'Sugar Hall' by Tiffany Murray

Although I’m not traditionally a fan of ghost stories, what with being a susceptible fool who is easily spooked, I ended up reading Tiffany Murray’s latest novel Sugar Hall in almost a day… as I just couldn’t put it down.

Loosely based on the spooky Littledean Hall near the Forest of Dean, the Sugar Hall of the title is a grandly imposing, and reputedly ugly, old stately home built by the fortunes of the Sugar family – who made their money via the equally ugly businesses of sugar trading and slave purchasing. With centuries of grisly stories embedded in its walls and surrounding woodland, the latest inhabitants of the Hall are Lilia Sugar and her two children Saskia and Dieter.

Lilia is the widowed wife of Peter Sugar, who was the final surviving descent of the Sugar family. As such, their young son Dieter Sugar is now the only living heir to the crumbling Sugar empire. Lilia and her children have inherited the freezing Hall in Peter’s will, and with fate not on their side, they’re forced to up sticks from their cosy London flat and move down to the chilly, alienating old house to see if they can make it home.

Despite warnings from various locals who know the hold the Hall has over the Sugar sons… and despite the chilling stories Dieter tells her of the boy with the silver collar who he finds around the place… Saskia militantly remains rooted to the Hall, trying her best to make it work for her two children.

But as the months pass, creepy event after spooky encounter stack up… and everything comes to a head.

Tiffany Murray’s writing style is engaging, and after only two or three chapters I was gripped and literally couldn’t put the book down all day, not until I had found out how it all worked out. She paints such a vivid description of the hideous Hall and its world that I was desperate to see a real picture for myself, to see if the image I’d painted in my head matched the actual Hall. But it is her creation of the manipulative and sad slave boy, who himself suffered at the hands of a former Sugar master, that is truly at the heart of Sugar Hall.

Sugar Hall is up there with Helen Dunmore’s The Greatcoat as one of the two finest contemporary ghost stories I’ve read in recent years.

'Because Of The Lockwoods' by Dorothy Whipple

There’s a formula to Dorothy Whipple books and it’s a winning formula – that’s why back in the 1940s and 1950s she was such a bestselling author, and that’s why the Persephone Books reprints of those novels continue to remain among the publishers’ bestselling novels today.

The latest, and penultimate, Persephone reprint of a Whipple is Because Of The Lockwoods, which follows Dorothy’s formula to the letter and with glorious success.

Our heroine Thea is the youngest daughter of the Hunter family, who sadly lost their father far too young and his death plunged them into relative poverty. They were patronised and pitied by the loathsome Lockwood family, who indulged the Hunters with contemptuous charity… thereby fostering growing hatred towards them by the Hunters, especially Thea.

In the classic Dorothy Whipple style, our heroine is served a great injustice by the hands of a seemingly powerful man, Mr Lockwood… and the book is spent with her resolving to wreak her revenge, see justice done and ultimately emerge the victor. It’s giving nothing away to say that Thea does just this… and in delicious fashion.

Because Of The Lockwoods takes us on a lengthy, but thoroughly enjoyable, journey from outer Manchester to rural France and back again. As with most Dorothy Whipple books, this is a real doorstopper of a book; chunky and weighty. But as with all Dorothy Whipple books, this is also a deeply enjoyable, page-turner of a hotwater bottle book.

I first read this book several years ago during a summer heatwave in a Somerset garden, and although I generally try not to read a book twice (if you’ve got time to read one book twice, you’ve got time to read two books – is my rule of thumb), Because Of The Lockwoods was equally, if not more so, delicious the second time.

Revenge, as Thea finds, is a dish best served cold (with a wintry reading).

'Funny Girl' by Nick Hornby

Nick Hornby’s latest novel, Funny Girl, is essentially a love letter to Lucille Ball – the grand dame of 1950s’ TV comedy. Our hero Barbara is a working-class Blackpool girl blessed with beautiful looks, headstrong determination and a self-defined funny bone… who makes her way to London in pursuit of aping her hero Lucille and becoming a comedian herself.

