Theatre 2015: Review Ten

The Broken Heart, Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, Shakespeare's Globe, London. March 2015.

**Preview Disclaimer**

After a relaxed morning book browsing our way around London we came to the last play of the weekend and The Broken Heart by John Ford having decided on the spur of the moment to see this after finding 'Tis Pity She's a Whore so good in December.

This time we were seated in the Pit (yes we have now tried every area except the musician's gallery) and sadly the discomfort of the seats here nearly outweighed the brilliance of the play.  You are certainly closest to the action here, and can see every area that the performers use but you really do pay for it in comfort.

Anyhow the play...another triumph for the Playhouse. What could so easily be an over the top nonsense of a play had real heart and charm with characters that you really believed in.  At the interval Rebecca and I were trying to predict what would come next and while we knew it was a tragedy and that lots of the characters would die we didn't guess the correct ones or the correct means of death which just shows how good it was.

The cast really did work together as a group in this play, and the spectacle and shock were well handled - this might also be the least gory play I've seen at the Globe (except Farinelli) in about a year and as there was still quite a lot of blood this is saying something!

When watching plays by writers who were contemporary with or came just after Shakespeare I really do notice the difference in language and I can see why so much of his work has survived and how he has become the national poet, however I do like the work by these other writers and am so glad that we can now see them in a venue very much like where they intended their plays to be seen.

This was again a performance of a production in preview, I think it was the third or fourth performance, but again as an audience member you really wouldn't have known. It all ran smoothly and there were no noticeable line/cue/prop stumbles.

This was my last trip to the Sam Wanamaker Theatre this winter season, in fact my Globe season starts in about 6 weeks, and after being unsure of the venue this time last year I know now that I will be awaiting the winter 15/16 season.  I will also only be going if I can get certain seats in the lower gallery! I do hope that next winter there is some late Shakespeare performed here - I'd love to see A Winter's Tale or Cymbeline here.

Theatre 2015: Review Nine

Rules for Living, The Dorfman Theatre, National Theatre, London. March 2015

**Preview Disclaimer**

After a break of a couple of hours we were back on the South Bank to see the second play of the day in the newly refurbished Dorfman Theatre.  As this is a 'black box' theatre that can be reconfigured for any play I'm afraid that I didn't notice any changes in the actually auditorium but the foyer, cafe, cloakroom and loos were all very nice!

This play couldn't have been more different from Man and Superman if it has tried and if we hadn't known this was only the second preview I don't think I would have guessed.

The set depicts the ground floor of a large house - living room, dining area and kitchen - all set up on a basket ball court complete with electronic score board at either end.  It is Christmas Day and the family are gathering for Christmas dinner.

It is like watching a car crash in slow motion.  There are secrets in the family which slowly become clear and all of the main players have created their own 'rules for living'. As these become relevant they are flashed up on the scoreboard, this means that as the audience we saw extra humour in the characters that wasn't in the script just by their actions. One character for instance can only lie if he is sitting down and eating something, and as he is with a girl friend he doesn't love and has another secret this becomes very funny very quickly.

The car crash element is because I'm pretty sure anyone who has every had a family Christmas can recognise some of the tensions/actions in the play and seeing your life experiences in glorious Technicolour is excruciating.  Because this is so heightened not every experience is personal so there is some relief and some bits are just funny but I imagine that every audience member finds these different.

Other early reviewers have complained that they found the whole rules for living tedious and overblown but I liked this part of the play - for me it was the end that 'missed' slightly. I think I would have liked it to end just one scene earlier, but as it is a play about cognitive behavioural therapy I can see why it continues, it just would have remained a total comedy for me without it.  However as I have continued to think about this play more than the other two that I saw this weekend it must be doing something right.

In some real theatre geekiness Rebecca and I were sitting near lots of people who were taking notes on this preview performance and in fact I was sitting next to the director, Marianne Elliot.  They were all writing copious amounts so I don't know how much will change between the previews and opening night.

This was uncomfortable fun for me and while I don't think it will make my top 10 at the end of the year it was fascinating to see a new play, in a new space by a relatively new (and female) playwright.

If you are sat in the lower gallery at the front look out for flying eggs...

Theatre 2015: Review Eight

Man and Superman, The Lyttleton Theatre at the National Theatre, London. March 2015.

There has been a little gap in my theatre jaunts, partly thanks to fear of bad weather and partly because the train line between Norwich and London has been so appalling this winter, however recently Rebecca and I had one of our mammoth theatre weekends in London.  Three plays in effectively 27 hours.

First up was Man and Superman which in its own right is a bit of a big-one coming in at over three and a half hours.  Mainly it has to be said due to the author, George Bernard Shaw, who seems never to use one word if fifty will do and then to say it all twice.

That being said this was still, thanks to the cast, an enjoyable experience.  Jack Tanner, Ralph Fiennes, has been appointed an unwilling co-guardian of his friend's daughter Anne.  He is what in the early 1900s was a new man and not keen on this burden and as a radical thinks himself unsuitable for the role and for romance in general. Anne thinks him ideal for the role and also a great romantic catch.

