Happy Birthday Yosemite

Exactly 150 years ago today (June 30th 1864) President Abraham Lincoln signed a bill creating the Yosemite Grant. This was the first instance of American land being set aside for recreation and protection and paved the way for the creation of the first National Park (Yellowstone) in 1872.

I was lucky enough to visit Yosemite earlier in the month and I am so glad that even during the American Civil War protection of the wilds was considered important.

Visiting Yosemite was like visiting a old friend as a lot of the scenery was familiar to me thanks to the work of my favourite photographer Ansel Adams and the highlight for me was the chance to visit the Ansel Adams Studio and also to take a guided photography walk run by the gallery.

It wasn't a particularly long walk but we went to some of the iconic destinations and I learned a lot about how to use my camera better, how to compose shots and also how to convert picture to black and white.  I am very happy with a lot of the images I took and I can see an improvement in my photos already.

On our trip we also visited many other amazing places and saw some of the most incredible things ever - if you want to be bored by my holiday snaps then they are all visible on Flickr. Of course travel like this does mean no time for theatre and apart from the loooooong flights not too much time for reading, however when you see a bear while out for a walk other past times are forgotten!

Theatre 2014: Review Twenty

A Bunch of Amateurs, The Watermill Theatre, Bagnor (Newbury). May 2014.

After taking Mr Norfolkbookworm's aunt to Chichester last year she told us all about another beautiful theatre near to her house - The Watermill. After almost a year we found a play we all wanted to see and a date we could all make.

We had a wonderful evening, starting in the restaurant of the theatre having a delicious meal and then moved through the building, across the stream and past the watermill wheel into a fabulous little theatre.

A Bunch of Amateurs is all about a group of village players in Stratford St John who have dwindling funds and audience and as a result are in danger of closing for good.  They hit on the bright idea of inviting a celebrity to star in a performance of King Lear in the hope that this will turn them around.

This triggers a series of comedic events starting with the arrival of a fading American action hero actor who thinks he's been picked by the RSC to play at Stratford-upon-Avon.

It sounds dreadful, cliched and predictable and certainly the last two are fair comments BUT the script, the acting and the staging mean that it is wonderful and funny as well and certainly not dreadful.  The set fitted into the theatre's own decor brilliantly and until it was used I really did think that it was part of the general fixtures and fittings.

Professionals acting as amateurs and not over doing it seems a real skill and the cast managed this wonderfully, even though this was only the 3rd or 4th performance I noticed no hesitations or stumbles and yet the cast did seem a realistic bunch of amateurs. The script itself is very funny and this adaptation has been co-written by Ian Hislop and Nick Newman and is fully of points that are clearly dear to Hislop but are tempered by Newman's influence so that the play works rather than becoming a sounding board for Hislop's opinions.

This play runs until June 28th and if you can get to the venue and there are tickets I think it is brilliant and worth the effort.  I'd love to see it tour so more can have the fun we did but I think that it takes a professional cast to do it justice - too much of the irony would be lost if it wasn't and the fine line between comedy/farce and disaster could easily be crossed.

Around the world in six books

Considering the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2014.

For the past few years I've been reading a lot of literature in translation and also taking part in the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, last year I took part in a Readers' Day based on the prize but this year got a little more glitzy!

One of the reading groups I belong to was approached by The Booktrust and asked to read the six shortlisted titles and then answer some questions on each one. These answers were then collated in to two posts on the prize website. These can be found here and here.

The six books were:

• A Meal in Winter by Hubert Mangarelli, trans. Sam Taylor
• Revenge by Yoko Ogawa, trans. Stephen Snyder
• The Iraqi Christ by Hasan Blassim, trans. Jonathan Wright
• A Man in Love by Karl Ove Knausgaard, trans. Don Bartlett
• The Mussel Feast by Birgit Venderbeke, trans. Jamie Bulloch
• Strange Weather in Tokyo by Hiromi Kawakami, trans. Allison Markin Powell

All were interesting reads but my favourite was Strange Weather in Tokyo and this is a book I've already recommended to lots of other readers both at work and home.

On the prize ceremony night three of us made it to the Royal Institute of Architects for the main event and it was a lovely evening complete with champagne and canapes themed to the countries represented on the short list.

The chair of the judges, Boyd Tonkin, gave a brilliant speech debunking the myth that 'no one reads books in translation' - on the day the prize was awarded the top 3 bestselling fiction titles were translations as was the bestselling non fiction book!

The winner on the night was The Iraqi Christ which was my least favourite of the six titles but the author and translators were so nice that I can't be too upset!  What was nice is that for the first time in the history of the prize a special mention was given to a book (The Mussel Feast) and this was my second favourite book from one of my favourite publishers.

I love being a part of this prize but have everything crossed that in 2015 a woman will finally win!

Many thanks to Booktrust and The Writers Centre Norwich for letting me be a part of this shadowing group, but again this blog is fully independent and was not a condition of taking part.

Being Selective

A day at Booktrust.

