Found in translation… 15 Heroines, The Desert/The War/The Labyrinth, Jermyn Street Theatre

 

It's typical of Ovid - the wittiest, naughtiest, cleverest writer of his age - that he should spot the chance to express himself through these lesser-told aspects of well-known myths. Forget Theseus - let's hear from Ariadne. Never mind Ulysses' journey- what about Penelope?

In his programme notes, JST artistic director, Tom Littler, discusses the origin of this project and how “imitative” translation, as defined by the poet Dryden, could bring out new elements of existing stories as opposed to what he described as “meta-phrasing”, more literal linguistic transpositions. A bit like literate jazz improvisation versus straight ahead replication of a “standard”; John Coltrane’s endless spontaneity versus Johnny Hodges, who led the saxophone section in the Duke Ellington Big Band in highly structured breaks.

Two thousand years ago, the Roman poet Ovid took the former approach in placing the side-lined heroines of Middle East and Mediterranean oral tradition, centre stage with a series of imaginary letters. These stories were so well known to every Roman and they persist to this day in many aspects of modern culture. One of the oldest books in my family is an Eighteenth Century edition of Ovid’s Metamorphises – featuring some of the characters referred to in these plays - but you don’t have to look far to find stories of Helen of Troy, Jason and the Argonauts, Theseus and the Minotaur.

Patsy Ferran as Ariadne

Having only recently studied an epic German silent adaptation of Helen from 1924 (based on Homer’s take…), I was well placed to contextualise some of the stories but the strength of this production is that you don’t need to know too much of the myth; these stories all resonate not just in the narrative content but also in the way the text connects to recognisable individual concerns. These are women devastated by loss, ignored by so called heroes – just “thugs” as Penelope calls them – who prefer the distractive glory of battle to their domestic responsibilities – and the chase of new loves to the woman left behind.

The plays were rehearsed, performed and filmed live at Jermyn Street Theatre in socially distanced conditions and all capture the intimacy and power of this unique venue. You can almost feel your knees pressing against the seat in front and sense the reactions of the audience packed around you: this is what we’ve been missing!

Remarkably, each piece was performed and filmed live in a single take and this freshness comes across so well as each actor is absolutely in the moment. So many plays though yet whilst each is so different, so is every performance and all are high quality, engaging, warm, sorrowful, funny and, occasionally frightening. The monologues are in three strands with the pays directed variously and expertly, by Tom Littler, Adjoa Andoh and Cat Robey.

Olivia Williams as Hypsipyle, the wife of Jason

The Labyrinth - the women who encountered Jason and Theseus.

Are you friends, are you foes… are you gods?

String by Bryony Lavery features Patsy Ferran as Ariadne, half-sister to the half man-half bull, Minotaur who is wrestling with the fact that her lover has just killed her brother. Ariadne is shocked as she turns to face us before realising that we’re hear to listen to her story. Lavery’s script is literate and witty – I loved the play on words especially when Ariadne “loses her thread” as she discusses the ball of string given to Theseus to prevent him getting lost in the Labyrinth. He found his way out and has gone far beyond yet she is the one now lost even with the string. Ferran is funny and heartfelt, a classical mix. 

Pity the Monster by Timberlake Wertenbaker has Dofia Croll as a fiery Phaedra, Ariadne’s sister, who marries her beloved, Theseus, also the killer of her half-brother… but, of course, she really loves his son Hippolytus. There are so many taboos broken by this woman but she is passionate in seeking “acceptance for desire…”.

Dofia Croll as Phaedra

I imagined you dead… in a nice way… 

I'm Still Burning by Samantha Ellis has Nathalie Armin as Phyllis, married to the son of Phaedra and Theseus, Demophon, another faithless man who forgets to return home after his adventures. Nathalie Armin delivers the poetic truths with passionate deliberations and has the best costume of the show with leaves and branches growing from her head: an excellent physical performance too. The play, as with the story, examines the “political” and Phyllis regrets not writing it all down before any man could; Ovid, Chaucer and the rest betraying her as much as her lover.

