Kathleen Ferrier: Whatalife Mellor Brook Centre 10 Nov 2024

Actor, classical singer and theatre-maker, Lucy Stevens has fine-tuned her own creation, Kathleen Ferrier: Whatalife, a show celebrating Blackburn’s most acclaimed singer. On Sunday night she brought it to the revered contralto’s home county, performing successive nights in Barnoldswick, Carnforth and, barely a 6-mile hike from Ferrier’s Higher Walton birthplace, Mellor Brook.

Stevens narrates Ferrier’s life story covering the period between the leaving of her home town for Hampstead in 1942 and her untimely death from breast cancer in 1953 at the age of only 41. During those 11 years she performed at many of the world’s most prestigious venues: the Royal Albert Hall, Glyndebourne, the Royal Festival Hall, Madison Square Gardens and Covent Garden. She worked with musical luminaries such as Benjamin Britten and Sir John Barborolli.

The show has equal amounts of narrative and song with Stevens playing the titular part with a convincing Lancashire accent.  Over her tragically short career, Ferrier made several recordings for the BBC and for her recording company Decca. Whatalife is interspersed with snatches of some of her best known repertoire when Stevens is stylishly accompanied by Elizabeth Marcus on piano. These include extracts of Benjamin Britten’s Rape of Lucretia, Handel’s Messiah, the Northumberland folk song Blow The Wind Southerly and pieces by Brahms, Elgar and Mahler.

A full house of 80 were appreciative and generous in their praise. Spot On, Lancashire’s rural touring network, underwrote the cost of the 3-night Lancashire tour. They in turn receive funding from the Arts Council and this enables them to offer support to small rural venues in promoting a range of professional live arts productions. Part of Spot On’s remit is to encourage village halls, community groups (and now provincial libraries) to be adventurous in their programming of live events. Mellor Brook, better known as a folk and traditional music venue, manifestly benefited from this broadening of their event offering.

SPH