Mojo: Fish are jumping, and the cotton is high!

Just over a week ago I was privileged enough to attend a performance of ‘Mojo’, written by Jez Butterworth, at the Harold Pinter Theatre just off Leicester Square, and I am still exhausted yet hyped up by the experience. Compelling, mesmerising and very, very funny.

That the cast will have managed to perform the play six more times since then speaks volumes about their fitness and dedication. The amount of energy expended must be enormous, let alone the vocal strength required to deliver lines at such a high volume and speed throughout the evening. Mojo, at least this production of it, is a thrilling and fast paced black comedy – the audience needs their wits about them to catch all the jokes and banter.

And that’s not taking account of the amazing amount of talent crammed on to that smallish stage.

If the play was cast with one eye to attracting a cross section of the populace who are not necessarily theatre goers, they succeeded: for the older Downton Abbey afficianados, there was Brendan Coyle, strutting around the stage without the aid of a walking stick using language that would give the Dowager Countess palpitations; for the younger Harry Potter set there was Rupert Grint in his first live theatre show, and I did spot a few familiar Ron Weasley scared faces on stage; and in between there was Colin Morgan, fresh from his TV exposure as Merlin, which I have to admit I’ve never seen, but may do so if Morgan’s performance on screen is as good as on stage.

Add in Daniel Mays, who everyone recognises from somewhere, and the relative newcomer Tom Rhys Harries, and you already have a stellar cast list, but for me the icing on the cake was the chance to see Ben Whishaw on stage: a much anticipated treat. And he didn’t disappoint – if there was a star of the show – and it was very much a collective piece – he was it, albeit by a short way. 

The play is set over a couple of hot July days in 1958, in a seedy Soho nightclub which, judging by an article in the programme, is very loosely based on the 2i’s coffee bar where real life Elvis wannabes were discovered – Cliff Richard, Marty Wilde... In the first scene we see their fictional counterpart, Silver Johnny, backstage preparing for his performance which, we later learn, is being watched by some important people. Right from the start, the tone is set as Johnny struts, jives, drinks, adjusts his hair – among other things  - and generally gives off an aura of extreme nervousness.

The next two characters we meet are Potts and his sidekick Sweets (so called because he provides the pills most of the characters are forever popping, which does nothing to dispel their edginess). Mays’ Potts is a sharp suited, oily quaffed fifties spiv, who anticipates a share in the dosh Silver Johnny’s talent will make for the team. He and Grint’s Sweets sit at a table in the upper room of the nightclub while the show is going on below them, and via their nervous banter the audience learns that Sam Ross, so rich his shoes are made of ‘baby fucking buckskin handstitched by elves’ is being schmoozed by the nightclub owner, Ezra. Sam, Potts asserts, will take Johnny to America and make them all rich. Given his physical jitters, one wonders who he is trying to convince.

As the rest of the cast appear, the atmosphere becomes even more stressed as the tensions between the characters add to their individual anxieties. Skinny Luke (Morgan), the cloakroom attendant, is clearly in awe of Ezra’s son Baby, simultaneously wanting to copy his clothes, for which Baby derides him, and in constant fear of possible violence from him. 

Baby himself (Whishaw) is a complex mix of psychotic tendencies, one minute chasing Skinny around the room armed with a sword, or throwing chairs through the air, the next almost catatonic and unresponsive, the next demanding and menacing. In one memorable scene he goes out to buy toffee apples for everyone, as a gesture of solidarity, but no sooner has he handed them round than his personality has undergone another change and he demands that Skinny pay him for them. Gradually we learn a few facts about his background - that he has been abused by his father for instance - which help us sympathise with him.

The following morning we meet the final character, Ezra’s manager Mickey, who brings the news of Ezra’s murder the night before. In the face of the disbelief of the others, Mickey and Skinny, who aligns himself to the person he believes has the power to protect him, assert the truth of the murder by announcing the body was found in the bins. In two bins, they clarify. Silver Johnny meanwhile has disappeared, presumably kidnapped by Sam Ross who was reluctant to share the proceeds of his talent.

The rest of the play explores the effect of the murder on the depleted team as Mickey and Baby vie for control and the rest desperately try to hold on to some form of sanity and security in the face of the threat of Sam coming back to deal with the rest of them. Mickey clearly knows what Baby is capable of and by turns placates and confronts him. 

Nervousness, insecurity and fear are at the very centre of Mojo, which can be read as a study in these emotions and their impact on characters who are already damaged. While Sweets and Skinny try invasion to find security in the shadow of peopple the wrongly perceive as more powerful and assured than themselves, Potts blusters his way through, Mickey bullies and Baby is terrifyingly calm and violent by turns. The only character who has recognised talent meanwhile is treated, quite literally, as a piece of meat by the others.

