Review: Black Coffee

The English love tradition, this being the only plausible explanation for the continued tolerance of Morris dancing in public places.  The English also love a good murder, by which I mean one that takes place in mysterious circumstances, in genteel surroundings and could have been committed by any of a number of colourful characters, each with a hidden past or dark secret, rather than the sort that takes place in a pub car park and is unquestionably committed by the thug in the mismatched tracksuit holding a hammer and a grudge.  And the English love their Queen of Crime, Agatha Christie.
And of course Malvern, or rather Malvern Theatre, is always happy to play host to the better sort of murder.  That is why Agatha Christie is still very much a welcome guest in the town, with dramatic adaptations of her work returning to thrill and enchant year after year.  ‘Black Coffee’, as with previous productions from this company, played to a packed house, and with good reason.
Black Coffee is very much an ensemble piece but as soon as the curtain rises, it’s clear that one of the principal players is the set itself.  Dominated by a large window that looks for all the world like a spider’s web, in Act I it frames a sky full of what can only be described as lowering clouds, and a privet hedge (by the end of Act I even the hedge looks suspicious, can one really trust a hedge that well groomed?).  The set is a large drawing room and library in the sort of country house that attracts murderers and eccentric detectives the way normal houses attract junk mail.  The set provides enough space for the cast to huddle in corners, perch nervously on sofas but, and this most importantly, for Poirot to prowl.  The room is described at the start of the play as a rat trap and at one point, with knowing amusement, by Poirot himself as a ‘mousetrap’.  For the audience though, it’s a window into the 1920s, into the world of the country house, into the world of Agatha Christie.
In this ensemble piece the spotlights on the stage follow the spotlight of suspicion as it moves from cast member to cast member, each with their frailties, each with their possible motive, each in sequence falling under the gaze of the diminutive Belgian detective.  Summoned to the house to investigate a missing formula, he remains to investigate something far more sinister.
The production hits exactly the right note, drama, a little melodrama, real tension and moments of comedy that are pitched perfectly.
An ensemble piece then, but Robert Powell is unquestionably the star.  This is an actor so confident in his performance, and those who have played Poirot before him have surely cast long shadows, that he occasionally appears to almost, very nearly, acknowledge the presence of an audience.  Perhaps for Poirot there is always an invisible audience he performs to, when his companion Hastings is unavailable.
Certainly with an Agatha Christie play featuring the famous detective, it’s a reasonable expectation that the audience will be familiar with the subject matter, and a little playfulness is allowed, even expected.  Theatregoers watching a performance of an Agatha Christie play will expect red herrings, dapper dressers, country houses, butlers and suspicious privet.  This is an audience that is probably familiar with the work and undoubtedly intimate with this detective, or at least they think they are.  Poirot has been a regular fixture on film and television for years, indeed so pervasive is his presence that when the curtain came down between Acts, I expected to see an advert for river cruises appear.
The play is staged over three Acts, with two short intervals.  A cynical attempt to double the gin revenues at the bar, or an excellent mechanism to increase the tension between each Act, as the audience has exactly the right amount of time for gin-fuelled uninformed speculation and swapping of theories before launching into the next round of revelations and red herrings?  Or both?
The play also asks some interesting questions about the English attitude to foreigners, of which Poirot is, thankfully, the acceptable sort.
Exceptional.

Culture Corner

Throughout 2013, Gentleman & Player has never been short of an (unpublished) opinion, informed or not, about the cultural landmarks of the year (such as asking ‘is the Costa or the Orange the one for lezzas?’ before not dashing off 700 words on modern literary prizes).  In an outstanding year for the arts, here were some of the highlights.

Television

Reviews and articles about the final season of ‘Breaking Bad’ continued a trend started by coverage of ‘The Wire’ which implied that the audience is somehow intellectual simply because they were watching the thing.

Strictly Come Dancing continued to amaze, Sir Bruce is a testament to either the wonders of animatronics, or the existence of necromancy.

‘Day of the Doctor’ was best enjoyed in a cinema.  Not just because sitting in the dark gave fans a chance to touch a girl, but because the 3D was perfectly realised and there was, appropriately, yet another dimension to the experience by sharing it with others.

