30 November 2019. Death in Venice at the ROH

Everything about this evening seemed to me faultless and splendid. The singing, particularly the lead part by Mark Padmore which involved an almost constant presence on stage was complemented in its majesty by the dancing led by Leo Dixon. The orchestra under Richard Farnes received deserved extended cheers at the close and if only the audience could have got their lungs on the designer of the sets (Vicki Mortimer) more cheers would have surely ensued.
Then we are left with the story. This tale of the homoerotic musings of an ageing German writer frankly seems to me rather thin and inconsequential. He goes to Venice in the hope of refreshment; his eyes set on a teenage Polish boy for whom he declares 'love' at the end of the first act - despite never having exchanged a word. Then in the second act he prepares to leave and not leave with the backdrop of a cholera epidemic in the lagoon. Apart from musing on the folly of lust - homo or hetero - I'm not really sure what were the takeaways. Still, it was a great vehicle for all those involved to display their talents.

28 November 2019. God's Dice at Soho Theatre.

This struck me as a well acted and well-staged evening but the play itself did not quite match my expectations. As it is, we have Alan Davies playing a middle-aged physics Professor, Henry, who is tackled by a student - Edie on whether the ideas of physics require as much faith as the existence of God. For some reason (and the hint is of sexual attraction), he embarks on a book looking at the probability and possibility of various miracles such as turning water into wine. The book becomes a best-seller and Henry's status in the world swiftly comes to eclipse that of his rock-star atheist wife Virginia. Mixed in with all this is Henry's colleague, Tim, who employs Epstein-like methods for bedding his students before being sacked by the university after Edie releases a tape of his seduction technique.
So we have, as the crtics point out, something of a muddle of which plot to follow. Is it the domestic issues between Henry, Virginia and Edie or the philosophical issues of God? If the former, then the play by David Baddiel does not really take us anywhere new - We are just presented with a few well-worn caricatures. Sadly though, the exploration of God is also lacking. All we get is the unpicking of a few miracles.
All that said, I found it an evening that passed easily enough and it was quite interesting to watch the domestic drama unfold and the full bizareness of Edie to be revealed - she ends up as a priestess to her Christian sect with a somewhat drooling Henry looking on, having sneaked away without telling Virginia the truth of where he is going.

22 November 2019. Shook at Southwark Playhouse

I heard a great reaction to this new playwright, Samuel Bailey, on Saturday Review and secured a ticket. I'm glad I did. Walking into the theatre space, we find ourselves in a day room of a prison with three youngish offenders attending classes on parenthood. The play focuses on their backgrounds, inter-relationships and contrasting characters and it is all brilliantly well-acted. Above all this is a play that provokes sympathy for these young men whose lives are being wasted in confinement. All three come across as likeable people with potential whose lives have been unnecessarily blighted. Jonjo (Joseph Davies) is in for murder having lashed out at a bullying stepfather; the quick-talking Cain (Josh Finan ) is a recidivist who actually finds life inside better than the alternative; meanwhile Ryad (Ivan Oyik)is torn between being a hard man in the prison pecking order or realising his intellectual abilities by following the path of education. Indeed, this tension between a hard-man image and a softer internal world is one of the themes of the play; another is the waste of lives that prison promotes. Both could, of course be seen as sentimentalism in the case of some offenders and it is hard to say the play is making a new point. But it makes it very well and the audience clearly felt bought into the authenticity of this portrayal and the dilemmas it rehearsed.
As such I can quite see why this play had won the Papatango prize for new playwriting and received some very good reviews. Somehow, it made us feel part of the lives of these three men and able to empathise with them.

21 November 2019. Taming of the Shrew at the Barbican

I really did not get on with this evening at the RSC - to the extent that I decided at the interval that I had had enough. In truth, this might be as much about the play as the production - maybe, even, the production pointed up the shortcomings of the play. Of course, The Bard can write about whatever he likes but I found not an ounce of humour nor thought-provocation in this tale of the taming a spirited spouse. This was very unlike Measure for Measure which deals with another distasteful topic  - the abuse of power. However, it is interesting and a good choice by the RSC by being timely. With the Taming of the Shrew, the company had to rely on gimmicks - such as weird gliding across the stage - to extract any real reaction from the audience. Indeed, the amount of whispering around me suggested that many in the audience were either disengaged or mystified. They could be forgiven because the gender reversal of this production did not seem to work at all. We had a boy called Katherine (the Shrew) and although he was referred to as 'he' other lines retained the original female role (I think). Anyway, we were in a production that largely preserved Shakespeare's text but one that had also made some changes. I do not welcome that, any more than I would expect to go to a Beethoven symphony with some of the notes changed from the original.
So it all felt a bit of a slog to me. And a pointless slog, I'm afraid.

18 November 2019. Measure for Measure at the Barbican

I really liked this RSC production of a tale of the abuse of power. Set in Victorian Vienna, the production set forth clearly the twists and turns of Shakespeare's play. In a nutshell, the Duke of Vienna leaves the City in the care of his Deputy Angelo. The latter immediately imposes a more puritncal regime which catches out Claudio who has engaged in premarital sex with his betrothed, Juliet. For this, he gets a death sentence. To save him, his Sister, Isabella, a novice nun intercedes to plea for clemency. Angelo falls for Isabella and propositions her, essentially offering to spare her brother if she will yield to him. So this is a remarkably contemporary play, getting the audience to ponder on the issues of sexual harassment and the abuse of power.
Angelo is not painted as a man merely wanting a shag. He seems, inappropriately, to have got the hots for Isabella, declaring his instant love for her. So he is played as a rather pathetic old donkey who indulges in a fantasy about this beautiful young woman. What is particularly wrong with it is the abuse of power and this comes across very clearly. As if to emphasis the rights and wrongs, we have the Duke, disguised as a priest, observing all the twists and turns of the play and eventually holding people to account.
All in all, I found it a very satisfying evening and felt moved to look up the more memorable lines afterwards.

26 October 2019. Concerto, Enigma Variations, Raymonda at ROH

This triple bill of tried and tested ballets (varying from 78th to 123rd performances) was pleasant enough but, for me, let down by the Enigma Variations filling in the sandwich. The other two seemed to offer more opportunity for displays of pure dance, albeit loosely conveying a story in the case of Raymonda. On the other hand, the Variations left me rather cold as we waded through the various characters with the dancers all dressed in attire that must have made their jobs rather constrained and difficult.
The first piece, Concerto, was choreographed by Kenneth MacMillan to music by Shostakovich. It features couples as well groups in support. The coordination seemed outstanding and for me, Lauren Cuthbertson and Reece Clarke stood out in the second movement. The plain stage and simple yellow and orange costumes appealed to my minimalist preferences.
Given that statement, not surprisingly Enigma Variations had less appeal with its quite elaborate set and costumes of Edwardian garb. It is, of course, quite a light and amusing piece but not really what I am looking for. On the other hand, Raymonda gave more opportunity for purer dance, albeit lightly conveying the culmination (a wedding) of a story. The main parts were taken by Sarah Lamb and Vadim Muntagirov who both seemed excellent to me.

