Thu
01-Nov-2007

macbeth

I spent All Hallows' Eve watching Macbeth at the Gielgud Theatre and it was probably the best play I've ever been to see. Magnificent and gripping, and steeped in blood and drama from beginning to end. I love the play anyway, but this production is really something special.

I've been going to impro classes with Alex F over the last six weeks and although I'm not the best improviser ever, the class has really taught me to look at drama more carefully and given me a better insight into what makes scenes engaging and interesting. I was appreciating lots of things about Macbeth from an improv point of view tonight. For example, they raise the stakes in this production fast and hard, which makes sense in a play that gets into the business of killing everyone very early on but is still striking. Lady Macbeth walks on for her first scene in Act I literally quivering with evil, beginning the"unsex me here" soliloquy in a slow frightful whisper and then escalating, spitting forth "take my milk for gall" like venom. When Macduff receives the news that his wife and children have been slaughtered, there is a long long silence as he comes right to the front of the stage, no holding back, and then finally cries like a wounded animal.

The setting is like a cross between an abbatoir and a Nazi hospital and the witches are three bloody knife wielding nurses, with loud amplified voices and wild strobe lights. They manage to deliver their tacky chants and songs in a credible way, even doing "hubble bubble toil and trouble" as a strange rap song in a morgue. Banquo's bloody arrival at the feast is spectacular and gory and they play this scene once before the interval and once after, so that you can see Macbeth confronting the real grisly corpse of Banquo, and then see Macbeth confronting thin air, as it appears to the other guests.

Kate Fleetwood is amazing as Lady Macbeth and Patrick Stewart is even better as Macbeth. My improv classes made me notice their constantly shifting emotions and changing status which made them so compelling to watch, as each alternately took the lead in "screw ing their courage to the sticking-place" and then falling prey to fear and madness.

Patrick Stewart is fascinating to watch – he's always doing things as he speaks, making a ham sandwich, opening a bottle of red wine, doing up his bow tie – and by the end of the play he is totally in command of the stage, frequently making the audience laugh with his increasingly mad and scary levity but then switching to intense poignant weariness for "tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow".

And the final scene – wow. Macduff arrives to salute Malcolm as king carrying Patrick Stewart's bald covered in blood severed head! It's genius! That Picardian dome means that you can recognise it a mile off! He holds his severed head aloft as he invites everyone to see him "crown'd at Scone" and turns it around to face the audience as the lights go out!

Tue
14-Aug-2007

magazine again

To the Royal Vauxhall Tavern yesterday for David Hoyle. Dan M, James G, Matt, Ben and I enjoyed an evening considering "immigr-ah-tionne" ... complete with sideswipes at London, Britain, the gay scene, people in relationships and Africa. I think my favourite line this time was when he said something like: "Who cares what the person next to you is thinking? Do you care what they think about you? Because quite frankly, unless they are prepared to wipe the shit off your arse first thing in the morning, fuck them!"

On the way home I left my mobile phone on the train! I never do that! But I did last night. Luckily, a lovely train guard called Robin picked up the phone and will be returning it to me on Thursday. I'll make sure I give him lots of chocolate and cava!

Tue
07-Aug-2007

magazine

To the Royal Vauxhall Tavern after work for more of the divine David Hoyle.

Last night it was an examin-ah-tionne of "crime and punishment", a searing sociological critique of criminality, an indictment of the capitalist system that creates it, and lots of jokes about anal rape. Glorious. Cabaret is one of those things that makes me so happy I live in London. £5.99 of quality thought-provoking entertainment!

Sat
17-Mar-2007

dido and aeneas

Matt and I went to see Dido and Aeneas at Sadler's Wells. Another fabulous opera like the Tempest earlier in the week. There was a startling opening scene where scantily clad dancers writhed around in an enormous long tank of water on the stage, which looked really amazing.

Fri
16-Mar-2007

the tempest

Matt and I went to see the Thomas Adès opera of The Tempest last night. This is quite an amazing adaptation - set on a huge book-like set illuminated in fluorescent nightclub greens and blues, with a raggedy rock and roll Caliban and a human theremin singing the part of Ariel. OK, so she's not actually a theremin, but the part of Ariel is so stratospherically high in pitch that at times it is hard to believe that a human being is singing it.

The libretto is a simple paraphrasing of the play in modern rhyming English, with just a few sections where some of the original words break through, such as in the magical scene where Ariel sings Full Fathom Five ("Five Fathoms Deep"), her silvery voice dancing over the slow swell of the orchestra as a vivid image of gently breaking bright blue waves are projected onto the stage where Ferdinand lies.

Prospero is very much the stern autocrat, finally outmanoeuvred by the love of Miranda and Ferdinand, releasing Ariel to freedom at the end of the play and leaving the noble but tragic Caliban to be the lonely king of his own island...

Thu
22-Feb-2007

swan lake

Matt and I just got back from the Royal Opera House, where we had the cheap lower slip tickets to Swan Lake.

Our seats were really fun, perched up above the stage on the side. We could only see stuff in the middle and right hand side of the stage, but we also got a great view down on top of the orchestra, and it felt like an exciting, privileged place to be seated, especially as the tickets were so cheap.

