Reappraisal of an author

Book review: My Salinger Year by Joanna Rakoff

Electronic proof from Netgalley.com. UK publication date 5th June 2014.

A few years ago I read A Catcher in the Rye for the first time and didn't like it.  I'd not read it as a teenager or young adult and I think I came to it too late to "get it."

My Salinger Year is the memoir of Rakoff as she works for the New York literary agency that represented Salinger and is a fascinating insight into the behind the scenes work of some areas of publishing just before the Internet changed everything.

The book in part charts Rakoff's life as she adjusts to the working world after leaving university, as well as talking about her job and the intricacies of working for a reclusive genius such as Salinger.  Interestingly as she started the job Rakoff had not read Salinger and it was about 9 months into the year before she did try him - although being closer in age to a teenager than I was she did love the books.

Nothing overly dramatic happens to Rakoff in the book, and it is again a nice gentle book set in New York but like a lot of quiet things it is very good.  The book is just a rounded memoir for an interesting year in the author's life but it is compelling and again vividly and evocatively written - I was walking with her around New York and could 'see' all she was writing about clearly.

Interestingly this is the second book I've read recently that has recommended Salinger's Franny and Zooey and so I think that I might have to give this a go very soon.

The pictures are better on the radio

I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue recording, Theatre Royal Norwich. April 2014.

Radio comedy often beats that on the television hands down, there are a few exceptions but in the main I'd rather hear things on the radio than watch them - the pictures are better!

Thanks to the generosity of a friend who stood in line outside the theatre on the day the tickets went on sale Mr Norfolkbookworm and I (along with said friend and another) got the chance to attend a double recording of the next series of I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue. 

Without a doubt I think that it was possibly the funniest thing I have ever heard.

I've attended the recording of a radio sitcom before but this straight antidote to panel games was fantastic.  The regulars were all present (Jack Dee, Graeme Garden, Tim Brooke-Taylor and Barry Crier plus Collin Sell on piano) and the fourth panelist, making her debut on the shoe, was Susan Calman.  Scoring was looked after by both Sven and the ever delightful Samantha.

Each episode recorded at least an hour of comedy and we were lucky enough to have all of my favourite rounds played - Uxbridge English Dictionary, Mornington Crescent and Sound Charades.  Even rounds I don't like so much normally - letter writing with players alternating words - is hysterical when you can see the faces the teams pull at each other and the corpsing it caused!
The laser display screen malfunctioned at one point with the audience thinking one thing was being 'mimed' but the teams acting out another!

The two shows we saw recorded will be broadcast on 30th June 2014 and 7th July 2014 and I can't wait to hear them and see what made the cut.  Oh and even though it was fun to see behind the scenes as the show was taped I still maintain that it makes better radio than it ever would television.

Second time lucky

Book Review: The Geography of You and Me by Jennifer E Smith.

After being a little underwhelmed by my last Bookbridgr book I'm pleased to say that I loved my second book from the scheme.

The Geography of You and Me is a lovely gentle romance for teens in a pleasantly old fashioned way.  The two main characters meet on the night of a huge power-cut in New York and have a magical evening, One is a New York native and the other a reluctant new-comer to the city.

After this event they are torn apart (okay gently separated!) by family circumstances and spend a year only being able to stay in touch through postcards, although the reader dips in and out of their new lives, until the very satisfying conclusion.

The book in many ways is very slight, and as an adult reader is easy to predict, but I found that none of this really mattered. As the pair travel they visit cities that I know (or will be visiting in the next few weeks!) and Smith shows her skill as a writer for these places spring to life without the book ever feeling like a travelogue. I could see, smell and taste all that she was writing about such was the vibrancy of the book.

The romance is gentle and realistic. Lucy and Owen know that they have a connection but are pragmatic and once apart continue to think of each other but don't pine pathetically.  Their family problems are also well written in that they are huge but do just form part of the story and don't overwhelm the plot.

It is hard to convey how much I liked this gentle book without making it sounds wish-washy but I know that if I'd discovered it as a teenager it would have instantly become a security blanket book - one I read and reread especially when feeling poorly. I've already put Smith's other two books on reserve at the library and can't wait to get stuck into them.

