Bellowhead - live online concert

11 December 2020

Regular readers will know I have been a fan of the English folk big band Bellowhead since I first saw them at the WOMAD Festival in July 2006. When the duo John Spiers and Jon Boden, themselves already established folk music stars, invented a folk big band which brought together musicians from folk, classical and jazz backgrounds they created a unique sound. For twelve glorious years Bellowhead performed stunning new arrangements of traditional folk tunes that got toes tapping and faces smiling across the world. I last saw them on their farewell tour in 2015 at the Riverside Theatre in Aylesbury (reviewed here in November 2015). So it was an unexpected pleasure to have the opportunity to enjoy another live performance by Bellowhead last Saturday as they played a one-off online reunion concert to celebrate the tenth anniversary of their album ‘Hedonism’ (reviewed here in October 2010). It was a typically slick, exuberant, joyful show, excellently filmed by Stabal – a platform for live performance on-demand content – at a mid-18th-century mansion nestled deep in the English countryside. Rapid cutting between a host of handheld cameras made you feel like you were in the room with the band. I love a band that dances to its own music and there was some manic morris dancing on display here. This is a band that demonstrates musical delicacy, the ability to turn on a sixpence rhythmically and knows how to rock out. It was lovely to revisit some old favourite tunes, with a few new twists, and quiet emotional to see Bellowhead back together again. For a flavour see Bellowhead’s July 2020 lockdown video of ‘New York Girls (Live From Home): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M764hJDFvjM

‘Once Upon a River’ by Diane Setterfield

3 December 2020

I’m really enjoying ‘Once Upon a River’ – a beautiful and intriguing novel by Diane Setterfield. Set around the River Thames in Oxfordshire in the late 19th century, the carefully crafted prose made me wonder whether the book had been written in that era, before I discovered that Diane Setterfield is a contemporary writer and this novel was published in 2018. The book starts on a dark winter’s night in a riverside pub where the locals are interrupted by the arrival of a wounded stranger carrying the lifeless body of a small child. From there the story winds backwards, forwards and sideways like the ever-present river, allowing the tale to emerge gradually as the various pieces take their places in the jigsaw puzzle narrative. The Oxfordshire riverside setting made me think of 'La Belle Sauvage' – Philip Pullman’s ‘His Dark Materials’ prequel (reviewed here in December 2017). And the descriptions of the river reminded me of Charles Dickens’ omniscient third person narrator 'floating' over the landscape in ‘Bleak House’ (reviewed here in October 2007).  The book’s gradual colouring-in of the local community and the various families who have a stake in the story also had a lot in common with ‘Reservoir 13’ – Jon McGregor’s amazing prose portrait of a small Derbyshire village (reviewed here in January 2018). I particularly enjoyed having no idea where ‘Once Upon a River’ was going but total confidence in the author who was taking me there. I look forward to reading more by Diane Setterfield.

'Voodoo Sonic' by Parov Stelar

27 November 2020

I’ve been a big fan of electro swing for years – though without knowing there was a name for this emerging music genre. In 2009 I came across Imam Baildi – two Greek brothers who take old Greek tunes from the 40's, 50's and 60's and add modern instruments and beats to create music which is cool, mysterious and incredibly catchy (reviewed here in May 2009). I then saw the French band Caravan Palace at the 2009 WOMAD Festival (reviewed here in July 2009), playing the gypsy jazz swing of Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli to pounding high-tempo electronic beats. At WOMAD in 2012 I saw The Correspondents mix swing-era big band records with contemporary electronic beats (reviewed here in August 2012). In 2013 I discovered the Dutch singer Caro Emerald and her old-fashioned big band swing, updated by a modern four-to-the-floor dance beat (reviewed here in April 2017). The Latvian band Dziļi Violets (reviewed here in February 2019) have a similar modern take on old-fashioned swing. But my new favourite electro swing is Parov Stelar – Austrian musician Marcus Fuereder – who has just completed an epic album ‘Voodoo Sonic’, released gradually over the past year as three EPs. ‘Voodoo Sonic’ is a more varied collection than Parov Stelar’s earlier albums (I would particularly recommend 2013’s ‘The Art of Sampling’) with more purely instrumental tracks. It’s great fun: this is playful and inventive dance music – cool quirky and infectious.

'What a Carve Up!' by Jonathan Coe, adapted by Henry Filloux-Bennett

17 November 2020

I’ve written here before about our chance discovery, around 1996, of Jonathan Coe's novel 'What a Carve Up' in a second-hand bookshop in Cambridge. Coe quickly became one of my favourite contemporary novelists so I was thrilled to discover a new online theatre adaptation of ‘What a Carve Up’ by Barn Theatre, Lawrence Batley Theatre & New Wolsey Theatre. Written by Henry Filloux-Bennett and directed by Tamara Harvey, this is an interesting example of the emerging genre of webcam drama. It frames Jonathan Coe’s tale of 1980s Thatcher’s Britain with original protagonist Michael Owen’s son Raymond investigating, in 2020, the 1991 multiple murders of members of the Winshaw family that his father is assumed to have committed. Raymond (Alfred Enoch) is recording his findings straight to camera while playing-in archive audio recordings of the testimony of some of the people who knew his father and the Winshaws. This cleverly allows the production to involve some very well known actors (including Celia Imrie, Stephen Fry, Derek Jacobi, Gryff Rhys Jones, Rebecca Front and Robert Bathurst) who have literally phoned in their performances. (Incidentally Robert Bathurst – here playing Thomas Winshaw – played Michael Owen in the 2005 BBC Radio 4 adaptation of ‘What a Carve Up’.) Raymond also uses the video recording of a 2020 interview with the one remaining member of the Winshaw family, Josephine Winshaw-Eaves (played by Fiona Button) who is interviewed by Tamzin Outhwaite. Raymond’s tendency to obsessively pause and rewind the various YouTube clips he is showing us is a nice nod to his father’s fascination with pausing and rewinding his VHS tape of the 1960’s film ‘What a Carve Up’ in the novel. Indeed the whole online production feels like more of a homage to the book than a coherent drama in its own right. Fans of the novel will love the many knowing references but, by cutting up the content of a lengthy and complicated narrative and revealing it to us in iterative bite-sized morsels, I suspect Henry Filloux-Bennett may have made it nearly impossible to follow if you are not already familiar with the story. I also felt the 2020 parallels (such as Josephine Winshaw-Eaves campaigning for a second Trump term) were a bit clunky, and ignored some elements of what happened next to the Winshaw clan from ‘Number 11’ – Jonathan Coe’s own sequel to ‘What a Carve Up’ (reviewed here in January 2016). Nevertheless it was fun to revisit the original story. And the innovative online format was intriguing, feeling like something that could have been delivered as a one-person Edinburgh Fringe show, now transferred online. ‘What a Carve Up!’ runs from 31 October – 29 November 2020. Tickets can be purchased at www.whatacarveup.com. A portion of the proceeds raised will be donated to a freelance fund to support the creative workforce that the theatres would not be able to survive without.

'Abion' by Mike Bartlett

13 November 2020

Last weekend we finally got around to watching the live recording of Mike Bartlett’s play ‘Albion’, which was broadcast in the summer as part of the BBC’s Culture in Quarantine season. Mike Bartlett is a really interesting writer who explores a wide variety of dramatic formats and styles. He is perhaps best known for his TV dramas ‘Doctor Foster’ (written in the form of a Jacobean revenge tragedy) and its recent companion series ‘Life’, starring Victoria Hamilton. But I have also enjoyed his writing for the stage, including: ‘Charles III’– a modern Shakespearean history play, written entirely in blank verse (reviewed here in January 2015); ‘An Intervention’ – an unconventional two-hander looking at what happens when you hate your best friend (reviewed here in April 2014); and his contemporary version of ‘Medea’ by Euripides, starring Rachael Stirling (reviewed here in November 2012). ‘Albion’ is, as the title suggests, a state-of-the-nation play which uses the allegory of a very traditional English country garden to address issues raised by Brexit. In the Almeida Theatre production, directed by Rupert Goold, Victoria Hamilton plays a woman who has purchased her childhood home and plans to restore the garden to its original Victorian design. It can be enjoyed as a darkly comic family drama about personal grief, but you can also see the relationship between the family and the local community – now excluded from what had previously been a communal garden – as a commentary on the UK’s departure from the European Union. The action is all set in the garden and has the feel of an Alan Ayckbourn play but with underlying connections more reminiscent of Tom Stoppard. It takes on some unsettling themes but is also very funny, and brilliantly acted with a stunning central performance by Victoria Hamilton.

