by Helen O'Sullivan, Greenbelt Music Group Administrator

Friday night was the first full run-through of the Bertolt Brecht play ‘Mother Courage and Her Children’ (Tony Kushner translation) in the 1100 seater Olivier Theatre at the National in London. There was a preview the previous night but due to lack of technical rehearsals, only two-thirds of the play was performed. To be honest, it’s probably not the sort of play I would normally have chosen to go to, but Duke Special and his band are part of the production and that made it impossible to resist!

I was a bit apprehensive about the story set in the 1600s during the thirty year war – the synopsis on Wikipedia sounds quite dark and depressing but the performance was lively, engaging and humorous in parts. There’s some discussion on whether it is actually an anti-war play, Mother Courage and her children are depicted profiting from the war but are ultimately victims of it like so many others; it’s certainly thought-provoking. Fiona Shaw was outstanding in the lead role of Mother Courage, and, of course, the music was excellent with Duke Special alternating between piano, drum and accordion and assisted by his bandmates on percussion, guitar, clarinet and saxophone, and double bass. The musicians are an integral part of the performance, rather than just playing background music at the side of the stage, as are the stagehands and the whole thing has a deliberately chaotic feel to it because of that. There is a song in most of the scenes with Duke singing alongside the main characters and literally centre stage for a few of the numbers. Duke’s percussionist, Chip Bailey, is led by Mother Courage to the front at one point and she also shimmies against self-confessed babe-magnet Ben Castle! Duke looks right at home on the theatre stage and sings beautifully – I could hear people commenting on what a good voice he had during the interval.

The play is long at 3 and a half hours, including an interval, although that was the first run through so it may get a bit leaner. The official opening night is 17th September and it runs until 8th December. Tickets are selling well but there are still a few £10 Travelex seats available.

Greenbelters in the London area will also be interested to know that Duke and his band are going to be playing after every Friday evening show from 2nd October until 4th December (and one on the evening of Saturday 3rd October – possibly to be extended to every Saturday although this looks unlikely as they also have a matinee performance on that day), and you don’t need to have a ticket for the play to get in to the gig. The gigs will be held in the main foyer of the National and entry is free.

My Greenbelt has been slightly different to most. In amongst arranging press conferences and planning interviews with what feels like every local BBC radio station in the UK, time to stop and watch is understandably limited, as is time to write reviews of what I've seen or conjure the words to describe it…

Last night I took an hour off to see Dan le Sac vs Scroobius Pip's performance poetry mixed with electro beats. It was their first Greenbelt experience and they clearly didn't know what to expect, hence the early between-song banter from Pip: 'I'm trying really hard not to swear!'. But they soon relaxed, throwing out jokes about the 'uplifting' (or otherwise) nature of some of the tracks from Angles, last year's acclaimed debut album. They played most of the hits early on, starting with The Beat That My Heart Skipped and rattling through Look For The Woman and their biggest track, Thou Shalt Always Kill, complete with the radio-friendly version of the lyrics.

By the time the duo reached the end of the set the crowd had grown and was sufficiently warmed up for headliners Royksopp, but there was still time for Letter From God To Man; Pip's take on theology set to Sac's sample of Radiohead's 'Planet Telex'. For me it was one of those Greenbelt moments that I've had a few of over the years; Pip's presence seemed to grow further as the crowd cheered along with the prose, and as the song reached its climax it felt like Sac vs Pip belonged as much on Greenbelt's worship programme as the Mainstage music line-up.

One of Greenbelt's photographers, Jonathon Watkins, walked around site yesterday, took some pictures of the set-up and has posted them all on Greenbelt's Flickr photostream. And don't forget, if you're taking your camera this weekend and will be uploading the results to Flickr, tag your photos 'greenbelt09'.

Over the weekend, our Commercial Manager Phil Smith will be recording a video diary and posting it on YouTube, and here's his first effort. (Loving the sunglasses, by the way…)

Another commercial on YouTube from Agents of Future:

The Invisible are a London-based three-piece who have recently been nominated for the Mercury Music Prize for their eponymously-titled debut album. This single, London Girl, was picked up by Zane Lowe and played on Radio 1 as his 'Hottest Record in the World'. The Invisible are pretty special, and they're playing Mainstage as part of Greenbelt 09's Keep Monday Special.

I came across this image on Twitter, uploaded by one of our designers, Chantal Freeman. It's a photo of all the signs that have been handmade by our team, and they look fantastic. Maybe next year I'll ask Chantal to make one that says 'My Tent: this way'…

US 'jalopy-gospellers' Agents of Future are coming to Greenbelt and have posted two 'commercials' on YouTube. Keep an eye out around the Festival site for their 'Kollabo-kiosks', part of AoF's plan to collaborate with every Festival-goer over the weekend. They're so enthusiastic, they might just do it…

And for our interview with Agents of Future, click here.

Journalist and Greenbelt volunteer George Luke recently interviewed Stu G (guitarist with Delirious?) for the Church Times, and asked him some questions about his forthcoming solo gig at Greenbelt:

With the end of Delirious? only months away, guitarist Stuart Garrard – aka Stu G – makes a rare solo appearance at Greenbelt, playing an acoustic set in the Performance Café on Saturday night.

“This is not the official launch of a solo career,” says Stu. “First and foremost, I love Greenbelt; I have for years. I went as a punter throughout the 80s, and was there every year playing for someone or other after that. Then I joined Delirious? and we’ve been there on and off. I’ve always loved the festival.

