‘Apples Never Fall’ by Liane Moriarty

30 September 2022

I’m new to the Australian novelist Liane Moriarty (the author of ‘Big Little Lies’ and ‘Nine Perfect Strangers’, both now adapted for TV) and have really enjoyed reading her 2021 novel ‘Apples Never Fall’. This is a family story, very much in the same territory as the novels of Anne Tyler, where the subtle interactions between siblings and parents tell so much while saying so little. But ‘Apples Never Fall’ also cleverly weaves in a genuinely gripping mystery plot which Liane Moriarty resolves very satisfyingly, with painstaking attention to detail: every little incident comes to have some significance as the truth is revealed. The relationships between the four tennis-playing Delaney children and their professional tennis coach parents reminded me a little of Jesse Armstrong’s brilliant black comedy-drama TV series ‘Succession’. This is a dysfunctional family full of regret and recrimination but whose members still love each other deeply. I’m looking forward to reading more Liane Moriarty novels soon.

‘Venomous Lumpsucker’ by Ned Beauman

30 September 2022

Regular readers may remember that I'm a big fan of the young British novelist Ned Beauman. I loved his last book ‘Madness is Better Than Defeat’ (reviewed here in October 2017) which was clever, surprising, baffling, hilarious, and completely bonkers. Ned Beauman’s new novel ‘Venomous Lumpsucker’ (which I’ve just finished reading as an unabridged audio book, narrated by John Hastings) is set in the near future and takes on themes of climate change and species extinction. I had forgotten how much I love the absurd, almost poetic nature of the names he invents for characters and, in this book particularly, the Latin names of obscure species, the constant repetition of which (especially when you are listening to the audio book) have a hypnotic quality. In ‘Venomous Lumpsucker’ Beauman takes us to future versions of several Northern European countries which are recognisable but quirkily different from present day. This slightly adjusted parallel world reminded me of the bizarre alternative-reality visions of the UK in the novels of Jasper Fforde (see for example 'Early Riser', reviewed here in October 2018). But Ned Beauman, while often very funny, is more interested in ideas than gags. And his ideas are fascinating as he explores where climate change and current policies might logically take the world. ‘Venomous Lumpsucker’ is a picaresque journey around the Baltic and the cast of eccentric characters that our two protagonists meet along the way made me think of Douglas Adams’ ‘The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy’. But I didn’t enjoy this book as much as Ned Beauman’s previous novels. ‘Venomous Lumpsucker’ has too many lengthy interludes to explain its ideas, at the expense of plot, and lacked the comic set-pieces of his earlier books.  If you haven't experienced Ned Beauman yet I would still suggest you start with 'The Teleportation Accident' (reviewed here in July 2013).

'Watch Her Fall' by Erin Kelly

23 September 2022

I hadn’t heard of the thriller writer Erin Kelly before we saw her at the Ampthill Literary Festival earlier this year (reviewed here in April 2022) talking about the process of writing her latest book ‘Watch Her Fall’ during lockdown. I read ‘Watch Her Fall’ on holiday last week and I would strongly recommend it. It’s a psychological thriller about a dancer, which uses ‘Swan Lake’ as its inspiration and structure. The book is very cleverly plotted: it is really hard to see where it is going and Erin Kelly very effectively pulls the rug out from under you on several occasions with some stunning twists. A good twist needs to be both unexpected and believable and it is a sign of the writer’s skill that I now want to read the whole book again to spot the little clues I should have seen the first time around.

Norway

23 September 2022

We enjoyed our holiday in the Norwegian fjords on the P&O cruise ship Iona last week but we were fairly unlucky with the weather, with lots of heavy rain coinciding with our time ashore. It was still good to revisit Stavanger, Olden, Alesund and Bergen but my photos are less spectacular than those from our previous trips to Norway. Iona is the biggest cruise ship we have been on (5,200 passengers) and is in its first season. It’s a beautiful new ship and we really enjoyed the food and the entertainment: it just would have been nice to have a little sunshine!

