Earlier this year, Megson (Stu and Debs Hannah) joined forces with Mancunian playwright Kieran Knowles to create The Herald, a play with music which, spurred by the media-themed title track of their latest release, What Are We Trying To Say, brought together ten of their songs, mostly from the same album, with a narrative involving a journalist who returns to his home town to work on his local paper, The Herald. There, he uncovers the life stories of its readers while looking for that career-making big scoop; searching, he finds the courage it takes to investigate truths as it examines the danger of reporting realities and the role of the media in giving – or sometimes silencing – a voice.
Having undertaken a short tour, joined by John Parker on double bass, and encouraged by the response, it was decided to turn it into an album, the songs recorded live with Knowles as the journalist, Stu as his editor and Debs as ‘The Mam’ as well as themselves.
Constructed in two acts, each with three scenes, and playing out over 68 minutes, I don’t propose giving away any of the plot, which examines local journalism’s (increasingly eroding) role. Still, it is guided by and centred around the various songs, opening with What Are We Trying To Say and the first scene proceeding through the housing issue themed Generation Rent, Before I Know It and Patterns. Moving to Scene 2 (which includes a plug for the tea towels Megson sell at their shows), the biting The Conspiracy Trap is offset with two of the duo’s more playful numbers, the village society rivalry tale of The Barrington Judo Club and, Parker adding bass, the brilliant football matched-based wisdom of The Longshot. In the brief three-minute Scene 3, Knowles relates the weekly editor’s meeting and his blinkered perspectives and reprises the opening number as music and words build in intensity.
Things are quieter as Act 2 opens with Stu singing Next Year with its resolutions to be better, the Journalist’s ensuing dialogue setting up (and spoken over the intro to) A Prayer For Hope, leading into the guitar and accordion of the waltzing We Are Better Than This opening Scene 2, the dialogue providing the bridge into the fingerpicked And Finally, a droll song inspired by a book of bizarre newspaper headlines.
The curtain comes down, back in the office, with the aftermath of events, neatly summing everything up, the line “seek truth and report it…stories matter” and the last number of the night for the show within the show, a reprise of Before I Know It about our addiction to instant fix smartphone social media that feeds our paranoia and neuroticism and which, sad to say, has also dumbed down far too many local newspapers in search of quick soundbite or clip to get an online click in a world where Facebook likes have become prioritised over actual journalism.
Serving as both a thoughtful commentary on how the news is obtained and reported and a potted live Megson concert, this most certainly warrants getting some metaphorical ink on your fingers.
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Upcoming gigs: https://www.megsonmusic.co.uk/events/