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Susan’s Bookshelves: Because of You by Dawn French

One of the things I have tried to do in the fourteen months that I’ve been writing these blogs is to keep the books I choose as varied as possible. Thus we go from classics from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries alongside a few recent books and taking in on the way children’s books, sci-fi, crime, historical fiction, short stories and a lot more. The only things I really can’t do are horror and fantasy which are just not my cup of tea.

But for all my careful eclecticism I’d never have thought of Dawn French. To be honest, I didn’t even know she had written novels – to my shame because there are several and this one was a Sunday Times bestseller last year. Then a friend said how much she’d enjoyed Because of You, So, always keen to widen my ambit, I read it.

Well, I don’t know what I was expecting but what I got was  a thoughtful, compelling novel with some very serious issues at its heart. It’s also very grippingly told and well written but then Dawn French is a communicator, par excellence.

Two couples are in separate rooms in a hospital delivery suite. In either case the first baby is being born.  Both couples are mixed race. Emma is the blonde wife of obnoxiously pushy self centred Julius, a politician with ambitions to be the UK’s first black PM.  Hope is the daughter of a white father and Jamaican descended mother and has grown up in Bristol. She is attended by her student partner Isaac who has come from Liberia to do his degree in London. Things go well at the hospital for Emma and Julius but not for Hope and Isaac.

What follows is a finely evoked depiction of misery, loss, grief and anguish because one baby has died and the other disappears. The reader knows from the outset where the missing baby is and we meet her again – in a completely different set of circumstances eighteen years later as issues ripple down and across the generations. Her boyfriend, Lee, is an utter delight and I wish I knew him in real life.

Of course no one can condone kidnapping but this is a book with a lot of heart in which there are no absolutes. These are – for the most part – good people. Everyone has a point of view and French leads us to see each and every one of them with thoughtful sympathy apart, perhaps, from ghastly Julius who really wants to turn his family’s misfortune into shallow political capital.

French is also – obviously – a comedian so, in amongst the thought-provoking stuff is a policeman named Detective Inspector Thripshaw who really ought to be called DI Malaprop. He never gets a sentence out without some hilarious verbal solecism. What fun French must have had inventing and developing him. But even he is tempered by his tactful, kind, wise junior colleague Debbie – the police officer we’d all like assigned to us if something awful happened.

My friend was right. It’s a jolly good read – and very different from titles such as The Silver Sword, Tenderness and The French Lieutenant’s Woman that I’ve written about recently. Isn’t variety lovely?

Next week on Susan’s Bookshelves: Charles Causley Selected Poems

Show: Rain and Zoe Save the World

Society: West End & Fringe

Venue: Jermyn Street Theatre. 16b Jermyn Street, St. James’s, London SW1Y 6ST

Credits: BY CRYSTAL SKILLMAN. ORIGINAL MUSIC BY BOBBY CRONIN.

 

Rain and Zoe Save the World

1 star

The best thing in this show is the motorbike. Two black-clad actors crouch with wheels while two others ride – pretty dynamically – on top. The whole thing rocks, bucks and suggests speed and danger. Congratulations to whoever thought that up, whether it was director Hersh Ellis or Jasmine Ricketts who directed the movement.

Otherwise it’s hard to find anything positive to say about this overlong, laboured tale of two American teenagers, both with family issues, who run away to join a protest and change the world. As quest stories go it’s woeful: predictable and pedestrian. Half an hour in, I was gritting my teeth at the laboured, didactic dialogue (yes, we know about climate change and its implications, thanks) and the person next to me was asleep. Of course the quest is punctuated with incidents – not very exciting in this case and, once they reach their destination nothing is as expected because that’s what happens in quest stories. Meanwhile Salma Shaw keeps floating on as the moon with an illuminated ukulele in a show which simply cannot decide whether it’s based in reality or surreality.