BBC ALBA was a revelation.  You can see premiership football and rugby on the BBC.  OK, it’s Scottish premiership football and rugby, and the football is mostly Partick Thistle, but it’s excellent for a couple of reasons.  Firstly, in the world of Scottish sectarian football, Partick Thistle are like a DMZ, wearing a Jags scarf is guarantee of safe passage in Glasgow.  Interesting to see if this continues if they continue to be quite good.  Second major bonus is that all the commentary is a Gaelic, so nobody can understand a word.  But it all sounds poetic and wonderfully passionate.  Blissful.

Art

Manet at the RA was a masterclass in how to do a lot with not very much at all.  Manet was rich enough not to be arsed to finish most of his paintings.  Still, the new audio guides are good, including a little screen where you can see a picture of the picture obscured by the crowd in front of you.  This was a blockbuster and with London so handy for the Eurostar judging by the accents, and the manners, quite a lot of French had made the trip to see the exhibition.

The RA Summer Exhibition 2013 – surprisingly un-shit this year.

Doig at the Scottish National Gallery – confronted by enormous, colourful canvasses of tropical landscapes, the indigenous population didn’t know what to make of them.  Is a blue sky modernist or surrealist?

Theatre

The exceptional performances in ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream’ underlined the casual cruelty of the fairy folk.  Sheridan Smith deserves special credit for being able to divert attention from David Walliams, who appeared to be possessed by the ghost of Frankie Howerd.  Smith’s legs are even better than her acting talent, which is exceptional.

Jude Law’s stellar performance as Henry V confirmed that it’s always a great idea to put a film star on the boards.  In a spellbound audience, you could hear the collective raising of hairs standing up on end during the ‘breach’ and ‘St Crispin’s Day’ speeches.  The tears in my eyes were due to an excess of dry ice used as smoke for the battle scenes.

Review: The Mousetrap

The good people of Malvern love a murder, by which I mean they love an artfully produced whodunit, which is why on this rainy November night the Malvern Theatre was full, not a spare seat to be had.  Knowing what lay in store, folk were ready for a treat and obviously, those who had enjoyed previous productions and who are intimate with Agatha, were expecting something worth tempting them out on a night like this, something special.  And something special is what they got, because although the place was packed, as it was observed to me afterwards: 'there was not a sniff, cough or fidget the whole way through'.  True enough and no further accolade is required to underline the quality of this performance of 'The Moustrap'.

What I will say is that the individual performances were excellent.  As usual, the stage contained a number of well known actors, by which I mean well known from the telly, and the play gave them the chance to step out of familiar roles into vintage dress, an opportunity they seized with obvious relish.  It's wrong to single out any sole performance for praise but it's fair to say that the spirit of impending panto season had obviously gripped some of the cast, with Steven France and Karl Howman in particular in fine form, giving a masterclass in how to perform at the very edge of restraint, and when to knowingly push things just that bit further.

Indeed, for a whodunit featuring ghastly grisly murder, the entire play was not short of laughs, there were genuine comedic characters and some finely judged comic moments, all of which gave the darker moments of the play that much more chilling impact.

The play is celebrating its sixtieth year, yet still seems fresh.  Partly this is because the set up, strangers thrown together in a country house hotel that is then cut off from the rest of the world by snow, is timeless, or at least has been timeless for the last sixty years.  But also because, unfortunately, some of those darker themes in the play are still with us and, at the time of this performance, still sadly topical.  The audience were watching a play cherished in part because of its longevity that dealt with contemporary themes.

In 'The Mousetrap' four expected and one unexpected guest arrive at a newly opened hotel and, as the snow thickens outside, the plot thickens inside with the discovery that one may be a murderer.  The first half of the play, with the introduction of the characters and the building of suspicion into paranoia, ensures that the audience has a busy time pointing the finger of suspicion first one way and then the other.  'The Mousetrap' is a glorious mechanism, the plots and sub-plots weaving and ticking along but there is more to it than an admirable structure, as the characters come to life, the audience are drawn in.

And what a pleasant place to be drawn in to.  Once they have cleared out the murderer, I'd quite fancy a week at the hotel.  The set was excellent, an unchanging single room that somehow managed to convey that yes, behind this door is a writing room, behind that one a dining room, behind that one a music room and so on.  As important as the scenery was the lighting, which managed to suggest that particular winter dusk you get when it's been snowing and, for one pivotal scene, transforms the stage and the theatre as day becomes dusk.