“With Delirious? disappearing, I still wanted to have a presence at Greenbelt, and to be involved somehow. I actually received the call out of the blue from the Greenbelt office. I was really pleased to a) get a call, and b) be able to do it.”

But it’s not just his own presence at Greenbelt Stu is happy about. “I’m really excited that Rob Bell is there this year,” he says. “I discovered Velvet Elvis and was listening to Rob’s talks at the same time that Delirious? were travelling to parts of the world that have real poverty and social justice issues. They made a real difference in my outlook on life, to be honest. And also to my Christianity. First and foremost to my Christianity, because I just wasn’t satisfied. I had so many questions.”

Kingdom of Comfort, the last Delirious? studio album, focused a lot on social justice – inspired mainly by the band’s travels to countries such as India and Colombia. It’s an avenue that Stu is looking to pursue further after Delirious? finally call it a day.

“Social justice has been a big part of the journey for my wife and I for the past three years,” he explains. We’re involved with an organisation called Living India; it’s headed up by Joseph Edelheidt – a rabbi who is also Professor of Religious Studies at Cloud State University in Minnesota. We’ve become great friends and his work in India involves building an orphanage for Aids orphans who are all HIV-positive. Meeting people like Rob Bell and Rabbi Joseph has been a huge part of our lives, and we’re really very grateful for that. So in one way or the other, I’m not going to forget all the stuff that caused us to write Kingdom of Comfort.”

And the future? Well, Delirious? may be ending, but Stu has no plans to retire from music anytime soon. He’s been spending time in America where he has signed a publishing deal, writing songs for various artists. There’s also a band project in the pipeline, featuring both himself and soon-to-be former bandmate Jon Thatcher.

“Someone asked me last year, ‘If there was one thing you could do for the rest of your life, what would it be?’” he says. “I replied, ‘Play guitar!’ That was really helpful, because it was before Martin came to us and said he wanted to end Delirious? It kind of gave me a bit of focus. If I want to make this happen; if I want to spend the rest of my life playing guitar, I’ve actually got to do something about it now. I can’t just rely on being in Delirious? for the rest of my life.”

Hannah Maiden (pictured above at Greenbelt '08 with daughter Eve) is a long-time Greenbelter, from Newcastle, who’s involved in campaigning with one of our key partners, Christian Aid. We asked her how she got involved with Christian Aid and how she’s getting on.

Having had many wandering conversations about living more greenly and ethically over the last few years, I had one about a year ago that really challenged me. I was debating out loud about my frustration with trying to shop ethically, and how little difference it made when others around me didn't seem to think it mattered. 'It’s great that you're doing that stuff', came the comment, 'But there's no time left. If we want to do something about climate change we can't wait for the whole population to change their ways. We need legislation for climate change now. And that means you need to campaign.'

It hit me that if I really wanted to do something for the world's poor, who are being most affected by the climate change reality, that those small personal steps were nothing in regard to the difference I could make if I campaigned. I had sent in some cards about the Climate Change Bill late last year – and the campaign had worked – the Bill was meaningful and the NGOs really pleased.

Through coming to Greenbelt I was aware of Christian Aid's campaigning on development issues, and had been impressed by their willingness to seriously debate, no argue (!) about the issues with key players nationally and globally. I seemed to be on their mailing list somehow, and so had sent a few postcards off in the past, but had never found out whether they made any difference.

I approached my local Christian Aid (CA) office asking if I could join the local campaign group. There wasn't one – but they thought it was a good idea, and asked if I wanted to organise it! I was pretty daunted as I didn't know anything about the issues in depth, and nothing at all really about how to write or speak to an MP. But I figured that I could get information from CA, and that if I organised the practicalities of meeting up then probably someone who really knew what they were doing might turn up.

The local CA office emailed out that a group was being set up and people who were interested got in touch. I then simply contacted everyone and chose a pub where we could meet. I also looked on the CA website and caught up with what they wanted us to campaign on currently, and we started off. 5 monthly meetings on and we have had good chats over beers and via emails, and also done a little bit to change the world.

We have realised that its not actually too scary or difficult to lobby your MP and email is the easiest way. CA send you step-by-step 'local lobbyist briefings' which tell you exactly what to say and do and when!

It’s also pretty easy to pitch up to an MPs' 'surgery'. It was surreal going to see my MP just after seeing the film 'In the Loop' (a great political satire), as the film seemed hilariously accurate. We went to a not especially salubrious venue, and our MP was flanked by young besuited attendants. The conversation with him was interesting, but it was hard to get our points heard as he was clearly rushed, so we were glad we had taken some written information to hand across. We are chasing him up by letter on the things he said he would do.

As a group we lobbied all the candidates in the recent European Elections, about climate change and international tax and accounting laws. We have just had an open meeting with 2 of our regional MEPs specifically to ask them about what they are doing on climate change in the run-up to Copenhagen.

It’s been good just to feel as though we are all really doing something about the issues that matter to us. There is loads on the web including sites like theyworkforyou.com which tell you all the basics about your MP and parliament.

Seeing things in the national media about Ed Milliband's reaction to the campaign on Kingsnorth, or Stephen Timms taking concerns about unfair tax rules for developing countries to the latest G20 meeting, and realising our campaigning snowballs with others all around the country to make a difference to what currently happens in government is brilliant. We are a small bunch of like-minded people, who have realised that all doing a little bit we can make a big impact. Starting to make use of the democracy freely on offer to us has been really empowering.

Click here for Christian Aid’s website, and here for information on their Countdown to Copenhagen campaign.