Luzzu, a film by Alex Camilleri at Barbican cinema 2, London

A socially realistic film that tells the story of a Maltese fisherman who follows  his male ancestors' trade of small-scale fishing from a traditional Maltese fishing boat (a luzzu).  He is now struggling against with EC-supported commerical trawlers and gradually realising that he cannot compete.  We see the effect this has on his relationship with his wife, who supports him financially and his brother, who wants him to continue the family tradition.  I won't reveal the outcome. 

A  moving film, beautifully shot against the background of the Maltese islands. 5* 

Benediction, a film by Terence Davies at Picturehouse at FACT, Liverpool

Davies’s films are uneven in quality with (a matter of my taste, of course) The Deep Blue Sea at the top and Sunset Song at the bottom of the list. Benediction comes near the top.

It is simply a biography of the poet Sigfried Sassoon, documenting his experience in the First World War, his futile attempt to criticise the military establishment and his consequent stay in the the same mental hospital as Wilfrid Owen, whose poetry he recognises as being far superior to his own. Owen’s death shortly before the end of the war affected Sassoon deeply.

His early fame then gives him entry to the post-war upper class gay community. The film closely follows three of his relationships, particularly that with Ivor Novello, who is portrayed as distinctly unlikeable. Like some of his gay friends, Sassoon ultimately marries and has a child. The end of the film concentrates on his relationship with his adult son, as he becomes increasingly disillusioned with society and with the lack of public recognition of his later works and finally turns to religion in an attempt to exorcise his guilt.

There are some flaws in Davies’s screenplay. It is hard to see how Sassoon changes so dramatically from being articulate and confident as an acting soldier, audaciously questioning his superiors and engaging in fluent Wildeian repartee with his society friends, to being so tongue-tied and easily humiliated by Ivor Novello. While Davies may have an interest in criticising the concept of gay men choosing to enter into a heterosexual marriage, the relationship between Sassoon and his wife is portrayed entirely in black and white; surely there were some good aspects of his family life that could have been included.

That said, there was some very good acting, and excellent direction and production throughout. 4*

Architecture on Film: Reyner Banham Double Bill at Barbican Cinema 1, London

The two films that were shown to a very large audience were Reyner Banham Loves Los Angeles (1972) and Roads to El Dorado: A Journey with Reyner Banham (1979). The first shows some architectural quirks of Los Angeles as a city, e.g. the Watts Towers, Venice Beach, and includes interviews with some unusual people. The second is effectively a road tour from Los Angeles through the Mojave desert to Las Vegas, meeting people in some isolated and extreme places.

Both films were shown (50 min each) and were followed by a discussion by architectural historians Richard J Williams, Adrian Forty, Owen Hatherley and Mimi Zeiger. The films were described as iconic -- Banham was born 100 years ago -- but, although interesting enough as a record of their locations over 40 years ago, they were reminiscent of some middle-brow television programmes of the time by travel writer Alan Whicker rather than demonstrating any profound insights into either architectural practice or the cityscape.

I expected the discussion group might have elaborated on aspects of the films that had escaped me, but they seemed ill-prepared (particularly Mimi Zeiger, who was on Zoom and couldn’t get her slides to project). It’s possible that I missed something interesting, as I left before the end, like quite a large proportion of the audience.

Very disappointing. 2*

Mavra/ Pierrot Lunaire double bill at the Royal Opera House, London

Mavra is a very short comic opera by Stravinsky from 1922, based on a short story by Puschkin. The plot is absurd and concerns the daughter of a laundry owner, who is attracted to a soldier and persuades him to apply for a position in the family as a maid, Mavra, disguising himself appropriately. Despite the lack of credibility of the disguise, the laundry owner only notices that Mavra is a man when he is caught shaving his legs and he is banished from the house. That’s all.

The costumes were as ludicrous as the plot, emphasising the camp nature of the story. Stravinsky’s music comes from the start of his neoclassical period, very sparse and percussive and beautifully played by the small ensemble from the Britten Sinfonia, conducted by Michael Papadopoulos.

Pierrot Lunaire by Schoenberg, also from 1922, is one of the best known expressionist works from that period — a set of 6 poems on the theme of Pierrot and his relationship with the moon by Albert Giraud and translated into German — for soprano and small orchestra. The performance by Alexandra Lowe was extraordinary, partly sung, partly in Sprechgesang (sung speech), and acted in relation to the text as Pierrot reveals how his desires and passions are dictated by the moon in all its various forms.

