WOMAD 2015

29 July 2015

I may have been tempting fate twelve months ago when I wrote here (in August 2014) that “2014 was the hottest WOMAD I can remember”. This year's WOMAD Festival, at Charlton Park in Wiltshire, was much more reminiscent of the infamous 2007 festival (reviewed here in August 2007), when weeks of rain led to a sea of mud across the festival site. Last weekend wasn't quite that bad – the ground had been very dry before the rain started on Friday, and Saturday's weather was really good – but continuous rain on Friday and Sunday made festival-going hard work. If you have never had the festival liquid mud experience I can assure you it is even worse than you are imagining! Nevertheless I saw some great music (and quite a lot of great dancing too this year). I will particularly cherish the memories of two performances from South Africa – veteran female singers the Mahotella Queens, now in their seventies but still creating glorious vocal harmonies and exuberant dance moves, and, at the other end of the age spectrum, the joyful young a capella trio The Soil who had a similarly engaging stage presence with a very different style of music. Another highlight was the final WOMAD appearance of the English folk big band, Bellowhead, who I first encountered at WOMAD in 2006. About to start their farewell tour, Bellowhead gave a typically rousing performance on the Open Air Stage on Friday evening which drew an enormous crowd, despite the pouring rain. As well as the musical performances at this year's festival I enjoyed a talk by Richard Ranft, Head of Sound and Vision at The British Library, about '125 years of recorded music at The British Library'. I also attended the live simulcast on BBC Radio 3 and 6 Music on Sunday morning, hosted by Cerys Matthews, Mary Ann Kennedy and Lopa Kothari, which featured short performances by a host of the festival's stars. One of my favourite discoveries of the weekend was the French/Egyptian band Orange Blossom who draw on musical influences from around the world to create thoughtful, serious music, blending electronica and Arabic rhythms. I'm really enjoying listening to their new album, 'Under The Shade of Violets'. You can see a selection of my photos from WOMAD 2015 at: http://culturaloutlook.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/WOMAD2015

Northampton Symphony Orchestra concert

20 July 2015

What do the New York Philharmonic, Berliner Philharmoniker, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Northampton Symphony Orchestra have in common? They have all included players who were alumni of the Northamptonshire County Youth Orchestra. On Sunday, at our end-of-season concert for the Friends of Northampton Symphony Orchestra, the current leader of Northamptonshire County Youth Orchestra, 18-year-old Cleo Annandale, gave a beautiful performance of 'Mélodie' from Tchaikovsky's 'Souvenir d’un lieu cher', arranged by Alexander Glazunov for violin and orchestra. The rest of the concert had a operatic theme, including the Overture to Borodin's 'Prince Igor' (also arranged by Glazunov), the 'Grand March' from 'Tannhäuser' by Wagner and the 'Triumphal March' from Verdi's 'Aida'. The latter two pieces proved a showcase for the brass and percussion sections with our four trumpet players sounding particularly splendid. It was a lovely way to finish our 2014-15 season, which has seen the orchestra work with six different conductors. Sunday's concert was conducted by former NSO leader Trevor Dyson, who guided us to an impressive and very enjoyable performance.

'The Honours' by Tim Clare

20 July 2015

I've just finished reading 'The Honours' – the debut novel by the poet Tim Clare (as an unabridged audio book, narrated by Julie Teal). It's a peculiar book. Set between the wars, it tells the story of thirteen-year-old Delphine Venner. Delphine's father has suffered a breakdown and is taken, with his family, to recuperate at Alderberen Hall in Norfolk – home to a progressive 'Society' which uses a variety of new practices to improve the mind and body. Soon Delphine – the only child in this stately home commune – begins to suspect something more sinister is going on. Eavesdropping on the adults, discovering secret passages and befriending the grumpy gamekeeper, Mr Garforth, she sets out to discover the truth. But as the story develops it becomes clear that there is not going to be a rational solution to the puzzle Delphine is attempting to resolve. The conventional country-house narrative gives way to a fantasy story with the arrival of vicious creatures from another dimension. 'The Honours' is an ambitious undertaking, echoing the looming storm of the Second World War with the threat of a supernatural invasion of Britain, whilst also exploring themes of mental illness, immortality, time travel and more. I'm not sure it completely works: the action scenes are so meticulously described that they seem to go on forever, and there are far too many loose ends untied at the close. 'The Honours' could also have benefited from a little humour as light relief occasionally. Nevertheless, it is beautifully written: you can feel the poet's touch in phrases such as “the distant treeline hung like an unresolved chord”, “his slicked-back hair, receding at the temples, gave the impression he was moving at speed”, and “his posture shivered with the concentrated tension of a mousetrap.” This playfulness with metaphors, together with the country-house setting and a touch of the supernatural, reminded me of the novels of Ned Beauman (such as 'The Teleportation Accident', reviewed here in July 2013) but without Beauman's comic touch. Still, it will be interesting to see what Tim Clare writes next.

Chamber music concert at Hartwell House

17 July 2015

Mozart's 'Serenade for 13 Wind Instruments' is thought by some to be one of the greatest pieces of music every written. It's an unusual format and a unique combination of instruments, featuring four horns (though Mozart only ever wrote orchestral music scored for two horns) and requiring two basset horns (a close relation to the clarinet). I played the Serenade at a Music in the Brickhills concert in 2011 (reviewed here in May 2011) and it was a pleasure to have the opportunity to play it again in the delightful setting of Hartwell House in Buckinghamshire last Sunday. Hartwell House is a National Trust property that is also a luxury hotel. The stately home surroundings gave us a feel of the sort of salon environment that Mozart's chamber music was originally written for. It was great to be part of a very impressive group of musicians assembled by Paul Harris for this lovely concert.

Dominic Holland

17 July 2015

Dominic Holland first came to prominence as a comedian in the 1990s and I fondly remember his award-winning BBC Radio 4 series 'The Small World of Dominic Holland' (2000). He seemed to disappear from the stand-up comedy circuit soon afterwards to concentrate on writing. I really enjoyed his novel, 'The Ripple Effect' (published in 2003), – a comic tale of fans fighting to save a local football club – and he now has a string of popular novels to his name. Like many good comedians who seem to have disappeared from public view he now writes material for other performers, including Rob Brydon. So, I was interested to see that Dominic Holland was to headline the regular 'Rolling in the Aisles' comedy night at Kettering Arts Centre last Saturday. Kettering Arts Centre (where we saw Jeremy Hardy a couple of years ago, reviewed here in October 2013) uses St Andrews Church in Kettering. It feels odd watching a comedy night in a church but it has the distinct benefit of requiring the comedians to refrain from swearing (and seeing some struggle with this is amusing in itself!). Since taking the booking to play Kettering Arts Centre, Dominic Holland has had some significant news. A couple of weeks ago his son, Tom Holland, was announced as the new Spiderman, signing a six movie deal with Marvel which will start filming next year. Dominic Holland is clearly still somewhat shell-shocked by this news and started his act on Saturday by saying “I am Spiderman's Dad: this means I literally don't have to be here!”. Fortunately for us, he stayed and gave a great performance. His gentle, observational humour, slick ad libs and warm personality were likeable and extremely funny. If this was the last stand-up gig Dominic Holland feels the need to do, I'm glad we were there.

Iceland cruise

10 July 2015

We had a lovely two-week holiday on the P&O cruise ship Oriana, visiting Ireland, Iceland the Faroe Islands and Orkney. Our weather was much cooler than back home but we enjoyed some beautiful sunshine in Killybegs (Donegal), Reykjavik and Thorshavn in the Faroe Islands. We did a lot of hiking, exploring the countryside in each of our ports of call. Reykjavik is a lovely small city, surrounded by water and mountains. We also visited two towns at the end of long fjords in the North West (Isafjordur) and North East (Akureyri) of Iceland. Both were very reminiscent of the Norwegian fjords but somewhat bleaker, with few trees. Thorshavn, capital of the Faroe Islands, has a very pretty old town with a collection of colourful old houses with turf on the roofs crammed into a maze of narrow winding alleys on a spit of land between its two harbours. Our visits to Kirkwall (Orkney) and Dublin were hampered by heavy rain but we enjoyed the Orkney Museum in Kirkwall and the National Gallery in Dublin.

You can see a selection of my holiday photos at: http://www.culturaloutlook.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Iceland2015

'The Hook' by Arthur Miller, adapted for the stage by Ron Hutchinson

23 June 2015

Arthur Miller was born in the Red Hook district of New York City in 1915. His centenary is being celebrated with some great new productions of his best plays: the Young Vic production of 'A View From The Bridge' directed by Ivo van Hove and starring Mark Strong (reviewed here in April 2015), and the Royal Shakespeare Company production of 'Death of a Salesman, directed by Greg Doran and starring Anthony Sher (also reviewed here in April 2015), are two of the best stage plays I've seen this year. Last night we were at the Royal Theatre in Northampton to see the world premiere production of 'The Hook' – a screenplay Arthur Miller wrote in 1951 for an Elia Kazan film that was never made, which has now been adapted for the stage by Ron Hutchinson. In the 1950s, the film studio felt that Miller's script, about exploited dock workers standing up to corrupt union leaders, was too incendiary for an America embroiled in the House Un-American Activities Committee's anti-communist hearings. James Dacre's production for the Northampton Royal & Derngate and Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse recreates the bustling mayhem of the Red Hook dockyards on stage. Whereas 'A View From The Bridge' shows dock workers from the same district solely in a domestic setting, 'The Hook' was clearly intended to reveal the docks themselves on screen. Patrick Connellan's stunning set (with lighting by Charles Balfour) uses a framework of stairs and ramps and ingenious video projection to create a realistic picture of this dangerous workplace. The Royal & Derngate's policy of using a 'community ensemble' of local amateur actors alongside the professional cast was used effectively to cram 26 actors onto the small stage of the Royal Theatre, emphasising the crowded chaos of the dockyards. There were other signs that this had started life as a screenplay – short scenes switching locations abruptly - but Ron Hutchinson's adaptation was very effective. 'The Hook' is not among Miller's best works – it's a little too didactic and quite unrelentingly grim. But this was a fascinating and impressive production.

