Winning hearts in North Korea

OPERA singer Suzannah Clarke could walk through Middlesbrough, her home town, without being recognised. More than 5,000 miles away in Pyongyang - capital of the totalitarian regime of North Korea, one of the world's most secretive states - it is different. She is a national hero. A rogue state poster girl: not many Boro lasses can claim that.

She sells out theatres, has performed for the leader, Kim Jong-il, and when she wanted to bring the state orchestra to England, she went straight to the parliament's vice president. As you do. Not bad for an ex-pupil of Stapylton Comprehensive.

The story begins in 1966. Which, strangely, is three years before Suzannah, 38, was born.

North Korea played Italy in the World Cup at Ayresome Park, Middlesbrough. Italy were favourites to win the tournament. North Korea won the match and Italy went home.

"If you say Middlesbrough over there, everyone knows where it is, because of the football," Suzannah says. "It is the only country in the world where I don't have to explain where I'm from. They still remember the welcome. They say the friendship shown to the team by the town in 1966 was very unusual."

In 2001, surviving members of the 1966 Korean team visited Middlesbrough, and Suzannah sang for them at the Riverside Stadium. Soon afterwards, she was invited by a friend to perform in North Korea.

"I instantly jumped at it - a wonderful way to see a different culture,"

she says. "I wanted to see for myself the reality, the truth. No one knew what it was like - not even the newspapers."

North Korea has fewer than 1,500 tourists each year. The paperwork won't help: visitors must provide, in advance, their passport details, curriculum vitae and a letter from their employer. Easy to see why most prefer Gran Canaria.

But when Suzannah arrived, she was welcomed as a VIP. She is from Middlesbrough, after all. If Paul Daniels fancies a comeback tour, he knows where to start.

"I was picked up in a car, which is rare enough - there aren't many cars in North Korea," she says.

"There was a police car at the front and another at the back.

"I was grilled with lots and lots of questions - I thought I was going to jail. But the woman asking the questions was my guide and just intensely curious.

She wanted to find out why I was there."

N OT everyone shared Suzannah's enthusiasm to visit a country named in the "Axis of Evil" by George W Bush in 2002. She asked 12 professional pianists to go; all declined. In the end, Tim Beveridge, an amateur pianist from Sunderland, joined her. They breed them tough in the North- East.

"People thought it wasn't a good place for a holiday," Suzannah says. "But I was interested because it was politically sensitive.

I wanted to see how it was for the people on the ground. I am nosey. One day it will get me into trouble."

During that first visit, Suzannah went to hospital with a stomach infection. But a dicky tummy did not deter her. She soon accepted a second invitation to visit. Suzannah has now been five times and plans another trip in May.

But is it right to visit North Korea? Is the Stapylton soprano implicitly condoning a barbaric, backward regime?

The communist leader, Kim Jong-il, tolerates no dissent. A US-based human rights group has estimated there are 200,000 political prisoners. All media is under direct state control and the state has been dubbed the world's worst violator of press freedom by the media rights body, Reporters Without Frontiers. Let's hope The Northern Echo isn't delivered in Pyongyang.

"People may say I am dealing with a country with a certain record," Suzannah says.

"But as I have said, the only way to deal with that is through engagement. Aggression creates a great deal of unhappiness.

"With a country like North Korea, if they are showing interest in engagement, then we must be open to that. They don't mind that I point out problems in their system. One of my guides said You are our critical friend'. I never did it an offensive way, and they appreciated that.

"I once said You don't have the opportunity to move around'. But they replied: Yes, but we don't have the crime you do'. When you travel around, it is very different and not always an easy experience.

But you learn an awful lot about how other people view your society."

L ike a teenage girl with a raffish boyfriend, Suzannah is keen to change the public perception of North Korea. She is organising a tour of England in September next year for the state orchestra and hopes they will perform in her home town. Almost all performers have never been abroad and most have not left Pyongyang. The roads aren't good enough.

"Three years ago, I saw the orchestra for the first time and I remember thinking I would love to bring them to England - they were fantastic," Suzannah says. "Three years ago it was not going to happen.

But a lot has changed and when I went back in April I thought it was the right time, the right atmosphere.

There has been a change in the country, and elsewhere.

"I approached the vice-president of the Supreme People's Assembly. He said Yes, that's fine'. I don't think there's ever been 135 people let out of the country in one go. When he said yes, I thought I can't let this go'.

"It's a huge project and still in its infancy. It will take military organisation to make sure we don't have people knocked over, or lost on the Tube."

The tour has created worldwide media interest.

Type "Suzannah Clarke North Korea" into Google News and results pop up from The Times, the Washington Post and the Asia Times Online, among others.

"It gets a bit much when the American media are phoning up while I'm on the toilet," she jokes. But if the tour helps end North Korea's political and cultural isolation, it will be worthwhile - toilet calls and all.

"When I first went I was treated tremendously,"

she says. "I was the first British performer to go there, which was very important to them. And secondly, I am from Middlesbrough."