Theatre 2017: Review Twenty-nine - Boudica

Boudica, Shakespeare's Globe, London. September 2017.

After two shows that I found to be shockingly bad (and another that we didn't even bother going to) this was the last chance for the summer 2017 season to redeem itself...

For the most part I think that this new play did. This was a fun  retelling of a version of the Boudica story, this one from an incredibly feminist standpoint.  While I was watching the play I enjoyed it but a week on I am struggling to remember much of the show apart from broad brush strokes.

At times it felt a bit obvious and didactic. It was also quite simplistic with characters taking just one stance each rather than being nuanced (with the exception of Boudica herself), it was also pretty bloody and sweary!

However as Boudica and the Iceni come from East Anglia this play was always going to be a hit with me as the cast didn't attempt to speak in Norfolk dialect!

The addition of the modern pop songs - the cast singing a version of London Calling at the start of the second half (as they planned the attack on London) and then I Fought the Law (and the law won) at the end - really worked for me. The ending had been a little stop/start and this coming together was a great way to finally end the show.

This isn't a perfect play but it was a nice way to end the outdoor season at the Globe after so many disappointments. I have tickets to one more play programmed by Emma Rice but I am far more excited by next season when the theatre loses the lights and sound systems and gains a new AD.

Bailey's Book Prize book five

Stay With Me by Ayobami Adebayo

I started this book with the assumption that I wasn't going to find it a top read.  It is set in Nigeria and one of my favourite books of all times, Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, has this setting and I just thought that such a slender volume couldn't match that favourite.

I was so happy to be proved wrong by this one.  It grew on my with every page turn and at times I felt I was actually in the room with the family as events unfolded.

I've read lots of reviews with spoilers and I am glad I didn't see them before I started as this book really played with my own thoughts, prejudices and assumptions.  Something would happen and I'd draw a conclusion and then a few pages later some more information was given and my thinking changed by 180 degrees.

By the end my heart was breaking for all of the characters, so much about them couldn't be changed but just talking could have saved so much.

If I have any criticisms with the book it is that at times I found it a little hard to keep track of who was narrating each chapter - although after a few lines I always worked it out. I also wanted to know a little more about the politics in the background. Here they were important only in how they touched the story but the tidbits of information were interesting and I'd have liked a digression, this would have changed the style of book however and it is just perfect as it is.

I thought that I'd found my best Bailey's Book with Do Not Say We Have Nothing but this is running it close, and I can certainly see me convincing more people to read this than the epic Do Not Say. An added plus for this book is that Adebayo has links to Norfolk!

With only one book left to read on the short list I am so pleased to be involved in this project - I've been challenged with all the books and discovered some new favourites.