Northampton Symphony Orchestra concert

17 June 2015

During the first rehearsal of Vaughan Williams' 'Symphony No 6' with Northampton Symphony Orchestra in April, I told my fellow horn player, Ian Frankland, that not only had I never played the symphony before, I didn't think I had even heard it. The music felt unfamiliar and not what I had expected from a Vaughan Williams symphony. A few minutes later trumpeter Nick Bunker leant across holding his phone screen towards me to show me the review I had written here (in November 2008) about performing Vaughan Williams 'Symphony No 6' with Milton Keynes Sinfonia. It clearly had not made much of an impression on me! As we worked on the symphony over the past seven weeks I did begin to remember it. It is an unusual work for Vaughan Williams, sounding more like Shostakovich - angular, dispassionate, brutal and angry. Written in 1948, the symphony clearly suggests the horrific reality of war. It's a bleak outlook though the incredibly quiet final movement brings a sadly reflective peace. Our performance in Northampton last Saturday conquered most of the fiendish technical challenges of the work (with a particularly fine saxophone solo by Malcolm Green) and that last movement was really effective - you could have heard a pin drop at the end. Our concert opened with a contrasting view of war - the heroic splendour of William Walton's 'Prelude and Fugue (The Spitfire)'. We also played Bruch's 'Scottish Fantasy' with the brilliant young violinist Benjamin Roskams. Bruch uses a series of familiar Scottish folk songs to create a romantic concerto which tugs at the heart strings. Ben gave a stunning performance which I believe reduced some members of our audience to tears. Much of the piece feels like a duet between solo violin and harp, and our harpist, Alexander Thomas, was equally impressive. We ended this British themed concert with the tone poem 'Tintagel' by Arnold Bax - a sumptuous Wagnerian work which provided a wonderful finale to a really enjoyable concert. Our latest guest conductor Robert Max led us very effectively through this ambitious and challenging programme with its wide variety of styles.

'Othello' by William Shakespeare

12 June 2015

On Thursday we were at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon to see the new RSC production of 'Othello', directed by Iqbal Khan, with Hugh Quarshie as Othello and Lucian Msamati as Iago. The production has attracted attention for casting two black actors in the leading roles. Having a black Iago – and a mixture of ethnic backgrounds throughout the cast – alters the focus of the play, making the jealousies and rivalries less racially motivated and more personal. But the real achievement of the production – and its cast – is to make the audience believe in the characters and almost forget the innovative casting (which also includes a female Duke of Venice). Hugh Quarshie initially plays a very cool, laid-back Othello, with a confident swagger and a few impressive dance moves. But Iqbal Khan's production reminds us that he is also a trained soldier, capable of brutal violence, making his descent into lethal rage all the more believable. The production's contemporary setting emphasises the violent reality of war, with uncomfortable scenes of water-boarding and torture (surely the first 'Othello' to feature pliers, electric drill and blowtorch). Designer Ciaran Bagnall has created an amazing set that makes good use of the unique facilities of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. Venice is conjured up in the opening scenes with Iago and Rodrigo sailing a gondola along a real canal flowing through the middle of the stage. Lucian Msamati is wonderful as Iago – brash, funny, michievous, vicious and scheming – you really can't take your eyes off him. Joanna Vanderham is a tall, statuesque Desdemona, towering over Othello in her heels and bouffant hair. She brings a very young, wide-eyed enthusiasm to the role – the considerable age difference with her husband giving another angle to his jealousy.

David Sedaris

8 June 2015

On Sunday evening we were among a packed audience at the Derngate in Northampton to see the American humourist David Sedaris. I've enjoyed listening to David Sedaris on the radio and reading his books (such as 'Me Talk Pretty One Day' – reviewed here in October 2014) for years, but I had never seen him perform before. The huge popularity of his live performances might seem odd for what is primarily an old-fashioned reading. Sedaris stands behind a large wooden lectern, with only his head and the top of his bow tie visible, and reads a series of essays. His observational pieces are incredibly funny and he is a very good storyteller but he doesn't act them out – this is very much a reading, albeit a very slick one. The structure of the performance feels slightly odd as well, starting with a couple of long essays, followed by a series of random diary entries and finishing with a question & answer session – the content getting progressively briefer as the evening goes on. But however odd it seems, it really works. Sedaris is a quirky but very engaging personality. His ad libs and engagement with the audience are surprisingly good (given how reliant on his script he initially seems). And those audience questions reveal the obsessive following he has developed in the UK (mainly, I suspect from his appearances on BBC Radio 4), probing him on his family and his passions for taxidermy and litter-picking. He is careful to avoid using any material that has previously been broadcast on the BBC, treating us to new writing and work in progress. At times, David Sedaris gets close to being a stand-up comedian, with impressive improvisation and highly polished comic timing. But, as I am sure he would self-deprecatingly insist, he is a writer rather than a comedian. He is certainly one of a kind and it was great evening in the theatre.

'Another Man's Ground' by The Young’uns

2 June 2015

The Young’uns are a trio of young men from Teeside who sing a cappella versions of traditional and contemporary folk songs. They recently won the BBC Radio 2 Folk Award for best group and I've been listening to their wonderful album, 'Another Man's Ground'. Most of the songs feature unaccompanied vocals, though there is some instrumentation on a few of the tracks. Their traditional folk harmonies, together with a mischievously satirical (and political) approach to their subject matter, reminded me a lot of Chumbawamba (reviewed here in July 2010). The Young’uns blend protest songs, sea shanties and narrative tales, bringing a folk sensibility to the modern world – I particularly liked the song 'You Won't Find Me on Benefits Street' and they do a very moving version of Billy Bragg’s 'Between the Wars' (“I was a miner ...”). There's humour and a lightness of touch throughout the album, such as in the song 'A Lovely Cup of Tea' in which a racist attack on a mosque is subverted by Muslim hospitality. 'Another Man's Ground' is catchy, clever, witty, amusing and thought-provoking.

Heliotrope Chamber Ensemble concert

28 May 2015

Heliotrope Chamber Ensemble is a Northampton-based wind quintet, occasionally augmented by additional players. I played with them in a concert two years ago (reviewed here in April 2013) which included the UK premiere of 'Sacred Women' by the contemporary American composer Jeff Scott. Last Saturday I joined Heliotrope again for a concert performance of Richard Strauss's 'Suite in B flat major'. This is a very early work by Richard Strauss (opus 4) – written when he was still a teenager – but it is a lovely piece and very enjoyable to play. It's an interesting challenge playing in a thirteen-piece wind ensemble without a conductor. You have to work hard to keep the music together and to avoid slowing down but I think our performance went very well. The concert also included the fiendishly difficult Nielsen 'Wind Quintet' which I last saw performed at a Music in the Brickhills concert in 2011 (reviewed here in June 2011). I was full of admiration for the Heliotrope Quintet who tackled this challenging work very impressively.

'Mr Mac and Me' by Esther Freud

28 May 2015

It was nearly twenty years ago when we first visited the beautiful village of Walberswick in Suffolk. We took the 'ferry' (a small rowing boat which charged 50 pence per person!) across the estuary to Southwold and, as we got out of the boat, we asked the ferryman what time he was due to finish for the day. “That was my last trip” he said, but reassured us that there was a footbridge a little further inland that we could use to return. That footbridge turned out to be quite a long way inland – a considerably longer return journey. It was only later that I learned of Walberswick's connection to the architect and artist Charles Rennie Mackintosh who lived and worked there for a year from 1914. In 1997 I attended the Scottish launch of the seminal Comedia report 'Use or Ornament? The social impact of participation in the arts' at the recently completed 'House for an Art Lover' in Bellahouston Park in Glasgow. It was great to hear the report's author Francois Matarasso speaking about his groundbreaking work, but it was the building, designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh with his wife, Margaret MacDonald, in 1901 but only built long after his death, that made the bigger impression on me. It was wonderful to revisit the House for an Art Lover on a trip to Glasgow in 2013. So it was fascinating to discover Esther Freud's novel 'Mr Mac and Me' (which I have just read as an unabridged audio book, narrated by John Banks) which deals with the time Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Margaret MacDonald Mackintosh spent in Walberswick and talks at length about their design for the 'House for an Art Lover'. Esther Freud's story is told by a local boy, Thomas Mags, whose father runs a pub in Walberswick (only ever referred to in the novel as 'the village'). Thomas is an aspiring artist and, like Charles Rennie Mackintosh, has a limp due to a damaged foot. The boy becomes friends with the Mackintoshes but, when the war with Germany begins, these outsiders are viewed with suspicion by the local community, particularly when correspondence in the German language is discovered amongst their possessions. The effect of DORA (the 1914 Defence of the Realm Act – which introduced the first licensing hours among many other measures) on local life is really interesting. 'Mr Mac and Me' is beautifully written but, at times, reads more like a diary than a novel. Despite the wartime setting, the pace of the plot is slow. Nevertheless I enjoyed discovering more about the Mackintoshes and it was lovely to bring together my own memories of Walberswick and the House for an Art Lover.

London Festival of Baroque Music concert

22 May 2015

In 2014, after 30 years of continuous support, Lufthansa withdrew its sponsorship from the Lufthansa Festival of Baroque Music. After a frantic 12 months of fundraising the Festival's Artistic Director, Lindsay Kemp, and his team have succeeded in presenting the first-ever London Festival of Baroque Music. On Sunday we were at St John's Smith Square in London to see the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and the Schola Pietatis Antonio Vivaldi present a programme of music by Vivaldi. In early 18th century Venice the Pieta was a foundling hospital which took in infants abandoned by their parents and deposited anonymously in a special niche in its wall. The children were fostered by local families and received a good education and vocational training. Nearly all the boys left aged 18 to take up occupations in the wider world but most of the female residents remained for their whole lives in the hospital. The girls were trained in handicrafts and music. When Vivaldi, who was a member of the hospital staff, wrote music for the Pieta choir his four-part harmonies were sung entirely by female singers with women unusually taking the tenor and bass parts. The Schola Pietatis Antonio Vivaldi aims to recreate this unfamiliar choral sound. It was strange to hear Vivaldi's 'Gloria' – one of his best known choral works – sung by the all-female choir. While the musical notes were the same, the timbre of the low female voices contributed to a very different choral sound. The choir were ably accompanied by the period instruments of the excellent Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, led  by the charismatic violinist, Kati Debretzeni. Her performance of Vivaldi's 'Concerto in D major' at the end of the first half of the concert was fantastic – the delicate, playful cadenza at the end of the final movement had a packed audience collectively holding its breath – a magical moment. The whole concert was broadcast live on BBC Radio 3 and you can listen to it for the next 25 days at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05vh237

'Man and Superman' by George Bernard Shaw

15 May 2015

On Thursday this week we were at the Errol Flynn Filmhouse in Northampton to watch the NT Live broadcast of George Bernard Shaw's 'Man and Superman', live from the National Theatre in London. Simon Godwin's production squeezed Shaw's text down to a “compelling three and a half hours” but the time whizzed by. Ralph Fiennes is a compelling presence on stage, delivering his lines at a machine-gun pace but with every syllable completely clear and intelligible, and his physical acting is amazing. This was an incredibly funny production, with an extremely strong cast. Indira Varma, as Anne, was fantastic – her facial expressions and rapid mood-turns rivalling Fiennes as the standout performance. And Tim McMullan, as Mendoza and The Devil, almost stole the show. 'Man and Superman' is a long and very wordy play but this production created a multitude of laugh-out-loud moments and demonstrated how Shaw links the wit of Oscar Wilde to the cerebral thirst for knowledge of Tom Stoppard. Indira Varma and Ralph Fiennes were a 'Beatrice and Benedict' pairing that was both hilarious and remarkably touching.

