'Go Marko Go!' by The Boban i Marko Markovic Orkestar

20 December 2007

I've been listening this week to the new Boban Markovic album 'Go Marko Go!' (now credited to The Boban i Marko Markovic Orkestar): while there are a couple of tracks I'm not sure I would have included there are several tunes that bowl me over every time - the tremendously funky 'Latin cocek', the slightly cheesy ballad 'Cig (Avalanche)' and the frenetic and amazingly exciting 'Dzumbus Funk' - wow!

'Clare in the Community' (Series 4) by Harry Venning and David Ramsden

17 December 2007

We headed into London last Friday for our first visit to the BBC Radio Theatre in the basement of Broadcasting House. We were there to see the recording of two shows for the new series of 'Clare in the Community' by Harry Venning and David Ramsden (previously reviewed here in January 2007). It was great - still one of the best things on Radio 4. It always impresses me how slick radio actors are - recording a half-hour show in a single take then only needing a few small re-takes to amend minor slips. It was wonderful to see Sally Phillips whose facial expressions are just as funny on radio! And it was fascinating to watch those actors playing multiple parts - sometimes within the same scene. It is interesting how low-tech radio drama still is - all the actors clustered around a single microphone clutching their scripts - the technique hasn't really changed in the past fifty years. The new series of 'Clare in the Community' goes out on Radio 4 on Wednesday mornings at 11.30 am starting on 16 January.

Northampton Symphony Orchestra concert

11 December 2007

This year's Northampton Symphony Orchestra 'Christmas Cracker' concert last Sunday had a teddy bear theme - featuring 'The Teddy Bear's Picnic', 'The Tame Bear' and 'The Wild Bears' from Elgar's 'Wand of Youth' and the narrated piece 'Paddington Bear's First Concert' by Herbert Chappell. The stage was festooned with teddy bears of all shapes and sizes and, when trumpeter Nick Bunker made his traditional fancy dress entrance at the beginning of the second half, he was inevitably disguised by a full bear costume - looking remarkably like he had just won the Turner Prize! Carols, film music ('E.T.'), mulled wine and mince pies and Leroy Anderson's 'Sleigh Ride' left us in no doubt that Christmas is definitely on its way.

'The Three Musketeers' by Mike Ames & Steve Allen

10 December 2007

Barry has been painting the outside of our house and when he told me he was a regular pantomime dame my first reaction was to say "oh no you're not!". But it turns out that Barry is a leading member of the Tread the Boards Theatre Group in Milton Keynes so last Saturday we were at the Madcap Theatre in Wolverton to see this year's pantomime. In a move that would please Mark Pemberton, Tread the Boards had avoided the usual suspects in favour of a new adaptation of 'The Three Musketeers' by Mike Ames and Steve Allen. Rather a loose adaptation it has to be said - incorporating 'The Man in the Iron Mask', 'Phantom of the Opera' and 'Cyrano de Bergerac'. The musketeers (motto: "All for one and every man for himself") were obviously played by women. Barry was not playing the dame this year, instead doubling at the King of France and the front half of a great pantomime horse. The plot was perhaps a little ambitious for some of the younger members of the audience: I'm not sure they really followed the finer points of French politics though, by the end, they had certainly latched onto the need to boo Cardinal Richelieu vociferously. The quality of acting and singing was naturally a bit mixed but there was a great show-stealing performance from Ian Nutt as the Queen of France and some fine mugging from Sally Hulme as D'Artagnan. And as one of the villains was skewered by a sword in the final scenes she fell to the floor shouting "save me a part for next year!".

'Segu Blue' by Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba

6 December 2007

For many people ‘world music’ really means West African music. The prominence of international superstars Youssou N'Dour and Baaba Maal has focused the attention of world music promoters and media on a small number of West African countries. But for me much of the most feted of this music sounds too like familiar American or European pop with a slight African tinge. I do have a soft spot for the retro fusion of the great big bands of the 1970s: the Rail Band of Mali, Bembeya Jazz of Guinea and, particularly, Orchestra Baobab of Senegal whose reunion album of 2002 ‘Specialist in All Styles’ first turned me on to the world music scene. Their Cuban/African sound is always infectiously danceable and I have fond memories of seeing them at the Derngate in Northampton in 2002. But my favourite West African artists are those who use traditional instruments and styles to create distinctively modern, serious and beautiful music. I particularly like the Wassalou music from Mali as sung by the clear strong voice of Oumou Sangaré or the more breathy vocals of Rokia Traoré. Rokia Traoré’s 2003 album ‘Bowmboi’ is a much played favourite of mine – a series of intensely rhythmic, sparsely decorated songs featuring the twang of the ngoni and the mellow xylophone sound of the balafon (and including two amazing tracks with the Kronos string quartet). As with much African music it makes much more sense when you dance to it: I saw Rokia Traoré at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in 2003 and every song lasted about 6 times longer than the recorded versions as she repeatedly lost herself in her joyously exuberant dancing. Many of the best CDs of traditional Malian music in recent years (including albums by Toumani Diabate and Ali Farka Toure) have featured the virtuoso ngoni playing of Bassekou Kouyate. The ngoni is a small guitar-like instrument that looks like a rough hewn wooden cricket bat with a few strings strung along its length and creates a quiet, deadened twang. Bassekou Kouyate comes from the hereditary griot tradition and is the outstanding ngoni player of our time. I have been listening this week to his own CD ‘Segu Blue’ (with his band Ngoni Ba) which is definitely one of my albums of the year. I saw him perform at this year’s Womad Festival and he was captivating. This music is quite unlike anything else and takes some listening (and dancing) to really appreciate – but that, of course, is an essential part of it’s appeal.

'the very best of éthiopiques'

29 November 2007

I don't usually buy compilations or archive recordings - wary of the amount of money I spend on music, and the number of hours in the day I have to listen to it, I generally restrict myself to new albums - but this week I have been listening to a 2 CD selection of Ethiopian music from 40 years ago - and it is remarkable. The flowering of Ethiopian popular music in the 1960s - incorporating Western instruments and influences but retaining the distinctive pentatonic scale and asymmetrical rhythms of the country's traditional music - was severely curtailed in 1974 by the new Mengistu regime's curfews and censorship which lasted until 1991. In recent years the golden age of Ethiopian music has been rediscovered, largely because of the efforts of one man - French record producer Francis Falceto who, from the late 1970s, starting collecting vintage recordings on reel-to-reel and vinyl that have so far formed the basis of 23 volumes of the 'Éthiopiques' series of CDs. To help us find a way in to this mammoth treasurer trove, Falceto has this year created a 2 CD sampler: 'the very best of éthiopiques'. It's addictive listening: to my ears there is a degree of 'parallel universe syndrome' about it. When John Williams was writing the music for the cantina scene in the original Star Wars film, George Lucas told him to imagine “several creatures in a future century finding some 1930s Benny Goodman swing band music in a time capsule or under a rock someplace – and how they might interpret it”. The music of swinging sixties Addis Ababa reminded me of this quote: electric guitars, saxophones and Hammond organ are used to create something completely unique but strangely familiar. The elements of naff produce the epitome of cool: highly recommended.

'Belshazzar's Feast' by William Walton

26 November 2007

Once a year our two local choral societies, Danesborough Chorus and Milton Keynes Chorale, join forces to stage a major work. Last night we were at Milton Keynes Theatre to see them perform Walton's 'Belshazzar's Feast' accompanied by the Milton Keynes City Orchestra and conducted by Ian Smith. The evening started with the only cantata by John Ireland, 'These Things Shall Be' - a lovely piece I hadn't come across before which shows the influence of Elgar but also includes hints of Stravinsky and Debussy. Though I've heard it before I had never attended a performance of 'Belshazzar's Feast'. It's dramatic stuff with the original 'writing on the wall' which tells the king and his guests that they have been 'weighed in the balance and found wanting'. Walton's music is appropriately terrifying and magnificent featuring the full power of the enormous chorus, an extensive array of percussion instruments, two harps, additional (offstage) brass and a fine baritone solo from James Rutherford. An ambitious undertaking (you could palpably feel the intense concentration of the participants!) Danesborough Chorus and Milton Keynes Chorale achieved an impressive, exciting performance.

Vieux Farka Touré

23 November 2007

Last night we were at The Stables to see Vieux Farka Touré - son of the legendary Malian blues guitarist Ali Farka Touré who died last year. Ironically Vieux is remarkably young - he'll hopefully grow into his name - but he is already a fine guitarist very much in the style of his father. He has that same ability to make his electric guitar talk and sing in upbeat and distinctively African blues. His band are tight and slick - with the best drummer I've seen for ages. Vieux has been catapulted into the limelight by his father's name and might have benefited from first serving an apprenticeship as guitarist in someone else's band: his stage presence (entry, exit, patter etc) need some work. But his music is highly recommended - if you haven't heard any other examples of Africa's recent reclaiming of the blues you could do worse than start with Vieux Farka Touré. His first UK tour has still to visit Reading, Southport and Glasgow and his acclaimed eponymous album is out now.

'Kurr' by Amiina

20 November 2007

I am grateful to Tara Connaghan for alerting me to the Icelandic group Amiina whose album 'Kurr' I've been listening to this week. The cover photo shows the four girls sitting at a table: they are knitting but they look remarkably like they might be about to play the table in the manner of Karbido (reviewed here a couple of weeks ago) and the sounds they make are equally peculiar and entrancing. Amiina create miniature instrumental soundscapes: as if they have been locked in the school music cupboard overnight, the girls try out a wide variety of instruments including strings, woodwind, brass but mainly loads of tuned percussion. Gentle, quiet, repetitive and soothing.

