to e-read or not to e-read…

I’m getting very annoyed at lots of things on social media lately.  If I blogged about everything that annoyed me I’d have no time to go to work, bed or the toilet, which would be disastrous to say the least!

However…  I’m getting increasing hacked off by the book bigots.

You know the ones – the anti-e-bookers, the Kindle haters, the Kobo loathers, the Nook knockers.

You see, they love books.  Luuuurve them.  Really, really love them.

But isn’t “I love books” the most meaningless saying ever?  What, all books?  Every single one? Just the green ones?  Or not the green ones?

And with the unpleasant implication that us unworthy peasants couldn’t possibly understand.  Compared to their lofty and unsullied souls I expect we’re just too damn common.

I fail to see why it has to be either/or.

I have both an e-reader and ‘real’ books.  I don’t have the luxury of travelling with an unlimited luggage allowance or equally unlimited porters so an e-reader is perfect.  I don’t have the money to live in a big enough house to hold a substantial amount of books nor do I live in an area where the housing is affordable enough that I could even consider it.  As it is I worry about the floor loading…

It’s complementary – I have some books in both formats, some in paperback, some hardbacks and some only in electronic format.  It’s brilliant to be able to take a library out with you in a small bag. (Not that I really ever go anywhere with a small bag.)  If I’m unexpectedly stranded somewhere I can fire up the app on my phone and carry on reading where I left off or browse through a comforting and familiar tale.  It’s equally lovely to pick up a worn paperback and see it open at a favourite passage.  (Or in the case of the copy of Lace I’ve had since school and that everyone read, at the goldfish scene…)  I like seeing what was underlined in a second hand book or where the pages were turned down.

To clarify. I don’t hate either.  

(Frankly, I don’t see the value of spending energy on hating things.)

I don’t care if you only have ‘real’ books or a kindle or a tablet or whatever. 

I DO care that you read and enjoy stories.

If you dislike the progress and hate the alleged move away from ‘real’ books then where do you stop?  Are paperbacks acceptable or should we only read hardbacks?  Or just leather bound, gold lettered tomes from our own library?  Scrolls?  Clay tablets?  Do purists adhere only to the oral tradition?

(And by the way – the fall in sales of e-readers versus books is because you only need one e-reader, replaced only after years of use.  Just to point out the utterly bleedin’ obvious.)

It especially annoys me to see established authors decrying electronic books.  I’m quite sure they all stick by their principles and would never allow their stories to be available on them if they feel so strongly about it.  Oh.  Hang on a minute…  Not to mention that it feels terribly dog in the manger when e-publishing has given an outlet to so many new writers.  They wouldn’t be concerned about the competition, would they?  But they love books, they really really do…

(And yes of course, like all rational people I have concerns about Amazon.  But that’s a whole other topic)

It’s probably timely to insert a quick plug here (Oh Matron…) and add that my books are available in real paper with a nice shiny cover and for kindle – look here!

So.  I wouldn’t presume to tell you who to praise or worship or not, who to love or who to rub your genitals up against – so why would I presume to tell you how you should read?

If you read, then keep reading – and do it however the hell you like!

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And I couldn’t resist adding the wonderful Elvis Costello on the next step after everyday, everyday you read the book…

it’s too darn hot…

Instead of a parasol and enough shine reducing loose power I could do a walk on in Kabuki, I should just embrace a spangled leotard and put taps on my shocking pink high heels!

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past dramas…

For many dull and generally uninteresting reasons I’ve not been writing about the theatre productions that I’ve enjoyed for a while.  Inevitably that means that I can’t actually remember everything I’ve seen!  That was one of the main aims of writing these posts, as well as a well established tendency to pick over, analyse and otherwise over think anything I enjoy…

Time to restart methinks, particularly as I’ve just seen an excellent production which I do want to try to sort through my thoughts about. (Watch this space!)

Thinking back over the various productions I’ve seen in the lengthy writing free gap there are a few that stand out.  It’s a little too daunting to think about writing at length about them all but as an aide memoir to my aging memory bank a few thoughts on the ones that made an impression.

Hamlet at Manchester’s Royal Exchange

Hamlet will never be one of my top choice Shakespeare, but Maxine Peake is one of my top choice actors – and so this was a must see.

It wasn’t perfect.  It was a little uneven and I did have some concerns about the Primark stocked graveyard – and more about the piles of clothes left for the rest of the scenes.  The gender changes worked well and became largely irrelevant once the play began – although I couldn’t help wondering if a male Ophelia could make such a terminally unlikable character any better!  It didn’t seem in the slightest bit important that a woman played Hamlet, it is the character we’re watching after all and this Hamlet was wary and watchful, cutting and direct and gained in power the longer we watched.  It was a mesmerising performance.  The staging was sparse but the lighting design was fabulous and the forest of flickering lamps that descended to show the approach of the ghost was a beautiful image that still lingers.

The Crucible at the Old Vic

The Crucible was originally about McCarthy’s paranoia about communism but it seems to me it’s shifted to warn against the extremes of belief in its tale of a mostly good man damned by the god-fearing.  (Yes, I know that’s an oversimplification.)  The staging was deceptively simple, the lighting and sound designs both impeccable and in an ensemble cast no one put a foot wrong.  Sitting in the round, and we were very close to the performance area, you feel as if you are sitting in judgement and it adds to the intensity. The tension is ratcheted up and up, reaching a peak in three and a half hours.  It just didn’t let up.

