MacBeth, a play by William Shakespeare at The Depot, Liverpool

This production, directed by Simon Godwin was being shown first in Liverpool before moving to Edinburgh and Washington, DC. The venue was the massive recently opened temporary film studios that will eventually be replaced by the reconstructed, even more massive, Littlewoods building on Edge Lane.

The performance we saw was sold out, justifiably as it was the best production of the play I have seen. It was set in a contemporary war zone with missile attacks and bomb noises and most characters in some form of combat gear; that didn’t seem like a gimmick, but emphasised the fact that MacBeth is of course about conflict and how it is dealt with by the consciences of the participants.

MacBeth was played by Ralph Fiennes and Lady MacBeth by Indira Varma, both names to attract an audience. They played their roles in a slightly eccentric way, bringing out something I had not seen before — a kind of humour in their relationship with each other. Whether this worked well or not I was unsure about, but they both played their descent into insanity very believably.

Perhaps the best performance and the most passionate moment in the play was the revelation to MacDuff, played by Ben Turner, that his wife and children had been slain:

MacDuff: “All my pretty ones? Did you say all?”
Malcolm: “Dispute it like a man.”

MacDuff: “I shall do so; But I must also feel it as a man”

This was all the more moving as we had only just seen that murder of wife and children in grim detail on the stage.

As an exercise in how to portray grief this was perfect. But of course it was only a portrayal. As an audience we go home to hear the news of hundreds of men in Gaza and elsewhere each day witnessing the slaughter of their families in real life.

If it’s at all possible to catch this production don’t miss it. 5*

Anselm, a film by Wind Wenders at the Light Cinema, New Brighton

This documentary about the life and work of the German artist Anselm Kiefer is monumental in scale, to reflect the monumentality of his work. Kiefer was born in 1945 and has dedicated his life to representing what he sees as the supressed coming-to-terms of the German people with the horrors of Nazism and the Second World War.

While we see a bit of standard documentary about Kiefer in his younger days, most of film is shot in his studios, including the enormous 200-acre open-air studio in Bardic, France, where he currently works.

I have seen some of his larger works before in galleries but the most recent one that we see him actually creating are so enormous, including, for example, a re-creation in concrete of the ruins of Dresden, or life size semi-destroyed fighter aircraft, that they have to be filmed by drone. Some of the filming was done in 3D, but we were unable to attend that performance unfortunately.

Work on this scale and of this seriousness (Kiefer is never seen to smile at any point in the film) does make one question how it can be called ‘art’ and put into that same category as, say, watercolours of pastoral scenes that you find in commercial galleries in the Lake District. They are at the most extreme ends of the definition, where they have their own place, I guess.

A fascinating film. 5*

Fallen Leaves, a film by Aki Kaurismäki at FACT, Liverpool

I had been looking forward to the release of Kaurismäki’s latest film, but this was disappointing. There must surely be limit to the number of films you can make on the same theme of downbeat people sharing a miserable life. In this case there was (perhaps) a happy(ish) ending, but the rest of the film was miserable. That is taken to be the humour underlying his films, viz. the miseries of contemporary life and people’s inability to communicate with one another and so there was plenty of humour in this one.

The film is set in modern day Helskinki, where the characters clearly struggle with unfair industrial relations and working conditions, and a very shabby environment. In fact it would be impossible to distinguish the settings (and, deliberately of course the characters) from those in the 1970s were it not for the use of mobile phones and a background sound track of the war in Ukraine. The story is simple: two lonely people looking for something else in their life — we know little of how they got to the condition we find them in — and eventually find it. Or so it would seem.

There is a rumour that the film is part of a trilogy with the same characters, in which case I would be happy to see the next episode and find out what happens. As a stand-alone, however, it didn’t live up to his previous work. 2*

Ensemble of St. Luke’s at the Music Room, Liverpool

Locally grown string quartet giving us an interesting programme: the short Crisanthemi by Puccini, Janáček’s 2nd quartet, a Romance by Gerald Finzi and, finally the 2nd quartet by Borodin. As this was an Up Close concert, the pieces were introduced entertainingly by cellist Gethyn Jones, although he may have been unnecessarily pessimistic about the musical knowledge of the audience, many of whom looked very familiar. All part of Liverpool’s splendid music making this year. 4*

Brahms Double Concerto by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra at Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool

The soloists in this well known concerto (but one that is quite rare to find in live performances) were artist-in-residence Simone Lamsma (violin) and Victor Julien-Laferrière (cello). There was a clear empathy between these two, even more in evidence during their encore (something by Kreisler?). 

However, the second half of the concert was brought out the best in the orchestra and Domingo Hindoyan in a programme of Spanish-related works: Debussy's Iberia and Rimsky-Korsakov's Capriccio Espagnol. I know the latter of these quite well from recordings but had no idea about the astonishing clarinet part, played here by the Barcelona-born guest(?) principal Miquel Ramos.  

