I’m going to begin this review with a very strong opening. A strong, and 100% deserved opening: If there is one thing you do this year, it’s go and see The Rest of Our Lives.
The Rest of Our Lives is a post-pandemic show in some respects but it isn’t about the pandemic. It is a question of what we do after a monumental change in our lives. How do we cope, move on, return to life as we know it. How do we enjoy it and laugh, and love, and cry. How do we become us again. How do we create community again.
This brilliant show is prime example of the unique, inspirational and exquisite style of performance that comes only from the Welsh theatre and arts scene. Perhaps some bias in my admiration for Jo Fong that has stemmed since my own performance training years in Wales, I still stand by the genius and beauty behind this piece with George Orange.
The Rest of Our Lives is a physical theatre, multi-media, dance and movement piece. It is comical, warm, open and personal. There is no barrier between us and the performers – we are welcomed and treated as friends, making regular eye contact and somehow having a feeling of a personal relationship with the performers, as if we were in their living room of an evening.
Physically, the performance was abstract yet gentle and evoked any emotion from hilarity to sadness. The performers pushed themselves to the limits and broke physical and environmental boundaries without a sense of fear or hesitation. There was many a moment that I found myself crying at how moved I was at their portrayal of normal human elements such as romance and pain, and how I would soon be laughing and smiling through my tears. I didn’t feel like an audience member – I was a friend, a family member, some one close and welcomed and it was such a unique and beautiful feeling and created so simply yet mysteriously – that space felt safe as soon as we came in and I still can’t pinpoint why; the signs of a successful production.
Audience interaction is a huge part of this show and it continues the feeling of inclusion in the action, with no formality to any of the proceedings or interaction. It created an almost immersive atmosphere that you never wanted to end. Finishing the production, we are welcomed onto the stage where we dance and sing to Donna Summer and congratulate Fong and Orange. Hardly any of us know one another but there we hugged, we held hands, we sung together as if we were in Karaoke and all of it was euphoric, beautiful and special.
The Rest of Our Lives is a triumph of theatre, dance and physical theatre. It is everything and more that Welsh theatre brings to the table and is unlike anything I have ever seen. It reminds us of who we are and once were and brings us together as humans and friends.
For my finale Prom this season, an appearance from the BBC Symphony was offered for the last Monday concert. Mighty Conductor Karina Canellakis excited with an array of varied delights in a concert that had a lot going for it.
Beethoven’s The Creatures of Prometheus overture thrills in its few minutes, a tantalising taste of the full ballet score. This makes a great concert opener with it’s charm on it’s sleeve, Karina getting off to a fabulous start here. Of note was the world premiere and BBC commission from Besty Jolas of bTunes. Here in the Albert Hall with us at the age of 96, this added a special weight to proceedings. Her odd piece used theatrical elements that could have been utilised more. We saw the lead violinist conduct for the first few bars, as the pianist and conductor arrive late flustered.
This funny little moment lead into a harsh and insightful sound world, Betsy creating some intriguing compositions. Pianist Nicolas Hodges got busy with lid slamming, string plucking and smashing tone clusters, also notated into the score for him. The whole things was barmy, trying to pass off as a playlist of music, it seems to have gone down well and with her presence on the night proved a success.
The 1st Symphony makes for gateway Mahler and here it was executed with a fiery focus. All the hallmarks Arte here in what would be heard later in his music. This graduation piece shows a vast array of musical brilliance, the meshing of popular songs, the waltzes, Alpine bliss and mirky underwater stand out as check points. With a pristine beauty, this held up as a highlight of my Proms live this year. There is a promise in this first symphony, perhaps one of the finest firsts ever written. The panache of it’s delivery, the mighty mood swings and the composer himself having conducted this more than any other of his works proves its importance. Highlight include the Frère Jacques variation, a evocative double bass solo and all round impassioned occupation that sells it and more. Would to hear Karina conduct the following on two symphonies by Mahler now.
