'That Night' by Gillian McAllister

27 June 2024

I discovered the thriller writer Gillian McAllister in 2022 and really enjoyed her novels ‘Wrong Place Wrong Time’ (reviewed here July 2022) and ‘How to Disappear’ (reviewed here in January 2023). I have just finished reading her 2021 book ‘That Night’ which is another clever, twisty, tense, family thriller. This time Gillian McAllister challenges us to ponder how we would respond if a beloved sibling needed our help to cover up a crime. Like Tom Wolfe’s ‘The Bonfire of the Vanities’ this is one of those stories where one mistake mushrooms, as each small act to try to rectify the situation makes it exponentially worse. And each lie told requires more lies to back it up, to the point that it is hard to remember what is real. ‘That Night’ is a cleverly constructed novel that plays tricks with the reader as it recounts events through the point of view of different family members, alternating timelines between ‘then’ (the initial crime and its aftermath) and ‘now’. There are some bold twists, carefully disguised. And Gillian McAllister is brilliant at making you both scared to keep reading but unable to put the book down.

Rothesay Classic Birmingham Tennis

27 June 2024

On Saturday we were back at the Priory Club in Edgbaston, Birmingham, for the first time since our 2017 visit (reviewed here in June 2017) to see the semi-finals of the Rothesay Classic Birmingham Tennis Tournament. Compared to Queen’s Club in London (where we were the previous week), Edgbaston has a more intimate atmosphere and we were much closer to the action. It was a lovely sunny day and, although all four matches we saw were decided in straight sets, they were all more competitive than this suggests. The two ladies singles semi-finals saw Yulia Putintseva of Kazakhstan defeat the Italian Eilsabetta Cocciaretto, and Ajla Tomljanović of Australia beat Anastasia Potapova in a close-fought tussle. The ladies doubles semi-finals were both very entertaining. Eventual champions Belgian Elise Mertens and Su-Wei Hsieh from Taiwan trounced Asia Muhammed and Aldila Sutjiadi. The best match of the day was Miyu Kato and Shuai Zhang narrowly beating the third seeds Marie Bouzkova and Sara Sorribes Tormo. We also saw Shuai Zhang win her doubles semi-final last time we were at the Edgbaston tournament in 2017.

cinch Championships Tennis Tournament 2024 at Queen's Club, London

21 June 2024

After enjoying our first trip to the Queen’s Club in London in 2019 (reviewed here in June 2019), our plans to return were hampered by Covid but this Monday we made our second visit on the opening day of the cinch Championships Tennis Tournament 2024. It was a gloriously sunny day and we watched more than 8 hours of tennis on Centre Court. The best match was an upset win for the Australian player Jordan Thompson over the number 7 seed Holger Rune from Denmark in 3 sets. The match between Britain’s Cameron Norrie and Milos Raonic of Canada also went the distance with Raonic winning an epic final set tie break. This provided a thrilling finish to what was otherwise a strangely dull match with a fairly flat atmosphere. That might have been because we saw Raonic serve 47 aces, breaking the ATP Tour world record, but this made for a lot of very short points. The first match we saw was a fairly routine straight sets win for the Bulgarian number 3 seed Grigor Dimitrov over Adrian Mannarino of France. Sadly the last match of the day - a really entertaining encounter between Alejandro Tabilo of Chile and the Spanish player Alejandro Davidovich Fokina - was suspended because the courts were becoming too slippery as the evening wore on. Nevertheless we had a great day at Queen’s.

‘Tokyo Express’ by Seichō Matsumoto, translated by Jesse Kirkwood

14 June 2024

I am grateful to Jess for recommending ‘Tokyo Express’ - a Japanese detective novel by Seichō Matsumoto, first published in 1958, and translated by Jesse Kirkwood in 2022. It’s an intriguing Hitchcockian mystery set in 1950s Japan which revolves almost entirely around the careful reading of railway timetables. The puzzle faced by the police is gripping and the tale is beautifully told, with a gentle Japanese politeness. The detectives are sympathetically drawn characters and you really feel you are working with them to unpick a seemingly impossible chain of events. I did get a little confused by the Japanese place names: I should have referred more to the map of Japan while reading the book. But it’s a lovely novel.