'Much Ado About Nothing' by William Shakespeare

9 September 2022

It was very strange to be taking our seats to watch a Shakespeare comedy just as we heard the news of the passing of Queen Elizabeth II. We were at the Curzon Cinema at Milton Keynes Gallery to see the NT Live broadcast of ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ from the National Theatre in London. National Theatre Artistic Director Rufus Norris appeared on screen, wearing a black tie, to announce that the show would go ahead, following a minute’s silence and the playing of the national anthem. It felt like a hand-brake turn to then launch into Simon Godwin’s screwball comedy production of ‘Much Ado About Nothing’, set in an Art Deco hotel in 1930s Italy. Simon Godwin is one of my favourite theatre directors (see, for example, my review of his National Theatre production of George Bernard Shaw's 'Man and Superman' in May 2015). His ‘Much Ado’ started as very broad comedy, with Katherine Parkinson’s Beatrice and John Heffernan’s Benedick milking every line for laughs. But as the play turned darker the pathos was all the more affecting for its contrast with the earlier pantomime clowning and both the leads were very moving as well as funny. This ensemble performance also included impressive and very believable performances from Eben Figueiredo as Claudio, David Judge as Don John and Phoebe Horn as Margaret. And David Flynn’s blend of dimness, slapstick and a hint of being slightly more knowing than he first appeared made his Dogberry more genuinely funny than usual.
 

Edinburgh Festivals 2022

2 September 2022

It was great to be back at the Edinburgh Festivals last week, for the first time since 2018. It did feel a little less busy than our last pre-pandemic festival, and the streets were strewn with rubbish because of strike action affecting bin collection. Nevertheless, in most aspects it did seem like things were getting back towards normal. We managed to see 27 shows during our week in Edinburgh - almost all of a surprisingly high standard. We saw two brilliant orchestral concerts at the Usher Hall as part of the Edinburgh International Festival: the Czech Philharmonic, conducted by Semyon Bychkov, gave a stunning performance of Mahler’s ‘Symphony No 7’; and the Philadelphia Orchestra, conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin, were incredibly engaging and entertaining in Florence Price’s ‘Symphony No 1’. This symphony, premiered in 1932, was the first work by a Black woman composer to be performed by a major US orchestra and it’s a lovely piece which deserves to be more widely performed. At the Edinburgh International Book Festival we saw the actor Alan Cumming talking about his recent memoir ‘Baggage’. Our pick of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival included fringe veteran comedian Simmon Munnery - on particularly good form this year - and our belated discovery of the wonderfully funny and likeable musical duo Jonny & The Baptists (see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdR8e08ng9M). We enjoyed two excellent quintessential fringe one-person biographical plays: Alison Skilbeck’s ‘Mrs Roosevelt Flies to London’ and Tayo Aluko’s ‘Call Mr. Robeson’. Seeing the Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh production of ‘The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart’ by David Greig and Wils Wilson in the amazing setting of the University of Edinburgh Playfair Library felt like proper ‘event theatre’ and was great fun. Emily Bruni was brilliant in Matt Wilkinson’s one-woman play ‘Psychodrama’ at the Traverse Theatre. And we rounded off our week in Edinburgh with another outstanding solo performance - Samuel Barnett in ‘Feeling Afraid as If Something Terrible Is Going to Happen’, written by Marcelo Dos Santos and directed by Matthew Xia, at the Roundabout at Summerhall. As always Edinburgh in August felt like a cultural top-up which should keep us going for the next year.

'The Hanging Tree' by Ben Aaronovitch

17 August 2022

It was 2018 when I discovered Ben Aaronovitch’s series of novels about London police officer Peter Grant who is seconded to the Metropolitan Police’s secret division of wizards dealing with magic and supernatural crimes. ‘Rivers of London’ (reviewed here in June 2018) was a very entertaining blend of real-world policing and fantasy that was clever, thrilling and very funny. Since then I’ve been gradually working my way through the other books in the series and I’ve just finished the sixth novel ‘The Hanging Tree’, which I read as an unabridged audio book, narrated by Kobna Holdrook-Smith. I think this was the best yet - beginning to bring together the historical backstory of magical practitioners that Peter Grant has been trying to understand, and taking Peter and his wizard boss, Detective Chief Inspector Nightingale, ever closer to their arch-enemy – The Faceless Man. It’s a peculiar combination of crime fiction and fantasy, rooted in a very real contemporary London but forever slipping into the magical demi-monde - and never taking itself too seriously.

