'Cyrano de Bergerac' based on the translation by Anthony Burgess of the play by Edmond Rostand
27 April 2015
On Saturday we were at the Royal Theatre in Northampton to see 'Cyrano de Bergerac' – a co-production by Royal & Derngate Northampton and Northern Stage, based on the translation written by Anthony Burgess of the play written by Edmond Rostand. 'Cyrano de Bergerac' is such a familiar story it was a surprise to realise I hadn't seen the play before. And it was interesting to discover its history: Rostand's 1897 play was based on a real-life duellist and literary figure who lived in early 17th century France. It was translated into English – in prose and in verse – several times before the 1971 version by Anthony Burgess entered the canon as a modern classic. Burgess, the author of 'A Clockwork Orange' was an accomplished translator (and a composer). According to the programme, he rewrote Rostand's original verse (rhymed alexandrines) as “decasyllabic heroic couplets, with occasional diversions into sonnets, hexameters, and free verse for the moving final scene”. All of which helps to emphasise the fact that 'Cyrano de Bergerac' is a play about poetry and drama. At times the plot feels almost incidental to an exploration of ideas about language and performance. The Royal & Derngate/Northern Stage production, directed by Lorne Campbell, starts metatextually with Cyrano speaking to the audience about the play we are about to see. The action is set in a gymnasium, complete with climbing bars and vaulting horses. Most of the actors wear fencing whites, which they adorn with brightly coloured hats or scarves to indicate the various roles they assume through the play. It is an energetic and intriguing production but it felt like an odd mix of styles. The plot was often interrupted by the performance of standalone poems, with the actors occasionally using a microphone hanging from a long cable for these performances within the performance. The Burgess version is clearly extremely clever, playful and witty but I felt I really needed to read it to get the full effect of the text. Nigel Barrett was a very impressive Cyrano, commanding the stage physically and vocally. It was also fascinating to discover, afterwards, that the production's ensemble cast was made up of six emerging performers from Northern Stage's NORTH scheme – a 21 week paid training programme to support and develop young actors in the North East of England, part of Northern Stage's commitment to creating access and opportunities for working class actors with exceptional talent.
Labels: Drama, Theatre
'Love, Sex and Other Foreign Policy Goals' by Jesse Armstrong
27 April 2015
Jesse Armstrong is best known as one of the writers of the long-running TV comedy 'Peep Show'. His first novel, 'Love, Sex and Other Foreign Policy Goals' (which I have just finished reading as an unabridged audio book, narrated by Chris Addison) has the same hilarious but squirm-inducing tone as 'Peep Show', with the consequences of believably selfish bad behaviour creating both cartoon comedy and real-world pain. 'Love, Sex and Other Foreign Policy Goals' follows a group of students, setting out in 1994 to cross Europe in a minibus to perform a peace play in war-torn Sarajevo. Their mixture of naivety, good intentions and lack of understanding makes for an uncomfortable but thrilling tale. And Andy, our first person narrator, who has only got involved in the expedition as a way of getting close to the girl of his dreams, is both despicable and sadly sympathetic (particularly as you wait for his lie about being able to be speak Serbo-Croat to be discovered!). Chris Addison feels like the perfect voice to bring Andy to life. As the gang get to the Balkans, their story becomes increasingly bleak, turning from a road trip into a very real evocation of war. Though often very funny, this is too serious to be a comic novel but I found it a real page-turner, grippingly compelling. I look forward to seeing what Jesse Armstrong writes next.
Labels: Books
Northampton Symphony Orchestra concert
22 April 2015
When the soloist who was due to perform the 'Oboe Concerto' by Richard Strauss at our Northampton Symphony Orchestra concert last Saturday pulled out, some weeks ago, the orchestra's Principal Oboe, Kathy Roberts, stepped into the breach. Kathy's performance on Saturday was stunning, mastering the technical challenges of the concerto, the emotion of the music and the nerves of the situation. I can't believe anyone else would have played it better. It was also very impressive to see our second oboe player, Jayne Henderson, taking Kathy's role in the orchestra for the whole programme – including many exposed solo passages. We started the concert with Dvorak's tone poem 'The Noonday Witch' but our main focus was the mighty 'Symphony No.1' by Rachmaninoff. I didn't know this symphony, which feels quite different from its better known successor, but really enjoyed getting to grips with it. The piece has a thematic coherence across its four substantial movements and climaxes in a very exciting finale – the opening of which, featuring our trumpet and percussion sections, was truly thrilling. Our latest guest conductor, Scott Wilson, combining meticulous attention to detail with passionate enthusiasm, drew a great performance from the orchestra.
Labels: Concerts, Music
'The Hard Problem' by Tom Stoppard
22 April 2015
Last Thursday we were at the wonderful Errol Flynn Filmhouse in Northampton to watch the NT Live broadcast of Tom Stoppard's new play, 'The Hard Problem', live from the National Theatre in London. I'm a big Stoppard fan and it was great to leap back into the familiar speech patterns of his characters debating their way through complex issues – in this case the mystery of consciousness. If it is going to become possible to model the human brain as a machine, will we be able to explain consciousness? In 'The Hard Problem' there is a running joke about the cliché of 'the prisoner's dilemma', but Stoppard avoids any reference at all to the other elephantine cliché in the room – that of 'the ghost in the machine'. The play asks whether anyone ever truly acts completely altruistically: if every apparently generous act actually conceals some vested interest or ulterior motive, however slight, then it could potentially be modelled and predicted. Tom Stoppard plays with these ideas through a (fairly slight) plot that demonstrates the complications of altrusim and coincidence through the lives of the characters. 'The Hard Problem' is a star vehicle for its female lead, the excellent Olivia Vinall, who we last saw as Desdemona in the National Theatre production of 'Othello' (reviewed here in September 2013). She appears in almost every scene and creates a very sympathetic protagonist. Some Stoppard plays would work as well on the radio as the stage, but Olivia Vinnal's reactions and facial expressions make 'The Hard Problem' more than just a play of words. This is a relatively short play, without an interval – a condensed version of Stoppard, without the elaborate framing devices of some of his earlier plays – but I really enjoyed it.
