Cultural Dessert

‘Man with a Love Song’ by James Hill

2012-01-25T17:24:00.003+01:00

25 January 2012

The humble ukulele has undergone a renaissance in recentyears, with its notable appearances including ‘Bang Goes the Knighthood’ by TheDivine Comedy (reviewed here in June 2010), the eclectic music of Beirut (reviewedhere in November 2006 and October 2007), the phenomenal posthumous success ofthe late Hawaiian singer Israel Kamakawiwo’ole and the ubiquitous UkuleleOrchestra of Great Britain (reviewed here in July 2010). James Hill is aCanadian singer, songwriter and ukulele player and his latest album ‘Man with aLove Song’ is a lovely, varied set of songs – laid-back, gentle and playful tunes.James Hill also plays banjo and piano and is joined by the cellist AnneDavison. He uses the ukulele thoughtfully and sparingly: there is little of theclichéd frantic strumming here. And the pick of the tracks, for me, is thehaunting, moving ballad ‘High Demand’ – a beautiful song.

'The Awakening'

2012-01-20T10:25:00.003+01:00

20 January 2012

We made a rare trip to The Castle in Wellingborough lastSaturday to see ‘The Awakening’, a British film that came out last November buthad passed me by. It’s a ghost story, set just after the First World War at aboarding school in Cumbria where professional hoax exposer Florence Cathcart iscalled in to investigate the death of a boy who has apparently been scared todeath. It’s a spooky tale, atmospherically filmed in a constantly gloomy light withmuted colours, allowing half-seen images to lurk in the shadows. The most scaryghost films are those that don’t show too much but play upon the audience’simagination. ‘The Awakening’ pulls off that classic trick of showing you ascene in which the heroine walks through a room without noticing anythingunusual, while a ghostly figure appears very briefly in the background in a waythat ensures all the audience see something but no-one is quite sure whetherthey really did. Rebecca Hall is great as Florence Cathcart, her rationaldetermination gradually unwinding in the face of increasingly unexplainablehappenings. And there is good support from Dominic West and Imelda Staunton. It’sa nicely made film that doesn’t outstay its welcome and confirms that there isnothing so scary as children!

‘The House of Silk’ by Anthony Horowitz

2012-01-13T12:14:00.003+01:00

13 January 2012

It’s been confusing, over the past couple of weeks, to be watchingthe excellent new series of ‘Sherlock’ by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss whilstI have also been reading ‘The House of Silk’ by Anthony Horowitz – the firstnew Sherlock Holmes novel to be officially approved by the Conan Doyle estate.Both are lovingly reverential to the original Sherlock Holmes stories and knowinglyplayful with the genre. In ‘The House of Silk’ (I read the unabridged audioversion, read by Derek Jacobi) an elderly Dr Watson, living in a nursing homemany years after Holmes himself has passed away, recounts one last case which hewas unable to tell at the time it happened – and will be consigned to hissolicitors' vaults for 100 years. All the familiar Holmesian elements arepresent – 221B Baker Street, Mrs Hudson, Inspector Lestrade, the pipe, theviolin, the Baker Street Irregulars etc. There’s a wonderful laugh-out-loudencounter between Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes where they exchange a rapid seriesof elementary deductions about what they have each been up to since they lastmet – like an intellectual tennis match. The narrative style is faithful toConan Doyle and Watson’s voice is completely recognisable. Watson himselfcomments on his tendency to preoccupy himself with plot and laments hisinability to comment on the social conditions of Victorian London in the wayGissing or Dickens had. He then attempts the occasional foray into Dickensiandescription but Horowitz’s main focus is also on the puzzle of the case (orcases). It’s hard to know whether to criticise the occasional clumsiness of thewriting or to attribute this to an accurate reproduction of Conan Doyle’snarrator but ‘The House of Silk’ works better as a thriller than a literaryperiod piece. It’s a marvellously complex mystery: being much longer than ConanDoyle’s original stories allows the novel to weave an extensive web ofplotlines, while the relentless pace of the adventure drives the confused readercontinually onward. The trick of a Sherlock Holmes story is to leave the readeralways slightly ahead of Watson but slightly behind Holmes – and Horowitzachieved this admirably as far as this reader was concerned. The novel buildsto a truly thrilling conclusion – I was completely hooked.

‘You Can’t Take It With You’ by George S Kaufman and Moss Hart

2012-01-05T16:00:00.001+01:00

5 January 2012

Last Friday we were at the Royal Exchange Theatre inManchester to see ‘You Can’t Take It With You’ by George S Kaufman and MossHart. This production by the Royal Exchange Theatre and Told By An Idiot of the1936 Broadway comedy, was extremely silly, incredibly funny and joyously life-affirming:I loved it! Kaufman wrote for the Marx Brothers (including the screenplays for ‘ANight at the Opera’ and ‘A Day at the Races’) and ‘You Can’t Take It With You’displays a similar zany humour. Set in New York in the 1930s, Alice Sycamore(played here by Sarah Ridgeway) brings her new boyfriend home to meet hereccentric family. Here the two lovers are the only ‘normal’ characters witheveryone else slightly larger than life – the mother (played by Joanne Howarth)who has spent eight years trying to write a play, purely because eight yearsago someone mistakenly delivered her a typewriter, the father (Sam Parks) whospends his days in the attics inventing fireworks, the sister (Sophie Russell) whowants to be a dancer and dances almost continuously around the house, the houseguest (Martin Hyder) who arrived six years ago to deliver ice and never leftand the grandfather (Christopher Benjamin) who decided that spending six hoursa day doing something he didn’t enjoy in order to spend one hour doing thethings he liked made no sense and so he stopped going to work or paying incometax. It was a wonderfully silly show, directed by Paul Hunter and making gooduse of the theatre-in-the-round setting. Everyone left with a smile on theirfaces.

'The Ladykillers' by Graham Linehan

2012-01-05T15:59:00.000+01:00

5 January 2012

Between Christmas and New Year we were at the GielgudTheatre in London’s West End to see ‘The Ladykillers’ – a new stage version ofthe classic Ealing comedy, written by Graham Linehan and directed by SeanFoley. It was an all-star cast with Peter Capaldi, James Fleet, Ben Miller,Clive Rowe, Stephen Wight and the wonderful Marcia Warren as Mrs Wilberforce.But the clear star of the show was the amazing set by Michael Taylor. The wholeinside of the house is laid out in exaggerated and eccentric angles andperspective – which reminded me of the Stephen Daldry version of ‘An InspectorCalls’ – and this is combined with a revolving stage to take us outside andshow us the heist with a series of toy cars and a toy train. Graham Linehansays in the programme that he was influenced by Patrick Barlow’s stage adaptationof ‘The Thirty Nine Steps’ and this was certainly in a very similar style.There were some very funny moments – I loved the tableau of the six faces ofthe criminal gang crammed into a tiny cupboard – and it was a very enjoyableevening in the theatre but the performances were good rather than outstanding.

'Measure for Measure' by William Shakespeare

2012-01-05T15:58:00.002+01:00

5 January 2012

On Boxing Say we were at The Swan Theatre inStratford-upon-Avon to see the Royal Shakespeare Company production of ‘Measurefor Measure’, directed by Roxana Silbert. I’ve seen the play before but thisproduction held my attention better and I felt I properly appreciated it forthe first time. Although technically one of Shakespeare’s ‘comedies’, ‘Measurefor Measure’ is a dark play. It was good to see the comic moments brought out,without losing the seriousness of its themes. Raymond Coulthard was a mercurialDuke, with a twinkle in his eye, a tendency to break down the fourth wall and afine line in conjuring tricks. Now that the new Royal Shakespeare Theatreechoes its thrust stage, the Swan, next door, feels very small. We were in thetop gallery and could only see the stage by leaning uncomfortably forward. But thequality of the acting overcame these practical annoyances and it was animpressive production.

‘The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha’ by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

2012-01-05T15:57:00.003+01:00

5 January 2012

I’ve just finished reading ‘The Ingenious Gentleman DonQuixote of La Mancha’ by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, as an unabridged audiobook translated by John Ormsby, revised, updated and read by Roy McMillan. It’sa massive book – the audio version lasts 36 hours – and I’m afraid it did feelvery long. Everyone knows about ‘Don Quixote’ but it was an interestingexperience actually reading it. At first it is hard to know how to take it: onthe surface Cervantes is clearly parodying a particular style of chivalroustale of knights of old, but the stories being parodied are now unfamiliar, sothe tales of Don Quixote’s mistaken skirmishes with windmills and the likeappear to us a simple child-like slapstick. This cartoon narrative is funny butdoesn’t seem sophisticated enough to hold your attention over such a longnovel. But then you gradually begin to see something cleverer going on in theway the story is told and, in particular, the question of who is telling thestory. We appear to be in the hands of an omniscient narrator who knows allthat befell Don Quixote and his trusty squire Sancho Panza, even when there wasclearly no-one else present. But then there are references to the differentversions of Don Quixote’s story, suggesting that he has been written about bymany authors and his exploits have become the stuff of legend. ‘Don Quixote’was published by Cervantes in two volumes, in 1605 and 1615, and in the secondpart the knight and his squire frequently encounter people who have read theearlier volume and are familiar with their history. This must be one of theearliest examples of meta-fiction and Cervantes proceeds to have lots of funwith the premise: the author himself points out inconsistencies in earlierchapters where, for example, Sancho Panza’s ass is stolen in one scene but heis then described as riding it again in the next. We are told that the authorof this account of the Don’s life wrote it in Arabic and that it was thentranslated into Spanish. The narrator then interjects with comments about theoriginal Arabic author and also about the translator – so who is making thesecomments? This becomes a very clever, entertaining and rewarding exercise innarrative style. The other thing that Cervantes does very impressively is toconstruct two classic comic characters, whose influence can be seen to thepresent day. Don Quixote and Sancho Panza are both deluded simpletons but withtheir own serious and consistent logic. I worried at first that we were simplybeing invited to laugh at Don Quixote’s mental illness as he mistakes an innfor a castle or windmills for giants, and even when these obvious mistakes arepointed out to him he excuses them by claiming he has been enchanted by evilforces. But there is much emphasis on the way in which Don Quixote is actuallyvery sensible and logical on every topic except that of knights errant as hehas been corrupted by reading too many chivalrous tales. And gradually yourealise that Don Quixote and Sancho Panza are wonderfully drawn characters withtheir own internal logic – exaggerated cartoon creations placed in an otherwisereal-world setting. Though set in a different continent at a different time, theirpicaresque adventures reminded me of the Coen Brothers film ‘O Brother, WhereArt Thou’ – itself a loose version of Homer’s ‘The Odyssey’. Cleverly, DonQuixote and Sancho Panza can both see through many of each other’s delusions,while remaining blissfully unaware of their own shortcomings. These are comicsimpletons with a serious approach to life – like Laurel and Hardy, Morecambeand Wise or Alan Partridge. I enjoyed reading ‘Don Quixote’: it is too long butyou can see why it became so revered and how influential it has been and I willmiss The Knight of the Rueful Countenance and his loyal companion with whom Ihave travelled so far.

Lea Singers Concert

2012-01-05T15:57:00.000+01:00

5 January 2012

I can think of few better ways to start the Christmas breakthan by attending the Lea Singers Charity Christmas Concert, ‘MerryLea’. On 22December we were back at the Harpenden Public Halls to see this excellentchamber choir entertain us with a festive programme ranging from medieval tomodern. Each of Poulenc’s beautiful ‘Four Christmas Motets’ were paired with settingsof the same words some 400 years earlier by Palestrina, Orlando Lassus andWilliam Byrd. I also very much enjoyed a modern South African Christmas Anthem byGrant McLachlan, ‘Come Colours Rise’. It was great to see a packed audience helpingto raise funds for the Grove House hospice charity and singing the carols enthusiasticallyand impressively.

Northampton Symphony Orchestra concert

2011-12-14T13:32:00.000+01:00

14 December 2011

Another vital component for bringing on the festive mood isthe annual Christmas Cracker concert by the Northampton Symphony Orchestra. OnSunday we were back at the Spinney Theatre in Northampton for an afternoon ofcarols and other Christmas music. I haven’t seen the 2004 animated film ‘ThePolar Express’ but the music by Alan Silvestri (who also wrote the score for ‘Backto the Future’) is a brilliantly nostalgic evocation of Christmas. Somehow Ihave also missed seeing that perennial favourite ‘The Snowman’ so it was fun todiscover the story for the first time by playing Howard Blake’s music withnarration by our excellent compere Graham Padden and members of the NorthamptonshireCounty Boys’ Choir singing ‘Walking in the Air’. We finished the concert withTchaikovsky’s ‘Suite from the Ballet Nutcracker’ (including a stunningperformance at the beginning of ‘The Waltz of the Flowers’ by harpist FedericaMossone) and, with the scent of mulled wine and mince pies heavy in the air, youcould hardly get more Christmassy.

'Cinderella' by Sue Sachon

2011-12-14T13:28:00.001+01:00

14 December 2011

Christmas is coming and there is no better way to start thefestive period than with a visit to Toddington to see the excellent TADSpantomime. On Saturday were back at the tiny TADS theatre to see ‘Cinderella’ –a new version written by TADS member Sue Sachon. This was a very traditional pantomime,wonderfully delivered. Perhaps a little less inventive than last years’ ‘ThePirate Princess’ (reviewed here in December 2010) but great fun. ‘Cinderella’featured a cast of fifteen actors, all of whom were strong. I think thehighlight was Lea Pryer and Janet Bray as the comic crooks ‘Bob Down’ and ‘SidOut’: their rendition of ‘Money Makes the World Go Round’ was a showstopper.But they only narrowly beat the performance of “U.G.L.Y. You ain't got no alibi,you're ugly!” by Cinderella’s Ugly Sisters and Stepmother. Very few of the castwere not playing the opposite gender, but amongst the usual comic dragperformances, James Sygrove – as the wicked Stepmother, Cleptomania – took thewhole thing to a different level (and not just because of the height of hisheels!) with an impressive and disturbing portrayal that suggested he mighthave pursued a successful career as a female impersonator.

'Henry V' by William Shakespeare

2011-12-09T11:53:00.001+01:00

9 December 2011

On Saturday we were at Milton Keynes Theatre to see the Propellerproduction of Henry V. Propeller is an all-male Shakespeare company, led byEdward Hall. This was a very muscular account of this most masculine ofShakespeare’s plays which did its best to bring home the realities of war in a contemporarycontext. With members of the cast, in army fatigues and balaclavas, patrollingthe auditorium before the start of the play, we felt very much part of thetheatre of war. This was very deliberately an ensemble piece with no real starsbut high quality acting throughout the cast. In this production The Chorustruly was a chorus, with its words passed between all the actors in turn. Forme, the downside of this emphasis on the ensemble was that the King was not thestrongest of the actors on the stage and was sometimes a little difficult tohear – particularly in the big set piece speeches where his admirable strivingfor realism rather than Olivier-style acting left his fast speakingoccasionally drowned by music or sound effects. The music was impressive, withsome fine singing by the cast and good use of (relatively recent) rock and popto stress the contemporary setting. We were also treated to more songs in thefoyer during the interval where some of the actors performed to raise funds fora respite care charity: they have collected more than £5,000 so far on theirtour, which only started in November. I really enjoyed the show: Propeller madeit an engaging and entertaining tale which kept my attention throughout. Henry Vis not Shakespeare’s best plot (it’s mostly one battle after another with a fewshort pauses in between) but I was reminded of its crucial significance as a pivotbetween the other history plays. So many of the nuances are much more poignantif you are familiar with the two Henry IV plays. On the night before Agincourt,Henry V worries that he may be doomed to atone for his father’s sin in deposingRichard II. And this play finishes with The Chorus foretelling the failures ofHenry VI and the onset of the Wars of the Roses.

'The Killing (Forbrydelsen)' by Søren Sveistrup

2011-12-01T14:50:00.001+01:00

1 December 2011

She's back! How wonderful to be back in Copenhagen with Sarah Lund for the second series of the Danish TV series 'The Killing' (Forbrydelsen). If you missed the amazing first series and are still wondering what all the fuss was about I would recommend leaping straight into 'The Killing II'. The new series is a completely separate story with an almost entirely new cast of characters and you really don't have to have watched the original to enjoy it. 'The Killing' is a police procedural thriller serial set in Copenhagen. What makes it special is the quality of the plot (written by Søren Sveistrup), the acting and the length of the story. The first series consisted of 20 hour-long episodes, each representing one day in the investigation of a single crime. The luxury of having 20 hours to explore the characters of the various suspects and their investigators allowed a depth you rarely see in TV detective dramas. (If 20 episodes seems a bit daunting, the second series is only 10 hours long!) And don't be put off by the fact that 'The Killing' is in Danish with English subtitles: like all the best foreign dramas it's so good that, afterwards, you will struggle to remember that it was subtitled. Although 'The Killing' shows us events from the viewpoints of all the main protagonists, it is always careful never to reveal anything to the viewer that the police don't know - so you have the same opportunity to work out what happened as those investigating. To make the plot last for so many episodes there are, inevitably, a series of red herrings. But each innocent suspect, for whom there appears to be compelling evidence of guilt, turns out to have an extremely plausible explanation for their suspicious behaviour. This is a very sobering lesson in how easy it is to convince yourself that someone must be the murderer on purely circumstantial evidence. Both series feature a strong political subplot and the power games between the politicians, the media and the police form a fascinating backdrop. But the heart of 'The Killing' is police officer Sarah Lund played by Sofie Gråbøl as a very believable human being. Lund's very gradual descent into instability, driven by her obsession with solving the murder of Nana Birk Larsen was so carefully portrayed that the disastrous consequences of her actions took us as much by surprise as they did her. Sarah Lund is a very cleverly drawn character: her colleagues (and us viewers) feel she is able to spot things that the other police miss - she seems to have an extra level of intuition. But she is a real, believable character, not an infallible Sherlock Holmes: she doesn't have special powers and her hunches often prove to be misguided. This creates a peculiar fascination in the viewer: you are rooting for Sarah and urging her colleagues to listen to her while simultaneously worrying that she might be going down completely the wrong path. It's brilliantly done. 'The Killing II' is on BBC4 on Saturday evenings but don't worry if you've missed the first few episodes: the whole series will also be available on BBC iPlayer until 24 December. (And I haven't even mentioned the jumpers!)