'Kaushiki' by Kaushiki Chakrabarty

20 November 2007

Despite my enthusiasm for 'world music', it took me some time to start to appreciate Indian classical music. My way in was a label called 'Sense', based in Leicester, and specifically the album 'Kala' by the exceptional young exponent of the North Indian violin, Kala Ramnath. Perhaps there was something about the familiarity of the violin rather than sitar or sarod - though the North Indian style sounds quite different to the violin of western classical music - but 'Kala' captivated me. With Indian classical music (and profound apologies to real afficionados!) you can't really dip in and out - you need to settle back and listen to the whole piece, letting it wash over you and latching on to the repetitive figures which gradually, and very subtly, change to take you seamlessly from the slow alap (introduction) to a frenzied climax. Other 'Sense' recordings I would recommend include 'Samwad' (violinist Kala Ramnath with sitar player Purbayan Chatterjee), 'Akaash' (Rahul Sharma playing the santoor - a type of hammered dulcimer), 'Drive East' (shorter, lighter tracks by the group Yashila, featuring Kala Ramnath) and 'Pure' (by the young vocalist Kaushiki Chakrabarty who won a BBC Radio 3 Award for World Music last year). This week I have been enjoying the new album by Kaushiki Chakrabarty (also on the Sense label), simply titled ' Kaushiki' - a 3 CD set full of variety and beautiful singing.

'The Glass Cage' by J B Priestly

20 November 2007

We were at the Royal Theatre in Northampton on Saturday to see 'The Glass Cage' by J B Priestly - an interesting, unfamiliar play set in Toronto in 1906. The McBane family prepare to welcome three young cousins - the children of black sheep Uncle Charlie - whom they have never met. These three mysterious strangers at first appear shy, quiet and intimidated but all is not as it seems. We are in classic drawing room drama territory but the dark sense of foreboding and the ambiguity of the out-of-place strangers suggests something much more modern - by someone like Edward Albee perhaps. Laurie Sansom's production was straightforward - without the adventurousness of Stephen Daldry's 'An Inspector Calls' - but there were some impressive performances - particularly from Rebecca Grant and James Floyd and a great turn from Robert Demeger. The text could have done with some pruning but it was an interesting evening.

‘Churning Strides’ by Thee, Stranded Horse

14 November 2007

Calling your band ‘Thee, Stranded Horse’ suggests a degree of pretentiousness and the album ‘Churning Strides’ is strange stuff indeed. ‘Thee, Stranded Horse’ is the French guitar and kora player Yann Tambour – though he plays the kora like a guitar and the two are mostly indistinguishable. He sings very quietly in English and French, often in a peculiar nasal voice, sounding like Nick Drake imitating Joanna Newsom. He never reaches Newsom’s hysterical exuberance though at times he matches her for incomprehensible lyrics. He is also a master of the Pinteresque unexpected pause. Serious, mesmerising, odd, pretty but never particularly cheery.

Northampton Symphony Orchestra concert

14 November 2007

For many people the opening of Grieg’s Piano Concerto conjures up images of Eric Morecambe and ‘André Preview’ but it always takes me back to the Concert Hall at the Royal Northern College of Music in 1983. I had recently become the principal horn player in the Didsbury Symphony Orchestra and we were playing the Grieg concerto with Peter Donohoe. There are several exposed horn solos in the piece and I was incredibly nervous. More than 20 years later, when I hear the passages of music leading up to one of those solos – even listening to the radio – I still get a shiver down the spine! Peter Donohoe gave an amazing performance – playing extremely fast and incredibly flamboyantly. At the end of the first movement there was rapturous applause – a really exciting moment. Some people frown on applause between movements but when it is a spontaneous expression of delight (rather than a polite sense of duty), as a performer, it is immensely satisfying. At the end of the concerto Peter Donohoe treated the audience to several encores and it gradually began to dawn on me that many people had come to hear him rather than us! Amongst all the orchestral concerts I have played in over the years it still stands out as a highlight. Last Saturday we tackled the Grieg Piano Concerto with the Northampton Symphony Orchestra accompanying Lucy Parham. In contrast to the showmanship of Peter Donohoe, Lucy gave a beautiful, delicate performance, emphasising what a wonderful piece of music it is. Coupling the Grieg with Dvorak’s lovely seventh symphony created a gentle, romantic programme which drew a polished performance from the orchestra. And this time I was not playing the first horn part so I could relax and enjoy David Lack’s excellent solos.

Milton Keynes Sinfonia concert

5 November 2007

Last weekend I played with Milton Keynes Sinfonia in a concert which included Elgar's Symphony No. 1. I can usually take or leave Elgar but the first symphony is a great piece of music - you can hear why listeners to its original performances in 1908 felt that England had finally produced a composer who could bear comparison with the great Germanic symphonists. The first movement opens with a beautiful, slow, typical Elgarian tune with a gentle, plodding accompaniment. Throughout the movement - and those that follow - just when you have been sufficiently distracted to forget the opening, this theme returns again and again as if it has never stopped going. It's like a few players have been shut in a separate room to play this quiet tune continuously and every now and again we open the door to check they are still there. Meanwhile, while the door is closed, we are taken on a mammoth emotional journey with grand climaxes reminiscent of Brahms or Wagner but always distinctively Elgar - as the omnipresent opening them constantly reminds us. Great fun to play - a great piece of music. The first half of the concert saw Timothy Short play the Piano Concerto in G major by Ravel - and incredibly ambitious piece, parts of which sound like they could have been written by Gershwin, and a virtuosic performance by Short.

'Karbido - The Table'

5 November 2007

We started last weekend by going to see four men playing a table! If you've ever drummed your fingers on a table you will be aware of the musical possibilities it holds. Now imagine attaching a microphone to the underneath of the table top and turning up the amplifier so that every gentle stroke, scrape or tap on the surface resonates around the room. 'Karbido' are a quartet who sit around a square wooden table creating the most amazing sounds from it. As well as exploiting the percussive qualities of the wood, they place items on the table (a metal bowl which sounds like a bell when struck, a selection of half-filled wine glasses which sing when a finger traces the rim, a spinning coin etc.) and use other items attached to the sides of the table (metal plates which can be struck or played with a violin bow, guitar strings, flutes and a didgeridoo). In an hour-long performance they create a wide variety of musical styles and sounds including alap, congotronics, throat singing, ambient/new age and heavy rock. Some sections would stand alone as musical tracks - others are more fascinating in terms of the choreography of the four players reaching across the table and across each other. The audience - seated in the round so that we could all see the faces of one or two of the musicians - moved from bemused anticipation through amused appreciation to enthusiastic acclaim. And once the players had left the stage the audience surged forward to spend ages peering and prodding the star of the show and its four wooden legs. Bizarre and captivating - take a look at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWik13ZyjbM and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vDTy_W6ors

'The Fourth Bear' by Jasper Fforde

29 October 2007

Having been charmed by 'The Big Over Easy' (reviewed here in April 2007), I had been eagerly awaiting the return of DCI Jack Spratt and DS Mary Mary in Jasper Fforde's second Nursery Crime Division novel, 'The Fourth Bear'. I wasn't disappointed. Goldilocks is missing, bears are buying and selling illegal porridge and Punch and Judy are turning out to be the neighbours from Hell. 'The Fourth Bear' is another mixing bowl of remarkably silly parodies which works because it has at its heart a solid and intriguing whodunnit. Slightly more focussed and less rambling than its predecessor it still manages to incorporate aliens, ancient Greek immortals and characters from Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde and Edward Lear. Fforde manages to make the most two dimensional characters both believable and sympathetic. There is a touching sub-plot about the stigma associated with being a PDR (Person of Dubious Reality) - though the closer you look the more it seems that everyone in this book is a PDR. This leads to some surreal metatextual moments (particularly Jack's psychiatric interview by Virginia Kreeper) with lots of characters clearly in search of an author. And 'The Fourth Bear' is extremely funny with some lovingly crafted and truly awful puns. The ten pages of Chapter Four serve purely to lead to a groan-inducing pun. A minor character is introduced on page 63 in order to lay the ground for a series of appalling puns on page 319. All great fun - and when you've finished, the book comes complete with 'DVD extras' - a 'making-of' documentary, deleted scenes etc which you can access through Fforde's website, but only by answering a question which requires you to have finished reading the novel. I'm very much looking forward to 'The Last Great Tortoise Race' which will be the next outing for the Nursery Crime Division.

'Stardust'

26 October 2007

Last night I returned to the Pola cinema in Welshpool which reminds me a lot of my childhood film-going at the Scala in Withington - cinema as it used to be. I saw the children's fantasy 'Stardust' starring Charlie Cox, Claire Danes, the always impressive Mark Strong and a show-stealing Michelle Pfeiffer as a witch trying to regain her youthful beauty. With a wealth of cameos including Peter O'Toole, Ian McKellen and Robert De Niro and plenty of opportunity for spotting familiar British actors in bit parts it was lots of fun. Visually sumptuous with more than a hint of Terry Gilliam, it has a quirky but satisfyingly predictable plot - enjoyable baloney.

'Bleak House' by Charles Dickens

22 October 2007

Finished it! 'Bleak House' by Charles Dickens is a very long book but I've really enjoyed the journey. It definitely helped being familiar with the plot from the BBC TV adaptation and it actually felt satisfyingly indulgent to take so long over each of the key scenes I remembered. Like most Dickens novels 'Bleak House' was originally published in instalments but, unlike some of his other books, this didn't result in a rambling plot. 'Bleak House' is tightly plotted and covers a relatively short period of time - and a fairly limited geography. The various narrative strands are interlinked and draw together with a brooding sense of fate and inevitability - and only a small amount of cheesy coincidence. The murder mystery plot that seemed to dominate the TV version comes very late in the novel and is not exploited half as much as it could have been - the conventions of detective fiction having yet to establish themselves. The structure of the book is interesting with two alternating narrators: Esther Summerson recounts her own story with hindsight in the first person while an omniscient third person narrator in the present tense shows us what is going on elsewhere. The third person narrator adds some great poetic descriptive passages: the technique of 'floating' over the streets and buildings of the Inns of Court and dropping in on various characters before flitting on to another location reminded me of 'Under Milk Wood' by Dylan Thomas. But the main attraction of Dickens is the characters - and there are some wonderful creations in 'Bleak House'. To anyone who is familiar with the story, the names themselves will always instantly recreate the distinctive personalities: Tulkinghorn, Guppy, Krook, Smallweed, Lady Dedlock, Old Mr Turveydrop, Snagsby, Caddy Jellyby, etc etc. There is a dose of sentimentality and melodrama but the book also addresses an impressive range of social and political issues within its relatively small frame. And it is often very funny. Having worked for some years in the area around Chancery Lane, there was a particular attraction for me in the geography of the story. If you too have been expecting a judgement you can now release the birds - I recommend 'Bleak House' to the court.

