Not Talking at the Arcola Theatre review ****

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Not Talking

Arcola Theatre, 5th May 2018

Not Talking is, in his own words, Mike Bartlett’s first “proper” play. It won prizes when first aired on BBC Radio, (with Richard Briers and June Whitfield no less), but it was written for the stage and, here. courtesy of production company Defibrillator, it has it first theatrical outing.

You may well know Mr Bartlett from his TV outings, Doctor Foster, Trauma or maybe the TV adaptation of his play King Charles III. (It always tickles me that the TV critic of the execrable rag the Daily Mail gave this a 0* review whereas the sharp-witted theatre critic gave it 5*). Or maybe you have seen one of his other plays, Albion (Albion at the Almeida Theatre review ****), Wild, Game, An Intervention, Bull, 13, Earthquakes in London, Cock, the adaptation of Chariots of Fire or his brilliant version of Medea with Headlong. His writing is innovative and fearless, and full of colour. If a big dramatic concept or twist is required he will jump in with both feet, and the quality of his writing is so good that he always gets away with it.

All this is visible in Not Talking. We have four characters, James, Amanda, Lucy and Mark. James and Lucy have been married for many years but have drifted apart. They don’t talk to each other. Mark and Amanda are soldiers at the same barracks who fall for each other. Something happens that neither one of them can really share. It turns out that there is a connection between the couples.

I’ll stop there. The plot is too absorbing to reveal and there are still plenty of tickets up for grabs through to 2nd June. You would be a mug not to see this.

David Horovitch who plays James is a top drawer stage actor, last seen by me in All My Sons at the Rose Kingston alongside Penny Downie. Kika Markham who plays Lucy is similarly theatrical royalty. She played Lena in Caryl Churchill’s magnificent Escaped Alone and her mate, Tony Kushner no less, wrote a one hour monologue for her in his play Homebody/Kabul. You would be hard pressed to see two finer actors on the London stage and here they are at the Arcola for 20 quid. Gemma Lawrence and Lawrence Walker who make up the quartet are less experienced but equally as good as they renowned colleagues. This is the first time I have seen any of James Hiller’s work, the AD of Defibrillator. Nothing he does gets in the way of Mr Bartlett’s riveting plot, which is equally well served by Amy Jane Cook’s simple set.

Now you might argue that Mr Bartlett is a little too ready to pump up the dramatic volume, or that his message, don’t bury secrets, is a little too patent. Who cares when it is this involving and this well presented.

Take a friend. You’ll have someone to talk to afterwards.

Icebreaker at Kings Place review ****

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Icebreaker: Velocity

Kings Place, 5th May 2018

  • Anna Meredith – Nautilus
  • Michael Gordon – Yo Shakespeare
  • Paul Whitty – nature is a language – can’t you read?
  • David Lang – Slow Movement
  • Louis Andriessen – De snelheid (‘Velocity’)

Boundaries. And their close, and troublesome cousins, borders. The bane of human existence. Setting them, seeing them, understanding them, crossing them. We have to set boundaries in what we do, what we learn, where we live, how we interact, how we identify to make sense of ourselves and those around us. Executive, legislature, judiciary create and police them. Arguments flow from them.

So I reckon, if you aren’t going to hurt anyone by doing so, transgressing boundaries every day, from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to sleep is good for you and good for humanity. No need to bother in your sleep. Your dreams and sub-conscious are already on the case.

That then is the only explanation I have for scuttling off to see Icebreaker perform at Kings Place. For this is music well beyond my normal boundaries. Icebreaker are an 11 piece contemporary music group founded by James Poke and John Godfrey in 1989. They combine guitars, electric strings, keyboards, pan-pipes, flutes, saxes, drums and various percussion; not your run of the mill instrumentation so no surprise that they have had a fair few pieces written especially for them. They aim to appeal to contemporary classical, rock and alternative music audience camps alike. There you go. Crossing boundaries. I have poked my nose into the first camp and like the perfume, I once lived in the second camp but left in the mid 1980s and don’t really know how the neighbourhood has changed since then and I have never visited the final camp and don’t really even know what they look like there.

I am guessing that Icebreaker are content to make their music and play to a select. but engaged, audience in appropriately sized venues. Good on ’em and good on whoever supports them. On the strength concert of this I will have to pay attention to them and the composers they showcased.

The concert was part of the year long Time Unwrapped Series at Kings Place which is examining the concept of time in music from all sort of angles. Many participants in the Series have argued that our perception of time is intimately bound up with music. Here were 5 pieces that were written in the last couple of decades, 3 for this very ensemble, which examine the concept of velocity in music, that is the rate of movement, think speed, compared to a fixed point of reference.

I had listened to the Louis Andriessen piece, called Velocity, de Snelhied in Dutch, before in its original form for three separate “orchestras” of unusual combinations, balanced through amplification. James Poke has arranged this for Icebreaker’s smaller forces retaining the structure. Mr Andriessen, there he is above, every inch the modern composer, is generally seen as a torchbearer for the minimalism that was kicked off in the US in the 1960s, and he was one of the key inspirations for the formation of Icebreaker. He was born into a family of composers and is a renowned teacher. The energy, pulse and rhythms of “classic” minimalism and jazz are audible in his music, as well as, who else, Stravinsky, but on top of this he lays big slabs of dissonant sound. It is really exciting stuff and he sounds like he had a lot of fun writing it. de Snelheid was a hit at the Proms given by the London Sinfonietta in 2012. A prom I missed because a) I am a dickhead and b) it was my birthday. Ligeti, Xenakis, Berio, Cage and Harvey in addition to Mr Andriessen were on the roster. Wow.