Out of this world in Pontefract (again)

An afternoon with an astronaut.

In better weather than last autumn Mr Norfolkbookworm and I once more made the cross country trip to Pontefract for the very special treat of listening to one of the Apollo era astronauts.

This time the guest speaker was T K (Ken) Mattingly and although not a moon-walker his story is just as interesting - if not more so!  Mattingly was scheduled to fly as the Command Module Pilot on Apollo 13 but (luckily?) due to his potential exposure to measles was bumped from the flight at the 11th hour.  Much of his talk was about how the behind the scenes teams worked to safely return the crew of Apollo 13 to earth and it was fabulous to hear all about the team work and seat-of-the-pants decisions that allowed this to happen.

Mattingly did get to fly to the moon on Apollo 16 two years later but this mission too was not without incident and even though I knew that this mission was a success I was still on the edge of my seat with suspense as Mattingly talked us through the problems.

I've always had as much, if not more, admiration for the Command Module Pilot as he was the guy left alone in lunar orbit while the other two landed.  Not only was he left solo - often out of contact with mission control, but should anything have happened on the moon's surface he would have been the one to have to come back alone, never knowing exactly what had happened to his crew mates.

As ever I could have sat for hours listening to Mattingly's stories but sadly there was no time to hear about his space walk conducted between the Earth and the moon or about his early shuttle test flights. I was hoping to ask him about the former in the q&a but I wasn't chosen this time but the other questions did give more insight into NASA at the time.

My favourite bit? Hard to pick. I'm torn between the stunned laughter as Mattingly described watching Earthrise from the moon as an erotic experience and his comments that while Gary Sinise did a good job of portraying him on screen he really didn't sulk enough!

After the talk however there was a chance to actually meet and speak briefly with Mattingly as he signed one of my most treasured possessions:

The dates for the next talk have been announced, but not the guest, but I already can't wait and I can't thank Space Lectures enough for organizing these events. See you in November!

Theatre 2014: Review Fifteen

The Malcontent. The Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, London. April 2014.

The Malcontent is almost an experiment by the SWP/Globe as it is performed entirely by children/young adults - like the boy players of Jacobean times.  If it is taken as an experiment then that is all well and good however this was staged, and priced, as all of the other plays this season have been and that is where I have a slight problem.

On the whole the actors were good, the costumes fine and on the whole you could hear all of the voices.  But they weren't, and possibly shouldn't have been, as good as the professionals.  They were a little self conscious, you couldn't tell if pauses were dramatic or where lines had been forgotten and they just weren't as good at the little stage actions that make a play special.  There was also the problem that when you couldn't see the actor it often wasn't possible to tell who was speaking (male or female) due to the unbroken voices.

However that sounds a very harsh review and the more I think about it the more the good parts did come through. I am not alone in this uncertainty about the play as after the interval an awful lot of people in all areas of the theatre did not come back - the first time I have seen this at the Globe or SWP.

I think that many of the problems I have are actually with the theatre space itself.

I said after seeing The Duchess of Malfi that I didn't think there was enough space to sit comfortably in the high priced seats of the upper gallery.  This problem isn't so noticeable in the side sections of the mid or upper galleries however and so I know know to avoid these.

However these more comfortable seats to the side in the upper gallery give such a restricted view that probably a third of the action is missed, plus a lot of what happens in the pit.  From here you are also looking through the candles and it was only afterwards that I notice how uncomfortable this was and both Rebecca and I attribute our headaches to this.

The seats we had for The Knight of the Burning Pestle, to the side of the lower gallery, were very good - if you can be at the back or front and have something to lean on.

I love the physical space of the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse and I appreciate that in an inaugural season there are things to work out (between my first and second visits for example the slightly padded carpeted benches have been recovered with much softer cushions) but after three plays - one excellent, one good and one okay - I think that I will probably return to try it again but only if I can get the exact seats I want.

Theatre 2014: Review Fourteen

We Will Rock You. The Dominion Theatre, London. April 2014.