Recently I was very honoured to be asked by Booktrust to join them for a day and work with them to select books that will eventually end up in the Bookstart packs for babies and preschoolers.

Lots of information about the Bookstart scheme can be found on their website but in a nutshell every child born in England will receive a pack containing two books and other items encouraging a love of books and reading in their first year of life, and then a second one at the time they leave nursery ready for school.

I was privileged to be on the panel selecting books that will go in both packs and in a very intensive day I joined 7 other people to look over 150-170 books and decide which ones are 'just right' for all children to receive.

As we read the books we marked them YES/NO/MAYBE and then these votes were added up and the least popular taken out of consideration while we had some (occaisonally heated) discussion about the others to see if they should be considered for the packs.
As far as possible we all tried to read all of the books to make sure that all of the books were considered equally and remaining impartial and also calm when others loathed the books you loved was a challenge, as was seeing the positive aspects of a book you didn't like!

So much has to be taken into consideration when picking books that will go out universally, many things I'd not even thought of and I read some amazing books for all ages during the day. I know that my nephew and other little ones in my life will benefit from the huge list I drew up!

The books we picked will now go back to the publishers to see if it is possible for them to be adapted for the packs (at the very least they have to be smaller than those you find on the shelf in the shops or libraries and some books just might not shrink well and stay readable) and once this is done I will come back and share the books that we all fell in love with on the day and that will be shared with children very soon.

I'd like to thank Booktrust for inviting me to take part in this selection panel, and for covering travel costs but would like to say that this is a personal blog response to the day and not a requirement of attending.

Theatre 2014: Review Nineteen

The Silver Tassie. Lyttleton Theatre at the National Theatre, London. May 2014.

After having a disappointing time at The View From the Bridge which had rave reviews I was very nervous about this play as it has had a very lukewarm reception.

Perhaps going in with lower expectations was the right thing to do as I found this play a real curiosity.  The subject matter meant that it could never be classed as enjoyable but it was challenging and thought provoking in just the right way.

It is a play in four acts, three are set in a very traditional manner and depict life in Ireland during and after World War One and the second act is set in the trenches and is as different to anything I've ever seen on stage as is imaginable.

In a nutshell Harry is our main character and in act one he is the town's sporting hero, in act two we see him at the front and then after the interval he is back in Dublin but this time in a wheelchair after being paralysed from the waist down.

The war scenes are incredible, the pyrotechnic team have a field day and actually blow up the set! The madness of the war is portrayed using song and movement as well as through the way the superior officers act.  The interval is heralded by a howitzer gun turning to face the audience and firing.  I've never wanted to grab the person sitting next to me in fear so much before.

The second half of the play almost depicts the horror of war better as it is all about the maimed survivors.  No one wanted the lads to die but no one wants to actually deal with those who survived but were disabled.

This play is a very early anti-war play, written decades before Oh! What a Lovely War and for those who say that the idea of 'lions being led by donkeys' is a new and revisionist idea should look back at this play and the date it was written.

This is certainly a play that will stay with me for a long time and makes a great foil to both War Horse and Journey's End.

Theatre 2014: Review Eighteen

A View From the Bridge, The Young Vic, London. May 2014.

This play has been received wall to wall rave reviews everywhere  - unusually the press and social media reviewers all agree.  We felt that we were very lucky to get tickets to this.

Well I supposed there always has to be a dissenting voice...

The play strips out any props or scenery and is played on a thrust stage which is a white box with a perspex rim.  The actors all talk in a Brooklyn accent and the setting is kept as Miller intended.

I'm not sure if it was because I didn't know the play in advance but I found this blank setting to alienate me from the words and I just couldn't connect with the plot at all.  This version also plays straight through with no interval and I found that, unlike most of the reviews, that this didn't allow the tension and tragedy to build for me and I just didn't care enough.

The actors were all very good and there wasn't a weak member on the stage but ultimately I just didn't care and when the ending came I didn't think that it was tragic at all.  Just a relief!

I've since read the script of the play and Miller is very, very descriptive in his writing and gives pages of stage direction - all of which was discarded here.  Perhaps this would have worked better for me if I'd seen a traditional staging first?

Theatre 2014: Review Seventeen

Another Country, The Trafalgar Studios, London. May 2014.

It has been an incredible little while for me in May and I've packed a lot into a few weeks. This means that some of the events that happened towards the start of the month are starting to be a little fuzzy around the edges when it comes to details. However as I blog for pleasure and to create a memory for me I'm not too worried about this.

Rebecca and I had another one of our mammoth London weekends recently, and although this time we packed in slightly less than usual due to a mini heatwave we still saw three plays.

The first was the sublime Another Country with a cast of young actors - many of them only just out of college.  You'd never have guessed this and it was a shame that the theatre was over half empty for the matinee, this worked in our favour though as we were upgraded from seats at the back of the auditorium to the third row!