But given the set-up for Funny Girl, it’s notable how little of this story is actually Barbara’s – or Sophie, as she soon becomes known as. Maybe this is because Funny Girl is written by a man, but we read very little of the book from Barbara’s perspective, instead following the story from the men that surround her: co-star Clive, producer Dennis, scriptwriters Bill and Tony. We’re only a few chapters in before Barbara herself seems like simply a device to drive the men’s stories forwards.

Once in London, Barbara/Sophie quickly attracts the attention of a kindly agent and before long she is cast as the lead in a new BBC sitcom – which naturally becomes a hit, catapulting her into the limelight and role of national darling. Yet we read very little of how all of this affects Barbara/Sophie and of the world in which she lives, instead we read more about Bill’s literary ambitions, Tony’s charade of a marriage, Clive’s emotional immaturity, and Dennis’ torch that he holds for the funny girl of the title.

But Funny Girl is an enjoyably readable book – the most engaging and compelling of Nick Hornby’s novels, in my opinion, since High Fidelity back in 1995. Maybe this is because Hornby’s own love for Lucille Ball rivals his passion for glorious record shops? I found it frustrating that so little of Funny Girl focused on the funny girl of the title, and that we learned so little about why Lucille Ball was such an inspiration on Barbara/Sophie, but as a call back to the golden age of light entertainment, the novel is a fun and light read.

'Made In Dagenham' - Adelphi Theatre, London

Photo credit: Manuel Harlan

Photo credit: Manuel Harlan

Based on the 2010 film Made In Dagenham, this new musical is a fabulous way to bring feminism to the West End stage… without anyone batting an eyelid at the nerve-inducing ‘f’ word.

With Gemma Arterton (Quantum of Solace, St Trinian’s) in the lead role as feisty Ford machinist Rita O’Grady, we know we’re in good hands. Gemma’s stage presence and confidence is assured right from the opening scene of her at home, trying to get husband Eddie (Adrian Der Gregorian) and kids Sharon and Graham ready and out of the house before they all go to work and school. A feat that is rewarded with a rousing opening song featuring many of the principle cast.

Rita is a machinist at the Dagenham Ford factory, where she and her female colleagues work in sweltering conditions to sew the fabrics for the car seats… while the bodies of the cars are constructed by many of their husbands, showing what a tightly knit Ford community Dagenham was in 1968 when the story is set. After the women’s work is downgraded to unskilled work, they go out on a strike led by Rita – and soon enough their husbands are also off-work due to a wily ruse by Ford bosses to try and get the women to quit their strike.

As you may well know, the plot is based tightly on the true events of 1968 when the Ford machinists made history by striking until they received equal pay for skilled work – events which led to the creation of the 1970 Equal Pay Act. And it’s fabulous to see such a pivotal moment in women’s, as well as society’s, history so brilliantly and cleverly reconstructed in a hit West End musical.

And with music by David Arnold, this isn’t just any musical. The man has scored five James Bond films, as well as a string of other Hollywood films and TV series, meaning Made In Dagenham is a stage musical like no other. Although I’m not necessarily a fan of musicals, there is barely a low note in this entire production and it’s safe to say everyone in the audience will have left with closing song Stand Up ringing in their ears for days afterwards.

Alongside Gemma Arterton, Made In Dagenham has a sterling supporting cast, and Mark Hadfield as a caricature of Prime Minster Harold Wilson is an absolute comedy dream. Other standout performances include Sophie-Louise Dann as no-nonsense MP Barbara Castle, and Sophie Isaacs as ambitious machinist Sandra.

Funny, touching and timeless, Made in Dagenham shows how ordinary people can do extraordinary things when they stand together.

Made In Dagenham shows Mondays-Saturdays at the Adelphi Theatre, The Strand, London at 7.30pm Mondays-Saturdsays, with a 3pm matinee on Wednesdays and Saturdays. For more information and to book tickets, please click here.