Nature is her goddess? Nathalie Armin as Phyllis

Someone in love, is always full of fear…

Knew I Should Have by Natalie Haynes features Olivia Williams as Hypsipyle, the wife of Jason, sat in her home office wondering if her king will ever return after taking up with a new lover on his quest for the golden fleece. It’s another powerful performance with Williams swinging from tender devastation to bitter anger whilst the modern trappings serve only to remind us of the loneliness of the lovelorn; eternally, “tears flow down your fake face…”

The Gift by Juliet Gilkes Romero has Nadine Marshall as Medea, the woman Jason deserted Hypsipyle for and who, herself is now abandoned by him. Honestly Jason, once you’ve had your way and your golden fleece, you’re just not bothered, are you? Medea is now hunted having for so long been the hunter and Marshall’s playing is so poignant.

Nadine Marshall as Medea

The War - untold stories of the Trojan War

You know what I’m like, I can get a little bit extra!

Our Own Private Love Island by Charlotte Jones takes the prize for the funniest play with Sophia Eleni on fire as the laddette, Princess Laodamia of Phylace, aka “Lady P” who is “Greek, innit?” This is the Mycenaean Wars via Middlesex with Helen guilty of having “… broken the Girl Code, ain’t no coming back from that!” It’s not hard to see these characters as being in some kind of reality TV show and with seemingly mundane concerns. Yet all tragedy is mundane and our girl worries about her Prince going to war; “fight for your life and not to win”. Whatever you do, don’t be the first Greek to set foot on the Island of Troy…

Sophia Eleni: Greek, innit?

The Cost of Red Wine by Lettie Precious see Ann Ogbomo as a ferocious Odenone, so in love with Paris and so disappointed in him for choosing Helen. She had sheltered him before and there are clear indications that not only is Helen as “step up” in the world she is also white and Paris is “moving on” in a racially segregated world. It’s a stunning performance from Lettie who leaves nothing left on the stage as she hates and rages always in love… stunning!

Love and loss: Ann Ogbomo 

Perfect Myth Allegory by Abi Zakarian sees Jemima Rooper as Briseis, concubine of Achilles, and a major reason, through no fault of her own, why her man and Agamemnon (Helen’s husband) argued. In this take of men fighting over as much as for women, she takes “joy in being free to wander into a history, I also will make.” She is able to take control of her feelings and use the men’s to her advantage. 

Jemima Roper

Will You? by Sabrina Mahfouz takes another dramatic change of pace and venue as we see Rebekah Murrell as Hermione, being interviewed by the Police in connection of her former husband’s murder of his mother. Hermione’s life is complicated… the only child of Menelaus, and Helen, she was promised to Achilles' son, Neoptolemus even though she truly loved her cousin, Orestes.

Murrell is so assured as she roils her own in the interview room and the narrative soon switches from her character’s resilient confidence to the darker tones of arranged marriage among the upper classes and the marital rape that ensued. The Police support the pointlessly rich and “… we are both as bad as each other”.

Rebekah Murrell 

If you won’t come home for your wife, come home for your sheets…

Watching the Grass Grow by Hannah Khalil features a superb turn from Gemma Whelan as Penelope, waiting for her husband Ulysses to return. Penelope in this instance is a home-working dress-maker whist her man has gone on a team-building exercise, yes, even in the midst of lockdown… Another script that emphasised the eternal truths of love and lies, Whelan’s adept turns of tone brought the tragedy out from her concerns for emails, texts and work/life balance.

Gemma Whelan waiting for the man

The Desert - women going their own way

The Striker by April De Angelis has Indra Ove as an embittered but resilient Deianaria, bemoaning the fall from grace of her husband Hercules Nevile… a fading soccer star who has played away once too often and become “… more like a guest than a husband.” Deianaria has a noble heritage and won’t be shamed as she plans the ultimate reckoning.

Indra Ove, a WAG scorned

In his arms I blossomed… and yet, it was not enough time – the Gods cannot bare to see us happy! 

The Choice by Stella Duffy sees Rosalind Eleazar as Dido, a princess of Lebanon, married to her uncle at 14, “a valued bride…” and raised to rule alongside her brother, Pygmalian. She escaped it all to found Carthage at the age of 25 which is verging on the upper reaches of over-achievement! She gives shelter to Aeneas after he arrives following the end of the Trojan Wars… the two fell for each other deeply. 

The Gods call Aeneas away to Rome – a poor choice versus glorious Carthage – and Dido resolves to settle her own course, divine intervention be damned: “my life, my love, my city my choice…”

Rosalind Eleazar

“I can understand why for some people it might be weird… I’m not an idiot.” 

