Gigs, plays, shows and events

[Refhand]

Hello friends,

I thought it might be nice to have a thread in which people could post their views of things that they have been to seen live recently.

A starter for 10 in the next posting.

Refhand

[Refhand]

Natalie Merchant live at The Lowry, Salford 24/5/10






Playing ‘Leave Your Sleep’ live presents a huge problem in that the poems Natalie Merchant chose to use have been set in many and varies ways, in fact she collaborated with more than 100 other artists in the making of the album, and you can hardly take that on tour. The answer, apart from omitting songs such as the Orientally set ‘King of China’s Daughter’, is to strip things right down to the minimum, in this case Natalie, two singer/guitarists and a ‘cello, which worked pretty well. That said, as she opened the show, mentioning some of the songs that would not be included, it was clear from the audience reaction that somebody’s favourite was being sidelined, leading Natalie to make amends by offering a brief rendition, acapella, of ‘Topsyturvey-World’. Although I’m pretty sure that those two talented guitarists could easily rustled up the necessary light reggae tempo for the song.

The show consisted of Natalie introducing each some with a short preamble about each poet, supported with a slideshow of portraits and other material she had gathered to produce the album and book, and then the work itself. Natalie was in excellent voice on the night, she has certainly lost none of her stage presence. She so obviously relishes the opportunity to inhabit all those different musical styles on stage.

She has always been one for dancing around the stage, in her own inimitable way, but for this show she has taken to a sort of interpretive dance on stage. Daft as that might sound, it worked well, although at one point the evil bit of me could not help but hear the voice of Joyce Grenfell intoning ‘Grecian urn, girls!’ when it got perhaps just a but too BBC schools radio music and movement.

For some reason the supporting act was pulled, resulting in Natalie doing a 2 1/4 hour set with no intermission. This proved to be a problem for some of the more senior members of the audience, as I have never been to a seated gig and seen so many members of the audience have to nip off to the loo halfway through. Maybe it was the half-hour delay because of the cancelled support resulted in a bit of over-hydration at the bar beforehand. Indeed, the audience was very mixed indeed in terms of age; the middle aged ones like Herself and I were longtime fans, but I suspect many of the older or younger audience members were there because of the new album, not Natalie’s back catalogue. But so what, they loved the show.

The rather extended encore(s) was essentially an acoustic resume of Natalie’s greatest solo hits, with Natalie telling the guitarists which of them to perform next, even to the point of performing a song that they had never done live before: that’s confidence for you! I may be wrong, but all of this seemed quite on the hoof due to the lack of support act (and the fact that Natalie was performing as if she had a tambourine, but didn’t have one), but Natalie seemed to revel in the performance, pacing the stage and tossing her tresses and turning about and about just as she had back in the days of 10,000 Maniacs at the Free Trade. It must be said that the majority of the audience greeted these songs rather more enthusiastically than the songs from ‘Leave Your Sleep’, but isn’t that the way when a performer does their classic tracks.

Those classic Natalie songs brought the audience to their feet at the end and rightly so, it was a bravura performance by all concerned. However, I was also stuck by a slightly melancholy thought, in that I suspect that this tour is not only to promote her lovely new album, but also Natalie’s farewell tour. Somehow, it just felt like she was saying goodbye, and if that is the case, she can justifiably claim to have gone out in stlye.

[MaxJoker]

Last gig i went to was a stand up one on the 10th march at the Norwich Playhouse , saw Stewart Lee`s " If you prefer a milder comedian ". He was outstanding , but sadly i`d say two thirds of the albeit packed out place didn't seem to know he isn't the kind of stand up that just dishes out one liners. Mind you it soon became obvious that those down at the front were ( I was right up the back end , so to speak) kinda , well , thick !.
Won`t go into the exact details of what he said , did and how he'd set everything out. But there were two moments when a thick member of the audience totally and genuinely threw him off his stride.
The first is when he asked someone to name a coffee establishment they preferred , only he made the mistake of asking someone who didn't seem to quickly understand the question. Then once they had ,decided they didn't have a preference. Might not sound that big a deal , except the womans stupidity was so great you could see Stewie was stunned.
Then the second time was when he was in brilliant mid-rant about Frankie Boyle , when another dopey woman screamed out " You've got more hair as well " . For no reason whatsoever ???

