In which I fall for the hype...

How to Leave Twitter by Grace Dent

A few weeks ago everywhere you looked on social media sites this book was being talked about and recommended. I decided I wanted t read the book to see what the fuss was all about but I couldn't be bothered to buy the book so I reserved it from the library. It was obviously popular as I only got a copy to read at the very end of last week.

I don't often do this but I can't find anything positive to say about the book. I thought that it was going to be a silly read but I didn't expect it to be quite so nasty.

Dent tweets a lot, worries that she spends too much time on Twitter and gets cross with how other people use Twitter. That's it.

My feeling is that you Tweet or you don't (I do occasionally both for pleasure and for work).
If you do read Twitter then you can choose what you read.
If you don't like what you read you stop reading, you reply with your view or you don't read tweets from that person any more.

And that is it.

To write a book mocking people who don't agree with you is pointless, there are a few good netiquette points in the book but it was a total waste of my time and the paper it is printed on. I'm guessing that all the people talking about it on Twitter are either Dent's friends or her publisher. At least she didn't break her own rule and re-tweet all of their gushing reviews.

Never have I been so pleased that I borrowed a book for free from a library.

if anyone is interested in the little I have to say on Twitter I am (imaginatively @Norfolkbookworm and when I am tweeting for work it is @NorfolkLibs)

Theatrical Interlude 13

Opportunity Knox, Blakeney Village Hall, August 2011.

This is a very, very different theatrical experience to the ones I've been having recently but one that I wouldn't miss for the world.

The Blakeney Players are an amateur dramatics group on the Norfolk Coast who put on 2 shows a year. Shows that they write themselves and that are full of songs and dances that play to the Players' strengths. Every show is side-splittingly funny (sometimes not intentionally), witty and always a pleasure to watch. As the director of this show put it - it is possible that the actors enjoy the shows more than the audiences!

This summer's play 'Opportunity Knox' sees a group of bank robbers travelling around Europe pretending to be competitors in the 'Europe's Got Talent' competition.
Their acts...
..that would be an ABBA Tribute act and a couple pretending to be a ventriloquist and his dummy (she's lost her passport so they pretend she's a mannequin to get through immigration at Dover - obviously)
Police in several countries are baffled and so who better to catch the criminals than Lady Penelope, Parker and the boys from International Rescue!
It was as surreal as it sounds (and gets worse by the end) but every detail was perfect, the acting very amusing and the 'special effects' incredible.

There were only 4 performances of this show and all of them were sold out. It deserved to be.

You can't compare something like this to the productions I am seeing in London but I look forward to each and every show that the Players put on as much as I do my trips to London - just in a slightly different way.

This is where I confess that I know one of the Players and perhaps this review isn't quite as impartial as perhaps some of my others are.
That not withstanding I urge anyone in Norfolk to keep and eye out for the dates of Players' winter show and to grab a ticket as soon as they go on sale!

Don't hold your breath...

...even the books I'm reading are about the theatre.

Who could resist a book with a title that is such a dreadful pun Something Written in the State of Denmark?

This is a blog to book tome that I treated myself to when I was at the National Theatre. It is the account of one season at the RSC by a member of the cast and cover the 10 months that forms 'The Season'. To make it more exciting this is the 2008 season which saw David Tennant and Patrick Stewart playing opposite each other in Hamlet.

Osborn doesn't dwell on the stars, they are in fact mentioned only in passing and you really get the feeling that in the RSC names don't matter to the company - it is only the audience that cares about who is in the play. The play really is the thing!

I had no idea before reading this about just how hard being an RSC actor is. The actors have to know 3 plays inside out and perform them in rotation throughout the year. In addition to their main parts they also have several understudy roles and effectively have to know at least 5 or 6 parts fully for a season. I thought that I had a good memory but this just blew me away and when you read just how hard everyone works, tech crew as well it is easier to see why the ticket costs are quite high. Everyone deserves every penny!