A second wind from the Berlin Phil after the rowdy Mahler 7, would proved mixed. The Violin concert from Alfred Schnittke proved a rare discovery and a really strange piece with a lot going for it. Soloist Tabea Zimmermann proved a jaw-dropping display in pretty harsh passages along more fund bits. Some of her cadenza might not have been as stimulating as the rest, though the orchestra alas proved quite brilliant in the whole endeavour. Razor sharp pastiche mingles with serious experimentation in all its brow raising brilliance. The touch of a harp, piano, celeste and harpsichord could only be Schnittke, in this most memorable of violin concertos. Should do a good job in haunting me over the next few days.
Daniel Harding replaced Kirill Petrenko from the night prior, therefore replacing the Shostakovich 10th Symphony with Bruckner’s 4th Symphony. Whilst I’ll admit the performance was a grand affair, the definition of professional…I have to say this was one of the dullest symphonies I’ve ever heard. Bruckner seems to loiter is past German romanticism that leaves little room for new horizons nor any real depth to the style. A lot of this just felt like a load of frivolity with no real sense of it’s influences. I still can’t make out if it’s “German sounding’ either. The finale almost won me over with broad, bold outburst where things started to take off, quieter moments having some genuine appeal. Though I’ve heard the Shostakovich originally planned many times, I dare say I would have much gathered heard that again.
Sir András Schiff relaxed a Sunday morning Proms audience in a intimate affair in the grandeur of the Albert Hall. You see another side to Beethoven in his late piano sonatas. Still filled with innovations, their refections and anguish still pound through and the electricity still lies within them.
Schiff is extremely no thrills, at least the view of his back and part of the keys would prove this where I was sitting. Playing all this from memory proves his chops, his previous Bach whistle stop concerts also proof of his sheer talent. His writing out of the pieces makes it look so easy when it might be a nightmare to play. The dexterity and energy require cant be underestimated, Schiff tackling all these, though his reserved manner might shut fool people.
A debate about having small, more intimate Proms prevails. All I know is the sounds ring out from the piano, though I was in the stalls and may very much be a different story in the high up gallery. This massive audience all came to hear him play and that is enough to justify the recital in the space. Whilst the first two buttery sonatas performed are firsts for the Proms, it was the Sonata No. 32 in C minor which stood out, as if a big beast on the war path. The violence and the weird imagery made it stick out, a fine choice to wrap things up.
Itching for more Proms, the Berlin Philharmonic began a two ninth fest featuring the huge 7th Symphony from Gustave Mahler. It’s been a while for me where I’ve seen a instrumental blend this fine and musicianship this stellar. One can never picture taken on his big works on a whim, the lesser favoured piece is finally getting the love it deserves. It’s funnier than usual as well, with merry tunes and drinking songs which as ever, are met with black doubts and lingering uncertainties. Here the woodwind shines, the brass enthral and the percussion (when used) add that extra bite to proceedings.
The large set of strings delivers jabs, swoons and haunts us all. This feat of musicianship was made crystalline by conductor Kirill Petrenko, who’s flamboyant flair and care for the orchestra is very telling of his persona. These five movements remain quite strange in their form, moments for guitar and mandolin or the cowbells evoking the Austrian Alps are another quirky touch. I found the near 90 minutes whizzed by, some Mahler can drag and this being so fresh and alive it was never a test. The composer wouldn’t have believed a performance like this could be done of this work, so tight and polished. Great work indeed.
BBC Proms continues till 10 September 2022. Listen live to all concert on BBC Radio 3 or listen back to all concerts on BBC Sounds.
We are a nation and a current series of generations where our childhood and knowledge of history is emphasised by the brilliant Horrible Histories books by Terry Deary and the beloved show shown on CBBC (but let’s be honest: when was it ever for the kids!).