And neither did Richard Armitage – and let’s be honest, a fair proportion of the audience did buy their tickets to see him!  He gave us a John Proctor of essential decency overlain with guilt pushed into growing and righteous anger and it was a performance of incredible intensity.  I have no idea how he managed to do this day in day out, never mind twice a day!

The Elephant Man at the Haymarket, London

The Elephant Man is really quite a slight play which relies heavily on good performances.  Luckily this one came up trumps on that.  Bradley Cooper delivered a reminder – often necessary – that some of those labelled with stunt casting of ‘Top TV Totty’ to lead shows (and ticket sales) can actually act.

The lasting memory of this show though was “Bleedin’ ‘ell, it’s high up here!”   Front row, upper circle and yes, the view was excellent – especially of the ceiling.  The steep walk down to the seat was rather less than excellent and I could have done with roping myself to an usher!  That seemed a little forward so I’ll just put the momentary vertigo down to age and pack crampons for m y next visit…

Farinelli and the King at the Duke of Yorks

This was one of the most gorgeous looking productions I’ve seen in a long time – and made me wish I;d managed to see it at the Wanamaker Theatre lit entirely by candles.  Mark Rylance seems incapable of being less than excellent and he duly delivered here in a show that was rather funnier than I’d expected.  Starting with the King fishing in a goldfish bowl on the end of his bed and providing the memorable image of a castrato singer flying across the stage sprinkling glitter on the cheap seats.  It also included a lot of thought-provoking issues about sanity, loneliness, the healing power of music – and the less than healing effects of other people.

The Skriker at Manchester’s Royal Exchange

Top of the list for impact, enjoyment and sheer audacity was The Skriker with Maxine Peake.  One of my favourite performers I’d watch her in anything but this freewheeling avalanche of sound and fury and pathos was amazing.  The Skriker – a shape-shifting malevolent spirit – is in the centre of everything, constantly drawn to humans but why?  To torment, to own, to punish?  Nothing is clear.  The language is dense, pun filled and as fast moving as the way Maxine Peake shifts the Skriker from ageless faerie to bag woman to child to glossy corporate.  The mix of the language and the stunning visuals – especially the Skiriker’s underworld banquet – were almost overwhelming and the experience teetered on the edge of overtaking the ultimately bleak message.

Truly immersive theatre, the stage level of the Royal Exchange was filled with long tables, benches and chairs where the watchers were seated to see the drama played out around and about and above them.  At one point there was an unexpected shower of water when a fountain sprayed up from the table, at others you worried an actor would end up on your lap.

An incredible performance from Maxine Peake – making the alliterative avalanche of words as accessible as it could be and bringing a physicality to a role that veered across the emotional range but never for a moment let you forget that the Skriker is evil; ancient, formidable evil.  Utterly marvelous.

Oh, and for those who say that I’ve missed Doctor Faustus, I can only say that I rather wish I had…

“Birdland”

by Simon Stephens at the Jerwood Theatre Downstairs at the Royal Court, 3 April – 31 May 2014

“Everything can be quantified. All worth can be quantified. Artistic worth. Human worth. Material worth. Everything. Some food is simply better than other food. Isn’t it? Some clothes are better than other clothes. Aren’t they?”

You give a man everything he ever has – or ever could – dream of, then follow it up with enough money to buy anything and anyone he chooses…  That’s going to fuck him up a bit.  Right?

The tale of the rock star as spoilt brat is a well trodden path and while Birdland doesn’t stray too far from familiar territory it leaves one thought uppermost.  Does true nature always out in the end?  Was it fame and money that corrupted Paul or was he always a nasty, twisted little toe-rag?

In the beginning Paul behaves badly, is demanding and demeaning just because he can.  He has no fear of payback.  These people adore him, they’ll do anything he wants and most of all, they need him.  Or so he thinks.  As the play progresses actions begin to have consequences.  The tipping point is his wilful destruction of Johnny’s relationship.  His best friend, the one who has been with him all along, the Guy to his Robbie, the one who knows him and the only one who challenges him.  There’s a wonderful chemistry between Andrew Scott and Alex Price and compared to the stylised choreography of the rest of the play the initial scenes between Paul, Johnny and the best peach in Moscow are incredibly natural.  There are hints that Johnny is coming to realise that his friend may not have his interests at heart.  But he lets it go.  It’s Paul.  That’s just what he’s like.

But what is Paul like?  Is he jealous of Johnny’s happiness, of the stability of his relationship with Marnie (Yolanda Kettle) and the trust and love he says he has for her.  Or does he want Johnny to be focussed on him and only on him?  The ‘double date’ with Annalisa (Charlotte Randle) and Johnny and Marnie makes it obvious that not being the centre of attention makes Paul acts even more of a cock than usual.  And he knows it.  He just doesn’t care – why should he?  When Marnie and Annalisa are having a perfectly normal conversation that doesn’t include him he derails it by offering Annalisa £100,000 to kiss Johnny for their amusement.  She walks out.  Not the first and definitely not the last to do that.

“Sit down.  Don’t go.  You’re embarrassing yourself and you’re embarrassing me.  Sit down now.  Everybody is looking at you.”  “No.  Everybody is looking at you.”  “Everybody always looks at me.  There’s absolutely nothing different about that.”

