We thought this was a very interesting and engrossing night at the theatre.
Ayad Akhtar won the Pulitzer Prize for drama with this visceral play about a Muslim corporate lawyer, Amir, in New York, whose life unravels during a dinner party.
Amir is a Westernised Muslim, who admits to feeling anti-Israel, on largely “tribal” grounds. But is Amir’s position anti-Semitic and is this issue the cause of his corporate undoing and more?
Although Disgraced (like Checkpoint Chana) rather unrealistically rushes the central character’s disintegration, it emerges from a far more subtle and interesting debate. It is also a far better piece of drama.
Excellent cast and production for Disgraced at the Bush too.
Occasionally an evening of theatre is so different and electrifying it sticks permanently in your memory as one of our very best theatre experiences. Janie and I both feel that way about A Human Being Died That Night.
The play is based on a book by Pumla Gobodo-Madikiezla, describing her work as a member of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission interviewing Eugene de Kock, who had been jailed for his murderous role in the apartheid regime.
We attended the first ever performance of this play, at the Hampstead Theatre Downstairs.
The downstairs lobby area is actually part of the performance space. We were told to sit around and wait, then the character of Pumla Gobodo-Madikiezla, played by Noma Dumezweni does a sort of presentation for us, explaining the background to her involvement and the effect that her interactions with de Kock had on her…
…then she invites us to join her to witness her experiences and leads us into the main downstairs studio space, which is an interview space in the prison where de Kock (played by Matthew Marsh) is incarcerated.
Below is a vid of an interview with the two main actors when the production was revived at the Hampstead the following year:
Below is a short, sharp vid of an interview with Noma when the play transferred to New York:
In the four years inbetween, Esfahani had become a real name in the early music world and here was an opportunity for us to see a recital of interesting stuff at very close quarters.
All Byrd in the first half – absolutely enchanting. The second half captivated us a little less – mostly familiar material from Bach’s Musical Offering (played beautifully) – we didn’t really see how the Ligeti fitted in with the Byrd and Bach. We love Hungarian folk music; the style just didn’t seem to fit with the rest of the programme, which was so relaxing. But that’s just us.
I’m not a great lover of Howard Brenton’s work; the best of it is terrific (e.g. Pravda, which he wrote jointly with David Hare), while some of his plays seem to me to be gratuitously violent, ponderous or both. But this one is excellent.
A fabulous piece of design, trying to utilise Ai Weiwei principles without overdoing it, the set was eye-catching throughout.
A large cast, all good, led by Benedict Wong who was superb as Ai Weiwei – the fact that he really looks the part helps but would not have been sufficient – he is also a very good actor. James MacDonald is a very reliable director too.
Parenthetically, Benedict Wong SO looks the part that Janie mistook him for Ai Weiwei himself at the theatre a couple of years later – click here or below:
But back to our Midlands and the North trip. We started with a couple of nights in Nottingham, in order to enjoy the second day of the county cricket season as guests of Nottinghamshire CCC. I wrote up our Nottinghamshire day, 11 April, for King Cricket – click here for that King Cricket (cricket-free) report.
Then on the 12th to the village of Wormleighton, in Warwickshire the spiritual home of Janie’s family. No-one knows how the family came to have that name. Probably because someone in the dim and distant past came from there and probably not because Janie is descended from the Spencer family (which pretty-much owned the village), despite the Churchillian and Princess Diana resemblances in Janie’s family.
For the uninitiated, Ged and Daisy are our pet names for each other and have been so for over 20 years.
We stayed at Wormleighton Hall, which is a rather grand farm house just outside the village – formerly the squires residence I shouldn’t wonder and now the home of the tenant farmers who make the whole thing work commercially by running the place as a small hotel as well as a farm. Lovely family; into all the local countryside stuff. We visited the Mollington point-to-point which they were attending on the 13th and took some excellent pictures of the local tribes at leisure.