A Good Story by Isley Lynn features Eleanor Tomlinson as Canace, daughter of Aeolus, god of the winds as she’s interviewed on television about her relationship with her own brother Macareus… which comes as quite the bombshell if you’re not familiar with the story. She has six sisters and seven brothers… and it’s funny/discomforting to hear Canace voice her position with modern sensibilities threaded through a well-worn situation in classical myth! Tomlinson with her delicate nervousness in character, gives one of the most affecting performances for what is in every way a tragedy.

Eleanor Tomlinson

To satisfy our honour, kill your husbands

Girl on Fire by Chinonyerem Odimba sees King Danaus’ daughter Hypermestra, played by Nicholle Cherrie, tasked, along with her 49 sisters, with mariticide… “the knowing lunacy of men!” She is the only one to refuse this slaughter, and waits her day in court having spared her husband, Lynceus. 

The language, as throughout the plays is quite delicious, “I get to write only one letter to you… So much to say, so little papyrus.” Throughout there is an intake of breath repeated off stage, whilst Nicholle gets to sing and has such a lovely tone, I may well have wiped away a tear…

Nicholle Cherrie

I See You Now by Lorna French has Martina Laird as Sappho, singer and poet for the ages and perhaps the most famous and misunderstood of these women? Here she has come to “the Mother Country” from Trinidad as a 16-year old… years later, she has given up everything for love but must decide whether he adopted country is worth her sacrifice.

Has it come to this? Mere days after Trump was deposed you hope not.

I ripped up pictures of my sister in her nurses’ uniform tending to Britain’s sick for years and years…

Martina Laird

15 Heroines is a suitably epic and richly satisfying journey through these endless concerns and timeless characters, temporally recast in our modern setting. All hail Ovid’s invention but also everyone involved from the players, playwrights, and directors to the whole crew. This is a beacon of welcome hope for an industry under siege and, as with Carthage, one that has many glories to come!

The shows will stream at designated performance times from 7.30pm today, Monday 9^th to Saturday 14^th November. So, get set for a week of wonders!

The War Mon 9 7.30pm; Thurs 12 7.30pm; Sat 14 3.00pm

The Desert Tues 10 3.00pm; Weds 11 7.30pm; Friday 13 7.30pm

The Labyrinth Tues 10 7.30pm; Thurs 12 3.00pm; Sat 14 7.30pm

Tickets are £20 per household/device and are on sale now from the Jermyn Street website.

IThankYouTheatre rating: ***** Unmissable lockdown theatre, switch on your screen, dim the lights and get swept away by the grandeur of these performances and these naturalistic tales of epic humanity!

Back to the future… Henry V, The Maltings Theatre, The Roman Theatre of Verulamium

“We few. We happy few. We band of brothers…”

After the drought, an outpouring of pure theatre in the eerie surroundings of St Albans’ 1900-year-old Roman Theatre and an event that already feels like the sweetest of dreams after five months without live performance. This was socially-distanced theatre and the Romans were typically ahead of the game in constructing this open-air wonder that allowed for a safely-spaced capacity audience on three levels as well as a single file bar and the odd fly past of murmurating starlings.

Director Matthew Parker had been tasked with devising a production to meet the “new normal” and managed to weave this into his typically innovative staging by presenting Henry as a school play or rather a play within a school play with entreaties to maintain social distancing carried over from rehearsals as the teacher’s call to pupils. If this sounds over-complicated it wasn’t as Mr Parker, as so often, succeeds in making the most complex of situations flow as naturally as the ancient verse from the mouths of his performers.

Matthew was also limited to ten players and so, in addition to being school children and teachers, they also had to play more than one character often transitioning in the switch of a line with all joints invisible. Some of us may have lost some match fitness over the last five months but these guys were straight into Olympic levels of heptathlon multi-eventing and it was an absolute joy to see.

The stage is set in The Roman Theatre of Verulamium

 I also had unfinished business with Henry V with my mother-in-law having fainted a few years back during a performance of what is one of her favourite Shakespeare’s at The Globe… she’s seen the play dozens of times but I missed the ending and so this was my first complete run through and I was pleasantly surprised to see that the Agincourt result went the King’s way given what appeared to be overwhelming odds.

So, it was an afternoon of reconnections and the energy from the audience was palpable from the start and we were all lifted by the glorious team work on stage as Ms Nightingale (Cassandra Hodges) readied her pupils for a run through. This is a very kinetic production and the “pupils” and players were in constant motion moving forward on the stage for their lines as if limbering up for the high jump or a rap battle. None of these distracted from the play with the physical pacing designed to move the audience and the characters deeper into the drama as it unfolds.

