'Good' at the Harold Pinter Theatre

 Way back in the Before Times, we learned that David Tennant was going to be appearing in a production of C.P. Taylor's 'Good', so, in February 2020 we booked tickets, to see the play in October 2020. For obvious reasons, that didn't happen - the play was postponed and we had new tickets for May 2021. And again, that didn't happen. However, the play was re-scheduled again, opening on 5th October, and so we re-booked, and on Saturday 15th October , headed to London for the performance.

I had a delay as the train I was booked on to was cancelled, but fortunately was able get the next train and still arrive just in time for lunch with my friends. It was a good lunch, and lovely to see friends.

The play is set in the period from 1933 to 1941, in Frankfurt, and features Professor of literature, John Halden, (Tennant)  and his gradual move into Nazism, not through any conviction of it's merits but out of convenience.. joining the party to further his career, attracting the attention of senior Nazis by writing a novel which is supportive of euthanasia, as he struggles to cope with his mother's dementia,   drifting deeper and deeper as he consistently makes the easy, rather than ethical, choices. 

The other cast members are Eliot Levey (Who I last saw as Herr Shultz, in Cabaret) and Sharon Small, both of whom played multiple roles   - Small playing Halder's wife, his mistress, his mother, and his SS mentor, Freddie, and Levey playing Halder's (Jewish) friend, Maurice, and a number of other roles, including a senior Nazi officer, and Freddie's wife. While Tennant is the star, and is of course the big name pulling in the crowds, both the others are excellent and have, I think, the more difficult job, having to constantly switch between multiple characters, with no changes in set or costume.

It is certainly not a cheerful play (although there is a delightful scene involving Tennant singing and dancing!) but is very good, and unhappily topical.

David Tennant - Photo from NT Live website 

It's well worth seeing - in person in London  until 23rd December, and via NTLive in cinemas, in April  (and, hopefully, after that via NTatHome) .

After the show, we had a slight change of cast of our own, with one friend having to leave to catch a train, and another joining us, before we headed to Mere for wonderful food and cocktails. 

It was a wonderful day (although sadly, the next day I started to feel unwell and tested positive for Covid, despite having had a negative LTF test before setting off to catch my train to London. I was fully masked on the trains and in the theatre, but not, obviously, in the restaurants, so can only hope I didn't pass it on to too many other patrons)

General Catch Up

 Hello blog.  It's been a while.  

A quick round up of what's been going on. 

I've  seen several shows over the last few months - 

-    Jerusalem, starring Mark Rylance and Rhys Ifans, (Very good) 

-    Henry VI parts 2 and 3 at the RSC (Good, but making the best of what's not Will's best material, and with some irritating filming / camera work, which I didn't feel added much to the performance) and 

-    Days of Rebellion, another production  of the Wars of the Roses (combination of Henry VII parts 1-3) by the graduating class at Bristol Old Vic (a good attempt, but the idea of setting it as corporate warfare rather broke down once the actual bodies start to pile up)

- The Tempest, the the Ustinov Studio in Bath - the opening production for the new Artistic Director, Deborah Warner, With Nicholas Woodeson as Prospero and Dickie Beau as Ariel

- Headlong Theatre's production of August Wilson's 'Jitney', in Bath,  directly from the Old Vic.

- Into the Woods, Stephen Sondheim's musical directed / designed by Terry Gilliam, which I enjoyed.

-The Doctor - an Almeida Theatre production, at Bath, starring Juliet Stevenson, which was very good, but depressing.

As you may have noticed, the Queen died last month, and we all had a week of wall-to-wall coverage.- I didn't feel any particular sense of loss, although I did find  some of  the ceremonial quite interesting. 

It was also the reason for my  ringing for the first time in a long time - (I have a shoulder problem which it aggravates)  Bells are rung muffled for funerals, it and it was asked that the bells of  as many churches as possible rang for the state funeral, so I asked whether anywhere local needed a hand (many ringers ring at more than one tower, and not all churches have a regular band, so trying to get the bells rung everywhere on the same day isn't easy)  and ended up joining a mini trip to ring at several churches which don't have regular bands. We got quite a few positive comments from passers-by, which was nice!

And I have enjoyed a few walks - enjoying the late summer sunshine.

Finally, I acquired a new kitten..It's a good thing she's cute, as she's also full of mischief! Vashti is not overly impressed with her, but she is getting used to it.