This work particularly must have been quite difficult and shocking to audiences 100 years ago, yet was so influential in the subsequent development of European classical music. 5*

The 47th, a play by Mike Bartlett at the Old Vic Theatre, London

This is a clever attempt to combine a political satire with a pastiche of Shakespeare’s tragedies, with the script written in Shakespearean verse. I didn’t, I’m sure, pick up all the Shakespearean allusions, both in plot and text; there did seem to be quite a lot.

The title refers to imagined events running up to the next election of the (47th) President of the US. Ted Cruz is being promoted by Trump as his successor as Republican candidate, but by a sleight of hand at a public hustings, Trump publicly humiliates him and elects himself as the candidate, to crazed enthusiasm from his supporters. Trump initially selects his daughter Ivanka as his running mate for Vice-President, but before the end dismisses her and his two sons as inadequate, disinheriting them from his will.

Meanwhile, on the Democrat side, Joe Biden also intends to stand as the next President, but has a change of heart (MacBeth-style) and in a sleep-walking sequence hands over the presidency to Kamala Harris. Republican supporters are clearly incensed by the prospect of Harris as President and express this in street rioting and intimidation of opponents. Her only hope is to get rid of Trump. As President, she manages to get him convicted of some (not quite clear what) criminal offence and imprisoned but relents when she realises this only enhances his popularity. The only solution is assassination.

This is not completely successful and, in case the reader goes to see the play, I’ll not reveal the rather weak denouement. It was entertaining as a play, with good performances, but slightly over-long at 2.5 hours. However, the political content was pretty unsophisticated, considering the deadly seriousness of the possibility that Trump could in fact be re-elected. 3*

BBC Symphony Orchestra at The Barbican Concert Hall, London

It was shocking to see how poorly attended this concert was, to the extent that all of us who had seats in the Circle were asked to move to the Stalls and even then the Stalls were only three-quarters full. Admittedly, the programme had changed, with Medtner’s 3rd Piano Concerto being replaced by Prokofiev’s 2nd but, although I was keen to hear the rarely played Medtner, it seems unlikely that there were so many Medtner enthusiasts who had demanded their money back.

It was in fact an excellent concert. The conductor was Jukka-Pekka Saraste. The first piece was Be Still, by Daniel Kidane (who was sitting next to me in the audience), a very calm piece for strings, a reflection on recent periods of lockdown. The Russian pianist Denis Kozhukhin then gave a brilliant performance of the Prokofiev concerto, one of the most technically challenging of all concertos. Most notable was his sensitive interaction with the individual instruments of the orchestra, particularly the brass.

After the interval there was a fine performance of the 4th Symphony of Carl Nielsen, expertly played. 4*

The Worst Person in the World, a film by Joachim Trier at Barbican Cinema 1, London

Best film of the year so far. After about 15 minutes, I started to wonder if there is any point in my going to see a film about young(ish) people having crises about how their relationships are developing, whether or not to settle down and have children, etc.; all the things that 30 or 40-something people are concerned with. So maybe I should only go to films about old people being diagnosed with cancer or suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, especially since I seemed to be the oldest person in the cinema (bar one maybe) by about 30 years.

But this film quickly changed my mind. The plot was reasonably conventional and I won’t give any of it away, but the story was beautifully constructed — told throughout through the eyes of the main character Julie, played by Renata Reinsve, who won a Cannes Best Actress award for her part. The acting is superb, not only from Julia but even more from one of her partners in the film, Aksel, played by Anders Danielsen Lie. Their intimate conversations, their responses to each other’s revelations and to their own situations all rang true. And here I can see there is an advantage in being older than the characters in a film: there are more points in one’s life available to identify with theirs. 5*

Compartment No. 6, a film by Juho Kuosmanen at Barbican Cinema 3, London

The story line is about Laura, a Finnish postgraduate student of archaeology, who is living and studying in Moscow and having an affair with her professor Irina. Irina arranges for the two of them to visit the god-forsaken Northern Russian town of Murmansk to view some prehistoric rock drawings — petroglyphs. However, Irina suddenly is unable to travel, probably a pre-planned strategy to be rid of Laura and so Laura undertakes the lengthy train journey there on her own. Her companion in the train compartment turns out to be drunken misogynist Vadim, a worker from Murmansk. Their relationship starts badly and the rest of the film concentrates on how this relationship develops over the period of the 48-hour train journey and her stay in the destination city in the freezing winter weather. This is not a rom-com but it does have comic moments as Laura struggles against the typical Russian hostile bureaucracy and her relationship with Vadim moves in an unexpected direction. There was more than one point, however, when I felt the film would have been better if it had ended there, as the final developments of the plot seemed not to add anything that had not already been said. Enjoyable, nonetheless. 4*

Close-up concert at The Music Room, Liverpool

Works for strings by Max Bruch Quintet, Schoenberg (sextet) and Ian Stephens (quartet with speaker) from the augmented Liverpool String Quartet. 