Some of my earliest musical memories are of Queen songs and they are a band that as a child we all liked as a family.  Watching their turn on Live Aid in 1985 was fantastic and I remember how sad we all were when Freddie died.

We Will Rock You the musical opened in 2002 and my sister saw it in previews, unlike the critics she loved it and over time all of the family has been to see it several times.  My sister and I went to the special concert performed on what would have been Freddie's 60th Birthday and we know all of the words to the dialogue as well as the songs.  However somewhere along the lines we fell a little out of love with it and autumn 2010 was the last time we went.

On hearing that it was closing on 31st May this year we instantly started checking our diaries to see if one last visit together was going to be possible and luckily time and prices worked in our favour.

I'm not sure if the gap in visits made the difference, or if there is just more energy at an evening show than a matinee, but I for one fell in love all over again.  Sure the plot is creaky and daft but the execution is outstanding.  There have been lots of little changes over the years - to me the gags seemed less obviously written by Ben Elton but at the same time not quite as funny.  As the musical was always set in the future somethings have caught up with the original gags and lines have been changed to reflect this - no one really had Twitter or Facebook in 2002 and the iPod/iPhone really didn't dominate like it does now.  Some lines have been changed to fit these in and generally they do work.  My sister was very pleased that her favourite line about Armani/M&S was still there.

For me the music always worked because different people sang the original Queen songs, no one person tried to reach all of Freddie's range and this was still true, however the Galileo we saw wasn't 100% convincing as an 18 year old school leaver thanks to the start of the bald spot that was visible from the circle.  My one disappointment was the start of the second act which used to start so powerfully with the percussion line from One Vision no longer does. A small niggle.

On the whole I can see why the show is closing. The theatre really does need some work doing to it, and by all accounts on many nights it is not full but I am so pleased that I did see it once more and that I had such a good time.  Of course I'll buy a cast DVD should one be produced but it won't be the same...

Theatre 2014: Review Thirteen

Blithe Spirit. Gielgud Theatre, London. April 2014.

I was joined by an old friend, Jo, for this play - she is another person that indulges me in my hobby but in my defence she did already have an interest in theatre and (this time) I didn't do too much corrupting.

Some how or other I managed to get to this play without knowing anything about the story save that a seance goes wrong and a man's first wife comes back from "the otherside" to haunt him.  Unlike some plays where not knowing the plot is a hindrance this made Blithe Spirit a total delight as Coward is a master story teller and I could follow everything whilst still being surprised by the story.

Coming from Kent originally the little details about towns I know well were very funny and added another level of enjoyment to the afternoon. Once I'd got used to the applause every time Dame Angela Lansbury entered or exited the stage I found the play a delight. It was also nice to see a comedy that wasn't farce, yes there were elements but the laughs did rely more on the lines and interpretation rather than slapstick actions.

But...and you knew that this was coming... if there hadn't been a star name attached to the play would it be being staged in London, and would it be selling out?  There was absolutely nothing wrong with any of the play, it was well acted, well designed and funny but for Jo and I it wasn't anything more and certainly not standing ovation worthy.
I also certainly don't think that the premium tickets at over £100 represent anything like good value. I hasten to add that we paid nothing like this amount for our seats and although listed as restricted view we missed very little of the action.

I enjoyed the afternoon immensely and loved the play a lot but it just wasn't memorable and while our seats made this fine if I'd paid more I'd have been very disappointed.

The West End seems to have gone mad with pricing at the moment, and celebrity casting which could be causing the price rises.  I appreciate that it isn't cheap to mount a good production but when one premium West End ticket for Book of Mormon at £152 - through the theatre and not secondhand - will pay for an entire season at the National Theatre or The Globe I feel that something is wrong.  I know a lot of theatres offer day seats but when you live a 2 hour train ride away getting in the queue for these is impossible and the cheap ticket Mondays mean that you have to be on line at just the right time or else...

The train companies offer advance booking discounts and so do hotels - why not the theatres?

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.

Glutton for punishment - a new book review scheme.

Book review: The Crimson Ribbon by Katherine Clements

Supplied through the Bookbridgr.com scheme.

