A Christmas Treat December 31, 2008
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Reviews , 2 commentsTo my ten year old eyes, I, Claudius brought ancient Rome to seedy, violent, enthralling life, and imprinted Derek Jacobi in my mind as the stammering, limping Claudius. Since then, I’ve occasionally seen him on TV, but never on the stage.
So to see him in the Michael Grandage’s production of Twelfth Night for the Donmar, as the pompous, tricked and finally rather sad Malvolio was a special Boxing Day treat. After a year of histories, tragedy, and challenging comedy, it is fun to watch a Shakespeare that is just a happy romp.
This is, to quote the West End Whingers, the gender bending one with yellow socks. If you’re not familiar with the plot, the Wikipedia entry describes it well.
Jacobi’s performance is classic physical clowning. As he reads the letter from his boss, the beautiful Olivia, telling him how she fancies him, and wants him to behave, his preening and facepulling had the audience in fits.
Indira Varma as Olivia is a joy to watch as she moved from stern, correct mourner to schoolgirl crush to enthusiastic seducer of Sebastian (who couldn’t believe his luck) though she must be a bit shortsighted to take the voluptuous Victoria Hamilton’s Viola for any sort of boy.
Seat B26 in the dress circle gave an excellent view, although not much legroom. Twelfth Night plays at Wyndham’s Theatre until 7 March 2009.
How to make sure retailers have bad sales this weekend December 19, 2008
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Miscellany , add a commentThe headline in the Evening Post, splashed all over London tonight - 75% sales begin on Christmas Eve.
Well, that’s it then. No point in nearly last minute shopping tomorrow, better wait until the very last second on Wednesday.
Gethsemane, by David Hare December 13, 2008
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Reviews , add a commentThis had rave reviews, but I must have missed something. I really did not get this play.
Set in a similar world to Westminster in the middle years of the Blair government, this has three or four interesting stories bubbling away. There is the embattled, career driven female Home Secretary, determined to stand by her criminal husband and not become another victim of political battles. There is the aging rock manager now dedicating to fund-raising for the Labour party, nothing to do with Lord Levy of course. The Home Secretary’s stroppy teenage daughter is having a bit of a crisis, involving dope and a friendly gang-bang, while the faithful friend is having a mid-life crisis. Any of these could provide a good story, but instead we get bits of all of them, but no whole.
After a couple of hours, the play finally builds up to some sort of denouement, the Home Secretary telling the Prime Minister he’ll have to sack her, and she won’t go quietly which looks like it could be building up to something, but then we disappear off to Sicily for a girly chat between the daughter and the loyal friend before the end.
Maybe its just supposed to be a slice of life, with a few dated political references thrown in for laughs. The blurb says that all the characters pass through Gethsemane, which the teenager helpfully tells us means having doubts and then getting on with it, but if so, its certainly obscure.
Tamsin Grieg (Debbie from t’Archers, though far more distinguished than that implies) is very good, but doesn’t have a lot to work with. It was nice to see Gugu Mbatha-Raw live, after Bonekickers and Dr Who on the telly. This is the third time I’ve seen her cast as an eager assistant, and she’s clearly capable of more.
Gethsemane plays at the Cottesloe until 24 Feb, and is apparently a sellout. £10 for a side seat in the upper circle was just about money well spent. V18 had a restricted view, but not enough to cause a problem.
Dissolution, by C J Sansom December 10, 2008
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Reviews , 2 commentsTake a monastery about to be dissolved, the abbots and locals manouveuring to get best position, satanic rites and, just possibly, a little romance. Add a murder or three, and an intrepid investigator sent up from London by Thomas Cromwell, and you’ve a good recipe for a rainy Sunday read.
I suspect this is the start of a series. The formula would bear repeating.
Not Very Brave
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Environment,Politics , 1 comment so farIf I’d been born 100 years ago, would I have been a suffragette? Not if I’d been born in NZ, of course – women there had been voting for ten years by 1908. Even if I’d been in the UK, would I have been brave enough to be arrested? I don’t know. I’d like to think so, but somehow I doubt it.
I admire and am very grateful to those women who opened so many doors for us. They had the courage of their convictions, they stood up for themselves and their more nervous sisters, and the world is a better place for their action.
