Sartre A Parfois Tort

'L'enfer. c'est les autres'. This is one of my favoured borrowed maxims and that fact goes some way to illuminating my misanthropy. It came back to me as I took the train to Brum last Saturday with the Groupie and Daughter Number Two. Deftly avoiding the puddle of puke on the exit stairway from the platform did nothing to divert me from my usual snobbish reaction to the late Saturday denizens of our city centre. DN2 is particularly scathing about my attitude on these occasions so I kept my counsel and treated only myself to my shafts of Wildean wit about modern life. The news is this - DN2 has a point - of course she does.

Why this Damascene conversion on the part of the Pig? To a small degree I have to acknowledge that I was a young tearaway myself (in a deeply ironic manner you have to understand) and have been an elderly disgrace at times. But no, the major balm to my disaffection on Saturday was the event that took us to town that night. We saw To Kill a Mockingbird at the Hippodrome. Brilliant. This was the Aaron Sorkin adaptation - wordy (as is Sorkin's way) but quite brilliant. Deeply humane, deeply moving. The production is still on tour for another couple of months and it will be well worth a journey to see it. The acting is excellent, the writing is clever enough to wring humour out of the tale's inherent tragedy, and, oh, just as an aside, the staging is jaw-droppingly clever. The full house erupted into proper cheers at the conclusion - quelqeufois l'enfer ce n'est pas les autres. We were united by an uplifting production - it is proper to get out and remind ourselves how plain bloody clever human endeavour can be and how generous can be the reception for that endeavour.       

The Quality Of Mercy

A vote of thanks to ICW who stirred me from my intellectual torpor and organised our outing to the Birmingham Rep to see The Merchant of Venice 1936 last week. I like the Rep, a theatre where you are guaranteed comfort and an unobscured view.

You don't need me to tell you that The Merchant of Venice is a troublesome text. I last reviewed it in these pages on 26 May 2011 and my re-reading of that blog confirms that I enjoyed the production at the RSC. Merchant 1936 was better - a provocative pitching of the action into the East End of 1936 with Mosley's British Union of Fascists properly excoriated. even if the climactic political message goes mildly over the top. Tracy-Ann Oberman's female Shylock is forcefully rendered and I didn't mind at all the skilful editing of Shakespeare's text. At the end you are left pondering not only the disease of intolerance but also just how many wrongs can make a right.

And how nice to be in a full auditorium.   

Advent 11

Volume 11 (Gunn to Hydrox): Hackett, James Henry.

Hackett as Falstaff

Hackett (1800-71) was an American actor/impresario who achieved eminence on  both sides of the Atlantic, particularly for his portrayal of eccentric characters. He was a notable Falstaff and this he might be said to share with another American impresario, Orson Welles. For those of you who have not been paying attention, Welles is one of Big Fat Pig's favourites. Falstaff was the last part that Welles played on the stage and he later crafted a film that centred on Falstaff  and pulled together text from four Shakespeare plays and lines of Welles's own invention - Chimes at Midnight. Welles is thought to have regarded that movie as his finest though, as with all of Welles's later work, its production was shrouded in controversy and chicanery so far as the financing went. By the way, if you still haven't seen Citizen Kane - what's wrong with you?

Welles as Falstaff

 

Adaptation To The Screen

Back on 9 December in the long forgotten year of 2023 I reviewed the screen adaptation of An Inspector Calls and made the unoriginal observation that such adaptations can suffer for the opening-up from stage to screen. So you might think it would be with the 1948 version of The Winslow Boy, as it happens another play in which I have appeared. Not so.

I suggest that The Winslow Boy is a lesser piece of theatre than An Inspector Calls, the closetedness of the latter making it an arresting morality tale. Curiously The Winslow Boy makes a better movie and the opened-out parts of the narrative serve better than the mildly clumsy flashbacks deployed in An Inspector Calls. 67/100.  

