Review: Mugenkyo Taiko Drummers: IN TIME 30th Anniversary Tour at Theatre by the Lake

“…fun, captivating and truly energising….”

Mugenkyo Taiko Drummers, Theatre by the Lake

By Ken Powell

I last reviewed Mugenkyo, performing at Keswick’s Theatre by the Lake, near the end of 2019. It was one of the very last reviews for Northern Arts Review before everything was mothballed as Covid took hold of the world. There is a real sense of poignancy for me as I write these words, recalling the immense power and energy exuded by every member of this Japanese-style taiko drumming group contrasted with the emptiness and silence of our theatres that followed for many months to come.

Six years later, and here they are back in Keswick again. We may all be (much) older now, but while I have to be careful not to throw my back out when doing the gardening, Mugenkyo haven’t lost any of their energy and sheer physicality.

What’s remarkable about this is that the two founders – Neil Mackie and Miyuki Williams – have been doing this for thirty years; hence this anniversary tour. While it is obvious they are powerfully built – you can’t bang those massive drums for years without gaining tremendous upper body strength – it is their stamina that bewilders me. For two hours, most of the team played for most of the time, with just a twenty-minute interval – during which they were out in the auditorium by their stand, selling their merchandise and chatting with everyone with as much energy and enthusiasm as they displayed on the stage.

Was the night as great as I remember it from those pre-Covid days? Mostly yes. There were more introductory talks from Neil Mackie as he explained the pieces and the history of the group. I feel doing all of this at the beginning would have been better than the regular interruptions that broke the spell in many ways. While they are all brilliant performers, Mackie is a more nervous speaker which is endearing but also slightly irritating.

But from around the middle of the first half onwards, the interruptions lessened and Mugenkyo got on with doing what they do best: making percussive magic. The earlier pieces had been pretty impressive but from Fire Tribe onwards the audience was whisked away into magical worlds. Mugenkyo don’t just bang big drums. Their postures, moves and use of colourful silks and various paraphernalia means that you get a visual feast every bit as incredible as the wall of sound that permeates your body, your seat and the very air around you. Chronos, for example, is as creepy as anything, as the group dons masks and perform in semi-darkness making them appear ethereal and ghostly. Truly haunting, the piece transports you to a strange and disquieting otherworld.

But it’s not all heavy and imposing soundscapes. This is a group that loves to have fun too. The surprise member is Stuart Ford who whips out a banjo to give us a wonderful Deliverance-style duel with Miyuki and others competing on the drums. It is hilarious – especially as they don MAGA-style caps to gently mock the current political situation in a certain country at the moment. The joke was well appreciated by the audience.

Indeed, the audience was surprisingly appreciative in general. Bearing in mind that a fair proportion of them was well into retirement age, it was astounding to hear the whoops and cheers as the night progressed and to see so many rise to their feet to give a well-deserved standing ovation. They didn’t even seem to mind the slightly incongruous pop music played a little too loudly on the speakers to see the show out. Instead, everyone left delighted and buzzing with energy as though somehow the energy put into pounding those drums had been transferred to us.

So overall, I was glad to see these old friends back again and my feeling is that others in the audience felt the same. It was a celebration, not just of the longevity of the group, but also of this remarkable style of making performance music. The performers seemed genuinely as pleased to be there as the audience was to watch them. It was fun, captivating and truly energising.

Mugenkyo Taiko Drummers plays at Theatre by the Lake on Sunday 23 March.

Ken Powell is chief editor for Northern Arts Review and is also a bestselling author and writer for various publications around the world. A former school teacher, he continues to write educational books along with fiction and travelogues. You can find all his books and various websites here including his popular TEDx talk about the Global Village. He lives with his family in a wonderfully isolated village in West Cumbria where he enjoys drinking tea, chatting with the birds and winding up his dog. You can support his work (or just buy him a coffee) here.