'The Flying Club Cup' by Beirut

16 October 2007

In 'Gulag Orkestar', the wonderful CD by Beirut (reviewed here in November 2006), twenty-something Zach Condon from Albuquerque, New Mexico, drew on the Gypsy brass sound of the Balkans. In his follow-up album 'The Flying Club Cup', which I've been listening to this week, he somehow manages to adopt a series of completely different styles whilst remaining distinctly recognisable. Here he travels across Europe, lingering particularly in France. Pulsating rhythms, mostly in quick waltz time, provide the landscape over which his languid vocals soar - often multi-tracked to create a chorus of Condons. His slightly strained, mock-operatic voice reminds me at times of Neil Hannon from The Divine Comedy. The songs all have a feeling of melancholy ennui. The instrumentation includes the ukulele and accordion of 'Gulag Orkestar' as well as strings and piano. The brass sound is more mellow: accompanied by a wealth of percussion including clashed cymbals and tambourine it conjures up the image of a Salvation Army band leading a particularly cool New Orleans funeral march. I can't wait to see what he does next.

'Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency' by Douglas Adams

12 October 2007

I'm loving the BBC Radio 4 dramatisation of Douglas Adams' novel 'Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency' (Wednesdays at 6.30 pm - see http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/dirkgently/). Dramatised and produced by Dirk Maggs who so wonderfully realised the final instalments of 'The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy' after Douglas Adams' death, for any Hitch Hiker's fans this is a real treat. And it's so long since I read the book I've completely forgotten whatever tenuous grasp of the plot I might have had at the time. Listen to it - and then listen again to try to work out what's going on! One of the best uses radio could be put to.

'Time of My Life' by Alan Ayckbourn

9 October 2007

There's a particular satisfaction when the risk involved in taking a 'lucky dip' approach to selecting a cultural dish results in a delicious feast. We felt that satisfaction the first time we discovered the 2-for-1 ticket booth in Leicester Square. It was 1993 and we were rewarded with half price tickets to a matinee of the new Alan Ayckbourn play which had just transferred from its premiere in Scarborough to the West End. 'Time of My Life' starred Anton Rodgers and Gwen Taylor in a family drama set in an Italian restaurant. As with most of Ayckbourn's prolific output it is a deceptively simple play - with a single set and no difficult staging arrangements - intentionally giving it a sustainable life in the amateur theatre. The particular device in 'Time of My Life' is multiple timelines moving in different directions. We can see three tables in the restaurant: the first hosts a family birthday meal while the other two tables simultaneously show us members of the family moving forwards and backwards, respectively, through time. These windows on the present, future and past gradually reveal poignant depths to the story, exploring when it is that we are truly happy - and whether we ever realise at the time. Although this all sounds complex it is easy to follow and follows a typical Ayckbourn path of making us laugh while we slip along an inexorably sad trajectory. We really enjoyed that original production in 1993 and were surprised when its run ended prematurely. Fourteen years later Ayckbourn cites 'Time of My Life' as one of his favourite and most under-rated plays. Last Saturday we were at the Royal Theatre in Northampton to see Laurie Sansom's new production of the play. Sansom came to Northampton after four years working with Ayckbourn as Associate Director of the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough and has created an enjoyable and effective revival. Our fond memories of the play were reinforced - particularly fond because we originally discovered it by accident!

'Heimlich' by 17 Hippies

3 October 2007

I've been enjoying the album 'Heimlich' by the German band 17 Hippies which has been championed by Charlie Gillet on BBC Radio 3 over the last few weeks. Almost impossible to categorise, 17 Hippies sing in German, French and English and play instruments including clarinet, banjo and accordion. Mostly chirpy upbeat songs. Confusingly there are not 17 of them and they are not hippies! Catchy, quirky, refreshingly different.

'Sinfonietta' by Leoš Janáček

2 October 2007

I've been listening to James Naughtie's history of Western classical music, 'The Making of Music', on BBC Radio 4 and last week one snatch of music particularly caught my attention - the 'Sinfonietta' by the Czech composer Leoš Janáček. I got hold of a recording and I've been playing it all week. I'm not sure how the piece had previously passed me by - it's fantastic. It was written in 1926 and there are five short movements - the whole thing only lasts about 26 minutes. There is some gorgeous brass writing (indeed the first movement is just brass) with a number of variations on the opening fanfare that first grabbed my ears. If you don't already know the Sinfonietta, I would recommend discovering it for yourself.

'Donkeys' Years' by Michael Frayn

1 October 2007

On Saturday we were at Milton Keynes Theatre to see 'Donkeys' Years' by Michael Frayn. A group of middle-aged men assemble in "one of the smaller courts, in one of the lesser colleges, at one of the older universities" for a college reunion 25 years on. Finding themselves quartered in their old college rooms, they soon revert to their student behaviour and there is much drinking, running in and out of bedrooms, defacing the statue of King Henry and throwing people in the lake. Not much of a story but a very slick and well-paced farce. This is quite an early Michael Frayn play - later he would create the classic de-constructed farce, 'Noises Off' - 'Donkeys' Years' is more one-dimensional but very funny nonetheless. This production is now touring after a stint in the West End and boasts a cast of very familiar faces including Ian Lavendar, Richard Hope, Sara Crowe and Norman Pace but the evening belongs to Mark Hadfield - great physical comedy and timing.

Davis Cup Tennis - Great Britain vs. Croatia

26 September 2007

On Sunday we were back at Number One Court at Wimbledon to see the last two matches of Great Britain’s Davis Cup tie against Croatia. There was a packed crowd – primarily there to mark the retirement of Tim Henman. Unfortunately, for us, we picked the wrong day as Henman’s final volley in Saturday’s doubles match had won the tie for Britain – but it was still fun to experience the party atmosphere of the remaining singles matches and to give Henman and the team their final send-off. We saw Andy Murray win an exciting match against Roko Karanusic before another young Scottish player, Jamie Baker, put up a brave display in losing to the impressive Croatian teenager, Marin Cilic. And not a drop of rain …

Wester Ross

21 September 2007

We had a great week on the North West coast of Scotland last week. Wester Ross is a stunning area - just looking at the map was strangely compelling with masses of contour lines right down to the sea, large swathes of uninhabited land and few roads or tracks. The reality didn't disappoint - while it took a very long time to get there, it was well worth it. The sea lochs - Gairloch, Loch Ewe, Little Loch Broom and Loch Broom - are spectacular and the view from the road above Gairloch inland to the massive Loch Maree was amazing. We had mostly good weather with three very sunny days and managed lots of hill and coast walking. We stayed in a cottage at Sand, near Laide, overlooking Gruinard Bay and we enjoyed the little towns of Gairloch and Poolewe and got as far north as Ullapool. Our only real disappointment was not managing to see much of the promised marine wildlife - despite much binoculared-gazing from clifftops and a boat trip which only resulted in a distant glimpse of a pod of porpoises and a single friendly seal. I think all the local dolphins must have been holidaying elsewhere!

'Bleak House' by Charles Dickens - progress report

7 September 2007

I am about a third of the way through reading 'Bleak House' by Charles Dickens. I have to admit I've never read any Dickens but having relished the BBC TV adaptation of Bleak House last year (reviewed here in February 2006) I was persuaded to give it a go and I'm really enjoying it. It is, however, a very long book - at more than 900 pages quite a daunting prospect - and being familiar with the plot and characters from the TV version has definitely helped me to get going with it. I will report more fully when I finally get to the end but I thought I would mention it today because I notice that the BBC adaptation is being repeated on BBC4 - starting with two episodes tonight (Friday 7 September) at 7.30 pm and continuing on Monday. If you haven't seen it and you can get hold of BBC4 I would urge you to take a look. And then why not try the book itself …

‘Little Me’ by Neil Simon, Carolyn Leigh and Cy Coleman

30 August 2007

On Wednesday evening I was at the Bloomsbury Theatre in London to see the National Youth Music Theatre production of ‘Little Me’ by Neil Simon, Carolyn Leigh and Cy Coleman. This musical hasn’t been performed in London for over 20 years but it’s loads of fun – a highly silly cartoon saga telling the tale of Belle, a girl from the wrong side of the tracks striving, over four decades, to attain wealth, culture and social position in order to win the hand of the noble Noble Eggleston. This quest carries her through a host of familiar places and events (the First Word War trenches, the early Hollywood, the doomed ocean liner ‘SS Gigantic’ – you get the idea!) throughout which Belle manages to inadvertently steer the course of history in unfortunate directions and lose a remarkable number of husbands (there is a high fatality count!). Extremely silly, wonderfully funny and energetically performed by a high quality young (aged 10 – 19) cast of 35 actors and a 13-piece band. The two leads, Sarah Hagan and Dom Hodson were very good but there were show-stealing performances by Joe Mott, Alyn Hawke and Sam Hayward (including one of the funniest death bed scenes I can remember!) – all names to watch out for. NYMT is alive and well – I look forward to the next production.

‘The Bourne Ultimatum’

22 August 2007

We were at the cinema on Sunday to see ‘The Bourne Ultimatum’ – the third adaptation of the Robert Ludlum novels, starring Matt Damon and directed by Paul Greengrass. It has been marketed as an ‘intelligent action movie’ and that’s probably a fair description. There is plenty of gritty realism and lots of all-too-believable violence. And it is good to see a Hollywood movie dealing with internal corruption rather than a cartoon-like evil villain. But there was still a fair amount of frustrating unbelievability: if CIA agent Jason Bourne has been trained to speak every European language, to know the layout of the backstreets of every major European city and has memorised all the world’s public transport timetables, how come his female colleague seems to have received no similar training and can only contribute worried looks? There is also something inherently ridiculous about any ‘control-room scene’ where ranks of computer operators tap away at their keyboards while the boss strides up and down looking at masses of text on large screens covering the walls and shouting things like “listen up”, “give me all you’ve got on Bourne”, “let’s get mobile” etc. I think all such scenes remind me too much of ‘Dr Strangelove’. Nevertheless ‘The Bourne Ultimatum’ is fast-moving, exciting and clever. Good to see a blockbuster with a key role for a Guardian journalist – and a very tense early scene on the concourse at Waterloo station.

