Thoughts On Theatre Blogging

Blogging about blogging can often result in the worst kind of online onanism, so you’re going to have to bear with me for a bit here. Because today I participated in a panel discussion at the British Shakespeare Assocation’s annual conference at the University of Warwick. The topic was Blogging The Bard, though it actually encompassed a much broader debate about the nature of blogging and theatre criticism in general – what are reviews for, what role does traditional theatre criticism serve and what does blogging bring to that dialogue.

The panel was chaired by Andrew Dickson, the arts editor of Guardian Unlimited, and also featured Peter Kirwan, who, in his excellent Bardathon blog, details his experiences of attending the entire RSC Complete Works Season in Stratford-upon-Avon, and Patricia Tatspaugh, a contributor to Shakespeare Bulletin and Shakespeare Quarterly – and very much a non-blogger.

It was a fascinating experience, with questions posed that I’m still mulling over. I know why I blog. I blog because I enjoy the process, both as a creative exercise and as a way of ordering my thoughts; if it happens to entertain other people, well, then that’s a bonus. Blogging at its best can open up discussion, it can create an evolving conversation – in a way that a straightforward review often doesn’t. And while I don’t have the decades of theatre-going experience of a Michael Billington, I, and the people behind all the theatre blogs that I read, have a palpable passion for the medium and its possibilities – and that really comes across in the writing (even if there is whinging involved).

Bloggers have the space and lack of constrictions (no overnight deadlines, no press night hoopla) to focus on the nuances of a production, the details and the small moments that make a production linger long in the memory or pick you up and smack you in the gut. They can bring some necessary shade to the sometimes black and white world of theatre criticism and, in cases like that of the recent RSC Lear, where the press where held off from attending until Frances Barber recovered from a knee injury, while the paying public watched an understudy in her role, provide information unavailable elsewhere.

I think that academic analysis, theatre criticism and blogging are all part of the same discourse, the words all flow in the same direction ultimately, and while I know my blog can veer towards the trivial and flippant sometimes, there’s plenty of people out there who write considered, thoughtful pieces on matters theatrical with more eloquence than I’m capable of (him for instance, and him), and anyway I think there’s space in amongst all that for a little flippancy now and then (insert predictable gin reference here).

Anyway the discussion went well, and it was a nice being back at Warwick, where I did my MA, if only for a short while. I hung around for the plenary lecture by Philip Davis on The Shakespeared Brain an interesting look at the way the brain processes language, particularly the syntactically adventurous language of Shakespeare, before heading back to London in the afternoon eager to get my hands on a copy of Tom Stoppard's The Real Inspector Hound after Andrew quoted from it in his introduction.

Next week looking very theatre-heavy indeed, which I’m really looking forward to after such a comparatively quiet August.

Short and Sweet (Well, Sort Of)

After a quiet bank holiday weekend focused mainly on flat-pack assemblage, I got back into the swing of things last night, heading over to the National for a production of Eugene O’Neill’s early work The Emperor Jones.

This particular production was first staged by Thea Sharrock in 2005 over at the teeny tiny Gate Theatre in Notting Hill and appears to have been considerably re-jigged to fit the (much) larger performance space of the Olivier.

The excellent Paterson Joseph reprises his role as the self-declared ruler of a small West Indian island. He plays a black American prisoner who, having killed his prison guard and escaped across the water, talks the island inhabitants into becoming their Emperor. However they soon tire of his despotic rule and turn against him leaving him with little recourse but to flee into the forest, fearing for his life. As the sun beats down, he is forced to discard his Emperor-y accoutrements, to shed his finery (I did try and wedge a ‘new clothes’ reference in there, but I’m a bit lacking in glib this morning) until he is left completely diminished, half naked, sweat-slick and shaking. Joseph’s is, by necessity, both a charismatic and a very physical performance, he is constantly dashing and ducking across the stage, shoulder-rolling and hurling himself to the floor with considerable force as his character becomes increasingly paranoid and desperate, haunted by images of slavery and shadows of his past misdeeds.

