Category Archives: 8/10

Celtic Footprint – February 2010

8/10

Venue: Chichester Festival Theatre

Date: Sunday 7th February 2010

The first act was called The Gentle Good, which sounds like a band, but was in fact a solo artiste, Gareth Bonello. A Welsh folk singer/songwriter, he was accompanied on this gig by harpist Harriet Earis. Between them they made light work of some songs (in Welsh) which all seemed to be about sad, depressing subjects, and some livelier tunes which were much more robust than I’m used to hearing from a harp. Harriet kept looking round at us with a broad grin on her face, like a mischievous elf looking for someone to play tricks on. She was probably just checking that we hadn’t all scarpered, because there was the usual wide gulf between us and the musicians, one of the drawbacks of the Festival theatre when it comes to bands. Their set had some lovely pieces, and the CDs are definitely on our list.

Second act was Galician piper Anxo Lorenzo. My God, what an amazing talent! He started at the back of the front stalls, playing on his bagpipes, and then walked down and onto the stage, to join his two mates playing on fiddle and guitar or mandolo (similar to a mandolin, but larger and flatter, with eight(?) strings). His set got us all fully warmed up, with some marvellous tunes played on both the bagpipes and other pipes, and his sense of humour came across really well too. No CD available, sadly.

Third act, after the first interval, was Daimh (pronounced dive). This group was an eclectic blend of Scottish, Canadian and Breton musicians, with songs being sung in Gaelic, and bagpipes again well to the fore.

Finally, for the last long set, Dervish took the stage, an Irish band specialising in music from the Sligo area (references to tunes from other areas of Ireland were somewhat derogatory). Their singer, Cathy Jordan, was dressed in green, and did most of the talking, introducing the songs and suchlike. She has a good voice, and the songs and tunes were fine. There was even some audience participation, strongly encouraged by Cathy.

At the very end, for the encore, everyone else joined them on the stage for a final song – don’t remember which one – and we went away thoroughly happy with our long evening of music.

© 2010 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Graft: Tales Of An Actor – February 2010

8/10

By Steven Berkoff

Venue: Mill Studio

Date: Saturday 6th February 2010

Another one and three-quarters straight through! Performed wonderfully by George Dillon, this play is basically a series of sketches, snippets from the life of a generic actor, from the first innocent auditions for drama school to the final final curtain. In the intimacy of the Mill Studio, Dillon held us in the palm of his hand throughout, moving with ease from exaggerated, over-the-top declamation to subtle, quiet moments. We’re shown some of the other people who inhabit the actor’s world – the agent, keen to get the fading talent out of his office, sticks in the mind best – and the corrosive effect of constant criticism is well documented. There’s not as much humour in the later stages as in the earlier, but overall it’s a very good piece, well performed.

© 2010 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Fairport Convention – February 2010

8/10

Venue: Pavilion Theatre

Date: Tuesday 2nd February 2010

The support for this tour was a duo calling themselves Dark Horses – Flossie and Keith. She’s from France, via Darlington, and there were lots of laughs as she told us her story, especially how she, with a degree in English, had to adapt to the way English is actually spoke, like. Keith was also very funny, and a proper Geordie, though his accent wasn’t a  strong as Flossie’s.

They started with a couple of songs together – not bad but not really to my taste. Keith played guitar excellently, as did Flossie for her solo, and she has  a gorgeous voice. Bit nasal, but very rich and strong. After the first two songs, she did a Jacques Brel number called The Port Of Amsterdam, in French. No idea about the words, but the tune and her singing were fine. Keith did his solo next – a song entitled Kama Sutra, which included moves for the audience, leaning to the left for ‘left’, leaning to the right for ‘right’, slumping down for ‘down’, sitting up for ‘stand’ and clapping for ‘blue’. He even introduced a new move part way through when he saw one chap in the audience put his hands together as if in prayer on the word ‘alone’. As the song was full of these words, we were pretty active for a few minutes, both with the movements and laughing, which got us fully warmed up in both senses of the word.