’50 Words for Snow’ by Kate Bush

2011-11-25T10:05:00.001+01:00

25 November 2011

It’s hard to think of any other seriousmusician whose reputation could not only survive but appear to have beenenhanced by an Elvis impression, a washing-machine fixation and a duet withRolf Harris (all on her 2005 album, ‘Aerial’). Those of us who grew upfascinated by Kate Bush’s voice would probably be happy to listen to herreading the telephone directory. We get close to this on her new album but,unfortunately, it is Stephen Fry’s voice, rather than Kate Bush herself, thatis given the task of reverentially intoning 50 (made-up) Words for Snow toBush’s musical encouragement on the title track. ’50 Words for Snow’ is aquiet, contemplative collection of songs, mostly accompanied by gentle pianochords. It’s a beautiful work, despite continuing to sail mischievously closeto self-parody (including a sexual encounter with a snowman!). Kate Bush’scelebrity pulling power seems stronger even than that of Ricky Gervais, withElton John the guest vocalist on ‘Snowed in at Wheeler Street’. Much as I havebeen enjoying ‘Ceremonials’, the new album from Florence + The Machine, whichsounds a lot like Kate Bush in rock-mode (I particularly like the opening track‘Only If For A Night’ with its bell-ringing descending scales), it is nosubstitute for the real thing. More please!

Northampton Symphony Orchestra concert

2011-11-15T11:57:00.001+01:00

15 November 2011

Having been practising Mahler’s 6^thSymphony almost every day since early August, it feels very strange now thatour performance has been and gone. In the last few days leading up to Saturday’sNorthampton Symphony Orchestra concert I found myself increasingly paranoidthat I was going to trip and bang my lip or fall prey to some other mishap thatwould prevent me from playing the 1^st Horn part. In the event I madeit to the concert intact and I think it all went incredibly well – though it’svery hard to judge when you are in the middle of it. I know there were no majordisasters – we didn’t have to stop and start again and I don’t think I missedany of my solo passages. Having worked so hard on my stamina I was pleased toget through the 80 minutes of the symphony and still to be able to hit the highnotes towards the end. But even though I had ensured I was physically capableof playing my part, it’s amazing what an effect nerves can have. As youapproach a delicate solo you become more and more aware of how fleeting theopportunity is to get it right. You are thinking how many times you have playedthe phrase perfectly over the past few months and how awful it would be ifsomething went wrong in the one brief chance you have to play it for real inthe performance. These mind games are pernicious: even half-way through a solothere’s a danger that you think to yourself “actually this seems to be goingokay”, only to distract yourself and fall apart. It’s an incredibly drainingchallenge of physical stamina, mental strength and concentration. I’m sure ourperformance was by no means perfect but Mahler 6 was a fantastically ambitiousundertaking and I think we managed to present a very reasonable account of it, whichincluded some truly exquisite moments. It was certainly incredibly loud, withan enlarged orchestra, including a massive brass section, creating a deafeningclimax. It was wonderful to have eight excellent horn players alongside me andI think we made quite an impressive section. The show was somewhat stolen,however, by the ‘Mahler box’ constructed specially for the occasion by NickBunker. The final movement of the symphony (which lasts a mammoth 30 minutes onits own) is punctuated by three massive hammer blows of fate. Mahler specifiedthat these hammer blows should be "brief and mighty, but dull in resonanceand with a non-metallic character (like the fall of an axe)”. For ourperformance Nick made a large wooden cube which was struck, by percussionistKeith Crompton, using a heavy log attached to a long broom handle. It createdan amazing sound – and resulted in the violinists sitting immediately in frontof it jumping several feet in the air each time it was struck! There is quite agood example of a similar realisation of the hammer blow at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwljE3HsfSMand you can see our Mahler box at http://culturaloutlook.blogspot.com/2011/11/our-mahler-box.html.The first half of our concert saw an excellent performance of the MendelssohnViolin Concerto by Charlotte Skinner who was confident, assured and lyrical. AsI wasn’t playing in the concerto, sitting at the back of the audience to watchit was a relaxing way to prepare for the daunting challenge of the symphony. Bythe end of the concert I was exhilarated, proud, relieved and totallyshattered. I’ve really enjoyed the experience of playing Mahler 6 but I’mpleased it’s now over and I’m looking forward to playing something slightlyless demanding next!

'La Bohème' by Giacomo Puccini

2011-11-15T11:07:00.001+01:00

15 November 2011

We were at Milton Keynes Theatre lastFriday to see the Glyndebourne on Tour production of La Bohème by GiacomoPuccini. This was the first Puccini opera I had seen and the music waswonderful – sumptuous, romantic, beautiful and, yes, sentimental – but none theworse for it. This revival of the 2000 Glyndebourne on Tour production,directed by David McVicar, is set in a grittily contemporary Paris, with an uncompromisinglyurban set designed by Michael Vale. The grotty flat in which the four young menlive looked strangely familiar – and when they are visited by their landlord insearch of his rent I realised that we were watching an episode of ‘The YoungOnes’, albeit with better singing! Writing in the programme, Nicholas Payne,suggested that ‘La Bohème’ is the perfect length. He says that “Puccini, andhis librettists, Giuseppe Giacoso and Luigi Illica struggled for three years tofind a coherent shape for their incidents chosen from Henri Murger’s novel ‘Scènesde la vie de bohème’” and that “with hindsight we can appreciate that it wasPuccini’s pernicketiness which forged that unique mixture of the conversationaland the lyrical that is the opera’s trademark”. I would agree that the operadoes not overstay its welcome but it seemed to me that, by cherry-picking anumber of incidents from the novel, the plot felt oddly unbalanced anddisjointed. There are moments of great comedy that sit uneasily against thefinal angst and tragedy. And it seems a great shame to have constructed such awonderful set-piece second act (in the Café Momus) which makes great use of amassive chorus and finishes with the show-stealing aria ‘Quando me’n vo’soletta’ (gorgeously sung by Natasha Jouhl as Musetta in this production) onlyfor the chorus to completely disappear as the opera moves to its bleak finale. Neverthelessthe music was wonderful and the singing and playing (conducted by Jeremy Bines)was excellent.

'The Go-Between' by David Wood and Richard Taylor, based on the novel by L P Hartley

2011-11-11T15:50:00.001+01:00

11 November 2011

"The past is a foreign country: theydo things differently there". I had heard of ‘The Go-Between’ by L PHartley but I haven’t read the book or seen the 1970 film adaptation by HaroldPinter and, before going to see the new stage version at the Royal & Derngatein Northampton last week, I didn’t really know what it was about. Published in1953, the novel describes Leo Colston looking back, in 1950, to his childhoodexperiences as the house guest of a wealthy family in Norfolk in the summer of1900. His boyhood role as ‘postman’, passing messages between two illicitlovers, leads to a devastating conclusion that affected him for the rest of hislife. The stage version, by David Wood with music by Richard Taylor, turns thestory into a serious musical, almost sung-through, reminding me of Sondheim andnot far from contemporary opera. The production, directed by Roger Haines, was acollaboration between the Royal & Derngate, Derby Live and West YorkshirePlayhouse and it was excellent. The cast were all strong and the singing wasvery impressive but the show was stolen by the two local boys, Adam Bradbury asMarcus and particularly William Miles as Leo who was on stage almostconstantly. The story was carefully and effectively told in a very theatricalstyle which left much to the imagination. I particularly enjoyed James Staddonas the older Leo, shadowing the actions of his younger self while watching fromthe back of the stage. The music was provided by an onstage grand piano playedby Musical Director Jonathan Gill. It was an entertaining, moving and extremelyhigh-quality evening in the theatre.

'Symphony No 6' by Gustav Mahler

2011-11-04T15:41:00.000+01:00

4 November 2011

Mahler’s 6^th Symphony is amammoth work: it lasts 80 minutes and requires an orchestra of nearly 100players. Rather than the usual 4 French horns, there are 8 horns and the 1^sthorn part is fiendishly difficult. In most orchestral works, as a horn playeryou can expect to spend a fair amount of time counting the rests before younext come in but in Mahler 6 the 1^st horn barely has more than a fewseconds break in the whole piece. There are pages and pages of extremely highand loud notes, interspersed with plenty of delicate, exposed solos. When theNorthampton Symphony Orchestra decided to take on the gargantuan challenge ofperforming the 6^th Symphony it was in the knowledge that the daunting1^st horn part would be in the safe hands of our excellent principalhorn player, David Lack. When it became clear that Dave was sadly going to missthe concert through illness, I was persuaded to step up to the challenge. Tacklingthis incredible work is a very exciting opportunity but one that I would much ratherhave had in different circumstances. The symphony has been dominating my lifefor the past 3 months. Since 7 August, apart from a week in Paris, a week inNorthumberland and the occasional night away for work, I have played at leastone movement of the work every day. Wary of the need to build my stamina, everySaturday and Sunday I have tried to play through all four movements withoutstopping. Finding 80 minutes to sit down and practice has been hard enough butthe physical endurance necessary to play all the way through the symphony tooksome weeks to build up. Fortunately I won’t need to play every single note inthe performance. It’s common practice in larger orchestral works to have anadditional horn player ‘bumping’ the first horn part, ie doubling the firsthorn to allow the principal horn player to save himself for the solo passages,and I know I’m going to need this. I now know Mahler’s 6^th Symphonyintimately: it seems to be playing in my head most of the time at the moment. Ilike to practice by playing along with recordings and thanks to Spotify I’vebeen working through heaps of different recordings (Sir Simon Rattle’sinterpretation seems to be the slowest, Leonard Bernstein’s definitely thefastest, but I think my favourite is Claudio Abbado with the BerlinPhilharmonic). At this Wednesday’s rehearsal we had all 9 horn players togetherfor the first time – boy, it’s going to be loud! It’s an incredible work –passionate, playful, sentimental, brutal, triumphant and tragic, with lots ofcowbells. If you are anywhere remotely within range of Northampton nextSaturday, 12 November, please do join us for what promises to be an amazingconcert – also including the lovely Mendelssohn Violin Concerto, played byCharlotte Skinner. Full details and tickets available from http://www.nso.org.uk/ – wish me luck!

‘Fatou’ by Fatoumata Diawara

2011-10-28T11:10:00.003+01:00

28 October 2011

I first saw the young Malian singer FatoumataDiawara providing backing vocals for the legendary Oumou Sangaré at the 2009 WOMADFestival (reviewed here in July 2009). I saw her again at this year’s WOMADFestival where she appeared on the BBC Radio 3 Stage with her own band toperform songs from her forthcoming debut album. That album, ‘Fatou’, wasreleased in September and I’ve been listening to it this week. FatoumataDiawara comes from Southern Mali and sings in the Wassalou style, familiar to mefrom Oumou Sangaré (reviewed here in March 2009) and that other greatcontemporary Malian singer Rokia Traoré (reviewed here in December 2008). Like RokiaTraoré, Fatoumata Diawara now lives in France and her music shows some Europeaninfluences. Her voice is gentler than Oumou Sangaré and more laid-back than thebreathy intensity of Rokia Traoré. And the songs on ‘Fatou’ are lovely –gentle, catchy, joyful, distinctively West African but easily accessible toEuropean ears. Perhaps not as musically ambitious as Rokia Traoré or quite soconcerned with political messages as Oumou Sangaré (though she does deal withsome important social issues) Fatoumata Diawara has created an album which issophisticated easy-listening.

'South Pacific' by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II

2011-10-21T08:49:00.003+01:00

21 October 2011

‘South Pacific’ by Rodgers and Hammersteinwas the first musical I played for as a member of a pit band. It was aproduction by the excellent Westwood Musical Society at the Key Theatre inPeterborough in 1991. We did more than a week of performances, at the end ofwhich I knew the score inside out and could recite huge chunks of the dialogue.But, being in the orchestra pit, I never actually saw the show and some aspectsof the plot have never entirely made sense to me. Twenty years later I’vefinally got around to seeing ‘South Pacific’ for the first time. We were atMilton Keynes Theatre last Saturday to see the acclaimed production from theLincoln Center, New York. It was a very straightforward revival which didn’tattempt anything particular innovative or revisionist but it was excellentlydone. In the same way as Shakespeare seems to have inserted lots of famouslines into ‘Hamlet’, Rodgers and Hammerstein seem to have stuck a load of verywell known songs together to make a musical. It’s an impressive show thatincludes ‘Some Enchanted Evening’, ‘There is Nothin' Like a Dame’, ‘I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair’, ‘A Wonderful Guy’ and‘Happy Talk’. The music was wonderful and the cast were very strong,particularly Samantha Womack as Nellie Forbush and the operatic baritone Jason Howardas Emile de Becque. I enjoyed the choreography (by Joe Langworth) but I couldhave done with more. I’m always a little disappointed with a musical thatdoesn’t have a really big dance number. And though I now finally understand thestory, ‘South Pacific’ is not the most impressive of plots. Nevertheless themusic is so good it doesn’t need much assistance and I really enjoyed the show.

'Comedy Carpet' by Gordon Young

2011-10-14T16:16:00.002+01:00

14 October 2011

Comedy Carpet, Blackpool

It was great to have the opportunity to seeBlackpool's new Comedy Carpet – an amazing artwork by Gordon Young featuringthe catchphrases, jokes and names of more than 1,000 comedians which wasunveiled by Ken Dodd at the foot of Blackpool Tower earlier this week. Therehas been massive worldwide interest in the Comedy Carpet: it was temporarilythe most searched for term on Google. The ‘carpet’ is built from concrete and colouredgranite and designed to withstand both the thousands of feet that will walkacross it and the Blackpool weather. Encountering it for the first time is acompelling experience: the various catchphrases are all in different fonts,colours and sizes and face in different directions so you have to keep walkingaround to see the words that are initially upside down to you. This draws youin as you keep spotting another familiar phrase and trying to remember who saidit. While there were plenty of old favourites I found quite a few lines I didn’trecognise and I kept smiling as I got the gist of another pun or witty aphorismfor the first time. I suspect we will all have our favourites and I certainlyfound myself returning to the large words “I’m playing all the right notes – butnot necessarily in the right order”. See: http://www.blackpoolgazette.co.uk/lifestyle/legend_unveils_comedy_carpet_1_3857375

'One Man, Two Guvnors' by Richard Bean

2011-10-07T14:29:00.000+01:00

7 October 2011

On Saturday we made a first visit to thelovely Waterside Theatre in Aylesbury to see the National Theatre production of‘One Man, Two Guvnors’ by Richard Bean. Based on Carlo Goldoni’s 1746 play ‘TheServant of Two Masters’, this production has been a big commercial hit for theNational Theatre and a star vehicle for James Corden, reunited with the directorNicholas Hytner for the first time since ‘The History Boys’. Set in Brighton in1963, ‘One Man, Two Guvnors’ is broad tongue-in-cheek comedy played for laughsbut it’s very well done and extremely funny. The Waterside Theatre wascompletely sold out and much of the audiences was in stitches throughout. Therewas plenty of audience participation and ad-libbing, some great physical comedyand a wonderful cast. It is interesting to note that Goldoni was criticised fortaking the usually completely improvised Commedia dell’Arte tradition andwriting it down but, in doing so, he succeeded in preserving the style forcenturies. The action of ‘One Man, Two Guvnors’ is supplemented by a four-pieceBeatles-style band (playing original songs by Grant Olding) who spring from theorchestra pit to play in front of the curtains during each scene change. Theyare joined, in turn, by a series of members of the cast (including Corden onxylophone) who perform a variety of party-pieces. James Corden is very funnyand clearly the star of the show but Oliver Chris also stood out as the public-schooleducated bully. It was an excellent, feel-good evening in the theatre.

'Fawlty Towers' by John Cleese and Connie Booth

2011-10-07T14:14:00.001+01:00

7 October 2011

On Friday we returned to the tiny theatrein Toddington to see TADS take on ‘Fawlty Towers’. This was a straightpresentation of two episodes of the much cherished 1970s sitcom by John Cleeseand Connie Booth. I must admit I was dubious as to whether this would work onstage. ‘The Germans’ and ‘Basil the Rat’ are so familiar that most of theaudience could probably have chanted along with the dialogue. And thecharacters of Basil Fawlty, Sybil, Manuel etc. have become so iconic there wasa real danger that any attempt to act these parts again now would just seemlike impersonations of John Cleese, Prunella Scales, Andrew Sachs et al. Itwas great testament to the skills of theTADS actors, excellently directed by James Sygrove, that they managed to createa believable set of characters that drew you into the plot and (almost) madeyou temporarily forget the originals. When Basil said “Don’t mention the war –I mentioned it once but I think I got away with it”, the line was perfectly incontext (and therefore very funny) rather than sounding like the repetition ofwell-worn catchphrase. The Fawlty Towers scripts were very much of their timeand some elements sounded a little uncomfortable to contemporary ears. ButFawlty Towers is excellent farce and the timing in the TADS productiongenerated some hilarious moments (even though we knew they were coming). With alarge cast crammed onto a small stage, it was some achievement to get theslapstick to work so well. Matt Flitton stood out as Basil Fawlty – a wonderfulperformance – but all the actors were impressive, particularly Susie Condor asSybil Fawlty and David Sachon as The Major.

‘The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ’ by Philip Pullman

2011-09-30T12:15:00.002+01:00

30 September 2011

With the ‘His Dark Materials’ trilogy ofchildren’s books Philip Pullman clearly decided to cock-a-snook at organisedreligion. In ‘The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ’ he goes a stepfurther in attempting to retell the life of Christ. It’s an odd book: it seemsto be an attempt to present a believable account of ordinary events that couldhave created myths that became the Gospels. Pullman suggests that Jesus had abrother (how would we know what happened to Jesus in the wilderness or in theGarden of Gethsemane unless there had been someone else there?) and even usesthis device to explain the resurrection. But the tone often veers from rationalexplanation into the cheeky or facetious – which can be quite funny, dependingon your beliefs. Though his prose is modern (and often quite forthright) the bookis structured like a Gospel. It’s an interesting read but I found Pullman’slengthy Afterword, which discusses the narrative structure of the Gospels, muchmore interesting. Here you realise that his real interest in writing the bookwas not in exactly what happened two thousand years ago but in the way thestory was told.