‘What’s Funny About …’

 6 November 2020

I’ve been catching up with ‘What’s Funny About …’ - a fascinating series on BBC Radio 4 Extra in which TV veterans Peter Fincham and Jon Plowman talk to the writers, producers, and performers behind some of Britain’s biggest TV comedy hits, and hear the inside story of how they brought their programmes to the screen. To date they have addressed ‘The Vicar of Dibley’, ‘The Thick of It’, ‘Absolutely Fabulous’, ‘Blackadder’, ‘Goodness Gracious Me’ and ‘W1A’, with guests including Dawn French, Armando Iannucci and Meera Syal. Each episode gives an interesting glimpse behind-the-scenes into the making of some of our favourite recent TV comedies. Fincham and Plowman add an interesting perspective as they were personally involved in commissioning or producing many of these series. And there are intriguing insights into the rivalries between some of the writers and performers (explaining why most of those involved in making ‘Blackadder’ don’t seem to be talking to each other any more). You can listen to all six episodes of ‘What’s Funny About …’ on BBC Sounds at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000j35x/episodes/player

NSO horns rehearsal

 30 October 2020

On 14 March I played Beethoven’s ‘Symphony No 5’ with the Milton Keynes Sinfonia at the Chrysalis Theatre in Milton Keynes (reviewed here in March 2020). As I wrote here at the time, it was an inspirational evening that felt like a bright moment of hope in dark times, but there was a strong expectation that this might be the last live music any of us experiences for quite a while. Since March I have practised playing my French horn at home, I have taken part in several multi-part lockdown recordings and I have pioneered experimental online orchestra rehearsals using the Jamulus software – but I have really missed making music together with other people in the same room. Last night, 229 days after that Milton Keynes Sinfonia concert, I finally got the chance to take part in a real live face-to-face rehearsal. Four of the horn players from the Northampton Symphony Orchestra met at St Mary’s Church in Wollaston, Northamptonshire, to play through some horn quartets. This recently refurbished church provided comfortable surroundings, plenty of room for us to be significantly socially distanced from each other and a pleasantly flattering acoustic. It was really exciting to see each other again after such a long break, and to play music together in which we could make eye contact and co-ordinate timing. We played some simple tunes before attempting a few more ambitious arrangements, including the two pieces we had recorded as multi-part lockdown videos earlier this year (the Scherzo from Shostakovitch ‘Symphony No 10’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHqPuxWZ3p4 and ‘It Don't Mean a Thing if It Ain't Got That Swing’ by Duke Ellington & Irvin Mills: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ceYfHAHI9Y). Playing these live revealed quite how much editing we had each done to our recordings! As a thank you to the church, we also recorded a live performance of ‘Silent Night’ which will be used in the St Mary’s virtual Christmas carol concert. With rising infection rates across the country and severe local restrictions already in place in many areas, we were very lucky to be able to get together yesterday evening. I hope we can meet again soon but I’m incredibly thankful we managed to play music together this week.

'The Kershaw Tapes'

23 October 2020

Regular readers may remember I was a big fan of Andy Kershaw’s much missed BBC Radio 3 show. I last encountered him at The Stables in Milton Keynes on a tour of talks to promote his autobiography (reviewed here in December 2018). So it was a real treat to hear Andy back on Radio 3 for a two-part Sunday Feature ‘The Kershaw Tapes’ in which he introduces recordings made on his trusty Sony Walkman Pro cassette recorder during his travels in Africa and the Americas in the 1980s. These two programmes are a great introduction to what makes Andy Kershaw such a compelling broadcaster – his raw enthusiasm for music, his bemused reflections on the eccentricities of the world, his journalistic framing of a good story and his Zelig-like ability to have been present at key moments in history. The short description of his first trip to Equatorial Guinea in the first episode of ‘The Kershaw Tapes’ is a beautiful miniature Kershaw story – fascinating, incredible, absurd, terrifying and life-affirming. And there’s some great music – exclusive live recordings of some of the world’s greatest musicians performing in their own homes, or in the kitchen of Andy Kershaw’s small flat in Crouch End. You can listen to both episodes of ‘The Kershaw Tapes’ at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000mrgj

'Hold Fast' by Stick in the Wheel

 16 October 2020

Amongst the plethora of excellent new English folk music recordings that seem to come out almost every week, ‘Hold Fast’ – the new album from London-based duo Stick in the Wheel – caught my attention because of its unpredictability. Nicola Kearey (vocals) and Ian Carter (guitar/producer) have produced an eclectic collection of songs with some fairly conventional acoustic guitar folk sitting alongside tracks with more of a rock feel plus some electronica and pop. The lyrics include poetry from 10th century Saxon Britain, 17th century London slang and a Yiddish lament. By its nature the album is a bit of a mixed bag (the Guardian’s review suggested Stick in the Wheel were maybe trying too hard) but the best tracks have a swagger reminiscent of Bellowhead. See, for example ‘Budg & Snudg’ featuring the accordion of John Kirkpatrick (whose son Benji Kirkpatrick was a member of Bellowhead and who I reviewed here in April 2009): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpTfg1LVS0w

'Pure' by Andrew Miller

 9 October 2020

The best book I’ve read so far this year was Andrew Miller’s 2018 historical thriller ‘Now We Shall Be Entirely Free’, set during the Napoleonic Wars (reviewed here in April 2020). I was keen to read something else by him and have just finished ‘Pure’ – a novel he published in 2011 which is set in pre-revolutionary France of the 1780s (which I read as an unabridged audio book, narrated by Jonathan Aris). Andrew Miller’s writing is wonderful – beautifully crafted and constantly amusing. He conjures up the reality of living in Paris in 1785, through the quirky tale of the demolition and clearing of an old church and cemetery. He creates an extensive cast of believable, sympathetic characters and his protagonist, the engineer charged with overseeing the demolition project (“a man, neither young nor old”), floats through the story with an innocent naivety. But ‘Pure’ lacks the thriller plot of ‘Now We Shall Be Entirely Free’: it’s a much more gentle tale which feels more interested in the period (and the early stirrings of revolution). Despite three dramatic and violent incidents that punctuate the narrative, you are left with the feeling that not much has really happened. Nevertheless, it’s an enjoyable and entertaining read and I look forward to reading more Andrew Miller.

Northampton Symphony Orchestra online rehearsals

2 October 2020

All our lives have been turned upside down this year by the Coronavirus pandemic. And while it doesn’t compare with the trauma suffered by those who have lost loved ones or those who have lost their livelihoods, living in lockdown has been deeply unsettling and stressful in itself. The restrictions to our social lives, our ability to travel and our opportunities to take part in the activities we enjoy have made us think more carefully than ever about our quality of life. What have you missed most? What do you most yearn to be able to do again? I have been an amateur musician almost all my life. In the early days of lockdown playing music provided great comfort, distraction, challenge and emotional release amongst the worry and uncertainty. I have been playing my French horn almost every day since March: I may even have improved slightly! But playing music on your own, or with recordings, is just not the same as playing music with other people. Like many other amateur arts groups, the Northampton Symphony Orchestra (with whom I have been playing now for 20 years) quickly replaced its regular weekly rehearsals with online social chats on Zoom. It has been great to keep in touch with other members of the orchestra but you can’t play music together via Zoom or any of the other video-conferencing platforms: the audio delay (latency) is just too big. (Try singing ‘Happy Birthday’ with each other the next time you are on a Zoom call – maybe while also washing your hands! – and you will quickly see how impossible it is.) I have collaborated with some NSO members on 2020’s emerging new artform – the multi-part lockdown recording. Recording a video of yourself playing along with a click-track so your contribution can be merged with others to form a virtual performance is surprisingly difficult but it felt good to have a creative project to work on with friends, albeit remotely. It’s definitely not the same, however, as actually playing music together live. So when I read an article about a choir in the USA that had been experimenting with low-latency audio software that enabled them to sing together online, I got very excited. I have spent the last two months exploring software originally designed for rock bands who wanted to jam together online, and looking at whether any of these programs might work for an orchestral rehearsal. The best option seemed to be a free, open source program called Jamulus. It’s a little fiddly to set up, and it only works if you have the right hardware (you need to be able to plug your computer directly into your router with an ethernet cable – wifi is just too slow) and a fast internet connection, plus a lot of patience! On 19 August we held our first online orchestra rehearsal: it was technically challenging, frustrating, at times hilariously bad, but exciting and ultimately actually quite inspiring. Eight of us managed to connect through Jamulus, and with NSO conductor John Gibbons holding us together on piano we eventually managed to play through the entire first movement of Beethoven's 'Symphony No 3 (Eroica)'. It was a far from perfect experience but after a break of more than five months this first opportunity to actually play live music with a group of other people again was incredibly enjoyable. And the best evidence of this is that everyone involved was keen to do it again soon. This Wednesday, our fifth NSO online rehearsal, was the best yet. We had ten people taking part, including violins, viola, cello, flute, oboe, clarinet, horns and piano, and worked on the ‘Symphonie in D minor’ by César Franck and Mendelssohn’s ‘Hebrides Overture’. Each week we have managed to tweak the software settings, address hardware issues and improve the small remaining audio delays. The sound quality is not wonderful and there are always a few technical problems but it’s getting better every week. This Wednesday actually felt like a proper rehearsal as we went back over certain passages of the music and managed to improve them. It’s still no substitute for making music together in the same room but, given the prospect of ongoing restrictions for many months to come, our online rehearsals have been really enjoyable. And working through the technical challenges and solving them together as a group has been a rewarding experience in itself.