Keith and Flossie sang a couple of songs more, enjoyable enough, then introduced Fairport and sang the first song of their set with them – Si Tu Dois Parti. This was the first time they’ve done it in the original language, thanks to Flossie’s presence. Fairport then gave us a selection of songs and tunes, old and new, including The Happy Man, Wouldn’t Say No, Jewel In The Crown, Hen’s March and other tunes, a Sandy Denny song called Rising to The Moon, Sir Parsifal, Ukulele Central, Walk Awhile, Dirty Linen (instrumental), Rocky Road (an adaptation of Prickly Bush), two Babbacombe Lee songs – Dream and Execution, Danny Jack’s Chase (instrumental), Who Knows Where The Time Goes, John Gaudie and The Bowman’s Retreat, etc. I enjoyed most of the set, though I still find it hard to hear what they’re singing. They finished the first half with The Festival Bell, and the second with an old favourite, slightly refurbished, Matty Groves.

The encore was another long-standing favourite of theirs, Meet On The Ledge. We were all encouraged to join them at this year’s Cropredy festival to sing along with this one at midnight on Saturday. From the response, it’ll be standing room only.

© 2010 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

I Found My Horn – October 2009

8/10

By Jonathan Guy Lewis and Jasper Rees, adapted from the book by Jasper Rees

Directed by Harry Burton

Company: Sweet Spot Theatre

Venue: Minerva Theatre

Date: Saturday 31st October 2009

This was much better than either of us expected or hoped. I’m familiar with the Flanders and Swann track, but this play was a different beast altogether. Based on Jasper Rees’s experiences of re-learning the French horn and taking us up to his solo performance before an assembled throng of French horn players after just a year of practice, this piece took us through a roller-coaster of emotions. There were glimpses of his time in the school orchestra, a trip to ‘horn camp’ in the States where he was confronted by some superb players, the run up to the final performance and of course the performance itself. Despite being a bit ropy at the start, once he let go of his fears and realised it couldn’t get any worse he started to relax and enjoy himself. His playing improved considerably.

Although based on Jasper’s book about his experiences, the part of Jasper was in fact performed by Jonathan Guy Lewis whom Jasper describes in the program notes as “rather better than me”. He certainly covered a range of parts, from the school orchestra’s conductor through to a semi-crippled but still brilliant German horn player who was the teacher at the camp. Jasper’s teenage sons featured occasionally as well, and all this with only a couple of costume changes. It was a superb performance and much appreciated by everyone.

The other great thing about a play like this is that the music tends to be bloody brilliant as well. And so it was. It left me wanting to log on to Amazon and buy some CDs immediately, so I’m glad the excerpts were identified in the program. Makes searching easier. We would happily see this again.

© 2009 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Rain Man – October 2009

8/10

Adapted from the screenplay by Dan Gordon

Directed by Robin Herford

Venue: Richmond Theatre

Date: Wednesday 28th OCtober 2009

This was a very good adaptation of the screenplay and the performances, particularly of the two leads, were excellent. I cried. What more could I ask for?

The story included all the main points from the film though some scenes were dropped, such as the actual driving, and some were condensed or reported, so that for example the burning scene in the flat was mentioned at the court ordered review of Raymond’s situation. We still got the wheeling and dealing at the start, the delivery of the bad news to Charlie (not that his father’s dead, but that he just gets the car and the rose bushes) the kidnapping and attempted flight via, well, flight, the road trip and visit to Las Vegas and the final review meeting. All the way through both Neil Morrissey as Raymond and Oliver Chris as Charlie gave us perfectly judged performances. Raymond had lots of twitches and a tendency to look up and away, while Charlie was a seriously unpleasant bastard to start with but gradually softened as he discovered who Raymond really was to become just an average bastard by the end. And on the way Raymond gets some decent clothes, a dance with a beautiful woman, a kiss and a chance to drive his father’s car. He does miss out on a date with a dancing hooker, of course, but that’s probably for the best.

I don’t remember the film giving me such a strong sense that Charlie has actually done his brother some good by taking him out for a while, though as with the film we could see how Charlie benefited from his anger coming up against an immovable object. The adaptation had also been updated to include more recent plane crashes including one of the ones that hit the twin towers, which really got Raymond going. From memory, I think Qantas has now lost its perfect record on accidents so updating the dialogue is a double edged sword, but it still worked fine on stage.