'Joe Country', 'Slough House' and 'Bad Actors' by Mick Herron

6 June 2024

Having really enjoyed the first five of Mick Herron’s Slough House series of spy novels (all reviewed here between November 2023 and May 2024) I've now finished the final three books in the series. 'Joe Country' is a dark, violent tale that takes the slow horses to snowy Pembrokeshire (which, as everyone keeps pedantically pointing out, is in Wales). 'Slough House' is a brilliantly plotted story with a devastating sting in the tail that completely surprised me, but with hindsight was hinted at throughout the book. The final novel 'Bad Actors' is the most ambitious, with an initially confusing jump forward in time from the previous book very satisfyingly resolved by a hilarious farcical flashback set-piece. And Mick Herron is both bold enough to leave many of the key characters out of the climax to the series and indulgent enough to add a postscript chapter to bring the gang back together.

'Run' by Ann Patchett

6 June 2024

The novels of Ann Patchett have been one of my best recent discoveries. I loved 'Bel Canto' (reviewed here in December 2023) and 'State of Wonder' (reviewed here in January 2024). I've now finished reading her 2007 novel 'Run'. This is a family story about adopted children, social status and race, which reminded me of the great contemporary American novelist Anne Tyler. I've written here many times about Anne Tyler's understated masterpieces - which never stray far from Baltimore and focus almost exclusively on domestic family life but still manage to say so much about the world. Ann Patchett's 'Run' is set in Boston, Massachusetts, and the story is provoked by a traumatic accident which made me read the rest of the novel nervously awaiting further tragedy to strike. But this is mostly a gentle, thoughtful exploration of family relationships in which all the characters are lovely - often flawed but gentle, sympathetic and understanding. 'Run' is less of a thriller than the other Ann Patchett novels I have read but it's equally well written and a very heartwarming tale.

Cruise to Greece and Turkey

30 May 2024

We got back this week from an amazing cruise to Greece and Turkey on the Cunard cruise ship Queen Victoria. I had never previously been to either country and the cruise was a great way to sample a number of different places. During lockdown we got hooked on ‘Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics’ on BBC Radio 4 (reviewed here in July 2020) and it was wonderful to bring the classics to life as we visited the sites of the three of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. We are also big fans of the ‘Empire’ podcast (reviewed here in January 2023) and we were looking forward to exploring aspects of the Ottoman Empire. We had a day on the island of Rhodes, visiting the huge Palace of the Grand Masters, home of the Knights of St John until they were thrown out of Rhodes by Suleyman the Magnificent in 1552 and fled to Malta. We were astounded by the ancient city of Ephesus - one of the biggest archeological sites in the world. We visited the beautiful island of Santorini and ancient Olympia, where we walked along the running track of the original Olympic stadium. In Athens we had a great day at the Acropolis, admiring the Parthenon (which is much bigger than I had imagined). It was all very interesting and impressive and it was a beautiful day (which made for some great photos). But I think the highlight of our trip was our two days in Istanbul where we visited the Blue Mosque - an enormous domed hall with beautiful tiling and stained glass windows, quite unlike anything I'd previously seen - a real 'wow' moment. We really enjoyed the Basilica Cistern - a huge underground reservoir, built by the Romans in the 6th century AD. And the Hagia Sofia Cathedral/Mosque is an incredible building - a vast nave beneath a huge dome with golden mosaics from the original Byzantine church alongside giant circular 'medallions' containing Arabic script. The room feels enormous, dark and mysterious, like something from 'Game of Thrones'. We also walked around the Grand Bazaar - a seemingly endless maze of covered lanes of shops which was almost impossible to navigate, with each corridor looking almost identical and apparently containing the same shops. Istanbul was very different to anywhere we had been before, but not exactly in the way we had expected. The city felt busy and vibrant but not intimidating. And its history and strategic importance are fascinating.

