'An Alpine Symphony' by Richard Strauss

25 October 2013

It feels somewhat indiscreet to start by revealing a lady’s age, but my good friend Catherine Rose has hardly made any secret about achieving her first half-century. Rather than hiding away and pretending it wasn’t happening, Catherine chose to celebrate her fiftieth birthday by realising her ambition to conduct ‘An Alpine Symphony’ by Richard Strauss. Last Sunday I was part of an orchestra of 125 players which assembled in the hall of Bedford School to spend an incredibly enjoyable day tackling the Alpine peaks of this rarely performed work. The musicians were mainly drawn from three local amateur orchestras (Bedford, Milton Keynes and Northampton) together with professional orchestral players from across the country. The Alpine Symphony requires massive forces, including a wind machine, pipe organ, four Wagner tubas, cow bells and a heckelphone. Perhaps someone should have advised Strauss that this is not a recipe to get your work performed regularly. Nonetheless the Alpine Symphony is a piece held in great affection, particularly by horn players (including Catherine and myself). Instead of the usual four French horns, Strauss asks for eight on-stage players plus twelve offstage horns. On Sunday we managed to assemble a total of fifteen horn players and it was a fantastic experience to play as part of such a huge section. The Alpine Symphony is a glorious piece with some stunning, joyful climaxes. It must be amazing to be commanding such enormous forces by wielding the conductor’s baton – though it must also be completely terrifying. We ended the day with a performance of the symphony to an audience of family and friends. I think it was a pretty impressive rendition – particularly on a single day of rehearsals. It was a wonderful day – which also raised a significant amount of money for Catherine’s three chosen charities. A great way to celebrate a landmark birthday.

'One Summer: America 1927' by Bill Bryson

18 October 2013

Bill Bryson write two kinds of book – the travelogues which detail his first-hand encounters with countries, communities and people across the world, and his extensively desk-researched explorations (of Shakespeare, science, domestic life etc). I think my favourite Bryson is his childhood reminiscences 'The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid' (reviewed here in 2007) which (just about) fits into the second category. I particularly enjoyed his ability to conjure up the characters of a different era. So I was looking forward to Bill Bryson's new book 'One Summer: America 1927' which looks at five remarkable months in which America changed the world. Reading 'One Summer: America 1927' as an unabridged audio book, narrated by the author, I was initially a little underwhelmed. While there was nothing wrong with Bill Bryson's narration, I had just finished listening to the stunning performance of Julian Rhind-Tutt reading Jonathan Coe's novel 'Expo 58' (reviewed here in September 2013) and I'm afraid anyone would have sounded a bit flat after that. Also Bill Bryson's excessive use of statistics is particularly hard to take in without seeing the numbers in front of you. But once he got beyond the statistics and started to build pictures of the key individuals in his story I became gripped. The summer of 1927 in America was witness to an amazing array of events and an incredible cast of characters. Charles Lindbergh became the first person to fly non-stop across the Atlantic. In baseball Babe Ruth was breaking every record in the books. The boxing match between Jack Dempsey and Gene Tunney drew the largest crowd to any sporting event ever. The lazy President, Calvin Coolidge, (about whose death Dorothy Parker would later ask “How could they tell?”) decided not to run for office at the end of his (unelected) term while future President Herbert Hoover built his reputation co-ordinating the relief effort after the great Mississippi flood. Al Capone presided over an empire of corruption and extortion in Chicago. Henry Ford ended production of his Model T and embarked on a spectacularly unsuccessful attempt to create a rubber-producing city in the Amazon (Fordlandia). And talking pictures arrived with Al Jolson in 'The Jazz Singer'. It was quite a summer. Bill Bryson takes us chronologically through those summer months – with digressions to fill in the before and after to many of the stories. Lindbergh, Ruth and some of the other main protagonists provide overarching narratives which hold the book together. It's a powerful evocation of an era of prohibition, gangsters, anarchist terrorists, adventurers and celebrities. 

