Lauren Laverne: Lovely

Arts Ahead 13-19 July from Londonist

Here's this week's Arts Ahead from londonist, with what I hope is a nicely balanced range of arty, dancey and theatrey things for you to choose from this week.

And me? Well, this week I'm seeing Jeff Goldblum in The Prisoner of Second Avenue AND the lovely Jamie Parker in Henry IV Part 1, and Part 2 at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. Back-to-back Shakespeare comes around again.

Yup, it's a busy week. Here's Lyn Gardner from the Guardian giving people some good advice on surviving the six-hour Shakespeare slog tomorrow. (And check out the 47 fainters from a Macbeth show earlier this year mentioned in the comments - a Globe record! Can you believe it?)

I'm really looking forward to tomorrow. Let's hope it's good.

Read the rest of this week's Art Ahead on londonist

Image shows Studies on Light: Twilight, 1859 by Camille Silvy. Private Collection, Paris

Journalism I Love: Laura Barton on Cheryl Cole

I love stuff like this:
www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2009/nov/19/cheryl-cole-new-album-cover

I love the fact that the Guardian must've covered *everything* else going on in the "Whole World" yesterday, and so someone said "Laura? Cheryl Cole. What hasn't been written about her today?"

And presumably someone had to do a whole load of picture research to get this click-through of "other women on album covers looking a bit sideways" gallery together.

I guess it just appeals to my Smash Hits sensibilities. And that bit of me that's always after "That Piece"; the one you can't read anywhere else on the interweb.

Backstage at the National: Rehearsals for Nation

So, an exciting outing today, that began with meeting a lovely girl from the Guardian, and ended with me walking out of the National Theatre's Stage Door. As Some Might Say: squee.

I wasn't all that interested in the particular show that the rehearsal was for (Nation - Mark Ravenhill adaptation of a Terry Pratchett book I'd never heard of), more the fact that I was going to the National. Going backstage at the National. Going backstage to watch a rehearsal at the National. It's such an exciting theatre, I knew it'd be good.

So I was pleasantly surprised to find more than just the rehearsal itself to "get happy" about.

First, in the potentially awkward pre-event drinks, I was grinned at and talked into relaxation by a lovely girl called Sarah who worked at the Guardian. I managed to restrain myself from grabbing her lapels and screaming "take me with you!!" into her face, instead choosing to dwell on mutual friends (Hazel), the nice things about working at VL.com, and the coolness of seeing this rehearsal, before being accosted by brilliant aka girls doing their marketing thang.

(I now realise I should've asked her surname, but these things can't be helped...)

Sarah Guardianista as I'll now have to call her is responsible for this comp: let's hope it works.

Then, while going backstage and seeing the rehearsal itself was brilliant, I was also really drawn to the play, fascinated by Mark Ravenhill, and intruiged by Melly Still... I was expecting a director to be much more neurotic and stressed about however many journos and liggers sloping into her rehearsal. Instead, she was warm, witty and definitely interesting. Mark Ravenhill was also ready for a bit of a down-to-earth chat, rather than a performance of the tortured writer. Nine months of adapting a book you like into a play is kinda just a job when you're him, it turns out.

The one thing I'm less sure about now its later on and I've had "time" (ho ho) to read around the subject, is the humour in the play version of what's meant to be a very funny book: here's Frank Cottrell Boyce telling us what a comic masterpiece Nation is. From what I'd seen in that rehearsal room, comedy was the last thing I was expecting. MR himself quoted something from TP: "it's a book that deals with such serious themes, it could only be a book for children"

What I got from today was big issues, like death, paradise, morality, race, religion. Not funny. But then Frank says:

"Am I making it sound heavy-going? It really isn't. It's funny, exciting, lighthearted and, like all the best comedy, very serious."

All well and good. I just hope the Mark and Melly double-act haven't squashed the funny bits out in favour of drama, cos they might upset some of the big fans out there. We'll see...