You would have thought I would have learnt my lesson. Oh no. Same thing last year when I missed the performance of Andriessen’s Workers Union, alongside pieces from the triumvirate of Bang on a Can composers, Julia Wolfe, Michael Gordon and David Lang. Yes, dear reader, two of the very same composers who appeared in this programme. Small world, eh? Which it sort of is really, but it does seem that when composers such as Louis Andriessen are served up to a bigger and wider audience, of boundary breakers, positive surprise ensues, as at the Proms.

Now de Snelhied was apparently inspired when LA was driving with mates in Italy, listening to Prokofiev or Tchaikovsky and someone asks how fast they would have to go to go as fast as the music. Now this seemingly dumbass question is actually quite profound. Like LD saying the other day that she “couldn’t remember her first memory”. Whilst LD has a history of inadvertent hilarity, this actually points up that memory is constructed in the present and not “recorded” in our brains at the time of passing. Which is why it is fallible and plastic. Similarly LA realised that musical speed, like velocity itself, could only be measured, like velocity, by reference to a fixed point.

The piece kicks off with a steady pulse on two woodblocks around which the rest of the ensemble adds various repeated motifs. The woodblock pulse however speeds up at intervals, to close at 4x the pace it started out, (trust me this is very fast). This drags other instruments into accelerating except for one stubborn percussionist on bass drum and tom-toms who bashes out the same infrequent pulse throughout. The underlying chords too remain slow throughout. It is a weird aural sensation initially, but once you adjust to what is going on, you can hear what LA was up to; the tempo is not defined by the speed of the pulse but by the harmonic rhythm. I get it.

The other pieces similarly mess about with the notion of time, or more specifically, velocity in music. Anna Meredith’s Nautilus, here arranged for Icebreaker, introduces a slow strident drumbeat against a rising, skittery brass fanfare, both drawn from the electronic dance music which is Ms Meredith’s other vocation. By the end it becomes impossible to work out if this is a slow piece with a fast overlay or the other way round.

Michael Gordon’s Yo Shakespeare divides the ensemble into three groups, one playing a basic semiquaver pulse, the other two playing respectively in 3:2 and 4:3 against this pulse. There is a beat of sorts in each group, but if you switch between them it gets a bit disorientating. Prof. Paul Whitty, (well named in this context as he is sort of taking the p*ss), has taken this very piece and “deconstructed it” by asking each player to take the notes on each of the pages of their scores and play them in order from highest to lowest. Three of the musicians also chuck in mp3 recordings, unsynchronised, which they may try to translate on their own instruments. The idea is that the timbre, note durations, dynamics and harmony remain the same as in Mr Gordon’s piece but in a disordered, ghostly way. I can grasp the idea but found it difficult to relate the two pieces but it was “fun” trying.

David Lang’s piece does exactly what it says on the tin, or should that be the can. It is 24 minutes of very, very slow note progression, which swirls about and feels very different depending on whether you try to focus your ears on the big picture architecture of the piece or the little details. It does test the patience, no doubt about that, but is it intriguing and has a kind of imposing grandeur. The compositional equivalent of a unified theory of everything, marrying the cosmic with the atomic. Try it.

So there you have it. Icebreaker took me to places I would never otherwise visit and I am very grateful to them for doing so. They delivered a thrilling performance, musically if not visually, as, with all the gubbins on stage, it look more like a studio jamming session than a “gig” despite a bit of coloured lighting. Icebreaker recorded the Gordon, Land and Andriessen pieces as long ago as 1994 so I think it is fair to say they know their way around them. Which is as well I think they are fiendishly difficult to pull off, not because of the notes or technique, but because the person right next to you is off playing something in a completely different time.

So take a tip from the Tourist. Break one of your self imposed cultural boundaries. Hate the theatre? Go and see King Lear, ideally in a language foreign to you. Love Mozart? Listen to some grindcore, though be wary of the lyrical extremes. Enjoy all that Tate Modern has to offer? Explore a cathedral. Canterbury, Ely or Wells would be my first choices. Ed Sheeran popping up too often on your Spotify? Try Neil Young. And so on.

What have you got to lose? Other than a couple of hours of your life. Being miserable. Still YOLO.

Our Country’s Good at Theatre Royal Stratford review ****

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Our Country’s Good

Theatre Royal Stratford East, 28th April 2018

Timberlake Wertenbaker’s Our Country’s Good is one of my favourite plays. As it is for many theatre-goers. The context, the “First Fleet” of British convicts sent to Australia with their Royal Marine guards in the 1780s, and the setting, Sydney Cove in New South Wales, are intriguing; the characters, which cover a broad spectrum of society at the time, are many, but go beyond mere sketches; the plot, incorporating a play within a play (sort of) as the convicts set out to stage a version of George Farquhar’s The Recruiting Officer guided by the well-meaning Second Lieutenant Ralph Clark, is perspicacious; and the messages many and critical. Above all it is accessible but not simplistic.

The play is based on Thomas Keneally’s novel The Playmaker, which I haven’t, shamefully read, and the novel and these historical events, (without the Farquhar play), were loosely dramatised by Jimmy McGovern a couple of years ago in the BBC series Banished. It is also no great surprise that the play is used as a text for various English Language examinations.

Can art, and specifically the theatre, play a part in “reforming” and rehabilitating criminals? Is “criminality” innate or born out of desperation? How is justice dispensed? What is a fair punishment for petty crimes? Why is society ashamed of taking retribution? How do the class system,  and gender relationships, respond to, and evolve in, a new, and hostile, environment? How damaging is the force of colonisation?

These are some of the more obvious themes which the play contends with but there is also a pointed examination of the way in which we communicate, most obviously through the character of John Wisehammer, an outsider as a Jew, but who is educated and can read and write, in the relationship between Midshipman Harry Brewer and Duckling Smith, and in the lines from the Recruiting Officer itself. It also, through the play, shows what people are capable of if they are given an opportunity.

