Are we not drawn onward to new erA - this Belgian production is one of the best pieces of theatre I've seen on the Fringe or elsewhere for some time. It opens with light slowly rising on a small tree right of centre and a hunched body lying up left. The body is a woman. She rises slowly. A man enters from the opposite side. They meet centre stage. The man plucks a fruit from the tree and offers it to the woman. We're thinking garden of eden. The apple is bitten and things start going downhill. The tree is torn to pieces, plastic bags flood down from the sky and with the help of the cast cover the stage, a golden statue is raised, actors brandish hosepipes that issue clouds of smoke. All the while the cast speak to one another in gibberish, make strange gestures and frequently walk about backwards. The curtains close. We get the message. Mankind has destroyed his beautiful world. That's where the show gets really interesting. Like the title it's palindromic. Think about it.
Understanding China - two books that explore the recent history of China in quite different ways. One is a novel, The Promise by Xinran Xue, that follows the lives of a family over several generations against the background of turmoil and change that has characterised the country since the emergence of Mao. The other an academic work, Maoism: A Global History by Julia Lovell, examines the impact of Mao's ideas and actions on places as diverse as Peru and India as well as on China itself. The discussion, led vigorously by Paul French, was fascinating and brought back memories of how I eagerly followed the UK press coverage of the cultural revolution. I didn't understand China then and despite this enjoyable and informative session I don't believe I understand it any better now.
The Rite of Spring - it's amazing. It looks beautiful. The dancing is astonishing. Perfection or maybe a tad long, maybe a touch ott, but not to be missed.
Thursday, August 22, 2019
Wednesday, August 21, 2019
Looking Back Over My Shoulder - two novels that without being overtly biographical spring from family connections with the British Empire, in one case (Dignity by Alys Conran) inspired by tales of her granny's days in India and in the other (The Wild Wind by Sheena Kalayil) a childhood spent between India and Africa. Both explore identity, the notion of home and of belonging. The stimulating discussion in the spiegel tent has added them to my growing list of books to be read.
Before the End - my first and only visit to Summerhall this Fringe provided a delicate and thoughtful work. Centred on the final moments of his life Catherine Graindorge performs a loving tribute to her father, a prominent left wing Belgian lawyer. She uses a mix of music, spoken reminiscence, recordings of his voice, family photos and documents, video footage of news reports and private videos to convey both his admirable and humane attitude to life and her love for him. The performance ends with a beautifully caught moment of home video. The family are disposing of his ashes in a little country river and are disturbed by some riders. As the riders move off a child's voice is heard saying "the horse drank some of grandad".
Bull - I saw a production of this earlier and expected this older, more mature cast to inhabit the characters more convincingly than the younger set I'd seen. To an extent they did but gave a rather more austere and clinical performance than I think the play requires. The actors playing Tony and Mr. Carter were too similar physically, and to a degree in their performances, for my taste. I'd have liked a much more venomous Tony.
Inverkeithing Community Big Band - several of my saxophone chums are in this band and they all played terribly well. As did the entire band. They were absolutely together and accomplished that most difficult of tasks - playing quietly when required to.
Scotland's Role in Slavery - this billing is somewhat more extensive than either the event or the book being presented deserves. It's a most interesting and informative study but focuses on one man, Lord Seaforth, a Highland estate owner who became governor of Barbados and a cotton plantation owner in Dutch Guiana. The author, Finlay McKichan, argues that Seaforth was an exception to the general run of slave owners in that he was concerned for their welfare and to a degree for their legal rights from both a humanitarian and a commercial point of view. He had, it is argued, displayed the same qualities in how he treated his Highland tenants. While admitting that Seaforth's attitudes and behaviour were not always consistent McKichan pointed out that we live in complex and complicated times today and that the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century period in which Seaforth lived while different, was probably just as contrary.
Remembrance of Things Past - it was a chastening experience to be in a full to bursting spiegel tent to hear an author of whom I had never heard. I believe myself to be reasonably culturally aware and what's more a francophile yet was clearly one of the very small minority in that tent who wasn't there to endorse the proclamation of Annie Ernaux as a modern day Proust and her novel Les Années as a more than worthy successor to A la recherche des temps perdus. It was a delightful session and while I've never managed to finish Proust (even the graphic novel version) her book is half the thickness so there's a chance I'll redress my cultural lacuna.
Perchance to Dream - wandering around the festival bookshop I lingered over The Nocturnal Brain by Guy Leschziner wondering why with my interest in the brain and in sleep I hadn't picked that out. In fact I had. It was the next session I was going to. The author runs a sleep disorder clinic at Guy's hospital and his book deals with a number of case studies at the extreme end of the spectrum, from the woman whose sleepwalking includes riding around on a motorbike to the man who falls asleep and collapses when he laughs too much. Extraordinary cases and so far to go in understanding their causes.
Before the End - my first and only visit to Summerhall this Fringe provided a delicate and thoughtful work. Centred on the final moments of his life Catherine Graindorge performs a loving tribute to her father, a prominent left wing Belgian lawyer. She uses a mix of music, spoken reminiscence, recordings of his voice, family photos and documents, video footage of news reports and private videos to convey both his admirable and humane attitude to life and her love for him. The performance ends with a beautifully caught moment of home video. The family are disposing of his ashes in a little country river and are disturbed by some riders. As the riders move off a child's voice is heard saying "the horse drank some of grandad".
Bull - I saw a production of this earlier and expected this older, more mature cast to inhabit the characters more convincingly than the younger set I'd seen. To an extent they did but gave a rather more austere and clinical performance than I think the play requires. The actors playing Tony and Mr. Carter were too similar physically, and to a degree in their performances, for my taste. I'd have liked a much more venomous Tony.
Inverkeithing Community Big Band - several of my saxophone chums are in this band and they all played terribly well. As did the entire band. They were absolutely together and accomplished that most difficult of tasks - playing quietly when required to.
Scotland's Role in Slavery - this billing is somewhat more extensive than either the event or the book being presented deserves. It's a most interesting and informative study but focuses on one man, Lord Seaforth, a Highland estate owner who became governor of Barbados and a cotton plantation owner in Dutch Guiana. The author, Finlay McKichan, argues that Seaforth was an exception to the general run of slave owners in that he was concerned for their welfare and to a degree for their legal rights from both a humanitarian and a commercial point of view. He had, it is argued, displayed the same qualities in how he treated his Highland tenants. While admitting that Seaforth's attitudes and behaviour were not always consistent McKichan pointed out that we live in complex and complicated times today and that the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century period in which Seaforth lived while different, was probably just as contrary.
Remembrance of Things Past - it was a chastening experience to be in a full to bursting spiegel tent to hear an author of whom I had never heard. I believe myself to be reasonably culturally aware and what's more a francophile yet was clearly one of the very small minority in that tent who wasn't there to endorse the proclamation of Annie Ernaux as a modern day Proust and her novel Les Années as a more than worthy successor to A la recherche des temps perdus. It was a delightful session and while I've never managed to finish Proust (even the graphic novel version) her book is half the thickness so there's a chance I'll redress my cultural lacuna.
Perchance to Dream - wandering around the festival bookshop I lingered over The Nocturnal Brain by Guy Leschziner wondering why with my interest in the brain and in sleep I hadn't picked that out. In fact I had. It was the next session I was going to. The author runs a sleep disorder clinic at Guy's hospital and his book deals with a number of case studies at the extreme end of the spectrum, from the woman whose sleepwalking includes riding around on a motorbike to the man who falls asleep and collapses when he laughs too much. Extraordinary cases and so far to go in understanding their causes.
Monday, August 19, 2019
Rebellion in the East - unusually I'd already read the book that was being promoted at this session, Japan Story by Christopher Harding. It's a cultural history of Japan since it opened up to the west in 1850 to the present day. This festival session didn't try to cover the entire territory of the book but focused on what the Japanese see as the specificity of their society and the stories they like to tell about themselves, the myths of the nation as it were. Not everyone buys into those myths and that also formed part of this interesting presentation.
Low Level Panic - an Arkle production of a play that deals with women's concerns over body image, relationships and pornography. It's not a new play (first seen in 1988) but these concerns have proved to be enduring. In the play they seem more like obsessions. It's set in a bathroom where three flatmates alternately argue the toss, squabble and commiserate. An effective set marred I thought by the positioning of a stand where the girls gaze into a mirror (not actually there) as they make themselves up. Down centre it brought much of the action close to the audience but it obscured quite a lot. The actresses did a fair job of representing their characters. It's a sad play really, the most telling line for me being "I'd rather be with anyone than alone."
The Taming of the Shrew - In the cut down form in which Shakespeare's plays generally appear on the Fringe there is a danger of losing something. That surely happened to this production. The representation of Kate's shrewishness at the beginning of the play went no way to suspending my disbelief at the extremity of Petruchio's taming tactics. For me the cross dressing and false beards typical of the comedies have outlived their hilarity and I'm afraid that overall I didn't much enjoy the production although the cast made sterling efforts to entertain me.
Red Dust Road - In her EIF programme note Tanika Gupta says that adapting Jackie Kay's moving memoir about her upbringing as a mixed race adopted child in Scotland and her search for her birth parents was no easy task. Unfortunately it has proved too difficult and resulted in a lack lustre production enlivened only by Elaine C. Smith's splendid portrayal of her feisty warm-hearted adoptive mother and Stefan Adegbola's cameo as her bible thumping Nigerian father who dismisses her as a sin of his youth when "everyone was having a good time".
Growing Old Gracefully - something close to the hearts of most of the audience who had gathered to hear Sue Armstrong and Daniela Mari talk about their respective books Borrowed Time and Breakfast with the Centenarians. They were both reassuring about progress in research into ageing and the possibility of enjoying later life whilst admitting that so far no silver bullet has been uncovered. Moderation in consumption, exercise, maintaining an active interest in life and avoiding loneliness are all important factors. In answer to a question from someone worrying about forgetting words Daniela quoted a contributor to her book who said that the time to worry is not when you forget the word for keys but when you forget what keys are for.
The Djinns of Eidgah - you could hardly be more up to date than to present a play about Kashmir and this one opened promisingly as actors with very real looking machine guns barked orders at the audience as we entered while an atmospheric soundtrack rumbled on in the background and our eyes took in a stage dressed with banners of grafitti and slogans. It was a downhill slide from there. The student cast didn't rise to the challenge of knitting together the story of a boy footballer (played disconcertingly by a girl in a headscarf) intent on being selected to play in the world cup while demonstrations are taking place against talks with India, Indian soldiers are enforcing a curfew, the boy's sister is suffering trauma from an attack in which her father was shot, psychiatrists are squabbling about the rights and wrongs of peace talks, footballers have their feet cut off and graveyard spirits hover about. Who can blame them.