I also liked the enormous swish bar, at which we had a steady stream of drinks, and the high proportion of aging posh people staggering around the place. The ballet itself was quite spectacular, with lots of impressive humans-pretending-to-be-swans dancing. Didn't quite understand what was going on, but at least everyone looked very elegant...

Thu
07-Dec-2006

major barbara

Alex, Matt and I went to see Major Barbara at Hen's Orange Tree Theatre. I made sure I read the whole thing first, but it's such an intimate venue that I could hear and understand everything pretty much perfectly. The Orange Tree are having a "Shawfest", and Major Barbara is the centrepiece of it.

I've never encountered any Shaw before, but I have to say that Major Barbara is an amazing play, really thought provoking and modern, startling when you consider it was written in 1905. Shaw's presents various invigorating meditations on faith, money and social change, wrapped up in sparkling social comedy. At times there are one-liners worthy of Wilde, but delivered with serious questions behind them.

Much of the play centres around a debate between Major Barbara, who saves souls in the Salvation Army, and her father Andrew Undershaft, a millionaire arms dealer who believes morality is the indulgence of the wealthy. Barbara's means are absolutely consistent with her ends, but her father outmanoeuvres her by simply buying out the Salvation Army, and Major Barbara is disillusioned by the Army's willingness to accept money from whisky distillers and arms dealers. Her father then hits back by showing her the clean modern well-kept model village he has built for the workers at his arms factory and challenges her to save the souls of his well-fed well-paid workers rather than the down and out that come to Salvation Army shelters: "It is cheap work converting starving men with a Bible in one hand and a slice of bread in the other".

He rants at religious morality, arguing that raw power rather than morality will destroy such crimes as poverty.

Poverty and slavery have stood up for centuries to your sermons and leading articles: they will not stand up to my machine guns. Don't preach at them: don't reason with them. Kill them.

When Barbara asks him: "Killing. Is that your remedy for everything?"

It is the final test of conviction, the only lever strong enough to overturn a social system, the only way of saying Must.

He rants about Barbara's morality, which she tells him collapsed around her once he gave the Salvation Army a cheque, suggesting it needs to be updated.

What do we do here when we spend years of work and thought and thousands of pounds of solid cash on a new gun or an aerial battleship that turns out just a hairsbreadth wrong after all? Scrap it. Scrap it without wasting another hour or another pound on it. Well, you have made for yourself something that you call a morality or a religion or what not. It doesn't fit the facts. Well, scrap it. Scrap it and get one that does fit. That is what is wrong with the world at present. It scraps its obsolete steam engines and dynamos; but it won't scrap its old prejudices and its old moralities and its old religions and its old political constitutions. What's the result? In machinery it does very well; but in morals and religion and politics it is working at a loss that brings it nearer bankruptcy every year. Don't persist in that folly. If your old religion broke down yesterday, get a newer and a better one for tomorrow.

It is enjoyable stuff! The whole thing is very relevant to a voluntary sector worker like myself. It presents the charitable impulse as one that goes hand in hand with wealth and inequality. The voluntary sector is the welfare net that repairs some of the damage wrought by the wealthy, a "buffer" for capitalism, being given enough money by the capitalists to stop things getting so bad that anyone actually tries to change the system.

Major Barbara reflects at one point on her dependence on her father Undershaft the arms dealer, or Bodger the whisky distiller.

I was happy in the Salvation Army for a moment. I escaped from the world into a paradise of enthusiasm and prayer and soul saving; but the moment our money ran short, it all came back to Bodger: it was he who saved our people: he, and the Prince of Darkness, my papa. Undershaft and Bodger: their hands stretch everywhere: when we feed a starving fellow creature, it is with their bread, because there is no other bread; when we tend the sick, it is in the hospitals they endow; if we turn from the churches they build, we must kneel on the stones of the streets they pave. As long as that lasts, there is no getting away from them. Turning our backs on Bodger and Undershaft is turning our backs on life.

Perhaps the voluntary sector is a trap set up to lure bright and brilliant people with ambitions to serve humanity away from opportunities for fundamental social reform towards this circumscribed zone of charity where they spend their lives on diffuse causes where many battles may be won but the war, in general, is being lost.

At times, in attacking the concept of charity, Undershaft seems to advocate an almost human rights perspective on poverty. This is probably my favourite passage from the play, where he has a rant in answer to the question: "Do you call poverty a crime?"

The worst of crimes. All the other crimes are virtues beside it: all the other dishonors are chivalry itself by comparison. Poverty blights whole cities; spreads horrible pestilences; strikes dead the very souls of all who come within sight, sound or smell of it. What you call crime is nothing: a murder here and a theft there, a blow now and a curse then: what do they matter? they are only the accidents and illnesses of life: there are not fifty genuine professional criminals in London. But there are millions of poor people, abject people, dirty people, ill fed, ill clothed people. They poison us morally and physically: they kill the happiness of society: they force us to do away with our own liberties and to organize unnatural cruelties for fear they should rise against us and drag us down into their abyss. Only fools fear crime: we all fear poverty. Pah! [turning on Barbara] you talk of your half-saved ruffian in West Ham: you accuse me of dragging his soul back to perdition. Well, bring him to me here; and I will drag his soul back again to salvation for you. Not by words and dreams; but by thirty-eight shillings a week, a sound house in a handsome street, and a permanent job. In three weeks he will have a fancy waistcoat; in three months a tall hat and a chapel sitting; before the end of the year he will shake hands with a duchess at a Primrose League meeting, and join the Conservative Party.