‘Trumpet’ by Jackie Kay

2011-09-30T12:14:00.003+01:00

30 September 2011

‘Trumpet’ is the first novel by the poetJackie Kay. It was published in 1998 and is an intriguing and moving work. Thedeath of a famous jazz trumpeter reveals a long-hidden secret which shocks thosewho knew the musician. The novel shows us the reactions of a range of peopleincluding family members, friends and those involved in the aftermath of thedeath such as the undertaker, the registrar and the journalist who wants towrite an exposing biography. With each chapter allowing us to see thingsthrough the eyes of a particular individual, the novel inhabits a variety ofvoices, each believable and sympathetic. Their varying testimonies help topiece together the jigsaw of a life but Jackie Kay impressively keeps the readerhooked and eager for more without the assistance of any real forward narrative.Even the memories of the trumpeter’s life don’t really build into a linearstory. It’s hard to describe but ‘Trumpet’ is a clever, beautifully writtenportrait of a life that is both sad and uplifting.

Northumberland

2011-09-30T12:13:00.002+01:00

30 September 2011

We had a lovely time in Northumberland lastweek. We were staying in the tiny hamlet of Thorngrafton, just South ofHadrian’s Wall – no far from the town of Haltwhistle, which claims to be theCentre of Britain. We did some great walks along the Wall, in Allendale and onthe banks of Keilder Water. We visited the Housesteads and Vindolanda Romanforts. Vindolanda was particularly interesting – lots to see and newdiscoveries being made all the time. The collection of wooden tablets withmessages inscribed on them in Latin was fascinating – the banality of many ofthe messages (an invitation to a party, a request to borrow something etc)reminding us that people in Roman Britain were not that different to ourselves(these tablets being the emails of their day!). I was also reminded that mostof the ‘Romans’ building and protecting Hadrian’s Wall were not from Rome: theywere mostly soldiers from conquered territories in Belgium and the Netherlands.Young men from Britain were similarly pressed into service as Roman soldiers inother corners of the Empire.

'Atonement' by Ian McEwan

2011-09-16T12:32:00.003+01:00

16 September 2011

For some years I have felt like I was theonly person in the world who hadn’t read Ian McEwan’s 2001 novel ‘Atonement’. I’vejust finished the unabridged audio version of the book (wonderfully read byCarole Boyd) and I can now see what all the fuss was about. ‘Atonement’ startsin 1935 and appears to be firmly in the tradition of the great country housenovel: it reminded me at times of ‘Brideshead Revisted’ and 'The Moonstone' byWilkie Collins (reviewed here in June 2009). The third-person narration alternates,with each chapter, between the viewpoints of the main characters, slipping backa little in time with each change of perspective to fill in more details on someof the same events. This iterative approach to the narrative creates a jigsawimage of what happened that only gradually reveals itself. Later in the book,the passages dealing with the Second World War, play the same game more slowlyas we spend longer in the company of each of three principal protagonists. Thisprocess of gradual revelation allows the reader to spot most of the main plottwists in advance – only for the author to undermine our smug satisfaction bycasually confirming the predicted surprise as if it was assumed that everyonewould already know. ‘Atonement’ deals with the end of childhood, both literallyand in relation to the onset of the horrors of war. It also focuses on thechanging nature of the English class system before and after the Second WorldWar, much like 'The Little Stranger’ by Sarah Waters (reviewed here in June 2010).In both books an outsider from a lower social class has become attached to thefamily of the country house and this allows for reflections on the momentouschanges happening in society at this time. But ‘Atonement’ is really aboutwriting, the nature of fiction and the development of the novel. McEwan plays adazzling game of meta-fiction, presenting an apparently conventional novel,then introducing self-reflective literary criticism of that novel within thesame plot and finally pulling back to reveal the truth behind the constructionof the story we have been immersed in. As you approach the final pages yourealise that you should have been thinking about who was writing the words youhave been reading and why. It’s an impressive work, beautifully written andheart-breakingly sad. I’m glad I finally got around to reading it.

‘The Hare With Amber Eyes’ by Edmund de Waal

2011-09-09T16:37:00.000+01:00

9 September 2011

Netsuke are the tiny carved fasteners thatwere used to secure cords to traditional robes in 17^th centuryJapan. These intricately carved pieces of ivory, boxwood or metal are miniaturesculptures that became highly valued as works of art. ‘The Hare With Amber Eyes’by Edmund de Waal is an unusual and enthralling family history which focuses ona collection of netsuke bought in the late 19^th century and handeddown through generations of the author’s family. The wealthy Jewish Ephrussi family,originally from Russia, settled across Europe in the second half of the 19^thcentury and, much like their contemporaries the Rothschilds, established anetwork of banks. The collection of netsuke are bought by Charles Ephrussi inParis in the 1870s. Charles was a patron of the arts who commissioned works bymany of the most famous impressionists – and appears as a figure in thebackground of some well-known paintings. Indeed the whole Ephrussi family has aZelig-like ability to appear in the background of major historical events. Charlespassed the netsuke, as a wedding present, to his nephew Victor in turn of thecentury Vienna where they go on to witness the trauma of two world wars. Fromhere the netsuke end up returning to Japan, with Edmund de Waal’s great uncleIggie, illuminating a fascinating account of post-war Japan. The book is likean extended episode of ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’ and the story of theEphrussi family provides a compelling insight into European and Jewish history.Edmund de Waal is a potter and the netsuke are more than a mere device for him:he writes enthusiastically about the objects themselves and the artistryinvolved in their creation. Throughout the book he focuses on works of art,furniture and architecture as well as the personal and political history of hisfamily. For me, the early chapters on Paris in the 1870s felt a little slow becauseof this fascination with the objects his ancestor commissioned and collected.But once we reached Vienna and the First World War the narrative became trulygripping. ‘The Hare with Amber Eyes’ is an amazing true story told in aninteresting and artistic way.

'The Hour' by Abi Morgan

2011-09-02T11:43:00.000+01:00

2 September 2011

I wrote here in April 2006 that I think theTV serial is the most satisfying of drama formats, allowing much greatercharacter development than a play or film. It’s indicative of the decline ofthe format that it’s taken more than 5 years for me to discover a new drama tochallenge for a place in my ‘Desert Island TV serials’, but finally along came AbiMorgan’s ‘The Hour’ on BBC2. ‘The Hour’ felt like an old-fashioned serial (Imean that as a compliment), not just because of its 1956 setting. It’s anexploration of the development of TV news, the political saga of Suez, a spythriller and a murder mystery. Over 6 hour-long episodes ‘The Hour’ creates acast of believable and rounded characters you really care about. The dialogueis carefully crafted and often very funny. It repeatedly made me think of thework of Dennis Potter – with mysterious spooks in raincoats loitering in thebackground as in ‘The Singing Detective’ as well as showing the changing natureof the British establishment through the Suez crisis as in ‘Lipstick on Your Collar’.‘The Hour’ was excellently cast, with great performances particularly from RomalaGarai, Dominic West, Anton Lesser and Tim Pigott-Smith, but the star of theshow was undoubtedly the fascinating Ben Wishaw as Freddie Lyon. ‘The Hour’ wasa perfect example of the TV drama serial – long enough to explore the charactersin depth, but with a rounded plot which built to a climax with a final twist. Ijust hope they are not tempted to make a sequel.

'Super 8'

2011-09-01T16:40:00.000+01:00

1 September 2011

If ‘Attack the Block’ (reviewed here in May2011) was reminiscent of an old Children’s Film Foundation production (albeitwith considerably more swearing and violence), J J Abrams’ new film ‘Super 8’is Children’s Film Foundation with swearing, violence and big productionvalues. The two films have plenty in common with a group of teenage boys (andone female interloper) battling aliens and the human authorities in each case. ‘Super8’ clearly had a much bigger budget at its disposal – it was produced by StevenSpielberg and Abrams seems to have tried to create a homage to Spielberg withclear references to ‘ET’, ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ etc. ‘Super 8’is set in 1979: a group of teenagers are shooting their own zombie movie usinga handheld Super 8 camera when they witness a spectacular train crash anddiscover secrets they cannot reveal to anyone. As with ‘Attack the Block’, ‘Super8’ has a very witty script with great interaction between the children. Bothfilms succeed because they manage to make the incredible (encounters withextraterrestrial lifeforms) amazingly believable and realistic. ‘Super 8’ isnot quite as brutal as the British film – though there are some violent deaths,you can mostly predict who is going to be safe. And the American kids are bitmore polite and wholesome than their British counterparts (who begin ‘Attackthe Block’ by mugging a nurse at knifepoint) but then this is rural small-townAmerica, not urban South London. ‘Super 8’ is funny and enjoyable but alsothrilling and genuinely scary. As it approaches its climax the film does becomea little predictable and somewhat sentimental but it’s lots of fun with somewonderful performances, particularly from Joel Courtney as Joe and Elle Fanningas Alice.

Paris

2011-09-01T16:22:00.002+01:00

1 September 2011

We had a lovely few days in Paris lastweek: I worked out that I hadn’t been there for 25 years so it felt likevisiting for the first time. We had glorious weather and made very good use ofopen-top bus tours and boat trips on the Seine to explore all the main touristattractions. We went to Notre Dame, visitedthe Louvre and saw the Mona Lisa, travelled down the Champs-Élysées from thePlace de la Concorde to the Arc de Triomphe and ended up at the Eiffel Tower,though we opted not to join the massive queues to climb the tower. Instead wetravelled South to Montparnasse for the views from the top of the TourMontparnasse – an ugly skyscraper which has the advantage that its viewsinclude the Eiffel Tower (and don’t include the Tour Montparnasse!). Paris is avery beautiful city: unusually most of the architecture dates from the sameperiod – the 1860s when the whole central area was substantially rebuilt byBaron Haussmann. This gives Paris a very uniform look and the skyline is veryflat, without the usual collection of skyscrapers, the highest of which tend tosignify the main ‘downtown’ area of most big cities. Although he wasresponsible for the quintessential Parisian tree-lined boulevards, Haussmanndidn’t create many green open spaces. There are a few parks: we particularlyliked the Jardins du Luxembourg. We also travelled North to Montmartre and sawthe Moulin Rouge and Sacre Coeur. We loved the art deco Metro signs and themasses of wrought iron railings lining each floor of buildings along the mainboulevards. We had a great time discovering Paris and certainly plan to returnwell before another 25 years have elapsed.

'Sense and Sensibility' by Jane Austen, adapted by Laura Turner

2011-09-01T16:05:00.003+01:00

1 September 2011

The summer doesn’t seem complete withoutsome open-air theatre, so it was a pleasure to return to the gardens of WoburnAbbey to see Chapterhouse Theatre Company’s production of ‘Sense andSensibility’. We had very much enjoyed their ‘Pride and Prejudice’ last summer(reviewed here in July 2010) and this was equally impressive. It was abeautiful setting on a lovely evening and the acting was universally strong (wecould hear every word!) with Heather Mason as Marianne Dashwood and Nicky Dissas her younger sister Margaret the stand-out performances.

'The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim' by Jonathan Coe

2011-08-19T09:30:00.000+01:00

19 August 2011

Jonathan Coe ranks alongside David Mitchell as one of my favourite contemporary novelists. Both write clever comic novels but their styles are quite different. Jonathan Coe’s writing appears more straightforward, without the linguistic tricks and stylistic ventriloquism that David Mitchell does so impressively. But Jonathan Coe’s more simple approach is deceptive: like David Lodge he writes light and accessible stories that contain complex themes and emotions which seep through the narrative rather than being rammed home. I’ve just finished reading Jonathan Coe’s latest novel ‘The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim’ (as an unabridged audio book, read by Colin Buchanan). After the more serious departure of ‘The Rain Before It Falls’ (reviewed here in August 2008), this is a return to the comic adventures of Coe’s best known works, ‘What a Carve Up’ and ‘The Rotters Club’. Like those novels, ‘The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim’ deals with themes of family relationships, technology and politics. In fact there are many themes lying beneath this humourous road trip across Britain (to sell toothbrushes in Shetland) and it was fun trying to decide which was the main purpose of the book. Is it really (as we are told towards the end) a study of the political and environmental implications of the toothbrush? Or is it a very subtle reflection on the banking crisis and the credit crunch? Surely the overriding focus is on loneliness: it is an often sad tale of a very lonely man suffering from depression who is embarking on a significant journey in both senses of the word. But, actually, I think ‘The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim’ is ultimately about the act of writing. Max tells us his remarkable story in the first person, making it clear that he is an inexperienced an unconfident writer. His narrative is interspersed with a series of pieces of writing by his friends and family that he discovers on his journey. But it is hard to tell what is real and what is invented: who is faking their stories? This is a tale about fiction (and meta-fiction), very easy to get into and enjoy on the surface with much food for thought lurking beneath.

'A Midsummer Night's Dream' by William Shakespeare

2011-08-06T17:11:00.003+01:00

6 August 2011

On Friday we were back in Stratford-upon-Avon to see Nancy Meckler's new RSC production of 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. Meckler had set the play in a modern-day Athens with the gentlemen dressed in black suits and ties like a Greek Reservoir Dogs and the rude mechanicals actually wearing blue mechanic's overalls. I liked that, when Lysander and Hermia meet in the woods to elope, he arrives with just the clothes he stands up in but Hermia has the presence of mind to bring a sleeping bag, thermos flask and toothbrush! It was a very funny show, with the final performance of 'Pyramus and Thisbe' milked for every drop of humour but still leaving me wanting more. And it was great to see some serious comic dancing that could have come directly from a Hal Hartley film. But the humour of Peter Quince's players was surpassed by the lovers in a pillow-fight scene that was truly hilarious. All four of the lovers were excellent but the show was stolen by Lucy Briggs-Owen as Helena with her brilliant mixture of hysterical despair, falsetto disbelief and manic movement. She even outdid Marc Wootton who was fantastic as Bottom. And the fact that both Lucy Briggs-Owen and Marc Wootton are in their debut seasons with the RSC emphasises the company's ability to spot and nurture wonderful acting talent. 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' was a good example of the RSC's ensemble approach, with no real star names on the bill but a universally impressive cast. And while it made good use of the facilities of the new Royal Shakespeare Theatre, especially the massive pit beneath the stage, unlike the first two productions designed for the new auditorium (Macbeth, reviewed here in April 2011 and The Merchant of Venice, reviewed here in June 2011) it didn't appear to be so blatantly trying to show off the new theatre. The funniest Shakespeare I have seen for many years.

'The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet’ by David Mitchell

2011-08-03T14:04:00.001+01:00

3 August 2011

In my previous job, when I was commuting to London every day, I managed to consume massive amounts of contemporary literature, often reading a novel a week. Now that the train has become my office, I find it hard to find time to read for pleasure. Regular readers may have noticed that my book reviews often tend to coincide with my holidays. I have therefore been amassing an ever-expanding list of books I am intending to read, with little prospect of making serious in-roads into it. I do, however, manage to find plenty of time to listen to music and radio programmes, usually on headphones while doing something else. So I thought I would see whether unabridged audio books might provide the answer to reducing my ‘to-read’ mountain. I signed up to the audible.co.uk subscription service and I have just finished listening to my first audio book, David Mitchell’s ‘The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet’. David Mitchell is one of my favourite contemporary novelists and I had been looking forward to his latest work. ‘The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet’ is an epic work – the audio version, wonderfully read by Jonathan Aris, lasts 19 hours. Structurally, it is much more straightforward than David Mitchell’s earlier novels, ‘Cloud Atlas’, ‘Ghostwritten’ and ‘number9dream’. This is an old-fashioned historical saga on a grand scale. Set in a Dutch trading post outside Nagasaki at the end of the 18^th century it tells the tale of a young Dutch clerk, Jacob de Zoet, arriving at this grim colonial outpost and beginning to learn the mysteries of the closed Japanese empire. Had I been reading the book in print I wonder whether I might have struggled to get into it – I suspect I would have carefully re-read the opening chapters to get to grips with all the Japanese and Dutch names and work out exactly who all the characters were. Listening to the audio version allowed me not to worry about pronunciation (all done for me!) and letting the huge cast of characters initially wash over me worked fine: you soon begin to differentiate the main protagonists without having to work too hard. David Mitchell manages to draw very clear characters – all of whom have believable flaws. Within each group in the story – the Dutch traders, the Japanese officials and the British navy – there are both likeable and despicable individuals: there is no sense that one side are the ‘baddies’. The sheer length of the work engenders, by its end, a huge emotional attachment to the main protagonists. While the author avoids false sentimentality, the last few chapters are incredibly moving: you really feel you know these people personally. The historical detail was also fascinating: without laying on his research too heavily, David Mitchell teaches you a great deal about Japan and the tussles between Britain and the Netherlands. But ultimately this is a book about fathers and sons – from the opening birth scene to the pain of a lost son to the heartache of parting from your father. ‘The Thousand Autumns of Jabob de Zoet’ reminded me a lot of the work of Louis de Bernières, particularly ‘Captain Corelli's Mandolin’ – the small, closed community, the Dickensian cast of characters, the clash of cultures etc. I really enjoyed ‘The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet’ – it felt like an epic journey but one well worth embarking on.

