'Mr Wilder and Me' by Jonathan Coe

22 May 2025

Having enjoyed Jonathan Coe’s latest novel 'The Proof of My Innocence' (reviewed here in December 2024) I realised there was a gap in my Jonathan Coe collection. I had somehow missed his 2020 book ‘Mr Wilder and Me’, which I have now read as an unabridged audio book (narrated by Kristin Atherton). In a break from Coe’s novels set against the backdrop of recent British politics, this gentle elegiac story recounts a teenager in 1976 meeting the legendary veteran film director Billy Wilder. As he approaches the end of his career Wilder - famous for his classic comedies - is trying to make a more serious, personal movie that is not really working. Coe takes the opportunity not just to indulge his own cinephile enthusiasms but also to reflect on the experience of those who lived through the horrors of the Second World War and the difficult relationship Jewish filmmakers who left Europe for Hollywood then had with their home continent. But it is tempting to see Coe himself in this novel - famous for his satirical comedies and now trying to write a more serious, personal book which doesn’t entirely work. Nevertheless I love Jonathan Coe’s distinctive voice and carefully constructed narrative and it was good to fill this omission in my knowledge of his works.

'The Brightening Air' by Conor McPherson

14 May 2025

On Saturday we were at the Old Vic theatre in London to see ‘The Brightening Air’ - a new play written and directed by Conor McPherson, author of ‘The Weir’. Set in a remote farmhouse in County Sligo in 1981, ‘The Brightening Air’ is a dark comic tale of family relationships, focussing on three grown-up siblings and the inheritance of their family home. The influence of Chekov is plain from the start and the Irish setting reminded me of the production of 'Vanya', adapted by Simon Stephens starring Andrew Scott, that we saw last year (reviewed here in February 2024). ‘The Brightening Air’ - which takes its title from a poem by W.B. Yeats - also clearly belongs in the tradition of Irish drama from J.M. Synge to Martin McDonagh (with some particular similarities to Synge’s ‘The Well of The Saints’). The Old Vic production has a great cast, including Chris O’Dowd and Brian Gleeson as the warring brothers and Rosie Sheehy (who we last saw as Puck in the RSC production of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’, reviewed here in March 2024) stealing the show as their autistic sister Billie. There are some wonderful comic lines and brilliant set-piece scenes. It was very enjoyable and I might have been missing something about the allusions to Irish folklore and magic but I wasn’t sure it all added up to a completely coherent plot. 

Northampton Symphony Orchestra concert

7 May 2025

Last Saturday's Northampton Symphony Orchestra concert featured Prokofiev's 'Symphony No 7', which I first played in 1988 as a member of the Manchester Youth Orchestra. Despite having not played the symphony in the intervening years I was amazed, when we started rehearsing it in March 2025, how well I remembered it. There was a rigour to the youth orchestra approach that means I can still remember subdividing the beats to determine the precise lengths of particular notes. Prokofiev's final symphony feels like a companion piece to his first. 'Symphony No 1 (The Classical Symphony)' was completed in 1917 in the style of Haydn and Mozart, and 'Symphony No. 7' (completed in 1952, having been commissioned by the Children’s Division of State Radio and described as a ‘Children’s Symphony’) has a similar clean simplicity. Prokofiev writes beautiful, catchy tunes and the seventh symphony has plenty, with its obvious joyfulness and passion sitting alongside darker poignant moments. He is also a clever orchestrator and, while our NSO performance included many brilliant solos from across the orchestra, this is a symphony in which the stars are the tuba (Nick Tollervey), the piano (Georgina Neil) and the harp (Chris Clarke), all of whom were outstanding. 

Shortly after I joined the NSO in 2000, at one Wednesday rehearsal I was amazed to walk into the room to see Rachel Chapman, who I had played with in the Manchester Youth Orchestra. I didn't know that she had recently moved to Milton Keynes and she didn't realise I was living in Bedfordshire. We were delighted to be reunited and have played together in NSO for nearly 25 years. Saturday was Rachel's final NSO concert as she is moving to the Lake District, and it was lovely to finish our years of playing together with a piece we had both played in the youth orchestra so many years ago. At the end of the symphony, when conductor John Gibbons, asked the trumpets to take a bow, Terry and Stephen deliberately remained seated to allow Rachel to take the applause alone. She has been a really important long serving member of the brass section and was a brilliant Chair of the orchestra. She will be much missed but we hope to see her again as an occasional guest player.

We started Saturday's concert with the'Overture' by the female Polish composer Grażyna Bacewicz. Written in 1943 in German‑occupied Warsaw this is an understandably serious piece of music, with an insistent rhythmic underpinning that suggests a determined resistance, and hints of a brighter future on the horizon. It was a timely reminder of the dark days of the war, in the week when we are marking the 80th anniversary of VE Day.

The first half of our concert also featured Dvorak's 'Violin Concerto' which I didn't know before we started rehearsing it. Dvorak's 'Cello Concerto' (which we last played with NSO in November 2018) is a gorgeous piece, incredibly popular and often performed, and I was looking forward to something similar. Initially I was quite disappointed: the Violin Concerto just doesn't sound like Dvorak as we know him from his symphonies or the Cello Concerto. But when I began to see the similarities between this concerto and Beethoven or Brahms - and started to think of Dvorak building on these composers as Prokofiev did on Haydn and Mozart - the concerto really grew on me. It also helped to have an amazing soloist to show us the excitement in the piece. Sharon Zhou gave a thrilling performance which always sounded like she was playing with a smile.

