Nic Green with Caitlin Hardy, who was Nic's helper for the Glasgow performance of Cloud Piece
Wordsworth wandered lonely as one, Jagger wanted an unknown someone to get off of his, and as I look out my window, there isn't one in the sky. No, not the humble mistle thrush, but a cloud. Those massive bundles of cotton wool/candy floss/Tom Baker's hair (delete according to your childhood interpretation) are the subjects of Battersea Arts Centre's enchanting new show, Cloud Piece.
The show is framed by 24-year-old Nic Green's attempts to turn back time, to an age when clouds were noticed, when people realised their importance, and when the clouds themselves were more kind, untainted and unpolluted.
A bit fluffy for you? Well the show goes a little deeper than just cloud appreciation. Nic says: "Cloud Piece is about lots of things -saying goodbye to things which leave you as you grow up, seeing what is coming before it comes, understanding what my generation leaves behind and what was left for me, whether it is good or bad, mostly bad!"
And as a representative of the next generation, 11-year-old Niamh Kelly also stars, adding to the innocence and gravity of the show, says Nic: "I wanted a child in it because it recontextualises everything and it brings a reality to what I talk about.
On a practical level, when I'm not able to find shapes and figures in the clouds like I could as a child, Niamh helps me.
"Young people are far better than anyone else at imagining the world in a different way."
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So much for never work with animals or children'.
You only have to see Niamh's blustering, dramatic entrance to see why BAC recommended her when Nic asked for a child who was great on stage. "I like being on stage," says Niamh, who goes to Belleville school in Battersea, "I'm not sure why. I like people listening to me, and on stage people listen to you. I just love acting and singing.
"Before the first production I was very nervous but after that I was ok."
And what does she see in the sky that us adults find increasingly harder to see?
"Lots of times I see animals, things like crocodiles. I don't really see things like dogs, and I don't really see faces or objects much, mainly animals."
The three-week run of Cloud Piece is not the first appearance at BAC for either of them. Nic introduced the show to the world at the venue's excellent Burst festival last spring, while Niamh has had her voice recorded for an eerie puppet show in Masque of the Red Death.
Cloud Piece is a show made with love and it straddles that line between fun and serious. If you are there for the message, then prepare to be challenged, if you are there for the fun (check the imagined sock puppet conversation between sock-puppet incarnations of Les Dawson and Joni Mitchell), then prepare to be charmed.
Cloud Piece; Battersea Arts Centre, Lavender Hill, SW12 5TN, February 22 - March 15, £10/£6, call 020 7223 2223 or visit bac.org.uk for booking.
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