I loved this book, and already have the other RSC blog-to-book on order (Exit Pursued by a Badger) the only problem - now I desperately want to go to Stratford-upon-Avon and see a complete season!

Theatrical Interlude 12

Emperor and Galilean, Olivier Stage, National Theatre, July 2011.

I am really beginning to think that I should rename this blog. I assure you that I am reading but as I am working my way through the work of one particular playwright at the moment it would be quite boring to blog/read about that.

Theatre on a Sunday is quite unusual but I for one am very glad that the National Theatre had some Sunday performances as it meant that I did get the chance to see this before the run ends.

When the play opened there were a few radio items about it, and all the press I saw was favourable so I was looking forwards to this event although it is a very obscure and long Ibsen play. So obscure in fact that this is the first time it has actually been performed in English.

I wasn't disappointed. It was a little long, especially in the first half, I did find my concentration wavering a little but the acting throughout was sublime - how the lead (Andrew Scott) managed to learn all of the lines I have no idea, there is barely a scene in the 3 1/2 hours that he isn't in.

The story itself is set in around 300AD when the Roman Empire converted from the pagan religions to being broadly Christian. Julian, nephew of the emperor, has religious doubts and when he becomes emperor he decides that he will renounce this decree and that all forms of worship will be allowed. This quickly falls apart and Christians are soon being persecuted and killed. There are more themes (friendship, madness, war) but this is the general story arc.

While the acting and story were great I found the staging and costumes to be a little much. There were so many costume changes and bits of moving scenery that this did keep drawing me out of the play and back into reality. Perhaps just because you can doesn't mean you should! However this was the first time I've seen just how incredible the Oliver Stage is - Frankenstein earlier in the year really didn't use it very much at all in comparison!

Ibsen (a Norwegian) clearly wrote over a 130 years ago a play that shows how easily belief can slide into fanaticism and violence. It feels heavily prescient especially in the light of the attacks in Oslo which occurred only 48 hours before I saw this performance.

I can't say that I would rush to see more Ibsen, but having seen 2 incredible plays at the National I will certainly be trying to see more there, whether live or when they broadcast to cinemas around the country.

Andrew Scott as Emperor Julian (photo Catherine Ashmore)

Theatrical Interlude 11

Being Shakespeare, Trafalgar Studios, July 2011

This one man show nearly passed me by, if it hadn't been for a friend blogging about it (here) and then a programme on Radio 4 I would have missed a real treat.

Thanks to working part time and Lastminute.com I didn't miss out and instead had a day on my own in London seeing a piece of amazing theatre.

While I didn't have quite the same experience as my friend I was still blown away by Callow's performance. The play is just under 2 hours long and in it Callow takes the seven ages of man as listed in the play As You Like It and tells us of Shakespeare's life using quotes from his plays and poems.

ALL THE WORLD'S A STAGE

All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant, Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms. Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel And shining morning face, creeping like snail Unwillingly to school. And then the lover, Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier, Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard, Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel, Seeking the bubble reputation Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice, In fair round belly with good capon lined, With eyes severe and beard of formal cut, Full of wise saws and modern instances; And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts Into the lean and slippered pantaloon, With spectacles on nose and pouch on side; His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice, Turning again toward childish treble, pipes And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all, That ends this strange eventful history, Is second childishness and mere oblivion, Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

I have to confess that I don't know many Shakespeare plays well. Romeo and Juliet was the only play I studied at school and since then I've not seen an awful lot. This didn't matter, and I will now be seriously searching out, reading and watching many more.

My abiding memories of this performance will be Callow playing both Romeo and Juliet during the balcony scene and when he played all the parts of the Pyramus and Thisbe scene from A Midsummer Night's Dream. It takes real talent for one man to act many parts at the same time well and making each one distinct.

I would urge you all to see this show but it closes on July 23rd so you'll have to be quick. I will now be looking for revivals of Callow's shows about Wilde and Dickens.