Disappointingly poor attendance for this concert. 4*

Beethoven’s 7th by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra at Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool

Andrew Manze conducted the orchestra in an enjoyable concert.  The first half contained a rare opportunity to hear a live performance of Walton’s cello concerto form 1957, played with enthusiasm and passion by the European cellist Nicolas Alstaedt. 4*

Anatomy of a Fall, a film by Justine Triet at Picturehouse at FACT, Liverpool

Quite long and with a detailed plot that had to be followed, but the film kept one’s attention throughout.  We observe a single incident, the death of a French writer, Samuel, who has fallen from the top floor of his Swiss chalet, where he lives with his German-speaking wife, Sandra, also a writer and their visually impaired son, Daniel, aged 11. 

The incident is unexplained and leads to a court case in which Sandra is accused of murder and in which the son Daniel is expected to testify. We follow not just the court case in detail but get to understand the background to the difficult relationship between Samuel and Sandra that gradually makes it difficult to predict whether murder or suicide is the most likely outcome. Through a few flashbacks but predominantly through the trial played out in the French court (very different from an English court), the tension builds up to the point where Daniel gives his evidence to the judge. 

This film is very worth watching; so I’ll avoid a spoiler.  

The acting throughout is superb, particularly from Sandra Hüller as the accused, who manages to express the full depth of emotion that would be experienced by someone in that situation without in any way revealing to the audience the outcome of the trial. 5*

Julian Bliss (clarinet) and James Baillieu (piano) at The Music Room, Liverpool

A recital by Julian Bliss, clarinet and James Baillieu, piano. The competent and expressive playing was expected and lived up to that expectation. The programme included a treat with the Poulenc sonata and two familiar (to me) songs by Schumann arranged for clarinet instead of tenor voice. Baillieu is know for his German lieder accompaniment and was responsible for this arrangement. 

Brahms’ 1st clarinet sonata was a traditional finish to the programme. 5*

The Year 1905: Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra at Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool

The concert is so-called as it contains Shostakovitch’s 11th Symphony, based on the first Russian revolution in that year.  It is a massive work, dominated by aggressive (and very loud) orchestral writing that includes full-size church bells.  The orchestra welcomed back Vasily Petrenko to conduct a symphony that he had not performed with the orchestra before. It was justifiably massively well received. 

In the first half the soloist in the Tchaikovsky violin concerto was the 15 year-old Christian Li, who tackled the huge technical challenges with amazing ease. 

A post-concert session with Petrenko proved interesting as he gave a Russian explanation not just of the music but of the politics surrounding the 1905 event and Shostakovich’s attempt to portray it. 5*

The Old Oak, a film by Ken Loach at Picturehouse at FACT, Liverpool

Ken Loach comes up again with a blatantly political film.  The plot centres round a pub in an unidentified deprived post-industrial community in the North East of England.  It is set in 2016, the year in which the UK was given the chance to vote on Brexit.  The community is well established and we observe the talk in the poorly patronised pub of lack of opportunity, neglected environment and failing property values.  

Into this mix is placed a group of refugee immigrants, placed there in houses purchased at rock-bottom prices by the authorities.  The potential for resentment is obvious and this is what happens and is openly expressed. But the landlord of the pub, who has nothing to lose as his pub is making an unsustainable financial loss, is persuaded by one of the immigrants to use his premises to open a kitchen where locals and the new residents can eat and associate. Despite the opposition of diehard racist locals, this turns out to be successful. In this way, the film ends on a positive note, as locals come together to express their sympathy for the reported loss of a family member of one of the immigrant families.  

However, there’s a little too much Hollywood sentimentality in that last scene, especially as we know that only a short time later all this anti-immigration rhetoric is about to surface again during the Brexit debate and beyond. 4*

RMN, a film by Cristian Mungiu at Picturehouse at FACT, Liverpool

RMN is the Romanian acronym for nuclear magnetic resonance, representing the identification of a diseased state that exists below the surface.  The film is set in a multiethnic Transylvanian village and deals with local issues of immigration and ethnic diversity. The plot is related to a xenophobic incident that occurred in Romania in 2022. The main character is an unsympathetic 20-something man who has had to leave the village to obtain sufficiently well paid work in Germany, where he is resented and suffers discrimination.  He returns to the village, where his ex-girlfriend still works, in a reasonably well paid job,  to find similar ethnic discrimination taking place against two recently arrived Asian immigrants.  The tension in this situation mounts and reaches a climax in a meeting of local residents in which racist prejudices are openly expressed. This is a frightening scene — not of physical violence but of blatant racist abuse perpetrated by the majority including the local Catholic priest. The tension is never fully resolved, a reflection of the continuing racial bigotry within the countries of the EU (and UK — see The Old Oak). 