While the acting, costumes and set were all good I did find that some of the ideas that Bernard Shaw put forward as progressive in his time now felt dated and entirely sexist. Anne is not really an independent and intelligent woman but rather a scheming manipulative one who always gets her own way.  Jack and her mother both see through her but seem unable to stop or change her and as a result I never warmed to her character and really hoped that the play would have a different outcome.

The play is so long because stuck in the middle of the action is a dream sequence where Jack Tanner morphs in to Don Juan and ends up in hell debating philosophy with the devil.  This started well and was wonderfully different from the rest of the play but just went on for too long and in the end I did lose a little of the plot and was longing for Andy Hamilton's version of the devil from Old Harry's Game to appear and put an end to it.

Oh dear - again this sounds terribly negative and this isn't quite how I feel about the play. There was a lot of humour and visually it was a treat. It was also brave to stage the whole thing and without the excellent cast this would have fallen completely flat but I do think that a little editing wouldn't have gone amiss, and I was uncomfortable with the way woman in the character of Anne was portrayed.

Rebecca had an interesting idea - the play should be restaged but with the main characters' genders switched...

This play will be broadcast live to cinemas in May but once was enough for me on this occasion.

Advance reading

The Last Pilot by Benjamin Johncock

Reviewing a book by someone you know, and that you bump into on a frequent basis is actually quite nerve wracking.
Add in to the mix that their new book is on a topic that you love, and know quite a lot about.

To say I approached The Last Pilot with trepidation isn't entirely the truth however, since the author announced it had a publication date I'd been haunting Netgalley.com daily hoping that a reading copy would be available for request.

It duly appeared and I was approved for a download.  As soon as I'd finished my required reading for uni I did turn to it and then read pretty much non stop to the end.  I was very lucky that the following day was a day off!

The book took a little getting used to at first as there were no speech marks but this was good - it slowed me down (a little).

The publisher blurb tells more about the book than I ever could - and decides what counts as a spoiler:

FROM AN AWARD-WINNING WRITER, A GRIPPING DEBUT NOVEL OF THE SPACE RACE THAT EXPLORES THE INNER LIFE OF A NATIONAL HERO—AND ASKS WHAT IT MEANS TO BE COURAGEOUS IN THE FACE OF UNTHINKABLE LOSS
Jim Harrison is a test pilot in the United States Air Force, one of the exalted few. He spends his days in a precarious dance with death above the Mojave Desert and his nights at his friend Pancho's bar, often with his wife, Grace. Both are secretly desperate for a child—and are delighted when, against all odds, Grace learns that she is pregnant.But Sputnik has put the country in a panic, and NASA, newly formed, has been tasked with manning space before the Russians. Harrison turns down the chance to participate in Project Mercury and becomes a father to Florence, his baby girl. Yet his life, as a father and as a pilot, grinds to a halt when she becomes seriously ill and dies at the age of two. Devastated, Harrison loses himself in his work—and, sometimes, in distressing thoughts of Florence—and this time, when he gets a ticket to the moon, he takes it, but without consulting Grace.As Harrison trains to become an astronaut, the toll that his daughter's death has taken upon his marriage becomes more palpable, even as his ability to reckon with the reality of it diminishes. Set against the backdrop of one of the most emotionally charged periods in American history,The Last Pilot is a mesmerizing story of loss and finding courage in the face of it, from an extraordinary new talent.

What I loved about the book was how little like a novel it was, at the back Johncock lists books he consulted for the research (I'd read all but one of them!) and I really felt that his book stood alongside them as a biography of the time and age - just with an invented character which made it fiction.

The repressed emotion shown by Harrison was perfect when compared to the biographies and autobiographies of the early astronuats - you know that they had to have feelings but that they were repressed to the Nth degree to keep up the image of the macho astronaut.

However this (accurate) emotional distance did keep me a little distant from the book as a novel hence my constant forgetting that it was fiction.  This may be down to my own knowledge of the topic matter and I really look forward to talking about the book with people who don't know the source stories as well as me! The book has enough story that I think it will satisfy people who are 'space nuts' and those who like a good story set in the 1950s and 60s.

I've been to many of the physical places mentioned in the book, and met several of the real men featured and I am so pleased that this book adds to my experiences and, unlike some works on topics I like, send me either screaming back to the sources or ruin my interest entirely.

The book isn't published until July in either the US or the UK but add it to your wish lists now.

Please note that although I know the author the book was provided through Netgalley.com, the review is entirely independent and I have received no recompense for writing it.

Theatre 2015: Review Seven

Farinelli and the King, Sam Wanamaker Playhouse at Shakespeare's Globe, London. February 2015.

Liking and admiring Mark Rylance as an actor has become hugely popular this year thanks to his role in Wolf Hall and as a result of this Rebecca and I were pleased to have booked tickets to Farinelli and the King way back last year.  We already knew he was great without waiting to see him on the small screen!

So much could have been wrong with Farinelli - it was a new piece of theatre (with music/opera), written by Rylance's wife for him and performed in a theatre that is not the most comfortable to sit in.  Luckily we found it to be a great afternoon.

