JOHNNY FLYNN & THE SUSSEX WIT
BST Summer Time
Hyde Park, London
Sunday 15thJuly 2018
SET LIST
See below. I was unfamiliar with the songs and will be grateful for additions and corrections. They were researched from scribbling a line of lyric then googling.
1 Raising The Dead
2 In The Deepest
3 Barleycorn
4 The Water
5 Churlish May ???
6 Cold Bread
7 Tickle Me Pink
8 Murmuration
9 The Box
THE SUSSEX WIT
Johnny Flynn – guitar, mandolin, vocals
Lillie Flynn – vocals
David Beauchamp – drums
Adam Beach – bass
Joe Zeitlin – cello
Johnny Flynn, Hyde Park, side TV screen
– Have you seen Johnny Flynn before?
– Good question. Four times.
He was Best Supporting Actor in Jez Butterworth’s Jerusalem, opposite McKenzie Crook and Mark Rylance. Arguably the best play of the last twenty years.
Right, then he was with Mark Rylance again in the Globe’s “Authentic Practices” Shakespeare productions in 2012. Authentic Practices means as in Shakespeare’s time, with all parts played by men. Johnny Flynn had been in Propellor, the all-male company earlier. He played Viola in Twelfth Night and Lady Anne and Lord Grey in Richard III. Fantastic.
Then he appeared in the “Best Play of 2015”, Martin McDonagh’s Hangmen at the Royal Court. Yes, I’ve seen him. Major actor.
– Ah, but have you seen him with his band?
– No … is that the same Johnny Flynn?
– Yes.
– Phew. I never realized.
– He wrote the theme song for The Detectorists.
– I’ve watched every episode at least twice … that makes sense. McKenzie Crook was in Jerusalem with him. There’s the connection. I failed to make it.
– But what about Johnny Flynn & The Sussex Wit?
– Well, I’ve heard of them …
– He’s been making acclaimed albums for ten years …
It’s weird how stuff just passes beneath your radar. I’d read album reviews which sounded promising. Somewhere between Mumford & Sons and Laura Marling with a touch of Bellowhead? My sort of thing.
(As an aside, Johnny Flynn was brought up in Winchester, as was Jon Boden of Bellowhead. Previous act Ward Thomas is from Hampshire too. When I was born, Bournemouth was in Hampshire but was moved to Dorset in 1971 … or rather the county boundaries were redrawn. My chest swells with Hampshire pride … so why is his band called The Sussex Wit?)
Reviewing is odd when the songs are new. Normally I go to previous setlists, print them off and just tick or number. With most artists, I know 90% of the songs anyway. Here I’m in new territory, and old setlists don’t help with such a short set. Tickle Me Pink from Hyde Park is on YouTube. So what you do is scribble a line of lyrics that stand out and check afterwards. So I started reading Johnny Flynn lyrics on line. Outstanding, got lost in them. Found myself reading to the end.
His sister, Lille Flynn (also an actor) is in the band. And we’ve seen her too … she was Mrs Fox (the lead) in Fantastic Mr Fox at the Nuffield and on tour. As we note, everyone seems able to play an instrument and sing in the theatre nowadays! She sang, played keyboards, I think she played bass guitar in one too.
They swop around on instruments, Johnny Flynn mainly on guitar, though he switched to mandolin for Cold Bread. The sound? Yes, sometimes the reference has a cheerfully raucus Celtic tinge … I thought of The Waterboys at times, Bellowhead at others, except that Johnny Flynn is intent on creating new songs in a folk lyric idiom rather than reviving them.
The back projections were all works of art!
I’m now intent on seeing Johnny Flynn and The Sussex Wit in a full set situation rather than this severely cut down festival set.
It’s happened before … the last album is on order from amazon. I can see myself working through the others steadily.
JOHNNY FLYNN LINKS ON THIS BLOG
There are pictures in all the reviews
Hangmen, by Martin McDonagh, Royal Court, London 2015
Twelfth Night, Globe / Apollo 2012 (Viola)
Richard III Globe, Apollo 2012 (Lady Anne / Lord Grey)
Jerusalem by Jez Butterworth, 2011
LILLIE FLYNN LINK
Fantastic Mr Fox, Nuffield Theatre, 2016
A Midsummer Night’s Dream,Watermill 2018
Macbeth, Watermill, 2019
Peter Viney's Blog 
Interesting that you made Bellowhead comparison. I saw the band a lot (perhaps a dozen times) and I can see the comparison: a wall of sound, a willingness to step away from convention, a passion for the music that is more important than gaining some limelight. Johnny goes one further of course: he writes his own lyrics and doesn’t lean solely on history. His lyrics could stand alone as poetry as well… they really are that good. The song ‘Murmuration’ is so good, in fact, that I barely regret never having seen the real thing (though it’s on my bucket list). Can’t wait to see them in a smaller setting: I have a feeling that’s when they really shine.
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