So when invited to a show that has changed this to “Herstories” I was definitely intrigued and excited. Horrible Herstories is a hilarious and unbridled take on female history, flittering between different parts of history in a sketch-show-like manner. The premise basis itself on a group of men who are all hammed up and one dimensional and hilarious versions of the gender. All called Phil, they are unaware of anything to do with women, let alone their place in history, and the mick is very much taken of them. This is where it leads to them learning just what an impact woman had and what they had to put up with.
Like any sketch-show, the sketches are small and to the point. They don’t need to be long to be absolutely side-splittingly hilarious and it was in a way brilliant to see the occasional man in the audience not quite get the quip or feel uncomfortable. It was a shake up of the comedic kind but also a political stance with no inhibitions.
The performers were all brilliant; just like the television programme, they could all turn their hand to a huge range of characters – from the typical news reporter, the egotistical man, the girly girl women. And it all worked brilliantly. They were fully in each character, supported with minimal staging and costume, but this didn’t matter; in fact I would say it enhanced this. We didn’t need sparkle and flashy theatrics; all we needed was the brilliant writing and comedic approach to true history.
As this was the last night and they had run for a month, there were moments of corpsing and if you have read any of my former reviews, you know that I love this. I think it shows the comradery of the actors, the fun they are having and as a performer myself, I know that a long run is always met by silliness and a euphoria in the end. It was clear that the performers had a great connection and were having fun, celebrating the end of a successful run of such a brilliant production.
Horrible Herstories seems much in its infant stage, but what a brilliant place it is at this point. It is witty, funny, clever and an absolutely brilliant production, that can only go from strength to strength.
Set in the basement of the Edinburgh Army centre, NMT Automatics production of Troy & Us is very apt for such a setting.
Tempus Fugit: Troy & Us is the story of a British soldier, his wife and his tours in Afghanistan. It addresses their progressive relationship from marriage, to war PTSD, to a baby and all the other bits in between. It is a raw and poignant production, mirroring the story of Andromache and her soldier husband Hector in the Trojan war, this production shows the pain of war and that this is a phenomenon that is almost as old as time.
Tempus Fugit is a combination of short dialogue meeting physical theatre and dance; the moments where we are transported into the past to look at the Trojan War are signified with beautiful mask work to break the difference in scenes. Focussed mainly around plain brown boxes that create furniture, barriers, sculptures and buildings, the performers move effortlessly between and with one another, showcasing euphoria, pain, war scenes and so much more. It is accompanied by music and storytelling recorded narrative to enhance the scene and show the juxtaposition but the similarities of the past and the present.
The performance is beautiful and there does seem to be genuine (or at least realistic) emotion and connection between the characters, whether they are the modern characters or the Ancient Greek ones. They effortlessly flick between the two and moments can be recognised that have cleverly been shown earlier on in the production, mirroring the modern day equivalent with the same movements and emotion.
However, for me, the scenes were all too quick. It felt like we flittered from scene to scene very quickly, whether that was from Troy or to the modern day, and I felt it needed a moment of stillness, or just a breathe. The fast paced nature left me wanting something meatier to hold onto for just a moment before we were catapulted to the next element. To really revel in and feel the emotion and the, what is a beautiful and painful story to engage with, it would have been nice for some different levels in energy.
Tempus Fugit: Troy & Us is a unique and interesting approach to real stories and of a kind of life only a small amount of people experience. It shows the truth of the feelings and thoughts behind war but it also needed to let us have a moment to internalise the story and feel it for ourselves.
The world of Greek Myths is full of tyranny, of hypocrisy, of sex, of comedy, of sheer power and grotesque storytelling. They are the stories that have most been carried through time, updated and mirrored in popular culture and continue to be apart of society. This is very much what we get from Myths Unbound Productions and their production of Prometheus Bound (Io’s story).
Taking a new approach to Aeschylus’s Prometheus Bound, Myths Unbound have updated and changed the viewpoint of this tale. An ancient Greek tragedy, this story focuses on the competition between the God’s, the injustice of punishment for helping humans to progress and, by taking it from the point of view of Io, a mortal plagued by the God’s doings, looks at what it means to be a human as opposed to a higher being that society trusts the judgement of.
