The Blockheads
27 November 2014
On Saturday we were at The Castle in Wellingborough to see The Blockheads (previously reviewed here in July 2007 and December 2012). The Blockheads always look like they are enjoying themselves. They are all excellent musicians and their energy level is immense. On Saturday they were joined by the amazing jazz saxophonist Gilad Atzmon – an incredibly talented musician who showed humility and respect for the band, taking a back seat apart from a few stand-out solos. The Blockheads are never less than outstanding but the scale and acoustics of the auditorium in Wellingborough, and a less-than-packed audience, made this a less exciting gig than the last time we saw them, in the more intimate surroundings of the Astor Community Theatre in Deal (in 2012). Nevertheless, it's always a pleasure to revisit their extensive back catalogue and you can't help but leave a Blockheads concert with a smile on your face.
Labels: Concerts, Music
Mark Steel
19 November 2014
This Monday was the third time we have seen the comedian Mark Steel at The Stables in Wavendon – and I think he has got better and better (I previously reviewed him here in June 2006 and May 2009). This week's performance was 'Mark Steel's Back in Town', building on the BBC Radio 4 series (reviewed here in January 2014) in which he constructs shows about the towns in which he is performing. The live version of the show exploited the growing body of stories he is amassing about the various towns he has visited – a sort of 'Mark Steel's in Town' greatest hits, featuring tales from Abergavenny, Aldershot, Hackney, Wigan and more. Then in the second half his focus was squarely on Milton Keynes. He does extensive research into each town and spends some time there before the show. On Monday he visited the museum at Bletchley Park, the Grand Union Canal and numerous roundabouts and was genuinely shocked to discover that the National Hockey Stadium is now the headquarters of Network Rail. His gentle ridiculing of a place and its people has much in common with Bill Bryson's travelogues – but Mark Steel is brave enough to mock a town in front of an audience of locals. He gets away with this by mixing criticism with wonder, enthusiasm and humility, helping us to celebrate, as well as laugh at, our locality. He has become a very accomplished performer, drawing on his research without interrupting the flow of a stand-up performance and conjuring scenes and characters with an impressive range of accents and physical acting. He's also incredibly funny. If Mark Steel's in your town, don't miss him!
Labels: Comedy, Theatre
Northampton Symphony Orchestra concert
19 November 2014
Last Saturday the Northampton Symphony Orchestra paid tribute to David Lack in a memorial concert at Christchurch in Northampton. Dave, who died in January, was the Principal Horn player in the NSO for many years. When I inherited that seat, at the start of Dave's illness, I always felt I was just keeping it warm for him. It still feels strange playing NSO concerts without him. Our programme on Saturday was one that Dave would have enjoyed playing. We started with the meaty 'Academic Festival Overture' by Brahms before playing the 'Horn Concerto No 1' by Richard Strauss with Katrina Lauder. Katrina was one of Dave's pupils and I know he was immensely proud of her as she developed a professional career as a horn player. Katrina's beautiful tone sounded wonderful in the cavernous acoustic of Christchurch, particularly in the haunting slow movement, and she nailed the fiendishly difficult finale at a breathtaking speed. I was also captivated by the rapid rippling arpeggios passed between the two flutes in the last movement – a beautiful moment exquisitely played by Mara Griffiths and Andrea Patis. The concert finished with Tchaikowsky's 'Symphony No 4', an exciting and exhausting work. Our conductor, John Gibbons, steered us to a thrilling performance, ending what was an emotional occasion with a feeling of triumph and joy. I think we did Dave proud and I know he would have enjoyed it.