Did that abortive plan to see Johnny kiss a stranger in front of the girl he loves give him the idea to have sex with Marnie – although to be fair she doesn’t seem reluctant.  His pillow talk leaves something to be desired as it’s a cold, rational explanation of how he will have to tell Johnny all about it.  Inevitably it ends badly and she kills herself, jumping off the hotel roof.  Suddenly there’s a deeper force here than ‘because he can’.

“He told me he loved you. He told me he trusted you completely.  I told him he was being ridiculous.”

Paul’s manager David (Daniel Cerqueira) is happy to enable his excesses, whether that’s buying him a helicopter or administering cocaine via eye drops.  What he’s less prepared to do is make sure his client knows the level of debt he’s in – or at least not until the golden goose shows signs of getting out of the egg business.  I’m quite sure that David’s 10% is safely tucked away, why should he care if Paul has £9 million to make back?

At times Birdland is darkly and uncomfortably funny.  The conversation between Paul and two self-confessed adoring (but in reality slightly underwhelmed) fans in a Paris hospitality area made my toes curl.  The inanities and obsessional behaviour foisted upon the famous are not shown to excuse Paul’s behaviour although he could choose to use that to dodge the blame.  If he has any concept that there is blame to be laid, which I doubt.  Instead the conversation takes a darker turn and talk of surprising Martin and Claudie’s 14-year-old daughter foreshadows what is to come.  Paul’s treatment of adoring fan Louis is cruel, drawing him in and then kicking him.  It’s like a cat playing with a mouse and Paul has that same dangerous feline grace.

The scene where he takes Jenny (Nikki Amuka-Bird) to meet the late Marnie’s parents is a tough one.  What did he think he was doing?  He introduces Jenny, the room service waitress he acquired in Moscow as his wife and that – what a coincidence! – her name is Marnie too.

“Thank you.  Please, could I have a larger glass?”  “A larger?”  “More brandy.”

Compared to the preceding scene when Paul avoids every question with a variation on “It’s great, yeah” with Marnie’s parents he’s like a child, no editing, just saying whatever is in his head, however hurtful.  He knows Johnny won’t be visiting – he never met them, it would be odd – so he lays the blame, carefully painting Johnny as shallow and later telling him of Marc and Sophies’s (non-existent) anger.  If the world isn’t arranged as he would like he’s become accustomed to remaking it to suit.

But the remaking no longer sticks.  He’s still calling Jenny Marnie and she won’t take any more.  She leaves.

“Just because you sing a few songs and you can hold a bit of a tune is no reason to treat anybody the way you treated them or me or Johnny or anybody and if you can’t see that then, Paul, you really need to sort your fucking head out.”

So does he?  Sort his fucking head out that is.  To be honest I think the jury’s out.  The painful meeting with his Dad, the very definition of a normal bloke, throws Paul’s posturing and pretence into sharp relief.  He can’t believe the level of worry over what to him is a tiny debt.  Pocket money.  Barely worth bothering with.  Little does he know.

Then  he’s arrested – even the police are fans – for sex with an under-age girl.  A 14-year-old who was looking for Johnny but finds Paul instead.  Or was that all there was too it?  David thinks he might not go to jail, or not for long at least.  He’s far from the unctuous servant now he’s telling a few home truths.  He knows what Paul did to Johnny and he knows Johnny was “really annoyed about that“.  He tells Paul how much debt he’s in, he can’t give it up, walk away and be something else, something normal.  And anyway – he’s not normal, not now the world’s about to find out he’s been fucking little girls.

So Paul is stuck in the world he’s created.  Justice?  Maybe.  But Johnny is there too, tied together by the millstone of debt – of advances and fees and the “flowers and miscellaneous” bill.

Did Johnny set him up as revenge for Marnie?  In the play as performed it’s less clear but in a cut scene Johnny says he sent her although he claims to have no idea she’d press charges.  He didn’t do it for revenge though, but to make him stop, rein him in.  That made me realise that maybe Johnny isn’t entirely the good cop in all this, he’s been with Paul too long and some of the excesses have rubbed off.  Paul’s twisted world is more normal to Johnny than he’d ever admit.  Just how does planting an under-age girl between Paul and his bed make him behave better?   All it really does is cement the despair and the dread they both feel at a lifetime of tolerating each other to pay off the record company.

Birdland looks fantastic – a shifting fake proscenium making a roof, a room, whatever was needed and an amazing lighting design.  No set and few props – five turquoise chairs the only constant feature.  I particularly liked the bubbles (I think they were bubbles!) that were flown in, giving an almost whimsical edge to some scenes.  Water rose around the final scenes – symptomatic of rising madness or of unstoppable forces perhaps.   I’d rather like to see it again just to watch the shifting colours and patterns on the stage.

Andrew Scott plays Paul to perfection – a showy part but equally one that needed to be carefully contained.  He combines stillness with cat-like grace and menace and offered glimpses of the rock star, the adoration of whom was at the root of it all.

It was far from a one man show and he had more than able support from a great ensemble cast; Daniel Cerqueira in particular placed a range of diverse characters with real distinction between them.  Alex Price’s Johnny took all the sympathy and for a while my heart broke with his until I started to suspect he didn’t entirely deserve it – any more than Paul did.

