December 2007 Archives

At a huge risk to my hard-earned theatre-going credibility (having been to both the Almeida and the Hampstead in the past month), I went and saw - wait for it - The Phantom of the Opera last night as a Christmas present to my other half who'd never seen it.

Now, it's extremely easy to make fun of Andrew Lloyd Webber (and indeed some of the songs were the melodic equivalent of waterboarding), but I kept being reminded of something else:  that very brief scene in Amadeus when we get our single glance of an opera by Salieri.  In comparison to Mozart (whose music is angelic clarity itself), Salieri's opera is fusty, over-crowded, and furiously ornate to fruitlessly try and disguise its own mediocrity.  I draw no direct comparison twixt Webber and Salieri, but watch the scene in Amadeus and then watch the "Maskerade" sequence in Phantom.  See?

Finished reading the 947-page Sacred Games by Vikram Chandra.  Worth the journey.  Indian gangsters, nuclear bombs, and terrific character writing.  Next up, a reread of Michael Chabon's debut The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, first read by me twenty years ago as a goggle-eyed teen.  Interesting to see how it reads now.

I am certain the British have suffered thus for years:  Listening to Gwyneth Paltrow rhyming "basin" with "buffalo", finding out that Bridget Jones speaks like the Countess of Wessex, Groundskeeper Willie...

But it turns out to work both ways.  I went to see John Patrick Shanley's Doubt at the Tricycle Theatre last night, where four Irish and English actors battled their way through various American accents.  It's not that the accents were particularly off (none of them committed that cardinal English-into-American sin of pronouncing the state as "Minnasoder"; there are 300 million Americans, none of them say this).  It's that the actors were clearly so focussed on getting the accents right, they blew nearly everything else:  pacing, tone, emphasis, musicality.  Words were dropped, forgetten, fluffed, lines were stepped on, all because the actor's brains were too busy trying to get their jaws stretched right.

Shanley is a musical playwright (he wrote the delightfully overwrought Moonstruck), and if the actors are pausing after every fifth word to concentrate on the accent, it ain't working.  Nor did it work in the Menier's recent Take Flight, nor did it work at all with the mother character in the Lyric's recent Angels in America, where the poor actress struggled so badly she managed to kill every joke she had.

Doubt was set in a New York catholic school in 1964, with the main characters being Sister Aloysius and Father Flynn.  Surely it wouldn't have been out of the question to make them both Irish and have the two actors use their natural accents?  Only Nikki Amuka-Bird, in one very good scene as a surprisingly argumentative mother, really flourished and was able to commit.  And maybe it all worked for non-Americans in the audience; we certainly don't complain when Americans do English. 

Maybe it's revenge.  Therefore, on behalf of all ex-pat Americans, I hereby apologise for Don Cheadle's cockney in Ocean's 11.  And all the international damage caused in the name of Dick van Dyke.  And from now on, only Meryl Streep and the guy who plays Spike in Buffy will be allowed to do accents.  Will that help?

Went to the Stephen Fry-penned panto Cinderella at the Old Vic last night.  Probably better for literate bright young things rather than small children, but extremely funny and very enjoyable nonetheless.  Eloquently rude, as you might expect (watch out for the jokes about "inanition" and "your urgent and persistent cock") and all tremendous good fun.

Sandi Toksvig is especially good ad-libbing as the narrator.  On our night, the two young volunteers for the "baking" segment turned out to be called Daisy and Lily, who ruined a joke about Fortnum & Mason by enthusiastically saying they shopped there.  Toksvig spun it into gold anyway and still managed to include the girls in the fun.  No small skill, that.

Fry misses one opportunity for a good joke, though.  Near the end (and I'm giving nothing away) the prince proposes to Cinderella with a ravishing "Will you marry me?", which is then echoed by Dandini proposing to Buttons (in apparently a mainstream panto gay first), who also ravishingly says "Will you marry me?"  Wouldn't it be funnier for Dandini to ravishingly say, "Will you join me in a legally binding civil partnership ceremony?"  Trust me, it may not work on paper, but onstage, it'd be a bigger laugh. 