This production has an edgy-ness to it. No toga’s or golden crowns but a gothic, alternative take. All in black, there are little elements added to the immortal beings to differentiate them using colour and make up that Tik Tok stars would admire, along with their differing personalities and interactions, to show these staple characters and their impact to the story. Simple changing of jackets helps to double up on a character and with this and other parts of the writing, Myths Unbound take a comical view of breaking the fourth wall and playing upon being self aware as a theatre production – the same actor is acknowledged and the confusion of the characters; we are addressed and yet Io asks “who are you talking to” which for sure brings comical moments. The only difference is Io who is dressed in a cream to create the dynamic between the humans and the Gods. This was quite refreshing, showcasing that the Gods aren’t so “heavenly” and actually the darker part of the tale, despite their idolisation.
Despite these interesting elements, I found it hard to engage. With such a complex story, it felt that you probably had to know the tale well to understand their changes to the original story. A story I’ve not heard before, it therefore left me a little confused and some elements I wasn’t sure were fully explained. Not a criticism, but the performer playing Prometheus was of slight distraction with his uncanny performance and looks similar to Captain America’s, Chris Evans.
Overall, the aesthetics of Myths Unbound Productions, Prometheus Unbound (Io’s Story), were refreshing and a modern take on such an ancient story. I just found it slightly a hard storyline to follow which, I can completely understand could plainly be to my own lack of knowledge.
The National Youth Theatre of Wales isn’t a company like other theatre companies, so its work can’t be lined up against standard productions. It’s more akin to a BTEC Performing Arts course in which the end-of-year show is designed to give all students an equal opportunity to participate. Because of this, there aren’t individual stars whose performances can be picked out. In The In-Between, the main plotline features a heroine but she is played by different performers at different times.
Reviewing is not course moderating. Reviewers can’t comment on the process that lies behind the end product, even though the workshopping will have been a key part of an educational process and will be very valuable to the student. The performance is only the tip of an iceberg, however exciting it may be.
Equally, you can’t say much about the script, which is specially worked up for this production and which may never be used again. So, there are difficulties reviewing The In-Between.
To stick to facts, the production features twenty-three performers, backed by a creative team of twenty-five. It’s no small undertaking. The combined work of these people (assisted by staff at Theatr Clwd) is compressed into a fifty-five minute, single act showcase. The linking theme is the story of Fay, a student on a performing arts course who is considering dropping out. The show starts with Fay’s failure to hand in her homework, or perform ‘her’ song for her lecturer. It ends with her predictably deciding to stay on and at the end, supported by the entire cast, she sings what is quite an effective pop song, celebrating the state of being in between training and working.
As Fay’s story unfolds, group activity is choreographed around a series of small sketches. There is a constant supply of business, much of which centres on a stolen letter. This handwritten letter, in which Fay tells her lecturer she is dropping out, is recognised as being an anachronism and a bit of a joke. Dialogue throughout is in English but it’s peppered with Welsh in an evocative way. Overhead screens carry the script, like subtitles, and a signer works at the side of the stage for deaf members of the audience. There were a couple of fluffed lines and the screens seemed to get stuck at one point but generally everything was done enthusiastically and well.
– Only I did want a bit more. I wanted more character acting, allowing a dramatic penetration of Fay’s crisis of confidence. The self-conscious conversations about the problems of working in the industry didn’t achieve this in any depth, since students really know little about what awaits them down the line. There might have been a second person, a friend, who does leave the course, recognising that there are other things in life beside the performing arts. (Sacrilege!) The snatches of character acting there were – like the cameo of a grandmother and the emergency call handler who breaks out into ‘Staying Alive’ to demonstrate the kiss of life (!) – were delivered properly, making you think the cast members could easily have done more of the same.