Where did Paul end up?  Ostensibly alone but tied to the people he’d tormented.  Was he mad or bad?  Perhaps a little of both although to my mind a short step away from psychopathy.  He was certainly deluded – and maybe haunted.

I don’t think I am going to die soon

I think I’m going to live for years and years and years.

When you can do the things that I can do.

When you can see the thing that I’ve seen and go to the places I’ve been to.  When you can do all that you don’t die.

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“Pests”

by Vivienne Franzmann, Jerwood Theatre Upstairs at the Royal Court, 27 March – 3 May 2014.

“Pink loves Rolly.  Rolly loves Pink. And Pink loves getting bombed off her face.”

Pregnant Rolly has been released from prison, her few belongings in a transparent plastic bag and she’s knocking at the door of her sister Pink’s shabby ruin of a flat.  Pink is a volatile mass of energy, attitude and twitches; still on the needle and still on the game.  In contrast Rolly is clean or at least on methadone, has support and the prospect of a job and a future.  An escape.  But can Pink let her go?  She loves her – that much is clear – but resentment and jealousy grows; she knows Rolly won’t need her any more.  Just as she left Pink behind in the children’s home when she was fostered, now she’s going to leave her again.  Pink needs to keep her close, keep her in the world she knows, pull her back under.  Does she do it from malice or spite or does she truly believe it’s for the best?  And for whom?  I really don’t know.  Love comes in many guises and who am I to say that this isn’t one of them.

Pink sabotages Rolly’s chances, makes sure the job and the flat fall through leaving her with no choices and nowhere to go.  She makes sure she knows just how much she suffered while Rolly got all the breaks – dance lessons, fostered, looked after away from the home where the men lined up with Mars bars and teddy bears and pound coins.

As the play progresses both sisters unravel further and the scenes get shorter and more aggressive.  We don’t know exactly what abuses brought them to this point but we can see the effects.  Some scenes are powerful – Pink forcibly taping the “red rouge shimmy ‘no place like home’ shoes” to Rolly’s feet – while others seem underplayed.  The removal of Rolly’s baby is almost thrown away – deliberately? – and the impact is muted.  Maybe that’s how it was for her – to think about the baby is too much, too painful, too inevitable; best to carry on as if it never happened.  That’s what Pink did after all.

Joanna Scotcher’s set design is more rat’s nest than home – abandoned mattresses, grubby duvets, places to burrow and hide.  Lit by a flickering strip light, surrounded by bars and littered with the detritus of poverty it feels more of a jail than any cell.  I was less convinced by the creeping video images, representative of Pink’s increasing mental disintegration.  Sinead Matthews’ performance didn’t need any help from trickery.  The physicality she brought to the role, constantly moving, all twitches and tics, said it without the effects.  When the scars of self harm are revealed at the end you see the broken woman she keeps hidden under the bravado and you see that Rolly is sometimes the strong one.

Ellie Kendrick showed us the vulnerability of Rolly, the softness.  Compared to manic Pink she was still, deliberate and slow but there were hints of a hardness underneath from the beginning.  She seems to have had the better life but the four years she had with Mike and Jayne didn’t keep her out of jail.  She has a containment, a protective shell,  that contrasts perfectly with Pink’s open energy.  What was she thinking?  Was she thinking?  Pink had always done the thinking for her, for both of them and while May took on that role for a while Pink wouldn’t – couldn’t – allow that to continue.  Rolly is hers.  And she is the one who can always break open whatever cocoon Rolly gathers around herself.

Despite the clever set and the energy Kendrick and especially Matthews bring to their performances it isn’t a perfect play.  The plot is overly signposted and it could have lost at least ten minutes.  At times it’s savagely funny, at times heartbreakingly hopeless – it’s the wrong word to say I enjoyed it but I’m very glad to have seen it, despite its imperfections.

If I wanted to be uncharitable it’s a stylised version of drug addiction for the theatre going middle classes, sanitised just enough to allow us to care about Pink and Rolly.  It’s not that simple though – it can’t be – and as it is the result of Franzmann working with Clean Break it must be given more validity.  Clean Break work with women who have been in prison or who are in danger of being imprisoned.  Wisely the dialect of Pink and Rolly is part invented, although it has the layered flavours of the real thing – a hint of patois and pigin and a nod to the outsiders of A Clockwork Orange.  And it’s very cleverly written; I did wonder for the first few minutes if I’d follow the words at all but it soon dropped into place.  The addition of a more complex vocabulary for Pink gave depth and hinted at an education, a women more widely read than it’d be too easy to assume.  References to Gulliver’s Travels and Ernest Hemingway slipped seamlessly into her often unstoppable flow of words.

Ultimately Pests gives no answers, suggests no solutions and shows little hope.  Neither sister can escape their environment and seem destined to repeat the circle of abuse and addiction, loyalty and revenge until one – or both – of them die.  In fact I did expect the final scene to be a death but that would have been too neat and tidy.  It would have been an end, a resolution of sorts.

For Pink and Rolly there is no end.

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the boys are back in town… Ripper Street 2.01 “Pure as the Driven”

I adored series one of Ripper Street.

Despite the occasionally predictable plot lines and over-abundance of female flesh.   This left me happily expecting great things of series two and equally dreading it would be dumbed down and not quite so grimy.  After all S1 opened with the invention of snuff films and bare knuckle fighting – including a tooth embedded in the dogged Sgt Drake’s bare knuckles.

