Happening Invite

Wee Wizards Winkie

A Saturday afternoon matinee is a very civilised time to see a play really, you come out into the late afternoon and have much more time to think about what you've just seen, rather than dashing home on a crowded tube full of drunken idiots. I do feel sorry for Richard Griffiths though, having to do two shows a day. He is on stage for virtually the whole performance, and has as much dialogue as all the other characters put together. He was superb though, very invitingly conversational, and the antithesis of the declamatory actorly presence that someone like Richard Burton (who played this part in the filmed version) would have brought to the stage. That said maybe Griffiths was a bit too relaxed to plumb the deep chasm of dissatisfied emptiness that his character discovers upon revealing his patients manic elation.

The boy wizard himself was perfectly acceptable as the tormented adolescent, but he did have a hint of Bilbo Baggins about him for some reason? Jenny Agutter was rather wooden as an underwritten magistrate, and I suspect she was only there to provide another link to the film, where she played the young girl whose failed seduction tips the horse worshipping boy over the edge.

The staging was excellent, and as we had an audience member from the original 1973 production with us ,it was interesting to hear that it was actually very faithful to that production. Why change such an effective, if minimal, set, and the simple wire horse masks were brilliantly evocative. The central theme of the play, the doubts by the psychiatrist at diverting the boys extreme relationship with the world to normality, and the cost paid for such a diversion were subtly explored and never didactic. The combination of envy and revulsion he felt at the acts or worship that the boy indulged in were always sensitively presented and utterly believable, as was the total waste he felt when considering his own life and work.

This stands up remarkably well for a play over thirty years old, and hasn't seemed to date at all, and compared with today's high-tech theatrical productions, its simplicity was chillingly effective, and must have been incredibly impressive in the early '70's.

What's Welsh For Quirkilicious

A nice fun Welsh themed evening at The Queen Elizabeth Hall last week, with films and DJ's and all sorts. The main event was the Super Furry's Gruff Rhys plugging his new album Candylion. First support were 9 Bach, a three piece consisting of geetar, harp (quite a modest one though, not Newsome sized) and Xylophone/Harmonium. All their songs were in Welsh and were nice enough, if not over memorable. Next up were The Voice Of The Seven Woods, a duo from up north somewhere who did mainly acoustic guitar led instrumentals. The vocals were nothing special, and the restrictions imposed by only an acounstic guitar and drums on all of the songs made the set very tonally limited.

Gruff had gone to town on the set, with giant Candylion & Friends cut-outs, a huge TV screen, behind which was a desk full of whistles, bells and toy gizmo's which he used, along with the ubiquitous loop pedal (also used extensively by the & Woods) to build up his nicely layered tunes. He was joined occasionally by the singer from 9 Bach, and for the first song 'Candylion' and the epic closer 'Skylon' by a full band. 'Skylon' was acted out in two aircraft seats, being the story of troubled flight by a bomb disposal expert. Gruff is too quirky to be anything than light frothy fun, but this he acheived with considerable Celtic aplomb.

The programme featured a cut out and keep Candylion model, which through the wonders of the worldly web you can now make for yourselves:

Dear Mister Fantasy...

The trailer had put me off somewhat, giving the impression of some dark Tolkein/Narnia amalgam, with Sound of Music undertones. Fortunately the fantasy elements were very subtly interposed with the drama, which featured some incredibly brutal scenes from the end of the Spanish civil war. Strange what can be classified as a 15 cert. these days. There was also no uncertaintity that the scenes in the labyrinth were anything other the fevered imaginings of the traumatised girl. It would have been very annoying if Pan had given the cruel step-father his comeuppance rather than the rebels.
The real fantasy here though is the myth that the war had a positive outcome for the rebels. It's hard to believe that Europe had it's own oppressive regime, and genuine fascist dictator until the mid 1970's.

As recommended by Ucunt...

