O'Rooney McVoughtie O'Zoot

"Hipster, flipsters and finger poppin' daddies: Knock me your lobes; I came here to lay Caesar out, not to hip you to him. The bad jazz that a cat blows wails long after he's cut out, the groovy are often stashed with their frames; so don't put Caesar down. The swingin' Brutus hath laid a story on you that Caesar was hooked for power: If it was so it was a sad drag, and sadly hath the Caesar cat answered it..."

I'm off to An Audience with Lord Buckley - the last theatrical flourish of this year's AbbeyFest - tonight.

Pray silence for His Lordship's takes on the Bard of Avon (Willie the Shake), Jesus of Nazareth (The Naz) and Charles Dickens (Old Scroogy Scrooge). You dug him before, re-dig him now!

From what I recall of my (mercifully brief) Slim Gaillard period - around the release of Absolute Beginners - I am likely to be talkin' jive for the next week or so. Apologies in advance.

Stitched Up

I been planning to go to the AbbeyFest theatre tonight for Stitching, but I have been saved by Google.

From The Guardian in 2002:

Barely one day into the Edinburgh festival, audiences known for their cast-iron stomachs have staged their first walkouts on grounds of taste.

People left Stitching, a new play by the Scottish writer Anthony Neilson that describes a man masturbating over pictures of women being herded into a gas chamber in Auschwitz. A character fantasises about re-enacting the Moors murders, filming her partner sexually abusing the victims' mothers and putting the footage on the web. She mutilates and stitches up her vagina to the strains of "We will stitch it" from the soundtrack to the children's TV programme Bagpuss.

I think I can do without that particular catharsis, though it seems to be doing well in New York. How unsurprising to find that the useless Mark Ravenhill is a friend and fan of the author.

Festival sponsor I may be, but "include me out".

P.S. Regarding the play's needlework, I seem to recall Ornella Muti had the same idea in 1981's Storie di ordinaria follia, so it's not as if it's even particularly original. Gimme Ms Muti as Princess Aura in 1980's Flash Gordon any day.

R&J

I went to see Shakespeare's R&J performed in the open air at AbbeyFest last night.

Four Catholic schoolboys "get the act of contrition and the conjugation of Latin verbs out of their system by meeting secretly, as if in a midsummer night's dream" to act out the tragic tale of Romeo and Juliet. They soon become swept away, and the rigidity of their daily lives begin to parallel the lives of the characters in distant Verona: roles in the family, roles in society and the roles played by men and women seem to make all the sense in the world, and then suddenly, they seem to make no sense at all. Perception and understanding are turned upside down as the fun of play-acting turns serious and the words and meanings begin to hit home and universal truths emerge.

Personally I could have just done with a production of Romeo and Juliet unencumbered with such a framing but it was still pretty good. If I may be allowed a small quibble, Catholic public school boys in the 50s would be struggling with the Holy Ghost not the Holy Spirit.

The author blogs at http://www.joecalarco.blogspot.com/. The developing production blogged at http://shakespearesrandj.blogspot.com/ and blogs its tour at http://rjontour.blogspot.com/.

For all my earlier reservations, I think it is rather splendid to be able to read the actor playing Romeo's thoughts about his developing performance.

You can still catch the last performance at the Mills tonight.

Mrs Eddy

At the fifth time of asking we finally won the monthly quiz in the Colour House Theatre last night and walked off with a case of red wine as a prize.

I went to see Mrs Eddy there earlier in the week; Christian Science agitprop theatre is a new and hopefully ephemeral category.

Back in April I saw Facades. The writer and director asked me what I thought of it. "It is an interesting historical period," I replied diplomatically.

Much theatre is pomised in AbbeyFest this year.

Hamlet

Every Sunday at 5pm the Factory Theatre company puts on a semi-improvised performance of Hamlet at an "interesting" venue.

Yesterday it was our very own Chapter House. The rather scary modus operandis is explained here. You have to take a prop, so I grabbed my trusty tiffin-box and joined the throng, rather fearful that we were about to get some sort of guerrilla operation along the lines of John Gorman's militant "Masked Poet" from TISWAS all those years ago.

In fact it was great fun, and I was delighted to see my prop featuring prominently. Polonious handed it to Laertes as he bid him farewell on his return to France. Laertes brought it with him when he came back to the court on learning of his father's death, then he and King Claudius kept handing it back and forth between each other as the plot against Hamlet was hatched.