'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows' by J K Rowling

13 August 2007

When I say I have just finished reading 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows' by J K Rowling, I guess I am instantly going to divide you into those who groan out loud and those who wonder what took me so long. I've enjoyed all seven Harry Potter books. I can sympathise with those who say the quality of the writing leaves much to be desired and the settings, characters and magical creatures are incredibly derivative, but, by blatantly pinching some of the best elements of classic children's fiction, fantasy and mythology, Rowling has created a cracking good yarn. And I can forgive her much for the wonderful combination of both the broadest scope and the minutest detail in her plotting. It seems to me that the plot drives you through these weighty tomes at a rapid pace - both through the overall story arc of the seven books (written before starting the first novel, apparently) and through impressive attention to detail and consistency. Children can be the most obsessive of all readers and it can be incredibly irritating when the internal logic of a story is broken or an early passing reference is forgotten. I have found all the Harry Potter books incredibly satisfying in how they remember and refer back to the tiniest of details. And none has been so satisfying in this respect as the 'Deathly Hallows' which scrupulously ties up every possible loose end. I came to the book with my own mental checklist of unanswered questions and came away with all items ticked. (I daresay the massive obsessive attention to which this book will be subjected may unearth one or two mistakes or omissions but I was not disappointed.) My main problem with the 'Deathly Hallows' was trying not to read it too quickly. Having lived with these characters for so many years, like many others I was desperate to find out what happens to them - but worried about missing key clues and wanting to prolong the end as long as possible. So I took to reading two or three chapters at a time and then re-reading them before going on - meaning I have now read the whole book twice! (If any of the groaners were still with me I fear I have certainly lost them now!) I can highly recommend this technique: it is amazing how many seemingly insignificant references reveal themselves as invaluable pointers with the benefit of a little hindsight. (Slightly less obsessively, when I have finished a novel I have really enjoyed I am invariably sorry to leave it and sometimes go back and re-read the opening chapter. You would be amazed how fascinating this often proves - try it!) The 'Deathly Hallows' is definitely not a starting point for anyone who has not yet tried the Potter phenomenon: it would make little sense to those who haven't followed the previous books. But for those with at least a passing acquaintance with Harry, Ron, Hermione et al, it is a gripping ride. As with many of the books there are some passages which drag a bit, but when the action takes off it is thrilling - particularly this time as there is no guarantee who, if anyone, will survive. But that would be telling ...

'The Visit'

9 August 2007

I’ve been enjoying ‘The Visit’ – a new sitcom on BBC3 on Sunday evenings (though only a matter of time before it is repeated on BBC2, I would have thought). All the action takes place during visiting time at a prison with, each week, the same set of prisoners taking their seats at tables opposite the same family members and then sitting there staring at each other with very little to say! Sounds riveting, I know, but the small talk and inane banter is very very funny and there is plenty of gentle, gradual character development. There are no star names dominating – though many of the actors are reasonably familiar faces. The characters are all fairly exaggerated – this is quite an old fashioned sitcom – more ‘Phoenix Nights’ than the cringingly believable comedy of ‘The Office’. Extremely enjoyable and refreshingly subtle such as in its reverential nod to ‘Porridge’ in the use of theme music by Slade.

WOMAD 2007

1 August 2007

The WOMAD world music festival prides itself on remaining largely sponsor-free but this year you could have been forgiven for thinking a deal had been done with Dunlop - at least in terms of product placement: if there was anyone present not wearing wellingtons it was impossible to tell what, if anything, they did have on their feet, such was the amount of deep, liquid, mud covering the festival site! The unfortunate coincidence of the wettest summer on record combined with WOMAD's move to a new home at Charlton Park near Malmesbury in Wiltshire (after many years in Reading) made for a frustratingly difficult festival experience. First there were horrendous traffic problems on the small country roads around the park: it took me two and a half hours to travel the few miles from the motorway junction when I arrived on Friday afternoon. Then there was the mud: wellingtons were a necessity and walking was very difficult - though standing still had its problems too as you soon found yourself sinking! And just when you decided to give up and call it day there was chaos in the car park: on Saturday evening it took me two hours to get out as tractors towed cars one-by-one up an increasingly muddy slope to the road. By Saturday night I had had enough and opted to head home rather than struggle through Sunday. And I was fortunate not to have been camping: it was a great relief to get back to a comfortable hotel bed each night. I know many people went home before the festival even began and there has been much anger and vitriol on the message boards at www.womad.org - though it was good to see Viscount Andover (whose father owns the Charlton Park estate) going online to respond to comments. Nevertheless, as always, there was some great music. An obvious highlight was the first festival appearance for many years of WOMAD founder Peter Gabriel who played a great set on Friday evening with a host of guest stars. I also enjoyed the desert bagpipes of exuberant Algerian band Marzoug, the beautiful, other-worldly vocals of Norwegian Sami singer Mari Boine and the amazing virtuosity of Malian ngoni player Bassekou Kouyate. It is always nice to see the artists appreciating each other's work: it was lovely to see the mature gentlemen of El Tanbura (Egypt's answer to the Buena Vista Social Club) dancing in front of the stage during a performance by the Palestinian singer Reem Kelani. The Warsaw Village Band were late - a year and 45 minutes late: I had been looking forward to seeing them play at last year's festival when they didn't make it at all - and on Saturday (like many other bands this year) they got stuck in the traffic and the mud and arrived on stage three quarters of an hour later than scheduled. But I did enjoy their 'hardcore Polish folk' - particularly the strident three-part female vocal harmonies which emphasise their musical and geographic positioning somewhere between Bulgaria and Finland. As the rain started to fall on Saturday evening we were cheered up by an upbeat session from English folk star Seth Lakeman and the most energetic performance of the weekend from Asian Dub Foundation. I finished by watching the launch of Simon Emmerson's new project 'The Imagined Village' - a re-imagining of the English folk tradition for the 21st century featuring an all star cast including Martin Carthy, Eliza Carthy, Billy Bragg, Benjamin Zephaniah, Johny Kalsi of the Dhol Foundation, Sheema Mukherjee of Transglobal Underground and British Asian singer Sheila Chandra. Fascinating to hear Billy Bragg talking about how it took two Jewish guys from Queens to make him feel English - when hearing Simon & Garfunkel's 'Scarborough Fair' for the first time - and then to realise he was telling us this while standing next to Martin Carthy - the man who taught Paul Simon the tune. There were some great performances at Charlton Park but it was hard work getting from one stage to another and it will be difficult not to remember this year's WOMAD festival primarily for the mud.

'Much Ado About Nothing' by William Shakespeare

25 July 2007

When your neighbours have got a troupe of travelling players performing Shakespeare in their back garden it would seem churlish not to support them – so on Sunday we made our way through the deer park to Woburn Abbey to watch the outdoor production of 'Much Ado About Nothing' by Chapterhouse theatre company. In this period of 'extreme weather' we expected the worst but, amazingly, the clouds cleared, the sun came out and we enjoyed a beautiful evening. There are quite a few companies touring open-air Shakespeare productions each summer and it always appears to be a very testing proving ground for young actors. Apart from coping with the full range of weather conditions, your projection has got to be very strong to reach the back of the audience and you have to be able to ignore numerous potential distractions – such as the flock of geese that flew across the Woburn Abbey gardens on Sunday, closely followed by a lone heron. The Chapterhouse cast coped well and gave a solid, engaging performance. Not quite as inventive in their use of the available space as the 'Romeo and Juliet' we saw last year but extremely enjoyable nonetheless – with particularly strong performances by Nicola Weeks and Simon Michael Morgan as Beatrice and Benedick. Their tour of England continues to the end of August - details at www.chapterhouse.org.

The Blockheads

23 July 2007

It's Easter 1992 and we're in the Swan Theatre in Stratford watching a great Royal Shakespeare Company production of John Gay's 'A Jovial Crew'. But we're distracted from the action by a small, stooped figure wandering around the back of the auditorium, selecting a series of vantage points. As he passes the back of our seats, Jeannie turns round and pointedly asks him to be quiet. We reach the interval and the lights go up and suddenly a queue is forming to shake hands with the small, restless man. If I had stopped to write a list of all the people he might have been (which I obviously didn't as I was in a hurry to get an ice cream) the list would have had to have been many pages long before it would have occurred to me that we were being disturbed by rock star and poet of punk, Ian Dury. (Though had I just spent the interval reading the programme I would have discovered that he and Mickey Gallagher had written the songs for this production of 'A Jovial Crew'.)

Fifteen years later Dury is sadly no longer with us but his band, The Blockheads, are celebrating their thirtieth anniversary. So, on Saturday evening, we made our way to The Pitz in Milton Keynes for an evening of 'Sex and Drugs and Rock 'n' Roll'. The remaining original Blockheads may have aged but showed no signs of losing their enthusiasm, musical skill or drive. Augmented by a couple of younger recruits they played a high-energy two hour set and were obviously really enjoying themselves. The Blockheads were one of those punk bands who weren't really punks - mixing a variety of musical styles including reggae (as did The Clash), Latin rhythms and funk. Their strolling bass lines sound a lot like their contemporaries Squeeze. The presence of the amazing saxophonist Gilad Atzmon took a lot of the numbers into the realms of jazz funk – at times The Blockheads sounded remarkably like Weather Report – not really my kind of thing but very impressive. Their unique selling point is still Ian Dury’s wonderful lyrics – witty, playful, hard-hitting, brutal and very funny. It was great to see a packed audience singing along to every word. Also interesting to reflect on Dury’s gentle, natural, rhythmic spoken delivery: he was rapping in 1977 – well before Mike Skinner of The Streets was born. On Saturday the Blockheads were joined for the last few numbers by the comedian Phil Jupitus. Almost unrecognisable (if it were not for his distinctive body shape!), clean-shaven and dressed in a giant red checked jacket and bowler hat (“sponsored by Home Pride”), Jupitus delivered the lead vocals with due reverence to his legendary colleagues – and was clearly a big fan. He is due to join The Blockheads for a full thirtieth anniversary tour later this year – well worth catching. And as we pogo-ed into the night shouting “hit me with your rhythm stick – hit me – hit me” I’m sure there was someone looking on from the back of the auditorium and smiling.

