Orphans **

I heard very good things about Orphans after the run in Edinburgh, so I booked up nice and early.

I’d also heard that it was meant to be scary. So I was preparing for a halloween experience at the Soho Theatre, and drafted in a male friend that I could dig my nails into his arm. I placed myself on the back row on the aisle seat, ready to scamper out of the door in terrified horror.

This was certainly no fright night. It was, though, a different kind of disturbing. A young man called Liam (played by Liam Joe Armstrong) bursts in on a couple having some dinner. He is the wife’s younger brother, always getting in trouble with the police. He is covered in blood.

The play shifts cleverly through the different versions that Liam offers, each one revealing that the last version was a lie. It starts off with him finding a boy lying down outside with cut wounds, a “lad” that clearly was getting up to no good himself. It morphs into a version where he is followed down an alleyway and he fights back his attacker. And then reaching out into more and more disturbing places.

It explores the boundaries of what people will do to protect family, what they’ll do to other people, and anbecause they’re scared of getting found out. Playwright Dennis Kelly pushes these boundaries incrementally as the play goes on, like a parent teaching a kid to swim, and moving back everytime it gets closer.

But there are some fundamental problems with this play. There is an unrealness to the conversations between the three characters, which is fine. But for some unknown reason, nearly every sentence is repeated twice or three times. So the conversations go a little bit like this:

WIFE: “Are you going to call the police?”
HUSBAND: “Are you saying you want me to call the police?”
WIFE: “You can call the police if you want”
HUSBAND: You want me to call the police?

(This is an approximation.)

The play runs for 1 hour 45 without interval. Seriously, we could have happily lost half of this if the actors had said the script once. Although I could see that these repetitions sometimes worked (such as “the lad is covered in blood” resonates further in the play when this is repeated), these exchanges were really quite annoying.

Then the characters are pretty flimsy. Helen, played well by Claire-Louise Cordwell, conveys the idea of love and loyalty for her brother and uncertainty about her marriage and pregnancy. Danny (Jonathan McGuinness), her husband is pretty two dimensional, although I am sure he is meant to be quite weak and bland. And it’s interesting to see the change in the husband from a bit of a wet blanket to a torturer. Joe Armstrong is undeniably excellent in the role of Liam, wide-eyed and sweet but capable of dark acts. But the characters weren’t convincing, and I didn’t really care what happened to them.

Overall, its cons outweigh its pros.

I bought a blue car today ***

Vaudeville Theatre, until 6 September 2009

Alan Cumming does a decent job with his one man show.

It’s a mixture of him talking and singing, (very) loosely based on his last ten years in America.

His conversation between the songs was charismatic and entertaining, and a story about Cabaret was particularly engaging. Cumming was performing as Emcee in the musical (presumably dressed in leather or not very much at all) and asked a grandfatherly man up on stage to dance with him. The crowd went wild. When Cumming asked the man’s name, the reply was “Walter Cronkite”, the broadcast journalist named as “the most trusted man in America”.

However, Cumming seemed a bit lost on the stage of the Vaudeville when singing, stripped of any set and any real choreography or ensemble, and his voice doesn’t have enough wow-factor to fully compensate. The selection of songs for the most part is a bit schmaltzy. And when he starts singing he loses some of his natural charisma and falls back on the conventions of musical theatre: making of fists, wide sparkly eyes, wry smiles.

When he goes into a song from Cabaret, Mein Herr, it’s an entirely different matter. This is dark, mischievous and erotic and you can see quite easily how he racked up a string of awards in the UK and US with his performance in the Donmar’s production. He really excels here: his natural charisma re-emerges and he has the chance to do a bit of proper acting.

And the comic songs were a real treat. Taylor, the Latte Boy was sweet and funny, and the encore song that had been written for a 96 year old grandmother was hilarious: “You’re fucking beautiful”, with more “fucks” than a randy band of rabbits.

There was something else undermining the performance though. The band members were undeniably talented and their placement on stage created a nice sense of intimacy. However, I suspect that Cumming was unaware that one of the band members was pissing about for large parts of the performance.

Mate, you’re lit up on stage with a whole audience looking at you! He sat there looking beyond bored, slumping over his instrument, and trying to catch the attention of another musician sat next to him. He was mouthing words and a couple of times, and he even looked like he was playing scissors, paper, stone or some other sort of hand gestures.

