REVIEWS FOR NINE DAIES WONDER

Performances

Remarkable...a stunning show from start to finish. It roars along. Libby Purves, Theatre Cat

Probably the battiest production ever produced at Snape but also one of the most fun.
One Suffolk

The musical backing for his journey was provided by four musicians, masters in their field of ancient music, with beautiful vocals from Jeremy Avis and harmonious sounds from the ancient instruments.
Bury Free Press

Player’s dancing was sublime as he switched from serene galliard or graceful pavane to kickabout jig.
The Times 4 stars

The best sort of early music concert: a strong thematic concept with a splendid mix of less and more well-known music on an interesting array of instruments – and there was something for everyone. The musicians’ versatility was a delight. Steven Player has all the energy and presence that Will Kemp surely must have had; his was less a performance than an incarnation.
Early Music Review

When Will Kemp, star actor-clown of Shakespeare’s company, set off in a fit of pique or publicity to dance his way to Norwich, fans could not keep up with the self-styled headmaster of Morris. When Steven Player re-enacted his feat at Cheltenham Music Festival he kept an enthralled Pittville Pump Room audience with him every tripping step of the way. Two hours of Morris dancing or Elizabethan tomfoolery could seem a little excessive, but the programme was cleverly interspersed with songs from the bawdy to the courtly, beautifully and articulately sung by Jeremy Avis. The weird and wonderful instruments included Ian Harrison’s cornett, brightly virtuosic in the decorated lines of a John Dowland song, but sounding like a jazz soprano saxophone in the traditional melody that followed. Most fascinating, as shown by a cluster of the curious during the interval, was Clare Salaman’s nickelharpa – now the national instrument of Sweden – a keyed fiddle with four bowed and eight sympathetic strings, played with delicacy and gusto. We heard also of Kemp’s adventures along the way, of the cutpurse tied to a tree, of being welcomed “like the Queen’s best greyhound,” and of the fat wench who danced “swig a swag.” Player’s own fancy-footwork was still the main attraction, his newly-grown locks making him resemble a twirling mop in the opening dance, before a processional pavan, an energetic galliard and a celebratory cartwheel on reaching Norwich. The company reassembled to encore The Rain it Raineth Every Day which after this exuberant show made me think that Kemp must have danced as well as sung in this finale of Twelfth Night. There can be no more satisfying and diverting performers of early music than the Society of Strange and Ancient Instruments. My only regret was that this excellent re-creation of street theatre was not performed outside, on the sunny terrace of the Pump Room.
Colin Davison
The Arts Diary: Cheltenham 4 stars


The CD

There is nothing folksy or artificial about the mixing of strange and ancient; satisfying textures combined with excellent recording quality bring the music vividly to life.
Early Music Today 5 stars

Good times all round, it seems when Mr Kemp is in Town. Gramaphone

Pieces like The silver Swan, Can she excuse, Sorrow stay and Rest sweet nymphs are unlike most performances, with a freshness that others rarely achieve. The performers are brilliant. Do try it.
Early Music Review