Pig Gets All Cultural

 The Tempest has always bothered me. It is lazily described as Shakespeare's 'late masterpiece' but I've never really got it. I studied it for A level and my version of events has always been that it was badly taught, unlike our other Shakespeare text Hamlet which the great J.G. Smith made sing. I'm still sort of sticking to this self-exculpatory version of personal ancient history but I do now have to admit that the play has more to offer than I have been willing to admit.

Colin Morgan as Ariel

 

What has provoked this Damascene conversion? Well, it's the cultural offering on iPlayer that's what. I was beguiled by the recent transmission of the 2013 Globe production. Roger Allam (Peter Mannion to all Thick of It fans and, let's face it, that should be all of us) is a brilliant Prospero and there has to special praise for Colin Morgan's balletic Ariel. Brave new world indeed. 

Advent 3

It won't come as a surprise to anyone to hear that I am a big fan of Shakespeare's Globe on the South Bank. However if you pressed me to name the best place I have watched Shakespeare, I would point you to Southern Oregon and the town of Ashland, home to the ten month long Oregon Shakespeare Festival. The Groupie and I visited as part of a blissful Holiday and we even got to see my favourite bit of Bard - Antony and Cleopatra. Favourite that is until the next time I change my mind.

 

The Winslow Boy

As England were getting their arses kicked by the Scottish rugby team last Saturday, your correspondent was enjoying some pre-theatre pasta before sitting down to The Winslow Boy at the Birmingham Rep. The despondency at England's capitulation would come courtesy of iPlayer.

You might be kind enough to remember that your correspondent played the part of Sir Edward Morton in the Erdington Players' production of this play eleven months past. What, you'd forgotten/never knew/don't give a toss? Oh darling you cut me to the quick. Well anyway I took a particular interest in this production and felt a vague and unjustified ownership of the text. Self-important bollocks on my part of course, but, hey, a man has to dream.

This production is very good. So it should be because this is a seriously well-made play. I must sing in particular the praises of Aden Gillett as Arthur Winslow but on the topic of self-important bollocks said Mr Gillett is quoted thus in the programme by way of explanation of the play's currency:

For those of us who feel thwarted by Brexit and Trump, it is the sense of this vast mountain of injustice and pain that's affecting the western hemisphere that you feel you're powerless against. Particularly now, points of principle and fighting for what is right seem very important.

Crap. The play's messages have always been resonant. I despise Trump (what you hadn't noticed?) but voted for Brexit on a principle - the  very principle I learned as a lawyer and officer of the court and which marks Sir Edward as such a compelling character. You are allowed to disagree with me but this clumsy conflation of Trump and Brexit as twin pillars of ignorance is patronising. Stop it.

I Suspect I Must Be Middlebrow

You see it's like this - on Friday we went to the Symphony Hall (a piece of civic architecture I love - am I wrong to like the fact that the weight-lifting is set to be held there when Birmingham hosts the Commonwealth Games?) but not for one of your full-on classical concerts. No this was the CBSO playing film music with an announcer introducing each piece to the assembled masses. I'm searching for the right words - yes I know, it was bloody brilliant. And to prove the point was the sight of the happy throng of fellow middlebrows at the conclusion. We had been for a McDonald's before the concert - I can't decide whether we were being ironic in doing this. I enjoyed it.

civic architecture

More culture on Saturday evening: this time to the King Edward's School/King Edward's High School joint production of Oh What A Lovely War. This was held in the rather magnificent Ruddock Performing Arts Centre, a building which serves to remind you of the privileges that can be attached to private education. A good production even if some of the dialogue was inaudible. As for the piece itself, which I had only previously witnessed in its filmed version, it retains its power to affect. A good programme note by the Head of History at KES which quite properly posed questions about the way the conflict has been culturally appropriated. Just as the British perhaps learn their middle history (unwarrantedly) from Shakespeare, so they also tend to rely a tad too heavily on Blackadder and Oh What A Lovely War (I make no denial of the brilliance of both texts) for their understanding of the Great War.