Jeremy Hardy

16 October 2013

We first saw Jeremy Hardy in about 1997 in Lowestoft. I’ve written here before about that performance (in March 2007): “while on holiday in Suffolk, we were surprised to see the enormous old seaside theatre in Lowestoft advertising an evening with Jeremy Hardy. This theatre, which had Ken Dodd the previous week and Jimmy Tarbuck the following week – seemed an odd setting for a left-wing political alternative comedian. We booked our tickets and, on the night, found ourselves lost in a sea of empty seats with only about a dozen other people but Jeremy Hardy dealt with a potentially embarrassing situation extremely impressively. Quickly abandoning his prepared material he probably worked harder than ever that night and completely won his tiny audience over – one of the most impressive comedy performances I’ve seen.”  Last week we caught up with Jeremy Hardy again at Kettering Arts Centre, as part of his 30^th anniversary tour, and he was even better. He is a very assured performer. Not needing to rely on any theme, props or onstage persona, he simply walks onto the stage and talks continuously for nearly two and half hours (with a 20 minute interval). His delivery sounds like a seamless stream of consciousness, mainly focussing on politics and current affairs. If you look closely you can detect a few prepared sections but mostly it feels improvised rather than scripted. Jeremy Hardy’s politics are uncompromising but his thoughtful, logical, self-deprecating style is very winning, and incredibly funny. It felt like he could have gone on all night, and we would have been delighted if he had.

'Floating Letters' by Tsuumi Sound System

10 October 2013

I'm very much enjoying 'Floating Letters', the new album by Finnish folk/rock group Tsuumi Sound System. I reviewed 'Hotas', the previous Tsuumi Sound System album, here in April 2008. Their music is cheery and inspiring with a rhythmic complexity that demands syncopated toe-tapping. At first it sounds a lot like Scottish folk but the instrumentation, harmony and style continually shifts. Hard to categorise but easy to enjoy. The playing is slick and impressive but always wearing a smile. Here's a taster: http://vimeo.com/53798510

‘Life and Death: Pompeii and Herculaneum’

3 October 2013

Almost a year ago we visited Pompeii for the first time and were bowled over by the scale of the site and the size of the preserved buildings. So we had been looking forward to seeing the exhibition ‘Life and Death: Pompeii and Herculaneum’ at The British Museum. It was so difficult to get tickets for the exhibition when we booked, in May this year, that we ended up going on the final day last Sunday. There were huge crowds waiting for a last chance to see the well-preserved relics of Roman life and, even with the timed ticket system, you had to be very patient to get close to each of the exhibits. The excellent audio guide proved a very useful way to pass the time while queuing. ‘Life and Death: Pompeii and Herculaneum’ wasn’t a very big exhibition but that meant it was possible to explore everything it contained – and this took us a good ninety minutes. The exhibition was laid out in rooms equating to the rooms of a typical Roman villa, making sense of the context of the many artefacts. The quality of preservation of the wooden objects from Herculaneum was amazing. We were also struck by how overtly sexual (by modern standards) many of the pictures and sculptures were. There was one particularly explicit piece (if you’ve seen the exhibition you will know the one I mean!) that was located in a small side room with a notice by the entrance suggesting it wasn’t suitable for children. While I was there one father was getting exasperated by the enthusiasm of his young son (who must have been 7 or 8 years old) to see whatever it was his dad didn’t want him to see. In response to the boy’s pleading “why?” the man eventually shouted “because I’m your father and I’m exercising moral judgement!”. The casts of the bodies of some of the volcano’s victims, captured in agonising poses at the moment of death, provided an eerie and moving end to the exhibition. 