Berlin

15 May 2015

We had a wonderful holiday in Berlin last week. This was my first visit to this fascinating city and it was great to explore it. We took bus and boat tours and visited the Brandenburg Gate, Checkpoint Charlie, remaining sections of the Berlin Wall and Charlottenburg Palace. One of highlights of our trip was climbing to the top of Norman Foster's Reichstag Dome – you walk up a spiral ramp inside the massive glass dome, with amazing views out across the city as well as being able to look directly down into the German Parliament chamber (the people symbolically above the politicians). We also visited the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe – an amazing installation of 2,711 concrete slabs, designed by architect Peter Eisenman and engineer Buro Happold. We enjoyed the Pergamon Museum, particularly the enormous reconstruction of the Ishtar Gates of Babylon. It was interesting to be in Berlin in the week of the 70th anniversary of the end of the Second World War. There were lots of exhibitions about the war and we marked the anniversary of VE Day by attending a stunning performance of Benjamin Britten's 'War Requiem' at the Gethsemane Church. The War Requiem was written for the consecration of the new Coventry Cathedral, was built after the original fourteenth-century structure was destroyed in a World War II bombing raid. Britten combines the text of the Latin requiem mass with war poems by Wilfred Owen. I played in a performance of the War Requiem while I was at University in Birmingham, but I hadn't seen it performed since. The work requires massive forces – a symphony orchestra, chamber orchestra, choral society, boys' choir, organ and three soloists – so it always feels like a major event. This concert was presented by the Junges Ensemble Berlin and featured the Berlin youth orchestra and youth choir, together with the Prometheus Ensemble and the Berlin Cathedral Choir. It was conducted by Frank Markowitsch and Michael Riedel. Having so many people performing resulted in a sell-out audience of mostly young people and families. The concert started with a video collage projected on a large screen above the stage, showing scenes of conflict from World War II to Vietnam to modern-day Afghanistan and Iraq. This film was accompanied by a performance of Arvo Pärt's haunting 'Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten'. The dying chimes of the bell at the end of this piece merged seamlessly into the opening notes of the War Requiem. It was a wonderful concert, brilliantly performed and very moving – and an emotional end to our visit to Berlin.

'King John' by William Shakespeare

11 May 2015

When King John held court in Northampton he is known to have visited the Church of the Holy Sepulchre – a church built by the Earl of Northampton on his return from the crusades. This 12th century church is still standing and it was a wonderful setting, as we mark the 800th anniversary of John signing the Magna Carta, for the Northampton Royal & Derngate's production of Shakespeare's 'King John', which we saw there last Monday. 'King John' is definitely not one of Shakespeare's best plays, but James Dacre's production (the first Royal & Derngate co-production with Shakespeare's Globe) was a five-star theatrical experience. From the moment we entered the church to see the body of Richard the Lionheart lying in state in the circular sepulchre, surrounded by monks conducting his funeral, we were immersed in the action of the play. The amazing setting, lit almost entirely by candles, with the scent of incense ever-present, combined with original music written by Orlando Gough and Jonathan Fensom's stunning design, created a wonderfully atmospheric performance. It was a privilege to be among the sell-out audience crammed into the wooden church pews, watching the actors on a cross-shaped platform along the nave and transepts. Jo Stone-Fewings was excellent as King John and I was particularly impressed by the two youngest actors: Laurence Belcher (playing Arthur and Henry) demonstrated both compelling acting and a beautiful counter-tenor singing voice; and Aruhan Galieva as Blanche was a great singer making an impressive acting debut. 'King John' finishes its run in Northampton this weekend and then plays at Temple Church in London and Salisbury Cathedral before heading to Shakepeare’s Globe in June. Catch it if you can.

'Cyrano de Bergerac' based on the translation by Anthony Burgess of the play by Edmond Rostand

27 April 2015

On Saturday we were at the Royal Theatre in Northampton to see 'Cyrano de Bergerac' – a co-production by Royal & Derngate Northampton and Northern Stage, based on the translation written by Anthony Burgess of the play written by Edmond Rostand. 'Cyrano de Bergerac' is such a familiar story it was a surprise to realise I hadn't seen the play before. And it was interesting to discover its history: Rostand's 1897 play was based on a real-life duellist and literary figure who lived in early 17th century France. It was translated into English – in prose and in verse – several times before the 1971 version by Anthony Burgess entered the canon as a modern classic. Burgess, the author of 'A Clockwork Orange' was an accomplished translator (and a composer). According to the programme, he rewrote Rostand's original verse (rhymed alexandrines) as “decasyllabic heroic couplets, with occasional diversions into sonnets, hexameters, and free verse for the moving final scene”. All of which helps to emphasise the fact that 'Cyrano de Bergerac' is a play about poetry and drama. At times the plot feels almost incidental to an exploration of ideas about language and performance. The Royal & Derngate/Northern Stage production, directed by Lorne Campbell, starts metatextually with Cyrano speaking to the audience about the play we are about to see. The action is set in a gymnasium, complete with climbing bars and vaulting horses. Most of the actors wear fencing whites, which they adorn with brightly coloured hats or scarves to indicate the various roles they assume through the play. It is an energetic and intriguing production but it felt like an odd mix of styles. The plot was often interrupted by the performance of standalone poems, with the actors occasionally using a microphone hanging from a long cable for these performances within the performance. The Burgess version is clearly extremely clever, playful and witty but I felt I really needed to read it to get the full effect of the text. Nigel Barrett was a very impressive Cyrano, commanding the stage physically and vocally. It was also fascinating to discover, afterwards, that the production's ensemble cast was made up of six emerging performers from Northern Stage's NORTH scheme – a 21 week paid training programme to support and develop young actors in the North East of England, part of Northern Stage's commitment to creating access and opportunities for working class actors with exceptional talent.

'Love, Sex and Other Foreign Policy Goals' by Jesse Armstrong

27 April 2015

Jesse Armstrong is best known as one of the writers of the long-running TV comedy 'Peep Show'. His first novel, 'Love, Sex and Other Foreign Policy Goals' (which I have just finished reading as an unabridged audio book, narrated by Chris Addison) has the same hilarious but squirm-inducing tone as 'Peep Show', with the consequences of believably selfish bad behaviour creating both cartoon comedy and real-world pain. 'Love, Sex and Other Foreign Policy Goals' follows a group of students, setting out in 1994 to cross Europe in a minibus to perform a peace play in war-torn Sarajevo. Their mixture of naivety, good intentions and lack of understanding makes for an uncomfortable but thrilling tale. And Andy, our first person narrator, who has only got involved in the expedition as a way of getting close to the girl of his dreams, is both despicable and sadly sympathetic (particularly as you wait for his lie about being able to be speak Serbo-Croat to be discovered!). Chris Addison feels like the perfect voice to bring Andy to life. As the gang get to the Balkans, their story becomes increasingly bleak, turning from a road trip into a very real evocation of war. Though often very funny, this is too serious to be a comic novel but I found it a real page-turner, grippingly compelling. I look forward to seeing what Jesse Armstrong writes next.

Northampton Symphony Orchestra concert

22 April 2015

When the soloist who was due to perform the 'Oboe Concerto' by Richard Strauss at our Northampton Symphony Orchestra concert last Saturday pulled out, some weeks ago, the orchestra's Principal Oboe, Kathy Roberts, stepped into the breach. Kathy's performance on Saturday was stunning, mastering the technical challenges of the concerto, the emotion of the music and the nerves of the situation. I can't believe anyone else would have played it better. It was also very impressive to see our second oboe player, Jayne Henderson, taking Kathy's role in the orchestra for the whole programme – including many exposed solo passages. We started the concert with Dvorak's tone poem 'The Noonday Witch' but our main focus was the mighty 'Symphony No.1' by Rachmaninoff. I didn't know this symphony, which feels quite different from its better known successor, but really enjoyed getting to grips with it. The piece has a thematic coherence across its four substantial movements and climaxes in a very exciting finale – the opening of which, featuring our trumpet and percussion sections, was truly thrilling. Our latest guest conductor, Scott Wilson, combining meticulous attention to detail with passionate enthusiasm, drew a great performance from the orchestra.

'The Hard Problem' by Tom Stoppard

22 April 2015

Last Thursday we were at the wonderful Errol Flynn Filmhouse in Northampton to watch the NT Live broadcast of Tom Stoppard's new play, 'The Hard Problem', live from the National Theatre in London. I'm a big Stoppard fan and it was great to leap back into the familiar speech patterns of his characters debating their way through complex issues – in this case the mystery of consciousness. If it is going to become possible to model the human brain as a machine, will we be able to explain consciousness? In 'The Hard Problem' there is a running joke about the cliché of 'the prisoner's dilemma', but Stoppard avoids any reference at all to the other elephantine cliché in the room – that of 'the ghost in the machine'. The play asks whether anyone ever truly acts completely altruistically: if every apparently generous act actually conceals some vested interest or ulterior motive, however slight, then it could potentially be modelled and predicted. Tom Stoppard plays with these ideas through a (fairly slight) plot that demonstrates the complications of altrusim and coincidence through the lives of the characters. 'The Hard Problem' is a star vehicle for its female lead, the excellent Olivia Vinall, who we last saw as Desdemona in the National Theatre production of 'Othello' (reviewed here in September 2013). She appears in almost every scene and creates a very sympathetic protagonist. Some Stoppard plays would work as well on the radio as the stage, but Olivia Vinnal's reactions and facial expressions make 'The Hard Problem' more than just a play of words. This is a relatively short play, without an interval – a condensed version of Stoppard, without the elaborate framing devices of some of his earlier plays – but I really enjoyed it.

'Mainlander' by Will Smith

16 April 2015

The comedian Will Smith is best known for his role as an inept political advisor in 'The Thick of It', and for the fact that he comes from Jersey. His first novel, 'Mainlander' (which I have just read as an unabridged audio book, narrated by Jot Davies), clearly draws closely on personal experience. It is set in Jersey in 1987, allowing Will Smith the opportunity to mix some 1980s nostalgia with a portrait of his island home. He creates a vivid impression of what was like to live on Jersey, showing both the pros and the cons. You might expect a comedian's first book to be a comic novel but 'Mainlander' is a fairly straight thriller, with some nicely judged humour but driven by its intricate plot. We see the events through the eyes of series of key characters as their individual stories overlap. There's more plot than character development and I didn't find any of the protagonists very sympathetic, but it's an entertaining and gripping read.