Two hundred and forty-five KES boys died in the Great War. Their names were projected above the darkened stage at the conclusion of the drama. Chilling.

more civic architecture

Talking of civic architecture (which I was three paragraphs ago) Lord Digby Jones was sitting two seats in front of me at the Symphony Hall. In my cynical middle-age I'm afraid I used to regard Jones as something of a charlatan (something to do with my own self-loathing attitude to the profession that spawned us both and the fact that he went to UCL) but I've grown out of that phase. His oft-repeated defence of business as the principal engine for societal wealth, is a tune far too few are singing.

Hence! Wilt Thou Lift Up Olympus?

The revolting events in Manchester need no commenatry from me. I did start to pen something but it was plainly inadequate. Damn them all to Hell.

To more cheerful things: a trip yesterday to Sheffield to see Julius Caesar at The Crucible. This was the first Shakespeare I ever studied seriously, back in 'O'Level days. I have heard it said that it is an unsatisfactory play, what with the titular charcter getting brutally bumped off by half-time. This misses the point - it is replete with fascinating characters aside from Caesar himself. Brutus is tragic, Cassius intriguing and, on the periphery, Lepidus's lack of substance sets us up nicely for what is to come in the even better Antony and Cleopatra.

The Crucible is a great viewing theatre and this is an excellent production - the first segment chillingly political and the second searingly military. I even sort of enjoyed the steamy rail travel that allowed me to have a couple of glasses of perfectly passable sauvignon blanc.

And isn't it a small world? As I was quaffing first of the said glasses I spotted S with whom I had worked at London 2012. Of all the gin joints, in all the places etc. We chatted amiably and parted to watch the play, presumably never to meet again. Rather British, I call it.   

Learning Lines

It will be the first performance tonight of The Erdington Players production of The Winslow Boy. This is a seriously wordy but seriously good play. Now don't laugh but I have been cast as the arrogant, Tory barrister Sir Robert Morton. How do they make these decisions?

As old age creeps noisily upon me I have a theory about the learning of lines which has been borne out by two dress rehearsals. The theory goes like this: my head has room enough for all but two of the lines I have to learn. The problem is that there is no telling which two lines will have vacated the mental space at  any given juncture. All I can do is take to the stage in dread fear of that moment when the mind goes blank and you await the bloody prompt. There is no cure for this and it is too late to back out now. So it goes.

As a humbling example of the herculean rote learning of the professionals I note that in 1935 Olivier and Gielgud alternated nightly as Romeo and Mercutio. I'm not sure of the artistic purpose but hellish impressive nonetheless.

Break a leg Big Fat Pig.

The Revenge Of The Fatted Calf ... But Reason To Be Cheerful

I started Friday by having a full English in the glad company of my mother. It was jolly nice but I felt guilty when I got back home, so waited a decent interval and then went for a run. This was ill-advised and sure enough the right calf muscle gave out warning signs as I hit the quarter hour. I stopped at the first sign but, as they say, it's deja vu all over again. Bollocks.

a most equable host

That reason to be cheerful? Well I'm going to let the idiocies of halfwits on both sides of the Trumpian commentariat wash over me. Good news for you I suppose. No, all I am going to do is to urge you to go on BBC iPlayer and catch up with Neil Brand's excellent Sound of Musicals. Another good advertisement for BBC 4's output but don't make me think about the licence fee. Too complicated. 

Hamlet And The Polka Dot Jersey

A superb Hamlet at Stratford yesterday. Seeing the noble Dane at the Bard's birthplace is, I suppose, one of those things a good Shakespearean should tick off his list. And now I can.