'Othello' by William Shakespeare

27 September 2013

On Thursday we were part of an audience of more than 100,000, in cinemas across the world, to watch a live broadcast from the National Theatre in London of Nicholas Hytner's production of Shakespeare's 'Othello'. This latest NT Live broadcast demonstrated the growing popularity of live screenings of theatre: at Cineworld in Milton Keynes, where we watched the performance, it was being shown simultaneously on three screens, each of which was almost sold out. Hytner's production sets the play in a contemporary military base which could be in Iraq or Afghanistan. The prosaic background of the soldiers' quarters made the action feel more real and the violence was particularly shocking. The scene in the gents toilets, with Othello hiding in a cubicle to overhear Iago and Cassio, was especially effective. 'Othello' is very much a two-hander and both the lead performances here were fantastic. Adrian Lester showed Othello's power and vulnerability in a wonderfully physical performance and Rory Kinnear's Iago was twitchy, shifty, sinister and incredibly funny. Olivia Vinnall was great as a tiny but powerful Desdemona whose despair towards the end of the play was palpable. Watching the production on the big screen showed every minute facial expression as the cameras kept close to the action in a series of small, claustrophobic rooms and it is so satisfying to be able to hear every word of the text so clearly. 

'Expo 58' by Jonathan Coe

27 September 2013

Jonathan Coe obviously has a fascination with the Swiss composer Arthur Honegger (reviewed here in December 2005). Honegger's symphonies feature in Coe's novel ‘The Closed Circle’ and 'Pastoral d'ete' by Honegger provides the backdrop to a key scene in 'Expo 58', the latest novel by Jonathan Coe, which I have just finished reading (as an unabridged audio book, narrated by Julian Rhind-Tutt). The 1958 World's Fair in Brussels was one of the first major international gatherings after the end of the Second World War and the exposition, in the shadow of the gleaming new Atomium, provided both an opportunity for optimism about the rebuilding of international relations but also a focus for growing concerns about the development of atomic weapons and the increasing menace of the Cold War. Coe places into this setting a naïve Englishman abroad in the shape of Thomas Foley – a junior clerk from the Central Office of Information, recently married and with a baby daughter – who is sent to work at the Expo for six months. 'Expo 58' is a beautifully constructed comic novel which displays many of Coe's trademark elements but also feels remarkably like a David Lodge book. The civil servant being drawn into a world of international espionage also reminded me of Ian McEwan's 'Sweet Tooth' (reviewed here in January 2013). Jonathan Coe constructs some delicious comic moments as well as a host of easily missed throw-away gags. But he also manages to inject pathos – often between the lines. So much is implied by what characters don't say to each other: the chapter of letters between Foley and his wife is beautifully done. The novel concludes with some cleverly believable revelations but I could have done with a few more twists. Like all good novels I didn't want it to end.

'Daytona' by Oliver Cotton

20 September 2013

Last Saturday we were at Watford Palace Theatre to see 'Daytona' – a new play by Oliver Cotton. 'Daytona' is set in a Brooklyn apartment in the early 1990s – a New York Jewish family environment familiar from the work of Neil Simon and Woody Allen. It is a play about growing old, memory, forgiveness and atonement. The cast consists of three characters – all in their seventies. When Joe's brother Billy reappears out of the blue after an absence of more than 30 years it is an uncomfortable reminder to Joe and his wife Elli of difficult times in their past. 'Daytona' has an almost Chekhovian feel – the dramatic action all happens off stage and is recounted by the characters. Joe thinks he has recognised, by a poolside in Florida, a man who was a Nazi officer in the wartime concentration camp that Joe, Billy and Elli survived. As we begin to wonder whether or not Joe might be mistaken in his assumptions it feels like Cotton is creating a version of Ariel Dorfman's 'Death and the Maiden' in which the ambiguity of identity might never be resolved. Then I began to question whether the dramatic off-stage events had actually happened: we only have the word of one obviously unreliable narrator to go on. But as the play unfolded I realised that Cotton's focus was actually on questioning assumptions of motivation. The characters challenge each other about why they really took the actions they did – today and 30 years ago – and the cleverness of the play is how it shows the dawning realisation as each individual becomes aware of the extent to which they have been fooling themselves. 'Daytona' is a complex and subtle play and was excellently acted by Harry Shearer, Maureen Lipman and, particularly John Bowe as Billy.