The Blockheads

16 April 2015

On Sunday we were at The Stables in Wavendon to see The Blockheads. I've written here before about seeing The Blockheads live (in July 2007, December 2012 and November 2014) and they always put on a good show – primarily because they seem to be playing mainly for their own enjoyment. The band were on fine form this week as they marked the fifteenth anniversary of Ian Dury's death, dedicating an appropriately anarchic version of 'Sweet Gene Vincent' to the late singer/songwriter.

'The Nether' by Jennifer Haley

7 April 2015

On Saturday we were at the Duke of York's Theatre in London to see the Headlong/Royal Court Theatre production of 'The Nether' by Jennifer Haley. This innovative 2013 play looks at the way our online lives are growing and might become more attractive than our real-world lives. Director Jeremy Herrin, set designer Es Devlin and video designer Luke Halls have created an amazing theatrical experience that blends video imagery with a spectacular set to show the 'real' being constructed from the virtual (though it's interesting how much is achieved with very old-fashioned mirrors!). Jennifer Haley explores some extremely uncomfortable issues, asking whether online role-play might provide a 'safe' outlet for those with paedophile tendencies or whether it might encourage such behaviour. It's a clever, disturbing play that questions the boundaries between dreams and reality and hopes to act as a wake-up call about what is already beginning to happen in online virtual communities such as Second Life. 'The Nether' is a visually stunning but morally chilling drama.

'Death of a Salesman' by Arthur Miller

2 April 2015

This week we were at The Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon to see Greg Doran's new production of 'Death of a Salesman' by Arthur Miller. It was very interesting to compare this with the Young Vic production of 'A View From The Bridge', though they are very different plays. Anthony Sher was stunning as Willy Loman, nervously cheerful and talkative in complete contrast to the dark, brooding silence of Mark Strong's Eddie Carbone. Sher is a very physical actor and his subtle transformation from the unsteady, ageing Loman to his younger self in the flashback sequences, while managing to remind you that this is the older man re-enacting remembered events rather than the events themselves, was a masterclass. There were moments during the play when Sher's portrayal of the disintegration of Willy Loman's false bravado was so discomfiting I found myself physically squirming in my seat. Harriet Walter gave Loman's wife Linda a tragic grace and it was fascinating to see Anthony Sher and Alex Hassell, who I last saw playing Falstaff and Prince Hal in Henry IV Parts 1 & 2 (reviewed here in April and May 2014) as Willy Loman and his son Biff – two similarly strained 'father-son' relationships. A five-star production of a great play.

'A View From The Bridge' by Arthur Miller

2 April 2015

Last Thursday we were at the West End cinema in Boston to see the NT Live screening of the Young Vic production of Arthur Miller's 'A View From The Bridge', directed by Ivo van Hove and starring Mark Strong. This acclaimed production, now at Wyndham's Theatre in London's West End, is a stark rendering of the play in an almost bare, square box set. It brings out the Greek tragedy structure of the text and builds to an incredibly powerful, tragic conclusion which feels like an inevitable car crash everyone can see coming but no-one can avoid. The acting was wonderful and the close-ups of Mark Strong's facial expressions were a lesson in how much can be said without words. Painful, brutal and compelling.

Lincolnshire

2 April 2015

We had a lovely holiday in Lincolnshire last week. We stayed in the village of Wrangle, between Boston and Skegness and enjoyed walks along the mud flats on the north side of The Wash, looking across to Norfolk, and at the nature reserve at Gibraltar Point. We also ventured north into the Lincolnshire Wolds, visiting Gunby Hall and Bolingbroke Castle (the birthplace of Henry IV) and walking from Tealby and Donnington on Bain. We visited Louth, Horncastle and the delightful town of Woodhall Spa. We were very lucky with the weather, waking up to bright sunshine every morning apart from one, and saw some spectacular Lincolnshire sunsets across the big skies of the fens.

'A Spool of Blue Thread' by Anne Tyler

20 March 2015

Anne Tyler has said her latest novel, 'A Spool of Blue Thread', might be her last. That would be a great shame as she is still at the height of her powers. 'A Spool of Blue Thread', which I have just finished reading (as an unabridged audio book, narrated by Kimberly Farr), is an amazing book. It is the story of a family, and the story of a house, with the narrative flitting forwards and backwards in time to create a thoroughly rounded picture of the Whitshanks and their family home on Bouton Road in Baltimore. Anne Tyler's writing appears clear and simple – it lacks the elegant flourishes of Marilynne Robinson's prose (reviewed here in February 2015) – but goes much deeper than you first realise, building an incredibly powerful emotional connection with the characters. 'A Spool of Blue Thread' is full of domestic scenes where little seems to be happening but enormous currents swell beneath the trivial everyday tasks. This is a mature Anne Tyler novel, without some of the quirkiness of her earlier books, more melancholy and serious. We really feel the family's joy and grief. It's gentle, subtle, impressive and moving. More please, Anne.

'Behind the Beautiful Forevers' by David Hare, based on the book by Katherine Boo

13 March 2015

Katherine Boo's prize-winning book 'Behind the Beautiful Forevers' chronicles life in Annawadi – a shanty town next to the airport in Mumbai, which looks a lot like the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. David Hare's play, directed by Rufus Norris for the National Theatre, and broadcast to cinemas by NT Live this week, dramatises real people and incidents to create a theatrical experience that is shocking, frightening and violent but also warm, funny and uplifting. We saw the NT Live broadcast at Cineworld in Milton Keynes and the combination of the impressive scale of the set, recreating Annawadi on the vast Lyttleton stage, with the close-ups afforded by the NT Live cameras made for a compelling spectacle. 'Behind the Beautiful Forevers' was also the first National Theatre show to feature a completely British Asian cast. It was a fascinating and moving production.

Northampton Symphony Orchestra concert

2 March 2015

The music of Anton Bruckner tends to divide classical music fans. Unsurprisingly, as a horn player, I love Bruckner symphonies – my CD box set of all eleven symphonies (numbers 1-9, Die Nulte (number 0) and the Study Symphony (number 00)), conducted by Georg Tintner with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland and the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, is a treasured favourite in my music collection. Bruckner's orchestral music has a raw, slowly menacing power, like huge waves rolling through the middle of a great ocean. There is beauty, glory and brilliance, tempered by humility. The symphonies are big, long, and loud, but with moments of unexpected gentleness. On Saturday I played the first horn part in Bruckner's Symphony No 6 with the Northampton Symphony Orchestra at St Matthew's Church in Northampton. During 2014-15, while we search for a new permanent conductor, each NSO concert is being directed by a different guest conductor. On Saturday James Ham, currently the Sir Charles Mackerras Conducting Fellow at Trinity Laban Conservatoire, drew a great performance from the orchestra that had seemed unlikely as late as last Wednesday's rehearsal. I think it's fair to say we had struggled to get used to the Bruckner, but it came together beautifully on Saturday evening and I really enjoyed playing it. Bruckner writes wonderfully for the horns, with plenty to do throughout the piece and prominent moments for all four horn players. It was great to be part of a really strong horn section and, though there was some fine playing in all sections of the orchestra, this time I think I might be forgiven for saying it was all about the horns! The concert opened with Mozart's Overture to 'Cosi fan Tutte' which we followed with a wonderful performance of the Schumann Piano Concerto by the brilliant young, Northampton-born soloist, Stephen Meakins. Stephen, a 27-year-old graduate of the Royal College of Music, had not performed the Schumann before and told me he had been working on the piece for fourteen months in preparation for this one performance. I don't know about him but that made me nervous! I needn't have worried as he gave a stunning performance, our accompaniment of the tricky syncopated passage in the last movement finally began to click in Saturday afternoon's rehearsal and James held us together well in the concert. It was a really enjoyable concert, perhaps more so because the orchestra had not felt particularly comfortable with the repertoire and had to work that bit harder, so the results were especially pleasing. Now I'm really looking forward to the next concert, new pieces and another new conductor.

'Jefferson's Garden' by Timberlake Wertenbaker

26 February 2015

Last Saturday we were at the Watford Palace Theatre to see 'Jefferson's Garden', a new play by Timberlake Wertenbaker, directed by Brigid Larmour. It tells the story of the American War of Independence and the founding of the United States through the eyes of a quaker family, newly arrived from England. Wertenbaker manages to blend the macro political story with the personal family tale by using a Greek-style chorus. The chorus steps out of the historical period, using contemporary language and references wittily to prick the potential pomposity of a very worthy narrative. With a cast of nine actors playing a host of characters on a fairly bare set, this is a fast-moving and inventive piece of theatre. But there is a very serious purpose at the heart of the play, as it addresses Jefferson's dilemma in drawing up the Declaration of Independence – whether the hard-won freedom should be extended to the slaves, knowing that this would have split the new union.

Bad Manners

26 February 2015

I have been to many concerts at Bedford Corn Exchange over the years, but (perhaps because most of the concerts have involved the Philharmonia Orchestra) I have never previously witnessed the audience anticipating the arrival of the performers on the stage by aggressively chanting “You Fat Bastard, You Fat Bastard”. When Bad Manners finally took to the stage, their inimitable lead-singer, Buster Bloodvessel, beaming at the adoring crowd, simply replied “you're too kind!”. We later learned that the portly Buster Bloodvessel, now 56 years old, had just got out of hospital and nearly didn't make the concert. Bad Manners' upbeat 1980s ska is cheerful, catchy and incredibly tongue-in-cheek. At one point Buster Bloodvessel said “now for something serious – and some people say we're just a joke band” before launching into a very cheesy version of Andy Williams' “Can't Take My Eyes Off You”. Buster Bloodvessel is a compelling front man who looks like he is having a ball. As I've said here on numerous occasions, you can’t beat a band that dances to its own tunes – and Bad Manners never stopped dancing. A packed Corn Exchange was full of fans who knew the words to all the band's songs and were also dancing like it was 1981. Towards the end of the evening my eye was distracted by a sudden movement across the stage. It took me a moment to realise this was a dog running into the middle of the band. “That's my dog” Buster informed us as the hound leapt up at him, playfully. He proceeded to hold the microphone so we could hear the dog barking in time to the ska beat, its tail wagging furiously.