Low Level Panic - an Arkle production of a play that deals with women's concerns over body image, relationships and pornography. It's not a new play (first seen in 1988) but these concerns have proved to be enduring. In the play they seem more like obsessions. It's set in a bathroom where three flatmates alternately argue the toss, squabble and commiserate. An effective set marred I thought by the positioning of a stand where the girls gaze into a mirror (not actually there) as they make themselves up. Down centre it brought much of the action close to the audience but it obscured quite a lot. The actresses did a fair job of representing their characters. It's a sad play really, the most telling line for me being "I'd rather be with anyone than alone."
The Taming of the Shrew - In the cut down form in which Shakespeare's plays generally appear on the Fringe there is a danger of losing something. That surely happened to this production. The representation of Kate's shrewishness at the beginning of the play went no way to suspending my disbelief at the extremity of Petruchio's taming tactics. For me the cross dressing and false beards typical of the comedies have outlived their hilarity and I'm afraid that overall I didn't much enjoy the production although the cast made sterling efforts to entertain me.
Red Dust Road - In her EIF programme note Tanika Gupta says that adapting Jackie Kay's moving memoir about her upbringing as a mixed race adopted child in Scotland and her search for her birth parents was no easy task. Unfortunately it has proved too difficult and resulted in a lack lustre production enlivened only by Elaine C. Smith's splendid portrayal of her feisty warm-hearted adoptive mother and Stefan Adegbola's cameo as her bible thumping Nigerian father who dismisses her as a sin of his youth when "everyone was having a good time".
Growing Old Gracefully - something close to the hearts of most of the audience who had gathered to hear Sue Armstrong and Daniela Mari talk about their respective books Borrowed Time and Breakfast with the Centenarians. They were both reassuring about progress in research into ageing and the possibility of enjoying later life whilst admitting that so far no silver bullet has been uncovered. Moderation in consumption, exercise, maintaining an active interest in life and avoiding loneliness are all important factors. In answer to a question from someone worrying about forgetting words Daniela quoted a contributor to her book who said that the time to worry is not when you forget the word for keys but when you forget what keys are for.
The Djinns of Eidgah - you could hardly be more up to date than to present a play about Kashmir and this one opened promisingly as actors with very real looking machine guns barked orders at the audience as we entered while an atmospheric soundtrack rumbled on in the background and our eyes took in a stage dressed with banners of grafitti and slogans. It was a downhill slide from there. The student cast didn't rise to the challenge of knitting together the story of a boy footballer (played disconcertingly by a girl in a headscarf) intent on being selected to play in the world cup while demonstrations are taking place against talks with India, Indian soldiers are enforcing a curfew, the boy's sister is suffering trauma from an attack in which her father was shot, psychiatrists are squabbling about the rights and wrongs of peace talks, footballers have their feet cut off and graveyard spirits hover about. Who can blame them.
Thursday, August 15, 2019
Words Without Borders - two books about language. Translation as Transhumance by Mireille Gancel was frankly too French intellectual for me. My eyes glazed over. Four Words for Friend by Marek Kohn was more my level but I thought he spoke a fair amount of tosh, no more so than when declaring that we had in some way expropriated words like chutney and bungalow so that they are no longer Indian. He seemed to object to their assimilation into English, a process that has gone on for millenia between pairs of languages. It doesn't stop them being perfectly good Hindi words as well as being English.
Love in the Time of #Metoo - one of the authors didn't make it so we had an hour of undiluted Ayelet Gundar-Goshen talking about her novel Liar, and an enthralling hour it was. The novel deals with a false accusation of sexual assault. The discussion ranged widely from the incidents that had led her to write the book through the ambiguities that it examines to the responsibility or not of the writer to champion or not the society they live in. A really stimulating hour from a practicing psychologist who happens to write or is it vice vera and does that duality apply to all novelists. Can't wait to read the product of her clever and compassionate mind.
Love in the Time of #Metoo - one of the authors didn't make it so we had an hour of undiluted Ayelet Gundar-Goshen talking about her novel Liar, and an enthralling hour it was. The novel deals with a false accusation of sexual assault. The discussion ranged widely from the incidents that had led her to write the book through the ambiguities that it examines to the responsibility or not of the writer to champion or not the society they live in. A really stimulating hour from a practicing psychologist who happens to write or is it vice vera and does that duality apply to all novelists. Can't wait to read the product of her clever and compassionate mind.
Wednesday, August 14, 2019
Hitler's Tasters - a signal sounds, a trio of flaxen haired girls stand by their chairs around a table, they extend their arms, darkness, two dark clad girls highlight the scene with torches, darkness, lights up, the girls are seated and miraculously food has appeared in front of them. This is the snappy beginning of the story of young women who have the honour of tasting food from Hitler's kitchen before it's served to him in case it's poisoned. The show is never less than snappy. While they wait to see if they are going to die and while they wait for the next meal they chat, they bicker, they take selfies (one of the delighful anachronistic touches in the play), they dance and discuss forbidden dreams of Hollywood film stars. One of their number disappears (suspiciously Jewish looking nose), she's replaced, another one goes (father is reported to have deserted). Ecstatic delight at a rumour that the Fuhrer will visit. Will he bring his dog Blondie? Will they be able to take selfies with him? It's a bright and lively production with bundles of energy, super costuming, great performances, great fun.
Dreamtalk and Devotion - twenty years ago Sheena McDonald the journalist and broadcaster was hit by a police van and suffered severe brain injury. In collaboration with her husband Alan Little, also a journalist and broadcaster, and Gail Robertson, the neuropsychologist who shared in the task of her rehabilitation she has written Rebuilding Life after Brain Injury. The discussion of the journey from intensive care to fully functioning was fascinating. Recovery was clearly very difficult and placed great strains on those around her, not least Alan but the discussion was enlivened by numerous humorous anecdotes.
Analysing the Brain's Functions - Ever since reading Gilbert Ryle's The Concept of Mind at university I've been fascinated by the workings of the brain and its products, our minds and personalities. This session dealt with two books pandering to that fascination, Unthinkable by Helen Thomson, a science journalist and The Heartland by Nathan Filer, a former mental health nurse. Both offer examples of the problems people live with. Thomson focuses on odd and even amusing case studies whereas Filer I think is more concerned with how we "normal" people should look on the schizophrenics amongst us. I'm already reading Unthinkable.
Adam Smith: The Invisible Hand - a dramatisation of the life and work of Kirkcaldy's greatest son performed in the house he spent the last decade of his life in. The 17th century building has been beautifully restored to commemorate Smith and to act as a learning centre. The play is performed in an elegant room suitably furnished for the purpose. The room was full. Indeed the show had been overbooked so that extra chairs were dragged in before it could start. The stage lights were strong, The room grew hotter. I lasted through Smith's early years, his meetings with Rousseau and Voltaire and then dozed my way through the rest. It was probably first class.
Steve Reich Project - a solitary dancer, tall and elegant, creates angular shapes as she ranges athletically over the stage while a string quartet plays Reich's wonderful music. A microphone hangs over the centre of the stage dangling close to the floor. The dancer uses the mike and its cable, sings into it, sets it swinging and limbo dances under it as it sweeps across. The string quartet who are initially ranged in a line down one side of the stage become part of the dance. They are moved by the dancer into different formations. She picks up a music stand and drives the player forward with it. So simple, so elegant, so precise. The whole show is wonderful.
Novel Views of Africa - another of my fascinations is with Africa. Chigozie Obioma discussing his An Orchestra of Minorities and Namwali Sepelle her The Old Drift. The latter seems destined to be the great Zambian novel. It combines the intertwined sagas of three white, brown and black imaginary families over three generations with historical truths, magic realism, and a dash of science fiction. The story is fequently narrated by a swarm of mosquitoes. Obioma's novel too uses a non human narrator, in his case a traditional Ibo spirit called a chi. I've added both to my mental wishlist.
Dreamtalk and Devotion - twenty years ago Sheena McDonald the journalist and broadcaster was hit by a police van and suffered severe brain injury. In collaboration with her husband Alan Little, also a journalist and broadcaster, and Gail Robertson, the neuropsychologist who shared in the task of her rehabilitation she has written Rebuilding Life after Brain Injury. The discussion of the journey from intensive care to fully functioning was fascinating. Recovery was clearly very difficult and placed great strains on those around her, not least Alan but the discussion was enlivened by numerous humorous anecdotes.
Analysing the Brain's Functions - Ever since reading Gilbert Ryle's The Concept of Mind at university I've been fascinated by the workings of the brain and its products, our minds and personalities. This session dealt with two books pandering to that fascination, Unthinkable by Helen Thomson, a science journalist and The Heartland by Nathan Filer, a former mental health nurse. Both offer examples of the problems people live with. Thomson focuses on odd and even amusing case studies whereas Filer I think is more concerned with how we "normal" people should look on the schizophrenics amongst us. I'm already reading Unthinkable.
Adam Smith: The Invisible Hand - a dramatisation of the life and work of Kirkcaldy's greatest son performed in the house he spent the last decade of his life in. The 17th century building has been beautifully restored to commemorate Smith and to act as a learning centre. The play is performed in an elegant room suitably furnished for the purpose. The room was full. Indeed the show had been overbooked so that extra chairs were dragged in before it could start. The stage lights were strong, The room grew hotter. I lasted through Smith's early years, his meetings with Rousseau and Voltaire and then dozed my way through the rest. It was probably first class.
Steve Reich Project - a solitary dancer, tall and elegant, creates angular shapes as she ranges athletically over the stage while a string quartet plays Reich's wonderful music. A microphone hangs over the centre of the stage dangling close to the floor. The dancer uses the mike and its cable, sings into it, sets it swinging and limbo dances under it as it sweeps across. The string quartet who are initially ranged in a line down one side of the stage become part of the dance. They are moved by the dancer into different formations. She picks up a music stand and drives the player forward with it. So simple, so elegant, so precise. The whole show is wonderful.
Novel Views of Africa - another of my fascinations is with Africa. Chigozie Obioma discussing his An Orchestra of Minorities and Namwali Sepelle her The Old Drift. The latter seems destined to be the great Zambian novel. It combines the intertwined sagas of three white, brown and black imaginary families over three generations with historical truths, magic realism, and a dash of science fiction. The story is fequently narrated by a swarm of mosquitoes. Obioma's novel too uses a non human narrator, in his case a traditional Ibo spirit called a chi. I've added both to my mental wishlist.
Monday, August 12, 2019
Bull - a bleak tale of three office workers awaiting the arrival of the big boss. Two of them taunt, harass and bully the third, revealing to him that the meeting is to choose which of them the company will "let go". He, who can least afford to lose his job, duly gets the push and they are even nastier to him. The curtain falls on the play and on his life. A competent production of an unsettling story which shows that man's inhumanity to man is not limited to the torture chamber or the battlefield.
Level Up - Jimmy want to marry Natasha but in the brave new world in which the play is set that cannot be because the state does not sanction marriage between high scoring individuals like her and humble drones like him. Jimmy determines to raise himself up to the necessary level and in the process shafts his brother and his best friend and fails to realise that he is destroying all that Natasha found loveable in him. Engaging performances from the cast of five and an ending if not quite happy then optimistic.