Mind you most of them there were totally pissed .

None more than me

Also think me and my amigos laughed the loudest ,since Stewie made a point of highlighting us out and saying he was grateful guardian readers were in the audience
He then encouraged the farming community at the front to try and pay attention. Was a shame really because his whole performance was superb, and his fake racist country and western star warm up act was excellent as well.

It's just some of the audience were so slow on the up take that apart from the couple hundred at the back laughing the front rows were pretty quiet

Guess they must have been Norfolk born and inbred

[Refhand]

Originally Posted by GreenSkull

Guess they must have been Norfolk born and inbred

Well Greenshull, one of the many derogatory acronyms that have now been banned from patients medical records is:

NFN - Normal for Norfolk

I guess that speaks for itself really.

[blatt]

Originally Posted by Refhand

Well Greenshull

What has GreenSkull moved to Hull ?. If so hes even braver than i thought as that place would give freddie kruger nightmares

Last gig i went to was a night with Ken Dodd a few years back. He must have been 80 or something then but blew the roof off and had more energy than that energizer bunny ! . Also did almost two hour oncore then went down stairs to the entrance and did a walk about shaking hands and signing what ever was handed to him. Mans a top class act and why he hasnt been knighted yet is beyond me alex ferguson was knighted years back and what has he ever done for the country as a whole Know Dodd had some problems with his tax awhile back but he is tireless with his charities and has been so for decades.I feel like starting a petition

[Refhand]

Originally Posted by Refhand

Well Greenshull,

Sorry mate. Another smelling pistake

[scoundrel]

This production was at the Quarry Theatre, the larger of the two auditoriums of the West Yorkshire Playhouse, a modern theatre and drama complex on the edge of Leeds’ city centre. I went to see a Monday evening performance accompanied by Tabler: he had seen other productions but I only ever saw a film production from which I barely remembered the gist of it, so it was almost a new experience entirely for me.

The venue is starkly modern, but expensively and impressively fitted out, right down to a revolving stage, not used in this production, and decently comfortable seats arranged in a horse-shoe. It is theatre in the semi-circular rather than theatre in the round, but the dynamics brought some of the action forwards closer to the audience, which is difficult to achieve using a traditional Victorian stage and auditorium design such as the Grand Theatre, Leeds. However, Death of a Salesman is a play rigorously of its time but which will never get dated because it tells a story which is about the universal human condition: a good stage director can easily adapt the production to fit any space which he or she is allotted to work in.

The Cast:
Willy Loman: Philip Jackson
Linda Loman: Marion Bailey
‘Biff’ Loman: Lex Shrapnel
‘Happy’ Loman: Nick Barber
Charley: Tom Hodgkins
Bernard: Adam Venus
Ben: Christopher Ettridge
Howard Wagner: Russell Bentley
Stanley (head waiter) Tomm Coles
The Mistress Sarah Ball
Bar Room Floozies: Poppy Roe and Maya Wasowicz

There are some names here quite familiar to viewers of British television, especially Philip Jackson, who plays Chief Inspector Japp opposite David Suchet’s Hercule Poirot and appeared in the films Brassed Off and Mike Bassett, England Manager. Philip Jackson was good, presenting the emotional instability and fearful mood swings of a man whose spirit has finally been broken by a lifetime of disappointed hopes and dreams. It’s a very big part: there are not many moments in the play when Willy is off-stage and if Willy has been badly cast or if the actor playing him is off his form, the evening’s entertainment will flop. It didn’t flop.