'Utopia Avenue' by David Mitchell

 25 September 2020

Regular readers may remember that I am a David Mitchell completist, having read all his novels. I was looking forward to his new book ‘Utopia Avenue’ (which I read as an unabridged audio book narrated by Andrew Wincott) – the tale of a fictional English rock band in the late 1960s. But I am sorry to say I found this David Mitchell novel a bit disappointing. I think one of the reasons I have always liked his books is that we are almost the same age (he was born just over six months after me) and we therefore seem to share many of the same cultural references. So it was a surprise to find that he had set ‘Utopia Avenue’ just before we were born, making it more of a researched period piece. It was wonderful to return to Mitchell’s beautifully written prose – deceptively simple with hidden depths. And, for David Mitchell fans, as always there are lots of very satisfyingly oblique references to his earlier novels. Indeed, the high point of ‘Utopia Avenue’ for me was a chapter which connects the universe, and some of the characters, from his fantastical epic ‘The Bone Clocks’ (reviewed here in October 2014) both with ‘Utopia Avenue’ and with the plot of his 18th century historical saga 'The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet’ (reviewed here in August 2011). Sadly the rest of the new novel is a fairly straightforward tale of the formation, rapid rise and decline of the eponymous band – focussing in turn on each of its four members and their manager. It’s full of period detail and slightly too full of cameo appearances by a host of real 1960s celebrities. You get the impression that David Mitchell is enjoying weaving these actual personalities into his fictional plot a little too much. And some of the cameo appearances are really quite clunky (with people saying “are you Humphrey Lyttleton the jazz trumpeter?”, “Francis Bacon the painter?” etc). I enjoyed following the lives of the five main characters as a kind a soap-opera but the plot didn’t pull the rug from under your feet in the way some of Mitchell’s earlier novels did.

Surrey

 25 September 2020

We were very lucky to have picked last week for our cottage holiday in the Surrey hills: we had glorious weather all week and did lots of great walks in some stunning countryside. We were staying near to the Hampshire border and visited the amazing natural amphitheatre of the Devil’s Punch Bowl – Europe's largest spring-eroded valley, as well as Alice Holt Forest and Frensham Ponds. We also did lovely walks from the home of the naturalist Gilbert White at Selborne, and from Jane Austen’s house at Chawton.

'Twelfth Night' by William Shakespeare, adapted by Stephen Purcell

 10 September 2020

It was wonderful, last Sunday afternoon, to be back at The Place in Bedford (or, more accurately, the car park of The Place) for an open air production of ‘Twelfth Night’ by The Pantaloons. As we arrived the actors were on hand, in face masks and bearing 2 metre long oars from a rowing boat which they used to make sure we positioned our folding chairs sufficiently far apart from our neighbours – so we literally couldn’t have touched other audience members with a bargepole. The show started with the audience being asked to give a cheer and a wave – but when one of the actors suggested we should give another wave, his colleagues quickly jumped in to say “No! No-one wants a second wave!”. We have seen the Pantaloons many times before, most recently their hilarious production of 'The Odyssey' at The Place (reviewed here in April 2019). They are always charmingly silly and very inventive but this production of ‘Twelfth Night’, adapted and directed by Stephen Purcell,  showed them at their most innovative. Delivering Shakespeare’s play with only four actors would be a challenge at the best of times but in this case the actors were two real-life couples and the action was intricately choreographed to avoid any of the multiple characters being played by each actor to come within 2m of someone from the other of the two households. It was very slickly done, didn’t detract from the story and only served to add to the comedy. I have seen ‘Twelfth Night’ more times than any other Shakespeare play (I’ve previously reviewed ‘Twelfth Night’ here six times over the past 15 years). It’s a play that always seems to work and it was great to revisit the familiarity of this classic text, albeit in the austere surroundings of a car park, and to enjoy live theatre again after so many months without it.

'The Merry Wives of Windsor' by William Shakespeare, adapted by Adam Nichols

4 September 2020

Last Sunday we were at the Roman Theatre of Verulamium in St Albans for our first experience of live theatre since the start of the lockdown, watching Adam Nichols’ adaptation of ‘The Merry Wives of Windsor’ performed by OVO Theatre as part of the Maltings Open Air Theatre Festival. This was Shakespeare as 1980s jukebox musical, with the actors forming an on-stage rock band, tenuously squeezing a huge number of iconic 80s hits into the story of Sir John Falstaff getting his comeuppance. It was very silly and lots of fun with some great singing and wonderful choreography. The production make good use of the unusual outdoor space, with the audience on pairs of seats (each 2m apart from the next pair) in the middle of the ruins of the Roman Theatre. The mixture of a very specific 1980s setting with numerous references to Coronavirus felt slightly odd, but nobody really minded. This was feelgood slapstick, impressively delivered. And the experience of being part of a live audience again was surprisingly emotional.

Staffordshire

4 September 2020

We had a lovely week in rural Staffordshire last week, staying at a cottage outside Audley, near the Staffordshire/Cheshire border. We had mixed weather but enjoyed some great walking in the Peak District, along The Roaches and part of the Gritstone Trail. We also visited Beeston Castle and the gardens of Dunham Massey. But after five months at home it was just lovely to have a break and spend some time in a different place.

'The Constant Rabbit' by Jasper Fforde

 20 August 2020

Regular readers may have noticed my enthusiasm for the comic fantasy author Jasper Fforde: I have previously reviewed 12 of his novels here, from 'The Big Over Easy' (in April 2007) to ‘Early Riser’ (in October 2018). Fforde writes childishly silly books for adults, which won’t be to everyone’s taste but I’ve really enjoyed them. His latest is ‘The Constant Rabbit’ which I have just finished reading as an unabridged audio book, narrated by Andrew Wincott. Like ‘Early Riser’ this is a stand-alone novel, but it feels closer to Jasper Fforde’s earlier series of Nursery Crimes and Thursday Next books. ‘The Constant Rabbit’ is a bit Jasper Fforde by numbers: we are again in a strange parallel universe, uncannily like our own except for the fact that, as the result of an Inexplicable Anthropomorphising Event fifty-five years ago, there are 1.2 million human-sized rabbits living alongside humans across the UK. This allows Fforde to make some serious points about prejudice and discrimination with talking rabbits standing in for more obvious minorities. But this is not a serious book and, although there are some great gags it feels a little unambitious compared to the much more complex ‘Early Riser’.

