Will post a proper post at some point but for those who are interested in the list of performers from last night – I believe i have chased up all the names:
Martin White – Did the attempt at a random catchy tune – DaNgErous! (Helen Arney helped with keyboard) Helen Arney – Also performed songs on ukulele Marcus Chown – Did awards show for scientists (author of We need to Talk about Kelvin) Matt Parker – Standup maths on homeopathy and ancient civ of Woolworths Joanna Neary – Did the two characters (olde worlde housewife diary and psycho children’s entertainer) Darren Hayman – Did the protons and neutrons song Simon Singh – Bit on Katie Melua song Helen Keen – It is Rocket Science – satanists andnazis oh my! Baba Brinkman – Rap on creationists….for the people in the room who couldn’t understand what he was wanting you to respond with (like someone I was with) – it was “We off that”
Is there anyone I missed?
This is the program we caught one late night on TV that made us want to go:
The concession stand sells delicious ice cream from Jersey – we had chocolate and a toffee caramel flavour. I need to find out the brand it was - delicious (even better than the ice cream at the Sage). I definitely want to return, which is good since some people from work want to go see Alfie. It’s a reasonably priced night out.
I realised on the way over that it was actually my first time visiting a small regional theatre.
Now for the play. Lotty’s War is by By Giuliano Crispini. Directed by Iain Davie. Set design by David Crisp. Costume Design by Susannah Tidy. Produced by Giddy Ox. Katie Howell as Lotty, not sure the names of the actors who played General-Major Rolf Bernburg and Ben.
Lotty is 17 at the start of the play, we meet her and her best friend and romantic interest Ben as carefree and playful youths. Her mother and sister leave to England before the occupation and when Guernsey is attacked and her father is killed, she is left alone in her house which is taken over by Nazi General-Major Rolf Bernburg. While other people are referenced by the characters these are the only people in the play. All the action takes place in Lotty’s kitchen.
My companions were amazed by three actors being able to hold their attention for that long and tell a complicated story. There are loads of positive reviews kicking about, calling this a brave play at a time when Britain is occupying two countries and also commending it for exploring a little-known part of history…I wanted it to be better.
This review pretty much sums it up for me though I would blame the writer and the director more than the actors who do what they can with what they’re given.
The first half feels long. At the end of the play it made me question whether, in a meta way, they were trying to give me a little taste of the long years of occupation. There are some interesting ideas in the play about the psychological toll of long term occupation, the ability to identify or understand or love one’s captor, the requirements placed by one’s people or country, and just rewards in the face of survival.
Time going by is marked by the radio news. Unfortunately there are no visuals to back up the sense of time passing so the transformations in the characters can sometimes seem abrupt.
I was concerned that this would be another warm fuzzy Nazi story. While I don’t require that stories about WWII should resemble old school Westerns with a villain in a Black hat and a hero in a White ten gallon hat, and I accept that many Nazis were people in difficult situations, who compartmentalised their lives, I don’t want to ever forget their victims or turn them into bigger victims by the stories that get told.
I also felt that the power difference between a 17 year old girl and a Nazi general in his 40s/50s or so was not written sharply enough. He is civilised and they are portrayed as near equals with equivalent power. (Though in a discussion with a friend he pointed out that in those years that may have been a more reasonable age gap between men and women.)
Overall, I felt there were some interesting ideas and in Neil McEwan’s words in his review they “failed to match ambition to delivery.” I was left wanting a strong editor / director to shape it.
On an amusing note, the Nazi and I, as foreigners shared something in common in the middle of the play. Neither one of us had seen a panto.
Kev and I went to see Video Games Live at the Sage – Northern Sinfonia performing music from video games.
Possibly the only time we will see Northern Sinfonia at the Sage decked out in Threadless Gaming T-shirts.
Kev was wearing:
I was wearing:
Would have been just as happy wearing:
Some photos from the evening:
The show was good fun. Multi-generational audience. Our only lament was that we weren’t seeing it in the US or Japan where it would have been sure to sell out and more people would have been dressed up.
Jack Wall was the conductor, Tommy Tallarico was the MC. It turns out he composed the music to one of the games I used to play Earthworm Jim (also loved the cartoon). Martin Leung the video game pianist also performed including a rendition of Super Mario blindfolded. There was also a skype video chat with Marty O’Donnell.