'Housekeeping' by Marilynne Robinson

20 February 2015

I've been reading Marilynne Robinson's 1980 novel 'Housekeeping' (as an unabridged audio book narrated by Becket Royce). 'Housekeeping' is widely regarded as a modern American classic, which Robinson followed more than twenty years later with the highly-acclaimed Gilead trilogy of novels. It's the tale of a family living in the remote Idaho town of Fingerbone. The domestic setting and gentle pace reminded me of the books of Anne Tyler. 'Housekeeping' is narrated by Ruth, one of two young girls who are cared for by a succession of family members after their mother's suicide. The writing very cleverly gives the impression of a girl emerging from the fuzzy confusion of childhood into a world that gradually crystallises as she approaches adulthood. At first I was not clear which of the sisters was the elder – for a while I wondered whether they might be twins – but as they grow older and more distinct from each other, it becomes very clear which is the younger sibling. This gently confusing, non-linear narrative feels initially a little hard to follow but you soon realise that this is not a book that requires you to pay attention to an intricate plot. There is very little plot in 'Housekeeping' – the most dramatic events (a train plunging off a bridge into the lake, a car driving into the lake) happen off-stage or before the start of the narrative. This is a novel that focusses on characters and family relationships. It's beautifully written – I found myself frequently stopping to note the most lovely phrases. Of Bernice, an elderly neighbour who wears an excessive amount of make-up, we are told “she was an old woman but she managed to look like a young woman with a ravaging disease”. When floods swept the town “the library was flooded to a depth of three shelves, creating vast gaps in the Dewey Decimal system”. Floods are a recurring theme of the novel, as are the call of the railroad and a transient life. The tone of Ruth's narrative is unexcitable, matter-of-fact, taking the eccentricities of others in her stride. 'Housekeeping' washes over the reader like a gentle, benevolent flood.

Natalie Prass

13 February 2015

I'm really enjoying the eponymous album by the young American singer-songwriter Natalie Prass. Natalie Prass has a delicate, pretty voice and writes beautiful songs in a variety of styles – from country to soul. This is upbeat but slightly wistful pop with soaring strings and a laid-back horn section. The brass sound in particular reminds me of Zach Condon's Beirut (reviewed here in November 2006 and October 2007) and the catchy, theatrical songs sound a lot like Nerrina Pallot (reviewed here in May 2006). The album has a retro feel that seems like a familiar old friend the first time you hear it. Lovely stuff.

'The Corrections' by Jonathan Franzen, adapted by Marcy Kahan

4 February 2015

Jonathan Franzen's 2001 novel, 'The Corrections', is one of the great contemporary American novels and one of the best books I've read in the past twenty years. It's more than ten years since I read 'The Corrections' so I have enjoyed reconnecting with it through the recent BBC Radio 4 dramatisation which I finished listening to this week. Marcy Kahan's adaptation, in fifteen 15-minute episodes, necessarily cherry-picks key scenes from this mammoth novel but felt like rediscovering old friends. I had forgotten many aspects of the story and was surprised to remember how funny it is. 'The Corrections' looks at the relationships between an elderly Mid-Western couple, Alfred and Enid Lambert and their three grown-up children. It is an often-excruciating examination of the strains within a family. As Enid tries desperately to persuade her sons and daughter to come to the family home for one last Christmas together, Jonathan Franzen manages to make the reader simultaneously sympathetic to characters with directly opposing points of view (something also very impressively achieved by Andrea Levy in 'Small Island'). All the main protagonists can be quite annoying but each has some redeeming qualities. 'The Corrections' is incredibly sad, painful and terribly funny, with some great set-piece scenes. You can still listen to most of the episodes at: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04wtcj1

'How To Be Both' by Ali Smith

27 January 2015

I like a bit of ambiguity and the novelist Ali Smith seems to specialise in it. I know her novels, such as 'The Accidental' (reviewed here in May 2006), frustrate some readers with their unresolved plots and loose ends, but occasionally it's nice to read something that challenges you and really makes you think. I've just finished reading Ali Smith's new novel, 'How To Be Both' (as an unabridged audio book, narrated by John Banks). It's a fascinatingly unconventional story consisting of two halves, both titled 'Part One', which can be read in either order. (Half the printed copies of the book have the parts one way round and half the other.) The two interlinked tales – of a teenage girl in contemporary Cambridge coming to terms with the death of her mother and the (fictionalised) life story of the (real) Italian early-Renaissance painter, Francesco del Cossa, are full of parallels. George is a girl with a boy's name while Francesco is a woman living as a man. George can bring her mother back to life by remembering their times together in the present tense, just as biography can bring long-dead people like Francesco back to life. 'How To Be Both' is about being both male and female, alive and dead, light and dark. The novel focusses on the art of allegory, the technique of painting and the act of remembering (and forgetting). George lives in the place where DNA was discovered and the double helix acts as another example of 'both'. Both halves of the novel end quite abruptly (a bit like the sections of David Mitchell's 'Cloud Atlas') and leave the reader with lots of unresolved questions. I think your view of the book would be substantially different depending on which half you read first. George's mother asks which comes first, the painting you see on the surface or the picture which has been obscured beneath it by an artist reusing a canvas. George says the earlier painting obviously came first but her mother points out that it is not the one we see first now. Francesco's story occurs both after George's narrative and (in extensive flashback) before. If you read George's half of the book first, there is a suggestion that the other half is George's school project to imagine the life of Francesco del Cossa – though this is never confirmed. 'How To Be Both' is extremely clever, intricate and fascinating, though it can also be a bit annoying. There is an excessive use of “he said, she said” throughout, which feels like a stylistic device that might work better in print than it did in the audio book. And this is not a novel for lovers of plot – it is a book of characters and ideas. George's pedantry, in relation to grammar and tenses, alerts the reader that every word has been carefully considered and there are beautiful layers of meaning and ambiguity in the text (like tiles layered upon a roof).

Milton Keynes Sinfonia workshop - 'Symphonic Dances from West Side Story' by Leonard Bernstein

26 January 2015

I really enjoyed taking part in the Milton Keynes Sinfonia workshop days on 'The Rite of Spring' by Igor Stravinsky (reviewed here in May 2013) and the 'Sinfonietta' by Leoš Janácek (reviewed here in April 2014). So I was looking forward to this year's workshop at the Open University in Milton Keynes last Sunday. This time our focus was the 'Symphonic Dances from West Side Story' by Leonard Bernstein. Bernstein died 25 years ago this year and, as our conductor David Knight welcomed us and introduced the specialist jazz trumpeter who had joined us for the workshop, I was reminded of that amazing documentary of Bernstein conducting the 1984 studio recording of 'West Side Story' with Kiri Te Kanawa and José Carreras (which you can watch in full at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjxWKL6jhC4). I played the 'Symphonic Dances from West Side Story' with the Northampton Symphony Orchestra in 2008 (reviewed here in March 2008) so I was fairly familiar with the piece. It was great to play it again on Sunday, with an army of fantastic percussionists behind us, a wonderful brass section and some beautiful solos from every section of the orchestra. I'm not sure our 'Mambo' quite matched that famous performance by the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra at the BBC Proms in 2007 (see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlAaiBNCYU4) but it was great fun.

'Contigo' by Marta Gómez

23 January 2015

I've been listening this week to 'Contigo' – the new album by the Colombian singer-songwriter Marta Gómez. This is a substantial collection of original songs that vary from gentle pop ballads to traditional call and response (backed by percussion and handclaps) to Brazilian bossa nova (sounding very like the Brazilian singer Monica Vasconcelos). The album is subtitled 'Songs with Latin American Soul' and you can hear a range of different Latin American styles in the songs. Marta Gómez has a great voice and creates cheerful, uplifting songs. It's beautiful music, careful, precise and laid-back but never boring.

'Moriarty' by Anthony Horowitz

13 January 2015

I really enjoyed 'The House of Silk' – the Sherlock Holmes novel written by Anthony Horowitz (reviewed here in January 2012) so I was looking forward to his second foray into the Holmesian world. 'Moriarty' (which I have just read as an unabridged audio book narrated by Julian Rhind-Tutt – with a short coda narrated by Derek Jocobi) sees Horowitz take a less conventional approach. The story begins immediately after Holmes and Moriarty have plunged to apparent death over the Reichenbach Falls. Initially it seems an odd choice to have written what is, in effect, an imitation Sherlock Holmes tale – with Inspector Athelney Jones of Scotland Yard and Frederick Chase (a Pinkerton agent from New York) forming a surrogate Holmes and Watson. Jones and Chase meet in Switzerland and combine forces to try to bring to justice a vicious American criminal gang which has established itself in London. If you have any interest in Sherlock Holmes I would urge you to read 'Moriarty' before you hear any more about it. Without creating any spoilers I can tell you there is a twist. I was expecting a twist, I was looking out for a twist, I was looking forward to a twist – but the twist still caught me by surprise, leaping out and slapping me in the face. 'Moriarty' is a very clever novel – dark, intriguing, shocking and very satisfying.

'King Charles III' by Mike Bartlett

7 January 2015

It's a bold move to open a West End play with the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II, but Mike Bartlett's 'King Charles III' is a clever and playful piece. Tim Pigott-Smith plays Charles in a modern Shakespearean history play, written entirely in blank verse. At first the Almeida Theatre production, directed by Rupert Goold (which we saw at Wyndham's Theatre in London), feels like a Shakespeare parody with a pantomimic quality to the initial appearances of Camilla, Prince Harry and, particularly, the ghost of Diana. But there is a serious purpose at the heart of Bartlett's play. When the uncrowned King refuses to give royal assent to a bill to restrict press freedom, creating a constitutional crisis, the dilemma of a principled man trying to do the right thing is incredibly believable. William and Kate are approached by the Prime Minister to intervene and the play becomes a political drama reminiscent of 'Number 10' (the BBC Radio 4 drama series by Jonathan Myerson), 'To Play The King' ( part of the House of Cards trilogy by Michael Dobbs) or 'A Very British Coup' (by Chris Mullin). It was also interesting to compare this take on the Shakespearean history play with Rona Munro's 'James I' (reviewed here in August 2014). I really enjoyed Mike Bartlett's last play, 'An Intervention' (reviewed here in April 2014) and his adaptation of 'Medea' (reviewed here in November 2012). 'King Charles III' confirms his status as one of our most interesting contemporary playwrights.

'Funny Girl' by Nick Hornby

7 January 2015

'Funny Girl', the latest novel by Nick Hornby (which I have just finished reading as an unabridged audio book, narrated by Emma Fielding) is his first period piece. Set in the 1960s it tells the story of Barbara, a teenager from Blackpool, who dreams of becoming the British Lucille Ball. When Barbara lands the lead in a new TV sitcom, the development of her fictional character echoes the real lives of each of the production team. Nick Hornby conjures up a convincing swinging London and the novel is warm and funny. While it was interesting to see the situation through the eyes of each of the main protagonists, I felt the sudden switches of perspective didn't always work. But Nick Hornby is always entertaining and readable, whilst smuggling some serious themes beneath the humour.