Cumming made a big deal about creating bonhomie with his band, introducing them all at the start, and making jokes about their relative youth. Either this musician didn’t care or there was some politics going on, but it really jarred with Cumming’s attempts to create intimacy and distracted from the performance.

It was an enjoyable show. It would have been better with improved choreography, changing some of the musical numbers for funnier ones, a bit more of the Cabaret raunch, and some stern words to the band.

The Mountaintop ***(*)

Trafalgar Studios, until 5 September 2009

Set on the eve of Martin Luther King’s death, The Mountaintop is a surprising play.

The great civil rights activist sits alone in his hotel room while it is pouring with rain outside. The set is remarkably atmospheric and evocative; it is shabby and littered with cigarette ends and empty coffee cups, and Luther King (played by David Harewood) is visibly nervous, jumping in shock each time the thunder cracks: to him, it’s a gunshot, a materialisation of the death threats he is receiving.

The play takes a little while to warm up. Harewood’s voice is initially strange; it wavers with what sounds like heightened emotion even when asking for cigarettes. But he conveys King’s emotional state very well. He’s exhausted from preaching and shouting, frustrated by the lack of progress of the peaceful black rights movement; torn up with guilt about the violence that it has inspired, resulting in the death of a 16 year old killed by police.

But the real treat of The Mountaintop is Lorraine Burroughs as Camae. She gives a brilliant performance as the maid who brings him his roomservice coffee and who doesn’t leave. It’s a two-hander, so it’s just her and him for the whole play, and the interplay between the two characters is authentic and charged with chemistry.

Camae is beautiful and irresistible – “even my uncle couldn’t resist”. But she’s not just a pretty face: she is sharp, witty and has no sense that King is any better than she is, just because he is a Dr, or Martin Luther King or a man. She challenges. This is a voice for black rights but also women’s. She runs circles around him. When King is faltering about what to do next, after realising the marches aren’t powerful enough, Camae puts on his suit jacket and his shoes and delivers her own sermon, one that has King gripped.

The Mountaintop a lovely complex portrayal of a man desperate to do what’s right and have an impact on the world, and change it for the better, while struggling with the thing that he says unites us all and makes us human: fear. And smoking, drinking and ready to cheat on his beloved wife with the beautiful Camae.

But I have to say that the twist in the tale didn’t completely convince me. Camae is no maid: she is an angel, sent to tell King that his days are numbered. In fact, tonight is his last night before meeting his maker. Magical realism and all that, but it is a bit of a stretch to believe that she is an angel and he is on the phone to God.

The actors pull it off as their performances are so strong and the writing is agile. And the final scene where King is transported by Camae, like the Ghost of Christmas Future, into everything that happens since, is mesmerising. The whole set is engulfed in a light show that speeds past riots and murders and hip hop music. It’s overwhelming for us and for King. It ends in a note of hope with Obama’s voice and his famous slogan: “Yes we can”.

The light that kills insects

The light in my bedroom has turned into a funeral pyre.

Last night, the free-standing light (one metre tall and a tenner from Argos)  served final rites for more than one insect. It was undiscerning to what it killed: whether it was the beautiful and the damned insect drawn to the flame and destined to lead a short, combustible life; or those vicious beasts with sharp weapons whose navigation let them down in their hour of need.

The first visitor to my bedroom was a butterfly with a large milky-white wing span. It entered through the open window at about 11pm last night and fluttered in a panic around the room. Normally, I am very at ease with butterflies when they are out in the open air. But in the confined space of my room I must admit I freaked out slightly – I just don’t like things that can dive-bomb you. I am mildly ashamed at the patheticness of my reaction; it is very typically girly and I don’t really like to conform to sexual stereotypes.

I was on the phone to my friend in America and her response to my squeals was: “Why don’t you just squash it?” But there was no way I could do that. Even though I hate flying insects (especially those that look like they just walk but then surprise you with flight), I can very rarely kill them. It must be due to some innate Buddhist in me.

Just seconds after this proposed death sentence, the butterfly zoomed right into my free standing light and burnt the bottom of its wings and feet. It spiralled to the other side of my room by the cupboards to expire. My friend was confused about my apparently contradictory response: from horror at sharing my room with a winged intruder to intense empathy at its downfall.