Northampton Symphony Orchestra concert

12 May 2024

When we last played the Grieg Piano Concerto with the Northampton Symphony Orchestra, accompanying Lucy Parham in 2007, I wrote here (in November 2007) that the piece always reminds me how nervous I was playing the exposed horn solos in the first and second movements as a teenager with the Didsbury Symphony Orchestra in 1983, accompanying Peter Donohoe, and how relieved I was this time to be leaving those solos to the NSO Principal Horn David Lack. Now that Dave is sadly no longer with us, last Saturday it was my turn again, for the first time since 1983. Our NSO concert, in. St Matthews Church in Northampton, featured the brilliant young Russian soloist, Victor Maslov. There is a wonderful video on YouTube of Victor playing the Grieg Piano Concerto 15 years ago at the age of 11: https://youtu.be/ITJZEN2B87Y?si=5ZVVXUsn_tNwSV8t The 2024 version was even more spectacular: it was a genuinely thrilling performance by one of the most exciting soloists we have accompanied in recent years. Victor seemed to be playing this most famous of concertos neither in a lush romantic style nor in a disciplined classical approach, instead managing to make it feel much more contemporary - a fascinatingly inquisitive modern take on a work that can feel over familiar - but without losing any of the passion. In contrast to my teenage self, this time I found the short horn solos really enjoyable and I was pleased with how they went. But mine was a minor contribution to an incredible performance that will live long in the memory of everyone who was there. Victor Maslov's encore, a short Prelude by Scriabin, was delicate and mesmerising. It was a challenge for the NSO to follow this in the second half of the concert but Brahms' 'Symphony No 4' is a work that deserves to stand alongside the Grieg concerto. It's a lovely piece that demonstrates how Brahms continued and developed Beethoven's symphonic style - built on meticulous syncopated rhythms, driving chord progressions and controlled power. Brahms 4 is one of my favourite symphonies. This was the first time I had played it for more than 25 years but I was surprised how well I still knew the horn parts. It's a lovely symphony, incredibly satisfying to play, in which every note feels carefully crafted. NSO conductor John Gibbons shaped a beautifully controlled performance which was incredibly moving - with Graham Tear's gorgeously measured flute solo in the last movement exemplifying this. We opened the concert with the 'Froissart Overture' by Edward Elgar and also played Laura Rossi's witty musical journey through Italy, 'Jailhouse Graffiti' which was commissioned by John Gibbons to celebrate an April Fools prank he and Laura played on the Ealing Symphony Orchestra in 2005.

'Nye' by Tim Price

10 May 2024

On Thursday we were at the Library Theatre in Leighton Buzzard to see the NTLive broadcast of ‘Nye’ by Tim Price, directed by Rufus Norris, live from the National Theatre in London. This was the 100th NTLive performance since this innovative model of broadcasting live theatre to cinemas around the world started in 2009. I think I’ve seen 34 of the 100 broadcasts which have become an artform in their own right. It’s not better or worse than being in the theatre - it’s just different. You don’t quite get the same atmosphere as being in the auditorium with the live actors, but you do get close-ups and viewing angles that you wouldn’t have in the theatre, and you can hear every word much more clearly. ‘Nye’ dramatises the life of the Labour politician Aneurin Bevan and the founding of the National Health Service. Tim Price’s play starts with Bevan (played with wide-eyed wonder by Michael Sheen) in hospital himself, being treated for the stomach cancer that will kill him, and then tells his story through flashbacks and delirious dream sequences (as the morphine kicks in) with the doctors, nurses and other patients in the hospital taking the parts of Nye’s family, friends, colleagues and political opponents. The patient dropping in and out of consciousness, reliving incidents from his life, reminded me a lot of Denis Potter’s TV masterpiece ‘The Singing Detective’: there is even a fully staged song and dance number led by Michael Sheen. Vicki Mortimer’s set constantly reminds you we are in a hospital, with beds tipped on their sides to form the desks of the Tredegar Council chamber and the green benches of the House of Commons conjured up by surgical curtains. Michael Sheen brings a fascinating mixture of naivety, passion and mischief to his Nye Bevan. He is on stage throughout, playing out scenes from various chapters of Nye’s life but always dressed in his hospital pyjamas - reminding me of Arthur Dent in ‘The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’. Sharon Small is great as Jennie Lee, Nye’s colleague and wife. Also impressive are Kezrena James, as the nurse who morphs into Nye’s sister Arianwen, and Tony Jayawardena, as the doctor who becomes Winston Churchill. But the lasting impression of ‘Nye’ is its moving tribute to the NHS and the amazing statistics projected across the stage at the end of the play which show how many lives were saved in the first few years of the new National Health Service.