For some reason, the director chooses to end the film in an enigmatic way with some sort of magic realism that adds nothing to the plot.  Otherwise a film worth seeing. 4*

Rear Window, a film by Alfred Hitchcock at the Outdoor Cinema, Barbican, London

This was an ideal film to be viewed in the annual outdoor cinema event in the Barbican, where the audience is surrounded by apartments with windows facing one another in all directions.  The plot of this 1954 film is simple: a temporarily disabled photographer Jeff (James Stewart) is confined to his room and spends his time observing the neighbours through the open windows of their apartments during a heatwave.  The comic nature of this is exploited for a bit until, one night, he becomes convinced that he has seen a neighbour murder his wife.  The police are called to investigate but can find no clear evidence that a murder has taken place.  Ultimately, after an exciting fight involving the suspected murderer and Lisa, Jeff’s girlfriend (Grace Kelly), the murderer is identified and life returns to normal in the apartment block. 

To explain the plot like this makes it sound less than interesting but Hitchcock succeeds as always in building up the tension and retaining the suspense throughout — which is why it always appears in the 100 best films of all times. 

Late August should be a safe time for outdoor cinema, but it was particularly cold this year; had to go back to the flat for a rug and a flask of hot coffee. 5*

Ainadamar, an opera by Osvaldo Golijov at the Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff 

A huge credit to Welsh National Opera that they put on this obscure work and fill the auditorium. 

The opera tells the complex story of two women in the life of Spanish playwright and activist Frederico Garcia Lorca: the early 20th century political martyr Mariana Pineda and the actor and theatre director Margarita Xirgu, who was responsible for promoting Lorca and his plays. 

In a trio of short operatic fragments we see the deaths of Lorca, who was assassinated in Spain in 1936 for his radical views and the later death of Margarita, who plays out her memories of Lorca. 

The production is superb, involving film, electronic sound tracks and other impressive stage techniques. Similarly the singing, with particularly the soprano role of Margarita, played by Argentinian Jaquelina Livieri and that of Lorca, played by contralto Hanna Hipp. The music and action are immersed in Spanish Flamenco rhythms and musical motifs, in particular the intense Andalusian cante rondo. This makes for an extremely intense expressionist musical experience that was maintained throughout the opera. 

However, I found this too much. Even although the opera lasted only 80 minutes, there seemed to be little musical or thematic development. 2*

Past Lives, a film by Celine Song at Picturehouse at FACT, Liverpool

A superb piece of filmmaking, particularly as it is the first film from this Canadian/Korean director.  It tells the story of how two young Korean teenagers make a strong bond during their schooldays, experiencing the Korean concept of in-yun, an everlasting personal connection. This connection is broken when the girl Na Young (Nora’s) family emigrate to Canada, leaving the boy, Hae Sung in Seoul. That seems to the be end of the relationship, but clearly they have not forgotten each other and twelve years later, they make contact through Facebook. 

It’s clear at that stage that the relationship is still strong, but the distance makes any further development impossible and they choose reluctantly to terminate the contact.  Yet after another 12 years of their independent lives (she is married by this time), we see them again as Hae Sung visits Nora in New York.  The plot could have ended in the traditional Hollywood way: they could have realised they were meant to spend their lives together and she would have broken off her marriage to be with him.  The reality is different. Without too much of a spoiler, we see how having left Korea has changed her; she is no longer just Korean, she is Korean/American, while he retains a full Korean identity. This is all played out beautifully in a meeting in a bar, where Nora’s husband is embarrassingly present, and we see how in-yun is still there but events have taken over. The acting here is superb — a slight movement of the head, a fleeting expression on the face express it all.  

An inspirational film. 5*

Doctor Semmelweiss, a play by Mark Rylance and Stephen Brown at the Harold Pinter Theatre, London

Mark Rylance plays the role of Hungarian junior hospital obstetrician Ignaz Semmelweiss employed in late 19th century Vienna.  The mortality rate of women during childbirth was high everywhere — up to 10% — and Semmelweiss was haunted by the idea that the deaths of so many young women in his hospital could be prevented.  Without permission from his senior colleagues, he analysed past hospital records and examined hospital practice to try to understand the reasons for the high number of deaths. One initially puzzling fact was that women who gave birth in the ‘Doctors’ Ward’ were more likely to get postpartum infections than those in the ‘Midwives’ Ward’. Semmelweiss concluded that the reason for this was that doctors but not midwives also participated in clinical autopsies, often of infected corpses.  The idea of infection at that time was vague, with no knowledge of the existence of bacteria or viruses; Semmelweiss became convinced that doctors were transferring ‘putrifying material’ on their hands from the corpses to the women in labour. The solution would be for doctors and nurses to wash their hands in chlorine solution after autopsies and between patients. 

This radical theory, later universally accepted, was treated with derision by the medical establishment.  Semmelweiss became obsessed with his failed attempts to promote the theory, was sacked from his role and returned to Budapest, where he was committed to a mental asylum and shortly after died. 