Sighting of local tribesfolk at the Mollington point-to-point
On 14th we went to Chipping Norton to visit brother-in-law Tony and his lovely second wife Liz.
Hockney says you cannot properly photograph these Wolds scenes
On 15th, off to North Yorkshire, driving the eastern-side to see and photograph Hockney country before reaching The Star, where we stayed and ate in great style for a few days.
Farndale, the lower, less visited part
On 16th we went on a Farndale walk in search of daffodils, surprisingly successfully as the cold start to the spring had delayed the daffs, but they were just starting to show well our day – good fortune.
17th we drove South-West to Saltaire and had a look at the town and some art gallery-style Hockney stuff. 18th we spent at leisure and walking around the Star’s vicinity (Harome).
19th we drove home. Middlesex were again in action against Derbyshire (Day 3) and as we drove home we realised that an improbable early result to the match was on the cards. After stopping off at the house, I went on (alone) in the car to catch the end of the match and witness a Middlesex win – here’s the card. Quite a week for us and for Middlesex.
Janie and I saw this one the day after we got married…
…I’m not sure the thoughts of Gertrude Stein were entirely appropriate for that occasion…
…not that it was always possible to work out from these pieces what the thoughts of Gertrude Stein really are/were.
We really wanted to like this assortment of short pieces. Some of them were really interesting and/or enjoyable. But some were, I suppose predictably, very obscure indeed.
It was very well done – Katie Mitchell and a very strong cast. The downstairs had been transfromed into several performance rooms – the audience had to mill around as the scenes/performers moved from piece to piece. We liked all of that.
A rare (at that time) visit to the Hampstead on a Saturday. It was the start of a trend away from Hampstead Theatre Fridays towards Hampstead Theatre Saturdays for us.
I don’t often get invited to high-falutin’ functions. Indeed, I wasn’t originally, personally invited to this one. But Michael Mainelli was invited and realised that the venue was just around the corner from my flat and would probably be music to my taste. Michael asked if his business partner might attend in his place, so I was graciously invited instead.
But I don’t think I am disclosing any Russian state secrets, nor am I likely to trigger the wrath of any bad guys, by reporting in glowing terms this absolutely splendid evening at the Russian Ambassador’s residence.
It is a beautiful building for a start, with charming reception rooms and an ideal large chamber for music of this kind – solo voices accompanied on the piano.
The drinks reception before the concert was relatively low key and brief. Ideal in a way, as I suspect that many of the diverse guests, like me, knew few other people present, so it was much easier to socialise after the concert, once we had a topic of shared experience to discuss.
As it happens I did see a couple of people I knew; one couple I had met through cousins Angela and John at the LPO (another, relatively recent, high-falutin’ experience) – click here or below:
I also had a brief chat before the concert with one of Michael Mainelli’s colleagues from the City of London Corporation crowd.
Then the concert:
A very high quality of performance from the young performers, as you might expect. All bright young stars.
After the concert, the performers circulated with the guests – I enjoyed chatting with a couple of them who, as is often the case with music people, had superb English and sparkling personalities.
I met the Greek Ambassador and his wife, with whom I had a very interesting chat for quite some time, not least about economics, Greece and the economics of Greece.
The food was excellent – Russian-style grub to the very highest quality. Much of it finger food, but also fishes, meats and salads. Lovely wines – with vodkas on offer for brave folk (not I).
I thought I should make my exit before I started to get ideas above my station and spotted my opportunity to thank the Russian Ambassador in person, so made my retreat at that moment. I told the Ambassador that we were neighbours while thanking him – he told me that I should pop round again.
I had a truly Pooteresque moment a couple of days later when planning my thank you note, when I realised that. although I could get away with a simple “your excellency” when addressing the Ambassador in person to say goodbye, I needed to do a more through piece of research to write him a thank you note addressed correctly…
…confusingly difficult these days because there are now fully formal and less than fully formal written modes of address to choose from.
