Whitechapel Gallery

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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Masterpieces metamorphosed

Les Bonnes by Jean Genet was one of the plays I read at university in the 60s and I’d seen the film version with Glenda Jackson, Susannah York and Vivien Merchant a decade later, so it was with great anticipation that I went with Frances to see what Kip Williams would make of it. After last year’s Picture of Dorian Gray with Sarah Snook we expected screens to play a part. And they did. And how! The filmy curtains initial framing the set gave us the feeling of trangressively entering madame’s boudoir and then the fun began. The role-playing maids of the title act out fantasies of dominating and eventually killing their disdainful mistress.

Quite how the actors managed to use their cameras and select filters to produce the effects on the screens that dominated the background, I’ll never know. Emotional performance while managing tech – the demands are high on acting skills these days! Phia Saban and Lydia Wilson met them with apparent ease. Yerin Ha was a little too camp and age-adjacent for my taste as the draconian madame but it was a great evening’s entertainment. With Kip Williams you learn to accept that things will change – it was billed as ‘a version’ after all.

Before going to the Donmar, I had been to the Dulwich Picture Gallery with Jadwiga to see the exhibition devoted to Anne Ancher, a Danish painter I confess I’d never heard of. Living all her life in the town of Skagen at the extreme northern point of Denmark she was devoted to capturing light in the landscape but especially in portraits and interiors where there were hints of the influence of Vermeer in the lighting effects. She died in her seventies in 1935 and the paintings cover most of her long life. The exhibition runs till March 2026 and is highly recommended not just by me – it got 5 stars in The Guardian.

Next up was a group outing with Frances, Farzana, Richard and me to see Assembled Parties at Hampstead. It’s a blackish comedy written by Richard Greenberg and was a great hit on Broadway in 2013. Set two decades apart in the same apartment of screen star Julie, we find a Jewish family celebrating Christmas with assorted relatives, friends and others. In Act 2 Julie is widowed and has a feel of a Norma Desmond who life has passed by and only survives in her rather less opulent surrounding by the invisible support of others.

Among these is her sister-in-law Faye, superbly played by Tracey-Ann Oberman in scintillating form who gets the best lines and attitude. We all found Julie, as played by Jennifer Westfeldt a little unconvincing but the poignancy of the reduced means and expectations of a once proud family showed through the many laughs that the script also gave us.

Talking of metamorpheses, how do you make a 500+ page 2004 Booker prize-winning novel into a two hour stage play? Fran and I had been to an Almeida insight session earlier at which the answers were clear – get an ace adaptor in Jack Holden and a great director in Michael Grandage. The resulting script clearly had to leave a lot out for those of us familiar with The Line of Beauty, but author Alan Hollinghurst had been involved throughout and the evening gave us a good account of the early days of Thatcherism, the gay scene in the 80s with the spectre of Aids and the class system in full flow. And it did contain some very explicit scenes of sex and drug taking that were so much a part of the source. The lessons of a dangerous era seem not to have been learned – the wealth and class gap is ever wider, tolerance of ‘otherness’ is at a very low ebb again and politics and politicians remain completely out of touch with everyman.

And follow that with another great challenge. How do you bring “one of the most important English-language poems of the 20th century” to the stage? Adrian Dunbar has produced and directed a staging of T S Eliot’s The Waste Land. There’s the full text of the 434 lines of the poem spoken by four actors but it’s interspersed with music by Nick Roth for a jazz quintet and the Guildhall Session Orchestra conducted by John Harle. Added to this melange was some of the earliest colour footage of London which evoked and echoed Eliot’s words about his adopted city such as “Under the brown fog of a winter dawn / A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many / I had not thought death had undone so many.” Hearing Eliot’s complex work recited added greatly to my appreciation of it. The music was an interesting complement, never overlapping with the text and the footage was just stunning. A fascinating hour in the Queen Elizabeth Hall.

I was up bright and early the next morning to drive down to Hatchlands House near Guildford for one of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment’s periodic Friends’ excursions. The house contains the Cobbe Collection which has a staggering array of keyboard instruments owned and played by some of the great composers among them Purcell, Johann Christian Bach, Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Chopin, Mahler and Elgar as well as the piano that Napoleon gave to Josephine. We were conducted through this historical tour by the OAE’s principal keyboard player Steven Devine with added insights from the eponymous collector Alec Cobbe, a little jet lagged after flying in from Ireland that morning. Their shared knowledge and Steven’s keyboard artistry made for an engaging trip and added substantially to my own musical education.

I travelled back in good time to join Frances, Farzana and Richard for a trip to the Pinter Theatre to see the revival of Conor McPherson’s The Weir. Timing was such that we were able to have a pre-theatre dinner in the wonderful Yoshino. Lisa was her usual welcoming self and managed to feed us elegantly as well as the late-arriving Farzana (thoughtless colleagues on Zoom calls!) with food that delighted her on her first visit before we all set off.

