28 November 2016.Once in a Lifetime at the Young Vic.

This was a slightly strange evening that I booked because it featured Harry Enfield. It is a play about the arrival of the talkies and features three chancers who go to Hollywood from New York. Two jump on the bandwaggon by ingratiating themselves to an important Producer whose actresses need elocution while the third makes appalling mistakes that work out and so becomes the producer's right hand man. Enfield is the produce and is excellent in a slightly Mel Brookes way while the hapless side kick reminds me of the Peter Sellars character of chancy Gardener. Quite a few people left a the interval, perhaps not feeling this rather Christmasy production taxed their brains enough.

21 November 2016. King Lear at the Barbican

This RSC production with Anthony Sher was notable for his amazing acting as well as for the drama of the staging. He enters like an Egyptian carried on a tall chair from which he carves up his kingdom. Then it all goes downhill and Sher conveys excellently Lear's descent into a bewildered old age.
However, I have seen a lot of Lears and now I feel I see it more to tick off another production and actor - It is not a play that is enjoyable really in any way.

16 and 19 November 2016. Chroma, Multiverse and Carbon Life at the ROH

This Wayne McGregor triple bill was so much my cup of tea that I was more than happy to see it twice in four days. The music, choreography, dancing, staging and lighting synergised to create a hefty wow factor.
Chroma featured visitors from the Alvin Ailey company who had a very powerful presence. Unfortunately the Royal Ballet contribution lacked Stephen McRae but it all still seemed excellent. Multiverse was a new piece set to the music of Steve Reich. Firstly there was a piece from the 60s - It's gonna rain, featuring the looped voice of a preacher which became quite hypnotic. To choreograph this was quite a feat but it worked well with two dancers coming in and out of synchronisation. The second piece was a new work by Reich for the orchestra.
Finally, Carbon life had the band at the back of the stage playing pieces by Mark Ronson, as well as a rapper coming onto the stage. When I saw Carbon Life a few years ago, Boy George was the lead singer and this time round I could not help thinking he just had the edge.
Aside from the music and the dancers, the set design  and the lighting were fantastic and the programme discussed at length how McGregor attaches great importance to all these elements while not necessarily insisting that the music and dance fuse,  preferring to let them have their independent lives.

18 November 2016. Caravaggio at the National Gallery.

This packed exhibition is not so much of Caravaggio as of his influence. There are actually only six paintings by him, the remainder making the point that his revolutionary style impacted in his own country and beyond, particularly to the Netherlands. This was my second visit and I think the exhibition certainly merits more than one viewing.

18 November 2016. Picasso Portraits at the NPG

This is really quite a small exhibition but it has a huge impact. For me, what stood out was Picasso's contrasting of styles with such very different treatments of the same subject. Most notable were the different portraits of Olga, ranging from the quite classical to Woman in a Hat. I also had not realised he had produced so many caricatures with such a playful feel about them. A really worthwhile exhibition.

16 November 2016. Abstract Expressionism at the Royal Academy

This was my second visit to the exhibition, a chance to be cherished to see so many outstanding works falling under this banner. For me, the Rothko room stands high in the memory but that is not to detract from the others.

14 November 2016. Sunken Cities at the British Museum

This is an incredible exhibition of objects rescued from the sea at the site of the ancient Egyptian-Greek city of Thonis-Heracleion and Canopus. The exhibition was highly educational with some truly beautiful pieces, notably for me the statue of Arsinoe.

9 November 2016 Kiss Me at Hampstead Theatre

This brief (70 minutes) play opened engagingly with the female character alone on her bed and then preparing the room for the arrival of a date. Plunged into darkness, the man had entered the room when the lights came back on. It rapidly became clear that he was there to provide a service that he had done for many other ladies - a service of impregnation but without any emotional contact or any kissing. The play was set after th first world war and the lady in her early thirties was a widow wanting to get pregnant but she also found it impossible to avail herself of the service in such anonymous circumstances.
The man left having revealed enough about himself for her to track him down. When he comes back, they fall in love and have an affair. Then the bombshell of his unavailability with her inevitable devastation.
It was interesting to follow this unfolding drama and the writing cleverly made it very light and amusing. My criticism would be the extent to which it was thought provoking. We had the ideas of the difficulties of such practical sex, of her apparent progressive attitudes to sex and the importance of his love-making techniques. We also had his deception excused by not having been asked directly and we were reminded of the dreadful consequence of pregnancy for a single woman at that time. But none of that is particularly amazing.
Nonetheless an enjoyable hour and excellent acting and production.

3 November 2016. The Nest at The Young Vic

This was a very interesting evening, solely featuring an Irish couple who were struggling to make ends meet. The husband takes on more and more work as a haulier, finally agreeing to do a shady piece of dumping for his boss. He chooses to offload some toxic waste in the lake to which he and his family goes from time to time. As luck would have it, his wife visits the lake with the baby soon after and it damn nearly gets killed by the waste. He confesses and, not surprisingly, all hell lets loose. At first their marriage seems over but she later is more nuanced while he thoroughly beats himself up and finally confesses to the police.

The play provoked in me the thought of the tension between the man earning the money for his family and being accused of always being at work. Of course, this man - Kurt - is a bit more than 'at work' but then how many men are making dubious moral choices thinking that they are doing right by their families? The play exaggerates the tension to make the point.

31 October 2016. Amadeus at the National Theatre.

I had very little recollection of the first time I saw this perhaps some 40 years ago apart from the gist of it being about Salieri and Mozart. As this viewing made clear, the emphasis was very much on Salieri. He is the Austrian court's director of music who has come from Italy and recognises early on that the young Mozart is far more gifted than he. Mozart recognises it also and is painted as behaving in an almost infantile asocial way - stuck at the stage of finding 'poo' a cause of great merriment. Salieri is presented as feeling the greatest quarrel with God, who has given such gifts to Mozart when Salieri felt it was he who should have been rewarded for his faith. He does what he can to thwart Mozart's career and ensure that he lives in poverty. This does not, of course, stop Mozart from his composition and these are tied to Salieri himself - e.g., the Requiem is suggested as referring to Mozart's own demise but also to Salieri's soul.

It is a thought-provoking play, conveying to me the message that setting out on a mission to destroy another in the end destroys the destroyer. We are left with Salieri regretting his acts and confessing to poisoning Mozart - the only act for which he will have any lasting notoriety.

This was a typically lavish National Theatre production and the acting was of a high standard. However, by the end I felt almost assaulted by Salieri's confessions and regrets and by the intensity with which these were conveyed by Lucian Msamati. It need pruning in my view. Too many words.

29 October 2016. Madama Butterfly at Glyndebourne

I'd never been to this opera before and felt very lucky to be at this production under the design of Nicky Shaw.

