Review: Peter Pan at Kensington Gardens

The story finally comes home to the green leafy stage of its inception and you think I wouldn’t go?

Heh. No. Of course, there I was pre-booking about a month ago and clapping my little hands with excitement. I’ve probably got a very real chance of winning some kind of record for Most Renditions Of Peter Pan Seen In One Year.

Anyhow. Enough mindless blathering, and onto the play. A beautiful day in London, warm sunshine and Kensington Gardens itself looking like Eden (admittedly, if this were true, Eden had a whole lot more pushchairs than the Bible let on about…).

The Neverland Pavillion, custom-built, looms on the horizon like the Taj Mahal. They said the play would be performed in a tent. If this is a tent, I’d hate to see their idea of a camper van. This isn’t a tent. It’s a biodome. It’s amazing inside (I recommend Block B for a really good view of the action) and as the play is performed in the round, the back-projection used for the flight scenes and settings reminds me of visiting the IMAX. It is one of the best-realised “flights over London” I’ve ever seen – even gave me a vertignous lurch to my stomach as the children circled Nelson’s Column.

Yes, the “flying” still requires wires, but it’s more Cirque du Soleil than high camp. Full marks to the grunge punk Tinkerbell, too, she was marvellous. And Peter was so excruitatingly arrogant and thoughtless I wanted to hit him, which is a credit to the acting involved.

And Mr Jonathan Hyde, I love you and your stunning Charles II Hook outfit with red-heeled Cordovan boots (which presumably pinch something awful, if George Macdonald Fraser is to be believed). I love your final moments with the stunningly War Horse-esque crocodile (”Why is that Crocodile the only female who’s ever shown the remotest interest in me?! The only one who’s ever really wanted me?”) And I want a bunch of brawny pirates to carry me on and off stage in my hammock, like you.

If you’ve ever loved Neverland, go and see this before it closes. I promise you won’t regret it.

Van Dyck at Tate Britain and wild web work

Headed for the Royal Academy on Friday to deliver my entry for their Summer Exhibition this year, narrowly avoiding a camera crew (ugh) who were hanging around outside 6 Burlington snagging hapless artisic grannies for a pithy quote.

Chore over, swung by Tate Britain for their Van Dyck exhibition. As anyone who knows me will know, I have a real soft spot for that royal Stuart big hai-moustache-and-lace-collar look, so this was a treat for me.  It made me have to go home and watch Restoration.

The thing I love about Van Dyck is that all his people look like real people.  I’m aware that sounds silly: of course they’re real people. Charles I in particular was very real. It’s hard to chop the head off someone insubstantial.

What I mean is, they all have  unmistakeable personality. It’s not just a soulless rendition: if the sitter is bored, they look it: if they were a little nervous, they look it: if they were amused, they defintely look it. It’s a talent I really wish I could emulate…that and his ability with folds in cloth.

However, art may have to wait for a bit, as I’m concentrating on doing a few little updates to my website (it’s embarrassing, working with the web as I do, that I haven’t updated it more often).

Review: Waiting for Godot at Brighton

So yesterday I attempted to get back to my cultured roots and went to see Waiting for Godot in Brighton, where it’s been having a week’s run before heading for no doubt unknown glories in the West End with its stars Sir Ian Mckellan and Patrick Stewart.

It’s always interesting to look at the audience of these sort of productions and wonder “Do they love Beckett and all his works? Or are they here to see Gandalf and Captain Picard giving it their all in tattered trousers and bowler hats?”

I must admit, I am not a devoted lover of all Beckett’s works. I do like this one, though. I’ve never seen it on stage before, but I read it when I was seventeen and was intrigued by it. It’s a Marmite play: you either think it has something terribly worthwhile and profound to say about life and the human condition, or it makes you want to throw tomatoes while singing “What is this pretentious tripe?!”

I err to the profound while appreciating that it is, of course, famously a play where “Nothing happens. Nobody comes. Nobody goes.” and if you’re yearning to find out what Mr Godot looks like you’ll be sadly disappointed.

