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We need career development loans

What with Brexit and the football I suppose there’s never been a better time to bury bad news. Of course there was no gushing, flowery press release to announce what I have found quietly posted on the Gov.uk website. This, copied and pasted verbatim, is what it says:

The Professional and Career Development Loan scheme is closing. You must apply by 25 January 2019. This will not affect your existing loan.

In just three sentences, that stark announcement shatters the training prospects of hundreds of potential performers who want unadulterated vocational training or any form of “alternative” training – as opposed to anything called a degree offered in a drama school or university whose students are entitled to student loans.

Some people have used PCDLs to pay for foundation courses or postgraduate degrees too – but now they can’t.

PDCLs are (were) offered by banks, usually Barclays or the Co-op. They would lend over-18s who fulfilled UK residency criteria anything between £300 and £10,000 at a reduced rate of interest to pay for career-advancing courses and training. They were available for careers of all sorts but, obviously it’s performing arts I’m concerned about here.

The government paid the interest while the borrower was studying. Well, I have no figures so I don’t know what this arrangement cost the tax payer but since we are talking interest only for a relatively small group I can’t believe that, in the scheme of things and in national terms, it was a huge amount. This penny-pinching decision smacks of ignorance and anti-elitism. I can imagine some civil servant and/or junior minister who knows nothing whatsoever about the performing arts industry, apart from taking his/her kids to panto each year, saying “What do they need career development loans for?  Let’s axe them. They can go to university and get a student loan if they want to train.”

Everyone in the industry is working  proverbial socks off to be inclusive. We want performers (and theatre technicians) to emerge from backgrounds of all sorts. Eddie Redmayne and Damian Lewis (both from privileged backgrounds)  are excellent actors but we need Patterson Joseph and Michelle Dockery (both from working class families) as well. A decision to end PCDLs will make it even more difficult for wannabe performing arts professionals whose families are unable to support them.

There’s no such thing as one-size-fits-all training. Of course drama school and university is the right route for some although many families, often debt-averse all their lives, are very doubtful about tuition fees even though they don’t have to be paid back until quite a high income threshold is reached.

But there are some students who want a different sort of training – perhaps with an independent provider. Others take an ill-advised university course, realise at the end that they’re not industry ready and have to train vocationally elsewhere – but they’ve already used their student loan entitlement on the degree.

PCDLs were a lifeline for students like these. Now that such loans have gone many of them will simply not be able to pursue the career they want – irrespective of how talented they are. There are a few scholarships about but “few” is the operative word.

And if some talented young people fall at the first hurdle because they can’t fund their training they will have no option but to go away and do something else. And the industry will be a poorer – less diverse – place. Made so by a short-sighted government decision.

Theatretrain – Special Measures – Sadlers Wells Theatre

Star rating: three stars ★ ★ ★ ✩ ✩

Styling itself “the company that loves to perform”, Theatretrain is a part-time children’s training organisation with branches all over the country.

It makes a specialism of bringing together groups of branches to stage big scale shows which they’ve rehearsed back in their weekly sessions.

Special Measures, the first of two shows at Sadler’s Wells, featured 400 children from Theatretrain branches in Basingstoke, Bristol, Maldon, Basildon, Southampton, Cambridge, Loughton and Reading ….

Read the rest of this review at Musical Theatre Review: http://musicaltheatrereview.com/theatretrain-special-measures-sadlers-wells-theatre/

 

De La Warr Pavilion, Sunday 1 July 2018

An hour with Rodgers and Hammerstein is, on a glorious summer evening by the sea, a welcome reminder of just what a skilled melodist and sophisticated orchestrator Richard Rodgers was.  No wonder so many of his songs are right under our collective skin and deep in the loyal Bexhill audience members who enthusiastically filled the De La Warr Pavilion to the gunwhales for this concert.

The first half took us through well chosen extracts from Oklahoma, The Sound of Music, Carousel and South Pacific – in a whole range of moods and formats. Rene Bloice-Sanders, a fine operatic tenor whose resonance and intonation is spot on, sang “Oh, What a Beautiful Morning” and “Some Enchanted Evening” with carefully controlled warmth and nicely managed dynamic. Lucy Ashton’s smiling personality comes through as strongly as her rich soprano voice and she seemed to be enjoying “I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair” as much as the audience and choir were.

