Almeida Theatre

Marathon month of memories

One and Two: My run of nine nights away from home in the evening started with Saturday at Sadler’s Wells East with Jo and Sunday with the last item on my previous blog with BBPC at Cable Street and dinner in Shadwell afterwards.

Three: The new week kicked off with a dinner at Yoshino. Few will need reminding that this serves the best Japanese food in London and has ultra efficient and very friendly Lisa as it host. Lisa introduced me to Shoko when she came to a Prom in August when Dani Howard’s SIGNAL was given its world premiere. Since then we’ve touched base briefly at Yoshino and at the Drink Japan festival but decided to spend an evening together. It got off to a good start when I gave Shoko a copy of 101 Great Things about Japan (still available on Amazon) and heard a succession of “wows” as she leafed through it and suggested that I know more about Japan than she does. The clincher though was that Dee and I had loved our visit to Kamakura which is Shoko’s home town. It is also the setting for Kore-eda’s lovely film Our Little Sister. Outstandingly good food as usual plus lots of time to chat with Lisa too as the restaurant was not too busy. A lovely evening and pretty relaxing for a change.

Kamakura’s most famous resident – the13.5 metres tall Daibutsu at the Kotoku-in temple.

Four: Clifford Odet’s play Golden Boy is one I had not seen but heard of and knew it was to do with boxing. The Almeida production was excellent and featured Josh O’Connor in his first stage role for a decade as Joe Bonaparte, a promising violinist who is forced into prizefighting by a ruthless manager Tom played by Daniel Mays in a tour de force of coaxing, bullying and outright venality. He’s accompanied in his artifice by Lorna a hard-boiled Hayley Squires with a soft interior.

There’s a string quartet on an elevated platform at the back of the set who sparingly add poignant commentary on the action. But how do you show boxing on stage? Both symbolically and physically is director Sam Yates’ solution. A suspended punch bag has an embedded camera so we see both actual and projected close ups of Joe’s fights. For a play from 1937 it felt very fresh looking at difficult choices that have to be made to survive in hard times. Family pressures, feelings of responsibility, emotions, pride and jealousy are all there in a clearly guided production which left me with memories of some moments of great theatre some fine action and to ponder about moral dilemmas. A very worthy revival. And if you can’t get to the theatre it’s on NT Live in cinemas.

Five: On Monday, Shoko had decided she was free to accompany to what would be her first ever jazz gig. As an accomplished viola player she knows her music but had never been to hear jazz of which she professed ignorance. I had a job to do as I was to write a piece for All About Jazz anbout London’s latest jazz venue, the Blue Note London in St Martin’s Lane. The evening opened with a set by Gary Crosby’s Tomorrows Warriors. This charity run by Gary and his wife Janine for 39 years now, has done more than any other group to foster jazz in the UK and has some notable successful alumni including the Mercury prize-winning Ezra Collective and figures like Denys Baptiste, Soweto Kinch and Nubya Garcia. I’ve decsribed the gig elsewhere https://www.allaboutjazz.com/blue-note-comes-to-london but the best for me was to see alongside veterans like Denys and Gary himself, young graduates of the Warriors being given space on London’s latest big jazz stage. Next best was Shoko’s reaction who had her eyes ands ears opened to a new genre that she is keen to explore further. “I’m in a daydream about last night” she messaged next morning.

Six: I joined Frances for an insight event at the NT on Thursday prior to seeing Electra/Persona. We heard about the casting process and prop making and gathering both of which were interesting in the quantity of both that are done by in-house staff – many theatres use external casting directors and set and prop construction companies.

The play stars Cate Blanchett and Nina Hoss who get a (tonight) fumbling audience member to toss a coin to see who will play which main part Electra or Clytemnestra and Elisabeth or Alma. We had Blanchett as Electra/Elisabeth. The first half is a loose adaptation of Sophocles, played out on a massive wooden staircase on which I frequently worried for the actors’ safety and was glad I didn’t have to do the risk assessment. It was lively, bloody and exciting but whether Benedict Andrews had added anything to the classic text was up for debate.

Having talked earlier about video tech in the theatre, the second half – no interval but 15 minutes of clearing rubbish off the steps – was a staged homage to Bergman’s film Persona. I’m not sure which is the easier role: the mute Elisabeth subjected to extreme close up video projections while she huddles under a blanket or scuttles across the steps or Alma who tries to cajole her out of depression. A highlight was Ella Lily Hyland as Elektra’s sister Chrysothemis and providing the running commentary in Persona as Anna who coincidentally is a star of my son-in-law’s latest TV series Tall Tales and Murder which comes to BBC on November 3. Please boost his ratings!