Another thing I learned from this trip is that it is okay to go to the theatre alone, not quite so pleasant as with friends as you have no one to chat to after the show, but still fine. Now to scour the listings for other things not to miss...

Nepotism

Sometimes I just don't understand the book world.

I've just read a brilliant book and under normal circumstances I'd now be linking exactly where you could find a copy and be urging you to read it too. However I can't.

The novel in question is called Looking for Buttons and it was written by a friend of mine, sadly the book can't find a publisher, she's been told by an agent that it is unlikely to be published but I'm hoping that they just mean in the current climate.

Looking for Buttons is an unashamed woman's read, I hesitate to call it chick-lit but it really reminded me of authors like Kate Long and Freya North. The characters live from page one, the story tells itself and there didn't seem to be any awkward chunks of description. It all just flowed.
I was kept guessing throughout and then ending is realistic rather than fairy tale.

Now it isn't without fault and as I was asked to give honest feedback I have done so - hopefully in a way that my friend is still talking to me - but there is nothing in there that a good editor wouldn't be able to fix.

As I was reading it I was thinking about how, if I still worked in book retail, I would 'sell' the book. There would be the obvious "if you like...you'll love" approach but I'd also have no problems hand selling the book with total honesty. The book is suitable for all ages of reader, it is modern enough that a twenty something would enjoy it but not so shocking that I'd have problems sharing it with my mum or my nan.

Now since I finished the book I've been trying to work out why it isn't being snapped up...

I've come to a few conclusions:

Chicklit is tending to be either more shocking or aimed at upper teens - Looking for Buttons doesn't hit this. It is just a realistic story with characters who are in their late twenties and early thirties living slightly larger than life lives.

There is a celebrity in the book and he is written in a way that breaks through the current cult of the s'leb - something that perhaps publishers are wary of in a society that seems obsessed by the famous.

The main reason I think it hasn't been snapped up though is snobbery:

The main character is a PhD graduate and all of her friends are also university graduates at varying levels. I wonder if there is the perception that this makes the book seem too high brow for general readers whilst at the same time there is the idea that people with degrees or higher can't be interested in chick lit.

I'm hoping that my friend doesn't give up on the book, I'd love to see it published and in the meantime I'm hoping that she makes it available via Amazon as an eBook. If she does I'll be pushing it like crazy.

Theatrical Interlude 10

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Theatre Royal, Haymarket, London. June 2011

This was a spur of the moment theatre trip in many ways. A friend said shall we? and without knowing anything about the play I said 'sure' and so it came to pass.

It isn't a decision I regret at all. As I knew nothing about the play I did read it beforehand just so I knew what was going on and once I'd done this I really couldn't wait to see it.

When we got to the theatre we had a surprise, we actually had tickets for the Upper Circle but had been upgraded to the Royal Circle. I don't know if it is because of the industrial action on the day, or if weekday matinees are just less popular but even with the Upper Circle shut and people relocated the Royal Circle was still more than half empty.
I was a bit worried what this would do to the atmosphere but I needn't have worried. Perhaps because there were no school parties in the theatre was lovely and quiet and everyone seemed to 'get' all of the jokes and the performance felt very friendly.

From the very first scene I fell in love with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, they are such bewildered characters, yet so wise. It helps that the two actors had fantastic chemistry together I think - when I read my programme in the interval I saw that they had both been in Alan Bennett's History Boys which would explain the familiarity and ease. They are on stage during pretty much every scene of the play and even then I could happily have watched more of them!

The players, who for me acted both as the comic relief and the narrator, were funny and completely over the top (in the best way). Having recently been to the Globe they felt very 'right' for travelling actors in Shakespearean times.

The weakest parts of the play for me were when the scenes from Hamlet were acted. I realised that the transition from modern speech to pure Shakespeare would be sudden but personally I felt that the actors acting Hamlet were melodramatic and out of step with the rest of the play somehow. Even so they were still good, just not as good as the others!