24 October 2019. The Future Bursts in at the Linbury

This programme at the Linbury was part of the Dance Umbrella event held in London in October. It was a triple bill of dance dedicated to the centeneary of Merce Cunningham's birth and culminating with a piece choreographed by MC himself. This last, Sounddance, featured eight dancers from CCN - Ballet de Lorraine who emerged from a laong curtain along the back of the stage. Draped in the same apricot colour as the dancers' tops, the stage created a harmonious look that contrasted with the disharmony of the music by David Tudor. It was a splendid end to a splendid evening. I've no idea if there was any meaning of if it was purely abstract but it was certainly a feast to watch.
Sounddance followed the spectacular For Four Walls, also featuring dancers from CCN - Ballet de Lorraine. This involved probably twenty dancers with the stage reduced by a half hexagon of mirrors that gave three reflections of them and the audience. This was incredibly effective in creating a theatrical effect. Dancers came and went, sometimes in great swirls like a flock of birds. All this to a dramatic piano with the dramatic pianist - Vanessa Wagner - playing a piece by MC's partner, John Cage.
Finally, or firstly, we had then trio that comprise Compagnie Amala Dianor, including Amala Dianor himself. The piece, Somewhere in the middle of infinity, was thoroughly contemporary - AD himself having been a hip hop dancer. The three conveyed well the feeling of three young men 'united somewhere in the midst of infinity.'
All in all, a great evening that was accompanied by an educational and illuminating programme.

17 October 2019. Cion at Barbican

I went along with no real concept of what this 'requiem to Ravel's Bolero' would be like. Set amongst simple wooden crosses to evoke a cemetary, the eight dancers and their leader Gregory Maqoma created an extraordinary atmosphere and spectacle. With deeply rhythmic music from Beatboxer Siphiwe Nkabinde and his three colleagues, the ensemble had the audience pretty well spellbound for 70 minutes. The finale of rhythmic on-the-spot dancing was quite amazing and drew a deserved standing ovation.

16 October 2019. Either at Hampstead.

This play by Ruby Thomas came as a bit of a shock to some of the senior citizens sitting behind me. The action seemed to be considering the merits of open relationships - hetero and homo - versus settling down to commitment. This is done by a slick interleafing of characters in dyad conversations - e.g., a man is speaking to a woman; and then picking up the same thread with a man. We seem to be heading down the road to commitment but then the play ends with one of the characters recounting how her father was revealed to have had not one but two mistresses before a stroke felled him.
It was interesting to watch and very slickly done with excellent timing by the six actors. The set was also excellent and symbolic - a white triangle receding in front of us with three doors on either side.
Some of the detail and indeed action (simulated just off-stage blow job) was quite graphic and, in truth I'm not entirely sure it got us anywhere. However, it was an engaging 75 or so minutes.

14 October 2019. Blank at the Donmar Warehouse

This is a difficult evening to write up. This new play by Alice Birch is dealing with a very important topic but was - for me- overcomplex in its structure. It all started fine with two women talking about the new boyfriend of one of them. Then the next scene had a young addict breaking into her own house to steal some money. Then I started to get lost. Each of the subsequent scenes (picked from the 100 scenes available in the text) worked well or very well in its own right - and particularly the scenes with the two excellent child actors but piecing it all together in a way that I could truly recount what happened is beyond me. People got sent to prison; tried to commit suicide; had a baby. But then there was a scene at a dinner party where mushy liberal-views-spouting women were taken down by the new girlfriend of one of them - questioning for example whether #metoo was really of global significance. This was interesting and maybe was a counterpoint to us being bothered about women in prison in the first place. But then, one of the children came and smashed the table up.
In the end, I was left feeling inadequate for not following this complex piece but in truth the criticism probably lies with the play and its directors who insufficiently grasped how baffling the whole thing would be for an unprepared audience seeing it for the first time. Apart from dipping in to the 100 scenes, Birch apparently doesn't give the characters names in the text but just letters. That would explain how we ended up with the same actors (in the same clothes) playing different characters.
It was a two hour straight run and not surprisingly a few people sneaked out. Most stayed and the acting got some whoops of applause. That was deserved, as was the rendition of the individual scenes. The problem was tying it all together. A failure on that front, apart from anything else, surely means the message is somewhat lost on the viewer. This is a pity as the joint production by the Donmar and Clean Break clearly has an important message to convey - especially in the era of Priti Patel as Home Secretary.

12 October 2019. Glass. Kill. Bluebeard. Imp at the Royal Court

Here we had four eagerly awaited plays by Caryl Churchill.  With a certain amount of tube chaos, I arrived too late for Glass and watching it on the monitor was pretty hopeless. It certainly looked visually engaging but I could hardly hear the words. Anyway, latecomers were let in as the behind the curtain scene was being changed while in front of the curtain, we were treated to a spectacular juggler. Then the curtain rose for Kill, an extraordinary near-monologue with Tom Mothersdale sitting on a cloud as the Gods while a young boy played below him. The Gods recounted the incredibly convoluted plots of Greek plays in a way that was funny but also very engaging for poetry of the words and the manner of delivery. It pointed out how much was done to please the Gods that don't exist and ended with the Gods calling a halt. Fascinating to watch at the time, one is left pondering what Caryl Churchill is getting at. My interpretation is perhaps the rather plain one that so much human history is about killing - and killing for convoluted reasons often in the name of belief. Any God worthy of worship would surely be unimpressed by our human behaviour.
The intermission between Kill and the next play was filled by another amazing spectacle - this time a gymnast who managed to support herself on one arm, the whole time revealing the tension that the feat involved. This over, the curtain revealed four suburban characters discussing their old friend bluebeard and how his killings had come as such a surprise. They had on display the blood-stained dresses of his various victims and went on to discuss how they might market replicas of these as souvenirs to cash in on their relationship. It was excellently acted and staged so that this absurd situation became engrossing for its 15 minutes or so.
After the interval, came the much lengthier Imp. This starred in particular Deborah Findlay and Toby Jones as a couple of cousins, Dot and Jimmy, both on benefits, living together "without sex". Jimmy likes to go for runs to help with his depression; Dot really just sat in her chair using her inhaler from time to time. They are joined by Niamh, a young relative from Ireland who strikes up a relationship with Rob a homeless man who visits Dot and Jimmy. Some way into the play, Jimmy reveals that Dot has a bottle that she believes contains an imp and he goes on to try and use the imp to bring Rob good fortune; however, when Rob appears to dump Niamh the imp is invoked to put a curse on him. For a while, we are told Rob has found work in Saudi Arabia and Niamh has been posted to Paris. However, at the end, it becomes clear that this is all a ruse and Rob and Niamh are in fact together and she is pregnant.
The words of this play were quite Beckett-like - or maybe Pinter. They just washed through, beautiful to listen to. The most extraordinary exchange was Dot asking Jimmy if she was still attractive and him replying 'you know you're not'. What to make of it? Well, it cleverly confronted us with the power of beliefs in imp-like powers. Dot was mortified when Jimmy revealed he might have released the imp, as if a genuine power had been taken away. Then again, we were treated to some thoughts on the nature of relationships and how sex is such a powerful and misleading motivator especially before old age.
All in all, I thought this was great evening and would happily go to it again. for some reason, the critics seemed united on four-stars. Personally, I would give it five. 