Jerusalem - Apollo Theatre

Way back in August of last year, I learned that Mark Rylance and Mackenzie Crook were reprising their roles in Jez Butterworth's play, Jerusalem - originally  performed at the Royal Court theatre in 2009, and acclaimed as the play of the century. I didn't see it the first time round, but Mark Rylance is always worth watching, and I've never seen Mackenzie Crook on stage but he's generally good value too,so obviously I had to buy a ticket.

So, on 21st May I got a train to London to go to a matinee.

It's interesting,and a lot of fun. 

It's St George's Day, and Johnny 'Rooster' Byron (Rylance) is about to be evicted by the council, having been living in his caravan in a piece of woodland, on the edge of the village of Flintlock, in Wiltshire. 

The play allows him to tell stories with roots in English folklore (he claims to have met giants, for instance) and also issues of local pride and tradition, and how these are changing.

Rylance's role was incredibly physical, and very different to roles I have seen him in before, and it's a very interesting play, although I felt there were some parts , especially some of the attitudes and language about women, which have not aged well. But very glad I went! 

Fabergé at the VandA

 Not so long ago, my friend E suggested, that it would be fun to go to the  Fabergé exhibition at the Victoria and Albert museum, lunching beforehand at Mere.

It seemed like an excellent idea, so on 2nd April, I made my way to London, and the three of us (E, our mutual friend A, and me) met up at Mere, where we enjoyed some delicious cocktails and food.

Cocktail

We lingered a little longer then planned so ended up getting a taxi to the museum, which was very entertaining.

I also found the exhibition itself interesting,although not necessarily one I would have picked for myself, without my friend having suggested it.

I had not appreciated, although of course I was aware of Faberge, that it involved a substantial business, I had always assumed he was a small craftsman. In fact, at it's peak, they had shops in 5 cities, and over 500 employees!

No photographs were allowed in the exhibit, so I can't share my favourites, but apart from the eggs there were lots of cigarette cases, model animals (including many made for the royal family here) and jewelry.

I particularly liked the enamelwork - there was a brilliant blue cigarette case, inlaid with silver and diamonds, (made, I think, for Mrs Keppel) 

There was a very economical multi-purpose tiara (you could apparently remove the head band and wear it as a necklace! ) and some items which looked startlingly modern.

The exhibition ended with the eggs, which are simply stunning - so intricate and delicate. I loved the peacock, and the very modern looking winter egg.

A lovely day. (And we may have gone back for another cocktail after leaving the exhibition, because why not!

The Meaning of Zong - Bristol Old Vic

 Back in 2018, I went to a workshop  performance / reading of a new play by Giles Terera, at Bristol Old Vic (I wrote about it here) It was a deeply moving event and I planned, then, to see it when it was produced as a full play. 

That was delayed, like so many other things, by Covid, but it's finally here and I went to see it on 8th April.

The play is about the 18th C court case of Gregson v Glbert . It concerned the slave ship Zong. It was an insurance claim - the ship's crew had murdered 132 enslaved people, by throwing them overboard, and made an insurance claim for the value of the dead, claiming that it had been necessary to throw them (cargo) overboard due to a shortage of water, in order to save the remaining people on board. 

The case was heavily publicised due to the efforts of Olaudah Equiano, (Played here by Giles Terera, who also wrote the play) himself a formerly enslaved man, and Granville Sharp, an abolitionist who was already well known for his activism and support of fleeing slaves. In the original trial, a jury found in favour of the ship owners, in the appeal, new evidence was produced which identified navigational errors by the captain or crew, and evidence that rain had fallen, sufficient to replenish the water supplies, before the final group of people was massacred. As a result, the Judge found that case should be re-heard. There are no records of a further trial, it's likely that the owners either reached a settlement with the insurer or chose not to pursue it, but the publicity helped to expose the inhumaity of the slave trade, and to increase support for abolition movement. 

The play opens in a modern setting, with a young woman (Keira Lester) in a bookshop, raising the concern that a book about the slave trade is shelved under African history, rather than, where it more properly belongs, under British history, and being brushed off by the staff, before moving to the historical setting of the Zong court case, interspersed with the stories of three of the enslaved women on the ship.

It's a very powerful play, and not easy to watch. 

The set and production, as well as the cast, are excellent - there are allusions to the legacy of the slave trade - wooded cases marked with the names of slavers such as Colston, and a moment when the hammer beams of Westminster Hall, where the court is sitting, descend and for the ribs of the ship - very cleverly done,and a visual reminder of how inextricably linked the establishment was with the trade.

