Jo
Shapcott is one of ten poets currently in residence at University of Cambridge
museums and collections under the umbrella of ‘Thresholds’, an outreach project
launched in November 2012 which is supported by the University of Cambridge and
Arts Council England, and organised by Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy. Linked to the Cambridge Festival of Ideas, the aim is for each poet to spend a fortnight
during January to March 2013 in a particular museum. They interact with staff, give readings and
talks, and work with young people to develop creative writing and critical
skills, in addition to developing their own responses to the collections with
which they are working. Out of this
creative fusion the museums are able to promote their activities and hopefully attract
new audiences.
Shapcott has been at the Polar Museum in Lensfield Road. Her interest in Sir John Franklin is evidenced
in her drama – her first – about the Franklin expedition to find the North-West
passage, and the subsequent searches for the missing party. On 28 May 2013, she was present at the museum
while a capacity audience listed to Erebus,
written as an afternoon play for Radio 4 and first broadcast in January 2012. Accompanying her were the drama’s producer,
Tim Dee, and sound designer Jon Nicholls, and after introductions by museum
staff the three set the context for the piece, and responded to enthusiastic
questions afterwards.
The
play is evocative and moving, a series of voices and sounds that together build
up the world of the Franklin expedition.
Sir John does not appear, but Jane Franklin does, here as in life one of
the dominant voices in the tragedy. We hear
a crew member, William Braine, coincidentally a surname in Shapcott’s own
family, commenting on the crews’ struggle for survival, both before and after
his death. Also providing perspectives
are an “ice master” who supplies information on the varieties of ice to be
found, an Inuit bemused by the strange ways of the Europeans, and explorer Elisha
Kent Kane, who mounted two rescue expeditions to find Franklin. The resulting portrait is one of superhuman
effort, naivety, and magnificent
courage. To give the eyes something to
do, the Museum had added a slide show of vintage polar images on a loop.
A
concluding image in the play is that of the Inuit using the expedition’s
discarded materials. But they have no
use for paper so their children use the sheets as toys, launching them into the
wind and watching them swirl about and fly off.
These could be seen for many years afterwards, driven by the wind, much
as the words in the play floated on the airwaves. Despite their fragility, the
papers achieved a longevity denied to Franklin’s endeavour, but through such
efforts as Erebus, Franklin’s name
will live on.
The
question and answer session covered a wide range of topics. One audience member noted the interaction of
sound and the (arbitrary) images, how the meanings read into the images altered
as the play progressed. Naturally
Nicholls was questioned on how he developed the soundscape to capture the
desolation of the region. Shapcott was
asked to what extent the words she used were those of the individuals and to
what extent she had created them. The
answer was that she had used some words from contemporary sources, but had
invented the bulk of them (including, rather controversially, the statement by
Jane that she had never really lover her husband).
A
particularly interesting comment noted how unusual it was to experience a radio
play as a communal activity when it is usually a small-scale domestic
experience. I suspect we listened more
attentively than we might have done at home or in the car, with their
distractions. Given this novel setting,
the three who created Erebus were
asked how they felt hearing the play with such a large audience: a little bit
uncomfortable seemed to be the consensus.
Shapcott
said that were she writing the play again she would include references to the
psychic investigations into what had happened to the expedition that went on
alongside the physical efforts. She said
she had had conversations with someone at the museum who was working on this
topic, a clear reference to Shane McCorristine, who had given a presentation, ‘PolarDreams, Ghosts and Psychics’, on the paranormal connection with polar
exploration, much of which dealt with the clairvoyant efforts to locate
Franklin’s party and determine its fate.
It
is easy to see why Shapcott was drawn to spend time at the Polar Museum, given
her existing interest in Franklin. A
collection by all ten Thresholds poets reflecting their time at the museums will be
published later in the year. It will be
interesting to see what Shapcott produces; Erebus,
it is fair to say, will be hard to beat.