It is based on a true story where the King of Spain is mad.  The play opens with the king (Rylance) lounging in bed fishing in a goldfish bowl and talking to the fish.  His state of health is ambiguous at this point as he mostly seems lucid.  His leading ministers are not happy with him and think that he should be replaced.  His situation worsens but with the help of his wife and doctor a new cure is tried - that of music and the leading castrati of the day, Farinelli, is invited to court and appears to cure the king.

There are a few nuances and added parts to the story but it remains very simple and very affecting, the king remains mostly well as long as Farinelli sings.  There is a very interesting device used for Farinelli however, and one that I didn't spot at first.

When Farinelli is singing the actor playing the role doesn't actually sing, someone else - when we saw it Iestyn Davies provided the amazing voice - appears on stage next to Farinelli and they mimic each others movements.  It sounds terrible written down but on stage worked amazingly, Farinelli the man wanted to be seen as different from the voice and so on stage he physically was.  Only in the very last scene did the two men actually interact and that added more poignancy to the piece than anything for me.

While the play was very good I have to say that I did find it a little jarring that despite the setting and costumes all being redolent of the 1700s the language used was entirely 21st century.  It made for some funny moments but did create a little barrier between me and the play.  Possibly a bad attempt at replicating actual speech from the time would have  been just as bad however!

This was a lavish production with not a weak member of cast and a full ensemble piece - something that I would imagine is hard to create when Rylance is the leading man.  His charisma and skill shone through and I am now desperate to see him on stage in a truly modern piece.  Farinelli and the King has a very short run at the SWP and while I'd love to see it transfer so more people could see it the setting was ideal and in a bigger venue the intimacy created here could not be replicated I feel.

Theatre 2015: Review Six

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

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

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

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

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

Staying with the French theme

Book review: The Red Notebook by Antoine Laurain

My top book of the year in 2013 was the wonderful President's Hat and for the past six months or so I have been periodically tweeting with the publishers (@gallicbooks) about if and when the next book by Laurain is due.

Persistence paid off last week when the very nice team at Gallic Books popped an advance copy of The Red Notebook into the post for me.  Luckily I am up to date with my studies as I'm afraid all work instantly stopped and I plunged straight into the book...and pretty much didn't surface until it was finished.

The light whimsical tone of the President's Hat remains but this time the book is more contemporary and features a wonderful protagonist, Laurent, who runs a bookshop in Paris.  One morning he discovers an abandoned handbag in the street and decides to set about finding who it belongs to.

The story is part mystery, part family story and part love story and all the strands work beautifully with each other - you can see the disasters looming but Laurain, and his translators, don't overplay anything and the story feels real as well as very much like a modern fairy tale.  

I loved it, the book is different to The President's Hat - possibly a little more mainstream and conventional - but it is still a fantastic read for anyone, and for those with a little French knowledge some of the wordplay is fantastic but the humour totally works without knowing this extra layer!

Many thanks to Gallic Books for sending me a copy so early - the book isn't published until 14th April - and for letting me talk about it in advance of publication.

Theatre 2015: Review Five

Boeing Boeing. Maddermarket Theatre, Norwich. January 2015.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Theatre 2015: Review Four

Assassins. The Chocolate Menier Theatre, London. January 2015.

After the previous uninspiring theatre trip and a week spent nursing an ear infection I can't say I was particularly looking forward to the trip to London for this.  Coupled with the fact that my last two plays directed by Jamie Lloyd (Richard III and Macbeth) have been among my worst experiences at the theatre it really wouldn't have taken much to see me call this visit off.

However the lure of the venue and the cast saw me negotiating the complicated rail timetables and heading to the theatre.  I am so pleased I did.

Apart from being about the people who have killed (or tried to kill) the Presidents of the United States I knew nothing about this show at all and got quite a shock as we entered the auditorium through a creepy, run down clown's mouth past a dodgem car into a really grungy old travelling funfair come circus set.

The musical was as creepy as the staging, and I mean that in the best way, I was on edge the whole time and totally unsure as to what was going to happen or how.  The assassins brandished guns with abandon and as the venue is so small to be looking down the barrel of a gun at that close distance coupled with the manic grin of a mad assassin meant that the hairs on the back of my neck didn't lay down for the whole 75 minutes of the show.

I hadn't read reviews or the programme so the small casting twist took me totally by surprise and worked wonderfully.  I didn't come out humming the songs but I know that it will take a long time to let the images of the show calm down in my mind.

Another (sell out) hit from the Menier - now let me go and look at their schedule for the rest of the year...

Theatre 2015: Review Three

Taken at Midnight. Theatre Royal Haymarket, London. January 2015.

It has been a little while since I saw this, the review is late because I saw a preview of the show and also because I was unwell the week after seeing it.

There is also another reason - the old adage if you can't say something nice,don't say anything at all rings horribly true with my feelings on the play.

We had good seats, the actors spoke well and the scenery and use of stage was good. The original story - that of lawyer Hans Litton -  is incredible.  This is a man who put Hitler on trial before he came to power and was then, inevitably, imprisoned once Hitler was legitimately elected to power.

So what went wrong?  For me there was just too much narration and not enough acting, I think in fact that the cast spent more time carrying props on and off the stage than they did interacting with them, or each other. There were two stand out performances that of John Light as Dr Konrad the SS Officer and Martin Hutson as Hans.  The role of Hans' mother, played by Penelope Wilton, should have been a tour de force but sadly was one note and flat throughout.