This production, the third from the seven theatre consortium that makes up Ramps on the Moon, underscores these dimensions. Ramps on the Moon is made up of a company of D/deaf, disabled, hearing and non-disabled cast and creatives who seek a similarly diverse audience and, outside of the productions, aim to ensure D/deaf and disabled people see the theatre as a realistic option on both sides of the curtain.

From my perspective, as non-disabled, the opportunity to see and hear the various solutions employed to present the drama and connect to the audience, was most welcome. The use of BSL and interpretation in particular added a whole new dimension to the play’s central message about the power of theatre and about who can make it. Jon Nicholls’s sound design and composition was first class, even between scenes. The production uses less doubling than the text allows, which sharpens the divide between captive and captor and lends clarity at the expense of the intended ambiguity. As it happened at the performance I attended Colin Connor ended up playing Harry Brewer as well as the prize shit Major Robbie Ross, a man beyond redemption. Serendipity indeed as he is a fine actor, though his eventual mental and physical collapse was a little restrained.

Caroline Parker, both in her role as “Shitty” Meg Long, as the voiceover and as BSL interpreter for Emily Rose Salter’s Duckling amongst others was excellent. Ms Salter, in this her debut performance, gives a master class in communication without words, poignant and aggressive as the action demanded. I was also drawn to Tom Dawze’s enigmatic Wisehammer, Gbemisola Ikumelo’s truculent Liz Morden, who remember eventually speaks out to save her life and secure justice, and Alex Nowak’s preposterous Sideway and priggish Reverend Johnson.

Fiona Buffini did a superb job in bringing all these elements together, including that part of the technology that was visible to me, and ensured that the plot was clear and ideas were foregrounded. She couldn’t quite avoid the signalling and exposition that characterises a handful of Ms Wertenbaker’s scenes, but that is true of every version I have seen, and there were a few moments where pacing was a little off-beam. Overall though this is a fine production that deserves to be seen by as wider audience as possible (it still has to go to Sheffield and Birmingham), and which sheds new light on this remarkable play.

 

 

 

Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra at the Barbican review ***/***

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Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, Gustavo Dudamel (conductor)

Barbican Hall, 2nd May and 4th May 2018

  • Esa-Pekka Salonen – Pollux
  • Edgar Varese – Ameriques
  • Shostakovich – Symphony No 5
  • Beethoven – Symphony No 9 “Choral”

Canny students of architecture will realise that the pic above is not of the Barbican. The Brutalist Barbican Estate is a thing of beauty to my eyes, though not to many others I realise, but surely no-one can be anything other than blown away by Frank Gehry’s Walt Disney Concert Hall, home to the LA Phil under current Music Director Gustavo Dudamel. I’ve never been there but I think have been driven past a couple of times. On the bucket list.

There was enough in the two main programmes on offer this year from the LA Phil’s residency at the Barbican for the Tourist to pitch up to both, albeit with some trepidation. The last time I saw Senor Dudamel and his fine head of hair was with his other band, the legendary Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra. They bashed out a showy Petrushka and Rite of Spring. In places it was electrifying, in others mystifying, (not mystical). I don’t know if at 37, and into his ninth year at the LA Phil, building on Esa Pekka Salonen’s legacy, S. Dudamel can still be counted a wunderkind. He is still as wilful as ever though.

As was revealed here. The first concert kicked off with a piece by Esa-Pekka Salonen himself, the man who is credited with turning the LA Phil into a contender for the US’s best orchestra, and certainly its most innovative in terms of contemporary classical music. We are lucky to have the fiery Finn, (fiery as Finns go I reckon), in London with the Philharmonia Orchestra, especially when he turns his baton to Stravinsky. As a composer though, I am less sure. This was the European premiere of Pollux, which, in time, will be paired with Castor, to mean both twins of Greek legend, immortal and mortal, are brought to musical life. Pollux is slow and dark, in the composer’s words, Castor will be faster. EPS nicked a bass line from a post-grunge band, slowing it right down, a chorale from a Rilke sonnet about the boy Orpheus and slipped in an Ancient Greek Aeolian echo. All right over my head. It bubbled along pleasantly enough, all clusters and modes, but I am afraid left no mark on me.

I have tried Varese’s Ameriques a couple of times now with limited success. I get how important Varese was, in retrospect, to the development of modern classical music, and I enjoyed the programme of chamber scale pieces delivered by Guildhall School students as part of the Varese immersion day at the Barbican this time last year. But Ameriques is just a noise. Of noise. And it is very noisy. Especially here as GD let his percussion and brass sections run riot. It is difficult not to feel something from the sheer, physical energy of the piece, and the Debussyian and Stravinskyian shards provide texture, but it just doesn’t go beyond the immediate wow.

Now I read a review that contained a remark along the lines that US orchestras can’t really do Shostakovich because they are “too well-fed”. I think that about sums it up. In my limited experience the best performances of DSCH’s symphonies are either the very lean, uncompromising performances from Russia orchestras in days gone by, or from contemporary European orchestras who can capture the essence of those orchestras, whilst harnessing their greater playing skills. Put a Russian conductor in charge of a British orchestra and you have a guarantee of success. Or better still just hand it over to maestro Haitink.

This Fifth would have left a smile on Joe Stalin’s face. DSCH’s Mahlerian tendencies were loud and proud and the D major finale was bombastic, yes, but still felt like genuine, not forced, adulatory. I think GD and the LA Phil were at their best in the second movement scherzo, (as they were in the imposing, fugal scherzo of the Choral Symphony), with its waltzy rollercoaster rhythms and distinct central trios. The Largo third movement, just strings and a touch of woodwind, was way too rich for my blood and the first movement was too mannered as it shifted from slow to fast and back again. The canons, at the opening for strings, and then between flute and horn, and violin and piccolo, in the recapitulation were as striking as ever but the lyrical second theme was too smooth by half. DSCH strings need to have a bit of acid about them, even in this, the friendliest and most “classical” of his symphonies.