'Prima Facie' by Suzie Miller

12 August 2022

On Tuesday we were at the Curzon Cinema at Milton Keynes Gallery to see the NT Live screening of 'Prima Facie' by Suzie Miller from the Harold Pinter Theatre in London. This new play is presented as a partnership with the charity The Schools Consent Project which was set up in 2014 by barrister Kate Parker to send lawyers into schools to teach 11-18 year olds the legal definition of consent and key sexual offences. 'Prima Facie' looks at the issue of consent through the story of Tessa Ensler, a young barrister who has made a name for herself defending men accused of sexual assault. It's a remarkable one-woman play which marks Jodie Comer's West End debut. Justin Martin's production uses an inventive set by Miriam Buether framed with towering bookshelves filled with legal ring binders, and features music by Rebecca Lucy Taylor AKA Self Esteem. Suzi Miller's script is powerful, witty and cleverly constructed. But this is very much Jodie Comer's show and she is superb. Like many monologues, the script would make a good radio play. But Jodie Comer's physical acting is fascinating, constantly moving the furniture to construct different scenes in her story, leaping onto the desk to deliver a speech and pouring a full glass of water perfectly without looking. And her facial expressions, wonderfully clear in close-up in the cinema screening, tell much of the story by themselves. She has an incredible skill for accents (as she demonstrated in 'Killing Eve'), here seamlessly switching between two characters when recounting a conversation. It's a captivating, compelling masterclass in dramatic storytelling which reminded me of Kizzy Dunn’s brilliant one-woman performance of ‘Henry V’ that we saw at the Edinburgh Fringe four years ago (reviewed here in August 2018). 'Prima Facie' is an amazing show - funny, distressing and enraging: an extraordinary solo performance by Jodie Comer.

'As You Like It' by William Shakespeare

9 August 2022

Last Friday evening we were at Wrest Park in Silsoe to see an outdoor performance of ‘As You Like It’ by the Lord Chamberlain’s Men who specialise in very traditional productions of Shakespeare plays, with an all male cast and Elizabethan costume – giving you a good idea of what it must have been like to see the plays when they were first performed. A year ago, at the same venue, we saw their production of ‘Macbeth’ (reviewed here in August 2021). ‘As You Like It’ provided another opportunity to see one of Shakespeare’s gender-swapping comedies making much more sense than it usually does - as we experienced with the Lord Chamberlain’s Men production of ‘Twelfth Night’ (reviewed here in August 2009). Somehow, with a female actor playing a woman pretending to be a man you never believe anyone would actually fall for the disguise. But when (as it would have been in Shakespeare’s time) it is a male actor playing a woman dressed as a man, it is easier to suspend your disbelief and go with the plot. Peter Stickney’s production of ‘As You Like It’ was great fun, with a very impressive cast including stand-out performances by Ben Lynn as Rosalind and Jonny Warr as Celia.