A ruined Chapter House is indeed a fine place to emote:

Tis now the very witching time of night,
When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out
Contagion to this world: now could I drink hot blood,
And do such bitter business, as the day
Would quake to look on.

http://www.seehamlet.co.uk/ for future weeks.

A Another Gill

Sue Johnson went to see the Cardiff Barnsley game on the weekend.

Watching Cardiff City in an FA Cup semi-final may not seem the most obvious way to prepare for a revival of Peter Gill's Small Change in the 250-seat Donmar Warehouse. But Johnston - over and above her long friendship with Cardiff City's Robbie Fowler - had her reasons.

"I can listen to their accents," she says. Small Change is set in the Cardiff of Gill's youth. "Cardiff is not an easy accent and Peter is very precise about what he wants. Somehow there's a lilt in the writing that makes you want to go more Welsh than he is and he clips you back. 'Too Welsh,' he says."

I saw "Small Change" at the National Theatre in 1983. That's a quarter of a century ago, and that's a sobering thought. Come to think of it Peter Gill directed the production of "Speed the Plough" that I mentioned in a post the other day.

Cardiff City to David Mamet: Everything's connected.

One Act Bladder

'Earnest' was apparently Victorian slang for 'gay'; 'Cecily' was a well-known name for rent boys.

Oh dear. The quote from the programme above and a lukewarm review from The Evening Standard, left me fearing the worst as I settled into my seat at the Vaudeville Theatre for Peter Gill's latest. Then the curtain opened, Algernon and Lane started talking nonsense about piano playing, cucumber sandwiches and champagne and all was well with the world.

The Importance of Being Earnest can be classified with Cyrano de Bergerac. If you are capable of watching a production of either without enjoying it then you are so jaded that you should be forbidden from the theatre.

We were also treated to an interval after each act. Two G&T's and two loo breaks greatly enhance any comedy when you are given to arriving as well refreshed as I tend to.

Dance

Charles Dance has been named best actor in the Critics' Circle Theatre Awards for Shadowlands.

I went to see it a few weeks ago, and his is indeed a fine performance in a fine play.

The alchemy of acting, at least for me, resides in the communication of the spaces between the words; impulses repressed, fleeting reactions, inarticulacy even.

There is a moment in the play when Dance - as C.S. Lewis - is standing, with his hands in his pockets, downstage of Janie Dee as Joy as her character tells him some bad news she has received.

You can tell that he wants to reach out to her but somehow can't bring himself to do it, and looks down at the fists bunched in his jacket in a sort of reproach as if they don't belong to him.

I have no idea how one writes, directs or performs such a virtuoso manifestation of a scene, but it is a privilege to see it done.

Now you squids ....

As Colour House completists we are off to see CabareX this evening. Judging by the picture on the right, this may possibly not be quite my thing as I tend towards the world view of Sir Henry at Rawlinson End ......

Like the shock of fondling a raw sausage blindfold at a gay party the significance of the van was made clear. In a florid scriptiform on the side was painted the following: Nice and Tidy, and in brackets, Both A Right Couple Of Pairs, Just Relax And Let Us Do It, and in the right hand corner a crude drawing of the masks of tragedy and comedy labelled Before and After.

The gentlemen owners of this vehicle lodged in the village at the Fool and Bladder and did contract housecleaning but they purported to be resting theatrical artistes. Both were given to striped blazers, orange pancake, obvious wigs, matching handkerchiefs, shaven legs and musical comedy which they visited on the drinking fraternity of the Fool and Bladder with unceasing enthusiasm, until that is old Seth Onetooth put a stop to it claiming "I’m going as daft as a mahogany frying pan".

Great Aunt Florrie’s premise that all musicians were "nice people" had prompted her to place the music room at Rawlinson End at their disposal. And they confessed themselves to be "terribly touched". Henry’s reaction to their presence now was primarily of apoplectic astonishment, after all you don’t expect decent folk to take you up on an invitation, its just downright rudery. "Grrreat Thing" he bellowed "those simpering nancy boys are in the house, get up you stinking blancmange, quick go lock the piano pacey pacey before the.." but it was too late. There were loud theatrical chortles from across the hall, a hint of Cologne, and

(Duet - Nigel Nice and Teddy Tidy)

This impertinent jollity in the middle of an English afternoon left Sir Henry shivering with a red passion. His eyebrows like limp bats, and his face a crumpled tissue upon which a lobster might well have wiped its bottom. "All crime" he declared "is due to incorrect breathing".