Rylance played the main role in an idiosyncratic way, consistent with his approach to other roles. This worked reasonably well, considering that Semmelweiss was characterised as being an obsessive individual, verging on manic. Where the play was weakest was in the production. In addition to the main medical characters, the stage was populated with ghostly young women, representing the dead young mothers. Some of these were dancers, taking part in a comic scene when Semmelweiss attended a ballet but for the most part dancing in the background behind the action of the play.  Some of the women were musicians who provided background music in extracts of Smetana string quartets. On several occasions Rylance and other characters engaged with the dancers and turned the play into a ballet; this just didn’t work well and looked like attempts to pad out a fairly flimsy plot. The play was however very enthusiastically received by the audience. 3*

L’Immensitá, a film by Emanuel Crialese at the Barbican Cinema, London

I went to see this because it was on, rather than because I had heard any good review of it.  At first sight, it looked like an Italian version of the typical American family comedy — with three cooky children, who are unnaturally smart and comical in everything they get up to.  However, fortunately, this was in fact a serious film about a family in Rome in the 1970s whose eldest of three children, Adriana, aged about 12, was uncomfortable in her gender and wished to be a boy.  The mother, played by Penélope Cruz, was dealing with this issue in a sensitive way, but it was a strain on the relationship with her husband, as was the fact that he was having an affair with his secretary and fathering a child with her.  There was no happy ending to this film for any of the characters, as we are left to imagine how Adriana resolves her personal conflicts. 

There was a lot of music and dancing, almost to the point of making the film a kind of musical, which strangely added to the plot and provided a good resolution to the story line (no spoiler provided).  Great acting from Cruz, as usual, but also from the three children, especially Luana Giuliani, who plays Adriana. 4*

Oppenheimer, a film by Christopher Nolan at the Barbican Cinema, London

A huge amount of publicity for the film raised some suspicion in me that the development of the atomic bomb would get some Hollywood gloss that detracted from the importance of the events. However, this was a serious film that set out to examine how the physicist Robert J Oppenheimer was mistreated by the army in their attempt to defeat the Japanese at the end of the Second World War and how, subsequently, his ambivalent attitude to the use of the weapons and his opposition to their spread led to his being accused of anti-American activities and his career being damaged. Played out in detail within all this is the professional jealousy of his academic colleague Lewis Strauss.  This might have been tedious (the film was 3 hours long), but somehow Nolan manages to retain interest, through a series of flashbacks, in how these political machinations played out.  

Oppenheimer was cleverly portrayed by Cillian Murphy as a vulnerable individual, who recognised that he was being used but was unable to challenge what was happening to him. The musical score was of high quality but unnecessarily relentless in places where silence would have been more effective. 

A good film, but it didn’t compare with the great opera Doctor Atomic, on the same theme. I wouldn’t revisit Oppenheimer, but I’d love to see Doctor Atomic live again.  4*

No for an Answer, an opera by Marc Blitzstein at the Arcola Theatre, London

One of a series of chamber operas and musicals put on as part of the Grimeborn Opera Festival. Marc Blitzstein was an American born at the beginning of the 20^th century who acquired solid European musical credentials, studying under Nadia Boulanger and Arnold Schoenberg. He finally settled on a popular musical style that could promote his left-wing political views to a wider audience. As a Jew, he was obliged to leave Europe and return to the USA, where he was castigated as a communist sympathiser.  He was murdered in Martinique in 1964. 

No for an Answer was written between 1936 and 1939 and first performed in 1941.  It is scored for piano and small cast and deals with the formation of trade unions during the US recession and how the workers were ultimately betrayed by the establishment. 

As it was in English, it was felt that there was no need for subtitles, but the fact that the storyline is exclusively explained through the various set songs, the details of the plot were hard to grasp. As a result, although the singing was good and the production acceptable in such a small space, the whole thing was quite disappointing. 1*

Savitri by Gustav Holst and Blond Eckbert by Judith Weir, two chamber operas at the Silk Street Theatre, London

This year’s summer opera performance by the Guildhall School. The Holst opera is based on a Sanskrit epic poem, in which Savitri, wife of a woodman comes across the figure of Death, who plans to kill her husband Satyavan. Savitri confronts Death, who offers her anything she wants except the return of her husband.  Savitri will not accept this offer and Death his defeated by her defiance. As a result, he leaves and Satyavan returns from the dead. Love has conquered death. 

The Judith Weir opera is from a fairy tale by the 19th century German Romantic poet Ludwig Tieck.  It tells the tale of Eckbert and Berthe, an isolated couple who live in solitude in a wood.  They receive an unexpected visit from a stranger, Walther, who seems to know a lot about Berthe’s childhood, including even the name of her dog.  Eckbert cannot live with his suspicion and kills Walther. After some complicated supernatural occurrences, Eckbert discovers that Berthe is his half-sister. Unable to deal with this revelation, Eckbert goes mad and dies. 