In the final two scenes I finally became emotionally involved, and the final scene before the interval was shocking but on the whole this made a great radio play but not very inspiring theatre.

Theatre 2015: Review Two

Rapunzel...a hairy tale! The Blakeney Players, Blakeney. January 2015.

I'm not one for panto as a rule but as ever will make an exception for anything that the Blakeney Players stage thanks to knowing at least one of the cast!

This year's offering started with an incredible rendition of Circle of Life from a well known cartoon and stage show, complete with presentation of the baby to the audience, and really didn't look back from there.

It was full of timely gags about buying local and eating well and in the best tradition of panto had the leading boy played by a girl and the comedy dame played by a boy - both of whom seemed to relish their roles.

There were puns galore and some great song and dance routines and the evil hench-women were fabulously evil* (and inspired by Edward Scissorhands). The costumes were great and the wigs an integral part of the plot but it was the special effects that stole the show - I don't think I've seen anything finer on the professional stage. And who knew you could do that with a string of sausages?!

To try and explain the plot would ruin the whole thing, it really is a case of 'you had to be there' but I really didn't know that there were that many lettuce based gags out there!

Hats off to the whole cast and crew - can't wait for the summer show!

* full disclaimer - I've known one of the hench-women since she was two so may be (but really am not) biased in my review of this role, she's the one in black with the frightful wig in the photo above!

Theatre 2015: Review One

Miss Saigon, Prince Edward's Theatre, London. January 2015.

Start as you mean to go on I say, and did as my first trip to the theatre in 2015 took place just three days in and involved my husband, mum and dad!

Our Christmas present to each other this past Christmas was tickets to see the revival of Miss Saigon, I'd seen it on tour a few years back. mum and dad had seen the original (with the original cast) and Mr Norfolkbookworm hadn't seen it but was convinced enough by the rest of us that he'd enjoy it.

The story is a reworking of the Puccini opera Madame Butterfly, set during and after the Vietnam War and is a full throttle musical spectacle from curtain up.  It is not for the faint hearted or prudish as some of each act is set in a brothel but it is breath taking and overwhelming in just the right way.

Thanks to my studies into the theatre there were very clever bits of staging and use of lighting that I noticed but that obviously worked as none of my family mentioned them for good or bad afterwards, but I do think that I have been conditioned a little by so many plays at the Globe.  This is a sad story and ends abruptly in someways and I did expect the cast to get up and either dance a jig or sing a final chorus which didn't happen!

A great way to start the New Year of theatre going off and I am pleased that we managed to get good, reasonable seats for this, Mr Norfolkbookworm and I won't be planning another trip to the show but we certainly did enjoy it and came out of the theatre with a real ear-worm which is just what you want from a piece of musical theatre!

Picture of Kim and Chris taken from the Telegraph Review.

We were lucky that we'd decided to see this and not Les Miserables as our treat for on the day we saw the show there was a small fire at Les Mis and the performance was stopped after just 20 minutes!

Theatre 2014: Review Forty-One

The Snowman (ballet). The Peacock Theatre, London. December 2014.

Due to the pressures of Christmas, work and uni deadlines I didn't manage to get a review for this in before the end of the year, and indeed before I'd seen my first piece of theatre for 2015!

The magic of this show was so great in 2013 that my sister and I decided that a return was needed with my nephew and mum - who should have seen it the first time around but was too poorly.

We're pleased to say that the magic doesn't go away, every moment is just as good on a second viewing and as ever it was the response of both my mum and nephew that made it just that bit more special. It will take mum a long time to live down the audible sob that she gave as the Snowman and Boy first fly to the sounds of We're walking in the air.  What was also interesting was listening to my nephew talk about the show - last year he was a little bored/scared of the fighting scene between Jack Frost and the snowmen but this time it was his favourite bit.

Me? I loved it all and already can't decide if a viewing in December 2015 will spoil or increase the magic.

Top 10 Books of 2014

Top fiction and non fiction from 2014.

Despite a lot of my reading being for uni during the year I seem to still have managed a lot of reading for pleasure too, although it has to be said I struggled more to get a top 10 for each genre, more than 5 was easy but getting to 10 less so.

These are simply in alphabetical order and nothing more - simply the best books I have read this year.

Fiction:

• Song for Issy Bradley - Carys Bray
• A Place Called Winter - Patrick Gale
• Ishmael's Oranges - Claire Hajaj
• Wars of the Roses: Trinity - Conn Iggulden
• The Dead Lake - Hamid Ismaliov
• Strange Weather in Tokyo - Hiromi Kawakami
• A Tale for the Time Being - Ruth Oyezeki
• Unspeakable - Abbie Rushton
• Mr Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore - Robin Sloan
• Mrs Hemingway - Naomi Woods

In this we have 2 books not out until 2015, 2 in translation and one sequel that was easily as good as the first!