Rare performance of the very late (1920s) Bruch work and Verklärte Nacht by Schoenberg.  Ian's piece, first performed in 2013 is A Wailing on the Wind,a narrated Irish folk tale  with musical interludes illustrating aspects of the story.  Expert performances of all the works. 4*

BBC Symphony Orchestra Barbican 40th Anniversary Concert in Barbican Hall, London

To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the opening of the Hall, the orchestra and chorus performed a work by Judith Weir, which I had thought was written specially for the occasion as it is called Concrete but in fact had been written a decade earlier. It is written for full chorus plus speaker, in this case the actor Jamie Parker; the chorus sing isolated words in Latin relating to catastrophe, while the speaker reads extracts from eye witness accounts of the Great Fire of London (not the Blitz, as I was anticipating). The whole thing seemed disjointed and barely relevant to the celebration.

The other two works were Elgar’s cello concerto, played by the Finnish cellist Senja Rummakainen, who played with great sensitivity and delicacy, but as a consequence was barely audible from where I was sitting.

After the interval we got the whole of Daphnis and Chloe ballet suite, in which the chorus excelled with their wordless contributions. the conductor was Sakari Oramo. 3*

I Fagiolini: Super-Choral, Super-Excellent at St. Martin-in-the-Fields, London

Exceptional concert by this enormously talented ensemble, reproducing some of the work described by Thomas Coryat in 1608 when he visited Venice and heard the “best musike that ever I did in all my life”. The ancient instruments played by I Fagiolini were supplemented with Choral Scholars from St. Martin’s and Manchester in chamber and choral works by Giovanni Gabrieli, Heinrich Schütz among others, with one contemporary piece by Edmund Hooper. The quality of the performances was outstanding. 5*

Britten Sinfonia with Ian Bostridge at Milton Court theatre, London

An interesting folk song-inspired concert conducted by composer James McMillan or by leader/director Jacqueline Shave. they played Romanian Dances by Bartok, a piece from 1996 Ï (Meditation on Iona) by McMillan, and the first performance of a superb newly arranged work by McMillan Three Scottish Songs, in which the soloist was Ian Bostridge. Bostridge also performed four folk song arrangements by Benjamin Britten, all done with exquisite sensitivity and care by soloist and orchestra.

Other highlights were Shave’s own newly revised piece Machair to Myrrh that takes the orchestra from the Scottish Highlands to the exoticism of Morocco. A great concert. 5*

Lingui, the Sacred Bond, a film by Mahamat-Saleh Haroun at a Barbican Cinema, London

This film is set in Chad, where women have few independent rights, and shows the struggle a Muslim teenager has to obtain an abortion, firstly convincing her mother then finding a person to undertake the operation and dealing with the condemnation from the local priest and other members of the community, one of whom it turns out is the abuser who fathered the child.

Other feminist issue come to the fore in the plot too, e.g. female genital mutilation and the failure of women to find adequately paid employments. Despite there still being little change in the Chadian society, the film ends on a positive note. 3*

The Souvenir, part II, a film by Joanna Hogg at Barbican Cinema, London

This didn’t work. Although the original film was satisfactory, the sequel, about a trainee film director making a film was too insular to be of interest to a normal person. Perhaps that’s why the Guardian gave it five stars. The same characters were in the sequel as in the original and there is some fine acting from Tilda Swinton as the mother, but the main character, played by Honor Swinton Byrne, is played so low key that her role in the film industry and her relationship with media people seems quite implausible. I’ll skip a part III if there is one. 1*

Great Freedom, a film by Sebastian Meise at Barbican Cinema, London This German language film tells the story of two men whose lives become entangled after the Second World War. Hans has been in a Nazi concentration camp on account of being gay and, when he is released, is immediately re-imprisoned by the West German government for the same ‘crime’. There he meets a straight criminal, who is initially repelled by Hans’s homosexuality, but ultimately befriends him and defends him when his behaviour is at its most erratic. On two occasions Hans is released and has a brief satisfactory relationship, but again falls foul of the social laws and returns to prison. Finally, he is released seemingly for the last time when the West German laws are repealed in 1969 (Viktor remains in prison on his long sentence for murder) and we see him visit a night club called ‘Great Freedom’ and observe what this freedom entails. It is not the kind of freedom he anticipated. Just in case, I’ll avoid a spoiler here. A grim but intelligent and serious film. 4*