'Boxer, Beetle' by Ned Beauman

12 September 2013

Having been so bowled over by Ned Beauman’s novel ‘The Teleportation Accident’ (reviewed here in July 2013) I quickly got hold of his first novel ‘Boxer, Beetle’ (which I have just read as an unabridged audio book, narrated by Dudley Hinton). The two books have much in common – a cast of grotesque characters, a fascination with Nazi Germany, a big country house, a rare and extremely peculiar illness, a jigsaw-puzzle plot with a ridiculous number of underlying themes and some great comic set-pieces. And, as with ‘The Teleportation Accident’, Beauman’s writing is delicious and rich in elaborate metaphors. Reading the two books in reverse order ‘Boxer, Beetle’ feels like a practice ground for what would become the later, greater novel but it is still incredibly enjoyable with a macabre humour that makes you both laugh and cringe. The country house murder mystery at the heart of the book reminded me of Jonathan Coe’s ‘What a Carve Up’ but Ned Beauman’s is a unique voice and I can’t wait to see what he writes next.

'The Impressionist' by Hari Kunzru

12 September 2013

Hari Kunzru’s debut novel ‘The Impressionist’ was highly praised on its publication in 2002 and I the reviews made me keen to read it but for some reason it has taken me more than 10 years to get around to doing so. I wasn’t disappointed. ‘The Impressionist’ is an epic tale that starts in India in the early years of the 20^th century and looks at empire, race and identity against a backdrop of real historical events. The use of comic characters and farcical plots set against extremely serious and often horrific history is carried off remarkably effectively. The tone of the book reminded me a lot of Matthew Kneale’s marvellous ‘English Passengers’. And ‘The Impressionist’ also had echoes of two other debut novels by contemporary British writers – David Mitchell’s ‘Ghostwritten’ with episodes in different settings, and with completely different sets of characters, linked by a single constant but evolving figure; and ‘White Teeth’ by Zadie Smith with its exploration of how Britain’s colonial past is evident in modern Britishness. ‘The Impressionist’ is a brilliant tour-de-force – well worth waiting for.

Norway

12 September 2013

We had a wonderful holiday in Norway on board the P&O cruise ship Adonia. Our two-week cruise took us as far north as Tromso – well above the Arctic Circle – and visited a varied range of fjords and islands. Particular highlights were the beautiful Lofoten Islands and the stunning scenery of Geirangerfjord – surely one of the most beautiful places in the world. We were very lucky with the weather and managed to do a lot of walking. We also really enjoyed our time on board the ship, attending 5 recitals by the excellent pianist Dominic John, a very impressive performance of Noel Coward’s ‘Private Lives’, doing plenty of ballroom dancing and taking part in a playreading of ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’. You can see a few photos from our holiday at: http://culturaloutlook.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Norway2013 

'Sherlock Holmes' by Mark Hayward

19 August 2013

We were back in the gardens of Woburn Abbey last Friday to see The Pantaloons' production of 'Sherlock Holmes'. This new adaptation, written and directed by Pantaloon Mark Hayward, combined several Conan Doyle stories (including 'The Speckled Band', 'The Blue Carbuncle' and 'The Hound of the Baskervilles') with the usual Pantaloons mixture of pantomimic clowning and audience interaction (“there is no fourth wall!”, “Watson, stop narrating!”). It was lots of fun. There were just four actors – two playing Holmes and Watson and the other two playing everyone else. As with the wonderful Patrick Barlow stage adaptation of ‘The Thirty Nine Steps’, half the fun is in anticipating how they are going to cope with the challenges this throws up. I particularly enjoyed Holmes turning his powers of observation and deduction on a member of the audience: I suspect his amazingly accurate conclusions may have been influenced by some pre-show research with the audience member's friends and family but the little boy sitting to my right was genuinely amazed (“how did he do that?!”). And The Pantaloons are very good at planting an idea very early in the show that returns triumphantly to resolve the plot at the end. It was a very enjoyably silly evening but it was incredibly manic and overplayed (even by the standards of The Pantaloons) and I wondered whether it might actually have been funnier if more of it had been played straight.