GD and the LA Phil were at it again a couple of nights later for the Choral Symphony. I didn’t bother with the Chichester Psalms in the first half as I don’t like it. Sorry. Most of the Beethoven I listen to is “period informed” and/or nips along at a fair lick. The plushest of the recordings I have is probably the oldest, (in terms of how long I have had it), in the form of Karl Bohm and the VPO. GD and the LA Phil offered an even weightier interpretation. As you might have guessed I didn’t take to it.

I heard a fantastic rendition from the LSO in this very Hall under Bernard Haitink. My favourite concert of 2015. The London Symphony Chorus was in fine fettle on that evening as they were here. For me they were the best of the instruments on show. Actually let me rephrase that. All the instruments on show were impressive, it was just that by the time, every one had had their say, the line and structure of Beethoven’s masterpiece got a little lost. The release at the start of the finale felt a little reserved and the coda was bashed through like a getaway car. Julianna Di Giacomo’s soprano is a thing of some beauty but got a little to bright here, Jennifer Johnson Cano’s mezzo was a little indistinct. The lads done well, Michael Konig tenor and especially Soloman Howard’s bass.

All in all then an interesting couple of evenings, if not as involving as I would have expected, for what are, two of the greatest major works ever written. The LA Phil is well upholstered, professional to a man and woman, but put together with GD’s over-emphases and exaggerated tempi, (including the relaxed in the paddock approach to start times), not quite as astonishing as I had been led to expect. To be fair the Barbican Hall acoustic doesn’t take kindly to this sort of full throttle treatment but that’s what rehearsals are for.

Mind you I clearly was in a minority. On both nights the full house went bananas at the end. Horses for courses I suppose.

 

Shostakovich from the Philharmonia and Ashkenazy review ****

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Philharmonia Orchestra, Vladimir Ashkenazy (conductor), James Ehnes (violin)

Royal Festival Hall, 29th April 2018

Dmitri Shostakovich

  • Violin Concerto no. 1 in A minor, Op.77
  • Symphony no. 4 in C minor, Op.43

Apparently Vladimir Ashkenazy was at the premiere of the Fourth Symphony. In 1961, in Moscow, 25 years after it was written, DSCH having withdrawn it after Stalin metaphorically beat up him and his music in Pravda. How amazing is that. 57 years after that premiere a still sprightly 80 year old Mr Ashkenazy bounded up to the podium and delivered as committed a performance of the Fourth Symphony as you are likely to hear. Ably assisted by the massed forces of the Philharmonia, of which he is Conductor Laureate, let loose on a piece of the repertoire which is outside their normal C19 staples.

For those they don’y know it the Fourth is a curious beast. It contains plenty of recognisable DSCH tropes across its hour and a bit and its three “movements”, and is more Mahlerian in concept and execution, than the later symphonies. Indeed it shares the same key, C minor as the Resurrection, and a second movement akin to that symphony’s Des Knaben Wunderhorn third movement scherzo. Alas, if you were a Russian apparatchik in the 1930s it was bereft of the required redemptive triumphalism that Mahler delivered in his final movement. Mahler’s third was also an inspiration though it takes a knowing conductor to locate it.

It has a lot of bits and pieces, showing a resemblance to the modernism of DSCH’s early works, which he was supposed to have left behind. Idea after idea is introduced then discarded. Fun, but a little wearing, especially when compared to the long arcs of narrative in the later symphonies. You can see where all those polystylist Russian composers that followed DSCH, like Alfred Schnittke, got their ideas from. The shorter central movement is easier to read, with its nagging four note motif, but the opening fastish, and the closing slow/fast movement with its two massive codas are, to coin a phrase, all over the shop. DSCH is showing off, but it does get you to wondering where he might have gone if he hadn’t had to tread the line between undermining, and seeking the approval of, the capricious regime. Not saying that old Joe was good for Dmitry just that the ugly reality made him do more with less (ideas not instruments).

I have the well regarded recording by Vasily Petrenko and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra which doesn’t dilly-dally in either of the outer two movements which allows the ear, and brain, to discern a sonata-like structure amidst all the madcap invention. I don’t think Mr Ashkenazy was quite as bold with his tempi, so I don’t think it hung together quite as well as this recording, but this was still a performance to intrigue rather than confuse. Anyway you look at it though, these outer movements, clocking in just under half an hour each are going to have intervals of misunderstanding. Best then to admire the playing of the ton, literally, of members of the PO on stage, especially the woodwind, a match for the LPO in the DSCH symphonies, though the LPO has the benefit of Vladimir Jurowski’s increasingly brilliant readings.

So not the place to start if you don’t “get” Shostakovich. The popular First Violin Concerto certainly is though, especially with a soloist as assured as James Ehnes. The last time I heard Mr Ehnes was in a magical Messaien Quartet, alongside the Shostakovich Second Piano Trio at SJSS (Quatuor pour la fin du temps at St John’s Smith Square review *****). Mr Ehnes is a tall fellow, think Elrond to Mr Ashkenazy’s Bilbo Baggins, and it takes a seeming age for his bow to move across the strings given his very upright style. Looks can be deceiving though, as we all know, for, when Shostakovich asks the soloist to deliver in the lengthy cadenza between the third movement Passacaglia and Burlesca finale, he answered with aplomb. He was similarly convincing in the Passacaglia itself, one of DSCH’s genuinely “grand” inventions with its references to the Leningrad Symphony and the fate motif from Beethoven’s Fifth.