Lex Shrapnel and Nick Barber were also good as Willy’s two sons, who have both in different ways become broken reeds, focuses for his belief that life has betrayed him. There were fine supporting turns from all the cast, none of whom were poor: especial mention for Tom Hodgkins as Charley, Willy’s kind and sympathetic neighbour, and for Russell Bentley as Willy’s oily and snake-hearted boss, Howard Wagner, whose brutal and completely disloyal decision to put Willy Loman on commission only after a lifetime of selling for the company is the catalyst which started the tragic events of the play.

I put 34 years into this firm, Howard, and now I can't pay my insurance. You can't eat an orange and then throw the peel away - a man is not a piece of fruit.

Unfortunately, that’s exactly what an employee is and always has been, right back to ancient times. These words have bitter resonance for many people today, laid off without compunction by employers they served loyally, sometimes for decades. Boys and girls, you should always move on when the time is right, right for you. Rest assured that your employer will move you on whenever the time is right for them.

I thought on the night that the standout player was Marion Bailey as Willy’s unbreakably loyal and spiritually undaunted wife Linda. Her character is the only truly innocent party to the whole story, the only one who attached her love to real people and not to illusions. Marion Bailey brought out the true pathos of the family’s failures, and drew attention to what the real failures were. If he only knew it, Willy Loman was a rich man. He still has older son Biff, who has finally overcome the bitterness of knowing his father betrayed his mother with another woman; he still has the unflagging friendship of neighbour Charley, who understands what has happened to him and would even give him a job if he wasn’t too proud to take a hand up from a friend. Most of all he still has the unconditional love of wife Linda, who has made his home for him and never been angry with him for not being a high-flyer, for being the shadow of the man he dreamed of being: he was still her husband, through bad times as well, and all through the play Marion Bailey conveyed this woman’s grief and pain as she watches her husband steadily losing the will to live.

Willy thinks the failure is that he and his sons have failed to achieve the American Dream of attaining wealth and status through their own efforts: his deep depression stems from the nothing which he feels he has to show for all the irreplaceable effort and commitment he sank into this dream, the life he cannot live again, his chips all on red when the wheel came up black. In reality, his failure was at home, not in the workplace, and only because he is blind to the things which might even at the end have rescued and comforted him. The play is about the failure of his real love affair, his unrequited love of the American Dream as personified by the hallucinatory appearances of mythically successful entrepreneur brother Ben Loman, who tantalises Willy with his own wild successes.

Never compare your life with the lives of other people: that will only bring unhappiness.

[Refhand]

Originally Posted by blatt

Last gig i went to was a night with Ken Dodd a few years back.

I'v been told that he is much better live than what you see on TV. i also understand that he's a bit of a demon once he's on stage and regularly over-runs. Audiences love it, but it annoys the staff.

His ambition is to play every theatrical venue in the country.

[Refhand]

English Heritage Festival of History, Kelmarsh Hall, N’hants 17/18 July

After several weeks of rather frantic stuff due to a family illness, Herself and I were able to take a weekend break, and as a pair of history/archaeology buffs, this event seemed like a good idea. What we needed was a quiet and restful break, but we came back from this event every bit as knackered as when we set out, but in a good way, I’m glad to say. EH, although we are members because the discounts just about work in our favour, is not my favourite organization. It can be high-handed and elitist at times, IMHO, but I must admit that this year they have put on a pretty damn good show.

The festival was billed as being ‘2000 years of living history’ and I really can’t argue with that too much, with hundreds of re-enactors, ranging from the Roman invasion to WWII all doing their stuff. Perhaps the only gap I noticed was a lack of English Civil War re-enactors, but that would only be nit picking and it could easily be that I overlooked their presence amongst the masses of other re-enactors. With several arena/stages/etc across the large showground, even over the two days it was impossible to see everything, especially if you factor in the musical events (inc. English Folk Dance and Song Soc and others), lectures, theatricals etc. Herself especially enjoyed the catwalk show of 2000 years of fashion, and there were lots of women parading through the site in historical regalia, quite aside from the re-enactors. Then ladies in high Elizabethan garb were especially impressive as they processed around the show ground. I must admit, I was elsewhere watching Medievalists knocking seven bells out of each other rather than at the fashion show, but the point being is that there was something for all at this festival.

