Greg McLaren’s work revolves around provocations, challenges and rules; his previous piece, Doris Day Can Fuck Off, saw him singing his way around the UK, investigating our relationship to song and the inherent musicality of language and its social referents. His new piece, A Symphony for Audience and Performer, takes the form of a madcap and subversive state-of-the-nation triptych, one that examines ideas of social participation and division, and the plurality of protest. It’s a political piece that never becomes explicitly political, instead choosing to use the idea of participation as metaphor and formal device.

A Symphony began life as part of Riot Acts!, a series of responses to the London Riots produced by Richmix and Penned in the Margins. The piece has a three movement-structure, its content shaped by a series of instructions handed out to the audiences and performed on various cues. There’s a dialogue between the clues that are embedded within it, and the cues which the audience respond to, creating an almost musical riff on the London Riots. McLaren plays with audience anticipation whilst also allowing artistic process to become the basis for the piece. The results are highly malleable, playing with the risks inherent in an open-ended work of audience-driven performance.

In the first part, Steve Jobs comes back from the dead to tell us about riding in helicopters and the highs of corporate life. In the second part, an anonymous fox tells us what it is to live life on the outside looking in. In the last part, the audience and performer create a protest, a mass event directed by an appointed conductor; this last chapter weaves together threads from the previous acts, creating a reflection on the nature of crowds.

If the piece moves from the high ranks of corporate life down to a different reality, it does so in a wish to think collectively about social stratification and the nature of protests as arising from, relating to, and fighting against socio-political circumstance.  The piece never settles on one tone, shifting between pensiveness and humorousness; the second act is particularly moving, reflecting on immigration with a fresh perspective and an open mind.

McLaren also toys with a DIY aesthetic: there are plastic masks, glittery jackets, toy helicopters, but also a variety of materials – salt, sugar and flour amongst them- that allow for the piece to create its own history as it is being performed, to leave its marks and traces on the space.

There are times when the piece seems to escape its structure and become too baggy and abstract. The lack of control sometimes becomes a problematic area; an  orchestra needs to be fully tuned, the conductor should always be a step ahead.

McLaren’s Symphony, in its own distinctive way, makes its observers and participants think about collectivity and the ever-widening social and political gaps. It’s a risk-taking piece, willing to use  silence and stillness to make its points and to create an experience which the audience can own.

A Symphony for Audience and Performer is part of Sprint Festival at Camden People’s Theatre. For more information visit the Festival Blog.