'Carousel' by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II

 13 August 2020

Rodgers and Hammerstein’s ‘Carousel’ was once hailed by Time Magazine as “the best musical of the 20th Century”. Having never seen the show I was intrigued to have the chance to watch the live recording of The New York Philharmonic’s semi-staged production of ‘Carousel’ recorded at The Lincoln Center in New York in 2013, which currently available to watch on YouTube. The New York Philharmonic, conducted by Rob Fisher, is literally centre-stage with the action taking place in front of, and around, the orchestra. This is a production, directed by Glenn Weiss, which concentrates on the singing, with stunning performances by a cast including Kelli O’Hara, Nathan Gunn, Stephanie Blythe, Jason Danieley and Jessie Mueller. ‘Carousel’ is not much of a story, frankly. The plot is fairly thin, and uncomfortably dated in some ways (written in 1945) but the semi-staged performance allows you to gloss over some of these failings. It feels more like an orchestral concert, which enables you to concentrate on the music – and there are some great songs, including The Carousel Waltz, If I Loved You, June Is Bustin' Out All Over and You'll Never Walk Alone. I was a bit disappointed by the lack of dancing (though this may have been a victim of the very limited stage space) but there was one rather brilliant ballet number featuring New York City Ballet dancers Robert Fairchild and Tiler Peck. Overall I wasn’t convinced that ‘Carousel’ is the best musical of the 20th Century but this production is worth watching for the outstanding singing and some wonderful tunes. ‘Carousel’ is available to watch for free until 8 September at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxRMlv-mwxM 

'The Tempest' by William Shakespeare

 7 August 2020

As part of ‘Culture in Quarantine’ the BBC has made available on iPlayer eight live recordings of Shakespeare productions, mainly from the Royal Shakespeare Company: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/p089zds8/culture-in-quarantine-shakespeare  I’m fortunate to have seen most of these already, either on stage or in the cinema, and I would particularly recommend watching: Simon Godwin's production of 'Hamlet' starring the amazing Paapa Essiedu (reviewed here in April 2016); Polly Findlay's 'The Merchant of Venice' with Patsy Ferran as Portia (reviewed here in August 2015); and Erica Whyman’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’ with an incredibly young cast including Karen Fishwick as Juliet and Bally Gill as Romeo (reviewed here in May 2018). (All of these productions are available on iPlayer for the next 25 days.) Last weekend we watched the recording of Jeremy Herrin's production of ‘The Tempest’ from Shakespeare’s Globe in London. If you’ve never been to the Globe Theatre this recording gives you a good idea of what it is like to be inside this unique auditorium. Regular readers may remember that ‘The Tempest’ isn’t my favourite Shakespeare play but I was won over by Roger Allam’s commanding performance as Prospero. Allam has a wonderful deadpan comic voice, with the ability to turn a seemingly innocent line into comedy gold purely by the insertion of an unexpected pause. Jessie Buckley and Joshua James are great as the young lovers, Miranda and Ferdinand, but it’s worth watching this production for Roger Allam alone: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p08b02zz/culture-in-quarantine-shakespeare-the-tempest

'Dark' Season Three by Jantje Friese and Baran bo Odar

31 July 2020

I’ve written here before about my enthusiasm for ‘Dark’ – the German language Netflix science-fiction/time-travel thriller written by Jantje Friese and directed by Baran bo Odar (reviewed here in December 2017). This week we finished watching the third and final season and it was brilliant. I should warn you that ‘Dark’ is probably the most complicated TV serial I have ever watched – and some might find it frustratingly impenetrable. Something is badly wrong with the small town of Winden in southern Germany, where residents frequently seem to find themselves slipping back 33 years in time (to 1986 but also to 1953, 1920 etc), usually with no means of return to the present. In the past they then encounter their neighbours, parents, grandparents and earlier versions of themselves and (remarkably frequently) end up having children with people they really shouldn’t, for all sorts of reasons. This leads the viewer to spend most of the time trying to work out whether this character’s mother is also his great great great grandmother etc. Indeed by season three Winden is uncannily like Ambridge in that everyone now seems to belong to the same extended family. Happily Netflix has provided an amazing website (and app) which allows you to explore the various family tree branches – but (by first choosing which episode you are up to) with no spoilers (see: https://dark.netflix.io/en). Bizarrely season three, which, in addition to the multiple time-frames, introduces the concept of several parallel universe versions of Winden, actually seems to make the plot easier to follow. And while I’m not sure I fully understood everything, the finale manages to tie up most of the loose ends. As well as the ridiculously complicated plot, ‘Dark’ boasts some great acting and incredible casting: the actors playing the same characters at different ages all look eerily believable. ‘Dark’ is definitely not going to be everyone’s cup of tea – but I loved it.

'Amadeus' by Peter Shaffer

23 July 2020

We last saw Lucian Msamati on stage as Iago alongside Hugh Quarshie’s Othello in Iqbal Khan’s Royal Shakespeare Company production in Stratford-upon-Avon (reviewed here in June 2015). His Iago was brash, funny, michievous, vicious and scheming – you really couldn’t take your eyes off him.  So it was fascinating to see Lucian Msamati playing Salieri in Michael Longhurst’s National Theatre production of ‘Amadeus’ by Peter Shaffer (available this week on YouTube as part of National Theatre At Home: https://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/shows/nt-at-home-amadeus). As Iago is a more substantial part than the title role in ‘Othello’, Salieri too is definitely the star of the show in ‘Amadeus’. While I had seen the 1984 film version directed by Miloš Forman, with Tom Hulce and F. Murray Abraham, I had not previously seen the original play. It’s quite different to the film and makes for a stunning theatrical experience, especially with the National Theatre production featuring a full orchestra on stage. The Southbank Sinfonia, who we previously saw integrated into the action in the National Theatre production of 'Every Good Boy Deserves Favour' by Tom Stoppard and André Previn (reviewed here in February 2009), play, act and dance their way through ‘Amadeus’, becoming a vital character in the story. Adam Gillan’s Mozart is an entertaining but obnoxious young genius – cheeky and scatological. But this is Lucian Msamati’s show and he is magnificent as the older, established court composer Antonio Salieri, all too aware of how he is being upstaged by his new rival. Msamati commands the vast Olivier stage and is incredibly funny. The first time we saw him on stage was alongside Lenny Henry in Dominic Cooke’s National Theatre production of ‘The Comedy of Errors’ (reviewed here in February 2012) in which I noted that Lenny Henry more often played the straight man in their comedy double act. But Lucian Msamati is more than just a comic actor: his physical acting (shifting seamlessly from the dying Salieri looking back on his life to his younger self) and his ability to twist his mood on a sixpence are equally impressive. This production of ‘Amadeus’ feels a little too long (at nearly three hours) but it’s a wonderful spectacle and Lucian Msamati is a star.

'25 Trips' by Sierra Hull

17 July 2020

I’ve been enjoying the new album by American country singer Sierra Hull from Tennessee. A child prodigy mandolin player, she made her Grand Ole Opry debut at the age of 10 and played Carnegie Hall at aged just 12. Now 28 years old, her new album ‘25 Trips’ takes her further away from her bluegrass roots to an eclectic mix of gentle acoustic pop. There’s still some fine picking but ‘25 Trips’ feels more like folk/pop than country, at times reminding me of the wonderful Canadian band The Bills (reviewed here in May 2006). There are also clear echoes of the female folk/Americana trio supergroup I'm With Her (Sara Watkins, Sarah Jarosz and Aoife O’Donovan). Listen to the title track of ‘25 Trips’ at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fmgej01Vm8g

'Sneaky Pete' created by David Shore and Bryan Cranston

9 July 2020

If you’re looking for a binge-worthy TV series I would recommend ‘Sneaky Pete’ on Amazon Prime. We’ve just finished watching all three series and it’s been the best thing we’ve watched for a while. Sneaky Pete is an American crime drama series created by David Shore and Bryan Cranston (who has a cameo role in the first series). Giovanni Ribisi plays con-man Marius Josipovic who, on release from prison, hides from the criminal gang he still owes money to by adopting the identity of his cell mate, Pete Murphy, and going to live with the family Pete left at the age of 10 in a small town in upstate New York. This comic-thriller tale of an essentially disreputable figure who you find yourself inexplicably sympathising with has a lot in common with the equally excellent ‘Ozark’ (on Netflix). Both series centre on a family of well-drawn characters who grow and develop through the story, and both boast a plot that gets increasingly complicated and unpredictable. You spend a lot of time trying to remember exactly who knows what about whom. Each of the three series of ‘Sneaky Pete’ builds to a set-piece heist finale with twists you really don’t see coming. It is incredibly violent and scary at times but there is a warm heart to the story and lots of character-based humour. And the cleverest thing is how the family that unwittingly harbours a criminal cuckoo in its nest gradually reveals itself to have plenty of dodgy secrets of its own. ‘Sneaky Pete’ is a thrilling and surprising treat.