Stripped of what was presumably a very claustrophobic setting at the Gate, Sharrock ensures that the play still has the requisite feverish intensity – a sense enhanced by the use of light, filtering it through a huge corrugated metal disc that is suspended from the ceiling (which rather reminded me, to a degree, both of the great orange sun sculpture they had in the Tate Modern Turbine Hall a while back and of the sweatbox scenes in films such as Bridge On The River Kwai). Some superb percussion added to the atmosphere of the piece, but the seeming need to fill this space, with stuff, with bodies, had its drawbacks, and I found the sudden influx of extras filing on stage for a slave auction scene rather unnecessary and detrimental to the overall mood.

Still, it’s a strong, intense, unusual production and I’m sure its 70 minute running time will please some people as it leaves ample time for a post-show glass of red on the National’s terrace. Good as it was, ultimately it really made me wish I'd seen that Gate production, I expect that really would have been something.

Pretty In Pink

Adults playing children on stage – it’s always a fine line. When done well, as in Amelia Bullmore’s Mammals a couple of years ago at the Bush, the incongruity can add to the overall comedy of a piece, or as with the work of Shared Experience, it just somehow fits with the overall style of the production, but more often than not it can break the spell. Watching a chap with a bald patch sitting on the floor playing with toy trains, as I did in some show or other recently, can be a little distracting and – worse – unintentionally amusing, especially in an otherwise naturalistic play.

There were a fair few adults playing kids in Ma Vie En Rose at the Young Vic. But because of the essentially dreamlike nature of the piece it wasn’t quite as jarring as it sometimes can be. This was an adaptation of Alan Berliner’s film of the same name (which I haven’t seen) about a seven-year-old boy, Ludovich, who dreams of being a girl. Director Pete Harris has chosen to stage it as a dialogue-less, music-driven piece with the six main characters played by professional actors and the rest of the cast played by members of the local Southwark community.

The stage of the Young Vic’s cold, concrete-walled Maria studio had been covered with turf and the bench seating with scratchy grocers’ grass. A small group of musicians sat in one corner. I was worried this wordless approach wouldn’t be enough to sustain an, admittedly short, performance, but while there were a few rough moments, they just about pulled it off. There was a very entertaining sequence where the cast played a bunch of schoolgirls and boys in the playground, the girls skipping and singing as the boys fight one another and play football. Another scene, where the mother tries to cut her son’s treasured long hair was also well-handled, the torment of all concerned well portrayed. However I'm still a little bemused as to who the show was aimed at. It had some very dark moments - at one point Ludovic tries to kill himself by shutting himself in the deep freeze - but its messages about acceptance and identity were fairly simplistic, and it all felt a little bit worthy in a way that the Young Vic's similar community project, Tobias and The Angel did not. The musical accompaniment was also rather repetitive and twiddly for my tastes, and while I was glad that it didn’t do too much emotional sign-posting, a bit more, I don’t know, oomph, wouldn’t have gone amiss.

Speaking of oomph, it was in plentiful supply at Brick Lane’s sweaty, purple 93 Feet East on Monday. I had gone there to see a band called Devotchka, a Grammy-nominated-but-not-really-that-well-known-over-here four-piece who, apparently, provided the soundtrack for hit indie flick Little Miss Sunshine. I didn't know much about them, but I'd been told they might be up my street, so I gave them a go. Their music combines Eastern European-influenced rhythms with the feel of a mariachi band and their material is unapologetically anthemic and sweeping - songs to sway to is a fairly apt description I think, preferably with a wine bottle held aloft and a drunken friend draped on your shoulder. I don't think I'll be dashing off to Amazon their albums, but I enjoyed the evening a lot. And I now know what a sousaphone looks like, which has enriched my life no end.

It Is Good To Know That...

…if, through a combination of incompetence and sheer poor fortune, you were to find yourself unable to gain access to your new flat on a not all that warm August evening, then your new local (and rather posh) not-Oddbins wine emporium will be only too happy to uncork a nice bottle of Merlot and provide you with complimentary sympathy nibbles.

This way you at least have a something to sip while you sit on the front step feeling sorry for yourself.

Life still somewhat boxed-up and bubble-wrapped, but some theatre stuff coming later in the week, promise.