All this mediocrity is a great pity because there’s some real talent in the cast. Richard Holt, for instance, shows a lot of charismatic versatility from a bar owner on the make to a bossy ghost dad. His coyote howls are convincing too. And some aspects of the lighting (Pablo Fernandez Baz) and projections by Elizabeth Mak find ingenious and colourful  solutions to working in a small space. I just hope they’ll all find a better show to work on very soon.

This was, I’m afraid, one of those (quite unusual) occasions when I found myself wondering for over two hours why I had volunteered to spend my evening seeing a play when I could have been at home with a good book.

First published by Sardines: https://www.sardinesmagazine.co.uk/review/rain-and-zoe-save-the-world/

Show: Jungle Rumble

Society: West End & Fringe

Venue: Fortune Theatre, Russell Street, Covent Garden, London WC2B 5HH

Credits: Presented by Perform Productions. ‘A wild new musical for all the family.’

 

Jungle Rumble

2 stars

The crude political message in this 45-minute show for under-7s is shallow and overdone. Yes of course we need to save endangered animals and to conserve the jungle but absurd, outdated stereoptyping of the sort of people who once killed animals for taxidermy is hardly likely to get the message over to young children. Beware of laboured indoctrination masquerading as educative entertainment.

Moreover I wasn’t comfortable with the zoological and biological solecisms. Snow the White Lion is eventually rescued. She is the last of her species so that’s important. How she come to be pregnant is a mystery.

And Cheetahs, for goodness sake, are carnivores. “Don’t trust a cheetah with your Ryvita/With just one packet I’ll make a racket” is a witty lyric but surely this show is supposed to me making some serous points not teaching nonsense?

I winced at the rhyming of Guatamala with koala too. Sorry, folks, but koalas live in Australia.

All this is a pity because the songs are jolly and varied in style from Calyspo to Rap to ballad. These will already be known to children who attend Perform classes for 4-7s.

All seven members of the cast are strong singers and there’s some nifty movement choreographed by Frank Thompson) In particular, Darren Hart is a bit of a show stealer as the bouncy, jokey Cheetah, Rachel Lea-Grey gives us an attractive young Zebra learning to overcome self effacement and Carole Stennett’s cobra is slitheringly convincing. Ben Stock shows a lot of versatility as a ridiculed English colonial gent, leader of the monkey troop and a crocodile.

And Lotte Collett’s costume designs are inspired – just enough animal hints to make us believe in them. Sharron Ballard as Eeli the elephant, for instance, is all in grey with a trunk protruding from her chest – she creates an elephantine ambience by moving it with her hand.

An opportunity lost, therefore. We owe it to children to entertain them truthfully rather than patronising them with this sort of stuff. As it is the talents of this cast and creative team are wasted.

First published by Sardines: https://www.sardinesmagazine.co.uk/review/jungle-rumble/

Show: Eunoia

Society: Chickenshed

Venue: Chickenshed Theatre – Studio. Chase Side, Southgate, London N14 4PE

Credits: Various – Chickenshed’s season of new writing

Eunoia

3 stars

Eunoia – a Greek word meaning beautiful thinking – is the name of Chickenshed Theatre’s 2022 new-writing festival. Nine duologues and monologues have been selected for professionally directed performance in two separate evenings during the ten-day season. I saw group 2 – in the simple intimacy of Chickenshed’s upstairs studio theatre.

The most striking of the four pieces came last in Answer the Call by Ashley Driver who also directs. I knew nothing whatever about the 1,500 men from the West Indies who volunteered their services in the First World War – willingly giving their all for their colonial “masters”.  Some of them died of disease before they reached the front. Nathaniel Leigertwood and Demar Lambert play two such men, bantering in their rich, golden accents and wondering just how equal they are and, if they’re not, what they could or should do about it. Then one on them becomes ill. The questions remain topical and this powerful, immaculately written and thoughtfully acted fifteen minutes had me thinking hard about the issues all the way home.

Before that we had Sara Chernaik’s Just Imagine, a monologue which invites us to think about immigration, identity and the personal stories which underpin us all. “Come. Listen to my Story” is the refrain as Brahms’s German Requiem fades away in the background.

