Space Station Earth
Royal Albert Hall
Reviewed – 15th May 2022
★★
“I come away not really knowing what I have witnessed”
Two men dressed in flight suits enter the blue, dimly lit space and sit themselves down on armchairs at the front of the stage. They don’t introduce either themselves or each other but launch straight into a somewhat contrived chat. The packed Royal Albert Hall audience recognises British astronaut Tim Peake and treats his arrival with cheers fit for a national hero. If they don’t recognise show creator and music composer Ilan Eshkeri, they don’t let it show. For this is the first part – a Q&A session – of an “epic concert experience” created by Eshkeri in collaboration with the European Space Agency.
Tim speaks unassumingly of his time as an astronaut. We learn that he prefers The Beatles to The Stones, he’s a dog person rather than cat, and Marmite gets a thumbs up. But the questioning from Eshkeri doesn’t delve and we learn little of any import. There’s a big laugh when Tim says he is not allowed to answer whether he has seen alien lifeforms, followed by a collective intake of breath when he admits that he firmly believes such lifeforms do exist. Tim further states that it is impossible to describe in words what looking down onto the Earth is like, but he hopes the music of Eshkeri can do it in sound. I fear this may be asking too much of any composer.
And so, onto part two of the show. Projected onto three large screens are photographs of earth; images shot from space so that we see the earth through the eyes of the astronaut. Peake explains: Earth, home of humanity, is just a small blue oasis amidst the infinity of the absolute blackness that is space. Performing live against this backdrop is a twenty-five piece orchestra, a choir ensemble, and a rock band led by Eshkeri himself on violin, guitar, keyboards and piano, playing his own score written to augment the images. Synth-led – with important solo roles for cello, and soprano – the works of Philip Glass, Mike Oldfield and Ludovico Einaudi come to mind.
The images are stunningly beautiful: the moon, sun, and earth, the northern lights flickering their greens and yellows. But do we feel now what Tim has experienced for real – the Overview Effect – a change in outlook that astronauts admit to experiencing on their return to earth? I fear again this is one step too far for any sight and sound show to achieve. And after one relentless and impelling hour – but with no informative commentary or listed programme – I come away not really knowing what I have witnessed.
For the final track, Tim Peake is invited to the stage, electric guitar in hand, to join in with the band. It’s a nice touch with which to close the performance even if, amidst the coloured light show, our astronaut hero seems to not quite know what he is doing there.
Space Station Earth continues with a European tour featuring guest astronauts in their home countries.
Reviewed by Phillip Money
Space Station Earth
Royal Albert Hall
Other shows reviewed by Phillip this year:
Holst: The Music in the Spheres | ★★★★★ | Jack Studio Theatre | January 2022
Payne: The Stars are Fire | ★★★ | Jack Studio Theatre | January 2022
Animal Farm | ★★★★ | Cambridge Arts Theatre | February 2022
Richard II | ★★★★★ | Jack Studio Theatre | February 2022
The Wellspring | ★★★ | Royal & Derngate | March 2022
The Woods | ★★★ | Southwark Playhouse | March 2022
I Know I Know I Know | ★★★★ | Southwark Playhouse | April 2022
The Homecoming | ★★★★★ | Cambridge Arts Theatre | April 2022
The Paradis Files | ★★★★ | Queen Elizabeth Hall | April 2022
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