The Bexhill Festival Choir, trained and led by Lorraine Barry, meanwhile did a sterling back-up job. Mostly they achieved a rich tone – with only occasional thinness in the more challenging bits – and it’s encouraging to see amateur singers working with such verve, heads and eyes up.

That confidence was at least in part due to Ken Roberts who is an assertively supportive conductor – giving the choir almost full attention when they’re singing. He also coaxed a pretty good sound out of the 40 musicians in the orchestra although there were signs that some of the music was under-rehearsed. The Carousel Waltz is a medley and every musician knows that these are some of the hardest things to bring off because the joins are so tricky – and in this performance the trickiness sometimes showed. Elsewhere in the concert some of the instrumental solo work would have benefited from a bit more work behind the scenes too.

Ken Roberts – whose link chat was arguably unnecessary anyway – really should cut the ageist jokes too. I’ve heard him before making unfunny comments about age and it does not go down well – probably the only moments in the whole evening when there was a momentary sour note.

The second half provided the party that most people in the audience had come for, having bought or brought their little union flags ready to wave. Now, to be honest, all that jingoistic stuff, however tongue-in-cheek, isn’t my cup of tea. I identify strongly with Elgar who loathed  Benson’s words to Pomp and Circumstance March No 1  (although it didn’t stop him enjoying the royalties). Nonetheless it was good to hear Coates’s nostalgically familiar Calling All Workers played with crisp affection. It’s fun too to hear Henry Wood’s Sea Songs played live because the orchestration is so colourful. And the audience was having a whale of a time.

First published by Lark Reviews: http://www.larkreviews.co.uk/?p=4454

Intermission Youth Theatre, St Saviour’s Church, Knightsbridge

This is a pacey, engaging version of Othello for now. Darren Raymond’s version, developed from workshops with members of Inter-mission Youth Theatre, sets the play in a gym using a boxing ring as the focus for intimate in-the-round theatre. Othello (Kwame Reed) is a champion boxer. Other characters are part of that community. Even the title is multilayered because here it’s a ring (not a handkerchief) which leads Othello to his fatal final act of jealousy.

The text uses modern colloquial English seamlessly interspersed with Shakespeare’s language and that works beautifully and sometimes wittily. The idea of Brabantio (Tristram Anyiam) becoming incensed because Othello and Desdemona (Esther Odejimi) having been seen together in Nandos is funny but it works.

Also fascinating is that this is a predominantly black cast. If none of the main characters is white (and you manage the text carefully) the racism simply disappears from the play. Instead it becomes a tightly focused, universal tragedy about jealousy. And I loved the ending which, by borrowing a little something (no spoilers) from another Shakespeare play, presents an even more devastating conclusion than the original.

Baba Oyejide is an understated but chillingly effective Iago. There’s no malevolent leering at the audience when he’s lying to other characters. Instead he is flanked by a pair of commentators (Nyomi Wright and Tammi Blake – both good) who voice and echo his thoughts – a device which sits very successfully here. Oyejide makes Iago seem shockingly plausible. It’s fine acting.

Reed’s performance is intelligent and moving as he works the shift from an innocent quasi boyfriend to a girl he really loves all the way to a possessive, violent, crazed, jealous man. He speaks the lines – both sorts – with naturalistic conviction and is a good actor to watch.

Lovely work from Odejimi too as a confident Desdemona (Dezzy) mad about Othello and really puzzled when he turns against her. The strangling scene is one of the most convincing I’ve ever seen.

And they’re ably supported by a strong cast consisting of a mix of current Inter-mission Youth Theatre members and former members, many of whom are now working professionally.

Inter-mission Youth Theatre was founded ten years ago by Bishop Bob Gillion, his wife Janine and Darren Raymond. It operates from St Saviour’s Church, Knightsbridge which is still a functioning place of worship as well as a theatre. Inter-mission Youth Theatre is an arts-based youth mentoring programme, now including outreach activities. It works with 16-25 year olds from across London who are “lacking opportunities, at risk of offending, ex-offenders or aspiring young actors”. Darren Raymond, an inspiring man and role model is artistic director, having discovered Shakespeare in 2004 when as he says: “I was not in a very good place”.