But that wasn’t the end of it. I finished the conversation with my friend and had settled down at my computer for a late night of catching up on work when a wasp flew in through the open window. A friend had earlier remarked on his Facebook status update that he hadn’t seen a wasp all summer and now there were three in his kitchen. This was pretty much the same as me: this was my first encounter with a wasp during the months of May, June and July. (There’s a storyline in Doctor Who where all the bees have disappeared – is this an instance of fact imitating fiction? If so, it’s a welcome storyline.)

If I was disturbed by the butterfly, the wasp was ten times worse. Where the butterfly had a beautiful creamy visage, the wasp was yellow, fuzzy and angry. More importantly, it was armed: it buzzed and scoured the edges of the bedroom, looking for a victim.

I retreated to the landing, with some involuntary yelps, formulating elaborate plans to abandon the pretence of working and find a place to sleep uncomfortably in the house. Just as I reached the door, I saw the wasp land on the light. Boom! My god. I had no idea that light was quite so ferocious. There was sizzling noises, as if I was cooking a full English breakfast, and the insect Formerly Known As The Wasp, was now releasing into the atmosphere. There was so much smoke pouring from the light, it looked as if it was about to catch on fire.

I ran over and unplugged the light. The frying noises stopped and the smoke began to thin out, but there was a strong smell of burning flesh.

I went downstairs, made tea and toast to let the cooking smell upstairs disperse. I returned 15 minutes later: my bedroom still smelled of wasp death. I picked up the light and put it outside my bedroom. This morning, in an extension of my patheticness, I texted my flatmate to ask her French boyfriend to come and remove the body. At the moment, the light is still outside the door and I am working in the semi gloom like a medieval monk.

I have asked my inner Buddhist to put his hands over his ears while I make a confession. Having used up all my empathy for the butterfly, I was secretly relieved that my light could do the job that I was incapable of: extinguishing the light of a wasp. I even made an involuntary triumphant gesture when it landed on the light. I really am sorry for this.

The wonderful wizard of Moz ***** (but completely biased)

Morrissey Brixton Academy 22 July 2009

I was almost not going to go to the Morrissey gig tonight in Brixton. The horror!

The gig had been rescheduled because he was ill and it fell right in the middle of my week’s holiday. I clearly had no motivation to haul myself off my increasingly expanding arse, as the idea of trekking down to the Brixton Academy from North London was not looking attractive. Besides… I’ve seen him several times, and god forbid I had become apathetic about the MozFather.

So I was late after dragging my heels and waiting for an unfathomably long time on both the Jubilee and Victoria Lines. As soon as I got into the Academy, with its glowing green dome and people stuffed to the rafters, I realised I had made a dreadful mistake.

He had already been playing for 15 minutes and, just as we arrived, he started to play a Smiths’ classic, Ask Me. My friend kindly put a pint into my hand but half of it came flying out as I was jumping around like a fraggle on speed. The hot sticky venue contained a hot sticky Morrissey sweating into a shirt that he changed a couple of times; it was fantastic, and I drank lager like it was water.

Moz and his band pumped out energy into an electric atmosphere. I’ve seen him over the last few years at Reading, Earl’s Court, a West End theatre and the Roundhouse, just before he cancelled the rest of his dates due to illness (presumably not the same problem that stopped him in his tracks this year). And I reckon this gig was one of his most confident and energetic.

He reeled off the rousing Irish Blood English Heart, and followed up with OH MY GOD Some Girls Are Bigger than Others and Girlfriend in a Coma. There were a couple of new songs that I haven’t heard, quite beautiful and dreamy. The only downtime was about two thirds of the way through when, for some reason, he lost some of the energy.

I chatted to a girl next to me and asked if a song I didn’t recognise was a new song, with the lyrics “I’m alright on my own”. Her comment is surely testament to Moz: “I don’t know. I’ve only liked Morrissey for about 10 years.” How many singers get “only” as a prefix for a decade of fandom? Although I was in nappies the first time round with the Smiths, I have been a militant fan since the age of 15 – for his wit, songs, pure poetry, the melancholy that never makes me sad, and for the emotional resonance that his music has with me (and indeed a lot of others). I have been a fan of Morrissey for only 15 years.