If you can at all, you must see Women of Troy at the National. 

I've seen about three dozen plays this year and this is far and away the most affecting, the most powerful, and the most gripping of them all.  I'm not making this up.

There have been a few bizarrely negative reactions in the press, mainly from people moaning about the director (Katie Mitchell) making some extreme cuts in the original text.  Ignore them.  I'll admit it's not to everyone's taste, but isn't that the sort of theatre you'd rather gamble on? 

The play is boiled down to 75 minutes and the effect is staggering.  Believe the review in the Independent.  It's a hell of a night.  You'll feel battled and bruised and wrenched clean, but it's worth it.

Why are you still reading this?  Book a ticket, already!

Saw Crowded House at Wembley Arena last night.  A sold out show for which I had tenth row tickets (I got an early buy as a lifetime member of the Split Enz/Crowded House fan club).  Brilliant, just amazing, as ever.  Fifth time I've seen some incarnation of CH, Neil Finn or the Finn Brothers.  It started off a bit slow with everyone sitting, but about 45 minutes in, they played Don't Dream It's Over and it was standing the rest of the way.

They played all their best songs, including Fall At Your Feet and Distant Sun.  They did that Hunters & Collectors song, a version of She Goes On, and even Black & White Boy.  Lots of singalongs, including the climactic Better Be Home Soon.  Nothing like singing along with 10,000 other people.  The encores went on for over an hour.  Bliss for lovers of great pop music, of which I am most certainly one.

Cultural week:  Seeing the controversial Women of Troy at the National tomorrow and then the Stephen Fry-written panto at the Old Vic on Thursday.  Just finished reading the new Peter Carey, His Illegal Self, brilliant and challenging and surprising as ever, and I'm now about 100 pages into Vikram Chandra's 947-page Sacred Games and enjoying it very much so far.

So I ran a leg of a marathon relay on Sunday in Luton, that green, leafy, breadbasket of England.  My leg was 8.9 miles, which I ran in 72 minutes, so not bad.  It was sopping wet and muddy, but my relay team came 69th out of 170 teams.  Again, not bad.  My running club's A team came 4th overall.  I was running on the E team, so you get the idea...

Saw Statement of Regret at the National last night.  A tiny bit overburdened with themes, but otherwise really good.  Seeing Women of Troy next week, despite being severely warned off.  I'll let you know.

And finally, another alphabetical iPod ep, this time the five songs beginning with "And":  And I Was A Boy From School by Hot Chip (extremely wistful and beautiful dance track), And No More Shall We Part by Nick Cave (every EP should have a little Nick Cave on it), And She Was by the Talking Heads (about levitation; I always thought it'd work great with a video by the Muppets), And You Tell Me by a-ha (not a joke band anymore; if you think so, you're out of the loop), and And Your Bird Can Sing by The Beatles (which seems to have got on there by accident, but there you go). 

A review of mine in today's Guardian about two excellent novellas/short novels/whatever, though in the editing process, there's a stylistic mistake that doesn't belong to me:  In successive sentences are the phrases "life itself" and "light itself".  Not what I wrote (I wouldn't dream of the duplication), but that sometimes happens so I can live with it.  The books are good, though, seek them out.

Saw a Scottsh Gaelic band last night at the invitation of a friend.  Capercaillie, who it seems are hugely popular, so the shame is on me for not having heard of them.  One of their opening acts was Lau, who I must say were absolutely sensational.  All good stuff, even the lone dancing man in the front row.  In Cadogan Hall, that sort of thing stands out.

For those interested in my reading, I've just finished Hari Kunzru's Transmission and am starting on a proof of the new Peter Carey, His Illegal Self, which I've been saving up.

Tomorrow up at the crack of dawn to run a leg in the Luton Marathon relay.  Weather forecast is pouring rain and strong gusts of wind.  Think of me as you drink your horlicks.