Off The Wall

24 Nov 2010 in Dance & Drama, Outer Hebrides, Showcase

An Lanntair, Stornoway, Isle of Lewis, 22 November 2010

ANDY KIRKPATRICK’S Off The Wall was billed as a comedy evening by a stand-up mountaineer. I sat for the first half at the peripheries, as an Lanntair was packed near capacity. It was the wrong side to be able to report in detail what went on. The presentation takes the form of a slideshow but the voiceover is delivered with manic intensity.

The images were stunning and Andy Kirkpatrick’s own audio-visual material flawless. But the sound was not sharp enough for this audience-member to cope with the Sheffield twang and the rhythms which come at a pace that means the monologue has to interrupt itself to keep to speed.

Mountaineer, author and comedian Andy Kirkpatrick

My problem was that the talk-through style meant that the mountaineer-comedian’s voice was shifting from the screen to the sector a little stage right of the middle of the audience. If you were out further from the sightline you were struggling. Still, I thought the back and sometimes side of his head were quite presentable in a stocky, determined kind of way.

But I still caught the offhand commentary and followed the digital dot up the routes to realise that this modest seeming chap is describing an ascent of the North Face of the Eiger. Yes, that is the one in the movie where two men with bodies like gods die trying to fulfill the route as part of the great resurgence of national German pride.

But maybe that film also indicated that all climbers are really racing themselves. This performance caught every bit of that tension – like Steve Coogan in the Alps. Except that Kirkpatrick has completed a series of the world’s most technically demanding climbs. So if he wasn’t funny it would still be interesting.

So I asked around at the interval and found that most people had been able to tune in to the pace and the accent. I moved to the middle of the auditorium at the front row and tuned in to the detail. I’m so grateful that I did because something huge was delivered with the lightest touch possible.

The Gaelic word nàdarrachd is also in Stornoway lingo because it has a connotation that “naturalness’ just doesn’t seem to cover. I’d say it applied to Kirkpatrick’s personality. He is able to make connections with people he’s never met before, sometimes at the foot of mountains where the act of mutual trust is a matter of life and death. He seems to revel in the offbeat challenges and in characters of people who have to do things a little different to most of us.

Some of the characters he brings to us on stage have no choice – they have had terrible accidents or have been wounded in warfare. It takes a while, enjoying the banter, now that I’ve tuned into the pace and have a sightline, to realise he has returned again and again to one of the world’s toughest vertical climbs. And it seems that Captain Kirk was there too.

Andy Kirkpatrick on a wall in Patagonia (© Andy Kirkpatrick)

I think I know how his storytelling works. He relives the routes each time he relates the adventure. We returned to a section of El Capitan’s Reticent Wall, to meet challenge after challenge. El Capitan is a 3000-foot (910 m) vertical rock formation in Yosemite National Park, located on the north side of Yosemite Valley, near its western end. When they say “wall”, that’s a fair description. It’s a climb that’s mainly vertical and involves means of hauling your own mass up the pins and wedges that can protect you when you slip.

The nature of the rock came alive for us. But Kirkpatrick also sketched a portrait of the personality of his girlfriend and companion on one climb of this wall. Karen Darke has been paraplegic since a climbing accident. She has reached Olympic standard in a cycle powered by movement of hands rather than legs. She had the determination needed to attempt this grueling ascent. And though he never said it, Kirkpatrick clearly had the wit and guts and sheer bolshy humanity needed to sign-up for helping her get to the top.

There were also little asides like his story of pairing up with the couple (via the Isle of Lesbos) who were grand banter but hadn’t actually done much climbing. They were freaked on day one, but somehow we followed a brilliantly presented summary which showed not only Karen but the two assistants all achieving the climb.

And then there was a return to the challenge of climbing it solo. And solo in 24 hours. And in the company of two latter-day Californian freak brothers who were talking that chilled-out sterotype quite seriously. They got to the top too.

And finally there was a return with a man who had risen from the ranks to become a British army Major, but is now also a paraplegic. However, this is a survivor who depends on a drug cocktail with a heavy morphine element just to function. The ascent was filmed and Kirkpatrick gave his voice a few minutes break as we were drawn into superb footage which caught the sheer physical struggle of this damaged man’s fight to continue one of the most physically arduous feats it’s possible to imagine.

And then there’s the logistic nightmare of having to evacuate solids from your body. The leader’s answer to that one was bagels – no food but bagels and eating the minimum because the one hour it would take to perform the evacuation of the bowels could mean the difference between success and failure in a geography where savage weather systems move in fast. Bears are prowling ready to make the most of the solo climbers who judged it wrong.

Again, we shared in the relief and triumph of seeing the Major helped over the top. Kirkpatrick made light of it all, never stressed the role of the trainer and motivator and technical guru who brought himself and a whole tribe of others, some of them with disadvantages it’s near impossible to imagine, to personal triumph.

There’s no script – he might have a set of gags that he can include but I’m sure his monologues work because he is back with these people in that place.

I met him afterwards and he talked a bit about nearly drowning with Karen, canoeing off Cape Wrath. I’ve not long returned from navigating these waters in a 27ft open boat and I found it arduous. And yes, he was funny as he was describing it all – well, it did have a happy ending. I don’t use the word “inspiring” lightly but I’d say this was a man who inspired us in the most irreverent way.

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