Photo credit: MadamJ-Mo

'The Home-Maker' - by Dorothy Canfield Fisher

The latest in the Persephone Classics series is this new edition of Dorothy Canfield Fisher’s 1924 novel The Home-Maker. Originally published many years ago as one of the very first Persephone books, it’s easy to see why the London-based independent publisher chose to reprint this forgotten book about the emotional turmoil of an unhappy married couple finding comfort when they swap their traditional gender roles.

The Home-Maker is instantly absorbing and quick to read, yet an intricately clever book in the tools that Dorothy uses to draw the reader in. Divided into three parts (before, during and after husband Lester’s ‘accident’), the book also devotes different chapters to different character’s voices, giving a great insight into the plot and dilemma from a whole range of sides.

The book opens on housewife Eva furiously scrubbing her floors after one of her young children has accidentally spilled some food grease. Eva’s home is immaculate and symptomatic of everything in her life: ordered, neat, controlled. Frustrated by the cards life has dealt her, Eva aims for perfection from her children and constantly chides them, while refraining from scolding her disappointing husband Lester for fear they might think less of him. But of course, the result is that her children are terrified of her and her husband is an emasculated wreck. The Home-Maker is a story of standards that must be upheld, a story of the fear about what the neighbours will think.

What particularly interested me, though, was Lester’s story. He’s a man struggling to conceal his depression from his family and employers. Shrunken by missed opportunities in life, a soul-destroying job and a wife he has disappointed, Lester feels he contributes nothing. So much so that he is driven to contemplate suicide not once but twice. Yet this enormous crisis in his life is not dwelled upon in Dorothy’s novel, which I found really shocking, but also reflective of the way in which mental health issues are still brushed aside as uncomfortable topics. Lester was the character I empathised with and who I wanted to see receive some help or comfort, yet instead he was caught in a long string of desperate deception.

The Home-Maker, despite its portrayal of a proud family built on the concept of perfection and solidity, actually reveals a delicate family struggling to stay together behind a mask of lies and unhappiness. It’s a profoundly sad book in that the only way for Eva, Lester and the children to remain happy is for them to live a life of deceit and sickness. Yet this reflects just how awful the stigma was less than a century ago for a wife to be the breadwinner while the husband stays at home to bring up the children.

Longwave - Theatre Royal, Plymouth

Performed entirely without dialogue, this 75-minute performance piece is nothing if not testing. But since it is written by the always-interesting Chris Goode (The Adventures of Wound Man and Shirley, GOD/HEAD and more) who comes with consistently good form, it would be churlish not to take a look.

Originally devised in 2006, Longwave has returned in 2014 with Tom Lyall and Jamie Wood as the two actors charged with portraying scientists stranded in a shed in a bleak, hostile, unwelcoming environment. They play games and make music to pass the time while trapped in the middle of nowhere. Their only source of comfort is an old wireless, which also provides their only occasional links to the world they once knew.

Tom and Jamie do an excellent job of portraying the repetitive routines of the two scientists who live together in their tiny shed. Through intricately choreographed routines the audience gets an intimate glimpse inside their minds – to see who it is they’ve left behind at home, their struggles with the isolation, and their joy when their research yields positive results.

To achieve all of this with no dialogue is quite some feat, and this is where the tool of the longwave radio really comes in. Although we do hear some scripted dialogue via the radio at times, the words chosen are selected with such care and thought as to only be crucially necessary to drive the narrative forwards and give the audience further insight into the characters.

While in a world dominated by communication, music, chatter and social media it is easy to be deafened by the constant barrage of sound being thrown at us, Longwave and its silence initially seems like a daunting prospect. But the reality is a simply beautiful piece of theatre that is a fascinating experiment into silence, and how to chose your words more carefully.

I saw Longwave on its last evening in Plymouth, however it is touring to London, Crew and Lincoln. Click here for more information. 