11 September 2019. Appropriate at the Donmar

This was an excellent evening. We are in a Southern USA Plantation House to which a group of  three siblings and their families have returned following the death of their father. There is Toni, the matriarch of the trio, her successful brother Bo and his wife (Rachael) and the more wayward Franz and his slightly hippy girlfriend, River. Toni and Bo have a teenage son (Rhys) and daughter (Cassidy) and  there is speculation that these cousins fancy each other. There is also the much younger Ainsley who charges around the stage and is discovered early on going through a set of pictures that are the subject of the evening. They are of lynchings many years ago when slaves were present on the plantation. These pit the siblings and partners into much constructive denial that their ancestors could have been part of such atrocities but things are complicated when the monetary value of the photographs is determined.
The evening mixes a good deal of humour with what is mainly an examination of the dynamics of the family - with old scores and resentments to reprise. The standout performance was Monica Dolan, playing Toni - closely followed by the rest of the cast and the amazing gothic house set.

30 August 2019. The Doctor at the Almeida.

The evening will be particularly remembered by me for the fine acting of Juliet Stevenson as well as the engaging staging and set. We are in a hospital where a priest is refused admission to the room where a child is dying from sepsis caused by a botched self-administered abortion. The doctor - played by Stevenson - bases the refusal on not wishing to distress the child by alerting her to her impending death. She finds out anyway and dies in great distress - off stage.
The play looks at the 'shitstorm' that ensues from this action. Based on the play Professor Bernhardi by Arthur Schnitzler, this modern version shows how Ruth, the jewish doctor, rapidly becomes engulfed by an online petition and social media frenzy with the mob turning against her for her decision. She finds herself holed up at the home she shares with her lesbian partner and with an adolescent girl, excellently played by Ria Zmitrowicz. Outside the crowd are baying and slaughtering their cat.
The play is so full of action that it feels quite exhausting to try and note down all that it covered and captured. Most clear was the organisational politics that quickly asserted themselves, with members of Ruth's team and others quickly using the events to settle scores and gain advantages. Indeed, the whole turn of events, we are told, was caused by a disloyal nurse telling the child she was dying. Ruth is streets ahead of the others in terms of professional brilliance and heads up a unit looking to cure dementia. Her Elizabeth Institute is reliant on private funding and about to acquire its own building. All this comes crashing apart as the storm unfolds.
Under the direction of Robert Icke, time passes quickly for us watching this production. All too soon, we are at the point where Ruth is suspended from her post and 'tried' on television. At this point, Stevenson's anguish looked so real that I was forced to wonder how she could sustain the performance over the six week run of the play.
Really, an excellent evening and one which not surprisingly garnered great reviews.

29 August 2019. Hansard at the National Theatre

This was an excellently acted two-hander with Lindsay Duncan and Alex Jennings as stay-at-home in the Cotswolds wife and Tory Minister husband. Sitting through it, I felt thoroughly engaged and sufficiently won over by the lines to buy the text. However, on reading it through and reflecting, I think this was more an entertaining evening with a few extremely pithy and savage observations than a great play.
The characters err on being caricatures. He - Robin Hesketh - is the Etonian, stand-on-your-own-feet Tory; Diana is the bored, boozy wife who seems to have totally failed to realize her talents, apart from spouting a brand of champagne socialism. They tear strips off each other but I felt she had the better lines - maybe because of my own sympathies. Some punches land and feel relevant to today's Brexit Britain - especially the weird awe in which Etonians are held by a significant tranche of the electorate, coupled with a dread of foreigners. Set in the 1980s, a particular bone of contention is the Tories' Section 28 legislation that forebad the 'encouragement' of homosexuality.
Robin stays in London during the week and married Diana following an affair which they conducted when he maintained a similar routine - using his time in London to sneak off for the affair. Now, Diana suspects him of repeating history. The almost too predictable twist is that he has a soft side after all - hardly news to a psychologist and was as devastated as she was when their son committed suicide having felt rejected by the mother when she found him dressed in her clothes.
This great revelation was thoroughly well acted but really felt all too predictable. Furthermore, it does not, on reflection, seem to get one anywhere in 'makes one think' terms.
Anyway, all in all, it was an entertaining 80 minutes and one that I instantly recommended. The punches as delivered by this pair landed very satisfyingly.

13 August 2019. Tree at Young Vic

I thought the heart of this piece of theatre was interesting, well-staged and well- acted by the leads, Alfred Enoch and Sinead Cusack. However, the beginning and end left me pretty cold. The story is of Kaelo, now a graduate, the son of a South African father whose white mother left for England when pregnant. She has died and he is returning to South Africa to scatter her ashes. He stays on his maternal grandmother's farm and gradually learns the truth about his father's death while also making contact with his half-sister - a girl by a previous relationship his father had who has grown up to be engaged in property and something of a radical who sees Mandela as too compromising.
Without going into all the subtleties of the story, I found it engaging throughout and done in a way that kept me piecing the bits together to get at the truth. The staging was cleverly done - for example in the telling of the back story, Kaelo is suspended above the stage watching the action of his own past. He and Sinead Cusack (grandmother) acted convincingly, although some thought her accent was off-note. The same was true of the other actors and the scenes of conflict were particularly effective.
The hesitation for me was with the embedding of the play in a rather right-on evening with the audience dancing away before the start and at the end. This frivolity seemed entirely at odds with the serious content of the play itself - and not explained away by the closing words of the sister that partying is the way we do things in South Africa. This incongruity leaked into the beginning and end of the play itself. The opening scene was of Kaelo being woken for his plane by his flat mate who strutted around posing his gym-fit body. It struck a ridiculous opening note for me. Then, at the end, the scene between Kaelo and his sister reconciling by the tree seemed rather rushed and trite - a poor ending for an interesting ninety minutes.
Most of the audience were in the pit and engaged to some extent in the action. I was glad I was not there as their engagement seemed to me more likely to distract them than give them a greater understanding and insight into the themes that were being tackled. All in all, an interesting evening but not without flaws. The play is also somewhat dogged by claims of plagiarism gainst those credited in the blurb with its creation (Idris Elba and Kwame Kwei-Armah) and I was left with the mixed evaluation of some critics - though for my own reasons.