My last trip to the Royal Shakespeare Theatre was mildly disappointing: partly the fault of Will himself because even his nearest and dearest would have to concede that Cymbeline is a bit of a mess; partly, I'm afraid, because the RSC made the play even messier (there are other more learned critics who disagree with me on this one). However the current production of Hamlet is, imho (I suspect we bloggers ought to use these terms), bloody good. A largely black cast and an atmosphere of post-colonial Africa are cleverly deployed and Paapa Essiedu in the lead is magnificent. Not a hint of any tiresome sledgehammer Oedipal palaver either. Which was nice.

possible fashion statement

I've cleared out the gym at the back of our garage (treadmill, cross-trainer, rowing machine) and been quite a good boy about exercise. The Precious Bike is also back on the agenda: this morning I did the Col de Worcester Lane twice and I have awarded myself the virtual polka dot jersey as King of the Mountains. Do you think I should sacrifice all remaining dignity and add a real such jersey to my lycra wardrobe? Peut etre que non.

Pantomime As A Theatrical Form

Here I am talking about the peculiarly British pantomime, that melange of fairytale, slapstick, music, loose plot, audience participation and mild innuendo. I'm in one this week which has rather got me thinking about this peculiar beast. Despite my role as Abanazar (another for my career collection of grumpy middle aged men) I have to confess that I am not a completely convinced advocate but I think I need to set aside any snobbery and acknowledge that is the only form of live theatre that many Brits are ever exposed to, or want to be exposed to. It is thus important.

As with most things it needs to be done well. Done badly it is execrable. I would even go so far as to say that the margin for error is smaller than with straight theatre. Our Aladdin is at the point of final dress rehearsal and thus far ours is not done well. We have tonight to get our shit together - that's a luvvie term. The biggest danger is self-indulgence by the performers, most particularly the dame and the villain. Even broad comedy requires a deft touch to be enjoyable. The other great danger is taking it for granted and treating the production of it with anything other than minute care and attention. This realisation has all come to me a bit late in the day and I am healthily terrified about the impending process. Oh yes I am. 

Welcome To The Hotel California, Briefly

We left Ashland behind us yesterday with good memories and then took a circuitous route to our latest stop so that we could say we have been to California. The mountains of Southern Oregon/ Northern California are spectacular, steep slopes dominated by what we botanists call bloody big trees. And after the mountains comes the coast - about which one can only say, bloody hell, or perhaps in the vernacular, awesome dude. Mile upon mile of pure Pacific Ocean, sometimes surmounted by cliffs and then by the Oregon dune belt. Also awesome was the pizza we had for lunch in the town of Brookings.

Globe on steroids?

Now we are in Yachats, Oregon, staying within a stone's throw (well perhaps a few throws of a stone) of the ocean and miles of flawless sand. But more of that later. I need first to divest myself of my thoughts on the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. We saw a fine production of Antony and Cleopatra in Ashland's Elizabethan Theater (there's that spelling thing again) and it made an interesting contrast with my beloved Globe back in London. The playing spaces are similarly configured though Ashland is grander. Both are open to the elements - elements which in Ashland's case had flash-flooded the town just three days before our arrival. Where the Globe makes few concessions to the creature comforts of the spectator (the discomfort is part of the fun) Ashland is far more concerned about its customers - there is legroom undreamt of in even the most modern British theatre (there's that spelling thing again) and the roof covers all but the stalls. Tellingly, no one stands up in Oregon. Thus Ashland is Elizabethan(ish) in its acting environment but doesn't leave you squirming as the drama unfolds. There is also a notable difference in how the stage is utilised. The Globe knowingly eschews modern usage - no electronic sound system for example. Ashland does use amplified effects to augment the play and even had electronic surtitles to tell us where each scene was set. None of this was objectionable because, as he generally does, the Bard brings you back to the play. The programme notes (Ashland's substantial programme is free to each playgoer - a nice touch) correctly described Antony and Cleopatra as Shakespeare's most cinematic play and this production raced along nicely. There were nice directorial touches where scenes were made to overlap as the separated principals saw each other in their thoughts. A very good night and here's a tip should you ever be in Ashland and want a drink and bite to eat before the play, either make a reservation in advance (there are three theatres in the Festival and therefore three audiences worth of people descending on a smallish town) or do as we did and go to the Redzone Sports Bar. There were sixteen screens showing baseball but most importantly it had clearly been discounted by theatre-goers as a suitable venue for pre-show drinks. It's actually fine and you'll get a seat and the obligatory swift service. I had deep-fried mozzarella cheese sticks and a pint of IPA. Which was nice.  

