#cornermen

“HEAD MOVEMENT IS EVERYTHING”

Them boys here waiting on fight meeting. #180warriorwaitingwithin1c125 #roadtojune22 #fighters #cornermen #Saturday #waiting #meeting #ted #june22 https://www.instagram.com/p/BzBpFZghx4J/?igshid=1ga0aep0yayh4

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There’s a time to try and solve a problem by yourself. And a time to bring in reinforcements. This kid made the right choice. And the situation got resolved in a big way.

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White knuckle Last night at Vaults festival I saw Smoke & Oakum’s Cornermen in a damp, airless tunnel. I sat on a narrow, uncomfortable bench. There was nowhere for my coat or my ridiculous oversized handbag and every time I shifted my weight between arse and spine I rocked about 6 other people back and forth. Pints in plastic glasses were bent out of shape and abandoned on the floor. I used to find that kind of venue exciting; now, it’s merely tiresome. It’s too much like Edinburgh: hospitable only to the young and cheerful. It is, however, an excellent setting for Cornermen, a new short play about a management team working in grassroots boxing, looking for a new face to bring in some much-needed cash. They find Sid Sparks, push him as far as they can. It is harsh and exploitative and very male. Concerns for his welfare are overlooked when tickets are to be sold. The environment these guys exist in smells of sweat, stale beer and Deep Heat. At Vaults, the audience's hardship is somehow appropriate. While the writing is predictable and naturalistic and smells like television – a rags-to-not-quite-riches tale that we’ve all seen before – it’s highly absorbing, and the few stylised directorial flourishes make appropriate use of the cramped performance space: Sid bounces offstage when the bell for each round sounds, and freezes in recoil mid-match. There’s no room for grand physical sequences, but there’s something interesting about the way the frame of the piece is always away from the action. This is, after all, a play about the machinations behind the matches, the fights that happen ringside. In Cornermen, despite its very traditional format, we see an off-centre story. In all honestly, I’m writing about it as much out of surprise at its competency than excitement at its success. It has taken me until the final week of Vaults to find anything that might have a future outside that dank underpass. The festival director, Tim Wilson, wrote about the economics of Vaults a few weeks ago. The whole operation is on a knife-edge every year. Costs for artists are kept low, but the 70% of ticket sales that companies can expect are unlikely to allow them to pay union-level fees. I estimate capacity for Cornermen is around 60. It was full last night, but even if everybody had paid £8 for a ticket (doubt it – many were showing passes to get in for free), that’s only £336 to pay 4 cast and a technician, let alone cover set and costume and rehearsal time. There are no funder logos on the freesheet. The writer is also the producer is also one of the performers, so maybe 1 fee goes 3 ways, but still… The exploitation at the heart of the Sid Sparks story is one that has played out with young boxers for generations. The cyclical nature of the sport is Cornermen’s beginning and end. But it is an analogy that transcends industry. A combination of youth and talent and enthusiasm so often adds up to vulnerability.