Luckily my fears were unfounded.  So far at least, and we got a fast paced, potential filled opener.  Not the best ever but the language was still that wonderful mix of flowery Victorian with the odd modern anachronism but delivered so well it always feels authentic.   Yes, you have to concentrate and listen properly but that’s not a hardship.

S1 did raise questions about the portrayal of female characters, mainly that it showed women as either wives or whores.  I can’t entirely argue with that but it isn’t the whole picture – we also got to see a female engineer, ruthless businesswomen and the redoubtable Deborah Goren.  And some wives and quite a lot of whores…

It’s a little early to judge the female representation in S2 but let’s be honest, Ripper Street is a (grown up) boy’s own adventure.  The Three Amigos are back, striding through the streets of Whitechapel in perfect formation with their coats and their bromance in full swing.  To be honest their various partners aren’t that important – we’re just mad about the boys.

Apart from the formation striding there have been changes since we were last at Leman Street.  Reid’s wife is absent and unmentioned and Long Susan is offering him a chop for his pantry.  I don’t think that’s a euphemism.  Jackson and Long Susan, now outed as man and wife, seem less settled when you might have expected a modicum of matrimonial harmony.  Jackson has itchy feet and no more reason to linger among the bedclothes – and underclothes – of the staff.  I suspect conventional domesticity is not his thing.

Drake on the other hand is positively wallowing in domestic  harmony with new wife Bella (when we all know it should have been Rose).  Is he happy?  He thinks so but is he in love with the idea of love and marriage more than the reality?  Sadly, I saw little real chemistry between him and Bella and I’m looking forward to seeing how Rose views the one that got away – and the one that got him.  Jackson accuses him of going soft and he does seem a little further from the streamlined fighting machine than before.  He needed help in the cell altercation from an amused Jackson and his arse was getting properly kicked by Brother of Blush.

Among the changes I’m relieved to see Sgt Atherton’s beard remains present and correct, yet sadly still without its own billing.

We get to escape Whitechapel and venture into Limehouse – the Chinatown of the day – in search of the mysterious Blush Pang and her frankly magnificent earrings.  After Sgt Linklater got a bit hung up and ended up in hospital on a diet of cold turkey our boys got suspicious.  A plot was afoot.  Forsooth.  After a dose of the shiny new wonder drug from Reid – the administering of which which rather dented his moral superiority – he provided useful information to speed the plot along before being bumped off by the wonderful Jedediah Shine, witnessed by the Elephant Man and about to be blamed on the morally upstanding (yet chop-less) Reid.  Sounds totally perfectly sensible and logical doesn’t it?!

But that’s the real joy of Ripper Street.  It’s histrionic, overblown and historically dodgy but it gathers us up in its flouncy skirts and hustles us along in the story, not letting us catch enough breath to go “But hang on a minute…”

Joseph Mawle swept in as corrupt Inspector Jedediah Shine, the antithesis to the upright moral decorum of Inspector Reid.  He clearly had a ball playing Shine with the loudest checks and the best moustache and he’s a character that could so easily tip over into panto villain.  But he got it pitch perfect, a mwah-ha-ha short of parody and it felt as though he’d been there all along, just out of shot.  And just what is he actually up to?  The drug smuggling plot seems done and Blush has hopped from Shine’s bed to Reid’s cells.  I hope we see her again.  I think they’d be a formidable partnership.

Shine also got one of the best lines: “You think him caught getting his jollification?”

There are a lot of seeds sown in this hour to be harvested over the next seven.  So many that I suspect I’ll have missed some but here are a few of my thoughts on what’s to come.

• Long Susan is in debt and under threat.  Of course she could confide in her husband and take a sensible approach.  And no, of course she won’t.  What terrible price will nasty landlord extract?
• Reid is apparently wifeless.  More to come on that one.  And how long can he keep his suits pressed and his linen pristine if Long Susan gets distracted from his laundry?  And just who will be filling his pantry?
• Bella has dark secrets and/or a dark past.  I think we can take that on trust.
• Jackson was just a little too keen to try shiny new wonder drug heroin on himself, especially as he’d seen the effects.  The BBC treated us to some rather gruesome close up injections and vomit but we’ve already seen Jackson’s cocaine based hangover cure.  Now the excitement of his life of deception is gone will he try to find new thrills at the end of a needle?
• Jedediah Shine of the twirl-able moustache.  So openly venial there has to be so much more going on than general corruption and a sideline of drug smuggling.  Hopefully.

So onwards into series two, with hope in my heart, a chop in my pantry and the smell of Whitechapel under my finger nails.  Such jollifications!

Afterthought…

Given that both Drake and Shine are fighters I will be lodging a formal complaint if we don’t see them pitted together at some point.  Preferably shirtless.  And sweaty.  I’m quite prepared to come over all kinds of unnecessary.

OK, I hear you.

You are quite right.

That is shameless and shallow objectification of two very fine actors.

So shoot me.

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I’m sure just about everyone has already seen this but if it doesn’t make you giggle you need to get your funny bone tested…

“if you don’t let us dream, we won’t let you sleep”

by Anders Lustgarten, the Royal Court Theatre from 15 February 2013

I was expecting to be challenged by the subject matter of “If you don’t let us dream…”  and the bare stage added to the impression of a soapbox performance.  The trouble is that I wasn’t challenged as much as I would have liked.