Seven: Following Wednesday’s Blue Note excursion, Gary Crosby had kindly agreed to talk to me about Tomorrow’s Warriors so that I could submit an article featuring them to All About Jazz. Workshops run in the basement of the Royal Festival Hall in a region I didn’t know existed but Gary showed me around the various rooms where potential musicians are tutored, join jam sessions and develop their skills. We spent a delightful two hours talking about music, cricket and football as his nephew is one of Watford FC’s much-loved former players Ashley Young. I then spent the afternoon writing in the foyer before heading over to the Queen Elizabeth Hall to meet friends Gwyn and Yvonne, Shoko – if she managed to curtail Friday drinks at the bank where she works on time – and Dani Howard. Dani and I had talked previously about her interest in writing for period instruments and I had said I would introduce her to the key figures at the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. Introductions all went smoothly and we went in to see a rare performance of the Girl from Arles. Bizet originally wrote incidental music for Daudet’s play L’Arlesienne but it has become part of the repertoire as two suites. The OAE decided to stage the whole thing in a new translation by Jeremy Sams.

Much of the music was familiar, little of the text althoughj the story was a well document saga of forbidden love. The set and props and one of the cast were supplied by pupils at OAE’s home in Acland Burghley School. It was an interesting experiment by the always innovative OAE but as one visitor commented, “You can see why it hasn’t been done since 1964”. The critics were kinder however: 4 stars in The Guardian and “a welcome revival” from the Arts Desk. However, it was an enjoyable evening rounded off pleasantly with a light supper in the Archduke Wine Bar until they threw us out.

Eight: Saturday was another outing with my daughter to the ballet, this time at Sadler’s Wells in Rosebury Avenue with dinner at Moro beforehand. My, how busy was Exmouth Market! The programme was Acosta Danza’s Cuban Baroque. A double bill of contrasting musical foundations Salve Regina by Esteban Salas an 18th century Cuban composer in the first half called Pearls and in the second Chacona based on Bach’s Partita No 2 in D minor. The elegant strains of Baroque music might seem alien to the fast-moving energy of modern dance but it worked extremely well here in the bodies of a lithe and fluid group of dancers. The stamina and interpretive movements were mesmerising and contrasting colours for the wardrobe in each work were effective, Breathtaking stuff! Carlos Acosta may not thrill us with his dancing but his company does.

Acosta Danza *Pearls*
Credit: Johan Persson

Nine: Once again the closure of Charing Cross Station for the weekend make my Sunday trip to the royal Opera House a three-bus outing. Lee to Lewisham, the Bakerloop B1 to Waterloo and a bus across the bridge to the Strand. The hassle was worth it for the sublime music of Wagner’s last opera Parsifal. Our friend Susie Stranders had worked to prepare the cast and I had a catch up with her in the second interval which was an added bonus to a brilliant afternoon. Under the baton of RBO Music Director Jakub Hrůša, the orchestra and soloists were in fine form. This expansive, brooding, elemental and ecstatic music swirled through the house with all the force Wagner intended. I found the concept by debutant ROH director Evgeny Titov hard to take. Set in gloomy and miserable basement rooms with odd stone block towers moving at random moments I found it at serious odds with the storyline. Parsifal gathers the spear that will end the agony of the ailing Amfortas at the end in Wagner’s own libretto, but Titov has him kill the elder with spurts of blood from the wound the spear should cure and then hides himself under a gurney. It was great to witness this magnificent work again but I’m glad I also saw the Glyndebourne version last year so as not to sully my memory.

Jakub Hrůša salutes the orchestra who were on magnificent form in *Parsifal*

So on Monday and Tuesday I was at home and had almost forgotten what it meant to go into the kitchen and prepare and cook a meal but I did and it was tasty – teryaki chicken with miso aubergine and sesame seed broccoli – appropriate preparation on Tuesday for Wednesday’s outing.

I’ve been reading a lot of Japanese fiction lately – not just Murakami – and came across the work of Akane Araki. Rather like Mieko Kawakami earleier in the year, the chance to hear a writer talk about her work was not to be missed. The Japan Foundation brought Akane to the UK for a promotional tour of the publication in English of Murder at the End of the World. In London this took place at Foyles. It’s a very accomplished murder mystery with many MacGuffins, red herrings and plot twists that keep you on edge throughout. Hearing her talk about her upbringing in Fukushima areas of Kyushu and its influence on her work was interesting. It did prompt me to ask why the cover had a representation of Fuji-san that can’t be seen that far west. Marketing and sterotypes I suspect. The Japanese edition had a cover that properly evoked the spirit of the book. Charmingly chaired by Bidisha and with simultaneous interpretation from the always excellent Bethan Jones it was an insightful evening.

I ventured into the Surrey Hills on Thursday for lunch at the Ragged Robin (close!) in Godalming with Peter Breen one of the few school mates I’m still in touch with. A ritual exchange of preserves – Peter has beehives – his honey and pickled jalapeños, my apricot and chilli jam – catch up with family and friends and exchange of recipes for quinces of which we both have many this year. A very pleasant trip out of the city. Home for the evening but no need to cook after a substantial and excellent lunch.

As part of my ongoing research into Tomorrow’s Warriors I had arrnaged to interview pianist Sultan Stevenson at King’s Place on Friday evening before I went to a concert there. He is a charming man full of praise for Tomorrow’s Warriors and how it had helped his career. He told me at length about the “Each one teach one” whereby all alumni pass on their knowledge to the next generation. As he said “Where else can you get world class tutoring for free?

