stacey kent at st george’s…

I went to see/hear a concert by Stacey Kent at St George’s last night. As you probably already know, she’s a Grammy-nominated, American jazz singer. She travelled to England after graduating to study music at Guildhall School of Music, sang regularly at Café Boheme in London’s Soho in the early 1990s and, within, three years began opening for established acts at Ronnie Scott’s.
Somewhat embarrassingly, I wasn’t really aware of her myself until my great friends Gail and Ian Adams recommended her music to me a couple of months ago. Since then, I’ve been listening to her (a lot!) via Spotify… and it was Gail+Ian who also flagged up that she was booked to play at St George’s as part of a brief UK tour.
So, I duly bought my ticket and chose, as I often do, to sit in the side gallery - with an excellent bird’s eye view - as part of a large audience of devoted and appreciative Kent fans.
Well, it proved to be a wonderful evening.

She performed alongside her 4-piece band of truly excellent musicians (her husband Jim Tomlinson on saxes and flute; Graham Harvey on piano; Jeremy Brown double bass; and Josh Morrison drums). When I grow up, I’d like to play the piano like Graham Harvey please.

The entire evening was superb. Relaxed, utterly professional and very, very enjoyable… you know that feeling when, within the first few bars of the first song, you just KNOW ‘everything’s going to be alright’! Well, that would be a massive understatement.
The five of them were simply sublime.
If you get a chance to see her perform, please take it – I can guarantee you won’t regret it.
PS: In fact, Kent opened the performance with an apology… she’d been struggling with her voice by the end of her Swedish tour, but was determined not to cancel. She explained that she’d therefore selected songs for the evening that she hoped would minimise the strain on her voice… and assured the audience that she would definitely return to St George’s. Well, if this was Kent on a ‘bad night’, I can’t imagine how she could be even better!
Photo: this was the view from my seat.

october 2018 books…

Lucky To Be An Artist (Unity Spencer): This memoir (published in 2015) by Unity Spencer (1930-20170, daughter of painter Stanley Spencer, is a wonderful, poignant, candid account of her memories of her father (and the often chaotic world that surrounded him) and of her own artistic life. It describes a number of struggles with depression and mental illness (her own, her mother’s and, indeed, those of three male friends who all ended up committing suicide at various stages of her life) and, right up to when she was in her forties, tensions with various members of her immediate family. I bought the beautifully-illustrated, hardback book for £2-50 in The Last Bookshop(!). Although Stanley Spencer is one of my favourite artists, somewhat embarrassingly, I knew very little of Unity’s work. In fact, she was a very talented artist in her own right (I love the self-portrait, painted in 1954, which adorns the book’s cover). She and her sister Sherin clearly adored both their father and mother and the books ends with a beautiful, joyful, yet heart-breaking, letter Unity wrote to her father in March 2009 (he died 50 years earlier) giving him “some idea of the things that have happened” in her life.  
Negroland: A Memoir (Margo Jefferson): Jefferson is a black American theatre+book critic, writer and a professor of writing at Columbia University School of the Arts. She was born in 1947 (so we are of similar age) and this rather profound book is a memoir of her life at a time, in the 1950s and 60s in particular, when being black came with a whole host of society’s prejudices and discrimination (and segregation). But, for Jefferson, life was rather different from images we might have of black society in America. The ‘Negroland’ she refers to is not so much a geographic location as a state of mind; an exclusive club without discernible borders, to which few have ever belonged. Over the years, its members have been characterised by descriptions ranging from “the coloured 400” (families) to “the blue vein society”. Jefferson’s fashionable, socialite mother (married to a Chicago paediatrician) described their family as “upper-class Negroes and upper-middle-class Americans”. It’s an absolutely fascinating (and sometimes quite shocking) book, beautifully crafted (she writes wonderfully) and mixing historical background of with that of her own family and her own memories and experiences… and frequently with reference to fashion, music, magazines and ‘accepted manners’. A remark by Jefferson’s mother, perhaps tired of the constant requirement to frame their lives through race, was telling: “Sometimes I almost forget I’m a Negro”.
The Fourth Sacrifice (Peter May): As you may have realised, I rather like Peter May as an author (I loved the ‘Lewis Trilogy’). Thanks to the Last Bookshop, I bought a couple of May’s books from his ‘China Thrillers’ series of books (£5 for the pair). This is book two out of seven (I know, I know). The Chinese police have been forced to enlist the services of an American pathologist (she was apparently in book 1) to work alongside a Chinese detective (he was also in the first book… and it seems that the two of them were ‘quite intimate’!) to investigate a series of four horrific ritual executions. Yes, it IS a thriller and May is an excellent writer… but it’s 500 pages long when, frankly, it should have been cut down to perhaps 300 (so much unnecessary, and rather tedious, ‘romantic padding’… something May isn’t particularly good at writing about in my opinion)(was he on a bonus from the publishers if he reached 500 pages?). Nevertheless, I did enjoy it and will certainly read other books in the series.
Iconic Nature+Travel Designs 1931-85 (Clifford+Rosemary Ellis): I bought this short book after seeing the exhibition at Victoria Art Gallery, Bath. Essentially, Clifford and Rosemary Ellis were pioneering art educators. Clifford (1907-1985) studied Illustration at Regent Street Polytechnic, before taking an Art Teacher’s Diploma. Rosemary (1910-1998) was a student of sculpture and art history at the Polytechnic. They married in 1931 and worked in partnership for the next 50 years designing posters and book jackets… signing their work simply “C&RE”. After moving to Bath in 1936, Rosemary taught art at the Royal High School (when Rosemary started work there, it was called the “Royal School for Daughters of Officers of the Army in Lansdown”… oh, how times have changed!). Clifford ultimately became Head of the Bath School of Art and, after the war, he became Principal of Bath Academy of Art from 1946-72 (and duly supported there by Rosemary). A very good, well-illustrated catalogue to support an excellent exhibition. 
Nothing Is Black (Deirdre Madden): A beautifully told story of three women who find themselves in a remote part of Donegal, Ireland at defining moments in their respective lives. A wealthy and ‘successful’ woman desperately seeking peace of mind; a painter leading a solitary life; and a neighbour longing for reconciliation with her estranged daughter. Lyrical, sparse and hauntingly beautiful.