That 'The Mousetrap' is celebrating its sixtieth year is testament to its quality as a play and this was an exceptional performance, with cast and crew obviously conscious that they were performing something beloved, with national treasure status.  There was an air of celebration to the performance that might not have been there last year and may not be there next year but that does not matter because, at the conclusion of the play and after the curtain call, one is asked not to reveal the plot.  In that one delicious moment there is complete complicity between audience and performer and with a huge collective wink, everyone goes home happy.

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.

Review - Murder on the Nile

Malvern may well be the perfect place to put on an Agatha.  A spa town made up of several villages strung along the shadow of the Hills, it could be said to suffer from something of a split personality, in parts grand, in parts bohemian, in parts just a little eccentric and as a whole, delightful.  

It is the sort of place where, if there were a body in the library, it would have the good manners to be discovered in the ‘true crime’ section.  It is charming and friendly but there is just enough of the history and resort oddness that comes with being a spa town that used to attract a lot of visitors, and just enough of that village sensibility of everyone knowing everyone else's business while simultaneously being a place where secrets are kept, to make it the sort of place where curtains might twitch and they love a good mystery.

Malvern Theatre is a place like no other, with a strong reputation for being the venue that directors take their shows to to perfect them before being unleashed on London, as well as unashamedly providing entertainment for the town.  Here the curtain twitches and then rises, and the people of Malvern do like a good mystery.

And if that entertainment and mystery comes in the form of bloody murder, then so much the better.  Because Malvern is the perfect place for a whodunit, with atmospheric locations, interesting locals, all that grand architecture and plenty of dark corners to hide secrets in.  

The curtain went up on ‘Murder on the Nile’ and we were not in the sleepy, sinister English countryside anymore, rather, we were in Egypt or, to be more precise, the foredeck of a Nile cruiser bathed in glorious sunshine.

Even for an audience of locals who have quite a healthy relationship with water, thank you very much, this vista caused quite a thrill among the audience who, thanks to a constant diet of rain and drizzle over the past months, were overjoyed to see some sunshine, even if it was artificial. Rows A to D were slapping on the factor 40 and spritzing one another with insect repellent, it was that authentic.

What makes a great set?  Well, in my experience gaffa tape and imagination in equal measure but in this case it was the lighting that made the impression.  Instead of a merciless glare we had mellow light, and not just any mellow light but the mellow light of a travel brochure, from a more elegant age.  Because the characters, being English and abroad, decided that the best way to cope with a voyage on a boat riding on a river through the Sahara was to wear as much linen as possible.  This is inspired, if one is going to look uncomfortable and moist, one had better do so elegantly.

As the full house showed, Malvern enjoys an Agatha and this was no exception.  An exceptional cast was in no way outshone by, but without a doubt led by, Kate O’Mara.

There is something about a real star that sets them apart and Miss O’Mara’s performance was flawless.  Looking most of the time like she was trying to ignore an unpleasant smell (insect repellent from the front row?) she was, to the smallest detail and in the widest sense, the grand society lady, travelling.  This was a woman who carried England with her wherever she went and no matter how foreign the land.  So it was here, every phrase clipped and every movement measured.

The plot was a precision instrument and the cast contrived to throw suspicion first one way and then another.  Without a serial Agatha sleuth on board, the audience felt justified in silently speculating about guilt and innocence, not having to worry about second guessing Jane Marple.

The only thing lacking was the unavailability of 'pink fizz' on tap for the audience.  This is what the cast were constantly ordering from the ship's bar, drinking enough of the stuff to float the ship itself, it's a wonder anyone could shoot straight.

It's always impressive to see a great cast enjoying performing a good play, and enjoying the 'sunshine' too.

Glued to the box

There’s a story about the very early days of cinema, when the Lumier brothers were showing footage of a steam train pulling into a station. The audience thought the train was about to run them over and fled as only startled French people can do. Looking back on this event, which is often used as an example of the shock of the new, one might be forgiven for using the term ‘quaint’ as possibly the most charitable response.

A century later and I’m in an electrical superstore, tinkering with the notion of a new telly. Naturally, one cultivates the reputation as somebody who entertains themselves via a good book or, if push comes to shove, the wireless. The truth is that books may furnish a room, but a 50 inch plasma telly would, in my opinion, enhance it still further. The problem, I discovered, is that I’d have to sell all of my books and possibly a kidney in order to afford such a telly.