Non-fiction

• The Fateful Year: 1914 - Mark Bostridge
• Europe in the Looking Glass - Robert Byron
• Bitter Lemons - Lawrence Durrell
• How to Be a Heroine - Samantha Ellis
• Apple of My Eye - Helene Hanff
• H is for Hawk - Helen Macdonald
• My Salinger Year - Joanna Smith Rakoff
• The Boy in the Top Knot - Sathnam Sanghera
• Without Reservations - Alice Steinbach
• Gin, Glorious Gin - Olivia Williams

From this list it seems that travel writing is my top genre of 2014!

Here's to another year of reading in 2015, although studying continues and will involved a 15000 word dissertation so who knows how much I'll read for pleasure.  I do have a 2 week beach holiday planned which will mean at least a dozen books...!

Top Ten Theatre of 2014

That Time of the Year Again

In a year where I have seen 36 pieces of theatre live and 4 broadcast as live plays narrowing down to just five was impossible and even now I think that my frequent companion, Rebecca, will disagree with my rankings at the very least.

I have had several outings to the theatre with my nephew and while all of the productions we saw together were magical this year they haven't made the top 10 but rest assured theatre aimed at the under 10s is excellent and I had a lot of fun watching them and sharing my love of live theatre with him.

So with no further ado my top 10 are:

1. Lord of the Flies
2. Red Velvet
3. 'Tis Pity She's a Whore
4. To Kill a Mockingbird
5. My Night With Reg
6. The Scottsboro Boys
7. Oh! What a Lovely War
8. Another Country
9. A Bunch of Amateurs
10. Pitcairn

A real mixture of genres here and it was very hard to narrow it down to just 10, so many plays nearly made the grade.  I shan't list my least favourite plays - I think the reviews speak for themselves!

As I already have my first trip of 2015 planned for January 3rd I think it is fair to say that 2015 will also be theatre filled!

Bookaday December

The monthly book challenge continued though into December in two formats so as everyone gets busy at this time of year I picked the shorter one! I am guessing that the organisers think (hope) that after this we'll all be reading our new books!

1^st: Iconic first line?

So many of these but I do love "Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents" from Alcott's Little Women.

2^nd:Last Read?

On the 2nd this was actually the new novel Impossible! by Michelle Magorian. This connected to several of her other books and has the theatre of the 1950s as a plot line and especially the theatre at Stratford East and Joan Littlewood which was apt after seeing one of her plays at that venue this year!

3^rd: On my Christmas list?

I'm far too naughty for this and I have just ordered the books I want myself as I can't even wait the 3 weeks until Christmas to read them. #NoSelfControl

4^th: For chilly nights?

I like books set in warm places when I am cold but for me it is the location of reading on cold days/nights that is important. Ideally it would be in front of an open fire but failing that wrapped up and all cosy in a fluffy duvet with a heated wheat bag.

5^th: Quintessentially British?

That opens a whole can of worms as to what is British but I think I'll pick the Famous Five books by Enid Blyton

6^th: Everyone should read?

That's hard as no book is going to appeal to all readers but I know I've shared The President's Hat to lots of people all of whom have enjoyed it - including a couple of non-readers.

7^th: Childhood favourite?

Oh - so many. Little Women, Little House on the Prairie, Heidi, Black Beauty,WIndsong Summer..

8^th It's a mystery?

Not my favourite genre at all but I really enjoyed Gone Girl recently.

9^th: I judged this by its cover?

Sorry - so many of the physical books I pick up are influenced by cover, I do think that I'd avoid the Harry Potter books as a new reader now as I don't like their covers.

10^th: Latest purchase?

That will be three new books from Girl's Gone By - a new Chalet School fill-in, and two new (to me) books by Phyllis Mathewman.

11^th: Christmas classic?

Reading The Night Before Christmas to my nephew has happened the past few years, but I won't see him on Christmas Eve this year.  I often re-read a few of the Christmassy Chalet School books.

12^th:Book of poems?

I don't have many just poetry books but I do have an illustrated collection of WW1 poems and several versions of Shakespeare's sonnets.

13^th: Stocking filler?

I think that the Simon's Cat books are great but as a rule I'm not a fan of stocking filler books as you tend to read them once and then donate to charity.

14^th: Read at school?

Many childhood favourites were read while I was at school, in class I remember a teacher reading Stig of the Dump but I don't recall us getting to the end!

15^th: Favourite colour cover?

What an odd question - I guess I'll turn this around and say I'm not that keen on bright pink books, but even then I'll give them a go if the content looks good!

16^th: For someone I love?

I buy my nephew books all of the time and can't say no when he asks for or even mentions a book.  I recommend lots of books to Mr Norfolkbookworm too.

17^th: Funny read?

Comedic books are funny as they are often only funny in the right context and they don't always age well, but I do always smile when I read the Duck books by Jez Alborough.

18^th: Massive tome?

I used to pick books by width when I visited the library as a child!  I think that Birds Without Wings fits here.

19^th: Travelling home - reading this?

Anything I like from my shelves as we are celebrating Christmas in our own home this year.  In general though I travel everywhere with my Kindle so I don't run short of reading material!

20^th: Set where I live?

Lots of books are set in Norfolk, but I think one of the best is Coot Club as even 70+ years after it was written you can still make the same journey as describe in it!

21^st:To be read?

Far, far, far too many but it is essay time and I am bogged down in research!