The concert was by London Brass celebrating their 40th anniversary and they had asked Dani Howard to contribute a new work for the occasion. Deciding against a 40 minute piece she compsed a lively four-minute “Fast Forward” that gave each section opportunities to shine and formed a coherent progression through tones and emotions.

Saturday saw my first trip to football at Watford for some weeks – international break, away and midweek fixtures got in the way. We won, most unexpectedly, 2-0 against Charlton after two recent thrashings by clubs below us in the table. There seemed to be some team spirit, some more joined-up play and ability to keep the ball for a while and to actually put it in the back of the net. Frances, Graham and I then caught the train back into Euston for a pint in the Lord Salisbury on St Martin’s Lane and then the to the Blue Note for the early show by Nubya Garcia. As one of the more prominent Tororrow’s Warriors I was keen to secure an interview by chatting to her manager Barb Sealy. Success! We have a zoom date in the diary. We also met up with Gary Crosby and his partner and co-founder of Warriors Janine Irons and with Nubya’s mother, all of which brought a fabulous end to a brilliant concert which I have reviewed for All About Jazz and which you can read here and see some photographs from the gig. Gary was happy to discuss his nephew Ashley Young with Frances and Graham. Janine said they knew Watford had won by the demeanour of the fans on the train into town. We failed to repeat Shoko and my post jazz trip to Barrafina but had satisfactory bowls at Marugame Udon opposite Charing Cross Station. A very good Saturday.

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Cultural continuum

My first outing in April was to an event in the Whitechapel Gallery called Threading Words. The poetry group of which I’m a trustee has some connections with the organisers Babel’s Blessing. This charity arrnages language tuition in many tongues for recent immigrants to help them play an active part in British society. This session was led by a South African-German artist Nomakhwezi Becker who took us through a fascinating couple of hours of self-exploration based on her insights from Xhosa and other African cultures with a modern European gloss. Who knew that the intricate beadwork patterns so much a part of Zulu culture sent explicit messages such as ‘I fancy you’ or ‘Stay away’? I had a chance to chat to Khwezi and the Babel’s organiser Marina Castrillo and hope to see them both at our next BBPC gathering at the end of the month.

Nomakhwezi began by telling us about storytelling traditions which are so important in every culture – the screen reads ‘Once Upon a Time’ – and then asked us to identify things that were important to us in relation to colours, scents, the contents of drawers and handbags, the weather and places. I’m not usually a fan of heart searching in public but found Nomakhwezi’s prompts particularly well chosen so that I and those around me wrote copiously in response. I kept the messages that the session elicited and have found them helpful in planning my days.

Some sensational retelling of a well-known story was taking place at the Royal Court Theatre. John Proctor Is the Villain is a retlling of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible by Kimberly Bellflower She relocates the action to a high school in Georgia where a group of – mostly – adolescent girls discuss the play with personal-inspired insights and some startling revelations. It’s set in the noughties and the young women want to set up a feminist society, I guess on the wave of #Metoo.The club is finally establshed after institutional doubts when the teacher suggests boys should be members too. The members all have clear characteritics – swot, rebel, newcomer, plus an absentee with a backstory of great importance to the subsequent revelations. The young cast – three making professional stage debuts – are outstanding and the denoument is a remarkable piece of modern theatre. Photo below courtesy Royal Court Theatre

It is getting a deserved West End transfer in 2027 when it will run at Wyndham’s Theatre from February through to April. Do go and see it – I’ll be going again. Another of this year’s highlights Arcadia is also transferring from the old Vic to the Duke of York’s in June. Miller and Stoppard are getting lots of exposure right now and rightly so.

Having seen part of the technical rehearsal, it was with interest that I went to Hampstead with Frances to the press night for the revival of Michael Frayn’s Copenhagen. You know you’re getting old when you’ve seen the original version of so many plays being revived now – one marking its fiftieth anniversary! I noticed in the technical and tonight that the three actors were miced up and wore earpieces – a growing trend I’d noticed recently. I am used to presenters with lots of technical script to deliver having it replayed through an earpiece so they can be one-take-wonders. But actors! It was clear that Richard Schiff playing Niels Bohr needed some help as he was very stumbly – some kind audience members later said they found it effective characterisation of the older man. Alex Kingston playing Bohr’s wife Margrethe had a few flufs but brought some much needed warmth to the play while Damien Maloney as Werner Heisenberg performed with German efficiency.

It always was a very wordy and complex play with the central mystery about the reasons for the 1941 meeting between the two former colleagues now on opposite sides in the war. As with a number of productions these days the Trumpian overtones were quite obvious and played up in Michael Longhurst’s direction. The real star of the evening was the set designed by Joanna Scotcher with a water-filled moat surrounding the central revolve and hanging light bulbs feeling like so many atomic particles. They also changed colour to suit the mood – in a series of clever lighting effects.