Eat My Heart Out - Zoe Pilger

It’s not often that you read a book so bad that it makes you want to go out and plant a tree in recompense for such an appalling waste of natural resources. But Zoe Pilger’s Eat My Heart Out is one such book.

This is a book so lacking that it makes me sad for all the genuinely talented fiction authors out there whose book are denied publication, despite the fact they actually have something interesting to say and the talent to construct their narrative in an engaging manner.

Zoe Pilger’s debut novel comes heaped with praise. ‘Perfectly pitched satire’ boasts the quote from The New Statesman on the cover, for instance. And this word ‘satire’ is one that comes up again and again in reference to Eat My Heart Out.

Satire is, of course, a strand of literature that paints a deliberately grotesque form of a current trend with the goal of shaming said trend-followers into seeing the error of their ways and conforming. But I don’t think that’s what Zoe Pilger is doing with Eat My Heart Out, no matter how many times I read the word ‘satire’ on the back cover or in the plentiful reviews. It feels to me as if the word ‘satire’ is being used in reference to Pilger’s book as an excuse - a get-out-of-jail-free card to excuse herself of any responsibility for all the obnoxious messages contained within the 295 pages of her book.

And this is a book that revels in its obnoxious messages. Our anti-hero Ann-Marie is a privileged 23-year-old who swans around London with her wealthy friends (the types who have names like Sebastian, Freddie and Allegra), who all take too many drugs, have no responsibilities and fuck anything that moves in the most in the most disgusting way possible - for no other purpose than purported shock value. *yawn* To make her seem more ‘real’, Ann-Marie has a job in an exclusive Soho restaurant - although it’s unclear whether her job is receptionist, coat check, waiter or chef. It doesn’t seem to matter, as she makes no bones of screwing even the most repulsive of diners simply to make us hate her even more.

There’s probably a message somewhere in Eat My Heart Out, somewhere deep in its self-consciously smug pages - the sort of pages that are overwritten with a desperate desire to match Will Self for erudite obfuscation (but rest easy, Mr Self, there’s nothing to see here). I’m struggling to find the message, but the blurb tells me this is a feminist book, and a ‘fiercely clever’ one at that. I find no evidence of either claim within the pages, simply a tedious catalogue of self-loathing by unpleasant caricatures.

'Dead Dog in a Suitcase' at Bristol Old Vic

Photo credit - Steve Tanner

Guest review by Jacqui Furneaux 

It didn’t seem appropriate to applaud at the end of this Kneehigh Theatre production of Dead Dog In A Suitcase, at a time when the stage was full of the debris and destruction of a world we have created by accepting greed and corruption as the norm.

Like The Beggars’ Opera which inspired it, Dead Dog In A Suitcase is alerting us to our demise but the journey was light-hearted and very funny. Throughout, with the wonderful use of puppetry, brilliant songs and great lines, we hope the lovable villain Macheath (Dominic Marsh) will leave his bad-boy days behind and sail off into the sunset with good and wholesome Polly (Carly Bawden). But deprived of a happy ending, the audience has to accept that in this instance evil gets the better of good and even Polly succumbs to hatred and revenge. This flies in the face of tradition to give us a wake-up call.

Director Mike Shepherd uses Punch and Judy puppets as a continuous thread starting with Punch killing the Devil, which encourages the residents of a mythical but realistic coastal town to commit unspeakable acts without the fear of going to hell. After all, Punch has no scruples and neither do Macheath or the town’s greedy industrialists, the Peachums (Rina Fatania and Martin Hyder) who also crave political power.

Dead Dog In A Suitcase was a faultless theatrical delight with rich acting, script, props (including a progressively decomposing dead dog in a suitcase) and tremendous music. There were gender changes and role-swapping, with characters who had been playing respectable citizens suddenly appearing as the opposite sex in provocative clothing in a bawdy-house. The songs were amusing and poignant, varying greatly in style and during the interval several people were heard to ask if CDs were available. 

