-watched it again last night but there are actually several pieces of music that are used as backing tracks so-
C.I.: Yeah!
T.W.: Were these all performed by you?
C.I.: What do you mean, in which sense?
T.W.: Because they're recordings, did you record all of those yourself before the show, before the tour even?
C.I.: Well I worked with an amazing musical director, Ed Briggs, and we would work together on the tracks. It was a lot of back and forth with that so I guess it was a process really between the two of us? He was great because especially in things like I think there was a song about the Heron so he would kind of set up the instrument and he would put in all the sounds into the keyboard so that I could play it live. So the sounds are pre-made so it's sort of a triggering system, a live triggering system which was really useful to be able to play something like that live and to be able to use the piano as a different type of instrument. And same with- oh gosh yes I'm remembering the cup- the scene in the kitchen where she's going through all the lists of different things.
T.W.: Yes.
C.I.: And that's very much a pre-recorded track taken from samples of things in the kitchen. So myself and Ed worked on that together and chose samples and kind of decided where we wanted to go, but Ed is such a wizard at those types of things, so I guess it's like that kind of collaboration between me and him.
T.W.: Yeah, well I did notice when watching the performance again that everytime you went back to the keyboard, the sounds were different so I wasn't sure if you were triggering that with a foot-pedal or something like that, but you'd go from one thing to another.
C.I.: Yes, so it would've been my tech as well, so Lovisa would've had access to how the keyboard was changing, so don't ask me how, I don't remember the technical, I was focusing on the performing side-
T.W.: Of course!
C.I.: I know there was a wireless router involved, to get things to talk to each other and there were certain times in different venues- because we'd do a show a night in different venues and sometimes things didn't talk to each other and that's pretty stressful when you're trying to do the get-in. But it always worked in the end.
T.W.: (laughing) So Lovisa would do the lighting as well?
C.I.: She did the lighting and she did the sounds, yep. She's amazing and she drove the van.
T.W.: Well, you can't go wrong there.
C.I.: (laughing) I know!
T.W.: So you spoke earlier about releasing the demos so, it was a lovely idea what you did, if people got in contact with you then you would send them the demos.
C.I.: That's it, that's it. Uh huh.
T.W.: So, does the whole show exist in that form?
C.I.: No it doesn't! I don't know if you know my other work but I'm like, I'm terrible. I'm really, really bad, because I'm a live performer, and that's kind of where I see my main art-form, that recording and making records and making- I mean it's a completely different frame to put your music into, so I have tried. I have tried to go "Ok I'm gonna take this show and I'm gonna put it into a record", but you can't do it - you can't do a literal translation because it doesn't translate, because people on headphones aren't- they're used to listening to something that is produced and worked with. You know, working with, collaborating with a whole other team of people to make a record and so I haven't done that, yet. I'm gonna put in that "yet". (laughing) And so maybe some of those tracks, the ones that I could do easily are the ones where the backing track already existed and had already been worked to a level, it's like "Ok I can record it and I can sing along with that", but yeah it's otherwise just quite a difficult prospect to do on my own, so I haven't tried to do it.
T.W.: Yes I did wonder if they were more excerpts of a larger demo you'd made or if that was, "I'm gonna do these three songs and everyone will have to be happy with that".
C.I.: Yeah I think they're not even the songs that I would necessarily- they wouldn't be my necessarily favourite songs of the show, you know? But it was just the ones that I had that I could do, you know you just kinda have to work with what you can do best in the time that you have, and at that time it was like "Ok this is what I'm gonna do".
T.W.: Yes I imagine doing a full album production of it would be very expensive anyway as I've learned over time.
C.I.: Yeah, yeah I think it's a time expense and being able to pay other people to help me to do it. Yeah there might be an Arts Council application in there somewhere. (both laughing)
T.W.: I don't know how all of that works so, you know I've got your- I've actually got a leaflet from the tour here-
C.I.: Oh wow!
T.W.: And I've got like your, sort of like a programme, it's basically a double-sided A5 sheet, and that's got Arts Council and it's got Lottery Funded written on it, and so you know there's really a lot of people involved in that to make the show happen.
C.I.: Yep, very much so. There was my producer Gavin Stride from Farnham Maltings, they were amazing to support me and to help me with the tour, and then Joanna Bowen was the director and it was probably- it was definitely two or three years in the making. Not full time, don't get me wrong but just when the seed of the idea hit and then when I started working on it and then took a big break and worked on it again and then got money to do the tour. Also then Limerick, my home town, they were interested in it, the theatre there, the Lime Tree Theatre, so they also co-commissioned it along with Farnham Maltings so it was great to do that international co-commission and to do a show back in my home town. There was something like quite poetic about doing a show about courage back in my old haunt.
T.W.: Yeah that's very lovely. It says here, on the leaflet that you won the Brighton Fringe Music Award in 2016, was that- that was for this?