The entire play takes place in a boarding school and has many themes, the main one being that the old boy network rules completely and that to be different in anyway works against you. The school has been rocked by a suicide and there is a lot of soul searching taking place as well as a lot of hypocrisy.  Another plot thread is that one of the character is Julian Mitchell's idea of the Cambridge Spy Guy Bennett and how his experiences at school led him along the path he took.

This last plot strand is often the one focused on most by critics but I feel that in this revival it is a smaller part - mainly because the scandal of the Cambridge Spies is now so far away that many of the younger audience may not have heard of it, and because unlike The History Boys there is no epilogue stating where the boys go after leaving school. The friendships and the hypocrisy are what I drew.

I loved the play, and while I will look out for the film version it is going to have to be amazing to be better than the play I saw.

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 Sixteen

Titus Andronicus. Shakespeare's Globe, London. April 2014.

This was always a play I was nervous about seeing - it was a set text in my first term and even reading it made me feel a bit queasy.  It is beyond violent.

This version of Titus Andronicus was first staged in 2006 and has the reputation for being the play that caused the most faints at The Globe, I'm not sure if it is urban legend or not but the figure of 40 is banded around an awful lot.

Having read the play I was at least aware when the really gory bits were going to happen, and thanks to the directing choices they were usually signposted clearly so I had plenty of time to shut my eyes (and cover my ears!) which helped.  I also liked the way that humour was added to the play with the choices of style given to Tamora and Aaron which again helped  to relieve the violence.

Having studied more about the theatre of Shakespeare's time I did wince a little at the extensive use made of the Groundling area by the actors, and I do think that the scaffolding cages were over-used - just a little too much of the action became invisible from the Upper Gallery, luckily for us this was mostly empty the day we visited so we were able to move around, stand and lean so as not to miss anything.

As for the fainting, well yes it is gory but I think that the smoke and incense that is constantly being wafted around the Groundling area, along with the cloth covers not letting it escape may have a lot more to do with this - luckily being so high up most of this had dispersed before it reached us, but I know the smell of that would have made me feel unwell, possibly quicker than the gore!

I'm really glad that I plucked up the courage to see the play, but I don't think it is one I will want to see again - or that I'll buy the DVD of it should it be released.  I'm just too squeamish.

And no - even after a week we haven't considered having pie for dinner!

The stage covering

Mopping the blood from the stage in the interval

Underwhelmed

The Vikings at the British Museum, April 2014.

I'd like to think that we found this exhibition underwhelming because we were tired but after a night in a nice hotel, a lovely breakfast and then a gentle stroll to the museum mean that this wasn't the case.

I am not hugely knowledgeable about the Vikings but thanks to In Our Time and novels from Kevin Crossley Holland I do know a little about them and I hoped to learn more at this exhibition.

Sadly the set up of this exhibition left me feeling disappointed and trampled.  Once more the curse of the audio guide struck and as soon as you walked through the door there was a crowd - even with our early ticket of 10 am on a Sunday. In addition to that the cabinets were not numbered and so even when you got to the front deciphering the contents wasn't easy.

In the end we mostly skipped the first room and found that it did get a little better further through as there was more space and it was easier to reconcile the displays with the information but on the whole we found this an over priced and over rated exhibition, which is a real shame as we've loved the others we have seen at the venue.

If the exhibition was this busy first thing on a Sunday morning I dread to think how bad it is on a week day when the school parties are also in.

On the plus side getting to see the Lewis chessmen in cabinets that really let you look closely at them was great - plus no one else in the room seemed to want to see them!

Film Festival

Sundance London Film Festival. O2 at Greenwich. April 2014.

Mr Norfolkbookworm is much more of a film and cinema person than I am but as he so kindly accompanies me to so much theatre I am making an effort with films this year and to start this off we both went to the O2 in Greenwich recently to attend events at the Sundance London film festival.

We had tickets to both of the Shorts programmes and over the space of about 3 hours (plus time for a lovely sushi lunch) we saw 18 short films, some of which were really not to my taste and others that I want to watch time and time again.

Screening 1 started at 11.30 so this meant an early start from Norwich to get there in time but it was worth it as the first film screened was actually the Short Film Competition winner and called Russian Roulette. Bizarrely this was all about an Internet dating site used like Russian Roulette and the girl makes contact with a lonely astronaut maintaining a space telescope - the film can be seen here.

Other favourites from the morning session were Marilyn Myller and Cruising Electric (1980) which sadly isn't available on line.

In the afternoon another 9 films were screened and this session included the other two films I liked the best - Metube: August Sings Carmen "Habanera" and the incredibly moving I think this is the closest to how the footage looked. 

I really enjoyed the films but I'm not sure if it is because we were there in the day time and attending niche events but there didn't seem to be much of a festival atmosphere, in fact the "Festival Square" was all shut up when we arrived although by our late lunch there was live music as well as food/drink stalls to visit.

I still prefer theatre to film but I am now looking forward to the Norwich Film Festival in a few days - we have tickets to three short film events at that!

Please note that not all of the films I've linked to are 'worksafe' although none are probably higher than a '15' rating.

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