The set was very flexible, with panels sliding on and off for walls and the ‘spare’ cast doing furniture removal duty. It all went very smoothly, and it was nice to see the understudies actually get something to do as extras in the public scenes. We both enjoyed this very much, and as I said before, I cried. Brilliant.

© 2009 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

The Power Of Yes – October 2009

8/10

By David Hare

Directed by Angus Jackson

Venue: Lyttelton Theatre

Date: Thursday 15th October 2009

We decided not to have high hopes for this play after seeing such a fantastic performance of Enron earlier in the year. Surely we couldn’t get two great plays on such closely related subjects in the same year? And we know from experience not to get our expectations up as that usually leads to disappointment.

Well, I’m delighted to report that we both thoroughly enjoyed this new work. David Hare seems to have developed the knack of being entertaining as well as informative and here he manages to get across a great deal of technical detail while giving us many opportunities to laugh at both the people who contributed to this sorry mess, and even the situation itself at times (note to self: never let bailiffs get inside the door, not even to go to the loo!).

The set was uncompromisingly sparse. The screen at the back showed what looked like a charcoal rubbing of wooden floorboards to start with, then all sorts of other images to illustrate the story. I felt particularly nostalgic when the building society names were up there – those were the days. There was another screen nearer the front which was raised and lowered as necessary, and which usually showed at least a portion of the fuller picture on the rear screen, as well as the ‘scene’ headings. There was a blackboard, some chairs and a table that made infrequent appearances but other than that, the stage was bare.

When Anthony Calf as the author walked on from the back of the stage, I was surprised to see how deep the acting space was; with so little furniture it was hard to judge distance. Mind you, they needed the room, as a cast of twenty spread itself out over the stage to give us a chorus-like introduction to the credit crunch. One character even called it a Greek tragedy.

After a short while, most of the cast trooped off and the author was left with a journalist from the Financial Times who was going to tell him the story of how the global financial systems collapsed. As she did, various characters came forward, introduced by a young man or woman, and told us, via the author, their part in the story or how they saw it unfold, and why they’re not to blame. Some of the characters preferred to be anonymous. There were occasional clips of the lower part of Alan Greenspan’s face saying something profound (now known to be untrue) and the characters covered a broad spectrum of interested parties from all walks of life, from the (ex) Chairman of the FSA through politicians, investment bankers, lawyers, economists and journalists to a chap who worked for the Citizens Advice Bureau, helping ordinary folk to deal with their debts. A large number appeared to have been at Harvard, Goldman Sachs and/or the Financial Times.

The character who probably came out best in all of this was George Soros. The author interviewed him, and this was shown at the end of the play so that his views on rampant capitalism were the final impression we were left with. In response to some comments by Alan Greenspan when the two of them had lunch some time before, about the benefits of capitalism being worth the price that had to be paid, Soros pointed out that the people who reap the benefits are not the same people who pay the price. A sobering thought, but unlikely to be a popular one with bankers.

I won’t go through the whole sordid story again here – frankly I couldn’t, as it was one of those things I followed well enough at the time, but couldn’t remember past the curtain call. I did get several ideas very clearly from it. One is that the people involved in banking are so brimful of self confidence (or could that be arrogance?) that they genuinely didn’t believe they had done anything wrong. On the way to the train, I recognised a similarity with Coriolanus. We as a society set bankers and other money men the task of making the country rich, without regulating how they should do that, and with the strange belief that if some people are coining it in then everyone benefits (trickle down theory). In the same way, Coriolanus is unleashed to give Rome military success, but when it comes to the social responsibility aspect neither he nor the bankers give a toss. So we all end up paying for our collective mistakes and ignorance.

Other points included the lack of regulation, the weird delusion that we’d broken through the cycle of boom and bust to a ‘new economics’, and that underpinning all this was a lack of knowledge of, and even interest in, history. Maniacal greed was also exposed, as one of the journalists explained that her friends who now worked in the city weren’t satisfied with only half a million a year. I think she’s also the one who pointed out that many of these financial folk consider they have earned the money instead of the company, and equate good luck with their own genius. And all of this unprecedented growth was founded on cheap labour in China.