As with the Fourth Symphony there was a hiatus between the work’s completion in 1948 and first performance in 1955 (after Stalin’s death in 1953), by its dedicatee David Oistrakh with the Leningrad Philharmonic, a consequence of the Zhdanov decree. The piece is apparently Hamletian in scope, can’t see it myself, as well as symphonic in form, with a gentle, Elgarian Nocturne, preceding a “possessed” Scherzo (with the classic autobiographical DSCH motif, so common in later works, snuck in for the firs time), the aforementioned Passacaglia and the pumped up finale with glimpses of material from the other movements, including the folky dance of the Scherzo. Once again the PO woodwind shone.

So a fine evening presided over by a genuine grade A maestro. I am a big fan of Mr Ashkenazy piano playing, especially in Beethoven and Chopin, and even when it goes a bit off-piste. Unfortunately I never saw him play the piano live. I don’t suppose I ever will. Meanwhile this was more than adequate compensation.

 

Nine Night at the National Theatre review *****

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Nine Night

National Theatre Dorfman, 3rd May 2018

You never quite know what you are going to get at the National Theatre. Mind you the Dorfman has turned into a pretty safe bet. After a painful 90 minutes, (it seemed much longer), sitting through the first half of Absolute Hell in the Lyttleton, I was praying for theatrical Heaven. And I’m an atheist. No review of Absolute Hell because we left at the interval. The SO might have been more forgiving but I can’t recall seeing a worse play. Not a worse production. Design, direction and cast did what they could but I just think there are some “classic” plays, which Absolute Hell purports to be, that are nothing of the sort. A few drunks and sexual libertines careering round a stage, with no plot or message to speak of, might do it for some plummy critics, but it doesn’t cut it in today’s world. We weren’t the only ones to feel that way. The NT has come in for a few knocks in the last couple of years, undeservedly in my view, but why this was revived, and why Joe Hill-Gibbins as director wanted to get involved, is a mystery to me.

And then there was Nine Night. Which is an absolute crackerjack of a play. OK so there are maybe a few too many plot strands spinning around and left unfinished at the end but it doesn’t really matter as there is so much to enjoy from what is wrapped up in just 100 minutes. It never ever drags. In fact I wanted more. Maybe someone could even prevail upon writer Natasha Gordon to create further plays drawn from this milieu and these characters. There is more than enough here to justify it.

It leaves me speechless that this is Ms Gordon’s debut play. I see that she is of Jamaican descent. Which was pretty handy when it came to writing Nine Night. The title refers to the ninth night after a death in Jamaican culture, a celebration involving food, drink, talking, stories, music, dancing (here Kumina rituals from eastern Jamaica) to support the bereaved, pay respects to the deceased and to properly bid them farewell. I understand that many of the traditions have been altered through time and when transposed, as here, into another place, today’s London, but the connections back to the belief systems of an Africa before monotheistic religions can be tracked. These customs are what lie behind the shattering conclusion to the play.

Single Mum Lorraine is caring for her Mum, Gloria. Her brother Robert is an entrepreneurial type married to Sophie, who is white. They are childless. Lorraine’s daughter Anita in turn has a baby daughter with partner Nathan (neither of whom we see). Lorraine and Robert have a half-sister, Trudy, who remained in Jamaica when Gloria, whose husband Alvin left her with the kids, came over to seek work as part of the Windrush generation. When Gloria subsequently passes we also get to see a lot of her cousin Aunt Maggie, and husband Vince. So we have three generations of Britons of Jamaican heritage, and Trudy herself when she comes over, all under the same roof. Celebration and, it probably won’t surprise you to know, recrimination, ensues.

By the way it is a hell of a roof. Or, to be exact. room under a roof in Rajha Shakiry’s beautifully detailed set. George Dennis’s sound design, crammed with off-stage dancehall rhythms is also a delight.

Families coming together after a death, and processing their grief, is theatrical meat and drink. This is different though because of the push and pull between two cultures in the past and in the present, the quality of the writing and the immediacy of the characters. Lorraine’s frustrations at being a single parent and then  having to give up her career to be the carer, and at having to organise all the celebrations, are universal as are Robert’s thwarted financial ambitions and his sense of male entitlement. Sophie is unconditionally accepted by her relations but still, however well intentioned, manages to say the wrong things. Trudy’s brash exterior barely conceals real pain at being left behind. Anita’s struggles to reconcile her heritage with her home also seemed well crafted to me (though I would have happily heard more from her).

Which brings me to Aunt Maggie. Now it may turn out, when this play is revived, as I am sure it will be, that it transpires that only Cecilia Noble could do justice to the part, though so juicy is the role that I doubt it. Certainly she turns in a performance that, on the face of it, steals not just this show, but every show now on across London. Aunt Maggie is a force of comedic nature who turns out a string of belly-aching laughs. The proper reviews have identified the best of these though you have to be there to really savour the delivery. If you ask me though it is Cecilia Noble’s facial expressions, (even from where I was up in the balcony), her movements and the tonal shift at the end that turn this into a shoe-in for an award if there is any justice. For just a few moments I may just have believed in a a world of spirits thanks to Cecilia. Silly me.

For my money though she is not the best actor on the stage. That accolade belongs to Franc Ashman as the careworn coper who cannot allow herself to grieve. Not to say that Oliver Alvin-Wilson as Robert, Ricky Fearon as Uncle Vince, Michelle Greenridge as Trudy, Hattie Ledbury as Sophie and Rebekah Murrell as Anita don’t deliver, they do, just that Franc Ashman lends a real depth to Lorraine. And she, rather than the prior generation, articulates the shame of a country that, even now, will appropriate a community’s labour, whether freely give or not, but will not fully accept its culture, or even, as we now see, grant it legal equivalence in belonging.

