Haunting Julia is an atypical but very effective little ghost play from the usually comedic Alan Ayckbourn. One of his most obscure too, given that it is receiving it's London premiere 17 years after it was first performed, but this production at wouldn't-know-it-was-there-unless-you're-looking-for-it Riverside Studios in Hammersmith is well worth a look.
The set strikes you first, a full length bedsit, contained in a studio space rather than a stage. The bedsit is where the titular Julia, a musical prodigy, lived and died, and her tortured father has converted it into a public shrine and tourist site. He now brings two other men into this seemingly haunted room, Andy, Julia's former boyfriend, and Ken, a medium who knows more than he lets on.
Haunting Julia is in that grand tradition of The Woman in Black and Sleuth of making the best of a small cast and one set to conjure up tension, both verbal and visual. As the father, Joe, Christopher Timothy, late of All Creatures Great and Small, is effectively hot-headed, and former Carry On irregular Richard O'Callaghan is a stand-out as the medium.
Apprehension rises slowly but surely - and the interval was a bit unneccessary - but events come to a fine exciting conclusion, with a bricked-up door promising to reveal something spooky every time it's opened and some effective Ghost Stories style effects making the spectre's presence felt as the meaning of the play's title becomes clear.
Wednesday, 6 July 2011
Friday, 20 May 2011
A bit of politics...
So yesterday I found myself at Wormwood Scrubs prison, from which I'd recently seen Richard Burton released in The Spy Who Came In From The Cold and behind whose gates Ronnie Barker was incarcerated in the opening titles of Porridge. The occasion was the filming of an episode of Question Time, for which I'd applied in a moment of rare passion after being infuriated by a recent episode.
It was intriguing to find oneself in jail; eating a chocolate biscuit in the prison officers' mess, having to hand in my keys, getting a rub-down search (oo-er missus), passing through a kind of airlock before entering the beautiful chapel where the show was to be filmed.
When I found out that my question - decided on minutes after arriving - was to be chosen, and that I was to be first my heart started pounding. But when the moment came and David Dimbleby said my name I got it out OK. Seeing myself on TV later that night was a bizarre but highly enjoyable experience. Does my voice really sound like that? It sounds to me like it's low, manly and oozes gravitas, not that it's mildy camp :)
I didn't really absorb that much of what Kenneth Clarke, Shami Chakrabarti, Jack Straw and Melanie Phillips said in response, or indeed to the other questions, some of which were asked by serving prisoners, but then when it comes down to it - sentences for rapists, votes for prisoners, overseas aid, etc, etc - no one really knows anything do they?
It was intriguing to find oneself in jail; eating a chocolate biscuit in the prison officers' mess, having to hand in my keys, getting a rub-down search (oo-er missus), passing through a kind of airlock before entering the beautiful chapel where the show was to be filmed.
When I found out that my question - decided on minutes after arriving - was to be chosen, and that I was to be first my heart started pounding. But when the moment came and David Dimbleby said my name I got it out OK. Seeing myself on TV later that night was a bizarre but highly enjoyable experience. Does my voice really sound like that? It sounds to me like it's low, manly and oozes gravitas, not that it's mildy camp :)
I didn't really absorb that much of what Kenneth Clarke, Shami Chakrabarti, Jack Straw and Melanie Phillips said in response, or indeed to the other questions, some of which were asked by serving prisoners, but then when it comes down to it - sentences for rapists, votes for prisoners, overseas aid, etc, etc - no one really knows anything do they?
Friday, 29 April 2011
Ubi sunt qui ante nos fuerunt?
Who hasn't at some point been seduced by the adrenalin rush of gambling? Not so long ago I found myself in the James Bondian surrounds of the Casino de Monte Carlo, playing a little roulette. I quadrupled my modest stake by going with Red, then, flushed with success, proceeded to lose it all again on black. Once you've won once, you think you're going to keep on winning, but of course it doesn't really work like that.
Victoria Coren is a little more successful than most at games of 'chance', having won £500,000 when she became the first woman to win a major European tournament. Her memoir 'For Richer, For Poorer' is ostensibly a book about poker, but really I think it's a book about what it means to belong. Coren, shy and insecure as a child, found friendship, meaning, acceptance at the Vic poker club and quickly became hooked on the game.