22^nd: Favourite festive scene?

The bit towards the end of 101 Dalmations in the church is very nice.

23^rd: The best present?

Unlimited time and money to spend in bookshops and no guilt for doing either!

24^th:For Father Christmas?

A travel guide to somewhere warm where he can relax for a few weeks after his busy season!

25^th:Under the tree?

Book tokens to allow a huge binge in the new year!

Theatre 2014 - Review Forty

'Tis Pity She's A Whore, Sam Wanamaker Playhouse at Shakespeare's Globe, London. December 2014.

It was a very cold and damp December day when Bec and I went to London to see this, and to be honest after our experiences at the SWP earlier this year we didn't go in with high hopes.  The Duchess of Malfi was good, but the seats that time were very uncomfortable, Knight of the Burning Pestle was fun but over long and felt forced by the end and the Young Player's version of The Malcontent was frankly a disappointment and over priced.

This was a different experience entirely, I am not sure if we accidentally picked the best seats in the house or what but we had a good view and missed very little of the action at all and didn't find ourselves wriggling too much to stay comfortable.

The key thing is however that this play was fantastically acted - the space of the theatre was used completely and the scene where all the candles were extinguished was spooky - far more so than in the Duchess of Malfi.  I still can't decide if this play was actually bloodier than Titus Andronicus earlier in the year, or if it just seemed so because the playhouse is so much smaller and we were so close to the action.  No pies in this production but a bloody heart on a sword was waved around for much of the last act!

The only thing I didn't like about this play was the feeling that I couldn't discern what John Ford was actually trying to say.  The Catholic Church certainly came across as corrupt, and sleeping with your sister will drive you insane but I'm note sure beyond that.  The way I 'read' the performance Annabella was almost coerced into sleeping with her brother, and that every time she tried to repent he bullied her back into his arms yet why she should be castigated and called a whore is beyond me.  Politics of the time I guess.  I found it interesting that the audience hissed more as the one anti-Semitic line the play but laughed when the woman was called a whore.  Something to think about and investigate further I feel.

I am pleased that we had a good experience at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse finally, and I am pleased that we have got tickets to one more thing there this winter season.  I do look forward to their first full Shakespeare in the venue however and without wishing my life away hope that that will be a feature of the 2015/16 season!

Bookaday November

This wonderful challenge making you think about and talk about books continued into November with the publisher Headline throwing out the challenges for the month:

1^st: Movember begins - your favourite hairy hero?

We're talking beards and moustaches here and I think that I would have to pick Mr Twit here - not a role model but a wonderful character!

2^nd:A book you can't wait to read this winter?

I have no self control and as soon as a book comes out I have to read it - the one I was waiting for most keenly was the new Conn Iggulden and it didn't disappoint.

3^rd: Your favourite fictional family?

Often is which ever book I'm reading at the time but I like the chaos of the Weasley family, although do love Little Women I think the family itself would drive me insane.

4^th: A brilliant epic read - we mean one with more than 600 pages!

Birds Without Wings by Louis de Bernieres for a one volume epic but if not The Flowers of the Field & A Flower That's Free by Sarah Harrison (not so fusssed about the 3rd volume!)

5^th: Guy Fawkes Night - pick a character you love to hate.

Achilles in Madeline Miller's Song of Achilles is a bit annoying but it is still a great book.

6^th: A book that reminds you of your schooldays?

Vera Brittain's Testament of Youth as I remember when my group of friends discovered this one and read it.

7^th: The book you wished you'd owned as a first edition?

I'd love a Shakespeare's First Folio!

8^th:Doctor Who ends tonight - best book featuring time travel?

I have three for this one: The Time Traveller's Wife, Charlotte Sometimes and Tom's Midnight Garden

9^th: A book you have to read twice to fully appreciate?

Most of Shakespeare's plays - once to just get the story and then a 2nd time using all of the notes to get the full meaning. Who knew Romeo and Juliet was such a smutty play?

10^th: Happy Birthday Neil Gaiman! Favourite fantasy novel?

Not a huge serious fantasy fan but I like most of Trudi Canavan's books and most of Garth Nix's

11^th: Remembrance Day - your favourite WW1 novel?

There's a lot of good WW1 fiction out there but I think that this is a tie between War Horse and Remembrance by Theresa Breslin.

12^th:A book on your shelf that you haven't got round to reading yet?

Shamefully there are many but the author I keep meaning to start but then never getting around to is Dickens.

13^th: A book you'd love to see on the big screen?

None of them - the book is always better than the film!

14^th: A book you loved but wouldn't want your mum to read?

She reads this blog so I'm not going to list it here! In all honesty I think I'd pass anything on to my mum just with the appropriate warnings, my parents were always open minded when it came to reading.

15^th: A book that made you hungry?

I can't remember the title but it was a travel memoir of a man and his family in Japan and it made me crave all of the food mentioned.

16^th:The best debut you've read this year?

Ishmael's Oranges  by Clare Hajaj.  It was handed to me in a pile of books to read and rate for an upcoming work promotion and I loved every word.

17^th: Your favourite mystery novel?

Not a genre a really like very much but the closest I come is Josephine Tey's The Daughter of Time although the Montalbano books are on my to-be-read pile.