'Real Tigers’, ‘Spook Street’ and ‘London Rules’ by Mick Herron

3 May 2024

I’m still working my way through Mick Herron’s Slough House series of spy novels. Having enjoyed ‘Slow Horses’ (reviewed here in November 2023) and ‘Dead Lions’ (reviewed here in January 2024) I have now raced through the next three books in the series, determined to finish reading the novels before I start to watch the ‘Slow Horses’ TV series. Book 3 ‘Real Tigers’ ratchets up both the comedy and the violence, with the Slough House team of disgraced former spies ending up in a major gun battle (and an amusing episode with a double decker London bus). Book 4 ‘Spook Street’ has the most thrilling plot so far and I think is my favourite to date. And Book 5 ‘London Rules’ is a brilliant exercise in black comedy, featuring a truly farcical political assassination. Mick Herron manages to make the books comically ridiculous while keeping the plots (just about) believable enough that you care about the outcome. And his descriptive writing, conjuring up Dickensian descriptions of contemporary London, is very impressive. I’m looking forward to reading the final three books in the series.

'Red Side Story' by Jasper Fforde

26 April 2024

Regular readers may remember that I am a big fan of Jasper Fforde’s silly comic fantasy/sci-fi novels (you can read my reviews of 14 Jasper Fforde books at: https://culturaldessert.blogspot.com/search?q=%27+by+Jasper+Fforde). Jasper Fforde’s 2009 novel ‘Shades of Grey’ (reviewed here in April 2011) is perhaps his most ambitious and complex work, depicting a post-apocalyptic dystopian society far into our future in which social standing is determined by your ability to perceive colour – with the majority of the population only able to see grey and just a privileged few families seeing yellows, greens or reds. It has taken fifteen years for the promised sequel to ‘Shades of Grey’ to arrive but ‘Red Side Story’ (which I have just finished reading as an unabridged audio book, narrated by Chris Harper and Jasper Fforde) was worth the wait. I had forgotten much of the complicated setting and plot of the first book, and I found it a little difficult to get started with its successor. But Fforde’s engaging cast of eccentric comic characters draw you in and, as I realised that ‘Red Side Story’ was going to begin to explain how its surreal future-world had come about, I was gripped. This was a much more satisfying tale where there is real jeopardy and you really care about the fate of the main characters.

'Love's Labour's Lost' by William Shakespeare

24 April 2024

Last Saturday we were at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon to see the new RSC production of ‘Love’s Labour’s Lost’ directed by Emily Burns. I had only seen ‘Love’s Labour’s Lost’ once before (the 2008 RSC production that featured David Tennant as Berowne - reviewed here in October 2008). It’s not the greatest Shakespeare play but it’s interesting to see him trying out elements that would flourish more effectively in his later works. The bickering between Rosaline and Berowne, for example, feels like an early draft for Beatrice and Benedick in ‘Much Ado About Nothing’. And the shambolic performance of ‘The Pageant of the Nine Worthies’ at the end of ‘Love’s Labour’s Lost’ clearly points the way towards the more complete comic set-piece play-within-a-play ‘Pyramus and Thisbe’ at the end of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’. Emily Burns’ production is lots of fun, very much played for laughs, with some brilliant comic scenes. She sets the play in the present day, at a luxury Pacific island retreat, with the men as billionaire tech bros. The supporting characters are maybe a little too close to pantomime but the four central lovestruck men and the four women who break their resolution of chastity are brilliantly played, particularly by Luke Thompson as Berowne and Ioanna Kimbook at Rosaline. The RSC is always wonderful at finding amazing young actors: 16 of this cast of 19 are in their RSC debut season. I also enjoyed Tony Gardner as the comically frustrated Holofernes (showing a touch of Basil Fawlty to Jack Bardoe’s Manuel-like Don Armado) - but, like much of the play, these scenes are brief, incidental to the plot and don’t seem to go anywhere. It was a very enjoyable, high-quality production of a play that has its limitations.