Although the descriptions of poker games are interesting and will inspire many to have a go, I felt the personal aspects of the book were the most intriguing. Poker is the hook on which Coren's thoughts on friendship, family and love are hung and they are beautifully written, with her relationship with her late father being particularly touchingly described. I felt I knew her by the end of the book, and wanted to know her better, though she'd probably not believe it.
Victoria Coren is a little more successful than most at games of 'chance', having won £500,000 when she became the first woman to win a major European tournament. Her memoir 'For Richer, For Poorer' is ostensibly a book about poker, but really I think it's a book about what it means to belong. Coren, shy and insecure as a child, found friendship, meaning, acceptance at the Vic poker club and quickly became hooked on the game.
Although the descriptions of poker games are interesting and will inspire many to have a go, I felt the personal aspects of the book were the most intriguing. Poker is the hook on which Coren's thoughts on friendship, family and love are hung and they are beautifully written, with her relationship with her late father being particularly touchingly described. I felt I knew her by the end of the book, and wanted to know her better, though she'd probably not believe it.
Tuesday, 15 March 2011
Do you come from a land down under?
When watching ‘Animal Kingdom’ I was struck by how long it had been since I saw an Australian film. Looking back, apart from bits of the overblown ‘Australia’ (a film seemingly made just to employ every Aussie character actor ever), the last Antipodean epic I can recall seeing was ‘Wolf Creek’ from five or six years ago.
This is quite strange when one recalls how highly rated the Australian film industry used to be, with Australian cinema seasons on the BBC back in the 80s and the number of notable Australian actors and directors that are prominent in Hollywood. One can only assume that all the talent upped and went to America, or perhaps more likely, that good films are still being produced there but simply don’t get released in the UK. I remember seeing an excellent thriller called ‘The Hard Word’ in a rainswept cinema in Hervey Bay, Queensland back in 2002 but it never saw the light of day in Britain.
Thinking of ‘The Hard Word’ brings us back to ‘Animal Kingdom’, as I was reminded of the former while watching the latter, not least because of the presence of two of the earlier film’s cast members, namely Guy Pearce and Joel Edgerton. Although both these actors get their names above the title of ‘Animal Kingdom’ they are both supporting parts; Pearce as the one honest cop in the Melbourne police force (you can tell he’s decent by his moustache) and Edgerton as a bank-robbing family friend of the criminal family that forms the centre of this dark, downbeat, but always gripping crime film.
The lead character is J, a monosyllabic 17 year old, who, on the death of his mother from a heroin overdose, is taken under the wing of his decidedly creepy grandmother, ‘Smurf’ Cody. He is quickly introduced to the rest of his estranged family; three uncles of varying levels of aggression and dysfunction. Creepiest of the lot is ‘Pope’, a psychopath played superbly by Ben Mendelsohn, who gets J involved in an ever increasing cycle of violence.
It’s a brutal film, painting a highly negative portrait of one of the world’s most liveable cities, and, although the story loses some of its drive towards the end with one-too-many characters being bumped off leaving the cast somewhat bare, it’s one of the best thrillers to come along in some time. Jacki Weaver received an Oscar nomination for her performance as ‘Smurf’ Cody but acting honours go to Mendelsohn and also to James Frecheville as J, who says little but expresses a lot. Here’s hoping it won’t be another five years for the next Australian film to hit our screens.
This is quite strange when one recalls how highly rated the Australian film industry used to be, with Australian cinema seasons on the BBC back in the 80s and the number of notable Australian actors and directors that are prominent in Hollywood. One can only assume that all the talent upped and went to America, or perhaps more likely, that good films are still being produced there but simply don’t get released in the UK. I remember seeing an excellent thriller called ‘The Hard Word’ in a rainswept cinema in Hervey Bay, Queensland back in 2002 but it never saw the light of day in Britain.
Thinking of ‘The Hard Word’ brings us back to ‘Animal Kingdom’, as I was reminded of the former while watching the latter, not least because of the presence of two of the earlier film’s cast members, namely Guy Pearce and Joel Edgerton. Although both these actors get their names above the title of ‘Animal Kingdom’ they are both supporting parts; Pearce as the one honest cop in the Melbourne police force (you can tell he’s decent by his moustache) and Edgerton as a bank-robbing family friend of the criminal family that forms the centre of this dark, downbeat, but always gripping crime film.
