World Book Night 2021: Book Seven

 

Sunshine and Sweet Peas in Nightingale Square by Heidi Swain (Simon & Schuster)

Borrowed from the library eBook catalogue

I wasn't sure that I was in the mood for a light and fluffy read when the notification from the library came in saying it was my turn to download this book, and I almost delayed the delivery date for a few weeks.

I'm really glad that I didn't for although the plot was reasonably light and I did guess a lot of the twists before they happened this book was an unashamed delight from (virtual) cover to cover.

There's nothing new at all in the story but it was just so well written that I felt I lived in Nightingale Square and that these were my neighbours. Being set in Norwich was also nice, and it is obvious that Swain is familiar with the city. Nightingale Square might be fictitious but all of the other local nods were spot on  - another reason to see this book as a warm hug of a read.

I'm not going to read any more of Swain's books immediately but I do now have a go to author when I want something comforting, romantic and easy to read. I'd never have read this without my challenge and once more I am delighted to have found something new.

Theatre 2017: Review Thirty-two - Hedda Gabbler

Hedda Gabbler, Theatre Royal, Norwich. November 2017.

I'd missed this in London at the National Theatre and so was very happy to find out that the tour was coming to Norwich but even after all of this time I still went in 'blind' to the play as I didn't know the story at all.

I think that this was a great way to see the play as it kept me on the edge of my seat as I couldn't work out how the plot was going to play out at all.
I could sense that it wasn't going to be a happy play, and the focus of the guns at the start made me think of Chekhov's rule. This roughly states that if there is a gun shown in act one it has to be used by the end of the play...

While all of the cast were very good, none of their characters were and the slow growing air of menace and madness really drew me in and left me with shivers running up and down my spine. There were moments of levity (and sometimes I seemed to find things funny when others didn't - oops?) but this was an oppressively dark play, despite the light set!

This version was an adaptation by Patrick Marber and as I'm not familiar with the original I don't know how purists see it, I will be hunting down an earlier version to compare very soon. This is only the 2nd Ibsen play I've seen - the first Emperor and Galilean back in 2011 put me off a little but I think that I will be trying more in the future.

Theatre 2017: Review Nine - The Red Shoes

Matthew Bourne's The Red Shoes, Theatre Royal, Norwich. February 2017.

As has become clear to regular blog readers I have developed a real love of ballet, and especially those choreographed by Matthew Bourne.  A group of friends contemplated travelling to London in the height of the Christmas madness to see this but as Norwich was announced as a tour stop we decided to see it closer to home.

Theatre location didn't seem to matter at all for as soon as the curtain rose you were fully immersed in the show and travelled between London and France with the cast as the story unfolded.

Although Mr Norfolkbookworm is a huge Powell and Pressburger fan, and has seen the film, I only had a vague outline of the plot in my head but as with the best storytelling that didn't matter at all as it all unfolded clearly and with great emotion in front of me. In fact when it comes to emotion on stage I think that this was one of the most erotic pieces I've seen as well as the most romantic - I utterly believed in the love and relationship of the two leads.

The set was so clever, for the most part recreating a theatre on the stage with the house curtains spinning to take you front and back stage as the action needed. When we were taken to France this again was clearly and simply shown with a simply balustrade and a back drop. I think the way to sum up the whole set is 'deceptively simple' with the finale coming totally out of the blue (for someone unfamiliar with the film) and packing an incredibly emotional punch.

Everything about this production was superb, the dancing, set, costumes, music all worked together to create a feast for the senses.  I think that special credit must go to the dancers who had to fake poor dancing as part of the plot - I can only imagine how hard it is to make something look bad while doing it safely and professionally.

As a friend said afterwards - the only problem with this show, and anything by Bourne, is that there are so many details you just want to see it again instantly to make sure you catch everything. Sadly for us however it is a total sell out in Norwich and this won't be possible currently.  I do urge you to give it a go if it tours near where you are this year.

This is definitely my show of the month for February and I think it is likely to appear in my 2017 top 10 at the end of the year.

Theatre 2017: Review Four - Murder, Margaret & Me

Murder, Margaret & Me, The Maddermarket Theatre, Norwich. January 2017.

I hadn't planned on a midweek excursion to the theatre this week but the arrival of an email while Mr Norfolkbookworm and  I were sitting in a local pub advertising this caught our attention.  Well to be more accurate it caught Mr N's eye - he is a great fan of Margaret Rutherford's work and she is also 'his' Miss Marple.

