I was lucky. My evening for walking around Aberystwyth in the company of the members of a choir on an ipod and through head phones was in the light of June.
Also the promised rain stayed away and, although a cool breeze manifested itself through those moments of standing still, listening to anecdotes on street corners or in doorways, it was not dark, wet or cold.
Outside is something of a lottery because what was quirky, eccentric, even mildly irritating or utterly fascinating when I experienced it could be almost unbearable in the wrong circumstances.
This year-long collaboration between National Theatre Wales and Rimini Protokoll started for me with Paula, a young American member of the choir Heartsong. She sensibly pointed out the differences between how she experienced her Aberystwyth walk and how others might by showing how to recognise buildings during the day and in the very different circumstances of a winter's dark.
So back then to the recurring question, is it theatre? Well what made it so for me were those moments when choir members met other choir members and we ipod wearers met other ipod wearers. There were only four of us participating and it obviously happens more when the allocation is full but none the less there was a strange frisson. This was particularly true of the moment on the promenade when two of us were obviously sharing the same moment and looked at each others ipod picture. I also loved being shown the sleeping dragon formed by a landscape feature while I was on the prom. I shall never again visit Aberystwyth without taking a look at it.
Also theatrical were those potentially dangerous times when traffic in the ears did not match the traffic of reality.
I confess I was not comfortable with wandering around a supermarket being asked to hide my ipod. Nor with standing on a corner experiencing a busker that I couldn't see and who was not very good. I did on the other hand thoroughly enjoy being told off for rhythm practice on a pub wall where the teller off was safely on an ipod screen. One of the best moments was being shown a residential close that I would never otherwise have found.
Best of all was ending up at the choir rehearsal, recognising some of my guides and joining in a round at the end. This is also a time of true theatricality as the choir never used to rehearse in the building before the project started so in many ways we were all within a stage set, albeit a real place.
I found some of the guides rambling, a couple boring, some unclear and others, at their best, enlightening. I could have done with less of the sometimes incoherent narratives and more local insights.
However, the ipod tour worked well, meeting and chatting to the choir was satisfying and overall, helped by the weather, it was a low-key but pleasurable experience.
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