As well as being a constant presence in my adult life, Morrissey has also been a chaperone in my relationships. I first listened to The Boy with a Thorn in His Side at the age of 16 with an entirely inappropriate boyfriend. It gave me hope that despite the obvious lack of evidence, the relationship had legs: “How can they see the love in our eyes / And still they don’t believe us? / And after all this time / They don’t want to believe us”. I had images of us playing this to our grandkids, and saying, “See, they were all wrong.” (I’m not sure but I suspect he was gay; if he wasn’t, I think I did a pretty good job in turning him that way.)

It also reminds me of my last boyfriend, also a huge Moz fan, and this is the first time I’ve been to a Morrissey gig without him. At our first Morrissey gig together (and after a year together when I was still reticent to commit), Morrissey compelled me to say “I love you” for the first time. Our last gig was after we broke up and we went to the Roundhouse, and Morrissey played Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want and changed the words from “what” to “who” which resonated far too loudly. Although we were clearly never meant to be (Moz fans spot the quote), I really wanted us to be together then.

Here’s the performance in question, at the Roundhouse:

But as always, Morrissey’s lyrics had a sense of connection to my life tonight as well. As I shared my mild melancholy with my friend she pointed out that this is the first Moz gig without my ex-boyfriend but not the last. And she’s right: Morrissey was there before and he’ll be there after. And he’s right: I am more than alright on my own.

If ex-boyfriends or Morrissey’s lyrics (full of optimism and pessimism, hope and cynicism) couldn’t bring me down, one thing could. I asked a killer question to the “10 year Morrissey fan”: “We got here late – what was the first song?” She looked at me with a pained expression in her eyes. A pause followed by, “Are you sure you want to know?” Oh no! Not the answer I wanted. What gem had I unwittingly missed, stuck in a sweaty tunnel on the Victoria Line? “Yes, go on, I can take it,” I replied. She paused again and said: “This Charming Man.” I lied. I couldn’t take it. I let out a shriek drowned out by Moz and three thousand of his fans.

I would have paid the price of the ticket alone to hear this song live. The tragedy. But it was my punishment for displaying apathy towards seeing Morrissey live. And I have learned my lesson. The next time I am going to be there at 6pm, pressing my nose up against the barriers waiting for a touch from Moz, another Smiths classic and perhaps, if I’m lucky, one of his sweaty shirts. I am not a groupie, I have never been one, but I suspect I would humiliate myself and prostrate myself at the feet of the Moz (or, even harder, refrain from doing so as he would look upon it with disdain.)

Leaving the venue, covered with empty plastic pint glasses, I saw that my friend’s pint was half full still. NOT HALF EMPTY. Optimism wins through, because of Moz’s misery.

The future of the book is looking grim

Went to the British Library exhibition called the Future of the Book. I have not, as a rule, gone to many exhibitions in museums, libraries, galleries. I think that I associate these type of experiences with school and “having” to be there. I love art, literature, plays etc, but I just feel a bit stressed out and hemmed in when I’m in formal environments.

But this was an opportunity to try out three e-readers, including the iLiad which allows users to annotate the texts. I was quite excited  by this, as all my books are covered with my scrawlings.

The press release described the exhibition as follows: “Situated on the 1st floor of the Library’s flagship building at St Pancras, the e-reader display will give visitors the chance to familiarise themselves with these new devices and to freely explore the possible recreational and research benefits of the e-book revolution.”

Please bear in mind that I got up early on a Saturday morning for this, again another rare occurence.

On arrival I found that there was a tiny table in the corridor on the first floor. One e-reader sat on the table, broken. The other two were missing, apparently removed because they too were broken.

I hope that the Future of the Book is looking brighter than this exhibition at the BL!

Dancing dads at LoveBox

Went to LoveBox in Victoria Park today and had so much fun. I have been very sensible recently, going to lots of work and cultural activities, such as an exhibition at the British Library (really, this is something completely out of character) and getting very excited at the prospect of going to see documentaries about Burma.