‘Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics’

2 July 2020

One of the small pleasures of lockdown has been working through the back catalogue of episodes of BBC Radio 4’s ‘Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics’. Comedian, and classicist, Natalie Haynes has been taking a fresh look at the ancient world, through 30-minute programmes focussing on particular figures from ancient Greece and Rome, since 2014. All 6 series are available to listen to on BBC Sounds: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b077x8pc Her natural enthusiasm, detailed knowledge, straightforward approach and hilarious incredulity at the peculiarities of the ancient world are infectious, and we’ve gradually worked (backwards) through all 24 episodes. The most recent programmes (recorded during lockdown) look at mythical characters including Penelope, Eurydice and Helen of Troy. Having exhausted the archive of radio programmes we have now had to feed our addiction by watching ‘Troy Story’ – the event Natalie Haynes recorded for this year’s online Hay Festival Digital. This was a bravura summary of the whole of the Trojan War in just over an hour, in which Natalie Haynes was accompanied by live drawing by the illustrator and cartoonist Chris Riddell. It’s rather brilliant and can be watched on Hay Player, which contains thousands of audio and film recordings from several years of the Hay Festival and costs £10 for an annual subscription: https://www.hayfestival.com/p-16774-natalie-haynes-chris-riddell.aspx

Making Music Virtual Concerts

24 June 2020

This week saw the third fortnightly Making Music Virtual Concert, digitally showcasing Making Music members – leisure-time music groups from across the UK. I’ve really been enjoying these video compilations of both archive performances and online collaborations made during lockdown. It was great to see 2014 Epic Award winners Pandemonium Drummers closing the second concert (9 June) with a typically exuberant performance! This week’s concert features groups including Lofthouse Brass Band, 5Ways Chorus, London Oriana Choir and Suffolk Sinfonia. But the standout performance for me was Stockport Ukulele Players playing 'Psycho Killer' by Talking Heads - who were clearly having great fun! The concerts are free for anyone to view on the Making Music YouTube channel, and remain available to watch after each premiere: https://www.makingmusic.org.uk/news/come-our-making-music-virtual-concert

Cristian Grajner de Sa

18 June 2020

Cristian Grajner de Sa is a young professional violinist, born in 1994 to Italian and Portuguese parents, who is beginning to make a name for himself. I came across Cristian because he happens to live next door to some good friends of ours who have now been listening to him practice for years and have been incredibly impressed by how his playing as developed. Cristian was a BBC Young Musician string finalist in 2012 and has won several international prizes. Last year he made his debut at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and this month he has launched his first recording – an EP featuring pieces by Kreisler and Sarasate. His playing has a lovely tone and a playful delicacy. Listen at: https://open.spotify.com/album/6v7KjTBOcwrxoKtaqvyZh6

Nicholas Daniel and Julius Drake - BBC Radio 3 Lunchtime Concert

10 June 2020

Live music returned to BBC Radio 3 last week with the start of a new series of daily lunchtime concerts broadcast live from an empty Wigmore Hall in London. I enjoyed listening to the recital by Nicholas Daniel (oboe) and Julius Drake (piano) last Thursday, which included works by the English composer and actress Madeleine Dring as well as premieres of pieces written during the lockdown by Huw Watkins and Michael Berkeley, alongside music by Robert Schumann, Franz Liszt and Gerald Finzi. Andrew McGregor’s introductions to the pieces very effectively set them in context and it is great to be able to watch the concerts (live or later as recordings) on the Wigmore Hall website: https://wigmore-hall.org.uk/whats-on/live-music-returns-to-wigmore-hall-in-new-broadcast-series You can also listen again on BBC Sounds at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000jnm1

'Olive Kitteridge' by Elizabeth Strout

4 June 2020

Lots of people I know have raved about Elizabeth Strout’s novel ‘Olive Kitteridge’ so I was keen to read it for myself. It’s a structurally interesting book, consisting of self-contained chapters that feel like complete short stories, each focussing on different residents of the coastal town of Crosby, Maine. The main characters from one chapter sometimes appear again in the background of later stories but the eponymous Olive Kitteridge is almost omnipresent – though often playing a supporting role in someone else’s tale. Olive is a retired maths teacher who doesn’t suffer fools gladly. Initially a difficult person to like, it is a measure of the author’s skill that you gradually warm to Olive while still appreciating the reasons why others don’t. The stories of ordinary people whose lives have been changed by some momentous event reminded me of the novels of Anne Tyler and the short stories of Raymond Carver. Elizabeth Strout paints an evocative picture of this small town and it’s fun guessing where each chapter is going as she tends only gradual to reveal the particular trauma that has led a character to where they are now. But this makes for a fairly unremittingly melancholy collection of stories. There is plenty of gentle humour but ‘Olive Kitteridge’ is a sad set of reflections on ageing and the human experience.

'Living with Star Wars' by Mark Burman

29 May 2020

I was nine years old when the original Star Wars film was released in 1977. My friend Anthony won tickets in a Manchester Evening News competition to attend the Manchester premiere at the city centre Odeon and took me as his guest. So we were the first children in our school to see this incredibly anticipated blockbuster, which made us (all too briefly!) extremely cool. I became understandably obsessed with the film and devoured everything I could find out about it. One of my most treasured LPs is still the original John Williams soundtrack featuring the legendary London Symphony Orchestra brass section. This week I have been wallowing in nostalgia, listening to The Documentary Podcast from the BBC World Service, ‘Living with Star Wars’. Originally broadcast in December 2019, this programme by Mark Burman explores the making of ‘Star Wars’, talking to many of those involved (including some no longer with us). It’s interesting to remember how revolutionary the film was at the time and to hear how independent low-budget film-maker George Lucas struggled to realise his vision within the constraints of a major studio movie. I was intrigued by the links to ‘Apocalypse Now’ and Kurosawa’s ‘The Hidden Fortress’ (in which the story is seen through the eyes of the servants, leading to the idea of Star Wars starting as a tale of two droids caught up in the middle of a galactic battle). If you are as geeky as me about ‘Star Wars’ you can enjoy listening to ‘Living with Star Wars’ on BBC Sounds: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3ct03mr

'House of Cards' by Michael Dobbs

21 May 2020

I’ve enjoyed reading ‘House of Cards’ – the 1989 novel by Michael Dobbs which led to acclaimed television adaptations on both sides of the Atlantic. I was familiar with the story of Francis Urquhart’s ruthless pursuit of power from the 1990 BBC TV series starring Ian Richardson, but it was good to rediscover this manipulative anti-hero after so many years. The novel, despite having been revised by the author to adopt the alternative ending used in the TV version, feels incredibly dated. Newspaper reporters at the Party Conference have to queue for a free telephone box to phone in their stories and the idea of looking up anything online is still some years away. The plot seems a bit predictable now, and the political skulduggery feels tame compared both to more recent fiction such as ‘The Thick of It’ and to the real political events of the last few years. Nevertheless Francis Urquhart is a great charmingly evil character and the novel is great fun.

‘Concerto for Piano and Orchestra’ by Francis Poulenc

15 May 2020

Yet again I am grateful to Jess Gillam’s BBC Radio 3 podcast ‘This Classical Life’ (reviewed here in January 2020) for alerting me to some wonderful music I wasn’t previously aware of. I’ve quickly fallen in love with the ‘Concerto for Piano and Orchestra’ by Francis Poulenc, which was commissioned by the Boston Symphony Orchestra to try to improve relations after the Second World War. Poulenc’s music is melodic and playful with lush orchestrations and beautiful tunes. The concerto is an interesting, witty piece, full of surprises but with a gentle, calming feel to it. The slow movement has some of the romantic grandeur of a Rachmaninov concerto while the finale is an intricately rhythmic frolic with a typically cheeky Poulenc ending. You can listen to the Poulenc Piano Concerto at: https://open.spotify.com/album/5Y0jrP57LzsEwfwtqkAiWo?si=FJlUxqOTSQC6Pp41ElHQTw or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6q0PDy86jHI

'Flowers for Mrs Harris' by Rachel Wagstaff and Richard Taylor

1 May 2020

Most of the live recordings of shows being shared for free online by theatres at the moment are each only available for a week. So it is difficult to make recommendations here for something you will still have time to watch. Thankfully Chichester Festival Theatre’s brilliant production of the recent musical ‘Flowers for Mrs Harris’ is still available to view for free until 8 May and I would urge you to watch it. ‘Flowers for Mrs Harris’ is based on the novel by Paul Gallico with book by Rachel Wagstaff and music & lyrics by Richard Taylor. Clare Burt stars as Mrs Harris, a widow in post-war Battersea who cleans other people’s houses to make ends meet. Her constant positivity and optimism disguise her continuing struggles with grief at the loss of her husband. Catching sight of an elegant gown by Christian Dior, in one of the grand houses she cleans, makes her dream of having something similar and sets her on a quest to achieve the seemingly impossible. It’s an unlikely premise for an incredibly funny, emotional, feel-good tale. The Guardian review of the original Sheffield Crucible production described it as “like experiencing The Wizard of Oz, Pollyanna and Powell and Pressburger’s war-themed films, all rolled into one – triumph over adversity, hard work rewarded, generosity repaid, the transformational power of art and self-belief, affirmation that loving relationships are the stuff of happiness”, to which I would add something of Willy Russell’s ‘Shirley Valentine. Richard Taylor’s music reminded me of a Stephen Sondheim musical – no big numbers but beautifully sung dialogue. This is a singer’s musical with very little dance but Louis Maskell demonstrates incredible movement, reminiscent of Ray Bolger as the Scarecrow in ‘The Wizard of Oz’. At one point I was convinced he must be supported by wires like a marionette (he wasn’t). And you would need a heart of stone not to weep at the ending. If you want to cheer yourself up watch ‘Flowers for Mrs Harris’ now while it’s still available: https://www.cft.org.uk/flowers-for-mrs-harris-broadcast