Mark Rylance, about to play Iago at The Globe is Inter-mission Youth Theatre’s patron was supportively in the audience the night I saw Ring of Envy. A former IYT member is cast in the forthcoming Globe production and was also in the audience.

In short this is an admirable initiative which has changed the lives of over a hundred young people in the last decade. It is also the creator of some jolly good theatre. Ring of Envy is a good show by any standards.
 First published by Sardines: http://www.sardinesmagazine.co.uk/reviews/review.php?REVIEW-Intermission%20Youth%20Theatre-Ring%20of%20Envy&reviewsID=3249

Shakespeare at the George

It is a great credit to director Lynne Livingstone and her imaginatively managed, accomplished cast of 21 that this Richard III tells its complicated story with crisp clarity and makes every line work for a 21st century audience – without losing the rhythm, elegance and beauty of the verse. It’s what you expect from an RSC show directed by Gregory Doran. It’s quite a feat for a company of amateurs.

This SATG show is staged, as usual, in The George Hotel’s beautiful and atmospheric enclosed Jacobean courtyard. It makes good use of balcony, side steps and three access points through the audience. Considering how small the space actually is this is a Richard III which conveys a pretty strong sense of large scale national events changing English history for ever.

Dean Laccohee, a highly engaging Richard, presents a man privately in agony caused by his disability. Shakespeare’s play (Tudor propaganda) probably maligns the historical figure by presenting him as a ruthless villain without redeeming features. Is he, in fact, corrupted by the dreadful pain he has to live with but which he never allows to show in public? It’s an interesting idea. Laccohee delivers the great speeches with malevolent freshness and has a knack of grinning conspiratorially at the audience when he’s lying to, or duping, someone on stage. It’s a powerful and well judged performance.

Rob Barton delights as Buckingham too. He expedites Richard’s orders with sinister good humour until it comes to the despatching of the young princes when his conscience kicks in. Barton finds and develops real depth in this man who banters smilingly with his friend Richard but later, as the tide turns, pleads for the honours he’s been promised and crumples.

There’s strong work from the women in the cast as well, especially Alex Priestley as the anguished Queen Elizabeth whose sons, arguably the rightful heirs to the throne, perish in the tower, Her grief, anger and disbelief are movingly convincing.

If you run, more or less, with the natural light in an evening open-air show as this production does, the use of low level stage lighting at dusk is very effective. Red lights, lots of billowing stage smoke, Roy Bellass’s (recorded) evocative music and thoughtfully choreographed slow motion fighting make for a moving Battle of Bosworth. Finally Richard’s famous desperate demand for a horse cuts through it and soon we have the gravely triumphant Richmond (Luke McQuillan, eyes alight and rhetorically eloquent) taking centre stage and crown as Henry VII.

I saw this commendable show the night after I’d seen Blanche Macintyre’s The Winter’s Tale at The Globe which I found wanting and disappointing. Head for Huntingdon instead.
 First published by Sardines: http://www.sardinesmagazine.co.uk/reviews/review.php?REVIEW-Shakespeare%20at%20The%20George-Richard%20III&reviewsID=3248

 

Shakespeare’s Globe

Shakespeare’s wistful, whimsical late plays (The Tempest and Cymbeline too) are pretty wordy and need pacing carefully if they’re to work dramatically. We’re a long way in every sense from the energetic action of, say, Henry V or A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Sadly Blanche McIntyre’s The Winter’s Tale has little dramatic thrust and there are scenes in which unremarkable actors seem merely to be delivering the lines they’ve learned. And on press night the first ten minutes was woeful – mostly inaudible. Let’s assume (hope) that was down to opening night nerves.

The very best thing in this show is lithe and shaven-headed Will Keen as the deeply troubled king, Leontes who wrongly suspects his wife, Hermione (Priyanga Burford) of adultery, imprisons her and orders her newborn baby to be abandoned. Keen has a knack of speaking his lines in a notably naturalistic, fresh way so that his anger, anxiety and obsessiveness become totally convincing. Leontes behaves very badly but Keen ensures that we feel real sympathy for this deluded, mistaken man. And at the end of the play he persuades us that Leontes really does deserve the forgiveness and redemption he receives – a feat not achieved by every actor in this role.

