Theatre 2016: Review Twenty-Eight

The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, Shakespeare's Globe, London. September 2016.

I'm used to walking into the candlelit Wanamaker Playhouse and being transported back to the early 1600s, thus is was a bit of a shock to walk in and find that there was 1960s pop music playing and the stage was set for an intimate music gig complete with electric lights. I confess my heart sank, after the recent reworking of Dr Faustus a 'concept' play seemed doomed to disappoint me.


From the very first moment however I was captivated. It was a very clever idea to bring an awkward play to life.  We started in repressed Verona with a young cast all in modest, drab clothes - a place that the swinging sixties certainly hadn't reached.  As they leave for Milan colour and life comes into the world and the music becomes far more upbeat. After the interval we've left Milan and are with the outlaws and now the costumes and music show this by being very 'hippy.' The music had my toes tapping throughout and this was before the audience was encouraged to join in.

The plot of Two Gents is somewhat slight. Valentine and his best friend Proteus live in Milan, Valentine leaves for Milan but Proteus stays behind with his true love Julia.  Proteus' father sends him on to Milan as well where he finds his friend has fallen in love with Sylvia.  All so simple, however Proteus falls in love with Sylvia too and goes out of his way to wreck the budding relationship - this all goes far too far as he tries to rape Sylvia before she is rescued by Valentine and Julia (disguised as a boy trying to discover what has become of her lover).

Even more uncomfortable than this is the way the 'boys' just decide the futures of the girls - fair enough that Valentine and Sylvia remain as a couple but the assumption that Julia will want Proteus again after his actions is incredible.
This production handled this nicely as after the boys have said their piece Sylvia and Julia take to the microphones and sing a lament - it is obvious that they are not accepting of the decisions made on their behalf.

The modernising of the play in setting worked for me entirely because Shakespeare's words had been kept (in fact lines from other plays had been added to one scene to huge comic effect!)and because his plots are universal I believed the story worked brilliantly with a sixties setting.

The cast of 9 were all incredibly talented actors and musicians and the comic character was reined in to maximum effect, and the staging of Crab the dog was very funny. A plot so simple could easily have been tinkered with far too much but in keeping everything as the original except the era it felt fresh and different, everything that updating of Dr Faustus failed to be!

I'm finding it hard to express my love for this show, for me it just really resonated, it started as a touring production and I really hope that tours next year so I can catch it again!

Theatre 2016: Review Seventeen

Symphonic Queen, Royal Albert Hall, London. May 2016.

The music of Queen has been important in our family for as long as I can recall.  As a child all of us liked listening to their music and both my sister and I remember clearly the band's performance at Live Aid in the mid 1980s.  I think that the Innuendo album was one of the very first CDs that my dad bought for the new CD player.  We never managed to see the original line up in concert - forget world peace etc. I am pretty sure that the first thing my sister and I would do with a time machine is get ourselves to a Queen concert!

On a very warm May evening my mum, sister and I went out to the Royal Albert Hall for this event, and again at least two of us when in with the wrong idea as to what was going to happen.  I know that I expected a staid classical music performance of Queen's music.  What we got was close to a full on rock concert!

Yes the music was played by the full Royal Philharmonic Orchestra but they were joined by 3 rock musicians and eight incredible singers.  The music translated wonderfully into this hybrid mix and soon the full venue was rocking along to the sound.

Many of my favourite tracks were played and in between the music a very amusing Ken Bruce gave information about the band, songs and where they were used. It sounds corny but on the night it was great and we all came out buzzing and how well the music translated into this new sound is just testament to how good the original tracks were.

Theatre 2015: Review Thirty-Nine

The Nutcracker, Theatre Royal, Norwich, November 2015.

An extra mid-week matinee and some hours owing to me at work meant that I could catch this on a sneaky Wednesday afternoon and it was a lovely treat.

Ballet is an art form that has really grown on me recently and after successful trips to see Matthew Bourne ballets and the more recent outing to see Romeo and Juliet I was interested to see if a traditional ballet where I was unfamiliar with the story would hold my interest too.

I'm pleased to report that in the main it really did.  Act One was a visual and story telling treat, I loved the way the dancers told the story of over excited children at a Christmas party squabbling over new toys just as much as I loved the spectacle of the more adult party.  After the party when Clara returns to the room and is confronted by the naughty mice and the toy soldiers there was so much humour in the dancing that I felt like clapping my hands together with glee like the pre-school aged little girl next to me.

After the interval I did feel that the story stalled, don't get me wrong it was amazing to see the talent of the dancers and to hear the beautiful Tchaikovsky music, but it wasn't until the very final few minutes of the ballet that we came back to the 'story' in anyway.  I do wonder if this is also the first example of the "and it was all a dream" trope too!

I was wowed by the dancing and I loved the way that the familiar and 'real' people from the first half appeared as the amazing dancers in the second but for me the highlights were before the interval when we had dance and story. The live orchestra was a real bonus and from my front of stalls seats I could really see the emotion that the dancers were expressing and also the chemistry between the cast, which was wonderful.

This was a really nice way to spend an afternoon, my heart did sink when I saw how many children were in the auditorium but as ever the majority were impeccably behaved and enthralled throughout. The adults were not quite the same and I did hear people complaining that they couldn't follow the story as there were no words. I shall keep going to the ballet as I am spellbound by it - possibly all the more so as I have no sense of rhythm or balance and at least two left feet!

The Christmas and snow scenes did make me start to feel a little festive and I imagine that had I seen it in mid-December I would have come out wanting mulled wine and mince pies, perhaps next year I'll find a production that we can take my nephew to a little but closer to Christmas, I think he'd enjoy it...