Boban Markovic Orkestar

17 July 2007

Since I first discovered the peerless Serbian brass band - the Boban Markovic Orkestar – after reading a review in Songlines magazine at the beginning of 2003 they have only played one UK date – in May 2003 which I missed as I was flying back from Italy at the time. So when I heard Boban was to play another one-off concert at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London last weekend I leapt at the chance to see the band live for the first time. They didn't disappoint. Dressed in white shoes, white trousers and round-necked, long-sleeved white t-shirts the 11 members of the Boban Markovic Orkestar looked like an unlikely collection of male nurses preparing to assist in complicated surgery on our eardrums. In front of the band, Boban and his son Marko were the epitome of cool on a sweltering evening. Marko – now in his early twenties – is a rock star with a trumpet. He stands with his feet firmly planted to the floor, his head bent forward to ensure his trumpet gets as close as possible to the microphone, his long black hair tied tightly back in a ponytail and his hips gyrating to the groove. His father constantly prowls the stage – directing the band, instructing the sound engineer and casually slipping into bursts of virtuoso trumpet solos. Boban's medium-length hair is tousled as if an elderly relative has playfully ruffled it. The back of his light blue shirt is soon drenched in sweat. His shoulders are permanently raised in a perpetual shrugging 'whatever' and a satisfied smile plays around his lips.

For me, the Boban Markovic Orkestar are the classiest, slickest, funkiest exponents of the Balkan Gypsy brass sound. They avoid the tendency of many similar bands to demonstrate their virtuosity by making everything extremely fast and frantic – preferring to vary their programme with stunning, unexpected changes of tempo and rhythm. And their rhythms are amazing – complex syncopations supported by five tuba players and three percussionists. There are no clarinets or saxophones here – just tubas (of varying sizes) and trumpets. The sound is absolutely deafening – and even louder when Boban and Marko come out from behind the microphones and play directly without amplification from the front of stage.

There is clearly a great mutual respect within the band. At the end of each number every player acknowledges the audience's acclaim by raising an arm to gesture across the stage towards one of their colleagues to suggest, modestly, where the applause ought to be directed. When the gesture is reciprocated each player turns to honour another member of the band, creating a series of white-clad musical statue tableaus with arms outstretched.

Balkan Gypsy brass is party music but with the Boban Markovic Orkestar it is a serious party. By the time they left the stage of the Queen Elizabeth Hall – having over-run the scheduled finish by an hour! – everyone was on their feet: an unforgettable experience.

'The Magic Numbers' by The Magic Numbers

12 July 2007

Last weekend, our friends Jan and Dave suggested we go to see a band in a pub. Regular readers may have noticed that this is not something we do very often but the novelty of a smoke-free pub was quite appealing and Jan and Dave had seen the band before and recommended them. So on Saturday night we made for the Prince Albert in Bradwell Village, Milton Keynes, to see '1 Nite Stand'. Discovering that they were a 'covers band' eroded my enthusiasm as I anticipated an evening of the same old 1960s and 70s standards. When they started, however, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that their choice of covers was much more interesting and inventive. '1 Nite Stand' (www.1nitestand.co.uk) were really good. Most of their repertoire was from the 1990s (including songs by the likes of James and The Wonderstuff) or more recent (such as The Kaiser Chiefs and Nerina Pallot). I was particularly struck by a number of songs that were new to me, including one by The Magic Numbers. When I wrote here (in February 2006) of my enthusiasm for Arctic Monkeys, Sioned suggested I try The Magic Numbers but I'm sorry to say I hadn't got round to them. So this week I picked up a copy of their eponymous 2005 album (for just £6 - sometimes delaying your purchase pays off!). It's a 1960s West Coast sound (and I don't mean Aberystwyth!) - cheerful, toe-tapping, catchy tunes with strummed guitars and backing vocal harmonies - a soundtrack for summer.

Sardinia

28 June 2007

We had a great couple of weeks in Sardinia. It was very hot and we were staying in a fairly isolated hotel set in the middle of a pine forest near Arborea on the West coast – which allowed for plenty of relaxing days by the pool or on the beach. We also managed to explore quite a bit of the island including the main cities – Cagliari, Nuoro and Sassari – the picturesque towns of Bosa and Alghero (the only Catalan-speaking community outside Spain – Sardinia having been Spanish for three centuries), and several Roman and prehistoric (‘Nuraghi’) archeological sites. My highlight was the day we drove up a narrow winding road to the mountain village of Bitti, home to the famous singing shepherds, Tenores de Bitti. The Sardinian canto a tenore tradition is an amazing sound. For centuries shepherds have gathered in mountain huts at the end of the working day to sing to each other (and drink!) through the night. Standing in a circle facing each other, this is very much participatory music – not designed for an audience. The four-part unaccompanied close-harmony singing imitates natural sounds: the bass (‘bassu’) is the sound of a cow, the ‘contra’ is the sound of a sheep and the ‘mesu ‘oche’ is the sound of the wind. Above these the soloist (‘voche’ – the human voice) leads the song and carries the text. The result is harmonically scrunchy, with a very low growlly bass – hypnotically repetitive and remarkably catchy. After a lengthy search around the streets of Bitti we eventually found the tiny Museo Canto e Tenore and came away clutching heaps of CDs.

'The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid' by Bill Bryson

25 June 2007

About 15 years ago, my cynical friend Tony was uncharacteristically enthusiastic about a travel book he was reading by a then little-known American author called Bill Bryson. This guy, said Tony, had taken a road-trip across America and had written a hilarious account of the small towns he had encountered and their peculiar inhabitants. Bill Bryson was the American who understood irony - he was more cynical than my cynical friend Tony. I didn't actually read 'The Lost Continent' until years later. Tony couldn't let me read his copy because, typically, he had borrowed it from a girl he had been seeing but was no longer seeing but hoped he might see again in which case he would need to be able to return her book. When I finally got to read 'The Lost Continent' I loved it too - everybody loves Bill Bryson don't they? He has a great knack of capturing the absurdities of the places he visits and marveling at the ridiculousness of the people he meets without ever ridiculing them, and maintaining his own likeable persona through a healthy dollop of self-deprecation. I've read quite a few Bill Bryson books now and they are all extremely entertaining. I think his style works best when his descriptions of places are sprinkled with chance encounters with the strangest of strangers - for me his least successful book was 'Neither Here Nor There', his European journey where language barriers restricted those chance conversations. He also has a tendency to wear his research on his sleeve - sometimes bombarding you with too many interesting facts and statistics. I found his science book 'A Short History of Nearly Everything' a little hard-going - not because it wasn't constantly fascinating but there just seemed to be too much to take in. You do feel, though, that this is because Bryson is himself utterly fascinated and dying to tell you - and it is this raw enthusiasm that makes him so appealing. I've just finished reading his childhood reminiscences 'The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid' which tells us what it was like growing up in Des Moines, Iowa, in the 1950s and thereby provides a comprehensive picture of fifties America. Extremely enjoyable and incredibly funny this was Bryson at his best - perhaps because this journey into the past covered a much longer period than his geographical journeys so there were many more bizarre encounters from which to cull his anecdotes - plus a highly entertaining new central character: the young Bill Bryson. Despite his familiarity with the territory, the usual Brysonic thoroughness of research is evident - with some great quotations from newspapers and magazines of the period opening each chapter. But above all you get a great sense of the affection Bryson feels for his family, friends and the place he grew up - despite, or perhaps because of, their baffling oddities.

'The Kite Runner' by Khaled Hosseini

25 June 2007

My knowledge of the recent history of Afghanistan was fairly limited before reading 'The Kite Runner' by Khaled Hosseini - but I knew it hadn't been a good few decades. In Hosseini's impressive novel, the narrator looks back to his childhood in 1970s Kabul from the vantage point of present-day San Francisco. The early chapters, dealing with his privileged upbringing and his close friendship with his father's servant's son, have the same end-of-an-era feel as the Shanghai of JG Ballard's 'Empire of the Sun' or Kazuo Ishiguro's 'When We Were Orphans'. But here the comfortable childhood is shattered by the Russians rather than the Japanese and then things just get worse as the Russians are followed by the Northern Alliance and then the Taliban. 'The Kite Runner' is an old-fashioned epic novel - a family saga cataloguing dark years, tragedy and violence. It is a gripping, if sometimes disturbing, read - extremely well-written and intricately plotted with some great iconic characters. Occasionally Hosseini overdoes the neat little links - almost every significantly described item seems bound to make a crucial reappearance later in the story - but this is a minor criticism for a stunning debut novel which is crying out to be filmed.

'A Spot of Bother' by Mark Haddon

25 June 2007

It wasn't to everyone's liking and was sometimes painfully honest to read but, for me, one of the best novels of recent years was 'The Corrections' by Jonathan Franzen. This tale of two aging parents and their grown-up children impressively showed you the irresolvably opposing points of view of each of the main characters in a way that made you simultaneously sympathise with all of them - painfully demonstrating the irreconcilable tensions within families. Mark Haddon's new novel 'A Spot of Bother' pulls off a similar trick in a much lighter vein. Haddon was, rightly, much praised for his previous novel 'The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time' - a highly distinctive, wonderful book - if you haven't read it please do so now! It was always going to be difficult for him to follow this success and 'A Spot of Bother' had mixed reviews but I really enjoyed it. Inevitably, it is a very different - and much more conventional, novel, but it is extremely enjoyable and very funny. Like 'The Corrections', 'A Spot of Bother' deals with aging parents and their grown-up children. It is written in the third person but each chapter takes the point of view of one of the four principal characters - often showing us the same events from a different angle. But this is 'The Corrections' as it might have been written by Nick Hornby - an entertaining, page-turning, easy read in an English middle-class setting with some great comic set-pieces. Like Hornby or David Lodge, Mark Haddon has the ability to address difficult and complex subjects through deceptively 'lightweight' prose - never feeling the need to show-off its cleverness and dealing with dark subjects without making them unbearably bleak. And on top of all this the book is set in what is, for me, familiar territory. With Marina Lewycka's 'A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian', are we seeing the beginning of a new genre of 'Peterborough fiction'?

