Once - The Phoenix Theatre

All these productions requiring actor-musicians; one wonders how actors who don’t play an instrument find any work at all...!

Once is not your average musical. There are no show tunes. No jazz hands. It’s not full of noise and spectacle. If you came to this expecting a Hairspray or a Wicked, you might go away feeling a little disappointed. Or you might go away unexpectedly delighted, depending on your musical tastes.

I had some idea of what to expect, as I’d seen the film of Once (before it was turned into a musical). I knew it was a very understated film – and it has been translated into a very understated musical. I liked it – but I know a few musical theatre fans who would probably not enjoy it so much.

The music is all slightly folky, slightly indie. I was reminded of Damien Rice: the lead actor’s delivery was similar; the female harmonies layered on top were reminiscent of his tracks; and the songs themselves had the same kind of low-key, bittersweet, melancholy kind of feel. I can imagine this musical attracting quite a different audience from a lot of West End shows.

But whoever the audience was, at the end of the matinee performance I saw on 16^th November 2013, they gave the cast a substantial standing ovation at the end of the show.

I heard people commenting on how much like real life it was (not something you’d associate with most musical theatre). And, for all its theatricality, it did feel like Once was striving for a sense of authenticity.

On the incoming, audience members bought drinks from the onstage bar. They milled about in their coats on the stage as the cast started playing in a folk jam session, well-choreographed to appear spontaneous. As the audience members were gradually ushered to their seats, the jam session seamlessly turned into the start of the play. The lights went down only after we’d all already fallen silent, and the bar remained the set for the whole piece, regardless of where the action was supposed to be taking place.

Somehow this acknowledgement of its own artifice – this very lack of fourth wall-style realism in the set – this somehow added to that sense of authenticity. As if, just like the audience, the characters were real people treading those boards and in that same bar.

That the actors were playing instruments on stage helped too. When several strings on the lead actor’s guitar went during a song, it felt raw and powerful and real.

Of course, Once is every bit as scripted, sculpted and choreographed as any other musical – but it does feel different. The story, the music, the performances, the set – Once seems to speak in a different language from most musicals. In some ways, you could see it as doing something similar to what The Beggar’s Opera did a few hundred years ago: putting recognisable characters from the here and now on stage and telling their stories with music from the here and now.

A folk opera for our times, perhaps. Or an indie musical. Either way, it’s quite a trick to pull off.

The Canterbury Tales - The Pantaloons

Like a lot of people, I studied part of The Canterbury Tales at school. I’ll be honest and admit that I don’t remember a great deal about the text – except that I remember thinking it wasn’t as difficult as I expected it to be.

At around the same time, I saw the film A Knight’s Tale, with Heath Ledger and Paul Bettany. So Chaucer was always that slightly impish Paul Bettany figure in my head.

These two vague notions are probably always going to inform any encounter I have with The Canterbury Tales. And happily, they fit right in with The Pantaloons’ take on the tales – which is not difficult at all, and definitely slightly impish.

I went to the Underground Theatre in Eastbourne to see The Pantaloons’ production of The Canterbury Tales (10^th Nov 2013). As soon as we walked in, we could feel a bit of a buzz in the air. The cast were in character, chatting with audience members – and, unlike the very reserved audience The Pantaloons had to play to at Michelham Priory in the summer (A Midsummer Night’s Dream, with largely the same cast), this audience was chatting back.

It may have been partly because everyone seemed to know each other (as the cast remarked upon more than once), but there was definitely a friendly sort of atmosphere in the almost sold-out UGT.

And that atmosphere carried on right the way through this colourful, funny and energetic take on The Canterbury Tales. Incorporating song, rhyme, puppets, chickens, Shakespeare, opera, improvisation and more, The Pantaloons took us through each of Chaucer’s tales in turn. They’d even printed a list in the programme so you could mark which tales you liked best, and at the end they asked for our favourite. (I think it was the chickens that won the audience vote in Eastbourne).

I’d seen The Pantaloons do The Canterbury Tales before – a couple of years ago, with a different cast and out in the open air. Having only seen them perform outdoors before, I wasn’t sure how their style would translate to an indoor setting.

But it was great. The house lights were only half dimmed, so we could all still see each other (which helped with the audience interaction bits), and in a way I think the indoor setting actually helped to build the atmosphere. Walking through the doors into the auditorium was a bit like going through the wardrobe into Narnia. Outside was the normal, workaday world – and suddenly inside we were in the bright, boisterous Pantaloon-land.