Northampton Symphony Orchestra concert

15 December 2014

During the Northampton Symphony Orchestra's 2014-15 season we are working with a different conductor for each of our concerts, before appointing a new regular conductor next summer. So far I am really enjoying experiencing a series of different conducting styles and I think the orchestra is playing better because of the concentration required to get used to someone new on the podium each time. For the traditional NSO Christmas Cracker Concert at Spinney Hill Theatre in Northampton on Sunday, the baton was wielded by Lee Dunleavy, who has been Musical Director of the Northampton Bach Choir since 2007. We were also joined by the Choirs of All Saints' Church, Northampton, (who Lee conducted until earlier this year) and their new conductor, Peter Foggitt. And we welcomed back, for an eighth time, the wonderful Graham Padden as our compere and narrator. This year the concert had an animals theme, featuring an arrangement of 'Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer', 'Disney's The Lion King Orchestral Suite' by Elton John, Tim Rice and Hans Zimmer, and the 'Theme from Jurassic Park' by John Williams. The choirs introduced us to some great contemporary American carols, including a wonderfully over-the-top arrangement of 'O Come All Ye Faithful' by Dan Forrest (you can find a couple of recordings of this on YouTube ﾖ well worth seeking out). The NSO Christmas Cracker Concert always features a narrated piece: this year it was 'The Story of Babar, the Little Elephant', originally written for piano by the French composer Francis Poulenc. While the story is decidedly odd (possibly losing something in translation) and fairly grim, Poulenc's music is fascinating. The tiny movements between each paragraph of narration are beautiful musical miniatures, somewhere between Debussy and the musical theatre works of Shostakovitch. As a serious orchestral work with narration for children 'The Story of Babar' bears comparison with Prokofiev's 'Peter and the Wolf'. And Poulenc writes some gorgeous lines for the tuba ﾖ at times 'Babar' might almost have been a tuba concerto ﾖ exquisitely played on Sunday by the NSO's Nick Tollervey. Guest conductor Lee Dunleavy guided us through an excellent performance and it was noticeable that even our perennial Christmas Cracker Concert theme tune, Leroy Anderson's 'Sleigh Ride', seemed to sound crisper and fresher under his direction.

'Calamity Jon' by Lea Pryer

15 December 2014

It's always a pleasure to return to the TADS Theatre in Toddington to see an original pantomime written and directed by the excellent Lea Pryer. Following 'The Pirate Princess' (reviewed here in December 2010) and 'Rapunzel' (reviewed here in December 2012), last Saturday we were in the Wild West of Bedfordshire for 'Calamity Jon'. This was a delightful mash-up of half-remembered Westerns, with all the usual pantomime components including a remarkably well-spoken pantomime horse (played by Judy Palmer). Once again Rachel Price's facial expressions stole the show – here playing the hero, Jonathon B Goode. TADS newcomer Nadia McMahon-Wilson impressed as Dusty Rhodes – subverting the principal boy role and maintaining the most consistent cowboy accent of the evening. While not quite hitting the heights of those earlier Lea Pryer pantomimes, and hampered by a disappointingly small audience, 'Calamity Jon' had some beautiful little comic touches. I particularly enjoyed Kevin Birkett's undertaker (Phil de Grave) who had barely a line of dialogue but was extremely funny as he sized up each potential gunfight victim with a tape-measure and a deadpan expression. And I loved the extremely talented Lea Pryer's original song 'No one loves a tomboy' – yee hah!

'The Christmas Truce' by Phil Porter

11 December 2014

On Tuesday we were at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon to see the RSC's Christmas show. 'The Christmas Truce' is a new play by Phil Porter, directed by RSC Deputy Artistic Director Erica Whyman, which explores the 1914 truce between British and German troops. The story is told through the eyes of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment, focussing on some real life characters with connections to Stratford. It is informed in particular by the journals of the cartoonist Bruce Bairnsfather, who served as a machine-gunner in the regiment (and was also involved in installing the first electric lighting rig in the old Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in Stratford). It's a lovely, thoughtful, moving and inspiring show – avoiding (with a family audience in mind) anything too gruesome, but never shying away from the painful reality of war. The horror of going 'over the top' is realised with some amazing lighting effects. And the moment when the first British soldier makes his nervous, tentative steps into no man's land to greet his German counterpart in cautious friendship is beautifully done. The legendary football match is portrayed with humour and passion, but the abiding analogy here is cricket, with each fallen soldier bowling himself off the stage and an ever-present cricket scoreboard ominously recording the regiment's dead as wickets lost.

Marcus Brigstocke

11 December 2014

On Monday we were at The Stables in Wavendon to see the comedian Marcus Brigstocke. I was familiar with Marcus Brigstocke from his various appearances on BBC Radio 4 but I had never seen him live before. I understand that his stand-up is normally very political, but this show was a much more personal story, exploring some dark areas including his teenage eating disorder. He is a very impressive performer, creating a seamless performance without the safety net of any props or obvious framework. He was playing off the audience from the start, coping well with the unpredictability, even when an audience member managed to get the biggest laugh. Marcus Brigstocke is a very intelligent stand-up, constantly self analytical – even deconstructing his own ad libs. He is (as he admits himself) somewhat over reliant on public-school-induced scatalogical humour, but he is a very likeable personality and the show built to a wonderful and unexpected finale.

'The Paying Guests' by Sarah Waters

5 December 2014

A new novel by Sarah Waters is always a treat to look forward to. I've just finished reading 'The Paying Guests' (as an unabridged audio book, narrated by Juliet Stevenson). Like its predecessors, 'The Night Watch' (reviewed here in January 2008) and 'The Little Stranger' (reviewed here in June 2010), this is a long (576 pages), historical novel set in the first half of the twentieth century. 'The Paying Guests' begins in 1922 in a London still feeling the effects of the First World War. Frances Wray lost both her brothers in the war and, following the death of her father, she and her mother, having dispensed with their servants, can only afford to stay in the family home by taking in lodgers. The story is told in the third person but through the eyes of Frances. Waters is a brilliant writer and she conjures up the world of 1922 in minute detail so that you feel exactly what it would have been like to have been there. Her writing never betrays any knowing historical hindsight and feels extensively researched and completely true to the period. You could believe it was a contemporary novel of the time, if it were not for a level of sexually explicit content that would not have been acceptable in a literary novel in 1922. The tension between the middle-class Wrays and their lower-class lodgers, the Barbers, is subtly drawn but palpable. This is a world in which social standing is indicated by the wearing of hats. The first half of the novel is slow, careful and very bleak, portraying the humdrum existence of everyday life. The second half feels like a different book – a tense, dramatic thriller that grips the reader, giving little away about where the plot may take us. But the melodramatic latter section is all the more effective for building on the painstaking detail of the early chapters and showing us that, amid the intricate descriptions of the characters' daily lives there were tiny clues whose importance is only revealed much later as the plot takes hold and violently shakes these lives until everything falls out. 'The Paying Guests' is a fairly grim tale, with little humour to light the bleakness of post-war London, but it's beautifully written, expertly crafted and builds to a thrilling finale.

The Blockheads

27 November 2014

On Saturday we were at The Castle in Wellingborough to see The Blockheads (previously reviewed here in July 2007 and December 2012). The Blockheads always look like they are enjoying themselves. They are all excellent musicians and their energy level is immense. On Saturday they were joined by the amazing jazz saxophonist Gilad Atzmon – an incredibly talented musician who showed humility and respect for the band, taking a back seat apart from a few stand-out solos. The Blockheads are never less than outstanding but the scale and acoustics of the auditorium in Wellingborough, and a less-than-packed audience, made this a less exciting gig than the last time we saw them, in the more intimate surroundings of the Astor Community Theatre in Deal (in 2012). Nevertheless, it's always a pleasure to revisit their extensive back catalogue and you can't help but leave a Blockheads concert with a smile on your face.

Mark Steel

19 November 2014

This Monday was the third time we have seen the comedian Mark Steel at The Stables in Wavendon – and I think he has got better and better (I previously reviewed him here in June 2006 and May 2009). This week's performance was 'Mark Steel's Back in Town', building on the BBC Radio 4 series (reviewed here in January 2014) in which he constructs shows about the towns in which he is performing. The live version of the show exploited the growing body of stories he is amassing about the various towns he has visited – a sort of 'Mark Steel's in Town' greatest hits, featuring tales from Abergavenny, Aldershot, Hackney, Wigan and more. Then in the second half his focus was squarely on Milton Keynes. He does extensive research into each town and spends some time there before the show. On Monday he visited the museum at Bletchley Park, the Grand Union Canal and numerous roundabouts and was genuinely shocked to discover that the National Hockey Stadium is now the headquarters of Network Rail. His gentle ridiculing of a place and its people has much in common with Bill Bryson's travelogues – but Mark Steel is brave enough to mock a town in front of an audience of locals. He gets away with this by mixing criticism with wonder, enthusiasm and humility, helping us to celebrate, as well as laugh at, our locality. He has become a very accomplished performer, drawing on his research without interrupting the flow of a stand-up performance and conjuring scenes and characters with an impressive range of accents and physical acting. He's also incredibly funny. If Mark Steel's in your town, don't miss him!

Northampton Symphony Orchestra concert

19 November 2014

Last Saturday the Northampton Symphony Orchestra paid tribute to David Lack in a memorial concert at Christchurch in Northampton. Dave, who died in January, was the Principal Horn player in the NSO for many years. When I inherited that seat, at the start of Dave's illness, I always felt I was just keeping it warm for him. It still feels strange playing NSO concerts without him. Our programme on Saturday was one that Dave would have enjoyed playing. We started with the meaty 'Academic Festival Overture' by Brahms before playing the 'Horn Concerto No 1' by Richard Strauss with Katrina Lauder. Katrina was one of Dave's pupils and I know he was immensely proud of her as she developed a professional career as a horn player. Katrina's beautiful tone sounded wonderful in the cavernous acoustic of Christchurch, particularly in the haunting slow movement, and she nailed the fiendishly difficult finale at a breathtaking speed. I was also captivated by the rapid rippling arpeggios passed between the two flutes in the last movement – a beautiful moment exquisitely played by Mara Griffiths and Andrea Patis. The concert finished with Tchaikowsky's 'Symphony No 4', an exciting and exhausting work. Our conductor, John Gibbons, steered us to a thrilling performance, ending what was an emotional occasion with a feeling of triumph and joy. I think we did Dave proud and I know he would have enjoyed it.