In the end, despite Mickey’s posturing and assumption of the role of leader, he can only throw out pointless orders, and it is left to Baby to finally take action to get Johnny back, which he does armed with a cleaver which – he tells the assembled horrified cast – has left Ross with a bit of a headache. In recovering the star however, the psychotic Baby has made a discovery about the betrayal of his father which forms the climax of the play, leading to another murder and finally destroying the nightclub team forever.

Judged purely on the plot, Mojo would be a depressing play. However, there is so much comedy of character, such as Potts' immediate joy on discovering Silver Johnny has returned (albeit that he is strung up by his ankles with Baby watching him intently) - Potts' exclamation of his trademark 'Fish are jumping and the cotton is high!' betrays his complete failure to understand the situation. Baby meanwhile, asserts that he has been spurred into taking action because: 'There's nothing like having your Dad cut in half to focus the mind'.

Can't argue with that!

Eb's Palsy 2

So how exactly does Erb's Palsy affect my life?

I have to think carefully about this because my first reply is that it doesn't, that I never notice it because I have had an impairment in my arm all my life and have learned to live with it: as I have learned any skill it is by incorporating the needs of my Erb's arm into it. There has never been a time - at least since birth - when I had the full use of my left arm so, unlike people who have sustained an injury in an accident for example, I know no different.

But of course the impairment in my arm has affected my life and the way I live it day to day.

I can remember in my early childhood being encourged to exercise my arm and being stubbornly resistant. None of my friends had to do exercises, so why should I? Why indeed, my mother probably thought, and let me be.

One of the first occasions on which I remember my arm being a problem was learning to play tennis. Although not a great sportswoman - as much due to my build and personality as to my arm - I had coped happily with rounders (the bat is held in both hands) table tennis (bat held in right hand and left hand simply has to hold the ping pong ball) and hockey. Tennis was fine until I learned to serve. The motion of throwing the tennis ball into the air ready to strike with the racket was impossible for me, since my Erb's hand refuses to rotate any further than a vertical plane, with the palm facing inwards. Throwing the ball up demands a palm-upwards posture.

So I developed my own style of serve, in which I held the ball with my hand facing downwards, and then flicked the hand back so the the ball was propelled in an upwards direction. Not as powerful as the correct movement, but it got the ball more or less where I wanted it to go. I have no memory of speaking to anyone about this - the teacher either failed to notice that I was doing it differently or - more likely - left me to find my own way through the challenge.

The next problem wa drying my hair - I could hold the hairdryer in my right hand or I could brush my hair with my right hanbd - neither was possible with a left arm which refused to move above shoulder height under its own steam.

I got round it by positioning the brush with my right hand, transferring it to my left and then picking up the dryer. Until my mother bought me a hair dryer with a brush attachment - it was, typically, her who felt upset by my inability to manipulate brush and dryer properly rather than me.

At no point do I ever remember being bullied about my arm. Yes, there were bullies in school and like many children I was picked on at times, but it was for completely other things. Very few people ever mentioned my impaired movement and when I spoke to close friends most said they had never noticed it - they may have thought I approached some tasks rather awkwardly but they thought that was just me. One boyfriend, when I shared the story of my birth, remarked: 'I did notice that your arm was a bit awkward when you do certain things, but I thought it was because you have big boobs and you have had to work round them!'

I know there are a whole range of severities of injury that come under the Erb's umbrella, and many sufferers will be more or less affected than me, but I have never really thought of myself as disabled in any way, and maybe this in itself has helped me cope.

As I have recounted above, I was taken for physiotherapy for the first two years of my life and my parents spent many distressing hours manipulating my arm to try to encourage the greatest movement and flexibility possble, and they did a brilliant job.

I understand that nowadays surgery is often performed to release the joint and aid movement: this was never an option offered to my parents, and I can't say whether I would have been a good candidate for a surgical procedure and what the outcome might have been. At least the parents of today seem to have access to better information about the range of options open to them, although of course this brings with it the responsibility to choose the way forward for their own child and the pressure of wondering whether the path they choose is really the best possible option for their little one.

Any childhood trauma is always going to impact just as much as, if not more on the parents than the child as I know from the time when my own son broke his ankle. It was him who had to undergo an operation to pin the broken bone, but it was me who bore the anxiety and hurt of seeing my baby - I use the term loosely as he was a strapping six foot tall fifteen year old at the time - suffer. When they had to inject him, knowing how scared he is of needles, I could have wept, and more than once I wished fervently that it could have been me rather than him going through the pain and trauma of an operation. In comparison, having a major operation myself was a breeze.

So I fully understand any parent who decides not to put their child through surgery, either because of the temporary suffering it will cause, or so that they can feel as normal as possible. Equally, I admire those who choose this route because they believe and hope it will give their child the best possible quality of life, whatever trauma that path may involve.