WOMAD 2011

2011-08-01T20:46:00.004+01:00

1 August 2011

Everybody's WOMAD is different: like any big festival there are so many bands to see on so many stages that each individual curates their own personal festival. This year my WOMAD seemed to be dominated by the violin: a surprising number of the groups I chose to watch featured one or more fiddles - from the sublime Scottish folk fiddling of Rua MacMillan to the unbelievably fast playing of Romanian legends Taraf de Haidouks; from the klezmer violin of Oi Va Voi to the eclectic mix of styles of the Barrunto Bellota Band from Caceres in Spain; from the uncategorisable fascination of Arthur Jeffes' Penguin Cafe to the brilliant Norwegian folk fiddle quintet Majorstuen. I saw 30 different bands over the WOMAD weekend at Charlton Park in Wiltshire including 20 complete sessions. I particularly enjoyed the AfroCubism super-group - it was amazing to see so many African stars, including Bassekou Kouyate (reviewed here in December 2007), Toumani Diabate (reviewed here in May 2008) and Djelimady Tounkara, sharing the stage with members of Cuba's Buena Vista Social Club. And it was wonderful to see the veterans of traditional Egyptian band El Tanbura, triumphant from their performances earlier this year in Tahrir Square. The WOMAD crowd (Womadders? or Womadians?) is a generous and sympathetic audience: if a roadie was to accidentally drop a guitar on the stage someone would start dancing to it! It's always lovely to see bands from completely different cultures, such as the Korean Tori Ensemble this year, start their set with serious frowns of concentration only gradually to realise how enthusiastically their music is being appreciated by a passionate, massed crowd in front of the stage. As the performers begin to look at each other and smile and (this year much more than I remember previously) take out their mobile phones and take photos of their audience, you begin to feel optimistic again about the prospects for intercultural dialogue and understanding. I think my favourite performances of WOMAD 2011 were those by: the young virtuoso of the South Indian veena (an earlier version of the more familiar sitar) Hari Sivanesan with the Cuban violinist (another violinist!) Omar Puente; the 10-strong Chinese acoustic group from Inner Mongolia, AnDa Union; the laid-back acoustic pop mixed with Scottish folk and Maori vocals from female trio Pacific Curls; and the stunning set by London-based five-piece female vocal group The Boxettes, led by world champion beatboxer Bellatrix. Oh, and I forgot to mention Appalachian clawhammer banjo maestro Abigail Washburn who was wonderful. All this and the weather was brilliant!

'Betty Blue Eyes' by Ron Cowen, Daniel Lipman, George Stiles and Anthony Drewe

2011-07-23T11:24:00.003+01:00

23 July 2011

Last Thursday we went to London to see an animatronic pig - and it's not often you can say that! We were at the Novello Theatre to see 'Betty Blue Eyes', a new musical based on the 1984 film 'A Private Function. The film, written by Alan Bennett and starring Michael Palin and Maggie Smith, has been reimagined for the stage by Ron Cowen and Daniel Lipman with music by George Stiles and lyrics by Anthony Drewe. Set in a small town in Yorkshire in 1947, much is made of the contemporary resonances of Royal Wedding celebrations amid Austerity Britain. As people struggle with the harsh realities of rationing, an unlicensed pig is being illegally prepared to feed local dignitaries at a private function to celebrate the wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Philip Mountbatten. But local chiropodist Gilbert Chilvers, and his wife Joyce, steal the pig and start a three-way tussle between themselves, the town council and the meat inspector. Reece Shearsmith and Sarah Lancashire are excellent as the leads. There are some great song and dance numbers, choreographed by Stephen Mear. It was lovely to see a West End musical comedy that was actually very funny. 'Betty Blue Eyes' feels like an old-fashioned musical - tuneful, witty (with plenty of pig puns!) and moving. The pig doesn't quite steal the show but you certainly come out smiling.

Bedford Festival Fringe

2011-07-21T09:56:00.007+01:00

21 July 2011

We're not going to the Edinburgh Festivals this year: we generally go every other year, but as August approaches and withdrawal symptoms start to appear it's been a pleasant surprise to discover the opportunity to see several Edinburgh Fringe-bound shows a little closer to home. This was our first visit to the Bedford Festival Fringe and our first visit to The Place Theatre in Bedford where we saw two 'bedfringe' shows. Simon Munnery is a veteran of many Edinburgh Fringes and I am familiar with his work from numerous glowing reviews but I had never seen him perform. Many years ago he was better known as 'Alan Parker Urban Warrior' and, later, as 'The League Against Tedium'. For this year's Edinburgh Fringe he is working on "a one man musical about the R101 airship disaster of 1930" but, when we saw him in Bedford, this was still very much a work in progress. A couple of songs from the planned musical made up a tiny proportion of his set, which also included monologues, musical jokes and comic observations. It was all a bit rambling and unplanned but Munnery carried it off with charm: he is clearly a very experienced and confident performer. His comedy mixes the absurd with the logically pedantic. He is a very clever comedian and whatever shape his show ends up taking in Edinburgh it will undoubtedly be well worth the price of admission. 'Spitfire Solo' was a very different kind of show. This one-man drama, excellently performed by Nicholas Collett (and devised by Nicholas Collett with Gavin Robertson) tells the story of the Battle of Britain through the reminiscences of a RAF fighter pilot in a retirement home. Playing both the elderly veteran and his younger self (as well as a host of other characters) Collett gives a wonderful evocation of what it was like to be a Spitfire pilot - and re-enacts the entire Battle of Britain using only a couple of sauce bottles and a few slices of bread! 'Spitfire Solo' is a poignant and moving play, lightened by some gentle humour - an excellent fringe show.

'A Visit from the Goon Squad' by Jennifer Egan

2011-07-18T08:49:00.003+01:00

18 July 2011

Writing in The Guardian this week about 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2', Peter Bradshaw said that part of the colossal achievement of the Harry Potter movies was that they "brought home to me how terribly brief childhood is". As Douglas Adams said "Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so." Jennifer Egan's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel 'A Visit from the Goon Squad', which I've just finished reading, is a fascinating reflection on time and the brevity and connectedness of human lives. It is a structurally amazing book, a jigsaw puzzle that only reveals itself fully at the very end. Set in and around the music business in New York, the opening chapter of 'A Visit from the Good Squad' focuses on Sasha, the kleptomaniac assistant to a record label boss, showing us the world through her eyes. But the second chapter shifts the focus to a different character (who had been mentioned in passing in chapter one) at a different time. A peripheral character in this chapter becomes the main protagonist in the next, and so on. Each of the book's thirteen chapters has a different subject, taking us backwards and forwards in time (from the late 1970s to the near future) and to different locations across the world. But all the characters are connected to each other in some way. This is social networking as narrative structure: apart from a brief namecheck of Facebook there is little mention of online social networks but Jennifer Egan uses the haphazard nature of 'friends' or 'friends' to construct a complex web of relationships. One review likened the book to David Mitchell's 'Cloud Atlas' and, while the timespan of 'A Visit from the Good Squad' is within one human lifetime rather than spread across several centuries, Jennifer Egan teases the reader, much like David Mitchell, before revealing the connections between her main characters. 'A Visit from the Goon Squad' is compelling, funny, clever and incredibly sad - a remarkable achievement.

Rhythms of the World Festival

2011-07-14T23:04:00.000+01:00

14 July 2011

On Sunday we made a first visit to the Rhythms of the World Festival in Hitchin. Rhythms of the World is celebrating its 20th anniversary and has grown from a free event in the town centre to a substantial world music festival, now located in the lovely gardens of Hitchin Priory. I was amazed by the scale of the event which included more than 130 bands on 7 stages over 2 days - with full price tickets only £7 per day! We only managed to see 5 bands during our brief visit but they were all very impressive - from the excellent three-piece rockabilly band The Zipheads to the delicate songs of Glasgow group The Recovery Club to the rhythmic fusion of The Tabla Rhythmix. The highlight of our day was a performance on the main stage by the young English folk superstar Jim Moray (reviewed here in August 2008). I've been a fan of Jim Moray since his 2003 debut album, 'Sweet England', but I hadn't seen him live before. He put on a good show to a packed crowd - proving there is still life in the electric guitar/hurdy gurdy combination! Jim Moray takes traditional folk songs and reworks them with a rock feel, incorporating varied influences including electronic beats and rap. He looks every inch the rock star and it was great to see him approach the microphone in his leather jacket, with his electric guitar slung over his shoulder, to say "here's another murder ballad".

'The Long Song' by Andrea Levy

2011-07-05T16:47:00.000+01:00

5 July 2011

Andrea Levy’s ‘Small Island’ is one of my favourite novels of recent years – a moving tale of Caribbean immigrants to the UK after the Second World War which manages to show you events through the eyes of each of the main protagonists so that you amazingly find yourself simultaneously sympathising with both sides of the racial prejudice at the heart of the story. Levy’s latest novel, ‘The Long Song’, also deals with Caribbean history but is set much earlier, showing us the final days of slavery in Jamaica in the mid 19^th century. The narrative style is more straightforward than in ‘Small Island’ with a single narrator, the elderly ‘Miss July’, recounting the events of her childhood and early adult life. It’s an often grim tale of slaves being treated as sub-human by their white masters. But Levy makes the history lesson compelling and entertaining by telling the story of one individual’s life: the wider political events are mostly peripheral to the narrative. And Miss July is a slightly naïve narrator, allowing us to read between the lines to deduce what was really going on. The story is interrupted by some comic arguments between Miss July and her grown-up son who is encouraging her to write her book. As we approach the end of the tale the son enters Miss July’s story himself and these entertaining interludes reveal themselves to be more significant than they first appeared. ‘The Long Song’ is an impressive and fascinating novel but I found it a little difficult to get into: in order to demonstrate the impact of the ending of slavery, Andrea Levy has to devote the first 100 pages or so to establishing how bleak the situation was before and this makes for some understandably uncomfortable reading. But it was certainly worth persevering with.

Wimbledon 2011

2011-06-30T09:02:00.002+01:00

30 June 2011

We had a wonderful day at Wimbledon on Wednesday. We had seats on Court Number One where we saw two of the men’s singles quarter finals. Novak Djokovic against Bernard Tomic was a thrilling match with the teenage Australian qualifier looking out of his depth in the first set but finding his form to take the second. It was a fascinating encounter which at times seemed like a game of chess as the players tried to work out how to beat each other. Some of the rallies were superb with both players finding incredible angles. Djokovic’s experience saw him through in the end but there were several times in the third and fourth sets where I genuinely had no idea who was going to prevail. So many top tennis matches have an air of inevitability about them but this was excitingly unpredictable. Rafael Nadal against Mardy Fish was more one-sided but not without excitement with Fish fighting back to take the third set. The result was never really in doubt but it was absolutely fascinating to see Nadal live for the first time. He is an amazing player to watch – serious, focused, twitchy and powerful. He hits the ball harder than anyone I have ever seen and seemed in a different class, not just from Fish but also from Djokovic. We ended a wonderful day of tennis with the bonus of seeing a seniors’ doubles match in which Lindsay Davenport and Martina Hingis beat Gigi Fernandez and Natasha Zvereva which was great fun. After many years of visiting Wimbledon I think this was one of the best days of tennis I have seen.

‘Eden End’ by J B Priestley

2011-06-30T09:02:00.001+01:00

30 June 2011

Last Monday we were at the Royal Theatre in Northampton to see Laurie Sansom’s production of ‘Eden End’ by J B Priestley. This family drama set in 1912 plays with the poignancy of its characters hopes for the future when we know they will shortly be engulfed by the First World War. The prodigal daughter, Stella, who fled the family home eight years earlier for a life on the stage, returns unexpectedly to disrupt the life of her younger sister who had stayed at home to look after their widowed father. An excellent production, wonderfully cast with outstanding performances by Charlotte Emmerson as Stella, Daisy Douglas as her sister Lilian and Nick Hendrix (making his professional stage debut) as their younger brother Wilfred. There was a lovely invention between two of the scenes where Wilfred and Stella’s actor husband Charles (Daniel Betts) appear in front of the curtain to perform a music hall song and dance number which both evokes the life on stage chosen by Stella (and adored by Wilfred) and perfectly evokes the men’s night out in the village pub from which they return rather the worse for wear in the following scene.

Northampton Symphony Orchestra concert

2011-06-28T17:00:00.000+01:00

28 June 2011

It’s been more than two years since the Northampton Symphony Orchestra last played at the Derngate in Northampton (March 2009). It’s a wonderful hall for orchestral music but extremely expensive to hire and a major financial risk for the orchestra as we need to sell considerably more tickets than for our other concerts just to break even. Our programme for last week’s concert was designed to attract the biggest possible audience and included two of the eight most popular requests from BBC Radio 4’s ‘Your Desert Island Discs’. Holst’s ‘The Planets’ is one of the best known pieces of classical music but the vast resources it requires mean that it is not that often performed. I’ve played it three times now and it’s a much more sophisticated work than is often assumed. I think our performance in the Derngate was of a very high standard with some truly thrilling moments. Sitting in the middle of the horn section as we played the undulating arpeggios in ‘Jupiter’ it was hard to understand why every composer since Holst hasn’t written for six horns! In the first half of the concert we played Elgar’s ‘Cello Concerto’ with NSO principal ‘cellist Corinne Malitskie as the soloist. It’s a passionate, emotional work and Corinne gave a wonderful performance which brought the house down. It was a great concert and we attracted a fairly large audience: I hope we’ll be back in the Derngate soon.

Music in the Brickhills concert

2011-06-16T20:04:00.001+01:00

16 June 2011

"Voluntary arts group does some voluntary arts activity" doesn't seem like much of a story: makes you think of the old adage about "Man Bites Dog". A friend of mine claims genuinely to have seen the headline "local choir to put on concert" in a local newspaper in Bedford last year, but I'm not sure I believe him. The sad thing is that the somewhat understandable reluctance of the media to jump at the chance to report on voluntary arts groups doing what they do is a story of missed opportunities, because the real story is often much more fascinating and complex than we make it seem. Voluntary arts groups seem to fall into a trap of formality in their publicity, maybe mistakenly trying to seem 'professional', when what are most likely to attract media interest - and audiences - are the real human stories about what they are doing. Music in the Brickhills is a small organisation based in the Brickhill villages just to the South of Milton Keynes. Last Sunday Music in the Brickhills put on a concert of chamber music in the church in Little Brickhill: four things make this unremarkable fact fascinating. Firstly, until the development of Music in the Brickhills there were very few live music performances in these villages: local residents had to travel to Milton Keynes, Bedford or Northampton to see concerts. Secondly Music in the Brickhills deliberately programmes music which is not that often performed, bringing together local professional and amateur musicians who are attracted by the opportunity to play music they would rarely otherwise get the chance to perform and providing an opportunity for local audiences to experience it. Thirdly, rather than regular rehearsals Music in the Brickhills works on a project-by-project basis with a range of musicians and singers coming together for a few intense rehearsals before each concert - which makes it easier for busy in-demand individuals to commit to particular concerts. This has enabled Music in the Brickhills to attract some extremely impressive musicians to perform in these small villages: the musical standard of the performances is very high. Fourthly everyone gives their time and expertise free-of-charge and all money raised by the concerts goes to charity - each event supporting a particular local or national charity. This unique mixture is what makes Music in the Brickhills special and what attracted me last Sunday to hear the augmented Kaznowski Quartet play Schubert's String Quintet in C and an 'all star' wind ensemble perform Nielsen's Wind Quintet. The Schubert is seen by many as a high point in the history of chamber music. I'm not familiar with it but it is a long work encompassing great varieties of mood and a multitude of technical challenges. The Kaznowski Quartet gave a wonderful performance. I had not previously heard the Nielsen piece either: writing in the programme David Lack suggests that it is one of only a handful of masterpieces in the wind quintet repertoire. It is certainly a fiendishly difficult piece requiring virtuoso playing from all five musicians. Each instrument gets its (often completely unaccompanied) moment in the sun and at Sunday's concert these were all accomplished with confidence and panache. I loved the idea that, because Nielsen was writing for the Copenhagen Wind Quintet who he knew well, he introduced the characters of the individual players into the piece. (David Lack says in the programme "variation 5 does make you wonder about the relationship between the clarinettist and the bassoonist in the original ensemble!") It was a lovely concert - fascinating music, played to a very high standard with every penny raised going to the Parkinsons Disease Society: definitely a good news story.

'Vertical Road' by the Akram Khan Dance Company

2011-06-10T16:45:00.000+01:00

10 June 2011

On Wednesday evening we and the rest of the delegates from the International Congress on Active Cultural Participation in Europe were part of a packed and enthusiastic audience in the amazing old theatre of the Vooruit Arts Centre in Ghent to see the Akram Khan Dance Company perform ‘Vertical Road’. This was the first time I had seen Akram Khan’s much celebrated choreography. From the start it was clear that it was going to be a high-quality show. We started in pitch blackness, only very gradually beginning to make out the indistinct shape of a human figure behind a giant translucent plastic sheet. This membrane displayed elaborate ripple patterns across the stage when touched. Eventually the solitary figure emerged from behind the sheet to encounter six other dancers with whom he started to interact. The soundtrack, by Nitin Sawhney, began with primitive, natural sounds which grew into a variety of rhythmic and melodic pieces. The overall effect was brutal and uncompromising – occasionally very loud and using some strobe lighting – but there were also some very beautiful passages. At one point one dancer ‘discovered’ his ability to move one of the others like a marionette with invisible strings, lifting his hand to raise the other dancer’s head then thrusting it down to make his colleague writhe on the floor: the dancing, athleticism and physical co-ordination was incredible. Overall the show was very impressive but, not being very familiar with modern dance, I found it a bit too long (at 70 minutes) to sustain my interest without a clear narrative to guide me. Nevertheless it was a fascinating experience.

'The Merchant of Venice' by William Shakespeare

2011-06-03T09:35:00.000+01:00

3 June 2011

We returned to Stratford-upon-Avon last weekend to see the second RSC production created for the new Royal Shakespeare Theatre. After Michael Boyd’s Rottweiler production of ‘Macbeth’, Rupert Goold’s ‘The Merchant of Venice’ is a poodle of a show. Set in a Las Vegas casino, it’s completely over the top and incredibly entertaining. Rupert Goold is always inventive and ambitious: I still remember fondly his amazing productions of ‘Othello’, ‘Paradise Lost’, ‘Doctor Faustus’ and ‘Hamlet’ for the Royal Theatre in Northampton. Given the wonderful new RSC stage and a massive cast Goold is in his element with ‘The Merchant of Venice’, throwing everything and the kitchen sink at this notoriously difficult play. Making Launcelot Gobbo an Elvis impersonator allows for a series of big song and dance numbers. And a fancy dress party sets up a great sight gag when Shylock’s daughter Jessica flees from her father’s house dressed not as ‘a boy’ but as ‘The Boy Wonder’. Patrick Stewart’s Shylock is a still, series centre to the pantomime going on around him but ‘The Merchant of Venice’ is really Portia’s show and Susannah Fielding definitely steals it in this production. The inspired idea of setting the Belmont scenes (where suitors attempt to win Portia’s hand in marriage by choosing between three sealed caskets) as a TV gameshow (‘Destiny’) complete with video screens and ‘Applause’ signs is a triumph. It’s all lots of fun but ultimately it’s not Shakespeare’s best play and strangely I felt, given how fast and loose Goold plays with the setting, his failing was in being too reverential to the text which would have benefited from much greater cutting, particularly towards the end. It was very interesting to see the emphasis on a homosexual subtext to the friendship between Bassanio and Antonio, poignantly puncturing Portia’s success. ‘The Merchant of Venice’ very effectively shows off the capabilities of the new Royal Shakespeare Theatre but is probably not one for the Shakepeare purists.