The set by Michael Vale was cleverly adaptable for each part of the play and was complete without much scene-changing. The clever lighting saw to that, highlighting various parts of the stage as required. 

At times the play was pure pantomime with the front rows being balloted with voting papers and the puppets encouraging occasional child-like delight mixed with unsettling sinister characters. At other times farce crept in with three identical suitcases being mixed up and picked up by the wrong owners. But unlike pantomime, Dead Dog In A Suitcase does not have the baddies punished and the goodies rewarded. It’s a grim reminder to mend our ways and it is to be hoped that Kneehigh’s declaration in the programme is correct: ”We believe that theatre has the power to transform...”.

Dead Dog In A Suitcase is performed at Bristol Old Vic until 25 October. Click here for more information and to buy tickets.

Dracula - Bristol Old Vic

Photo credit: Farrows Creative

Guest review by Bo Novak

Journey into the cold, black night with the Mark Bruce Company at Bristol Old Vic and share in a thrilling and romantic adventure to foreign lands full of mystery and danger.

The first half of Dracula is staggeringly creepy. The wolves circle and pounce. The vampire brides writhe and screech like inmates of Bedlam. Unspeakable brutality is vividly signposted, leaving our imaginations to fill in the blanks.

And what of the Count himself? Being more of the Interview With The Vampire generation rather than Twilight, I’m used to vampires being intellectual and conflicted. But Jonathan Goddard’s Dracula is not an urbane aristocrat bemoaning his cursed state but a hollow-cheeked, suede-headed, black-hearted thug with no compunction for his victims. His concubines are bawdy, ethereal and sensual. When they (literally) go for the jugular, it is frenzied and intense, not pretty.

The castle’s gothic splendour is conveyed by intricate ironwork and stone coffins, illuminated by a cold, white moon. The only warmth comes from the candles lit for visitors. Yet Christianity comes out as very flabby in the face of the animalistic and amoral Dracula.

This is dance drama of the highest order, with dancers who are all fine actors, and a dance style that is bold, physical and contemporary, wittily borrowing from other schools of dance to lighten the mood here and there, but always moving the story on.

Eleanor Duval is particularly expressive as Mina and her pas de deux before and after her encounter with Dracula - when she is changed forever - are both beautifully done. Kristin McGuire oozes raw physicality as she goes from cheeky ingénue to insatiable undead seductress.

There is plenty of humour to offset the pervading sense of threat. The ensemble pieces are fun, there is a light-hearted marriage proposal, and even a knowing wink to Rocky Horror’s Magenta the Maid. They also somehow pull off Dracula donning top hat and cane to do a Busby Berkeley number while he toys with his terrified prey.

The music, a patchwork of different styles and pieces lifted from classical and modern genres, slightly detracted from the cohesion of the piece, but credit to Guy Hoare for the immersive environment created by the lighting and Phil Eddolls for the beautiful and versatile set.

Like Matthew Bourne, Mark Bruce reinvigorates a classic story using accessible dance forms, and the Company richly deserved the raucous applause from the audience. A magnificent evening of light and dark.

Dracula is performed at Bristol Old Vic until 4 October. Formore information and to buy tickets, please click here. 

Juno And The Paycock - Bristol Old Vic

Photo: Stephen Vaughan

Set in a 1920s Dublin tenement flat, Juno And The Paycock makes no bones about the fact it is a seamlessly gritty production.

Sean O’Casey’s 1923 play is considered one of the finest ever by an Irish playwright, and in its nine decades it has been turned into a film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, a stage musical, three TV adaptations and countless stage versions.

This production at Bristol Old Vic (a collaboration with the Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse) is the latest such stage version. Directed by Gemma Bodinetz, and performed on a fabulously shambolic set designed by Conor Murphy, Juno And The Paycock takes audiences on a grimly absorbing journey back to one of the most turbulent times in Irish history.