Not In Edinburgh

I am not in Edinburgh. And am suffering from a fairly strong dose of Edinburgh envy as a result, made worse every time I pick up a newspaper and flick through the arts section. Plus all the twiddly business of moving house has rather impacted on the time I have to spare doing anything that doesn’t involve packing my worldly goods into cardboard boxes.

However yesterday I allowed myself a brief window of escape from bubble wrap and packing tape for the new show at Theatre 503. Called Yoga Bitch, it consists of one woman’s account of a her experiences on a two month yoga retreat in Bali, and as such is so very Edinburgh-fringey sounding that I had to have a look.

And it did tick a large number of boxes on the dreaded One-Woman Show checklist so amusingly skewered by Festival, Annie Griffin’s underrated and hilarious comedy about the Edinburgh festival – stuffy above-a-pub venue; a set consisting of little more than a yoga mat, a bamboo screen and a plant; a monologue about self-discovery, getting to like your true self and, er, that kind of stuff; and, of course, one (American) woman performing the thing.

And yet, Suzanne Morrison, the One Woman in question, has an easy, warm presence as a performer, she knows how to hold an audience and for all her cynicism about her Indonesian experience, for all her anecdotes about Bali belly, wee-drinking, scented candles and Gucci yoga mats, she’s never cruel in her comedy. Better than I thought it would be is, admittedly not much of an endorsement, but well, it was better than I thought it would be.

Oh, and for a look at One Woman Shows of a rather different kind, Helen Smith’s blog is worth popping over to.

Clicky-Clicky

“Why you want to go see that?” asked me great aunt, stubbing out a cigarette in a ridiculously chunky crystal ashtray, “it probably just two hours of clicky-clicky.”

My great aunt, a solid Serbian seventy-eight year old, who stands five-foot-nothing in her crocodile court-shoes, has a way of dismissing things that makes most come-backs redundant. She’s never been much of a one for the whole theatre thing either, preferring the oeuvre of Schwarzenegger to Shakespeare (though if Peter Hall were to direct something that featured a lot of oiled Central-European types kicking each other in the head, I suspect she might be swayed otherwise).

The show she was so quick to write off? Paco Pena’s A Compas! To The Rhythm, which I’d been excitedly describing to her – while idly wondering if anyone had ever done a study into the health giving properties of drinking a double-whiskey a day whilst wearing a whole lot of leopard print. And, yes, it was two hours of clicky-clicky, but it was also much more than that.

This celebration of all forms of flamenco has played in London before now, and was returning for a short stint at Sadler’s Wells. The dancers – two male (one spectacularly be-mulleted) and one female – were incredible, their moves full of sensual and writhing gestures and impossibly intricate footwork. They performed in shafts and squares of light with Pena and his fellow musicians and vocalists seated on stools behind them. It was a hugely atmospheric show; I’ve never seen a Sadler’s Wells audience so lively, all whooping and stamping feet.

Oh, and the shoes. I must mention the shoes. Just as Savion Glover’s only concession to the glamour of his profession, when performing at this same venue, was a pair of cool green tap shoes, one of these chaps sported a pair of aggressively scarlet flamenco heels. Now of those, my great aunt I’m sure would approve.

Losing My Prom Cherry

I have Prommed!

Yes, though I have lived in and around London my whole life I have never been to the Proms before now, and this year I decided that this was something that needed to be rectified. So after work on Friday I hauled myself over to the Royal Albert Hall and got in the day ticket queue (for I intended to Prom proper).

The Prom in question was number 28, an evening that consisted of the Magnus Lindberg clarinet concerto followed by Rachmaninov's Second Symphony. Neither piece I knew beforehand, but both were amazing in their way. The Lindberg was performed by Kari Kriikku and was technically amazing. He made the clarinet make noises I had no idea it could make. It was clearly a superb display of musicianship and yet it was difficult to connect with beyond this.