C.I.: That was for another show of mine called Leaving Home Party.
T.W.: Oh ok, I don't have any information about that one so (laughs).
C.I.: That is all online as well, the entire performance of that is online. I took it to Korea, and there's a performance of me doing it in Korea with Korean subtitles, and you can watch that, that was good.
T.W.: That's very interesting! So, talking about older projects, I read about your Treasure Tracks performances, so have you thought more about doing performances similar to that one, or- it's difficult because that was so of the moment, that it's difficult I suppose to repeat that exact thing, doing the live performances in that style...
C.I.: Yeah, well I think a lot of my work has been kind of site-specific work, so For All The Fires was one of only two of my shows - Leaving Home Party and For All The Fires are two performances that I've done in an actual theatre. All of the other shows that I've done, or even Treasure Tracks I really, really enjoyed performing in unusual spaces. So Treasure Tracks was this real opening up for me of "Well where else could I perform? Let's perform in a museum of taxidermy, wouldn't that be cool? Let's send people on a weird treasure hunt and see if people will join!" I just kind of liked the mischief of it or just the kind of playfulness of form so by the time you get to the gig you're just like "Well this is all very weird, I've no expectation at all of what this is gonna be like." Maybe that's just like my way of lowering the bar before you go in the door? (laughs)
T.W.: I think it's a wonderful way of performing because it's really involving your audience as well.
C.I.: Yeah, yeah! I am definitely interested in that and like, that sort of sense of people being there you know and not- I think there's so many gigs you go to or just feel like you're sitting there or you're standing there and you're just letting the gig wash over you and you're thinking about your shopping or you're not really there! Which is another type of music as well but I kind of- I guess because I'm a storyteller as well, I just want- I'm an attention grabber, I want your attention, I want it all, stay with me! So I'll try and take people with me as much as I can.
T.W.: Well look I mean it is kind of frustrating if you're at even a small gig and people are sort of chatting at the bar and they're not really paying attention or whatever and this is almost like making sure they're invested even before you step out onto the metaphorical stage.
C.I.: Yeah, yeah there's definitely a bit about it and also I think it's so much, other people, singers, songwriters and people doing music out there, you just kind of have to find ways of also setting yourself apart.
T.W.: I think so yeah! That's very true. So staying on older work, I think you actually did this at the Treasure Tracks performances, you previously played some God Help the Girl material during those times, so would you ever consider revisiting that project at all in the future?
C.I.: Well I just did a gig there last week with it I think or the week before and I finished off the set with- a lockdown gig obviously! Online, it was an online gig. But I finished off the set with a God Help the Girl song and it's been a while since I've sung them, they're good, they're great songs. And so yeah I think they're there in my repertoire. Because they're such big numbers, I'd probably strip them back to the bare bones, piano, it's just me. But yeah those songs were such a part of my twenties that I feel that sort of sense of nostalgia and I don't know, care for them when I hear them or when I sing them. It just takes me back to another time.
T.W.: I think the- you know I think the album is absolutely enchanting.
C.I.: Yeah, I really like it. It's a piece of work and all the artists that collaborated on it, I was so lucky to collaborate with such great musicians.
T.W.: Well that's the thing, so many people were involved in it and I think that's kind of what makes it more universal I suppose because there's so many different lead vocalists there as well.
C.I.: Yes exactly, yeah!
T.W.: Were you ever contacted to be involved with the film at all?
C.I.: Yes, we did kind of work up- I mean this whole project was sort of always looking towards the film, even the soundtrack was always kind of- and we'd do photo-shoots every now and then, and they were all sort of- I think the film was basically Stuart's (Murdoch) main driving force behind doing the soundtrack. It just takes so long, the films just take so long and by the time that was all happening, I had already moved on. I had left Scotland, I had moved to Brighton and I'd started writing my own songs, making my own music, and I had spent the best part of my twenties working with them on the album that I kind of had- you know I was still involved in the- we did some like auditions and stuff and I would go along but I was sort of by that point, I was kind of done with it. I was ready to make my own music.
T.W.: Yeah sure! Well I only have one question left and is that- have you had anything else in the works between All The Fires Not Yet Lit and the present day?
C.I.: Hmm, well, I've sort of taken a break and had a baby. And that-
T.W.: Yeah, I mean that's a big project.
C.I.: That's a big- that's ongoing as you can tell (laughs). Mostly what I'm doing at the moment is returning to find a new type of artistic practice, which allows for a lot of experimentation. So I'm doing a Masters in Music at the moment, which just kind of allows me to try out loads of different things so I guess that's the long answer and the short answer is yes, yes I do, but nothing I could concretely say "this is gonna be the next one". But there's lots of seeds being sown. Yep.
Catherine Ireton can be found on instagram and twitter @cathsaye. Check out more of her interesting work on http://www.catherineireton.com/