Labels: Concerts, Music
'The Missing Hancocks' by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson
13 November 2014
I've always had a fascination with the work of Tony Hancock since discovering that he died the day before I was born (my Mum remembers hearing the shocking news of Hancock's suicide while she was in the hospital maternity unit). I have listened to and watched many recordings of 'Hancock's Half Hour' and read several biographies of the man. For a time I even belonged to the Tony Hancock Appreciation Society (THAS). So I was particularly interested to hear that BBC Radio 4 was producing new versions of five of the episodes of 'Hancock's Half Hour' for which the original recordings were lost. 'The Missing Hancocks' have been produced by the actor Neil Pearson who discovered copies of the scripts by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson in his secondary career as an antiquarian book dealer. The new recordings are being broadcast on Friday mornings on Radio 4 to mark the 60th anniversary of 'Hancock's Half Hour'. Kevin McNally plays 'the lad himself', capturing Hancock's mannerisms perfectly but managing to create a properly comic performance, rather than a mere impersonation. These are early radio Half Hours (the first two dating from 1955 and 1956), which conjure up surreal situations with the full Hancock repertory company. The humour is not as sophisticated as the later pared-down classic TV episodes, but Galton and Simpson's writing is very polished – beautifully constructed 30 minute sitcom plots from an era when this format was relatively new. Some of the period references seem dated now but the characters are still great fun. Kevin Eldon plays the late lamented Bill Kerr (from a period before his character become a childlike simpleton) and Robin Sebastian is great as Kenneth Williams playing all the bit parts. I found Simon Greenall's Sid James a bit less successful but the show is a very faithful reproduction (complete with new recordings by the BBC Concert Orchestra of Wally Stott's original music) and fascinating to hear.
Labels: Comedy, Radio
'Much Ado About Nothing or Love's Labour's Won' by William Shakespeare
7 November 2014
A few weeks ago we were at Charlecote, the Elizabethan manor house near Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire, which is a now a National Trust property. On Thursday we were in Stratford to see Charlecote recreated on the stage of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre for Christopher Luscombe's Royal Shakespeare Company production of 'Much Ado About Nothing'. Simon Higlett's amazing set makes impressive use of the unique capacity of the RST to replicate the exterior of Charlecote, a drawing room, billiards room and chapel. The play is billed as 'Much Ado About Nothing or Love's Labour's Won', suggesting that Shakespeare's famous 'lost' play, 'Love's Labour's Won', might have just been an alternative title for the work we now know as 'Much Ado About Nothing'. Luscombe has used this idea to see 'Much Ado About Nothing' as a sequel to 'Love's Labour's Lost', producing the two plays as companion pieces using the same cast and set. He has placed 'Love's Labour's Lost' in a country estate on the eve of the First World War. That play ends with the young men departing to endure a period of hardship, separated from their lovers. 'Much Ado About Nothing', here set on the same estate in December 1918, opens with the soldiers returning from the Great War. It's an effective setting for a stylish production with lovely period costumes and the troubadour Balthasar becoming an Ivor Novello figure. 'Much Ado About Nothing' treads a fine line between comedy and tragedy but this production focussed on the comic. Beatrice imploring Benedick to “Kill Claudio” is often the moment that chilling reality pierces the jolly mood of the play but on Thursday this line got a laugh. Having decided to play it for laughs, the production was genuinely very funny. Michelle Terry as Beatrice and Edward Bennett as Benedick were excellent and their verbal jousting was perfectly timed. David Horovitch as Leonato and Thomas Wheatley as his brother Antonio looked uncannily like Captain Mainwaring and Sergeant Wilson from 'Dad's Army'. The Dogberry scenes in 'Much Ado About Nothing' are notoriously difficult to pull off. Clearly written as comic interludes they rarely seem funny to modern audiences. Dogberry's 'malapropisms' seem too well disguised for us to work out what word it was he really meant to say. But this production managed to make these scenes work in a way I haven't seen before. The constable and his deputy, in period police uniforms, suggested the surreal world of Flann O'Brien's 'The Third Policeman' (reviewed here in April 2007) – complete with bicycle. And the use of some great physical comedy effectively distracted from any verbal gags missing their targets. Most of all, the subtle suggestion of First World War shellshock hand tremors made Nick Haverson's Dogberry a surprisingly sympathetic character.
Labels: Drama, Theatre