The Rachmaninov, on the other hand, was very accessible. This was big sweeping stuff, almost cinematic in its emotional uppy-downiness. I was totally caught up in the music, and left reeling by the power of the piece. I was less impressed by the Royal Albert Hall. Having never ventured inside this great domed building before now, I was surprised to find, once you ventured through the doors and into the arena at the centre of the hall itself, that it felt like a kind of period Wembley Arena – equally cavernous and surprisingly cold - though my disappointment was alleviated somewhat when I spied the War of the Worlds type saucer thingys that hung from the ceiling as acoustic buffers. They were quite something to behold.

And the people! My fellow Prommers. Well, they were something too. One couple lay on the floor, barefoot and ram-rod straight, with their eyes closed. Another man lay curled nearby like a sleeping child, while an immaculately dressed man beside me was almost vibrating with pleasure through the whole of the Rachmaninov piece. The experience wouldn’t have been half of what it was without them.

A Confusing Carmen

My week has continued in a pleasantly South Bank-y fashion. Not the National this time, but the Royal Festival Hall, where Jude Kelly is staging Oscar Hammerstein’s Carmen Jones as her big “hello, we’re open again,” show.

The results are muddled to say the least. For a start, the setting has been twiddled with: Hammerstein's original Broadway production relocated the Carmen story to a parachute factory in the US, but Kelly has uprooted it again, swapping this Deep South setting for a vaguely Cuban-looking backdrop. For, um, reasons that never become clear. All that this change of location achieves is that it makes the piece feel rather unanchored and uncertain of itself. The set is also an oddity, sitting awkwardly in the middle of the RFH stage, with the wooden back wall of the hall very visible behind it.

The amplification was all over the place too, making it hard to decipher a lot of dialogue, and, well, I could list more little niggly negatives, but actually the show wasn’t as unsatisfying as I’m making it sound. Though the first half is distinctly shaky, the production was far more cohesive and compelling after the interval. The orchestra were excellent (Kelly has plonked them in a pit in the centre of the stage with the action playing out both behind and in front of them) and there were some standout moments, most notably that of Beat Out Dat Rhythm On a Drum.

Performance-wise there are some excellent voices amongst the large cast. But it’s impossible not to notice that both Tsakane Valentine Maswanganyi, as the volatile Carmen, and Andrew Clarke, as Joe, the man she seduces, are eclipsed in terms of charisma and presence by, respectively, Sherry Boone, who plays the heartbroken Cindy Lou, and Rodney Clarke, as the boxing champion Husky Miller. Indeed the only truly bravo-worthy episode of the evening was when Boone sang My Joe, a quiveringly beautiful lament to her one-time lover; it was a quite, quite wonderful moment.

Some Enchanting Evening?

I do love the South Bank on a sunny evening: the glittering river, the hum of human life, the glass of wine sipped whilst watching odd performance art types juggle bunches of flowers outside the National.

It was almost a shame to leave it behind for what promised to be two hours plus of Scandinavian gloom at the Cottesloe, but I had tickets for The Enchantment, so leave it behind I did. The play is by Victoria Benedictsson, who, though rather lost to history was an influential figure in her day, inspiring both Strindberg and Ibsen. Her 1888 play The Enchantment has never been performed before in the UK but its premier production has been directed by Paul Miller, (the man who brought the magnificent Elling to the stage) so my anticipation levels were high.

Nancy Carroll plays Louise Strandberg, a young Swedish woman living in Paris, existing in a world of artists, though she has no artistic talent or inclination herself – Paris for her is about escape and liberation from her tedious provincial background. Here, she embarks on an affair with Gustave Alland played by Zubin Varla. He is supposed to be a magnetic, attractive character – a man capable of exerting an effortless hold over the women he encounters. But the odd rhythms of speech Varla employs, and the strange emphasis he puts on unexpected words, speak less of boundless charisma and more of a man struggling to remember his lines.

In the second half, the action reverts to Sweden and we see the life Louise is escaping: marriage to a kind but staid and middle-aged bank manager and a living room swathed in symbolic dust sheets. The denouement is predictably, Swedish-ly bleak.