'After the Fire, a Still Small Voice' by Evie Wyld

12 August 2013

I've just finished reading 'After the Fire, a Still Small Voice' by Evie Wyld (as an unabridged audio book, narrated by David Tredinnick). This debut novel tells the parallel story of two generations of an Australian family, with alternating chapters dealing with Frank Collard – escaping, in the present day, to the remote shack that had belonged to his grandparents on the North coast of Australia – and Frank's father Leon, growing up in Sydney several decades earlier. This is a tale of parallels between fathers and sons: Leon's own father's life was irreparably damaged by his experience of fighting in the Korean War and Leon then suffers a similar fate when he is called up to serve in Vietnam. 'After the Fire, a Still Small Voice' is a book about loneliness and the plot moves very slowly, with both main characters spending long stretches of the novel alone. The writing is beautiful and delicate but it's a sad, gentle tale of broken relationships.

'A Midsummer Night's Dream' by William Shakespeare

12 August 2013

I really enjoyed the open air production of 'The Importance of Being Earnest' by The Pantaloons that we saw last August (reviewed here in August 2012) so I was looking forward to their return to the gardens of Woburn Abbey last weekend. The Pantaloons are a group of five young actors who bring a comedy-sketch-group approach to open air theatre, full of backchat, audience interaction, improvisation, original music and infectious silliness. Their production of 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' played well to these strengths but also demonstrated their more serious acting skills. It was a very funny and enjoyable evening. I particularly liked the impromptu use of three members of the audience to play the fairies – Cobweb, Peaseblossom and Mustardseed. While the acting was excellent, the limitations of such a small cast meant that I am not sure anyone who wasn't already familiar with the play would have been able to follow all the intricacies of the plot. Nevertheless it was great fun and I can't wait for The Pantaloons production of 'Sherlock Holmes' which is at Woburn this Friday.

Madrid

8 August 2013

We had a lovely few days in Madrid last week but boy it was hot! The temperature peaked at 41 degrees on Thursday but fortunately it was a very dry heat, so not quite so horrendous as that sounds. Nobody goes to Madrid in August (it's too hot!) and the Madrileños all head off to the coast so the city was very quiet and we were able to visit all the main tourist attractions without having to queue for anything. We took an excellent guided walking tour of the centre, visited the wonderful Prado and Thyssen-Bornemisza art galleries and looked at the state rooms of the magnificent Royal Palace. You can see a few of our photos at: http://culturaloutlook.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Madrid2013.