In this fast-moving ensemble piece of just 75 minutes all the actors acquitted themselves well.  The heart of the play is Susan Brown’s Joan, one of the two actors who play the same character throughout.  Joan – hard up pensioner, long serving nurse, vociferous opponent of the new debt taxes – gets our sympathy straight away although it cleverly turns when she viciously abuses an immigrant who gets the hospital treatment denied to her.  The racism from her was far more shocking than from Damien Molony’s Jason as it was so unexpected.  It was pretty obvious what Jason was, although a credible start at a cockney accent slipped into something akin to South African which was a little ironic.   I assumed that his rather ineffectual mate Ryan (Daniel Kendrick) took the fall for him – again – and by the end I still wasn’t sure if his guilt was for what he did to McDonald himself or what was done in his company.

That was much of my problem with the play – I wanted to know more than we were permitted to see.  The targets were largely easy and obvious ones, the radical solutions to austerity and debt  have been widely written about.  Yes I see the horror in incentivising crime and poverty, making it target driven but it didn’t take it anywhere.  The flash of an abandoned child, a pensioner in poverty… let’s be honest we’re getting hardened to these stories.  It wasn’t enough to make me angry.  The sole opposer of the bonds – and yes, what are bonds? – was a slightly ditsy entrepreneur who stood the team chocolate rather than stand by her principles.

Where the play came to life was when the politics and humour combined.  Politics IS farce after all and it glides the message home in a way that didacticism doesn’t.  When the lines are sharp and funny there are moments when the show takes off and flies.  It made me realise what it might have been and I was sorry that it wasn’t.

“It takes a true revolutionary to make it through an affinity group”

“I’d rather gargle with Michael Gove’s urine”

“I cannot believe, as a revolutionary automatist movement, that we have to abide by Health and Safety legislation”

Interesting that these three quotes which came straight to mind are all from Part Two, where the characters and the words had a chance to stretch out and develop a little more.

The short sharp scenes gave little chance to connect emotionally – especially not knowing if you’d see that character again.  I read the playscript on the way home and found some scenes incredibly moving on the page which I hadn’t on stage.  McDonald’s (Lucien Msamati) Shona monologue about his family for example.

Moments stood out; Joan’s racist rant, the battery acid, the extension of bonds to reproduction and rape – they were powerful and engaging but generally the targets are predictable and the characters too shallowly written to impact consistently.  One image that stayed was a simple one – the debt collection box – incessantly beeping, light flashing.  Pay up or go mad.

The actors changed their clothes, shoes, hair and hats between roles – and I wonder if they needed to?  I’ve seen multi roles played without it and the acting was more than enough to differentiate.  Maybe it’s deliberate that everyone ended up looking so similar in every role, we’re all in it together after all – but maybe not.  If not, then the suits should be sharper – and the shoes sharper still – and the radicals less clichéd.  And that despite some of the worse items of knitwear I’ve seen in a very long time.  Since an 80s sit-in at any rate – which says it all.

I’m not a great fan of the Pickfords School of Acting – it can break the flow to have the actors lifting and shifting, especially when they play a number of characters.  I find it jolts me out of the text into wondering which person they are when they bring on a table. It’s a feature of this stripped down style that everything happens within the bounds of the stage but sometimes it is just too distracting.  The movement of the actors changing costume catches the eye and I found in one case it pulled me out of a particularly intense moment.  That was a shame and given that the actors are behind the clothes rails surely it wouldn’t have been such a compromise for them to have been totally out of sight?

The final scenes of the preparation for the trial could have come from a  totally different production.  Wordier, longer, much more of a story than a series of snapshots and it was crying out for a second act.  Where were the new solutions, the fresh ideas and the new leaders?  Not here and it left the questions unanswered.

I was expecting a polemic, a rant, a feel of agit-prop and by hell that’s what I got.  What I didn’t get was a well-rounded and complete piece of theatre.  It was a good way down the road but while I left feeling thoughtful I wasn’t angry or outraged, there was a lingering sense that there should have been something more, of potential unrealised.  I can’t argue with the sentiments – I agree with pretty much all of it but I wanted more than validation.  I wanted to be pushed towards new thought, new ideas – and most of all I wanted to be entertained.  It is theatre after all.

Or maybe that was the whole point.

room on the sofa… christmas telly 2012

Maybe I’m not sentimental enough for Christmas telly.

Writing in the left-overs strewn lull between Christmas and New Year my favourite character so far is the grumpy cat in the rather lovely Room on the Broom.  There was a certain amount of fellow feeling there as he shrugged and sulked and then gave in…  Gracelessly…

If you didn’t see it seek it out and have a watch – it’s only half an hour and really nicely done although I’ve never seen such a clumsy witch! If she’d invested in a decent handbag instead of dropping everything it might have been a different story.

Alas, the big hitters of Call the Midwife and Downton Abbey both left me dry eyed and not purring.

Call the Midwife had all the traditional triggers – destitute ex-workhouse woman redeemed by penicillin and a good wash, young girl secretly giving birth in an old shop – not quite a manger but yes we got it thanks.  It added a grittier edge – birth in the communal toilet, lots of emerging plastic heads and a chunk of missing placenta but I’m afraid I was left mostly unmoved. It also managed the most resolutely un-cute Nativity yet seen.