18^th: It's Scotland v England! Tell us your favourite sport book?

I don't mind watching some sport but reading about it isn't my favouite thing so I am going to go with Cat by Freya North - a novel set during the Tour de France.

19^th: A brilliant book with an eye-catching read cover?

I'm frantically scanning my shelf for books with red covers and all I can see are some antiquarian hardback missing their covers that have red boards... if that counts then I chose some of my Chalet School books!

20^th: Your favourite fictional pet?

Those that appear in the Tortall books by Tamora Pierce.

21^st:A book you've read that you wish had a sequel?

There's a lot of books that I finish wanting to know what happened next but none that I consciously want a sequel too.  Often they aren't as good or are written a long time afterwards and aren't as good.

22^nd: Your favourite book about a journey?

I like travel books a lot and think that perhaps Bill Bryson's books about rediscovering America win here, although Patrick Leigh Fermor is also good, and so is Robert Mcfarlane....

23^rd: An awesome autobiography by one of your heroes?

I love the diaries that Michael Palin is publishing.

24^th: A series you'd happily read all over again?

Has to be the Tortall books by Tamora Pierce.

25^th: One month to go! A book you want for Christmas?

There is a new Greek cookbook out that features some of my favourite dishes so I'd like that, however I already have dozens of Greek cookbooks so this would have to be a gift as I can't justify buying another one!

26^th: Tasty! Your favourite cookery or baking book?

Currently this is Rick Stein's India as we're experimenting with new curries.

27^th: Happy Thanksgiving - your favourite US classic?

Children's classics are the Little Women and Little House on the Prairie books and a modern classic is John William's Stoner.

28^th: A book with beautiful title typography?

H is for Hawk a truly stunning book from cover to cover.

29^th:  Happy birthday C. S. Lewis! Favourite fictional world?

Predictable for those who read these each month but has to be Tamora Peirce's Tortall!

30^th: Your favourite book featuring a wedding?

Oh dear, I must gloss over these as I don't recall many weddings in books at all...

Theatre 2014: Review Thirty-Nine

Lord of the Flies (ballet), Theatre Royal, Norwich. November 2014.

We'd not been back from our holidays a week before I was off to the theatre again and after enjoying Swan Lake so much last year I leapt at the chance to see another Matthew Bourne ballet.

Here's a shocking confession for a bookworm to make - I've never read the Golding novel Lord of the Flies. I know the basic plot premise but none of the details.  I considered reading it while we were away and then decided that I wouldn't - I'd watch the ballet first and see if I could follow the story.

The answer is a resounding yes - from the very first movement on the stage to the last I understood and followed the storyline throughout, and just like Swan Lake I found it incredibly moving and powerful and at times incredibly tense and scary.

This wasn't traditional ballet but it was all about the choreography and movement and this time the cast was all male. Interestingly not all of the cast were professionals either. Back in April a call went out for people interested in the project to come to a taster session and since then local boys and young men have been trained to such a standard that I could see no way of telling them apart from the fixed touring cast.

I was transfixed throughout the whole performance and like so many theatrical experiences this year if it was possible I'd go and see it again like a shot - there is so much happening on the stage all of the time that I don't think it would be like seeing the same thing twice... I am going to read the novel now and see how they compare.

The new season has just been announced at the theatre and I already have tickets for Bourne's Edward Scissorhands but I am also contemplating some of the more traditional ballets and giving opera another go.  Good productions are dangerous as they just make you want to see more and more!

Reading Week

Holiday Reading.

Mr Norfolkbookworm and I have just spent a week in the Canary Islands as we set ourselves up for winter by absorbing some more vitamin D, typically of course this year autumn has been splendid and the weather only really broke here just as we went but still a week away was wonderful.

This week also coincided with uni reading week but I'm not actually sure that this meant spend a week reading fiction but as I am up-to-date on the course work I wasn't too worried I'd fall behind.

Instead I spent 7 glorious days reading whatever I fancied and as the weather was good I got through an obscene amount of books - 14 and 2 halves (one I gave up on and one I've still to finish).

In no particular order and with just a few comments rather than reviews the books read were:

The Promised Land - Erich Maria Remarque 
Most famous for his anti WW1 novel All Quiet on the Western Front this is a fascinating book about emigres to America during WW2 and follows one man as he settles into life in New York. This is the first time the book has been translated into English and was unfinished when he died - this gives the book an abrupt ending but it was very good.

The Possibilities - Kaui Hart Hemmings 
From the author who wrote the book and Oscar winning film The Descendents. This was a slight tale of a woman coming to terms with the death of her son and the realisation that she didn't actually know him very well. It was all set in a ski resort and I think that I got more out of this book from having visited Mammoth in California than I would have done without knowing the type of town the book was set in. A slight read that passed the time but that will fade quickly from my memory.

Burial Rites - Hannah Kent 
From the blurb on the back of this book I really thought it wasn't for me but it just goes to show you shouldn't judge a book by a cover.  Set in Iceland in the 1800s a convicted murderess is sent to live with a family while she awaits execution and slowly the tale unfolds.  This isn't a crime story per se but is utterly compelling and an intelligent page turner which I really recommend.