WOMAD 2022

1 August 2022

Last weekend saw the return of the WOMAD Festival after a two-year break for the pandemic, and celebrating 40 years since the first ‘World of Music, Arts and Dance’ Festival in Shepton Mallet in 1982. I first went to WOMAD in 2003 and I’ve been at every UK WOMAD Festival since. WOMAD moved to its current home - the enormous Charlton Park, near Malmesbury in Wiltshire - in 2007, and it was lovely to return there last Friday in glorious sunshine. Over the weekend I managed to see 16 full performances, and caught snippets of many others. I enjoyed Khiyo, a band from Bangladesh and the UK who play a rock-version of Bengali folk and film songs. Sam Amidon from Vermont USA gave a stunning performance on the Charlie Gillett Stage, reinterpreting early 20th century American folk music for a contemporary audience. It was lovely to see the Gambian kora player Sona Jobarteh talking about her music and playing duets with her 15-year-old son on balafon in the intimate World Rhythms tent. And it was a real treat to finally get the chance to see the poet and rapper Kae Tempest (whose recordings I have written about here before - in October 2014, October 2016 and August 2019) performing the new album ‘The Line Is A Curve’ in its entirety, to a packed Siam Tent. I liked Afghan singer Elaha Soroor’s collaboration with the group Kefaya - turning Afghan folk songs into rock, electronica and dub. It was wonderful to see Nitin Sawhney again - the highlight of my first WOMAD in 2003 - giving a brilliant performance on Saturday evening. But my pick of WOMAD 2022 was the amazing Korean band ADG7 (Ak Dan Gwang Chil). The group consists of six traditional musicians playing acoustic Korean instruments, accompanying three flamboyantly dressed female vocalists with impressively choreographed routines. They take Korean shamanic folk traditions and present them in a catchy K-pop style. The concept sounds horrendous but the result is surprisingly wonderful. To give you a flavour, here is a clip of the band performing at Womex in 2019: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9XTmH8U4nA You can see a selection of my photos from this year’s WOMAD Festival at: https://culturaloutlook.blogspot.com/search/label/WOMAD2022

David Sedaris

27 July 2022

When we last saw the American humourist David Sedaris at the Derngate in Northampton (reviewed here in June 2015) he was careful to avoid using any material that had previously been used on his BBC Radio 4 show, treating us to new writing and work in progress. Last Sunday we were at the Corn Exchange in Cambridge for another evening of David Sedaris reading his essays, and almost all the pieces he read were written since he finished his latest book in February this year. It still seems odd sitting in a theatre watching a writer simply reading aloud - but he does it so well! I was struck by how many of his anecdotes seem to come from things people say to him at his book signings. So it was fascinating to see the enormous queue in the foyer at the end of the evening as everyone waited for their moment with David Sedaris, and their opportunity to be featured in his next collection.

'Great Circle' by Maggie Shipstead

22 July 2022

I bought Maggie Shipstead’s novel 'Great Circle' purely on the following short recommendation in The Guardian: "shortlisted for the Booker and now the Women’s prize, this is the story of an early female aviator and the Hollywood star who investigates the mystery of her disappearance. A gloriously immersive historical epic." I wasn’t disappointed: ‘Great Circle’ is a compelling saga covering more than 100 years, beautifully written and elegantly constructed. The central tale of the life of aviator Marion Graves is framed by the modern-day story of the making of a film about her. We also see Marion’s life through the perspectives of some of her closest friends and family and through the ‘found narratives’ of letters, diaries and memoirs. It’s an engaging and wide-ranging journey through the first half of the 20th century, interspersed with factual accounts of the achievements of other early aviators. Marion faces some grim challenges - both in her chosen profession and her personal life - which are not always easy reading. But there’s a lightness and wit to Maggie Shipstead’s writing and there is fun to be had for the reader in knowing more about what actually happened to Marion than those making the film have discovered. ‘Great Circle’ feels like an instant classic: I didn’t want it to finish.

‘Wrong Place Wrong Time’ by Gillian McAllister

15 July 2022

When we saw the thriller writer Erin Kelly at the Ampthill Literary Festival earlier this year (reviewed here in April 2022), one of the authors she recommended was Gillian McAllister. I have just finished reading ‘Wrong Place Wrong Time’ - the new novel by Gillian McAllister (as an unabridged audio book, narrated by Lesley Sharp) and I loved it. This is a crime thriller with a twist. Jen - a successful Liverpool solicitor - witnesses an horrific murder directly outside her house. This traumatic experience has a profound effect on her and when she wakes up the following morning she discovers that it is actually the previous morning and the murder hasn’t happened yet. Armed with her knowledge of the future could she prevent the crime from being committed? The device of travelling back in time to relive the same events in order to try to change their outcome reminded of ‘The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle’ by Stuart Turton (reviewed here in April 2019) and the Netflix series ‘Russian Doll’. But ‘Wrong Place Wrong Time’ is less concerned with the science fiction of time travel and more an exercise in searching your own memory for clues that were there all the time but that you hadn’t noticed before. There were multiple twists in Jen’s story, almost all of which caught me completely by surprise. But the really clever thing about Gillian McAllister’s novel is how it manages to replicate Jen’s experience for the reader, showing you that you had read the clues to each unexpected twist earlier in the book without noticing their significance. I had no idea where the plot was taking me and this made it a very enjoyable and ultimately satisfying read.