24 July 2019. War and Peace at ROH

This Welsh National Opera production of the full 13 act Prokofiev telling of Tolstoy's story was, for me, a pleasurable marathon. The first half is devoted to Natasha and the three men who fall in love (or is it lustful infatuation) with her. It is OK to sit through but, at heart, we are witnessing the story of an immature girl and three men, one of whom (Anatole) just wants to give her one, another (Andrei) who is more genuinely infatuated and the third (Pierre) who is married but falls under her spell.
In the second half, we are at war with Napoleon. The male characters from the first half are in uniform and Andrei ends up dying in the arms of Natasha. It seemed the stronger half, well-supported by a backdrop of clips from Sergei Bondarchuk's film of the story. Ending with a rousing epilogue, this half had plenty of Russian patriotism as well as dealing with such harsh realities of war as prisoners being shot rather than taken.
The singing and orchestra under Tomas Hanus were good and the one-set production seemed to work well with the addition of the backdrop of pictures and film. However, the opera itself is a bit odd. There is something of an imbalance of the characters narrating as opposed to acting out. We seem to have a succession of people coming on to tell us how they feel and what is happening rather than scenes of the happening itself. Of course, in the 'war' part this is often necessary but in the first half I felt there might have been more action.
Overall, I found this an evening that passed quickly enough but not really one that I would want to repeat immediately.

22 July 2019. the end of history at the Royal Court.

This interesting play got an average rating from the FT and every other review I read. I can entirely see why, though if you had to force me off the fence I'd go lower. It is well acted with a great set and as engaging a story as one might expect prying into a family's business. But, on the other hand, for me, the characters seemed exaggerated and I was very unsure what significant messages I was supposed to depart with to consider. In truth, I think it will be an evening that was enjoyable but quickly forgotten.
The play is entirely set in the kitchen of a couple - Sal and David - who are the caricature of the leftish, reasonably successful FE college lecturer cadre born, like me, in 1951. Sal went to Greenham Common, keeps an untidy house and has three children. In the first act, we are in 1997 and the daughter is at Cambridge where she says everyone is depressed because they realise that that they are not as exceptional as they had been led to believe at school. She has two brothers, they younger Tom and Carl who is that evening going to introduce his girlfriend to the family. Sal believes in a lot of open talk about sex to the degree that most children - I would have thought - would find embarrassing. But not these. Finding Sal sitting on David's knees, fully dressed and ordinary, she is told to carry on giving him a blow job. Anyway, the girlfriend Harriet is introduced and immediately somewhat condemned as posh and an airhead. Then, the bombshell is dropped that she is also pregnant and the couple are looking for some help to pay for ab abortion. David - who inexplicably reads the Telegraph - makes a lot of heavy weather of this request and the evening is engulfed in argument.
Act two is ten years later and Carl and Harriet are married with children, Tom has come out as gay and Polly is working as a corporate lwayer and having an affair with her boss - sexting like mad as she chats with Tom. Harriet and Carl turn up and another argument ensues. The evening culminates in Tom attempting suicide in the locked bathroom - as you do.
Finally we are in 2017 on the verge of Sal's cremation. Carl and Harriet are now separated, Tom is living at home and Polly's career is going from strength to strength. The act is dominated by David reading out the eulogy to Sal that he is planning to give in a few minutes time. This reveals to the children a few things they didn't know about their mother - such as the fact that she was jailed for her Greenham Common activities. I must admit, this crescendo left me unmoved and the revelations seemed implausible - as if the loquacious Sal would not have let slip that she did some bird for her leftish activities.
So there we are. The writer Jack Thorne definitely captured the caricature of his target and the cast delivered the acting. But, so what?

17 July 2019. Le Nozze di Figaro at ROH

This somewhat daft tale provided a vehicle for excellent singing, acting and staging to provide an engaging if, I felt, slightly over-long evening at the ROH. In the last half-hour I was beginning to suffer from Mozart overexposure. Anyway, the story is of Figaro who plans to marry his fellow-servant Susanna. However, the Count has designs on her and the older and less enticing Marcellina has designs on him. Things go merrily along until towards the end Marcellina discovers Figaro is in fact a son she had after an affair nany years before with the very man - Bartolo - who is now Figaro's enemy in the household. It was at this point in the proceedings that I felt the curtain should have come down for the audience to go home and ponder upon this implausibility. Instead, we carried on with the count's wife pretending to be Susanna, Figaro thinking his beloved is indeed unfaithful and the Count making a fool of himself. Finally all is revealed and everyone is forgiven.
The moral that Mozart / Da Ponte seem to be advancing is that women are not to be trusted - but neither are men. All seem to be up for a bit of hanky-panky. Overall, it's a makes-you-smile rather than makes you think evening. Definitely well sung, well acted and well staged, it's a comforting event that sends the audience home happy.

16 July 2019. Peter Gynt at the National Theatre.

This production of David Hare's adaptation of Ibsen's work had received very mixed reviews. It's distinctly long at almost three hours, excluding the intervals and so needs to maintain one's attention. Many critics, such as the FT's Sarah Hemming saw it as a long slog; others, such as Michael Billington gave it four stars. What everyone agreed upon was that James McArdle's near constant presence on-stage as Peter was an outstanding feat of acting.
The first act was about 80 minutes and I found it pretty tedious. I was very much on the cusp of giving up as all we seemed to be doing was sitting through Peter giving his wildly fanciful accounts to his mother of what he had been up to. She quickly twigged that all he was doing was recounting the plot of war films she knew perfectly well. All this seemed based on the idea of the importance nowadays of having a story, no matter whether true of fake. But this brought up the first fundamental problem for me. Was this a translation, update or complete rewrite of Ibsen. By the end I was not entirely clear but the answer seemed to be a rewrite using an Ibsen framework. 
Quite a few people did not return for the second and third acts - each rather shorter than the first. This seemed a pity as, for me but not for the critics, things picked up. The second act was quite fast-mving as Peter on a voyage of discovery was found in various locations such as a Trumpian golf course in Scotland. Then, in the third act, we had Peter in his old age taking stock of things and giving us his wisdom. This seemed quite good but I'm not sure we needed to have the preceeding two plus hours to get round to it. And, less than a week later, I find it hard to recall what the pearls of wisdom were. The main one, I think was that what we needed to do was self-improve.
So, this was certainly not an unmissable evening. Equally, having bought a ticket, I think it was worth attending if only for McArdle's acting, the brilliant set and the overall transportation into another world for the evening. That said, I definitely wouldn't want to see it again.