It was well done and thought-provoking but perhaps not the most enjoyable evening in the theatre. The after party more than made up for that with old friends and new chatting about everything under the sun – and drinking far too much. I was more restrained the next evening when I was able to catch up with my friend Rosa over dinner at the Union Club. Rosa is mostly based in a fabulous apartment in Girona nowadays but had to come back to get her car MOTed and various other chores and catch-ups. It was lovely to see her after quite a time and we put the arts world completely to rights during the evening.

The there was another nostalgia trip to see Teeth ‘n’ Smiles having a fiftieth anniversary revival. I saw the original with Helen Mirren as Maggie Frisby, the alcoholic fading rock star, played in the Duke of York’s Theatre by Rebecca Lucy Taylor who I have to say is a better singer and can act too. Coming from Rotherham her accent was spot on. David Hare’s play still feels very much of its time despite a few updating references. But it brought back happy memories of younger times of carefree excess and thoroughly irresponsible behaviour. The set was suitably shabby and the direction by Daniel Raggett (no relation that we’ve yet discovered) was pacy and engaging. I thoroughly enjoyed the depiction of a disintegrating band with its internecine rivalries and battles. And the original music by Nic and Tony Bicat was enhanced with some new songs from RLT or Self Esteem as she is known professionally.

For some mad reason I decided to go to see Watford play against Oxford United. It’s the dog end of the season where we can’t go up or down so there’s nothing to play for but pride and there was little of that on display as we lost 2-0. This lead to a truly toxic atmosphere at the end of the match with the players standing resolutely suffering piled on of abuse from certain members of the so-called support, who are clearly too young to remember what a state the club has been in at several periods of its existence.

I was pooh-poohed by some members of our party for my decision on arrival at Oxford Station to head off to the Ashmolean Museum rather than heading straight to the pub.

For once I made the right call – they waited 35 minutes for a bus, I was in the museum in 7 minutes. Flower displays adorned the portico presaging the exhibition called In Bloom about the history of gardening, plant hunters and the commercialisation of horticulture. It was excellent, small enough to be done in an hour or so but very informative and containing some beautiful and interesting images and objects.

The exhibition featured early plant specimens lovingly pressed into folio volumes 400 years ago, botanical drawings, portraits of plant hunters and seed gatherers and some of the equipment they used. It didn’t shy away from the horrors brought about by the discovery of the powerful effects of the opium poppy, the mad vogue for the tulip that led to the bubble of 1634 retold in the Tom Stoppard and Deborah Moggach sceenplay for the film Tulip Fever in 2017. There were smell stations to distinguish between black and green tea and to smell burnt poppy seeds and bizarre botanical teaching models. Modern artists were invited to exhibit their reaction to the displays and there were paintings, tapestries and sculptures that extended the scope to the present. Flower displays by Justine Smith made from used banknotes epitomised the dangers of always seeking the new. The sculptures and prints of the Iranian artist Anahita Norouzi were especially striking. Her flower scultures bore significant titles focusing on the colonial exploitation and her prints made in crude oil were a timely reminder of the horrors currently unfolding in the Gulf. I’m very glad I went to see it, particularly as the football was awful and the pub had no real ale.

Romola Garai was nominated for two Oliver supporting actor roles – The Years at the Almeida (won) and Giant at the Royal Court. I reckon she’ll be up for another next time for her amazing performance (leading not supporting) as Nora in the new version of Ibsen’s A Doll’s House by Anya Reiss. It’s in a modern setting but with all the tensions of the original. The Italian rest cure is replaced by a rehab stint in a Portuguese Priory, there are maxed out credit cards and the expected higher levels of income come not from a promotion in the bank but the sale of a company which has nearly but not quite gone through. The stripped down cast leaves the children only heard through a sleep monitor but this probably helps speed up the action. I found it had a very strong link to the original while exploring more modern themes. The absence of children made Nora feel slightly less trapped in her domestic cage than the original and the conclusion was left up in the air with a quick cut to black with everyone on stage rather than a slammed door. Lots to ponder which is a good thing on leaving the theatre. Next year’s supporting actor nomination should go to Thalissa Teixeira who was the most sympathetic character as Kristine and gave a superb portrayal of the impoverished widow and former university friend.

Tom Mothersole (Torvald) , Romola Garai (Nora) Olivier Huband (Petter)

Iphigenia at the Arcola Theatre was again, a modern retelling of the familiar myth interspersed with live footage in various languages from people who had lost children through famine, refugee journeys and other misfortunes. These unwilling sacrifices made the dilemma faced by Agamemnon and Clytemnestra all the more poignant. It was an effective version with some fourth wall breaking moments and a haunting musical accompaniment. The backdrop of sails which turned into waves and the simple set framed some fine performances from Simon Kunz as Agamemnon, Mithra Malex as his daughter and Indra Ove. The modern political scene was never far from your thoughts as Agamemnon was prepared to kill his daughter in order to get wind for his fleet to sail into battle in a distant land in an unwinnable war – until a wooden horse tipped the balance after ten years of slaughter. We never learn anything myth or history it seems.