Although book reviews have been featuring less on my blog thanks to my studying and the theatre habit I do still read a lot but the one thing I do miss from my days in the book trade are the advance copies. The joy of discovering a book before publication and then teasing people by dropping hints and then putting something special into their hands was a magical feeling and went a long way to make the monotony and stress of retail more fun.

I already subscribe to the Netgalley scheme and get to pick and chose electronic proofs from publishers there but the chance to join a homegrown scheme - Bookbridgr.com - too good to miss and luckily I was approved as a reader.

As yet there isn't too much to pick from on the site, although this does change weekly, but as until the end of April I am still studying a few choice books are better than overwhelming piles.  My first choice was the historical fiction The Crimson Ribbon by experienced writer (but debut novelist) Katherine Clements.

It sounded very promising with locations of the book being Ely, the area around St. Paul's Cathedral and Abingdon in Oxfordshire - all places I know reasonably well. The setting was the end of the English Civil War, just before the decision to execute Charles I was taken. This is a historical period I'm not so familiar with and I hoped to learn more through the novel.

It started brutally, and really wasn't the right thing to sit in a pub garden reading just before lunch, but after a few days I returned to the book and read it over a couple of days - the short chapters moved the story along well and did mean that I fell prey to the 'one more chapter before bed' problem!

However the story failed to grip me hugely, plot twists and turns were signaled too clearly and the characters never came to life. Far too many appeared and disappeared before I got to know them and the plot contrivances just became too much by the end.

I wanted to like the book, I wanted to have my curiosity sparked but ultimately I felt a bit flat at the end and had no interest in looking up any of the 'facts' to learn more.  I do wonder if I'd read this as a beach/holiday read I'd be more generous but I didn't escape into it at all.  Clements is a published short story writer and I think I will look these out as there was something in the book - perhaps it was just over stretched for a novel?

The Crimson Ribbon by Katherine Clements was published by Headline on 27th March 2014 - ISBN 9781472204196

Theatre 2014: Review Eleven

Propeller's The Comedy of Errors, Theatre Royal Norwich. March 2014.

I've heard a lot about Propeller over the past few years and this year was the first time that I've been able to see them as they visit Norwich.  They are an all male company but they update Shakespeare rather than follow any of the other features of Original Practice.

Several days on I am still not sure what I think about what I saw. Propeller certainly took the word Comedy and ran with it but for me it went so far that it stopped being funny.  This is one of the plays I have studied this year and I do know that there is more to the play than the slapstick humour.

The modern dress didn't bother me too much, nor the setting in a Spanish/Mexican town but the way the lines were delivered and the modernising of them to get light-saber jokes in went too far.  It was a master class in slapstick but that it was always a slave being beaten may not have been clear to the audience.

Men dressing as women obviously appealed to the rest of the audience I saw the play with as every time a man in a dress appeared there were hysterics. Mind you as the characters were played in a manner that reminded me of Priscilla Queen of the Desert, Rocky Horror and a Vicars and Tarts party perhaps they weren't to far wide of the mark...!

I was looking forward to seeing this play from this company and I came away feeling very disappointed. It was like bad student pantomime, roll on the version at The Globe later in the year.

Theatre 2014: Review 10

War Horse (National Theatre Live: Cinema City) New London Theatre, March 2014.

Regular readers of the blog will know that this is one of my favourite shows currently running and I was interested to see how such an epic piece of the theatre would come across on the big screen.

I'm pleased to report that for me the broadcast mostly worked, and at times the camera close up actually added to the play rather than distracting me. This was especially true at the times the puppets were being manipulated to appear to be moving in slow motion. However the camera close ups were less successful when the horses were being carried to show jumping and especially when the little French girl is on stage.  Even sitting in the front of the stalls I thought that Emilie was played by a child, however this magic was lost on the screen.

I think that in the screening I saw well over 90% of the audience hadn't seen the play before and in the dramatic parts there were audible gasps from the room - something that I've never noticed in the large theatre building. That people were so swept up on seeing this on a screen is overwhelming proof that the play was suitable to be filmed.

The best thing - hearing so many people in the screen saying how much better the play was than the film from a couple of years ago.  Even the stellar cast/director couldn't make the film better than this play told by puppets.