Through the wind and the rain... Shot from Laura Harling.

Henry V is “meta” enough well before its time with the Chorus/Ms Nightingale explaining that there cannot be stage scenery enough to do justice to the full glory of the King’s story and our mind’s eyes duly tipped off we begin to imagine the backdrops superimposed over the Hertfordshire countryside beyond. There’s also a humour that’s little changed over the centuries with the French Dauphin (Luke Adamson) responding to Henry’s signalled intent to claim his rightful throne with the gift of tennis balls, a reference to his youthful immaturity.

But this is not the same Henry as in Shakespeare’s Henry IV plays and here, as played by Mara Allen in her first leading role – a double challenge, very well met – the young King is in full command with an emergent ability to inspire and lead.

"Now all the youth of England are on fire... They sell the pasture now to buy the horse, / Following the mirror of all Christian kings ...."

Henry survives an assassination attempt from the Earl of Cambridge (Rachel Fenwick showing her Shakespearean pedigree throughout) and sets off for France. The play, as with so many, was the playwright’s attempt to not only justify the legitimacy of the Tudor throne but also to laud the character of Queen Elizabeth’s forefather. Henry’s leadership skills are demonstrated in the first battle for the town of Harfleur as the king implores his struggling troops to return “once more unto the breach…”

Dauphin Luke Adamson and King Jack Reitman. Photo Laura Harling.

By contrast, the French are painted as arrogant, although King Charles VI (Jack Reitman, Offie award-winning for The Hope’s Thrill Me – also a Parker production) is one of the few not to underestimate the invaders. I loved the richness of the minor characters such as Welsh moaner Fluellen (Mr Adamson again), the unscrupulous Bardolph (Paula Gilmour) and the energetic Bates as played by Felipe Pacheco who gave such a physically fluid performance, lots of snap in his long staff as well as kick in his heels.

The play’s a lovely mix of grand scale and common folk cameo all of which reinforces Henry’s humanity and leadership qualities. Famously, on the eve of the impossible victory at Agincourt, he walks in disguise among his soldiers to gauge their mood and give himself fuel for the fiery speech that will lead them to prevail thanks to archers and organisational inspiration. There’s death and diplomacy interlaced with humour and I loved the Franglais of Princess Katherine (Ms Fenwick again) as she struggles with English pronunciation with the aid of her maid Alice, with Paula Gilmour skilfully channelling the Essex accent of school player Josie for the word “nails”, an’ “’ands”.

 All of the cast get their chance to shine with rounded multi-roles from Melissa Shirley-Rose, Edward Elgood and James Keningale, especially as the blustering Pistol! All get their chance to dance to at the rousing finish with modern beats which would have confounded the Bard.

Mara Allen in command. Photo Laura Harling.

The acid test for any Shakespearean production is being able to deal naturally with the dialogue whilst opening up the meaning to modern audiences and I have to give Mr Parker’s “class” 10/10 for that: we were entertained and enlightened and that’s something I missed the most about theatre this year.

IThankYouTheatre Rating: ***** It’s a treat to see Shakespearean sophistication at this level in Hertfordshire or, indeed, anywhere. Please support this season: theatre is back and not a moment too soon!

Henry V continues along with the rest of the Open-Air season until 31^st August and tickets are available from the Maltings website.

All photographs from Laura Harling except for my day-time shot of the rain-free theatre.

Virtual variety… Sunday Night at the Lockdown Palladium

Inspired by The Spirit of Brucie and The Tarby of Palladium's Past, a group of intrepid performers have joined forces to provide us with Lockdown laughter and self-isolated smiles. Using the wonders of modern invention coupled with actual magic (and let no one tell me otherwise!) these intrepid internet entertainers have been illuminating our living rooms over the past six weeks with a mix of comedy, songs, prestidigitation, performance and the ever-ready ukulele of Mr Chris Larner.

This week was the first we’d watched and it felt like a mini-holiday for the locked-down soul; a well-oiled machine witnessed by an increasingly well-oiled reviewer and people from all round the Globe; Los Angeles, Barcelona, Canada, Ireland and wherever it is that Mr Larner lives!

Jeremy Stockwell

Our compere was the esteemed philosophical entertainer Mr Jeremy Stockwell, who, splendidly attired for the occasion in velvet jacket, bow tie and fedora, gave a warm welcome to the virtual VIPs and announced his cast of all the talents! Did I mention how well-oiled things are? Very. That’s what they are!