The lead character is J, a monosyllabic 17 year old, who, on the death of his mother from a heroin overdose, is taken under the wing of his decidedly creepy grandmother, ‘Smurf’ Cody. He is quickly introduced to the rest of his estranged family; three uncles of varying levels of aggression and dysfunction. Creepiest of the lot is ‘Pope’, a psychopath played superbly by Ben Mendelsohn, who gets J involved in an ever increasing cycle of violence.
It’s a brutal film, painting a highly negative portrait of one of the world’s most liveable cities, and, although the story loses some of its drive towards the end with one-too-many characters being bumped off leaving the cast somewhat bare, it’s one of the best thrillers to come along in some time. Jacki Weaver received an Oscar nomination for her performance as ‘Smurf’ Cody but acting honours go to Mendelsohn and also to James Frecheville as J, who says little but expresses a lot. Here’s hoping it won’t be another five years for the next Australian film to hit our screens.
Tuesday, 18 January 2011
Tales of the unexpected...
A new year began with a very pleasant surprise - writing success! To receive an email on New Year's Eve telling me that I'd won a short story competition was a wonderful little moment, with the added bonus that the story will eventually be appearing in print - my name in a real book. That's next year's Christmas presents sorted out then - 20 copies of the Spinetinglers anthology.
And then last Friday night I found myself performing a poem, in front of an audience of about 30 poets and their groupies, in the delightfully quaint surrounds of the Tea Box in Richmond. Now if you'd told me a few months ago that I'd be doing this I'd have probably laughed, but having been introduced to the eccentric world of live poetry by a friend, I felt suitably inspired to have a go at a medium that I previously thought was much too challenging for me. The unexpected indeed, and all the better for it.
All of which brings me, in nicely tortuous fashion, to Twisted Tales, currently in previews at the Lyric in Hammersmith. Following his success with Ghost Stories, Jeremy Dyson has turned to the short stories of Roald Dahl for inspiration. These stories, which I devoured when I was about 13, were of course previously adapted into the TV series Tales of the Unexpected. It's a series which to be honest has not worn well, and is probably best remembered for the sight of Timothy West turning into a giant bee, but the theme tune and opening credits are imprinted on the brain of anyone who was of a certain age in the 1980s.
In conversation with Simon Stephens of the Lyric before the show, Dyson said that he (wisely) had not rewatched the TV shows when penning this stage adaptation of five of Dahl's stories. Incidentally I think I want to have a loan of Jeremy Dyson's professional life - he spends his time hanging out with fellow geeks and writing for TV, stage and his own anthologies of short stories; his next project is a film about Alfred Hitchcock. It's got to beat sitting in an office anyway.
Like Ghost Stories there is a framing sequence, and Dyson has used an existing Dahl story, 'Galloping Foxley', as a means of accommodating the other tales. Although a neat idea this doesn't work quite as well as it could with some of the links to the stories being handled a little clumsily and Twisted Tales lacks the overall narrative coherence that Ghost Stories exhibits. However, the stories themselves are well-adapted with some nice moments of tension and excellent acting from a small but versatile cast. Of course I already knew what to expect from the twist endings but I don't think this dented my enjoyment of the play. The evening does come to a somewhat uncertain end however, with the finale of 'Galloping Foxley' being handled (as in the original story) perhaps a little too ambiguously, and the audience were unsure when to clap for the curtain call.
Overall, though it's a very entertaining play, and as Dyson confirmed pre-show, a few tweaks will be made here and there before it opens. I would be intrigued to see it again to see how the writing process continues in response to the audience - an opportunity unique to the threatrical medium.
And then last Friday night I found myself performing a poem, in front of an audience of about 30 poets and their groupies, in the delightfully quaint surrounds of the Tea Box in Richmond. Now if you'd told me a few months ago that I'd be doing this I'd have probably laughed, but having been introduced to the eccentric world of live poetry by a friend, I felt suitably inspired to have a go at a medium that I previously thought was much too challenging for me. The unexpected indeed, and all the better for it.
