Category: Mary Woodward Review

***** (5 stars)

“Scarily prescient!” 

Before the show begins, a recorded announcement reminds us several times not to switch off our phones, so that our whereabouts are known “at all times”.  Felix and Felka march on stage and invite us to sing along with them in praise of the Pale Baron of the Underwater State, whose birthday it is next week – but it soon becomes apparent that we don’t know the words. 

We must learn them – it is most important that we are loud in our praise of the Baron, who alone has the right to hold his enormous jewelled talking stick.  He has arranged that on his birthday 1,000 new stars will be catapulted into the heavens where they will stick: there will be no more shooting stars.  Felix and Felka are concerned that our singing is not loud and enthusiastic enough, that we don’t know the words:  we must praise the Baron’s glorious body, wonderful memory and above all his right to wield his magnificent talking stick.

Felix and Felka seem on edge: is there someone hanging around outside? is there someone in the loading dock? Is there the danger of an inspection?  Are the people in the audience okay?  Do they know why they are really there?  It’s okay, it’s safe to get on with what we’re really here for – a performance by Felix and Felka of their own songs, revolutionary songs, which they can’t perform in public, and which celebrate the poets who have disappeared. 

The Pale Baron hates many things and people, but he especially hates poets: poets don’t rhyme, and there can be a lot of meaning in the blank spaces between the lines.  Children must be under constant supervision: there must be NO questions.  Public radio announcements constantly reinforce the message that that the world is a shop, which must constantly be kept going.  People must prove that they are useful and productive, or they will be reclassified as ‘inferiors’.  It is a public duty to inform the authorities about ‘inferiors’, and most especially those most loathsome ARTISTS.  Foreigners are looking for land, but are redundant and inferior: the Underwater State is only for birthright residents.

Felix and Felka keep reiterating their ‘good’ credentials: they are not poets, they are musicians – but it’s clear they are constantly on edge.  We learn that Felka is from everywhere and nowhere, born in a country that doesn’t exist any more, lost my mother tongue, have no roots…. Felix, on the other hand, has never lived anywhere else: he is stable, a base to rely on, someone with deep roots.  We are introduced to Ronnie, a plant that had to be rescued when the water came, and is now an indoor plant who accompanies the two musicians on tour.

The music is fascinating mix of styles and genres.  Sometimes it’s hard to hear the lyrics, which was a pity, given that they were extremely pertinent.  I particularly liked the quiet lament the sea climbs into the sun: look, the land goes under, the love song to the earth, and the final song in which Felix hopes that Felka finds somewhere in the stars where she could finally put down roots.  The audience really loved the dwarf song [the Pale Baron is extremely fond of dwarfs, most possibly because they are smaller than he is…].

The depth of the relationship between Felix and Felix gradually becomes very clear to us – but do they realise it themselves?  I was surprised by how gripped the young audience were, how totally engaged in the ‘are they aren’t they’ relationship, and how much they wanted the couple to be together.  I did wonder if they’d be held by the breaks in lively action, especially when it got bleakly serious: credit to the actors, they held them through the difficult bits, and the questions asked afterwards showed a keen interest in both the play and the players.

The undercurrent of fear in this world was brilliantly portrayed.  I would be interested to know quite how much they understood of the repressive, judgemental and ‘othering’ society that was being evidenced.  The emphasis on borders, outsiders, moving on, punishment and repression of anything inventive, creative, questioning, were clear to the adults present: did the kids also pick up on these?  Oh to be a fly on the classroom wall when the show was being discussed back in school – and I hope it led into conversations about how to prevent such things becoming even more of a reality than they already are…

The Belgian company Kopergietery originally performed The Pale Baron in Dutch, and re-learned it in English, for which I [and probably the rest of the audience] am/ are profoundly grateful.  Anna Vercammen wrote the words, and Joeri Joeri Cnapelinckx made the music for the songs which run throughout the show.  Between them they sing, play piano, guitar, euphonium, pocket trumpet and a strange analogue device with many voices.  They slowly create a scarily accurate picture of a world in which a monstrous egomaniac controls everything, while everyone who displeases him meets a very unpleasant end.

The Pale Baron will remain with me for some time to come – I hope it will prompt me to action, too.

Imaginate Children’s Festival, The Pale Baron, Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, Runs until Saturday 31^st May for more information go to: https://www.imaginate.org.uk/festival/whats-on/the-pale-baron

***** (5 stars)

“Magic of the Highest Order!”

Amazing! Such a contrast from yesterday’s show: rows and rows of silent children, utterly gripped by what was unfolding in front of them, wondering what on earth was coming next.