After the Fall: Crisis, Recovery and the Making of a New Spain - the author, Tobias Buck, was the FT's correspondent in Spain for a number of years. This book is the result and its presentation kicked off my Book Festival programme. Buck traced concisely and knowledgeably the course of recent Spanish history through the building boom, the financial crisis, the Catalonian secession attempt and the current state of the parties. On my list but by the time I get around to reading it Spain will have moved on.
Wine and Words - subtitled A Taste of Basque Culture this Book Festival event was in essence a wine-tasting. Some music was played and poetry read. The music was folksy and the poetry in Basque (though subsequently translated) and the wine was Rioja. Pleasant but not riveting.
Kalakuta Republik - an EIF dance show which I ultimately enjoyed once I'd decided that there was no good reason to worry about finding meaning in the show (or not) than there had been at the acrobatic circus a few days previously. I was wrong of course about lack of meaning. The EIF blurb tells us "...dance becomes a symbol of transformation, a ceaseless march towards ultimate freedom. Kalakuta Republik is a carnival of insurrection." I saw it as a colourful, noisy, celebratory feast of rhythmic joy. Should have bought a programme.
Level Up - Jimmy want to marry Natasha but in the brave new world in which the play is set that cannot be because the state does not sanction marriage between high scoring individuals like her and humble drones like him. Jimmy determines to raise himself up to the necessary level and in the process shafts his brother and his best friend and fails to realise that he is destroying all that Natasha found loveable in him. Engaging performances from the cast of five and an ending if not quite happy then optimistic.
After the Fall: Crisis, Recovery and the Making of a New Spain - the author, Tobias Buck, was the FT's correspondent in Spain for a number of years. This book is the result and its presentation kicked off my Book Festival programme. Buck traced concisely and knowledgeably the course of recent Spanish history through the building boom, the financial crisis, the Catalonian secession attempt and the current state of the parties. On my list but by the time I get around to reading it Spain will have moved on.
Wine and Words - subtitled A Taste of Basque Culture this Book Festival event was in essence a wine-tasting. Some music was played and poetry read. The music was folksy and the poetry in Basque (though subsequently translated) and the wine was Rioja. Pleasant but not riveting.
Kalakuta Republik - an EIF dance show which I ultimately enjoyed once I'd decided that there was no good reason to worry about finding meaning in the show (or not) than there had been at the acrobatic circus a few days previously. I was wrong of course about lack of meaning. The EIF blurb tells us "...dance becomes a symbol of transformation, a ceaseless march towards ultimate freedom. Kalakuta Republik is a carnival of insurrection." I saw it as a colourful, noisy, celebratory feast of rhythmic joy. Should have bought a programme.
Saturday, August 10, 2019
As they say a week's a long time in festival going so here are brief notes before it all fades from my not very retentive memory.
The Crucible - My first EIF show and it's a cracker. Beautiful choreography beautifully brought to life by the dancers, lovely music, excellent staging. The essence of the story clearly told and helped by making explicit from the start the relationship between Proctor and Abigail. No wonder dates have now been announced for Autumn performances in Scotland. I expect a world tour thereafter.
Trainspotting Live - billed as immersive it certainly was. Two rows of spectators on either side of a long tunnel under the conference centre. Fast and furious telling of the tale by a brilliant cast of four running up and down in between and often amongst us. All the filth and squalor and the humour of Irvine Welch's masterpiece brought to throbbing life. Not for the fainthearted.
Super Sunday - under the big top in the Meadows out of the rain half a dozen Finnish lads jumped, tumbled and generally threw themselves about on seesaws, trampolines and spinning machinery. Impressive acrobatics and not so impressive horse impersonations.
Being Norwegian - a short, delicate and touching tale of two incomplete human beings coming together finely performed by two excellent actors.
Solitary - in a performance space seemingly made of four shipping containers bolted together a man's confinement alone, his numbingly repetitive routine, his occasional conflicts with his guards, his anguish, his release and subsequent failure to re-establish relationships or to find employment, his final retreat into a living space uncannily similar to his prison cell. All are effectively and silently presented by five talented performers.
Big Bite Breakfast - after coffee and croissants a packed house were entertained for an hour by excellent players who performed five sketches. I found three of the five first class. Top marks must go to the witty deadpan parody of the encounter between private eye and femme fatale from the black and white movies of yesteryear.
Anguis - the setting, which is a set building success, is a recording studio where Cleopatra (visiting the land of the living for the purpose) is being interviewed for a radio programme. Interlaced with her interview responses she sings, accompanying herself on the guitar. So far so mildly entertaining as she displays her queenly strength and mocks the legend of death by asp. Fake news apparently. So further so still mildly amusing. The interviewer we learn is a virologist and clinician. She hears sounds that neither Cleo nor the studio engineer do and becomes increasingly distracted. The play morphs into being about a medical negligence incident she's been accused of. Whistle blowing is mentioned and probably metoo and feminism and other miracles of modern life but my attention had spanned its span.
Bleeding Black - growing up in rugby mad New Zealand. Stop playing or harden up is the mantra. Obsession, in this case with rugby but it could be with anything else can lead to doom. That's what is put before us in this well constructed and performed one man show. Rugby fans may get more out of it than others but it's a timely lesson for us all.
Parasites - great performances, especially from the lead actress in a dynamic, sometimes trite but always honest story of a girl with issues. Expelled from school she spirals downwards. Bad company, abusive boyfriend, a spell in prison for assaulting her mother, pregnancy thanks to now junkie boyfriend, child in care, attempt to break the cycle and get a menial job in her old school, rejection. I left with tears in my eyes. Five stars from me.
Antigone - a novel and delightfully fresh presentation of the play. All the drama and all the conflict of ideas, all the debate over loyalty to state or to family, all the themes are there but wrapped in what you could truthfully descibe as a joyous party atmosphere. Indeed it begins with a party to celebrate the victory of Thebes where the lively cast of eight dance and throw balloons about. The balloons are central to the show, burst as laws are discarded or trust broken. Members of the audience are brought into the action from time to time. The whole enterprise is steered to its heartbreaking conclusion with a deft lightness of touch. Very impressive from this young cast.
The Merry Wives of Windsor - or in the Grads production, of a steamie nearer home. It's Shakespearian comedy in all its glory. The cast romp energetically through the twists and turns of Falstaff's plot to have it away with one or more of the eponymous wives and their counter trickeries. A jealous husband disguises himself, a Welsh parson and a French doctor almost come to blows, an unwanted suitor is fooled, true love conquers and all is forgiven. It's going on to Stratford with all my best wishes for success.
Pool (no water) - for the Grads other show a piece from the pen of the redoutable Mark Ravenhill. Played with intensity, staged with imagination, directed with formidable skill. Could not have admired it more.
The Crucible - My first EIF show and it's a cracker. Beautiful choreography beautifully brought to life by the dancers, lovely music, excellent staging. The essence of the story clearly told and helped by making explicit from the start the relationship between Proctor and Abigail. No wonder dates have now been announced for Autumn performances in Scotland. I expect a world tour thereafter.
Trainspotting Live - billed as immersive it certainly was. Two rows of spectators on either side of a long tunnel under the conference centre. Fast and furious telling of the tale by a brilliant cast of four running up and down in between and often amongst us. All the filth and squalor and the humour of Irvine Welch's masterpiece brought to throbbing life. Not for the fainthearted.
Super Sunday - under the big top in the Meadows out of the rain half a dozen Finnish lads jumped, tumbled and generally threw themselves about on seesaws, trampolines and spinning machinery. Impressive acrobatics and not so impressive horse impersonations.
Being Norwegian - a short, delicate and touching tale of two incomplete human beings coming together finely performed by two excellent actors.
Solitary - in a performance space seemingly made of four shipping containers bolted together a man's confinement alone, his numbingly repetitive routine, his occasional conflicts with his guards, his anguish, his release and subsequent failure to re-establish relationships or to find employment, his final retreat into a living space uncannily similar to his prison cell. All are effectively and silently presented by five talented performers.
Big Bite Breakfast - after coffee and croissants a packed house were entertained for an hour by excellent players who performed five sketches. I found three of the five first class. Top marks must go to the witty deadpan parody of the encounter between private eye and femme fatale from the black and white movies of yesteryear.
Anguis - the setting, which is a set building success, is a recording studio where Cleopatra (visiting the land of the living for the purpose) is being interviewed for a radio programme. Interlaced with her interview responses she sings, accompanying herself on the guitar. So far so mildly entertaining as she displays her queenly strength and mocks the legend of death by asp. Fake news apparently. So further so still mildly amusing. The interviewer we learn is a virologist and clinician. She hears sounds that neither Cleo nor the studio engineer do and becomes increasingly distracted. The play morphs into being about a medical negligence incident she's been accused of. Whistle blowing is mentioned and probably metoo and feminism and other miracles of modern life but my attention had spanned its span.
Bleeding Black - growing up in rugby mad New Zealand. Stop playing or harden up is the mantra. Obsession, in this case with rugby but it could be with anything else can lead to doom. That's what is put before us in this well constructed and performed one man show. Rugby fans may get more out of it than others but it's a timely lesson for us all.
Parasites - great performances, especially from the lead actress in a dynamic, sometimes trite but always honest story of a girl with issues. Expelled from school she spirals downwards. Bad company, abusive boyfriend, a spell in prison for assaulting her mother, pregnancy thanks to now junkie boyfriend, child in care, attempt to break the cycle and get a menial job in her old school, rejection. I left with tears in my eyes. Five stars from me.
Antigone - a novel and delightfully fresh presentation of the play. All the drama and all the conflict of ideas, all the debate over loyalty to state or to family, all the themes are there but wrapped in what you could truthfully descibe as a joyous party atmosphere. Indeed it begins with a party to celebrate the victory of Thebes where the lively cast of eight dance and throw balloons about. The balloons are central to the show, burst as laws are discarded or trust broken. Members of the audience are brought into the action from time to time. The whole enterprise is steered to its heartbreaking conclusion with a deft lightness of touch. Very impressive from this young cast.
The Merry Wives of Windsor - or in the Grads production, of a steamie nearer home. It's Shakespearian comedy in all its glory. The cast romp energetically through the twists and turns of Falstaff's plot to have it away with one or more of the eponymous wives and their counter trickeries. A jealous husband disguises himself, a Welsh parson and a French doctor almost come to blows, an unwanted suitor is fooled, true love conquers and all is forgiven. It's going on to Stratford with all my best wishes for success.
Pool (no water) - for the Grads other show a piece from the pen of the redoutable Mark Ravenhill. Played with intensity, staged with imagination, directed with formidable skill. Could not have admired it more.
Sunday, August 04, 2019
Tales from the Garden - A young South African tells us in her pleasant and gentle voice of how she was brought up as a good Catholic girl, how she loved her grandmother and shared her love of plants. As she speaks she minds a little garden and recounts how her grandmother pulled the petals off a rose and challenged her to sew them on again to illustrate how something beautiful once lost can never be restored. At eighteen she is proud to be sent for three months to a youth conference in London as a reward for her academic success. The night before her return to South Africa she loses something beautiful and however hard she tries over the next several years it's gone forever and she with it. A delicate and moving piece of theatre that deserves larger audiences than the one I was part of.