It isn't hard to persuade me in to a theatre outing and while I'm not a huge Agatha Christie fan the premise of the play sounded intriguing:

Queen of Crime, Agatha Christie didn't want Margaret Rutherford to bring her fabled spinster to life. And Margaret Rutherford was mortified at the prospects of sullying her reputation with something as sordid as murder... 

This is the story of the real reason why the acting legend and "the funniest woman alive" didn't want to take on the role that made her celebrated across the world. Margaret and Agatha form an unlikely friendship filled with high tea, brandy snaps and gossip. Meanwhile Agatha turns detective herself and she's on a mission. She's determined to unearth Rutherford's tragic and shocking secret.

I'm not going to talk much more about the plot, you either know the secret or you don't (Mr N did, I didn't) and the way the story unfolds is a delight if the story is new to you. Equally if you have a Norfolk Library card you can borrow the biography about Rutherford that this play draws heavily on.

This was an amateur production from the Norwich Player and while it was a little creaky in just a couple of places I was enchanted from the start to the end and more importantly this three-hander convinced me utterly that I was watching Agatha Christie and Margaret Rutherford explain their friendship with the spectral interfering of Miss Marple herself.

Miss Marple is the Me of the title and in a wonderful twist she was portrayed as 'my' Miss Marple - Joan Hickson! In a way she was the weakest character as she struggled with her lines the most but being a sherry drinking, interfering old lady this could be explained away as being in character.

The tow people sitting behind us commented on something I noted - just how much scenery kept being carried on and off stage. This is one of the things that can really bug me (it was something I commented on when I saw The Wipers Times last year) but when Mr N and I discussed this afterwards he suggested that it was another way of showing the utterly cluttered way in which Rutherford lived and so was a conscious staging choice.

I'm not 100% convinced but this niggle certainly didn't ruin my night out and for an impromptu night out on a very cold night I came away feeling I'd seen a very competent drama which was performed with poignancy, humour and great love for the characters.

Theatre 2016: Review Thirty-Six

Madama Butterfly, Glyndebourne on Tour, Theatre Royal, Norwich. November 2016.

I have to thank a friend and colleague for the chance to see this as she very kindly let me take her second ticket to this show.

It has been over four years since I went to the opera last and while I wrote about it favourably at the time I do know that I was nervous about seeing a more conventional production. I had found the confusion caused by so much singing and yet so little translation appearing on the surtitles confusing.  Studying Othello over the pas few years, and seeing the (filmed) opera version of this had explained more to me and so I was much more open to trying again with the format.

I think that it also helped 'knowing' the full story of Madama Butterfly more - after all it does form the basis of Miss Saigon!

Whilst from the first bars of music I was captivated with much of the performance I did find the decision to reset the opera into a post WW2 setting strange - especially seeing as Nagasaki was one of the cities destroyed by the dropping of an atomic bomb, would it really have been a place that welcomed marriages to US sailors or even able to support a thriving Geisha community?

However this soon faded into the background as the story, singing and acting soon made me forget the time period and I was just swept away with Butterfly's story.  Her voice was just out of this world and I really believed that she was a naive 15 year old in love with her American sailor.

Pinkerton was a little more of a problem for me as I didn't really think he came across as quite caddish enough (although as he was boo'd in the curtain call I might be alone in this), he was certainly weak in character - not voice or stage presence - but his persona was for me more of easily lead child than opportunistic and callous opportunist which is what the surtitles seemed to say he was.

The supporting cast were all wonderful both in acting and vocal talent and I admit that at several points I found myself welling up.  The scene where Butterfly and her son were just standing motionless in silhouette at the back of the stage waiting for Pinkerton while off stage the cast performed the Humming Chorus was heartbreaking.

A little bit of me missed the opulence that a Madama Butterfly set in late 1800s early 1900s would have given but I adored this, I've had the score on a constant loop since and I know that I will be trying more opera in the future.

Fishermen and Kings Exhibition

Fishermen & Kings: The Photography of Olive Edis, Castle Museum, Norwich. October 2016.

As a photographer I am always interested in discovering new (to me) photographers and this exhibition was sold to me particularly by the fact that Olive Edis was the first official female war photographer.

She was however more of a portrait photographer and this is one area that I really struggle with (unlike my sister who is incredible at taking pictures of people) so I wasn't sure what I'd make of most of the exhibition.