All of which brings me, in nicely tortuous fashion, to Twisted Tales, currently in previews at the Lyric in Hammersmith. Following his success with Ghost Stories, Jeremy Dyson has turned to the short stories of Roald Dahl for inspiration. These stories, which I devoured when I was about 13, were of course previously adapted into the TV series Tales of the Unexpected. It's a series which to be honest has not worn well, and is probably best remembered for the sight of Timothy West turning into a giant bee, but the theme tune and opening credits are imprinted on the brain of anyone who was of a certain age in the 1980s.
In conversation with Simon Stephens of the Lyric before the show, Dyson said that he (wisely) had not rewatched the TV shows when penning this stage adaptation of five of Dahl's stories. Incidentally I think I want to have a loan of Jeremy Dyson's professional life - he spends his time hanging out with fellow geeks and writing for TV, stage and his own anthologies of short stories; his next project is a film about Alfred Hitchcock. It's got to beat sitting in an office anyway.
Like Ghost Stories there is a framing sequence, and Dyson has used an existing Dahl story, 'Galloping Foxley', as a means of accommodating the other tales. Although a neat idea this doesn't work quite as well as it could with some of the links to the stories being handled a little clumsily and Twisted Tales lacks the overall narrative coherence that Ghost Stories exhibits. However, the stories themselves are well-adapted with some nice moments of tension and excellent acting from a small but versatile cast. Of course I already knew what to expect from the twist endings but I don't think this dented my enjoyment of the play. The evening does come to a somewhat uncertain end however, with the finale of 'Galloping Foxley' being handled (as in the original story) perhaps a little too ambiguously, and the audience were unsure when to clap for the curtain call.
Overall, though it's a very entertaining play, and as Dyson confirmed pre-show, a few tweaks will be made here and there before it opens. I would be intrigued to see it again to see how the writing process continues in response to the audience - an opportunity unique to the threatrical medium.
Saturday, 18 December 2010
Season's Greetings...
A student card may not be a badge of honour, but it has to be said that it comes in mighty useful - getting a £44 stalls seat for a tenner is not to be sniffed at and makes you wonder what these rioting types are moaning about. Ooo a bit of politics creeping in there, sorry folks!
The play in question was the appropriately timed Season's Greetings at the National. First time I'd ever been there, and the hideous 70s lump of concrete that is the outside of the building conceals a roomy, modern venue; albeit one that flogs skimpy salmon sandwiches at tourist rip-off prices.
I'd seen Alan Ayckbourn's other recent revival of The Norman Conquests a year or two ago and found its middle-class tweeness a bit dated, but Season's Greetings, perhaps because it is deliberately set in the era of the play's original production (early 80s), holds up rather better. The comic story of a highly dysfunctional family Christmas, it boasts an excellent cast and I couldn't help get something of a Doctor Who-ey vibe from an opening scene which features Catherine Tate (new series ex-companion), Mark Gatiss (New Who writer, actor and geek) and David Troughton (son of Patrick).
These three actors have perhaps the most memorable roles; Tate, surprisingly attractive in the flesh, is the disappointed wife to Neil Stuke's electronics obsessive and flirts manically with the dashing young author who becomes an unexpected Christmas guest; Gatiss, one of Britain's most (over)exposed talents with credits this year on Doctor Who, Sherlock, First Men in the Moon, and his excellent History of Horror documentary, is the ineffectual Bernard whose appallingly dull puppet show is the comic highlight of the play; and Troughton is the somewhat deranged Uncle Harvey, who keeps a bone-handled throwing knife in his sock and has an unhealthy obsession with TV violence.
The holiday develops into assorted mayhem mainly revolving around aforementioned young author, played by Oliver Chris, an actor whose name always seems to be the wrong way round. The only thing that jarred with me is that the family children are never seen. It might have added a certain poignancy to contrast the kids' innocent enjoyment of Christmas with the adults' jaded, alcohol-fuelled antics.
The play in question was the appropriately timed Season's Greetings at the National. First time I'd ever been there, and the hideous 70s lump of concrete that is the outside of the building conceals a roomy, modern venue; albeit one that flogs skimpy salmon sandwiches at tourist rip-off prices.
