"No, Mr Oesophagus, I am not going to swallow."or "Wrongholitis" for mixed ensemble and audience.

Something smelled fishy when the audience was handed paper and a choice of pens and were politely asked to doodle throughout the music. One was led to believe that it was some experimental way of seeing how the audience interpreted the music in drawings, so as to see what it invoked. But the audience participation didn't stop there.

The music itself started out reminiscent of a Strauss waltz on acid, very rigid and tight but slightly insane with nasally high trumpets and squeaky violins and all performers required to play at the very highest and lowest register of their instruments. Yes, but no, nothing particularly challenging.

The real fun began when an audience member creaked very loudly on a chair and this was echoed throughout the ensemble almost mocking the sound. A loud yawn from another audience member yieled a similar result.  After the over-loud rustling of sweet papers tickled its way through the registers of instruments in a similar way (all these motifs supplanted fragments of the waltz which carried on regardless), one became suspiscious that there were plants in the audience (of course there were). A few people crumpled up their doodle paper and tore it to shreds.

The formality of the usual performer/audience roles began to slip; people started trying to make subtle noises to interact with the ensemble, at first self-consciously, then more and more deliberately. One became ever more suspicious and confused that you weren't the only member of the audience not in on the joke as whatever happened in the audience was echoed again and again on the stage. The interminable - and by now grating - waltz continued over and again, refreshed only by what the audience gave it.

Then the trombones began to appear disgruntled with the conductor. At first it was just frowns and glances and then they deliberately tried to destroy the order in the waltz, playing whatever they wanted whenever they wanted, loud and obnoxiously. Eventually, one stood up and eloquently shouted over the music how utterly fed up he was and walked off. And the other two followed him off the stage. Anarchy erupted throughout the ensemble, and in the audience too. People were starting to get up and dance manically and sing along etc.

Eventually, a grey haired man walked up to the conductor, tapped him on the shoulder and told him he would sooner die than listen to any more of this hullaboo and produced pills from his jacket. The music stopped abruptly. The applause was not forthcoming.

This was billed as a piece of music rather than musical theatre, and although it was an uncomfortable and hysterical experience, it certainly did much to parody the lack of ownership that an audience has of the performers. Barriers were broken and you were forced to look at the players not just as sentient machines producing sounds for your enjoyment, but as real personalities. Of course this is not the case with audiences of other musics - rock, jazz, folk etc musicians all have a relationship with their audience. But classical music is so restricted by its formality, it was both unnerving and euphoric to see an interaction between the two camps.

On leaving, there was a further joke. What had appeared to be a sleeping or dead statue in the foyer had got up and walked out, leaving a note smeared in cement, "left, in disgust" and a trail of concrete footprints behind him. That'll take some cleaning in the morning!

7/10