A rare chance to see these two unusual operas, both well performed, if not entirely entertaining. 3*

Fiesta! Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra at Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool

Another superb concert from the RLPO, with additional celebrations: announcement of the fact that Domingo Hindoyan, Chief Conductor, will be renewing his contract until 2028 (clearly to the delight of audience and orchestra) and the retirement and recognition of the long-standing head of percussion, Graham Johns, who was presented with a bell, funded by international contributions from orchestra, friends and audience members. 

And another superb concert, this time of purely 20th-century South American music. The soloist was the amazing trumpeter Macho Flores, who played two concertos, by Gabriela Ortiz (UK premiere) and Roberto Sierra. Also works by Evencio Castellanos and Alberto Ginastera and, my favourites Midday in the Plains by Antonio Estévez and Variations for Orchestra Margareteña by Innocente Carreño. As always, the orchestra played with precision and enthusiasm throughout in a programme of unfamiliar works that must have been challenging. 5*

A Song from Far Away, a play by Simon Stephens and Mark Eitzel at Hampstead Theatre, London

This short play is a monologue, cleverly and movingly performed by the actor and pop singer Will Young, with additional singing at a couple of points in the plot. Young plays the part of Willem,a young Dutch, gay, wealthy entrepreneur, resident in New York, who has to fly to Amsterdam to attend the funeral of his deceased brother. On his return to New York, he writes a letter to that brother describing his journey and his feelings on returning to his home country and dealing with meeting his estranged family.  

As he reads this letter and adds some explanations, Young manages to inject just the right amount of pathos into this role, creating the message that his artistic dead brother and the other members of the family should receive our sympathy, while we recognise Willem’s life as shallow and unenviable, as he does himself.  Yet it is clear that he will not deflect from the lifestyle that he has chosen. 

The play is billed as a musical and there is one very short and one slightly longer song, sung by Will Young, which do not detract from the play but add little. The whole play lasts less than one hour and a half, but I didn’t feel short-changed.  It deserved the good reviews it has received. 5*

A Child of our Time by Michael Tippett at the Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool

A rare chance to see this work and this was a superb, moving performance by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic conducted by Martin Brabbins, with a fine group of soloists (Kathryn Rudge, Nardus Williams, Elgan Llÿr Thomas and Roderick Williams.  The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Choir provided the chorus.  

The work has not lost its relevance.  Although composed while Britain was at war in 1941, it has no heroic content but bemoans the loss of life and, in particular, the loss of childhood as a consequence of conflict.  Tippett was imprisoned for this pacifist views. 

Roderick Williams gave an excellent performance too, in the first half, of Vaughan Williams’ Songs of Travel, which I had not heard live before in its orchestral version.  A new work Tower by Jamaican-born composer Eleanor Alberga introduced the concert; I would have to hear it again to justify making a comment. 5* 

When Winston Went to War with the Wireless, a play by Jack Thorne at the Donmar Warehouse, London

This looked promising.  The theme is the General Strike of 1926 when Stanley Baldwin was Prime Minister, Winston Churchill was Chancellor of the Exchequer and John Reith was the General Manager of the then-new British Broadcasting Company. Reith considered himself a man of high principles and was determined that the BBC should be free to air political views but to do so in a perfectly balanced way.  The struggle that forms the plot of the play is still relevant today: since the BBC owes its existence to the patronage of government, to what extent can it be sent to  oppose the government’s policies without threatening its very existence?  Of course, today there are other influences that threaten the BBC, e.g. multiple private channels and catch-up programme streaming.  

The play is very cleverly produced.  We watch a very amateurish organisation struggling to deal with new technology, with a relatively small young workforce enthusiastic about their new role. Reith is portrayed as a man fully in charge and able to argue face-to-face with the establishment in the form of Churchill, Baldwin and the Archbishop of Canterbury that the BBC should give airtime to the leaders of the strike. In the end, however, the establishment won and Reith backed down, but only when other factors had forced the workers back to work. 

As was probably true at the time, much of the plot was acted out by men. To counteract this, Baldwin was played — very effectively — by Haydn Gwynn.  We also see the wives of Churchill and Reith;  Reith’s private life is portrayed in some detail in a side plot, in which we see the difficulties of the early years of his marriage and the gay relationship that he was still having (on good authority historically) with a Charlie Bowser. In fact the play would have stood well without the details of that relationship being played out on stage to the extent it was. 

Apart from that point, it’s difficult to say exactly why the whole thing didn’t quite work. The acting was good, although Stephen Campbell Moore as Reith failed to portray the authority and reverence (and also the height) that Reith was known for.  And the quirky direction — lots of singing and introduction of popular radio characters — detracted from the serious plot, rather than enhancing it.  A play you might enjoy but wouldn’t choose to see again. 3*

Chevalier, a film by Stephen Williams at Barbican Cinema, London

This is a biopic of the 18th century composer Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de St. George, also referred to as the Black Mozart. I thought this might be enlightening, as we are currently playing some of his music in the Hackney Community Orchestra. However, what we got was a costumed soap opera, filled with implausible scenes created for cinematic effect.  We were expected to believe that Chevalier out-performed and humiliated Mozart in a public performance of Mozart’s violin concerto no. 5; that he was on first-name and intimate terms with Queen Marie-Antoinette; that his failure to obtain the directorship of the Paris Opéra was entirely a consequence of interference by Count Montelambert, with whose wife Chevalier had been having an affair and nothing to do with the successful candidate’s (Christoph Gluck) merit; that, having taken to drink and debauchery as a consequence of this disappointment, he was restored to sanity by his mother pleating his hair and introducing him to a rabble of black musicians, thereby recognising his true cultural identity. 