Grim faced and cold Henry snatched from the wall the sickle sharp boar tusks he used for defacing Reader Digest, and in moments crossed the hall and flung open the doors of the music room. Startled, Nigel Nice, banjulele held fol de rol, mince mince minced across the room. "Sir Henry, nice to see you, to see you…." Henry’s glare throttled his hypocrisy at birth.

"Do you know what a palmist once said to me? She said - Will You Let Go.

Gentlemen I am a bulldog and you will know my bite is worse".

Teddy Tidy held the piano stool before him. Nigel Nice in an attempt to look invalid put on his glasses and blinked. Stamping in frenzy Henry bellowed the war cry of the Zulu "Whoo Shoo Foo" and adjusting a serviette about his throat "Now you squids prepare for whacks".

The sweet essence of giraffe

And each time I hear your name
Oh, oh, oh, my, my, how, how it hurts
In the wardrobe of my soul
In the section labeled "Shirts"

I caught "The Line Between" in the Colour House Theatre last night. "Two men, one dog and a partially molested Wardrobe are trapped, but before they can escape their rooms, they must first escape their minds."

Perhaps not entirely up my street, but the place was full which is encouraging.

Is there room in the budget for a "sold out" sign?

I am a Human Bean

I went to see Will Adamsdale's "The Human Computer" last night. I enjoyed it, but it defies description. Go to http://thehumancomputer.willadamsdale.com/ for the specification.

It was on in the Battersea Arts Centre, and it struck me that I probably haven't been there since I went with Chalice back in the day to see "MC Jabber", her brother. If you get a chance to see him, he is excellent by the way.

There's a breadcrumb trail from that to me being secretly amused and almost proud after falling asleep at the ballet when Kim dragged me along to see some Matthew Bourne thing, but outraged when Jane fell asleep during the Trevor Nunn production of Hamlet at the Old Vic in 2004.

Different strokes for different folks, and I suppose what's sauce for the goose should be sauce for the gander, but as Will Adamsdale said last night, "you can't win at sex ....... but you can lose".

fin de siècle

Perhaps because I went to both the first night and last night performance of the recent short run at the Colour House, Hedda Gabler seems to be much in my mind lately.

Thus a propos of nothing much at all, I was struck the other day by the way that Hedda Gabler’s romantic imagining of Løvborg's suicide as beautiful is exactly like Dorian Gray’s ultimate rationalisation of Sybil Vane killing herself in Wilde’s novel.

Both were published in 1890 so it is unlikely that one influenced the other. Maybe it was just a morbid fin de siècle notion that was in the decadent air; Edvard Munch was breathing it in Oslo at the time as well.

And yet, I made a belated start on Sunday on the Amundsen and Scott book that Rob sent me.

The first chapter about Amunden’s youth once he moved to Oslo (he would have been a desultory university student around 1890) added a lot of depth to my understanding of the era and location of play; there are echoes like the maid moving out of the family home to look after him etc.

It is also a timely warning against my tendency to generalise. Decadent is just about the last word you could apply to the first person to reach both the North and South Pole, a man who is recongised as the first to traverse the Northwest Passage, and who was lost in June 1928 on a gallant rescue mission.

Quit While You're a Hedda

I went to the opening night of the excellent new production of Hedda Gabler in the Colour House Theatre last night.

It's a very interesting reading of the play. Jonathon Roberts makes Jørgen such an agreeable chap that he never seems pitiful or worthy of contempt, and the lady herself is portrayed more as a victim of circumstance than either a proto-feminist or a bunny-boiling neurotic.

Also, while Hedda Gabler will never be Ibsen's comedy of manners, the cast do extract a fair amount of laughter from the proceedings. Give yourself a treat and go along.

(I bumped into the director in the kebab shop on the way home. What a glamorous life it is.)

Head Start

A new production of a brand new translation of Hedda Gabler is opening in the Colour House Theatre on October 8, 2007. Come and see it or I will drown puppies and kittens in the toxic Wandle. Click here to book.

I remember going to the National Theatre production starring Juliet Sevenson back in the 80s.

For your homework, please invent a Hedda Gabler porn movie name.

Where is thy death?

Sting for Nolte is the tragic tale of Dr Allen Malcolm, a young philosopher whose fiancee gives him tickets to a Sting concert.

Malcolm is caught. Should he lie and tell her that he's delighted? Can he really continue to love anyone who likes Sting?