So it’s off to the Queen Elizabeth Hall for the latest in OAE’s experiments. One of the things I love about the organization is that they are always trying new ways of presenting music. Last year there was the amazing Breaking Bach promoted with among other things, plantable pencils. Mine says it’s sunflower seeds but the seedlings look very like tomatoes to me. At least they germinated! I shared this photo with some of the OAE team online and before the concert and we all eagerly await the next set of leaves and glorious sunflowers to plant out. I’ve promised to document progress.

The concert tonight is Echoes of Hill and Horizon and present music outside OAE’s normal comfort zone. In collaboration with the Southbank Centre and Squidsoup – a specialist lighting company. The blurb promised “an immersive soundscape” and we were treated to bird calls in the foyer recorded at Leith Hill, Place Vaughan Williams’ home, to prepare us for his The Lark Ascending. What shocked on entering the hall was the massive grids with their arrays of tiny lightbulbs. I was glad I had chosen a rear stalls seat as there was one bank of lights above the central walkway behind front stalls punters’ eyelines. What was to come?

House lights dimmed, the orchestra played the opening bars and then Kati Debretzeni’s soaring violin was heard offstage. She emerged and continued to play from various points on the stage before disappearing again at the end. It was an inspired performance all the more effective because it’s the first time she’s ever played it. She explains her approach entertainingly here. The lighting streams showed said lark (oddly in red and white looking more like a Welsh dragon) flitting from side to side and back to front always rising with the thousands of bulbs able to change colour magically – it reminded me of the lights on the Copenhagen set last week. The lighting changes fitted well with the moods of the music – sometimes a bit obvious like the green swathes for Fantasia on Greensleeves – but often enhancing my appreciation of the music. For Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia on a theme of Thomas Tallis the orchestra split in two with some effective antiphonal layered playing in this familiar piece. What mattered most for me about the evening was the Southbank’s Concrete Voids sound system. Each musician had a stand mic beside them and the lightly amplified mix played into the auditorium was astounding. Every note was clear, as you’d expect from this band, but the enveloping effect of the surround sound was for me the highlight of the evening. To hear very familiar repertoire in such a new way was really satisfying and sent me from the hall with a real buzz of delight. Did the lights mean a lot? Probably a bit gimmicky and added only slightly to the pleasure of the music. But the Comncrete Voids system added a lot.

And the next evening there’s another stunning stage debut at the Kiln Theatre. And he’s only playing John Lennon! Noah Ritter was the debuntant alongside the chameleon that is Calam Lynch as Brian Epstein in Tom Wright’s play Please, Please Me. it was insightful, touching on Epstein’s discovery and subsequent management of the Beatles – none of their music was heard because of massive licencing fees, it seems. The one woman in the cast Eleanor Worthington-Cox plays John’s Aunt Mimi as well as Cyn/Cilla John’s first wife and Epstein’s other signing Cilla Black. She was excellent tin all three roles with subtle changes of headgear and wigs. The versatile set wheeled and danced across the stage with the outline of the Cavern Club providing a background. Amit Sharma’s direction allowed space for the play’s themes of Jewishness, illicit homosexuality, addiction and privacy stolen by beatlemania to unfurl in crisp dialogue with many moments of humour amongst the overall gloom thrown by Brian’s death aged 32 two years before homosexuality was made legal un the UK.

Bookending the blog neatly, the last Sunday of alternate months means it’s time to head back to the Whitechapel Gallery for the British Bilingual Poetry Collective’s Bi-monthly Meetup. At the last meeting we’d agreed a theme of Absent Friends as 26 April was the anniversary of one of our member’s father’s death and it was the week when my late wife Dee had her birthday so it seemed a good occasion to remember those no longer with for whatever reasons. Several poignant poems were read and lively discussion ensued as memories were exchanged.

Marina read in Spanish, Shamim in Bengali and I just did English

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Christmas trip

After a week of brilliant music, family and theatre in London I now find myself in Alicante.

Thursday saw neighbours Les, Sean and Maria and me make our way to our local wine bar and then to Blackheath Halls to see the Andy Sheppard quartet. Dee and I and a colleague had recorded an hour long to show with Andy back in 1999 and guitarist John Parricelli was still part of the group.

He is still a complete master of the soprano and tenor saxophones and was given great accompaniment from Dudley Foster on bass and Nic France on drums in an evening of varied old and new material. He made me cry by playing ‘Dancing Man and Woman’ which Dee and I had as our play out music from our wedding back in 2001. Happy memories through the tears.

My friends Anna and Lisa ventured up from Ramsgate to see Ute Lemper visiting Marlene Dietrich. They had a spare ticket and invited me to join them.

I didn’t really know what to expect but thoroughly enjoyed Ute telling us about a three hour long telephone conversation she had with Marlene in Paris. She had written to convey her horror at the press calling Ute ‘The new Marlene’ and the diva had phoned her back. This story interspersed with the great songs made for a most enjoyable evening

Sunday was little short of a miracle when son and daughter-in-law, daughter and son-in-law, two grandchildren and I were all free for lunch at the same time. Amazing fun and great stories all round. A great start to Christmastime.