I used to work front of house in a theatre, and one of my favourite parts of the job was seeing the audience leave with smiles on their faces at the end of a show. I think I would have enjoyed working for a Pantaloons performance.

The Pantaloons are currently on tour with The Canterbury Tales and Grimm Fairy Tales (which I’ll be seeing when they return to Eastbourne in December). See their website www.thepantaloons.co.uk for full tour details.

Blue Stockings - Shakespeare's Globe

The first thing we noticed when we went to see Blue Stockings at the Globe (21/9/13 at 2pm) was that the audience, overall, was shorter than usual. Perhaps there were proportionally more women in the audience, with this being a play about women’s education. It’s funny, though, isn’t it: would a play about men’s education attract a predominantly male audience?

But for an audience of modern, educated women (and modern, educated men), Jessica Swale’s new play Blue Stockings hit all the right notes. You could feel the audience bristling with indignation at some of the male characters’ attitudes towards women. And that indignation manifested itself in audible gasps – and even erupted into boos at certain points of the play.

I do love a Globe audience – never mind the fourth wall, they’re a real part of any play. No passive spectators here. As the actors at the Talking Theatre afterwards said, the audience and actors at the Globe are ‘all in it together’.

Another thing I always enjoy at this theatre is the jig at the end of the play. They kept that here in Blue Stockings, despite the play being a more naturalistic piece than is usually seen at the Globe – and it worked beautifully.

Choreographed to reflect the themes of the piece – with the women sometimes taking the traditionally ‘male’ roles in the dance, and the choreography getting progressively more modern – the jig provided a strangely cathartic end to the play. It certainly left the audience on more of a high note than the script would otherwise have allowed. It felt as if we were celebrating the women and acknowledging how far we have come.

And I do think sometimes we forget how recent this all is. As someone who has been to university myself, and who never questioned my right to learn or to graduate, I was shocked that women were not given the right to graduate from Cambridge until 1948.

1948!

I still feel a bit sick at the thought of the way these women were treated. And yet, in some pockets of our society, similar attitudes prevail. I’ve never understood why women aren’t allowed to be bishops, for example. And judging by some of the abuse levelled at women online, there are quite a few people whose views haven’t changed much from the views of their counterparts in 1896, when Blue Stockings is set.

So it’s not even over. There are still battles to fight and votes to win; there are still attitudes to change – of both men and women. And that’s just in the UK – the education of girls and women is still a contentious subject in many countries around the world. Thinking back to Persepolis, I can see some remarkable parallels with Blue Stockings.

Someone suggested (and I’m not sure who it was) that Blue Stockings would make a great Call The Midwife–style television series.

I think that’d be brilliant. After Jessica Hynes’ not-as-good-as-I-wanted-it-to-be suffragettes comedy recently, maybe pioneering turn-of-the-century women need redeeming on TV. And maybe we need reminding of what they battled against and how they set us on the path we are walking today.

It wouldn’t be as good as a Globe production of course (there’d be no jig for a start), but I could definitely see Blue Stockings working on TV...

A Midsummer Night's Dream - The Pantaloons

I’ve seen quite a lot of versions of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, so it’s not always a play that fills me with much excitement. But you can rely on The Pantaloons to provide something fresh – and this production (which I saw at Michelham Priory on 25^th August 2013) was fun.

A recurring ukulele motif ran throughout: Bottom’s donkey head was rather ingeniously made from ukuleles; another ukulele doubled as the enchanted flower; and music played on ukuleles, banjos and guitars was used to signify the weaving of magic.

The Pantaloons’ trademark brightly coloured costumes were also used to provide a marker between the carefree atmosphere of the forest and the drab, everyday world of Theseus in his buttoned-up coat. I worried that the audience at Michelham Priory might be too firmly stuck in the buttoned-up world to be transported to the magical, colourful world of The Pantaloons – but after some cajoling, they did warm up a bit.

With the whole audience playing the forest (and one man a screech owl), and various unsuspecting audience members cast as fairies and even as Hippolyta, The Pantaloons made the audience part of the show. Even the most reserved audience couldn’t help being swept along by the sense of mischief and fun.