fahrenheit 11/9…

I went along to the Watershed this morning (yes, this morning... again) to see Michael Moore’s film “Fahrenheit 11/9”. The thing about Michael Moore is that you know what you’re going to get, so the film was a predictably impressive, satirical, anti-establishment analysis of Trump (he compares Hitler to Trump), the Republican Party… AND the Democratic Party (they ALL get condemned in their various ways). It seems that Bernie Saunders is one of the very few politicians who comes out of the film in a positive light. In July 2016, Michael Moore (no fan of Trump!) wrote an essay entitled “5 Reasons Why Trump Will Win” and was duly labelled as a ‘doomsayer’.
The rest, as they say, is history… and, according to Moore, we’re all complicit.
Sadly, it’s all very well us in the UK shaking our heads in despair of decency and democracy in the US but, frighteningly, the same thing is happening on our own doorstep. There’s a very real sense that corporations and big business (not to mention the odd foreign power) are influencing elections and how we think.
It’s quite a long film (just over 2 hours long), but I found it completely compelling and tremendously persuasive… albeit depressing. Perhaps it dwelt a little too long on the water fiasco at Flint, Michigan (where Moore lives), which he for which he lays at the feet of the state’s Republican governor, Rick Snyder (Moore uses the piece to illustrate what he sees as power, corruption and deception). It’s frequently funny, but it also makes you squirm uncomfortably. One of the key matters from Trump’s election that is highlighted in the film is this: Trump voters 63million; Clinton voters 66million; non-voters 100million. Moore acknowledges that Trump has learnt from other big business leaders that you can get away with negligence and cronyism. The film is certainly a warning (to us all!).

If you’d expected Moore to be rousing and encouraging, you’d be disappointed (but he is powerful and convincing). He suggests that the principal hope might be the next generation (he trumpets the work of the teen survivors of the Parkland school shooting, and the aggressive anti-gun protests they’ve led) or, just possibly, if more people are prepared to stand up and fight against what’s happening in America (he reminds us of the general strike that teachers in West Virginia engaged in over the appalling meanness of their pay, and how that action spread to other states). It's a very impressive film and one that's well worth seeing.

There IS dissent happening across America (and across the UK in the ugly shadow of Brexit) and people ARE calling for change. Resistance is not futile, but is it enough? Is it too late already?
PS: The film's title relies on US date notation to refer to November 9, when Trump's 2016 presidential win was announced (the election took place the day prior). The title simultaneously serves as a callback to Moore's 2004 political documentary Fahrenheit 9/11, which refers to the date of the September 11 attacks in the United States. Both of Moore's documentary titles are an allusion to the 1953 dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (taken from Wikipedia).
PPS: The excellent photograph montage is from The Irish Times.

benefit concert for keith tippett…

Last night I went along to a benefit concert at Saint Stephen’s for the hugely-talented, highly-acclaimed jazz pianist and composer, Keith Tippett, born in Southmead, Bristol (he suffered a heart attack, followed by complications from pneumonia, earlier this year). Sadly, there were a disappointing number of people in attendance but the concert, given in two parts by Blazing Flame Six (featuring trumpet, double bass, saxophone, drums and five-string electric violin and vocals) and pianist Stephen Grew, was quite extraordinary.
Grew played for 35 minutes… completely improvised… a truly mesmerising, energetic, compelling performance. I can honestly say that I’ve never heard so many notes played on a piano in such a comparatively short time! Very difficult to convey Grew’s music style, but this YouTube link will give an idea.
For me, the evening had a number of other, rather odd (in a lovely sense!), connections. Firstly, Keith Tippett is the brother of a very good friend of mine, Tom (another fine musician and general good egg!). Secondly, Keith is married to Julie Driscoll – whose “Wheels on Fire” record with Brian Auger and the Trinity is one of those iconic songs from my second year at university in 1968 (just 50 years ago!)(You definitely need to check on this link to see them in action!). I think it was my housemates and me who started a rumour that she was coming to an impromptu gig in Oxford at the time… and lots of people believed us!
Photos: I’m afraid my pics are a bit rubbish, especially those of Stephen Grew (I’m useless at taking photographs in dim light!)… but they give a ‘feel’ of the evening.