Collapsible - Aping St.Simeon the performer spends her time on a little platform atop a pillar, no doubt to stress her isolation. She's lost her job and much of the action of the piece revolves around her fending off enquiries from friends and family as to her progress in finding another, how she is and so on. She in turn enquires of them what word or words describe her that she can use in interviews. They are many and various: smart, perfectionist, reliable.....I was reminded in the early moments of the play of the character in Fleabag, her brightness, false cheerfulness and so on. I haven't seen enough of Fleabag to know how it develops but in this play the character deteriorates, collapses as in the title. It's a very powerful and clearly draining performance that takes it out of the actress and whose sincerity shines through. Excellent show. There is a deus ex machina who appears at the end not so much to offer her a way out of her predicament (though he offers some comfort) as to provide a ladder for her to to get down.
The Long Pigs - I can't really bear to say much about this. I disliked it pretty intensely. Three Australian clowns in grubby grey outfits and with black piggy noses potter about the stage constucting a heathrobinson machine that fires red noses, creating a crucifixion scene in which lumps of bread are thrown at the victim, slobbering over cream tarts and so on without the distraction of a script or a storyline. I do them an injustice there. The absence of one red nose is signalled early in the show and the discovery of its whereabouts heralds the final scene. Bullshit. Or in this case pigshit.
Devil of Choice - A perfectly presentable three act drama about cheating on your wife/friend condensed into an hour. There's a carapace involving Faust and his pact with the devil which is something to do with there always being a choice and so on. It's very well performed. There are lots of good lines. There's a fine live violin soundscape. But was it worth the performers' time to bring it all the way from New York?
Hughie - I was making my way to catch the bus home when I was handed a flyer and a free ticket for this show. Call me mean but who could resist. Let me play my part in this almost Faustian compact by declaring that it's good and you won't regret the forty five minutes lost in watching it. Its duration comes as something of a surprise when you learn it was written by the author of A Long Days Journey into Night. It's a two-hander but mostly one character riffs on his relationship with the recently deceased night clerk (night porter in our English I suppose) of the down market Manhattan hotel he frequents to an audience of one - the replacement night clerk. As befits its 1920's provenance there is no swearing, a rarity in the modern Fringe.
Enough - is one of those plays where patterned, poetic writing takes precedence over actual drama. That's not me. That's Michael Billington. How right he is and how much I'd like to see some actual drama!
Collapsible - Aping St.Simeon the performer spends her time on a little platform atop a pillar, no doubt to stress her isolation. She's lost her job and much of the action of the piece revolves around her fending off enquiries from friends and family as to her progress in finding another, how she is and so on. She in turn enquires of them what word or words describe her that she can use in interviews. They are many and various: smart, perfectionist, reliable.....I was reminded in the early moments of the play of the character in Fleabag, her brightness, false cheerfulness and so on. I haven't seen enough of Fleabag to know how it develops but in this play the character deteriorates, collapses as in the title. It's a very powerful and clearly draining performance that takes it out of the actress and whose sincerity shines through. Excellent show. There is a deus ex machina who appears at the end not so much to offer her a way out of her predicament (though he offers some comfort) as to provide a ladder for her to to get down.
The Long Pigs - I can't really bear to say much about this. I disliked it pretty intensely. Three Australian clowns in grubby grey outfits and with black piggy noses potter about the stage constucting a heathrobinson machine that fires red noses, creating a crucifixion scene in which lumps of bread are thrown at the victim, slobbering over cream tarts and so on without the distraction of a script or a storyline. I do them an injustice there. The absence of one red nose is signalled early in the show and the discovery of its whereabouts heralds the final scene. Bullshit. Or in this case pigshit.
Devil of Choice - A perfectly presentable three act drama about cheating on your wife/friend condensed into an hour. There's a carapace involving Faust and his pact with the devil which is something to do with there always being a choice and so on. It's very well performed. There are lots of good lines. There's a fine live violin soundscape. But was it worth the performers' time to bring it all the way from New York?
Hughie - I was making my way to catch the bus home when I was handed a flyer and a free ticket for this show. Call me mean but who could resist. Let me play my part in this almost Faustian compact by declaring that it's good and you won't regret the forty five minutes lost in watching it. Its duration comes as something of a surprise when you learn it was written by the author of A Long Days Journey into Night. It's a two-hander but mostly one character riffs on his relationship with the recently deceased night clerk (night porter in our English I suppose) of the down market Manhattan hotel he frequents to an audience of one - the replacement night clerk. As befits its 1920's provenance there is no swearing, a rarity in the modern Fringe.
Enough - is one of those plays where patterned, poetic writing takes precedence over actual drama. That's not me. That's Michael Billington. How right he is and how much I'd like to see some actual drama!
Friday, August 02, 2019
Rich Kids: A History of Shopping Malls in Tehran - thanks to this show I now have an Instagram account. I was advised that would be the best way to fully enjoy the experience. Since 99% of the material appeared on on-stage screens, fiddling with a phone was more a distraction than an addition. Anyway what of the show? More of an illustrated lecture than a piece of theatre the two presenters traced backwards in time (as Instagram presents a users photographic history) the story of a pair of rich Iranees who end up, or since we are going backwards, start off dead in a smashed up Porche. The whole thing seemed to be a musing on the iniquities of the rich and powerful and the awesomeness of time. A million years for a plastic cup to disappear. It was all very earnest and I expect too worthy for me to appreciate.
Ane City - the title is a Scottified nod to Dundee's slogan "One City Many Discoveries". A single performer backed now and then by a guitar player talks about Dundee and her return to the city after an absence at university. The night out with her chums to celebrate her return is not the happy time she had imagined it would be. The actress does very well in inhabiting her various friends and relatives both male and female and with a few simple props gives us glimpses of some Holyrood stars. She uses both voice and body vigorously and convincingly as the story of the night out progresses. How does it end? I won't spoil it for you.
Crocodile Fever - hooray! This is not a lecture, not a monologue but an actual play. There is a set, a box set even, excellent stagecraft and five characters (only four actors). It's a black comedy about the return of a girl to her home after an absence of some years eight of which were spent in prison for burning her mother to death. But it was actaually her sister who did the burning. Her sister does not welcome her return. Their father, dismissed as a monster by the returnee, is upstairs. From there we descend into a spiral of what you might describe as horror movie sequences with a pretty smashing finale. Worth seeing.
Ane City - the title is a Scottified nod to Dundee's slogan "One City Many Discoveries". A single performer backed now and then by a guitar player talks about Dundee and her return to the city after an absence at university. The night out with her chums to celebrate her return is not the happy time she had imagined it would be. The actress does very well in inhabiting her various friends and relatives both male and female and with a few simple props gives us glimpses of some Holyrood stars. She uses both voice and body vigorously and convincingly as the story of the night out progresses. How does it end? I won't spoil it for you.
Crocodile Fever - hooray! This is not a lecture, not a monologue but an actual play. There is a set, a box set even, excellent stagecraft and five characters (only four actors). It's a black comedy about the return of a girl to her home after an absence of some years eight of which were spent in prison for burning her mother to death. But it was actaually her sister who did the burning. Her sister does not welcome her return. Their father, dismissed as a monster by the returnee, is upstairs. From there we descend into a spiral of what you might describe as horror movie sequences with a pretty smashing finale. Worth seeing.
Thursday, August 01, 2019
Somebody behind me in a theatre today said to their chum speaking of some other show "it wasn't a transcendental theatre experience......". That's what we're all hoping for when we buy a ticket and fingers crossed it happens to me sometime this Fringe.
It hasn't happened yet but early days, indeed only day 1.
Mengele - Josef Mengele was a nasty piece of work (see Wikipedia) and it's right and proper that the world should be reminded of the horrors that he and his like perpetrated for fear that we allow such things to happen again. Theatre is an ideal way to do so for it can act on both our heads and our hearts. I'm not convinced that this particular play succeeds in either exposing the irrationality of Mengele's ideas or in arousing the revulsion that his acts deserve but it tries. I was struck by the minor irony that the production is dedicated to the memory of Eva Mozes Kor, a holocaust survivor who forgave Mengele and the Nazis, since the final scene gives him very short shrift indeed.
Spliced - I was very entertained by this play which is staged in a squash court. The protagonist is a player of hurling and devoted member of the Gaelic Athletic Association. (I had an Irish friend who was a keen GAA man and frequented the squash courts, but he never launched into the Irish national anthem in my hearing unlike my neighbour in this squash court and in Irish to boot). Your man jumps about and whacks the sliotair (ball) with his hurley (stick) back and forth most athletically. Later in the play he recites yoga mantras while standing on one leg in his briefs and he acts while standing on his head. I think it's about identity and group think versus individuality but it hardly matters since the actor is a most personable chap and the show is such fun.
Dazzle - the perennial display of beautiful jewellery which I wandered into between shows and was rewarded with a free glass of plonk. Some of the stuff was so lovely that I wondered if it was worth getting my ears pierced.
Suffering from Scottishness - a show that lulls you into thinking that it's all harmless humour but turns out to pack a political punch delivered with genuine passion. Worth seeing.
It hasn't happened yet but early days, indeed only day 1.
Mengele - Josef Mengele was a nasty piece of work (see Wikipedia) and it's right and proper that the world should be reminded of the horrors that he and his like perpetrated for fear that we allow such things to happen again. Theatre is an ideal way to do so for it can act on both our heads and our hearts. I'm not convinced that this particular play succeeds in either exposing the irrationality of Mengele's ideas or in arousing the revulsion that his acts deserve but it tries. I was struck by the minor irony that the production is dedicated to the memory of Eva Mozes Kor, a holocaust survivor who forgave Mengele and the Nazis, since the final scene gives him very short shrift indeed.
Spliced - I was very entertained by this play which is staged in a squash court. The protagonist is a player of hurling and devoted member of the Gaelic Athletic Association. (I had an Irish friend who was a keen GAA man and frequented the squash courts, but he never launched into the Irish national anthem in my hearing unlike my neighbour in this squash court and in Irish to boot). Your man jumps about and whacks the sliotair (ball) with his hurley (stick) back and forth most athletically. Later in the play he recites yoga mantras while standing on one leg in his briefs and he acts while standing on his head. I think it's about identity and group think versus individuality but it hardly matters since the actor is a most personable chap and the show is such fun.
Dazzle - the perennial display of beautiful jewellery which I wandered into between shows and was rewarded with a free glass of plonk. Some of the stuff was so lovely that I wondered if it was worth getting my ears pierced.
Suffering from Scottishness - a show that lulls you into thinking that it's all harmless humour but turns out to pack a political punch delivered with genuine passion. Worth seeing.
Wednesday, July 31, 2019
Apart from the Jazz Festival my diary was pretty empty for July so I optimistically pencilled in "play lots of golf". I only managed one round.
But I did have a little seaside holiday.