By the time we reached the rude mechanicals’ play at the end (the funniest Pyramus and Thisbe I can remember seeing), the audience were in stitches – kids and grown-ups alike. Bottom’s (Neil Jennings) reaction to ‘Hippolyta’s’ audience-member boyfriend ending up on stage was very funny, the death by umbrella was perfect silliness, and the whole cast seemed as though they were having great fun, particularly in their interactions with the audience.

Another set piece that worked really well, I thought, was the scene of the lovers’ confrontation in the forest. With the two men now in love with Helena (Kelly Griffiths), and the two women at each other’s throats, the whole scene was accompanied by Puck (Christopher Smart) on guitar. It played out almost like a dance to the music – one of those barn dance style, partner-swapping dances.

As I’ve discussed in relation to other Shakespeare productions I’ve seen (namely a Georgian language production of As You Like It), the music and physicality of performance take the pressure off the audience when it comes to understanding the language. And this is something that The Pantaloons, at their best, can make look effortless.

The Pantaloons don’t just do Shakespeare for people who have studied it. They work hard to make it understandable to a modern audience. And the music, physical comedy and ad libs work alongside the verse-speaking to achieve that.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream is only on tour for a few days more, so take a look at The Pantaloons’ website to see venue details and book tickets: www.thepantaloons.co.uk

You can also read my review of their production of Sherlock Holmes here.

Harlequin Goes to the Moon - Rude Mechanical Theatre Company

Thursday 1^st August 2013. Outdoor theatre was made for evenings like this. How often does it happen, in England, that you don’t need to put on a coat or wrap yourself up in a blanket even after the interval, when the sun has gone down?

I chose a good night to go and see the Rude Mechanicals perform their latest play Harlequin Goes to the Moon.

This was the second piece of theatre I’ve seen recently that was about love, loss, and travelling into space. (See also Something Very Far Away at the Unicorn Theatre). The idea of travelling far away to find what is lost was central to both pieces. It’s an effective theme; implicitly connecting the personal with the universal.

In Harlequin Goes to the Moon, the character of Paglia believes that all the lost things are kept in bottles on the moon. His idea is dismissed by others, but this hopeful little play suggests that lost things can be rediscovered. Characters who seemed beyond hope find a way to be happy in the world. And yet there is also the poignant acknowledgement that not everyone can get what they want. Some things remain out of reach, on the moon.

A few years ago, I was at a music festival, and there was a ‘tree of lost things’ on the site. On paper tags, people wrote down what they had lost (some literal, some philosophical), and tied them to the tree. These tags became like leaves on the tree, and it remains one of my most vivid memories of the festival.

In the programme for Harlequin Goes to the Moon, the audience is encouraged to do something similar. We’re asked to write what we have lost on a slip of paper and put it into one of the bottles that hang from the trees on the stage.

I must admit, I didn’t see anyone doing this from where I was sitting, but it was an invitation that tied in with the Rude Mechanicals’ idea of community. Beyond the audience interactions and the cast improvising around local distractions (eg. being upstaged by a cat wandering across the set), the Rude Mechanicals seem to work hard to build relationships with their audiences and with the communities they visit.

Another note in the programme tells us that the company doesn’t search for venues by thinking “this would be a good place to have a show”. Rather, they start by thinking who the audience will be and which venue would be best for that audience. They say: “What matters is that it is where that community meet and do things.”

It’s rather strange to think of a group of commedia dell’arte inspired actor-musicians performing in a modern recreation ground in the south of England. And yet apparently it works for the Rude Mechanicals.

As with The Pantaloons and Little Bulb, the Rude Mechanicals ask a lot from their actors. And they’re a multi-talented bunch: acting, singing, playing instruments, improvising about cats... Even the stage manager has a speaking/playing part in this piece.

So I’m glad that the sun has been shining more than usual this summer. Hopefully it means that more people will get a chance to see them.

The Rude Mechanicals are on tour until August 11^th so catch them while you can! http://www.therudemechanicaltheatre.co.uk/

Gabriel - Shakespeare's Globe

On Saturday 20^th July at 2pm, I went to see Gabriel at Shakespeare’s Globe. It was billed as ‘An entertainment with trumpet’ and that’s exactly what it was. It was entertaining. There were trumpets.

Gabriel is a new play, which came about because the trumpeter Alison Balsom wanted to play at the Globe. Or that’s what I read in the programme, anyway. The play featured a cast of Globe actors (most of the same cast as were in The Tempest) alongside musicians from the English Concert, and music was very much at the heart of the piece.