15 July 2019. Europe at the Donmar

This was a totally engaging evening, with a great play, excellent acting and a clever and dramatic set. Written in the 1990s by David Greig, the play felt entirely contemporary, capturing issues with which we wrestle today. The action is set in a small central European border town that has fallen on hard times because the border is no longer relevant and trains do not stop there anymore. The ensuing poverty of the town has stoked a rise in skinhead activity that comes to an ugly head as the play progresses.
Initially, we are introduced to the station master and his female assistant together with and emigrant and his daughter who have hit upon the town as a place to stay for a few days. The militaristic station master is initially hostile but thaws when the emigrent father reveals his love of trains and timetables and they become friends; meanwhile the assistant and the daughter embark on an affair with the assistant planning to leave the town for a life of adventure in the big wide world. The skinheads, one of whom is the assistant's husband bewildered by the emptiness of his marriage do not take kindly to the new arrivals or the turn of events; they beat up the father and, in an increasingly tense and escalating implosion end up petrol-bombing the station, incinerating the station master and the father, who have remained in the town after the assistant and the daughter have set off on the bus.
Time passed quickly in this captivating evening. The acting was complemented by an extremely clever set with lighting and sound effects that evoked convincingly the trains passing through the town as well as the arrival and departure of the bus. All in all a great evening that I'd happily repeat and that thoroughly deserved the four stars awarded by the FT 

13 July 2019. Cash Cow at Hampstead

A very well-acted ninety minutes by Jonathan Livingstone and Phoebe Pryce who were constantly and exclusively on-stage. Most of the time they were playing the pushy and cashing-in working class parents of a girl who was a tennis protege and making a life on tour. The action moved rapidly and repeatedly between time-settings, moving from the child's conception to the parent's planning to visit her as a grown up who had given up tennis and was living in America, alienated from her parents to the point of being in litigation with them. This made for an engaging telling of the unfolding of events that forced the audience to concentrate and take an active role in piecing the story together. In a nutshell, we had the parents identifying their daughter as a potential star, making sacrifices aoof time and money for her to realise her potential, pushing and hothousing her and perhaps bringing about the eventual disaffection with the sport and metamorphosis into a 'celebrity'.
Aside from being the parents, the actors from time to time played out the daughter's lines and overall gave us a good feeling for the child's compliance with the parents' ambitions that culminated in eventual rebellion. So it was certainly an engaging evening, albeit one that for me pushed the boundaries of plausibility with the parents' plans to sue the daughter if not the daughter's alienation from her parents. Were there takeaways? I suppose if you have children, it would be an interesting evening to prompt thought on the extent to which children should be pushed to realise their talents and how parental sacrifice should not carry the expectation or price of payback. I don't think it was a great play but Oli Forsyth's work was certainly worth the hour and half of its duration. 

24 May 2019. Four Quartets at the Barbican

This was a fascinating hour and a half - a mixture of:

• dance by an ensemble under New York choreographer Pam Tanowitz
• the narration by Kathleen Chalfont of TS Eliot's poem
• music by Kaija Saariaho
• a set and lighting designed by Clifton Taylor and featuring paintings by Brice Marden 

All these worked together brilliantly while having their independent existences. It was less dancing to the poem and music as dancing with them.

The poem itself is hard to fathom and I tended to use the narration as music rather than intellectually processing its meaning - tuning in and out while focusing on the dancers.

An interesting discussion afterwards cast some light on Tanowitz's approach to the work that included pilgrimages to the locations referenced in Eliot's poem. It made me keen to try and gain a greater insight on the poem's meaning.

So, I came down on the side of the critics who found this a really engaging event. However, it was also somewhat soporific and the person next to me kept nodding off.

21 May 2019. Rutherford and son at the National Theatre

This very well crafted play conveyed all too convincingly the claustrophobic existence of a bourgeois family living on Tyneside. We have John Rutherford, a glass factory owner and his two sons and daughter. One son, John Jnr, his wife, Mary and baby (following the live-on-stage trend) have returned from London, forced their by impecuniosity and his ill-health. Meanwhile, Janet is trying to find secret love with the foreman, Martin and the other son Richard wants to become a curate.
John is a no-nonsense businessman who exudes Victorianism apart from religiosity. In the end he steals John Junior's invention for the sake of the firm, banishes Janet for her affair, sacks Martin once he has betrayed John Junior's invention, loses John junior and finally does a deal with Mary that she can live in the house as long as the baby eventually goes into the family firm.
What's the point of this play? It certainly affected me emotionally. By the end I felt that I had wallowed in these people's privileged but gnawingly circumscribed existence. You could almost feel the physical cold in their house, let alone the deadening nature of their repetitive daily schedule. It certainly illustrated why people in that era sought to get away and make a life abroad. It also emphasised for me the questionability of building and handing on the family firm. What dull existence that was painted as. However, I'm not sure it was a memorable play or that there were takeaways beyond the obvious.
The acting was generally convincing, though I felt Sam Troughton as Jon junior sometimes delivered his lines oddly and needed to find the character more convincingly. The set was simply the living room of the family house - it reminded me somewhat of Saltaire - but extremely well constructed with a fire burning throughout. The only silly problem with the production was that money seemed to consist far too much of coinage rather than notes but that's detail!
A group of singers introduced and closed each of the three acts and seemed to add to the air of gloom quite effectively.
All in all, a worthwhile way to spend an evening at the theatre but I came out with the thought articulated by another member of the audience - it's grim up North.