Archived!

London and Stratford-upon-Avon

It is coming around to essay time again and this term we can't just rely on books so I've spent some time recently exploring the archives at the V&A in London and those at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

Both days have been really interesting, I work in a library that is connected to the local Record Office and that holds some rare books, images and ephemera but to visit some archives as a customer/student was really nice.

In both places the staff were incredibly helpful both before and during my visit and were endlessly patient with my queries about the catalogues as I tried to locate items relevant to my investigations and I think I have got some useful information.

The nice thing about both archives was the mix of people in them, there were some people doing very serious research, students and others who were almost there on a whim. It made the rooms feel very relaxed and open.

The only sad thing in some ways for me was that the theatre archive for the V&A is housed out at Olympia (in the building above) and not at the museum itself so I didn't get to study in the fabulous on site reading room:

I did spend an hour or so in the Theatre Galleries at the V&A before catching my train home and they were also wonderful - so varied. Everything from a poster advertising a Queen concert to a First Folio Shakespeare. The galleries are free and there is a daily tour which I shall endeavour to take at some point soon.

On the spectrum

Book Review: The Rosie Project by Graeme Simison

I've been spending a lot of time on trains just lately and this is great (as long as the connections work!) as I get lots of uninterrupted reading time.  Recently the book that captivated me was The Rosie Project.

The book has been around for a little while and a few people have mentioned it but recently Rebecca was really enthusing about it and as I had a copy sitting on my Kindle thanks to Net Galley I started it.

It is an odd little book and one that I really got drawn into, in many ways the plot is really quite predictable but that doesn't matter because the story, the characters and the writing are so good you have to keep reading.

The main character is Don, a university scientists and lecturer in Australia who lives by a very set routine and doesn't handle disruption well.  It becomes obvious to the reader in a very early, and very funny chapter, that he does suffer with some form of Aspergers or Autism, he however doesn't quite see this.

Don is lonely and decides to find himself a wife, using very strict criteria he thinks he'll have some success but this doesn't take into account Rosie and once they meet the plot really flies.  Rosie has her own issues and agenda which become clear as she and Don become friends.

The book is being compared to both David Nicholl's One Day and Mark Haddon's Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime and while I can see why I think this book is more special than both of these, it just felt more real to me with the ups and downs being realistic rather than dramatic.

The book is being turned into a film but as ever I urge you to read the book first, although a little romantic this is great for readers of both sexes and pure fun.

Lost in a good book

Book Review: How to be a Heroine by Samantha Ellis

This book nearly passed me by, but thanks to a tweet pointing me towards an excerpt I spent a very happy few days enjoying this book.

This book made me so happy - there is someone else out there who wants to be the characters they've read about. And there is someone who has thought about it even more than me - enough to write a book about it!

Samantha Ellis takes a look back at the female characters in literature that she's most wanted to be, and who's ideals she's tried to follow and then tries to decide if they are good role models or not. If they don't come up to scratch she then tries to find better ones.

I can't say that I'd ever thought as deeply about the subject as Ellis - generally I wanted to be a character for just as long as I was reading a book, although there are certainly some that have left me with a 'book hangover' and that I've found it hard to let go - many of Tamora Pierce's characters fit in this category.  However her thoughts have made me want to re-read a lot of books and look at them with the new ideas put forward in the book.

I hadn't read all of the books that Ellis talks about, and I didn't read those we had in common at the same age which may account for some of her ideas string me as new/unusual but my favourite bit of the book was that all books were championed from children's books to classics to bonk-busters.  It was the reading that was important not the book.

I find it hard to write reviews on non fiction that I've loved as much as this - it doesn't matter if you like books about books or are looking for a feminist rereading of classic books as this one slender volume covers it all.

I've already returned my copy to the library after strongly recommending it to two more people but I think I am going to have to buy this for myself and as a present for several people.

Theatre 2014: Review 9

The Knight of the Burning Pestle, Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, London. March 2014.

The last play of the weekend was at the beautiful Sam Wanamaker Playhouse and this time I had a much more comfortable seat - they've improved the cushions and there seems to be more space in general in the lower gallery.

