Compassion

Last year, the National Theatre embarked on a new project, live relays of its plays to certain cinemas. This is not a wholly new idea, the English National Opera have for a few years now been broadcasting live on big screens around the country productions from the Royal Opera House, meaning that innocent shoppers have occasionally wandered past a public square showing such an event and been shouted at in German or Italian by a lady who looks like her favourite venue is Greggs.

The NT idea is altogether more intimate, show the live broadcasts in cinemas. This is good for a couple of reasons, the first is that one can go to the cinema to see a play rather than have to go to the National, which means you don’t have to go to the South Bank, which means you don’t have to wander past people who are trying to make a living from being painted silver and pretending to be robots. The second benefit is that one is rarely if ever allowed to turn up at your theatre seat with a huge fizzy drink, a bucket of popcorn and a plate of natchos, the downside of this is of course that one is allowed, indeed expected, to drink gin and tonic by the bucketload in the theatre, as this is the only sure way of enjoying any performance. If it’s crap, it’ll dull the pain, if it’s good, it’ll enhance the experience.

The other benefit for the National is that once something has been recorded, it can be broadcast again. This means that anyone who missed the initial run of a play can go and see the broadcast, and anyone who was actually there can go and see the broadcast of the play they attended, with the declared intent of feeling smug they were at the original and the secret intent of wanting to spot themselves in the audience.

Seeing the broadcast of a play at a cinema is an interesting experience. When I went to see recording of the National’s production of ‘Frankenstein’ the other night at the local cinema, it was all very theatrical. The cinema was full, just like a theatre, and the tickets were eye-wateringly expensive, just like the theatre. At the conclusion of the play, the people to the right of me applauded and while one might be tempted with the uncharitable thought ‘the actors can’t hear you’, it certainly added to the theatre experience of the thing, and I rather like to think maybe one of the actors was sat in the back row, muffled up against recognition, to see how the broadcast played out to a captive audience.

As to the production and the play, it was nothing short of astonishing. British theatre has a history of pushing the boundaries and the trouble with being avant guard and seeking to do something wholly original and challenging is that there is grave danger of setting up camp in that territory occupied by so much art and so so much theatre known as ‘pretentious bollocks’. However, if you can get your creativity just the right side of the bollocks line, you have a hit, a very palpable hit, on your hands, and so it was the case here.

The play was stunning and remains with one long after the last natcho has been digested. Frankly, it was both profound and profoundly moving and the message, one of the many messages, was that we have to be kindler towards one another. We have to make a gentler world, and be more tolerant.

For me, this is a particular challenge. Leaving aside the paradox that being tolerant can mean being intolerant of intolerance, I sometimes feel that the default setting of the modern world is intolerance. Obviously prejudice is vile, but there are more subtle, accepted forms of intolerance, that manifest in teevee talent shows and tabloid demonisation.

Becoming more tolerant is like going on a diet, when one feels the need to binge winge about someone or something, one needs to take a beat and wonder if the result will be a better world, or just one with a bit more bile in it.

Goldsmiths

And from nothing, it starts. One moment the audience are fidgeting, the orchestra are making last minute adjustments to instrument, frock or trouser and then music, soaring and swirling around the auditorium and I am instantly reminded why classical music buffs spend a fortune on stereo equipment, it's because compared to a live orchestra, recorded music sounds like it's being played into a tin can with the listener on the other end of another can and a length of hairy string.

This was what I believe is termed an unfamiliar programme, in that none of the music would be familiar to those of us who get the classical music elements of our culture through the medium of television adverts or film scores. It does though mean that we had to apply our own images to the music, the film score of our imaginations.

Maybe the unexpected music is because the lights in the auditorium do not dim in advance of the performance. Neither there a warm up or an announcement. The conductor does not come out and scream 'hello you fuckers, are you ready to rock?' but merely strolls to his podium, faces away from the audience and motions with his baton, no doubt muttering 'expelaramous' under his breath. The only hint that choral music is imminent is a very serious voice telling us that recording and photography is forbidden. This is a shame because some of the livelier sections would have made a hell of a ring tone. The voice sounds suspiciously like that of Patrick Stewart, leading me to wonder if it's a recording they play or if this is what resting actors do. But if it was him surely he would have advised 'no recording, no photography, make it so'.

The London Symphony Orchestra and Goldsmith's Choral Union are at the Royal Festival Hall to perform their Autumn show. The programme is Brahms and Strauss and it's the real deal, with Swedish sopranos and a selection of German requiems that promises to be good, if short on laughs.

And the performance is good. However, some sort of classical music etiquette dictates that nobody applauds between movements. If throat clearing was a sign of approval though, then the singers and musicians can assure themselves that they are either doing a great job, or that there is a coach party in from the local chest clinic.

The first half of the programme, known in live performance circles as the countdown to a gin and tonic, features the orchestra and the soprano. The choir sit in their balcony and I'm not sure if they are disciplined, or sulking. The architecture and design of the Royal Festival Hall is such that the choir balcony, sat above the main sage, looks for all the world like a giant's version of the set up on 'University Challenge'. Among the soaring strings and blatting brass, one almost expects to hear a buzzer and a voice intoning 'Goldmith's, Jones' at the conclusion of the longest music round in the world.

Consultation of the programme and scrutiny of the soprano on stage lead one to believe that either her publicity shot was taken some years ago, or the soprano on stage has eaten the one pictured in the programme, along with a lot of cake. Possibly this explains why the singer has gone with a close up headshot for the portrait, as a photograph revealing dress may also reveal vintage. Nothing like a photograph of somebody in a rah rah skirt and a 'choose life' tee shirt to prompt the uncharitable conclusion that the years have not been kind.

Large as the soprano was, the orchestra was larger. But even with the stage full of folk in evening dress, there was still room for members of the orchestra to stash spare instruments by the sides of their seats. Like the chap sitting next to his spare bassoon. No denying it, he had an emergency bassoon, what sort of event was he anticipating where he's going to have to switch to a back up bassoon? At least the presence of two harps was explained by the presence of two harpists, although the effect was somewhat spoiled by their playing the same notes at the same time. Maybe that was what was in the score but how often do you get two harpists and two harps together? Sod the score, we want duelling' harps! On seeing the harps I did wonder what we were in for? One harp is intimidating enough, two were disquieting. The things are as tall as a person and carved out of solid wood, with a wee harpist standing next to them they looked like medieval siege engines.

Another intimidating instrument was a tuba with what appeared to be a huge cork in it. I am assuming it's some sort of muffler intended to turn the normal fog horn effect of everyone's favourite collection of brass and valves into a sigh, but it rather looked as if the tuba player had taken himself down the musical equivalent of Halfords for a mod kit for the thing. Pimp my horn.

The harpists and tuba player were, however, innocents compared to the timpanist. According to the programme notes duding the premier of the piece the choir was drowned out by an over enthusiastic timpanist and the look this guy gave the audience indicated he knew we knew and who knew? tonight might just be the night for history repeating. While he didn't drown out the choir he was bloody loud and played like a man who seethed that this and 'bolero' were the only times he got to strut his stuff.

All this though, was as nothing compared to the palpable sense of apprehension that seized me when the organist took his seat. I was sitting twenty rows back and even I could see the huge 'vox die' stop that he was eyeing with relish. Any instrument that comes with rear view mirrors, and is traditionally played by mad scientists, has to be taken seriously.

It was, of course, stunning. A professional orchestra, a full choir and a programme that went from pieces that described perfectly in music the fall of an autumn leaf to a choral celebration of life. The fact remains though that however you look at it, it's two hours of being shouted at in German.