I haven’t seen any of the productions where Roy Alexander Weise was in the director’s chair though I see that he was an Assistant on some masterpieces of the last few years at the Royal Court; X, Escaped Alone, Hangmen and Liberian Girl. He is destined for great things. I cannot know what Natasha Gordon would have hoped for when she finished her draft but if it looked and worked any better than this I’d be surprised. The plot and action work like clockwork. The performances are great and in some cases, as I say, outstanding. By putting the weight on the right lines in each of the scenes Mr Weise turns the slight hurdle of over-plotting in Ms Gordon’s text into a desire for us the audience to know more about these people, their back-stories, and their futures.

Nine Night definitely ticks the National box in the National Theatre moniker. It also, unequivocally, ticks the Theatre box. So now it needs to be seen by a bigger audience. A tour maybe? A transfer? That would count as progress.

The Phlebotomist at Hampstead Theatre review *****

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The Phlebotomist

Hampstead Theatre Downstairs, 2nd May 2018

The Phlebotomist is sold out for the rest of its runs. So you had better hope that it pitches up elsewhere, ideally with the current cast and creatives, for it really is an excellent play. There are three almighty talents on show here. Writer Ella Road in this her debut play, actor Jude Anouka who just keeps on getting better and better and director Sam Yates who proved his mettle with Glengarry Glen Ross recently, but here extracts the maximum amount of tension and drama out of what is already a smartly plotted story.

It is another one of these near future dystopian dramas, which playwrights are currently obsessed with. No real surprise there. Us liberal, luvvie types are never happier than when warning ourselves, (for we are the audience), about the impending disasters that beset us, ideally disasters precipitated by the very technologies which we benefit from most. Ella Road’s story starts with a slightly different, and I think more chilling and realistic premise, that blood samples will be used to provide a detailed genetic profile, an early prognosis of what medical conditions will impact you through your life and even your behavioural characteristics. You can avoid the test but this will impact your educational, employment, credit and relationship prospects and looks shifty. Of course taking the test, and finding out the details all wrapped up in a rating out of 10, will also impact those prospects.

Bea (Jade Anouka) is the phlebotomist, (no I didn’t know either), who administers the test. She, quite literally, bumps into Aaron, (a fine performance from Rory Fleck Byrne, a new name to me), who turns out to be a descendant of the poet Lord Tennyson. They fall in love (and look like they do such is the chemistry between them). Turns out they both have high scores. Char, Bea’s friend, (a spirited Cherrelle Skeete, also new to me), does not and she abandons her career to campaign against the system, after an attempt at deception. The only other character is David (Vincent Ebrahim) a softly spoken, sagacious porter at the hospital Bea works in.

I won’t elaborate. Suffice to say that Ella Road provides enough disclosures to keep the plot moving along but not too many to raise eyebrows. The world she conjures up cleverly eschews compulsion, there is no evil state organ here, implying benign, market driven compliance, (as with so many informational threats to our privacy). Avoidance and manipulation of the test results are, rightly, key elements of the plot. It all feels very real. It asks some big questions, even tackling the stain of eugenics, but never, ever, appears didactic. How much should we know about our genetic make-up? Should this ever be made public? How “perfect” do we want to be? Ms Road has an unmistakeable view but ensures all three main characters elicit our sympathy.

The dialogue between those characters is believable, the monologues perfectly placed, there is humour and there is even a memorable tomato based metaphor (you’ll see). It is something that Charlie Brooker and the Black Mirror team would have been proud to come up with, but this is achieved without their giant budget, and, I think, has far more emotional clout. Rosanna Vize offers a simple, grey transverse set at the HT Downstairs, a few chairs and other props. Zoe Spurr’s lighting and Alex Twiselton’s sound are similarly economic but very effective. Costume changes are effected on-stage. The production is helped enormously by Duncan McLean’s snappy video work which offers social and political context so that the play, which at its heart, is a story about the relationships between Bea and Aaron, and Bea and Char, is never overwhelmed by its central conceit.

Jade Anouka was mesmerising in the Phyllida Lloyd Donmar Warehouse Shakespeare trilogy, as Ariel, as Mark Antony and as Hotspur. She was the only saving grace in the otherwise execrable Jamie Lloyd Faustus. You may have seen her in the recent ITV production of the Trauma, by Mike Bartlett. She was the daughter of Adrian Lester’s high-flying surgeon. When John Simm, who plays the embittered father of one of Mr Lester’s patients, invades the family home, her fear jumps through the screen into your living room. (How Mike Bartlett keeps getting away with these electrically charged finales verging on the melodramatic beats me, but he does).

Up close as here, she is bloody marvellous to watch. A completely natural performer. Not to decry her three colleagues but it is difficult to take your eyes off her. Sam Yates does seem to have a knack of ensuring that great stage actors, (and I am putting Ms Anouka in that category), are great on stage. Not as easy as it sounds. I offer the evidence of, especially, Christian Slater, but also Robert Glenister, Stanley Townsend and Don Warrington in Glengarry Glen Ross at the Playhouse (Glengarry Glen Ross at the Playhouse Theatre review ****), Emily Barber in The Globe Cymbeline, Jane Horrocks in East is East, his collaboration with Ruth Wilson. Why he hasn’t been offered a big gig at the National is a mystery to me.