'Attack the Block'

2011-05-31T16:44:00.000+01:00

31 May 2011

We were at the cinema last Friday to see ‘Attack the Block’ – a stunning directorial debut by the comedian Joe Cornish (best known as part of the double act Adam & Joe). Comparisons have been made with British zombie comedy ‘Shaun of the Dead’ and the two films have plenty in common: ‘Attack the Block’ includes a cameo performance from Nick Frost and Edgar Wright is among its Executive Producers. But ‘Attack the Block’ lacks the silliness of ‘Shaun of the Dead’ and is much more realistic and believable – which is impressive for a film about an alien attack on a South London tower block. (“What kind of alien would invade some council estate in South London?” “One that’s looking for a fight!”). This tale of a gang of young teenagers teaming up with the nurse they have just mugged at knifepoint to fight an army of vicious alien creatures is very funny precisely because it is so scary and real. There is some graphic violence but it never seems gratuitous and is genuinely frightening. The focus is mainly on the children (led by the excellent John Boyega as Moses the gang-leader) with the adults left in the background (with the exception of Jodie Whittaker as the nurse, Sam) making the film strangely reminiscent of an old Children’s Film Foundation production (albeit with considerably more swearing and violence!). There are clear references to E.T. (boys on bikes, light emanating from a shed etc) but I was also reminded of the comic gangland of ‘Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels’ and Kevin Smith’s debut ‘Clerks’ (which similarly was filmed entirely without sunlight). The child actors are all great and there are some wonderful characters. Their mock-American street slang feels initially threatening but soon reveals their naivety and is often unintentionally amusing. (Moses has a tendency to use the qualifier “get me?” as in “you get me?” which leads him to say at one point “the aliens are coming to get me get me?”) ‘Attack the Block’ is a fresh and exciting new British film: I loved it.

Music in the Brickhills concert

2011-05-27T13:56:00.001+01:00

27 May 2011

My first experience of Music in the Brickhills – the local group established to present live music in the Brickhill villages to the South and East of Milton Keynes in order to raise money for local and national charities – was as a member of the audience for last year’s Brickhill Messiah (reviewed here in October 2010). Last weekend I got my chance to perform at St Mary’s Church in Great Brickhill as part of the ‘Music in the Brickhills All-Star Wind Ensemble’ (still thinks it makes us sound like the Harlem Globetrotters!). It was great to get a chance to play Mozart’s ‘Serenade for 13 Wind Instruments’ (the ‘Gran Partita’). I seldom play any Mozart and rarely play any chamber music: both require quite a different approach to the larger-scale orchestral works that I am more used to playing. In this context every note is vital and you need a high level of concentration throughout. The Serenade is a substantial work with some sublime moments and I think we gave a really good performance under the baton of David Knight. Although we only had one rehearsal as a group it was clear that everyone had either been practising individually or already knew the piece very well – or else they were all excellent sight-readers! The first half of the concert featured the excellent Kaznowski Quartet (reviewed here in January 2008) augmented by players from Milton Keynes Sinfonia to play Brahms’ ‘Sextet no 2 in G’. It was a lovely concert which raised more than £1000 for Macmillan Nurses.

‘Started Early, Took My Dog’ by Kate Atkinson

2011-05-20T15:15:00.000+01:00

20 April 2011

‘Started Early, Took My Dog’ is Kate Atkinson’s fourth Jackson Brodie novel and follows ‘When Will There Be Good News’ (reviewed here in September 2009). Reading ‘Started Early, Took My Dog’ I initially worried that it so closely follows the format of its predecessors. Once again we see the action through the eyes of a range of third-person narratives which gradually coincide and overlap. Once again the book starts with a flashback to a violent crime many decades in the past which you know is going to have some bearing on the present-day events that follow. Once again there are some well-hidden twists and some great characters. But my initial scepticism that Atkinson has settled into a formulaic approach was allayed because the plot is incredibly gripping and drives you through the book’s 500 pages at some speed. The story is often grim and sad, though there are some very funny passages. And while the main plotlines are resolved and explained by the end there are some deliberately ambiguous loose ends left dangling. This manages to both create a satisfying conclusion and simultaneously to leave you scouring the details in your mind for days after you have finished reading. ‘Started Early, Took My Dog’ is a very assured and clever piece of writing.

'The Barber of Seville' by Rossini

2011-05-20T15:14:00.000+01:00

20 April 2011

Last Thursday we were at The Playhouse Theatre in Alnwick to see a production of Rossini’s ‘The Barber of Seville’ by Swansea City Opera. This was opera on a much smaller scale than our recent experiences at Milton Keynes Theatre, and all the better for it. The set consisted of blown-up black & white cartoon drawings and Swansea City Opera created a cartoon comic opera that was incredibly funny. It helped enormously to be close enough to see the singers’ faces properly and there were some great performances. The Iranian baritone Aris Nadirian was a fantastic Figaro with a graceful swagger and a twinkle in his eyes. And Jeanette Ager gave Rosina the exaggerated air of a children’s TV presenter, her facial expressions turning on a sixpence. The six-piece orchestra provided excellent accompaniment and it was a really enjoyable evening in the theatre.

Northumberland

2011-05-20T15:12:00.000+01:00

20 May 2011

We had a lovely week in Northumberland. We were staying in a cottage on a steep hill overlooking the small town of Rothbury with wonderful views across the Coquet valley. We did lots of walking, both along the coastal path and in the Northumberland National Park. The highlights were the walk up the coast from Craster to the ruins of Dunstanburgh Castle and climbing the crags of the Simonside Hills for spectacular views of Rothbury. Apart from being caught in a couple of torrential downpours, the weather was kind to us with lots of sunshine. We visited Cragside – a grand Victorian house which was the first in the world to be powered by hydroelectricity, and the amazing Barter Books – a huge secondhand bookshop inside the old railway station in Alnwick. But we left Northumberland feeling that we had only scratched the surface and we hope to return soon.

'Songs Lost and Stolen' by Bella Hardy

2011-05-06T14:09:00.000+01:00

6 May 2011

As you may remember, I first discovered the young English folk singer Bella Hardy as part of a tiny audience in the bar at the Queen's Theatre in Barnstaple in March 2008. A few months later she was opening the BBC Proms Folk Day concert in the Royal Albert Hall (reviewed here in July 2008). In March 2008 I wrote "She sings traditional English folk songs that tell a story - mostly grim tales, even when the music is uplifting. I would have welcomed a little more variety of style - it would have been good to hear her voice in a more modern idiom occasionally". Now Bella Hardy has released an album of her own compositions, 'Songs Lost and Stolen', and it's been well worth waiting for. It's a varied set of songs (with backing from members of Scotland's Burns Unit, reviewed here in November 2010) which betray a multitude of influences. Some modern folk singers write songs intended to sound like previously undiscovered ancient tunes but these songs are much more modern - pop with a strong folk influence. I was reminded of the songs of Karine Polwart (herself a member of the Burns Unit and reviewed here in November 2005, April 2006 and April 2008), Megson (reviewed here in January 2008) and occasionally of Joanna Newsom (reviewed here in November 2006) though without Newsom's vocal eccentricities. It's a lovely album.

'Macbeth' by William Shakespeare

2011-04-28T11:37:00.002+01:00

28 April 2011

Plenty of familiar faces in the audience but not so many on the stage: the official opening of the new Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon, and the opening night of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s first production for the new theatre, on Wednesday was attended by many recognisable figures from the world of the arts. (I am sure it was no accident that the one member of the audience who was singled out to hold a live stick of dynamite was the Shadow Culture Secretary, Ivan Lewis MP.) But Michael Boyd’s ‘Macbeth’ emphasised the RSC ethos of ‘the ensemble’ without the need for any star names (with great respect to the marvellous Jonathan Slinger). The new theatre with its thrust stage and high-stacked seating on three sides, all very close to the action, will seem familiar to anyone who visited the RSC’s temporary Courtyard Theatre, albeit with a more solid, wooden feel to the auditorium. But if you can remember the old RST it’s an incredible transformation. I saw many productions in the old theatre and almost always found it difficult to hear and see the actors clearly (as we were usually in the cheapest seats, high at the back of the gallery). Also, I often felt that the scale of shows in the RST (the set, the costumes, the music etc) swamped the plays themselves and, even though you could appreciate the quality, made for an unsatisfactory experience. I remember the first time I saw a RSC show at ‘The Other Place’ – where the smallness of the space and the lack of a conventional stage and set gave you more direct access to the actors – being overwhelmed by the visceral power of the acting. This is the excitement that Michael Boyd wants to create in the main house by removing the proscenium arch and bringing the audience closer to the actors. Detractors of the thrust stage, including several previous RSC Artistic Directors, say that the result is that no-one in the audience now has a perfect view as there will always be actors with their backs to someone. But I’m not sure I would go back to squinting to make out tiny actors on a distant stage whose words I cannot hear. The opening night of ‘Macbeth’ was a triumph: a bold, uncompromising choice for the first new production in the new theatre, this was dark, violent, distressing tragedy. The acting was excellent, holding my attention throughout with the minimum of set, gimmicks or effects. Replacing the witches with three young children was eerie and disturbing. The three child actors then played Macduff’s children and later appeared as the ghostly reminder of their slaughter, suggesting perhaps that their first appearance represented the ghosts of other children and emphasising the ambiguity of the Macbeths’ childlessness. The murder of Macduff’s children was graphic and horrible – there is a lot of blood in this production. All the cast were great, particularly Steve Toussaint as Banquo, Aislin McGuckin as Lady Macbeth and Jonathan Slinger as Macbeth, whose face and body gave the impression of a brain working overtime and thoughts and moods turning on a sixpence.

'In Praise of Love' by Terence Rattigan

2011-04-27T10:40:00.001+01:00

27 April 2011

My limited knowledge of the playwright Terence Rattigan stretches to those stiff upper lip drawing-room dramas of the 1940s ‘The Winslow Boy’ and ‘The Browning Version’ and the fact that Rattigan’s dramatic style was swiftly swept away by ‘Look Back in Anger’ and the angry young men of the late 1950s. So it was a pleasant surprise to discover his excellent late play ‘In Praise of Love’ at the Royal & Derngate in Northampton last week. Celebrating the centenary of Rattigan’s birth, this ‘Made in Northampton’ production, directed by Richard Beecham, showed me a different Rattigan in a different time. ‘In Praise of Love’ was written and set in 1973 (four years before Rattigan’s death) and deals with a cantankerous left-wing literary critic and the terminal illness of his Estonian wife. The play is a four-hander, with the couple joined by their successful American novelist friend and their grown-up son, who has outraged his father by campaigning on behalf of the Liberal Party (“a vote-splitting organisation carefully designed to keep the establishment in power”!). The Northampton production was perfectly cast with Jay Villiers, Geraldine Alexander, Sean Power and Gethin Anthony all excellent. I loved the set – a forest of bookshelves, described by Michael Billington in The Guardian as “the most convincing book-lined flat I’ve seen on the British stage” – which gave the play a timeless quality. It must have been tempting to dress the stage in 1970s detail but it was much more effective to leave period reminders to the occasional appearance of a leather jacket or a 1970s television. ‘In Praise of Love’ deals with the tension between being open with the people you love and concealing difficult truths to be kind or polite. Everyone knows something – but isn’t saying so. This is painful, irresolvable but brave, and very subtly handled without the need for any melodramatic revelations – though much is gently revealed as the play progresses. It felt like a mature work from a playwright at the top of his game and for someone with a fairly clichéd view of Terence Rattigan was a subtle revelation in itself.

'Il Trovatore' by Welsh National Opera

2011-04-21T11:22:00.002+01:00

21 April 2011

The Glyndebourne on Tour production of Rossini ‘s ‘La Cenerentola’ (in November 2010) was very enjoyable but didn’t really knock me off my feet. So last Saturday we returned to Milton Keynes Theatre so see whether the Welsh National Opera production of Verdi’s ‘Il Trovatore’ might be more our thing. ‘Il Trovatore’ is one of the great incomprehensible and implausible operatic plots – revolving around the fact that Azucena, the daughter of a gypsy burned at the stake for witchcraft by the Count di Luna, steals the Count’s baby son, meaning to throw the child into the flames but accidentally picks up the wrong baby and throws her own son to a fiery death. What was more of a problem for me was that most of the action (including this tragic accident) happens off-stage, or well before the start of the opera, and is merely reported to us. Also, most of the scenes are set in the dusk or night and the set, lighting and costumes were uniformly dark and gloomy. And, maybe I’m being over-critical but the singers seemed quite static, often pausing mid-duel and lowering their swords to sing an aria. I know opera is not necessarily supposed to be completely realistic but I felt the balance between the music and the drama was too skewed to the former. Caruso is supposed to have said that in order to stage ‘Il Trovatore’ all you need are “the four greatest singers in the world”, implying both that (according to Nicholas Payne) “the plot is so far-fetched and ludicrous that it is best to ignore it” as well as that the four principal roles are extremely challenging to sing. And, having got my criticisms off my chest, I have to say the music was wonderful. Verdi is much more my cup of tea than Rossini and the score was thrilling, dramatic, passionate and moving. The WNO orchestra (conducted by Simon Phillippo) was excellent and the WNO chorus was stunning. I’m not sure whether we saw the four best singers in the world but the principals were all very impressive, particularly the tenor Gwyn Hughes Jones as Manrico and Katia Pellegrino as Leonara. (I must also say that the WNO printed programme was one of the lengthiest and most informative I can remember.) I loved the music but I think I would have been as happy with a concert performance.

'Shades of Grey' by Jasper Fforde

2011-04-15T10:50:00.000+01:00

15 April 2011

Regular readers may remember how much I loved Jasper Fforde’s Nursery Crimes novels (reviewed here in April and October 2007) and his Thursday Next literary detective series (reviewed here in August, September and October 2008 and February and April 2009). I’ve just finished reading his latest novel, ‘Shades of Grey’, which is a much more ambitious, complex and serious work. It is set in a post-apocalyptic dystopian society far into our future in which social standing is determined by your ability to perceive colour – with the majority of the population only able to see grey and just a privileged few families seeing yellows, greens or reds. Fforde creates a future world that allows him to examine our current ‘colour’ prejudice and other aspects of discrimination. It also provides a backdrop for puns and parodies, though this is such a distant future that many of the ‘ancient’ artefacts and technologies that being rediscovered and misunderstood date from many centuries into our own future. The complexity and allegorical nature of Fforde’s future world reminded me of ‘A Canticle for Leibowitz’ by Walter M. Miller, Jr. and ‘The Phantom Tollbooth’ by Norton Juster. This oppressively regimented society with its governing ‘Rule Book’ is a very Orwellian vision of the future, albeit one with more than a touch of Douglas Adams. Jasper Fforde is never less than entertaining, and ‘Shades of Grey’ has a clever plot and a great range of comic characters, but it’s not half as funny as his earlier novels. It feels like a more grown-up work and is impressive in its complexity but I missed the sheer silliness of the other books. This future society is so far removed from the familiar that you really have to pay attention to follow the story, particularly in the early chapters where I found myself having to keep re-reading passages to make sense of them. This felt, at times, like hard work – though the prose itself isn’t difficult, just the alien setting. And I think I was paying so much attention to making sense of the unusual world that I probably missed much of the humour and hidden references to our own society. ‘Shades of Grey’ was enjoyable and intriguing but one for Jasper Fforde aficionados with some patience and determination.

Northampton Symphony Orchestra concert

2011-04-15T10:45:00.000+01:00

15 April 2011

In Saturday’s Northampton Symphony Orchestra concert we took on the challenge of Sibelius’ complex ‘Symphony No 7’. Despite being very fond of some of the earlier Sibelius symphonies I hadn't encountered the seventh before and I think it’s fair to say that it took the orchestra some weeks to get to grips with it. It’s a subtle, interlocking work which only began really to make sense once all the constituent parts found their place. But, for me, the rehearsals for this concert have been more rewarding because of this challenge and, as the symphony took shape, I came to understand and enjoy it. Sibelius manages to hint at references to his other works without every directly quoting them: on several occasions I found myself humming bits from his second or fifth symphonies after rehearsing the seventh. And I think our performance went very well, with the symphony sounding coherent, passionate and tuneful. We finished the concert with Beethoven’s ‘Symphony No 7’ – one of my favourite Beethoven symphonies. It was a thrilling performance, particularly for the heroic acrobatics of my fellow horn-players David Lack and Ian Frankland.

'Inspector Drake's Last Case' by David Tristram

2011-04-14T17:33:00.000+01:00

14 April 2011

Last Friday we returned to the tiny TADS Theatre in Toddington to see a third case for the particular talents of Inspector Drake and Sergeant Plod in David Tristram’s play ‘Inspector Drake’s Last Case’. With local amateur actors Joe Butcher and Kevin Birkett reprising their roles as the mercurial Inspector and his intellectually challenged sidekick, we knew we were in for a treat. Joe Butcher is a compelling actor to watch, with a twinkle in his eye and an ever-expressive face that tells you much more than is actually being said. As with ‘Inspector Drake and the Black Widow’ (reviewed here in April 2009) and ‘Inspector Drake and the Perfekt Crime’ (reviewed here in July 2010), ‘Inspector Drake’s Last Case’ lampoons the drawing room murder mystery genre with a fast-moving conveyor belt of puns, sight gags, twists and misunderstandings, at the end of which the Inspector is presented with a suitcase covered in flowery wrapping paper just so that he can say “well, that’s another case wrapped up” (you get the idea!). David Tristram’s plays are very silly and extremely funny and the three TADS productions have been excellent. More please.