'The Importance of Being Earnest' by Oscar Wilde

13 July 2022

On Saturday we were at the Roman Theatre of Verulamium in St Albans to see the OVO Theatre open-air production of Oscar Wilde’s ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’. Like their adaptation of ‘The Merry Wives of Windsor’ which we saw at the same venue in 2020 (reviewed here in September 2020) the play was interspersed with live music performed by the cast, this time featuring a jazz band interpreting modern pop songs in a 1920s swing style. The production, directed by Adam Nichols and Matt Strachan and musically directed by Tom Cagnoni, was great fun. ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’ is such a brilliant play it would be hilarious if you just read the words directly from the script but an excellent cast added a real panache. Charlie Clee was perfect as Algernon Montcrieff but I thought Paul Manuel almost stole the show as Lane the butler - all the funnier for playing it very straight and drole in the manner of Jeeves, and joining in the musical numbers in a bemused expression. It was a lovely afternoon but the heat was hard work for an outdoor audience with no shade to shelter in. By the second half we had retreated to the back row so we could try to escape the sun under an umbrella - feeling like Cecily and Gwendolen in the garden of Jack Worthing’s country house.

‘The Southbury Child’ by Stephen Beresford

13 July 2022

Last Thursday we were back at the Bridge Theatre in London to see ‘The Southbury Child’ - a new play by Stephen Beresford, directed by Nicholas Hytner. Alex Jennings plays a Church of England vicar who provokes hostility in his rural Devon parish by not allowing a young mother to decorate the church with Disney balloons for her child’s funeral. The drama takes place around the kitchen table of the vicarage as various local residents plead with the vicar to relax his principled stand in sympathy with the emotional devastation of the family dealing with the loss of a child. Stephen Beresford’s script finds gentle humour within a tragic situation and has the feel of an Alan Bennett play. ‘The Southbury Child’ is entertaining and thought provoking, with an impressive cast including Phoebe Nicholls as the vicar’s wife.

Wimbledon 2022

13 July 2022

We had a fantastic day at Wimbledon on the middle Saturday of the Championships on Court Number One. We saw Nick Kyrgios beat Stefanos Tsitsipas in what many commentators said was the game of the tournament and was certainly the most exciting match we have ever seen in many years of going to Wimbledon. It was a high-quality, but extremely bad-tempered, battle which ended just after 9pm under the roof - making the final set even more dramatic and incredibly noisy. Our seats were high up in the stadium and at times it was quite difficult to know what was going on between the players and the umpire without consulting the BBC Sport app. But it was an electric atmosphere: a genuinely thrilling experience. Earlier we had seen the impressive run of British player Liam Broady come to an end in straight sets against Alex de Minaur. We also witnessed Alize Cornet completely outplaying the World No. 1 and No. 1 seed Iga Swiatek - which was set to have been the story of the day before Kyrgios vs Tsitsipas.

Spiers & Boden

1 July 2022

Last Friday we were at the Stables in Wavendon to see English folk duo Spiers & Boden. John Spiers (melodeon) and Jon Boden (fiddle) are the founders of the wonderful folk big band Bellowhead (reviewed here on many occasions, most recently in December 2020). We last saw them as a duo in 2008 (also at the Stables, reviewed here in December 2008) and it's wonderful to see the two of them touring together again after many years devoted to Bellowhead and their own individual projects. Friday's concert mainly featured tracks from their 2021 album 'Fallow Ground' - a great collection of traditional songs and their own new tunes. Spiers & Boden do sound (unsurprisingly) like Bellowhead without the other instruments, and Jon Boden is a brilliant front man, even when his band is simply John Spiers. Here’s one of the tracks from their new album: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poFJINnaA4w

