Another Reason to Pay My Licence Fee October 28, 2008
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Reviews , 1 comment so farThe BBC should get rid of Russell Brand and Johnathan Ross, and spend more money on programmes such as the wonderful series of maths documentaries they’ve been running on BBC4. That’s right, maths.
If you’re in the UK, pop over to iplayer and pick up ‘The Story of Maths‘ for a 4 episode trip through the history of maths from the Greeks, via the middle east to eighteenth century Europe and beyond. They’re presented by Marcus du Sautoy, who has apparently just been appointed to Richard Dawkins’ Chair for the Public Understanding of Science*, and a very interesting geek he is too.
But it’s not just this series. A couple of weeks ago, we had ‘High Anxieties: The Mathematics of Chaos’, introducing chaos theory and its implications. Its easy to think of science presenting a definite, mechanistic view of the world, but chaos theory suggests that not only are some things unknown, but perhaps unknowable. In a sufficiently complex system such as the weather a very small change in initial conditions can send the system into unpredictable territory where it may be impossible to predict the outcome. Is that what’s happening to the climate? Or to financial markets? James Lovelock thinks the greenhouse effect is already irreversible and we watch the stock market gyrate wildly. Who needs gods and demons when this is around?
*hat-tip to Ben Goldacre on his del.icio.us feed
Loud at the Roundhouse October 19, 2008
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Reviews , 1 comment so farLast time I was in the Roundhouse, it was for the RSCs Histories Cycle, but every now and again I wonder if I’m missing something. Camden is the music centre of London, and I have to confess to never having been to a gig by a major band here. All the famous venues – Roundhouse, Dublin Castle, Koko – are within an easy walk, but somehow I’m more Barbican than Oh! Bar.
I discovered British Sea Power back in March, and have become rather enamoured of their eclectic, eccentric style. They put on a good show. Lots of odd props, including the bits of tree which are a trademark, old sirens and a bloke on a bicycle. Their fascination with coasts and seabirds dominates the videos behind the band. The addition of the London Bulgarian Choir appearing ghost-like in the mist added an ethereal quality.
But does it have to be so loud that their beautiful, lyrical songs disappear into an overamplified bass? What’s the point of losing voices and violin in the other instruments? The Great Skua is a soaring instrumental rolling like a bird in stormy skies but live became a blanket of noise. Maybe I’m just getting old. And maybe I am really more Barbican, and should just stick to cds.
British Sea Power played the Roundhouse on Friday, 17 October and are at the Forum on 29 October.
Shakespeare’s Complete Works, and Hamlet again October 6, 2008
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Miscellany , add a commentA Complete Works is something every home should have, an essential part of the personal library along with a dictionary and undergraduate texts you couldn’t quite bear to sell. Mine has been in storage in Auckland for ten years now, and has probably rotted, so I recently bought the RSC edition. I’ve just sent away for a more up-to-date version, the BBC Shakespeare Collection, including films of all the plays. It’s not easy reading through a script, and watching a fairly faithful production has got to be a better way of preparing to see a play you don’t know well.
Courtesy of the Observer, I watched Zeferrelli’s 1980 production starring Mel Gibson, Glenn Close and Helena Bonham-Carter this evening. It seemed so much less intense than the version I saw recently at the RSC, and while Mel Gibson is better than I’d have expected, he isn’t a patch on David Tennant. Gibson’s Hamlet is far more balanced, less angry and less passionate. Glenn Close’s Gertrude is a treat though, more calculating and ambiguous than Penny Downie’s. It’s also a lot shorter.
To Be or Not To Be? October 5, 2008
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Reviews , add a commentFor once the full, outrageous, West End ticket price might just have been worth paying, not that we did. Rupert Goold’s contemporary adaptation of Pirandello’s classic ‘Six Characters in Search of an Author’ is captivating, intellectually challenging, aesthetically pleasing and long enough to warrant an interval.
As Noma Dumezweni’s Producer tries, and fails, to complete a docu-drama (or is that a drama documentary) about the euthanasia of a teenager, six people appear and demand that she tell their story instead. She is drawn further and further into their tale of incest and death and we spiral down into an intense consideration of the meaning of existence and the way in which theatre, or film, relates to reality. Ian McDiarmad is a creepy aged Father, guilty but continuing his incestuous relationship with his Step Daughter, played by Denise Gough.
The boundaries between reality and fiction unravel as the Producer runs behind the stage of Les Mis next door, before reappearing on the stage. Throughout, the play examines theatre as a more accurate portrayal of reality. The opera of the crucial moment when the Mother discovers the Father and Step Daughter in the act is far more dramatic and powerful than a realistic staging would be, hitting the audience with their trauma.
Hamlet is the play of the moment with even a free DVD of Zeferrelli’s 1980 version in my paper this morning. This production draws parallels with the play within a play and questioning of existence, using ‘Oh what a rogue and peasant slave am I‘ to make the point that there may be more passion in a play than in real life. It tells us that there is something of Hamlet in all of us, but starts to take it a little far when self-indulgently going on about the David Tennant and Jude Law versions crowding the London stage this winter.
In all an excellent production, although it runs on about 20 minutes too far at the end, almost as if they are trying to find their way back out of the thing and losing some of the impact in the process.
Six Characters in Search of An Author plays at the Gielgud until 8 November. There seem to be lots of cheap tickets at the TKT booth, partly perhaps because it is a challenging play rather than the normal, easy West-End musical. We had good view, despite being at the end of the sixth row of the stalls (F3-4)