'The Wych Elm' by Tana French

24 April 2020

Regular readers may remember my enthusiasm for the Dublin Murder Squad novels by Tana French (all 6 books reviewed here between May 2016 and April 2018). These are crime novels which prove that genre fiction can be beautifully written. And, although characters recur and there are references to previous cases, each of the Murder Squad novels works as a stand-alone story. So I was looking forward to Tana French’s first completely self-contained novel ‘The Wych Elm’ (which I have just finished reading as an unabridged audio book, narrated by Paul Nugent). ‘The Wych Elm’ also deals with a murder mystery but is narrated by one of the people caught up in the dramatic events, rather than by one of the police officers investigating it. This made the story more intriguing as it was hard to see where it was going without the normal narrative arc of crime, investigation, revelation. The first sections of the book present two seemingly separate violent crimes involving the same family – which feels unlikely to be a coincidence but it is very difficult to see how they might be connected. I enjoyed the ambiguity of this puzzle. And, as with her other novels, the writing is impressive and there is as much emphasis on the feelings and relationships of the main characters as there is on the plot. But explanations were very slow to reveal themselves and it felt like an extremely long book. Hardly any of the many characters (including the first person narrator) appeared sympathetic and it was ultimately quite hard to care what happened to them. And I felt the plot relied far too much on someone developing partial memory loss after being attacked, which always seems too convenient a way to hold back revelations. Maybe my expectations were too high – ‘The Wych Elm’ has much to commend it – but if you haven’t read any Tana French I would encourage you to start with the Dublin Murder Squad novels (which you can read in any order), the best of which is 'The Secret Place’ (reviewed here in December 2016).

‘Wonderland’ by Beth Steel

17 April 2020

I’m really enjoying the free Hampstead Theatre At Home plays being streamed on demand each week by The Guardian – a really interesting selection of (mostly new) plays. Last week’s offering was ‘Wonderland’ by Beth Steel, directed by Edward Hall (originally performed and live-streamed in 2014) which tells the story of the 1984 miners’ strike. Ashley Martin-Davis's incredible design reshapes the theatre auditorium to create overhead gantries and a descending pit cage with the audience on all four sides: it’s a stunning set. The play shows the events of the strike through the eyes of a group of miners in a Nottinghamshire colliery, while also addressing the political context through scenes in Whitehall featuring the National Coal Board Chair Ian Macgregor, Energy Secretary Peter Walker and the flamboyant journalist David Hart who was deployed by the Government to subvert the miners’ unity. Margaret Thatcher and Arthur Scargill don’t appear as characters in the play but are ever-present in the story. Beth Steel has constructed a Shakespearean drama: the Battle of Orgreave scene felt remarkably like something from ‘Henry V’. It’s a tragic tale but a gripping and moving production, excellently acted by a large (all male) cast. This week’s free Hampstead Theatre play is ‘Drawing The Line’ – Howard Brenton’s epic take on the partition of India – which is available until Sunday 19 April at: https://www.theguardian.com/stage/video/2020/apr/13/watch-drawing-the-line-a-drama-about-indias-partition-video

Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra concert - Beethoven Symphony No 9 'Choral'

8 April 2020

Like many other people we have been exploring online streaming culture during this period of lockdown. On Saturday we made a first ‘visit’ to the The Berliner Philharmoniker's Digital Concert Hall – which is now free for everyone. There is a massive archive of classical concerts, mostly performed by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and recorded in the Berlin Philharmonie. On Saturday we watched a 2015 performance of the Beethoven Choral Symphony, conducted by Simon Rattle. It was wonderful – a typically dramatic Berlin Philharmonic performance with soloists Annette Dasch, Eva Vogel, Christian Elsner and Dimitry Ivashchenko and the Rundfunkchor Berlin, directed by Simon Halsey. The sound quality was great and the multi-camera filming was very slick. After my emotional experience of playing Beethoven’s 5th Symphony in Milton Keynes on 14 March (reviewed here in March 2020), in the knowledge that it might be one of the last live concerts any of us experiences for quite a while, Beethoven symphonies are beginning to feel to me like an inspirational soundtrack to carry us through this difficult period. Best of all was the Digital Concert Hall interview with Sir Simon Rattle that accompanies the concert. In this 54 minute interview Rattle speaks about all nine Beethoven symphonies and gives a fascinating insight into the composer’s life. The interview is well worth watching on its own but is a lovely accompaniment to the concert. Stream for free at: https://www.digitalconcerthall.com/en/concert/22390

‘Now We Shall Be Entirely Free’ by Andrew Miller

3 April 2020

I can highly recommend Andrew Miller’s 2018 novel ‘Now We Shall Be Entirely Free’ (which I read as an unabridged audio book, narrated by Joe Jameson). It’s a historical novel, set during the Napoleonic Wars, and written in the style of authors such as Robert Louis Stevenson. It’s a gripping chase thriller but it’s also incredibly funny. It reminded a lot of Matthew Kneale’s marvellous comic historical novel ‘English Passengers’ (also highly recommended) and also has much in common with ‘Captain Corelli's Mandolin’ by Louis de Bernières. ‘Now We Shall Be Entirely Free’ is beautifully written with countless lovely lines you could quote. But it triumphs primarily because Andrew Miller really makes you care about his characters, who become increasingly sympathetic as the novel progresses.

Milton Keynes Sinfonia concert

20 March 2020

Last Friday afternoon I received a text message to say that one of the horn players in Milton Keynes Sinfonia was self-isolating after displaying symptoms of Covid-19 and asking if I could help them out. Just over 24 hours later I had the unexpected pleasure of playing in the orchestra’s Beethoven concert at the Chrysalis Theatre in Milton Keynes. It was a wonderful concert: there was a strange atmosphere of nervousness about the rapidly worsening Coronavirus situation, a strong expectation that this might be one of the last live concerts any of us experiences for quite a while, but also a determination to celebrate being together to enjoy some inspirational music. We opened the concert with the ‘Overture to Fidelio’ – Beethoven’s only opera, followed by his ‘Piano Concerto No 5’ – the ‘Emperor Concerto’, brilliantly played bt the Russian pianist, Alexander Karpeyev. The climax of the concert was Beethoven’s ‘Symphony No 5’ – the world’s most famous symphony. The journey from the ominous knocking of fate in the first movement to the gloriously triumphant finale felt particularly moving in the current climate. Conductor David Knight spoke about his vision of the symphony as a ‘mushroom cloud’, gradually expanding towards the exuberant ending, with the third movement Scherzo forming the heart of the work, in which the tension builds and builds before leading into the release of the major key climax in the fourth movement. It was an incredibly enjoyable evening – a bright moment of hope in dark times.

‘Hoa Am Xu’a’ by Saigon Soul Revival

13 March 2020

I’m really enjoying the debut album by Saigon Soul Revival – a Vietnamese band that celebrates the bolero scene in South Vietnam in the 1960s and 70s. ‘Hoa Am Xu’a’ is a mixture of covers of classic songs and new tracks in this vintage style. It’s funky rock that sounds both strangely familiar and refreshingly different – the same 'parallel universe syndrome' that I associated with 'the very best of éthiopiques' (Francis Falceto’s wonderful collection of Ethiopian popular music from the 1960s and 70s, reviewed here in 2007). There’s a distinct psychedelic retro feel to the songs but the addition of a young rapper on one of the tracks makes it seem surprisingly modern.