Throughout I was trying to recall what the play was reminding me of and then in a light bulb moment it came to me - the sparse setting and the questioning themes all made me think of Waiting for Godot. It was only afterwards when I read more about Stoppard and this play that I found out others had made this connection.

For a spur of the moment decision to see a play I wasn't disappointed. It was another resounding success.

High hopes

Caddy's World by Hilary McKay

I picked this one of the shelf with some trepidation, I love Hilary McKay's books, and have done for years. Even before the delightful Casson family books there was the Exiles series - what reader wouldn't sympathise with the Conroy sisters when they are sent to stay with Big Grandma and forbidden to read?

Then there was the sequel to A Little Princess, which I blogged about here.
I wasn't a fan and so on learning that Caddy's World was going to be a prequel to the Casson family saga I was nervous.

In the main I shouldn't have been, the book did fit in with the other stories quite well and it is obvious that McKay is happier writing about younger teenagers, Caddy and her friends feel much more realistic than Caddy does later on as an almost adult. The review I found here sums up 95% of my feelings about the book.

However...

There was just one thing that threw me out of the book. The book is supposed to be set in 1996, in the epilogue Rose finds a picture from the time of the book and it is dated 1996 so this is an author stated fact and not a fan doing sums, but in the book Indigo has already been called "the next Harry Potter" in a newspaper article.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone wasn't published until 1997 and the hype and general media interest in the books didn't begin for at least 18 months after that.

I am sure that I am being hyper critical with this but after having gone to so much trouble to make all of the chronology fit, and to set a book that did really feel as if it was the first in the series and not a later fill-in this fact that could so easily have been checked spoiled the read for me.

I did enjoy the book, it has (mostly) restored my faith in an author I've loved for years and I am sure that nobody else will be upset by the too early reference to Potter.

I just have a bit of a 'thing' for accuracy in books - whether it is getting the date wrong in a children's historical book (one I read put the Dunkirk evacuations in 1941) or using old / wrongly labelled photos in a space reference book (the external tank was only white for 2 missions the other 133 flights have had orange tanks so why did a book published 4 years ago have the wrong picture...)

Rant over. It is a good book, a great story and the characters all really came alive. Now I've got to hunt out all of the Exile books and the rest of the Casson books and have a serious re-read...I might be some time!

Bedtime Stories

The Reading Promise , 3218 nights of reading with my father by Alice Ozma

I've had this book on reserve in the library for a couple of months, in fact as soon as I read the pre-publication blurb I knew that I wanted to read this book.

The jacket reads

"When Alice was nine years old, she and her father - a beloved school librarian - made a promise to read aloud together for 100 consecutive nights. upon reaching that goal, they decided to to continue what became known as The Streak for as long as they possibly could."

I've mentioned before the memories I have of being read to (Dad, why did we never read The Horse and his Boy when reading the Narnia books?) and so this book was always going to appeal. And when it finally arrived I read it in one day.

I think I thought it would be more about the books the pair shared, why they chose them and what they thought of them. It wasn't really like that.

This was the story of Alice's childhood and teenage years with her single parent dad with some mention of the time they spent reading together, there was very little about the books themselves.

It was an enjoyable read, but it wasn't what I was expecting and to be honest without the 'hook' of the 3218 nights I'm not sure that the book would have ever crossed the Atlantic to the UK. On the plus side it was lovely to read a book that was so positive about reading and about the father-daughter relationship, but it was a bit too 'touchy-feely' for me as a rule.

I think that as an avid reader the one thing that disappointed me the most was this closing paragraph:

"My father and I had no idea what The Streak would become and therefore never made a list of the books we read. Many have been forgotten"

they do go on to list some that they remember but as someone who has kept a reading diary for the last decade I wanted to know what they read and what they thought of the books.

Theatrical Interlude 9

Lady in the Van, Theatre Royal Norwich, June 2011.

I first came across Alan Bennett when I was studying for my GCSEs. A unit of my English course was all about monologues and I recall it being a real joy to watch all of the 1988 Talking Heads series. At that age I'm not sure I was really aware who the author was, I don't think I'd come heard of Beyond The Fringe at that point.