The Knight of the Burning Pestle  was a contrast to all that we'd seen previously and as different from The Duchess of Malfi as can be imagined.  It is a play within a play and then some.

Players are trying to stage their melodrama but a 'citizen' in the audience is not entirely happy about this and insists that his apprentice should have a role. Once poor Ralph has a part the citizen and his wife spend the rest of the play trying to make his role bigger and thus subvert the normal play.

It could be a total mess, and to be honest by the end I'd given up trying to follow what plot there was, but for me it didn't matter as it was so funny, and well acted, that I'd have gone along with anything. Occasionally the ad libs and interactions with the audience felt more 21st century than early 17th but that aside it was fun. Pantomime for grown ups in the best sense and a nice way to finish the weekend.

Three plays, a visit to the British Library, a visit to the British Museum, nice food and a glorious walk along the sunny South Bank was a lot to cram into just over 36 hours but so worth it.  Time to start planning the next mad weekend I think...

Theatre 2014: Review 8

Red Velvet, The Tricycle Theatre, Kilburn, London. March 2014.

With surprising ease we managed to cross London, find our hotel and then find this gem of a theatre. In fact it was the last step that was almost the hardest as the Tricycle Theatre is situated right on Kilburn High Road but hidden in plain sight. Once we'd collected our tickets there was time for a lovely cup of tea and slice of cake in the cafe-bar.  We did decide to have the Victoria sponge rather than the Red Velvet however - that just felt a step too far!

Now for the play.

Wow - what a powerful piece of the theatre. Put simply it is a play about one of the first black actors to make it to the big time in the 1800s. On a smaller level it is about acting styles, the importance of the audience, the power of the media and racism.

With so many themes you'd think that the play would be stodgy, but it is anything but and while that is mostly down to the fantastic Adrian Lester credit must go to the whole cast as there wasn't a weak link in the thing.

Once more this play linked in to my studies of performance through the ages and it was great to see various, now archaic, styles come to life in front of my eyes. It was also interesting to see Lester play Othello in this style having seen him in the same role last year at the National Theatre.

This was a straight drama but I don't think I have been so impressed by the actors in a long time. Lester convincingly turned himself from a young man just about to reach the heights of fame into an old, tired man in the time it took him to turn around.  Oliver Ryan, playing Charles Kean, terrified me.

I am so pleased that we had the chance to see this before it transfers to New York, it will stay with me for a long time.

For those of you wondering Rebecca was wonderfully patient with me as I got excited about seeing history come to life and listened as I regurgitated what I've learned this term.  She then took me to see the Picasso prints recently acquired by the British Museum and gave me a fascinating run through of how they were made.

Theatre 2014: Review 7

Oh What A Lovely War, Stratford East, London. March 2014.

March - the month of madness, well it was this past weekend as Rebecca and I decided to see three plays and an exhibition in just a weekend.  To make it even more awkward none of the plays were in the West End and the one tube line that made the schedule easy was shut...

It didn't matter in the slightest and the weekend started in East London with the revival of Oh What A Lovely War. Neither of us knew much about the show except that it was in the form of review, about World War One and the first 'anti-war' pieces.

Summing the afternoon up is still impossible, I was swept away by the show in many ways. It was very funny, incredibly well acted and sung and yet at the same time it did manage to portray the horror of war and immense casualty lists without seeming didactic.

However in the light of all of the books, television shows and films that have come since OWALW broke the ground it did feel dated and old fashioned and not shocking in the way it must have been in 1963.

And that is where my review founders because I had a great afternoon in the theatre, but even without knowing much about the show I went in with different expectations and feel disappointed that they weren't met. This feels very unfair to the show for it was engaging and fun, just not quite what I'd expected.

On another level it was very interesting as my studies in to the history of performance have just covered Brecht and I could see all of the theory I'd recently read acted in front of me - something that became a bit of a theme during the weekend.
My other thought was what a lot War Horse owes to OWALW, not just in theme but in staging choices, despite being such different takes on World War One.

I feel that I've damned Oh What a Lovely War with faint praise.  It was great fun, and moving, but perhaps just not quite so shocking now that the horrors of the First World War are so widely known, studied and written about.