Here's what I put together for the VL blog. I'm still looking for a better "voice" for that as well as this. Still unsure and sometimes feeling like I'm floundering in the dark with no / little professional / reader feedback, and all that.

Still, I think practice makes perfect, right? Eventually, at least.

Theatrical Excitement: An Inspector Calls

I've been excited about this for a while now: happily, I've just secured press tix for An Inspector Calls at the Novello Theatre for Thursday night.

And even better, I've been able to persuade JC to come along.

I have to admit, I know very little about the play: I've been trying to keep it that way, so I can actually see something with fresh eyes for a change. I know, I know: it's the sort of thing people (WG) study at school. My school? No sir. Let's not forget I studied Twelfth Night every (exam) year from the age of 11 to 18. A good play, of course, but a studying schedule that won't encourage breadth on the same scale as depth. There's something to be said for teachers that adhere to the National Curriculum, I think you'll find.

So aside from the rain; the awards; and a lead that comes from theatreland rather than celebland, I'm trying to remain in the dark about the play.

I did read this really interesting profile of Stephen Daldry in the Guardian in May. Sounds like a very interesting chap.

Am reviewing for londonist, so watch this space...

Round the Reviews: Sister Act The Musical

You'll remember, I was so excited about seeing this show.

But Sister Act The Musical failed to live up to expectations.

Sure it was fun. There were funny moments. Some of the songs were sweet. The blokes did a good job in their cameotyped(?!) roles.

But my overriding feeling about it was that it was just all a bit crass.

The supposed heart-string-pulling songs seemed manipulative; the set with the giant Jesus feet and the terrible glitterball Mary bordered on obscene. Some of the innuendo was truly awful (JC was most unimpressed when I told him about the bulging pockets line when I got home!) I tried to say as much in a hastily written review for londonist.

Part of me even wondered if anyone with a particularly religious outlook (and admittedly, a slightly out-of-place funny bone) might've actually found it offensive.

I was worried all this negativity might've been because I'd been lucky enough to see the wonderful Billy Elliot all too recently, so I've been round the reviews to see what everyone else was saying...

Charles Spencer has put together one of the most terrible pieces of reviewing I've seen for a while. Here's the opening:

What is it about Andrew Lloyd Webber and nuns?

There has always been something dark and brooding about Lloyd Webber. Could it be that he harbours dark erotic fantasies about nuns?

Jeez. It gets worse:

Among the support, Katie Rowley Jones makes a sweet novice, Claire Greenway is deliciously plump and funny as the over-enthusiastic Sister Mary Patrick, while Julia Sutton plays the oldest, toughest sister more like Jimmy Cagney than a nun.

I wonder if he's ever described a man as "deliciously plump". It's hardly a review of her performance, is it? Oh, and there's the inevitable pun at the end that no-one needs or cares about, but that makes sure the Torygraph gets on the posters:

I suspect this musical comedy about a nun on the run could prove habit-forming.

Good old Billington gave it an appropriate two stars:

What was originally a fairytale fantasy, however, makes little sense in its new, vulgarised incarnation. In the movie, the music arose naturally from the story: there was even a certain wit about seeing a group of wimpled warblers turned into a cohesive unit. But here, long before the heroine has got to work on their larynxes, they are leaping about the stage like showbiz pros telling us How I Got the Calling.

Over at the Times, Benedict Nightingale says:

a rather sweet, sentimental film has been hyped up, coarsened, given what — were the Palladium flown to Times Square — we'd call the big, brash Broadway treatment.

And while I hate to agree with the Daily Mail, I really think that their reviewer (Quentin Letts) is spot on:

I hated its artistic laziness, its predictability, its incuriosity, its idea that disco is divine and that spirituality can never be found in discreet and dignified worship... From the start there is basically one joke: namely, the spectacle of nuns grooving around on the dance floor. I know I may be taking it too seriously but I found myself recoiling sharply from this story's saccharine values and its bullying gaiety.

...

But oh, the clichés. In any comedy involving a large troupe there seems to be this recipe: one fat character (probably with glasses, looking like ex BBC weatherman Ian McCaskill); one old 'un, invariably a hell raiser; one young innocent. They duly turn up here.