Up until the end of last year Bennett was someone I was aware of, I read The Uncommon Reader the day it was published, but until World Book Night reintroduced us I think that most of my Bennett awareness came from the pretty cruel sketches on the radio version of Dead Ringers.

When I found out that Lady in the Van was coming to Norwich it didn't take an awful lot of persuasion by a friend to get me to see it. I knew the rough out line of the story - Miss Shepherd parks her van in Bennett's front garden and remains there for the next 15 years - but nothing about the play.

I found it very good. The idea of the two Alan's confused me for the first few minutes but then I was swept away into the story and had no problem at all working out what was supposed to be happening at the time as opposed to what Bennett was thinking when he wrote the play.

The actors had me convinced from line one, and Nichola McAuliffe was incredible as Miss Shepherd. The play deals with some pretty deep and traumatic themes but there is enough humour throughout to stop it feeling depressing. In fact some because some scenes were funny despite the poignancy I found myself feeling guilty for laughing. Then I remembered that that is the British way of coping in times of stress and emotion - it was okay to laugh, so long as you feel a bit uncomfortable.

One thing jarred in the play for me, and that is probably because of my own perceptions, and that was the use of some of the swear words. I see Bennett as a mild mannered, polite, shy person - a veritable National Treasure - and to hear the F-word coming from 'him' was a shock. When I'm watching a play I lose track of the real world around me and the swearing did actually jolt me out of that state and back into the present. I don't doubt that Bennett does use that language (both in real life and in the situation depicted in the play) but it did to me feel anachronistic.

Each play I've seen this year has been fantastic and this one was no exception. The one thing I am particularly glad of is that the stage director didn't scent the production - my imagination was quite enough!

Being controversial

The library can be bad for (my) reading health.

There I've said it and now before you all scream at me let me explain...

Part of my job lets me look through the supplier catalogue each month to highlight some of the new non-fiction published. You might not agree with my choices but you can find them here. Now when I am reading the catalogue I find lots and lots of books that I want to read.

So I reserve them.

And then they all come in together.

This is where my problem starts, one week I can be going mad because I can't find anything to read and then all of a sudden I have a pile about 12 deep of new books that I can't wait to read. Thus I become a book butterfly, flitting from book to book in an effort to read them before their return date. Or worse I drop what I've been reading for a while because something new and exciting has arrived and then I forget to go back to the original book.

It got worse today as Mr Bookworm has also come home from work with a book from the Uni Library that I've been wanting to read for months, and that is only on loan to me for a week.

I shall have to start prioritising harder, either that or sleeping less so I have time to get through them all.

So the library is wonderful. I have access to dozens of books that I couldn't afford to buy in such quantity. BUT it has been about 2 weeks since I last finished a book, despite having a pile on the go!

It doesn't help at the moment that I've just got a new camera and lens so a lot of reading time has become photography time...

Spoilers

I realise that currently I don't so much review on this blog but more talk generally about my impressions of what I have read or seen. This is because I live in fear of the dreaded spoiler.

There is nothing worse than reading a review and all of a sudden a major plot twist is revealed. There has been a lot written about this recently as the current chief writer for Doctor Who was very disappointed and angry when details of the new series were released on the web by a fan after a special screening.

If you chose to read the last page of the book to find out what happens then that is a personal choice, to have this read to you is a problem. However where do you draw the line? Take for instance my recent trip to see Much Ado About Nothing. The play itself was written over 400 years ago so isn't new but I for one had never read or seen it before the weekend just gone...is writing about the plot for this a spoiler?

Also there is the danger that in writing a review to remain spoiler free you just end up writing a plot summary.

I've got a book on review writing on order at the library to see if I can pick up any tips but I think that a personal impression is a valid form of review, it might not be erudite or intellectual but it is honest and spoiler free!

Good lord a book review!