This particular production, with its two principals flitting and bouncing gleefully off each other like your two craziest uncles in a pub on a Sunday afternoon, was sheer joy. The humour of the piece was overwhelmingly evident – laughter from the audience from the very beginning – throwing into very sharp relief some of Vladimir’s darkest, most despairing moments. Patrick Stewart’s dedicated intensity to proving his worth and existance was matched only by Sir Ian’s lugubrious, stubborn apathy of memory - most of the biggest laughs being garnered through his perfectly executed silences and beat moments.  The only mid-scene applause, however, went to Ronald Pickup for Lucky’s monologue, delivered with terrifying, relentless speed.

Knowing that Beckett’s dedication to stage direction and set design borders on the anal, does not detract from the beauty of the stage lighting, which moved us from twilight to sun to snow-lit chill, nor the fervour of the performances. A truly satisfying afternoon spent. And having walked past Sir Ian and Simon Callow in the street on their way to the Stage Door, doubly satisfying.

A lesson for all of us, I think – we’re all waiting for Godot – the act of waiting giving us something to do while we wait for our lives to start. In the end, all you can really do is just get on with living.

Doll-like genius.

I don’t have a lot to say in this post, except that Sara Lanzillota is a genius.

Look at her gallery and tell me that it isn’t so.

I am an artist, of sorts; I am used to creating things out of nothing using paper, pens and paint. Sara does this too, except she uses fabrics with an almost unearthly skill.

Of course, it’s this particular fella that I wish to praise most. So. Yes. Devout Dolls. Go and have a look and enjoy being in awe.

“Why, thankyou, Harvey. I prefer you, too.”

Those who are possessed of an imaginative or otherwise easily occupied turn of mind…

…watch Harvey, with James Stewart. Or read the play, by Mary Chase.

It has everything you need.

(Im)Mortality and Dorian Grey

I suppose I should just get this out in the open.

The fact is, I love ballet. In the same way I love musicals, the same way I love plays, the same way I love any kind of stage show.

I’m a fiend for spectacle, raw talent mere feet from my own talentless face, something unfolding live in that moment that seems like magic but is amazingly real. Ballet is magic. Doubt me? Take a look at the dancers in Matthew Bourne’s Dorian Grey holding their own bodies straight as blades by their upper body muscles alone. While suspending themselves five foot off the floor on a metal frame. Now take a look at your own arms and do a little compare and contrast. Go on, it’s magic, isn’t it?

I went to see Dorian Grey yesterday and fell in love all over again. It’s not quite ballet, in fact I’m not sure what I’d call it (unless I used the phrase “…through the medium of dance” which is an insult to all producers/directors/choreographers everywhere and should only ever be applied to New Age women in spandex perfoming to a crowd of six at the local village fete).

I think Oscar would have been proud of this. No, it’s not the original story, yes, there is more overt homosexuality, yes, it is modern, but by being modern it doesn’t in any way lose the concept or the relevance of the original story – in fact I think our world demands Dorian Grey, it knows him, it sees him everywhere and tries to make him anew every day out of the young and the clueless. It is indeed “an ugly story about beauty”.

Entire show (and I do mean entire, my apologies Richard Winsor) passionately and comprehensively stolen by the wonderful Aaron Sillis, dancing the doomed photographer Basil Hallward. Such dynamism. Such control. Such acting. Special mention also to Christopher Marney, dancing Cyril Vane, for the “stage-door” costume which had to be a nod to Nureyev, and the sharp, concise portrayal of shallow vanity.

Beautiful pictures of Aaron (he’s the one in black with the camera: all of my close friends will instantly say “Oh, no wonder she liked him”) and the rest of the sterling cast here.

Bloody, bloody, bloody.

I am bloody well going to write this bloody novel if it bloody kills me.

(I wonder if Neil Gaiman ever says things like this?)

El Musical and el wandering without leave in London

So, yesterday, I went. Of course I did: I’m one of those obsessives who wears their colours on their sleeve along with their heart (messy, this: imagine what happens when you get your sleeve in the soup).

Peter Pan El Musical is not what a lot of people, I imagine especially British people, would expect. It’s almost exactly what I expected, however, and I had an amazing time. Never mind that my Spanish is rudimentary; never mind that the place was alive with ill-controlled children; never mind that the reviews had all been less than complimentary. I loved it. It was big and bright and enthusiastic, the singers were engaged and engaging, and the bad guy always gets all the best tunes. (and a note: if ever you find yourself trapped in a concrete bunker with Miguel Ángel Gamero and there is no other way out, the man could probably break down the walls using only his voice. Unbelieveable.) I would have given them more than twenty minutes of curtain calls. I found myself on the train home grinning like a fool and wanting to learn Spanish.