WOMAD 2013

8 August 2013

With so much exotic and unusual music from all over the world on show, it might seem surprising to pick a brass band from Manchester as my highlight of the 2013 WOMAD Festival at Charlton Park in Wiltshire. But Riot Jazz are a brass band in the New Orleans tradition of the Dirty Dozen Brass Band or the The Hot 8 Brass Band (reviewed here in January 2013) and their set in the Big Red Tent at WOMAD was thrilling and incredibly engaging. Riot Jazz come with their own irrepressible compere, MC Chunky, whose persuasive patter in a strong Manchester accent had an audience of around two thousand leaping up and down for an hour. Wonderful cover versions of 'Don't You Want Me Baby?' and 'Living on a Prayer' sent us all away smiling (have a listen to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JVSpjpkZ4U). Other high points of my weekend at WOMAD included the amazing ethereal Tuvan throat singing of Huun Huur Tu, impressively competitive duets of Indian classical music from Debapriya Adhykary and Samanwaya Sarkar, another chance to see the great Malian singer Rokia Traore (reviewed here in December 2008) and Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino – an excitingly energetic band from the heel on Italy's boot who play (and dance) traditional pizzica folk music with an infectious enthusiasm. I wasn't able to stay to see Brazilian legend (and former Minister of Culture) Gilberto Gil (reviewed here in July 2010) close the festival on the Sunday evening so it was great to have had the chance to see Gil and Peter Gabriel in conversation on BBC Radio 4's 'Loose Ends' on the Radio 3 stage on Saturday. Like going to see BBC Radio Scotland's 'MacAulay & Co' before a day at the Edinburgh Fringe, 'Loose Ends' provided the chance to sample several acts performing at the festival in bite-sized chunks and reminded me of Charlie Gillet's much missed Radio London broadcasts from WOMAD. I saw a total of 18 complete performances over the weekend. I really enjoyed Bwani Junction – an indie rock band from Edinburgh who play with an African guitar sound that makes them seem like a cross between Vampire Weekend, Arctic Monkeys and Big Country. These Scottish lads have some authentic African links – the father of guitarist Dan Muir was the manager of the Bhundu Boys (who played at the very first WOMAD Festival, 31 years ago) and Dan has apparently been playing alongside the Bhundus' Rise Kagona since he was 10 years old (which can't have been that long ago as all four members of Bwani Junction looked about 12 to me!). I should also give a special mention to David Wax Museum from Boston, Massachusetts, who play an upbeat mix of old-fashioned Americana with a Mexican influence. The band, who put out their recordings on their own label and have only just managed to arrange distribution to Europe, were making their first visit to England and played a fantastic set on the Charlie Gillett stage on the Saturday evening just as torrential rain arrived. At any other point in the weekend (which was dominated by glorious sunshine) they would undoubtedly have attracted a crowd numbering in the thousands. Instead, they performed to around 200 people huddling under umbrellas. Nevertheless they put on a magnificent show and deserve a much bigger audience. You can see a selection of my photos from the 2013 WOMAD Festival at: http://www.culturaloutlook.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/WOMAD2013.

Northampton Symphony Orchestra concert

25 July 2013

On Sunday I played in the annual Northampton Symphony Orchestra Friends Concert – the final performance in our concert season and our opportunity to thank the Friends of the Orchestra for their support throughout the year. This year our programme had a Hungarian theme, including two Slavonic Dances by Dvorak and two of Brahms’ Hungarian Dances. We also played the Haydn Trumpet Concerto with the excellent young soloist Darren Moore who seemed to hit every note perfectly throughout the performance and all the rehearsals. We finished the concert with the exciting ‘Dances of Galanta’ by Zoltan Kodaly – an infectious romp with some devilishly difficult clarinet solos which were magnificently mastered by Christine Hunt. The orchestra now takes its summer break before we turn our attention to the mighty ‘Symphony No 7’ by Shostakovich this autumn.

'Macbeth' by William Shakespeare

25 July 2013

Having heard nothing but good reports about the National Theatre's NT Live screenings of stage shows in cinemas, I thought it was about time I tried the experience myself. The Manchester International Festival production of Macbeth, starring and co-directed by Kenneth Branagh (with Rob Ashford) was such a hot ticket the entire run sold out within nine minutes of going on sale. So the only way I was going to see it was via the NT Live screening last Saturday, when the final performance in Manchester was broadcast to cinemas across the country. It was magnificent – both the production and the experience of watching it live on the big screen. The show was expertly captured with multiple camera angles (including Busby Berkley overhead shots) making it feel almost like being there, but with a much better view and excellent sound that meant you didn't miss a syllable of the text. It was irritating that there were some problems with the synchronisation of the sound and pictures (at least where we saw it at Cineworld in Milton Keynes) but otherwise the screening was technically excellent. Macbeth was performed in a deconsecrated church in Ancoats - a customised theatre space with a long, thin central performance area running the length of the church and faced on both sides by an audience boxed in raked pews enclosed by wooden boards which made them look more like the spectators at a Quidditch match! The floor was rough and muddy, particularly after the opening battle scene had taken place in driving rain – the increasingly dirty hem of Lady Macbeth’s long dress emphasising the gritty reality of the play. This was a brutal, visceral Macbeth – with believably violent swordfights and plenty of Kensington Gore. Kenneth Branagh managed to make Macbeth a real and sympathetic character, while demonstrating a delicacy and precision in the language of the play. Alex Kingston was a powerful Lady Macbeth and the scene in which Ray Fearon’s Macduff learned of the slaughter of his wife and children was achingly poignant. The whole cast were very strong – with Alexander Vlahos particularly standing out as Malcolm.

