The floating venue has firmly established itself as a cultural powerhouse in Tower Hamlets and must be supported and protected by those in power
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The reason silent films, were presented with live musical accompaniment before the advent of the talkies is hardly a mystery.
Overlay images with melody and the combination of sound and vision immediately delivers double the sensory input for the audience.
We’ve evolved to depend on both our ears and our eyes, so the fact we respond so readily to the two together isn’t especially surprising.
What is unexpected, perhaps, is the depth of the reaction they can provoke.
Recently, Theatreship on the Isle Of Dogs hosted a screening of Soviet classic Man With A Movie Camera alongside largely improvised music from Owen Spafford on violin and Joe Harvey-Whyte on pedal steel and electronics.
Part of the venue’s Silent Film With New Sound season, supported by the BFI, the evening was sold out.
Who knew in 2026 that people, with all the digital distractions in the world, would choose to spend an evening watching a 97-year-old black and white movie?
But those who attended won’t need me to tell them what a treat this marriage of the sonic and the silver screen was.
Firstly, there’s the film itself. Directed by Dziga Vertov and shot in Kyiv, Kharkiv and Odesa in Ukraine, the feel is of a day-in-the-life piece showing the activities, technologies and behaviours of the time.
But its far more than that. Deliberately experimental, the film constantly shows the camera man and the set-up of the shots before revealing the results.
There are even scenes where we see the painstaking process of editing the piece together, with rolls of celluloid sliced up and labelled ready for composition.
But, while the piece is in part a meditation of the process of making film, it’s also brave, funny, sweet and, at times, shocking.
Amongst other things we see are a live birth and a corpse of a man in an open casket, presumably on his way to a funeral.
We’re shown trolley buses, factories and city dwellers at work and play.
In some senses it’s like stepping into a time machine. In others it’s more familiar than you might expect, after nearly a century of change.
But it’s really the skill of Owen and Joe that lends this extraordinary work meaning.
It takes a special kind of genius to craft sounds that sit so perfectly with the flickering screen and make it almost impossible to imagine watching Man With A Movie Camera without them.
From the musicians we get a highly nuanced spectrum of emotions that burst forth from the monochrome shots – Irish-tinged melancholy, exuberance, jagged, dissonant uncertainty, passion and even fear.
Watching is a rich experience, heavy with almost tangible appreciation from a packed auditorium.
5/5
*****
protecting the future
- The benefit of having Theatreship locally might be seen as similarly complementary to the lift that Owen and Joe’s music can deliver to silent images.
If normal everyday lives are the reels of film, then cultural venues are the soundtrack.
Taking the latter away is akin to muting existence for those who have come to relish and participate in this community.
I mention this because plans to demolish the nearby Sierra Quebec Bravo building at 77 Marsh Wall and replace it with a new residential tower are in the works and place something of a question mark over the future of Theatreship and Artship’s ability to operate.
At a time when venues are closing, the first new significant cultural additions to the Isle Of Dogs for many years must be protected and supported in their activities both during the build and after.
Hopefully the developer, Tower Hamlets Council and the Canal And River Trust will jointly recognise and fight for the clear benefits these remarkable craft deliver for local residents and, indeed, those considering a move to the area through the planning process.
These boats are golden assets for the borough and are just getting into their stride.
They should be treated as such by all parties to these proposals.
key details: Theatreship / 77 Marsh Wall
You can find out more about Theatreship and Artship here, Owen Spafford here and Joe Harvey-Whyte here.
You can see the 77 Marsh Wall consultation website here and the planning application here.
Read more: Check out Choir Boy’s joyful story at Stratford East
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