The Boyle family is living on the breadline. Their home is a squalid tenement flat in an area of Dublin later condemned for slum clearance. Wife Juno (Niamh Cusack) is the only earner in the home, as workshy husband ‘Captain’ Jack (Des McAleer) prefers to drink the day away, daughter Mary (Maureen O'Connell) is on strike and son Johnny (Donal Gallery) endures post-traumatic stress disorder after losing his arm while fighting in the War of Independence.

When the family is thrown a bone in the shape of an unexpected windfall from a distant relative’s will, the Boyles go to town to revel in their new fortunes and finally enjoy the luxuries that life had previously denied them. For added good measure, the news is delivered by Mary’s impressive new beau – the well-to-do young teacher Mr Bentham. But while the family scrabbles to crawl up the class ladder… they quickly find that the snakes of bad fortune will send them back down again with more than their tails between their legs.

Juno And The Paycock encompasses class struggles, poverty, Irish history and the germ of what would later become The Troubles. With Cusack at the helm, director Bodinetz could hope for no finer actor to steer this production to a strong conclusion. While it would be grossly misleading to suggest that Juno And The Paycock will leave you with a warm glow, the touches of slapstick generated by Jack and his feckless sidekick Joxer provide enough hints of relief to soften some of the harder punches.

Juno And The Paycock is performed at Bristol Old Vic until September 27, 2014. Click here for more information and to book tickets. 

'Love, Nina' - by Nina Stibbe

It’s not often that you read a book which you desperately don’t want to end, but Love, Nina is one of them. 

Published a few months ago amid an enthusiastic flurry of glittering endorsements and rave reviews, the book failed to spark any interest in me until a friend sung the praises of Love, Nina on Facebook… and I gave in and ordered a copy.

Why was I reluctant? The book is a collection of letters that Nina Stibbe sent home to her sister Vic over several years during the early 1980s while Nina was nannying for a family in London. The book sounded so cutesy that it made me fear it would be a repeat of the horrible Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society episode from a few years back (a collection of - fictional? – letters that was so sickly sweet it made me want to pull all my teeth out in one go).

Anyway, I was wrong. Love, Nina is not twee, sickly or tooth-hurty. It is delightful, warm, funny and fascinating in equal measures. 

In 1982, Nina was the new, and ill-equipped, nanny for Mary-Kay Wilmers (founder and editor of the London Review of Books) and her two sons Sam and Will (whose father is film director Stephen Frears). You’ll need to get to grips with the Guardian-esque name-dropping fairly soon because frequent characters around the Wilmers’ kitchen table include Alan Bennett, Claire Tomalin and Michael Frayn.

But while the insights into the notoriously secretive Alan Bennett’s culinary skills are fascinating, it is the simple exchanges between the eccentric and kindly Mary-Kay, Nina and the boys which is at the root of this book. The snapshots of conversation that Nina records in her letters are seemingly irrelevant (about emptying the dishwasher, or how to swear in German) but happen every day all around the country, yet are lost forever as most people don’t stop to notice the funny things we say without trying.

And that is where Love, Nina succeeds so well – at making the everyday things we do seem so silly.

Postscript:

I can only think of one other book I’ve read in recent years that has made me feel as warm as this one did and that’s Auntie Mame: An Irreverent Escapade by Patrick Dennis from 1955 (not read it? Oh, please do). Yet the book that kept popping into my head while reading Love, Nina was the 1931 novel The Brontes Went To Woolworths by Rachel Ferguson. Why? In Ferguson’s charming novel the three Carne sisters invent friendships with the Bronte siblings (as well as a very real local judge) to help them through their everyday problems… and then the real and imaginary worlds come to a head. It’s a truly wonderful book.

Wodwo - at Bristol Old Vic

Photo credit - Jack Offord

Bristol Old Vic’s subterranean Studio space has been overtaken by it’s Young Company and transformed into a peaty woodland kingdom. Less a paradise than a waking nightmare, this reinterpretation of Ted Hughes’ 1967 poem Wodwo breathes new life into the age-old angst of being afraid of the dark.