I'm sure, along with the two critics I agree with, that it'll run and run. Can't wait til WEW get to see it...

Cultural Magpie: New Musicals

Since new musical Spring Awakening failed to totally impress me, although it was great (read my londonist Spring Awakening review here), I've been on the look out for other new musicals, and having a think about some old ones too.

Exciting news here on the new Phantom of the Opera sequel. It's called Love Never Dies, which strikes me as a cross between a Bond film title, and a Celine Dion song. I wonder what it'll be like?!

Baz Bamigboye (not being a Mail (urgh) reader, I have no idea who he is) says a few interesting things about it. Here's the main stuff, so you don't have to read the Mail yourself:

From what I've heard, it sounds like the best work Andrew has produced in decades. I confess, I didn't know he still had it in him - it's a score of high passion, full of longing and regret.

Director O'Brien noted that the music - and the show's story - are about maturity. "Not only that, but a vast repository of his [Lloyd Webber's] own life and themes are coming back and being newly re-explored."

He added pointedy: "He's not phoning this in - it's all new stuff."

Indeed, it is a completely different sound to the main melodies in the original Phantom show - however, the composer noted that there are a couple of tiny motifs that will be familiar to the many millions who have seen Phantom on stage or screen.

Slater observed that the first Phantom was driven, emotionally, by youthful insecurities. This older Phantom is driven by adult regrets. "It's about choices and consequences," O'Brien added. "This is about the road not taken."

This has me swinging between toe-curling anxiety and appreciative nodding.

1. Clever, making it about maturity (they've learnt something from Mamma Mia! etc)
   
2. Good, it's got a new sound, but still keeps some "tiny, familiar motifs" (well, duh, it's ALW, isn't it?!)
   
3. Positive noises, "full of passion, full of longing, full of regret" - all fine by me
4. Yes, enjoying the use of the Jon Stewart favourite: "phoning it in." And pleased that ALW isn't. Cos I think it'd be quite a complicated process were he to try
   

But what do we do with the news that "the Phantom (is) living in a fairground on Coney Island. He is somehow reunited with Christine, now married to Raoul and with a son"??

Terrible, terrible, terrible ideas. "Somehow" in a plot summary has all kinds of alarm bells a-jangling, right?

I was thinking yesterday about some of the more dreadful lyrics from Spring Awakening, and wondering whether I was being a little harsh, being so down on them. Afterall, the programme notes made sure we were aware that they were deliberately gauche and teenage. But I can't see this as an excuse.

I was sitting on the bus, trawling the musicals of my mind, and this, from the sloppiest of them all, still makes my skin tingle:

Night time sharpens, heightens each sensation,
Darkness wakes and stirs imagination,
Silently the senses abandon their defences
Helpless to resist the notes I write (Phantom)

Then there's this, which is still beautiful after all this time.

Don't listen for those bells, for love is only love
And if it's love you've found, your heart won't hear a sound
But if you're really wise, the silence of his eyes
Will tell you love is only love, and it's wonderful enough (Hello Dolly!)

I could go on. (Please don't.)

Let's hope, wherever ALW's musical odyssey is going with this New York Bond Film Phantom Sequel, he's got a decent lyricist on hand. Charles Hart, Richard Stilgoe, Don Black, that kind of thing.

Other new musicals I've picked up on my magpie rounds:

1. Heathers?? Laurence O'Keefe, who wrote the score for Legally Blonde, is penning the songs; Reefer Madness director Andy Fickman and writer Kevin Murphy are part of the project; and it's got the blessing of the original movie's production team
2. Ghost?? heading to the West End next year, with music by Dave Stewart from the Eurythmics, and Glen Ballard, who produced Alanis Morissette's Jagged Little Pill

For this week's musical dose, I'm heading to the New Wimbledon Theatre for some reassuringly old school fun: Singin' In The Rain.

Altogether now: "Make em laugh, make em laugh..."