It is true that Chevalier, who, as well as being an able composer and musician, was also a capable soldier, fought on the side of Napoleon during the French Revolution. But here he is shown as almost single-handedly inspiring the Revolution in a theatre with his music and oratory, as the crowd of extras waving pieces of paper and shouting “Liberté, Egalite” surge into the streets, almost colliding with Marie Antoinette, who just happens to be standing outside. 

If the director anticipates that this film would achieve the acclaim of Miloš Forman’s brilliant Amadeus, then I think he will be disappointed. There were only nine people in the cinema and three of them left about half way through. We stuck it to the end, but only just. Worst film of the year so far. 1*

Blue Caftan, a film by Maryam Touzani at Barbican Cinema, London

This Moroccan film is an intimate portrayal of the disappearing lives of small businesses in a rapidly changing environment.  The main character is a very modest and introverted artisan tailor, Halim, who has inherited his business and skills from his ancestors and who makes very specialised and beautifully embroidered wedding and special occasion wear. He runs the business with his efficient wife Mina; their relationship is effectively the main theme of the film as we realise that she has accepted his unspoken homosexuality, illegal in their society but easily satisfied, it appears, in the local baths. 

Their business is failing because their clients now realise that they can obtain elsewhere garments of similar quality that are machine made and much cheaper elsewhere.  To help with the slow pace of Halim’s work, they hire a young male apprentice, to whom Halim is attracted, but not surprisingly, Mina disapproves of the young man and unjustly accuses him of theft. 

Ultimately, the business fails.  The title of the film Blue Caftan, refers to a particular item that Halim and the apprentice have been working on and that signifies the quality of his work.  Ultimately this garment achieves critical importance in the main tragic incident in the film (avoiding spoiler here), which resolves in a positive way. 4*

A Thousand and One, a film by A V Rockwell at Barbican Cinema, London

The film is set in 1990s Harlem, New York, where we follow the experience of Black single mother Inez, who lives a chaotic life among criminals, prostitutes and drug dealers during a time when the area is struggling agains the tide of regentrification. Her child, 6 year-old Terry has been taken into foster care and she is determined to get him back.  As her lifestyle is inappropriate, she steals him, without great difficulty and against his interests.  We see her struggle in that difficult environment to fight against the system and against her own previous background, to set up a home for her and the child.  She takes up with ex-lover and ex-convict Lucky, who surprisingly adopts the role of caring father for Terry.  However, Terry is damaged by his background on the streets and by the lifestyle of his new parents, however hard they might try and we see, as he grows to be a teenager in that vicious environment wighted against young Black men.  

While the theme and its presentation are interesting, the film suffers from real-life dialogue that can be very difficult for a non-US culturally unrelated audience member like me to understand, although the responses of other members of the audience suggested the problem was not shared by everyone.  This spoiled the film for me, as, at one point, I became confused about what had happened and missed the important fact that Terry had been abducted and was her own child, which was of course the main aspect of the story. Realism in serious contemporary film is important but can restrict the value of the dialogue to a wider audience. 3*

The World’s Wife, a chamber opera by Tom W. Green at Milton Court Theatre, London

The libretto for this opera is by Carol Ann Duffy, who presented some of the poetry on which it is based when she came to Birkenhead a couple of years ago (among other places, of course).  The poems imagine the lives of the wives of famous men, e.g. Shakespeare, Herod, Icarus.  They are both witty and reflective on women’s roles.  The opera is performed by a chamber group consisting of an all-female string quartet, the Ragazze Quartet and trans baritone Lucia Lucas, who narrates the libretto throughout.  The production is extreme; the string players are obliged to perform balanced on the top of platforms, rolling on the floor in compost, which has been emptied from bags and strewn around, then to strip naked (body stockings), as does the main performer.  Somehow the fact that the main (only) singing performer is a trans woman with a baritone voice gives the libretto a particular edge. Lucas has performed in world-class venues and has a superb singing voice, well suited to the contemporary and interesting music. 

A fantastic performance. This work deserves to be seen and heard elsewhere. 5*

Grenfell, a film by Steve McQueen at the Serpentine Gallery, London

This hour-long film has no dialogue but the performance is accompanied by an explanatory booklet by Paul Gilroy and a display outside the auditorium.  