I had completely forgotten how much fun it was just to drink beer and fling your limbs around to music. When Gary Numan came on to the main stage at about 5.30pm I tried to dance and then realised I couldn’t remember how. I am not sure if it is to do with turning 30 or it’s just lack of practice, but I moved my feet and my arms and I looked like I was doing a Dad Dance. To be fair, Gary Numan wasn’t amazingly inspiring. Not sure the audience was loving it and I thought he looked faintly embarrassed, although that could have just his expression due to the  eyeliner.

But later – after a beer, a Lynchfield Lemonade (Jack Daniels, Triple Sec, Fill in the blanks…), a Caucasian (ostensibly a White Russian) – the limbs became easier to manipulate into shapes that didn’t remind me of the aforementioned dance.

First of all came the dancing with an Elvis impersonator. My friend had already racked up a dance with not one, but two Elvises, and I was feeling left out.

They were getting pretty fruity with her, showing that even after disappearing from this mortal coil, Elvis’s pelvis is still in good working order. I got up on the platform and one Elvis promptly disappeared, but the other stepped up to the challenge and climbed over a wire to place his groin close to mine. He told me his name was Brian. After recovering from the trauma of realising that he was not the man from Memphis, I revelled in the fact that I looked far less like a dancing dad when dancing with the real thing.

But I was properly liberated when Groove Armada played their set, the final show of the evening and indeed of the weekend. I don’t know them, I don’t particularly like them, but I did get involved; and the big beats and the jumping crowd with the occassional glow stick chased the old man in me away and I was suddenly young again. My sensible bottle of Evian was placed carefully on the floor, my coat folded neatly in my friend’s bag and I moved my limbs in a young female way and jumped around a lot. It was brilliant. The first bit of gig was quite rousing, the middle was quite boring, but was saved again by the last couple of songs including Superstylin’ – my friend was shouting requests for this track for most of the gig. (I don’t think they could hear her.)

During the course of the day I took photos of a bloke doing cartwheels, walked into a portaloo where a man dressed as a wizard was having a wee and found a pair of red knickers on the ground. My mantra now is: must have fun.

LoveBox was way better than I anticipated – it’s basically a posh festival where the fish and chips are gourmet, the food is “sourced” and you’re more likely get sloe gin cocktails and margaritas rather than a pint of lager (although, to be fair, you can get that too). Nice fairground rides give it a summer fete feel, and it’s topped off by a bowling alley. Loved it, definitely going back next year.

Phèdre at the NT ***

I took my mum to see Phèdre at the National, with Helen Mirren and Dominic Cooper of The History Boys and Mamma Mia fame.

The set is a wide bare space with craggy rock and clean sunlight hitting the stage; the lighting creates an incredibly convincing impression of actually being in Greece. Dominic Cooper as Hippolytus is the first on stage and my mum says, “Ooh it’s just like Mamma Mia”. And she’s right – we’re in Greece and Cooper is dressed in a black vest showing off his rippling muscles. But that’s where the similarities end, unless I fell asleep during Mamma Mia and it descended into a bloodbath.

Phèdre (Helen Mirren) is married to Theseus, Hippolytus’ dad. Phèdre fancies the pants off Hippolytus (Dominic Cooper) and has persecuted him in order to prevent her true feelings coming out. But when Theseus is missing, presumed dead, she ends up admitting her love. Unfortunately for Phèdre, Hippolytus is too upstanding for his own good and inconveniently in love with the younger and beautiful Aricia. And, guess what, Theseus ain’t dead after all. The shame of dishonour and the fear of the repercussions lead Phèdre and her maid into some dastardly decisions.

What starts as something quite inconsequential, especially from the perspective of a modern audience – OK she is in love with her husband’s son but nothing has happened and no-one knows – descends rapidly with each scene into a more and more twisted situation, each step digging their graves deeper.

The cast is strong, with Ruth Negga as Aricia and John Shrapnel as Théramène particularly standing out. His gift of story telling brings an epic monologue of reported action vividly to life. Dominic Cooper, as much as I like him, is mainly eye candy. He holds his own but mainly conveys emotion by raising his voice and talking more emphatically rather than really expressing much depth. Helen Mirren is sometimes very impressive, but the main problem is that she pitches in too high too quickly. Her very first entrance is steeped in melodrama, hysterical. When you start off like that, and there’s two more hours of it, there’s no way to build the tension. You get to saturation point quite quickly. It is quite early on in the run, though, and this may improve with time.