There was a hint from George Soros near the end that the old capitalist certainties are changing (already there are moves to have the oil price quoted in a basket of currencies, including the Chinese Yuan) and with so many of the Western economies racking up huge debts he may well be right (he often is). So perhaps the lessons will be learned eventually, just not today.

The performances were all superb, as was to be expected from such a talented cast, and I only mention Anthony Calf in particular because he was not only on stage for almost the entire one and three quarter hours, he also provided the reactions that most of us would have had if we’d investigated the subject; bewilderment, anger, confusion, etc. I also liked his little demonstration of the need for speed in delivering a story, something the writer clearly understands. At one point, a journalist makes a comparison between the self confidence of the bankers and Hare’s own self belief. It’s a fair point in some ways, but then David Hare is unlikely to have been paid an obscene or disproportionate amount of money for writing his play, the enjoyment of his work is a subjective experience, and the measure of his success is bums on seats. The bankers, on the other hand, appear to be reaping rewards out of proportion to their effort or results, and the measure of their success can be clearly identified (if you can make sense of the bank’s accounts, that is). However, the comparison still has some validity, and I like the fact that this play has given me plenty to think about.

And how did it compare to Enron? Well, it didn’t have the singing and dancing nor the ladies’ knickers, but it did get the information across in an equally enjoyable way, so at least that’s two good things to come out of the credit crunch.

© 2009 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Round The Horne – September 2009

8/10

By Barry Took and Marty Feldman

Directed by ??

Venue: Yvonne Arnaud Theatre

Date: Friday 18th September 2009

Another fun instalment of this comedy series, which may end up running longer on stage than it did on the radio. This time, the band was on stage – that is, in the studio with them – and they brought on some singers to do the usual musical interludes that comedy shows had in those days. This was fine, but it did mean less time for the funny bits and I felt Julian and Sandy, in particular, were cut cruelly short in both halves.

Even so it was a bona evening out, and I hope they keep it going as long as they can.

© 2009 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

The Browning Version – September 2009

8/10

By Terence Rattigan

Directed by Peter Hall

Venue: Rose Theatre, Kingston

Date: Thursday 10th September 2009

How embarrassing. This was a double bill; the first play was Swansong, a piece by Anton Chekov. However I’m not able to rate Swansong as I kept nodding off through it; not a reflection on the actors, just that I was more tired than I realised. I heard a fair bit of laughter, so it must have been pretty good.

The Browning Version is another matter altogether. I’ve only seen this once or twice before and my memory wasn’t clear on all the details so I had to pay close attention to this one. The story concerns an older teacher, Andrew Crocker-Harris, steeped in the classics, who is about to leave the public school he’s taught at for eighteen years due to health problems. He has another job – he’s due to start next term at a ‘crammer’ – but he won’t be earning as much, and today the headmaster tells him he won’t be getting a pension as he hasn’t done the full twenty years. This piece of information drew a few gasps from the audience, and there was more to come.

His wife’s unfaithfulness throughout their marriage is represented here by her latest lover, a younger science teacher, and we learn about Crocker-Harris’s reputation amongst both staff and boys through a chat between a student, Taplow, and this science teacher, Frank Hunter, while both are waiting in Crocker-Harris’s study. Crocker-Harris himself becomes aware of this reputation through the innocent use of his school nickname “the Himmler of the lower fifth” by the youthful chap who’ll be replacing him next term. This, coupled with an almost sadistic barb from his wife over a book which Taplow has given him as a farewell present (more gasps from the audience) appears to put the final nail in his coffin, and his disappearance from the stage clutching his medicine bottle made more of us than just his wife think he was going to end it all.

He didn’t, and with the science teacher’s eyes being opened by the wife’s behaviour another opportunity emerges. The wife’s off to Bradford, but Crocker-Harris has decided to stay at the school until he goes to Dorset to take up his new post. Frank Hunter has taken his address and arranged a date to visit him there. Before sitting down to dinner, Crocker-Harris calls the headmaster to tell him that he will, in fact, make the final speech tomorrow, a position he’d allowed himself to be pushed out off for a more popular, but junior master. As he and his wife start their meal, there’s a lovely sense of the worm turning and the possibility of some happiness in the future.