'The Missing Hancocks' by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson

13 November 2014

I've always had a fascination with the work of Tony Hancock since discovering  that he died the day before I was born (my Mum remembers hearing the shocking news of Hancock's suicide while she was in the hospital maternity unit). I have listened to and watched many recordings of 'Hancock's Half Hour' and read several biographies of the man. For a time I even belonged to the Tony Hancock Appreciation Society (THAS). So I was particularly interested to hear that BBC Radio 4 was producing new versions of five of the episodes of 'Hancock's Half Hour' for which the original recordings were lost. 'The Missing Hancocks' have been produced by the actor Neil Pearson who discovered copies of the scripts by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson in his secondary career as an antiquarian book dealer. The new recordings are being broadcast on Friday mornings on Radio 4 to mark the 60th anniversary of 'Hancock's Half Hour'. Kevin McNally plays 'the lad himself', capturing Hancock's mannerisms perfectly but managing to create a properly comic performance, rather than a mere impersonation. These are early radio Half Hours (the first two dating from 1955 and 1956), which conjure up surreal situations with the full Hancock repertory company. The humour is not as sophisticated as the later pared-down classic TV episodes, but Galton and Simpson's writing is very polished – beautifully constructed 30 minute sitcom plots from an era when this format was relatively new. Some of the period references seem dated now but the characters are still great fun. Kevin Eldon plays the late lamented Bill Kerr (from a period before his character become a childlike simpleton) and Robin Sebastian is great as Kenneth Williams playing all the bit parts. I found Simon Greenall's Sid James a bit less successful but the show is a very faithful reproduction (complete with new recordings by the BBC Concert Orchestra of Wally Stott's original music) and fascinating to hear.

'Much Ado About Nothing or Love's Labour's Won' by William Shakespeare

7 November 2014

A few weeks ago we were at Charlecote, the Elizabethan manor house near Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire, which is a now a National Trust property. On Thursday we were in Stratford to see Charlecote recreated on the stage of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre for Christopher Luscombe's Royal Shakespeare Company production of 'Much Ado About Nothing'. Simon Higlett's amazing set makes impressive use of the unique capacity of the RST to replicate the exterior of Charlecote, a drawing room, billiards room and chapel. The play is billed as 'Much Ado About Nothing or Love's Labour's Won', suggesting that Shakespeare's famous 'lost' play, 'Love's Labour's Won', might have just been an alternative title for the work we now know as 'Much Ado About Nothing'. Luscombe has used this idea to see 'Much Ado About Nothing' as a sequel to 'Love's Labour's Lost', producing the two plays as companion pieces using the same cast and set. He has placed 'Love's Labour's Lost' in a country estate on the eve of the First World War. That play ends with the young men departing to endure a period of hardship, separated from their lovers. 'Much Ado About Nothing', here set on the same estate in December 1918, opens with the soldiers returning from the Great War. It's an effective setting for a stylish production with lovely period costumes and the troubadour Balthasar becoming an Ivor Novello figure. 'Much Ado About Nothing' treads a fine line between comedy and tragedy but this production focussed on the comic. Beatrice imploring Benedick to “Kill Claudio” is often the moment that chilling reality pierces the jolly mood of the play but on Thursday this line got a laugh. Having decided to play it for laughs, the production was genuinely very funny. Michelle Terry as Beatrice and Edward Bennett as Benedick were excellent and their verbal jousting was perfectly timed. David Horovitch as Leonato and Thomas Wheatley as his brother Antonio looked uncannily like Captain Mainwaring and Sergeant Wilson from 'Dad's Army'. The Dogberry scenes in 'Much Ado About Nothing' are notoriously difficult to pull off. Clearly written as comic interludes they rarely seem funny to modern audiences. Dogberry's 'malapropisms' seem too well disguised for us to work out what word it was he really meant to say. But this production managed to make these scenes work in a way I haven't seen before. The constable and his deputy, in period police uniforms, suggested the surreal world of Flann O'Brien's 'The Third Policeman' (reviewed here in April 2007) – complete with bicycle. And the use of some great physical comedy effectively distracted from any verbal gags missing their targets. Most of all, the subtle suggestion of First World War shellshock hand tremors made Nick Haverson's Dogberry a surprisingly sympathetic character.

Elvis Costello/Georgie Fame and The Blue Flames

30 October 2014

Growing up in Manchester, Leigh-born Georgie Fame was a local musical hero, frequently appearing as a guest soloist with some of the local youth bands and orchestras. Last time I saw Georgie Fame, he was playing in Van Morrison's band at a concert at the Royal Albert Hall some years ago. This week he was again accompanying Van Morrison at the Albert Hall on Tuesday but I saw him there on Wednesday, with his band The Blue Flames, as part of the London Blues Fest, sharing the bill with Elvis Costello. Georgie Fame's band included Alec Dankworth on bass (who I performed with many years ago – but that's another story) and the excellent Guy Barker on trumpet. Georgie Fame is now 71 years old but his distinctive voice is still fantastic – a mellow vocal trumpet.

I'm a big fan of Elvis Costello but this was the first time I had seen him live. Rock stars who have been around for decades typically face the dilemma, in their concerts, of whether to play the old familiar favourites or to try out their new material. Too often, these days, technology allows bands to reproduce the precise sound of their recordings in live performance, leaving you wondering why you didn't just stay at home and listen to the album. Refreshingly, in his live performances, Elvis Costello explores his extensive back catalogue, including his biggest hits, in new ways, never sounding like the original recording. This was a mostly solo performance, Elvis accompanying himself on guitar but being joined by his long-time collaborator Steve Nieve on the grand piano for some almost classical re-workings of songs including 'Accidents Will Happen' and 'Pills and Soap'. Elvis Costello was an enthusiastic performer, an entertaining raconteur and a dapper figure in dark grey three-piece suit, white trilby and pointed purple shoes. He said he had intended to choose a programme on the themes of love, lies, deceit and infidelity but then realised he had written more than 400 songs about love, lies, deceit and infidelity so that hadn't helped to narrow down his choice! It was fascinating to hear Elvis singing songs he originally wrote for other people, such as 'Almost Bue' (written for Chet Baker) and 'The Comedians' (for Roy Orbison). And to hear his interpretations of other people's songs, including 'She' (by Charles Aznavour and Herbert Kretzmer), 'Walking My Baby Back Home' (written in 1930 by Roy Turk and Fred E. Ahlert) and a Mose Allison song (for which he was joined on stage by Georgie Fame). It says something about the depth of his repertoire that Elvis Costello could perform for almost two hours and still manage to save for the encore 'Shipbuilding', 'Oliver's Army' and '(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding'. He finished the evening with the microphones switched off for an unamplified performance of 'Couldn't Call It Unexpected No. 4', a beautifully haunting song from his 1991 album 'Mighty Like a Rose' (which Costello and Richard Harvey adapted for Alan Bleasdale's epic TV drama serial 'GBH'). It was a brilliant concert and a real privilege to be there.

'The Bone Clocks' by David Mitchell

27 October 2014

A new novel by David Mitchell always feels like an event and 'The Bone Clocks' (which I've just finished reading as an unabridged audio book, narrated by Jessica Ball, Leon Williams, Colin Mace, Steven Crossley, Laurel Lefkow and Anna Bentinck) did not disappoint. Mitchell is one of my favourite contemporary novelists and I have read all six of his novels. His last work 'The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet’ (reviewed here in August 2011) felt like an epic, but 'The Bone Clocks' is even longer (the audio version lasting 24.5 hours). Having lived in Japan, David Mitchell is a big admirer of Huraki Murakami and it seems too much of a coincidence not to suppose that 'The Bone Clocks' might have been influenced by Murakami's recent mammoth novel '1Q84' (reviewed here in April 2012). '1Q84' opens with a young woman climbing down the emergency stairs from a Tokyo expressway and entering a surreal parallel world, while in 'The Bone Clocks' a teenage girl runs into an underpass beneath a dual carriageway in Kent and observes a gateway opening to another world. The fact that this happens in 1984 is surely not a coincidence. 'The Bone Clocks' is David Mitchell's most 'Cloud Atlas'-like book since 'Cloud Atlas. Both have an episodic structure with sudden leaps from one section to the next, each with a different first-person narrator (the different points of view being very effectively emphasised in the audio version by use of a new reader for each section). Both books span centuries and extend into the future, entering science fiction territory. But 'The Bone Clocks' is more of a single story, compared to the loosely linked narratives of 'Cloud Atlas'. And that story is the tale of Holly Sykes, a teenager living in Gravesend when we first encounter her in 1984, whose life will become inextricably linked with the survival of the planet. Like Haruki Murakami, David Mitchell creates a meticulously believable real-world narrative into which he inserts aspects of magical realism. But, unlike Murakami, Mitchell tends to tie-up the loose ends and 'The Bone Clocks' very satisfyingly explains and resolves its fantastical elements. David Mitchell is also a very playful author – his novels all contain disguised references to each other and 'The Bone Clocks' continues this tradition as well as incorporating a major character from 'The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet’. Mitchell even goes so far as to make one his characters a writer so that he can quote a review of one of that writer's novels which says “The fantasy subplot clashes so violently with the book’s State of the World pretensions, I cannot bear to look ... What surer sign is there that the creative aquifers are dry than a writer creating a writer-character?”. This is very entertaining meta-fiction (though David Mitchell has had to deny rumours that his fictional author Crispin Hershey is supposed to be Martin Amis). 'The Bone Clocks' is a state of the world novel, dealing with Iraq, climate change and the perils of our dependence on declining reserves of fossil fuels. It is also a fantasy novel, featuring pre-cognition, telepathy and battles between warring factions of immortal 'superheroes'. It's a complicated, enthralling, hugely entertaining epic novel – highly recommended.

'Love is Strange' by Ira Sachs

23 October 2014

On Thursday evening I was at the Glasgow Film Theatre for a screening of Ira Sachs' new film 'Love is Strange', presented as part of both the Luminate Festival and Glasgay! Alfred Molina and John Lithgow play George and Ben, an elderly gay couple who have lived very happily together in New York for 39 years. But when they decide to get married, their world begins to fall apart. George loses his job teaching in a Catholic school and they can no longer afford their apartment. While they search for an affordable alternative they have to sleep on the sofas and bunk beds of friends and family. The pain of living apart from each other after so many years together is evident. And the strain of living in other people's homes is cleverly depicted. 'Love is Strange' is a delicate, subtle, intelligent film. Much is said without the need for words, with numerous close-ups of unspeaking faces telling you much more about the characters' feelings than the dialogue does. The film is beautifully shot, with the trees, streets and skyline of Manhattan becoming part of the cast of characters. There's also a lot of Chopin – sometimes deliberately obscuring the dialogue (though it was very distracting to have two scenes where different characters were shown playing a piano they clearly weren't playing – why bother showing the hands in that case?). One beautiful scene sums up the best aspects of the film: Ben's nephew's wife Kate (Marisa Tomei) is trying to write a novel in her living room while Ben is innocently chatting to her, oblivious to the fact he is constantly interrupting her work. Kate grows more and more frustrated – we can observe the strain growing on her face (unseen by Ben) and we are waiting for the point at which she is clearly going to snap at him. But before this comes Ben's chatter turns into a moan about how annoying it is when Kate's son Joey thoughtlessly interrupts Ben while he is trying to complete a painting. Kate's frustration dissolves into a smile without a word. As Ben says: “When you live with people, you know them better than you care to”. 'Love is Strange' is gentle but powerful, incredibly sad but ultimately uplifting. It will be on general release from February 2015.