I needn't have worried, Edis had such skill when it came to taking pictures of people - whether they were fishermen or kings - and in every image there is something that catches your eye and means you spend ages looking closely each picture. It really all is in the eyes with Edis, I wonder if she was telling saucy jokes to her sitters to get that twinkle!

The exhibition has been themed cleverly and while I was looking forward to the War section I was most intrigued by Edis' images of influential women involved in the Suffrage movement (and after) I came away with a whole list of people to look up and learn more about.

The section of war photos was as moving as you'd expect, and again her skill as a photographer shines through - you can instantly see which photos were taken before the sitter had seen action at the front and those taken when the men had seen action just from a glance at their faces. I also liked the choice of locations she visited, just a very slightly different perspective than other photos from the era that I've seen before.

Interspersed with the photos are panels explaining Edis' techniques and some of her cameras and inventions for looking at her colour images but one of the nicest touches was the small alcove in which all of Edis' images are projected on to the wall. How wonderful to be able to just sit and see all of the images in a large format. (For those who can't get to the exhibition Norfolk Museums have put the images online for everyone to see).

I went to this exhibition with my dad, the man who taught me how to take photos, and we were both blown away - much to our surprise.  We've both been to other photographic exhibitions by photographers we knew much better and come away a disappointed but this one by an 'unknown' exceeded all our expectations. From the layout, the labels, the images chosen it felt wonderfully curated and I know that I will be going back at least once more before it closes.

Theatre 2016: Review Nineteen

Mary Poppins, Theatre Royal Norwich. July 2016.

Back from Greece for less than 24 hours and straight away I'm at the theatre - nice to see nothing changes!

Mary Poppins was a show that I'd dithered over for a while before biting the bullet and buying the (for Norwich) quite expensive tickets.  As a child I'd never watched the film and when Mr Norfolkbookworm and I sat down to watch it a couple of years ago I remember not being that impressed and only half watching it. However I am intrigued by P L Travers herself, especially in the light of her book about child evacuees to America during WW2 and the Saving Mr Banks film.

Reading the programme before going in raised my hopes more as we saw that the choreographer for the show was none other than Matthew Bourne.  I'm pleased to say that after watching this I no longer have the aversion to Poppins that I had before.

Although not being that familiar with the source film I could see that there were major differences but I liked this re-imagining. It wasn't as saccharine sweet as the film and it certainly wasn't as politically insensitive, Mrs Banks is no longer an absent parent figure but rather a woman struggling with the realities of life - she was an actress and is now trying to be a good/respectable upper-middle class wife.

Mary Poppins herself was also portrayed better for me, she is more human, less perfect and more "practically perfect!" The children were delightfully naughty, not just neglected and Bert nailed the role.  I'm not sure the addition of the 'bad character' was needed as she just became a little pantomime rather than real.

The fantasy scenes had been changed hugely - no dancing penguins, merry-go-rounds or tea parties on the ceiling. What replaced them were beautifully choreographed dance scenes lit to be totally Technicolor and visually stunning, with incredibly strong vocals.

The show wasn't perfect, I thought it was a little long and that it finished in the wrong place - there was a much  more obvious stop point for me...but on the whole it was a great night out.

Interestingly the creative team behind the reworking of this classic have just finished a new version of Half a Sixpence at Chichester which we are off to see next month - I think I will break my rules and watch the film version of this before going so I can compare it again to the new staging.

Theatre 2016: Review Ten

Matthew Bourne's Sleeping Beauty, Theatre Royal, Norwich. March 2016.

Talking about this production is hard, it isn't that I didn't totally enjoy it but at the same time I there was a lot about this production that left me cold - and I know these views are going to put me in a minority.

In fact I've been feeling so conflicted over this show that I've been talking about it loads with the other people I went with and each time I 'see' something new and simultaneously like it more and less.

From the subtitle "A Gothic Romance" you know that you are going to get something different from a classical ballet and I was fine with that - after all this is the third Matthew Bourne adaptation I've seen and none of them have been in anyway traditional. I didn't mind that the fairies were vampires and looked more like extras from a Tim Burton film, that was fine.

My worries started with their first arrival however where there was the beautiful music and the beautiful dancing but the two just didn't seem to correspond at all, I felt that there was no actual interpretation of the music.

We then met 21 year old Aurora and in her first scene she lays on her back, on her bed shows off her bloomers and rolls down her stockings - this is going to be quite a sexual performance rather than a sensual one...