Some friends were over from Spain and used my flat. To give them some privacy and save me from sleeping on the floor I spent a few nights in a flat in Portobello whose owner was on holiday.
I took part again in the Napier Jazz Summer School. As is the usual drill we were split up into groups and given a couple of tunes to work on for our end of the week gig. A particular challenge for me this year was that I had to memorise the tunes and the forms we'd developed for them. Luckily that wasn't too hard and thanks to John Rae who steered the group I played in, our contribution to the gig was pretty good.
The festival concerts that I went to were a mixed bag. I very much enjoyed Tommy Smith and Fergus McCreadie's contribution and Graham Costello's STRATA Expanded as well as the exploration by Konrad Wiszniewski and Euan Srevenson of the relationships between jazz and classical music. One gig I went to was brilliant provided you kept your eyes shut. Otherwise the constant fiddling about with laptops and control boxes on the floor was very distracting. None of the rest were particularly memorable except perhaps Like a Cat Tied to a Stick billed as Radiohead reimagined. This has earned me respect from some of my younger friends who don't realise that Radiohead means nothing to me. It was the intriguing title that attracted me.
Small Island was beamed from the National Theatre to various places including Edinburgh. It was an absolutely wonderful production of an adaptation of Andrea Levy's moving novel about the experiences of the West Indians who came to the UK after the second war.
Also wonderful in lots of ways was The Lehman Trilogy, another National Theatre production though it was broadcast from the Piccadilly Theatre. The Guardian gave the show five stars. I'd have given one fewer for the one defect that the Guardian review points out. The collapse of the bank in 2008, what happened and why, was past before you realised it was there.
On a rather smaller budget than either of those shows was Battery Theatre's Mary, It began with a Lass... which I saw in the gardem behind the Storytelling Centre. They ran competently through the events we are all reasonably familiar with about Mary Queem of Scots. The small cast ably supported by a couple of singers switched roles adroitly to inhabit the principal characters of Mary's story and turned to advantage the different levels and nooks and crannies of the garden.
I ate out a few times, including with my school chums in Glasgow. We went to the exhibition of Linda McCartney's photographs at Kelvingrove. There were some fascinating glimpses into the family life that she and Paul enjoyed and a number of good portraits of The Beatles and other musicians. Other photographers may have teased out more from their subjects than she did but the work is worth making a trip to Glasgow for.
My Fringe starts tomorrow.
But I did have a little seaside holiday.
I took part again in the Napier Jazz Summer School. As is the usual drill we were split up into groups and given a couple of tunes to work on for our end of the week gig. A particular challenge for me this year was that I had to memorise the tunes and the forms we'd developed for them. Luckily that wasn't too hard and thanks to John Rae who steered the group I played in, our contribution to the gig was pretty good.
The festival concerts that I went to were a mixed bag. I very much enjoyed Tommy Smith and Fergus McCreadie's contribution and Graham Costello's STRATA Expanded as well as the exploration by Konrad Wiszniewski and Euan Srevenson of the relationships between jazz and classical music. One gig I went to was brilliant provided you kept your eyes shut. Otherwise the constant fiddling about with laptops and control boxes on the floor was very distracting. None of the rest were particularly memorable except perhaps Like a Cat Tied to a Stick billed as Radiohead reimagined. This has earned me respect from some of my younger friends who don't realise that Radiohead means nothing to me. It was the intriguing title that attracted me.
Small Island was beamed from the National Theatre to various places including Edinburgh. It was an absolutely wonderful production of an adaptation of Andrea Levy's moving novel about the experiences of the West Indians who came to the UK after the second war.
Also wonderful in lots of ways was The Lehman Trilogy, another National Theatre production though it was broadcast from the Piccadilly Theatre. The Guardian gave the show five stars. I'd have given one fewer for the one defect that the Guardian review points out. The collapse of the bank in 2008, what happened and why, was past before you realised it was there.
On a rather smaller budget than either of those shows was Battery Theatre's Mary, It began with a Lass... which I saw in the gardem behind the Storytelling Centre. They ran competently through the events we are all reasonably familiar with about Mary Queem of Scots. The small cast ably supported by a couple of singers switched roles adroitly to inhabit the principal characters of Mary's story and turned to advantage the different levels and nooks and crannies of the garden.
I ate out a few times, including with my school chums in Glasgow. We went to the exhibition of Linda McCartney's photographs at Kelvingrove. There were some fascinating glimpses into the family life that she and Paul enjoyed and a number of good portraits of The Beatles and other musicians. Other photographers may have teased out more from their subjects than she did but the work is worth making a trip to Glasgow for.
My Fringe starts tomorrow.
Sunday, July 07, 2019
Another Film Festival event that wasn't a film was a concert by the SNJO playing Sketches of Spain to tie in with the Spanish strand of the festival's programming. A fine gig made even finer by Tommy Smith and Laura Jurd's encore of So What from that other great Miles Davis creation Kind of Blue.
Before getting back to the cinema I took in Women in Parliament, a translation of an Aristophanes comedy in which toilet humour and sexual gags took pride of place. There were a number of familiar faces in the cast and one that I only later found out I knew such was the depth of her disguise. The show was variable in quality but it was fun. Its two star review was fair.
I'd probably give no more than two stars to Emperor of Paris. Based on the life of François Vidoq before he became a top cop it was a gungho cops and robbers, cowboys and indians sort of movie that would no doubt have appealed to my very much younger self. But that self is no more. I realised when the credits came up that I'd picked it because of its Scottish connection. James Bridie's great grandaughter was in the cast. I didn't like the other festival film she was in so her presence is clearly not a reliable criterion on which to base my filmgoing.
Sakawa I'm afraid I didn't much like either. A documentary about West African based internet scams sounded fascinating. It wasn't.
I finished my festival going with two programmes of Scottish short films, twelve films in all. Every one was well worth watching and all the filmmakers had something of interest to say in the Q&As after the screenings. I'll try to give them one sentence each and I've given the directors' names - to be kept an eye on:
Dark Road (Rory Gibson) - grief shared by a boy who lost his brother and the man who accidentally caused his death.
Duck Daze (Alison Piper) - revenge on an abuser when his daughter returns to her childhood home for his funeral.
Belonging (Rory Bentley) - a child and his sister moved to Scotland after their father's death have to adapt.
The Egg and the Thieving Pie (Lola Blanche-Higgins) - surreal and humorous tale of the search for a stolen egg that finds animal traits in human beings.
Educated (Tom Nicholl) - a schoolboy, a schoolgirl, a teacher in unspoken communication
Let's Roll (Chris Thomas) - a teenager defies her mother to train for the town's dangerous tradition.
Never Actually Lost (Rowan Ings) - memories from the director's granny
Stalker (Christopher Andrews) - an old stalker combats a poacher in the Highlands
Jealous Alan (Martin Clark) - two best mates one girl, the old story
Lucky Star (Russell Davidson) - a young woman fighting to reclaim her home from an alcoholic husband and rebuild life for her eight year old
Farmland (Niamh McKeown) - black comedy - Sibling rivalry takes a deadly turn after the reading of a father's will.
Boys Night (James Price) - boy trails round city after drunken foul-mouthed father
Before getting back to the cinema I took in Women in Parliament, a translation of an Aristophanes comedy in which toilet humour and sexual gags took pride of place. There were a number of familiar faces in the cast and one that I only later found out I knew such was the depth of her disguise. The show was variable in quality but it was fun. Its two star review was fair.
I'd probably give no more than two stars to Emperor of Paris. Based on the life of François Vidoq before he became a top cop it was a gungho cops and robbers, cowboys and indians sort of movie that would no doubt have appealed to my very much younger self. But that self is no more. I realised when the credits came up that I'd picked it because of its Scottish connection. James Bridie's great grandaughter was in the cast. I didn't like the other festival film she was in so her presence is clearly not a reliable criterion on which to base my filmgoing.
Sakawa I'm afraid I didn't much like either. A documentary about West African based internet scams sounded fascinating. It wasn't.
I finished my festival going with two programmes of Scottish short films, twelve films in all. Every one was well worth watching and all the filmmakers had something of interest to say in the Q&As after the screenings. I'll try to give them one sentence each and I've given the directors' names - to be kept an eye on:
Dark Road (Rory Gibson) - grief shared by a boy who lost his brother and the man who accidentally caused his death.
Duck Daze (Alison Piper) - revenge on an abuser when his daughter returns to her childhood home for his funeral.
Belonging (Rory Bentley) - a child and his sister moved to Scotland after their father's death have to adapt.
The Egg and the Thieving Pie (Lola Blanche-Higgins) - surreal and humorous tale of the search for a stolen egg that finds animal traits in human beings.
Educated (Tom Nicholl) - a schoolboy, a schoolgirl, a teacher in unspoken communication
Let's Roll (Chris Thomas) - a teenager defies her mother to train for the town's dangerous tradition.
Never Actually Lost (Rowan Ings) - memories from the director's granny
Stalker (Christopher Andrews) - an old stalker combats a poacher in the Highlands
Jealous Alan (Martin Clark) - two best mates one girl, the old story
Lucky Star (Russell Davidson) - a young woman fighting to reclaim her home from an alcoholic husband and rebuild life for her eight year old
Farmland (Niamh McKeown) - black comedy - Sibling rivalry takes a deadly turn after the reading of a father's will.
Boys Night (James Price) - boy trails round city after drunken foul-mouthed father
Friday, June 28, 2019
I've been indulging in the Film Festival. Ten down, four to go plus one missed because I was reading a book and forgot the time and one cancelled to accommodate the visit of a roofer to fix a water ingress problem. So how have they been?
The Fall of the American Empire - an to me unaccountable title for a French Canadian film about a painfully introverted but very bright philosophy graduate, a high cost escort with a heart of gold, an ex con who learned financial skills in clink and the escort's former sugar daddy who knows a thing or two about tax havens and their attemps to launder a large amount of stolen money that comes into the hands of our young philosopher. Mildly entertaining.
Food for Thought - not a film at all but inspired by one. A three course meal washed down by multiple glasses of prosecco and other drinks in praise of Scottish produce and accompanied by a panel discussion on our food and how to promote it. The grub consisted of novel variations on mutton, Cullen skink and cranachan. Served in nouvelle cuisine portions but tasty. There were bowls of delicious whisky smoked cashew nuts with which to while away the intervals between courses. Great value for the £3.25 it cost me.
Chef's Diaries: Scotland - the inspiration for the foregoing. A documentary tracing the journey of one of the Rocca brothers who run El Celler de Can Rocca in Girona, (elected several times as the best restaurant in the world), through Scotland to discover the glories of our food resources and culinary traditions with a view to developing new and exciting recipes for their restaurant. So so.
Loopers - a documentary about golf caddies. It was fun, a bit schmaltzy here and there as can be the American way. A telling fact was that one year in which Tiger Woods did particularly well his caddie New Zealander Steve Williams was the best paid athlete (sic) in New Zealand. Nice work if you can get it and a far cry from the days of Tom Morris.