20 May 2019. White Pearl at the Royal Court

I really enjoyed this new play by Anchuli Felicia King and was surprised that one or two members of the audience gave up on it before the end. Played energetically by a company of excellent Asian actresses, the play tells the tale of a Singapore-based cosmetics firm that sells skin whiteners to women who are never happy with how they look. The firm has hit a crisis with the release on the internet of a draft advertisement that reveals all to clearly the racist attitudes of the firm. We watch as the crisis unfolds, as well as taking a brief flashback to the year before when the firm was getting going.
The play captured perfectly the rather back seat that values take in capitalism's pure version as found in Hong Kong and Singapore. It also portrayed the disdain that different groups (Hong Kong versus mainland Chinese; Chinese versus Japanese etc etc) have for each other.
All together a very worthwhile visit to the Royal Court. The acting was excellent as was the set and stage management. I came out looking forward to a future visit to Asia and the chance to rub shoulders with some of the more pleasant characteristics encapsultated in some of the parts - especially the Japanese Ruki (Kanako Nakano), the mainland Chinese Xiao (Momo Yeung) and the Korean (Soo-Jin (Minhee Yeo).
While a few Westerners left before the end, the Asian audience members all seemed thoroughly engaged which seemed to give the evening a stamp of credibility.

18 May 2019. Phaedra at the Linbury

This was a truly operatic tale. Phaedra, falls for her stepson, Hippolytus, is rejected by him, claims to have been raped leading to him being killed by Poseidon and herself commits suicide. That's Act One. After writing this, Hans Werner Henze aged 79 apparently lapsed into a coma for two months. On coming to, he wrote Act Two, with the dead Hippolytus put back together on a operating table, renamed Virbius and confined in a cage while taunted by Phaedra. All the while, the minotaur - slain by Phaedra's husband Theseus, prowls around.

It would be hard not to be engaged with such shenanigans and Henze's music was played excellently by the Southbank Sinfonia - the percussion, clarinet and piano standing out for me.

17 May 2019. Yorke Dance Project at ROH

This evening to celebrate twenty years of the Yorke Dance Project in the vastly over-heated Clore Studio featured four pieces:
First was Kenneth McMillan's Playground - an apparently easy to follow tale of adolescent awakening in its first restaging since 1979. However, as the piece unfolds, we find we are not so much in a child's playground as a mental hospital ward. Hardly a laugh as minute, it ends with one dancer straight-jacketed and the rest in white coats.
After the interval, came the very brief Between and Within by Sophia Stoller and the much lengthier Communion, a commission by Robert Cohan, mentor to Wayne McGregor. Interesting at first, if I'm honest, I found communion too long. Just as I thought it was over, it carried on. It sarted with the dancers moving forwards and backwards in line with individuals stopping and then resuming. This was an interesting idea that I think could have been developed in much more impactful ways - e.g., all but one freezing. Anyway, there was then a second part where the dancers sat on two rows of chairs facing each other while some performed between them
Finally, after a further interval, we had Imprint by Yolande Yorke-Edgell. This struck me as by far the best piece, being infused with energy and positivity. It paid homage to Yorke-Edgell's influencers - Cohan, richard Allston and Bella Lewitsky and closed with some real exhuberance.
Irritatingly, the ROH had run out of programmes, so many in the audience did not know exactly what they were or had been watching.

16 May 2019. The Firm at Hampstead.

This ninety minutes in a quite classy bar/nightclub in the company of four ageing members of a gang together with a younger turk passed pretty effortlessly but had no real lasting effect on me. The entire actors' section of the theatre is the bar area where the action takes place. The bar is owned by one of the aged gang members - Gus - and the action opens with him engaging with Leslie. They are joined by Trent and Selwyn, but not by Shaun who they were expecting for a 'release' party. Instead, the younger Fraser is introduced to the group by Selwyn who believes him to be a relative. However, this youngster is recognised by Leslie as a cellmate who had messed about with Leslie's shoes. He is also recognised by Trent as a member of a gang who had menaced him a few days earlier. It transpires that he is, far from Selwyn's relative, the illegitimate son of Gus.
Without going into the detail of the plot, it is interesting to watch how sense is slowly made of who is who and why the gang are so against holding up a supermarket, as proposed by Fraser. The problem for me is what the takeaways are meant to be. Certainly the acting was great and all the brawls that flared up were convincingly done. All this action may have given insight into what 'real' gangs are like. However, I had the nagging feeling that I wanted reassurance that writer Roy Williams really new what this different world was like.
In summary, I was glad I went to see The Firm but I did not feel it was a memorable piece of work.

15 May 2019. Triple Bill at ROH

The triple bill consisted of;
Within the Golden Hour. This is the third time I have seen this Christopher Wheeldon piece and each time I have enormously liked it. With a very contemporary feel, the pairs and groups of dancers do extraordinary moves as if they were normal. The music and lighting complement and add to the dancing.
Medusa. This setting of the story of Medusa to dance is a good vehicle for dancers to demonstrate their talents - in particular the player of Medusa. tonight the dancer was Natalia Osipova who earned enthusiastic applause from the audience. I must admit, I did not take to the piece as much as that which had come first this evening. In truth, I don't think I picked up of all the subtleties of the telling of the story and could do with seeing the piece a second time.
Flight Pattern. I saw his Crystal Pite piece on its first run and found it as affecting on this second occasion. It has a huge number of dancers, creating a very convincing evocation of the crowd.
All in all, a good evening but I feel I rather missed the full impact of Medusa. My feelings were very similar to those expressed in the Guardian.

9 May 2019. Betrayal at the Pinter Theatre

This production had the audience gripped for its 90 minutes with hardly a cough being heard. The play works backwards from the end of an affair to its beginning. Tom Hiddleston stars as the husband whose wife and best friend embark on an affair which is revealed to him during a trip to Venice when the wife receives a letter from her lover.
Under the direction of Jamie Lloyd, the actors deliver their lines at a volume that is just audible but one is left feeling one is over-hearing the intimate revelations of their complicated lives. The subject matter is familiar, yet the play challenges one to think about the motivations for embarking on an affair and to face up to the near inevitable trajectory that it will take.
All in all an excellent if somewhat over-priced ninety minutes that left me wanting to buy the text.

7 May 2019. Billy Budd at ROH

By some magic, one finds oneself totally engrossed and immersed in this gloomy tale of bullying and abuse set at the turn of the 18th century. Billy Budd has been press-ganged from the merchant ship 'Rights O'Man'. His effusive farewell to his old ship using its name is misinterpreted as a sign that he is a potential mutineer. The master-at-arms, Claggart, takes a particular downer on Budd and tries to frame him but Budd strikes and kills Claggart when the latter makes his accusation in front of the Captain, Edward Vere. For this murder, Budd is sentenced to death by hanging from the yardarm. And so the opera ends, with Vere in his old age recalling these events with sorrow.
We are left wondering why Claggart took such an extreme dislike of Budd - was it his handsomeness that is frequently referred to? I was also struck by the graphic portrayal of the harshness of life at sea for those below decks - as well as the enviable club class life of the Captain. It is incredible that this was life just over 200 years ago.
The orchestra was excellent in its playing of Britten's score and gained well-deserved applause. The set designed by Michael Levine was also magnificent with the deck raised and lowered, revealing the men in their hammocks and other life below decks. The only element that jarred for me was a trench full of water that people routinely splashed through. It seemed a bit of a distraction.

