‘Fatou’ by Fatoumata Diawara

28 October 2011

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

'South Pacific' by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II

21 October 2011

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

'Comedy Carpet' by Gordon Young

14 October 2011

Comedy Carpet, Blackpool

It was great to have the opportunity to see Blackpool's new Comedy Carpet – an amazing artwork by Gordon Young featuring the catchphrases, jokes and names of more than 1,000 comedians which was unveiled by Ken Dodd at the foot of Blackpool Tower earlier this week. There has been massive worldwide interest in the Comedy Carpet: it was temporarily the most searched for term on Google. The ‘carpet’ is built from concrete and coloured granite and designed to withstand both the thousands of feet that will walk across it and the Blackpool weather. Encountering it for the first time is a compelling experience: the various catchphrases are all in different fonts, colours and sizes and face in different directions so you have to keep walking around to see the words that are initially upside down to you. This draws you in as you keep spotting another familiar phrase and trying to remember who said it. While there were plenty of old favourites I found quite a few lines I didn’t recognise and I kept smiling as I got the gist of another pun or witty aphorism for the first time. I suspect we will all have our favourites and I certainly found myself returning to the large words “I’m playing all the right notes – but not necessarily in the right order”. See: http://www.blackpoolgazette.co.uk/lifestyle/legend_unveils_comedy_carpet_1_3857375

'One Man, Two Guvnors' by Richard Bean

7 October 2011

On Saturday we made a first visit to the lovely Waterside Theatre in Aylesbury to see the National Theatre production of ‘One Man, Two Guvnors’ by Richard Bean. Based on Carlo Goldoni’s 1746 play ‘The Servant of Two Masters’, this production has been a big commercial hit for the National Theatre and a star vehicle for James Corden, reunited with the director Nicholas Hytner for the first time since ‘The History Boys’. Set in Brighton in 1963, ‘One Man, Two Guvnors’ is broad tongue-in-cheek comedy played for laughs but it’s very well done and extremely funny. The Waterside Theatre was completely sold out and much of the audiences was in stitches throughout. There was plenty of audience participation and ad-libbing, some great physical comedy and a wonderful cast. It is interesting to note that Goldoni was criticised for taking the usually completely improvised Commedia dell’Arte tradition and writing it down but, in doing so, he succeeded in preserving the style for centuries. The action of ‘One Man, Two Guvnors’ is supplemented by a four-piece Beatles-style band (playing original songs by Grant Olding) who spring from the orchestra pit to play in front of the curtains during each scene change. They are joined, in turn, by a series of members of the cast (including Corden on xylophone) who perform a variety of party-pieces. James Corden is very funny and clearly the star of the show but Oliver Chris also stood out as the public-school educated bully. It was an excellent, feel-good evening in the theatre.

'Fawlty Towers' by John Cleese and Connie Booth

7 October 2011

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

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

30 September 2011

With the ‘His Dark Materials’ trilogy of children’s books Philip Pullman clearly decided to cock-a-snook at organised religion. In ‘The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ’ he goes a step further in attempting to retell the life of Christ. It’s an odd book: it seems to be an attempt to present a believable account of ordinary events that could have created myths that became the Gospels. Pullman suggests that Jesus had a brother (how would we know what happened to Jesus in the wilderness or in the Garden of Gethsemane unless there had been someone else there?) and even uses this device to explain the resurrection. But the tone often veers from rational explanation into the cheeky or facetious – which can be quite funny, depending on your beliefs. Though his prose is modern (and often quite forthright) the book is structured like a Gospel. It’s an interesting read but I found Pullman’s lengthy Afterword, which discusses the narrative structure of the Gospels, much more interesting. Here you realise that his real interest in writing the book was not in exactly what happened two thousand years ago but in the way the story was told. 

‘Trumpet’ by Jackie Kay

30 September 2011

‘Trumpet’ is the first novel by the poet Jackie Kay. It was published in 1998 and is an intriguing and moving work. The death of a famous jazz trumpeter reveals a long-hidden secret which shocks those who knew the musician. The novel shows us the reactions of a range of people including family members, friends and those involved in the aftermath of the death such as the undertaker, the registrar and the journalist who wants to write an exposing biography. With each chapter allowing us to see things through the eyes of a particular individual, the novel inhabits a variety of voices, each believable and sympathetic. Their varying testimonies help to piece together the jigsaw of a life but Jackie Kay impressively keeps the reader hooked and eager for more without the assistance of any real forward narrative. Even the memories of the trumpeter’s life don’t really build into a linear story. It’s hard to describe but ‘Trumpet’ is a clever, beautifully written portrait of a life that is both sad and uplifting.  

Northumberland

30 September 2011

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

'Atonement' by Ian McEwan

16 September 2011

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

‘The Hare With Amber Eyes’ by Edmund de Waal

9 September 2011

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

'The Hour' by Abi Morgan

2 September 2011

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

'Super 8'

1 September 2011

If ‘Attack the Block’ (reviewed here in May 2011) was reminiscent of an old Children’s Film Foundation production (albeit with considerably more swearing and violence), J J Abrams’ new film ‘Super 8’ is Children’s Film Foundation with swearing, violence and big production values. The two films have plenty in common with a group of teenage boys (and one female interloper) battling aliens and the human authorities in each case. ‘Super 8’ clearly had a much bigger budget at its disposal – it was produced by Steven Spielberg and Abrams seems to have tried to create a homage to Spielberg with clear references to ‘ET’, ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ etc. ‘Super 8’ is set in 1979: a group of teenagers are shooting their own zombie movie using a handheld Super 8 camera when they witness a spectacular train crash and discover secrets they cannot reveal to anyone. As with ‘Attack the Block’, ‘Super 8’ has a very witty script with great interaction between the children. Both films succeed because they manage to make the incredible (encounters with extraterrestrial lifeforms) amazingly believable and realistic. ‘Super 8’ is not quite as brutal as the British film – though there are some violent deaths, you can mostly predict who is going to be safe. And the American kids are bit more polite and wholesome than their British counterparts (who begin ‘Attack the Block’ by mugging a nurse at knifepoint) but then this is rural small-town America, not urban South London. ‘Super 8’ is funny and enjoyable but also thrilling and genuinely scary. As it approaches its climax the film does become a little predictable and somewhat sentimental but it’s lots of fun with some wonderful performances, particularly from Joel Courtney as Joe and Elle Fanning as Alice.

Paris

1 September 2011

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

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

1 September 2011

The summer doesn’t seem complete without some open-air theatre, so it was a pleasure to return to the gardens of Woburn Abbey to see Chapterhouse Theatre Company’s production of ‘Sense and Sensibility’. We had very much enjoyed their ‘Pride and Prejudice’ last summer (reviewed here in July 2010) and this was equally impressive. It was a beautiful setting on a lovely evening and the acting was universally strong (we could hear every word!) with Heather Mason as Marianne Dashwood and Nicky Diss as her younger sister Margaret the stand-out performances.

'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.