Reading reports of Plane Stupid’s activities at Stansted this week, bringing the airport to a halt to make an important point in a strong but non-violent way, I am equally full of gratitude and admiration. If we’re going to do anything about global warming it will be because of people like this, prepared to go to the edge, push harder than the rest of us at home with our nice low-wattage light bulbs. People protesting at the edge open up space for the rest of us, creating the sense of public urgency so lacking in the global warming debate.
I am quite scared of being arrested. Cowards like me could at least send them a donation – they’ll be needing help with the legal fees.
Why I left the Royal Bank of Scotland December 9, 2008
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Miscellany , add a commentI run a small business, and when I set it up I banked with the Royal Bank of Scotland. I’ve never been happy with that so, a few months ago, I switched to the Co-operative Bank. Today I went to close down my accounts with RBS.
It’s an irritating story, not worth getting het up about, but it epitomises so much that’s wrong with them.
Today in the mail, I get a letter from my ‘Business Manager’ saying that he’s always there to help. I’ve never spoken to him, but it reminds me that I need to close the accounts down.
I ring his number.
I wait. He’s on leave until 12 Jan. Who sends out a marketing pack and then goes on holiday?
I ring the telephone banking number.
I wait. After a struggle, I manage to remember the appropriate passwords and passnumbers. I get through to someone who will close my current account. I have to explain why, and he has to offer me lower fees or something to persuade me to stay. Too late for that, so he has to send a message to the branch to tell them this.
I wait. He can’t close the credit card, so transfers me to someone who can.
I wait. I get through to the personal credit card division. They put me through to the commercial card division.
I wait. A chap takes my card number and, when I tell him I want to close the account, puts me through to the account closure team.
I wait. Shaun answers, and actually has my details in front of him. He wants to know why I’m closing the account. I tell him what I’ve already told the first bloke, embellished slightly for the extra wait and inefficiency. He offers me a free card and some extra benefits. I tell him that would have been interesting a few months ago but not now. He closes the account. He can only refund the very small credit balance to my RBS account, which is now closed, so will have to send a cheque. He can’t transfer it to my new account.
He asks if he can do anything else to help me today. I say no thankyou politely, and goodbye.
I doubt RBS are unusually inefficient or irritating. If they are ever really going to make a profit for the taxpayer, they surely need to have a look at their processes, and their customer service. I should be able to do everything with one person, not four or five. There should be a low cost, internet-based option for small businesses (without these ‘business managers’).
That’s what I’ve got at the Co-operative Bank. Good service, good ethical stance, no mucking about with wierd and wonderful financial derivative fantasies, and the profits go to their members (that’s me). It’s beyond me why anyone is still banking with RBS and their ilk.
Sian Hutchinson December 8, 2008
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Reviews , add a commentIt turns out that the actor on Saturday night was the author herself, Sian Hutchinson. Definitely one to keep an eye on as both a writer and performer.
Disgusted of Somers Town
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Politics , add a commentCan a liberal, Guardian reading resident of inner North London be tempted to the ‘Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells’ reaction to the papers? It seems my neighbour Philobiblion can, and if its good enough for her, then its good enough for me!
This morning’s Guardian got me into a right (or indeed left) old spleenish state.
Ed Milliband says that “popular mobilisation” is needed to combat climate change. That’s the Ed Milliband who is a member of the government that sent a huge police army in to quash the Climate Camp at Kingsnorth over the summer, confiscating such dangerous items as board games, which makes it almost impossible to protest anywhere near parliament. And what does he think events like Live Earth are anyway. Take some responsibility, Mr Milliband. Stop pontificating and get on with it. And that goes for your boss, Gordon Brown as well. What is the world coming to?
And as for that pack of freeloaders, the Church of England, ruining honest, hardworking, tax-paying folk to subsidise their pretty churches with an archaic Chancel Tax. Left over from feudal times, ordinary people can be forced to pay church repair bills. How about getting the people who actually want to attend church to pay for it? Small problem there, of course. Disestablishment is long overdue.
Finally (and we’ve not gone beyond page 3, but I only have so much spleen), who do you think makes surgical instruments? If I’d ever thought about it, I’d have guessed some sort of high-tech manufacturer, probably in Germany. Like good kitchen knives. But no, it turns out they’re made by little kids in Pakistan, and the supply chain is so long and convoluted, the NHS didn’t even realise. And now they do, they’re still not obliged to do anything about it. How much money gets lost in over-complex procurement and supply, and what does it take to get a government organisation like the NHS to behave decently? We should be told.