Charles Hazlewood on BBC Radio 2

7 June 2007

I recently discovered the Charles Hazlewood show on BBC Radio 2 which is broadcast on Wednesday evenings at 10 pm. Hazlewood is a conductor and enthusiastic advocate of classical music. In his Radio 3 Saturday afternoon programme ‘Discovering Music’ he performs a fascinating and accessible dissection and analysis of popular orchestral works, finishing by conducting a full live performance of the work in question. Earlier this year his TV drama/documentaries on Tchaikowsky demonstrated his excitement and infectious enthusiasm in front of the camera. His weekly Radio 2 show is a wonderful example of breaking down genre barriers and appreciating good music without worrying about how it is labeled. From the barn at his home in Somerset he plays a variety of recordings from pop to country to contemporary classical to early music and discusses them with a guest musician. His guest then performs a couple of live numbers (often with Hazlewood accompanying or adding some percussion etc) before they improvise something completely new together. The result is intriguing, enjoyable and accessible whilst still resolutely musically serious – without a hint of ‘dumbing down’. Last week’s guest was Fyfe Dangerfield from The Guillemots – a band I’ve not listened to, but having heard his performances from Hazelwood’s barn I am keen to seek them out.

Fanfare Ciocarlia

31 May 2007

Regular readers will know about my enthusiasm for Balkan Gypsy brass music. 2007 looks like being a vintage year for British fans of Balkan brass with Kocani Orkestar, the Boban Markovic Orkestar and Fanfare Ciocarlia all visiting the UK. On Wednesday I was at the Barbican in London to see the award-winning Romanian Gypsy brass band, Fanfare Ciocarlia. Fanfare won a BBC Radio 3 Award for World Music last year (reported here in April 2006) and are great friends of my former colleague at Making Music, Jackie Grant. Thankfully they had not brought a goat with them on this occasion but they did bring a host of guest performers that resembled a 'Who's Who' of Balkan Gypsy music.

In 2000 the Barbican held its first '1000 Year Journey' festival of Gypsy music and Fanfare Ciocarlia made their mark with an amazing performance on the free stage in the Barbican foyer that went on into the small hours of the following morning. Seven years later they were back - this time in the sold-out main Barbican Hall. There was a buzz around the building well before the performance started: this felt like a major 'event'. There was wonderful support from American duo 'A Hawk and a Hacksaw' creating their own blend of traditional Hungarian Gypsy music with their collaborators, Hungary's Hun Hangar Ensemble. Then Fanfare Ciocarlia and their guests commanded the stage for more than two hours. Wow! Never before have eleven mostly balding, middle-aged men, wearing their bright-coloured short-sleeved shirts outside their sensible slacks to disguise their widening midriffs, played so energetically, so frantically, so furiously and so loudly! Fanfare Ciocarlia play fast - very fast - no, really very fast! Fanfare Ciocarlia are 'The Flight of the Bumble Bee' on speed - going down a very steep hill - in a runaway train - with a strong tailwind. When they pause between pieces to gather their breath you wonder for a second whether the next tune might be a contrasting slow one - then the percussionist looks at his colleagues, raises his sticks and rapidly beats 'tap tap tap tap' and they're off again at breakneck speed. Exciting as this is it can get a little monotonous and I was grateful for the variety provided by a galaxy of co-stars.

Fanfare Ciocarlia's patriarch, Ioan Ivancea died late last year and their new CD 'Queens & Kings' is a tribute to him, featuring legendary Gypsy musicians from across Europe. At the Barbican this week Fanfare Ciocarlia were joined by the gorgeous Romanian singer Florentina Sandu, French trio Kaloome, Romanian dancers Aurelia and Tantzica and Bulgarian rocker Jony Iliev (who had hurt his back and had to be helped to hobble across the stage to take his place on a chair with microphone in hand - at which point he came alive and gave a lively, soulful performance). Also appearing was the amazing Hungarian Gypsy singer with the bizarre squeaky voice Mitsou (whose band Mitsoura were one of my highlights at last year's WOMAD festival - reviewed here in August 2006).

But the star of the show was undoubtedly the 'Queen of the Gypsies', the legendary Macedonian singer Esma Redzepova. Esma has had an amazing life - performing across the globe in front of adoring crowds and heads of state including Nehru and Tito, adopting 46 children from the streets of Macedonia, campaigning against poverty, and being nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize - twice! She still has a wonderful voice and led a rousing finale with all the performers (and several members of the audience) returning to the stage to hop and spin to the frenetic beat. Fanfare Ciocarlia's CD 'Queens and Kings' is out now on Asphalt Tango Records - go on, you know you want to ...

'Romeo & Juliet' by Northern Ballet Theatre

29 May 2007

We've been meaning to get around to watching some ballet for ages. We finally took the plunge at Milton Keynes Theatre last Saturday where we saw Northern Ballet Theatre's 'Romeo & Juliet' and it was great! I think it helped that we had chosen a story we knew well, set to familiar music (by Prokofiev). Having played the concert suites I was intrigued to see how sections of the music were repeated throughout the ballet as 'motifs' for particular characters etc. It was also interesting to see how interpreting the plot through dance (choreography by Massimo Moricone and original direction by Christopher Gable) stretched time in different directions. Complex plot development scenes which are quite substantial in the Shakespeare play were over in the blink of an eye in the ballet, while the dance lingered understandably much longer on expressions of feelings between the characters. I am not convinced that I would have been able to follow all the intricacies of the plot without knowing the play well (I don't see how you could dance/mime Friar Laurence's explanation that the potion will only induce a death-like sleep - if you didn't already know this you would probably get quite a surprise when Juliet wakes up!). And I still think some of the 'silent movie' exaggerated mime moments sit uneasily within the seriousness of the story and the dance - there were too many 'silent scream' moments with dancers waving their hands in mock surprise! But the dancing was lovely and very moving. I particularly liked Pippa Moore's child-like Juliet and Hironao Takahashi's swaggering Mercutio. 'Romeo & Juliet' was definitely a hit and I think more ballet beckons ...

'Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus' by Mary Shelley

22 May 2007

'Frankenstein' seems such a familiar story but it's been fascinating to read Mary Shelley's original 1818 novel for the first time. I knew that most of the film versions took great liberties with the plot but it was interesting to discover how, in doing so, they really lost the point of the story. Mary Shelley wrote 'Frankenstein' (famously inspired by a 'waking dream' while staying with her husband and Byron at Lake Geneva) while pregnant and its main themes are to do with birth, creation and death. It is heavily influenced by Milton's 'Paradise Lost' (quoted on the title page) - the source of inspiration, more recently, for Philip Pulman's 'His Dark Materials' trilogy. The science of 'Frankenstein' is pretty shaky and largely glossed over. Mary Shelley is much more interested in the social interactions between the monster, his creator and other people. Much of the plot is, even within the fantastical world of the novel, remarkably implausible - teaching himself to talk, the monster becomes unbelievably articulate in a very short space of time - and Victor Frankenstein seems to come very much from the naive "hiding under the duvet should protect me from anything nasty" school of thought! Nevertheless the story's premise is powerful enough to allow you to overlook some of these imperfections. The narrative structure is quite complex, consisting of several 'nested narratives' - at one point we are reading the monster's story as told by the monster to Victor Frankenstein as told by Victor to Captain Walton as told by the Captain to his sister! But even this is symbolic - Captain Walton's sister is Margaret Walton Saville and it is no coincidence that she shares her initials with Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, suggesting that the whole story is a found narrative discovered by Mary Shelley rather than her own creation. The edition of the novel I read included as an appendix an 1823 dramatisation called 'Presumption or The Fate of Frankenstein' by Richard Brinsley Peake which radically simplified the story, making the monster mute and removing all the complexities of his arguments with his creator. This play seems to have been the source for many of the later treatments including the Universal films that now form our main reference for the 'Frankenstein' story. The original novel, while not a great work, is much more thoughtful and thought-provoking than much that it inspired - and truly scary!

'Little Shop of Horrors' by Howard Ashman and Alan Menken

14 May 2007

Last Saturday we were in London to see the Menier Chocolate Factory production of 'Little Shop of Horrors' which is now at the Duke of York's Theatre in the West End. It was an incredibly enjoyable evening - great music in an all-girl-group early rock and roll style, some wonderful comedy, fantastic 'skid-row' set design and a giant man-eating plant (realised here through the amazing puppetry of Andy Heath). I was a big fan of the 1986 film but had never seen the original stage musical (which itself was based on the classic 1959 Roger Corman B-movie). I hadn't realised that the happy ending of the 1986 film was a Hollywood-imposed change - the musical has a much more satisfyingly macabre finale! It was written for a small off-Broadway theatre and works well on the intimate stage at the Duke of York's. Alistair McGowan was great in the show-stopping part of Audrey's sadistic boyfriend (played by Steve Martin in the film) as was Mike McShane as the voice of the plant. His biography in the programme says that McShane "has never played a vegetable, although he's been known to party with them upon occasion." 'Little Shop of Horrors' is a very silly show from which you come out smiling. But remember, "whatever they offer you, don't feed the plants!"

'A Matter of Life and Death' adapted by Emma Rice and Tom Morris

8 May 2007

On Monday we were at the National Theatre in London to see 'A Matter of Life and Death' - a joint production with Kneehigh Theatre adapted by Emma Rice and Tom Morris from the 1946 Powell & Pressberger film starring David Niven.

It's a long time since I saw the film but the stage version definitely felt like a more realist, modern approach to the story. We still saw our hero fall to earth (as his plane is destroyed by German fire while returning from a wartime bombing raid) and then emerge seemingly unscathed to meet and fall in love with the radio operator he thought he had spoken his last words to. But now it is clearly suggested that the 'explanation' that he survived because the 'conductor' who was supposed to escort him to 'the other world' missed him in the fog exists only within our hero's damaged brain. And when he prepares to appeal to the heavenly court to be allowed to carry on living we can see that this is his internalisation of the fight to defeat the brain tumor for which he is undergoing a crucial operation back in the real world. This all seemed remarkably like John Simm's plight in 'Life on Mars' - indeed, here too the surgeon performing the operation makes a decisive appearance in the 'dream world'. But this is probably because both these dramas were actually referencing 'The Wizard of Oz' (how many times did Gene Hunt call Sam Tyler 'Dorothy'?).