But it was fun to browse. Many tellys these days come with a pair of dark glasses, not, as I thought, as some sort of ‘Blues Brothers’ gift pack, but because you can get three dee tee vee in your home. Some were better than others but, bloody hell, the LG one was something else. They were showing a showreel of various three dee things, like a baseballer hitting the ball at you, aeroplanes shooting past you and so on. And yes, I was dodging and shrieking like a girl, pointing and trying to swat away butterflies. This must have looked, to the casual observer, as hilarious as any fleeing Frenchman and trumped my previous triumph of making an arse of myself in a shop, which involved X Box Kinect and no sense of restraint.

The success of three dee tee vee is going to depend on the programming. Anything wonder of nature related is probably going to be good in three dee, especially if they rig up some sort of cheeta-cam fixed to the front of a big cat, although maybe the sight of running into a wildebeast’s arse at sixty mph is not tea-time viewing.

Sports events would be good in three dee. Sky already broadcast footie in three dee, to make the event immersive. Of course, to make it truly immersive, they should send round a hot pie at half time. Likewise, the final of Strictly was shown in three dee in cinemas. I really liked this idea, not the three dee but the idea of gathering together strictly fans in darkened rooms – it’s like the heyday of the gay club scene in NY, and the very definition of ‘fabulous’.

Indeed the future of television may not lie in three dee, smell-o-rama, rumblevision or any other gimmick, but in the collective experience of event television. And why stop at simply gathering together to watch your favourite programme? The next logical step is to develop the already established showing of certain films in certain locations and site specific theatre by developing site-specific screenings, or at least augmented screenings. For instance, which of the following would enhance your enjoyment of ‘Downton Abbey’; big tee vee? HD? 3D? Or watching it while wearing formal dining attire sat in a drawing room being served cocktails and repressing sexual longing for the girl in the flimsy dress who keeps stealing glances at you? Or no adverts?

Or maybe the future lies in interactivity, mashing up television footage with a games console. Can we really be that far away from a nature programme that shows us the wonders of the deep which and comes with a virtual fishing rod? Or the wonders of the veldt that comes with a virtual elephant gun? Actually, Ray Bradbury wrote an excellent short story about the interactive nature programmes which indicate that they are not always a great idea.

Of course, collective viewing of favourite television programmes might also mean that when somebody asks ‘what’s he been in’, an answer might be forthcoming without needing to fire up IMDB. This is especially useful in Dickens adaptations, where even the most familiar face can be buried under more whiskers than is sensible.

Review - David O'Doherty presents: Rory Sheridan's Tales of The Antartic

I know somebody who is related to an Antarctic explorer, her Irish ancestor was on Shackleton's expedition, the one that ended with the epic open-boat journey. And I've been to Ireland and seen a house with a plaque stating that a polar explorer lived there so I asked her, what is it about the Irish that compels their men to seek out the desolate waste? She replied that it's because it's the last place on earth that they are likely to have their mammies telling them what to do.

The explorer in this show went to the Antarctic for love, and love is probably the only thing in the world that is more likely to lead a chap into doomed folly than Antarctic exploration. So the combination of the two was going to be a winner.

The show was good. The venue was a sub-sub-sub basement of some council building, think underground car park with no lights and water running down the walls and you get the idea, I half expected to come across some lost cavers, or morlocks, as I took my seat.

A monologue of love, adventure, madness and the invention of the pub quiz, the writing and delivery was clever and funny, making some mileage from using modern references in the context of early twentieth century polar exploration, with plenty of straightforwardly funny stuff ('penguins, let me tell you, are stupid. They are more stupid than an bottle filled with meat') as well as a poignant conclusion.

In terms of performance, invention, charm, storytelling and laugh-out-loud funny moments, this show was the high water mark of this years fringe, just the sort of thing one hopes to see, deliciously different, wonderfully executed and will change your view of penguins forever.

Review - Tearoom

A show that starts at mid-day? What were we thinking? Surviving the Fringe means that late nights (or rather early mornings) need to be balanced out with late rises or stimulants by the fistful. The Fringe should not involve setting your alarm clock. And yet we rose at an (in)decent hour, took on the usual six to eight thousand calorie breakfast that is so necessary when your day is going to involve charging from venue to venue, drinking heavily, and wandered through a deserted city to our lunchtime play.