The play was structured as a series of miniature stories from the period when William and Mary were on the throne and Purcell was writing music for the trumpet. While the cast brought all the characters vividly to life, I did feel that it could have done with something apart from the music to pull the stories together.

I’ve seen ‘compilation’ shows like this before (The Pantaloons’ Canterbury Tales and Grimm Fairy Tales spring to mind), and these sort of pieces seem to work better if the audience is given a clear reason for the bitty structure. Why are we hopping from one tale to the next? Why should I care about these new characters? What has this tale got to do with the last one?

But despite this little niggle, Gabriel really was very enjoyable. The bawdy humour was fun. I loved the ‘true stories’ told by the waterman (Sam Cox) in the first half and enjoyed the acting lesson given by Kate (Jessie Buckley) in the second half. The reference to A Midsummer Night’s Dream was nicely done, and I did giggle at the cardboard cut-out London landmarks being run across the stage to signify a boat’s progress along the Thames.

And the music was beautiful. It was all so evocatively played and sung that it seemed to bring a real stillness to the Globe. When, near the end, the actors shared out and passed sheets of music around the stage, it was a wonderful symbol of the sense of sharing that comes from experiencing music and theatre in a space like the Globe.

We went to the Talking Theatre afterwards, which featured Jessie Buckley and Richard Riddell from the cast, and which was almost as entertaining as the play itself. The talk started as a formal question and answer session, where the cast members spoke (amongst other things) about the unique experience of performing at the Globe, and how theatre is all about ‘sharing stories’.

And then somehow this sense of sharing seemed to spread out amongst the audience, and stories were shared amongst the Talking Theatre group. We heard from a lady who’s been to see this year's production of The Tempest 12 times, from a young boy who’s learning to play the trumpet, and from an 84 year old lady who has been going to the Globe as a ‘groundling’ since 1997. She’s giving a talk at her local WI about her Globe experiences, apparently. I kind of want to go.

So my experience of going to see Gabriel ended on a communal sort of note, with the audience just as important as the cast in making the afternoon what it was. Sharing stories. I like that.

Persepolis - Marjane Satrapi

This was something of an enlightening read for me – for two main reasons. I’ve never read a graphic novel before. And I know next to nothing about the culture and history of Iran.

So Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi was educational on both counts.

First off, let’s deal with the graphic novel thing. Being a literature sort of person, I’d probably been guilty of an unconscious snootiness regarding graphic novels. Having read comic books as a kid (mainly Asterix and Tintin – sometimes in the original French as my dad thought this would help us learn the language!), I associated the form with light-hearted fiction for children.

Nothing wrong with light-hearted fiction for children – I read quite a lot of children’s books – but I think I may have been a bit suspicious of the comic-style form being used for adults. I certainly didn’t approach Persepolis expecting to be challenged by it intellectually.

But I was challenged by it. Not in terms of the words or syntax used, but by the ideas expressed and the themes explored. This is not a light-hearted ‘comic’. It graphically depicts violence, murder and suicide. The characters swear. They talk about sex, politics, religion. And through the words and pictures that Marjane Satrapi uses to tell her story, we are guided through a turbulent time in Iran’s history.

Persepolis is autobiographical, and through seeing how our main character’s life changes, we are given a glimpse into the political and religious upheavals in Iran in the late 20^th century. It’s pretty hard going sometimes. Some moments are powerfully moving and some are ideologically challenging.

I know very little about Iran’s history, and of its culture I only really know what I see on the TV news or what I’ve read about in books like Reading Lolita in Tehran. Most of what I know is about the oppression of women. And while this is undeniably a big deal in Persepolis, it’s made clear that it’s all part of a larger tapestry.

So this book opened a window. I learnt something about the revolution and the unrest that came before and after it. I couldn’t help reflecting on the situation in Egypt at the moment as I read it. I also learnt a bit about Iran’s war with Iraq (I was just about being born when this was actually happening), and it made me wonder about all the subsequent conflicts in and around the area.

What struck me most was how complicated it all is. The drawings in this book may all be in black and white, but the narrative itself doesn’t fall into black and white morality. I think I’ve come away from reading Persepolis feeling even more confused about Iran as a country. But then, perhaps that’s what happens when you have a little more knowledge. It’s easier to be certain when you’re ignorant.

