31 January 2017. Dublin Oldschool at the National Theatre.

To be honest, I found this a rather strange and hard to follow event. The under 40s in the audience seemed to love it as did people from Ireland. On the other hand, I found it hard to follow and enjoy. The performances by Ian Lloyd Anderson and Emmet Kirwan were something to behold for their energy and ability to present several characters. However, the basic idea they were recounting left me somewhat uninspired. The action is based around brothers one of whom is heavily into drugs – as such it is fairly autobiographical of Emmet Kirwan who wrote it.

In all, it lasted a little over an hour and I was rather glad of that. To me it felt like a window on an alien world rather than an unfolding story or a description to which I could relate. That was perhaps the difference between me and those who enjoyed it more obviously.   

27 January 2017. Les Enfants Terrible at the Barbican

This was a Royal Opera House event which formed part of the Philip Glass weekend. It was slightly rough at the edges and ground to a halt during the first part due to a technical hitch. Sold-out, I found it hard at first to see its charm and frankly thought it all rather confusing. However, I'm very glad I persevered as by the second half I was won over.

At first, the staging seemed to me complex with several dancers and a singer covering the same part. However, a combination of me getting used to it and it being simplified in the second part transformed my experience.

The tale itself is somewhat bizarre, centering on the seemingly incestuous relationship of a brother and sister who engage each other in 'The Game' , whereby they try to annoy each other with the histrionics of the sister and the taciturn disinterest by the brother. Then, when he finds a girl to love his sister does all she can to undermine the affair and promote a rival to her brother's would-be girlfriend. The brother takes opium to poison himself at which point the girl he loved attends him and tells him of her lover for him./ now it is obvious that the sister has thwarted them. Not to be outdone by her brother's death, the sister shoots herself, bringing the evening to a close.

26 January 2017. Il Trovatore at the ROH

This was, to me, a very enjoyable production of a rather strange tale. Two brothers separated as children and estranged from each other vie for the affections of the same woman. The one who wins the lady's heart has been raised by gypsies. He is captured by the other – who inherited their father's title of Count - and executed. At this final point, it is time for his true identity to be revealed by his adoptive mother – herself on a lifelong mission to avenge her own mother's death at the hands of the two boys' father.

To some degree the unlikelihood of the unfolding events gets in the way. The two men know there is something between them early on but do nothing about it – certainly the one raised by gypsies has been given all the salient information by his adoptive mother.

Nonetheless, it was a magical evening, dramatically staged.  

20 January 2017 Us/Them at the National Theatre

This was an extraordinary piece of theatre. It involved the re-telling of the take-over by terrorists of a school in Beslan. The perspective is that of the children whose parts are played by Gytha Permentier and Roman Van Houtven from BRONKS, a Belgian theatre company.

Of course, we cannot be sure how accurately the child's perspective is captured but it was based on the actual testimony of some of the survivors. It seems plausible that the children are torn between the adventurer and terror of what they are caught up in. They seem to adopt a very factual, as the programme say 'aloof, almost' perspective.

Certainly it was a captivating hour and an hour was probably enough. It is unlikely that lengthening the event would have added to its impact.