dogman…

I went along to the Watershed this afternoon to Matteo Garrone’s film, “Dogman” (I think there were a dozen of us there watching).
On the face of it, this was definitely a film that should never have been on my agenda… I certainly wouldn’t call myself an out-and-out dog-lover and I don’t have a gruesome fascination for films involving theft, hard drugs and extortion. However, very unusually for me, I HAD read Peter Bradshaw’s 5-star review in The Guardian in advance and that’s what convinced me to see it.
The main character, Marcello (very impressively played by Marcello Fonte), is an expert dog groomer living in a depressing, run-down seaside village near Rome. He reminded me, in looks, of a cross between Buster Keaton and footballer Meust Ozil. Life is hard and he ekes out a living (of sorts) by running errands for local thieves and dealing in coke on the quiet… and just about earns enough to pay for the occasional diving trip with his young daughter, the absolute love of his life. Marcello is popular with the locals – albeit that (or maybe because?) he’s no angel!
It’s difficult enough to try to make a living but this is made much, much worse (both for Marcello and other local business owners) by the presence of Marcello’s ‘friend’ Simone (played by Edoardo Pesce) – a hulking brute of man who terrorises local businesses in order to serve his own serious coke ‘needs’. He’s also Marcello’s best customer.

Well, I’m not going to give too much away except to say that there are lots of funny, endearing scenes but also lots of scenes that provide a very tangible sense of brutality and fear.
Although it wasn’t my ideal type of film, I was deeply impressed. It’s brilliantly done (with really excellent cinematography) and brilliantly acted.
I’ll definitely bolt the front door tonight… just in case!
All I’ll say is “Scooby-Do it is not”!

first man…

Went to the Watershed this afternoon to see Damien Chazelle’s “First Man” film, so I could re-live the story of the first manned mission to the moon.
I was a mere 20 year-old in July 1969, but I can distinctly remember just how captivated everyone was by the Apollo 11 moon flight… watching ‘live’ television pictures (admittedly in black+white!) just seemed unreal in the extreme.
You’ll be pleased to know that they made it to the moon and back again (oh, you knew that didn’t you).
Ryan Gosling (of La La Land fame) played Neil Armstrong… quite brilliantly (in a monosyllabic way that apparently echoed Armstrong’s character in real life) and Claire Foy played his wife Janet (another very powerful, sensitive performance).
The film was excellent in the way that it conveyed the almost outrageous, win-at-all-costs mentality of the time… after the Russians had proudly boasted the first man in space and the first space walk. It also gave a very real sense of just how basic the equipment was… they might have had incredible, sophisticated computer technology (for that time) but riding in the metal spacecraft must have felt a lot like Wallace+Grommit’s contraption (from “A Grand Day Out”… and bloomin’ noisy at that!) than the sophisticated craft that we ‘experienced’ in, say, “2001: A Space Odyssey”.
As you might have anticipated, the film also emphasised the high intellect and bravery of all those involved in the mission (and its stark, life-threatening dangers)… but, for the first time, I got a very tangible sense of the programme’s affects on the families (lots of sacrifices – including lives – lots of pride, of course, and but also lots of damaged relationships). It seems that Armstrong was also hugely affected by the death of his daughter Karen (of a brain tumour) in 1962, aged three.
Mirroring our own austere times, the film also touches on the moral justification of spending huge amounts of money on the ‘space race’ when there are so many people suffering poverty in the USA and the rest of the world.
I think the film is brilliantly done (something of an epic). I was very much looking forward to seeing it and wasn’t disappointed. You need to see it (especially if you’re not as old as me).
PS: Some thirty-plus college students had been given ‘reserved’ seats in the cinema for the screening. Admittedly the film was quite long (2hrs 21 mins), but I have NEVER seen so many audience members shuffle out/climb over seats to go to the loo during the screening… and the VAST majority of these were the students. It felt like having a class of primary school children in the audience (or perhaps worse)! In addition, I noticed that most (true!) of them were checking their phones right up until the film started. Me? Old and grumpy? Surely not.