This wasn’t the only thing I occupied my Saturday with. I had also taken a fancy to going to see the Saint Sebastians at Dulwich Picture Gallery (as suggested by my late reading of The Chap, that fine magazine) so I took myself off to do so and have a look at their permanent collection while I was at it. I highly recommend it if you like old masters and have a spare moment or so while wandering in London. They also do free guided tours.

Now. He dicho bastantes sobre capitán Garfio para hoy. Back to creativity.

Fish, Nightwish, Pain and garlic in one day.

I spent an absolutely marvellous day in London yesterday. Funny: I’ve lived close enough to London for years to have done all the touristy bits twice and thrice over, but I never seem to get there.

First time for everything. I started off my day on South Bank – avoiding the usual hordes of tourists who were clustering around the London Eye like ants around a fallen marshmallow – and listening to the sound of steel drum and merry-go-round music. A tip of the hat here to the living statue dressed as a splendid pirate captain, who shook my hand and bowed when I gave him money. Tsk, these pirates. They’ll do anything for money.

I’d taken it into my head to visit the London Aquarium, you see – a somewhat guilty pleasure as I’m sure no-one over the age of twelve is supposed to find these places exciting. Not at all was I motivated by the fact that it was bloody freezing and I like being warm. I really do like aquariums. They have some very large sharks in there, as well as friendly rays you can stroke – ray skin is not soft, as it looks, but rough, like sharkskin.

That done, I wandered off to check into my hotel for the night: as I had a date at the Astoria with some long-haired rockers to keep, and you mustn’t keep them waiting. Called into a little place my gigging partner recommended around the backstreets of the Astoria which is called Garlic & Shots for food. Trust me, it’s all in the name. If you don’t like garlic, don’t even think of going there. Everything is garlic, including the beer, the foamy head of which had lumps of crushed garlic floating in it. Recommended by me: the garlic chocolate truffle and a shot called the Iron Hook (no guesses why I happened to pick that one…)

And so, to the gig. Nightwish are a favourite band of mine, and I think I’m in serious danger of getting to like their warm-up band, Pain, as well. The last time I saw Nightwish live the warm-up band weren’t up to much: kudos this time, guys. My first smoke-free gig (and considering how teeny the Astoria is, good thing – we’d all have run out of air or died of passive smoking, whichever came first) and it was a really, really good one. The crowd warmed up really well, there was no meanness, minimal shoving except during moshing, and I get the distinct impression that if Tuomas ever fell into the audience by mistake during a set his survival chances would only be slightly greater than the chance of him getting out with any clothes on.

Highlights had to be: Pain performing Same Old Song and a version of Eleanor Rigby, Tuomas’ Jack Sparrow doll, Bye Bye Beautiful, Wish I Had An Angel, (noticing a theme – anything that Marco sings in…) some crowd wags holding up alternative lyrics during Wishmaster, and the fact that all the band members seemed to be having as much fun as we were.

Today’s theatre is pirate a la mode.

In the spirit of wanting to indulge in more culture this year, I went right ahead and indulged in the Birmingham Stage Company’s Treasure Island at the Marlowe Theatre yesterday.

I must say, I was quite impressed. The actors were pictures of enthusiasm the whole way through, many of them taking on two or more roles (Ben Gunn doubling up as Mr Arrow and Blind Pew), and the set worked very well – a static build that could become, with some tinkering by the cast themselves, the ship’s deck, a jungle paradise and the Admiral Benbow inn. Not sure the children in the audience were so riveted: one little mite sat near me was terribly bored and said so several times. He might have been a bit young for it – only perked up when the muskets were firing and the cutlasses were drawn. At least I hope he was too young – it’s either that or the Jack Sparrow culture has ruined traditional pirate tales for young ones.

Full points however to the young theatre-goer who came to the show dressed as Captain Hook.

In other news, I’m trying to raise money for Cancer Research this year, the same as I do every year. Sponsor an old villain trying to make good if you’ve a mind to.