'Twelfth Night' by William Shakespeare
23 March 2012
To extend Chekhov’s maxim that if a gun appears in a story
it has to be fired, surely any play in which the stage incorporates a large
tank of water will inevitably involve someone falling into it. The Royal Shakespeare
Company’s new production of ‘Twelfth Night’ has a huge pool of water embedded
into the front of the stage and I don’t think it’s too much of a spoiler to
reveal that someone does indeed take a tumble into it, completely soaking several
members of the audience. (In the spirit of Douglas Adams I will preserve some
element of mystery by not revealing which character this happens to!) But much
more impressively, the play begins with Viola suddenly entering the water from
beneath the stage and clambering coughing and spluttering onto the stage like a
Houdini escape. It’s a stunning opening and sets the standard for a wonderful theatrical
experience. David Farr’s production of ‘Twelfth Night’ at the Royal Shakespeare
Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon is part of ‘What country friends is this?’ – the
RSC’s trilogy of Shakespeare’s shipwreck plays (with ‘The Comedy of Errors’ and
‘The Tempest’) and is the first RSC offering within the World Shakespeare
Festival 2012. The last time I saw ‘Twelfth Night’ was Greg Doran’s 2009 RSC production
(reviewed here in November 2009) which completely gripped me, despite my familiarity
with the plot. Again this week, I wondered whether I had seen ‘Twelfth Night’
too many times to enjoy it afresh but, on the day that Doran was announced as
Michael Boyd’s successor as Artistic Director of the RSC, David Farr’s staging completely
bowled me over. The two female leads, Kirsty Bushell as Olivia and Emily Taaffe
as Viola, were excellent. In the 2009 production, I thought James Fleet was the
best Sir Andrew Aguecheek I had seen but this week Bruce Mackinnon proved equally
worthy of the title. I enjoyed the songs of Feste, played by Kevin McMonagle as
an ageing crooner carrying a tiny electronic keyboard held together by gaffer
tape. And Jonathan Slinger (who I last saw as Macbeth in Michael Boyd’s
theatre-opening production, reviewed here in April 2001) was hilarious as
Malvolio – with wig and double-breasted suit, looking uncannily like Mark
Williams in the “suits you, sir” sketches. The set by Jon Bausor was amazing,
with all the components of a dilapidated hotel foyer set at eccentric angles.
He created some lovely gimmicks but resisted the temptation to overuse them. It
was an excellent show – five stars: do go to see it but don’t sit in the front
row, because “the rain it raineth every day”.
Labels: Drama, Theatre
Reasons to be Cheerful’ by Paul Sirett
23 March 2012
We were back at the Watford Palace Theatre on Saturday to
see ‘Reasons to be Cheerful’ – a play-come-musical written by Paul Sirett,
featuring the music of Ian Dury and The Blockheads. This was the first time I
had seen Graeae – the acclaimed theatre company that boldly places disabled
artists centre stage. ‘Reasons to be Cheerful’ was directed by Graeae’s Artistic
Director Jenny Sealey, who is Co-Artistic Director of the London 2012 Paralympic
Games Opening Ceremony. The first impression was of a stage packed with people
– the cast of disabled and non-disabled actors indistinguishable from an
excellent Blockheads tribute band. The framing device was that we were in a pub
in 1981 to watch a play about events in the summer of 1979, performed by the
people whose story they told. (With some exceptions – I liked the fact that Vinnie’s
obnoxious boss Dave was played by Vinnie’s friend Nick because Dave obviously
wouldn’t have been invited to take part in this performance. Amid the
rumbustious energy of the play there was a nice level of internal logical
consistency.) The acting and the characterisation were great – with lots of
clever little touches going on in the background across the crowded stage. I
loved the enthusiasm of the Musical Director of the band – Robert Hyman – who
was also Vinnie’s Uncle Harry. It took me some time to work out that Pickles (Wayne
‘Pickles’ Norman) who appeared to have wondered onto the stage from the
audience, joining in the dancing but having no dialogue, playing no real part
in the story and spending most of the evening speaking into a payphone in the
corner of the pub, was actually doing the audio description for those audience
members who couldn’t see the action. The signer, Jude Mahon, was very much part
of the action, singing and dancing with the rest of the cast and occasionally
acting a part (at which point someone else would seamlessly take over sign
language duties). There was also inventive use of a large video screen – both
to provide captioning for those who couldn’t hear the dialogue and to
illustrate the colourfully surreal world of Ian Dury’s songs. Bring able to
read Dury’s incredible lyrics as they whizzed past at high speed was a
fantastic addition for all members of the audience. The songs were wonderful –
delivered with massive energy and enthusiasm and truly getting the whole
theatre rocking. John Kelly’s lead vocals were Ian Dury to a T – without
descending into parody or impression. Alongside the music, the performances and
the inventiveness of the production, the story seemed a bit weak and
disappointingly light on the politics of 1979. But by the time we got to
several encores the audience was on its feet and we left humming “Sex &
Drugs & Rock & Roll”.
Labels: Drama, Musicals, Theatre
'The Taming of The Shrew' by William Shakespeare
14 March 2012
On Saturday we were at Milton Keynes Theatre to see Lucy
Bailey’s Royal Shakespeare Company production of ‘The Taming of the Shrew’.