'Going to Sea in a Sieve' by Danny Baker

25 July 2013

Usually when you read an autobiography, you might find the first few chapters interesting in seeing how the person's childhood and early career led them to do whatever it is you know them for, but it's the inside story of their successful years that you are really looking forward to reading about. I don't think it's too much of a spoiler to warn you that ‘Going to Sea in a Sieve’, the autobiography of writer and broadcaster Danny Baker, finishes in 1982, well before I had come across him. Nevertheless, as a keen listener to Danny Baker's Saturday morning show on BBC Radio Five Live, many of the stories of his childhood were quite familiar to me. Like John Peel's autobiography ('Margrave of the Marshes' by John Peel and Sheila Ravenscroft, reviewed here in November 2006), you can really hear the author's voice while you are reading. Danny Baker is a consummate storyteller and his self deprecating wide-eyed wonder makes for a likeable and often hilarious tale. The great potato robbery is the first of many laugh-out-loud incidents in this first volume of the Danny Baker story. 

'The Teleportation Accident' by Ned Beauman

17 July 2013

I was drawn to Ned Beauman's novel 'The Teleportation Accident' by glowing reviews and by the intriguing premise of a theatre set designer in Berlin in the 1930s working to recreate the famous Teleportation Device ("An Extraordinary Mechanism for the Almost Instantaneous Transport of Persons from Place to Place") devised for a Paris theatre in 1679 by the great Renaissance stage designer Adriano Lavicini. The opening chapters made me think I had made a mistake - almost every character we were introduced to seemed unlikeable and the main protagonist, set designer Egon Loeser, is a very unsympathetic anti-hero - cynical, contemptuous and selfish. Also the thrilling notion of the Teleportation Device - where art meets science to create magic - seems quickly forgotten as the story becomes obsessed with parties, sex and drugs. I persevered with the novel (which I read as an unabridged audio book, narrated by Dudley Hinton) and began to appreciate the writing - Loseser's cynical railings against the harsh hand that life keeps dealing him are very funny and there are some beautifully witty metaphors with a Raymond Chandleresque swagger which made me laugh out loud. (He had "the sort of moustache that could beat you in an arm-wrestling contest". "The lenses of his glasses were so thick that, like an astronomer observing Neptune, he was probably seeing several minutes into the past".) Also the plot built towards some wonderful set-piece farcical scenes that could have come from Tom Sharpe (the monkey gland episode for example). And as the story moved to Paris and then to Los Angeles, I realised how clever and intricate the plotting was. Like Loeser I had missed or dismissed many references, characters and clues that were to return as elegant explanations for seemingly supernatural puzzles much later in the book. As 'The Teleportation Accident' grew and grew on me I came to appreciate that it is a rather brilliant novel - a very dark comedy spanning centuries with a complex web of themes. It's an entertainingly innovative novel to rank alongside 'A Visit from the Goon Squad' by Jennifer Egan (reviewed here in July 2011). Egon Loeser hates politics, physics and historical literature so it is his supreme misfortune to find himself the main character in a novel about politics, physics and historical literature (though his obsession with public transport does provide him with an interest in another of the book's recurring themes). He thinks himself an intellectual who is having a particularly unfair run of bad luck - but he comes across as a surprisingly naive loser, blundering through major events without appreciating their significance. The Teleportation Device itself has echoes of Christopher Nolan's 2006 film 'The Prestige' in which two rival magicians battle each other to achieve the ultimate illusion, drawing on the seemingly magical physics of Nikola Tesla (himself the subject of  Samantha Hunt's wonderful novel ‘The Invention of Everything Else’, reviewed here in September 2008). But above all 'The Teleportation Accident' is an incredibly funny, terribly clever and extremely enjoyable novel that I look forward to reading again and again - just make sure you pay attention to those opening chapters!