I'd seen Alan Ayckbourn's other recent revival of The Norman Conquests a year or two ago and found its middle-class tweeness a bit dated, but Season's Greetings, perhaps because it is deliberately set in the era of the play's original production (early 80s), holds up rather better. The comic story of a highly dysfunctional family Christmas, it boasts an excellent cast and I couldn't help get something of a Doctor Who-ey vibe from an opening scene which features Catherine Tate (new series ex-companion), Mark Gatiss (New Who writer, actor and geek) and David Troughton (son of Patrick).
These three actors have perhaps the most memorable roles; Tate, surprisingly attractive in the flesh, is the disappointed wife to Neil Stuke's electronics obsessive and flirts manically with the dashing young author who becomes an unexpected Christmas guest; Gatiss, one of Britain's most (over)exposed talents with credits this year on Doctor Who, Sherlock, First Men in the Moon, and his excellent History of Horror documentary, is the ineffectual Bernard whose appallingly dull puppet show is the comic highlight of the play; and Troughton is the somewhat deranged Uncle Harvey, who keeps a bone-handled throwing knife in his sock and has an unhealthy obsession with TV violence.
The holiday develops into assorted mayhem mainly revolving around aforementioned young author, played by Oliver Chris, an actor whose name always seems to be the wrong way round. The only thing that jarred with me is that the family children are never seen. It might have added a certain poignancy to contrast the kids' innocent enjoyment of Christmas with the adults' jaded, alcohol-fuelled antics.
Sunday, 14 November 2010
The Cannibal Run
Surprisingly, there doesn't seem to be much of an audience for Mexican cannibal dramas at 4.30pm on a Sunday afternoon and so it was that I enjoyed an almost private screening of 'We Are What We Are' at the Covent Garden Odeon.
The set-up finds a decidedly eccentric family left bereft by the sudden death of their father. Who now is going to bring home the bacon? Or rather, the human flesh they seem compelled (for never fully explained reasons) to devour? The intense kids prove pretty incompetent in the kidnap and murder stakes, but the harridan-like mother is more dedicated to the pursuit of fresh meat.
Even as a connoisseur of the somewhat bizarre I found this a hard film to categorise. The first two thirds are something like a slow-moving art-house movie about social alienation in a developing country. The final third a bloodbath of shootings, shovels-to-the-head, gougings, disembowelling and flesh-eating. It's one of those films that it would be difficult to call 'good' but it is oddly compelling anyway.
In that sense, and in others, 'We Are What We Are' is oddly reminiscent of a British cannibal film from the early 70s. The mighty 'Death Line' featured a crazed cannibal - a descendant of buried alive construction workers - on the loose on the London Underground, howling his memorable cry of 'Mind the gap!'. Both films have a dark, murky atmosphere; feature a pair of somewhat sleazy cops on the trail of the cannibals and have a certain sympathy for their flesh-eating protagonists. Has Jorge Michel Grau, director of 'We Are What We Are', taken a cue from this earlier work? It would be nice to think so, and know that great British hokum is informing the stranger offerings from foreign fields.
The set-up finds a decidedly eccentric family left bereft by the sudden death of their father. Who now is going to bring home the bacon? Or rather, the human flesh they seem compelled (for never fully explained reasons) to devour? The intense kids prove pretty incompetent in the kidnap and murder stakes, but the harridan-like mother is more dedicated to the pursuit of fresh meat.
Even as a connoisseur of the somewhat bizarre I found this a hard film to categorise. The first two thirds are something like a slow-moving art-house movie about social alienation in a developing country. The final third a bloodbath of shootings, shovels-to-the-head, gougings, disembowelling and flesh-eating. It's one of those films that it would be difficult to call 'good' but it is oddly compelling anyway.
In that sense, and in others, 'We Are What We Are' is oddly reminiscent of a British cannibal film from the early 70s. The mighty 'Death Line' featured a crazed cannibal - a descendant of buried alive construction workers - on the loose on the London Underground, howling his memorable cry of 'Mind the gap!'. Both films have a dark, murky atmosphere; feature a pair of somewhat sleazy cops on the trail of the cannibals and have a certain sympathy for their flesh-eating protagonists. Has Jorge Michel Grau, director of 'We Are What We Are', taken a cue from this earlier work? It would be nice to think so, and know that great British hokum is informing the stranger offerings from foreign fields.
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