First up was the One-Woman Company known to the world as Kate Perry (no, not that one) who I last saw in the mind-boggling Very Perry Show. This time she had brought just one of her many inhabiting characters, in this case Bridgit, a six-year old who asks too many questions and gets all the wrong answers. Katy disappears so much into her comedy characters that all that remains is the enthusiastic child looking forward to “jumpy castles”! She’s a marvel and we tapped out our vigorous applause on the chat stream to the right of stage.

Kate Perry

Tonight if there was not just magic in the air then it was certainly on the cards and in the hands of Hugh Levinson who performed a series of seemingly impossible shuffles in front of our very eyes: we were lost in legerdemain! How he does it I don’t know and as member of the Magic Circle he will never tell but we were lost in consideration of the seeming impossible: that’s prestige!

Hugh Levinson

This was followed by the verbally dexterous and emotionally nuanced actor, Robert Mountford a man who has trod the boards of the RSC, NT and BBC and who simply took our breath away with a reading of feeling and intensity. Remaining in character throughout he feigned disappointment over the fiscal reward offered by this Palladium, knowing full well that we expected that he’d be off to stay at Mark Rylance’s pied a terre to catch up on who wrote what, way back when.

Robert Mountford

Some men are born great and others have ukuleles thrown upon them. So, it was with Chris Larner who literally sang the greens with a song about the Onion at the End which was both a moving social commentary and as well as a meditation on the sadness of vegetables.

Finally, it was time for a tutu and a performance infused with such cultural depth the stage at Covent Garden would struggle to support it.  This was the legendary prima ballerina Madam Galina - Iestyn Edwards who entertained us thoroughly spinning athletically from her kitchen and then telling us of time spent trying to fit in with marines in tanks in Iraq or, fitting into tanks with said soldiers? It was fraught and when Galina lapsed into Iestyn a wonderful baritone was revealed!

Madam Galina

IThankYouTheatre Rating: ***** It was lovely to see professional performers again and this was a funny and intimate way of seeing these top-notch artistes!! There are two more episodes to go and I would urge you all to join in.

Set your Zooms for the heart of the fun!

Next Sunday, 7.30, info and invite from Jeremy Stockwell on Twitter.

There’s also a Go Fund Me page to help cover costs and help support these guys when they’re between physical gigs. It’s the least we can do to thank them for re-opening the door on to a world we used to almost take for granted.

Support the arts and stay at home (even you Dom…)!

Chris Larner and his instrument.

No rehearsal… The Understudy, Lawrence Batley Theatre, Online

Theatrical experience came to a shuddering halt for all of us in March and it’s a delight to be able to listen – if not see – a new play especially one that is a call to seize the moment, whenever that may come, as well as in aid of the theatrical community. Henry Filloux-Bennett’s adaptation of David Nicholl’s comic novel, is being produced by the Lawrence Batley Theatre, Huddersfield and all proceeds will be split between Acting For Others, the Equity Charitable Trust, Equity’s Benevolent Fund and The Theatre Development Trust, run by the Society of London Theatre and UK Theatre.

Everyone with an interest in the survival of theatre through the Covid crisis should support this initiative but in doing so I can also guarantee them not only a good laugh but also an endless stream of wry smiles as our hero, perpetual understudy Stephen, waits in the wings for Life’s big break.

Nicholl was once a struggling actor himself before he found his feet as the writer of One Day and Starter for Ten, his characters have always mixed humility, emotional frailty and hopeless hope. As played by the limitlessly versatile Russell Tovey, Stephen – Steve – McQueen (no, not that one), is another character fuelled by unreasoned optimism despite his repeated failures.

These sudden reversals of fortune just don’t happen. Yes, they do…

Already 32, Stephen has one failed marriage behind him, with ex, Alison (super Sarah Hadland) still trying to get him on the right path. Alison has a career as a recruitment consultant and a new man, banker Colin, who comes complete with an Edwardian detached in Chiswick. Even daughter Sophie is moving on at her new private school and, exams approaching, tells her Dad she’d rather go home after pizza rather than to the zoo; et tu Sophie?!

But Steve’s big break could only be a break away, or even just a minor illness for the man he is due to understudy. He’s been “cast” as support for new acting superstar, and World’s 12^th Sexiest Man, Josh Harper (Jake Ferretti) in a west end play called Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know, about Lord Byron of course which, surely, someone now needs to produce once things get back to the old normal?