'Solar' by Ian McEwan

2011-04-07T10:39:00.001+01:00

7 April 2011

Reading Ian McEwan’s latest novel ‘Solar’, I found I had to keep reminding myself that it wasn’t a work by David Lodge. McEwan seems to have parked himself squarely in Lodge territory with a comic novel about a frustrated, aging male academic. The theme here is climate change and the potential of solar power to solve our enegergy crisis and the book was inspired by a trip to the Arctic that McEwan made as part of a group of artists – a version of which provides a significant episode in the first part of the novel. ‘Solar’ is clever and well-constructed but not half as funny as David Lodge would have made it. Having created an unlikeable protagonist – the Nobel prize-winning scientist Michael Beard, through whose eyes we see events unfold – the challenge of the comic novel is surely to make us, against our better judgement, come to sympathise with him. I didn’t feel McEwan entirely achieved this – though I think we are supposed to see Beard’s bloated, dysfunctional body and his consistent refusal to seize any of the opportunities for redemption which present themselves to him, as an analogy for the failing health of the planet. Having said all that, I enjoyed the way McEwan pulled together all the threads of his somewhat non-linear narrative towards its inevitable climax.

Manhattan School of Music Symphony concert

2011-04-07T10:35:00.000+01:00

7 April 2011

We were fortunate to be able to round off our New York holiday with a concert at the Manhattan School of Music. The MSM Symphony, conducted by Philippe Entremont, played ‘Appalachian Spring’ by Copland before giving the New York premiere of ‘Souvenirs’, written by MSM Professor Richard Danielpour as a tribute to the musical life of Philippe Entremont. This engaging and entertaining piece consists of five movements, each reflecting a place where Entremont has been a resident conductor: New York, Tokyo, New Orleans, Paris and Vienna. The second half of the concert was a performance of Bernstein’s Symphony No 2 ‘The Age of Anxiety’. Based on WH Auden’s poem ‘The Age of Anxiety: a Baroque Eclogue’ this powerful work showcases Bernstein’s unique mix of serious, lyrical, playful, dramatic and jazz-inspired and features a fiendishly difficult role for solo piano, here played by the impressive young Egyptian pianist Mohamed Shams. The student orchestra was fantastic, reaching a very high standard and creating and electrically exciting atmosphere. Great concert.

'Freud's Last Session' by Mark St Germain

2011-04-07T10:31:00.000+01:00

7 April 2011

New York is home to a huge number of theatres and Broadway has a very similar feel to London’s West End (and seemed to be featuring many of the same shows). We sought out the delightful off-Broadway Marjorie S Deane Theater to see a new play by Mark St Germain called ‘Freud’s Last Session’. This two-hander imagines a meeting between Sigmund Freud and CS Lewis, shortly after the outbreak of the Second World War. Freud is 83 and approaching the end of his life while Lewis is half his age and a recent convert to Christianity. Their debate of religion, psychoanalysis and more was engaging and thoughtfully staged, with the interruption of radio updates on the war providing breaks in the dialogue. It was excellently acted by Martin Rayner as Freud and Mark H Dold as Lewis. An enjoyable and thought-provoking piece of theatre.

New York

2011-04-07T09:23:00.000+01:00

7 April 2011

We had a brilliant week in New York. It was my first time there and we did just about all the main tourist attractions – and walked for miles! We stayed in an apartment in the Upper West Side with views over Central Park and quickly got the hang of the grid system and the subway. Manhattan is an amazing place – self-contained and small enough to find your way around easily but littered with iconic landmarks and a sense of familiarity from hundreds of movies. At the end of our first, exhausting day we collapsed into a cinema for a rest and chose the first available film which was ‘The Adjustment Bureau’ starring Matt Damon and Emily Blunt, only to discover that not only was it set in downtown Manhattan but that we had just visited most of the places featured mere minutes before! We had great weather for most of the week – glorious sunshine and cloudless blue skies but extremely cold (even for New York). I think our highlight was the boat trip to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island: the Museum of Immigration is fantastic, particularly with the audio tour which puts the voices of people who passed through the entrance hall and tiled corridors to secure their American citizenship in your ears as you tread in their footsteps. And it was amazing to discover that this huge operation of screening people for suitability to enter the USA resulted in just 2% being turned back to the ships that had brought them. We enjoyed the views from the ‘Top of the Rock’ (the roof of the Rockefeller Center) and the Empire State Building, the tackiness of Times Square and the preponderance of excellent cheap cafés, each with an enormous range of fresh food. We visited Ground Zero, though there is not much to see at the moment as new buildings are well under way and the area is now a fairly inaccessible building site. The Frick Collection – a relatively small but elegant art gallery with a passing resemblance to London’s Wallace Collection – was charming and the massive Metropolitan Museum of Art was awe-inspiring. To cap it all, as we approached the Met we noticed crowds gathering outside and police positioning barriers along the side of Fifth Avenue. We asked a police officer what was happening and she told us that President Obama was about to drive past so we joined the crowds and caught a fleeting glimpse of the President as his motorcade sped past. Manhattan felt very safe and clean and we found most New Yorkers extremely polite and welcoming. We had a great time.

'King Lear' by William Shakespeare

2011-03-21T14:09:00.001+01:00

21 March 2011

Week three of my theatrical hearing test: last Thursday we were back at Milton Keynes Theatre to see the Donmar production of ‘King Lear’ with Derek Jacobi, directed by Michael Grandage. We were sitting right at the back of the upper circle, even further from the stage than for ‘Hamlet’ a couple of weeks ago. Concerned about whether we would again have difficulty hearing the actors, we were delighted to discover that the performance was to be captioned by Stagetext, only to realise that we were sitting so far back that we could barely read the captions! Once the play got underway, however, we realised we needn’t have worried: the acting was excellent and we could hear everything without any difficulty (though the Stagetext captions were incredibly helpful in identifying which character was which). This production used a bare, boarded set with hardly any props or furniture – the changes of scene being signified by a very creative use of lighting. Inventive as this was, towards the end of the play (which ran for just under three hours) the scenes did begin to blur together. But the storm scene – conjured by flashing lights shining through the gaps between the boards on the floor and walls of the stage and freezing to silence for Lear’s spookily amplified whispered speech – was great. Derek Jacobi was fantastic as Lear – playful, spritely and capricious: a relatively young old man whose descent into madness was believably painful. And Gina McKee was stunning as Goneril – commanding the stage with an icy determination.

'Frankenstein' by Nick Dear based on the novel by Mary Shelley

2011-03-17T18:02:00.000+01:00

17 March 2011

On Saturday we were at the National Theatre in London to see ‘Frankenstein’ – a new play by Nick Dear based on the novel by Mary Shelley and directed by Danny Boyle. This certainly felt like a major theatrical event – a complete sell-out with a real buzz in the foyer and high expectations all round (we were feeling very smug having booked our tickets months ago!). Inevitably it was always going to be difficult for the show to live up to all the hype but it was very impressive. The set, lighting and effects on the massive revolving stage in the Olivier Theatre were amazing and there were some truly jaw-dropping moments. The acting was excellent: we saw Benedict Cumberbatch as The Creature and Jonny Lee Miller as Victor Frankenstein (the two actors are alternating the parts). Benedict Cumberbatch’s physical performance, particularly in the opening scene where The Creature comes to terms with his new body and gains control of his limbs, was amazing. The care given to making this opening realistic and believable did, however, make it quite a slow start and it felt like the show only really got going when Jonny Lee Miller’s Frankenstein became involved. I thought he very effectively made Victor Frankenstein obsessive and unfeeling while also making us sympathise with his impossible moral dilemma. The decision to run for two hours without an interval seemed odd – I think the play could have taken a break without too much detriment. Some of the set-piece scenes – Frankenstein confronting The Creature on the mountain-top, the Frankensteins’ bedroom on their wedding night etc – were thrillingly handled. And Naomi Harries played Elizabeth as intelligent and brave – no hysterical screaming here. The fact that the play was fairly faithful to the original novel, rather than following the melodramatic horror of the Frankenstein films, strangely seemed a bit of a missed opportunity given the scale of the production which could have produced something spectacularly scary. It also suffered from the fact that, although Mary Shelley came up with a brilliant concept, her novel isn’t the greatest narrative. The plot is very episodic and Frankenstein does seem to spend half the novel being pursued across Europe by The Creature and the other half pursuing The Creature. But it was a stunning theatrical experience – and we could hear every word!

'Hamlet' by William Shakespeare

2011-03-07T18:12:00.000+01:00

7 March 2011

On Saturday we were at Milton Keynes Theatre to see the National Theatre production of ‘Hamlet’, directed by Nicholas Hytner and starring Rory Kinnear. When I bought our tickets, the girl at the box office looked nervously at me and said “I have to warn you, it’s in modern dress – is that okay?” I’m not sure what they would have done if I had said no but actually it was very okay. The modern setting (early 1990s I would say, from the size of the computer monitor on Polonius’s desk and the absence of mobile phones) worked well with Elsinore crawling with suited secret agents wearing dark glasses and walkie-talkie headsets. And the sight of soldiers flooding into the palace firing machine guns was thrilling and quite scary. The set and lighting were great – in the opening scene the ghost miraculously disappearing into the shadows was stunning. And Rory Kinnear was a wonderful Hamlet – more cerebral than soldierly. He reminded me of Simon Russell-Beale’s interpretation of the part for the National Theatre some years ago. Rory Kinnear was a frustrated and irritated Hamlet, toying with the fools around him and managing to turn his mood on a sixpence. I also liked Patrick Malahide’s sinister Claudius and David Calder was particularly good as Polonius, reminding us that there is much more to the character than the bumbling fool we often see him as. This was a substantial Hamlet – running at more than three and a half hours – and I did feel the pacy contemporary style, set and music might have better fitted a shorter version of the text. We also had some difficulty hearing a lot of the dialogue. Maybe the National Theatre has better acoustics (and fewer people coughing!) than the Milton Keynes Theatre – and admittedly we were in the cheap seats at the back – but it’s quite difficult to sustain your attention for more three and a half hours when you can’t hear what the actors are saying. This was a shame as the production looked great and started thrillingly. But I did very much enjoy Rory Kinnear’s performance.

'Great Expectations' by Charles Dickens adapted by Tanika Gupta

2011-03-04T18:28:00.001+01:00

4 March 2011

Last Saturday we were at the Watford Palace Theatre so see the Engish Touring Theatre production of Tanika Gupta’s stage adaptation of ‘Great Expectations’ by Charles Dickens. Relocating the story to India (though without changing the late Victorian period), Tanika Gupta emphasises the class divisions by making the villagers Indian while Miss Haversham, Jaggers and Herbert Pocket embody different aspects of the British Raj and Magwitch is a black convict from Cape Colony. This cleverly both simplifies the story and adds new elements of racism and colonial oppression. I thought it worked well and the set, costumes and music were spectacular. The decision to have the same adult actor play Pip as man and boy made the initial childhood scenes a little cartoonish but the second half of the play was darker and more realistic. Inevitably, dramatising a long and complex novel results in a rapid procession of short scenes and it was hard to forget that this was the play of the book. But it was an enjoyable and epic production.

Northampton Symphony Orchestra concert

2011-02-25T10:05:00.000+01:00

25 February 2011

Most amateur orchestras rehearse for months to prepare for a single performance. The logistics of bringing together (in the case of the Northampton Symphony Orchestra) 84 performers plus conductor and soloist make repeat performances impractical. Yet it is disappointingly rare that the concert performance proves to be the best the orchestra has played the works in question. All too often the combination of nerves, the need for prolonged intense concentration and either lack of familiarity or over-familiarity with the music leaves us feeling that the concert wasn’t quite as good as the standard we had achieved in rehearsal. But last Saturday’s Northampton Symphony Orchestra concert definitely bucked this trend with our performance, in particular, of ‘Harold in Italy’, Berlioz’s Symphony in Four Parts with Viola Obbligato, more delicate, more playful, more perfect than it had ever been in rehearsal. Former NSO member Becci Dyson played the solo viola part beautifully. ‘Harold in Italy’ is a jigsaw that requires every part to be in exactly in the right place. The tune flits rapidly between soloist and orchestra and between instruments within the orchestra. I think this is why it seemed to take us a while to get the point of the work in rehearsal: only when everything falls into place does the picture become clear and the piece really grew on me as we got closer to the concert. The rest of the concert continued the theme of works about Italy by non-Italian composers (and a sub-theme of viola solos!) with Elgar’s ‘In The South (Alassio)’ – a wonderfully Straussian piece – and ‘Capriccio Italien’ by Tchaikovsky, the end of which was definitely faster in performance than we had ever played it in rehearsal! It was an ambitious programme but the orchestra rose to the occasion and gave one of its best concerts for some time.

'Blithe Spirit' by Noel Coward

2011-02-25T09:54:00.001+01:00

25 February 2011

Last Friday we were at Milton Keynes Theatre to see ‘Blithe Spirit’ by Noel Coward. This Theatre Royal Bath production, directed by Thea Sharrock, brought together an impressive cast, including Robert Bathurst, Hermione Norris, Ruthie Henshall and Alison Steadman as Madame Arcati. ‘Blithe Spirit’ is an enjoyable romp about the perils of allowing your present and former wives to meet – even if one of them is dead. The play lacks the witty word-play of ‘Private Lives’ but it was a high-quality production with a great over-the-top performance from Alison Steadman.

Hornroh

2011-02-18T18:07:00.000+01:00

18 February 2011

Listening to last week’s Music Planet programme on BBC Radio 3, I was literally stopped in my tracks by the weird and wonderful use of Alpenhorns by the Swiss group Hornroh. Having reached my destination I had to sit in the car for five minutes until the end of the track. It is a hauntingly beautiful sound, reminiscent of whalesong, but played about as far from sea level as you can get, Hornroh create a wonderful, unique music. You can listen to free mp3 samples at http://www.hornroh.ch/en/music/

‘The Years Between’ by Daphne du Maurier

2011-02-11T17:18:00.000+01:00

11 February 2011

Daphne du Maurier is probably best known now for two novels, ‘Jamaica Inn’ and the marvellous ‘Rebecca’, but she was a prolific novelist and short-story writer and also wrote two original stage plays. After the success of its revival of Tennessee Williams' first play 'Spring Storm' (reviewed here in October 2009) which subsequently transferred to the West End, the Royal Theatre, Northampton, has now revived Daphne du Maurier’s similarly neglected wartime play ‘The Years Between’ and we went to see it last Saturday. ‘The Years Between’ is the painful tale of a woman who believes her husband to have been killed in active service and, after several years of mourning, plans to marry again only for her husband to return from the war expecting everything to be as it was when he left. Apart from the emotional human story this creates, the play also highlights the tension between soldiers who feel they are fighting on foreign fields to preserve a way of life while those left at home feel they are fighting for change and a better world. It’s a clever and moving play and the Royal Theatre production, directed by Kate Saxon, was impressive and well-cast with Marianne Oldham excellent as the lead character.

Free Peace Band concert

2011-02-04T13:31:00.000+01:00

4 February 2011

On Saturday we were at St James Church in New Bradwell, Milton Keynes, for a concert by the Free Peace Band – a three-piece band (see what they did there!) comprising Marcus Armstrong , Rebecca Parmer and Duncan Barnes, who perform to raise money for the i:peace charity. This concert celebrated the music of Simon and Garfunkel – for which the Free Peace Band’s gentle, three-part vocal harmonies, acoustic guitar and bass were perfect. It was lovely to hear all those familiar 1960s classics but I particularly enjoyed Simon’s ‘The Boy in the Bubble’ from his 1986 ‘Graceland’ album (more my era!) and was reminded me of Peter Gabriel’s haunting slowed-down cover of this track which I heard him perform at WOMAD (July 2009).

'The King's Speech'

2011-01-28T16:30:00.001+01:00

28 January 2011

A couple of years ago I heard a really good BBC Radio 4 Afternoon Play about King George VI working with Australian speech therapist Lionel Logue to conquer his stammer ahead of a live broadcast. I was intrigued to learn that this story was to be filmed and last weekend we went to see ‘The King’s Speech’. Tom Hooper’s film broadens the tale to encompass the abdication crisis and the outbreak of war. Colin Firth rightly deserves all the plaudits he is receiving for his performance as the King, Helena Bonham-Carter is great as Queen Elizabeth and Geoffrey Rush is very funny as Logue – I particularly enjoyed his audition for a local amateur theatre group – “too Australian” (which is all the more amusing as we then see Australian Guy Pearce playing Edward VIII). ‘The King’s Speech’ is one of those films where you can have lots of fun just spotting the well-known British actors in minor roles. It was lovely to see an all-too-rare appearance by Colin Firth’s ‘Pride and Prejudice’ co-star, Jennifer Ehle (here playing the Australian Mrs Logue). It’s a very enjoyable film which manages to be gripping even though you know what’s going to happen. Historically fascinating, emotionally engaging and often extremely funny – bring on the Oscars!

'Music Planet'

2011-01-21T18:00:00.001+01:00

21 January 2011

It’s great to hear Andy Kershaw back on the radio after a long absence, co-presenting the Radio 3 series ‘Music Planet’ – a parallel project to the BBC 1 series ‘Human Planet’. In last week’s opener Andy was shark fishing in Papua New Guinea and dropped in on the Deep Sea Canoe Movement in the Solomon Islands who have been singing gospel music as an act of ‘continuity worship’ 24 hours a day (in 3-hour shifts) since 2006. Great radio journalism and great music – make your way to iplayer and turn up the volume!