'King Lear' by William Shakespeare, adapted by Paul Morel

6 March 2020

On Thursday we were at The Place in Bedford to see the Oddbodies production of ‘King Lear’. This is a remarkable one-man version of Shakespeare’s play, adapted and performed by Paul Morel, and directed by John Mowat. In a similar way to Kizzy Dunn’s wonderful ‘Hamlet: Horatio’s Tale’ which saw Horatio recounting the tragedy of his friend (which we saw at the Edinburgh Fringe two years ago, reviewed here in August 2018), this was the story of ‘King Lear’ recounted by the Fool. Paul Morel plays the Fool playing all the other characters. Without any costumes or props he manages to distinguish clearly each of the cast purely through posture and voice. This is a much more light-hearted approach than ‘Hamlet: Horatio’s Tale’: each speech from the play is delivered seriously but he then immediately drops back into the character of the Fool to comment on what was meant and to point out the many oddities of the play. (The Fool himself inexplicably disappears in the final act, perhaps because the same actor in the original production may also have played Cordelia.) The Irish-accented Fool’s contemporary ad-libs and banter with the audience reminded me of one of our Fringe favourites, comedian and actor Owen O’Neill (reviewed here in August 2018 and August 2014). Interspersing the text of the play with the Fool’s analysis of each speech provides a great way to understand the complexities of the plot. It’s like seeing the play with live footnotes – but more entertaining than that sounds! You can get a flavour of the production from this video trailer: https://vimeo.com/328008891

'The Realistic Joneses' by Will Eno

26 February 2020

On Saturday we were at the Ustinov Studio at the Theatre Royal in Bath to see ‘The Realistic Joneses’ by Will Eno. Simon Evans’ production is the UK premiere of the play which was first seen in Yale in 2014. ‘The Realistic Joneses’ is a hugely enjoyable quirky battle of words between two couples, brilliantly played by Clare Foster, Corey Johnson, Jack Laskey and Sharon Small. John and Pony have just moved into the house next door to Jennifer and Bob in a village at the foot of mountains, somewhere in America. As the four of them get to know each other through a series of gentle conversations in their back yards, no-one seems to take anything that is said at face value, picking apart the sentences for hidden meanings. And it is hard to tell who is actually telling the truth. The result is an incredibly funny and often puzzling drama that never fully resolves its mysteries but is nevertheless extremely entertaining. The suggestion of something going on beneath the surface of the dialogue reminded me of plays by Sam Shepard and Caryl Churchill, and I wondered whether there was actually some underlying analogy, like the threat of nuclear war as the unnamed fear in Edward Albee’s ‘A Delicate Balance’. But if ‘The Realistic Joneses’ was no more than a witty entertainment it was great fun.

'Alone in Berlin' by Hans Fallada, translated and adapted by Alistair Beaton

17 February 2020

I had heard of the true story of an ordinary German couple who developed a model for small-scale passive resistance to the Nazi regime in the early years of the Second World War – leaving postcards in public places across Berlin encouraging the people to question their Government’s actions. Hans Fallada’s novel ‘Alone in Berlin’, which fictionalises their story, was described by Primo Levi as “the greatest book ever written about German resistance to the Nazis”. The fact that this novel, originally published in 1947, entered the bestseller list again three years ago is a worrying commentary on our times. And watching Alistair Beaton’s new stage adaptation of ‘Alone in Berlin’ at the Royal Theatre in Northampton last Thursday, there was a noticeable audience reaction to lines about Nazi Germany which seemed equally applicable to Brexit Britain (“Nobody minds being lied to any more”). James Dacre’s production (for the Royal & Derngate Northampton, York Theatre Royal and Oxford Playhouse) features a wonderful rectilinear exaggerated-perspective set by Jonathan Fensom onto which Charles Balfour’s lighting and animated illustrations by Jason Lutes create stunning effects. It’s a bleak tale which explores the different ways people find to cope with a totalitarian system with which they disagree but have little chance of changing. Denis Conway and Charlotte Emmerson are excellent as Otto and Anna Quangel, showing how it is possible to be simultaneously brave, scared, naive, cowardly and determined.

Northampton Symphony Orchestra concert

11 February 2020

Performing Bruckner’s ‘Symphony No 4’ for the first time is a landmark moment for a horn player and it was wonderful to have the chance to do so with the Northampton Symphony Orchestra last Saturday. The ‘Romantic Symphony’ is a mammoth work: it lasts 65 minutes and the 1st horn is playing for most of that time. It’s a major test of stamina and nerves – particularly the exposed solo at the beginning of the first movement. Having prepared myself carefully for the opening note I was slightly thrown by our conductor, John Gibbons, who gave a fascinating but lengthy description of the piece to the audience before we started playing. My first few notes were a little wobbly but once I got going I think the symphony went extremely well. It was brilliant to be part of a magnificent horn section: the final bars of the first movement, the hunting calls of the Scherzo and the end of the final movement felt thrilling. The whole orchestra rose to the challenge of the symphony very impressively with some lovely woodwind solos and stunning playing by the viola section. But, sorry guys, this time it really was mostly about the horns! The first half of the concert featured the rousing ‘Flying Dutchman Overture’ by Richard Wagner and the ‘Duet-Concertino for Clarinet and Bassoon’ by Richard Strauss. This rarely heard work is a lovely miniature double concerto with the two solo instruments accompanied by strings and harp. Our soloists, Cathal Killeen on clarinet and William Gold on bassoon, were outstanding. I loved the theatricality of their performance as they reached across to page-turn for each other. At one point Cathal walked across to share William’s music stand during a passage of playful conversation between the two instruments. It was interesting to spot some themes in the final movement that also appear in another late work by Strauss – the 'Sonatina no. 2 for 16 Winds' ('From the Happy Workshop') which I played with the Heliotrope Chamber Ensemble in 2016 (reviewed here in April 2016). The NSO performance of the Duet-Concertino was excellent – delicate and extremely entertaining.

'The Personal History of David Copperfield’ by Armando Iannucci

7 February 2020

On Sunday we were at the Odeon in Milton Keynes to see ‘The Personal History of David Copperfield’ - Armando Iannucci’s new film adaptation of the Dickens novel. It’s a sunny film that’s lots of fun. Dev Patel’s David Copperfield is an aspiring writer narrating the story of his life. He watches in on his own birth – reminding me of ‘A Cock and Bull Story’ - Michael Winterbottom’s 2005 film adaptation of ‘Tristram Shandy’. Armando Iannucci’s  ‘David Copperfield’ is, unsurprisingly, very funny with some great comic cameos. There are a few nods to Dickens’ social commentary but this is primarily a jolly yarn. Dev Patel displays an impressive talent for accents and mimicry – as does Jairaj Varsani as the young David Copperfield. Peter Capaldi, Hugh Laurie, Tilda Swinton and Ben Wishaw are all wonderful in their larger-than-life performances. I particularly liked Daisy May Cooper as Peggotty. And Morfydd Clark’s Dora Spenlow was infuriatingly lovely! But the most Armando Iannucci scenes were those in the Murdstone factory office with the words of Victor McGuire’s hoarse Creakle being parroted for clarity by Peter Singh’s Tungay – which could have been straight from ‘The Thick of It’.

'The Body Lies' by Jo Baker

29 January 2020

Jo Baker’s wonderful novel ‘Longbourn’ (reviewed here in April 2014), which revisits characters and scenes from 'Pride and Prejudice' from the point of view of the Bennetts' servants, was beautifully written and cleverly constructed. Although her new novel ‘The Body Lies’ (which I have just finished reading as an unabridged audio book narrated by Julie Maisey, Deborah McBride, Sam Woolf, Simon Ludders and Imogen Church) has a completely different setting and theme, it similarly demonstrates her skill and craft as a writer. ‘The Body Lies’ is a contemporary story which uses the ‘campus novel’ approach to address some dark subjects, with a focus on violence against women. The book’s (unnamed) first-person narrator teaches a creative writing course and her story is interspersed with excerpts from her students’ work – often giving a variety of different perspectives on events they have all witnessed. Much of the book has the feel of a comic novel by David Lodge, but the underlying threat of sexual violence is carefully and sensitively handled. The novel is also about the act of writing, so the way it is written is an essential component of what it is saying. There’s a very clever, meta-textual strand running through the book but this never detracts from the way it works as an incredibly scary thriller.

‘Back to Bacharach’

29 January 2020

Burt Bacharach must rate amongst the greatest songwriters of the 20th century. Now 91 years old – and still going strong – his catalogue of hit songs over more than 50 years is amazing. Last Saturday we were at The Stables in Milton Keynes to see ‘Back to Bacharach’ - a touring show that celebrates his music. An excellent band, featuring three singers who share the lead role, play songs originally made famous by Dionne Warwick, Perry Como, Gene Pitney, Dusty Springfield, Tom Jones, Jack Jones, Herb Alpert, The Carpenters, Christopher Cross, Elvis Presley and many others. Much of this amazing back catalogue reflects Burt Bacharach’s long partnership with lyricist Hal David, but he also wrote some great songs with Carole Bayer Sager (who became his third wife). I’m not usually a fan of tribute bands, but ‘Back to Bacharach’ celebrate the composer, rather than imitating a particular artist. I always like a band that dances to its own music and ‘Back to Bacharach’ looked like they were having great fun on Saturday. And all their concerts raise money for the Breast Cancer Now charity.