Steve also has a small part, opening the door beyond this mortal plane at the end of the play but even this proves his lack of acting instinct as he struggles to summon sufficient portend as Death the Doorman in rehearsals. Still, he knows the part and hopes he’ll get the chance to take over for a performance and realize his dream of overnight success…

Meanwhile, Steve is getting on rather well with Josh’s dissatisfied and sassy wife, Nora (Sheila Atim) – another understudy in waiting. Josh is faithless, over-confident and yet, still in love with Nora but this doesn’t stop him having an affair with co-star Maxine (Emily Attak)… underneath it all he can’t quite believe his luck and Jake Ferretti does well in portraying this conflicted nature.

All is thereby set up for a journey into probability theory and who else to guide us than Stephen Fry who acts as a one-man Greek chorus uttering lines that would have made Douglas Adams smile; “A great deal is made of the deals we make…”

Radio plays leave so much room for the imagination as we provide our own art direction as well as lighting but the actors need to perform more vocally than they’re used to – as with silent film, this means adjusting the focus. This is an opportunity well seized and clearly, despite the remoteness of the production, there’s a good chemistry at play and the narrative is seamless.

Much credit should go to Director Giles Croft as well as the sound and design team of Alexandra Faye Braithwaite, Annie May Fletcher and Sophie Galpin.

IThankYou Theatre rating: **** + * for the good cause!

The Understudy is a play for the underdog and it’s also a play for the undying spirit of the unfeasibly optimistic. It’s also very funny so click on the link below and enjoy!

The play is being released in two parts: part 1 will be released on Wednesday 20 May and part 2 will be released on Wednesday 27 May. You only need one ticket to access both parts of the play. You can watch the play for up to 1 month following the release dates of part 1 and part 2.

The link is here.

Well versed... Love, Loss & Chianti, Riverside Studios

Can't you now somehow contrive

to be both dead and alive?

The first part of this dramatized compilation of Christopher Reid’s poetry starts off with one of the most forensically calm descriptions of the moment of loss you’ll find. For anyone who has been with a loved one during the moments of their death, Reid’s ability to capture the moment is fearless and kind. I’d hang a positive review upon that opening engagement and the eloquence that linked the entire audience. But, Love, Loss & Chianti is truly a play of two halves and after the seriousness of A Scattering you’re left punch-drunk by a bravura performance of self-loathing from Robert Bathurst as a fifty-something copy editor, part time poet and full-time fantasist trying to rekindle lost love  with his ex, played by Rebecca Johnson who looks on aghast as The Song of Lunch turns out to be a drunken lament.

Reid wrote A Scattering in response to his wife’s death and the day after he finished, he wrote The Song of Lunch looking for “a light farce” that might provide an antidote for three years of grief. You can see why the two work so well together and why Bathurst was so passionate about bringing them to the stage. You have to face your grief but you also need to laugh again and it is a joy to watch Bathurst and Johnson addressing such divergent emotion with such skill and grace; they have a great chemistry and you sense the leveraging of their mature experience as they deliver Reid’s poetry as naturally as prose; something I imagine is just as hard to do with comedy as with tragedy.

Robert Bathurst and Rebecca Johnson (all photographs Alex Harvey-Brown)

After its humbling opening A Scattering addresses the jumbled narrative of a mind in grief. The poem was written in four parts, the first of which was written whilst Reid’s wife Lucinda was still alive and they were on holiday in Crete. The poetry touches on the joys and sadness of this last opportunity and the ability we all have to allow those extreme emotions to co-exist. Bathurst plays with care and gives a dignity to Reid’s words just as Johnson gives full life to Lucinda, a woman of fierce energy who the poet wonders, was able to do two or three things at once even learning Greek as she exercised on a static bike. Why, he wonders, could she not also be dead and alive?

The words are honest and forthright and they also skilfully avoid self-pity and attempt a constructed view of reconciled loss and humanity. Lucinda may be gone but, having donated her body to science, the poet likes to walk past the facility where his wife now works, helping perhaps, to cure the disease that took her from him.

Seriously, though, what will they say when they look back at our demythologised age?

The Song of Lunch is a journey from disappointed sobriety to drunken delusion and anyone who has seen Mr Bathurst’s work knows that this is well within his range. This is the funniest poetry I’ve seen for some time and the narrative journey is so well paced as our hero goes for broke in a reunion lunch with his ex-lover.