Wedding Belles - a great fun rollick through the lives of four Edinburgh girls and through their home town as they prepare to marry off one of their number. With Irvine Welsh in the writing credits you can imagine the sort of fun involved. Made for Channel 4 in 2007 but never before seen on the big screen it's up there with Trainspotting in my estimation.
Balance not Symmetry - exalted in the festival programme as "a beautiful cinematic tribute to art, music and Scotland (Glasgow in particular). A moving, funny and inspirational new film....". I wasn't moved, didn't laugh and wasn't inspired. The cast were credited with creating the dialogue. Nuff said. I did like the music though.
Cléo from 5 to 7 - from the nouvelle vague this 1962 film tells the story of a singer's anxious wait for a medical test result that she fears will be a cancer diagnosis. As she waits she wanders through Paris encountering friends and strangers and reveals her inner self to us. It's a lovely film that I don't remember seeing back in the day when the Cameo was the place for foreign films.
One Sings, the Other Doesn't - another brilliant film from Agnes Varda (Cléo above). This is a 70s feminist piece with stunning performances from the two actresses playing the women whose friendship the film is about. Loved it.
Aleksi - the one I missed through book reading.
Contemporary Spanish Shorts - five very different works. In Vaca a slaughter house worker meets the eye of a cow, can't pull the stungun trigger, rescues the cow and persuades a lugubrious looking bus driver to let her take it on board. Cuban Heel Shoes explores the fascination with flamenco of two young men who dabble in drug dealing to keep the wolf from the door but who escape to dance for their dinner by passing the hat around in El Retiro. The Great Expedition is an animation about escape to another planet from a devastated earth whose virtues cinematic or otherwise largely escaped me. My memory of Bad Faith is that it was mostly a series of black and white stills of interiors in which nothing happened coupled with video passages of childhood beach holidays (again black and white and again in which nothing happened). The festival website description is "Across the stretch of a long, languid summer, power dynamics shift within the complex relationships of three young siblings". Too subtle for me obviously. Grey Key I found the most interesting. José Carlos Grey was born in Equatorial Guinea and the film is a memoir by his daughter. of her father. He was a student in Barcelona who fought against Franco, fled to France and then during the second world war was deported to the Mauthausen concentration camp where as a black man he was subject to special humiliation. The story is told in voice over to a series of family photographs, super 8 videos and archive materials. He died when his daughter was quite young. She remembers that he always worked at night and her exploration of his story tells her why.
Jacquot de Nantes - another Agnes Varda and the one I cancelled. Where tradesmen are concerned it's seize the day, the film's on Youtube after all.
The Fall of the American Empire - an to me unaccountable title for a French Canadian film about a painfully introverted but very bright philosophy graduate, a high cost escort with a heart of gold, an ex con who learned financial skills in clink and the escort's former sugar daddy who knows a thing or two about tax havens and their attemps to launder a large amount of stolen money that comes into the hands of our young philosopher. Mildly entertaining.
Food for Thought - not a film at all but inspired by one. A three course meal washed down by multiple glasses of prosecco and other drinks in praise of Scottish produce and accompanied by a panel discussion on our food and how to promote it. The grub consisted of novel variations on mutton, Cullen skink and cranachan. Served in nouvelle cuisine portions but tasty. There were bowls of delicious whisky smoked cashew nuts with which to while away the intervals between courses. Great value for the £3.25 it cost me.
Chef's Diaries: Scotland - the inspiration for the foregoing. A documentary tracing the journey of one of the Rocca brothers who run El Celler de Can Rocca in Girona, (elected several times as the best restaurant in the world), through Scotland to discover the glories of our food resources and culinary traditions with a view to developing new and exciting recipes for their restaurant. So so.
Loopers - a documentary about golf caddies. It was fun, a bit schmaltzy here and there as can be the American way. A telling fact was that one year in which Tiger Woods did particularly well his caddie New Zealander Steve Williams was the best paid athlete (sic) in New Zealand. Nice work if you can get it and a far cry from the days of Tom Morris.
Wedding Belles - a great fun rollick through the lives of four Edinburgh girls and through their home town as they prepare to marry off one of their number. With Irvine Welsh in the writing credits you can imagine the sort of fun involved. Made for Channel 4 in 2007 but never before seen on the big screen it's up there with Trainspotting in my estimation.
Balance not Symmetry - exalted in the festival programme as "a beautiful cinematic tribute to art, music and Scotland (Glasgow in particular). A moving, funny and inspirational new film....". I wasn't moved, didn't laugh and wasn't inspired. The cast were credited with creating the dialogue. Nuff said. I did like the music though.
Cléo from 5 to 7 - from the nouvelle vague this 1962 film tells the story of a singer's anxious wait for a medical test result that she fears will be a cancer diagnosis. As she waits she wanders through Paris encountering friends and strangers and reveals her inner self to us. It's a lovely film that I don't remember seeing back in the day when the Cameo was the place for foreign films.
One Sings, the Other Doesn't - another brilliant film from Agnes Varda (Cléo above). This is a 70s feminist piece with stunning performances from the two actresses playing the women whose friendship the film is about. Loved it.
Aleksi - the one I missed through book reading.
Contemporary Spanish Shorts - five very different works. In Vaca a slaughter house worker meets the eye of a cow, can't pull the stungun trigger, rescues the cow and persuades a lugubrious looking bus driver to let her take it on board. Cuban Heel Shoes explores the fascination with flamenco of two young men who dabble in drug dealing to keep the wolf from the door but who escape to dance for their dinner by passing the hat around in El Retiro. The Great Expedition is an animation about escape to another planet from a devastated earth whose virtues cinematic or otherwise largely escaped me. My memory of Bad Faith is that it was mostly a series of black and white stills of interiors in which nothing happened coupled with video passages of childhood beach holidays (again black and white and again in which nothing happened). The festival website description is "Across the stretch of a long, languid summer, power dynamics shift within the complex relationships of three young siblings". Too subtle for me obviously. Grey Key I found the most interesting. José Carlos Grey was born in Equatorial Guinea and the film is a memoir by his daughter. of her father. He was a student in Barcelona who fought against Franco, fled to France and then during the second world war was deported to the Mauthausen concentration camp where as a black man he was subject to special humiliation. The story is told in voice over to a series of family photographs, super 8 videos and archive materials. He died when his daughter was quite young. She remembers that he always worked at night and her exploration of his story tells her why.
Jacquot de Nantes - another Agnes Varda and the one I cancelled. Where tradesmen are concerned it's seize the day, the film's on Youtube after all.
Tuesday, June 25, 2019
I've never been keen on The Duchess of Malfi and Zinnie Harris's version at The Lyceum did nothing to make me warm to it, excellent production though it was.
My minor participation in The Lark was not informed by anything so grand as research into the subject of the play although I did buy a book about Joan of Arc in a fit of mild enthusiasm. After the run I got round to reading it.
A super book much to be recommended. Joan of Arc: A History by Helen Castor is quite scholarly, (over 20% of it is notes and bibliography and the like), but it reads like a novel and a gripping one at that. I'd always understood that thousands of Scots marched with Joan and indeed thousands of them were in France fighting the English in the 15th century but it seems that practically all of them had died in battle before she set out to ride to the rescue of France. Another illusion shattered.
I've been a member of the General Council of the University of Edinburgh for over 50 years which is no great accomplishment since the council consists of all graduates and all academic staff but it sounds quite grand if you don't know that fact. They meet twice a year and this year was the very first time that I've attended a meeting though I have thought about it from time to time.
The meetings generally have an add on of some sort to attract the brethren and this time there were for me two such attractions. One was that it was to be held in the McEwan Hall and I hadn't been in it since it was refurbished and the new entrance built (whaur's yir Louvre peeramid noo?) . The second was that the meeting was to be followed by (not counting lunch) an exhibition and presentations about the university's connections with Africa past, present and future.
The refurbishment is lovely; all that fancy decoration bright and shiny and comfy cushioning on the seats. The bringing into use and extension of the hithertoo unused basement areas (where the meeting and presentations were held) is impressive.
I enjoyed discovering the various academic and practical African connections and had some very interesting conversations with those involved. I even had the opportunity to remonstrate with the director of the 1971 (or was it 72) Nairobi production of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie for not casting me. I hadn't seen the man since but the wound runs deep.
In the pursuance of art I've been to a big exhibition of Victoria Crowe's work. She does wonderful trees but disappointingly none of those pictures featured amongst the prints and postcards of her work that were on sale.
I'd have liked a Crowe tree print but wasn't tempted to buy a souvenir of the Bridget Riley exhibition. However one might admire the skill and the extraordinary amount of detailed work she does in preparation for her abstracts the sworls of black and white and the columns of colours fail to inspire much enthusiasm: in me that is, her world renown speaks to other impacts on other people. Mind you I have to admit to a nascent admiration, indeed liking for a canvas covered in purple dots.
Oor Willie statues have sprung up around town and one of them could well have been decorated by her:
I've always admired the library building in Dundee Street and very much enjoyed the talk about it given by Alice Strang at the National Gallery. It was illustrated by some fine slides of the building and its decorative panels with their relief sculptures. Apart from introducing us to the various worthy gents involved in its creation and design and reminding us of the part played by the generous endowment of Nelson the publisher she was able to quote from the reminiscences of a chap who grew up in the area and used the library and its predecessor.
The Dunedin Wind Band finished its year with an excellent concert in Old St. Pauls that raised a £1,000 for charity. An excellent social evening two days later rounded things off as we split for the summer.
My minor participation in The Lark was not informed by anything so grand as research into the subject of the play although I did buy a book about Joan of Arc in a fit of mild enthusiasm. After the run I got round to reading it.
A super book much to be recommended. Joan of Arc: A History by Helen Castor is quite scholarly, (over 20% of it is notes and bibliography and the like), but it reads like a novel and a gripping one at that. I'd always understood that thousands of Scots marched with Joan and indeed thousands of them were in France fighting the English in the 15th century but it seems that practically all of them had died in battle before she set out to ride to the rescue of France. Another illusion shattered.
I've been a member of the General Council of the University of Edinburgh for over 50 years which is no great accomplishment since the council consists of all graduates and all academic staff but it sounds quite grand if you don't know that fact. They meet twice a year and this year was the very first time that I've attended a meeting though I have thought about it from time to time.
The meetings generally have an add on of some sort to attract the brethren and this time there were for me two such attractions. One was that it was to be held in the McEwan Hall and I hadn't been in it since it was refurbished and the new entrance built (whaur's yir Louvre peeramid noo?) . The second was that the meeting was to be followed by (not counting lunch) an exhibition and presentations about the university's connections with Africa past, present and future.
The refurbishment is lovely; all that fancy decoration bright and shiny and comfy cushioning on the seats. The bringing into use and extension of the hithertoo unused basement areas (where the meeting and presentations were held) is impressive.
I enjoyed discovering the various academic and practical African connections and had some very interesting conversations with those involved. I even had the opportunity to remonstrate with the director of the 1971 (or was it 72) Nairobi production of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie for not casting me. I hadn't seen the man since but the wound runs deep.