6 May 2019. Top Girls at the National Theatre

I was really absorbed by this complex play by Caryl Churchill. The first act in which Marlene (played by Katherine Kingsley) hosts a dinner with a diverse group of women from history was incredibly effective and gained a well-deserved round of applause at its conclusion. The playing and drawing out of the different characters was extremely well-done, especially the chatty Lady Nijo (played by Wendy Kweh) and Pope Joan (Amanda Lawrence). It transpires that many of these had a story about children - e.g., Lady Nijo and Patient Griselda had their children taken away from them while for Pope Joan the act of having a child had resulted in her being stoned to death once it was realised she was not a man.
We then switch to the second act with the child Angie playing with her young friend Kit and voicing her dislike of her mother. Next we move to the Top Girls office with Marlene and her colleagues working as recruitment consultants. Marlene has just heard she has won promotion, to the cost of a male manager. Suddenly office life is interrupted by the arrival of Angie who has come for an extended but unannounced stay with her Aunt - Marlene. The act concludes with Angie sleeping on the sofa and Marlene telling her co-workers that she is thick.
After the interval, we are a year earlier and Marlene is visiting her sister in East Anglia, having been invited by Angie without consulting her mother. Marlene brings presents for the child including a turquoise dress into which she had changed earlier in the play. Marlene, a Thatcherite, and her sister, a socialist, fall into argument during which it transpires that Angie is actually Marlene's daughter who had been adopted by her Aunt. The play ends with Angie coming downstairs, her sleep having been interrupted and declaring how she was scared.
As I said at the outset this is a complex play that would merit some studying and I'm sure that all its angles were not captured by me at the time. However, it was most certainly and interesting evening, cleverly directed by Lyndsey Turner and with sets at the top of the National's high standards. 

3 May 2019. Death of a Salesman at the Young Vic.

This was an excellent and engaging evening. Casting Willy Loman as an African American (played by Wendell Pierce), the co-Directors (Marianne Elliott and Miranda Cromwell) did a particularly fine job of interleafing the flashbacks and the present time. The terrible moment when Biff visits his father in an out-of-town hotel only to find him with The Woman was particularly well conveyed - it is the fulcrum of the play, explaining Biff's current behaviour and attitude and getting the audience to consider Willy's betryal of his loyal wife, Linda (played by Sharon D Clarke).
My only hesitation was the set which was somewhat minimalist and didn't convey the oppressive surrounding of the Loman's home by more recent apartment blocks - a metaphor that was very clear in the RSC production I saw in 2015.

26 April 2019. Three Sisters at Almeida

I was really absorbed by this three hour immersion in the Russian countryside as the three sisters wrestled with the stultifying boredom of their existence. Longing to return to the gaiety of Moscow, for most of the play they are distracted by the soldiers garrisoned nearby. The middle one - Masha - has an affair with one of the officers to relieve the tedium of her early marriage to a local school-teacher while the youngest - Irina - is pursued  by several suitors. The eldest meanwhile - Olga - seems to have consigned herself to an early spinsterdom. The brother is married to the nasty selfish Natasha, a woman who the sisters hate and who gradually takes over their house while having an affair with the local mayor.
All the while, the play wrestles with the meaning of life - or its meaninglessness. The air of lethargy is summed up by the retired doctor who has turned to drink and in this version by Cordelia Lynn comes out with the ditty "Ta ra ra boom de ay; I've drunk my life away. What does it matter?"
Under the direction of Rebecca Frecknall, the actors were positioned on stage in arresting tableaux, adding to the theatricality of the evening. By the end, I would have happily have gone through it al again - passing my life, like the migrating birds referenced in the play, just doing something - which gives as much meaning as one can hope for.

23 April 2019. Sweet Charity at the Donmar

Anne-Marie Duff in the title role was one draw for me to book a ticket for this  musical, the swansong of Josie Rourke's time at the helm of the Donmar. It's a sad tale of a woman looking for love and escape from her life as a hostess which culminates in her engagement but subsequent jilting by a man from a very different world.
The other draw was that the choreography was by Wayne McGregor. However, it did not really feel like a production in which dance was to the fore. The musical element predominated.
All in all, a pleasant enough evening but not one that was particularly challenging - except for making me think about the dangers of trying to marry oneself into happiness and security. 

19 April 2019. SS Mendi at ROH Linbury

This production tells the sad and shameful tale of  Africans recruited to work for the British in the first world war. It turns out that they are only to be allowed to dig trenches rather than act as soldiers because their ethnicity confines them to a support role. They are to travel to Europe on the SS Mendi and the production recounts the journey which ends with the sinking of the ship after a collision with another under the reckless control of its Captain. He is given a mere year's suspension as a Captain despite drowning several hundred of the Africans.

This tale is told very effectively with a minimum of props and instruments by the Isango Ensemble.

11 March 2019. Frankenstein at the ROH

The evening, for me, passed quickly with this absorbing rendition of the Frankenstein story, choreographed by Liam Scarlett. The first act felt rather like scene-setting for the action that followed in the subsequent two acts. These really brought out the pathos of The Creature (excellently played by Wei Wang) who wanted to be loved and ended killing his creator and his creator's family. The lead roles of Frankenstein and his wife Elizabeth were played by Federico Bonelli and Laura Morera while the part of Justine, the wrongly accused nanny, was taken by Romany Pajdak. all received deserved applause. 

8 March 2019. Awakening at the Linbury

This was a very contemporary evening with the National Dance Company Wales, comprising three pieces:
First comes Tundra from Spanish choreographer, Marcos Morau. Named after the frozen tree-less landscapes of northern Russian, Tundra is inspired by Russia’s history, folk tales and revolution. The piece starts with a prologue where eight dancers in Russian folk costumes with long conical skirts that cover their feet glide around the stage as if on wheels. For the majority of the piece, though, all eight are in identical multicoloured striped body suits (costume design Angharad Matthews), their faces expressionless, as they execute coordinated movements of which the most spell-binding for me were the wave effects.

Afterimage, from the Brazilian-born, Europe-based choreographer Fernando Melo. This offers a very clever play on the reality and illusion of our perceptions. Two dancers perform in front of a semi see-through mirror. Behind the mirror a further dancer interacts with their reflections.