I will say that it was beautifully written and not a foot was put wrong in the performances but just not my thing.  I do like the period detail – when did you last see a row of babies out in prams unsupervised? – but the snowy scenes felt very fake and the sun was much too high for winter.  Maybe that is what added to the feeling I had of being a step removed.

I did learn a useful medical fact.  You can catch pneumonia from lino.  It was on the BBC so it must be right.

The nurses do seem a slightly po-faced lot – I think I’d prefer to share a festive mince pie with the nuns!  Maybe Sister Evangeline could be persuaded to give us a tune…

There were lots of lovely hats, fabulous frocks and gorgeous interiors on Downton Abbey but sadly that wasn’t enough to get us through two tedious hours (was it really only two hours?) of lack of plot and tension.

Downton Abbey has become such an unstoppable juggernaut that I’m guessing no one quite had the nerve to suggest a bloody good edit.  An hour might have spared us the Yorkshire stereotype with his eyes on Mrs Patmore’s hams.  And why Scotland?  Apart from a couple of new characters whom we’ll presumably never see again it seemed a complicated ruse to allow the lethal Lady Mary to pod unaccompanied.

The Bates’ marriage, now it’s jail free and saccharine sweet, has lost any dramatic impact and the grand surprise was that – wait for it, you may want to sit down – Anna had learned to reel.  Yes.  I did too.  The cheeky new maid setting her cap, apron and pretty much everything else at Branson would have been more fun if we’d had a chance to get to know her first.  I was briefly curious about why she was so blatant and so sure of not needing to know her place but no one else was.  Not even the redoubtable Carson took her aside for a word before she attached herself to the junior master’s trouser buttons.

By the time the fourth decade of watching approached there was only one thing to do.  Kill someone.  Anyone.  I was ready to volunteer. The great big massive huge shock was sadly spoiled by the papers so I was far more perturbed to see that Cousin Matthew went so far as to drive in his shirtsleeves.  How terribly uncouth.  At least he had to decency to expire before any of the lower orders saw him…

I surprised myself by enjoying Doctor Who. I’m not much of a Whovian (and wasn’t a fan of Amy Pond AT ALL) and many of the references go straight over my head but the schmaltz free parts of the Christmas episode were fun.  I could happily do without the tears save the world twaddle or whatever that was and the icemen/snowmen seemed to be rather easily defeated despite their fearsomely toothy grins.

There were some wonderful images – the spiral staircase to the cloud was just lovely and the subtitles assure me that walking on the clouds made a metallic springing noise!  Richard E Grant always makes a good villain although he was sadly underused here and I’d like one of those giant snow globes for growing malevolent snow.  Please.

Not sure if the new companion is going for the record held by Rory for repeated dying but it’s an intriguing set up.  Just what/who/when is Clara Oswin Oswald?  Despite the characteristics taken straight from the ‘feisty, slightly sexy, a bit clever’ stereotype box I like Clara and – if they skip the faux-romance which is always so dull – it’s a good set up for the new series.  I’m interested to see how they develop the character once she gets more settled – introductions are always a bit frenetic.

I do like the sparse makeover of the TARDIS interior but I’m really going to miss the giant glass dildo cheerfully going up and down (don’t tell me you didn’t notice).  It made me snigger childishly every time…

I still have a few things to catch up on – Miranda, The Girl and the documentary on the creator of the Moomins. I’m also looking forward to Restless and Ripper Street.

Hopefully at least one of those will batter my cynical head into some nice uncritical enjoyment.

That would be nice…

…although I haven’t a clue what I’d write about then!

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all I want for christmas…

Dear Santa

That naughty or nice list you have?

Well.  I can explain…

Love me x

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What do I really want for Christmas?

Not much.

Honest…

To start with an either/or.  I’d like a magic wand.  A real one but maybe with a few sparkles and some shiny bits? No point in anything too drab.  If that’s a problem I’d be happy with a common sense stick.  I know they are rare and I promise not to hit too many people with it.  Who knows where that might end?

I’d like the time to spend with family and with old and new friends, time for laughter and silliness and putting the world to rights.  With beer.

Shoes.  You know that but I’m not asking for Louboutins…  Jimmy Choos will do.  Even Prada.

Let people count their blessings, see all the good things in their lives and appreciate them.  Yes life’s a bitch but dwelling on it lets it win.

By the way – please don’t turn me into Pollyanna.  I don’t do happy skipping…

Or pinafore dresses.

Please send me barmen who don’t say ‘are you sure you want a pint?’ And what the hell does a real beer drinker actually look like anyway?!

I think around this point I’m supposed to add world peace and fluffy kittens.  If that’s not too much trouble.

I’d like to see Cardiff in the sunshine.  OK, let’s not go mad.  Just not in the rain…

A small jar of inspiration wouldn’t go amiss.  Maybe two if they fit in the sleigh.   And a quiet day or two to open them and savour the contents.

Finally I’ll raise a glass (or two…) and wish that everyone has the Christmas that they want.  Really want.  Not the one that the supermarket adverts make us believe we have to have.  No rules, no obligations.  Buy the dinner ready-made.  Never eat mince pies.   Don’t have a tree.  Go all out, make your own crackers and eat turkey and pudding until you burst! Whatever works for you…

Ho Ho Ho/Bah Humbug*

*delete as applicable

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dressed to impress… Hollywood Costume at the V&A

When you see antique clothes in a museum your imagination has full rein.  Who wore them?  Where and when and how? Were they made for them or hand-me-downs?  Just what had those clothes seen?  Whether they are beautiful high class embroidered silks or plain hardwearing work clothes there are endless stories and speculations.