The setting had been brought forward to the second world war and this seemed to work perfectly. The tragedy of Cio Cio San really believing that her GI husband was serious and would return to her was brilliantly played out by the Korean singer, Karah Son. Pinkerton himself was played by Matteo Lippi. The acting was as convincing as the singing and it was hard not to feel exhausted at the end of this emotionally wrenching tale.

19 October 2016. R and D at Hampstead Downstairs

This was a thought-provoking seventy minutes. It concerned a widower whose brother introduced to his household a virtually perfect woman robot. This was partly to cheer up the widower but much more to test the robot. Needless to say the widower eventually fell in love with the robot whose final triumph was to demand that the man took off his old wedding ring and give it to her - at which point she shut down and the scientist brother came to say the experiment was over. however, things had progressed to the point that the widower was now grieving anew.
Although the writer perhaps wanted us to consider the difference between a perfect robot and the real thing, what struck me as the most interesting subject was the attributes that make for attraction - apart from the plain physical, the woman was fine-tuned to appear somewhat vulnerable and it was at the point that the widower found her sleeping in his garden that his fate was sealed. A sleeping person supposedly brings out our protective instincts. We had the opportunity to compare the widower's succumbing to the robot with his daughter's somewhat unsuccessful love-life with human boyfriends.
Although there were moments when the writing seemed a bit clunky, I thought this a worthwhile evening with great performances by all the four actors.

17 October 2016. Father Comes Home from the Wars at the Royal Court

I went with some trepidation because reviews had said this evening of three parts could benefit from pruning. In fact I felt engaged throughout the unfolding story of the slave, Hero, deciding in Part 1 whether to go to the civil war with his master; taking part in the war in Part 2; and returning home in Part 3. A further six parts are apparently planned that will take us up to the present time. I would certainly be up to going to see those if they come to pass.
Essentially what I got out of the evening was first of all the story. It is one of Hero betraying his friend Homer in the hope of gaining his freedom (part 1); being paralysed by doubt of whether to desert his master's side in the civil war and join the Yankees (part 2); and betraying his wife Penny in part 3 when he declares he has married another woman while away. Admittedly, she had meantime been carrying on with and got pregnant by Homer.
But beyond the story was the debate about freedom and how that is (not surprisingly) such a fundamental requirement for many humans. As such, I made a clear connection between this work and the Belarus Free Theatre's Burning Doors. It also crept across my mind that this same urge for freedom at whatever cost is one of the motivations behind the Brexit vote. At the same time, Hero seemed also to be consumed by the need to have the relationship with his Master. He was almost afraid of freedom and the play seemed to invite a parallel between this relationship and the one between Hero and his loyal dog.
Overall, then, I found this an absorbing evening and the acting was incredible, earning thoroughly deserved applause.

13 October 2016. Michael Clark Company at the Barbican

This was an amazing evening of three works, all performed in dramatic costumes and against dramatic backdrops. First came 'Satie Studs / Ogives Composite'. The prelude was for all eight members of the Company and featured what seemed extraordinarily difficult moved and poises. Then the four ogives featured different pairs, a trio and a soloist. Next came 'Land', with the music of Patti Smith and a backdrop of projected geometric figures and numbers. After the intermission, the evening closed with 'my mother, my dog and CLOWNS!' to the music of David Bowie and with a guest appearance by Michael Clark himself.
This was a high-energy evening featuring what seemed like incredibly accomplished dancing much of which required parallel synchronisation that seemed almost impossible but which was largely achieved to perfection.

22 September 2016. Dr Faustus at the Barbican

This struck me most of all as extremely theatrical and an amazing feat of acting. I was enticed to go by the reviews and can see why they concluded so positively on this production. The evening starts with the allocation of the roles of Faustus and Mephistophilis decided by the two actors striking matches and seeing whose exstinguishes first. This evening it was Oliver Ryan who played Faustus and Sandy Grierson his alter ego.
The production runs for under two hours with no interval and takes us through the essentials of the story of Faustus but in a most lively and exaggerated way. We start with Faustus on stage with piles of books, all of which he finds wanting. He moves to etching a pentagram on the floor and this opens the gate to the ensuing encounters with the devil world. Of particular notes were the deadly sins of pride, covetousness etc as well as gluttony played by an actor with an enormous michelin-man costume. We finish up with Faustus encountering Helen of Troy before being abandoned to his solitude.

8 September 2016. Torn at the Royal Court.

I did not really get on with this play at the time but have warmer feelings of it on reflection. Essentially, it told the story of a family with a secret. Nine members of the family are gathered to sort this out for once and for all, at the behest of Angel. She claims her stepfather abused her. There are a host of dialogues one on top of the other, all quite realistic when looked back upon. However, at the time, I found it all a bit of a muddle and hard to follow who was who and what was going on. I came away not particularly satisfied and even now, I'm not sure what the point of it was. OK. it conveyed this story but I'm not sure that it did nay more than that. It did not, for example, make me think about the nature of abuse - apart perhaps for the fact that it is difficult to be believed because different members of a family for their different reasons prefer to collude in ignorance. This is not a new idea and one that I feel could have been better explored - but maybe I missed the point. Certainly the reviews were quite favourable.

7 September 2016. Burning Doors at Soho Theatre

This production by the Belarus Free Theatre included Maria Alyokhina of Pussy Riot and presented a powerful impression to the privileged audience of what oppression meant and felt like. The three prison doors confronted the audience and were used for the performers to gain access to the stage. The performance itself was extremely well choreographed and very physical, giving a feeling of struggle and fight and conveying the attempts by the regime to humiliate - particularly by physical examination.
At one stage, the performers came out of role and gave the audience a chance to ask Maria a few questions. This did not seem to quite work as well as the rest. At the end, the audience were given postcards to send to Oleg Sentsov, an imprisoned Ukrainian filmmaker. Alongside Maria and Petr Pavlensky, he was the third of the trio of artists focused upon during the evening with their stories being told graphically and memorably. Not surprisingly, the piece got excellent reviews.

6 September 2016. The Emperor at the Young Vic

This was a fascinating evening - fascinating in both the story that it told and the rendition by Kathryn Hunter. Based on the Polish journalist Ruszard Kapuscinski's interviews of the aged staff Haile Selassie, the evening brought to life the nature and the decline of the Ethiopian emperor's rule.
Kathryn Hunter slipped between the different characters by a simple adjustment of stance or dress (e.g., adding epaulets). It was a remarkable performance, supported by Temesgen Zeleke who played music to start with but gradually came out as one of the protesting students who took on the Emperor's regime.
The downfall and loss of touch of the Emperor was well portrayed,as was the loyalty of staff who unfortunately shielded him from the truth having been inculcated with the primacy of obedience.
All in all an excellent evening and one that was a surprise. as I knew nothing really about the play apart from the publicity. It rightly, in my view, got good reviews.