There were a couple of places where the tone felt a bit wrong - the pathos of the many personal stories or wartime deaths was strangely missing when a wounded airman's suicide was presented as a comic incident. But nevertheless 'A Matter of Life and Death' was an amazing spectacle - making full use of the Olivier's enormous stage. While not quite a musical, it featured some great song and dance routines as well as aerial movement, burning beds, back projection and table tennis!

At times it felt like there was too much being thrown together - all that what lacking from the stage was the proverbial kitchen sink - but I was happy to excuse the production's excesses as it drew itself together towards a moving conclusion. And the amazing mix of elements was great fun: how many plays have you seen recently that feature two ukuleles, a camera obscura, a team of hand-bell ringers, an acrobatic Norwegian magician, a square tango and seven nurses on bicycles?!

Definitely worth £10 - I'm actually tempted to see it again ...

Northampton Symphony Orchestra Concert

4 May 2007

It was a watery programme for our latest Northampton Symphony Orchestra concert last Saturday - including Respighi's 'Fountains of Rome' and 'La Mer' by Debussy. I must admit I thought I didn't like Debussy but having worked on 'La Mer' for the past few weeks I am a convert. It is a wonderful piece on a symphonic scale which really gets under your skin. And the moment when the slow triplet brass chorale re-enters towards the end of the last movement is just gorgeous. I think we gave a pretty good account of it on Saturday and I've really enjoyed the rehearsals leading to this concert. I've also been enjoying a new recording of 'La Mer' by the Hallé Orchestra and Mark Elder which got a five star review in The Guardian in March.

'Favourite Worst Nightmare' by Arctic Monkeys

26 April 2007

Stung by your criticism that it took me so long to get around to seeing 'Hot Fuzz', this week, in a desperate attempt to regain some street-cred, I've been listening to the new Arctic Monkeys album 'Favourite Worst Nightmare' (which only came out on Monday!). You may remember I was bowled over by the Arctic Monkeys' debut 'Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not' (reviewed here in February 2006) and I had been eagerly anticipating the follow-up: I wasn't disappointed. With material this creative, inventive and varied, more of the same proves to be the perfect recipe. Loud, fast, catchy, songs that do not outstay their welcome, get-up-and-dance rhythms and the cleverest, funniest lyrics delivered in a strong Sheffield accent: everything rock music should be. Top!

'Hot Fuzz'

19 April 2007

I hadn't been to the cinema for ages: perhaps I'm showing my age but our local multiplex doesn't appeal to me - it always seems very loud and littered with popcorn and teenagers. I've missed a few films I fancied seeing recently when the lure of the movie didn't quite overcome the drawbacks of the venue. It would be great if we had a nice little independent cinema nearby but we do have the recently refurbished Library Theatre in Leighton Buzzard which shows a limited programme of films once or twice a week. Last Friday we made the effort and ventured to Leighton Buzzard to see 'Hot Fuzz' - the British comedy by Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright. It was brilliant! Simon Pegg plays a super-efficient police officer from the Met who is transferred to a sleepy Gloucestershire village and brings big city policing to the country. His new partner, played by Nick Frost, is fascinated by American cop movies and wants to know all about Pegg's exciting London experiences - particularly the guns! What follows is a wonderful parody of movie genres including westerns, cop movies and all manner of action thrillers. It is incredibly violent (with plenty of blood and 'look away' moments) but carries this off because much of the violence is hysterically ridiculous. And there is loads of fun to be had in trying to spot the enormous number of well-known British actors and comedians making (often very fleeting) appearances. (There is even a very hard to spot uncredited cameo by Cate Blanchett.) But it is a massively enjoyable film primarily because it is extremely funny and exquisitely plotted. Every casual remark and every seemingly insignificant feature in the background in the early scenes comes back to play a significant part later in the story. And the brooding sense of evil lurking beneath the surface of apparently innocent village society is truly scary. It was quite disconcerting to glance around the middle-aged middle-class audience in Leighton Buzzard Library Theatre and realise how closely we resembled the slightly sinister Neighbourhood Watch Alliance in the film!

'Cuilidh' by Julie Fowlis

13 April 2007

I'm very much enjoying 'Cuilidh' - the second album by Julie Fowlis, the young Gaelic singer and pipes player from North Uist. (You may remember my discovery of her first solo album in February 2006 - you heard about her here first!) The faster numbers feature some amazing high-speed percussive vocals but it is the ballads that are truly outstanding. She has a beautiful, pure voice and creates peaceful, inspiring music. For a taster you can 'listen again' to her session on this week's Andy Kershaw show at www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/andykershaw

'The Big Over Easy' by Jasper Fforde

10 April 2007

Read this book! - I loved it. Humpty Dumpty is dead but did he fall off the wall or was he pushed? This is a case for Detective Inspector Jack Spratt of the Nursery Crime Division - and the start of an elaborate double parody incorporating more nursery rhymes than you realised you remembered and a wonderful send-up of detective fiction. The tone is set early on when the smarmy rival DI Friedland Chymes is giving a press conference to explain how he solved his latest case - correctly identifying the killer as Miss Celia Mangersen, the victim's neice. A journalist asks him what the significance was of the traces of custard found on the colonel's sock suspender and Chymes explains:

"Mortally wounded and with only seconds to live, he had somehow to leave a clue to his assailant's identity. A note? Of course not - the killer would find and destroy it. Guessing correctly that a murder of this magnitude would be placed in my hands, he decided to leave behind a clue that only I could solve. Knowing the colonel's penchant for anagrams, it was but a swift move to deduce his reasoning. The sock suspender was made in France. 'Custard' in French is 'creme anglaise' - and an anagram of this is 'Celia Mangerse-", which not only correctly identified the killer, but also told me the colonel died before he was able to finish the anagram."

Jack Spratt and his new Detective Sergeant, Mary Mary ("Her name was Mary. Mary Mary") pursue an elaborate convoluted plot involving Wee Willie Winkie, Rapunzel, aliens, immortals from Ancient Greece and some magic beans. 'The Big Over Easy' is very silly but incredibly clever and tremendously enjoyable. There is perhaps too much crammed into it - including an enormous number of characters it is quite difficult to keep track of - but if you just give up trying to make sense of it all and just go along for the ride it's a wonderful journey. It's also very well written and cleverly plotted - however silly the story is it has to work as a proper whodunnit, which it does. There are so many fantastic ideas ('Oysters one step closer to vote') but I won't spoil it for you by citing any more here. I couldn't put the book down and read most of it with a big smile on my face. Now I can't wait for the publication of the sequel 'The Fourth Bear' in June 2007.

Pembrokeshire

5 April 2007

We had a lovely break in Wales last week. We were staying in a cottage near Carmarthen with wonderful views of the Towy estuary but spent most of our time walking parts of the Pembrokeshire coastal path. We particularly enjoyed the walk round Stackpole Head and Barafundle bay. We had some great weather and had numerous picnics on beaches. We visited Pembroke, St David's, Narberth and Fishguard but my memories will mainly be of the stunning coastal scenery.

Yasmin Levy

4 April 2007

Last Thursday we were at the Queen's Hall in Narberth to see the Israeli singer Yasmin Levy. It was great to find a familiar name from the world music circuit touring small venues across Wales and Narberth provided a packed and attentive audience. Yasmin Levy sings songs from the Sephardic culture: in 1492 the Jews were expelled from Spain and many settled in North Africa establishing a musical tradition that combines Spanish flamenco with Arabic, Jewish and Christian influences. Yasmin Levy's father (who died when she was just one year old) was the leading collector of these traditional Sephardic songs - sung in the hybrid Ladino language - and she has reinvigorated the tradition. Her band, featuring two percussionists, guitar and clarinet/flute/duduk were exceptional and there was some breathtaking playing (literally in the case of the circular-breathing flautist!). Levy's vocal style is impressive but sometimes a bit strident for me - these were serious songs sung seriously - though she also gave us plenty of fascinating detail about the music and translations of the lyrics. An enthralling and entertaining performance.

'The Third Policeman' by Flann O'Brien

2 April 2007

I should both thank and blame David Lack for introducing me to 'The Third Policeman' by Flann O'Brien - a novel written in 1940 but only published posthumously in 1967. I hadn't come across it before but it seems to have had a cult following which has grown recently after references to it in the TV series 'Lost'. Not knowing what to expect I started to read and soon found myself totally bewildered, amused, confused and irritated. After a quirky start the novel soon launches into bizarre realms of surrealism. Our narrator stumbles around a strange world with its own rules and logic, helped and hindered by three policemen with an obsessive interest in dentists, bicycles and the county council. Like Alice through the looking glass everything is recognisable but different. Much of the writing is very funny - I particularly enjoyed the ongoing references to the theologian and mad scientist, de Selby, which appear in a series of footnotes throughout the novel (O'Brien later gave de Selby a book of his own - 'The Dalkey Archive', 1964). But as the dreamlike wandering (which reminded me of Kazuo Ishiguro's novel 'The Unconsoled') continued I grew increasingly restless. It was all very clever and often very funny but what was the point? Then there is an extremely satisfying final twist which made me want to go straight back and read the whole book again! 'The Third Policeman' is a bizarre, indescribable book - funny, puzzling, frustrating and very clever. "Is it about a bicycle?"