The wierdly innumerate illustration on page 10 got me going as well but isn’t on their website.
Extremes of theatre December 7, 2008
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Camden,Reviews , 2 commentsIt’s been a weekend of theatrical extremes. On Friday, the bright lights and splendour of a beautiful West End theatre, and one of the greatest English plays performed by a world class company. On Saturday, a tiny theatre above a pub in Camden, with an audience of fewer than 20, most of them the author’s flatmates and neighbours.
The performance was a double bill, two short monologues written by Sian Hutchinson, and performed by a very talented (and rather beautiful) but un-named actress.
Have you ever gone back to the house of your childhood, long after others have moved in? I did that about 10 years after my family left it, when it was up for sale. Seeing it again, smaller, modernised and with half the garden converted into carpark was a disturbing, and profoundly strange experience. In Moving On, the character does exactly that, with the added poignancy of an absent father she has yet to contact. It’s a beautifully written piece, easy to relate to, touchingly performed.
The second piece, Clutching at Straws, is a comedy. An American exchange student looks at the mating habits of British women, in a series of cameos showing up our inability to tell blokes to leave and then stick to that (don’t American women have that problem too?), being the gooseberry when your housemate finds a man, and switching effortlessly from accent to accent, all the time dressed in a remarkable pair of pink lace hotpants.
Sadly, tonight is the final of the short run, but I’ll be watching out for any more of Ms Hutchinson’s work, and must keep an eye on what’s coming up at the Etcetera Theatre.
I’m not obsessed, honest guv December 6, 2008
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Reviews , 1 comment so farBy chance, I got a cheap ticket for Hamlet (yes, the RSC production, starring David Tennant) last night so, after an exhausting week at work, raced back into London for a night at the theatre. As an unexpected treat, it was a good evening, but somehow I’m left feeling a little ho-hum.
David Tennant in Hamlet
Maybe it was the audience, coughing away. At this time of the year, theatres should hand everyone cough sweets and tell them to use them, or give them to a neighbour who needs them. And theatre-goers with coughs should take their own.
Maybe it was the cheap seat (B3 on the Grand Circle), where the bottom corner of the stage was invisible, and I forgot my glasses so got a headache from trying to focus on faces. You gets what you pays for, and I paid a tenner to see one of the top shows in London, supposedly sold out for weeks with tickets trading for £400+ on the ripoff sites like getmein.com (no, I’m not linking to it).
Maybe it was the change of theatre. The Courtyard in Stratford has about the same number of seats as the Novello, but the thrust stage, and lower circle and balcony make it a far more intimate experience. The players enter through the audience, and interact with them in a way that’s not possible in the grand proscenium arch of the (truly magnificent) Novello. It’s such a pity the RSC didn’t go back to the Roundhouse, where they showed the Histories.
Maybe it was just me being tired and irritable.
Patrick Stewart was remarkable. This staging seems to suit him somehow. As he struggles to pray ‘My words fly up, my thoughts remain below’ you could have heard a pin drop (if it wasn’t for the coughing).
David Tennant is still wonderful, but the mad quirkiness and humour, which balanced and intensified the tragedy in Stratford last night seemed a little off. There were definitely moments when I found myself wishing he’d just calm down. At first, it seemed the intensity was lacking. In September, he delivered his first soliloquy a couple of meters from me, his whole body and face wracked in anguish as he crouched in a fetal position. In London, he does more of it standing, and, at least from a distance, it is flatter.
After a while, that picked up, and the bedroom scene with Gertrude (Penny Downie) was hugely powerful. He tears verbal strips off her, accusing her of complicity in his father’s murder, and both his performance and hers are gut wrenching.
I’ve got tickets to see this with friends over New Year, so I’m hoping that, in good seats and when I’m not exhausted it will be every bit the fabulous experience it was in Stratford. Hamlet runs at the Novello Theatre until 10 Jan. In theory it’s sold out, but there seem to be tickets reappearing, so check the theatre’s website and don’t pay silly tout prices. Avoid the front row of the Grand Circle if you’re over 5′ 5″, and be aware that there is a restricted view on the cheap seats.
This seems a negative review, but it is only that 5 stars fell to 4. I walked home exhausted but pleased through the back streets of Covent Garden, with the final scene replaying in my head.
The rest is silence.