8 August 2016. Threepenny Opera at the NT

Another amazing production at the National, they made this Brechtian piece thoroughly enjoyable. Set in  a sort of Oliver Twist's London, the lead male - Mack the Knife - uses the eponymous weapon to exert control over his world. Things go wrong when he has an affair with and marries Polly Peachum, the daughter of Jonathan Peachum. He is master of a gang of beggars that he controls. They pay him a 'franchise' to operate in his territory. Peachum wants Jack dead and engineers to have him arrested and hung. Even the Chief of Police, Tiger Brown, with whom Mack shared a background in the army, is unable to shelter him. Mack decides to flee but not before visiting a brothel, staffed by amongst others, Jenny an ex girlfriend. She has been bribed by Mrs Peachum to betray him and he is arrested. Tiger Brown cannot help because Peachum threatens to disrupt Queen Victoria's coronation visit by unleashing a flood of uncontrolled beggars to make mayhem. Just to complicate matters further Tiger's daughter Lucy turns out to be another of Mack's conquests. Mack is sentenced to hang. However, all take a miraculously positive turn when he is granted not only a Royal pardon but also a knighthood, castle and pension.

Mack is played by Rory Kinnear but, to my  mind the star of .he show was Rosalie Craig, singing Polly's role. She just seemed to stand slightly apart but, in fairness, the whole ensemble including the musicians were great.

It is, of course, an easy to follow story and I suppose one that can be enjoyed on different levels. It makes its social comments and has a dig at corruption. It also confronts us with Mack's amorality as well as the duplicitous nature of some of the characters (e.g., Mrs Peachum, Jenny). It is also fascinating to see this example of how Brecht comes to life in a good production.

6 August 2016. She Stoops to Conquer

This overlong piece seems to me something to sit through rather than particularly enjoy. It is mildly amusing if one wants mild amusement. Otherwise, it does not seem to me a good use of time. Based around the tricking of two silly bachelors into thinking they are at an inn rather than the house to which they were travelling, we are treated to them making fools of themselves by behaving boorishly to their host. More interestingly, we are also shown how one of them who normally becomes tongue-tied with women of his own ilk, manages to be witty and amusing with a woman he takes to be a servant but who is actually the lady to whom he had been travelling to advance his matrimonial intent. The other friend in the pair falls for another female in the household whose mother was hoping for a financial injection by her daughter marrying the son of the house.

Of course, it is all mildly amusing but not really my cup of tea. The only thing I got from it was the well-portrayed psychological phenomenon of the contextualization of shyness and awkwardness.

4 August 2016. The Seagull at the National Theatre

This sumptuous production was engaging throughout. It featured a genuine lake and evoked well the sense of ennui in the country estate. The production also brought to life the characters and their issues and tensions. The lead character, Arkadina played by Anna Chancellor, is an aging actress more city- than country-focussed who sweeps back to her country estate for a visit. Her son, Konstantin, puts on a production of his 'modern' play for her, only to be met by a complete lack of concentration and attempted (successfully) upstaging by his mother. This propels him into torment, which is only exacerbated when his actress, Nina, goes off with Trigorin, the lover of Arkadina and a second-rate writer with delusions of greatness.

It is around this point that Konstantin presents Nina with a dead seagull whose destruction serves as a metaphor for the potential destruction of Nina. This indeed comes to pass as she changes from an innocent girl over-protected by her father, to the mother of Trigorin's child. We pick up her story in the fourth act where she has returned to the countryside but still professes love for Trigorin, seeing her life as indeed like the seagull's. Poor Konstantin sees his love for Nina will never be requited and shoots himself which is where the play ends.

Running alongside this central story we have the character of Medvedenko a poor and money-obsessed schoolteacher who is in love with Masha, the daughter of the estate manager, Shamrayev. She would rather have Konstantin. However she goes on to marry the schoolteacher and in the fourth act we find that they have a baby and are to move away shortly. The other major characters are Sorin, Arkadina's brother and a constant presence on the estate as well as Evkeny Dorn, a doctor friend of his who is having a rather half-hearted affair with Polina.

It can be seen that the play is complicated but not too complicated. It is also clever in its structure with the fourth act allowing us to see how things unfold. It comments on various matters including romantic relationships, town versus country and the delusions people harbour. It also, of course, references the theatre and acting.

The NT production was the third of a trilogy, made up also of Platonov and Ivanov. Those who did so reported that seeing all three on one day was a thoroughly worthwhile experience enabling to see amongst other things the evolution of  the Young Chekhov's writing between the plays.

3 August 2016. Ragnar Kjartansson at the Barbican

This is a fantastic and engaging exhibition. The opening room screens a brief film, Take me here by the dishwasher, to the accompaniment of 10 troubadours. Their music carries through the common parts of the gallery.

The next room screens The Visitors, perhaps the highlight of the exhibition. This extraordinary nine-screen video installation is the product of a group of musicians spending time in a run-down mansion in upstate New York. Each was give a separate room where they were recorded playing their part. The screening brings the nine rooms together to brilliant effect.

Elsewhere, there are screenings of:
Death and the children. Kjartansson with a fake sycle confronts a party of incredulous children in a cemetery and tells them he is death.
God. Behind red velvet curtains, a screening of Kjartansson singing with a big band the lyrics 'sorrow conquers happiness'
A lot of sorrow. A six hour video of the band The National playing their song, Sorrow.
Me and my mother, 2000, 2005, 2010 and 2015. Four screenings of the recordings of his mother intermittently spitting at him.

Some of this might sound weird but it worked (for me at least) to powerful effect. An excellent exhibition.

i August 2016. Faith Healer at the Donmar

This sell-out production is engaging from the start. The stage is screened by a wall of water as one sits waiting for the action. We open with a monologue by Frank who we quickly learn is the Faith Healer. He apparently has gifts that work from time to time and he becomes the centre of a roadshow, managed by the cockney Teddy and his girlfriend Grace. The following two acts are the monologue accounts by Grace and Teddy, essentially all covering the same territory but from different perspectives. Finally, we have Frank again, concentrating on his last appearance -at a pub in Ballybeg.

It was a beautiful performance of beautiful writing and I found it very worthwhile to buy the text. This clarified various points but one is still left with the enigma of the ending.

30 July 2016. Georgia O'Keefe at Tate Modern

I did not really get on with this large exhibition of O'Keefe's work. Unfortunately, it has not left memories for me, with the exception of the huge flower paintings. however, I will give it another go in due course.