I do like the way that Rattigan sets these people before us without much in the way of judgement, so we can see the situation from a number of points of view. Crocker-Harris comes across as a dry old stick to begin with, but as we get to know more about him and the people around him, we see more to the man than that. All the performances were fine as was the set. Now all I have to do is make sure I stay awake in future, and all will be well.

© 2009 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Prick Up Your Ears – August 2009

8/10

By Simon Bent, inspired by John Lahr’s Biography and the dairies of Joe Orton

Directed by Daniel Kramer

Venue: Richmond Theatre

Date: Saturday 29th August 2009

There was an additional bit of humour for this audience only, or for most of the audience anyway. The play was about to start, with Matt Lucas as Kenneth Halliwell alone on stage, when an elderly gentleman, still to find his seat in row B, held proceedings up for a few minutes. The natives were getting restless, but with a few little expressions, a glance at his watch, and some slight head shakes, Matt had us in fits of laughter and still got us back for the actual start of the piece. Masterly. (The elderly gentleman did try for a reprise at the start of the second half, but apart from a few people snapping at him he didn’t make as much of an impact.)

Now for the set. There was an outside brick wall with two windows fronting the set before and between the acts. A road sign bottom left told us this was Noel Road, Borough of Islington, and by the end of the play a blue plaque had appeared in the middle of the wall to commemorate Joe Orton’s time there (I didn’t spot it any earlier). Once lifted, the bedroom of the flat was revealed in all its sixties splendour. The ceiling was tiled in alternating pink and yellow, like a ferocious Battenberg cake, and with a central ceiling light. The door was centre back, giving the occasional glimpse of the bathroom and access to the kitchen (off right) and front door (left). The walls were mostly bare, though behind Halliwell’s bed a collage of pictures was taking shape. This collage grew and grew, taking over the other walls, and finally the ceiling was lifted up to show another level covered with pictures. (I assume this represented the ceiling itself, as it was too tricky to replace that.) The two beds were against the back wall (Halliwell’s) and the left wall (Orton’s). There was a large stereo player to the right of the door, a mirror on the wall to the right of that, and loads of shelves and books. Near the right front was a desk with the typewriter and later the telephone. Clothes were kept on the floor or tidied away in the drawers under the beds.

The play covered the relationship between Orton and Halliwell from their early work to improve the drab lives of library book borrowers in their neighbourhood through Orton’s success and Halliwell’s increasing insecurity to the expected bloody ending. I felt the writing was sympathetic to Halliwell though not blind to his difficult temperament, and made it clear that he did contribute to Orton’s success, at least to some extent. I’ve no idea how accurate any of it was, but the play worked well on stage, all the performances were good and we had a very enjoyable afternoon.

© 2009 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Helen – August 2009

8/10

By Euripides, translated by Frank McGuinness

Directed by Deborah Bruce

Venue: Shakespeare’s Globe

Date: Friday 21st August 2009

This was a jolly romp, or as a friend of ours put it “a lot of nonsense, but very enjoyable”. Frank McGuiness has done another excellent version of a Greek play, using modern idiom superbly well when needed, and bringing out the comedy in this rather fantastical piece by Euripides.

The premise is that Helen was not stolen away to Troy but secretly whisked away to Egypt by a vengeful Hera, who substituted a fake Helen, conjured from vapours, to satisfy Paris. (Paris, you will remember, pleased Aphrodite enormously when he picked her as the most beautiful goddess in Olympus, but Hera and Athena weren’t so happy. Olympus may have talent, but it also has spite, jealousy and a nasty taste for revenge.)

Helen is a bit fed up, firstly from waiting for Menelaus to come and get her, then with hearing how she’s reviled by everyone for causing the Trojan War, lots of deaths, etc., and now having to fend off the unwelcome attentions of the new king Theoclymenes who’s looking after her. She was left with his father originally, but he died and his son quite fancies having a Greek queen. The Trojan war was over seven years ago, there’s been no definite word of Menelaus (but lots of rumours that he’s dead) and Theoclymenes sees no reason not to marry Helen, even against her wishes, the brute!