 

 

Pressure at the Park Theatre review ***

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Pressure

Park Theatre, 26th April 2018

I had high hopes for Pressure. I have said before that the Park Theatre has a knack of mounting a wide array of productions, which, on paper at least, sound interesting, though execution can be variable. If I am honest Pressure, initially, wasn’t one of them. But the reviews from previous performances in Edinburgh and Chichester and the presence as writer, and performer, of David Haig, and the Park’s always jolly atmosphere, reeled me in. When it transpired that the production was transferring to the West End, (the Ambassador’s Theatre from, in a nod to its content, the 6th June), I confess to feeling inwardly smug that I had got in early, along with the full houses which the Park has secured.

Talking of smug, and I mean this in the nicest possible way, there is a faint air of the self-satisfied about Mr Haig’s performances. Most recently I have seen him play the arrogant, borderline racist Dr Robert Smith in the Young Vic’s revival of Joe Penhall’s marvellous play Blue/Orange alongside some blokes called Daniel Kaluuya and Luke Norris who you might know. Let us hope Mr Penhall’s latest offering, Mood Music, at the Old Vic matches this. He also played the enigmatic Player in the said Old Vic’s recent Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. In both cases, and in some of his telly roles, he nails down the patronising pomposity of a certain type of middle-aged Brit expert, whilst revealing any vulnerability or desperation that might lie behind the surface.

I am sure that, outside work, he could not be more different, though his writing, the text of Pressure is intimidatingly exact in terms of directions, suggests otherwise. Regardless, what I can say is that when he gets his teeth into a character there are few more stirring sights than Mr Haig in full flow. So if I tell you that he has written a dramatic account of the real life contribution of meteorologist, Group Captain James Stagg, to the D Day invasion on June 6th 1944, it will likely not come as too much of a surprise. GC Stagg, on this account, was a dour, uncompromising Scot, who staked his reputation on convincing the Supreme Allied Commander General Eisenhower, here played by Malcolm Sinclair, to first hold off, and then go ahead with the invasion plans, despite apparently overwhelming evidence to the contrary and the opinion of his breezy American counterpart Colonel Irving P Krick (Philip Cairns).

It would have made a gripping black and white film in the 1950s or even a one off TV drama today. And that, in part, is something of its problem. It is a powerful story, but, once the die is cast, it is theatrically predictable and Mr Haig presents it that way. The pressure on GC Stagg is, compounded by his wife’s troubled pregnancy. The isobars on the charts measure pressure. We see the pressure mount on Eisenhower as he makes his fateful decisions. There are no real surprises in what the characters do or say and there are times when they verge on cliche.

On the other hand Mr Haig has wisely introduced a major female role in the form of Kay Summersby, the aide-de-camp to Eisenhower. She is played with clip-vowelled exactitude by Laura Rodgers, who I admired in Rules for Living at the Rose Kingston and Winter Solstice at the Orange Tree, (a play that continues to linger long in the mind). Malcolm Sinclair as Eisenhower is also impressive though I have no idea what the man himself was like, and the rest of the cast lend solid support. Director John Dove has collaborated with Mr Haig before on his most famous play (and film) My Boy Jack, based on the relationship between Rudyard Kipling and his son, so doesn’t mess about with Mr Haig’s story.

I appreciate that I am sounding a bit sniffy about Pressure. I don’t mean to be. It is, in its own conventional way, very effective and David Haig turns in an exemplary performance. If this sounds like your sort of thing then don’t hesitate to get down to the Ambassador’s.

 

Instructions For Correct Assembly at the Royal Court Theatre review ****

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Instructions For Correct Assembly

Royal Court Theatre, 23rd April 2018

I was much taken with Thomas Eccleshare’s previous outing, Heather, on a recent outing at the Bush Theatre (Heather at the Bush Theatre review *****). Instructions for Correct Assembly looked similarly intriguing and, much to my surprise, I manage to rope in both the SO and the Blonde Bombshells to hold my hand. Well I can report that satire IFCA is well worth a viewing even if Mr Eccleshare doesn’t seem to fully explore the ramifications of the imaginative scenario he conjures. Mind you what do I know. I am so dull I couldn’t even come up with an idea one tenth as good and then wouldn’t know what to do with it anyway.

Hari, played by Mark Bonnar, who I guarantee you will know from the telly, and Max, Jane Horrocks, who needs no introduction, are keen to have a second shot at parenthood. Only this time they are taking no chances and opt for a technological solution. An off the shelf AI robot in kit form, think IKEA, which they are trying to put together in the opening scene, whose behaviour, emotions and attitudes can be altered by remote control. The result, Jan, as we soon find out, is the spitting image of their human son, Nick, who, let’s say, didn’t quite meet their expectations. I’ll say no more but the set up provides plenty of opportunity for wicked humour, particularly when Nick’s failings are set against the achievements of Amy (Shaniqua Okwok), daughter of next door neighbours bragging Laurie (Michele Austin) and condescending Paul (Jason Barnett). It also examines the relationship between parents and their children as they turn into adults and specifically what happens when someone “throws their life away” as Nick does on drugs. Would we really want, need or trust technology to help us make perfect kids and what should we do when the real thing fails to live up to our hopes and dreams?

What really makes the play come to life, as it were, is Brian Vernel’s performance as Jan/Nick. I was much impressed by young Mr Vernel’s performance as Konstantin in Sean Holmes’s erratic Seagull at the Lyric (The Seagull at the Lyric Hammersmith review ***), a production which I think in retrospect was better than I gave it credit for. He also stood out in the otherwise disappointing Future Conditional at the Old Vic as well as on the telly (David Hare’s Collateral and in the Last Kingdom, which I was addicted to). He has a slightly other-worldly quality, which, unsurprisingly, fits the bill here, but can turn convincingly nasty when required. Here, as he shifted between a desperate Nick and the machine Jan he was tremendous.