McQueen effectively and movingly depicts the horror of the Grenfell Tower tragedy/crime in the simplest way. A drone films above West London, several miles from the site and very slowly (at the speed of an aircraft, I guess, and accompanied only by aircraft sound) travels towards the tower, which, at first, is barely visible.  As we approach over a period of 20 minutes or so the obscene image of the scarred and blackened tower is gradually revealed.  The film was made before the building was covered up and so we see exactly what remained after the event as the drone hovers over and around the tower block. This continues for the remainder of the film as we are given time to take in the full horror of the event for the families who were killed and also, as we see the surrounding buildings, for the residents, friends and neighbours who witnessed the tragedy. The accompanying text reminds us of how these people have been, and still are, let down by an incompetent, insensitive and indifferent government.  I include here the names of all the 72 people who were killed. 

Abdeslam Sebbar

Ali Yawar Jafari

Denis Murphy

Mohammed Al-Haj Ali

Jeremiah Deen

Zainab Deen

Steven Power

Sheila

Joe (Joseph) Daniels

Husna Begum

Kamru Miah

Mohammed Hamid

Mohammed Hanif

Rabeya Begum

Khadija Khaloufi

Vincent Chiejina

Fatemeh Afrasehabi

Sakineh Afrasehabi

Isaac Paulos

Hamid Kani

Berkti Haftom

Biruk Haftom

Gary Maunders

Deborah (Debbie) Lamprell

Ernie Vital

Marjorie Vital

Maria Del-Pilar Burton

Amal Ahmedin

Amaya Tuccu-Ahmedin

Amna Mahmud Idris

Mohamednur Tuccu

Victoria King

Jessica Urbano

Farah Hamdan Belkadi

Lena Belkadi

Malak Belkadi

Omar Belkadi

Abdulaziz El Wahabi

Faouzia El-Wahabi

Mehdi El-Wahabi

Nur Huda El Wahabi

Yasin El Wahabi

Logan Gomes

Firdaws Hashim

Hashim Kedir

Nura Jemal

Yahya Hashim

Yaqub Hashim

Fatima Choucair

Mierna Choucair

Nadia Choucair

Sirria Choucair

Zainab Choucair

Bassem Choucair

Anthony (Tony) Disson

Mariem Elgwahry

Eslah Elgwahry

Raymond (Moses) Bernard

Gloria Trevisan

Marco Gottardi

Fethia Hassan

Hania Hassan

Rania Ibrahim

Hesham Rahman

Mohamed (Saber) Amied Ned:

Abufras Ibrahim

Isra Ibrahim

Fathia Ali Ahmed Elsanosi

Alexandra Atala

Mary Mendy

Khadija Saye

Ligaya Moore

The Janus Ensemble at St. John’s Church, Waterloo, London

The excellent string ensemble was conducted by Michael Coleby in an especially interesting programme as it included the first performance of the double bass concerto “Scenes from a Modern War” by friend Ian Stephens.  The other two works were, first, an arrangement for sections of the orchestra by Michael Coleby of Four Fancies by Orlando Gibbons. The orchestral sections moved to different parts of the hall during the performance; I don’t think this added anything to the work, but it was an interesting arrangement.  The concert ended with a performance of the wonderful Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge by Benjamin Britten, played with exceptional clarity and skill. 

Prior to the event, Ian gave an explanatory lecture on how he had developed the themes for each of the movements of the double bass concerto from texts and symbols relating to the tragic invasion and continuing war in Ukraine. The soloist was Toby Hughes, a young multi-award-winning bass player, who gave a very moving rendering of this lovely concerto.  The soloist and composer deservedly received a standing ovation from a packed audience. This superb concerto must surely receive more performances in the near future. 5*

Innocence, an opera by Kaija Saariaho at The Royal Opera House, London

The first UK performance of this new opera. It tells the gruelling story of the effect of a school shooting incident in Finland and is sung not just in Finnish but in a variety of languages that reflect the nationalities of the participants. 

The main character is Tereza, a waitress at a wedding reception, who is standing in for the normal waiting staff.  She recognises the bridegroom as the brother of a person (referred to as the “shooter”) who has committed a mass murder in the local college and killed, among others, Tereza’s daughter.  With a revolving stage that converts to different locations and to different times, we see incident and the aftermath for the families, including the ghost of the murdered daughter. 

The bride has not been made aware of the family secret but this is revealed to her during the wedding. While she is able to deal with this, there is an even more important fact that is also revealed that leads to the end of the relationship.  That is the climax of the story and of the opera; so I won’t expand on that. 

Beautiful music that fully conveys the tensions of the plot and superb performances from all the cast without exception. 5*

Pussycat in Memory of Darkness by Neda Nezhdana at the Finborough Theatre, London

Another visit to the excellent Finborough Theatre in Earls Court and another interesting play.  This short play is a monologue with Kristin Milward playing the part of the Ukrainian playwright as she relates the horrendous experience of one woman living in Kramatorsk in the Donetsk region of Ukraine during the Russian invasion. Her family become refugees, she loses her son and husband, but stays one in her destroyed flat on account of two kittens that her cat has recently given birth to. 