A simple set – three screens surround a low square table which holds an anglepoise-type lamp, a teapot and two mugs.  Two people sitting having a drink when suddenly the lamp goes out.  They clink their mugs together and it comes on again – but after a few times, the magic stops working and they wonder what to do.  Removing the bulb reveals something inside it – when it falls into one of the mugs a tiny person is released and starts to grow.  They explore the table-top world on which they find themself, their tiny clogs clicking and clacking across the table, up and along the lamp’s angled arm, and out into the wide world…

This is magic of the highest order, created by a team of three – puppeteers Clara Palau y Herrero and Sarah Chaudon and director/ technician Tobias Tonjes, who between them invite us into a wonderful exploration of the world of shadows.  At first the shadows behave as you might expect, mirroring the actions of the person casting the shadow.  But then they take off and have a life of their own, making the shadow-caster become the copier of their shadow… how does a spoon become a fish? An aeroplane?  

Where do shadows go in the darkness?  How does one person interact with one, two, then three shadow people at once?  What happens when shadow mugs decide to act by themselves? Watch their acrobatics, see them waltz to the gentle music – aaagh!  What’s happening – there’s a hideous sound of breaking crockery…???  When the tea party scenario returns, how can the shadow person drink when there are no shadow mugs?

There’s a wonderful bit where lights themselves take on a life of their own – dancing across the screens, even trapping the actors’ silhouetted heads inside them so that one silhouette at one point swallows the other: but not for long!  The two lights play some more and then merge and expand to reveal the table set for tea… the spotlight shrinks till there’s just the mug and the tiny person, who explores the set again before jumping up into the lamp again. Which goes out.

The Tangram Collective have produced a truly wonder-full show exploring how amazing shadows are, which it’s obvious their young audience enjoyed hugely.  In the Q&A session at the end some marvellous questions were posed, from which we learned that the show took seven weeks to make, and was based on a lot of deep research into the philosophy of shadows; that it takes several years for children to connect shadows with the objects that make them, seeing them at first as completely separate entities; and that the company has given some 320 performances to date in many European countries – and now in Scotland.

I absolutely loved Shades of Shadows!  Alas, this was the last performance – I would have loved to see it again…

Imaginate Children’s Festival presents Tangram Kollektiv: Shades of Shadows Festival Theatre Studio, Edinburgh, RUN ENDED

**** (4 stars)

“An impressive range of talents”

Do children wonder what adults get up to while they are at school, at play, or once they have been safely tucked up in bed?  Are they as in control as they would like to seem?  Is it all a huge pretence?  

An empty stage.  Curtains each side, and at the back.  A long orange cable snakes across the floor.

A roll of tape rolls into sight.  Someone walks across the stage, whistling.  The cable is slowly pulled into the wings. Someone wrestles with an inflated canvas shape which is trying to make a bid for freedom.  It loses.

More random appearances, of people, things, rolls of tape, oranges…  Something starts dripping on to the stage – gently at first, but more insistently.  It is established that it isn’t pee, but no-one seems to have responsibility for this, or know what to do.  One actor on the phone insists that everything is completely under control.  Some ever more complex attempts are made at dealing with the problem, but they merely escalate the situation, which becomes increasingly tangled and bizarre.  

Oranges are chopped up, lights blow, smoke billows into the audience, an actor wearing a giant head of Chekov joins the action.  At one point the actors slowly realise that there is an audience of children watching them – and freeze.  One of them suggests that they should give their audience ‘some theatre’ – that’s what they’ve come for.  In defiance of the remark No theatre: we are grown ups and we are very busy, she keeps trying to ‘be theatrical’ with eccentric dance and movement and an increasingly absurd amount of fruit.

Compagnie Barbarie and Bronks present a show aimed ‘at age 4-12 years’ which certainly got the audience engaged and screaming – at some points I wondered if they would ever shut up and listen for long enough to find out what would happen next… 

The comments from the children began quite sensibly – don’t let the water and the electricity meet, for example – but began to get out of hand as an ever-increasing bellow of “smash the glass” threatened to derail the whole show.  I wonder what the performers made of this, and whether their audiences were usually better-behaved…  I also wonder what a four-year-old would have made of it – certainly something very different from a twelve-year-old!

There was a gradual slowing of pace towards the end of the show, some very eccentric dancing by three ‘Chekovs’ and a final slow fade on a single cast member isolated in the midst of a mountain of chaos.

Amber Goethals, Lotte Vaes, Sarah Vangeel and Liesje De Backer displayed an impressive range of talents while coping with an increasingly vociferous audience.  On the way out, one adult referenced Lord of the Flies, an apt reference to the uncontrollable way violence can erupt from seemingly very little. I certainly felt battered by the volume and intensity of the shouting coming from the kids around me: and wondered quite how much of the show they were actually taking in.  I also wonder how their accompanying adults calmed them down and got them back to school in one piece!