The garden party scene was nice, and then at the end of the first act came the part I truly loved when Aurora and the gardener's boy dance together - they moved together beautifully and as well as being sensual there was character growth as Aurora threw off her sophisticated, sexualised, behaviour and became child like in true love.  The final scene with the enchantment was also very clever.

After the interval 100 years had passed so to highlight this we had a group of selfie-taking teenagers outside the overgrown, enchanted house, quite amusing in a way but when coupled with the huge projection of the narration to show time passing it all felt just a little much to me. This whole production made me think of other cultural references (Twilight, Tim Burton and Baz Luhrman's Romeo+Juliet) and I think this perceived lack of originality is what has really coloured my thoughts.

I liked Act Two but again it was very sexual, not sensual, and sometimes I had absolutely no idea what the dancers were trying to tell with their set pieces.  All of it was beautifully choreographed and danced but I lost the story, and again the only totally convincing scenes were when Aurora and her true love - the gardener's boy - danced together. The skill to dance that well and yet appear asleep/enchanted is incredible and at its peak reminded me, favourably, of Romeo and Juliet which is the pinnacle of all the ballets I've seen.

This sounds terribly damning, and I was very tired the night I saw this, but I am pleased I saw it - you can't love everything you see and I didn't (despite this review) dislike this ballet, it just wasn't as good as others I've seen and this made me sad.  I can't wait to see both more ballet in general and more Matthew Bourne ballets.

Theatre 2015: Review 16

Shrek the Musical, Theatre Royal, Norwich. June 2015.

I was vaguely interested in this when it had a London run, just not enough to plan a trip to the capital to see it, so finding out that Norwich was on the tour schedule came as a nice surprise.

I am really not at all sure what to make of the show however.

Visually it was stunning, the scenery and set were inventive, fun and worked in harmony with the rest of the show,  The costumes were also good - it did look a lot like the animation had come to life.  The cast were okay too with a couple of real standouts.  Just sadly the parts just didn't all come together to make this a 'wow' event for me.

I think that on the whole I blame the score and the sound for my feelings.  The songs were all original to the show - this is not a 'jukebox' musical like Mamma Mia or We Will Rock You, and yet unlike other original shows (Phantom, Miss Saigon etc) the songs were not catchy and for a lot of the time I found them to be incomprehensible and was wishing for subtitles! Duets and ensemble numbers seemed badly balanced and again often inaudible.

Bits of this show had me in absolute stitches - the drop in gags about other musicals were very funny, and Lord Farquaad stole the show every time he appeared on the stage.  The dragon was brilliant too - again puppetry proving that you don't need expensive animatronics to create effects. The scene with the Pied Piper and the rats was very well done too.  I just expected a little bit more.

It was a fun evening, I did laugh a lot and thanks to the end number I did come out humming a tune which is what you want from a musical but it just wasn't quite the fabulous experience I was  expecting and I'm glad I didn't travel too far to see it.

Theatre 2015: Review Six

Edward Scissorhands (ballet), Theatre Royal, Norwich. February 2015.

It has been nearly two weeks since I saw this and yet I still find myself at a loss when trying to write about it.  For all the right reasons I hasten to add - it was a piece of perfect theatre.

I'm pretty sure I saw the movie back in the 1990s but again I went to see a Matthew Bourne ballet knowing very little of the plot intricacies and once more it didn't matter - the story just unfolded naturally in front of me.

Often theatre reviewers and critics say that if you notice things like the scenery and the lighting then there is something lacking in the event but in this case absolutely everything was perfect and worked together - you were supposed to notice the lights, the nets etc. At the end I was crying and yet hadn't realised that this was the case.

I came out of the performance gobsmacked that there were empty seats and it is only because I couldn't fit it in that I wasn't back at the Box Office buying tickets to see this again and again.  The one thing I feel bad about it telling my mum that she has to see this only to find that her local theatre isn't showing it.

Theatre 2015: Review Five

Boeing Boeing. Maddermarket Theatre, Norwich. January 2015.

Up until now a mixture of laziness and inability to work out what the day is has stopped me going to the Maddermarket Theatre here in Norwich but last week I finally got there.  Thanks to the weather and a hurried change in companion I nearly didn't make it but I am so glad that I did.

The theatre itself is very important in the field of Shakespeare Performance studies and I keep coming across mentions of the building in journals and reference books as I study - a brief explanation as to why is here.