NMPAT Sinfonietta concert

23 January 2020

I last played in one of Trevor Dyson’s charity orchestral concerts in Northampton two years ago when we performed the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto and Beethoven’s ‘Symphony No 3 (Eroica)’ (reviewed here in February 2017). On Saturday I was delighted to be asked again to join the NMPAT Sinfonietta – a scratch orchestra made up mostly of instrumental music teachers from Northamptonshire Music and Performing Arts Trust and conducted by Trevor – to raise funds for the Spinal Injuries Association. Like last time, the afternoon rehearsal was fairly worrying as we struggled to pull together a substantial and challenging programme in a very limited time. But this resulted in extreme levels of concentration in the evening performance which went really well and was great fun. We opened with the ‘Roman Carnival Overture’ by Berlioz – a thrilling piece that is rarely played as fast as should be in my opinion, but we managed to maintain an impressive pace! We followed this with ‘Peter and the Wolf’ by Prokofiev, narrated by Alan Bell, which featured stunning performances by the four woodwind soloists: Graham Tear on flute, Peter Dunkley on clarinet, Frank Jordan on bassoon and Iona Walker on oboe (who also played the lovely cor anglais solo in the Roman Carnival overture beautifully). The concert closed with the epic ‘Symphony No 6 (Pathétique)’ by Tchaikovsky. This was an ambitious undertaking on a single rehearsal but I think our performance was pretty impressive (if a little unrestrained in the faster, louder sections!). Usually when you play the Pathétique Symphony the triumphant march of the third movement fools anyone who hasn’t heard the piece before into thinking it has finished, and it’s not uncommon to get applause at this false ending, before the sting-in-the-tail of the angst-laden final slow movement. On Saturday our breathtaking romp through the third movement was greeted by a stunned silence punctuated simply by someone on the front row of the audience spontaneously and gloriously shouting ‘wow!’. Thankfully, the devastating ending of the final movement also elicited an enthusiastic reaction: it was an exciting and entertaining concert which managed to raise a substantial amount of money for the SIA.

'This Classical Life'

17 January 2020

I first encountered the brilliant young saxophonist Jess Gillam (who comes from Ulverston in Cumbria) through the 2016 BBC Young Musician competition (reviewed here in May 2016). In 2017 I was lucky enough to play in two concerts with Jess with the Northampton Symphony Orchestra (reviewed here in March and July 2017). As well as developing into an outstanding musician Jess Gillam is proving herself to be a consummate broadcaster: in 2018 she presented the BBC Young Musician podcast (reviewed here in April 2018). And now I have (slightly belatedly) discovered her wonderful BBC Radio 3 programme and podcast ‘This Classical Life’. Each week Jess welcomes a different guest – usually another young professional musician – and they take turns to share pieces of music with each other. The music is mostly classical, with some jazz and pop. In the manner of BBC Radio 4’s ‘A Good Read’ they politely comment on each other’s choices – only occasionally admitting that they really don’t like something the other person has chosen. Jess is a very natural interviewer and is very good at teasing out what it is about each piece of music that makes it enticing. Her approach is very accessible and unpretentious. The show is great fun in itself but it has also sent me to listen to loads of great music I was previously unaware of. Each weekly episode is less than half an hour, and there is now a back catalogue of 32 episodes to catch up with. Subscribe to ‘This Classical Life’ wherever you get your podcasts or find it on BBC Radio 3, on BBC Sounds or at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00040ch

‘Mame’ by Jerome Lawrence, Robert E. Lee and Jerry Herman

10 January 2020

I’ve only ever played in the band for a handful of stage musicals. It’s an odd experience being part of the orchestra in the pit: by the end of the run you know the show off-by-heart (both the music and most of the dialogue!) but, having never actually seen what is happening on the stage, my grasp of the plot of most of the musicals I have played in remains rather vague. One of my rare appearances in the orchestra pit was for a production of ‘Mame’ by the excellent amateur Westwood Musical Society at the Key Theatre in Peterborough in 1992. This production was particularly memorable as the actor playing Auntie Mame fell on stage during the second performance and broke her leg. That evening’s performance was abandoned but, after some hasty adjustments to the script, our star returned the following night – with leg in plaster – to complete the run. The Peterborough Evening Telegraph headline for these dramatic events was, somewhat inevitably, ‘Mamed!’. So it was great, nearly 30 years later, to finally get the chance to see ‘Mame’ at the Royal Theatre in Northampton on Thursday in a new production from Hope Mill Theatre in Manchester. ‘Mame’ has a book by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee with music and lyrics by Jerry Herman, based on the novel by Patrick Dennis and the play ‘Auntie Mame’ by Lawrence and Lee. It’s set in Jazz Age New York, with the flimsiest of plots (and some dated sexual politics) providing an excuse for a joyous feel-good dance musical. This is the first professional staging of ‘Mame’ in the UK since the original 1969 West End production, which starred Ginger Rogers. Director and Choreographer Nick Winston has ingeniously compressed the action for the tiny Hope Mill Theatre, squeezing a cast of 18 onto a small stage without losing any of the big dance numbers. The music was arranged by Jason Carr who did the amazing four-piano arrangement of ‘Annie Get Your Gun’ for the Young Vic production starring Jane Horrocks (reviewed here in December 2009). Tracie Bennett (who we last saw singing ‘I’m Still Here’ in the National Theatre production of Stephen Sondheim’s ‘Follies’, reviewed here in November 2017) is wonderful as Mame. Her singing is impressive but her dancing is really outstanding – as is that of the whole cast. ‘Mame’ is a dancers’ musical and the Hope Mill Theatre production boasts a stunning ensemble of dancers. Harriet Thorpe almost steals the show as Mame’s wise-cracking, permanently inebriated, best friend, Vera. And Lochlan White is amazing as the young Patrick (one of three boys alternating the role). But ‘Mame’ is Tracie Bennett’s show and it is hard now to imagine anyone else in the role. It’s a brilliant production that left me beaming. You can get a flavour of the show from this trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nQjDMsx5xY

‘The Cthulhu Casebooks: Sherlock Holmes and the Shadwell Shadows’ by James Lovegrove

3 January 2020

New Year is traditionally a time for revelations as previously secret government documents are released under the thirty-year rule. So it felt seasonally appropriate this week to be discovering hitherto undisclosed shocking secrets about the life and work of Sherlock Holmes that suggest everything you thought you knew about the great consulting detective was actually a fiction. ‘The Cthulhu Casebooks: Sherlock Holmes and the Shadwell Shadows’ by James Lovegrove (which I have just finished reading as an unabridged audio book, narrated by Dennis Kleinman) is the first of three novels apparently written by Dr John Watson in 1928. The three books depict events 15 years apart – in 1880, 1895 and 1910 respectively – starting with the first meeting between Holmes and Watson, which the Doctor reveals did not happen as he had previously recounted it in print. ‘The Cthulhu Casebooks’ are a mashup of Conan Doyle and the fantastical science fiction horror of H.P. Lovecraft (who was also the inspiration for Ned Beauman’s wonderful novel 'The Teleportation Accident', reviewed here in July 2013). In ‘Sherlock Holmes and the Shadwell Shadows’ Watson explains how a young Holmes was drawn into a world of magic, monsters, aliens and gods – and how he carefully obscured this side of the detective’s character in his original accounts in The Strand Magazine. James Lovegrove has produced a painstakingly meticulous recreation of Conan Doyle’s style – homage rather than pastiche. It’s very engaging but less schlocky fun than I had expected: I had anticipated something more like the steampunk aesthetic of George Mann’s Victorian detective/fantasy/science fiction novel ‘The Affinity Bridge’ (reviewed here in June 2019). This is a much more serious tale and feels closer to ‘The House of Silk’ by Anthony Horowitz (reviewed here in January 2012) which was also supposed to be written an elderly Dr Watson, many years after Holmes himself has passed away. Both books are are lovingly reverential to the original Sherlock Holmes stories and knowingly playful with the genre – though the Shadwell Shadows has more lizard-men!