'We Are All Made of Glue' by Marina Lewycka

2011-01-14T14:53:00.001+01:00

14 January 2011

I really enjoyed Marina Lewycka’s debut novel ‘A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian’ (reviewed here in April 2006) and I had been looking forward to reading her latest book ‘We Are All Made of Glue’. It’s great fun – a similar contemporary domestic setting, easy to read with a cast of entertainingly comic characters (and cats!) who are all too believable. The setting and tone reminded me of David Lodge or Anne Tyler and Marina Lewycka has a similar ability to weave serious themes into an apparently light comic novel. In ‘We Are All Made of Glue’ the cartoon battles that the first person narrator, Georgina, wages with social services and estate agents on behalf of her elderly neighbour, Mrs Shapiro, form the backdrop for a much darker tale about battles between Jews and Palestinians and the impending apocalyptic end of the world.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1'

2011-01-07T15:29:00.000+01:00

7 January 2011

A trip to the cinema over Christmas to see the new Harry Potter film has very quickly become such a seasonal fixture that, as with the Doctor Who Christmas special, it's hard to remember what we used to do before. In the case of the Harry Potter films we will soon be forced to remember but we enjoyed going to see the penultimate episode 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1' last week. "These are dark times, there is no denying" but there's little sign of austerity in this blockbuster. As I felt when reading the book (reviewed here in August 2007), freed from the formulaic strictures of another school year at Hogwarts, 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows' is a thrillingly unpredictable ride. It felt like a more grown-up film and was often genuinely scary. I'm not sure whether you would be able to follow the incredibly complex plot if you were unfamiliar with the books but this has been a problem for all the HP films. This one feels like Emma Watson's movie with Hermione really coming of age - though, once again, in a few brief scenes Evanna Lynch's Luna Lovegood threatens to steal the show. The adult supporting cast is a veritable Equity directory of British acting talent: it's now much easier to name the prominent British actors who are not involved. And it's an amazing testament to the financial clout of the franchise to see how many really big name stars make incredibly fleeting, often wordless cameos: Miranda Richardson appears once in a newspaper photograph (albeit a moving one). Interesting also to see Bill Nighy doing a Welsh accent and Rhys Ifans doing an Irish accent. But as with the previous films it is to the director's credit (David Yates in this case) that the adults play second fiddle to the young leads. Any film which sets out to tell half a story feels a little unsatisfying but I felt this was one of the best of the HP series and I'm looking forward to the final instalment.

Northampton Symphony Orchestra concert

2010-12-17T15:30:00.001+01:00

17 December 2010

On Sunday I was in Northampton to take part in the Northampton Symphony Orchestra’s Christmas Cracker Concert. It was a real ‘something for everyone’ programme including excerpts from Handel’s ‘Messiah’ (with the Daventry Choral Society) alongside Kleinsinger’s ‘Tubby the Tuba’ (expertly narrated by Graham Padden and featuring NSO tuba player Nick Tollervey). We contrasted the ‘Sleigh Ride’ by Delius with the one by Leroy Anderson. And amid all the Christmas carols there was an explosion of piracy with Klaus Badelt’s music for ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ which prompted the appearance of pirate hats, eyepatches and hooks amongst the Santa hats and tinsel. A good time had by all!

‘The Pirate Princess’ by Lea Pryer

2010-12-17T15:29:00.000+01:00

17 December 2010

Last weekend had a distinctly piratical flavour: On Saturday we were in Toddington at the TADS Theatre to see ‘The Pirate Princess’, a new pantomime by TADS member Lea Pryer – ‘Treasure Island’ combined with ‘Twelfth Night’. It was a swashbuckling performance incorporating all the standard pantomime conventions – principal boy, a dame, sing-along audience participation, slapstick cookery scene etc – but with a rather cute dragon in place of the usual pantomime horse or cow. It was lots of fun and very impressively performed. TADS regular Rachel Birks was great as Princess Aliyah – the serious, romantic centre to the story amid all the cartoon chaos. But what really set ‘The Pirate Princess’ apart from other amateur productions was the work of professionally trained choreographer James Sygrove. He created four fantastic song and dance numbers on the tiny TADS stage, culminating in a wonderful ‘Bollywood’ finale (to AR Rahman’s ‘Yo Ho’ obviously!)

'The Trip'

2010-12-10T14:20:00.002+01:00

10 December 2010

I know ‘The Trip’ – the BBC2 series directed by Michael Winterbottom and starring Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon which finished this week – has divided opinion but I thought it was wonderful. Building on the fictional relationship developed through improvised scenes in Winterbottom's 2005 film, ‘A Cock and Bull Story’, Coogan and Brydon play "loose versions of themselves" as they embark on a tour of restaurants across the North England, ostensibly for an article for The Observer Magazine. The wintry northern scenery was beautifully shot and the series has already, apparently, created an increase in visitor numbers. The blurring between reality and fiction was unsettlingly achieved: I had to remind myself constantly that we were watching Coogan and Brydon playing characters based on themselves and that each of their friends, relations and colleagues that we encountered were actors rather than the real people. Part-way through the series I began to worry that, enjoyable as it was, the format was a little formulaic with each episode reprising the same scenes in slightly different locations. But as we approached the final half-hour I began to notice the subtle story arcs that had been carefully hidden in the background. Like the best dramas it was both incredibly funny and painfully sad, saying much about ambition, relationships, male friendship and mortality. Despite the verbal jousting and subtle wordplay that characterised most of the series, or perhaps because it came so unexpectedly in this context, a couple of pieces of physical slapstick in the final episode provided a fantastic comic climax. And the recurring references to Rob Brydon’s impression of a ‘Small Man Trapped in a Box' led to a brilliant pay-off in this week’s finale. A very classy piece of television.

'Canaich' by Duncan Chisholm

2010-12-03T16:42:00.000+01:00

3 December 2010

When you think of Scottish folk fiddle music you tend to expect frantic feats of physical dexterity creating toe-tapping dance tunes, so I was intrigued to discover a different side through the music of the amazing Scottish fiddler Duncan Chisholm. Chisholm’s 2008 album ‘Farrar’ is a hauntingly beautiful collection of slow airs and laments – a mixture of traditional tunes and new compositions – quiet and understated but incredibly moving. This week I’ve been listening to ‘Canaich’ – the new album by Duncan Chisholm. This is a more varied collection which includes a few faster dance tunes but it’s the slow, melancholic tracks that grab my attention. Chisholm’s tone is clear and pure – truly beautiful music.

Milton Keynes Sinfonia concert

2010-11-26T08:39:00.003+01:00

26 November 2010

A brief history of brass instruments: if you take any narrow metal tube or pipe, open at both ends, put one end to your lips and blow you can produce a musical note. The tighter you press your lips together and the harder you blow the higher the note will be. With most metal tubes you will be able to produce a limited number of different musical notes, based on the frequencies at which the tube will naturally resonate. The longer the tube the more notes will be possible, but even with a very long tube there will be a limit to which notes can be produced – enough for a fanfare but missing the notes in between that you would need to play most melodies. The precise notes available will vary depending on the length of the tube.

One early solution was to create a detachable section of tube that could be removed from the middle of the instrument and replaced with a similar section of a slightly different length. The early version of what we now call the French horn (which is a very long tube curled up to make it portable-enough to play on horseback) used this system of detachable ‘crooks’. But it was not possible to swap crooks fast enough to play a continuous tune requiring notes from the different crooks. A quicker way of altering the overall length of the tube was to create a sliding ‘crook’ that could be moved in or out while playing to vary the total length of the instrument, leading to the development of the trombone.

The alternative was to permanently attach several ‘crooks’ of various lengths to the instrument and create a system of valves to redirect the air through the appropriate pipes as required to make particular notes available to the player. The modern trumpet uses three vertical valves that, when pressed, channel the air through a second set of pipes from those used by default. Combining all three valves creates seven different possible total lengths for the air to travel through, providing the player with access to every possible note.

The modern French horn uses a similar system of valves, except that they rotate to change the direction of the air (rather than moving up and down as on a trumpet). Most horns have levers for the player to press which are attached to the rotary valves by ‘strings’ (thin nylon twine) which pull the valves round to the relevant position.

The reason I’m telling you all this is to set the scene for the Milton Keynes Sinfonia concert I played in last Saturday. The concert opened with the ‘Peer Gynt Suite No. 1’ by Grieg, followed by the Miaskovsky ‘Cello Concerto. Russian composer Nikolai Miaskovsky was a contemporary of Rachmaninov and wrote in a late-romantic style. His ‘cello concerto, written in 1944, is an interesting piece that was completely new to me – a little rambling, maybe, but with some lovely tunes. With the Milton Keynes Sinfonia’s conductor, David Knight, being an extremely accomplished ‘cellist himself, it was no surprise that the soloist he had chosen was something special: German-born ‘cellist Julian Metzger gave an outstanding performance.

I was only involved in the second half of the concert, in which we played Tchaikovsky’s mighty final work, the ‘Pathétique’ Symphony No 6. My role was ‘bumping’ the first horn part, ie doubling the first horn to allow the principal horn player to save himself, in this mammoth stamina-sapping work, for the more delicate solo passages. It started well, but shortly into the second of the four movements of the symphony I heard a snapping sound and realised that the string on my third valve had broken. This made the third valve unusable: replacing the string is a fiddly procedure and not one I was going to be able to accomplish in the middle of a concert, so I resigned myself to having to play the rest of the piece without using the third valve. Fortunately, the third valve is probably the least used but it was still a considerable mental challenge to calculate which notes I could play with an alternative fingering and which I would have to omit entirely – as well as a challenge of physical dexterity, particularly during the faster passages, to make sure I didn’t automatically revert to the familiar fingering patterns. All this made for a nerve-wracking forty minutes. I was fortunate that I was doubling the first horn part and was not the only player responsible for producing those notes. The fact that, after we had finished the performance the principal horn player, David Lack, said he hadn’t noticed my predicament suggests that I got away with it!

The ‘Pathétique’ Symphony is a very emotional piece: the third movement is a brilliant march with a magnificent ending that sounds like it should be the climax of the whole work. Most audiences burst into applause at this point – and our audience in Milton Keynes was no exception – leaving the heart-breakingly beautiful fourth movement to shatter the joy and lead us inevitably into despair. I was amused to discover that, in the tense, silent moments after the last note of the symphony, as orchestra and audience held its collective breath before relaxing into applause, one member of the audience was heard to say "I loved the Tchaikovsky, but what was that funny piece they played as an encore?".

‘La Cenerentola’ by Glyndebourne on Tour

2010-11-18T22:00:00.001+01:00

18 November 2010

Regular readers may have spotted that I am not a very frequent opera-goer. I think the last full opera I saw was a production of Verdi’s ‘Falstaff’ in Peterborough in about 1996. But, aware of this gap in our cultural landscape, we took the opportunity of the visit of Glyndebourne on Tour to Milton Keynes Theatre last week to dip our toes in the operatic water. We went to see Peter Hall’s production of ‘La Cenerentola’ by Rossini – which we chose as a relatively light reintroduction to opera and one in which we would have no difficulty following the plot (it’s Cinderella – oh yes it is!). This Cinderella is the fairy tale without the magic – a more realistic version of the story without a fairy godmother or any supernatural transformation – and with a pair of bracelets rather than the more familiar glass slippers. It was interesting to compare this take on the tale with Gregory Maguire’s novel 'Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister' (reviewed here in March 2008) which also strips away the supernatural elements of the story, but somehow manages to create something even more magical in the process. ‘La Cenerentola’ was very enjoyable – high production values and an excellent orchestra, conducted by Enrique Mazzola. The singers were very impressive, particularly Allyson McHardy’s coloratura display as Angelina (Cenerentola) and the tenor Luciano Botelho as Don Ramiro (the Prince). And I loved the Glyndebourne Chorus who were powerful, dramatic and very funny. But, on reflection, maybe choosing a work with such a well-known story was a mistake as the plot really seemed to drag. It was an impressive production but didn’t really knock me off my feet.

Northampton Symphony Orchestra concert

2010-11-09T10:58:00.000+01:00

9 November 2010

When I did A-level music, one of the set works was Richard Strauss’ ‘Four Last Songs’: I can remember my music teacher worrying about the decision of the exam board to expose emotional, exam-stressed, teenagers to this melancholy reflection on morbidity. He needn’t have worried on my account: I am immensely grateful for this early discovery of Strauss’ masterpiece, which is now one of my favourite pieces of music and which seems to grow more perfect each time you hear it. It’s achingly sad: I will long remember watching the broadcast of this year’s BBC Proms performance by Sir Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic, which ended with the Finnish soprano, Karita Mattila, staring forward, immovably, into space after singing her last note, her eyes filling with tears. I was not the only member of the Northampton Symphony Orchestra welling up during our performance of the ‘Four Last Songs’ in Northampton on Saturday. Young, local singer, Katherine Crompton, who is currently studying for a Performance Masters at the Royal College of Music, gave a beautiful performance. And it was a huge pleasure to welcome back our principal horn player, David Lack, whose seat I have been keeping warm during his absence through illness. It was wonderful to be able to leave the nerve-racking horn solo at the end of the second song, ‘September’, to Dave who played it exquisitely in his first appearance with the orchestra for 18 months. Not that my nerves were completely off the hook as I took the horn solo at the end of the first movement of Brahms’ ‘Symphony No. 2’ – one of those moments that, as a player, is both enjoyable but also a great relief when it’s over! The second symphony is a cheerful, Beethovenian work which I hadn’t played before. We opened with a powerful performance of Wagner’s ‘Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg Overture’. It feels like the NSO is really developing under the baton of Alexander Walker: it was a great concert.

'Side Show' by The Burns Unit

2010-11-05T13:28:00.001+01:00

5 November 2010

Having first met at a Scottish Arts Council funded songwriting retreat in rural Scotland, the unlikely folk-rock-rap supergroup The Burns Unit (pun intended) have created a wonderful first album ‘Side Show’. The (mostly Scottish) Burns Unit are folk singers Karine Polwart (reviewed here in November 2005, April 2006 and April 2008) and Kenny Anderson, former Delgados singer Emma Pollock, rapper MC Soom T, Indo-Scottish bassist Future Pilot AKA, instrumentalist Kim Edgar, drummer Mattie Foulds and pianist Michael Johnston. The result of their collaboration is a varied collection of songs that manage to maintain a coherent overall identity. Some songs could have come straight from a Karine Polwart album (which is no bad thing at all) but the most interesting tracks are those that combine the disparate styles of the contributors – my favourites being those featuring the raps of MC Soom T.

'The Habit of Art’ by Alan Bennett

2010-10-28T10:08:00.000+01:00

28 October 2010

Last Friday we were at Milton Keynes Theatre to see the National Theatre production of Alan Bennett’s latest play ‘The Habit of Art’. My expectations were high, as I had been looking forward to seeing how Alan Bennett and director Nicholas Hytner would follow their success with ‘The History Boys’, but I’m afraid I was a bit disappointed. ‘The Habit of Art’ deals with a meeting between WH Auden and Benjamin Britten in their later years to discuss Britten’s new opera, ‘Death in Venice’. But this is actually a play within a play as ‘The Habit of Art’ is set within a National Theatre rehearsal room, showing the actors who will play Auden and Britten rehearsing their lines. This allows for constant interruptions from the stage manager, other actors and the play’s fictional author which creates some clever ambiguities as the ‘actors’ move seamlessly in and out of character. There’s plenty of the dry humour you expect from Bennett and the complexities of integrating this framing device are impressively achieved. But I found the result a little too self-conscious and a bit lacking in plot to drive it forward. In ‘The Lady in the Van’ Bennett famously put two ‘Alan Bennetts’ on stage: in ‘The Habit of Art’ it seemed like there at least four Alan Bennetts vying for our attention (the ‘author’, Auden, Britten, and their biographer, Humphrey Carpenter). Nevertheless, the cast were excellent, particularly Desmond Barrit who had great fun playing Richard Griffiths as ‘Fitz’ as WH Auden.

Northampton Symphony Orchestra concert

2010-10-21T11:34:00.001+01:00

21 October 2010

It is the proud boast of the Northampton Symphony Orchestra that the composer Sir Malcolm Arnold played trumpet in the orchestra as a schoolboy in Northampton. So it was particularly fitting for us to be invited to perform in St Matthew’s Church last Saturday as part of The Official Malcolm Arnold Festival 2010. We joined forces with the Abingdon Choral Society under the baton of our mutual conductor Alexander Walker to tackle Arnold’s rarely performed large-scale choral and orchestral work ‘Return of Odysseus’. Perhaps not his greatest work but it was a very interesting experience, and featured some impressive solos from members of the choir. We also performed the Concert Suite from Malcolm Arnold’s ballet ‘Sweeney Todd’. This was also a new piece to me and seemed more quintessentially Arnold with some great tunes, dramatic effects and tongue firmly in cheek. ‘Sweeney Todd’ combines dark menace with the cheery spirit of music hall: it was an effective and exciting performance that seemed to be greatly appreciated by an enthusiastic audience of Malcolm Arnold aficionados.

'Hedonism' by Bellowhead

2010-10-15T16:29:00.000+01:00

15 October 2010

I was very excited to get hold of a copy of the new album from the brilliant English folk big band Bellowhead (reviewed here in October 2006 and February 2009) this week. ‘Hedonism’ is the band’s third album and it doesn’t disappoint. Bellowhead continue to push the boundaries of their own peculiar sub-genre, enlisting the help of experienced rock music producer John Leckie, and ‘Hedonism’ has a more varied and experimental feel than its predecessors. But the characteristic Bellowhead swagger is still strongly in evidence and the best tracks sound engagingly familiar, even on the first listen. I’m not sure all the diversions into jazz and funk completely work (strangely the semi-spoken rendition of ‘the Hand Weaver and the Factory Maid’ reminds me of ‘Shopping for Clothes’ by The Coasters – not typical territory for an English folk song!). But the best of ‘Hedonism’ is Bellowhead at its best: the impossibly catchy opening track ‘New York Girls’ is a perfect example. Tap, whistle, stamp, sing, dance: you know you want to!

The Brickhill Messiah

2010-10-08T08:56:00.000+01:00

8 October 2010

The area just to the South and East of Milton Keynes is known as the Brickhills. Long before the development of Milton Keynes, these villages boasted a strong choral tradition linked to the local churches. In 2007 a group of local residents, many of whom take part in amateur music groups in Milton Keynes and Northampton, established Music in the Brickhills to present live music in the Brickhill villages in order to raise money for local and national charities. On Saturday we were at St Mary’s Church in Great Brickhill to see the fourth annual Brickhill Messiah. Handel himself developed the idea of charity performances of his oratorio, perhaps the best known of which were his annual fundraisers for the Foundling Hospital. So we felt part of a venerable tradition as we joined an enthusiastic local audience last weekend to raise money for nearby Willen Hospice. I had never been to a full performance of the Messiah before (well there are no parts for French horns!) and it was fascinating to discover such a well known work for the first time. It’s a mammoth undertaking and the Brickhill Messiah was a very impressive achievement. Even with quite a few cuts, the performance lasted more than two and half hours (including an interval). All the soloists were amateurs, drawn from the chorus, and it was lovely to see them taking their opportunities to shine: it would be unfair to single anyone out but there were some really fantastic singers on show. The powerful chorus, including singers from the nearby Danesborough Chorus and Milton Keynes Chorale, created a wonderful sound and the final chorus (“Worthy is the lamb”) was a stunning finale. The band of local musicians was also of a very high standard. The performance was extremely enjoyable, its few rough edges merely reminding you what a challenge the Messiah is and making the many magic moments all the more special.