I didn’t personally like Never Have I Ever, the opening duologue (by Sophie White) which featured two people in an untidy bedroom, one very drunk and the other very sober, gay and distressed. Stevie Shannon’s drunk voice work is, however, well studied although I missed some of what she said.

Body awareness amongst men is an interesting topic and Astonishing Light by Cathy Jansen-Ridings explores it with both horror and humour. Having your body surgically altered is not, ultimately, going to make you happier – which is what the rather annoying Gabe tries to make Benedict see when they meet in a Cosmetic Surgery waiting room.

It’s an uneven evening but it certainly offers some accomplished acting and plenty to reflect on.

 First published by Sardines: https://www.sardinesmagazine.co.uk/review/eunoia/

Show: Wind in The Willows

Society: Bromley Little Theatre

Venue: Bromley Little Theatre

Credits: Alan Bennett

 

The Wind in the Willows

5 stars

Susan Elkin | 12 Feb 2022 22:41pm

This charming, witty moving show – just in time for half term – is as good a piece of non-pro family theatre as I’ve seen anywhere. There are many adaptations of Kenneth Grahame’s 1908 classic about. (I even dramatised a scene myself for a Zoom Christmas party in 2020 when we were all pretty desperate for entertainment) But Alan Bennett’s version for National Theatre in 1990 is probably the best there is and that is what Bromley Little Theatre gives us.

Aneria Knight’s bespectacled, innocent but perky Mole is a delight and there’s real theatrical chemistry between her and Jessica-Ann Jenner (who also directs) as plain-speaking, down-to-earth, grown up Rat. Jenner uses a rich Yorkshire accent (her own?) for Rat. It’s as comforting as Yorkshire pudding and reminds us of who wrote this piece.

Howie Ripley’s broad south London Badger is another joy. It’s gravitas spliced with earthiness as he takes command of the other animals representing decency, common sense and authority without cant. In this version he forges a little friendship with Mole which makes Rat a bit miffed. Ripley strides about the stage in a black sweat-shirt with a few stripes and sporting a stripy scarf. All the costumes in this show are suggestive rather than graphic – no silly tails or ears because as Jenner says in her programme note she wants to focus on the human traits of these characters.

And so to the outstandingly talented Joshua Williams-Ward as Toad. He commands and lights up the stage for every second he’s on it – reminding me of a young Alex Jennings. Williams-Ward overacts in character and gets lots of laughs, timing his click back to “normal” impeccably  especially in the jail scene. It’s an astonishingly mature performance. Like several members of this cast of fourteen, he has come through Bromley Little Theatre Youth Group which Jenner co-leads.

This show is an ensemble piece with much slick multi-roling, scene changing and a handful of songs. When they morph into scenery shifters cast members simply don high viz jackets to “disguise” whatever costume they’re wearing. Amongst many excellent things I was especially struck by Chris Nelson’s body wagging, richly voiced Indian washerwoman, Hana Rae Corvin’s Sloaney Otter and Isabella Zufolo’s gentle Jailer’s daughter.

The set almost deserves a review of its own. Bromley Little Theatre is committed to green issues and works with local organisations to help tackle them. Designed by Tony and Jessica-Ann Jenner, the set for The Wind in the Willows is ingeniously built entirely from recycled materials. Thus Badger’s front door is actually part of an old fridge, a “fire” is created from an inverted supermarket basket threaded with orange paper, Rat’s boat is an old bath and so on. Cars are created from wooden cartons with ensemble members rolling wheels and the barge is built from big cardboard boxes. The effect is atmospheric and convincing. And just to remind us of the message a “human” occasionally wanders past the animal action and throws down a drink can or crisp packet.

If you can get to Bromley Little Theatre before 19 February this is a show well worth catching.