Gone Girl - Gillian Flynn 
This has been a huge hit in book and film form and was again not a book I expected to like as thrillers aren't usually my thing but again I was pleased to be wrong. You can't like any of the characters in this book but it is an amazing piece of story telling. Not saying anymore for fear of spoiling it for others yet to discover it.

A Song for Issy Bradley - Carys Bray 
This was a recommendation from two places and I am very pleased that I bumped it up my to-be-read pile. It is a story of a family coming to terms with the loss of a child but the added dimension of the family's Mormon faith.  This isn't a complex story but it is very moving and I found my sympathy changing with each chapter I read. I've read a few books with Mormon protagonists but they were all very negative portrayals - this is far more subtle.

Love Charm of Bombs - Lara Feigel 
This is a non-fiction book that tells the story of WW2 through the eyes of some of the leading writers at the time such as Graham Greene and Rose Macaulay.  I liked the idea of telling the story of the war through writers but thought the conceit was stretched a little with the comparison to the First World War poets.  An interesting read but not a stand out.

Crooked Heart - Lissa Evans
This was an odd duck of a book as it reminded me of a lot of other books but still remained unique.  A precocious boy is living with his guardian at the start of the WW2 but this life comes to an end after her death.  He is then evacuated to St Albans where he is taken in by a lady who sees him as a way to make money.  With his brains and her gumption the two soon get into all sorts of shady business - complicated by her borderline criminal son.  The book was a quick, easy read but slight and never really rose above either a young adult novel or a Mills and Boon.  I liked it but wanted just a little bit more.
 
A Place Called Winter - Patrick Gale
This ended up being another book with a war setting - WW1 this time - and one of my favourite reads of the holiday.  A family man is forced to leave Edwardian England to avoid a scandal and instead make a new life for himself creating a farm in the wilds of Canada.  This is another book I don't want to say too much about as it unfolds beautifully, for me it was very much like a grown up Little House on the Prairie and as that is one of my favourite series of books for children I loved the entire thing and got fully swept up in the story and characters. This was a book that really came to life before my eyes.

Belzhar - Meg Wollitzer 
Last year I read and loved The Interestings by this author and so looked forward to this a lot and while it was still good I didn't realise that it was a young adult novel and thus found it to be less nuanced and in depth than I was hoping.  After a breakdown Jam has been sent to a boarding school for emotionally fragile teenagers and on arrival finds she has been selected for a special English class with only a handful of other teenagers.  This class only studies one book all semester and the only homework is to keep a journal.  The story does contain several twists and one in particular really surprised me, this is good quality young adult literature but the ending keeps it firmly in that bracket and it isn't elevated any higher.  I'll keep looking for books by Wollitzer but I think she is a better adult writer.

Mac and Me - Esther Freud 
Another WW1 novel here and this time set in a place I know very well - Southwold in Suffolk.  The descriptions of the town and surrounding areas were great but that is about all that I can recommend about the book as it had so many historical inaccuracies I spent most of the time I was reading it growling and looking things up on Wikipedia to find the truth.

Let's Get Lost - Adi Alsaid
This was a sweet teen novel that I enjoyed a lot, a girl on a road trip to Alaska to see the Northern Lights meets lots of new people on the way and changes the course of their lives. It sounds trite and terrible but was in fact very clever and a thoroughly enjoyable read.

The Lives of Stella Bains - Anita Shreve
Another WW1 set book and again one with a plot I don't want to talk about as the discovery is part of the tale.  It is a slight book but mostly believable if a little too reliant on happy coincidences.  A good holiday read but not much more, I still think her best book is The Pilot's Wife.

A tale for the time being - Ruth Oyezeki 
Rebecca has been encouraging me to read this book for a while now and I am glad that I saved it until I had time to concentrate on it as it changes from being a straightforward (almost) time-slip story to a book full of complicated ideas about faith, philosophy and quantum physics.  Utterly brilliant and I can't wait to read more by Oyezeki - a thoroughly enjoyable read.

Europe in the looking glass - Robert Byron
This book was recommended at the Heffer's Classics Day at the start of November and I am glad I sought it out.  It is a mixture of a Patrick Leigh Fermor travel novel and Jerome K Jerome and is full of wonderful lines and descriptions as well as some cringe-worthy moments of pure 1920s snobbery and entitlement. Great fun but a little exasperating until they reach Greece when it comes to life.

The books I didn't finish:

The Rosie Effect - Graham Simison
Earlier in the year I read and loved The Rosie Project and I was looking forward to the sequel, although I wasn't 100% convinced the book needed one.  I should have stuck with my gut instinct as the comedy of the first book became, for me, unbearable farce and so far fetched and uncomfortable that I had to stop reading and I don't think I'll ever go back to it.

Travels with Epicurus - Daniel Klein
This is a book I am reading slowly as it is full of big ideas. Klein is exploring the ideas of Epicurus and other pphilosophers while living on Hydra - the place where people seem to live the longest and happiest lives.  It mixes big ideas and details about the Greek way of life seamlessly and is giving me a new reading list as long as my arm!

Phew - that was a lot of books in a short space of time and now it is back to the Shakespeare and lit crit books for a while!