So there are books that come and go and don’t leave much impression, and there are books that leave you thinking. I know that next time Iran is mentioned on the news I’ll be thinking about this book. And I know that next time someone recommends a graphic novel to me, I won’t be so slow to read it. Persepolis has left me just that little bit more knowledgeable, and just that little bit more open-minded.

Always good things for a book to do.

The Tempest - Shakespeare's Globe

I love the Globe. £5 to see a production like The Tempest is a complete bargain.

With a sold-out auditorium, the sun shining and a sense of summertime in the air, Saturday 29^th June was a brilliant afternoon to go to Shakespeare’s Globe. I was in a good mood before I went in, I laughed a lot during the performance, and the just-under-three-hour running time flew by without my feet aching at all.

I don’t exactly know where to begin with writing about this production, because it just hung together so beautifully as a whole. It almost seems a shame to pull out any particular bits. There wasn’t a single weak link in the cast and the mixture of humour and poignancy was perfectly balanced.

I’m not sure I’ve seen a production of The Tempest that was this funny before. Right from the start – where the actor playing Trinculo (Trevor Fox) came on to remind people to turn their mobile phones off and told us that the afternoon’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream would be starting shortly – a teasing, light-hearted tone was set. And this carried on throughout the afternoon. Even Miranda and Ferdinand – characters who can often be a bit insipid – were laugh-out-loud funny as played by Jessie Buckley and Joshua James in this production.

But then there were moving moments too: the final speech by Prospero (Roger Allam); the halting way Ariel (Colin Morgan) asked if Prospero loved him; the petals falling from the rafters during the wedding masque. I actually saw people picking up some of these tissue paper petals and taking them home as souvenirs.

The music, too, was really effective in conjuring that idea of an isle full of noises (a description familiar to everyone now as part of the Olympics ceremony speech). From the unaccompanied singing in parts to the way music came from unidentified parts of the auditorium – even to the noisy aircraft flying overhead – it all contributed to the feeling that the language being spoken by the human characters was overlaid on top of this ‘natural’ state and was almost usurping the place of music on the island.

That reading would certainly fit the rest of the plot, which is largely concerned with usurping in one form or another. I’m trying to resist going into a deeper analysis of the text of The Tempest (postcolonialism, language, the place of magic – all that kind of stuff). But I will just say that the major themes I took away from this particular production were all to do with power and redemption.

A few other bits of flotsam and jetsam before I finish: the model ship ‘sailing’ over the audience at the beginning really reminded me of Bristol Old Vic’s production of Swallows and Amazons a year or so ago; Sam Cox’s Stephano reminded our group variously of Bill Nighy and John Cleese in his mannerisms and silly walks; and – as someone said of Jessie Buckley’s post I'd Do Anything career as the audience traipsed out of the Globe at the end – ‘well, that was better than Oliver’!

To me, watching The Tempest felt like watching a production from Mark Rylance’s heyday at this theatre. Especially with the jig at the end. It never feels like a proper Globe production unless there’s a jig at the end.

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.”

Bright Young Things - Scarlett Thomas

Branching out into books this time, I’ve been reading Bright Young Things by Scarlett Thomas. Originally published in 2001, it’s stuffed full of pop culture references from the nineties / early noughties – some of which I can remember, some of which (namely the video game references) are entirely lost on me.

With not a great deal of action in the story, the book is basically about a group of twenty-somethings sitting around talking about not very much. In each chapter, the focus is on one particular character’s thoughts and perspective. There is no consistent overarching or omniscient narrative, as we spend time with each of the 6 characters and we only ever know what at least one of the characters knows. This means that the central mystery in the book is subject to a lot of speculation but never resolved to a certainty.

I guess this is what Scarlett Thomas means in her preface to this 2012 edition, when she claims that it’s a postmodern novel. Lots of individual perspectives give us lots of stories but no central ‘truth’, and the characters discuss their own predicament with about the same degree of attention they give to discussing Neighbours.

We’ve all been there, I suppose.

The other comparison the author draws in her preface is to the turn of the century reality shows, such as Big Brother and Castaway. Inevitably, seeing a group of characters removed from their own environment and put in a house together on a remote island will conjure up certain associations for those of us who watched TV in 2000. And that the characters argue, pair up, talk rubbish, and worry about their supply of cigarettes, makes it all the more familiar.

