100 YEARS OLD AND STILL ENJOYING LAZINESS...
THERE are some things one may enjoy doing and some things one enjoys watching others doing. Some items fall into both categories. Singing, for example, can be a joyous way of passing the time, though personally I prefer to pop off to Glyndebourne Opera and hear it done properly. (Their Traviata this year, by the way, is fabulously good.)
Some people, I believe, enjoy watching cookery programmes but would never dream of stepping into a kitchen and having a go themselves. There are even people, I am told, who enjoy watching other people play football, though I cannot imagine why.
On the other hand, there are things, sometimes of a personal nature, that one can enjoy but would not want to watch others doing. Consuming good food, chatting inconsequentially and nose-picking may come into that category, particularly when all are done at the same time.
I have been caused to ponder these matters after attending a remarkable performance at the Udderbelly festival on London’s South Bank the other evening. Entitled “Catch-Me”, or “Attrape-Moi” in the original French, it is a display by a highly talented group of one female and five male circus artists from Canada called Flip FabriQue, who bounced, spun, climbed, leapt, juggled, rotated and generally defied the laws of health, safety and gravity to an alarming and thoroughly entertaining degree. Their speed and precision is astonishing, leaving myself and the other onlookers feeling thoroughly exhausted by the end.
I cannot understand, while watching such things, how anyone can know, when performing such routines at high speed, where all the bits of their body are to ensure they do not land on anything painful or splat into each other when six are doing it together on a small stage. I shudder to think of the things that might have happened during rehearsals when they put the routines together.
The relevance of all this to the theme of watching-or-doing, of course, is that I would never even consider partaking of any form of exercise, let alone anything approaching the energy and risk level of the Catch-Me troupe. Just watching them felt like a thorough workout and quite satisfies my need for exercise for a long time.
There is a splendid story of a late 19th century demonstration of the new game of lawn tennis to Queen Min and King Gojong of Korea on the courts of the British legation in that country. The Queen, it is said, watched with interest as two highly placed officials hit the ball to and fro across the net, then she turned to her host and said: “These Englishmen are becoming very hot. Why do they not have their servants do it?”
That astute question summarises for me the entire matter of modern sport: it’s an exhausting business and, for the physically slothful majority to which I am proud to belong, it’s far more enjoyable watching our professional sportsmen do it than trying oneself.
Catch-Me continues until July 9 at Underbelly (details and tickets from www.underbellyfestival.com).