Focus on Composing Photos by Peter Ensenberger.

In my job I get to look through all of the forthcoming publications
for each month and every month a startling number of new books on photography are published. As I work in a library many books are ordered for the county and I tend to borrow many of them for extra hints and tips. It is quite rare that I get excited by a new book, so many of them seem to be about editing photos rather than the actual photography itself.

I don't mind 'tweaking' my photos a little bit but I am far more interested in taking a good photo in the first place.

Focus on Composing Photos is a book that helps you take those good photos in the first place and it doesn't matter whether you are using a camera phone or a state of the art digital SLR - Ensenberger is just teaching you how to look at a scene to maximise the quality of the
original image.

The book is broken into chapters focusing on light, perspective, focal points, composition, leading lines and then rule breaking. The book is written in easy to follow language and each point it illustrated by one of the author's photos to highlight what he means. It isn't a technical guide telling you what lens/exposure/aperture to use it is a readable book teaching you how to look at scenes.

I have to confess that a lot of the book is set in an area I will be traveling to later in the year so I have a vested interest in the book but even without that the tips on how to look at a scene were great and I plan on using some of the tips given on my next outing with the camera.

Catharsis

Sometimes you just need a vent for emotion - whether it is a happy emotion or a sad one.

I have a pile of trusty books for such occasions. There are some I turn to when I am ill - these are books I've read time and time again and it doesn't matter how often I fall asleep when reading them because I already know them word for word.

There are others that I read when I am excited and can't concentrate - usually just before I travel. Again I know these books inside out but I know that as I read them I will become immersed deep within them and time will pass quickly.

Then there are the books that you know will make you cry. I'm not talking about a sad passage in a book (the bit in Good Wives where Beth dies for instance is sad but over all the book is a happy one) but the ones that are *really* sad. Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zevin is one of these, as is If I Stay by Gayle Foreman. Actually when I look at my shelves I have quite a few of this type of book.

These are books that I read knowing they are going to make be feel awful at the time but also knowing that once I've sobbed my way through them I'll feel better.

There are a few films like that too (Beaches, and Graveyard of the Fireflies for example), but as a rule I turn to my favourite books as it is easier to hide away with a novel than it is with a film or at the cinema.

I broke this rule last week when I went to see Third Star at the cinema. I knew what the film was about and I knew it was going to be moving. I might just have under anticipated just how sad it was going to be and just how much it was going to affect me. Gulp.

There are many reviews out on the web of this film but even now, a week after I saw the film, I can't write about it without wanting to cry again. The summary from IMDB probably gives the best taster with least danger of spoilers:

James and his three closest lifelong friends go on an ill-advised trip to the stunning coastal area of Barafundle Bay in West Wales. What follows is a touching and comical adventure dealing with friendship, heroism and love.

However despite sniffing my way through the film, and looking decidedly unattractive on leaving the screen thanks to the red eyes and nose the movie was incredible. The locations were stunning, the actors very good and the whole roller coaster of emotion played beautifully. It felt real and just like those books I turn to regularly this is going to be a film I know I am going to watch and re-watch.

Theatrical Interlude 8

Flare Path, Theatre Royal, Haymarket, May 2011

I can't entice Mr Bookworm to London that often and so having planned a weekend in the 'Big Smoke' I thought I'd make the most of it and as well as seeing Much Ado About Nothing at the Globe I decided that we should see something else.

I read Flare Path recently without knowing that there was a London performance and then got very excited when I discovered that it was currently playing. When I found that there were good seats left for the night we were in London I decided on the spot that this was the second play we were going to see.

I hadn't told Mr Bookworm much about it at all, just that it took place over the course of one evening and featured a WW2 airbase. He trusted me and in the end loved it.

The play in itself is I suppose quite slight. The wives of an air crew are all at a hotel near to their husband's airbase and it seems like they will all have one night together when a mission is scrambled. The play is then about the tension felt by the crews and the families during and after a mission. There are another couple of plot strands but I don't want to 'spoil' the play in anyway. The slow drama and the what ifs are what make the play so watchable from curtain to curtain.