More on Madame De Sade

What did I say last time? "It's going to be good."

And, yes, my press seat in row E certainly was. Next to another critic, it was one of the best in the house, and I'm very, very grateful to my boss for handing it over.

However, I wrote "it's going to be good" with regards to the play. And I'm sad to say it wasn't. It took a while, but I finally pulled my ideas into a review for londonist. And other people agreed:

The Times's two stars: "It's lead, gilded lead, highly decorated lead, but still lead."
The Guardian's three stars: "The acting and staging are breathtaking, the play itself is an example of the Higher Tosh"
The Whingers: "It should have served as something of a warning to the Whingers that Madame de Sade was written by Yukio Mishima whose own ritual disembowelment and decapitation (aka seppuku) was severely botched and mocked. Why did he do it? Perhaps he had been obliged to sit through his play once too often."

And so on.

Not many of them talked about the projections on the back of the set. Word counts and lots to say and top-line opinions and all that.

But, given the sumptuous set and all that jazz, I found it really distracting from all that talking, which was, incidentally, where the drama was supposed to be, according to the programme notes:

…the narration is advanced by Racinian tirades - often lengthy descriptions given by a character of some event or perception. Mishima believed that the dialogue itself created the drama and that the brilliance of the costumes and the extravagance of the period would add the necessary visual appeal. (With thanks to the Whingers.)

So, Anna, the little sister is chatting about being in Venice. But not without a ripply water feature on the back wall. There's a description of a fire: cue barely discernible flames rippling, a bit like the water did, on the back wall. And there's a retelling of a riot; so let's have some mismatched images projected... on the back wall.

It really doesn't help when you are trying to listen to the pretty inscrutable, heavy dialogue that keeps coming at you like a barrage of so many fat, unread, improving non-fiction novels on philosophy and morality and more.

Enough already. Either you believe, with Mishima, in the drama of the dialogue, or you don't.

And if you don't, why are you putting on this play again??

Cultural Magpie: Jonathan Jones on the Whitechapel

Here's a great feature in the Guardian on the eagerly anticipated new Whitechapel Gallery.

I'm not always sure about Jonathan Jones. I know he's a genius, and an amazing writer. But I don't always understand what he's writing about, the references he makes. Art isn't my strong point, although I'm learning things all the time.

This piece, however, makes great reading.

I haven't been to the Whitechapel, but I've written about it. And this article, filled with references to people I've been learning more about in the last two years (Mark Wallinger, Cornelia Parker, Nicholas Serota, Cy Twombly, Rachel Whiteread) really gives you a taste of the gallery, the artists involved, as well as the wider city, and the art world as a whole too.

Here's a choice snippet from the end, although I could have picked several from the article:

In this new age, good public art galleries have a renewed vocation. Artists will need supportive environments more than ever, and modern art itself will need powerful champions in a Britain likely to revert to conservatism with both a small and a large C.

Anyway, art isn't everything. The Whitechapel is still surrounded by poverty, and its original, philanthropic purpose remains as urgent as ever. I've left the Whitechapel's most beautiful new space until last. Right at the top of the building, a glass-walled studio enjoys an astonishing view over the neighbourhood, including Hawksmoor's Christ Church and Toynbee Hall. I walked in expecting this to be the swanky new restaurant, but it turns out to be the education room, dedicated to teaching school children about contemporary art. The best view has been kept for them.

Great Writing: Peter Bradshaw

Loved The Bradshaw's review of Revolutionary Road. This, today, at 10.30am, feels like truly great writing.

Frank and April's summer of dashed hope and ruined plans is excruciating not merely because it forces them to admit an existential defeat, but because it shows them a happiness they would never have known, had they never thought of leaving, and also, crucially, a happiness they would never have had in Paris: a happiness of pure, innocent, happy anticipation. Frank and April's dreams were not simply a Chekhovian yearning for Moscow: the plan was not entirely beyond the bounds of possibility, and the likelihood that their marriage would have been just as unhappy in Paris paradoxically reinforces the agonising plausibility of the dream.