To display costumes is so much harder.  We already know exactly who wore them and why.  We know they were carefully crafted to create a character or a mood.  We really don’t need our imaginations at all.

So how do you make an exhibition of the most famous Hollywood costumes exciting and attention catching?

Exactly as the V&A have done.

You start with a huge screen playing key movie moments and the dark rooms, cleverly lit to spotlight the exhibits are rather like walking into a dark cinema.  Although thankfully without the smell of kia-ora past and the crunch of stale popcorn under your shoes.

There’s no easing you in gently ether.  Straight away you’re faced with Chaplin’s Little Tramp from 1914, a cough and a spit off a century since it was first seen on screen which is pretty mind boggling.

There’s so much to see it’s hard to remember it all and it’s the random thoughts and moments that linger.

There was a slightly surreal moment when I looked up to find Superman – or his suit at any rate – flying over my head!  It looked rather thermal but I suppose when you’re off out of the atmosphere you would want to keep all your bits and bobs warm…  And who would take seriously a superhero in a cardi?

The superheroes were shown off nicely – as well as a flying Superman, Batman was perched on high looking down and Spiderman was half way up (or down) the wall.

Halle Berry’s patchwork leather Catwoman costume stalked us from above – and was one of the ones that while it seemed larger than life was actually teeny-tiny!

Indiana Jones’ costume is analysed in detail – how it was created, adapted and aged, how he sat on the hat.  All those little details and intriguingly Steven Spielberg had initially sketched his vision of what Indy should look like.  It’s pretty close to the end result although it is quite reassuring to see that with all the other talents he has he really can’t draw!

Not all of the costumes are jaw-droppingly gorgeous.  Some are frankly hideous.  I’m looking at you trouser suit.  Yes you, you from Valley of the Dolls.

Some costumes could be worn today (please) – Tippi Hedren’s classic suit from The Birds was still covetable and such a neat touch to project a varying array of birds with it.  Some you can’t imagine how anyone could have worn them – the various versions of Elizabeth I not only look heavy and inflexible but corseted to hell and beyond.  A good moment to mention Scarlett O’Hara’s green velvet curtains ensemble – and its unbelievably tiny waist!

I was lucky to visit early enough to see one of the original pairs of ruby slippers from The Wizard of Oz.  Another reminder of the power of film – in the original L Frank Baum book the slippers were silver, they were changed to ruby red to contrast with the yellow brick road – all in glorious Technicolor!

Modern CGI techniques aren’t ignored and a clip of Who Framed Roger Rabbit? reminds us that it was one of the first films where some of the animated characters had a costume designer.  And I have to say that Joanna Johnston certainly did Jesica proud!  I’d never noticed before that Jessica’s dress only sparkles with sequins when she is on stage.  (That’s a nice little bit picked up from the book that accompanies the exhibition – well worth getting.)

One of the dresses I was looking forward to seeing was Audrey Hepburn’s iconic black Givenchy gown from Breakfast at Tiffany’s.  It was there but it was curiously lifeless.  Beautifully cut, impeccably glamorous but just a dress.  The same with the two gowns worn by Marilyn Monroe – Sugar Kane’s sequins from Some Like It Hot and the white silk that billowed so memorably in The Seven Year Itch.  They just hung; limp and lifeless on their mannequins, not attracting the attention I would have expected them to demand.  Those dresses are testament to the eternal allure of the women who wore them and brought them so vividly and unforgettably to life.

A true case of when women maketh the clothes…

It’s almost impossible to pick a favourite – there were beautiful costumes, some astonishing in their complexity, some in their simplicity, some with background details and quotes that made them even more memorable.

The wedding dress from Camelot lingered in my mind – from a distance so simple and almost out of place among the Elizabethan bling.  Up close however the finish was immensely complex – it took ridiculous numbers of  craftspeople to create all the hand crocheted fabric and the trimmings are tiny seeds and shells – so much more appropriate than the more obvious pearls and crystals.  With its stately train it is an apparently understated but perfect confection, a wonderful 1960s view of the medieval.

I’d wear Morticia Adams’ gowns every day if I could. (And if – of course – I was as tall and slim and elegant as Anjelica Houston.)  (Which I’m not.)

I keep thinking of more and more wonderful and iconic costumes – and how amazing it is that so many of them have survived to be displayed.  There were cloaks galore – Hedy Lamarr’s peacock feathers from Samson and Delilah and Dracula’s sweeping silk and the less glamorous but just as fascinating outfits from Brokeback Mountain, Fight Club and a surprisingly plain suit from Twilight with not a sparkle to be seen!

I keep wanting to add more, to remember this one and that one – oh, and that one but what I should say is just go and see it for yourself.  You won’t regret it and if you do, well, tough.  There is clearly no romance in your soul!

And if I had to take one home?  Just one?

I think it would have to be the gown worn by Joan Crawford in The Bride Wore Red.  And she most certainly did!  Glowing, sparkling red sequins, ultimate Hollywood glamour – practically perfect in every way and all the more so for being filmed in black and white…

Oh – and I’d slip the ruby slippers in my handbag…

You won’t tell, will you?