'The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim' by Jonathan Coe

19 August 2011

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

'A Midsummer Night's Dream' by William Shakespeare

6 August 2011

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

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

3 August 2011

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

WOMAD 2011

1 August 2011

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

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

23 July 2011

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

Bedford Festival Fringe

21 July 2011

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

'A Visit from the Goon Squad' by Jennifer Egan

18 July 2011

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

Rhythms of the World Festival

14 July 2011

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

'The Long Song' by Andrea Levy

5 July 2011

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

Wimbledon 2011

30 June 2011

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

‘Eden End’ by J B Priestley

30 June 2011

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

Northampton Symphony Orchestra concert

28 June 2011

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

Music in the Brickhills concert

16 June 2011

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

'Vertical Road' by the Akram Khan Dance Company

10 June 2011

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

'The Merchant of Venice' by William Shakespeare

3 June 2011

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

'Attack the Block'

31 May 2011

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

Music in the Brickhills concert

27 May 2011

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

‘Started Early, Took My Dog’ by Kate Atkinson

20 April 2011

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

'The Barber of Seville' by Rossini

20 April 2011

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

Northumberland

20 May 2011

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