Another fun week with a few surprises

On Monday I went with Frances to see Eugene Ionesco’s Rhinoceros at the Almeida Theatre. I’d read this in French as part of my studies at UCL back in the 60s, when we’d complained that the reading list was too classical and old-French oriented. The Theatre of the Absurd struck a chord with the young and foolish me and I even directed a production of fellow-absurdist Alfred Jarry’s Ubu sur la Butte in the Lycee Francais annual drama compettiton for London college French departments. We got the best actor award. The core of Rhinoceros was still there with its warning about totalitarianism embodied in the metaphor of the residents of a small town in France turning into rhinoceroses. But the adaptation with audience participation conducted by Paul Hunter though elaborate hand gestures and claps and rhinoceros roars with kazoos made it a very different spectacle. Translated and directed by Omar Elerian – he also did a great version of Ionesco’s The Chairs here a couple of years back – it incorporated humour, menace, slapstick and some cod metaphysical discussions and an interpolated song sequence in Italian by love-object Daisy sung brilliantly by Anoushka Lucas with back projected slogan “What do you want meaning for?” The playing for laughs may have detracted a little from Ionesco’s warnings of extremism but it was a fun night in the theatre.

Imagine my shock on Tuesday morning when The Guardian had the following headline. I had to send it to warn Frances in case they’d escaped from the theatre and were invading Islington and Tufnell Park.

And what an artist she was in so many media and despite all the household wrangling! She started out as a talented maker of woodcuts – and many know of my love of a print – and with Charlotte Bawden she established a reputation for marbling paper – all the rage for lampshades and book endpapers in the pre-war years. The exhibition features embrodery, a quilt, wood engravings and some model village collages in box frames which were inventive and charming. Finally she was able to turn to oil painting at which she adopted a somewhat naive style with surprising elements like the trees in the Photo Shoot below made with prints from gathered leaves. It’s well worth a visit and is on till 26 May. It’s also very funny – she obviously had a great sense of humour. That’s her in the train compartment.

Thursday evening sees me join Frances again, this time at the Kiln Theatre in Kilburn to see Shanghai Dolls a new play by Amy Ng. The dolls of the title are two influential characters in Chinese history: Jiang Qing who as Mme Mao is generally regarded as the architect of the disastrous Cultural Revolution; and Sun Weishi who was the adopted daughter of Mao’s arch rival Chou En Lai and became China’s first female theatre director. Before the play we were able to introduce a friend who has recently moved to the area and her daughters to the Kiln which we hope will become a useful cultural hub for them – teenage eyes widened at the thought of £5 cinema tickets! I enjoyed the play very much despite some slightly melodramatic delivery from time to time., But it brought back some distant memories. I was in China in 1981 as part of a lecture and workshop visit when I worked for the Inner London Education Authority. This was five years after the end of the Cultural Revolution but we saw the effect it had had on artists with hands wrecked by rural toil, writers’ spirits broken through lack of books. Several people – including our interpreter Sho-jian asking if I could marry her so she could get out of China – were adamant that the movement had been an utter failure, but were still not willing to talk about it openly, only when we found quiet unmonitored corners.

I had tickets for a Wigmore Hall concert on Saturday but thanks to a recommendation from Frances I went first of all to the Royal Academy of Arts to see the Brasil! Brasil! The Birth of Modernism exhibition. Good call Fran! The last time a major exhibition of Brazilian art was held in London was at the RA in 1944 – I didn’t go as I was one. The show featured ten different artists who had had an influence on mid twentieth century art movements in Brazil. Sadly it closes on 21 April but you can get a flavour here. Many of the artists had studied in Europe but most had a very distinctive local feel featuring indigenous characters and local traditions. Given that some of our friends are members of Morris sides, I liked the Brazilian equivalent.

I met a young music composition student Zyggy de Somogyi a couple of years ago at a weekend in Oborne in Dorset and we’ve remained in touch. Indeed I asked Zyggy to write the music tracks for the series of videos we made to celebrate 100 Years at Vicarage Road for Watford Football Club in 2022. Basing his work on some fan chants I sent he matched the predominant sounds of the decades – ragtime, swing etc to drive the narratives along. I’m here today to listen to the world premieres of two of his works commissioned by the Royal Philharmonic Society Composers Programme which gives young musiciians space to develop. Ten years ago Dani Howard was on the same programme and I met her at the same weekend in Dorset – small world.

Other pieces were a new work by Ashkan Layegh, a trio by Lowell Lieberman that showed off the skills of the group Temporal Harmonies Inc – Xiaowen on piano, Lydia Walquist on flute and Mikolaj Piszczorowicz on the cello, followed by Caroline Shaw’s wonderful In manus tuas is based on a motet by Thomas Tallis arranged for solo cello and Kaija Saariaho’s Mirrors for flute and cello. The concluding work was Zyggy’s second premiere IN THE EVENT THAT YOU STAY, This was written with the trio in mind and indeed with their collaboration. It’s in four movements which included drama, bombast, a peaceful second movement, a sense of progression and a finale which featured soft vocalising chanting of the title and eventually all members singing. It brought a lump to the throat. I was a very impressive work and I hope it enters the repertoire of contemporary chamber music.