'Teechers’ by John Godber

2010-09-29T16:56:00.000+01:00

29 September 2010

On Saturday we were back at the Theatre Royal in Bury St Edmunds to see the Hull Truck Theatre Company production of ‘Teechers’ by John Godber. ‘Teechers’ was written in 1987 (though it’s clearly been updated with references to mobile phones etc) and is a classic Hull Truck production with three actors playing a multitude of characters with a bare minimum of set and props but conjuring up a vivid picture of school life. Sitting historically and stylistically somewhere between a Joyce Grenfell monologue and Alan Bennett’s ‘The History Boys’, ‘Teechers’ is funny, moving and extremely enjoyable.

‘Steel Magnolias’ by Robert Harling

2010-09-29T16:44:00.002+01:00

29 September 2010

Last Friday we were at the TADS Theatre in Toddington to see ‘Steel Magnolias’ by Robert Harling. Having not seen the 1989 film, I came to the play without knowing what to expect and was very impressed. ‘Steel Magnolias’ is set in a beauty parlour in a small town in Louisiana in which six women meet, talk and have their hair done. Taking on the challenge of live hairdressing and manicures on stage while maintaining impeccable Southern accents is no mean feat for an amateur company but one accomplished very slickly by TADS. I liked the episodic nature of the play: there are four scenes between which months or years have passed and you have to read between the lines to work out what has happened to each of the characters since you last saw them. The script is very witty with some extremely funny lines, which makes the tragic finale all the more poignant – maybe a little overly sentimental but there certainly wasn’t a dry eye in the house. The beauty parlour set was beautifully realised with a random assortment of mirrors around and above the stage which provided wonderful tableaux of the characters from different angles, allowing you to see the faces of actors even when they had their backs to the audience. The TADS production was very well cast: I particularly liked Tricia O’Toole, who gave Shelby just the right mixture of knowingness and naivety, and Rachel Birks as the beauty parlour proprietor Truvy. Truvy is a short, blonde woman with high heels, big hair and a big bust: I wonder which part Dolly Parton played in the film?!

'Bus Stop' by William Inge

2010-09-23T12:20:00.000+01:00

23 September 2010

The Theatre by the Lake in Keswick really is, as the name implies, right on the shore of Derwent Water. It’s a beautiful setting for a lovely auditorium which is home to an impressive repertory company which tackles a rotating, varied programme of plays over the summer months: as in Pitlochry it is possible to stay a week and see several plays. We saw William Inge’s play ‘Bus Stop’ – chiefly remembered for having been made into a film starring Marilyn Monroe. Inge knew Tennessee Williams and you can see his influence but ‘Bus Stop’ is a lighter, less intense work than the classic Williams plays. It’s a great dramatic premise: when a cross-country bus is held up by bad weather, the passengers have to spend the night in a diner in a small town in Kansas. This allows for a series of hushed conversations, leading to confrontations and revelations as the night wears on and the liquor flows. At first the play has a light, comic feel with broadly drawn cartoon characters. But as the story develops there is much more to it than you initially expect. ‘Bus Stop’ is a clever, sad and funny work with some dark undertones. It also boasts two great comic set-piece scenes in the second and third acts. The Theatre by the Lake production was very effective and extremely well-cast with Amy Ewbank just right as Cherie and Patrick Bridgman subtly stealing the show as the thoughtful cowboy Virgil. Cherie, the main character, is a ditzy, blonde night-club singer hoping to escape to a better life: at the interval I was amused to hear the woman sitting behind me ask her companion “which part did Marilyn Monroe play in the film?”!

Cumbria

2010-09-23T10:39:00.000+01:00

23 September 2010

We had a great time last week exploring the Lake District and the Yorkshire Dales. We stayed at a cottage near Kirkby Stephen, ideally placed for both national parks, and enjoyed wonderful walks in the Eden Valley, Swaledale (along part of the Pennine Way), Cunswick Scar and the banks of Ullswater. We also made a long overdue first visit to the Theatre by the Lake at Keswick. We were particularly impressed by Farfield Mill at Sedbergh – a converted mill which now houses artist studios, heritage crafts demonstrations, a museum telling the story of the mill and a great café: it’s a clever and effective blend of contemporary and heritage crafts and visual arts.

‘Deaf Sentence’ by David Lodge

2010-09-10T12:28:00.001+01:00

10 September 2010

I’ve just finished reading ‘Deaf Sentence’, the latest novel by David Lodge. It’s been a while since I’ve read anything by David Lodge (‘Home Truths’ reviewed here in September 2009) and is was a pleasure to remind myself how much I like his style. ‘Deaf Sentence’ draws on his own experience of losing his hearing and provides a tragic-comic guide to the inconveniences of deafness. But the real theme of the book is death: this is fairly dark territory for David Lodge and it’s a very sad novel - though not without his trademark humour and lightness of touch. Despite the impending sense that all was not going to end well, it gripped my attention and I very much enjoyed the journey. ‘Deaf Sentence’ is a study of family relationships and an ailing parent and reminded me of the similarities between David Lodge’s novels and those of Anne Tyler (such as ‘Noah’s Compass’ reviewed here in May 2010) while also making me think of 'The Corrections' by Jonathan Franzen, 'A Spot of Bother' by Mark Haddon (reviewed here in June 2007) and 'The Promise of Happiness' by Justin Cartwright (reviewed here in January 2008). But with its academic setting and references to Catholicism it’s unmistakeably David Lodge. He wears his research lightly and I enjoyed the references to linguistics. ‘Deaf Sentence’ is another accomplished, entertaining, moving and thought-provoking novel by a master of the genre.

Edinburgh Festivals 2010

2010-09-03T14:10:00.000+01:00

3 September 2010

We had a great week at the Edinburgh festivals: we managed to get to 24 shows, most of which were of a really high standard. Highlights included Midori playing Bernstein’s ‘Serenade’ with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra at the Usher Hall, the Aberdeen Performing Arts/His Majesty’s Theatre production of ‘Sunset Song’, adapted from the classic novel by Lewis Grassic Gibbon by Alastair Cording, at the Assembly Rooms, and the Bear Trap Theatre production of ‘Bound’ by Jesse Briton at Zoo Southside. ‘Bound’ was a quintessential fringe theatre show – six men in sou'westers evoking the gritty reality of life on a fishing trawler in a tiny studio theatre, using only some chairs, a table and a swinging lightbulb with some great sea shanties interspersing the scenes. We also enjoyed the amazing juggling of Belgian clowns ‘Pas Perdus’ (thanks Kelly!), Canadian rapper Baba Brinkman performing hip-hop versions of the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Kalevala and Beowulf, Tom Wainwright’s dream narrative ‘Pedestrian’ and ‘Invisible Atom’, Anthony Black's one-man show encompassing quantum physics, free market economics and philosophy – with hilarious consequences! Tim Crouch’s ‘The Author’ at the Traverse was a fascinating, impressive and deeply uncomfortable experience: two sets of raked seating forced the audience to face itself with no stage in between and there was a lot of silent uncertainty before actors planted in the audience began to reveal themselves and a story very slowly started to emerge in a disjointed and non-linear way. The show tests the patience of the audience – and several people walked out when we saw it. For those who persevered the narrative did come to a conclusion but one which was shocking and unsettling. ‘The Author’ is a very powerful piece of theatre that plays with the boundaries between actors and audience, fiction and reality.

‘Stuart: A Life Backwards’ by Alexander Masters

2010-08-19T13:38:00.000+01:00

19 August 2010

I’ve been reading ‘Stuart: A Life Backwards’ by Alexander Masters, the fascinating, unorthodox biography of Stuart Shorter – a tale of life on the streets, prison, drugs, violence, self-harm and sexual abuse. Much of Stuart’s story is shocking and distressing but in Masters’ telling Stuart emerges as a compelling, funny, impressive and likeable personality – a triumph of finding the person amongst the problems. Masters intersperses the account of his own relationship with Stuart with the story of Stuart’s life before they met, told chronologically backwards. This gradual revelation unpicks the chain of episodes that have led Stuart to the situation in which we first encounter him. It’s an innovative approach which really helps you to understand the whole person but I also found the flitting backwards and forwards a little distracting. ‘Stuart: A Life Backwards’ is an amazing book – not quite like anything I have read before – not always easy reading but very effective at making you think about the whole nature of our society in very different ways. It’s funny how most of our debates about class tend to ignore the homeless underclass who see people who live on a council estate as ‘posh’.

'Inception' by Christopher Nolan

2010-08-09T16:40:00.000+01:00

9 August 2010

I like a bit of ambiguity in a film: the trick is getting the right balance between telegraphing the plot and creating something so complex it is frustratingly unfathomable. For me, Christopher Nolan’s new film ‘Inception’ achieved just the right balance, starting by bombarding you with confusion then allowing you to gradually – and very satisfyingly – start to piece everything together before leaving you with a lingering soupçon of ambiguity. I really enjoyed Nolan’s breakthrough film, 'Memento' (reviewed here in February 2007) and he does seem to bring a refreshingly creative complexity to everything he does. ‘Inception’ involves Leonardo DiCaprio leading a team who go into someone’s dreams to plant an idea. The surreal nature of dreams within dreams works (once you get the hang of it) because it maintains its own strict logic. The special effects are amazing: as characters walk up walls and along ceilings, and streets full of buildings fold over on top of themselves, it all manages to appear ‘real’ rather than obviously computer-generated. And I loved what I hope were a number of knowing references and in-jokes – absolutely unessential to your struggle to comprehend the plot but terribly satisfying when you spot them. For example, a fleeting cameo from Pete Postlethwaite seemed to me to be a reference to ‘The Usual Suspects’, famous for its own puzzles about what is real and what is imaginary. And surely it wasn’t a coincidence that DiCaprio’s wife is played by Marion Cotillard, best known for her Oscar-winning role in ‘La vie en rose’, and the musical trigger DiCaprio’s team use to communicate to each other in the dreams is Édith Piaf singing ‘Non, je ne regrette rien’? These clever hidden references (and I bet there were heaps more I didn’t spot) reminded me of the allusions to Kate Bush lyrics in David Mitchell’s novel ‘number9dream’ – absolutely nothing to do with the plot but terribly pleasing when you notice them. ‘Inception’ is not an easy film to follow but it’s well worth the struggle – proper complicated!

‘Quartet’ by Ronald Harwood

2010-08-03T12:38:00.001+01:00

3 August 2010

Last Saturday we were at Milton Keynes Theatre to see ‘Quartet’ by Ronald Harwood – a play about four aging opera singers meeting each other again in a retirement home for musicians and planning to reprise their famous performance of the quartet from Verdi’s ‘Rigoletto’. It was cleverly written exploration of growing old and differing attitudes to aging – and provided great roles for a quartet of well-known actors of a certain age: Timothy West, Susannah York, Michael Jayston and Gwen Taylor. A gentle play and a little bit predictable but enjoyable and inspiring – and really made me want to see ‘Rigoletto’.

WOMAD 2010

2010-07-27T16:54:00.002+01:00

27 July 2010

I had a great time at the WOMAD Festival at Charlton Park in Wiltshire last weekend. It was near-perfect festival weather – dry all weekend but not too hot. I saw 28 bands in total, ranging from the Cuban son of Sierra Maestra to the West African funk of Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou from Benin, to the Pakistani devotional singing of Rizwan-Muazzam Qawwali. There was a distinctly humorous flavour to this year’s festival which included lounge versions of ‘Ever Fallen in Love’ and ‘Blue Monday’ by the French group Nouvelle Vague, the politest singalong version you will ever hear of ‘Anarchy in the UK’ led by the excellent Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain and the surreal experience of being part of a massive crowd singing ‘Stairway to Heaven’ with octogenarian world music original Rolf Harris! Rolf was on fine form, entering into a conversation with every heckler and signing ‘thank you’ to the sign language interpreter at the side of the stage who was struggling to translate the nonsense words and farmyard noises of one of his songs. I particularly enjoyed hearing the young Iraqui oud player Khyam Allami, accompanied by the amazing Italian master percussionist Andrea Piccioni who could make a tambourine (well actually a tambourella) sound like an entire drum kit. And I would have liked to have heard more of Kormac’s Big Band – the live hip-hop orchestra from Dublin who include a barbershop quartet alongside the eponymous DJ. I loved watching Takht Al Emarat – a group of seven very serious, straight-faced young men from the United Arab Emirates who played some lovely traditional classical music. I don’t think any of the musicians could speak English so the gaps between pieces were just a brief embarrassed silence but as the enthusiasm of the crowd grew, you could start to see a few smiles creeping onto the faces of the players and by the final rapturous reception they were beaming from ear to ear. It was also great to see the Bavarian group LaBrassBanda really working a huge festival crowd with their unique take on fast-pumping techno dance music played on trumpet, trombone and tuba. The incredible Staff Benda Bilili (reviewed here in November 2009) were on excellent form and it was good to see the late great Charlie Gillett remembered by having a stage named in his honour. But I think my two favourite performances were by Lepistö & Lehti and Chumbawamba. Accordionist Markku Lepistö and double bass player Pekka Lehti are former members of the Finnish band Värttinä and have created a lovely album (called ‘Helsinki’) of contemporary tunes drawing on the Finnish folk tradition. They are gently engaging performers and played a wonderful set on the BBC Radio 3 stage in the arboretum on Saturday afternoon. I had never seen Chumbawamba before but was completely bowled over by their appearance on Friday evening. Their ‘Tubthumping’ days are now a historical footnote (and they resolutely resisted many calls to perform their solitary hit) but they are still articulate, witty and strongly political. Incorporating traditional English folk songs, acapella voices, catchy tunes, radical messages and fascinating stories, they were excellent and I strongly recommend their 17^th album ‘abcdefg’ – “a concept album about music”.

Gilberto Gil

2010-07-22T09:50:00.000+01:00

22 July 2010

Following the ‘Point of Culture’ debate at the Purcell Room on Wednesday, I made my way next door to the Royal Festival Hall, together with Alan Davey, Jude Kelly and my Points of Contact colleagues, to see the legendary Brazilian musician Gilberto Gil give a rare UK concert as part of the Southbank Centre’s ‘Festival Brazil’. Gil was a key figure in the Tropicália movement in the 1960s and spent time in London when exiled from Brazil by the military dictatorship. More recently, of course, he was the instigator of the Cultura Viva programme and its ‘Pontos de Cultura’ scheme which I visited Brazil in March to observe. But on Wednesday his performance was a celebration of forró – the high-tempo, rapid-fire dance music of Gil’s home territory of the North East of Brazil. He also included a few examples of something I think he called ‘shott’ – a corruption of ‘Scottish’ – which blends forró with European folk dance music to create a strange Brazilian version of Scottish country dance tunes: bizarre, surreal but still incredibly cool. Forró is infectious, toe-tapping music featuring the distinctive syncopated tinkling of a triangle, with accordion, violin, banjo, guitars and drums. Gil’s version is turbo-charged forró with electric guitars and a rock flavour but it still has that traditional rural party-music feel – a little like rockabilly. There was some jeering from fans upset at not hearing Gil’s greatest hits: imagine going to see a Paul McCartney concert only to discover that he wasn’t going to play any Beatles songs but was going to do 2 hours of skiffle (but actually, wouldn’t that be amazing?!). Gil is a bit Paul McCartney, a bit Bob Marley, a bit Chuck Berry and a bit Nelson Mandela. For all his legendary status as sixties pop icon and exiled political activist, it is hard not to keep returning to Gil’s appointment as Minister of Culture in President Lula’s first government. As Gil jigged his way across the stage, a little grandfatherly but still incredibly cool, I couldn’t decide whether it was more amusing to imagine a British rock star becoming a government minister or to picture a government minister dancing in front of a packed Festival Hall audience.

Northampton Symphony Orchestra concert

2010-07-20T16:19:00.001+01:00

20 July 2010

On Sunday I played in the annual Northampton Symphony Orchestra Friends’ Concert – a free bonus concert for subscribing ‘Friends’ of the orchestra. This is always a nice way for us to say thank you to the people who have supported us throughout the year and for us to feature particular sections of the orchestra. I really enjoyed Sunday’s programme which included Copland’s ‘Fanfare for the Common Man’ (for brass and percussion), Elgar's ‘Introduction and Allegro for Strings’ and the ‘Serenade for 13 Wind Instruments’ by Richard Strauss as well as the ‘Karelia Suite’ by Sibelius and Rossini's overture to ‘The Thieving Magpie’. For a short programme it was surprisingly strenuous, particularly in a very hot theatre, but I think all the pieces went well and it was a lovely way to round off our 2009-10 season.

'Bedroom Farce' by Alan Ayckbourn

2010-07-20T16:18:00.000+01:00

20 July 2010

On Saturday evening we were at Milton Keynes Theatre to see Peter Hall’s Rose Theatre, Kingston, production of Alan Ayckbourn’s 1976 play ‘Bedroom Farce’. Set in three contrasting bedrooms, all seen next to each other on the stage, this is a cleverly constructed comedy which features four couples so that someone is always out of place. A variety of devices are employed to create reasons why people end up in each other’s bedrooms but ‘Bedroom Farce’ isn’t really a bedroom farce at all in the conventional sense. Like most Ayckbourn plays it deals with ordinary people in a domestic setting and is concerned with relationships at different stages of development. As well as being very funny, ‘Bedroom Farce’ is suffused with typical Ayckbournian poignancy and it’s easy to recognise aspects of yourself and your own relationships in all four couples. Setting all the action in three bedrooms is a model that was developed to great effect by Andy Hamilton in his ‘Bedtime’ TV drama series but Ayckbourn was doing it 30 years earlier.