Sherlock Holmes - The Pantaloons

Playful, fun, inventive, silly, clever. If you’ve seen a Pantaloons show before, you’ll already know the adjectives I’m going to use. Irreverent – that’s another one.

The Pantaloons are touring two productions this summer, and I went to see their Sherlock Holmes when they stopped off at The Scoop at More London on Thursday 13^th June.

This production features an all-new cast for The Pantaloons, and, with it being early in the tour, I did get the feeling that some of them are still getting used to The Pantaloons’ brand of carefully-constructed anarchy. But the ingredients are all there – the audience interaction, the over-the-top characterisations, the songs, the self-referential jokes, the doubling up of roles – and, despite the lack of familiar faces, this is definitely still a Pantaloons show.

There’s always a slightly pantomime-like feel to Pantaloons productions, and Sherlock Holmes is no exception. With an all-male cast, comprising one Holmes, one Watson, and two energetic others playing all the remaining roles, there’s plenty of cross-dressing – and knowing references to their casting choices.

Mrs Hudson’s grumble that she’s not a tea lady – in fact she’s not even a lady elicits a big laugh from the audience, and the justification of alternating who gets to play the role of Moriarty is inspired. I couldn’t help thinking of the recent NT production of Frankenstein at this point, where Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller alternated the roles of Frankenstein and his monster.

Of course, both of these actors have played modern-day Sherlocks in recent years – and, of course, both of those adaptations (along with the Robert Downey Jr. films) are referenced by The Pantaloons in this production. If there is a contemporary reference to be made, rest assured that The Pantaloons will make it. I suppose that’s another way it’s all a bit like panto.

Personally, my favourite bits of Sherlock Holmes were the silliest bits: Holmes and Moriarty jumping and sinking very slowly to their (presumed) deaths; Elliot Quinn’s noisy Dr Roylott in the tale of The Speckled Band; the so-much-fun-they-did-it-twice Circle Line gag. It’s that mix of self-referential knowingness and pure, exuberant silliness that makes Pantaloons productions such a joy to watch and interact with.

I’m looking forward to seeing their take on A Midsummer Night’s Dream later in the season.

The Pantaloons are on tour with Sherlock Holmes and A Midsummer Night's Dream at venues across the UK this summer. Take a look at their website for full tour details: www.thepantaloons.co.uk

 

UPDATE APRIL 2014: You can see my review of the 2014 indoor tour version of this production here

Maybe you can live on the moon in the next century – Fiona Rae at Towner, Eastbourne

I don’t know why it is, but I always feel slightly anxious about getting the ‘right answer’ when it comes to the visual arts. This isn’t something that bothers me with books or theatre or film, but I often feel a bit self-conscious about my response to paintings.

Of course, I know that there’s no ‘right answer’ really. And I also know that Towner – and art galleries up and down the country – are doing their best to reach out to people who wouldn’t normally consider themselves ‘art people’. So, in that spirit, here’s what I thought about the exhibition of 16 of Fiona Rae’s paintings, collectively titled Maybe you can live on the moon in the next century.

The first thing to note (in my typical, word-focused fashion) is that the artist likes long titles. As well as the painting from which the exhibition draws its name, there are pieces called The woman who can do self expression will shine through all eternity and We go in search of our dream, amongst others. I chose to read the titles as part of the works of art rather than as optional extras. Indeed, in the case of The woman who can do..., the words are inscribed on the canvas alongside the painted pinks, purples, bunnies and flowers.

A lot of the titles, read in conjunction with the paintings, seem like they could be ironic. Are we really meant to accept a largely pink canvas with cartoon rabbits on it as an example of a woman’s self expression? Feminist that I am, I can hardly believe so – and so I assume it’s ironic. And yet, the artist is a woman, and this work is some form of expression from her. Suddenly it’s making me think of As You Like It, with the girls playing boys playing girls. Only this time, it’s woman playing woman.

As with Bright Young Things, it’s all a bit postmodern. Just like in Scarlett Thomas’ book, these paintings bring a jumble of ‘narratives’ together. The introductory text in the Towner’s exhibition describes this jumble as ‘competing and sometimes clashing visual, graphic and painterly languages’. So alongside the more traditional painting techniques on the canvas, there are also little animé-style pandas, pieces of floating typography, and glitter – lots of glitter.

High art merges with popular culture and we’re presented with something that seems to raise an ironic eyebrow at itself.

I have no idea if any of this comes close to the ‘right answer’ or general consensus on Fiona Rae’s work. But I’m going to trust my postmodern instincts and claim it as my answer.

The exhibition runs at the Towner until 23rd June 2013 and entry is free. We like free entry. I stopped in at this exhibition on my way to the seafront, and I may well not have made the diversion out of the Eastbourne sunshine if it hadn't been free.

Something Very Far Away – Unicorn Theatre & The Great Gatsby (dir. Baz Luhrmann)

This weekend I saw two things about love, loss, memory, hope, and an attempt by a man to recapture – in one way or another – a woman from his past.

On Friday night I went to the Unicorn Theatre to see Something Very Far Away, a piece of theatre originally intended for children that has gained the attention of a wider audience. Involving puppetry and projection to form live animation, there was no dialogue. Instead, it had a beautifully effective soundtrack including live guitar music alongside recorded pieces from the likes of Sigur Ros.

The following day, I went to the cinema to see the new adaptation of The Great Gatsby, directed by Baz Luhrmann. Visually stunning, with another very effective soundtrack, this film was made all the more moving by my having seen Something Very Far Away the previous day.

I was originally going to write about each of these two pieces separately, but seeing them back to back has linked them in my head and it’s now difficult to think of one without referring to the other. The themes of the two just reflect each other so neatly.

Both pieces look at the lengths (physical and metaphorical) that someone will go to in order to recapture the past. While Gatsby throws elaborate parties in order to attract the attention of his former lover Daisy, in Something Very Far Away our hero builds a rocket and travels into space to look back at Earth. He knows that the further into space you look, the further back in time you see – and all he wants to see is the wife he lost. Again and again, he revisits the pain of her death.

In The Great Gatsby, Gatsby turns his house into a sort of amusement park to attract Daisy, and in Something Very Far Away our unnamed astronomer makes a rocket out of his house, which blasts off into space to let him catch a glimpse of his wife. Both men try to create physical solutions to ease their emotional pain. They are both motivated by their love and loss to turn the ordinary into the extraordinary, and as Nick notes about Gatsby, it is hope that powers them along.

In Something Very Far Away, the puppeteers, cameras and props were all deliberately visible to the audience, so we could see how each piece of animation was created in front of us. And The Great Gatsby also emphasises its own form, what with the story within a story frame, anachronistic soundtrack and made-for-3D flourishes. The construction of the story, or the memory, or the illusion, is revealed in both pieces: we see – physically – how the past seeps into the present and the present seeps into the memory of the past.

Despite this sense of physicality, though, both The Great Gatsby and Something Very Far Away ultimately represent the past as enticing but just out of reach. Gatsby’s green light is always on the other side of the bay, and the astronomer’s wife is always at the other end of the telescope. The last lines from The Great Gatsby struck me as heartbreakingly relevant to both pieces:

“Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter – tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms further ... And one fine morning –

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”