Also strong is Sirine Saba as the feisty Hermione – one of Shakespeare’s really interesting, challenging female roles up there with the likes of Cleopatra, Beatrice, Lady Macbeth and Viola – who stands up to Leontes and “manages” the play’s famous Pygmalion-like scene at the end. Becci Gemmell both has, and provides, fun in the pastoral scenes as the light fingered but likeable Autolycus and Norah Lopez-Holden is rather good as the sparky teenaged Perdita who has grown up with the shepherds in the wood and fallen in love with Florizel (Luke MacGregor).

Generally speaking, though, this feels like a show which grinds rather than sails to its unlikely conclusion. Other directors make much more of the dancing at the Shepherds’ party which provides some visual interest at the halfway point. Here it is very understated which is a shame because there’s an underused five piece band on the balcony.

There are some very peculiar design decisions too. James Perkins’s set consists of some long slender stands of plywood(?) descending to the stage in front of the main back doors from a geometric pattern of arcs and right angles above. It’s so gentle I didn’t notice it for the first hour. And if it’s symbolic then I’m afraid the inner meaning passed me by. The best design bit is “exit pursued by a bear” which is humorously graphic.

The costumes are an incongruous mess, too. It we’re in the twenty first century (Perdita in jeans, Oliver Ryan as Polixenes in a suit and Autolycus in cut-offs with rucksack) then why does Leontes wear a belted quasi-cassock with golden slippers like something out of Turandot? Why does his young son Mamillius (Rose Wardlaw) wear a Roman tunic with classical border?

I’m afraid this show, which seems vey long especially after the interval, is a thing of shreds and patches.

First published by Sardines: http://www.sardinesmagazine.co.uk/reviews/review.php?REVIEW-Shakespeare%27s%20Globe%20(professional%20productions)-The%20Winter%E2%80%99s%20Tale&reviewsID=3246

One of the hardest things I now have to deal with is My Loved One’s delusions – yet another thing which people who haven’t had close experience of it don’t realise is, apparently, part of Alzheimer’s.

It is both disconcerting and oddly isolating when someone you’ve known for over five sixths of your life and lived with for nearly fifty years starts burbling nonsense.

I first noticed it last year on the way home from a holiday in Malaysia when, in the middle of the night about seven hours into the twelve hour flight, I was informed that the aircraft hadn’t left the ground and that the airline staff were “messing about”. Incredulously I showed MLO the flight map and told him we were over Russia at 35,000 feet but he wasn’t having it. “You’ve got more faith in British Airways than I have” he spat contemptuously. It took me a long time to convince him.

Does altitude, cabin pressure and so on affect an Alzheimer’s-polluted brain more than it impacts on the rest of us? Who knows. We’re going to Washington DC in September on the grounds that MLO has said he’d like to go back there and I think, in that case, that we’d better do it while we can. I’m apprehensive about what effect the flight might have, though, and am planning to book airport and airline support in case I find myself with a serious delusional problem on my hands.

But perhaps it’s nothing to do with flying. Back home he told me in the small hours after he’d popped out to the loo one night that he couldn’t turn off the bathroom light because “there are people in there”. Then there was the day, a couple of weeks ago, when he phoned me while I was out working to tell me, because he thought I should know straightaway that “Someone has had a baby”. He seemed to think that he had to take charge of said infant. Blimey! Dealing with something like that on the phone from a distance sent shivers though me. “No” I said, taking a silent deep breath and speaking with the assertive clarity and simplicity I used to use for students with learning difficulties. “No one we know is having a baby. I think you’re in one of your muddles. Did you nod off? Have you been dreaming?” After a lot of humming, hawing and broken-off sentences he finally acknowledged that I was probably right.

I think incidents like these are mostly related to dreaming. With hindsight he’d probably been asleep on that flight from KL too. If you or I have a dream we surface, think “That was a bit weird” and get on with our day. It no longer seems to work like that once Ms Alzheimer’s is towering over you.  MLO sleeps, dreams, wakes and then can’t separate the dream from real life. It’s as if his fuddled brain is blurring the boundaries although once he’s fully awake, and I’ve talked to him, he will usually admit that he’s “being silly”. And in a way that’s worse because the realisation is inclined to upset him and goodness knows I can understand why. It must be a dreadful feeling.

At present MLO, poor man, is desperately anxious about the forthcoming surgery to remove the now revoltingly prominent cancerous lesion on his face. He seems to be terrified both of the surgery itself – although he’s been repeatedly reassured that it’s a pretty straightforward, minor procedure – and, understandably, of the possible outcome. “Cancer” remains a very emotive word.

