Here Come The Waves

Brilliantly realised adaptation of The novel by Virginia Woolf at The Cottesloe. Like a pre-war modernist This Life, the thoughts and impressions of a group of characters are brought to life by the busiest cast in showbiz. Several hundred props are used to create visuals and sound effects to illustrate the often impenetrably confusing text. The end result is as impressionistic as Woolf's woolly words, but somehow less precious and effete.

The Hour Draws Nighy

The Vertical Hour is supposedly a reference to the period immediately after a physical trauma when medical intervention can prove most beneficial. However I haven't been able to find any reference to this on line, so maybe he just made it up? I can't see how this fits into the play itself either. One of the defining incidents relates to an accident that Bill Nighy's character had some years before; his lover was killed, when a car he was driving was involved in an accident. It is this event which finally ended his marriage, and caused him to give up his senior surgeons post and become a country GP, but how any 'immediate intervention' relates to this accident is somewhat obscure. Nighy is absolutely superb, totally in command, able to exercise his immaculate comic timing on the best lines in the play. He also convincingly conveys anger and disgust when reciting the litany of US deficiencies in their handling of the Iraq war. It is the war that is the central theme of the play, but somehow gets hidden away for most of the time, as though Hare is determined not to go for out and out polemic, and tries (and indeed succeeds) to create a believable dysfunctional family dynamic to weave around the political arguments between Nighy and Julianne Moore's war correspondent turned academic Iraq apologist.

Moore is disappointing, her voice lacks the range required for stage acting, and without the close ups, and audio boosting facilities of cinema lacks sufficient presence to match Nighy. The set is very simple, rough floor boards cover the stage and a large Oak tree in the background provides shade for a long dining table, and a motley assortment of chairs. It was remarkably evocative, and made me yearn to have a garden that could accommodate such a tree, and a desire to sit out under it on long summer nights and enjoy sumptuous many coursed feasts.Aaah! The play reminded my very much of Rock'n'Roll with it's interweaving of the personal and the political, and it's constant flow of ideas and observations, it's another play about 'everything', but the musical introductions to each scene (Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Nick Drake) seemed to echo R'n'R a little too closely.

At the end of the day Hare is obviously opposed to Iraq, but he doesn't seem to be able to say anything very clear about what the alternatives may have been, or what should be done now. Moore's final decision to quit academia and return to reporting in Iraq doesn't seem a to be a very clear statement about anything either, and adds to the general confusion.

Quick Marcham

Went to see The Marcham Payers at the weekend performing three one act plays:
What Shall We Do With The Body
What Brutes Men Are
Open Secrets
Billie had a filthy cold, and the plays were being performed in an unheated church, so we only managed the first two. Jenny was in the second one though, and was very good, projected much better than her fellow thesps I thought.

Careful With That Act Eugene

The second outing with G&A was to the Old Vic to see A Moon For The Misbegotten. My first trip there. The seats we had were pretty rubbish, in the top balcony at the side, so we had to strain forward to see half the stage. The play was so engrossing though that it didn't really bother me too much. The first act was a lot lighter than I expected. I thought Eugene O'Neill was a by-word for interminable angst and dread, but this was played as broadish comedy. Superb performances from Eve Best as a penniless Southern farm girl with a bad reputation, and Colm Meaney as her conniving Pa. The seond act was a lot darker, with an awe-inspiring performance from Kevin Spacey as a gulit riddled alcoholic, based on O'Neill's brother. At one point someone in the crowd was giggling at Eve Best's speech. Not too surprising as even the tragic denouement was being played for the occasional laugh, but in this case Spacey obviously felt it was inappropriate, and still reacting to Best, held his hand up to the audience. I did a double take as I realised he was breaking the fourth wall and communicating directly with the crowd. A tricky stunt to pull off, but one that actually paid off as it was obvious that Spacey was just trying to get the piece treated with the respect he felt it deserved.

Mark Y Marc

Went to see Mark in Art last night, the first in the trio of this weekends cultural adventures. Driving out of London on a Friday evening is sheer folly, and I was cream crackered after driving to bleedin' Banstead for two hours. Luckily the theatre (a very cute converted stable) was close by. The production was very slick and professional, the acting was excellent and the staging was smooth. The play itself was rather unsatisfactory, it didn't really deal with the my two major bug bears about modern art, it's trading as a commodity, and its descent into another sub-genre of celebrity culture. It skirted around the idea of high fallutin' interpretations being applied to minimalist work, but didn't really dig deep enough. The other theme of the play was friendship, but as none of the three characters were particularly likable, I didn't really care very much if they ended up as friends or not, they were probably all better off splitting up and finding new mates.

Mark was very good, as usual, and considering problems he's having with the house sale and at work, and the fact that he'd been sick all day shows what a 'show must go on' trooper he his.

It's Not Only Rock'n'Roll

Billie and I went to see the Tom Stoppard play ‘Rock’n’Roll’ at the Duke of Yorks theatre last night. It’s a vastly ambitious piece, with a wealth of Stoppard's disparate fascinations thrown together seemingly randomly. So you get a history of Czechoslovakia from ’68-’90, a meditation on the musical obsessions of an anglophile Czech student, ruminations on the ancient Greek lyric poetry of Sappho, debates about communism, espionage, love, loyalty and betrayal. All overseen by the spectral presence/absence of Syd Barret. It would have been all too easy for this intellectual hotch potch to have turned into an utterly confusing mess, but Stoppard overlays his concerns onto the solid dramatic foundation of A Story (Wow!): i.e. The tale of the developing relationships within three generations of an academic family in Cambridge. It’s the sympathetic nature of these generational observations that allows the catherine wheel of ideas to stay pinned to the tree.


The performances of Brian Cox and Rufus Sewell were exceptional, quite possibly the best I’ve ever seen, and there was more than able support from the rest of the cast especially Sinead Cusack. The challenge of fitting in so many scenes in different places/times was met by the use of a clever revolving stage, and the device of lowering a screen between scenes. Onto which was projected the recording details of the music that was played. This included Syd Barrett, The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd and even a dodgy ballad by Guns’n’Roses. I found this slightly confusing, as the songs didn’t fit into the chronology of the play, so in the early ‘80’s a track from The Beachboys recorded in 1966 was played? Ah! musical pedantry how sweet thou art. Still, didn't detract from an excellent evening.