Paris, 13th District, a film by Jacques Audiard at the Barbican Cinema, London

This French film by the multi-award winning director, charts the relationships of three young people living in this part of Paris in today’s world. Emilie, from a Chinese background, is a graduate who has been unable to find meaningful work. She befriends Camille, a teacher, who has become her lodger and they have a physical relationship which he wants to keep at arm’s length. Emilie finds his behaviour arrogant and intolerable.

We also meet mature student Nora, who, in an attempt to be accepted by her younger student colleagues, dresses for a party in a costume that inadvertently makes her look like a seemingly well known porn star, whom she does in fact resemble. She is ridiculed by her flatmates and has to abandon her studies. She meets Camille when she takes a job as an estate agent in a firm he is managing for a friend while he writes up his Ph.D. Although they do have a brief and very unsuccessful affair, Nora has become obsessed with the porn star Amber Sweet and ultimately meets her. The story goes on from there.

The film, in the way it handles casual relationships among young people has a deliberate passing resemblance to French New Wave of the 60s, as many French films still do, but somehow manages to be inferior 60 years later. Or have I just lost interest? 3*

Beethoven Septet, a close-up concert at the Music Room, Liverpool

I didn’t really know this piece, apart from a theme from one of the movements that also appears in a Beethoven sonata (piano or violin?); so this was a great way to become acquainted with it. The format of the concert was for each of the musicians in turn to introduce their instruments and to explain the ways they interact in the piece. I found that interesting in every case, but I suspect that some members of the audience, perhaps without any hands-on musical experience, would have found just a bit too much technical detail being presented.

The performance of the piece itself in the second half, though, was exceptional and all the better for having had the structure, themes and interactions between the musicians explained in advance. 4*

Mark Simpson and the Solem Quartet at the Tung Auditorium, Liverpool

In a major, and a bit disappointing, departure from the advertised programme of recent chamber works, Mark Simpson joined the quartet for a lovely performance of the Mozart clarinet quintet. This was preceded by the intended solo clarinet piece Darkness Moves, written in 2016. This is a virtuosic and very exciting tour de force, with the clarinet being induced to create sounds very different from its traditional range. It was good to see a large audience for this concert in the newly opened Tung Auditorium, which was being praised by the musicians for its fine acoustics.

As a supplement to the concert, Mark Simpson was due to give a sort of workshop to explain Darkness Moves and how he produces the atmosphere of the piece both in its solo form and in a form that exists for clarinet and electronics. However, very disappointingly, only a handful of people stayed on for the workshop (where were all the University of Liverpool music students?). It was a chance, though, for two or three of us to ask questions and to get a close insight into the technical side of the piece and how the unique sounds are produced. I made a few feeble attempts to reproduce them when I got home, but with little success. 4*

Fragments a celebration in words, music and architecture of the centenary of the publication of The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot, City of London

A tour of City churches over a period of 3 days (we went to 5 sessions on a Saturday morning, walking between St. Vedast alias Foster, St. Botolph’s without Aldersgate, St. Stephen Wallbrook and St. Olave’s, Holm Street (3.4 miles round trip). Each of the venues presented a ‘fragment’ — 15 minutes of verse, conversation or music. The Navarra String Quartet played Arvo Pärt: Da Pacem Domine and Caroline Shaw: Entr’acte. 

Writer Andrew O’Hagan spoke to Michael Gale, exploring certain themes that are inherent in The Waste Land: urban and rural lives, landscape, myth, and the relationship between the individual, the community and place.

Samantha Ege (piano) played The Bells by Margaret Bond Fantasie Nègre no. 1 in E minor by Florence Price.

Kreeta-Maria Kentala (violin) played J.S. Bach: Allemande, Wiljami Niittykoski: Polka Mazurka, H.i.F. Biber: Passacaglia.

Fiona Shaw read poems selected from the last 100 years by five former winners of the T.S. Eliot Prize (Don Paterson, Roger Robinson, Bhanu Kapil, Hannah Sullivan and Sinéad Morrissey). An excellent cultural morning, with exercise thrown in. 5*