the wife…

I went along to the Watershed this morning (yes, morning!) to watch Bjorn Runge’s film “The Wife” (in an adaptation of Meg Wolitzer’s novel). The small Cinema 2 was absolutely ‘packed’ (all 40-odd seats taken). The married couple, after nearly 40 years together, are Joe and Joan Castleman (quite brilliantly played by Jonathan Pryce and Glenn Close – Close is absolutely outstanding). Joe’s stellar literary career is about to be rewarded by the Nobel Prize for literature. Joan had her own literary ambitions as a young woman, but effectively sacrificed her own talents for the role of being the ‘great American novelist's wife’.
Any long-term marriage or partnership inevitably involves a degree of compromise and balance and also those delicate, mixed, often quirky, characteristics which somehow seem to work. In this relationship, Joe is casual, whereas Joan is elegant; he is vain, whereas she is self-effacing…
Joan, much loved and admired, has ignored her husband’s various infidelities, his excuses, and his bad behaviour with grace and humour… but with Joe’s Nobel Prize award, she is forced to confront the uneven compromises and sacrifices of her life (particularly when, at cocktail parties, Joe blandly tells people that his wife “doesn’t write”).
Of course, in many ways, the film mirrors some of the sexist, even patriarchal, attitudes of that time (two scenes in the film are telling: one in which Joan is working as a reader in a publishing house, whose smug and cynical editors make it very clear what they think of women writers; and another where a female author strongly advises her to “give it all up” as far as any literary ambitions she may have, because of the difficulties of being a successful writer in a ‘man’s world’).
Anyway, I think I’ll leave it at that as far as the plot is concerned.
All I would say is that this is a brilliant, dark-humoured, timely, poignant, powerful and very enjoyable film… and watching Glenn Close’s performance is very definitely one not to be missed.
PS: Inevitably I suppose, with Moira and I having been married for ‘well over 40 years’, it made me think of our own decision-making, at the start of our marriage, when it came to our respective careers. I think we’d both agree that, in the end, we came to shared, sensible, logical decisions (but who can tell?). With Moira studying languages at university and me architecture, my prospective working life was probably more defined and, perhaps in most people eyes, seen as the more ‘serious career’ (I haven’t expressed that very well but, hopefully, you’ll understand what I mean?). Her course finished earlier than mine (architecture courses then used to go on ‘forever’ and involved 3 years at college, a ‘year out’, then 2 years back at college, before a final ‘year out’ working in preparation for professional practice exams) and she was keen to live and work in Paris. I had suggested(?) that it made sense for us to remain in the UK until after I’d fully qualified (ie. after my professional practice exam)… and that’s what we ended up doing. Had I REALLY been prepared to work in Paris (me, the utterly useless linguist that I am!)? I THINK I did… even though it might have been a somewhat foolhardy pipedream. Of course, by the time I’d passed my exams, Moira had settled into a job with the Open University (NOT using her language skills). We never went to live in Paris. Instead, we bought a house in Oxford; children followed; I was soon offered an architectural partnership with a High Wycombe practice; Moira ended up becoming the parent-at-home in our daughters’ early years.
Yes, I ended up having a ‘successful’ architectural career and ran my practice for nearly 30 years (I was never quite in the same league as a Nobel Prize-winning author as Joe Castleman!). I was pretty good at what I did, but I was never going to set the architectural world on fire… but that’s about it.
Moira is FAR more intelligent than me. Incredibly literate, knowledgeable and well-read (and mathematical, and artistic!). I could see her working in the upper echelons of the Foreign Office or even the EU (for goodness sake!!).
Do I feel guilty about effectively having limited Moira’s career opportunities (although it didn't feel like that at the time)? Yes, of course I do… but that’s the course that we BOTH chose to take, rightly or wrongly. I suspect, nearly 50 years on and with ‘partner roles’ having changed enormously over the years, we just might have done things differently. Who knows? x