30 July 2016. Bhupen Khakhar at Tate Modern

This comparatively compact exhibition covers a lot of ground and was very educational for me, having been unaware of Khakhar's work. An Indian who came to London, his work covers his sexuality as well as the cancer from which he died. They are powerful paintings and the first room has paintings that bear a strong lineage to the works of Henri Rousseau.

29 July 2016. The deep blue sea at the NT

This power drama by Terrence Rattigan had, as its star, Helen McCrory, playing the part of Hester. She is middle-aged and broken by the faithlessness of her great passion, Freddie, the test-pilot for whom she left her husband. The play opens with her being found by neighbours, having attempted to gas herself. The actors who played the neighbours evoked their characters brilliantly. They both came across as naive and rather self-satisfied in their relationship, with her on the verge of giving birth. They served as an excellent marker for the starting point of a relationship. Then we have McCrory and her two men showing how things might turn out.

The triangle was the oft-repeated one of a woman leaving her steady and devoted (still) husband for a rotter. As such, I'm not sure I got a lot out of it. However, the acting was brilliant and I really liked the other characters - the young couple; the nosy landlady; and the struck-off doctor. The set was also excellent, reproducing a block of flats and using gauze so that one could see through the walls.

19 July 2016. Hockney at the Royal Academy

This exhibition in the Sackler was running alongside the summer exhibition, It consists of a set of 82 identically-sized portraits, painted over two years from the Summer of 2013. All the sitters sat in the same chair with the same backdrop but were free to choose their own clothing.

This exhibition required a ticket because of its anticipated popularity. However, I'm afraid I found the phenomenon of the series more interesting than many of the individual portraits. Many of the sitters were unknown to me and while Hockney drew out their characters, it did not seem to be that he did this to some extraordinary extent. The most interesting for me was the portrait of Celia Birtwell, who had featured in Hockney's 1970 portrait of Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy.  

7 June 2016. Blue/Orange at the Young Vic

The entrance to the theatre is ingenious. One passes through the waiting room of a hospital clinic before entering the auditorium. The set is similarly lifelike, all the action taking place in a smallish therapy room in a psychiatric unit. At first we meet the 'patient', Christopher and the junior psychiatrist, Bruce. There is a lengthy interchange between them, concerning whether Christopher should be discharged but also introducing whether his race will intrude upon the decision - whether psychiatry is colour-blind.
Shortly, the consultant, Robert, joins the pair. After engaging in some rather patronising banter with Bruce, he makes it clear that he would like to see Christopher discharged. He dresses this up with all sorts of enlightened reasoning but one continually feels that his decision is really motivated by the cost of keeping someone hospitalised as well as the senior's desire to assert himself over his junior.  
Towards the end, it becomes clear that Christopher really does need to remain within the institution. He believes oranges to be blue and it becomes apparent that his claimed ancestry to Idi Amin is but a delusion. However, by now, the relationship between Bruce and his senior has deteriorated beyond redemption and so it is the consultant's will that prevails. Christopher is discharged.
Overall, I found it hard to know what to make of this play. It seemed to espouse some Laingian ideas but only in the cynical hands of Robert and completely inappropriately. So were we meant to think Laing had a point or not. Likewise, it addressed the issue of racial bias but it was clear that in the case of Christopher, bias was not the cause of his original sectioning. He really was mad.  Then again it dealt with the pressing need to meet targets and economise in the NHS. But it is hard to believe this would extend to someone who really thought oranges were blue.
I also had  a slight issue with the acting. It struck me as overdone. One row followed another. Looked at positively by the FT as 'a bruising ding-dong', it left me feeling it was somewhat exaggerated - to the point of implausibility.

3 June 2016. Triple Bill at the ROH

This triple bill comprised Obsidian Tear by Wayne McGregor, The Invitation by Kenneth MacMillan and Within the Golden Hour by Christopher Wheeldon.
Obsidian Tear owes its title, according to the FT, to nodules of volcanic glass which in Native American legend are the petrified tears shed by the Apache tribe after their doomed army galloped over a cliff.  Set to the music of Esa-Pekka Salonen, the piece features nine male dancers dressed in rather androgynous kilts and divided skirts. With dramatic lighting by Lucy Carter, this felt a very modern piece. However, I was slightly disappointed that Edward Watson's role did not quite live up to the expectations I had brought after seeing his stunning performance in Metamorphosis. The Invitation is a dark narrative piece concerning young innocent cousins who fall into the clutches of an older and more debauched pair, the wife of which strikes up a relationship with the youth while the man pursues and assaults the girl, destroying her innocence and trust. This part was particularly well danced by Francesca Hayward who evoked the feelings of the subject matter.
Within the Golden Hour was a series of seven pieces, mainly to the music of Ezio Bosso (and one to Vivaldi). It featured in particular Sarah Lamb and Stephen McRae as well as two further pairs of dancers. The music gave the opportunity for the dancers to be put through their paces and was, I thought, the best of the bill. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XavL43C3RH4 

30 May 2016. The Invisible Hand at the Tricycle

Although I am writing this over two months after seeing The Invisible Hand, the play is still quite vivid in my memory. The tale is of an American banker who has been kidnapped in Pakistan and is confined to a shed. There he engages positively with some of his captors while others are more suspicious of him. He strikes a deal that he will trade his way to saving his life, employing his knowledge of the money markets. But this has a sinister edge, as the trader and one of his captors make use of the inside information of future acts of terrorism to trade his way to success.
The play captured well the amoral nature of the market as well as the seemingly whimsical nature of one's fate in captivity. A particularly strong moment is when one of the captors is accused of collaborating with the prisoner.
I'm not sure this play provoked a major new direction of thinking for me but it certainly conveyed extremely well the situation in the cell. It was very well acted and the direction was excellent. The bright light that masked the scene changes was particularly effective.

28 May 2016. Mona Hatoum at Tate Modern

This was my second visit to this powerful exhibition. Hatoum is a Palestinian exile who left her family in Lebanon. One moving piece in the exhibition is her reading of letters from her mother that speak of the mother's sadness at not being with her daughter and having lost her home in Palestine. Another is 12 Windows - pieces of embroidery representing different regions and made by women in refugee camps.
The installations all seemed to me very strong and I was particularly struck by Light Sentence, an extraordinary room with stacks of mesh lockers and a light slowly rising and falling in the middle of them. This created an eery feeling and an extraordinary shadow effect. Also memorable was the amazingly simple but powerful + and - which consisted of two rotating blades on a sandpit - one creating ridges and the other rubbing them away.
The final piece Undercurrent was also extraordinary, consisting of a square red mat made from electrical cable with some 80 long tassles with light bulbs on the ends which slowly ebbed and flowed in their illumination.
Without going through every piece, this was for me a thoroughly worthwhile exhibition and a powerful demonstration of installations with merit.