Monday saw me go with Frances to the press night of Indian Ink at the Hampstead Theatre. It coincided with Tom Stoppard’s funeral and we were a bit worried about how it might affect the cast, especially Felicity Kendall. They were all superb and particularly Felicity playing the older role rather than the one of poet Flora Crewe she had created twenty years ago and Ruby Ashbourne Serkis playing Flora in front of Felicity. Gavi Singh Chera was also excellent as the beguiling – to Flora – Indian painter. As always the witticisms and hilarity were countered with serious debate about the role of Britain in Empire. Not his best play but definitely worth seeing for the acting and the brilliant set and lighting design – oh and the incidental music is good too.

I had a lovely lunch with Camilla Reeve the publisher of BBPC’s anthology Home and Belonging. It was a generous thank you from her for my chairing the discussion panel at her literary festival back in November. An enjoyable discussion ranging over many topics.

Wednesday was at the Almeida for Christmas Day, the second play in a month featuring a Jewish family (not) celebrating Christmas. This was provocative with references to Gaza and antisemitism, family bickering and made some good points but for me was a bit disjointed and I felt needed longer in development to get a better play out.

Twelfth Night came early with Frances, Farzana, Richard and me heading to the Barbican, some of us via the excellent Jugged Hare for dinner. This was the RSC`s production starring Freema Agyemang as Olivia and Sam West as Malvolio with Gwyneth Keyworth at Viola and Michael Grady-Hall as a brilliant Feste – brush up your juggling skills if you’re in the front rows! It was hilarious, but also touching, emotionally grabbing and was spoken with such clarity that your respect and admiration for the genius Bard of Avon rocketed even higher.

I had Friday at home to tidy up the place and think about packing. Saturday was my last Watford match of the year and we actually won 1-0 against Stoke, so another good omen for the festive season. Sunday evening I drove to Stansted in a horrific downpour which made my arrival in Alicante so welcome. I’d been equivocating about coming away for Christmas this year and am already glad I finished up with a decision to make the trip. I checked in to a very pleasant well-situated hotel where I think for the first time in my life my room is right opposite the lift not the 200 yards race I had to make last night at Stansted. Legs thus spared, I went walkabout to get my bearings in a city I have only been to once so long ago that not much sticks in the mind. A quick tapas lunch with a beer confirmed the decision to make the trip. The bar had no menu but served tapas of the day on wood blocks and a bit like Yo Sushi, they count up the blocks to make your bill. With a big party you’d get a Jenga game thrown in. The Christmas spirit and the love of tapas were well in evidence.

Further down towards the Mediterranean the welcome was even clearer at the end of the palm-lined promenade.

I then crossed to the marina to select my yacht when I win the lottery. It’s a very pleasant harbour to be further explored tomorrow.

And on the way back up (gentle slopes) through town there are some lovely examples of modernisme architecture which I shall also explore further.

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No Mow – No Blog – May

Well the lawn didn’t quite escape the mower despite the warm weather and slow growth of grass but it had to have a tidy up. What did escape was the keyboard – too busy to type this month! It all started on Saturday 3rd with the last game of the season – unlucky draw – followed by a farewell to the season lunch at L’Artista and then Frances, Rose and myself whizzing off for a pre-concert Guinness in the Toucan with Ian Prowse (he didn’t have one) before he took to the stage at the 100 Club. It was as always with him a brilliant evening’s entertainment.

Then on Monday 5th Fran and I went to see the new Conor McPherson play The Brightening Air at the Old Vic. It’s a wonderful depiction of dysfunctional Irish rural family life with a standout performance from Rosie Sheehy as the disruptive Billie. The next day I had to record one of the English Language Teaching audiobooks that I do a couple of times a year. My voice over actor John Hasler (doing 16 different voices in Aussie accents around an RP narration – amazing) is about to rejoin the cast of Fawlty Towers at the Apollo Theatre with a bigger role than he had in the first run so I’ll probably catch that at some point in the run that starts late June.

Next up was a favourite ukiyo-e printmaker Hiroshige at the British Museum. I am familiar with most of the images displayed but seeing the vibrancy of the originals compared with reproductions was astonishing. The exhibition also included several indications of the complexity of making multi-coloured woodblock prints, inking them up and making sure paper is accurately registered. A technical triumph but also witty, emotional and dramatic scenes of love, life and landscape. It was interestingly curated too with prints fixed to scrolls which themselves were often the destination of woodblock prints.

With my mind firmly back in Japan I spent the evening downstairs at the Hampstead Theatre in the midst of a video game. The play was Personal Values and combined characters’ real lives with their personae in the game they were endlessly playing. As a non-gamer it left me a bit confused but others enjoyed it very much.