You can watch a good chunk of it with the youtube playlist below.
Went with Kevin to see Gethsemane at the Theatre Royal in Newcastle on opening night on Tuesday. It is on until Saturday (with matinees on Thursday and Saturday.)
I love playwright David Hare. One of my all-time favorite theatre experiences was written by him – Dame Judi Dench starring in “Amy’s View,” from the third row center on Broadway. At the end of the first act I actually gasped. I also thoroughly enjoyed his “The Vertical Hour.” His ability to write emotional dynamics for brilliant actors makes for thrilling theater. (Andrew Scott was my discovery for that production.)
“Gethsemane,” deals with recent British political scandals and the brutal compromises people at all levels make. Reviews: Ion Oxford Tube (I like this one’s description of the set.), Guardian, Telegraph, Evening Standard, Independent, BBC Newsnight panel discussion (I don’t agree with what the panel says but the intro features a good synopsis of the play.). The reviews are mixed, glowing or unnecessarily harsh.
Tamsin Grieg is flawless as a beleaguered politician. Amusingly, I had to point out to Kevin where he knew her from – the very awesome Black Books (Booklovers, misanthropes, Dylan Moran and Bill Bailey fans all should see this immediately.).
Stanley Townsend plays shady fundraiser Otto as a cross between Boss Hog from the Dukes of Hazzard and a mobster from a Guy Ritchie movie – it works. One of the people on the BBC Newsnight panel called the character anti-Semitic, as does the article here. He is a sleazy character in the play and for those playing guess the political figure he is based on – he would seem to be based on Lord Levy, a Jewish, former fundraiser for the Labour party. There is nothing in the play to suggest he is Jewish. The only connection is in the minds of those watching associating the character with a real person. There is nothing to suggest this character represents the Jewish people. I find it dumb and offensive for it to be labeled anti-Semitic.
The rest of the cast are as follows: Jessica Raine plays the troubled daughter of Tamsin Greig’s character Meredith. Gugu Mbatha-Raw is Meredith’s adviser. Nicola Walker is the idealist teacher Lori, Daniel Ryan plays her highly-educated and simple husband who works for Otto. Pip Carter is Otto’s world-weary assistant Frank. Anthony Calf plays the prime minister (Kevin hated his performance, I didn’t mind it.). Adam James plays a sleazy journalist.
The set by Bob Crowley is well done, a modern-looking white box which serves convincingly as a number of different settings with the addition of a few props and at times the use of it as a projection screen. Fast-paced videos to music are also projected onto it to serve as transitions between scenes. See this review for a nice description or another more detailed description can be found at Vocal Eyes (See the Show Notes downloads.). They do audio-descriptions at performances for blind and partially sighted people. They will be at Saturday’s upcoming matinee in Newcastle and in Cambridge on Saturday the 21st.
The criticism I would levy against the play is it seems to still be rough. It seems at times like the outline for an outstanding play / story with the plot elements in place but the nuanced emotional dynamics that I like in his plays are just not fully there.
Learned a new word from the play – Gesthemane. Gesthemane is a garden at the foot of the Mount of Olives (Gat Shmanim in Hebrew) believed to be the place where Jesus spent the night before the crucifixion in great anguish / doubt. Religion is brought up a few times in the play. In addition to the emotional dynamics this is another place where I think it could have had more meat.
Gateshead Millenium Bridge
The weather was not too cold. We parked on the Gateshead side of the river and walked across the Millennium Bridge to the Theatre Royal. This way we didn’t have to navigate Newcastle’s many one-way streets. It was a really pleasant walk. On the way back the water in the river was so still the reflections of the lights from the bridges and buildings were amazing. We definitely want to go back for an evening to take photos on long exposures with a tripod.
Went to see Lotty’s War at Middlesbrough Theatre, on Friday, a play on the theme of the German occupation of Guernsey. I recently read 
The first half feels long. At the end of the play it made me question whether, in a meta way, they were trying to give me a little taste of the long years of occupation. There are some interesting ideas in the play about the psychological toll of long term occupation, the ability to identify or understand or love one’s captor, the requirements placed by one’s people or country, and just rewards in the face of survival.
(Booklovers, misanthropes, Dylan Moran and Bill Bailey fans all should see this immediately.).