27 May 2016. Frankenstein at the ROH

I thought this was generally excellent and was very glad I had not been put off by some critics. The star was, I thought, Steven McRae who portrayed 'The Creature' with real feeling. He was ably complemented by Federico Bonelli as Victor Frankenstein and James Hay as his friend, Henry. I thought Laura Morera was slightly less convincing as Elizabeth, Victor's eventual wife.
Much of the tale is contained in the first act that covers the birth of Victor's brother and the death of his Mother while giving this birth. Then we have Victor at University and creating the Creature. Much of Act 2 seemed more of a filler and vehicle for the lead dancers to demonstrate their abilities. However, it concludes with William's birthday party which leads on to his murder by the Creature and the false-accusation and hanging of Justine, the Housekeeper's daughter. Then Act 3 is taken up by the murder of Henry and Elizabeth and Victor's suicide. The curtain comes down on a thoroughly unhappy ending but with great applause for Mcrae and all the dancers, conductor Tom Seligman and the orchestra as well as the choreographer, Liam Scarlett.
I don't know why the critics took exception to this piece. It did seem slightly drawn out in parts but generally it moved at a good pace and needed its two plus hours. I would certainly go to see it again.  

4 May 2016. Another World at the National Theatre.

This was not really a play in the conventional sense but an animated rendition of the testimonies of people caught up in Western jihadists going to Syria. It was put across extremely clearly with a major message being the marginalisation of young muslims in the wider community. I guess this is not a profoundly original idea but it bears repeating with the spoutings of Trump and the recent unpleasant Tory tack to try to win County Hall.
Lasting around 80 minutes, that was probably enough time to reach satiation point. It was I thought an excellent initiative by the National Theatre and would do well to be screened for a wider audience.

27 April 2016. The Winter's Tale at the ROH

This somewhat unlikely tale seems to work so well as the subject for Christopher Wheeldon's choreography that disbelief is easily suspended for the evening. The opening and closing acts have the meat of the story with the middle act mainly a vehicle for showcasing the skills of the stars. These were considerable with Sarah Lamb and Steven McRae as the happy young lovers. In the first act, Edward Watson as Leontes gave the usual extraordinary demonstration of his ability to contort while accompanied by Lauren Cuthbertson as his wife.

The free programme/cast list helpfully gave the synopsis but the choreography and dancing were so clear that it was hardly necessary. All that I was unclear on was the chemistry between Polixenes (Federico Bonelli) and Hermione (Lauren Cuthbertson). By the time of one of their final meetings amongst the statues, it seemed more than adequate to stoke the fantasies of jealousy that had taken hold of the espying Leontes.

The sets were excellent, particularly the tree of Act 2 and all the principal dancers were more than worth the ticket while the orchestra too ensured a magical evening.

19 April 2016. Boy at Almeida Theatre

This play is intriguing from the moment one enters the theatre. The stage is largely a continuous loop of a travelator belt with several actors distributed along it together with props like a computer. The actors appear to sit on air. The action starts with the protagonist, Liam (played by Frankie Fox) visiting his doctor and completely failing to make himself understood.

This sets the tone for the remaining 70 minutes. We are immersed in the world of the fairly inarticulate teenager as he undergoes awkward encounters with girls and more street-wise acquaintances as he makes his way to his personal Mecca - SportsDirect in Oxford Street. Needless to say, he arrives just as it is closing and he is rejected by Security with no semblance of customer care or acknowledgement of the store's significance to him.

The end is handled brilliantly. Liam is asked by a career's officer how he sees himself in five year's time. There is silence; the travelator grinds to a halt and the lights fade.

The course of the 70 minutes passed slowly for me and I think this was because the action conveyed so well the emptiness of Liam's life. It is probably a play for Londoners, making such use of recreating elements of his London life from the Oyster readers to the Polish highway engineer. Without wishing to be patronising, it makes you think in terms of empathising for the lives of those unlikely to be darkening the doors of the Almeida in the first place.

10 March 2016. A girl is a half-formed thing at the Young Vic

This extraordinary performance had the audience enthralled and not a cough was to be heard for the full eighty minutes. It took me a minute or two to adapt to the tale, the language and the delivery but after this cognitive effort my concentration was engaged. Aoife Duffin's monologue takes us through the life of a girl from being a bump in her mother, through her sexual abuse at thirteen by an uncle to her eventual (we presume suicidal) drowning.

The setting is rural and very Catholic Ireland, full of double standards, guilt and accusation. The text is a near stream of consciousness but much easier to follow than a true stream might be. The delivery is relentless and at the end I felt exhausted. Goodness knows what Aoife Duffin must feel or how she accomplishes the task of remembering and delivering her lines.

All in all, this was an amazing evocation of the claustrophobia of rural family life, delivered with precision and plausibility.

8 March 2016. Escaped Alone at the Royal Court

I thought this was an excellent fifty minutes. The clever direction by James Macdonald was thoroughly engaging with its interleafing of the four ladies sat together and the monologues by Mrs Jarrett. The words had me in full concentration, even though it mixed a plausible plot (the lady who had killed her husband and spent six years in jail) with Mrs Jarrett's near-fantasy.
Like Beckett and Pinter, the text took on a semi-abstract quality whereby the beauty of the words themselves became the point of the play. Somehow, it mixed the bleak with moments that were funny and it is something I would happily see again.

5 March 2016. The Encounter at the Barbican

This is the extraordinary tale of Loren McIntyre, a National Geographic photographer, who gets lost in the Amazon while seeking to photograph the Mayoruna tribe. He lives with them until a great flood takes him downriver on a raft back to 'civilization'.

During his time with the tribe, McIntyre has to communicate without language until he comes across Cambio whose family had been killed by Portuguese explorers and who had ended up with the radio operator - hence the name. He has experiences that are never made entirely clear as to whether they are real or hallucination - for example one of the tribe tricks him into going on a Jaguar hunt, only to abandon him as he falls into a thorn bush, his wounds subsequently becoming infected by flesh eating maggots. Luckily he is found and cured and the man who tricked him is seen dead, himself being eaten by insects.

All in all, I did not know quite what to make of it. We seem to be presented with some sort of profound truths that the Mayoruna are privy to. For example, the need to burn all your possessions from time time in order to move on (an idea I could relate to and which reminded me of an installation in london in which the artist chopped up all his belongings) and the idea that there is some sort of alternative concept of time that can exist in parallel to our linear concept. But we are all born; then live; then die.