Really want to see the film, and read the book now.

Complicit Delays Opening Night

So, there I was, worrying about how best to write a review of the Old Vic's Complicit for londonist as it was press night tonight, when I read they're putting off opening night for another nine days.

The Guardian hints it's because Dreyfuss can't remember his lines. JC then remembers he saw Richard wearing an earpiece during the preview we saw. I can't be so sure.

I hope the delay is because the writer has decided to rework the piece. As far as I was aware, the actors on stage were doing fine; it was the terrible script that needed work. We shall see.

Cultural Magpie: Pickings from the Guardian

News from a pre-work picking through the Grauniad brought out these two jewel-like snippets.

From Lyn Gardner:

Do make the most of Shunt while you can, because the company has had notices to quit the space in the summer.

Which seems like a real shame. I've only been there on a site tour, but it seemed like an amazing space. I must take Lyn's advice, and make the effort to get there before it's all over. Boo.

Second, this from Paul Morely who's got a problem with the future of musicals, mentions this:

Later this year we should see if Bono and the Edge can refresh the musical by tapping into a comic superhero myth. Their Spider-Man, with director Julie Taymor, might yet drag the musical into the 21st century...

Ooh, do you think they'll get The Bubble to sing the theme toon?

Jonathan Miller on Directing

JC mentioned something about this to me just now, saying there was a great piece in the Guardian on Saturday where Jonathan Miller had talked about actors sometimes being people on stage who had simply learnt to say their lines in the right order, and this being a. bad. thing. JC says he remembers enjoying the philosophy part of the article. If this is indeed the same piece, then the following stood out for me:

He (Jonathan Miller) says his philosophy of directing is simply to "remind the audience of what it is like to be alive". He cites Robert Frost's poem "A Considerable Speck", in which a piece of dust on Frost's notebook apparently shows signs of life. "That is what all important art is about. It invites your attention to the previously overlooked and negligible, and shows that the unconsidered is deeply considerable."

From the Guardian on Saturday. Great stuff.

Boris' Cultural Strategy for London

This was yesterday's news, but what with work and needing to see the lovely Lesley in Carousel in the evening (plus Spooks), I didn't get a chance to write about it, either here or on londonist.

So, here's Boris' plan for the future of London's culture.

Happily, there's talk about getting people out to the Boroughs, the continuation of the funky Fourth Plinth plan, and a nice idea about a musical instrument amnesty (backed by everyone from Time Out to Julian Lloyd Webber, it seems) to encourage instrument playing for the young. Never a bad thing.

Lindsey from londonist was quick to point out that it's borough-based support that's got Boris where he is today (next door, not queueing for lunch).

The Guardian and many others focus on the "less hip hop, more high culture" line, which I supposed makes better headlines for the papers.

I guess I'm just pleased it's being talked about.

The London Film Day sounds good. The Story of London event sounds like it's going to mean a lot of work, but I do like the musical instrument amnesty idea.

Talking about making culture "better", whether that's cheaper, more varied, more representative, more accessible, or whatever has to be a good thing.

After however long of no-one hearing anything from City Hall on much at all, at least now we have something concrete from them. And if it's all that Munira Mirza's words (apart from the use of "funkapolitan" to describe our "museums of glass and steel", wherever they are; and "cosmopolitan, multilingual and polychromatic") and not from Mr J himself (can't bring myself to ever use the BoJo moniker, eugh), who cares?

And I'll back Charlotte Higgins as she writes:

"I also agree with the authors of the report when they write the following: "It is often presumed that young people will only like art that they can immediately relate to. Working-class students may be steered towards popular culture like hip-hop, new media and film, on the basis that they will find older art forms like opera or ballet irrelevant. This approach patronises young people and limits their horizons. With proper support and encouragement, arts organisations can play a big role in opening young people's minds, and deepening their appreciation of culture from any time or place." It's about time someone put that thought in black and white."

Fewer events in Trafalgar Square makes my job a little easier too...