The two acts flew past and the whole play felt very much like watching a black and white war movie that was actually written and filmed during WW2 - which isn't surprising as Rattigan did write the play in 1941 and it premiered in 1942.

I think that there were a lot of people in the audience who had gone to see this because Sienna Miller was playing one of the lead roles, and that they either didn't know what to make of the play or didn't like it as there were lots of grumbles about it being 'dated'. I didn't find it at all dated - just a beautiful period piece.
Sienna Miller might also have got top billing for her role but I don't think that hers was the main part in of the play, important yes but not the lead. Again hard to say more without fear of a spoiler...however I found it to be a perfect ensemble piece without a weak link.

It was a magical experience and I will certainly make more of an effort to see more Rattigan plays as they are performed. The balance of pure 'Englishness', humour and emotion worked it's spell over me.

For those worrying about Mr Bookworm being bored by the theatre - don't be.

He assures me he enjoyed both plays and then on the Sunday we did go to the Science Museum to watch the Hubble Space Telescope 3d IMAX movie which although I enjoyed is certainly more his thing than mine!

Theatrical Interlude 7

Much Ado About Nothing, The Globe Theatre, May 2011

There is much buzz about Much Ado as there are currently 2 versions playing in London. One in the heart of the West End starring David Tennant and Catherine Tate and one at The Globe. You can guess which one is attracting most press attention...

We saw the RSC version at the Globe and had a great time. It isn't a play I knew before hand. I'd read a little of it but hadn't managed to read the whole thing but I knew the main story points. I always (and erroneously) equate Shakespeare with school, exams and being serious but this was frequently laugh out loud funny and unlike in many plays I've seen the actors do bounce off the audience.

It took me quite a while to get my ear in to the language of the play. I know that it is English but I did find at times that the words were washing over me like a foreign film and I felt like subtitles would have helped. It didn't detract from the play at all just felt dream like to me at times - I don't think I missed anything as the acting clearly told the story.

It was a special feeling to see a play in the same conditions that it would have been seen originally, and the Globe is unlike any other theatre I've been to as it isn't dark in the auditorium, the audience moves around and you are sat on pretty uncomfortable benches rather than soft seats. You also don't get too make squeaks from the audience as pigeons swoop in at mainstream theatres...

We were lucky and the rain held off until just as the play finished but the stage crew were already striking the Much Ado set and rebuilding it for All's Well which was playing in the evening.

I'm going back to the Globe later in the year and I will make sure that I have watched/read/listened to more Shakespeare before hand so that my ear is in tune from the very beginning - the Bard's work hasn't survived by chance and now I know what to expect at the Globe I want to do it far more justice.

Saxophones and voices

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

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

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

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

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

Penguin Cafe, Norwich Theatre Royal. May 2011

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

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

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

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

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

Books to read?

2011 was declared the year of books by the BBC and there have been many wonderful book programmes on the various channels - some adaptations, some histories and some documentaries. What there isn't however is a television book review show.

Sky Arts however has such a programme. Each week three authors are interviewed about their newest books, we get sneak peeks into the places that authors write and also someone makes a book club suggestion in their favourite bookshop. My 'to read' pile has grown enormously since I discovered the show. The programmes are also often broadcast from the major literary festivals which is lovely if you can't get to them.

This season there is a new feature at the end - each of the three main guests has to recommend the book that they think everyone should read before they are 21. And this is where my problems start.

The instant you tell someone they *have* to read something they are likely to be perverse and instantly refuse to do so.

Also the books that have been chosen?
Just last week the three books were True Grit by Charles Portis, Lord of the Flies by Golding and The King James Bible. Out of those three I can see an average under 21 starting True Grit because of the film, dismissing Lord of the Flies as a set text and laughing at the idea of reading the Bible.

The week before the choices were Atlas Shrugged by Rand, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Solzhenitsyn and My Antonia by Cather. The full list can be found here.