Though the play is slow in places and comparatively heavy-handed in others, Benedictsson’s writing contains some flashes of insight into the muddle of love and the impossible position of women in 19th century society. She knows she stands zero chance of changing Alland, yet she remains besotted with him, in total awe, able to excuse away his every abuse of her love. Nancy Carroll has a glowing presence as Louise and Niamh Cusack is equally good, if sometimes a little shrill, as her close friend (and former conquest of Alland’s). But good as they are they’re not quite capable of enlivening this rather stiff and tiresome production.

The Cottesloe’s in-the-round staging meant that I was seated with my back to the curious wall projection thingy, thus missing out on the most inventive aspect of the set. However my position did mean that, when a character dropped a rather crucial letter on the floor, it landed pretty much at my feet, allowing me to inspect whether it actually said what it was supposed to say. Unfortunately before I could decipher the scrawly handwriting, it was picked up again – however, and I’m just guessing, it may have said: “Off to run head under tap in preparation for melodramatic final scene.”

Oh, and the women’s costumes were rather beautiful, it has to be said. I really, really want a bodice and bustle now – I think it would look rather fine in the office.

A Little Link

Another Guardian blog post. Go. Look. Read. Debate away.

Something To See Here

Hurrah! Finally, I have been to the theatre. To the Menier Chocolate Factory in fact to see Take Flight, a new musical, by John Weidman, David Shire and Richard Maltby Jr, that interweaves the stories of the early pioneers of flying: the Wright Brothers, Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart

The Menier is at its best with musicals, and while this show is far from perfect, it’s vastly more interesting and engaging than their last offering, the lumpy and unfunny All Mouth. Take Flight is about individuals who strive to do the impossible. It looks at what drives people to want to take to the air in an era where, more often than not, they would lose their lives in the attempt (or as the show’s narrator of sorts, the inventor Otto Lillienthal amusingly puts it: go ‘pfft’). Are these people visionaries, or, well, just a bit odd?

The answer appears to be a bit of both. Lindbergh is depicted as so cripplingly shy that flying solo is his only pleasure and the Wright Brothers exist in their own little nerdy world (“don’t have houses, don’t have wives, don’t have prospects, don’t have lives.”). Earhart is an independent spirit, who needs to constantly challenge herself in order to feel alive. She views the idea of settling down with her publisher husband, George Putnam with something akin to dread.

By necessity this is a musical of ideas, rather than visual spectacle. The flying scenes are simulated by the actors sitting on stepladders and jiggling about a bit (and though there’ll be a model plane going spare soon, once The Drowsy Chaperone closes, I doubt they could fit it in the Menier, so stepladders will have to suffice).

With a couple of exceptions the songs are rather samey – there’s little here that will be adding itself to your internal iPod – but the show’s sub-Sondheim style has its moments of wit and inspiration. Sally Anne Triplett’s Earhart is supposed to provide the emotional core of the piece but I was more taken with Michael Jibson’s pallid, introverted Lindberg, unfortunately his character is given little room for development.

Though flawed there is something genuinely uplifting about Take Flight if you’ll excuse the pun, it’s a celebration of what people can achieve, it’s about progress and hope, rather than the fear and apprehension about the future that seems so globally pervasive at the moment.

And, excitement of excitements, (well perhaps that’s overstating it, but still, anyway, good thing) the Menier has finally invested in an air conditioning unit! This will surely gladden anyone who sweated through The Last Five Years there last summer.

Nothing To See Here

This should be a post about Lady Be Good at the Open Air Theatre, but it is not one. Nor will there be one – at least not anytime soon. Because the weather gods did not respect my need to watch an array of pretty people merrily Charleston-ing across the stage in flapper dresses to the sweet sounds of the Gershwins. Instead they brought rain. Lots of rain. Plus a bit more rain for luck. Or rather not. And I was forced, forced, to head back to my flat and watch The Wire. Which, while damn good telly, is not quite the same, I think you’ll agree.

Making A Meal Of Things

One of the delights of the Whingers' site is that they share what I always assumed was a rather singular obsession with onstage eating.

In order to ascertain whether there are other strange souls who worry about such things, I have blogged about this most pressing of issues on the Guardian’s arts and entertainment blog.

In other news, the sky is looking rather grey and aggressive. I suspect my excursion to the Open Air Theatre tonight might prove quite soggy.