I was also not entirely sure of the role of Simon McBurney who narrated the story. There were two massive teleprompts suspended from the balcony to help him and a lot of technical wizardry that he demonstrated at the outset. However, for me this had the effect of blurring how much he was doing on the night and how much was recorded and inserted by his assistants. It led me to ponder how much we needed night after night performances - what the live performance added.

Although well received by the critics, The Guardian's Michael Billington also questioned the hippie proposition that the tribe is the keeper of eternal truths to which  our civilization has denied us access. I also could not entirely see the point of the intrusion of McBurney's cute daughter from time to time during the story-telling. Were we in the theatre or was he recounting something that had taken place in his house? On re-listening via a podcast, I began to find the whole think a bit irritating unfortunately.

3 March 2016. Bill Viola at Yorkshire Sculpture Park

YSP is hosting an extraordinary set of films by Bill Viola, The underground gallery has a series of films that seem variations on a theme of one or a small group emerging from a grainy background to pass through a waterfall into full focused colour - before retreating to again be hazy black and white outlines. There is no real need for the guidebook to twig that Viola is here portraying the boundary between life and death and pondering on the existential.

The gallery also houses The Trial, in which a couple on separate screens are showered with a tar coloured liquid, followed by blood and finally clear water. Another pairing is the aged and naked man and woman on separate screens who examine themselves intensely with torches for some twenty minutes. Entitled Man searching for immortality / Woman searching for eternity, it is an intense piece that confronts us with old age and impending death.

More enigmatic is The Dreamers, with seven characters, each on their own screen, covered peacefully by water. They lie there, eyes closed, with an air of serenity. The Veiling has layers of thin cloth with projectors at either end. I found it the most difficult of the pieces - simply to see what was going on.

On the other hand, Night vigil was much clearer. One of three pieces inspired by a production of Tritan and Isolde to which viola contributed, it is a diptych with, on one screen, a woman lighting memorial candles and on the other, a man emerging. As she lights the final candle on her screen, he fully emerges and passes through  a bonfire on his screen.

The other two films of this Tristan and Isolde trio were shown at the Chapel, one after the other. With the contrast of Fire and Water, Fire Woman has a woman silhoueted against an enormous raging fire before falling backwards into a lake. Gradually the lake moves up the screen until it has taken over. The second film, Tristan's Ascension, starts with him lying on a slab before water starts falling. Slowly it increases in intensity until it become a torrent of water and bubbles, sufficient to float him into the vertical and ascend him to disappear at the top of the screen. These were two films of almost hypnotic quality that I would happily have watched again and again.

1 March 2016. Cleansed at the National Theatre.

We were warned of explicit physical and sexual violence at the door but I, at least, got more than I bargained for. This is an extraordinary piece of theatre which must make enormous demands on the actors, particularly the lead role taken by Michelle Terry.

Written by Sarah Kane, a clearly troubled person who committed suicide the year after writing it in 1999, it is a somewhat perplexing piece. Maybe this was exaggerated by Katie Mitchell's direction. At the end, the man sitting next to me commented to the effect of 'what the fuck was that about?' and I must admit the same thought was in my mind at the time. However, it is the sort of play that sticks in one's mind and after a few days the personal essence of it becomes clearer.

We are in a total institution. It is well conveyed with paint peeling off the walls and little natural light and the sounding of a bell to cue actions by the operatives. They are masked and seem to be in the business of cleansing people who do not fit the regime - gays for example. The lead role - Grace - has come to find out about the fate of her brother who is eliminated early on in the play. Subsequently we have rapes, homosexuality and masturbation in front of a caged dancer who performs as money is put in the slot machine. We also have the graphic removal of body parts much to the delight of the rats who make off with them. Every so often a squeeling rat is shot by one of the guards. One of the gays commits suicide; and so on.

At the end Grace has been given the penis of one of the gay couple - Carl and I'm tempted to say we all live happily ever after. The cage girl emerges to declare love for Tinker, the 'commandant', who kisses her and shoots her.

It is a perplexing piece. Sold out and walked out, it is a production that divides audiences and critics who range from two stars in the Observer to five stars in the FT.

Personally, I cannot see this is a great play or even a good one. It seems to be in the shock genre, without leaving us clear what we are meant to be shocked into or out of. However, it is undeniably an extraordinary event, to which thank goodness hapless tourists will not have been able to buy tickets on the off chance.

25 February 2016. The Meeting at Hampstead downstairs

I thought this was a well-crafted play but one that did not make me think or give me much as a take away. It had its puzzles; but they simply did not seem that relevant to me. The characters also seemed to border on caricatures and became somewhat implausible.

The Meeting centred on the three men from one company completing a deal with a woman who was acting as replacement for a colleague who had apparently suffered a breakdown. The men were trying to get one over her, a ploy that she appeared to see through. However, having spotted the gross elephant trap, she went on to sign a contract that still had some boomerang clauses. This, despite the fact that she had noted the clauses and said she wanted to amend them. Her train of thought was apparently interrupted by one of the men going into meltdown from telephone calls from his wife and daughter - a woman he had married from pity.

We are left wondering what was contrived and what was real - did the wife ring him; was the story of his marriage true.? Or were these both to soften up the woman into signing the contract.

22 February 2016. The Mother at The Tricycle

This quite harrowing and disturbing play lasts just short of an hour and a half, leaving one puzzled at just what went on.

The initial action centres upon a woman and her husband. She is disturbed by the loss of contact with her son and her suspicions of her husband's indifference and possible unfaithfulness. Scenes are played and replayed with subtle and unsubtle changes. What are we seeing? The real and imagined? His and her point of view? Different takes on different days?

Then the son is introduced; and his girlfriend. Again repeated variations of the same events. But then roles swap so the son's girlfriend is the husband's vampish colleague.

We end up with the wife on a hospital bed having been found unconscious with a ?deliberate over-dose. Now the girlfriend is the nurse.

I came out feeling unsettled, having witnessed perhaps a very convincing portrayal of a breakdown where imagination departs sufficiently from reality to feed pathological behaviour.

As the reviews stated, the acting, particularly by Gina McKee was excellent. However, I felt she lacked the look of world-weary anxiety that the character seemed to contain.

19 February 2016. Painting the Garden at the Royal Academy

This blockbuster is completely rammed during the day but a much more pleasant experience on a Friday evening. It is a huge exhibition, centred upon the impressionists but also continuing forwards to fauvists Nabis as well as a few artists working between the wars.

There are lovely paintings in the exhibition, some by artists I did not really know. The included Santiago Rusinol and Henri Le Sidaner. However, I think it is fair to say the exhibition is dominated by Monet to whom the final two rooms as well as an earlier room are devoted. Not that this is other than a thoroughly worthwhile investment The huge water lilies of the final room are spectacular - particularly the triptych comprised of works belonging to three separate US museums and re-united for the first time on European soil.

