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Alan Tomlinson
and the River Seven. An
art event © Simon Thackray.
THE PRESS, YORK 22.3.10
Alan Tomlinson
and the River Seven,
Dale Head Farm, Rosedale, North Yorks Moors
 Review
by Charles Hutchinson
HOW did you spend your Sunday?
How about driving for an hour into ever hardier Yorkshire country;
following intermittent improvised signs to the River Seven, down
the narrowest of moorland lanes; then watching cars being pushed
up a muddy incline to park in a field, before a cross-country
trek to a babbling brook.
Why? To see one man and his trombone
in the world premiere of his improvised half-hour musical duet
with the Seven's waters, and your reviewer was not alone. Around
100 adults, children, a man from Oxford and cameramen too, had
been drawn to the latest live art happening conjured by The Shed's
visionary Simon Thackray.
Glory be, the rain had taken
the morning off; instead spring sunshine glinted on Alan Tomlinson's
trombone as he took to the river in waders, summer jacket and
woollen hat, while Aron Flintoff, the sound man with the cockerel
crown of punk-red spikes, crouched on the bank, his microphone
following Tomlinson's every jagged jazz move.
No bird song could be heard
"I've got rid of a few audiences in my time, but birds,
that was a first," Tomlinson said later as he interacted
with the water's steady tinkling flow, in a series of broken
bursts, blasts, squawks and squeaks and whispers, even removing
the slide to blow bubbles at the river's surface.
Alternative water music over,
it was time for a Shed Load of soup, cream teas and Shed bitter
on tap at the specially opened Dale Head Farm tea garden. Eccentric
England at its Sunday best. More press here:
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