Chains by Elizabeth Baker, Orange Tree Theatre, 24 November 2007

Truthfully, I recall very little about this one. No doubt Sam Walters was wandering around like an expectant father on the night we went; a production directed by his wife, Auriol Smith and starring their daughter, Octavia Walters. Although we were past the preview stage, so perhaps Sam wasn’t there that night.

Anyway, here’s the helpful Orange Tree stub about it.

Michael Billington in the Guardian, as usual with Orange Tree stuff, loved it, here.

Philip Fisher in British Theatre Guide is reasonably impressed but observes that there is a lot of dull chit chat, here.

The Standard suggests that it is interesting as social history but lumpen as drama, here.

I have a feeling that we found it a bit lumpen too. We tended to with Orange Tree pieces from that period, often observing that Sam’s reluctance to use an editing pencil on Edwardian revivals is a bit of a disadvantage. A shame really. Especially as so many of my great aunts and uncles made that trip to Australia 100 or so years ago, the subject really is of interest to me.

Still, we no doubt still enjoyed our evening and no doubt rounded it off with Spanish food at Don Fernando, as most often we do after the Orange Tree.

 

Free Outgoing by Anupama Chandrasekhar, Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, 23 November 2007

We thought this might be a good one. That’s why we made the rare decision to book the Royal Court for a Friday evening.

We were not disappointed.

The story is simple enough; a young Indian girl in Mumbai has been videoed by her boyfriend having sex with him and the video inadvertently goes viral, ruining the youngsters lives; in particular hers and those of her family.

Lots of big modern issues in there. We found the play intriguing and disturbing. The production was very well done.

The Royal Court stub on this one is excellent, with several good reviews reproduced in full – here.

Charles Spencer’s in the Telegraph is not one of those reproduced, but is still a very good review, here.

Philip Fisher also gave it a rave review in the British Theatre Guide – here.

It is a fairly short piece but no harm in that. I seem to recall it got a gig downstairs a year or so later, deservedly so.

DJ Birthday Bash At Montefiore In West Hampstead, 17 November 2007

I was struggling to remember this venue, until we asked Kim and she said,

…wasn’t that the toga party?…

…at which point it all started to flood back, sort of.

Cannot remember all that much about the food and wine – good but not exceptional if I remember correctly – but excellent company as always and the toga theme, for which I’m sure DJ had a logical explanation.

There are some pictures, thanks to Kim:

I think a fair bit of imbibing might have been going on. It has to be said that we all look half cut in all the pictures.

No wonder we can’t remember much about it.

The Dysfunckshonalz by Mike Packer, Bush Theatre, 16 November 2007

This play was good fun. It is basically a comedy about a punk band that fell out in unusual circumstances reforming many years later as Mammon comes calling. It sounds a bot “so what?” and it some ways it was, but it was an entertaining evening at one of our favourite venues.

The Bush has a good stub for this production, as the best theatres now do – see here. The reviews bit doesn’t seem to be working, but there are several reviews still to be found:

It didn’t get a west end transfer, but perhaps that idea was b*llocks, never mind. The Bush was still a room above the pub in those days, which seemed a fitting venue for this piece.

Cloud Nine by Caryl Churchill, Almeida Theatre, 10 November 2007

This is a weird play. But then, it is Caryl Churchill. Indeed, by Caryl Churchill standards, it is not that weird a play.

But Janie and I had never seen the play and this, as it turned out, was a good production of this play. Thea Sharrock directed it; we’d been really impressed with her at The Gate and this production no doubt added to her rising stardom.

There’s a good Almeida stub for this production – here, although the reviews are just quotes.

Reviews to be found that can be read in full are as follows:

Enough evidence – this was good. We enjoyed ourselves and felt thoroughly sated with good theatre that weekend, having seen a super short play, Truck Stop, at the Hampstead the night before.

 

 

Truck Stop by Lot Vekemans, Hampstead Theatre Downstairs, 9 November 2007

I think this was the first piece we ever saw at the Hampstead Theatre Downstairs. It was very good indeed.

We went on a Friday evening, unusually early – the piece started at 19:00. It was a short piece, so I think the early start was because they were performing it twice per evening.

I think this production had done the rounds; The Hush House in Suffolk (says the programme) and I think also Edinburgh and the Unicorn Theatre at least. The play itself, by Dutch playwright Lot Vekemans, had been around for a few years by 2007. A chunk of Rina Vergano’s translation is in the public domain as a teaser – here.

Hampstead Downstairs didn’t generate reviews, but Eastern Angles has pulled lots of reviews for this piece – here. They are good.

Janie and I agreed that downstairs at the Hampstead seemed like a jolly good idea to us. Time and some wonderful productions has proved that thought correct.

