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The Starless Sky At Midnight (excerpts)

by Simon McCorry

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Roland Pyle
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Roland Pyle This has rekindled my fascination with Cherry-Garrard's epic journey which was inspired by visits to the Scott Polar Research Institute in Cambridge. I have promoted "Cherry" by Sara Wheeler and "I May Be Some Time" by Francis Spufford to the top of my "to be read" heap of books.
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Sleep 04:02
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The Pole 02:57
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about

One of my earliest forays into something like theatre. Oliver Senton wanted to do something Scott's journey to the South Pole. I was sceptical and always felt reacted to the myth of British explorers 'discovering' unknown places to to stick flags. But after scratching deeper discovered both the myth and counter myth overly simplified and misrepresented. We look back in hindsight and talk about the foolish mistakes. Actually everything was such a seriously big unknown. There was a kind of fellowship of explorers across the globe and the expeditions had little if any financial input from governments. For the polar explorers Nansen was their example and all their stories were pretty extraordinary. Cherry Garrard's book The Worst Journey In The World does not focus on the South Pole at all but a journey he took with Bowers & Wilson in the middle of the antarctic winter to get to an emperor penguin colony. Dark, ridiculously cold, they only just survived.One of my earliest forays into something like theatre. Oliver Senton wanted to do something Scott's journey to the South Pole. I was sceptical and always felt reacted to the myth of British explorers 'discovering' unknown places to to stick flags. But after scratching deeper discovered both the myth and counter myth overly simplified and misrepresented. We look back in hindsight and talk about the foolish mistakes. Actually everything was such a seriously big unknown. Vitamin C had not been discovered, the phenomena of katabatic winds & the south polar vortex increasing the effect of altitude, not understood and there wasn't a map. There was a kind of fellowship of explorers across the globe and the expeditions had little if any financial input from governments. For the polar explorers Nansen was their example and all their stories were pretty extraordinary. Cherry Garrard's book The Worst Journey In The World does not focus on the South Pole at all but a journey he took with Bowers & Wilson in the middle of the antarctic winter to get to an emperor penguin colony. Dark, ridiculously cold, they only just survived.

These are 5 excerpts of a larger piece that was performed at Battersea Arts Centre in 2001 and on Resonance FM

credits

released June 10, 2021

Oliver Senton - voice of Scott
Dan Copeland - voice of Cherry Garrard
Thierry Besson - Percission
Simon McCorry - Cello

words take from the diary of Robert Falcon Scott & Apsley Cherry Garrard's The Worst Journey In The World

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Simon McCorry Stroud, UK

Part Indian part British “cellist sound-sculptor of ambiguous environments”

photo by Miyuki Toudou

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