WOMAD 2015

29 July 2015

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

Northampton Symphony Orchestra concert

20 July 2015

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

'The Honours' by Tim Clare

20 July 2015

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

Chamber music concert at Hartwell House

17 July 2015

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

Dominic Holland

17 July 2015

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

Iceland cruise

10 July 2015

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

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

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

23 June 2015

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

Northampton Symphony Orchestra concert

17 June 2015

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

'Othello' by William Shakespeare

12 June 2015

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

David Sedaris

8 June 2015

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

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

2 June 2015

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

Heliotrope Chamber Ensemble concert

28 May 2015

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

'Mr Mac and Me' by Esther Freud

28 May 2015

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

London Festival of Baroque Music concert

22 May 2015

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

'Man and Superman' by George Bernard Shaw

15 May 2015

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

Berlin

15 May 2015

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

'King John' by William Shakespeare

11 May 2015

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

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

27 April 2015

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

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

27 April 2015

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

Northampton Symphony Orchestra concert

22 April 2015

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