Our hero then conceives of a solution. If Sting were to remake all of Nick Nolte's films, he would suddenly become likeable. Dr Malcolm could then be happy about going to the concert and still marry the woman of his dreams.

...Simple, or so he thinks!

I'm pretty sure that I read in the paper last night, that this fine sounding play is on somewhere around here on Monday night. I can't find any details online, but if it is that is where I will be.

The Magic of 3

I lapped up The Magic of 3 last night in the Colour House Theatre. AbbeyFest is drawing to a close now. All that is left is the Blues Festival over the weekend and the new KidsFest on Bank Holiday Monday.

I had a whale of a time, as I knew I would, at the magic show. I had prudently dissolved all my inhibitions in the pub before arriving so I volunteered to help with a trick and won - as if I needed another - a bottle of lager.

It also made me remember fondly all the hours I spent as a boy perfecting an overhand false shuffle that retains the entire deck in its original order. I thought it would come in handy when I grew up to be a fast-talkin', smooth-dealin' dude with a lightnin' draw, a secret sorrow and a heart of gold.

GERTRUDE: I suppose you've come to collect your bet... you unspeakable riverboat gambler.

WELSHBORN: I have no intention of holding a lady to any such bargain. Here's the deed to the plantation stolen from your father. Try to think kindly of me when... when I'm away.

GERTRUDE: Away?

WELSHBORN: Castell Coch has been fired upon. My regiment leaves at dawn.

GERTRUDE: Oh, Welshborn! How I've misjudged you!

A Talent to Abuse

The showdon'tell theatre company have brought "Relative Values", one of Noel Coward's less performed works from 1952, to the Colour House Theatre for AbbeyFest, so the profit burglar and I were duty bound to check it out.

It's a good production, but the class obsessed play itself is fairly loathsome. I'm no fan of "Look Back in Anger", but I can begin to understand that there was a need for the Angries to rebel against this sort of drawing room tosh in the Fifties.

It is interesting that "Relative Values" seems dated and obtuse in a way that "The Importance of Being Earnest" - which was on last week - doesn't even though it is twice as old.

Wilde's emphasis, in his fiction as well as his plays, that redemption is earned by kindness and damnation from vindictiveness makes his characters sympathetic as we understand that they are only pretending to be cynical. Coward's - at least in "Relative Values" - are all so vainglorious and self serving that, for all the much lauded wit, they grate rather than ingratiate.

(P.S. You should still go and see it though.)

Earnest

Off to the Colour House Theatre again last night for the thoroughly enjoyable Importance of Being Earnest. Great night, you should go as well. (Also, from the small world department, I see that Peter Gill is doing it with Penelope Keith later this year.)

Apropos of this, I have been working on automatic procedures for generating Wildean nonsense this morning. Think of a word, pull a synonym and antonym out of a thesaurus and then plug into a standard phrase you happen to have about your person. Or make an assertion, drop in a conjunction, then reverse the words ..... etc

A charade being the last refuge of the candid, these days it is considered charming to be indiscreet but indiscreet to be charming ....... etc.

They Came From Woking

AbbeyFest completists that we are we bowled along to the deliriously silly and entertaining double bill of "They Came From Woking" and "The Scriptless Wonder" on Tuesday night.

Here, from his blog, is how cast member Matthew Petty thought the night went. I didn't notice the sound cue glitches and tripped-over lines that he mentions, but I can imagine actors being nervous in what can be a spooky old building. I sometimes feel as if the temperature drops a couple of degrees when light lights go down, and before the performers warm us up again.

As you might expect from the progenitors of a sci-fi comedy you can also find an official group website, Facebook event, and blog posts on last years show.

Off Off Broadway

I've set up a Facebook group for AbbeyFest, and associated some of the shows that are being put on as part of it as Facebook events, as I'm trying to get the hang of how the system might be used to help promote the Colour House Theatre.

I went to see "James Dean is Dead" earlier this week. It was pretty good, but it is difficult to be objective about it because Peter introduced me to Jackie Skarvellis and James Weisz (the writer/director, and the performer) and I had a chat with them before the show. Go figure.

When I googled the title, I found a listing of the Abbey Mills performance on the New York Times website! The link went here, it is blank now as the show has closed but that is one of the weirdest things I've ever seen on the 'net.

Speaking of weirdness, "The Scriptless Wonder" is on next week. When it played last year it was the Sunday Times's number one recommendation, while Sir Michael Gambon in a play by the Nobel Laureate Samuel Beckett cam in fifth. Again, go figure.