The Comedy Of Errors

No this is not a blog about my attempts to get fit/lose weight. It really is about the Bard's early comedy.

I saw Propellor's production at the Alex a couple of months ago - pretty good though a sparse audience. As chance would have it we then got invited to corporate hospitality at Chester's open air theatre and once again it was The Comedy of Errors. The weather was merciful and the presence of a full-house is always a plus but even allowing for those advantages I have to say that this was one of the very best Shakespeare productions I have ever seen. Fast, Raucous and very,very funny.

That London (Continued)

Back from that London, in fact now on one of my Anglesey jaunts. I ate so bloody much in London that I have had to have a severe word with myself and consider adopting extreme measures to get my waistline back under control. The answer is in a diet of breakfast cereal, bananas and alcohol. What can possibly go wrong?

On the subject of alcohol, a quick word of praise for the Lowlander Beerhouse in Covent Garden - loads of fun beers and good no-nonsense food - the fish finger sandwich is wonderful to behold. Try their own Wit Beer. I did. Twice over lunch.

OG liked it

Theatre review. In advance of seeing it I had my fears about Handbagged, fearing a republican/Guardianista style piece of Thatcher bashing. Not the case - the play aims its barbs at all sorts of targets, not least that bloody woman, but it does it even-handedly and to good comic effect.It gets a 'worth seeing' from the Overgraduate. 

A Work Of Art

The twentieth century was spoiled for new art forms - principally film and television which expanded the availability of both art and the tawdry . However I was reminded on Friday night of another twentieth century medium - the musical. We saw a touring production of West Side Story. Brilliant - operatic and balletic. A work of art.

Big Fat Pig's Other Car

It's been a good weekend as I recover from the bites of the Black Dog. West Side Story on Friday; a cycle ride on my lovely bike on Saturday; a drive to the health club today in my Precious Jag and a satisfactory thrash through the water to make me feel virtuous. Plus I got a cut into the lawn earlier today and the sun is shining. Tomorrow is work, boo hiss but then next weekend is Easter and we will be in Anglesey and the week after that it is the annual pilgrimage to Ireland to play bad golf in good company. Remember, don't let the bastards get you down.

Titus Andronicus And Professional Wrestling

I drove on clear roads at relatively high pace in my precious Jag from home to Stratford-upon-Avon. I walked between the raindrops toward the theatre but deviated to buy a bag of chips which I then ate as I walked by the river. I disposed of the chip paper responsibly. Thus fortified I entered the Royal Shakespeare Theatre and enjoyed a glass of white in the bar before I took up my standing position in the Swan auditorium - my ticket had cost all of £5. The programme contained an article by the matchless Jonathan Bate and the show in question was my old favourite Titus Andronicus. Professor Bate has these wise words,

Critics in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries could not cope with such incongruity. Its affront to stylistic decorum  was thought to be on a par with the play's shocking lack of respect for the principle of poetic justice, in which the evil are punished and the good. are duly rewarded. In our time, though, we have become sceptical about easy divisions between good and evil, black and white. 

Perhaps this modern scepticism explains the success not only of this RSC revival but also the National Theatre's recent revisiting of the misanthropic Timon of Athens. Two under-performed plays which catch the disenchanted Cameroon zeitgeist. And this thought leads me, as these things often do, to professional wrestling and the works of Roland Barthes. All of this was brought into plain sight on television this morning as I watched Daniel Bryan launch himself over the ropes onto the conveniently assembled Shield before springing back into the ring to pin Randy Orton.

Then these same people wax indignant because wrestling is a stage-managed sport (which ought, by the way, to mitigate its ignominy). The public is completely uninterested in knowing whether the contest is rigged or not, and rightly so; it abandons itself to the primary virtue of the spectacle, which is to abolish all motives and all consequences: what matters is not what it thinks but what it sees. (Barthes, Mythologies, 1957, trans Lavers 1984)

So, put plainly I enjoyed this Titus thanks to a cocktail of a fast car, some fast food, some English criticism, some French philosophy and some American grapple. It's good to be back.