Hi Alex…you said pop round any time…so how’s about next Thursday?I think I went for “full monty” formal style of response in the end, just to be sure. I wouldn’t want to upset anyone – especially once they know where I live.
Joking apart, it had been a very unusual and enjoyable evening for me – very memorable.
You don’t get to hear Telemann’s Tafelmusik in the concert hall all that often, although we had seen The Academy For Ancient Music perform some, also at The Wig, only six months earlier – click here or below:
The attraction of this Florilegium concert was partly the Tafelmusik (we were to hear some highlights from Part One whereas we’d heard Part Two last time…
It was a very enjoyable concert. Florilegium are always top notch – or rather they always have been when we’ve seen them.
The Easter Oratorio is a super choice for Florilegium, with their core strength being woodwind. I recall they also drummed up some fairly splendid trumpets for the occasion too. The singing soloists had beautiful voices.
Below is a vid of the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists under John Elliot Gardiner performing the piece. Larger scale, but a lovely vid and it will certainly give you an idea:
I remember Janie remarking that the concert was just what the doctor should have ordered…
…at that stage of Janie’s “resurrection” that was a multi-layered joke, together with being a truthful reflection on what a tonic the concert had been.
I don’t receive much corporate hospitality – never have.
But Z/Yen had been doing some stuff around Long Finance and the London Accord with Bank of America Merrill Lynch at that time, so perhaps I shouldn’t have been taken unawares when I received a message from Kegan Lovely headed:
Lichtenstein Corporate Supporters Evening Private View: 26 March from 6:45 -9:00pm
As I said in my reply to Kegan:
My first thought when I saw the subject line was “those bankers, always supporting and sponsoring tax havens!!”
Then I realised what a kind invitation it was. Janie loves her modern art, so if you do have a pair of tickets left and if it isn’t too rude for us to arrive c19:30/19:45, we’d very much like to join you that evening.
It really was a timely and kind invite – Janie and I had been planning to go to this exhibition for sure – we both really like Lichtenstein’s work. Back then, Janie was not a member of the Tate, so the opportunity to see the works on a quieter, private evening viewing felt like a real treat to us.
In the end, Kegan was poorly, so couldn’t even make it to the event that night to be our host in person, but Janie and I got to enjoy the exhibition and some corporate hospitality too.
The vid below gives you a pretty good idea of what the exhibition was like:
My review at the time is there in my thank you e-mail to Kegan:
Many thanks for the Tate Modern event. Janie and I both really enjoyed the exhibition. Even though we had seen a lot of Lichtenstein’s stuff before, we had never seen it all in one place. Also there were lots of works – especially the sculptures, design pieces and “explosions” – that were completely new to us and very good. Lichtenstein was more versatile and multi-talented than I had previously imagined.
Gosh, this one didn’t really work for us, although we thought it would. We like Bruce Norris’s plays and the Royal Court was serving up a stellar collection of cast and creatives.
To some extent we were unlucky – we’d booked an early preview and the mechanically complicated set had encountered some technical problems. We were kept waiting 30 minutes or more for a delayed start…
…for a play that we knew was quite long anyway…
…and at that time we were more easily pleased by short, sharp (and possibly less challenging) pieces.
But the other problem I had with this piece was the rather obvious way that points about the financial crisis and subsequent political/economic responses were rather obviously rammed down our throats.
Also, the play latched onto one of my bugbears which is the misrepresentation of Adam Smith’s subtle body of work into an unkind representation of all that is coldly economic.
It all felt a bit “tell rather than show”, which detracted from the drama, which is probably why the Drama 101 text book suggests “show rather than tell”.
Below is the trailer vid…
…and below this line is a behind the scenes vid:
It was all very clever and the cast was excellent, but by half time – pushing towards 22:00 already, we decided to give the second half a miss. After all, I had the script in my hand and could pretty well work out what was likely to happen.