That's right, Edinburgh was more or less deserted at half eleven, one got the feeling that the last revellers had only gone to bed a couple of hours before. The city smells suspiciously of bleach at that hour of the morning and one would do well not to step any any area that smells more than averagely pine fresh.

Tearoom was an attempt at site-specific theatre. A couple of years ago, a theatre group had had great success in setting a play by Bukowski in a bar. Could this lot emulate that success in a tea total environment? Quite a challenge.

The play takes place in a large room, dressed to look like a tea room. The audience sit at tables around the edge and drink tea and eat cake while the actors sit at tables in the middle and drink tea and eat cake and act.

And act well. This was an excellent idea executed with all the elegance of a fine bone china teacup, occasionally as dark as black coffee, occasionally as light as a muffin. The triumph was that the premise of the play, that one was eavesdropping on a private conversation in a public place, worked and worked because one wanted to listen rather that pursue the natural urge in such situations - which is to plug in an iPod and raise the sonic screen.

The play played to a full house, and as we left there was a lady at the door of the venue asking about tickets for the next performance. A popular production and, with the price of afternoon tea included in the admission price, the perfect combination of culture and cake!

Full disclosure - I know one of the actors. He was excellent. I managed to suppress the urge to wave when he appeared. I also know that when he handed out the flyers for the show, he told prospective audience members that it was in the 'pubic triangle', that is, the area of Edinburgh that has three stripper pubs in it. In truth, it's just off the pubic triangle.

Review - Secret Window, Secret Garden

It was all very fringe. The venue was up three flights of stairs in an building best described as of the Chauchescu era Romanian brutalist school, dimly lit, grimy, probably started falling apart before the paint was dry and that was thirty years ago. By the time I had hauled my somewhat fringe-fried body to the top of the stairs, I was sweating at the irony that attending a festival that involves so much rushing from venue to venue also involves chips and beer as the power diet of choice.

We took our seats and waited for curtain up. More accurately, We took our seats and waited for the play to begin. Rows of seats surrounded the stage on three sides and two of the actions were already in position. We were joined by three other audience members. I looked at my watch and was wondering if there was going to be a late rush when the play started.

Six cast members. Five audience members, it was all very fringe.

The play was actually very good. I had read and enjoyed the Stephen King story it's based on a few ears ago, and I knew there was a film adaptation so knew it must lend itself to dramatic adaption.

The stage adaption was good. I'm not sure whether the theatre company had done it themselves but condensed to an hour, it had plenty of mystery, thrills and a few twists.

Having read the short story I had that unspooling in my head at the same time as the play unfolded in front of me, and it was fun to play 'spot the difference' between print and drama. The only thing that disappointed me was that the adaption did not go far enough, the accents were British but the names were still as American as perfect teeth and illegal wars. It would have been good to see an attempt to Anglicise it a little, with the writer's cabin in the woods turned into a caravan maybe?

The cast were young and enthusiastic, they were a little inexperienced maybe but hey, they were playing to five people so well done for not just saying 'fuck with it' and going to the pub.

The one thing we agreed on when we left, after congratulating the cast, was that we couldn't understand why there weren't more people in the audience. Must be the climb up those stairs.

Postcard from Edinburgh - Leaflets

So, you’ve made it. You’ve brought your fabulous, world-changing show that’s going to make you a star to Edinburgh. But how are you going to let the world know about it, especially when there are thousands of other shows here?

Grabbing the camera of a BBC crew here to cover the festival is one idea, as is trying to bribe your way to a decent review in ‘the Scotsman’ but, generally, you’ll be out and about trying to force an uncaring and apathetic public to take a leaflet about your show that, if they bother to read it, will convince them that you are worth an hour of their life and a tenner of their money.

Or you could stick your leaflet, probably on top of somebody else’s, on one of the leaflet towers that adorn the Royal Mile. Or you could just get a girl in a skimpy top to hand them out.


How do you avoid leaflets? It’s not enough to just keep your head down, or even to extend your palm and straight arm like a rugby player, the kids doing the leafleting are young, fit, keen and eager. No, you’d got to accept you are going to have to accept at least thirty to forty leaflets when you, say, pop out to the newsagents or go to the loo in a pub. The best tactic is to tailor your response, so for instance, if an earnest young woman is trying to give you a leaflet about a show depicting the struggles of a union organiser in south America, consisting of mime, dance and puppets, then asking ‘any knob gags?’ may just get you off the hook. Warning: trained dancers can kick like mules.