My first visit wasn't to see Shakespeare however but to see a 1960s farce, translated from a French original.  I've discovered over the past few years that I quite like farce as a genre but that it has to be done very well to succeed. This was done as well, or if not better than the touring London companies that I have seen.

Bernard lives in Paris, he has a nice apartment, a long suffering (and scene stealing) house keeper and three fiancees.  The three fiancees aren't a problem however as they all work as air hostesses (this is set in the 1960s remember) for rival airlines and their schedules mean that they are never in Paris at the same time... until they are.

Luckily for Bernard his hapless but romantic friend from Wisconsin has just flown in and so everything will be just fine...

The tension and humour built brilliantly throughout this play, and coupled with some wonderful stage falls and expressions I was in stitches for much of the play and wonderfully for a farce the ending was perfect and not at all a let down.  My hat goes off to all the actors for keeping up such a pace without once losing momentum.

My companion on the evening was Mr Norfolkbookworm and he is more of a film person than a theatre goer so on the next night we watched the film version, produced just a couple of years after the original stage play.  It really wasn't very good at all, the humour was missing and the chemistry between any of the characters - we both agreed that if we'd seen the film first we'd never have gone to the theatre.

I'm now sitting here with my diary trying to work out just how many other things I can see by the Maddermarket company in among all the other things I already have booked.

No Wellies Needed

Norwich Film Festival. Odeon Cinema, Norwich. May 2014.

After our recent trip to Sundance London we had another chance to see films as part of a festival at the homegrown Norwich Film Festival.  Once more we decided to focus on the Short Film programme and managed to get to three of the four evening events.

First up we saw the BAFTA shorts - all of the films nominated at the main film award earlier in the year.  This screening comprised of seven films shown in two hours and surprisingly was my least favourite event.

The films were all technically good (and I'm told that two even were played as part of the 2013 Norwich Film Festival) but with the exception of Island Queen  none of them particularly wowed me. I think that after the variety of Sundance these all seemed too professional and polished and often too long.  I can't quite explain it in a way but I just preferred the shorter, rougher films.

Luckily the other two screenings were more like this, and while (obviously) I didn't like all of the 27 films shown they were much more to my taste comprising a mix of 1 minute films, student projects, animations and some professional films.

My overall favourite films were all animations: The Gravedigger's Tale , Une Aventure d'Escargots and Angels and Ghosts but the A Day in the Life of a Bathroom Mirror  was very funny as was Liars and several others were very moving.

I'm not a huge fan of films generally but 'shorts' are really growing on me and I'm looking forward to next year's festival already.

(ps - all of the links this time are 'worksafe')

Theatre 2014: Review Twelve

Cats. Theatre Royal Norwich. April 2014.

Although my love of theatre did start a while ago with musicals (a trip to see Les Miserables at 13 was my first West End experience) it has been a while since I've seen one of the 'big' musicals.

I know a few of the famous songs from the score but apart from knowing that they were adaptations of T S Eliot's poems Old Possums Book of Practical Cats I didn't know how it worked as a narrative stage production.

And to be honest at the end of the first half I still didn't, the opening overture had been great and the end of the act with Memory was wonderful but I had absolutely no clue what was going on.  It didn't help that the theatre was excessively hot and concentrating on a story told in the medium of modern dance was hard work.

A flick through the programme in the interval and a stronger story arc helped in the second act and the staging of Skimbleshank the Railway Cat's story was wonderful and so inventive and by the end I was mostly won over. However I do wonder if this was a musical of its time and that it is only the name that keeps it selling out - a bit like The Mousetrap.

Several thoughts went through my mind during the production:

• how come I can completely suspend disbelief when watching either War Horse or Swan Lake but at no point could I see cats in the people on stage.
• when you notice how clever the set it over the performers then there is something missing.
• how rude the cast were in not acknowledging the orchestra at the end of the performance.
• what an amazing voice the understudy Griselda had - better than some of the cast recordings I've heard with real stars.

I'm pleased we went, and I don't think I've become anti-musical since studying theatre in more depth but this wasn't quite for me.

Theatrical Interlude 32

Priscilla Queen of the Desert, Norwich Theatre Royal. November 2013.

Another great London production on tour in Norwich and this one came highly recommended by mum and dad - they saw it for their 40th wedding anniversary!