‘Behold Ye Ramblers’ by Neil Gore

19 April 2024

Last Saturday we were at The Place in Bedford to see the Townsend Theatre production of ‘Behold Ye Ramblers’, a new one-person play, written and performed by Neil Gore, which tells the story of the Clarion movement that started in the late 19th century. In 1891 the journalist Robert Blatchford founded a weekly newspaper called ‘The Clarion’ to draw attention to the conditions suffered by working people in industrialised Victorian Britain and to spread a socialist message. But from the start, Blatchford’s vision was of better support for workers, both in the factories and in their recreational and cultural activities. This led to a large network of local Clarion Cycling Clubs, Vocal Unions, Dramatic Societies, Handicrafts Clubs, ‘Cinderella Clubs’ (for children) and Rambling Clubs, which started the struggle for the right to roam freely across open moors on ancient paths. The Sheffield Clarion Ramblers, founded in 1900, is recognised as the first working class rambling club and survived until 2015. The National Clarion Cycling Club still survives today, as does the People's Theatre, Newcastle upon Tyne, which began its life in 1911 as the Newcastle Clarion Drama Club. Neil Gore’s play shows the growth of the Clarion movement through speeches, poetry,  and music hall songs, making you feel like you are at a Clarion Club meeting through lots of audience participation. He makes clever use of projections of actual Clarion newspaper pages and posters for Clarion Vocal Union concerts, together with colourised early film of working class communities. It’s a fascinating story which demonstrates the strong socialist roots of many of our everyday creativity traditions today. The tale of The Clarion reminded me a lot of ‘The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists’, so it was interesting to discover that a one-person Magic Lantern show of Robert Tressell’s classic book is going to be the next production from Townsend Theatre. https://www.townsendproductions.org.uk/shows/behold-ye-ramblers/

'American Fiction' by Cord Jefferson

10 April 2024

We first visited The Rex in Berkhamsted, described by the BBC as "possibly Britain’s most beautiful cinema", in 2008. This beautifully refurbished art deco picture house has cabaret tables and large, high-backed swivel chairs in the stalls and rows of the most comfy cinema seats with masses of legroom in the gallery. Last Saturday we were back at The Rex, for the first time in many years, to see Cord Jefferson’s Oscar-winning film ‘American Fiction’. Based on the 2001 novel Erasure by Percival Everett, the film follows Thelonious ‘Monk’ Ellison, an American academic (brilliantly played by Jeffrey Wright) who is increasingly frustrated as his Greek-tragedy-inspired novels are filed under ‘African-American Studies’ in bookshops because the author is Black. When publishers reject his latest manuscript for not being "Black enough", he writes an over-the-top parody of stereotypical ‘Black’ books under a pseudonym and (inevitably - and to his immense embarrassment) it becomes incredibly successful. The film is a very funny and intelligent literary satire but it's also a moving family drama with an impressive cast playing well drawn believable characters.

Ribaute, France

5 April 2024

We had a great holiday in France last week, staying in the tiny village of Ribaute on the Orbieu river in the Languedoc, close to the lovely medieval village of Lagrasse - one of Les Plus Beaux Villages de France. We were in the middle of the Corbières wine region with vast vineyards extending across the flat valley, but also just a few minutes drive from the hills to the south. One of our highlights was driving up narrow, winding mountain roads to see the spectacular Cathar castles that dominate this area. We visited the Château de Quéribus at Cucugnan - a ruin perched on a rocky outcrop at the top of a mountain with 360 degree views which looks exactly like the kind of castle a child would draw. We also saw flamingoes on the salt-water lakes at Peyriac-de-Mer and visited the Abbaye de Fontfroide - a huge former Cistercian monastery. And it was great to revisit the fairytale medieval walled city of Carcassonne (reviewed here in September 2018).