The poem for Hughes marked a departure in his signature style – moving away from formal constraints and into a more fluid exploration of mythology. Which makes it a fitting choice for the Young Company to develop Wodwo when they also break away from their previous, more traditional theatre style. And what better time to make a bold statement than on their twentieth anniversary?

Performed in the round, Wodwo sets the scene with a raised bed of soil as the stage floor, an overhanging canopy of litter as the forest roof, and neon light tubes planted in the forest floor. As always with the Old Vic, nothing is what is seems.

A girl is wandering the forest searching for her father, and on her journey she encounters all kinds of creatures – frogs, bees, wolves and many more that are less easy to identify! The malleable cast transform into these beings through an array of neon sports clothing, bright lights and well placed Adidas for ears as they crouch, creep and pounce through the scenery. The neon light tubes become essential props, most effectively to create a mini wind tunnel as the drama heightens to become a storm.

The plot itself is sometimes rather hard to follow, consisting of scant speech, many made up words and sounds and a lot of physical performance, but the effect is no less impressive for it. Coming in at a tight 50 minutes, Wodwo is a whirlwind of a show that explores issues surrounding loss, identity and approval, and is a brave and interesting departure for the Young Company.

Wodwo is performed at Bristol Old Vic until August 16. For more information and to buy tickets, click here.

Bristol Proms: Bach In The Dark

Bach In The Dark – that sounds good whatever way you look at it. It’s nice alliteration, it’s a pleasing pun and it’s extremely intelligent music. Bingo.

For the launch night of the second annual Bristol Proms, held at the prestigious Bristol Old Vic, there are just four rules. Firstly, you may clap when you want. Secondly, you should take photos and tweet them during the performance. Thirdly, bring your drinks in to the theatre. And fourthly, do not shush those around you. So if you follow those rules, all will be well.

Having heard tales from last year’s inaugural Bristol Proms of academics being booted out for crowd surfing, I had high hopes that merry hell would break out in the cavernous – and devilishly warm – underground Studio at the King Street theatre. No such luck! Instead, the packed out audience was beautifully well behaved, with narry a cough or a sneeze to disrupt the peace.

After wowing the Bristol Proms audiences last year, conductor Tom Williams returned to Bristol this evening for Bach In The Dark, which, as the name suggests, was a performance of acoustic choral pieces sung almost entirely in pitch black – although, as Tom Morris indicated in his introduction, Williams has begun experimenting with the radical idea of low levels of lighting.

Joined by the Erebus Ensemble, Williams took the audience on a journey that flitted between heavily muted lighting to pitch darkness throughout the hour or so that we were under his spell. And with a walking choir of ten singers moving throughout the Studio, Williams led them – and us – through 12^th Century choral pieces culminating in Bach’s Jesu Meine Freude, which lent a whole new meaning to the term ‘surround sound’.

The experience of listing to music in the absolute darkness is to take the music out of its original context and place the focus purely on the sound produced by the performers, and the result is a truly extra sensory experience. Initially, the darkness seemed disorientating and in a way distracting – I found myself wondering what was that, was that a movement, was that an infamous Old Vic ghost? And then I relaxed into it. 

I forgot I was sitting in a hot underground room mostly surrounded by strangers, and became truly enveloped in the beautiful and ethereal sound being created just metres in front of me. My attention became focused and my mind stopped wandering, and I became completely absorbed in the music. So much so that when the lights were slightly raised for subsequent pieces, I actually found it much more difficult to concentrate than I had in the darkness.

Bach In The Dark was just one of a string of performances on the opening night of the Bristol Proms 2014, and it’s safe to assume that if all subsequent performances follow the same pattern then Bristol is set for a sterling week of musical adventures.

For more information, please click here. 

'Wild Men' – at Bristol Old Vic

Photo: Matt Collins

Having previously seen shows called Wild Oats and The Wild Bride at Bristol Old Vic, I certainly had to see Wild Men to complete the triptych.