september 2018 books…

Spinner’s Yarn (Ian Peebles): Yet another old cricket book (published in 1977). Peebles (1908-1980) was a leg-spin/googly bowler for Oxford University, Middlesex and England of the late 1920s/1930s (he was chosen Wisden’s Cricketer of the Year in 1931). He played at a time when players would find themselves being invited to ‘make up the numbers’ as an amateur for the annual Gentlemen versus Players match and was frequently invited to join cricket tours to far-flung places. A nagging shoulder injury, together with the loss of an eye in WW2(!), ‘curtailed his playing career’ (although, bizarrely, he did continue to play the odd game for Middlesex after the war) and he later worked as a writer and journalist. Very much a member of the ‘establishment’. He was an excellent, gifted writer and a natural story-teller. A relaxed, enjoyable book.
Exile (Padraic O’Conaire): Irish writer O’Conaire (1882-1928) is relatively unknown – probably because he wrote all his stories and poems in his native Gailic. This short novel (wonderfully translated by Gearailt MacEoin), first published in 1910, is a sad and compelling story of a young man who lost an arm and a leg in a road accident. He was awarded £250 in compensation, but soon frittered it away and ended up making a living disguised as a wild man and paraded as a circus freak. It’s a wonderful, lyrical evocation of life on the bottom rungs of society in Ireland and England – focussing on Galway and London. It’s a desperate, but frequently very funny, tale of utmost poverty told in the first person by a resourceful, determined, simple man whose judgement is frequently poor and whose emotions fluctuate wildly with circumstances (I would describe him as a well-read pipe-dreamer). Sadly, O’Conaire’s own life, in some ways, reflected that of the book’s central character… he died in the pauper’s ward of a Dublin hospital in 1928, aged 46; his sole possessions, apart from his clothing, consisted of a pipe, a piece of plug tobacco, an apple and a pocket life.
Mother Country (Jeremy Harding): When Harding was five, he learned that he’d been adopted. His mother, Maureen, told him. As he got older, wondered about the identity of his biological parents and, eventually, embarked on a quest to find them. Harding and I are roughly the same age (he’s three years younger) and so I could relate to much of the book’s background. Inevitably, his search is made more difficult by the lack of key details relating to his birth but, eventually (after a couple of false starts and the odd piece of good fortune), he DOES manage to track down his mother (who was originally from Limerick, but who travelled to London after the war looking for work). Surprisingly for Harding, one of the outcomes of looking into his family’s past was the amount of information he was able to discover about his adoptive parents – the scary bigotry of his ‘father’, Colin, and the Liza Doolittle-like story of his ‘mother’, Maureen (who herself was adopted). It’s a complicated, sympathetic and intriguing story – going off at too many tangents for my liking. The class consciousness of the 1950s and 60s has now thankfully given way to a rather different way of looking at the world.
Patrick Heron (edited by Andrew Wilson and Sara Matson): I’ve previously posted about the exhibition at Tate St Ives here. I always like, if at all possible, to buy a catalogue/record of exhibitions I’ve particularly enjoyed and this one is really excellent. Beautifully and fully-illustrated (of course) - although, somewhat predictably, also containing (as far as I’m concerned) some rather over-the-top descriptions and assessments of Heron’s work (eg. Andrew Wilson’s introduction to the catalogue). Fortunately, the book also contains a number of essays from various Heron admirers, art critics and other writers which helpfully unpick various aspects of his work (I particularly liked the final essay by Matthew Collings, who had visited Heron twice at home in Cornwall a year or so before his death, in 1999 – once with a film crew for a documentary and the second occasion for an extended magazine interview). All in all, a very impressive book and a wonderful pictorial record of Heron’s work.
WG Grace: His Life and Times (Eric Midwinter): Reading this at the end of September seemed like a desperate attempt to prolong my own personal cricket season! This biography (published in 1981) is not first of the ‘Grace’ biographies I’ve read (there have certainly been at least two others), but I thought it would be interesting reading it as a ‘resident of Bristol’ (Grace was born just 6 miles away and played most of his cricketing career for Gloucestershire… indeed, he apparently played rugby on the ‘field behind the Hen+Chickens in Bedminster’ (which is just down the road from our house) on at least one occasion! Predictably, Midwinter’s book contained lots of references to particular cricket games and individual innings. In addition, there was much reference made to Grace’s ‘sham-amateurism’ over expenses and match fees; his egotistical nature (and ‘prejudices’); his ‘gusty temper’; the fact that (despite being a medical doctor) he was ‘singularly inarticulate’ and ‘non-intellectual’ (and was once described as ‘just a great big schoolboy in everything he did’) and much more. Nevertheless, Dr Grace (1848-1915) WAS ‘Mr Cricket’ at a time when game of cricket was emerging as the sport we might recognise today. He made his cricketing debut, aged 9(!), for West Gloucestershire against Bedminster. In first class cricket, he scored 54,904 runs, took 2,879 (in fact, in all cricket he scored just 160 runs short of 100,000!) and, quite remarkably, played first-class cricket for 44 consecutive seasons! It still puzzles me why he was never awarded a knighthood? But, sadly, I found the book rather disappointing. I didn’t think it uncovered material that hadn’t been written about in previous years and, increasingly annoyingly as the book went on, Midwinter KEPT on making lengthy references to one of his own ancestors (WE Midwinter – the only player to represent both England and Australia against each other). Clearly, THAT was the book he really wanted to have written!

touching the void at bristol old vic…

Moira and I went along to the Old Vic this afternoon (along with several other grey-haired people) to see “Touching The Void”, adapted by playwright David Greig and directed by Tom Morris, based on Joe Simpson’s best-selling 1988 memoir. I read the book more than 25 years ago and can well remember being utterly captivated and stunned by its compelling story - which tells of Simpson’s and his fellow mountaineering partner Simon Yates’s struggles (best if I don’t say any more in case you have read the book/seen the film) on the perilous Siula Grande mountain in the Peruvian Andes (I’ve never seen the film based on the book).
Having an awful head for heights, my fascination for mountaineering stories is perhaps slightly worrying (I remember passing on my copy of ‘Touching The Void’ to someone – but can’t now recall who – but my book collection also contains mountaineering books by Chris Bonington, Joe Tasker and two others by Joe Simpson)!
How on earth could anyone reproduce the book’s story on a STAGE, for goodness sake?!

Well, there was no snow; there were no papier-maché mountains, no sports centre climbing wall… but, amazingly, they DID manage to capture all the drama, all the terror and all the suspense (literally!)… quite, quite magnificently.

It was superbly done. I loved how, in the mountain sequences, they converted vertical planes to horizontal planes so simply and yet so effectively. I loved how they were able to address crucial decision-maker options so powerfully and issue a “well, what would you have done?” challenge (to one of the characters and to the audience), I loved the way Joe’s was such a central character in the whole drama… I could go on and on.
The acting was also superb – all four characters: Fiona Hampton (who played Joe’s sister, Sarah), Josh Williams (Joe), Edward Hayter (Simon) and Patrick McNamee (who played the base camp hippy) were just brilliant.
As I think you might have deduced(!), everything about this production was simple wonderful as far as I was concerned. Theatre at its very best – creativity, conception, imagination, design, implementation… live performance at its very, very best.
It’s an amazing story and this production is an absolute ‘must-see’.
PS: At the interval, I described the story as “a bit of a cliff-hanger” and quickly regretted it!
PPS: I also love that the theatre programme reproduced Joe Simpson’s ‘Desert Island Discs’ music from 2004… I think I’ll be re-living it all via Spotify over the coming days!
PPPS: I need to re-read the book!