'Lockdown in Little Grimley' and 'Murder in Little Grimley' by David Tristram

23 June 2022

We had only recently discovered the TADS amateur theatre group in our neighbouring village, Toddington, when we saw their hilarious production of David Tristram's wonderfully silly detective spoof 'Inspector Drake and the Black Widow' in 2009 (reviewed here April 2009). Since then we've been back to the lovely little TADS Theatre to see three more 'Inspector Drake' plays. On Saturday we were at TADS to see two one-act plays by David Tristram from his Little Grimley series about a less than perfect amateur theatre group. 'Lockdown in Little Grimley' saw the fictional company's four actors reuniting to work on their first post Covid production (complete with plenty of jokes about toilet rolls and facemasks). And 'Murder in Little Grimley' further stretched the boundaries of meta fiction with the Toddington amateur theatre group playing the Little Grimley amateur theatre group devising a new murder mystery play about the death of a sweet shop owner whilst also becoming implicated in the actual death of a sweet shop owner. These plays reminded me of The Farndale Avenue Housing plays (such as 'The Farndale Avenue Housing Estate Townswomen’s Guild Dramatic Society’s Production of Macbeth’ - a comedy by William Shakespeare, David McGillivray and Walter Zerlin Jnr, reviewed here in November 2016). Both Little Grimley plays had the characteristic David Tristram zany surreality and corny gags, though they felt a bit slight compared to the Inspector Drake plays. But David Sachon's production was great fun with a very strong cast and it was lovely to see some TADS regulars again after the long break imposed by the pandemic.

Canada and Alaska

17 June 2022

We had an amazing holiday over the past couple of weeks - driving through the Canadian Rockies, followed by a cruise from Vancouver to Alaska. We visited Canmore, Banff, Lake Louise, Jasper, Golden, Kelowna and Vancouver in Canada, including two journeys along the incredible Icefields Parkway - which must be one of the most stunning drives in the world. We had some lovely weather but it was still cold in the mountains, with many of the lakes frozen. We were fortunate to see black bears on six separate occasions (and fortunate that all were from a safe distance!). On our cruise we sailed around the Glacier Bay National Park - one of the most beautiful landscapes I have seen, but it was sad to see the extent to which climate change is affecting the glaciers. One of our highlights was a boat trip along the Tracy Arm Fjord near Juneau during which we saw lots of wildlife and got a close-up view of the deep blue colours of the South Sawyer Glacier. You can see a very small selection from the thousands of photos I took at: https://culturaloutlook.blogspot.com/search/label/Canada-Alaska2022

Northampton Symphony Orchestra concert

24 May 2022

Our Northampton Symphony Orchestra concert last Saturday was dedicated to the memory of Luke Roskams, a long-time member of the orchestra who died suddenly and unexpectedly in April 2021. Luke was a violinist who played for many years with the Orchestra of the Welsh National Opera before moving to Northampton. Our concert featured Luke’s son Benjamin Roskams playing Max Bruch’s ‘Violin Concerto No. 1’ - a gorgeously romantic work that felt particularly poignant. Ben had previously played Bruch's 'Scottish Fantasy' with us (reviewed here in June 2015) and the ‘Romantic Fantasy’ by Arthur Benjamin (reviewed here in February 2019) and it was great to have the opportunity to hear him again. It was a stunning and very moving performance. We started the concert with another emotional piece, the orchestral rhapsody ‘A Shropshire Lad’ by George Butterworth - a young English composer who was killed by a sniper at the Battle of the Somme in 1916 at the age of 31. It’s a beautiful pastoral piece in the style of Vaughan-Williams, which we last played in a NSO concert in 2014 (reviewed here in October 2014). Our performance on Saturday featured some wonderfully delicate playing by the violas and clarinets. We started the second half of the concert with Samuel Barber’s haunting ‘Adagio for Strings’ - a piece that has become increasingly used in memorium. The concert finished with one of the works we played during lockdown in the NSO online rehearsals using Jamulus (open source low latency software), the ‘Symphony in D minor’ by Cesar Franck. This symphony was incredibly popular with audiences in the early twentieth century but then fell out of fashion and is now rarely performed. It’s a very likeable, tuneful piece and our performance featured impressive solos by Jo Bell on cor anglais, Rowena Bass on harp and Ian Jones on horn. It was a lovely concert.