Because he’s so worried he seems to dream about it nightly with the result that he wakes up almost every morning convinced that the surgery is happening that day. One morning last week, for example he opened his eyes and said “Now what?” I patiently suggested that we get dressed and have breakfast as usual. “Isn’t it today I’m going to the hospital?” he asked. On the day that I’m drafting this blog he actually got dressed very early. When I asked why he said he had to be ready to go to the hospital. It now seems to be a daily delusion. It’s like a very young child who hasn’t quite sorted out time and keeps asking whether it’s, say, Christmas yet except that in this case it’s driven by dread rather than eager anticipation. The surgery appointment is 10 July. Thank goodness this particular problem should ease then.

I expect some other dream or delusion will replace it, though. I suppose this is what people mean when they talk about patients with dementia being “confused”. In a bygone, less euphemistic, age they would have called it madness. King Lear suddenly seems very relevant.

 

Brush up your Shakespeare? Well yes, Cole Porter, I had plenty of chances to do just that last week when I attended Shakespeare performances on three consecutive evenings: The Winter’s Tale at The Globe on Wednesday, Richard III courtesy of Shakespeare at the George in Huntingdon on Thursday and Ring of Envy aka Othello at Inter-mission Theatre in Knightsbridge on Friday.

I remember, a few years ago, telling someone remote from the performing arts industries that I review a lot of theatre. “Oh” he said, ferreting about for something appropriate to say. “Do you ever see any Shakespeare? I saw a play of his once”. I had to pitch my answer carefully to avoid being unintentionally rude. I thought about that man again as I worked through last week and wondered what he’s make of it.

The interesting thing, for me, about seeing three diametrically different takes on Shakespeare within 72 hours is that it serves as a ringing reminder of the versatility of the material. He really can be made to work for everyone – because I sat in three very different sorts of audiences too.

I didn’t actually like Blanche Macintyre’s understated The Winter’s Tale which featured, I thought, some pretty weak acting, alongside good performances, and became rather wordy and tedious. Several  critics (including Dominic Maxwell in The Times) agreed with me although others admired it and the audience at the time seemed pretty taken with it.  The Globe of course attracts a mixed audience – including theatre buffs, tourists, students and I was amused to see a couple in their 30s amongst the groundlings with a tiny baby in a front sling. You can’t start too young, as the RSC often reminds us.

Shakespeare at the George is, of course, a different kettle of fish. It’s an amateur company – established for 60 years, recalled in fondness by many pros who once cut a few teeth there and well respected locally. I’ve seen maybe 10 of their shows in recent years but I think Richard III, directed by Lynne Livingstone is probably the best yet. She and her company have found a commendable Gregory Doran-esque knack of making the verse sound new-minted so that the story telling never flags. It features several strong actors too which is even more of a feat when you remember that most of them also have completely unrelated day jobs. Who are the audience? Local people of all ages, theatre lovers, Shakespeare buffs along with friends and family of the cast who come from far and wide. SATG has a significant follower base of people who come to the shows regularly too.

And so to Inter-mission theatre and their version of Othello, in many ways the most interesting of the three evenings. The cast for Ring of Envy is a mixture of current Inter-mission youth theatre (IYT) members and former members many of whom are now working professionally. IYT is a arts-based youth mentoring programme which works with 16-25 year olds from all across London. Some are ex-offenders or at risk of offending. The inspiring Darren Raymond, himself an ex-offender who discovered Shakespeare while he was in prison, is a working actor as well as IYT artistic director and writer/director of the plays which develop from workshops with the young people. It’s not just a “worthy” venture. The standard of acting is very high. Ring of Envy is fine, moving, impeccably acted theatre and I had a thoroughly enjoyable evening.

And as for the audience? Lots of actors and directors (and I suspect an agent or two), friends and family including the four year old daughter of the actor playing Emilia along with Mark Rylance who’s a patron and is about to play Iago at The Globe – and lots of others  Another gloriously mixed bunch.

QED. Shakespeare really is a everyone’s playwright. He can – if allowed to –  speak to every man, woman and child irrespective of background, class, education, race, gender or anything else. It’s good to be reminded of that occasionally.