This must have been a very zeitgeist-y book at the time. Now, just over a decade later, it definitely feels like it’s from another era. What’s the latest thing? Is there a post-postmodernism? Is there a novel being written now that captures 2013 in the way that Bright Young Things captures the turn of the millennium?

A quick word on the book’s cover, because it’s always fun to analyse a cover. It’s clearly been re-done to resemble the author’s other, later, works and to fit in with their distinctive visual branding. But there are palm trees on the cover, and compass motifs. Did they not read the book? It’s not a desert island the characters are on – in the book they guess at Scotland!

I must admit I was expecting something quite different having only seen the cover – something more Robinson Crusoe-ish, possibly.

And the blurb on the back of the book, too, makes it sound like there’s more plot than there actually is, as if the characters might try to escape rather than just sit around talking. I’m not saying that that’s what the book ought to have been like; just that the cover suggested something different from what was inside.

This is essentially a book about flawed, not always particularly pleasant people talking to each other. And while it sometimes felt too much like a writing exercise in character and perspective, I still found it an engaging read. Not as page-turning as The End of Mr Y, but an interesting time capsule from the turn of the millennium all the same.

As You Like It - Marjanashvili Theatre at Shakespeare's Globe

There were a few things that affected my enjoyment of As You Like It by Georgia’s Marjanashvili Theatre at Shakespeare’s Globe on 7th May. It was a midweek afternoon and there weren’t many people in the audience; I was starting a cold; and there was a rather annoying tall woman who – despite the ample space in the Yard – somehow managed to stand right in the way wherever she moved. (Note to tall people at the Globe: if you choose a space and stick to it then shorter people can arrange themselves around you more easily).

That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy this Georgian language version of As You Like It. I did – it was charming, with some sweet ideas and amusing moments. But I was left with the feeling that I’d have enjoyed it more had it been in English – and this is not something I would have said about the multilingual Venus and Adonis I’d seen a few days previously. (See my Venus and Adonis review here: http://somethinglikereviews.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/venus-and-adonis-isango-ensemble-at.html).

Without the English scene synopses, and without some prior knowledge of As You Like It, I suspect I would have been rather lost in this production. As it was, there were times – in the wordier scenes – when the company felt the need to distract us by using their framing ‘off-stage’ narrative to provide physical comedy to keep us entertained. Of course this did the trick, but I wasn’t sure how I felt about being distracted from the ‘on-stage’ plot in this way.

As has been discussed recently by Nicholas Hytner, there’s that moment at the beginning of a Shakespeare play when you have no idea what the actors are talking about. Usually, your ear will tune in and you’ll soon be able to more or less follow. And the bits that are trickier to follow – well, that’s where the acting and direction become even more important in conveying meaning.

With these Globe to Globe productions, the visiting companies have this issue throughout their performances, as your ear just doesn’t tune in to a foreign language. Venus and Adonis, I thought, handled it very well. The live music, the choreography, the sharing of roles, even the different languages used – all of these helped to tell the story to the audience without the help of any translation.

But then, maybe it was a simpler story to tell. As You Like It can be a bit confusing even in English – lots of characters, entanglements, cross-dressing – so it’s no wonder that some of the intricacies of the plot got lost here. The emotions of the characters were beautifully conveyed – especially the moments where characters fell in love (the lingering looks, the leaves as confetti, the little ‘ding’ on the triangle) – but the causes and consequences of these emotions were not so clear.

So while there were moments where the story came alive, for me the language was a barrier in a way that it simply wasn’t when watching Venus and Adonis.

As I said, there were a few things that affected my appreciation of this production, and perhaps if I’d seen it on a different day I’d have enjoyed it more. If you had a different experience of seeing this As You Like It, let me know by leaving a comment below, or by contacting me on Twitter @SomethingLike_A.

Doctor Who - Series Finale - BBC1

Beware: Spoilers within!

After all the build-up, the revelation of how Clara came to be the ‘Impossible Girl’ was over in a flash. A simple, satisfying idea, it ended up playing second fiddle to the real 'Big Reveal' of this series finale: John Hurt. As an incarnation of the Doctor who is not worthy of the name. Just in time for the anniversary special in November.

Who saw that coming? Not me.

This was a very dark episode for Saturday teatime – especially for a Saturday that also featured Eurovision on the same channel. I thought I might watch a bit of Eurovision, but I simply couldn’t after this – I needed to turn off the TV and sit in a quiet place and think for a moment.