A Musical Interlude

Still Not At The Theatre. But I have been At The Barbican.

Sometimes when I go to the theatre I feel rather over-burdened with information – I’ve read the previews, heard the word of mouth whispers – I rarely, if ever, go and see a production without having some grasp of what it is I’m going to get, but since my knowledge of classical music is almost laughably poor, when I go to a concert I am freed of any sense of expectation. It is rather liberating and exactly what I wanted, as I had been feeling rather poked and prodded by life this week and simply wanted to sit in the dark for a couple of hours and let pleasant sounds float over me.

The concert was part of the Barb’s Mostly Mozart season and featured the Bach Brandenburg Concerto No 6, the Mozart Violin Concerto No 5 and Piazzolla’s Four Seasons. And, well, I don’t really have the vocabulary to do it justice, but I enjoyed it hugely. I went in feeling all tense and tired and tightly knotted and came away feeling less so.

Ooh and, as I type, the rather biblical deluge outside my window has abated and a tiny sliver of sunlight is just about discernable, which is a good thing indeed as I am due to visit the Open Air Theatre at Regent’s Park on Monday and was starting to fear that it would be the Under Water Theatre if this continued.

To Show Off No More

Hmm, I appear to be Not At The Theatre again. A state I fear will continue until some time next week as, after the blip of Bath, work has returned to its usual state of workiness and also I have relatives visiting from abroad so am using my evenings for a bit of familial catch up.

But none of that is very interesting. So, um *twiddles with jewellery, cleans bit of fluff from keyboard* ooh, I see that The Drowsy Chaperone is to close on August 4, after a run of only a few months. I am rather surprised by this. I did not love this by any measure, but I certainly did not hate it anywhere near as much as some. I thought it was a sweet, frothy piece of theatre – a one joke show for sure, but a joke that kept me reasonably entertained for its running time, which is more than I can say for other things I’ve seen this year. And in Bob Martin’s performance there was a genuine nugget of pathos and humanity at its centre. True, I didn’t think it was destined to last long in London but I find the swiftness with which it is disappearing really unexpected.

For Shaw, For Shaw

Apologies for the brief break in blogging, but I have been away for a few days. Work has been very work-y of late, so my flat mate and I decided to abandon London for a couple of days, to embark on a weekend of ambling, pootling, mooching and imbibing. In Bath, city of spas and crescents and, um, pretty little cobbley bits with pubs in. And, of course, theatre. Because there’s always time for theatre, especially given the fact that the annual Peter Hall season has just kicked off for the summer at the Bath Theatre Royal. So we booked tickets for Pygmalion on the Friday night. Yes, more Shaw. But having had my expectations welcomely upended by Saint Joan earlier in the week, I was eagerly anticipating this one.

After Marianne Elliott’s intelligent, pared down production at the National, this was as traditional a staging as it gets, with big, elaborate, leather arm-chair peppered sets and scene changes so lengthy that the red velvet curtains were forced to descend between acts.

The contrast was a welcome one; though stylistically as different as it gets, the plays made for a fascinating pairing and both productions excelled at drawing out Shaw’s considerable capacity for comedy. This was especially the case with Pygmalion. Hall’s rather reverential direction was helped along immensely by Michelle Dockery's spot-on performance as Eliza Doolittle. She nailed Eliza’s vowel-mangling cockney howl and also conveys the pathos of her transformation, torn from the world she knows and understands, but never able to be fully be at home in this new land of jewels and garden parties and making small-talk about the weather.

Tim Piggot-Smith was also excellent as Henry Higgins, with his baggy cardigan, slippers, and complete lack of desire to trouble himself with normal social niceties. The affection that grows between him and his protégé is subtle but genuine, though the production leaves you in no doubt as to the callousness of his behaviour towards her. The ending is abrupt, ambiguous, and emotionally raw. In the climactic scenes between Higgins and Eliza you ache for him to just bend a little, to do something, anything to make her stay. You know it would only take the smallest of gestures, but he is unable to give even that much and both he and the audience are left quietly bereft, realising he has most likely lost her for good.