It has been a long time since I've watched the original movie but I think that this was a pretty good adaptation even if at times it did feel a little too fast so that the tension and pathos didn't have time to build. I don't think that this is the point of the show however as it is just a vehicle (pun intended) to showcase some good singing (except Jason Donovan's on the night we saw it!) and some amazing costumes.

The whole production was slick and shiny but for some reason I didn't quite come out with the full-on feel good factor I was hoping for, and that other musicals have left me with.  I wasn't humming any of the songs, and while I did enjoying myself on the night there are no stand out moments replaying themselves in my mind.  It also didn't manage to convey any of the coy naughtiness that I thought it might - but that may be because I saw an Alan Bennett play earlier in the day and that was rude!

I did enjoy my night but there is nothing in this musical that makes me want to see it again, which is a shame as I can see that it was a really good production! Mr Norfolkbookworm and I had seats in the stalls this time and although not sold as restricted view seats we did miss some of the action to the side of the stage, I'm wondering if all the really good bits happened there?!

Theatre at the movies (again!)

The Habit of Art, National Theatre Live (Encore), Cinema City, Norwich. November 2013.

After seeing a few plays by Alan Bennett, and always feeling slightly annoyed that the original History Boys passed  me by, I was really pleased when the National Theatre announced that they'd be broadcasting The Habit of Art as part of their 50th birthday celebrations.

Once more I went in without knowing anything about the play but as ever this didn't matter because the story was totally accessible and the plot comprehensible.  I quite like plays within plays and so from the off I was predisposed to like this one I suppose.

Like everything Alan Bennett writes this was very funny, very rude and very sly - I don't think I've laughed so much in public since I saw Noises Off! There wasn't quite the poignancy in the script as in more recent Bennett works, but that was provided by seeing the late Richard Griffiths on stage.  I do wish that I'd seen him in something live before he died - c'est la vie.

This was a great way to spend a cold, wet winter Monday and I am really pleased how many NTLive performances (as well as those from the RSC and Donmar Warehouse) have already been announced for 2014. Much as I like going to London seeing fabulous things like this in Norwich is a real treat.

Theatrical Interlude 31

Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake, Theatre Royal, Norwich. November 2013.

Last year I tried opera for the first time and found that, at least the one I saw, wasn't for me. Since then I've been thinking about ballet and trying to find one to see.  The version of Romeo and Juliet choreographed by Macmillan has been recommended but I'd also heard a lot about the Matthew Bourne's staging of Swan Lake, thus when I found out it was coming to Norwich I knew I had to see it.

Now before seeing it I knew nothing about the ballet or the story at all (I've not even seen Black Swan) and I decided that I wouldn't  look it up. I wondered if a whole story could be told completely through music and dance only.

I'm pleased to say that it really can, well at least in this version it really can. From curtain up in act one right through to the end I was spellbound, and by the end I did have tears rolling down my face. How talented are the dancers that I really forgot I was watching men on the stage but just saw swans gracefully moving and then violently reacting?

I know that some people who read my blog are going to see this later in the tour and so I'm not going to say much more - I want the impact for them to be as great as it was for me, but I am looking forward to talking with them about it afterwards!

I shall be eagerly scanning the theatre guides looking for more Matthew Bourne productions and equally really searching for a ballet to see at the Coliseum in London complete with live orchestra. Suggestions of what to see gratefully received.

Theatrical Interlude 16

Merchant of Venice, Norwich Cathedral. July 2013.

A Shakespeare Festival has been held at Norwich Cathedral for the past few years but for some reason I've never been - or even really noticed it taking place.  This year after some mocking by friends on Facebook about how often I go to the theatre the same friends asked if I'd be interested in going with them to a play at the festival!

In the end these two original companions couldn't come and my companions on the evening were Mr Norfolkbookworm and a friend/colleague Jon. It was a perfect evening for outdoor theatre - not too hot, not too cold, not windy and best of all for this summer not raining.

The Merchant of Venice was a new play to me although I knew the basic premise of the plot, I was surprised to see that in the first Folio had categorised the play as a comedy. I know that sensitivities were different in the late 1500s but still I wasn't sure how the topic could be funny...

This version really showed be just why it was classed as comedy - without over acting the humour was apparent throughout, especially in the characters of Portia and Nerissa.  In fact the comedy character, Launcelot Gobbo, was one of the weaker areas - the two leading ladies stole the show!