But what an episode! Full of pathos, some genuine scares, one or two laugh-out-loud moments, and some wonderful nostalgia woven in throughout it all. The idea of the future death of the Doctor was unsettling enough – but a Doctor gone to the dark side? That’s even worse than wondering if Rory was the killer in Broadchurch.

The series leading up to this finale had been a little bit patchy, with some rather inconsistently written characterisation for the new companion marring some otherwise great story ideas - but this last episode made sure all was forgiven.

So, if you’ll excuse a brief moment of geeky speculation: how’s Mr Ollivander / the voice of Merlin’s dragon / that guy from a million other things that aren’t just family-friendly fantasy going to fit in to the Doctor Who timeline? I’m guessing he’ll be the Doctor from the Time War (ie. between Paul McGann and Christopher Eccleston) but who knows?

All I can say for definite is that I’m looking forward to the special in November.

P.S. Did anyone else think the unconscious conference call thing was a bit like The End of Mr Y?

Venus and Adonis - Isango Ensemble at Shakespeare's Globe

I didn’t know much about Venus and Adonis before I went to see it. I knew that it was a poem rather than a play, but while I’d heard the names of Venus and Adonis, I didn’t really know their story.

What I did know was that this South African production had been well-received at last year’s Globe to Globe festival, and that it was one of four international productions that had been invited back this year.

But I didn’t really know what I was going to be seeing when I went along to Shakespeare’s Globe on the afternoon of Saturday 4^th May.

The Isango Ensemble’s Venus and Adonis was performed in six languages (one of which was English). The programme, as they do when you go to see a ballet, included a synopsis of the plot so that the audience could follow what was going on – but actually the company told the story so well on stage that this was hardly needed.

For me, this production was all about the strong women. The role of Venus was passed between the women of the company, with each actress bringing a different quality to the part as Venus tried everything she could to entice Adonis. What’s that Motown song? The one with the line ‘I’m gonna use every trick in the book / I’ll try my best to get you hooked.’ That’s what the multiple manifestations of Venus seemed to be doing.

And while the women had a glorious time taking centre stage, the men made up the ensemble. I know the Globe are somewhat constrained by the parts Shakespeare wrote for women, but I couldn’t help thinking how unusual it was to see women so strongly central to a piece on this stage. And I don’t know if this was deliberate casting or not, but the women were physically more substantial than most of the men too. When Adonis walked through the audience in the Yard shortly before the interval, I was surprised to see that he was not much taller than me (and I’m what’s euphemistically known as ‘petite’).

Overall, this was a joyful production, with traditional African music and dance combining with a European operatic style to unique effect. While full of humour and vitality, there were also parts that were scary (Death, whose eye you were almost afraid to catch), and very moving (Venus’ lament towards the end of the piece). Sometimes the audience in the Yard alongside me was bouncing along to the music; other times it was so still and quiet it felt like everyone was holding their breath at once.

One of the wonderful things about the Globe is the proximity to the performers, and the actors in the Isango Ensemble were unafraid to look the audience right in the eye. I remember seeing Thom Yorke (of Radiohead) perform at a festival once, and he did something similar. When Thom Yorke – or a South African Venus – is singing, and they catch your eye and hold your gaze for a moment, there’s something spell-binding about it. And I think both audiences – at the music festival and at the Globe – had a similar feel, as if we were all under some sort of enchantment.

Adonis may not have fallen for Venus’s charms, but I have a feeling the rest of the Globe did.

Peter and Alice - Michael Grandage Company

When you go to see a play that stars Judi Dench and Ben Whishaw, you’re ready for the acting to be pretty damn good. When the play is about Peter Pan and Alice in Wonderland, and you’ve studied children’s literature at university, you’re aware that the subject matter has the potential to be very compelling indeed.

So this was the position I was in when I went to see Peter and Alice by the Michael Grandage Company at the Noël Coward Theatre on 27^th April. I did not come away feeling disappointed.

This was a play about stories and truth; about memory and fantasy and reality; about childhood and adulthood and what ‘growing up’ means. (This last happens to be what my university dissertation was about. I think the playwright must have read some of the same books as me for research – particularly Jacqueline Rose’s influential The Case of Peter Pan, and possibly works by writers such as James R. Kincaid and Peter Coveney as well).