'The Motive and the Cue' by Jack Thorne

22 March 2024

In 1964 Richard Burton asked Sir John Gielgud to direct his Hamlet on Broadway - a production which set the play in a theatre rehearsal room. Two of the cast wrote books about the rehearsals and the tussles between the very different approaches of Gielgud and Burton. Those two books provided the inspiration for Jack Thorne’s new play ‘The Motive and the Cue’, directed by Sam Mendes at the National Theatre in London (which we watched at a NTLive screening at the Odeon Milton Keynes on Thursday). It’s a fascinating exploration of theatre, acting and actors, with ‘Hamlet’ and its father-son relationships providing a clever backdrop both to the relationship between Gielgud and Burton and their relationships with their own fathers. Johnny Flynn is great as the volatile Richard Burton and Mark Gatiss is very moving as Gielgud. Allan Corduner as Hume Cronyn (playing Polonius) also stood out in a large cast and Tuppence Middleton almost stole the show as a wonderful Elizabeth Taylor.

'Drop the Dead Donkey: The Reawakening' by Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin

19 March 2024

When ‘Drop the Dead Donkey’ - Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin’s Channel 4 sitcom, set in the offices of a TV news channel - started in 1990 its unique selling point was the way it weaved in topical news stories (and gags about them) by recording some elements of each week’s show just before it was broadcast. Watching ‘Drop the Dead Donkey: The Reawakening’, the stage reunion of the original TV cast, at Milton Keynes Theatre last Saturday, I was pleased to see up-to-the-minute references to doctored photos of the Royal Family, the Russian presidential election etc. As a fan of the TV series, the stage show was gloriously nostalgic, with all the surviving cast members reprising their roles thirty years on (and a moving tribute at the end to David Swift and Haydn Gwynne). For anyone unfamiliar with the original series I suspect the opening scenes, punctuated by rapturous applause as each character reappeared, was probably a little tedious. But once the plot, and the mystery of why the gang had been brought back together to run a new TV news operation (‘Truth News’) started to get going, it was good fun and quickly fell back into the comic rhythms of a good sitcom. If the satire felt a little tame now, well thirty years is a long time and the news today often feels beyond parody. But it was lovely to see Susannah Doyle, Robert Duncan, Ingrid Lacey, Neil Pearson, Jeff Rawle, Stephen Tompkinson and Victoria Wicks back together again. And interesting to note that, despite the incredibly witty script, it was two brilliant moments of slapstick that got the biggest laughs.

'A Midsummer Night's Dream' by William Shakespeare

15 March 2024

When we started the Open Stages project in partnership with the Royal Shakespeare Company in 2009 - working with hundreds of amateur theatre groups and professional theatre companies across the UK - it was interesting to see one question dominating the discussions at our skills-sharing sessions. What amateur theatre directors most wanted to ask the RSC was whether it is permissible to cut or amend Shakespeare's texts. It always seemed to surprise the RSC staff that they were seen as the definitive arbiters on this question: Shakespeare has been out of copyright for centuries and many RSC productions have taken extremely creative approaches to the plays. Last Saturday we were at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon to see Eleanor's Rhode's new RSC production of 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' and I was struck by the fact that you don't need to change the text to achieve a different take on the play. In this production Duke Theseus was not the strong, authoritative leader he normally appears - an adult amongst the squabbling children. Here, played by Bally Gill (who doubles as Oberon), Theseus is a weak, nervous leader, trying to please everyone and constantly seeking affirmation from Hippolyta (Sirine Saba) - though you could imagine he might have firm views on the proper way to stack the dishwasher! This was all brilliantly conveyed through his body language and voice, without any need to change the words he spoke. It's a great production, in modern costume on a mostly bare stage, allowing the acting and the movement of the actors to dominate. In particular Mathew Baynton as Bottom, Ryan Hutton as Lysander and Rosie Sheehy as Puck demonstrate amazing physicality and balletic movement: movement director Annie-Lunette Deakin-Foster deserves much credit. Eleanor Rhode also works with an Illusion Director and Designer, John Bulleid, and his moments of conjuring and sleight of hand, sparingly used, add to the magic of the play. It's also a very funny production, with real laugh-out-loud scenes involving the lovers and the rude mechanicals. Helen Monks is brilliant as Peter Quince, almost stealing the show from Mathew Baynton: it's the first time I have seen the prologue to Pyramus and Thisbe performed as a rap! It would be impossible not to come out of the theatre smiling.

