It may seem like a very long way from Norcross Prison to the Howard Assembly Room. The former is a fictional Women’s Prison in Manchester, the latter a stunning performance venue in Leeds. But the distance between is not so great, for Keeley Forsyth has been in both. In Norcross, where several of Weatherfield’s residents have been incarcerated over the years, she was an inmate called Shania who intimidated Coronation Street regular Fiz, who was then on remand for murder. In the HAR tonight, she appears alongside her longtime collaborator Matthew Bourne on piano. And it is here that Forsyth’s incredible talents as composer, singer, and actor conjoin.
Last month, Keeley Forsyth & Matthew Bourne released Hand to Mouth, described as “a collaboration between two highly intuitive and synchronised musicians, able to reach and offer us, the listeners, emotions that feel sincere and vital.” This evening’s concert is the fifth date on a short tour in support of this record.
The stage is set. A Steinway grand piano and an adjoining keyboard. One solitary chair. A microphone. Two single spotlights, shafting clear white light. Enter the dramatis personae. Both dressed in black. It is a dark, stark, austere, reductive setting.
What ensues is far less of a musical concert than it is a theatrical performance. Yet it is both. And more besides. It is impulsive, disciplined, at times extreme, often uncomfortable, always bordering upon the intense. It leans more towards Samuel Beckett than ever it does Scott Walker. Yet it could be either. It becomes a play in which Keeley Forsyth is the central character, but who would not exist without Matthew Bourne’s musical accompaniment.
45 minutes long. Three-quarters of an hour in which time becomes immaterial. It just fades away as you become completely submerged in the experience. For the record, and all bar its last track, ‘Sing,’ Keeley Forsyth and Matthew Bourne perform Hand to Mouth in its entirety. There are two songs – ‘Turning’ and ‘Do I Breathe’ – from Forsyth’s third and most recent album, last year’s magnificent The Hollow: a couple from her 2020 EP Photograph – the deeply atmospheric title track and the equally absorbing ‘Unravelling,’ and then the valedictory ‘I Have a Voice’ in which she suggests, nay demands, it is one she has to use.
And Keeley Forsyth uses her voice to mesmerising effect. Over Matthew Bourne’s minimal, inquiring piano and keyboard compositions – in turn gothic, neo-classical, medieval – her voice is a huge, expressive, expansive instrument as it charts an often-unfathomable path through vulnerability, strength, improvisation, and far beyond. The words that she emotes often become indecipherable such is the emotional vortex into which they are sucked.
Keeley Forsyth’s artistic freedom is boundless, and this creative partnership with Matthew Bourne is truly inspired.
Photos: Simon Godley
More photos from this performance are HERE