Early in the play, the real-life prototype for Alice (Judi Dench’s character Alice Liddell Hargreaves) speaks about people’s reaction on meeting her. She talks about the associations that they bring with them, and how meeting her causes them to remember how they were when they first read the book as children. The play itself, of course, does not escape such associations. Many of us these days know Peter and Alice through the filter of Disney; we think we know about J M Barrie because we’ve seen Johnny Depp play him in Finding Neverland.

Above all, we know Peter Pan and Alice as characters. When these fictional characters turn up on stage, they need no introduction. And it seems entirely appropriate that they are the final two on stage, after their real-life counterparts have departed.

Amongst our group, there was some discussion about whether the final two lines of the play, detailing how Alice Liddell Hargreaves and Peter Llewellyn Davies died, were necessary. Hadn’t their contrasting endings been made apparent already? Did the facts of ‘real’ life need to be spelt out, when the ‘fiction’ played out before us had implicitly showed us the truth?

The play was thought-provoking, and we all seemed to take different things away from it. An anti-war message, a celebration of childhood imagination, a sense of melancholy and grief. And especially watching this so soon after the excellent Broadchurch finished – how could we categorise the authors’ relationships with children? Could we? Should we?

I’ll just finish with a little anecdote, which reflects beautifully on the differences between childhood and adulthood, fantasy and reality, as explored in the play.

The day after we went to see Peter and Alice, some of us were talking to a 5 year old child of our acquaintance. The little girl loves Peter Pan and often plays at being Wendy. A few days previously, one of the grown-ups in our group had come across the child dressed up and holding a hook. The grown-up wondered where the 5 year old had found such an item, and, as we were all gathered together now, asked her:

“Where did you get that hook the other day?”

The 5 year old, as if the answer was patently obvious, replied:

“From Captain Hook!”

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Orpheus - Little Bulb Theatre / Battersea Arts Centre

A re-telling of a Greek myth. An evening of gypsy jazz in a Parisian music hall. An afternoon in the Grand Hall of the Battersea Arts Centre.

That’s already quite a lot of layers, without throwing in silent movies, ballet, food, choral music and all sorts of other things too.

I went to see the matinee of Little Bulb Theatre’s production of Orpheus at the Battersea Arts Centre on 20^th April, and came from the London sunshine into a Parisian-style bar/cafe area before reaching the Grand Hall itself.

Like Secret Cinema, this piece of theatre was not going to be confined to the stage or even to the auditorium. Yes, most of the music and acting took place on or near the stage, but the menu of French cuisine being served – and the accompanying wafts of garlic across the room – meant that the audience could not only watch and listen, but also smell, taste and touch the Parisian music hall setting.

We were lucky enough to be shown to a table in the auditorium that was pretty close to the stage. In our cabaret-style seats with our drinks on the table in front of us, it felt almost more like going to a gig in a pub than to the theatre.

In fact, there was a moment after the interval – when the cast were showing off their impressive musicianship in the ‘Musical Interlude’ – that I almost forgot I was at the theatre at all. This was suddenly a gig – a very good one at that – and I’d have happily listened to their gypsy jazz all afternoon.

Except, no I wouldn’t, because then I’d have missed Orpheus.

Perhaps I should explain. The central premise of this production is that Django Reinhardt, the legendary gypsy jazz guitarist, is cast in a Parisian music hall production of Orpheus. So we are told the story of Orpheus and Eurydice as if it is being presented to us by French musicians and performers of the 1930s.

Apart from the music, the story of Orpheus is largely told in silent movie style, with exaggerated mime acting and large captions projected on the stage. Orpheus/Django himself (Dominic Conway) never utters a word throughout the whole piece, using only gesture and guitar to communicate. I heard more than one audience member say that they were reminded of the film ‘The Artist’.

Our Edith Piaf-alike Eurydice (Eugenie Pastor) compères the evening, and the two leads are supported by a cast of actor-musicians who throw ballet parodies, French stereotypes, puppet animals, and some accomplished choral singing in to the mix as well.

Aside from the gypsy jazz (vibrantly played by the whole cast), one of the highlights for me was the mesmerising counter-tenor vocal of Persephone (Tom Penn), which suddenly ramped up the emotional factor and reminded us that we weren’t just here for the jazz.

Lastly, I want to give a mention to the front of house staff at BAC, who were friendly, warm and welcoming, and who really seemed like they were enjoying themselves and enjoying the production.

This wasn’t just a remote piece of theatre on a stage but a living, all-encompassing event.