He selects the Italian restaurant in Soho where they used to go, 7, 10, 15 years ago and finds it changed just as the rest of the area has been, almost all interest driven out by rising rents and corporate creep. He missed the endless lunches of the old days as most of us do in publishing… personally I connected a lot with this sequence! I do remember the eighties…

Sadly the restaurant is no longer what it was and even the old bottles of Chianti no longer come in their raffia enclosures, whilst old Italian waiters have been replaced by young people from everywhere and the clientele are made up of boozy boys from Wardour Street ad agencies.

Out to lunch at his own lunch?!

As his ex arrives, Rebecca Johnson dressed to impress, as a well-off Parisian housewife, with two sons and married to Bathurst’s nemesis, a successful author. As the two fail to connect the Chianti flows one way and our hero’s inner dialogue gets more and more deranged as his shots get longer and longer. It’s a masterclass in comedy with a heart and, again, a situation many have found ourselves in, not so much drunk and disorderly in Soho than disappointed and disconnected; much in need of a rude awakening.

Jason Morell directs and allows his players to make full use of the Riverside’s space as well as the gift of Reid’s verse. Charles Peattie’s innovative animations are also very striking as they are projected in sympathy on the back wall of the stage. The designs are more abstract for the first part and amusingly specific for the drunken lunch showing in desperate caricature, the drunken illusions of our self-punishing poet. Priest clearly wanted to make himself the butt of his own joke.

IThankYou Theatre rating: **** An outstanding double-header from two fine actors at the top of their game bringing the sometimes-painful truths of Reid’s poetry to life in front of our very eyes.

Love, Loss and Chianti plays at the Riverside until Sunday 17^th May and, as a publishing professional for over thirty years… I would urge you all to go and see it. Details on the Riverside website. They have a great view of the Thames as well.

But Soho itself has changed,
the speciality food shops
pushed out of business,
tarts chased off the streets,
and a new kind of trashiness
moving in:
cultureless, fly-by-night.

So close… Far Away, Donmar Warehouse

Caryl Churchill’s plays are so diverse it’s difficult to pin down her style other than a brutal honesty mixed with strong characterisation and healthy humour. This play was first produced in 2000 and its vision of a Britain involved in a war on home turf and with martial law and public execution part of the entertainment of a ruthless single state, is far more frightening twenty years on. Maybe we just don’t see things as clearly as this playwright or we just delude ourselves harder but the hostile environment on display is all too believable.

The play is short – 40 minutes - as well as, ahem, being nasty and brutish and, personally, it has the aftertaste of a novella when there was perhaps more to say. It’s based on three sequences and whilst the first has the biggest shock value and the second has the most spectacular set-piece, the final section plays a little flat in comparison especially when the humour and horror that is balanced so well before this point breaks down to some plain daft ploys about animals and the weather being involved in the war. I get the point but not the continuous joke.

Jessica Hynes (Photo, Johan Persson)

The performances are very strong throughout and not least from young Sophia Ally as young Joan who features in the first section as she examines a large metal block that occupies the central stage. The block is raised revealing her Auntie Harper (Jessica Hynes) hard at work sewing; this is a time of make do and mend and more besides as the inquisitive Joan has already discovered on her first day staying out in the country. Joan has seen far more than she should and her question and answer with Harper is so well constructed, as every time the grown up thinks they have come up with a convincing way of explaining strange events away, they are demolished by something even darker the youngster has seen. Why was Uncle hiding those people, why was he hitting them and why were they crying? The brutality of the near-future Britain is revealed through the forensic cross-examination of a child.

Aisling Loftus and Simon Manyonda (Photo Johan Persson)

In the next section an older Joan (Aisling Loftus) is just starting her career as a milliner, making a glorious green feathered hat alongside Todd (Simon Manyonda) a more experimental and experienced man who explains the uncomfortable truth about the place they work. Their conversation hints at routine issues with workplace communication and employee relations and, again, we only gradually find out what they are doing and why.

The stage keeps on darkening to delineate the passing of days and every time the hats get bigger and more elaborate a visual gag that is only setting us for the darkest and most spectacular reveal of the play.

From there it’s only the final act as Joan returns to her Aunt’s home with Todd and more of the future Britain’s realities are set out in sharp relief to that off-kilter humour.