Every couple of years sad old (very old) git Allan Jones, editor of Uncut (and former Melody Maker scribe) gets the full weight of his saggy old arse behind the next big thing from the US of A.

A couple of years ago it was Marah (and I was totally won over by their brand of R'n'R evangelism). 2005 it was Richmond Fontaine (and I'm very fond of the tragic, literate destitution of lead singer Willy Vlautin). Today it's The Hold Steady, and Mr. Jones was there in person at the Hoxton Bar & Kitchen (Kitchen??) to boozily cheer on his latest proxylated flames.

There've been lots of high fallutin' claims as to the Springsteenesque-ness of this combo, but just because someone can actually write lyrics, rather than randomly fill in spaces in their tunes with words, then the 'S' word gets bandied about. Personally I thought they were more Cheap Trick than E. St. The singers irritating habit of mouthing again all of the words he's just sung (he actually speaks/drawls most of the words) immediately after he's just sung them, should be stopped, forthwith. As should the habit of dragging his hand across his balding head, and down his Spielbergian features.

It's not that I didn't like them, but I just wasn't in the mood for this level of over-hyped adequacy.

Judy, Judy, Judy

After his acclaimed Garland recreation at Carnegie Hall, it was The London Palladium's turn to submit to the ultimate gay fan-boy tribute. There was certainly a crackle of electric anticipation as the celeb heavy crowd took their seats. Black suited Paul Morley anxiously read text messages, and no doubt already started to stitch together his end-piece in next months Observer Music Magazine. The chubby one from Keane happily posed for photo's and signed autographs, and Kink Ray Davies sneaked in late (and out early) with an unfeasibly young lady on his arm. Elsewhere, spotted by Hywel and Joe, were Mark Gatis and Julia Davis.

The orchestra assembled and a youthful, raven haired, conductor led them through the overture, melding together instrumental glimpses of the Garland catalogue, before a be-jewelled, gold-suited Rufus took the stage and started belting out those funny, familiar, forgotten show-tune classics. He made a decent fist of it, considering these were songs selected for a 40 year old woman to sing 45 years ago, in a different key, they didn't sit too awkwardly on the young pretenders shoulders. There was an obvious and long standing love for the material, which elevated his delivery above Robbie's sham Sinatra-esque warbling. However the limits of the Wainwright vocal range were highlighted, and in songs littered with the word 'me', his pronounciation of the personal pronoun as an elongated 'may' palled after a while.

When the show started to sag a little he invited his sister Martha on to sing Stormy Weather, and she received the biggest cheer of the night so far, as her delivery totally eclipsed that of her brother, as did her sincerity and emotional honesty. For one thing that Rufus failed to maintain was a genuine respect for the material. These are songs that were crafted by some of the finest tunesmiths of the twentieth century, but somehow his giggling self-deprecation robbed them of some of their dignity. He even seemed to snigger during 'Over the Rainbow' which is a song that simply must be played absolutely straight (ha ha) in order for it to work.

A tremendous round of applause of the end of the re-created show, set up an extended encore, which saw Martha returning to sing a divine "Someone to Watch Over Me". Things got a bit cheesy in a That's Entertainment kind of way when Rufus was joined by Garland's daughter Lorna Luft for a number before the house lights finally came up, and the greasepaint finally came off.

So not the momentous event that might have been, but a pretty unmissable one-off (well two-off anyway as he's back next week).

Is this a Bafta I see before me?

Two superb central performances, a vividly evoked sense of place, and a welcome capacity not to simplify events make this pretty much unmissable. Forest Whitaker was totally deserving of his recent Bafta and is surely fave for the Oscar for his all consuming Amin, James McAvoy is also totally believable as the willingly gullible, deeply flawed and wildly ambitious personal physician. The fact that his character is a construct of a number of real people, help to make this an impressionistic version of events, and somehow, because it doesn't stick slavishly to documentary realism, gives a far more believable portrayal of the man and his brutal times.