A Greek sailor turns up, who tells Helen her husband’s probably dead, and she’s just getting down to some serious breast beating and wailing when her ‘women’ (several of them played by men) acting as a mini-chorus, advise her to check with the king’s sister first. This sister, Theonoe, is a prophet and knows everything that goes on. If she says Menelaus is alive, then he’s alive. Encouraged by this advice, and with a warning from the chorus to get a straight answer from Theonoe (you know what these oracles can be like) Helen heads off.

Next thing you know, Menelaus is staggering through the audience before collapsing in a heap on the stage. Revived by a singing person (after Streetcar yesterday, another white dinner jacket – is this a trend?) he tells us how difficult it’s been to get home from Troy. He no sooner gets within sight of Sparta than he’s blown to yet another corner of the Med. This time, his ship’s been destroyed and he’s left ‘Helen’ hidden away in a cave, with his men guarding her, while he goes in search of food for them all. His first encounter is with a mouthy servant, straight out of Molière, who tells him to get while the getting’s good. The king doesn’t like Greeks, apart from that Helen woman he wants to marry. This makes Menelaus prick up his ears, and when Helen returns, joyful at Theonoe’s news that Menelaus is alive, they enter into a strange reunion dance, neither one quite able to believe the other’s identity at first. When one of Menelaus’s men comes from the cave to tell him that ‘Helen’ has vanished, Menelaus gets over his doubts and soon they’re plotting how to escape from Egypt.

The first step is to persuade Theonoe not to tell the king her brother that Menelaus has arrived, as he would simply have him bumped off. It’s tricky, as Theonoe is torn between helping Helen’s legitimate husband and loyalty to her brother. Finally, an appeal to consider what her dead father would have done tips the scales; she knows he would have restored Helen to Menelaus, and agrees to keep the information from her brother.

That done, they need to find a ship that will take them all back to Sparta. Menelaus may have been one of the leaders who defeated mighty Troy but he hasn’t much of a clue when it comes to devious manipulation. For that we need Helen’s quick wits. She decides to tell the king that Menelaus has drowned, and before she can remarry she must carry out a symbolic burial at sea to appease the gods or whatnot. Menelaus himself will pretend to be a Greek sailor who saw his death and has brought the news to her. Once aboard the ship, Menelaus and his men can get rid of the Egyptian sailors and sail for home. It’s a good plan, but will the king fall for it?

Of course he will. He doesn’t have a clue about Greek rituals and he’s keen to get on with his own nuptials, so Helen and Menelaus are given carte blanche to kit the ship out with whatever they need for the ceremony.  There’s a nasty moment when the king suggests he should accompany her, but he’s quickly dissuaded, and the couple make their escape safely.

Now all that remains is to hear the news of their escape brought back to the king, followed by a final intervention by Castor and Pollux, and before you know it the band are playing a jazzy little number for the cast to jive to at the end.

It was good fun, and although we had the usual problem at the Globe of not being able to hear all of it, I caught enough to keep me happy. I noticed that both Penny Downie and Paul McGann were much clearer than the others, especially the first sailor who arrived to speak to Helen; he had an accent and a roaring delivery that made it very hard to hear his lines, though he was better when he turned the volume down.

The set had a large mound on the near side of the stage with a hidey-hole part way down it at the front. There was a lot of scaffolding everywhere, which allowed characters to climb up the far pillar, and some huge letters, presumably Greek ones, with equivalent cut-outs in the back wall. The letter nearest us was lifted up towards the end. Otherwise the stage was the usual size, and personally I think that’s a better size for this performance space.

The preamble to the play had two builders wandering round the set making desultory efforts to work. One of them even sat down and had his lunch, as well as reading the paper. There was some sparring between them because a tool which one dropped was moved by the other, leading to retaliation. These two turned up as Castor and Pollux at the end, with the addition of cute wings which was good fun, though I have no idea what the connection with the initial builders bit was.

© 2009 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me