Theseus (Stanley Townsend) is a nice surprise. I was expecting a dashing ladies man, an older version of Hippolytus, but instead we get the entrance of a broad set man, with a Yorkshire accent (I think) and the moodiness of a thunder cloud. It felt like the presence of Ted Hughes, who translated it from Racine’s French. Suddenly you realise the danger and the consequences of Phèdre’s actions. When Theseus later confronts Hippolytus he moves like a sumo wrestler, delivering an irreversible curse.

The play is dramatic, stretched taut over two hours without an interval. I am a great fan of the interval (stretch legs, drink, make a swift exit if necessary), but I can see why they didn’t put one in here. It’s almost if you take a break the tension goes. And I was riveted. I am also usually plagued by a disparate urge to go to the loo within about 20 minutes of the start of a show, by my bladder was paying too much attention. Watching Phèdre is like watching a car spiral out of control in slow motion.

But this is also the downside. It’s too dramatic, too stretched, and – mainly due to Mirren (sorry Helen!) – too hysterical and when the play ends, there is a sense of fatigue and anti-climax. Not the feeling that you get after going through emotional highs and lows, but the one where you’ve spent quite a lot of time concentrating and investing in something and then, when it’s done, you wonder if it was quite worth it. You’re just not connected enough to the characters to care deeply about their downfall.

I think it was very impressive, but it left me a little cold at the end.

I think Phèdre could have learnt a bit from Mamma Mia actually and taken itself a little less seriously. The dramatic tension needs some relief, and a bit of dodgy singing from Pierce Brosnan.

The farce of feminism

The Female of the Species, Vaudeville Theatre
****

The first twenty mintues of The Female of the Species suggest that we’re in for a disappointment.

Eileen Atkins and Anna Maxwell Martin, two fantastic actors, appear under utilised in the two-dimensional characters of Margot and Molly.

Margot, obviously inspired by academic Germaine Greer, is a self obsessed feminist writer, who thinks that the world revolves around her. Molly is an archetypal geeky student, rucksack on both shoulders, with a West Country drawl. She blames the death of her mother on Margot and holds her at gun point.

Atkins and Maxwell Martin are restrained by the sterotypes, and the jokes are a bit obvious and clunky. For example, Greer’s The Female Eunuch is substituted with The Cerebral Vagina.

But then Sophie Thompson appears on stage, as Margot’s daughter Tess. Initially, she seems only to be a cypher for the anti-feminist viewpoint: a harrassed wife and mother, everything her mother despises.

But very quickly, Thompson shifts the comedy up a gear. After encouraging Molly to pull the trigger on her mother, she launches into an exhausted and hysterical rant about dealing with the children. Who is God? Where do Pokemen go on holiday? The audience spontaneously applaud her at the end of it.

From this point on, the play is massively entertaining. The arrival of each new character adds to the farce, and the writing and delivery is exceptional. The next entrant is Tess’ husband Bryan – he’s a businessman but also a “new man”, sensitive and apron-wearing. He’s followed by a butch taxi driver who has been attempting to be communicative and caring, but is desperate to show his manly side again.

Yes, credibility is strained. Would Molly’s mother really be driven to suicide because of following Margot’s feminist teachings? (She apparently dies clutching a copy of The Cerebral Vagina). The talented actors aren’t going to be stretched to the limit of their capabilities. And the play’s not going to win any awards for offering the revelation that sometimes women prefer a bit of rough.

But who cares when it’s this much fun?

Sensitive handling

A while ago I read an interview with Geri Halliwell in the Metro. She had just published her series of Ugenia Lavender children’s books and answered some questions about her love of reading.

Then came this question:

“Can you identify with John Prescott? You’re both high-profile bulimics”.

Right.

Firstly, being compared with John Prescott isn’t hugely flattering. By lumping Halliwell and Prescott into the same category, the journalist is getting a cheap laugh from the unusual combination.

Secondly, does this encourage people to be honest about sensitive problems such as eating disorders? To know that if you talk about it, you may be ridiculed.

I can imagine a young girl reading that interview and deciding to keep quiet about her eating disorder — even if she has the comfort of knowing she would only be a “low-profile bulimic”.

There are so many reasons for people not to reveal their problems. Journalists shouldn’t add to them for the sake of a cheap laugh.