Let’s see what else Imaginate has to offer in the next few days…

Compagnie Barbarie and Bronks: Grown Ups, As Part of Imaginate Children’s Festival Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, Review- Runs until 28th May for more information go to: https://www.imaginate.org.uk/festival/whats-on/grown-ups

**** (4 stars) 

“A wonderful summation” 

How do you celebrate the life of a much-loved British Treasure who died far too young after bringing joy, fun, and laughter to millions through her work? 

You get Paulus the Cabaret Geek and pianist Michael Roulston [of Fascinating Aida] to bring her songs to life, and laugh yourself silly for a couple of hours in the company of fellow-devotees, that’s what. 

As Paulus quips at the start, it takes two men to do the job of one woman [and only half as well].  It’s almost impossible to put into words just how talented Victoria was.  This bouncy northern woman, whose figure did not conform to the sylph-like dimensions expected by the entertainment industry, and whose accent was most definitely not the expected RP, brought a new way of being funny to our screens in the mid-80s.  A keen observer of people, her uncannily accurate understanding of feelings and motivations, she was never vicious in her humour – always kindly, never belittling even the silliest of people, laughing with, not at them. 

Her way with words was wonderfully witty: she would build a song with ever-increasingly ridiculous phrases which culminate in something so outrageously funny that you simply have to howl with laughter again and again.  She could also do quiet tragedy, pathos, sympathetic understanding of human suffering, with warmth and generosity.  One of the most moving things I remember seeing was Victoria as Housewife, 49, a play based on the wartime diaries of one of the many people who contributed to the Mass-Observation project.  Understated, self-deprecating, unsparingly honest – such a contrast to the bouncy, sparkly pianist with a beaming smile we usually think of. 

Paulus definitely had the bounce, the sparkle, the energy, and Michael definitely had the fabulous piano technique.  Together they gave us a selection of Victoria’s songs and jokes, switching from humour to pathos in the blink of an eye, and celebrating both a talented artist and the legacy she has left in the camaraderie that grows between perfect strangers once they realise they are all ardent fans.  Mention is also made of the wonderful women who joined her in so many dramas – Celia Imrie, Julie Walters, and so many more: there seemed to be no end to Victoria’s talents, and her generosity in writing fabulous parts for her friends. 

Linking all this, Paulus told of the transformational effect on himself as a lonely, chubby boy of eleven who was simply different from everyone else at school.  Her shows were something he could watch with his mum and much older sister.  Finding someone who was also different from the accepted norm of entertainers of the time gave him the courage and confidence to start performing – and look at him now!  A shared love of Victoria’s humour led to a friendship with Michael Roulston – and look at them now, too! 

Impeccable diction in an age where word endings are usually swallowed; a wonderfully flexible and expressive voice; a delightfully outgoing personality – all these attributes belong both to Victoria and Paulus.  I should also add, a bloody good memory – all those words!  And in songs like Northern Song, which is simply a random collection of phrases associated with ‘being northern’, there’s no narrative line to help you along the way.  So many outstanding characters brought to life – the sad, lovelorn eleven-year-old silently yearning for the sixteen-year-old with whom they share nothing but a daily journey on the school bus; the lonely widower who’s just lost his wife and keeps making two cups of tea in the morning; the outrageous goings-on of a Saturday night out; the sad realities of a modern romance.   

We laugh with her at the ridiculousness of life – but are never brought down into gloom and despondency.  We are encouraged to get real, to give up the relentless fight against ageing, and live for now.  One of my favourite songs [new to me] from the evening was the joyous catalogue of all the women as whom she wanted to be reincarnated, culminating in the woman whose Christmas preparations include putting her sprouts on in November…   

If you have a dream, go with it: all there is is now… What better life advice could you ever be given?  And what a wonderful summation of Victoria’s own life. 

What a lovely way to end a show. 

But  

That wasn’t the end 

We did get all we had been waiting for: the Ballad of Barry and Freda, aka Let’s Do It 

Words fail me 

It was brilliant 

What a way to end a show, what a way to celebrate Victoria Wood. 

LOOKING FOR ME FRIEND: the music of Victoria Wood, Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, RUN ENDED by UK Tour continues for more information go to: www.lookingformefriend.com 

***** (5 stars) 

This is an exhibition which needs visited again and again – it’s so full and rich you’d get violent indigestion if you tried to take it all in in one short visit… I turned up for one of the regular Tuesday and Thursday lunchtime tours, and am very glad that I had sufficient time to restore myself with a bowl of [excellent!] Indonesian soup and a cheese scone before diving back into the exhibition for a more leisurely examination of everything on display.  Of necessity, the tour only looks at some of the extensive collection on display, which includes many exquisite works by other artists alongside those of Peploe, Fergusson, Hunter and Cadell. 