In some ways though, I am relieved that my parents did not have to make such choices, even though it is tempting to wonder what the outcomes would have been.

After the programme referred to in the last post, I was moved to look on the internet for information about Erb's Palsy, whiich led me to a brilliant support group, whose website can be found here:

http://www.erbspalsygroup.co.uk

It was through reading about the experiences of members of this group that I learned that my experience is nowhere near as unusual as I had supposed; that the birth injury that causes Erb's Palsy is recognised and sadly is still happening today. There are mothers and fathers with young children and tiny babies having to come to terms with the heartbreak that my own parents faced fifty five years ago.

 Wouldn't you think that the condition could be avoided nowadays with education, care and awareness raising?

Erb's Palsy

Ever heard of Erb's Palsy? I certainly hadn't until I saw a television programme last month, about Kaiser Wilhelm.

It was one of those things that feel like fate but in reality was pure chance. Scrolling through the channels in search of something to watch, there was what appeared to be a documentary about the Kaiser from the point of view of his childhood and his status as Queen Victoria's eldest grandchild. I am interested in history and so for want of something better to watch I stayed with the channel.

To start with it was more or less as I had expected - an account of Princess Vicky's marriage to the German Kaiser and Wilhelm's eagerly anticipated birth, during which there were complications rustling in a deformity to his arm. Yes, I knew he had had a deformed arm, but there was something strangely familiar with the story of his birth, and some of the extra details about his shoulder joint being affected made me pay more attention.

But even then it wasn't until a beautiful young Paralympic athlete called Rachel Latham was interviewed, and she demonstrated her own disability, that I realised. Or rather, until my husband pointed out: 'Her arm is exactly like yours'. He was referring to the limited movement and characteristic position at which it rested, with the hand turned backwards and outwards: what I now know is referred to as the 'waiter's tip' posture, for obvious reasons.

But the end of the programme I had learned that the condition which I have had since birth is called Erb's Palsy, that it is a recognised condition and that - sadly, although avoidable, there are still babies being born affected in this way.

My own story is that, like all Erb's Palsy sufferers, I was perfectly formed while in my mother's womb. I was born prematurely and, unlike many Erb's babies, comparatively small at five and a half pounds. My problem was that I was a breech presentation, just like Wilhelm.

Apparently the doctors had already turned me in the womb but just like the stubborn person I still am, I had turned back again so they had no option but to deliver me feet - or rather bottom- first. I suppose a Caesarian might have been an option but Mum was never offered one and I was not at that time in a position to question the medical staff on their decision. I was too busy being born.

So out I came, and Mum tells me I effectively got stuck and had to be helped out. In pulling me out of the womb, somehow my left arm got dragged out of position and I was born with my arms, not crossed in front of me like most babies', but one up above my shoulder.

Once born, I was examined and my parents were given the bad news: some nerves and ligaments in my shoulder had been damaged. This would in turn affect the muscle movement and strength and the result would be that my left arm would be permanently unusable and paralysed.it would fail to grow and instead would wither, the consultant informed them.

To my eternal gratitude, my father refused point blank to accept this diagnosis, and for ever after, while Mum referred to an 'accident at birth', he called it 'a bloody stupid midwife'. In those days, before litigation became the name of the game, no one ever suggested, as far as I know, suing for compensation and while I have nothing but praise and love for how my parents handled things, clearly, from what I now know, he was right and someone should have been held accountable for their actions. If only to stop more babies being damaged in this way. It breaks my heart to know this is still happening today.

Dad did however insist on being referred to someone higher up and I was recommended for physiotherapy. So every week for the next two years, my parents drove the fifteen miles to Norwich and back for appointments, and each and every day, often, they have told me, with tears pouring down their cheeks, they obediently manipulated and exercised my left arm as the physiotherapist instructed them. I still have the small sandbag, about four inches square, which Dad made to put under my arm as I lay in my pram, to stretch it and keep it extended.

I am absolutely convinced that without the work my parents put in during my first two years of life, the grim prognosis made at birth would have been my destiny.

Once I was discharged from physiotherapy mum and dad continued with the exercises until I was old enough to complain, and as I grew they did try to persuade me to exercise my arm myself, but you know how kids are - I couldn't see the point, I was happy with my arm as it was and I resisted. I could blame my parents for not being more forceful about this but I think they wanted me to be as normal as possible, and none of my school friends had to exercise their arms every day, so why make me feel different?

Anyway, the result of their own efforts was that my arm grew almost, but not quite, as long as the other; it won't straighten but only by about 15 degrees, I can't propel it above shoulder height and I can't turn the palm to face the sky.

But I can: live a normal life; drive a car (and a bus!); cuddle my husband with both arms; hold my children; ride a bike; swim; have a career; play the piano and guitar, and type these words with both hands.

I have so much to be grateful for.