IThankYouTheatre rating: *** Director Lyndsey Turner has created some startling moments and the staging makes the most of the Donmar’s intimacy but for me the intensity wavers in the final third.

Far Away plays at the Donmar until 28^th March – booking details on their website.

Stardust we are… Nearly Human, Perhaps Contraption, Vault Festival

We are like butterflies that flutter for a day and think it is forever…

Jimi Hendrix was so impressed having seen the band Chicago in 1969 that he said their horn section played like it was a single set of lungs. Well, from where I was sat tonight, Perhaps Contraption also have two collective lungs, along with a single-minded purpose - a powerfully syncopated mix of movement, words and something like a Vulcan musical mind-meld. This band is so tight and so joyously in tune with each other, their subject and their hugely appreciative audience that you cannot fail to move with them.

I’d seen the band before playing, amongst other things, the most outrageously arranged version of Radiohead’s National Anthem, all perfect be-bop phrasing mixed with a muscularity that one sensed owed at least something to the early jazz-prog of Robert Wyatt Soft Machine, Caravan and King Crimson – as confirmed by Artistic Director also flautist/vocalist/guitarist/tenor sax and contact juggler, Christo Squier after the show. But this is truly progressive music that has modern sensibilities and a desire to make something different.

It’s music as forward-thinking as Carl Sagan, an astrophysicist credited with helping to inspire this cosmic take on life, the universe and the sousaphone… No one else sounds quite like Perhaps Contraption and it’s hard to see many other bands taking on the subject of physics for a stage show that is also being turned into a concept album and, personally, I hope it’s a double and on vinyl too.

The performance starts, appropriately enough with Iain McDonald appearing like a Sousaphone Spaceman and explaining how we’re all so remarkably lucky and unlikely to be here. This is more than just a reference to the irregularity of Southern Rail services – the Vault festival is based in the cavernous underbelly of Waterloo Station, literally and underground festival… but the fact that our atoms, the enamel in our teeth, the nitrate in our digestive tract and the oxygen in our lungs has all come from the heart of stars long ago.

If ever there was a time to think about Man’s insignificance in the vast improbabilities of space, now is surely it. A repeated refrain from the band and the recorded narrators is that extinction is the norm and that survival is the exception and we simply shouldn’t take that for granted.

There are as many molecules in a single cell of DNA as there are stars in a typical galaxy...

Not that the band are giving us a PC lecture, they are simply celebrating our improbability and urging us to move onwards. Their songs have hooks to burn and they play with such movement and feeling with instruments rarely associated with dance. So it is that even glockenspiel and vibraphonist Amy Kelly plays on the move whilst bass trombonist Yusuf Narcin duels with Mickey McMillan and his trade-mark orange trombone. The King of Jazz, Paul Whiteman’s band may have swung but these guys dance and play as one courtesy of movement direction from Christa Harris and Lucy Ridley.

There so much light and dynamic shade in the group’s music helped by the range of instruments with Jin Theriault’s soprano sax a relatively recent introduction and also a variety of lead vocalists from Christo and Mickey’s masculine lines to tenor sax player Stephanie Legg and French horn player Letty Stott. The band sing close harmonies crowded forward on the playing are while the soloists hold back or mount the steps in the aisles; every inch of the theatrical space is used like a contrapuntal planetarium.

The sound is anchored by the combination of Iain’s bass voice and his sousaphone along with Riccardo Castellani’s drums; on some gigs the band feature mobile drums on a pram but here he has too much kit to wonder far.

The band provided a chart showing how the songs progress from the nature of our atomic particles – The person you love is 72.8% water… so drink them deep! – through a consideration of our place in this universe to the ultimate need to continue our particle journey far into space. A someone who grew up on scientist visionaries like Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke as well as Carl Sagan it is music of the spheres to my eager ears. Science fiction was never about escape it was about hope and now more than ever we need more of that.

IThankYouTheatre Rating: ***** This is vibrant, imaginative and playful performance with a hybrid of happy contemplative drama with lung-busting, body-impacting sound! I’m going back to see it again and I’m taking as many of my friends and family whose particles aren’t nailed to the ground.

We are, each of us, a little universe.

Nearly Human plays at the Vault Festival until this Sunday 23^rd February – I urge you to get on quick and book tickets now. Details on the festival website!

You can also follow developments from the band on their website and here’s the link to that splendid version of National Anthem… try getting that out of your head!

More details of the band and their previous works on the PC website here.