I very much liked how the play was performed, once more the idea that the players were travelling actors from times gone by was clear. The stage was simply some boarding with steps to the left, right and centre and all the props were either carried by the actors or stored in two trunks on the stage which doubled as seats.

The evening we saw Merchant was the first time the company had performed the play in public and just occasionally there was a stutter or stumble but as I can't imagine how actors can keep one part in their minds let alone several for more than one play I don't feel I can criticise.

There are downsides to performing outside (not including the weather) at the Globe the actors contend with helicopters flying low over head. In Norwich the outside noise came from the peregrine falcons that nest on the spire - every time Shylock appeared in the first act it appeared the birds took off and flew around the cloister screaming.

The uncomfortable moment in the play when Shylock is 'reprireved' so long as he renounces his Jewish faith and converts to Christianity was met with a big hiss by the audience in Norwich and that I feel was a nice way to deal with the worst moment of antisemitism whilst still enjoying what was a great performance.

I know that I will be keeping an eagle (or peregrine) eye out for the announcement of the festival next year.  I might even pack a picnic and really soak up the atmosphere!

Photo taken from my iPhone - the weather was really much nicer than it looks!

Theatrical Interlude 13

Rocky Horror 40th Anniversary Show. Theatre Royal, Norwich. June 2013.

I've seen the film version of this a few times and often listen to the sound track on my iPod but this was my fist time seeing it live, and even then it nearly slipped by as I didn't notice it listed in the brochure at first.

What is there to say about such an iconic show? It was brilliant - all of the actors were great with stunning voices and it was just a laugh from the very beginning.  Mr Norfolkbookworm and I didn't go in costume (the world is not ready for either of us in a corset and I fall off 1/2 inch shoes let along stilettos!) but many in the audience did and they were audacious and daring as well as very clever.

There were a lot of people in the audience who knew the "heckles" for the stage and it seemed that sometimes these had a particularly Norfolk twist to them for the narrator was occasionally hard pressed not to giggle but even then he managed to come back with some witty lines.

You either like Rocky Horror or you don't I feel - I loved it. It was like pantomime for grown ups and left me smiling and humming for the rest of the week.  If it had been possible I think that I'd have got tickets and gone again, I had so much fun.

Theatrical Interlude 12 (2013)

Noises Off. Theatre Royal, Norwich. May 2013

I loved this play so much last year that when I found out it was coming to Norwich I instantly booked tickets for Mr Norfolkbookworm and I because I wanted to share the pure joy of this farce with him.

Since making the booking I've had several wobbles about doing so.  Was it really that good in London? Would seeing it a second time be a let down? Would the touring version be as funny? And lastly after the let downs that I found the Ladykillers and The Mousetrap, was this actually a funny play?

I am so pleased to say that yes it was a funny as I remember, yes the touring version was pretty much as good and no I really don't regret seeing it a second time.

I think that this is a play that requires timing and trust something the cast had in abundance on opening night in Norwich.  Looking at the Old Vic's touring schedule then the Norwich run corresponds with about the second act and if that is what is going on behind the scenes then professionalism shone through and you'd never have known!

The element of surprise had gone for me as I'd seen the play before but i found the humour to be as fresh as every, the prat falls as funny and from the laughs around me so did everyone else.

I am so pleased that the touring versions of London shows are making it to Norwich - it is so much easier for me to get Mr Norfolkbookworm to them!

Theatrical Interlude 9 (2013)

The Mousetrap, Theatre Royal, Norwich. April 2013.

This play has been on my 'would like to see' list for quite a while but because it shows no sign of closing in London it keeps slipping down this list. When the 60th Anniversary tour announced it was coming to Norwich it seemed like the perfect opportunity, especially as Mr Norfolkbookworm will come with me to the Theatre Royal.

As all audience members are sworn to secrecy regarding this play it isn't the easiest play to review.  It wasn't helped by my reaction to it.

The set was beautiful, all the action takes place in the sitting room of a large house that has just been turned into a guest house, there are various entrances to this space and it evoked the late 1940s wonderfully.

The actors were all very good as well.

However I'm not sure if this was a straight comedic play or a farce.  I do know that all the way through I was expecting the cast to break into song and or dance routines - a la Blakeney Players.  To be honest I think that would have improved my enjoyment.

The script was beyond stilted and I guessed 'who dunnit' before the interval. I didn't even find it very funny. Perhaps this is the point?

I like Agatha Christie as a rule - one of the few crime writers I do like - but to be honest how this has survived 60 years is beyond me.