patrick heron at tate st ives…

It’s probably taken me nearly twenty years to become a lover of Patrick Heron’s work. We were in St Ives last week (you probably knew that already!) and one of the very real pleasures of our stay (and there were SEVERAL!) was the ability to visit the Tate on a daily basis – through the use of our Art Passes.
I have to say that seeing Heron’s work in the rather lovely, recently-extended Tate was a huge pleasure. I still find some of Heron’s pieces somewhat incomprehensible or a little weird, but there were perhaps a dozen or more of his paintings that I thought were quite wonderful.
I’m one of those people who, certainly in the past, has frequently found the world of abstract art rather bewildering (verging on ‘Emperor’s Clothes’ at times). However, Moira and I took advantage of visiting the exhibition very soon after the gallery had opened first thing most mornings – and before the crowds had gathered – and there’s something rather magical about having a large, beautiful gallery space virtually to yourself while you stare at one of Heron’s very large pieces. Vibrant, contrasting colours… delicate textures… challenging, subtle compositions…
Such a privilege.
Fascinating, again for me anyway, to be reminded of the profound influence that European artists had on Heron’s work (some more obvious than others… Matisse, Cezanne, Braque, Bonnard) and also American art of the 1950s and 60s (Rothko, Pollock, Louis, Olitski). I even bought the excellent, illustrated book that accompanies the exhibition (which will hopefully help keep last week in the memory). Somewhat predictably, there are passages in the book that I found faintly ridiculous and somewhat over-the-top (“I can say these things because I’m a renowned art critic, darling!”?)… but maybe it’s just my lack of intelligence and/or sophistication? Andrew Wilson’s introduction to the book, for example, included this passage (taken at random): “However, the actual images are found not through transcription of any kind but from sub-conscious knowledge, feeling and cumulative experience in which eye, mind, arm and hand are joined together to deliver impulsive, yet deliberate, marks”. Indeed, Heron himself was no stranger to eloquent, if unintelligible, descriptions (the word ‘pretentious’ comes to mind?) of his approach to art or in expressing his arguments in exchanges with fellow artists and/or writers… but, hey, perhaps that’s just me?!
Fortunately, the book also contains a number of essays (from various Heron admirers, art critics and writers) which helpfully unpick various aspects of his work. And hat’s off too to the Tate… I thought their daily talks - given by knowledgeable, enthusiastic and talented staff members – were absolutely excellent and reflected a passion and an admiration but without all the hyperbole!
A wonderful exhibition set in a beautiful, spacious building.
Photo: a few images/details taken from the exhibition… so much to see!

more reflections from our time in st ives…

Moira and I absolutely love St Ives.
In the past, we have especially loved it during school term time when there are fewer people about. However, it seems that St Ives is now an ‘all year round’ place – with families being replaced by old codgers like us (and, apologies to all my dog-owning friends, dogs – bloomin’ HUNDREDS of them!!). Trying to walk down Fore Street or anywhere near the harbour was a nightmare… dozens of dog-owners admiring each other’s ‘delightful’ pets and the rest of us dog-less pedestrians being constantly confronted by having to try to avoid long dog-leashes (owners frequently behaving like those annoying people in supermarkets – blocking up aisles – or in this case narrow streets – and completely oblivious of others). Oh, and the number of people who own two, three or even four dogs!! Don’t get me started! Oh, a bit late for that… sorry.
Anyway, back to our few days in St Ives… it was our first holiday for a couple of years – and very enjoyable it was too.
Much of the time was spent relaxing, walking, eating, drinking, reading and sketching – but we felt particularly fortunate (as ‘old people’) to be able to purchase an Art Pass for a bargain price of £10 for the week – which allowed us access (as often as we wanted) to Tate St Ives, the Hepworth Museum and Studio, Leach Pottery, Newlyne Art Gallery and Penlee House, Penzance! Needless to say, we visited ALL of them – and the Tate on a daily basis! And, of course (as we’re no longer car-owners), we travelled down to St Ives by train and used our bus passes to get to Penzance/Newlyne.
Oh yes, we know how to live!
I loved the daily early morning walks along Porthmeor Beach, watching all the surfers, the wild turquoise seas, the beautifully extended Tate St Ives, the coastal walks (we even saw a mother seal feeding her pup off Clodgy Point), the familiar streets, The Tate Café, Porthmeor Beach Café … and the luxury of returning to places that we absolutely love.
PS: It was sad to note that recycling doesn’t really happen in St Ives (well, it does, but only on a very reduced level)… lots of litter and general waste mixed in together… the Council clearly thinks the town is too cramped, with too many narrow streets and with far too much traffic as sufficient grounds to ‘not bother’… which is great shame.  
 

five complete days away from it all…

Somewhat remarkably, I’ve just spent five utterly Trump-free days in Cornwall!
I’ve spent five complete days of hearing/reading nothing at all about Brexit or about the government’s inept attempts to run the country (or, perhaps even more worrying, witnessing the shenanigans of those who see themselves as the next Prime Minister).
For the past five days*, I have also gone without lots of the things that many people would regard as ‘essential’ in order to sustain ‘civilised’ life, including:
1.    No internet
2.    No television
3.    No radio
4.    No facebook
5.    No emails
6.    No phonecalls
7.    No music (apart from humming to myself)
8.    No newspapers (I’d originally planned to buy myself a daily paper but, in the end, decided not to bother)
9.    No news, no media, no sport updates etc etc (if the world was coming to an end, Moira would have told me… probably?).