Herein comes a bit of a grumble: the Website could hardly have been less informative as to what was happening and when; the reason being that to make any sort of plan for your day you needed to buy a £5.00 program from EH to make any sense of what was going on and when/where, especially since the signposting on the site was non-existent. EH are very much attuned to getting money from you when they can, I’m a bit sad to say. Between many of the events the commentators extolled the virtues of joining EH, including a refund on the days admission, only to be greeted on several occasions with some derisory laughter when mentioning the quarterly EH members magazine, and rightly so, it’s barely worth getting. In fairness, the commentators were all extremely proficient and did an excellent job.

The re-enactments were of the highest standard I have ever seen, with pyrotechnics a plenty were appropriate and on a grand scale and very varied in nature. By way of example, the display of Roman soldiery was a full compliment of 80 troops and auxiliaries with a Centurion and two junior officers, exactly as during the Roman invasion. To do this, members of several societies, including the Ermine Street Guard, were performing together for the first time. The display also featured Roman cavalry and armament. And very good it was too as was the re-enactment of Agincourt.

During the course of each day lots of the children were particularly enthused by the Knights Tournament that ran through out the day with various martial contests between the Green, Red, Blue and Yellow Knights, with the kids asked to support and cheer on their knight. Naturally enough, with scarves or flags for sale from EH to show your support for your favoured knight. As an adjunct to the tournament, the crowd was also ably entertained by Peterkin The Jester, who naturally enough was also hugely popular with the kids.

The final display re-ran Operation Overlord with a mix of British, American and German WWII re-enactors and even included several passes overhead of a restored Hurricane as part of the display, which I especially enjoyed. It may not be the most modern of aircraft, but the sight of a pass by a Hurricane as it flies low and then twists up into the sky is a thrilling one.

It was clearly a great gathering for the re-enacting community and during the course of the weekend I met up with many re-enactors that I have chatted with in years past. I also found the market area quite interesting since the majority of the stalls were selling goods and materials that the re-enactors needed to ply their trade such as vintage clothing (for the abundance of WWI/II re-enactors this year) and historically appropriate cloths, braids, fastenings, leather products and the like. I have always been highly impressed by the degree of dedication to accuracy shown by lots of re-enactors in that respect.

However, at this festival the rule that is sometimes applied at some events to remain in character at all times did not apply, leading to Roman soldiers eating burgers and Coke with Jacobites and American Colonialists and the like, a slightly surreal sight. I got the distinct feeling that this was as much an event for the participants as it was for the paying punters.

We thoroughly enjoyed this event; it was as informative as it was spectacular and entertaining. I would certainly go back next year (if circumstances allow) and I saw that families with children had a great day out at the show, regardless of whether they were history buffs or not and if you have any desire to get your little ones enthused about times past, then this or similar events are a great way to do so. Even if you don’t have any kids in tow, this event had more than enough to keep you well entertained. We certainly were.

[keefriff]

I saw Jimmy Cliff last night in concert at a small outdoor amphtheater with the lovely and charming Ms. Riff. This was the first time I have seen him in concert and it was fantastic! At age 62, Jimmy Cliff has more energy and charisma in his little finger than some of the current bands and people will ever have. He danced on the stage all night and still possesses a powerful voice that he used to great effect. The band supporting him was awesome too. Nine members of the band, including an absolutely gorgeous background singer, pounded out Jimmy's biggest songs and kept the crowd involved and rockin' all night long. Jimmy played most of his hits, Sitting In Limbo, Harder They Come, Many Rivers To Cross, I Can See Clearly Now. He also played the song Viet Nam which he changed to Afghanistan with some more timely and poignant lyrics. The setting where we saw him is the best one in my town and it was a great night. Much respect to Jimmy Cliff for a high energy, audience friendly funky reggae party. It was a great concert and if he comes to your town, I would say that you need to go see him.