Music throughout was provided by Sidiki Demele.

The run was fairly short but I hope that there will be revivals - if there are, it is very well worth seeing.

Loki

 Those of you who know me on Facebook will have seen that sadly, Loki left us at the end of March.

Baby Loki, 2014

Loki in the snow

First ,meeting with Vashti

Loki relaxing with Vashti

I miss him. RIP, Loki.

Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club, Playhouse Theatre

 Last summer,I  booked to see Cabaret, starring Eddie Redmayne as the Emmcee, Jessie Buckley as Sally Bowles,and Omari Douglas as Clifford Bradshaw.  That was a long time ago, when nothing seemed certain, and making any kind of booking felt light offering a hostage to fortune. It  crept up on me a little, and had I known ahead of time it was going to fall just as our government moved to an 'ignore it and  it will go away' policy on Covid, I might not have chosen this week, but such is life...  

The theatre has been completely reconfigured inside, there's now a central, circular stage, with seating behind as well as in front  of the stage, creating the feel of a club. In addition, the first few rows of the stalls have been replaced with cafe style tables. There are art-deco style, monocled masks on the walls (I can't remember from my previous visits, I think they are covering up the Roman style Ox skulls that used to be there) - it's very thorough.

The booking e-mail sending tickets also gives you an entry time, encouraging everyone to arrive early to allow time to visit the bars and pre-show entertainment. My entry point was the stage door (who knows how the actors get in!)  so one goes in to a rather utilitarian corridor, to the first of the bars,(and a complimentary shot of schnapps (or a bottle of lager or water) where a live pianist played,

On the main level, the second bar, in decadent white and gold, murals on the walls (destined, no doubt, were we truly in Wiemar Germany, to be condemned in the near future as degenerate art)  with dancers on a platform over the bar, live musicians, as well as a champagne bar.

And all this before you get to your seat!

Then - the show itself.

It's good. Very good. 

Eddie Redmayne is superb as The Emcee - almost clownish in the opening number, (sporting a fetching little party hat) and gradually becoming much darker, and colder, as the show continues, including an angel of war or death for 'Money Money Money', moving to a more conventional, if grimmer, appearance towards the end of the show.

Jessie Buckley didn't appear at the performance I saw, the Sally Bowles role was played by her understudy, Sally Firth (according to her mum, who I bumped into in the foyer during the interval, it was the first time she'd appeared in the role) 

The rest of the cast is very strong - Ellliot Levey and Lisa Sadovy, Her Shultz and Fraulein Schneider were particularly strong, and Omaro Douglas as Bradshaw was also excellent.

Booking information here, (the cast is changing from the end of March, Eddie Redmayne and Jessie Buckley are leaving)  but I think that the production is good enough that it will be  well worth seeing even without them!

There are some photos of the show here, and of the redesign of the theatre here 

Storm Eunice - 18th February 2022

 We have been having a certain amount of weather. Which,of course, gives us something to talk about..

The Met Office issued an unusual 'Red' warning, and while I live just out of the red zone, even an amber warning is pretty serious.

Our local council recommended tht all the schools should close on Friday, the local bus company cancelled all services, and (true sign that it was serious) the council cancelled our rubbish and recycling collections, depriving us of the opportunity to spend the evening hunting our bins and recycling boxes throughout the village, to wherever the storm might take them.

It was due reach us mid-morning but was a little delayed. 

It seemed to be worst mid afternoon ,when we were enjoying hail and localised power cuts; little tiny one at work, and longer ones at the house - I was discouraged rather, when I checked the power company website and found that (at 4.30 on Friday) they were hoping that they would be able to get the power back on by 6 p.m. on Saturday...

Under the circumstances, I headed home (avoiding fallen trees)where I found that (a) the electricity was, indeed, off, although happily I have a gas hob so could at least heat things up, and (b) I had rather less than the recommended amount of garden fence. Well, I  suppose I had nearly the same amount of fence as I had first thing, it's just that rather less of it was attached to the fence posts and rather more of it was on the lawn, than is the norm in the best regulated gardens!

I also lost some felting from my garden she's roof, but that was unsurprising as it's been on it's last legs for a while.

Several of my neighbours lost roof tiles, and there are a lot of trees down. My next door neighbours lost the board thy'd put up to cover their shed's missing window..

We got our power back much sooner than expected,which was nice - I had dug out my stash of candles but was happy not to have to use them! 