Back at Hampstead the following Monday saw a very different set of games presented. This was an adaptation by Richard Bean of David Mamet’s 1987 film, Mamet’s debut as both writer and director. It was powerful, twisty, scary and shocking but immense fun. I hadn’t seen the film for ages but recall it being altogether darker and while there were some elements of that here, it was as you’d expect with Richard Bean rather more about the laughs. I’m looking forward to more card games and sleaze when we see Dealer’s Choice at the Donmar next month.

Music started the month and gave me a real highlight in the middle. Sunday 18th found me in the Temple of Art and Music in Mercato Metropolitano, the sprawling food fest at the Elephant and Castle. The group in which my granddaughter plays keyboard, flute and does backing vocals – elegantly called Soulstice – were asked to headline a Youth Open Mic session. There’s a clip here – not very well recorded and not by me! They are usually an all girl band but their drummer couldn’t make the gig so a brother kindly stepped in. I’m prejudiced of course but they are actually rather good with a soul-tinged mix of their own originals, Sade, Amy Winehouse and so on..

Different but no less enjoyable was the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment’s concert at the Royal Festival Hall with Sir Andras Schiff conducting from the piano in a Schumann programme with a little Mendelssohn in between. It started with the Konzertstück which is a very lively piece for piano and orchestra and was followed by familiar passages from Mendelssohn’s Midsummer Nights’ Dream and Schiff played Schumann’s only piano concerto after the interval. He had talked last year at an open rehearsal of his pleasure in having a brown Blüthner fortepiano rather than the shiny black Steinways that are usually provided.

He had it again tonight and did us proud, not only in the opening piece and the concerto, but gave us a solo encore of Brahms’ Albumblatt and then closed the piano lid very firmly and got the whole orchestra to play Mendelssohn’s Fingal’s Cave as a bonus encore. Coming at the end of an eight day tour to Vienna, Graz, Antwerp, Amsterdam and Munich the energy of Sir Andras and the orchestra was quite amazing. And with even more bonuses – a preconcert talk with Laura Tunbridge, professor of music at Oxford, and an interval drinks reception for friends – it was a night to remember.

Sir Andras Scxhiff leaves the stage, leaving behind his favourite instrument.

On my way to the OAE concert I went to the National Portrait Gallery to see the exhibition of Edvard Munch portraits. These were very impressive with clear characterisation of friends and family placed in relevant environments. He obviously didn’t like several of his subjects as these were not flattering portraits but reflected Munch’s relationship with them and indeed with himself. I couldn’t escape the musical theme of the month of May as my two favourites were The Brooch which is a lithograph of an English violinist who styled herself Eva Mudocci and a quick stetch of Edward Delius at a concert in Wiesbaden. I also liked his walking self-portrait and a double portrait of the lawyer Harald Norgaard and his wife Aase with whom he had a lengthy relationship. It’s an unusual composition and was quite striking. Munch knew Harald from his youth and painted Aase separately on a number of occasions.

I also made it to another British Museum exhibition after being a radiotherapy buddy to a friend who is going through the final stages of cancer treatment. She is great company despite the circumstances and we have spent some good times together. As I remember myself radiotherapy leaves you pretty wiped out so she declined the offer of accompanying me to the BM understandably preferring home and rest. The exhibition was mostly of objects from the museum’s own collections but shed a fascinating insight into the religions of India – Hindu, Jain and Buddhism through their artefacts and what they symbolised. The galleries also had birdsong, tolling bells and chanting played quietly to make it a multisensory visit.

Dancing Ganesha a fixture in all three religions

My next adventure was into the world of words. The British Bilingual Poetry Collective resumed our Bi-monthly Poetry Meets at Bard Books on Roman Road in Bow. Shamim Azad and I led a session of poetry readings, discussion, translation and an open mic session which was much enjoyed by all present.

The late May bank holiday was spent having an early supper with Rosa and then a visit to the Wigmore Hall to hear the amazing percussionist Colin Currie. I wish they didn’t have a photo ban because the array of drums, marimba, vibraphones, glockenspiel and other thing you can bang to make music filled the entire stage. A varied programme showcased his ability to make exciting, moving, thoughtful and adventurous sounds emanate from this staggering collection of instrumental forces.

My main motivation for going was the world premiere of Vasa a Concerto for Solo Percussion by Dani Howard, a young composer I’ve been pleased to call a friend for a few years now. It was a complex piece featuring a series of different tempos, emotions and melodies. Dani had worked with Colin to devise the final form and told us later that she had to have a diagram of the stage layout of the marimba, two vibraphones, cymbals, drums and other devices, many of them foot-operated, so that she could ensure she was writing things Colin could physically move around the instruments to execute. It was a very rewarding evening concluding with some excellent conversation in the pub.

Bass drum and woodblocks were foot operated and 1-5 are various cymbals

I had intended to give After the Act at the Royal Court a miss as I’m not a big fan of musicals. However the indisposition of Fran’s intended companion meant that she asked me to go. The content should have been – and was – of real interest. The ‘Act’ was the appalling 1985 Section 28 that forbade taechers in schools and colleges to mention homosexuality, Equally appallingly it was only repealed in 2003.