I wasn’t attempting to prove anything to myself by this self-imposed regime (I could have accessed all of the above, if I’d really wanted)… but it was a strangely liberating experience. I don’t own a smart phone (my mobile is VERY basic!) and so have never been one of those people who, it seems, spend much of their waking hours staring at a tiny screen…

The whole experience has made me even more aware of how self-contained (some would perhaps describe it as ‘potentially reclusive’!) my life has become.
Simple pleasures… gentle rhythm of life.
PS: *actually, we were away for 7 days, but two of those were partially spent travelling… and reading newspapers!)
Photo: breakfast at Porthmeor Beach Café, overlooking the Atlantic… as you do.

the merry wives of windsor…

Moira and I went along to Cinema de Lux last night to see the live-screening version of the RSC’s “The Merry Wives of Windsor”, directed by Fiona Laird. Although it’s absolutely brilliant that live-screening provides an opportunity to watch the RSC perform from Bristol, for me it’s not quite the same as being a member of the ‘real’ audience at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford (from my somewhat limited experience of these things, cinema audiences don’t applaud and I, for one, never feel an integral part of the live performance itself).  
Although I know the play quite well, I think this was the first time I’ve actually seen it performed for perhaps 50 years (if ever?). As you may know, it’s probably the most farcical of all Shakespeare’s comedies. Parts of the storyline seem very appropriate for today - as the play features that renown womaniser and sexual predator Sir John Falstaff (quite brilliantly played by David Troughton) endeavouring to seduce two women (again, convincingly and hilariously played by Rebecca Lacey and Beth Cordingly)… but with Shakespeare’s original setting transferred from middle-class Berkshire to metropolitan Essex and to a world of beauty salons and manicurists (the ‘Fat Woman of Brentford’ becoming the ‘Fat Woman of Brentwood’)… complete with estuary accents and wheelie bins!
It was a fun evening of exuberant, light-hearted entertainment… and I particularly liked the clever, over-the-top costume design (The Telegraph critic described it thus: “Elizabethan costume stylings, lashings of bling and dashes of ‘The Only Way Is Essex attitude’”).

august-september 2018 books…

The Hearing Trumpet (Leonora Carrington): I recently watched a television documentary on the surrealist painter Leonora Carrington (1917-2011). Definitely not my cup of tea when it comes to art, but she came across as a fascinating individual nevertheless. Somewhat predictly, she writes as she paints – revelling in the unexpected and with extraordinary imagination. The novel is the story of 92-year-old Marian Leatherby, who is given the gift of a hearing trumpet only to discover that what her family is saying is that she is to be committed to an institution. But this is an institution where the buildings are shaped like birthday cakes and igloos… (you get the general idea). To be honest, there were whole sections of the book (ie. those that echoed a fantasy, ‘Alice in Wonderland’-like world) that I just found boring, but there were also sections and characters (like Marian and her friend Carmella) that I found surprisingly funny. It’s also a tender book about disconnections – about old age (“people under seventy and over seven are very unreliable if they are not cats”!); about people unable or unwilling to hear each other; about how we hear and how we don’t. Interesting.
WTF? (Robert Peston): I’ve previously put two separate posts on my blog, so I’m sure you don’t want me to repeat myself! I’ll simply say that I found it even-handed, engaging, richly-argued and inspiring… and very readable. A brilliant book.
Birdcage Walk (Helen Dunmore): Helen Dunmore, who lived in Bristol for more than 40 years, died last year. This is the third novel of hers that I’ve read, but what has particularly drawn me to her writing is her book of poetry “Inside The Wave”, which was published shortly before her death (I must have read it more than twenty times to date and find it constant food for thought). The Birdcage Walk in this novel is a very real place, here in Bristol – it’s the cemetery (which still exists) of St Andrew’s church (which was bombed to rubble in WW2 and the church is now merely a footprint). It’s set in the final years of the 18th century - a time which saw a frenetic building boom in the city (with builders and developers competing against one another and borrowing heavily to buy up land). But in 1793, war was declared between Britain and France and the building boom collapsed and bankruptcy was rife. The story is about the daughter of a forgotten writer (her mother) who married one of these builder/developers. We know nothing of the writer herself (none of her work now remains) apart from a gravestone “raised on the 14th July 1793 In the Presence of her Many Admirers”, together with an image of a quill pen and “Her Words Remain Her Inheritance”. It’s a novel about a particular period in history but also about the ways in which the individual vanishes from historical record. It’s both poignant and powerful. Dunmore was an excellent writer and I very much enjoyed this book.
The Age Of Innocence (Edith Wharton): I’m a great admirer of Wharton as a writer. This novel, first published in 1920, is set in 1870s within a very American, East Coast, upper class world. It presents a rather disturbing picture of a social system that provided a rigid code of Old New York society where convention and protocol dominated (I think there’s a description in the book that describes it thus: “rich and idle and ornamental societies”). The story centres on an upper-class couple's impending marriage, and the introduction of the bride's cousin, plagued by scandal, whose presence threatens their happiness. I don’t want to spoil the narrative, so I’ll leave it there. Not exactly my cup of tea perhaps – although Wharton's attention to detail and its portrayal of how the 19th-century East Coast American upper class lived (and, ultimately, the struggles to reconcile the old with the new) is utterly fascinating… and she writes quite beautifully.  
Death In Venice/Tristan/Tonio Kroger (Thomas Mann): A book of three short stories (written in 1911, 1902 and 1903 respectively). “Death In Venice” is one of my favourite films, but I had never read Thomas Mann’s book. It didn’t disappoint (and reinforced my huge admiration of Dirk Bogarde’s portrayal of Gustave von Aschenbach)! Maybe it was because I knew the story so well, that I found reading it so compelling? I found “Tristan” (the interplay of characters within a sanatorium) almost as enjoyable, but frankly found “Tonio Kroger” tedious by contrast. For me, a common theme seems to be the struggle of the creative artist to make sense of, at times, the meaninglessness of existence… but that might be a little too negative! I’ve got Mann’s much longer novel “Buddenbrooks” sitting on my bedside table (apparently about the decline of a family!), but have yet to pluck up the courage to make a start!