The set design of Cai Dyfan is the other star of the show, as a narrow window into Hari’s and Max’s suburban home, complete with conveyor belt of parts as they put Jan together, opens up in subsequent scenes before metaphorically collapsing again into the finale. This is an enterprising solution to Mr Eccleshare’s text which calls for a lot of different rooms and fairly rapid switches between them. The visual trickery courtesy of illusionist Paul Kieve is similarly eye-catching. Hamish Pirie’s direction is geared to making the most of the clever set pieces even if he can’t quite work out a way to fully realise the emotional torments that the plot should realise. We can only assume that Nick turned into the person he was in part because of Max and Hari’s influence and that their doomed attempt at redemption reflects their guilt. There is not enough in the play though to make this connection. The whole may be somewhat less than the sum of the parts, as it were.

Even so it gets its points across, is often wryly amusing, the dinner party scene in particular, and doesn’t outstay its welcome as some “dystopian satire'” plays are prone to do. The SO and the Blonde Bombshells were more than satisfied with their outing and I await Thomas Eccleshare’s next writing move (he is also a founder of visual theatre company Dancing Brick with his partner Valentina Ceschi) with interest. Meanwhile I humbly recommend you pop along to this

Much Ado About Nothing at the Rose Kingston review ****

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Much Ado About Nothing

Rose Theatre Kingston, 20th April 2018

Come on fellow residents of the Royal Borough of Kingston and London Borough of Richmond – both upon Thames. Get your collective arses over to the Rose Theatre to see this new version of Much Ado About Nothing, celebrating the 10th anniversary of your local theatre. There are plenty of tickets left for the last handful of performances. It is not perfect but when it is funny, it is very funny, the setting is intriguing, there are a handful of strong performances, including the star turn Mel Giedroyc, and, in John Hopkins’s Benedick, there is Shakespearean comic acting to rival the very best.

Now I will admit that the main draw for BD, LD, myself, and latterly MS, was Ms Giedroyc herself. Obviously she is a national treasure and we have collectively seen her memorably translate her inimitable style, arch covers it, to the reading of Agatha Christie. Play, proximity and support for the local theatre was enough justification for me, but LD especially needed the hook of her off the telly. LD is probably a bellwether teen, suspicious of Shakespeare, unless forced to consume at school, and then normally pleasantly surprised when Dad mugs her into coming along, usually through vague subterfuge. And she thoroughly enjoyed this. It doesn’t mean a trip to an uncut Lear is just round the corner. Just saying that if it is good enough to entertain her it is good enough to entertain anyone who might be dubious about the Bard.

Moreover, this production, jointly staged with Granville and Parnham and Antic Face, rattles through the action so that we are all done and dusted in under 150 minutes inc. interval. That’s including a several minute intro as we are, just so we know, introduced to the resort hotel in a set shrewdly realised by Naomi Dawson. This is modern day Sicily and Leonato’s estate is now a luxury spa to which Peter Guinness’s suitably intimidating mafioso Don Pedro and crew have retired for a bit of rest, relaxation and intimidation. Suffice to say it looked nothing like the bucolic MAAN in the drawing above.

Director Simon Dormandy’s ideas do, fitfully, generate some insight, notably in the way that Kate Lamb’s Hero and Calam Lynch’s Claudio are so precipitously thrust together, in the fancy dress party which permits the romantic plotting, in the wedding scenes and, especially, in Hero’s fake funeral. Here the juxtaposition of modern sophistication with older, deeper, paternalistic traditions is most striking. We love Sicily, (well I do especially), but Sicilians are a wary bunch, unsurprising given colonisations by Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Vandals, Ostrogoths, Byzantines, Muslims, Vikings, Normans, Germans, French, Spanish, Italians, Mafia and Tourists. Mind you that is what is makes it endlessly fascinating to the outsider.

On the other hand there are times when the hotel set is a limitation, most notably for the Watch, though frankly that never works, even with Stewart Wright doing his very best as Dogberry. And, let’s face it, most people see MAAN for the comedy, specifically Beatrice and Benedick sparring. Mel, as customer services manager for the hotel and Mr Hopkins, as an unlikely consigliere to Don Pedro, deliver. Ms Giedroyc, is funny, we know that, and exactly the right sort of funny, and doesn’t hold back from mugging to the audience. When she needs to show Beatrice’s independence, and specifically her revulsion at the patriarchal conceits around her, she also shows she can seriously act. John Hopkins however is a cut above, the physical humour matches his brilliant delivery of the text. Their early disdain for each other is done snappily enough, with some evidence of their back story, but it is when they get serious about each other that they hit the heights. Mel’s immediate retort of “kill him” when asked by Mr Hopkins what Benedick could do for Beatrice to right the wrong Claudio has inflicted on Hero, got the laugh, but the audience was palpably nervous. It is their respective eavesdropping scenes which still the show: pure farce, but why not if it makes us happy.

We were taken with young Calum Lynch as Claudio on his professional debut, especially LD, and especially when his top came off. There was a harsh streak in him, where required, to balance the skittish wooing. Kate Lamb presented an initially diffident Hero but bristled wth anger as her reputation was impugned. Peter Bray, rather disconcertingly played Don John as a somewhat dim East London thug; in contrast his Clerk was more Home Counties solicitor. David Rintoul as Leonato, now hotel manager, was alternately brutal and oleaginous. Fine support elsewhere includes Nicholas Prassad as Borachio and Victoria Hamnett as Margaret conjuring up a saucy scene involving Hero’s wedding dress that provides a not unreasonable explanation for the mistaken identity window scene which leads to Hero’s “disgrace”.

There have been, and will be, sharper, richer versions of MAAN, Christopher Luscombe’s recent RSC production for example, but if you want some straightforward easy on the ear and eye Shakespeare comedy, Kingston, for the rest of this week, is the place to be.