Hell Is ... Other People ... Heaven Is

Hell is other people. I thought this as I sat in a stuffy standard (ie second) class carriage last Friday evening. The (lack of) air conditioning, the oafishness of the bloke who denied our reservation, the noise of the stag party, these are a few of my unfavourite things.

Heaven is other people, most particularly my own wondrous daughters who hosted us last weekend. Heaven is other people, when part of the determined audience at the Globe sitting (even standing some brave souls) through all three parts of Henry VI . The hunger, the hard seating and the eventual tumultuous rain were all bearable for what was a thrilling pageant of poetry and story telling. These may be Shakespeare's least esteemed history plays (in some estimations not entirely or even mostly his handiwork) but played at pace and without overdue deference they work on stage. Bravo.

An interesting encounter in the interlude between Parts II and III - I politely asked an elderly lady if the space next to her on a bench was taken. She responded that it was not and then engaged me in conversation about the production and the Bard in general. She proudly informed me that she was eighty-five and that this was most definitely the last chance she would enjoy to see these three relatively rarely performed plays together. It was hard not to agree. She then turned to me and asked that I mind her bag because she was absolutely gasping to go outside and have a cigarette. I liked her.

An interesting matter of train station etiquette arose while waiting for another train this week. This time I was in the Virgin First Class Lounge so in a more amenable mood than had prevailed last week. The quandary - it is I presume rude to stare (or indeed even glance) at the manifest transvestite sitting opposite one. Modern manners can be awfuly vexing.

I watched an interesting and very British piece of film making last night - Mona Lisa in which Bob Hoskins does his best Bob Hoskins imitation. It was one of those free dvd's they used to give away with the Sunday papers and which lie in a neat pile here in Anglesey. I'm repainting some water damaged spots in the kitchen the roof having finally been repaired, inbetween bouts of listening to or watching the Ashes, wherein Australia are in the process of proving they are not nearly as bad as some would portray them and England are demonstrating that they are not remotely as good as some believe.  

Pictures, Words, Actions, Food And A Notable Life

Pictures. I strongly recommend the Lichtenstein Retrospective at the Tate Modern in that London. Dude could paint. Daughter Number 2 (who knows about these things) felt the show was not well curated but this detail did not hamper my enjoyment. Nor in the end did the behaviour of bored out of their brackets young children brought to the gallery by their idiot, inconsiderate parents. If you bring them then keep control of them! Allowing them to lie on the floor in front of the exhibits is not cute or even mildly endearing - I seriously toyed with the idea of staging an 'accidental' tripping exercise so that I could give one of the little buggers a sly kick. Didn't do it of course - you have to admire my restraint. You won't believe it but there was actually one little sod in the exhibition on his skateboard.

Words. I'm finally learning to wrestle with James Joyce. My method is to let it wash over me.

Wavewhite wedded words shimmering on the dim tide.
 

Actions. And Words as it happens. To the bijou charms of the Almeida Theatre in that Islington to see Before the Party. Excellent and even a star sighting - Timothy West and Prunella Scales in the audience below us. She's tiny.

Food. Doing something reliably and speedily is all that is sometimes needed so full credit to the staff at a crowded Strada on the South Bank. More evidence of uncontrolled children. As Woody Allen so memorably asked in Annie Hall, why is there never a large polo mallet to hand when you need one? I should stress I would use it on the parents not the children. At least to start with.

A notable life. The blogosphere will be knee deep in Margaret Thatcher - tributes and venting of spleens in equal measure. Not much for me to add save that it seemed to this employer of people that she liberated my generation from the captivity of decline. That my generation has used its freedoms so oafishly is not her fault. Reactions to her death have also served as a timely reminder of just what knob vans are Ken Livingstone and Gerry Adams. Not that any reminder was really needed.