In the pursuance of art I've been to a big exhibition of Victoria Crowe's work. She does wonderful trees but disappointingly none of those pictures featured amongst the prints and postcards of her work that were on sale.
I'd have liked a Crowe tree print but wasn't tempted to buy a souvenir of the Bridget Riley exhibition. However one might admire the skill and the extraordinary amount of detailed work she does in preparation for her abstracts the sworls of black and white and the columns of colours fail to inspire much enthusiasm: in me that is, her world renown speaks to other impacts on other people. Mind you I have to admit to a nascent admiration, indeed liking for a canvas covered in purple dots.
Oor Willie statues have sprung up around town and one of them could well have been decorated by her:
I've always admired the library building in Dundee Street and very much enjoyed the talk about it given by Alice Strang at the National Gallery. It was illustrated by some fine slides of the building and its decorative panels with their relief sculptures. Apart from introducing us to the various worthy gents involved in its creation and design and reminding us of the part played by the generous endowment of Nelson the publisher she was able to quote from the reminiscences of a chap who grew up in the area and used the library and its predecessor.
The Dunedin Wind Band finished its year with an excellent concert in Old St. Pauls that raised a £1,000 for charity. An excellent social evening two days later rounded things off as we split for the summer.
Sunday, June 02, 2019
The Grads are doing a version of Jean Anouilh's play about Joan of Arc this week. I didn't audition for it because the intended rehearsal arrangements clashed with other commitments. In fact those arrangements only persisted for a few weeks so I would actually have been available. Indeed I turned up at lots of rehearsals to prompt and have been rewarded by a late casting.
Joan hears voices that prompt her to become engaged in the fight against the English and the script allocates those voices to the actress playing Joan, but it was decided late on that it would be better if someone else did the voices and that's me. So I'm playing St. Michael. Initially I was to be placed in a position in the balcony invisible to the audience but the acoustics of the ex-church we are performing in are such that I've been moved. So I'll be visible to a portion of the punters although I will not be wowing them in the "beautiful starched robe with two big pure white wings" reported by Joan. What a shame.
Just as the English are the villians of the piece in Joan's story so I have always believed that the failure of the Darien scheme was to be laid in large measure at the feet of the English even after making allowance for the climatic and geographic conditions that made establishing a settlement so very difficult.
But reading John McKendrick's Darien: A Journey in Search of Empire showed me a much more nuanced picture. He has an excellent section on the geopolitical circumstances of the time that explains how the relationships between the European powers drove England to act against or at best to give no assistance to The Company of Scotland Trading to Africa and the Indies.
The objective of establishing a settlement in Darien was to enable trade between the Atlantic (via the Carribean) and the Pacific. A few hundred years later the Panama canal was created for just that purpose. It's creation was politically the work of Theodore Roosevelt who was a descendant of one of the ministers of the kirk who went on the expedition to Darien in the 17th century.
Another interesting book I've read recently is The Word Detective by John Simpson. It's the story of the years he spend working for the Oxford English Dictionary. Interspersed in the narrative are short vignettes about particular words that illustrate the business of tracing the history of words and their meanings which is the business of the OED.
Back in February I was at a couple of gigs in the Jazz Bar that involved players from Belgium. I learnt then that in May in Brussels there is a weekend of jazz throughout the city in venues indoors and out. That sounded a good way to spend a weekend and I've just been. I coupled it with a visit to the French Tennis Open at Roland Garros, one of the things I've always fancied doing.
I had thought I would be able to see Patrick in Brussels (my sailing friend) and Sylviane in Paris (my French theatre friend). But he was at sea and she was away hiking. So I'm going back in late August to see them both.
Anyway the jazz weekend was excellent. There were a number of great combos performing in a bandstand in the park, several groups on temporary stages in city squares and a grand variety in bars and restaurants. There was even a very good quartet performing on the Friday night in the hotel I was staying in.
I squeezed in a visit to the Musical Instrument Museum that I hadn't managed to get to on my very short visit to Brussels in 2015 and I went to an exhibition about Audrey Hepburn who was born in Brussels as this plaque attests.
Someone who was buried there 450 years ago is Peter Breugel and there are various celebratory exhibitions that I didn't manage to get to. Beyond Bruegel looks as though it might even be worth a second trip before it closes in January combined undoubtedly with Back to Bruegel which opens in October and advertises visual reality technology that will allow the visitor to "experience the 16th century in the flesh through face to face contact with original objects from.......".
In Paris I had tickets for two days of tennis. The first day I was in the main show court, Philippe Chatrier. Although I was at the outermost extremes of the court I had an excellent view and saw matches involving Caroline Wozniaki, Rafa Nadal, Novak Djokovic ans Serena Williams. All top dogs. These were first round matches so unlikley to be very competitive but in fact the first match saw Wozniaki being beaten and Serena Williams was down a set before she managed to get into action.
The second day I was in the brand new Simonne Mathieu court which is an architectural gem sitting in a public garden and encompassing plant houses in its structure. It holds 5,000 spectators against Chatrier's 15,000 and I was in the third front row. That's really close to the action. I saw three and a bit matches before leaving for the day. These involved lesser players but not that much lesser. Fabio Fognini for example, a top ten player when in form and Victoria Azarenka a former world number 1.
It was great.
Joan hears voices that prompt her to become engaged in the fight against the English and the script allocates those voices to the actress playing Joan, but it was decided late on that it would be better if someone else did the voices and that's me. So I'm playing St. Michael. Initially I was to be placed in a position in the balcony invisible to the audience but the acoustics of the ex-church we are performing in are such that I've been moved. So I'll be visible to a portion of the punters although I will not be wowing them in the "beautiful starched robe with two big pure white wings" reported by Joan. What a shame.
Just as the English are the villians of the piece in Joan's story so I have always believed that the failure of the Darien scheme was to be laid in large measure at the feet of the English even after making allowance for the climatic and geographic conditions that made establishing a settlement so very difficult.
But reading John McKendrick's Darien: A Journey in Search of Empire showed me a much more nuanced picture. He has an excellent section on the geopolitical circumstances of the time that explains how the relationships between the European powers drove England to act against or at best to give no assistance to The Company of Scotland Trading to Africa and the Indies.
The objective of establishing a settlement in Darien was to enable trade between the Atlantic (via the Carribean) and the Pacific. A few hundred years later the Panama canal was created for just that purpose. It's creation was politically the work of Theodore Roosevelt who was a descendant of one of the ministers of the kirk who went on the expedition to Darien in the 17th century.
Another interesting book I've read recently is The Word Detective by John Simpson. It's the story of the years he spend working for the Oxford English Dictionary. Interspersed in the narrative are short vignettes about particular words that illustrate the business of tracing the history of words and their meanings which is the business of the OED.
Back in February I was at a couple of gigs in the Jazz Bar that involved players from Belgium. I learnt then that in May in Brussels there is a weekend of jazz throughout the city in venues indoors and out. That sounded a good way to spend a weekend and I've just been. I coupled it with a visit to the French Tennis Open at Roland Garros, one of the things I've always fancied doing.
I had thought I would be able to see Patrick in Brussels (my sailing friend) and Sylviane in Paris (my French theatre friend). But he was at sea and she was away hiking. So I'm going back in late August to see them both.
Anyway the jazz weekend was excellent. There were a number of great combos performing in a bandstand in the park, several groups on temporary stages in city squares and a grand variety in bars and restaurants. There was even a very good quartet performing on the Friday night in the hotel I was staying in.
I squeezed in a visit to the Musical Instrument Museum that I hadn't managed to get to on my very short visit to Brussels in 2015 and I went to an exhibition about Audrey Hepburn who was born in Brussels as this plaque attests.
In Paris I had tickets for two days of tennis. The first day I was in the main show court, Philippe Chatrier. Although I was at the outermost extremes of the court I had an excellent view and saw matches involving Caroline Wozniaki, Rafa Nadal, Novak Djokovic ans Serena Williams. All top dogs. These were first round matches so unlikley to be very competitive but in fact the first match saw Wozniaki being beaten and Serena Williams was down a set before she managed to get into action.
The second day I was in the brand new Simonne Mathieu court which is an architectural gem sitting in a public garden and encompassing plant houses in its structure. It holds 5,000 spectators against Chatrier's 15,000 and I was in the third front row. That's really close to the action. I saw three and a bit matches before leaving for the day. These involved lesser players but not that much lesser. Fabio Fognini for example, a top ten player when in form and Victoria Azarenka a former world number 1.
It was great.
Thursday, May 23, 2019
I put up a wall mirror in my spare bedroom a couple of weeks ago. So what you may ask; nothing very special about a bit of DIY. That's true so far as it goes but this is a mirror that I brought from Mountcastle when I moved into this flat getting on for thirteen years ago. It has lain propped up awkwardly against the fuse cupboard in the hall all that time. It makes the pavement fix that I blogged about last time seem to have been carried out at the speed of light.
I shall have to do better with the ingress of water that has turned a corner of the lounge into a mini swamp. But I shan't be bringing my DIY skills to bear on the problem. I first suspected the central heating but a plumber cleared that and subsequently a roofer traced the source or sources to balcony and eaves. Easy to fix he said. We'll see. Looking on the bright side the thirteen year delay in laying a new carpet seems almost prescient.
Bob and Caroline were up in Glasgow recently so the old school chums gang convened for lunch there and the usual jolly time was had by all. Not quite so jolly as Claire's birthday lunch which ended up for me with a drop of shuteye in a Portobello pub until I was gently persuaded into wakefulness by the staff and went home to resume my nap on the settee.
Thanks to my membership of the Friends of the Queen's Hall I enjoyed a free gig and glass of wine there after my Glasgow lunch. The gig was jazz of an elegant kind from Tim Garland and his trio. Wikipedia tells us that Tim's music blurs the lines between modern jazz and classical music. That seems a sound judgement to me. Judge for yourself here or here.
I was back at the Queen's Hall to hear Rocio and her quartet who were guests in a concert by the Kevvock Choir. I was there to hear the saxophones of course but I did enjoy most of the choir's performance and was particularly engaged by their singing of Victor Johnston's arrangement of Pie Jesu.
My own musical activity this month included a playaway day with the Dunedin Band. The practice is for us to lunch together on grub supplied by the members and this time inspired by the delicious biscuits I brought home from Cortina I made a bundle of Amarettis. So easy and so tasty. Could be a weekly treat at home.
I shall have to do better with the ingress of water that has turned a corner of the lounge into a mini swamp. But I shan't be bringing my DIY skills to bear on the problem. I first suspected the central heating but a plumber cleared that and subsequently a roofer traced the source or sources to balcony and eaves. Easy to fix he said. We'll see. Looking on the bright side the thirteen year delay in laying a new carpet seems almost prescient.
Bob and Caroline were up in Glasgow recently so the old school chums gang convened for lunch there and the usual jolly time was had by all. Not quite so jolly as Claire's birthday lunch which ended up for me with a drop of shuteye in a Portobello pub until I was gently persuaded into wakefulness by the staff and went home to resume my nap on the settee.