'Every Picture Tells My Story' by Hugh Campbell

23 October 2014

On Thursday afternoon I was at the Haining Centre – a nursing home in Falkirk – for 'Every Picture Tells My Story' – a Luminate Festival event. Haining resident Hugh Campbell had created a noticeboard depicting the story of his life through text and photos, and talked us through some of the key episodes. Hugh was an entertaining raconteur and it was fascinating to piece together the personal history of the man sitting in front of us. We learned about Hugh's childhood: he was brought up by his grandmother and aunt as his parents couldn't cope with rearing six children. He saw active service in the Second World War and, after an apprenticeship in a local foundry, Hugh went on to enjoy a 30-year career as a bus conductor, getting to know his regular passengers well, including the young midwife who he went on marry. He told us about his love of ballroom dancing, the music of Daniel O'Donnell and Mediterranean cruises. In telling his story, apart from an occasional lapse of memory, Hugh was very sharp and I was genuinely amazed to discover that he is 95 years old: he seems at least ten years younger. He clearly still has an eye for the ladies and took a lively interest in one young woman in the audience who was a mere 65 years his junior! At the end of the session she had her photo taken with Hugh to provide another addition to his notice board. Hugh's key message was that he doesn't feel old, he feels like he is getting younger rather than older, and he's not finished his story yet.

'Love Me Do' by Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran

21 October 2014

On Saturday evening we were at Watford Palace Theatre to see 'Love Me Do', a new play by Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran. Set in 1962, during the Cuban missile crisis, the play focuses on a young American woman stranded in London, wondering whether she will ever see her husband and children again. Making playful use of physical theatre techniques, and with a cast of five actors creating a host of colourful characters, Co-Directors Brigid Larmour and Shona Morris evoked early 1960s London as an entertaining and slightly sinister foreign country. Marks and Gran cleverly avoided the period drama trap of giving the characters knowing hindsight from a contemporary perspective by using two Americans adrift in London to point out the outdated idiosyncrasies of English life (eg "Yellow Pages?" - "they don't have them here yet"). But, for me, there wasn't quite enough plot and a few ideas seemed under-developed. Calling the main character, who is desperate to get back to Kansas, Dorothy might have had more impact if the 'Wizard of Oz' reference hadn't been blatantly pointed out by one of the characters early in the play. Nevertheless Sara Topham and Robert Curtis made a believable odd-couple thrust together in a crisis - in the manner of a classic Hollywood screwball comedy.

Northampton Symphony Orchestra concert

21 October 2014

In 1982 the Scottish trumpeter, John Wallace, gave the premiere performance of Malcolm Arnold's 'Trumpet Concerto' at the Royal Albert Hall in London. John Wallace's 1984 recording with the Bournemouth Sinfonietta is still the only time this short but fiendishly difficult concerto has been recorded. So it was very exciting, last Saturday, to have the opportunity to perform Arnold's 'Trumpet Concerto' at the Derngate in Northampton with John Wallace. The Northampton Symphony Orchestra, conducted for the first time by John Gibbons, had been invited to open the ninth Malcolm Arnold Festival with a morning concert of works by Arnold and other 20th century English composers. As well as the 'Trumpet Concerto' we played Arnold's 'A Flourish for Orchestra' and his mighty 'Peterloo Overture' (which was commissioned by the Trades Union Congress to mark its centenary in 1968). Our programme also included the beautiful 'Rhapsody, A Shropshire Lad' by George Butterworth, Ralph Vaughan Williams' 'March Past of the Kitchen Utensils' from 'The Wasps', and the wonderful suite from the 1936 film 'Things To Come' by Sir Arthur Bliss. Between these pieces young musicians from the Malcolm Arnold Academy performed the movements of Arnold's rarely heard ‘Miniature Suite'. But the highlight of the morning was undoubtedly John Wallace's brilliant performance of the 'Trumpet Concerto', accompanied by the Northampton Symphony Orchestra (in which Malcolm Arnold himself played the trumpet in his youth) and finishing with a glorious, stratospheric major third between the soloist and NSO's Principal Trumpet, Nick Bunker.

'Me Talk Pretty One Day' by David Sedaris

16 October 2014

The American humourist David Sedaris is now such a familiar figure on BBC Radio 4 it is hard to read his essays without hearing his voice in your head. I've been reading his collection published in 2000, 'Me Talk Pretty One Day'. It's a good sample of the David Sedaris style – a neurotic, sarcastic, self-deprecating collection of personal experiences. I know his writing is not to everyone's taste – his amusing observations of foreigners can sail close to racism and he sometimes succeeds in his attempts to persuade you that he's not a very nice person. But his prose is beautifully constructed and can be incredibly funny. I liked this opening to 'The Learning Curve' in which “a terrible mistake was made” and the recently graduated Sedaris was offered a position teaching a writing workshop:

“The position was offered at the last minute, when the scheduled professor found a better-paying job delivering pizza. …. Like branding steers or embalming the dead, teaching was a profession I had never seriously considered. I was clearly unqualified, yet I accepted the job without hesitation, as it would allow me to wear a tie and go by the name of Mr Sedaris.”

'Everybody Down' by Kate Tempest

7 October 2014

It's not often that a rapper is featured on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, but Kate Tempest is not your average rapper. Last month, the day after her new album 'Everybody Down' was shortlisted for the Mercury music prize, Kate Tempest was selected by the Poetry Book Society as one its Next Generation poets. The 27-year old from South East London studied music at the Brit School and poetry at Goldsmiths College. Intrigued, I thought I would listen to 'Everybody Down' but I have to admit that when I first played the opening track my immediate reaction was that hip-hop really isn't my kind of music and I very nearly gave up on the album. Something persuaded me to persevere and I decided to reserve judgement until I had listened to the whole thing. I realised I really needed to give my full attention to the words and treat 'Everybody Down' like a radio play, written in verse, with background music – rather than thinking of it as an album of songs. The 12 tracks form a single continuous story with excellently drawn characters and I found myself rooting for Becky as her family and friends pull her into a world of criminality, drug-dealing and violence. There is some wonderful word-play:  

I’m in a mess, I can’t help it
I just go round and round
I’m paranoid, I’m selfish
Push me, I clam up, I’m shellfish
We had a dream, I shelved it
That eats me up, that’s Elvis
Las Vegas era
I’m half bag lady, half Bagheera

And the more I listened the more I fell for the words, the characters and the story. I've since learned that Kate Tempest is working on transferring the characters from Everybody Down into a novel, due to be published next year, which will begin where the album ends and will also include characters from two of her three stage plays (one of which was commissioned by Paines Plough). Clearly Kate Tempest is a name to watch.

'Colin Gray: a journey with his parents through love, life and death'

3 October 2014

While I was in Edinburgh this week I visited North Edinburgh Arts Centre to see an exhibition of photographs by Colin Gray, presented as part of Luminate 2014 – Scotland's Creative Ageing Festival (of which I am a Trustee). 'Colin Gray: a journey with his parents through love, life and death' is a selection of works documenting Gray's 34 year collaborative journey with his parents. It includes work from 'The Parents' series, which started in 1980; from 'In Sickness and in Health', photographs that explored his parents' older age and his mother's death; and a preview of new work from 'Do Us Part', his ongoing series of images of his father and daughter. Many of the photos are playful and funny – showing Gray's ageing parents retaining a childlike sense of fun. I particularly enjoyed the picture of them sailing down an imaginary stream in their garden in an old bathtub. In contrast, the pictures of Colin Gray's mother's final days are incredibly sad – including candid shots of her in a hospital bed and her corpse in the coffin. And the scenes of her husband grieving alone are painful and moving, including a close-up of his wrinkled neck enclosed by collar and black tie. But the exhibition ends with pictures of Gray's father with his granddaughter comforting him, providing a warm final image that shows continuity of life into the next generation.

Baltic Cruise

3 October 2014

Our Baltic cruise on the P&O ship Adonia was a wonderful holiday. We sailed through the Kiel canal in North Germany and spent a couple of days in Kiel, during which we took a train to the pretty medieval town of Lubeck which I last visited with the Manchester Youth Orchestra nearly 30 years ago. Some parts of the town were familiar but I failed to find the bar in which the orchestra's leader Angela Ceasar wowed the locals, singing 'Summertime' with the house band. From Germany we sailed to Estonia, stopping at the beautiful island of Saaremaa before spending a day in Talinn. Talinn is a fairytale city – like a Disneyland version of a medieval European town. The architecture is reminiscent of Switzerland or Austria but more brightly coloured and with some clear Russian influences. We loved Talinn's narrow cobbled streets, high town walls and stunning central square. Our next port of call was St Petersburg – my first visit to Russia. St Petersburgh is an amazing place – intimidating and austere on the outskirts, with a magnificent city centre. Like Paris, the centre of St Petersburg was designed and built as a single project, giving the streets and buildings a consistency missing from most major cities. There are some incredibly impressive buildings, dominated for me by the Church of Our Saviour over Spilled Blood – an incredibly colourful, extravagant, onion-spired showpiece of a building. We also visited the Hermitage – an enormous museum which reminded me of the Louvre in Paris (and can be similarly crowded, though it wasn't too bad when we were there). We had a guided tour of the Hermitage and saw works by Rembrandt, Cezanne, Monet, Renoir, Van Gogh and Leonardo da Vinci. Our visit to Stockholm was also dominated by a fantastic museum: the Vasa Museum houses the preserved remains of a warship which sank in 1628. The museum gives a fascinating insight into the history of the period, through a series of displays all linked to the Vasa itself, ever-present as you walk around the four floors which provide a range of views over the huge ship. It's brilliantly done – one of the best museums I have ever visited. We were similarly charmed by the much smaller David Collection in Copenhagen which includes extensive displays of early Islamic art, beautifully presented with lots of background information about the history of much of the Middle East and North Africa. It was great to return to Copenhagen – one of my favourite European cities. Regular readers will be relieved to know that we finally managed to see the Little Mermaid. You can see a selection of my holiday photos at: http://www.culturaloutlook.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Baltic2014.