The play contained some verbatim quotes from individuals – teachers, parents and students – who had suffered from the act, recreations of protests including a daring 1988 abseil in the House of Lords and, for my taste, too many occasions when serious issues resulted in the cast of four bursting into song accompanied by onstage keyboardist and drummer.

The next evening was far more satisfactory. Because Terrance Rattigan’s The Deep Blue Sea was on at the Theatre Royal Haymarket we were able to pop into Yoshino for a quick pre-theatre sample of Lisa’s excellent cuisine and hosting. Some analysts feel that the doomed love affair represented in the play was Rattigan’s sublimation of his own homosexuality – still illegal when he wrote it in 1952.

Starring the wonderful Tamsin Greig with a fine supporting cast, this was a faithful period-set production that allowed the play’s veiled messages space to emerge from the context and the conversations around love and death, suicide and survival, protest and resignation, passion and comoanionship were brilliantly done, very moving and affecting.

Thursday saw Fran and I make our hat-trick of theatregoing with a trip to Islington to see Ava Pickett’s debut play 1536. The setting is sixteenth century Essex where three friends indulge in gossip – has Henry really ditched Anne Boleyn? – their own relationships with men and each other and the role of women in a patriarchal society. It’s bold, it’s funny. it’s sexy and it makes you wonder how much better things really are today. The rolling changes in friendships are brilliantly delivered in crisp dialogue and while history is all around, the play tells us a lot about today. As a writer on the brilliant The Great on Channel 4, Ava Pickett is clearly a name to watch out for.

The month’s finale was a trip with Frances to see Simon Russell Beale in Titus Andronicus at the Swan Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon. After a pleasant drive up we had a late lunch, checked into the hotel and then made our way to the theatre. It was my first time in the Swan and we were a bit surprised that this production was in the smaller space, not the main hall. However the intimacy of the location made the horrors of Shakespeare’s most violent play (or is it Coriolanus?) very clear.

The production certainly didn’t stint on Kensington gore but used brilliant lighting and sound effects to protect us from witnessing the worst atrocities. SRB was his usual excellent self but was by no means outstanding. The whole cast under the direction of the versatile Max Webster was superb and brought the subtleties of the text into play as well as the torrid drama. And on reflection, yes this is the most violent of Shakespeare’s works.

We went out to Anne Hathaway’s house next morning for a walk around the orchards, had an enlightening tour of the house from excellent guides and then made our way back to London. A fine ending to a full and varied month of culture. As Shakespeare’s contemporary Thomas Dekker put it “O, the month of May, the merry month of May”.

News

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.

*Anoushka Lucas as Daisy and Sope Dirisu as Berenger in Rhinoceros.*

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.

I’d been meaning to go to the Dulwich Picture Gallery to see the Tirzah Garwood exhibition for some time and now I had a chance. As with so many women artists I knew of her mainly as the wife of Eric Ravilious whose work I had always liked. Their artist enclave at Great Bardfield in Essex with Edward and Charlotte Bawden is well documented but I was delighted to find out more about Tirzah who admitted that managing the family and the household had interfered with her own artistic development.

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.

*Huge variety of textures in a woodblock print*

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.

People were keen to practice their English with us in Beijing in 1981

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.

With time in hand I sauntered up Bond Street towards the Wigmore Hall and with sunny skies, warm weather I looked up and saw something i’d never noticed before. On the Time-Life Building half way up is a screen by Henry Moore from 1952. It’s appaerntly a very rare example of work of this kind in that he could sculpt both sides. I’ve walked along Bond Street many times but to my shame had never noticed it before.

And when I turned round from snapping one surprise, I got another. The Halcyon Gallery where I recently reported my surprise at Bob Dylan’s paintings, there’s a superb array of Hockney works on paper. These range from the early lithographs of Celia Birtwell and Californian pools to recent iPad drawings in Yorkshire and Normandy. I need to win the lottery before I can go back as a customer but the staff are most obliging and informative if you just want to look. Then it was time to make for the original target of today’s outing after some unexpected delights along the way.

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.

Zyggy introducing the first work Music for the quarter life crisis Etude for synth. This was a solo work for Xiaowen Shang. It opened with dramatic synthesiser notes and segued into lyrical passages. Then recurring motifs transferred from the synth to an almost orchestral piano sequence. The playing was emotionally powerful and was rapturously received by a fair sized audience for Easter Saturday at lunch time for an all contemporary music gig.

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.

*Lydia, Xiaowen, Mikolaj, Zyggy and Ashkan taking a bow*

I had a chance to meet with all the musicians in, and outside the Cock and Lion pub as well as several members of Zyggy’s family. His mum said she was pleasantly surprised with his compositions because there were tunes in his pieces which she thought he’d had knocked out of him at uni. “He used to write tunes,” she said “and then he didn’t.” There certainly were tunes and they were very professionally played. It was a real pleasure to listen to andf then spend time with these talented young musicians. Cuts notwithstanding, there’s great stuff going on out there.