Perhaps I wanted more conventional acting because I don’t greatly like musicals, even though I recognise their popularity and their economic importance for theatres and for television. Unless there is an exceptional score, as in West Side Story or Mac The Knife, personally I never feel musicals rise above the level of light entertainment. I prefer shows that make a demand on my intelligence rather than ones that aim to make me tap my feet. I like plays where verbal control and projection goes into lines rather than songs and when physical agility is present in movements and gestures and not just in dances.
I am also intrigued by work where the two genres overlap. However, in The In-Between there is no question but that music theatre is the be-all and end-all. It comes with the fairy tale suggestion that fame and fortune do wait around the corner for the girl who is determined to make it come what may. I didn’t engage with this idea. I wasn’t bothered about whether Fay delivered her course work or not. I started thinking instead about the cast and the fact that there were more than four times as many young women as young men performing. A BTEC computer course would probably reverse this statistic. (In contrast, the production team is almost evenly split and the script was written by a woman and a man.) Maybe this production could have referenced the social conditioning behind gender imbalances.
I would have enjoyed an exploration of late adolescence in which anxiety really came centre stage. Anxiety is hardly the sole preserve of those on performing arts courses: it is wide-spread and not just in the student community. Watching one character overcome anxiety in a convincing way would have been interesting. Watching another fall victim to it might have been moving. Could there have been a second half?
You could say my taste means I am not the target audience but another feature of this particular type of work is that it has no target. It was pleasing to see the large audience in the temporary auditorium at Theatr Clwd (where the buildings are being redeveloped) was an unusual mixture of young and old and the show did have something for everyone – we laughed and applauded – but it didn’t have quite enough of anything in particular to mark it out.
Maybe the title – and the subject of Fay’s delayed solo – says it all. The show itself is in-between genres. It left me in between admiring it for what it contained and for what it allowed its young performers to do but fussing about what it left out. For a student show, it was very entertaining. As a piece of contemporary theatre, it fell a bit short.
In a return to the BBC Proms in London, a new venue for the festival would call. Whilst I’ll confess the Printworks in Canada Water is a bit out of the way for this travelling reviewer, it was a fleeting chance to see another side of London. In a more laid-back, approachable look on classical music, the venue itself on first appearance looked cluttered, very busy.
As things went on, I found the whole thing to be truly wonderful, the direction of James Bonas with a metaphorical butterfly net keeping everything grounded, yet delightful.
The head turning array of soloist, orchestra, dance, art, beat-boxing and sound design filled the venue with the ambition of a classic happening. The star of the show was very much American counter-tenor Anthony Roth Costanzo who has dazzled audiences across the pond and over the world. It is his clear sex appeal and queer ideals that dust the show with beautiful goings on. In both the bejewelled Handel and Phillip Glass repertoire (extracts from both their operas, some never heard at the Proms along with a world premier from Glass) he proves his broad taste and mighty passions, his voice sharp and touching.
All the other goings on segway well into each aria, the dancers never quite getting the limelight (with emotive choreography by Justin Peck). The live painting of Glenn Brown was only truly visible to one side of the vast elongated factory. Players from English National Opera and conductor Karen Kamensek never wained is this apparent gamble that paid off all round. Costumes by Raf Simons are billowy, colourfull fun creations, slight and web like for the dancers, exaggerated for Costanzo.
Jason Singh would beatbox and add whispy vocal tricks to make space between the notes of the arias. What almost attempted to steal the show was the finely crafted surreal video work which graced the brick walls. The likes of James Ivory with Pix Talarico, Tilda Swinton and Daniel Askill and more had unsettling, vivid and witty films that got away with a lot of it’s demands.
Creating opportunities for a diverse range of people to experience and respond to sport, arts, culture and live events. / Lleisiau amrywiol o Gymru yn ymateb i'r celfyddydau a digwyddiadau byw
(5 / 5)
(4 / 5)
(3 / 5)
