Today was my long awaited visit to Kynren, a fantastic history show, and largely run by volunteers - it stretches further though as it’s an Arts, Education and Conservation charity allied to Auckland Project. I could go on for a long time about this but please look it up if interested.
The evening show has been running since 2016 but this year the first four daytime shows have opened, Land of the Vikings, The Lost Feather, The Trusty Steed and Legend of the Wear. I won’t go into too many details, and I’ve respected the request to not photograph the shows, as it could spoil things for anyone else who visits.
The choreography in the Viking show was excellent and the fight scenes were probably a lot more accurate than often portrayed, short, sharp and brutal, with grappling, not the long drawn out fancy swordplay you usually see. Throw in some acrobatics, music, flames and a good story line and it was superb.
The Feather show is birds, lots and lots of birds, and they’re up close - having a huge great vulture fly a few feet over your head is magnificent, and just a little scary. This is where part of their conservation work comes in, with breeding programmes for rare species.
The Trusty Steed is, obviously, about horses. This show is set in the Medieval and includes jousting, all with another good backstory. Of course the good peasant triumphs over the evil baron in the end!
There’s only really one legend associated with the River Wear that they could tell, although this was a different version it still involved river monsters, a witch and a hero called John! Some of the acrobatics in high places looked a bit iffy to me but a strategically hidden crash mat took care of the deliberate falls and at one point our hero paused to clip on his fall arrest before climbing a lighthouse.
After a break and some OK food I parked up the scooter in the designated area and found my seat. Unfortunately, whilst the forecast rain had held off most of the day there had been a shower and the seats were somewhat wet. ☹️ Never mind, there’s a heated towel rail in my hotel bathroom so I can dry my shorts out. The evening show is a multimedia spectacular history of England, and particularly of the North East (although they missed out shipbuilding) from Roman times to the end of the Second World War. There were some very dodgy fire arrows from Harold Godwinson’s archers but there was very little to complain about. 😊
I managed a reasonably quick getaway, partly ‘cause I chose a seat right by an exit, and I’ve just about got the knack of stowing the scooter so I’m now sat sitting with a pint in the hotel bar.
Overall an excellent day - It’s not cheap and there’s quite a bit of time spent hanging around between performances but that’s OK.
And just in case you thought you’d escaped trains…
| ||
No comments:
Post a Comment