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.