cold war...

I went along to the Watershed this afternoon (note: it was only JUST afternoon – the film started at 12.30pm!) to see Pawel Pawlikowski’s much-acclaimed film “Cold War” – a fateful love story of a pair of mismatched musicians set against the background of the Cold War in Poland, Berlin, Yugoslavia and Paris over a period of 15 years, starting in 1949.

I’d previously seen the trailer (check it out here… once you’ve read this post!) and had decided that it was definitely a film I should see but, somewhat strangely (but rather touchingly), I got chatting to an elderly couple earlier in the week while I was out sketching. They’d stopped and were very complementary about my drawings and we ended up (for some reason) discussing films at the Watershed (I know)… and they strongly urged me to see Pawlikowski’s film. Indeed, the man went as far as telling me that it was probably in his top 15 of films he’d EVER seen (strange to select the number fifteen, but hey!).

Well, I wasn’t disappointed. I thought it was quite, quite brilliant too.

Anyway, back to the film…

The Watershed’s blurb describes it as “an impossible love story in impossible times” and I think this gets it absolutely right. You sense from the start that things aren’t going to work out well, but the characters (wonderfully acted by Joanna Kulig, who plays Zulu, and Tomasz Kot, as Wiktor) simply grab your attention in a mesmerising, spell-binding way.
It’s stunningly shot in black+white and the music was superb too (the trailer gives an excellent flavour) - musician Marcin Masecki was a key collaborator with Pawlikowski for the film – and ranges from rustic folk songs of Poland to the sultry jazz of a Paris bar.
This gorgeously crafted, heartbreaking film also has strong links to the director’s own parents (the main characters are named after them). The story is loosely based on their relationship: “they split up, got together, betrayed each other and then got together again; then split up again and eventually ended up together”.
I don’t normally check out reviews before I’ve written my blog post, but I’ve just read Mark Kermode’s 5-star review from The Guardian… so don’t just take my word for it!
This is a film you should DEFINITELY see.

the guardians…

I went along to the Watershed yesterday afternoon to see Xavier Beauvois’s film “The Guardians” (adapted from Ernest Perochon’s novel), exploring the lives of women who are left behind to work a family farm in rural France during WW1 (a nurse appointment meant I missed the opportunity to see with Moira, Alan and Gareth last week, so it was good to get a belated chance to watch it).
It’s an unhurried, sensitive, beautiful and superbly shot film (cinematographer: Caroline Champetier).
Once the younger men of the community disappear off to war, the women have no option but to take on the task of maintaining the family farm… and they do so with great perseverance and determination (and not a little skill). From the onset, the matriarch (widowed Madame Hortense, wonderfully played by Nathalie Baye) sets about organising things. Her principal worker is daughter Solange (played by Laura Smet) and, subsequently, by a hard-working, cheerful, hired worker, Francine (rather beautifully played by Iris Bry)… who attracts the attention of favourite son, Georges (played by Cyril Descours), and this budding relationship, in turn, enrages a longtime family friend, Margueritte (Mathilde Viseux), who had regarded herself as Georges’s ‘intended’. Probably best if I’ll leave it there… (I would hate to spoil things for you).

The horrors of conflict and their consequences are only referred to quite fleetingly and, instead, the focus is on how the women of this rural community band together to look after the farm, tend cattle and grow food (the ‘old’ men that remain behind seem content to opt out or to concentrate their efforts on producing alcohol!) – and there seems to be an almost grudging resentment from the menfolk of the women’s adaptability and proficiency.

Although the way of life and its seasonal rhythms comes across very powerfully, I think that, for me, it all felt slightly unreal – the sun did seem to shine an awful lot of the time and the main characters in the film were all a little too beautiful!
Nevertheless, I very much enjoyed the film and would highly recommend it.