Finally, Caroline Finn’s Revellers Mass, an exhilarating work inspired by a whole raft of religious and pagan imagery. The set (Josef Fletcher) presents a long rectangular table, which later becomes a table for a fleeting recreation of Leonard Da Vinci’s Last Supper. The piece ends with Edith Piaf’s Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien. 

5 March 2019. Inside Bitch at the Royal Court

This was a rather strange event at the Jerwood Upstairs. It was acted out by four ex-prisoners with the seeming intention of disabusing us of the stereotype of a female prisoner as presented on the media. I imagine this was largely preaching to the converted. It feels mean being critical because the four players seemed very likeable and the whole endeavour is praiseworthy. However, the piece did not really hang together for me. It felt at times like impro and never really seemed to get beyond its basic message about stereotypes.

4 March 2019. The Son at the Kiln

This was an evening of great acting, although the opening scene between the parents of the main character felt a little in need of a warm-up. They were divorcees and their son, Nicholas, was the subject of their concern having been truanting from school. Things just got worse from there on with the son - excellently played by Laurie Kynaston ending up in a psychiatric hospital before his parents - who never wast to acknowledge the true extent and severity of his problems - discharge him only for this to lead to the inevitable suicide. 
A jolly evening it was not. In fact it was almost unremitting gloom and disorder with Nicholas regularly trashing the stage. It made me think I was glad not to have children but I don't suppose that was the intended takeaway by the French writer Florian Zeller. The reason behind Nicholas's depression is never resolved - was it the divorce of his parents or was his aberrant behaviour inherited? - His father in some ways mirrored his moments of passion, throwing furniture around at one point.
All the acting was good, benefiting from well-written parts - The stepmother played by Amaka Okafor came across particularly memorably, combining a certain 'not wholly my problem' attitude together with protectiveness towards her son from the new relationship with Nicholas's father.  However, I did not think the play itself matched the earlier The Father by Zeller satged when the Kiln was The Tricycle.

2 March 2019. The Monstrous Child at the Linbury.

This opera was the first to be staged in the new Linbury and did not disappoint. The tale is truly operatic of a girl named Hel who was born with a normal upper body but rotting flesh for her lower regions. She was lucky - her brother were born a wolf and a snake. All this because her giant mother shagged (as the opera put it) the Norse god Loki.
Hel is banished by Odin to be the queen of the dead but not before she has fallen for Odin's son Baldr. Eventually, he turns up in Hel's kingdom but all does not end happily.
The staging of this opera was extremely creative with Hel represented by a puppet while Marta Fontanals-Simmons sung her part, recounting the tale of her life as well as acting her role in the present. Sung in English, all was mostly clear to the ear. The music by Gavin Higgins and played by the Aurora Orchestra under Jessica Cottis worked well I thought and gave us an excellent if not jolly evening.

1 March 2019. Don Quixote at the ROH

This was a very jolly evening, featuring an episode in the life of Don Quixote when he champions the cause of two young lovers whose future seems less than assured because the girl's father prefers her to marry an upper class twit. Needless to say, it all works out in the end but the interim provides a vehicle for lots of duets and crowd scenes. The choreography is by Carlos Acosta, updating that of Marius Petipa. One hesitation I had was simply that there was too much going on at any one time to know where to focus. For example, at one point the lead couple were dancing but Don Quixote and Sancho Panza were acting to the edge of the stage. Which was to be the object of one's attention?
Another hesitation was that I found the dancing excellent but not electrifying. The production featured a number of pairings - unannounced at the time of booking - and this night featured Akane Takada and Alexander Campbell. Somehow they did not transmit the wow for me.
Anyway, overall, it was a thoroughly enjoyable evening and one to which one could easily take a guest, knowing that it would basically be a hit.

18 January 2019. Trio Concert Dance at the Linbury

This opening event at the Linbury featrued Alessandra Ferri and Herman Corneli in a series of slow and deliberate pieces. These were choreographed by Demis Volp, Wayne McGregor, Fang-Yi Sheu, Russell Maliphant and Angelin Preljocaj. However, an equal if not greater focus was on the pianist, Bruce Levingston, as he played pieces by Ligeti, Satie, Bach, Glass and Chopin. Overall, it felt a very special evening, albeit one that was somewhat earnest and perhaps of particular appeal for minimalists. The reviews I read were very positive.

14 January 2019. The tragedy of King Richard the Second at the Almeida.

Frankly, I booked this because the lead role was to be played by Simon Russell-Beale. While he validated the choice, the direction by Joe Hill-Gibbins did not really work for me. The 'set' consisted of a dark metallic cage; the actors threw buckets of 'blood', soil and water so that the stage ended up as something of a quagmire; some actors played more than one part; and the text had been severely pruned to 100 minutes. The play itself and the fine speeches struck me as deserving more.

9 January 2019. I'm not running at the National Theatre

This new David Hare play charted the trajectory of a doctor who was also a member of the Labour Party from her student days to the decision to run a Labour Party leader. It was told in flashbacks and flash forwards, starting from an announcement that she would not be standing and ending with the later contrary announcement that she would be. We went back to her student days with Jack and a long scene when they split up. Later, he reappears in her life as he is a Labour Party stalwart and she a single-issue (saving her NHS hospital) MP. The flame rekindles momentarily but by now he is married with children.
I found it all interesting enough to sit and watch and Sian Brooke's playing of the MP ws excellent. However, the takeaways rather eluded me and I suspect it will all be distinctly forgotten by the end of the year if not before.

4 January 2019. Les Patineurs, Winter Dreams and The Concert at the ROH

This was a pleasant enough evening - but one that didn't do much for me really. Les Patineurs was the best of the trio in my opinion. It is half an hour of dancers creating the world of ice-skaters - with a series of different characters from the a nervous pair through to the amazing soloist -Marcelino Sambe. The whole piece, choreographed by Ashton, was a pleasure to watch - combining great dancing with an amusing unfolding of the events. All against a lovely set of the skating rink, with some snow falling towards the end. Next, we had Winter Dreams, a ballet that originated as a piece by Macmillan for Darcey Bussell and Irek Mukhamedov. The problem is he extended it and it is all a bit tedious. It is based around Chekhov's Three Sisters which is an interesting enough story. However, it is all conducted in such a gloomy light that it is difficult to get enthused as one couple after another dance in pairs and groups. It paradoxically never quite got going for me while lasting far too long. Unusually, the set itself just seemed dreary. So all we ended up with was the air of gloom but not a lot else. Finally, we had The Concert which many people loved but I watched rather stony-faced. It is a bit of slapstick based around people at a Chopin recital. I didn't really see the point of it. The dancers are deliberately making mistakes and messing about and the story didn't honestly bother me.