'Soap' by Sarah Woods

2 April 2007

The latest home-grown production in the Northampton Royal Theatre's 'Love and Madness' season was 'Soap' - a new play by Sarah Woods. In the first act (Episode 1) we were introduced to two very familiar TV soap operas. In a pub in the East End of London everyone keeps going on about the importance of 'family' before heading off to the cash and carry. Meanwhile on an Australian beach a few beers are being opened and the surf is up. But all is not entirely what it seems: some characters are beginning to question why their ages don't quite add up and why they only ever drink coffee (black with one sugar) and never anything else. Then a barrel needs changing in the East End pub and Lorna goes through the previously unused cellar door and finds herself on an Australian beach. Queue the theme music ... But then we were faced with a real-life soap opera cliffhanger as the curtain failed to rise for Episode 2 and we were told that the revolving stage had failed and the rest of the performance would have to be canceled! Nearly a week later we returned to Northampton to try again and I'm glad we did. As the two soap operas became increasingly intertwined and confused, 'Soap' became a very enjoyable farce in the vein of Michael Frayn's 'Noises Off' with echoes of other works where the protagonists begin to realise they are just characters in a work of fiction such as Pirandello's 'Six Characters in Search of an Author'. I also found myself thinking of 'The Wizard of Oz' as all the actors other than the two leads doubled as characters in both soaps - so when Lorna turns up in 'Oz' she sees a lot of strangely familiar faces. The cast looked like they were having a wonderful time sending up the soap genres and there was some great (over)acting. Authenticity was added by the presence of former Eastender Lucy Speed as Lorna and several other actors who had appeared in Eastenders, Coronation Street and Emmerdale. But the temperamental star of the show was undoubtedly the revolving stage!

‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ by Harper Lee

16 March 2007

'To Kill a Mockingbird' by Harper Lee always seems to rank highly in polls of essential books to read but I had never quite got around to it. I hadn't even seen the film and only had a rather vague idea of what it was about. Having now read it I'm glad I came to it with few preconceptions so I won't say much about the plot to allow you to do the same if you're not familiar with it. It is a great book - thoughtful, moving and very cleverly plotted. As it is narrated by a nine-year-old girl the naïve switches of attention in the plot seem quite natural but wrong-foot you several times to create very satisfying resolutions. I was certainly expecting a courtroom scene well before page 179 but leaving it so late means you feel you really know the protagonists and can read so much more into their actions in court. It reminded me a lot of one of my favourite American novels of recent years, 'The Little Friend' by Donna Tartt - or rather I realised how much of a homage to 'To Kill a Mockingbird' Tartt's book is. The contrast between the condemnation of anti-semitism in Europe and the casual racism towards the local black community also reminded me of Philip Roth's 'The Plot Against America'. And the sympathetic depiction of a whole small-town community made me think of 'Cannery Row' by John Steinbeck. 'To Kill a Mockingbird' won the Pulitzer prize in 1961 and still feels like a true classic.

Andy Kershaw on 'Desert Island Discs'

13 March 2007

I am a relative newcomer to Andy Kershaw's loyal band of listeners but, like many people, I have quickly become somewhat obsessive! I don't think I have a missed a single edition of his weekly Radio 3 show since I started listening in November 2002 - and many weeks I've listened to it at least twice (it's those tracks that stick after two or three hearings that are the really interesting ones!). Favourites that I first discovered through the Kershaw programme include Monica Vasconcelos, Rokia Traore, Kamel Nitrate, Jim Moray, Jim Halstain, Athena Andreadis, Horace X, K'Naan and many others. To use the word 'eclectic' would be an understatement - when Andy was banished from Radio 1, Roger Wright famously tempted him to join Radio 3 by saying the thing he liked about Andy's show was that he never knew what to expect next - almost exactly the reason the Radio 1 Controller had given for sacking him! A few weeks ago Andy told his listeners that he had been invited to be a guest on 'Desert Island Discs' and was agonising about how he would choose just 8 records - at that stage he said he had narrowed it down to about 1000. Somehow he managed it and his appearance on 'Desert Island Discs' was broadcast on Radio 4 this week. He came over as honest, passionate, shy, emotional, incredibly enthusiastic and with an encyclopedic knowledge of world politics and music. His idiosyncratic brand of journalism is always fascinating and compelling - particularly when he is reporting from one of the more troubed parts of the world. I was very chuffed having correctly guessed 4 of his 8 choices - you can see the full list at http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/desertislanddiscs.shtml#discs. But I was also intrigued to realise that I'm not particularly keen on many of his personal musical favourites. In fact we have very little in common - I don't share any of his passions for motorcycles, fishing or boxing. Yet I could not contemplate missing the Andy Kershaw show because what we do share is an insatiable appetite for music that is new and different. One listener suggested he might alleviate the pain of selecting just 8 records by devoting this week's edition of his regular Radio 3 show (now on Monday nights at 11.15 pm - see http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/andykershaw/) to all those tracks that didn't quite make it. You can hear the results at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/networks/radio3/aod.shtml?radio3/andykershaw

Milton Keynes Sinfonia concert

12 March 2007

I played in a very enjoyable concert with Milton Keynes Sinfonia last weekend at the Church of Christ the Cornerstone in Milton Keynes. Regular conductor, David Knight, directed pieces by Rossini and Dvorak, before picking up his 'cello to perform as one of the soloists in the Brahms 'Double Concerto' with violinist Jan Kaznowski. David's place on the podium was taken, for the second half of the concert, by Ian Smith. The Double Concerto is a lovely piece - one that I know well but had never performed before. And there is always a special magic in a performance where the orchestra has a real affection for the soloist. But I particularly enjoyed the experience of being conducted by two different people in the same concert. Every conductor brings different qualities and insights and, however good the regular conductor is, I think it is good for an orchestra to be occasionally challenged by someone less familiar. The players seem to sit up a bit straighter and pay more attention than usual. Perhaps more groups should bring in a 'guest conductor' from time to time.

Sarah Kendal

9 March 2007

Comedy’s a funny thing – haha! No, but seriously, forget the Comedy Store or the Edinburgh Fringe, the real test of a stand-up comedian’s skill is playing a small-town arts centre on a weekday evening. Many years ago we saw a young female comedian at the arts centre in Grantham. She had been getting good reviews and had just got her first TV show but she was no match for Grantham! She started by pointing at a man in the front row and saying how fantastic it was to see someone wearing a tie at one of her gigs and she thought he looked like her Dad. Only then did she look around the room to see it was full of men wearing ties who could have been her father! Further demonstrating how little she knew her audience she started to tell a joke set in a nightclub and asked us to name the best nightclub in Grantham. After several minutes of discussion the audience concluded it didn’t know of any nightclubs in Grantham and, somewhat reluctantly, the comedian agreed, as a compromise, to set her joke in a nightclub in nearby Nottingham. On another occasion, while on holiday in Suffolk, we were surprised to see the enormous old seaside theatre in Lowestoft advertising an evening with Jeremy Hardy. This theatre, which had Ken Dodd the previous week and Jimmy Tarbuck the following week – seemed an odd setting for a left-wing political alternative comedian. We booked our tickets and, on the night, found ourselves lost in a sea of empty seats with only about a dozen other people but Jeremy Hardy dealt with a potentially embarrassing situation extremely impressively. Quickly abandoning his prepared material he probably worked harder than ever that night and completely won his tiny audience over – one of the most impressive comedy performances I’ve seen. Last night we were at the Library Theatre in Luton to see the Australian comedian Sarah Kendal and she was great. I’ve realised over the years that to really enjoy a comedian’s performance I need to feel I like the person. Some picking on the audience is fine but it has to be done gently and in good spirit and to be balanced with a good dose of self-deprecation. Sarah Kendal had the balance about right – she has a good line in carefully constructed observational stories and is a good improviser and ad-libber. But above all she charmed Luton by getting to know her audience and treating them with respect. Watch out for her.

'Bottoms of Barrels' by Tilly and the Wall

8 March 2007

My discovery of the week is Tilly and the Wall – a lively, young, five-piece pop band from Omaha, Nebraska. They write light, cheerful, catchy songs but what grabs your attention is the fact that instead of a conventional drummer their rhythms are provided by a tap dancer. The amplified tap shoes of Jamie Williams give their songs a unique flavour. Sometimes this sounds a bit like flamenco – it’s a compelling, pulsating sound. Coupled with unusual syncopations, sing-along vocal harmonies, uncompromising lyrics and an upbeat, sunny disposition, it’s a winning formula. Only a couple of days after trying the second Tilly and the Wall album, ‘Bottoms of Barrels’, I was so hooked I had to get a copy of their first album, ‘Wild Like Children’. I was fascinated by what it would be like to see them perform live with the tap dancer centre stage. There are numerous clips of them on YouTube – try: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgA-dJ9imVk. But the highest praise I can give is to say that their songs make me feel happy and make me want to get up and dance: I want to be that tap dancer!

Northampton Symphony Orchestra concert

5 March 2007

On Saturday I played in the first Northampton Symphony Orchestra concert of the year. This was an 'Opera Evening' at Spinney Hill Theatre in Northampton with a mixed programme including instrumental music from operas by Wagner, Verdi, Bizet and Tchaikovsky, three arias sung by the bass, Ian Spencer, and two pieces for ladies' chorus. I'm not a big fan of opera, nor of concert programmes made up of many short pieces, but I found it a very enjoyable evening. As always, it was good to get to know music I might not have otherwise chosen to discover and I particularly enjoyed the aria 'Ella giammai mamo' from Verdi's 'Don Carlos'. It was also good to play some Wagner - the overture 'Rienzi' and the 'Entry of the Gods into Valhalla' from 'Das Rheingold' - particularly rewarding for a brass player, if somewhat exhausting!

'Vertigo' by Red Shift

26 February 2007

Last weekend we were at the Royal Theatre, Northampton, to see a new stage production of the psychological thriller 'Vertigo' by the Red Shift Theatre Company. This was adapted and directed by Jonathan Holloway from the story by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac that inspired the famous Hitchcock film. Set in a French sanatorium in 1947, the play tells the story in flashback - a framing device that creates a logic to actors playing multiple characters as the Doctor helps his patient, Roger Flaviere, to remember the events that led to his current state of mind by acting them out. I wonder, however, whether this framing of the story removed some of the tension by making it clear where Roger was headed. Nevertheless the play nicely captured the feeling of increasing bewilderment, paranoia and panic common to so many Hitchcock leading men. It reminded me of the Kazuo Ishiguro novel 'When We Were Orphans' where we are similarly asked to sympathise with a protagonist who becomes gradually more and more desperate and hysterical to the point where we begin to wonder how reliable his narration is. 'Vertigo' was well acted and directed and enjoyably dark though it requires you to go along with the dated gender politics and the familiar obsession with the 'Hitchcock blonde'. And if you are not familiar with the film don't let anyone spoil it by telling you the twist!