19 February 2016. Battlefield at the Young Vic

I went knowing little about this production and it took a few moments to get my bearings. Set on a simple stage with only a few scarfs and staves as props, the story is of the aftermath of a great battle in which a son has, amongst the millions of other casualties, killed his brother.

The play is used as a vehicle for some eternal truths which could be seen as profound or platitudinous depending on  one's attitude. Unlike many productions at the Young Vic, the text was not available which is a pity as it would have been good to be able to look back at the words that had sounded impactful at the time.

The whole event was a little over an hour which felt sufficient, having cast on me something of a trance with its almost poetic delivery accompanied by a single drum.

Certainly worth seeing but I'm not sure that the key messages of the inevitability of 'destiny' and war were quite truths that I would carry away. On the other hand, the notion that we live as if we were immortal despite knowing that death is inevitable is an interesting summary of the human condition - but how otherwise could we approach existence positively? And is it even true for everyone? Surely not.

Generally, the play got good reviews - e.g., from the Guardian and Financial Times.

18 February 2016. Delacroix at the National Gallery

This is a comparatively modestly-sized exhibition illustrating the influence of Delacroix on his successors. The art itself is not my favourite but it is an important exhibition as art history. The travels of Delacroix to North Africa were particularly game-changing, providing a major subject for his work.

16 February 2016. Wheeldon Triple Bill at the ROH

This was an interesting triple bill which began and ended with more abstract pieces that sandwiched the narrative 'Strapless' upon which the critics had concentrated.

I really liked the abstract works. After the Rain, with the music of Arvo Part, gave in particular Marianela Nunez and Thiago Soares a chance to shine. Set against a plain backdrop, they and the other two pairs did amazing things, often in slow-motion, for twenty minutes.

Then we had Strapless, the story of the John Singer Sargent portrait of Amelie Gautreau. It is quite an interesting story but the Victorian suits and acting out seemed to me to restrict all but Natalia Osipova who was excellent as Amelie. Disappointing really, as I had been looking forward to seeing Edward Watson who was so excellent in Metamorphosis. I suppose it is all a question of why one goes to watch dance. Is it to see a story enacted or simply to watch dance. For me it is the latter.

And that's what I got with Within the Golden Hour. This consisted of seven pieces, all bar the penultimate to the music of Ezio Bosso. For me - and many in the audience - we were back to what we'd come for and Steven McRae and Sarah Lamb were outstanding as was Vadim Muntagirov. All set to a slightly changing abstract backdop, the various pairs of dance amazed the audience with their skill and fluidity.

All in all, an excellent evening but I am not sure of the wisdom of combining something so narrative with the other two.

15 February 2016. As you like it at the National

I really enjoyed this production of a play that I think I'd been made to suffer as an 8 or 9 year old, giving me a natural aversion to it. Fifty five years later I was fortunately able to see what an excellent play it is - warm and engaging but a vehicle for some of Shakespeare's amazing insights, particularly the 'all the world's a stage' and the seven ages of man. I'd read a reasonably comprehensive synopsis of the quite complicated plot - two separate pairs of brothers at war with each other; woman dressed as man; everyone reconciled at the end with four parallel weddings - and so was well able to follow what was going on. But I think I would have been able to anyway with this clear National Theatre production that engaged me from the start.

The set was creative and spectacular, though the major scene change suffered a glitch. It was so spectacular that the audience applauded, only for the technical manager to walk on stage to say it had gone wrong and they'd need a few minutes to sort it out. A squad of hard-hatted stage hands unscrambled the egg and put things right and we carried on with the erstwhile desks of the opening scene now playing the parts of trees.

There were many inventive moments, with the people playing sheep standing out as one of the most heart-warming. The singing pieces were excellent and overall it was a brilliant NT evening. I'm glad I followed the advice of the favourable reviews and ignored the less positive. So, judging by the applause, were the rest of the audience.

11 February 2016. Top Girls at Guildhall

I was very glad I had read up on this play beforehand and knew what to expect. Suitably briefed, I found it a very enjoyable and stimulating experience. The first act is a fantasy in which the newly promoted Marlene entertains five historical woman to dinner. They include Pope Joan who was stoned to death for impersonating a man and giving birth during a papal procession. We then move to the present time with Marlene in the office along with two colleagues. Juxtaposed with the office scenes are those featuring Angie who turns out to be Marlene's daughter weho she has left to be brought up by her Sister Joyce. Towards the end, the sister's quarrel about their very different political views, the one being Thatcherite and other more socialist.

I thought it was an excellent play, thought-provoking and well-staged and acted. However, without some briefing, it would be relatively easy to wonder what it was all about and dip out at the interval.

9, 12 and 13 February Andriessen Concerts at the Barbican

I had booked these three concerts in order to find out more about Louis Andriessen, the Dutch Composer born in 1939.

Ther first concert on Tuesday, paired Andriessen's work La Passione with a piece by one of his students, Steve Martland and another by one of his contemporaries, Steve Reich. The Martland piece - Tiger Dancing was quite jazzy and referred to William Blake's poems. Next came Reich's Desert Music which I was very familiar with but it was interesting to hear it live and I was struck by the subtle differences to the recording to which I was used. The singing of the words by the Britten Sinfonia Orchestra came across powerfully. The words by William Carlos Williams were not always easy to pick out, yet are central to the piece - one almost has to choose between listening to them as music and reading them (https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/text/steve-reich-william-carlos-williams-finding-form). There are five movements with the first and fifth (fast) matched as are the second and fourth (moderate). The middle piece is in three parts - slow/moderate/slow - and contains references to the testing of the atomic bomb. Finally we had the Andriessen La Passione which also introduced words sung by the somewhat eccentric or theatrical mezzo-soprano Cristina Zavalloni, for whom the piece was written. The words were derived from the orphic poems of the Italian visionary poet, Dino Campana who spent the last 14 years of his life in a madhouse. She was matched by a violinist (representing the Devil) and, as with the entire concert, the conductor Clark Rundell kept order. 

Friday's concert was given over entirely to La Commedia. This work written in 2004-08 was a staged opera, referring to the 14th century work by Dante Alighieri. It moved through five parts, again featuring Cristina Zavalloni - this time singing the part of Dante who goes on a journey to explore the afterlife. Andrerw Sauvageau also stood out as Lucifer and the piece ended merrily with children from Finchley Music Group. Louis took a bow at the end of an evening that served to reinforce my impression of how cerebral his music is.