Were there only four Colourists?  Well…there were other artists with similar ideas – but many of them, both men and women, died young, and before the Four had become established as a group.  How come they are a group?  Well… a strong bond of friendship seems to have grown up between them over the years: they went on painting trips together, encouraged and criticised each other, and those who survived longer were devastated by the deaths of their friends.  Why were they all men?  Well… not for the lack of talented female artists of the period, but largely because they died young, often in childbirth.  Why ‘Scottish’?  Well…  three of them came from Edinburgh, the fourth from Bute; they mostly came from wealthy families, so could go to Paris to study and paint – and of course there they came into contact with artists, styles of painting, and ways of living that were in strong contrast to their ‘respectable’ and mostly grey home city. 

And why ‘Colourists’?  Well…there’s a sudden explosion of colour into their work, and with the colour comes life, and joy, and a sense of freedom from care – creating a painting that makes the viewer feel something, rather than simply faithfully reproducing what the artist is looking at.  There are landscapes, and still lifes, and portraits, and accompanying them are a wonderful assemblage of works by artists who influenced, assisted, accompanied the four Colourists on their journey of exploration of the world around them.  Whistler, Singer Sargent, Lavery, Augustus John, Derain and others add context and contrast, and the explanations that accompany the works also name the people who contributed to [or hindered] the gradual coalescence of the foursome into a recognisable group of artists with a recognisable style.  As a Quaker myself, I was interested to learn of the somewhat biased approach to assembling exhibition material of Roger Fry, member of the famous chocolate family, who didn’t seem to think the works of these Scottish artists worthy of inclusion. [but then I wasn’t particularly Impressed by the only example of Fry’s own work – Farm Buildings – on display at Dovecot.] 

Okay, enough blethering – what about the pictures?  Well, I could wax lyrical about most of them: and I still can’t quite fix on The One I Would Steal If I Could.  [This approach, which is one I generally employ at exhibitions, leaves out all consideration of how it might fit into my tiny flat or how the theft could be managed!]. It was a joy to see paintings I know well from Scottish collections I’ve visited, and even more joy to see paintings new to me, which I’d happily see again and again. 

One of the most surprising of my ‘likes’ was Composition with Grey Leaves and a Sliced Circle, a work by Duncan Grant which shows the influence Cubism was having: it’s a wonderfully random yet perfectly balanced assemblage of shapes which simply glows with colour.  [On which note, I loved the warm, rich red of the walls on which all the works were hung.]  Another surprise was Robert the Bruce and De Bohun by Eric Robertson.  Labelled ‘ rare example of Scottish Vorticism’, it’s a wonderfully swirling canvas showing the moment when the two heavily-armed horsemen clash in battle in a wonderfully Scottish landscape.  Near that is a Fergusson painting of Three Submarines – another surprise to me, for the subject this time.  Another glowing surprise was Arenig, North Wales by James Dickson Innes, a Llanelli-born artist whose painting to me seemed almost tropical in its feel and colouring. 

There’s a superb drawing by Cadell of his lover Charles Oliver – at a time when homosexuality was illegal, Oliver was referred to as “my most faithful friend” and called his “manservant” – it’s a lovely, intimate portrait which sits beside two other, more ‘public’ Cadell oils of The Boxer [a champion boxer who became a much-loved policeman in the Grassmarket] and The White Shirt, which is thought to be of a Black merchant seaman from Cape Verde who settled in Leith. 

There’s a good sprinkling of paintings by women artists – look out for Anne Estelle Rice’s Seascape with Sailing Boats, Bessie MacNicol’s The Pink Hat, Margaret Rice’s Red Bowl, Devon Cottages and Portrait of Flossie Jolley – but the exhibition’s overwhelmingly male-dominated. 

And of course, there’s a wonderful collection of canvases by the four Colourists – still lifes, landscapes, portraits; old favourites and new delights.  Which one would I steal?  With so many to choose from, it’s a really difficult choice – I’m torn between Fergusson’s Jonquils and Silver from 1905 and Cadell’s Carnations [1913].  I overheard a couple’s conversation which suggested they would nick Cadell’s Loch Creran, Argyll which he painted in 1932. 

Which would you choose?  

The Scottish Colourists: Radical Perspectives Dovecot Studios, Edinburgh, Run Continues https://dovecotstudios.com/whats-on/the-scottish-colourists