Directed by Samuel Bailey, Wild Men is delivered by the new Hotel Echo theatre group and is a part of Bristol Old Vic’s Made In Bristol project: a training scheme for young theatre makers.

An inventive project, Wild Men ties into the centenary events marking the anniversary of the start of the First World War, and successfully links the innocence of young Bristol men – many still teenagers – drafted up for the fight with their bewilderment and naivety as they face tough decisions in France.

Having previously stood united as choristers in Bristol Cathedral, the small group of young Bristol men find themselves reunited on a reconnaissance mission in the church of a small French village while war rages all around them. The village is largely deserted, save for the elderly and infirm… and the shadow of approaching German soldiers is looming close over their heads.

Combining careful choreography with choral music, Wild Men engages some imaginative physical theatre to show the unity and discordance that quickly begins to seep through the small group of Bristolians, bewildered by a situation they never thought they’d find themselves in.

What is also striking is the harsh reality for their wives left behind. As Edith, Kat Stokes is convincing when she struggles to put on a brave face while facing gruelling manual labour on the farm, and pining for her new baby who she barely sees from one week to the next and is cared for by her parents-in-law. The pain of the scarcity of letters and news from her husband Frank, Chanelle Bernard, is something Edith struggles to hide from those around her, who are all juggling their own strung out emotions.

As a debut show from Hotel Echo, Wild Men is a strong example of our younger theatre makers embracing and marking important historical events, and not being afraid to take bold steps while doing so. The play was inspired by a plaque in the corner of Bristol Cathedral commemorating the choristers who fought in the war, and Wild Men is a fitting tribute to their bravery.

Wild Men is performed at Bristol Old Vic until July 28, before touring in Scotland. For more information or to buy tickets, please click here. 

'London Road: A Musical' - Bristol Old Vic

Photo: Graham Burke

When it opened at London’s National Theatre in 2011, London Road: A Musical was met with rapturous reviews, critical acclaim and a sold-out run. So quite what happened in transition to Bristol’s Old Vic Theatre I’m not sure.

Directed by Nicholas Bone, London Road is a brave attempt to combine verbatim theatre with musical theatre to retell the true story of a series of brutal murders using the speech and inflections of those who were there.

Verbatim theatre uses exactly the same words as were spoken by a person as part of the performance – so in this case, Alecky Blythe interviewed the real-life residents of Ipswich’s London Road to gain their perspectives of the notorious killings of five local sex workers in 2006. Complete with repetitions, fillers, malapropisms and unfinished sentences, those interviews are repeated here on the stage by actors. And following the natural rhythm of the Ipswich accent, composer Adam Cork has set this to music, performed by a live band.

It just doesn’t work. The actual narrative of London Road and the stories of those affected by the murders becomes secondary to the self-conscious and all-consuming performance style of tedious repetition and overly intrusive live music. With one or two lines repeated over and over during a three or four minute song, it takes a very long time for the narrative to move forwards, and essentially very little happens in what should have been a fascinating story.

The effects on neighbours of living next door to serial killer should be gripping. The paranoia, the suspicion, the change of habits, the curtain twitching, the press intrusion, the propulsion onto the nation’s TV screens… But this production of London Road allows none of this.

With a cast of 12 actors playing 66 characters, there is no empathy or development for any character, meaning there’s no room for the audience to build a connection of identification with any one person. So it is impossible to single out any one actor for their performance. Couple this with the patronising portrayal of these characters – who, let’s not forget, are real people. The murders happened in 2006, meaning this is recent history. So why the inhabitants of London Road are dressed like stereotyped characters from a 1970s sitcom set in a community centre I do not know. Why are they dressed in socks and Birkenstocks? Why are the men wearing zip-up cardigans? Why does their furniture look like it was found on a skip in the 1970s? This is patronising and it is not realistic.

Unfortunately London Road: A Musical does not sit comfortably. What could have been a fascinating and imaginative narrative, putting a new spin on existing genres, ended up as a frustrating and tedious performance that fell short of the mark.

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