Thanks to my membership of the Friends of the Queen's Hall I enjoyed a free gig and glass of wine there after my Glasgow lunch. The gig was jazz of an elegant kind from Tim Garland and his trio. Wikipedia tells us that Tim's music blurs the lines between modern jazz and classical music. That seems a sound judgement to me. Judge for yourself here or here.
I was back at the Queen's Hall to hear Rocio and her quartet who were guests in a concert by the Kevvock Choir. I was there to hear the saxophones of course but I did enjoy most of the choir's performance and was particularly engaged by their singing of Victor Johnston's arrangement of Pie Jesu.
My own musical activity this month included a playaway day with the Dunedin Band. The practice is for us to lunch together on grub supplied by the members and this time inspired by the delicious biscuits I brought home from Cortina I made a bundle of Amarettis. So easy and so tasty. Could be a weekly treat at home.
Friday, May 10, 2019
This may look like an ordinary bit of pavement with a little building behind it, but behind the picture is a wee story illustrating how sometimes rather than shake your head in despair you can get things fixed even if, as in this case, it takes time.
Some time ago, a year maybe, two, more (?) this pavement was dug up to do something related to the sub-station in the picture. When the pavement was made good the knobbly paving slabs were not replaced. Instead the whole sweep of pavement was tarmaced over.
Now the knobbly slabs are there as you undoubtedly know to warn the unsighted that they are about to walk into a road. (They are also quite handy to all as a helpful foothold in slippy conditions.)
So I contacted Scottish Power whose sub-station it is. A charming lady responded to my report and assured me that the matter would be drawn to the attention of the appropriate department.
Well nothing happened and then nothing happened again and so it went on until one day a man rang me. He had taken over the part of the business in which reports such as mine were housed and was trawling through them to tidy things up. Had my report been acted on he asked.
Over the next couple of months he rang me periodically firstly to establish what had happened and exactly where, and then to let me know how getting it sorted out was progressing. Then lo and behold last week it was fixed. Well done that man.
And well done Scottish Ballet and the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra. Both have given sparklingly entertaining performances recently. The ballet double bill celebrating SB's 50th year opened in the Highlands and here's what they thought of it.
The SNJO also gave us a double bill. Led by American jazzman Bill Dobbins who had arranged the material and with Brian Kellock starring at the piano they played music by Fats Waller in the first half. Solid stuff with impeccable big band backing but my feet didn't do a lot of tapping. After the interval I couldn't keep them still.
In a complete change of style with on vocals Irini Arabatzi (who couldn't keep any part of her body still), Mario Caribe on vocals and guitar and Tommy Smith on tenor they headed to Brazil and the music of Jobim. This was a delight and brought warm sunshine to the half empty Usher Hall. They included a number of well loved melodies like Desafinado and The Girl from Ipanema.
Bill Dobbins had written a beautiful flute solo to introduce one of the songs (I can't remember which) that took me right back to my first day in Copacabana a few years ago when a flute was playing in the background as we took coffee by the beach.
I went with eager anticipation to see Loro, a fictionalised biopic about Silvio Berlusconi but after some thirty minutes of cocaine snorting and bonking, on screen that is, I left.
Rafiki which I went to simply because it was a Kenyan film was quite sweet. I hadn't registered beforehand that it was a story of two girls whose fathers are political rivals getting it together in a sort of coming of lesbian age drama. It was apparently selected for Cannes last year but can't be shown in Kenya because of the subject matter. The Guardian's review is worth reading.
I had a lovely lunch with a rafiki at L'Escargot Bleu recently. It's astonishing how easily a £15.99 fixed price lunch can end up costing £45 a head.
Tuesday, April 30, 2019
A walking tour of Warriston Cemetery was just the thing for a sunny Saturday afternoon. Since it was under the auspices of the National Gallery the focus was on artists and architects buried there with an additional nod to some of the pioneers of photography.
I confess only one name was familiar to me, the artist Robert Scott Lauder. The architects I knew none of but I'm familiar with many of their buildings; the McEwan Hall, the University Medical School, the Portrait Gallery etc. etc.
The grandest monument we came across was not to an artist but to one Robertson Mclean from the island of Coll who when his father died was taken off with his siblings by his mother to Australia where they made lots of money and moved to New Zealand where they made even more money. Some of it was eventually used to pay for this:
He appears in his brother Allan's entry the New Zealand biographical dictionary.
Leaving the cemetery and en route to a birthday party in Leith I passed eight fine tennis courts in Goldenacre which at 4pm on a sunny Saturday were devoid of life. No wonder we are short of Wimbledon champions.
When the party venue door was opened to me a toddler rushed down the long corridor and more or less threw herself into my arms. "Oh" said her dad "She must think you are someone else." How cruel is that?
The fine weather persisted into Sunday so I went out for a walk mid morning and satisfied an urge I've had for a while to examine the Collective Gallery's new home on Calton Hill and the new restaurant that's up there now. I hadn't been up literally for years and wondered how my aging legs would cope with the steep path up from Royal Terrace. They coped fine though I needed to stop to draw breath a couple of times but I probably had to do that even when I was a lot fitter.
The refurbishment of the observatory is excellent though I didn't think much of what the Collective was showing.
I skipped a film about sex workers in favour of a display of colouful clothes hanging on a line. A light projects their shadows onto a wall. You are invited to listen to a vinyl (no doubt a critical element) record of odd music with a voice saying something over it (no doubt another critical element). Here am I doing just that thing and looking suitably stern or is it puzzled as I do so.
The restaurant, called for good reason The Lookout, is a relatively unobtrusive modern building that in a couple of hundred years or so will fit in nicely with the existing buildings.
I confess only one name was familiar to me, the artist Robert Scott Lauder. The architects I knew none of but I'm familiar with many of their buildings; the McEwan Hall, the University Medical School, the Portrait Gallery etc. etc.
The grandest monument we came across was not to an artist but to one Robertson Mclean from the island of Coll who when his father died was taken off with his siblings by his mother to Australia where they made lots of money and moved to New Zealand where they made even more money. Some of it was eventually used to pay for this:
He appears in his brother Allan's entry the New Zealand biographical dictionary.
Leaving the cemetery and en route to a birthday party in Leith I passed eight fine tennis courts in Goldenacre which at 4pm on a sunny Saturday were devoid of life. No wonder we are short of Wimbledon champions.
When the party venue door was opened to me a toddler rushed down the long corridor and more or less threw herself into my arms. "Oh" said her dad "She must think you are someone else." How cruel is that?
The fine weather persisted into Sunday so I went out for a walk mid morning and satisfied an urge I've had for a while to examine the Collective Gallery's new home on Calton Hill and the new restaurant that's up there now. I hadn't been up literally for years and wondered how my aging legs would cope with the steep path up from Royal Terrace. They coped fine though I needed to stop to draw breath a couple of times but I probably had to do that even when I was a lot fitter.
The refurbishment of the observatory is excellent though I didn't think much of what the Collective was showing.
I skipped a film about sex workers in favour of a display of colouful clothes hanging on a line. A light projects their shadows onto a wall. You are invited to listen to a vinyl (no doubt a critical element) record of odd music with a voice saying something over it (no doubt another critical element). Here am I doing just that thing and looking suitably stern or is it puzzled as I do so.
The restaurant, called for good reason The Lookout, is a relatively unobtrusive modern building that in a couple of hundred years or so will fit in nicely with the existing buildings.
Thursday, April 25, 2019
I'm generally late in getting to exhibitions that run for a long time and the robot show at the museum has been no exception. It's been on since January but I've only managed to get to it ten days before it ends.
I really enjoyed it especially the modern stuff and my total favourite unsurprisingly was the Thespian Robot who does a great little show.
Reassuringly for actors in fear of losing their jobs a caption tells us that acting ranks 210th in a list of 366 jobs at risk of automation.
I really enjoyed it especially the modern stuff and my total favourite unsurprisingly was the Thespian Robot who does a great little show.
Reassuringly for actors in fear of losing their jobs a caption tells us that acting ranks 210th in a list of 366 jobs at risk of automation.
Wednesday, April 24, 2019
A quick rundown of activities between Cortina and Gartmore to remind me when dementia strikes.
Ross's birthday lunch at Aurora, a lovely little restaurant in Great Junction Street the most unexpected of locations.
Big Band Divas at the Queen's Hall which thanks to the birthday lunch wine I dozed through.
Another saxophone afternoon at the Big Blaw after which I went to Glasgow with Rory to hear Bob Reynolds. The music was super but it was standing room only in the tiny cellar venue with an hour cooling our heels before the band turned up.
It's only taken ten years but I've at last had a light installed in my hall cupboard and a few more electrical improvements such as replacing the jet turbine extractor fan in my bathroom with a quieter model.
A lovely piece of modern music by Anna Clyne was the filling in a sandwich of two Mozart violin concertos played by Nicola Benedetti and the SCO.
I loved Pepperland, Mark Morris's tribute to the Beatles Sergeant Pepper album on its 50th birthday. The score was not a straightforward rendition of the album but what the Guardian called "an idiosyncratic reinvention". The costumes were bright as a bunch of Spring flowers and the dancing as buzzy as swarm of bees.
Connor took a few hours off from mountain biking in the borders to come up to Edinburgh and take me out to eat at the ever tasty Vittoria's.
Another excellent SCO gig whose centre piece was Ravel's Piano Concerto in G. That and Variaciones Concertantes by Ginastera put Beethoven's Symphony No. 4, somewhat in the shade for me and I count myself a Beethoven fan.
The Grads did a show called Hand to God which must be one of the best productions I've ever seen them do or been involved in myself. The review points to inadequacies in the script which I must say I didn't really pick up on entirely because of the superlative quality of the production.
One of the Grads longtime members, indeed I think she was a founder member, died recently. Joyce had been living for the last few years with her son down south but he organised a memorial service for her here and quite a few of us attended. I liked her a lot and was in a number of shows with her. The service was not a particularly sad occasion (she'd made it to 89 after all) but rather a good opportunity to meet up with people I hadn't seen for some years.
Heat and Dust is one of the wonderful Merchant Ivory movies that I've enjoyed over the years of their partnership. It's based on a novel of the same name which earned Ruth Pawer Jhabvala the Booker prize. The screenplay brought her a Bafta in 1984. The film is set in India both in the present day (1970/80s) and in the 1920s and handles two intertwined romantic dramas. The Guardian like me admired its reappearance in cinemas and found perhaps even more depth than in the first time around.
Cora Bisset is a consummate theatrical and what's more she went to school in Kirkcaldy. Her play What Girls Are Made Of was a hit at last year's Fringe. I regretted missing it so was keen to see the revival currently touring. I was I have to say a little disappointed. Maybe it's just that I never had ambitions to be a pop star despite my washboard playing at the YWCA circa 1956 or that the popular music of the 1980s was not all that popular with me. It's a slick show terribly well performed and the events portrayed were clearly seminal for her so I'm not knocking it. I just wasn't personally much engaged by it.
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