So it felt as though we got off pretty lightly. The weekend was cold and wet and breezy - I didn't go for much of a walk at the weekend as it was not very pleasant,but I did take the long way round when I went for my paper, ad found a few more fallen trees and branches.

 Then on Monday Storm Franklin arrived, and took down part of my neighbour's fence. But, somewhat to my surprise, my temporary botched props, to stop the rest of my fence blowing  down seemed to work,and hardy any more of fence fell down,although some of it did end up all over the grass again. 

So, not the most enjoyable weekend I've ever had, but I'm very glad it wasn't worse.

The Ocean At The End of the Lane - Duke of York's Theatre

Back in December 2019, I got to see the stage adaptation of Neil Gaiman's The Ocean at the End of the Lane, at the Dorfman at the National Theatre, and it was extraordinarily good (I ended up seeing it 3 times), so when I heard that it was transferring for a longer London run I suggested to my cousin, A, that she and her boys might like it, and we arranged to go together. Then, of course, or tickets.

Since the tickets we originally had were for January 2021, ended up being a longer wait than anticipated, but we finally got to go, almost exactly a year to the day after our original date - and it was worth the wait.

The Duke of York's is larger than the Dorfman, but the play still manages to feel intimate, and immediate, and the Hunger Birds are still terrifying! 

And, even though I have seen it before, I was still almost in tears at the end.

It's beautifully staged, and the story is such a poignant , heartbreaking evocation of childhood loss and fears. 

It's on until 14th May, at the Duke of York's Theatre and I do recommend that you see it, if you can. Since it is a  National Theatre  production, and one which is getting excellent reviews, I hope that they may film it for NT Live. I know that there were plans or a touring production, too, although I am not sure whether, post Covid. that's still the plan. I hope so.

Dr Semmelweiss - Bristol Old Vic

When I saw that Mark Rylance was going to be coming to Bristol and appearing in a brand new play, I naturally couldn't resist, and promptly booked myself a ticket, for one of the preview performances..

The play is Dr Semmelweiss which as you may expect, is about Dr. Ignaz Semmelweiss, (1818-1865), the Hungarian obstetrician who pioneered the use of hand-washing in hospitals, prior to Louis Pasteur and  Joseph Lister's research into bacteria. 

He noted that the incidence of puerperal fever / childbed fever (sepsis) was significantly lower in women who were treated in a ward run by midwives than one run by doctors, and, following the death of his friend and colleague Jakob Kolletschka, after accidentally butting his finger with a scalpel during an autopsy,realised the key difference was tht the doctors and medical students also attended and  performed autopsies, and posited that they were carrying 'cadaveric particles' or 'decaying organic matter' from cadavers, on their hands.  

He instituted hand-washing with chlorinated lime (which was used to clean and remove the smell, in the mortuary) , and reduced the mortality rate by around 90%.

Sadly, things did not end well for Ignaz - his conclusions were not accepted and, in a tragic irony, he died of septic shock after being  committed to  an insane asylum.

The play is told mostly in flashback, we start with Semmelweiss (Mark Rylance)  in Budapest with his wife Maria,  (Thalissa Teixeira) visited by his former colleagues seeking to persuade him to return to Vienna to speak, at a conference, about his discovery.

As we watch him , back in Vienna, learning that the death rate is higher in the Doctor's than the Midwives' ward, and facing the first death of a patient, then follow his story as he works out the connections and then struggles to cope with the difficulties of being unable to to convince others of his findings, and of being unable to navigate the politics needed to make people accept his theory.

Rylance's performance is, perhaps not unexpectedly, superb - passionate, and tragic - haunted by his failures, absolutely single-minded (and therefore intentionally cruel) in his determination to convince others of what he is certain is true, and his anger at those who cannot, or will not, accept his findings. He is ultimately overwhelmed by the failure to change things as much, or as quickly, as he wishes.

The play is very balletic - the Salomé quartet  provide music throughout, and there are dancers,(choreography by Antonia Franceschi)  as the various mothers, adding to the sense that Semmelweiss is always surrounded by, haunted by, the women he has failed to save.

Although Rylance's performance is the centre of this play, the supporting cast is also very strong, particularly Thalissa Teixeira as his wife, Jackie Clune as Nurse Muller (who also gets some of the best lines) and  Enyi Okoronkwo (Franz Arneth) 

It was planned and written before Covid hit, but inevitably  feels relevant and contemporary.

Very well worth seeing, and on at Bristol Old Vic until 19th February.