What's wrong with chick-lit?

Book Review: The All-Girl Filling Station's Last Reunion by Fannie Flagg.

Fannie Flagg wrote the the book that one of my favourite films (Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle-Stop Cafe) is based on and for once the book and film are very similar and I'd happily take either to a desert island.  I've read all of her books since, sadly importing them from the USA as they aren't always available here.

This book came from Net Galley and in a week that I was tired and a bit fed up it was a wonderful escapist read and it comes close to displacing Fried Green Tomatoes as my favourite book by Flagg.

It is a simple story to start - our main character has just married off her last daughter and and is starting to plan the rest of her life when a letter arrives and throws her whole world in to chaos.  The book then alternates between past and present until the two strands meet. It was also a really good book to read for International Women's Day as in their own way every single female in the book compromises nothing and carves her own path BUT at the same time had fun.

In many ways it is a predictable and typical women's romantic fiction novel but Flagg is a skilled writer and there are just enough strands of surprise and sadness to make the book a page turner.

I loved it - can you tell?

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!

Theatre 2014: Review Five

King Lear, Olivier Theatre, National Theatre, London. February 2014.

This was very much a group outing with Mr Norfolkbookworm joining me and two of my theatre going friends. Despite the best efforts of the weather and the trains on all of our travel we made it in time, scaled lots of stairs to the circle of the Olivier and found our seats in plenty of time for 'curtain up.'

This Lear was set in modern dress but in a non specific time and for the most part this worked for me. The costumes and set implied we were in a repressive state run by a tyrant, although this didn't quite work for me as I can't think of any modern tyrant who will voluntarily resign power.  This production skirted the issue and I got the impression that this Lear thought that he could resign all of the nasty bits of power but keep the 'fun' bits and have plenty of time to hunt and hang out with the army.

I found the story to be clearly told, and fast paced - which was good as for the first time at the National I struggled to hear an awful lot of the lines, mainly when Lear and others got excited. The lines seems rushed and mumbled, too much emotion to keep the diction clear perhaps? This did not get any better when the sound effects for the storm came into the equation.

The scene with the Fool was particularly moving and it took me a couple of seconds to see exactly what had happened and then when Gloucester loses his eyes it was truly horrific - once more the sparing use of violence and gore worked to the advantage of the play, especially as the audience couldn't quite see the act being committed.

Act One was nearly two hours long and the action picked up even more after the interval but for me didn't manage to engage with me emotionally. I don't think that it helped that many of the deaths appeared to be played for laughs, not  Lear or Cordelia, but Edmund, Goneril and Regan's certainly.

In fact on talking this through with one of my companions afterwards we think that this lack of emotional connection was one of our biggest complaints, well that and the inaudibility.
I  don't know if I was expecting too much of this production after the wonderful Othello last year but I came away feeling a bit 'meh' and I don't think that any of the cast deserved the standing ovation that some in the audience gave.

In a way I don't think that the play was that bad, but like at a book group, it is far easier to discuss something that you don't like...

One of my recent uni tasks has been to think about reviewing productions, and taking notes on a production. I tried this at King Lear and they have certainly helped me recall details on the play but I think that talking to people who also saw the same production afterwards helps me more.

The notes I took in the dark are:

• Lear speaks too fast
• Long blackouts for elaborate scenery moving which don't seem so elaborate when the lights come up*
• All speak too fast  when excited emotional, can't hear them
• Storm  is rumbling around before the main scene as a portent
• No wind in the storm and only sound effect rain
• Images of lightning out of sync with the thunder +
• The revolve constantly turning in Poor Tom scene making me dizzy
• Lear's affection of clasping his buttocks makes me think he needs the loo - distracting ^
• Fool and Gloucester scenes brilliant
• Deaths towards end farcical not moving

* - in fact in Act Two it got stuck, I thought it had at the time but this has been confirmed by a friend and another review.
+ - surely not a good sign that all I can see is this and not one of the most important speeches of the play
^ - this started as hand behind back, became clasping and then scratching, I am guessing this is the 'tell' for madness but sadly it didn't stay consistent and was just distracting.