Labels: Drama, Film, Theatre
'Mainlander' by Will Smith
16 April 2015
The comedian Will Smith is best known for his role as an inept political advisor in 'The Thick of It', and for the fact that he comes from Jersey. His first novel, 'Mainlander' (which I have just read as an unabridged audio book, narrated by Jot Davies), clearly draws closely on personal experience. It is set in Jersey in 1987, allowing Will Smith the opportunity to mix some 1980s nostalgia with a portrait of his island home. He creates a vivid impression of what was like to live on Jersey, showing both the pros and the cons. You might expect a comedian's first book to be a comic novel but 'Mainlander' is a fairly straight thriller, with some nicely judged humour but driven by its intricate plot. We see the events through the eyes of series of key characters as their individual stories overlap. There's more plot than character development and I didn't find any of the protagonists very sympathetic, but it's an entertaining and gripping read.
Labels: Books
The Blockheads
16 April 2015
On Sunday we were at The Stables in Wavendon to see The Blockheads. I've written here before about seeing The Blockheads live (in July 2007, December 2012 and November 2014) and they always put on a good show – primarily because they seem to be playing mainly for their own enjoyment. The band were on fine form this week as they marked the fifteenth anniversary of Ian Dury's death, dedicating an appropriately anarchic version of 'Sweet Gene Vincent' to the late singer/songwriter.
Labels: Concerts, Music
'The Nether' by Jennifer Haley
7 April 2015
On Saturday we were at the Duke of York's Theatre in London to see the Headlong/Royal Court Theatre production of 'The Nether' by Jennifer Haley. This innovative 2013 play looks at the way our online lives are growing and might become more attractive than our real-world lives. Director Jeremy Herrin, set designer Es Devlin and video designer Luke Halls have created an amazing theatrical experience that blends video imagery with a spectacular set to show the 'real' being constructed from the virtual (though it's interesting how much is achieved with very old-fashioned mirrors!). Jennifer Haley explores some extremely uncomfortable issues, asking whether online role-play might provide a 'safe' outlet for those with paedophile tendencies or whether it might encourage such behaviour. It's a clever, disturbing play that questions the boundaries between dreams and reality and hopes to act as a wake-up call about what is already beginning to happen in online virtual communities such as Second Life. 'The Nether' is a visually stunning but morally chilling drama.
Labels: Drama, Theatre
'Death of a Salesman' by Arthur Miller
2 April 2015
This week we were at The Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon to see Greg Doran's new production of 'Death of a Salesman' by Arthur Miller. It was very interesting to compare this with the Young Vic production of 'A View From The Bridge', though they are very different plays. Anthony Sher was stunning as Willy Loman, nervously cheerful and talkative in complete contrast to the dark, brooding silence of Mark Strong's Eddie Carbone. Sher is a very physical actor and his subtle transformation from the unsteady, ageing Loman to his younger self in the flashback sequences, while managing to remind you that this is the older man re-enacting remembered events rather than the events themselves, was a masterclass. There were moments during the play when Sher's portrayal of the disintegration of Willy Loman's false bravado was so discomfiting I found myself physically squirming in my seat. Harriet Walter gave Loman's wife Linda a tragic grace and it was fascinating to see Anthony Sher and Alex Hassell, who I last saw playing Falstaff and Prince Hal in Henry IV Parts 1 & 2 (reviewed here in April and May 2014) as Willy Loman and his son Biff – two similarly strained 'father-son' relationships. A five-star production of a great play.
Labels: Drama, Theatre
'A View From The Bridge' by Arthur Miller
2 April 2015
Last Thursday we were at the West End cinema in Boston to see the NT Live screening of the Young Vic production of Arthur Miller's 'A View From The Bridge', directed by Ivo van Hove and starring Mark Strong. This acclaimed production, now at Wyndham's Theatre in London's West End, is a stark rendering of the play in an almost bare, square box set. It brings out the Greek tragedy structure of the text and builds to an incredibly powerful, tragic conclusion which feels like an inevitable car crash everyone can see coming but no-one can avoid. The acting was wonderful and the close-ups of Mark Strong's facial expressions were a lesson in how much can be said without words. Painful, brutal and compelling.
Labels: Drama, Film, Theatre
Lincolnshire
2 April 2015
We had a lovely holiday in Lincolnshire last week. We stayed in the village of Wrangle, between Boston and Skegness and enjoyed walks along the mud flats on the north side of The Wash, looking across to Norfolk, and at the nature reserve at Gibraltar Point. We also ventured north into the Lincolnshire Wolds, visiting Gunby Hall and Bolingbroke Castle (the birthplace of Henry IV) and walking from Tealby and Donnington on Bain. We visited Louth, Horncastle and the delightful town of Woodhall Spa. We were very lucky with the weather, waking up to bright sunshine every morning apart from one, and saw some spectacular Lincolnshire sunsets across the big skies of the fens.
Labels: Holidays