First published by Sardines: https://www.sardinesmagazine.co.uk/review/the-wind-in-the-willows-7/

It may be 45 years old now but, for me, The French Lieutenant’s Woman remains one of the most thoughtful and intelligent books of the second half of the twentieth century. I admired it when I first read it and it speaks to me even more compellingly now. It is effectively a critique of the “standard” (if there is such a thing) Victorian novel with its omniscient author and morally acceptable happy ending which usually means marriage.

John Fowles presents a lonely woman with – so the locals think – a murky past. She works as a companion for a seriously nasty widowed bigot in Lyme Regis (where, incidentally, the author lived in real life)  and whenever she can get away she waits silently on the famous Cob for the return of her French lover. Or at least that’s how it seems. Enter Charles Smithson, a comfortably-off and well educated amateur palaeontologist  and the pretty, pleasant but shallow heiress he intends to marry. Her father owns a thriving Oxford Street department  store. Trade! Cue for the usual shock and horror but this is 1867 and times are changing. Of course Charles is very curious about the strange woman he sees around the town or walking on the Undercliff and is gradually drawn in.
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Nothing, however, is as it seems. The truth about who has done what, who feels what and why slips and slides around like quicksand. And Fowles never allows you to forget that this is a novel which he is controlling like a puppeteer. He is making choices and does so against a much discussed background of Victorian customs and mores – many of them fascinatingly contradictory. Why, for example, are “respectable” 19th century women expected to feel, need or demonstrate no sexual desire while prostitutes are trained to fake orgasms? There’s a fair amount of discursive comparison of then with “now” as it was in 1977.

At one point, near the end of the novel, Fowles wanders into the narrative as a character sitting near Smithson in a railway carriage – all done with insouciant wit. As the story, which has so gradually unwound, nears its conclusion he stands back and asks what he the author should do now? He concludes that he’ll simply have to write two endings and does – one very flat, quick and conventional and the other longer and much more plausible.

I love the characters in the world of this novel. Doctor Grogan, for instance, becomes a sort of mentor to Charles and shows us another, enlightened, Darwinist way of thinking. Charles’s servant Sam, modelled  – Fowles tells us –  on Sam Weller, is a rounded, quite complicated character too. Famous people of the period wander in and out too including Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

A couple of years after it was written a film was discussed. But this is no straightforward story. How on earth do you film such a complex, multilayered novel? In the end Harold Pinter came up with the idea of making it a narrative about making a film so that twentieth century actors could move in and out of their 19th century roles on set with relationships at both levels. It was an inspired, and I think, successful idea which, unusually, adds to what the book has already said rather than detracting from it which is what tends to happen when novels are dramatised.

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Next week on Susan’s Bookshelves: Because of You by Dawn French

An unusual five work programme, this concert began and ended with Mendelssohn via two contrasting Ravel favourites and a dip into Fauré – all of it very familiar territory.

Barry Wordsworth is a poised figure on the podium. As Conductor Laureate and Music Director and Principal Conductor here for 26 years, he knows the Brighton Philharmonic very well. With little fuss he drew out all the melodic calm and storm in Mendelssohn’s The Hebrides with some nicely pointed brass interjections and well balanced string work.

Then in completely different mood came Fauré’s Pavanne, lovingly played. The rippling pizzicato was allowed to resonate beneath the melody without rushing. The solo wind passages, especially the horn were sweet and evocative.

Of course for Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G, the showiest work in this concert, you need four percussionists all now in place ready for that arresting opening whip crack. Soloist Junyan Chen with her shiny dress and scarlet striped hair looked as glitzy as she and Wordsworth made the music sound. It’s a piece which changes mood frequently and I liked the accurate but sensitive way the cross rhythms, alternating with rich lyricism was delivered. Chen has a knack of watching Wordswoth almost continuously which made for an exhilaratingly coherent performance especially in the incisive framing movements. In contrast her long solo passages in the middle adagio assai movement were gently impassioned.