Maids and Marshmallows (or not, actually)

I must admit I was apprehensive going in. The National’s website stated a provisional running time of three hours and five minutes, and due to a minor brain hiccup while booking tickets I’d managed to land myself in the second row from the back of the Olivier circle.

There to see Marianne Elliott’s production of George Bernard Shaw’s Saint Joan, I was anticipating a long fidgety evening squinting at the tops of people’s heads. But while my precarious perch did necessitate a degree of squinting, my somewhat negative expectations were pleasantly overturned and, despite the lengthy running time, I was completely engrossed.

Last time I saw Anne-Marie Duff, in the tedious The Soldier’s Fortune at the Young Vic, I was pretty underwhelmed; she looked lost and ill at ease in what was a messy and dull production. But here she was captivating and commanding, so full of passion and energy you quite understood why these soldiers would follow a young girl into battle. Elliott’s spare staging was also striking, drawing out both the humour and the drama of Shaw’s play.

The evening did have a few shaky moments. The opening sequence, which consisted of some slow motion fiddling with chairs to a soundtrack of what sounded like Enya played backwards, had me worried, I’ll admit (and absolutely certain that those chairs would be called into play for the climactic burning sequence, as indeed they were). A stylised battle scene, with a lot of percussive banging and stamping, also resembled something that would not have looked out of place in Stomp.

But most of these wibbles were quickly remedied by the confident staging and strong performances, including an appearance from the wonderful Paterson Joseph (the super-cool Johnson in Peep Show and the man who single-handedly saved Trevor Nunn’s irritating production of The Royal Hunt Of The Sun from its 1970s-style theatrical excesses)

On the interval I caught up with Andrew and Phil, the West End Whingers. They had also been fretting about the three hours plus running time, and were, like me, won over by the production. Indeed, we were so short of things to moan about over our interval drinks, we had to resort to whinging about the Royal Festival Hall refit. They even remembered that I was a gin girl, which perked me up further.

After the interval, and an incredibly tense and gripping trial sequence, the chairs did make a return for the burning, and though the National's smoke machine got a good work out, no actual actresses were harmed. A good thing for Anne Marie Duff, but a let down for the Whingers who were hoping to toast a few marshamllows.

Barbers and Baritones

Umbrella-less, I dashed through the rain last night over to the Royal Festival Hall. A ticket had tumbled into my lap for the production of Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd, starring Bryn Terfel (who I gather is Big in Opera) as the Demon Barber. I’ve not been inside the RFH since they reopened the place after its lengthy refurbishment and I was surprised to see bits of scaffolding and carts of builders’ bits-and-pieces still tucked into corners. There was also a horrendous queue for the bar so I had to content myself with a coffee. I then took said coffee over to the window and watched the rain lash the Thames for a while as I waited for the show to start.

Given that this was billed as a concert production – a “semi-staging” – it was far more elaborate than I was expecting, with the performers all in costume (including the choir from the Guildford School of Acting Conservatoire, whose attire suggested that Victorian London was more heavily populated with Goths then I’d ever realised) and quite a few props. The musicians had been swept into one corner of the stage, allowing the action to play out in the remaining space. Terfel, who had played the role before in Chicago, was superb – a booming, damaged, dangerous man. And Maria Friedman was a delight as Mrs Lovett the pie-shop owner, bawdy and brash in her vile lace leggings. The blend of opera voices and those more suited to musical theatre worked surprisingly well.

I’m a bit of a Sondheim novice but I was gripped from start to finish, and I loved the way the absence of set allowed the story and the singing to speak for themselves, the way it left them nothing to hide behind. My friend Simon who knows far more about such things was muttering about amplification and acoustics, but I was too swept up in things to care about such subtleties.

A programme footnote proudly proclaims that the pies that appear in this production - and are eaten by a number of the actors during the performance - have been provided by the new branch of Canteen that’s just opened under the Royal Festival Hall. Given that the pies, at times, are said to contain fingernails, pussy-cats and actual bits of people, I’m not entirely convinced by the intelligence of this marketing strategy.

All That Glisters...