Finally, on Saturday evening there were three pieces by Andriessen, spanning his career. The first De Stijl was almost a homage to Piet Mondrian and was very jazzy. Next came Roasa's Horses which was an arrangement by Clark Rundell of part of a rarely performed opera by Andriessen. Finally Mysterian was a much more contemporary (2013) piece that felt serious and reflective. At one point it featured a detuned harp and Andriessen explained beforehand that his (twenty years dead) father had come into his room and told him to write it. It served to reinforce the importance of appreciating the conceptual in Andriessen's work.

8 February 2016. Pinter Triple Bill at Guildhall

This trio of plays - One for the Road, The New World Order and Mountain Language - made for a bleak and intense hour in the studio theatre at the Guildhall. The plays all dealt with oppression of individuals by regime functionaries and were horribly apposite and resonant of what it must be like to be the butt of interrogation leading most probably to death.

The stage was laid out as three spaces / rooms with the action taking place in the middle one. We started out with One for the Road in which a family - mother, father and son- are being interrogated by a single interrogator. The language is harsh and bullying. Each member of the family is seen in turn and towards the end the past tense is used to refer to the son, suggeting he has been disposed of. This ushered in a transition to The New World Order, a briefer piece with a prisoner in a blindfold and being harangued by two people.

Then we went back to a reprise of part of One for the Road before turning to Mountain Language where the regime forebad people to use their own language.

This eliding of the three plays worked to an extent but, not being familiar with them, I wondered how adapted they each had been individually to achieve it. It also rather detracted from my ability to gather my thoughts and consider each play as it ended.

Nonetheless, it was an impactful hour and it felt like more than enough of such intensity for one evening. The acting was powerful throughout.

8 January 2016. Elizabeth at the Royal Opera House

I really enjoyed this run through of the loves of Elizabeth I, featuring Carlos Acosta as the various favourites and suitors. He seemed really to be enjoying the parts and so gave a lightness of touch to the whole ninety minutes.

The production seemed to me an excellent mix of dance, singing, acting and music – with very effective lighting thrown in for good measure. The dancers acted out their parts to words spoken and sung by others on stage and this all worked extremely well.

Needless to say, the end was greeted with great and deserved applause and I felt lucky to have been in the front row and so close to the action of this production.  

7 January 2016. Husbands and Sons at the National Theatre

I heard some people at the interval complaining that this was not what they had expected and that they were bored and depressed. I can see how this could be one’s reaction as the play essentially got the audience to look in on the lives of three families in a mining community where not a great deal happened until towards the end. The three families were all on stage in different areas all the time with the action generally fading in on one group and away from the others – there was not a great deal of connection between the families apart from being neighbours.

Anne-Marie Duff was striking as the mother in one family with her young son, a suitor and an abusive husband. The second family highlighted the father who got very drunk and his daughter and her best friend. The third grouping was a mother and two sons – one of whom was married but had also got a local girl pregnant.

Without going through the whole story line, we followed the lives of these families and everything wandered along – until towards the end when there was an accident in the pit, killing the husband of Anne-Marie Duff.

I really enjoyed watching in on these families and felt the storyline was enough to maintain my interest. However, it was rather in the ‘grim up North’ mould and on reflection, I am not so sure what the ‘takeaways’ were. Certainly the (absent) pit owners got a bad press – their greed having compromised safety and caused the accident. The play did, nevertheless, act as an excellent evocation of a bygone age – of tight knit communities where everyone knew everyone else’s business.

4 January 2016. Macbeth at The Young Vic

I must confess I did not really get on with this production. Reduced to two hours with no interval, I felt the pruning and modernising lost a good deal. Luckily I had read a detailed synopsis during the afternoon and so was able to identify the supporting characters; otherwise, I fear I would have been rather at sea. Somehow (or maybe it was me) the pruning seemed to lose the lines identifying the characters!

There were also innovations which seemed to me distracting. The witches were on stage a good deal of the time – sometimes as the witches but at other times as dancers. The murderers of Banquo  also seemed to be on stage more than they should be. The dancing itself did not really work for me and seemed to take time up that was already at a premium.

The stark set was, however, arresting – consisting of a receding ‘corridor’ in which all the action took place. Towards its end was an entrance that slid across the corridor, admitting and exiting characters. The acting of Macbeth and his wife was fine but I did not feel gripped by the psychology in the play. However, the reaction of MacDuff to the killing of his family stood out as did Macbeth’s mistaken belief in his invincibility towards the end and his demise was visually striking with the stream of blood making its way down the stage..

30 December 2015. Bull at the Young Vic

Only 50 minutes long - but that is probably as much as the audience could take. This is amazingly powerful and cringe-making. It centres upon three people from an office - two successful; one the identified 'loser'. The time has come to make a redundancy and by the time the boss arrives, the two have already so undermined and stitched up the one that the answer is obvious.

The action takes place in a boxing ring with two rows of the audience standing ringside. All is conducted under bright lighting and the ending is brilliant as the victim knocks down the water machine which then evacuates and turns the ring into a pool of some two inches of water with the victim lying motionless within it.

There are moments of humour at the start but by about halfway little laughter is heard. It is extremely well-acted and tough to watch. Towards the end the unrepentant female bully muses upon the evolutionary significance of bullying, it serving the tribe to get rid of characters/ characteristics that could jeopardise survival.

28 December 2015. wonder.land at the National Theatre

I am a fan of Alice in Wonderland and was looking forward to this production at the NT. I had assumed it was bringing the story in some way to the digital age but, other than that rather hazy expectations.

The exhibition outside the theatre itself was promising as was the stock in the shop. The exhibition made use of an array of digital technology to create virtual reality glasses and so on; the shop had huge and small hand-waving cats for sale as well as copies of Yayoi Kusama's beautiful illustrated version of the book.

The theatre production was, as one has grown to expect at the NT, fantastic. Accompanied by live music and with amazing digital projections, all looked good for a memorable evening. The problem, however, was the play itself. It centred upon a girl who was being bullied at school and was being brought up by a single parent - with a baby brother, mother and absent father who were all pure caricature. She got hold of an avatar that transported her from her 'real' world to one more to her liking and with some of the traditional Alice characters - The cheshire cat, Tweedle dum and tweedle dee, the March hare and so on. The biggest character, however, was the headteacher from her school inreality - a sort of cruella devill who morphed into the Red Queen.

The problem was that the fantasy story never developed at all - characters simply seemed to come and go. On the other hand, her 'real world' story did make progress - but of the most limited and obvious type - the hopeless dad saw his errors, reformed and reconciled with the mother.

So I felt we were left with a rather largely wasted opportunity - all that technology and production clothing a very insubstantial piece of work. you could tell that I was not alone - There was applause; but given the age of the audience (young), it was hardly rapturous.