Theatre 2015: Review Twenty-Eight

The Simon and Garfunkel Story, The Maddermarket Theatre, Norwich. September 2015.

I've been a fan of Simon and Garfunkel's music for as long as I can remember,  influenced probably by my parents who had a lot of their music as I was growing up.  If I ever had the chance to go in a time machine their concert in Central Park in 1981 would be one of my first destinations - along with the Queen tour of 1986 - how shallow am I???

My companion and I weren't sure what we'd be experiencing at this show, another friend had seen it recently and was positive so we were hopeful. We were pretty much the youngest in the audience and our seat neighbour was borderline rude about C but we weren't that bothered as we were there for the show/music.

It is a very simple format, two men sing the songs of Simon and Garfunkel with the support of a drummer, keyboard player and bassist. A screen is visible behind the musicians and this shows a montage of images and films that reflect the music, America of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s and also images of the duo themselves.  Simple but effective.

The voices of the two performers were pretty much perfect - if you shut your eyes you could easily convince yourself that you had the originals in front of you.  Even with your eyes open the pair had the mannerisms down pat and it was a surreal watch.

I loved every minute of this evening, it was like a sedate rock concert - fab music, lots of chance to hum along and I knew every song except two. I loved that the songs were interspersed with  little anecdotes about the duo or their music and that although it was a very affectionate telling of their story it also didn't gloss over some of the problems.

Both of us wanted there to be more than one performance, and I think that we'd have booked straightaway to see this again - rumour has it that it may be back  in Norfolk early in 2016, I think we'll be there!

Theatre 2014: Review 6

Pixar in Concert, Royal Albert Hall, London. February 2014.

You know that you've infected your entire family with a theatre bug when your sister asks you for tickets as a Christmas present! Eighteen months or so ago the two of us went to see Fantasia in Concert at the same venue but this time we were accompanied by our husbands and my nephew, who although only 3 1/2 would go to the theatre as much as his auntie if it were possible.

We had a lovely time at this, I did wonder how the show would work as unlike with the Fantasia films the Pixar movies are whole story arcs and not animations set to music.  Very cleverly the films had been edited so that the sense of each film's story was given whilst the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra played the film's main theme.

It was a really nice afternoon which (I think) we all enjoyed, and I for one came out wanting to rewatch the entire back catalogue of Pixar movies - including The Incredibles which we didn't particularly enjoy the first time around.

The venue was splendid and just like the last time I went to the theatre with my nephew he was splendidly behaved and it is a real treat to able to take him out. Watching his delight is almost as good as what is happening on the stage and proof you are never too young for good theatre!

Exhibition Oddity

David Bowie is... Victoria and Albert Museum, London. July 2013

While Mr Norfolkbookworm and I were enjoying the Pompeii exhibition earlier in the summer Rebecca was queueing at the V&A museum securing us tickets to this summer's other sell out exhibition.

I wasn't at all sure about this trip at all. Apart from Under Pressure, Space Oddity and Ashes to Ashes I wasn't sure that I knew any Bowie songs and I'd not been that inspired to look any more up in advance of our visit.  I didn't own up to this while we were waiting for the museum to open however as there were probably a couple of hundred people desperate for tickets - as soon as the doors open they took off at a run for the ticket desk and I feared for the safety of the statues in the corridor!

I was in for a nice surprise as I found I enjoyed the exhibition more than I thought I would.  Bowie is an interesting character and there is a lot more to him and his music than the flamboyant stage persona.  On entering the area everyone gets an audio guide, but this isn't giving a dry talk about the exhibits but is in fact loaded with sound clips and music that start playing as you walk around.

Bits of the exhibition (probably the bits that Rebecca liked the most!) left me cold but sitting in a cool space listening to Bowie's music through a good sound system while watching concert footage was brilliant - people were dancing or toe tapping but as everyone had headphones on it was like being at a silent rave.

A real experience and I will be looking for more Bowie music to add to my iPod before we go away.

Saxophones and voices

Jan Gabarek and the Hilliard Ensemble, St John's Cathedral, Norwich

I discovered the famous Gabarek/Hilliard work Officium thanks to a clip on You Tube about 2 years ago and so when I saw they were coming to Norwich as part of the NNF11 I was very excited.

The concert was held in the Catholic Cathedral here in the city and we had seats in the choir stalls which were actually behind the stage area. It didn't matter however as the 5 performers roamed around the building really making the acoustics work for them.

While the music, Officium Novum, didn't appeal to me as much as the first Officium I have never before been so aware that the voice is a musical instrument. The four singers filled the whole space with their voices in a way was astounding without microphones. The saxophone and the voices worked in perfect harmony and it was a splendid experience.

From hearing two such varied pieces of live music this week has been wonderful, but I really have learned that I do like to listen to music loudly, horizontal and with my eyes shut - it creates wonderful pictures that way.

Penguin Cafe, Norwich Theatre Royal. May 2011

The beginning of May sees the Norfolk and Norwich Festival and this year I was actually on the ball and booked for some of the events before they all sold out.

Mr Norfolkbookworm has been a fan of the Penguin Cafe Orchestra for years and when the music is on my toe has been tapping so I was pleased to book tickets to an evening with this group.

It was a wonderful evening I only knew two of the tracks in advance but I was captivated from the first note. The new line up and orchestrations are wonderful and there was something very special about seeing the musicians as well as hearing them.

My one disappointment with the evening? The new line up, as yet, haven't recorded any of the music and only the originals are available to buy/download. They are wonderful, don't get me wrong, but I want to have the version that I heard.

If the group come back to Norwich I will be first in the queue for more tickets.