Angel of the South ... or Attack of the 23ft Woman?
THE city is best known for associations with the Royal Navy, the Pilgrim Fathers and Sir Francis Drake.
But Plymouth hopes it will soon be famous for a new landmark.
The Messenger, a 23ft-high sculpture of a woman crouching, has been described as the South’s answer to the Angel Of The North. Less kind critics say the pose is more reminiscent of the poster for the 1958 Bmovie Attack Of The 50ft Woman.
The ‘young, powerful’ figure, which weighs nearly 10 tons and cost £450,000, is the UK’s largest bronze effigy. It was put in position outside the city’s Theatre Royal yesterday ready to be unveiled on Friday.
Commissioned by the Theatre Royal as part of a £8million Arts Council-funded regeneration project begun six years ago, it was created by artist Joseph Hillier. Its design was inspired by a fleeting pose adopted by an actress he saw rehearsing Shakespeare’s Othello at the theatre.
Messenger’s name refers to the ‘pivotal’ role of a performer as they ‘breathe life into words’, the 44-year-old said.
‘It’s a powerful woman, a potent force, about to transform the world by her actions,’ he added. ‘The actor carried the voice of her playwright or director – she carried a message. It’s a metaphor for what great theatre does. The pose is very small. She’s like a coiled spring.’
Visitors will be able to walk underneath Messenger into the theatre, as if passing under an archway. But the sculpture has attracted public criticism amid concerns it will attract vandalism and provide a backdrop for lewd photos.
Hillier said: ‘It was always going to be contentious. Every time I make a new piece I am faced with people’s reactions, which usually fall into two camps – love and hate.’ Theatre chief executive Adrian Vinken agreed the statue will be controversial, ‘mind-blowing’ to some and ‘an abomination’ to others.
The sculpture was cast in 200 sections at a foundry in Wales. It was welded together and transported in four pieces – torso and head, two legs and the straight arm – arriving in Plymouth Sound by barge.