'Demon Copperhead' by Barbara Kingsolver

8 March 2024

As I have mentioned here before, I found the Hogarth Shakespeare series of books, in which contemporary novelists re-imagined Shakespeare plays, a bit cringe-worthy (with the exception of ‘Hag-Seed: The Tempest Retold’ by Margaret Atwood, reviewed here in January 2022). So, despite many people recommending it, I came to ‘Demon Copperhead’, Barbara Kingsolver’s retelling of ‘David Copperfield’ with some trepidation. But, while ‘Demon Copperhead’ (as the title signifies) is another example of a loosely disguised classic tale in a modern setting, with clever contemporary variations of the character names, I thought it worked extremely well. I think this is because Barbara Kingsolver is interested in updating both Dickens’ story and his exposé of social problems. Her first-person narrator Damon Fields tells the story of his difficult childhood in Lee County, Virginia, in the 1990s. He is born to a drug-using teenage single mother in a trailer, passes in and out of foster care and experiences trauma and tragedy at a very young age. In front of this bleak backdrop, Barbara Kingsolver paints an engaging cast of Dickensian characters to create what feels like it is going to be an entertaining coming of age story about overcoming adversity through friendship. But Kingsolver’s underlying theme is America’s opioid crisis and seeing Demon (and most of his contemporaries) descending into over reliance on drugs and addiction feels painfully real and distressing. ‘Demon Copperhead’ is a brilliantly written novel: it is a tribute to Kingsolver’s skill that you soon forget the Dickens parallel and get sucked into the modern tragedy of a generation lost to drugs. The second half of the novel becomes increasingly uncomfortable reading but it is a compelling commentary on a shameful episode in our recent history of which Charles Dickens would have been proud.

Northampton Symphony Orchestra concert

5 March 2024

Last Saturday I played in a Northampton Symphony Orchestra concert which featured a rare performance of the First Symphony by Sir Arnold Bax. The early 20th century English composer was a committed Hibernophile, passionate about Ireland, Irish culture and the Gaelic language. He wrote poetry in Gaelic and named his children Dermot and Maeve. Bax was deeply affected by the 1916 Easter Rising and the execution of Irish rebel leaders by the British Army, but felt unable to speak out as he was then Master of the King's Music. His 'Symphony No 1', completed in 1922, while not publicly connected to the events in Ireland, reflects his anger and grief. As a programmatic work about the armed suppression of protest and rebellion it made for a fascinating comparison with our performance last year of Shostakovich's 'Symphony No 11:The Year 1905' (reviewed here in June 2023) and the 'Peterloo Overture' by Malcolm Arnold (reviewed here in October 2019). Bax's First Symphony is scored for a massive orchestra, including hecklephone (bass oboe), sarrusophone (or contrabassoon), bass flute and two harps. It's a brutal, angry piece, punctuated by some surprising moments of gentle beauty. It took me some weeks of practice to begin to appreciate the music but it really grew on me and I thought we gave a impressively coherent and moving performance of the symphony. Our concert also featured the 'Violin Concerto No 2' by Prokofiev - a stunning performance by Joo Yeo Sir. Both Bax and Prokofiev went out of copyright on 1 January 2024 so I suspect there will be more performances of works by both composers this year. We opened the concert with Bernstein's 'Symphonic Dances from West Side Story' - last performed by the Northampton Symphony Orchestra in 2008 (reviewed here in March 2008). 'West Side Story' is a challenge for any orchestra - both because of its complex syncopated jazz and Latin rhythms, and because it is so well known. As we settled our nerves, took a deep breath and launched into the opening bars, conductor John Gibbons immediately halted the performance and dashed off stage, having forgotten to bring with him the police whistle whose shrill blast halts the Jets and Sharks at the end of the Prologue. Amused and relaxed by this intrusion, the orchestra started again and gave an exciting and slick account of Bernstein's score - featuring a brilliant percussion section, amazing work by Terry Mayo on trumpet and a beautifully controlled flute cadenza by Graham Tear, providing a haunting moment of stillness after the mayhem. It was a wonderful concert, enthusiastically received by a sold out audience at Christchurch, Northampton.