The sky did not look happy. It really didn’t. It frowned and fretted and let fall the odd, experimental droplet of rain. Enough, certainly, to have the groundlings in the yard at the Globe exchanging worried glances and unfurling those plastic cape-y things that look like bin liners with armholes cut into them. And then, just as it seemed as if the heavens would open, the sky brightened again. Which was a good thing indeed, as the Globe’s production of The Merchant of Venice is one that could use a bit of luck.

The press night had already been pushed forward due to the unexpected departure of Michelle Duncan, who was to play Portia. And then, on the night before I went, the actor who plays Gratiano had to be replaced by an understudy at the interval because of an attack of gastric trouble. Fortunately there were no further mishaps when I went along and even the weather eventually began to play ball, allowing us to concentrate on what is an intriguing if slightly unsatisfying production of what is often termed one of Shakespeare's 'problem' plays (there’s a nice piece in the programme on this unhelpful label).

The most notable thing about Rebecca Gatward's production is the way it concentrates on bringing out the play's humour. Merchant is not one I’d ever thought of as a comedy but in her hands it is very entertaining with some proper laughs. This is only achieved however by a downplaying of the Shylock plot, with John McEnry giving a solid but rather low-key performance in the role. It’s an approach that has caused quite a split in the reviews, with many, including Lyn Gardner, labelling the production a cop out for taking this creative tack. Though I enjoyed it, I think, on reflection, I agree; it was slick and nice to look at (I particularly liked the Rialto bridge they’d erected in the yard) but it felt as if the meat of the play was missing, it had a hollow at its heart.

I had dragged French Claire along for the evening, as not only is she good company, but she studied on the Text and Playhouse MA course at King’s College London which is run in conjunction with the Globe, and is therefore full of useful information on all things Shakespearian – but did she know where the bar was? No (or should that be non), she did not. We almost ended up in a queue for the soup stand, for God’s sake, which would never do.

The Globe is of course unlike other theatres, it is open to the elements for one thing and, given what had happened earlier in the day, it’s not surprising that the actors were occasionally drowned out by the sound of helicopters overhead. This was however less of a distraction than the tiny, howling baby someone had with them in the yard. Now for the most part I’m all for exposing kids to the arts at a young age. I think the odd bit of giggling and seat-back kicking is worth enduring it if they end up being engaged with and excited by what they’re seeing, and hate it when people get all sniffy and British about children in theatres, galleries and restaurants and so forth. But from the raw, animal sound this kid was making, it was clearly barely out of the womb and therefore, I’m thinking, not really capable of appreciating a nuanced line reading.

With A Song In My Hart

After the bitter wallow of The Pain and The Itch I felt in need of something a little lighter, something altogether more lacking in marital discord and genital scabs for my next theatrical outing. This something turned out to be From The Hart at the New End Theatre, an anthology show that celebrates the life and work of lyricist Lorenz Hart.

The show itself is a simple thing, a breezy run-through of 32 classic Rodgers and Hart songs performed by an engaging five-man cast. It managed to provide some interesting nuggets about Hart's life, whilst acting as a superb showcase of the man's astute and intelligent lyrics.

Hart was barely five-feet tall and gay, and the show suggests that he held a life-long unrequited passion for his very heterosexual creative partner Richard Rodgers. He was also very conscious of his perceived unattractiveness, saying: "If I wanted perfection I had to look outside myself. If I wanted love, I had to invent it." He descended into alcoholism that would eventually contribute to his death from pneumonia at the age of 48. But despite the almost text-book tragedy of his life, the show does not wallow in pathos, far from it; instead it keeps exposition to a minimum and allows the songs to do the talking. And since these songs include Have You Met Miss Jones, The Lady Is A Tramp, Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered, My Romance and Blue Moon (which Hart apparently hated for being far too lyrically twee and obvious) it's not like you need anything else.

John Guerrasio plays Hart with a cigar in hand, trousers hitched high and a thick New York drawl. His performance holds the show together and gives the songs a necessary framework, however this is an ensemble piece and everyone involved pulls their weight in what is a slight but sweet evening's entertainment.

On an unrelated note, the New End Theatre was apparently originally built as a mortuary, a fact that rather delighted me when I found out, possibly more so than is normal.