It’s hard to believe that the five component movements of Ravel’s Mother Goose Suite were originally written as piano pieces to be played by the Godebski children with whose family he was close friends. What talented children they must have been! Brighton Philharmonic’s rendering of the orchestral version of these colourful fairy tales in music showcased especially pleasing work from flute, xylophone harp, celeste and contrabassoon. It also made me realise – thanks BPO – how unusual it is to hear the entire suite, used as we are to exterpolated movements on, for example, radio.

And so finally to the glorious ebullience of Mendelssohn’s Fourth Symphony. I played in a performance of this work just a few weeks ago and know how essential if is to get the rapid string work crisp. Wordsworth did it with aplomb – as he did the eloquent rests and pauses. He also gave us plenty of minor key tip-toeing mystery in the andante and lilting warmth in the third movement nothwithstanding the occasional ragged entry. The saltarello presto finale whipped along excitingly, as it must, with some pleasing decisive playing from the strings and attractive wind sound especially from flute and bassoon.

First published by Lark Reviews: https://www.larkreviews.co.uk/?cat=3

Show: Animal Farm

Society: Cambridge Arts Theatre

Venue: Cambridge Arts Theatre. 6 St Edward’s Passage, Cambridge CB2 3PJ

Credits: by George Orwell. Adapted by Robert Icke

 

Animal Farm

3 stars

Toby Olié’s puppetry is the star of this show. For life sized puppets to live, they must never be still. Designed and directed by Olié, these jointed creations are magnificently controlled by a team of fourteen skilled puppeteers. They move continuously in a convincingly equine, canine, feline, bovine – or whatever – way. And the birds are a delight. Judged for that alone, this would be a four or even five star review.

Unfortunately there’s more to a show than its puppetry, even when it’s a fable about animals and almost all the main characters are “beasts of England” as their revolutionary hymn puts it.

Robert Icke’s adaptation (he also directs) tells the familiar story fairly straightforwardly as the animals take over the farm, evict the farmer and set up a communist society based on total equality. Of course it doesn’t work. The pigs assume the lead, gradually begin to exploit the other animals and are eventually indistinguishable from human beings. George Orwell’s  famous, spare and impeccably observed 1943 novel is, of course, a response to developments in Soviet Russia from the revolution in 1917 to the Second World War.

Theatrically I found the disembodied voices unsatisfactory. Although the animals are voiced by fine actors such as Juliet Stephenson, Amaka Okafor, Robert Glenister and David Rintoul, it isn’t always clear which animal is speaking so your eyes are constantly searching on stage. The visual and aural elements don’t quite integrate.

The music is a distraction too. Someone (sound and music designer Tom Gibbons?) has evidently decided to use “classical” music for the big action scenes such as the Battle of the Cowshed. I suppose it’s meant to be crowd pleasingly filmic. And the many young people in the audience at the performance I saw were clearly happy. But for someone who recognises most of it, it’s very off putting suddenly to be bombarded with  a burst of Elgar’s Enigma Variations, The Verdi Requiem and part of a Mahler symphony among many other things. It feels contrived and each time it happened it set me off on a train of thought trying to work out why each piece had been used when it was – when I should have been concentrating on the action.

This is the third adaptation of Animal Farm I’ve seen in a year – all by different people. This is partly because Orwell’s writing came out of copyright in 2020 (he died in 1950) so there’s scope for a free for all.

But there’s another reason, much closer to home. I doubt that Orwell foresaw in the 1940s just how topical this tale would be nearly 80 years later. It’s about power, dictatorship, propaganda, authoritarian lies and ruthless selfishness. I doubt that I was the only Brit, less trusting than Clover, who muttered a few weeks ago  “And all the time, the pigs were boozing in the farmhouse”.

Nothing in this show overtly draws attention to 2020/22 parallels but they’re pretty obvious. Sur-titles flash up the name, age and breed of each animal who dies and that’s moving whether we’re thinking of Covid victims or a different sort of war.

First published by Sardines: https://www.sardinesmagazine.co.uk/review/animal-farm-2/