There are a lot of classic books on there, but I think that they are better discovered later in life, when you can read them for fun and through choice rather than seeing them as a chore or a flashback to literature study.

If you want to create readers and people who enjoy books then I feel you should either pick books that really will appeal to the under 21s or change the title of the segment to "Books you shouldn't read" - the best way to get someone interested in something is to ban it!

The only person, so far, in this series that seems to understand this is Malorie Blackman who recommended a (challenging) graphic novel.

Now I realise that I do have a problem with reading lists and being told to read things but I really do think that this segment of an otherwise good programme is out of touch and if well meaning friends and relatives print the list off as a suggestion to a young person you'll create a person who thinks books are dull faster than anything.

This is also a long, roundabout way to confess that I have failed to read the 6 books for the Writers' Centre Norwich Summer Read. I will try again but it won't be in time to read along with the project.

The Play's the Thing

As has become clear from my blog entries in 2011 I have started going to the theatre a lot more, and this has changed my reading habits somewhat too.

In some ways I am reading more as a lot of the plays I've seen have been in London and so I get about 4 hours of reading time on the train, well except when I go the roundabout route so I can travel with friends - then not so much reading gets done!

In a more profound way going to the theatre is changing my reading habits because I am reading a lot of the plays in advance of seeing them. Some of them I am reading because I have no previous idea of the plot and I like to be a little aware in advance and in other cases it is because I have read one thing by the playwright and just have to read more.

I don't quite understand why I am enjoying reading the plays so much as well as seeing them.

It is totally counter to how feel about books v film after all. I am wondering if it is perhaps because in a play you do tend to just get the dialogue and no background and it takes the actual performance to fill that in, where as with a novel my brain creates the whole world for me and then the adaptation never lives up to this.

I only studied English to GSCE level and we did read two plays then - An Inspector Calls and Romeo and Juliet - I don't recall what I really thought of them at the time, but as we only had the scripts in class and read them communally I am sure that the experience was probably a little excruciating. We also watched the film versions of the plays and again neither did anything for me as I remember. It probably didn't help that due to lesson lengths the films were split into 3 or 4 parts to fit the timetable!

The first play that really touched me was the one we studied for German A-Level - Max Frisch's Andorra. I think that we read it in the original German but I do know that it was being performed somewhere in London at the time and we went to see it. Googling has not helped in this case but thinking back on it now I do recall the whole thing coming to life so vividly. It was the first time I had seen a live play and not a musical and certainly the first time I'd see a play that I had read. I know that the two complemented each other perfectly.

Last autumn I had a similar experience when I saw Aeschylus's Agamemnon in Cambridge. I had read the play in translation a few years ago but seeing this version in the original language (which I don't speak) was amazing. I knew the story and that was enough to get the idea of the play, the language just flowed over me and although possibly not something I will do regularly (not least because the Greek Play season only happens every three years!) I was swept away in the story. Something I wouldn't have been if I hadn't read it before.

The more I think about why I like reading and seeing plays the more ideas are coming to me. Live theatre holds my attention far more than a film does. At home I rarely give my whole attention to a film, I'll flit about and read as well as watching. In the cinema I rarely relax into the experience, and if the film is 3D I am even worse as the glasses have to sit over my own and peering through 2 pairs (or the 3D visuals) always gives me a headache.

In a theatre however there are real life people just a few metres from me giving their all. Each performance has to be slightly different as actors are humans and not pre-programmed robots and usually there are other details, such as set and lighting, to take in as well as the words.
There is something very special and personal about the whole proceeding.

At the moment I have just finished reading Emperor and Galilean in advance of seeing it at the National Theatre later in the year and have Lady in the Van, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Much Ado About Nothing (version at the Globe), Twelfth Night and the Tempest lined up. I've also snuck in a reading of Flare Path as I'd love to see that if I can fit it in!

Thank heavens I work in the library and can get my books for free and spend my money on tickets!