The Arsonists by Max Frisch, Royal Court Theatre, 3 November 2007

After an aborted evening at the Hampstead Theatre the night before, this was a much better theatre experience for us.

I have liked this play ever since I read it, hundreds of years ago…well, soon after doing Andorra by Max Frisch at school. This production at the Royal Court Theatre, performed in rep alongside Rhinoceros which we saw a few weeks earlier, promised a fresh translation and another chance to see up and coming young star Benedict Cumberbatch before he became too famous to watch.

We both really enjoyed this production. It isn’t one of Janie’s favourite plays, but the translation and production were indeed fresh. Will Keen was excellent as Biedermann.

Most of the major reviews were highly favourable and are reproduced faithfully on the Royal Court stub for this production – here.

Charles Spencer in the Telegraph thought it tailed off – here. Sarah Hemming in the FT was also less than sure – here. Philip Fisher in British theatre Guide missed the epilogue – here – (I thought its omission was a good thing, on balance).

 

The Giant by Antony Sher, Hampstead Theatre, 2 November 2007

On paper, this appeared to be a seriously hot ticket. So seriously hot we booked to see the first Friday preview. Antony Sher wrote it, Greg Doran directed it, Roger Allam starred in it…

…what’s not to like?

Well, in truth we didn’t like it at all. The plot revolves around the Florentine story of Leonardo Da Vinci and Michelangelo competing for the same sculpture commission. The play might have been fine art’s equivalent of Amadeus – I suspect that’s what Sher had in mind, but we found the piece laboured, pretentious and dull.

We didn’t stick around after the interval for the second half of the play.

The reviews were not so special:

Berlin, 26 to 30 October 2007, placeholder and links

Berlin had been on our list for some time and we hadn’t taken one of these short city breaks for a while, so a late October slot ahead of the pre-Christmas madness seemed like an excellent idea. It was.

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This was another job for “Auntie Janet” of Ultimate Travel fame. All done by e-mail – how wonderfully modern.

Further to our telephone conversations today, I confirm that Kirker Holidays could arrange a four night holiday to Berlin for you staying at the Brandenburger Hof Hotel in a de luxe room for four nights on a bed and buffet breakfast basis.  They can also book the following British Airways flights for you:

26 October      BA 982          Depart Heathrow: 08.55          Arrive Berlin: 11.40
30 October      BA 985          Depart Berlin: 16.25            Arrive Heathrow: 17.20

You will also be met at the airport and taken to the hotel and transferred from the hotel to the airport on 30th October.

Sounded good to me.  Further correspondence booked a restaurant table and a chance to see a concert.  Me to Janet:

Please confirm booking for hotel’s amazing restaurant 26 October as originally requested and please also book the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra concert for evening 27 October.

…but we’d left it too late for the Rattle/Berlin Phil. Me again:

Shame about the Rattle concert.  Can you please instead book us for the Akademie fur Alte Musik Berlin concert at 16:00 on the Sunday, 28th October.  Hopefully there’ll be good tickets remaining for that concert.

There were; it was wonderful to see them play at home. I’ll write up the concert when I get around to fleshing out my notes etc. from this short trip.

Interestingly, these phone calls and e-mail exchanges with Auntie Janet started about five weeks before dad’s demise (so indeed before we knew that anything was badly wrong with him) and concluded just a couple of weeks after he died. I don’t recall how I felt about this at the time, but Janie and I must have decided that we’d need the break by then and I’m sure that decision was the right one.

Here is the hand-written journal, with only some fairly duff scanning possible from that particular notebook, so good luck to you if you try to read this: Berlin October 2007 Journal Notes. There’ll be a few good yarns once I write these up.

Here is a link to photos on Flickr; some interesting, some wacky, some neither, some both.

 

Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, Berlin Philharmonie Großer Saal, 28 October 2007

So, we’re in Berlin having a short break – summarised here.

We have a chance to see one of our favourite visiting orchestras at the Wigmore Hall, Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, play at home for once, at the Berlin Philharmonie.

Did they score? Of course they scored – they were playing at home.

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It was an afternoon concert – the Philharmonie looked like this when we came out after the gig.

This was a Vivaldi fest – three of Antonio’s big choral works, with the RIAS Kammerchor doing the singing:

  • Magnificat RV 611
  • Dixit Dominus RV 594
  • Beatus vir RV 597

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Very suitable hall for this sort of big work and a great occasion for us as part of our short break.

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One of the highlights of our short trip to Berlin, for sure.

I couldn’t resist buying a couple of Akademie CDs on the day, both of which have had plenty of play as it happens, certainly avoiding the “doesn’t travel well; I suppose it is a souvenir” pitfall:

I know, we heard Vivaldi on the day, not Bach. But I have good recordings of those Vivaldi works, I wanted to hear some good Bach recordings by that orchestra. OK?