Fri
18-Aug-2006

mary poppins the musical

I took Alex for his five month late birthday present of a trip to see Mary Poppins the Musical last night.

It was so good! The production is glorious and impressive, with huge models of the Cherry Tree Lane house which moved backwards and forwards and up and down the stage according to whether each scene was being set downstairs, upstairs or on the roof. Mary Poppins glides around serenely on wires, at the very end gliding out over the audience and up into the vaults of the theatre.

The score and script are pretty different from the film, with songs fleshed out or moved around to fit the stage version. Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious is done really well, with a cool new part of the song where they recite every letter of the word while making their bodies into the shape of each letter, a piece of amazing choreography.

Bert is charming; Mary Poppins herself is by turns serene, mischievous and serious, and is quietly at the centre of most scenes without being overbearing; the children are brats who are slowly reformed; and their parents are much more stressed and unhappy than in the film. Feed the Birds is beautifully done, and a real tear jerker of a song; and Let's Go Fly a Kite is another highlight.

The venue is the attractive art deco Prince Edward Theatre on Old Compton Street, so during the interval we drank rosé and looked down from the front balcony over the street, basking in summery London satisfaction.

Wed
19-Jul-2006

the boy friend

The day after getting back to London from Carnivale, Matt Al and I went to the Open Air Theatre in Regent's Park for a glorious summery showing of The Boy Friend, a 1950s pastiche of a 1920s musical comedy.

It was all glorious choreographed charleston and coordinated singing, thin on plot, delirious with tacky clever lyrics and very unpolitically correct. It was also one of the warmest evenings of the year and a delight to be out watching such accomplished froth in the comfortable summer dusk...

Thu
08-Jun-2006

fuerzabruta

Last night Matt and I went to see Fuerzabruta at the newly reopened Roundhouse in Chalk Farm, near where we used to live. Fuerzabruta is physical theatre, set to breakneck clubbing music and moody lighting, with various visually arresting scenes. Two women run and tumble around a vertical wall of shimmering coloured silver fabric; two people tumble around opposite surfaces of a huge whirling vertical sail, a man runs along a conveyor belt occasionly bursting through walls of boxes and shreds of paper, and a huge sheet of plastic covered with water is lowered down above the heads of the audience as four nymphs leap and slide around on the other side of the plastic, low enough for the audience to touch them. It was about an hour long, and very enjoyable...

Sat
25-Jun-2005

foole upon foole upon foole

Matt and I headed down to Exeter on the premium rate train in a valiant attempt to get to see Henry’s play Foole Upon Foole Upon Foole. Despite the train being so highly priced as to be almost empty, at 5pm on a Friday, it was delayed and we missed the play. We did still meet up with Hen and Heather, Rachel, Chas, Josh, Alex, Colin and Linda for a drunken dinner though. Linda was propositioned by a kerb crawler as she stood outside having a fag break by Exeter Cathedral. We discussed what it might be that gave her a whorish look, and Josh remarked that perhaps her outfit made her look a little bit like a whore, though many felt it was also very conservative. Colin clearly enjoyed taking the opportunity to demand: "Are you suggesting that my wife is a whore?!"

Sun
15-Feb-2004

titus andronicus and henry of hull

Alex and I made a long trek up to Hull at the weekend to see the play Henry had directed, the excitable revenge madness of Titus Andronicus! It was very good indeed, with the Queen of the Goths holding her two semi-naked, snarling, leather-clad sons on leashes, Titus and Lavinia crawling around with their severed hands and excised tongues, people rushing about being angry and lots of inspired bits of direction. He went all the way with the tragedy for the first half of the play, and then played up the more extravagant comic elements of the second half, which I thought was apt if you're going to take this play in the spirit of Shakespeare's time. There's a classic bit I shall always remember, when the dignified Marcus, who is played by a girl dressed in white and remains rather aloof and noble through the whole thing, is given a Cadbury's Cream Egg by Titus in the picnic scene near the end. She looks at it with this perfect look of quizzical dignity tinged with worry at Titus' apparent madness. It was so funny.

We were also united with the whole Bell family, and afterwards we all went to a cast party at a dingy little student kitchen somewhere in Hull, where there were bright strip lights in the ceiling and lots of young people with strong opinions. It was marvellous.

Alex and I had rather a nightmare getting back the next day however. I lost our bus tickets. The trains weren't running to Leeds. It was all beginning to look like Royston Vasey. Luckily we managed to get a train to Doncaster where we spent several hours having the life sapped from us, before managing to catch a train to London. Ah, great cosmopolitan city! How we missed thee!

Good to get out of town every so often though. And what an enjoyable play. Well done Henry.