This was the first time I had seen a production designed for the thrust stage
of the new Royal Shakespeare Theatre performed in a more conventional proscenium
arch theatre. The set is a gigantic bed – the shape of the thrust stage
reproduced as a padded sloping surface covered by an enormous sheet. It’s a
striking sight and emphasises the framing device for this difficult play: it is
always clear that the battle between Petruchio and Kate is taking place within
Christopher Sly’s dream and should be viewed in that context. Christopher Sly
spends most of the play lying beneath a corner of the giant sheet while the
players perform upon it. This allows for some lovely comic moments between
scenes where Sly is pursued across the stage under the bed-sheet like the bump
under the carpet in a Tom and Jerry cartoon. It’s always hard to judge ‘The
Taming of the Shrew’ against modern standards: having recently seen ‘The Comedy
of Errors’ it struck me that both are early Shakespeare works and lack some of
the sophistication of his best plays. They both provide opportunities for
slapstick and broad comedy but don’t have the verbal dexterity and deeper
meaning of the later works. The RSC production was excellently acted: David
Caves and Lisa Dillon were very strong in the leading parts and I also
particularly enjoyed the clowning of Gavin Fowler as Lucentio. But the play
didn’t grab my attention as strongly as I had hoped and we felt a long way from
the action compared to the intimacy of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre.
Labels: Drama, Theatre
'Neighbourhood Watch' by Alan Ayckbourn
14 March 2012
For some of us Matthew Cottle will always be the weedy
ginger-haired one in the Andrew Davies sitcom ‘Game On’, but more recently he
seems to have been specialising in the work of Alan Ayckbourn. When we saw
Ayckbourn’s ‘Just Between Ourselves’ at the Royal Theatre Northampton in May
2009, I realised we had seen Cottle play the same part in a 2002 production of
the play at the Theatre Royal in Bath. Last Saturday we were at the Palace
Theatre in Watford to see the original Stephen Joseph Theatre Scarborough
production of Alan Ayckbourn’s latest play ‘Neighbourhood Watch’ with Matthew
Cottle as Martin. This is Ayckbourn’s 75
th professionally produced
full length play and a very good example of his work. As usual with Ayckbourn
there is a simple, single set – a domestic setting that would be easy for an
amateur theatre company to reproduce. The action takes place in a middle class
home where new residents Martin and his sister Hilda help to establish a
neighbourhood watch scheme. Initially this seems very similar to the Esmonde
and Larbey sitcom ‘Ever Decreasing Circles’ but there is always a darker side
to Ayckbourn’s comedy and soon the neighbourhood watch is taken to extremes
that veer closer to martial law. It’s a very funny, poignant and nicely
observed play. Ayckbourn’s characters are slightly cartoony versions of reality
but eminently recognisable: not least amongst the play’s audience!
Labels: Drama, Theatre
Northampton Symphony Orchestra concert
8 March 2012
Rimsky Korsakov’s ‘Scheherezade’ is a lovely piece of music
with some wonderful melodies but seems to me (particularly in the second
movement) not to represent 1001 tales told by a single storyteller but a
succession of storytellers presenting their own versions of the same story. This
procession of soloists within the orchestra stepping into the limelight and
taking their turn to outdo each other provides a great opportunity to show off
the talented players in every section of the orchestra. And, in the Northampton
Symphony Orchestra’s performance last Saturday, each of our home-grown soloists
excelled. To be completely honest, and without any false modesty, the horn
solos are much easier than most of the woodwind solos that precede them, but
nonetheless I was glad that I managed to perform them fairly cleanly. Amid all
this self-congratulation most praise must go to our leader, Trevor Dyson, who
gave an excellent account of the violin cadenzas that hold the work together.
These virtuoso challenges must be a terrifying prospect but Trevor gave a great
performance. In the first half of the concert we tackled the ‘Four Sea
Interludes’ from Benjamin Britten’s ‘Peter Grimes’. I hadn’t played these
before and it took me a few weeks to get to grips with the music but I found it
very rewarding. Each movement has a completely different style and feel. We
also tackled the second Piano Concerto by Shostakovich with the pianist and
composer Huw Watkins. This is a playful and relatively short concerto which is
enjoyable but somewhat slight – until you get to the slow movement which is achingly
beautiful and worth the price of admission on its own. It was a lovely
programme and a great concert.
Labels: Concerts, Music
'Our Father' by Charlotte Keatley
2 March 2012
Anton Chekhov said that if a gun appears in a story it has
to be fired: that’s the point of a story. So when the curtain opened on
Charlotte Keatley’s new play ‘Our Father’ at the Palace Theatre in Watford last
Saturday, to reveal a dam, high on a hill in the Peak District, there was an ever-present
inevitability that this dam would burst. Adam Wiltshire’s amazing set was the
star of the show and the flood was a real coup de théâtre. Charlotte Keatley is
best known for her 1987 play ‘My Mother Said I Never Should’ – a clever and
moving tale of four generations of women that fast became a modern classic. She
is clearly an accomplished writer and ‘Our Father’, directed by Brigid Larmour
who directed the original Contact Theatre production of ‘My Mother Said I Never
Should’, was a well-acted, polished piece, but somehow it seemed to amount to
slightly less than the sum of its parts. The device of a young woman in the
present day hearing the voice of a young woman talking to her from centuries
earlier in the same location reminded me of Tom Stoppard’s ‘Arcadia’. But, for
me, the play failed to really come to life: there seemed to be a strong story bursting
to get out but the narrative dam was possibly too securely built to allow it to
flow.
Labels: Drama, Theatre