At a time of so much angst, horror and uncertainty in the world, John Gibbons was determined we should end our concert on an upbeat note. 'Overture: Brighton Beach' by the contemporary British composer Paul Lewis is a ridiculously jolly seaside postcard that evokes the south coast resort in all its guises. In the middle section the wind, brass and percussion form a military band playing ‘Sussex by the Sea' on the pier. This leaves the string players unusually under occupied and it was lovely to see many of them enjoying their day on the beach with knotted hankies on heads, reading newspapers and wearing water wings. It was lots of fun and the piece was clearly a big hit with our audience in Christchurch, Northampton.

'Back to the Future: The Musical' by Bob Gale, Alan Silvestri and Glen Ballard

1 May 2025

I was 17 years old when ‘Back to the Future’ came out in 1985 and it has always been one of my favourite films. Robert Zemeckis’ comic time-travel caper, starring Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd, may not be the most sophisticated piece of fim-making but the ridiculous plot is neatly crafted and the period detail and music make it great fun. On Saturday we were at the Adelphi Theatre in London’s West End to see ‘Back To The Future: The Musical’. The stage version of the movie features a book by Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale, adapted from their original screenplay, and new music and lyrics by Alan Silvestri and Glen Ballard alongside elements of Silvestri’s film score and other songs used in the film. It’s a lovely recreation of the film, complete with the DeLorean car. Caden Brauch and Cory English are great as Marty McFly and Doc Brown, but Orlando Gibbs nearly steals the show as George McFly - a brilliant physical performance, recreating George’s shy gawkiness from the film but with more dancing. The romantic denouement at the Enchantment Under the Sea dance was genuinely moving, feeling almost Shakespearean. And the special effects at the show’s climax with the DeLorean racing towards 88 mph were stunning - a thrilling theatrical moment. I know a large proportion of my appreciation of the show was down to nostalgia but I loved it.

'Sister Midnight' by Karan Kandhari

23 April 2025

On Saturday we were at the Curzon cinema at Milton Keynes Gallery to see ‘Sister Midnight’ - the debut feature film by British-Indian film-maker Karan Kandhari. This Hindi-language film, set in India, is beautiful, intriguing, funny, gruesome, confusing and incredibly weird! I think I enjoyed it, but it’s hard to be sure: I certainly haven’t stopped thinking about it. The film shows the early stages of married life in Mumbai following an arranged marriage between a couple from a village, who had only briefly met as children. (As they struggle to get on as husband and wife, Uma complains “You used to be so sensitive!” to which Gopal replies “I was eight!”) Kandhari presents a series of short, mostly wordless, beautifully constructed tableau scenes that demonstrate Uma’s hopeless, helpless days left alone in their one-room shack on a busy road while Gopal is at work. Bollywood star Radhika Apte is brilliant as Uma, conveying a rich palate of emotions largely through her eyes. There isn’t much of a narrative arc, but part-way through the film takes an odd turn towards black-comic horror. It’s hard to know what is supposed to be real and what might be Uma’s hallucinations, and it’s hard to see where the film is going. But Radhika Apte is a captivating actor and ‘Sister Midnight’ is an oddly enjoyable but very strange experience.

'Celestial Navigation' by Anne Tyler

17 April 2025

I am continuing to explore the early works of Anne Tyler, one of the great contemporary American novelists. Having read her 1980 novel ‘Morgan’s Passing’ (reviewed here in February 2022) I have now discovered ‘Celestial Navigation’ - Anne Tyler’s 5th novel, originally published in 1974. ‘Celestial Navigation’ has a quintessential Anne Tyler setting, focussing on domestic family life in Baltimore, but like ‘Morgan’s Passing’ it feels more experimental than her later, more famous, novels. It has a likeable eccentric main character, an interesting narrative structure and spans many years. Each chapter feels like a jump-cut as we leap forward in time and switch to the perspective of a different character, leaving the reader to fill in the jigsaw puzzle of what has happened since the previous chapter. Anne Tyler creates a cast of quirky oddballs living together in a house of lodgers, all of whom are amusing, exasperating and deeply sympathetic. It’s a light comic novel with real pathos and jeopardy - ultimately quite a sad story, but beautifully written and very engaging.

'A Tidy Ending' by Joanna Cannon

11 April 2025

The novelist Joanna Cannon seems to have a particular interest in the naive narrator. In ‘The Trouble with Goats and Sheep’ (reviewed here in January 2022) many of the novel’s chapters are narrated in the first person by 10-year-old Grace, and in 'Three Things About Elsie' (reviewed here in November 2023) the first person narrator is Florence, a woman in her 80s with failing memory, living in a retirement home. Joanna Cannon’s 2022 novel ‘A Tidy Ending’ similarly keeps the reader guessing about how much its protagonist really understands what is going on around her. It’s no mean feat to write a twisty thriller about a serial killer in the same gently quirky ‘cosy crime’ style as her previous novels without making it distasteful. ‘A Tidy Ending’ is intriguing, puzzling, creepy and cleverly plotted.