It’s a play I’ve seen before – nothing happens in a rural Irish pub, but everything happens in the minds, interplay and scary stories of the four male locals and the incomer Valerie. With Brendan Gleeson and Sean McGinley in the cast it was a super evening of witty dialogue, hidden back stories and brooding atmosphere. Lots of Guinness and scathing references to Harp drinkers – remember Harp?

23 years ago I filmed a studio interview and a gig at the Cavern Club in Liverpool with a young indie singer songwriter Ian Prowse. It was part of a language teaching video series for teenagers in Europe that we did in a yoof magaziney style. Dee and I loved his music and attitude and we remain friends after all this time. So on Saturday I set off for the Half Moon in Putney for a set from his current band Amsterdam. Frances joined me at the pub hot foot from Derby where she’d seen Watford’s first away win for eight months! I settled for the TV experience and was glad I’d conserved my energies as the evening was an all singing all dancing show with the band on top form – standin’ and boppin’ for two hours takes it out of us old uns!

The next day Frances and I and Farzana went to a new venue in London that led to another incredible evening – this time of multi-influenced jazz. HERE at Outernet is beside Centre Point and Tottenham Court Road Station. It’s deep in the basement but we weren’t bothered by noise from the tube. We were enthralled by a brilliant set from Nubya Garcia and her band. Anyone who has read my blogs knows I am a huge fan, following her from her early days in Lewisham pubs. This set – mostly songs from her latest album Odyssey – was supported by visuals on the giant screen at the back of the stage. Nubya herself was in great form with her mix of musical cultures inflecting her music, but with some lovely old school touches like references to My Funny Valentine and other classics in her solos. This lady does jazz. An ever-present in her line up over the years has been Sam Jones on drums. What is it about drummers called Jones? Jo held Count Basie’s band together, Philly Joe was Miles’ and Bill Evans’s favourite, Elvin was inseparable from Coltrane and now there’s this guy Sam whose propulsive and imaginative work takes the band into the stratosphere. Farzana and Fran had to put up with me hustling one of Nubya’s former managers as I’ve quoted Nubya in a pitch for BBPC to the Deptford Literary Festival next year. (I later got her blessing so forgive me!) What a night!

Next up was a theatre road trip. Fatherland by the precocious Nancy Farino who also starred in it, is a journey of discovery between an ominously named father, Winston Smith, and his daughter Joy in a converted school bus to County Mayo to discover some newly discovered heritage. Car seats on wheels and lighting effects neatly deliver the bus to the stage. There’s a great deal of barbed and bitchy banter among the deeper affection and interpolated scenes with father and a solicitor indicate that Winston’s life coaching practice has led to a suicide for which he’s being sued. Joy also lets us into her mind world of fears and fantasies. Nancy Farino has come through the Hampstead Theatre’s Inspire programme. More power to it if it continues to produce work of this quality.

Work of high quality was a trademark for Josef Hadyn. The OAE had been touring a programme of symphonies and a piano concerto through Germany, Switzerland and Italy with Sir Andras Schiff at the keyboard and as conductor (I nearly wrote with the baton but his hands are expressive enough). The did a concert in Udine and I had to wonder whether any of the Pozzo family attended – the Pozzos own both Udinese and Watford football clubs. The last date on this tour was at the Queen Elizabeth Hall.

I like Haydn’s rhythmic impulse, his unpredcitability and his sense of fun and the two symphonies – one from his early period No 39 at the Esterhaza Court and No 102 from his prime in London showed real development of style and technique and were a joy to listen to as was Sir Andras’ performance of the concerto No 11 played on a Walter fortepiano just like one we’d seen at the Cobbe Collection a few days earlier.

Another busy month concluded with BBPC’s last bimonthly poetry meet up of the year at the Whitechapel Gallery which took the form of a review of the year’s activities and an open mic session for a dozen poets to share their own work or read from their favourite poets.

Many of us then went to the nearby Altab Ali Park for the launch of this year’s bijoyphool. This is the Bengali victory flower which has evolved from the British Remembrance Day poppy.

The green and red flower is worn for the first two weeks of December and commemorates the Bengali language wars of 1952, the war of independence of 1971 and the countless citizens who died in them and since. Three of the freedom fighters from the latter war were present in front of a replica of the Shahad Minar matryrs’ memorial in Dhaka. It was a privilege to be asked to say a few words for the local TV chanel about what it meant to be there at this moving ceremony.

The final event of this year’s Season of Bangla Drama was a play Joyontika produced by Trio Arts about post partum depression, a topic little discussed in the community but which affects many women. It was a mixture of drama, dance and polemic with some interesting technical tropes and delivered a powerful message. I was able to catch up with a few friends and indulge in some super spicy biryani to conclude a successful Season – delivered this year with no funding from the Arts Council. All hail to the indefatigable Kazi Ruksana Begum the Arts Development Officer for Tower Hamlets for bringing it all together.