The solo performance was impressive in its intensity of expression and she was particularly good at  conjuring up other characters simply by a change of tone or body posture.  It was interesting to realise from the text that not all Ukrainian residents of Donetsk are opposed to the Russian invasion and that there is a real division in society there. However, the dialogue and/or performance at times strayed into melodrama and this could be emotionally draining for the audience at close quarters to the actor in such a tiny theatre. 4*

Ian McEwan and the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican Hall, London

He’s not celebrating a special birthday or anything (he’s the same age as I am) but, whatever the raison d’être, this was an enjoyable occasion.  Ian McEwan read passages from a number of his books, all but one of which I had read.  The choice of text was good and entertaining and he reads very well — not necessarily true for all writers or poets. The orchestra were in excellent form playing a variety or seemingly miscellaneous pieces including Arvo Pärt’s Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten, a movement from Greig’s Holberg Suite, a movement from Beethoven’s First Symphony and Around Midnight by Thelonius Monk with Emma Smith as soloist. 5*

Things to Come at the Barbican Hall, London

This was an extraordinary event: a showing of the 1936 film by Alexander Korda based on the 1933 science fiction novel by H.G. Wells The Shape of Things to Come. The novel is told as if it is a written history, not of the past, but of the future, as viewed from the 22nd century.  The film was attended by great publicity at the time it was first shown, with famous actors Raymond Massey in Ralph Richardson in the main roles. And the score was composed by Arthur Bliss and recorded by the London Symphony Orchestra. So this was a one-off repeat of the original screening, with Bliss’s score performed by the LSO, conducted by Frank Strobel. 

The novel and thus the film appears at the start to be enormously prescient, starting with declaration of war in 1940 (only 3 months out) and extensive bombing and destruction of a city that looked like London.  It was predicted that the world war would continue for decades, followed by worldwide disease and more death.  However, there was a vision of hope that the war would lead ultimately to the dawn of the ‘Modern Age’ many decades later. 

Not surprisingly, much of the imagery is very dated; much is made of the idea of aerial transport, although even a century later all the machines still have propellors. The war results in a schism in society between those who are content with the postwar status quo because they have derived power from it (Richardson) and those who have created a new world (Massey).  There is conflict when those two worlds finally collide; of course the Modern Age triumphs. 

Apart from the propellors there are a number of other idiocies. After the society has been destroyed by war, people for some reason take to wearing rags and sheepskins and continue living among ruins without any attempt at repair. The exceptions are the two main female characters, who are dressed in 1930s fashions and have full make-up and immaculate hairstyles. The Modern City when we see it consists of megalithic structures, created by robotic machines, with monorails in the sky and not a bit of greenery to be seen. 

Arthur Bliss’s music was a tour de force and was of a higher quality than the screenplay, but was so loud in places that subtitles had to be added where it would have been impossible to hear the dialogue.  In fact, although the image reproduction was very good, the original soundtrack was poor and, when amplified into the hall, was very difficult to understand. 

So, a great idea and an interesting, but rather flawed experience.  I’ve started reading the book now to see if I can fill in some of the missing bits. 3*

Brodsky String Quartet at St. George’s Concert Hall, Liverpool

This is the 50th anniversary of the founding of this highly respected quartet, started at the age of ten by cellist Jacqueline Thomas. Other members joined fairly soon afterwards, with the first violinist being the most recent.

There was a well chosen programme with the principal pieces being an arrangement (by violist Paul Cassidy) of a Bach solo violin sonata, quartet no. 4 by Shostakovich and the quartet by Ravel, with an arrangement of a piece by Sarasate and a couple of short Shostakovich pieces added for fun. 

It was impressive to watch how dependent the precision of their playing is on their personal interactions at every stage of their work — this particularly in the dramatic sections of the Shostakovich. Glad not to have missed this. 5*

Gianni Schicchi, a concert performance at the Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool

This was billed with emphasis on the fact that the role of Gianni Schicchi in this one-act opera by Puccini was being played by baritone Bryn Terfel and so, as expected, there was an almost full house. 

The opera was preceded by a medley of well known intermezzi and excerpts from stage works by Mascagni, Puccini and Ponchielli, expertly played by the Liverpool Philharmonic under Domingo Hindoyan. 

The cast for Gianni Schicchi was drawn from the European Opera Centre, which has been based in Liverpool since 2004.  The mainly young cast made a very successful attempt to act out this comic opera under the constraint of having to do so in a narrow strip of stage in front of the orchestra.  The singing and acting were of the highest standard, in particular the young lovers Lauretta and Rinuccio, played by Anaïs Constans and Matteo Roma. As anticipated, Bryn Terfel gave the kind of polished performance in the title role for which he has gained his reputation and notably did so without in any way outshining or upstaging the rest of the cast. Perfect. 5*

Architecture on Film: The Smithsons on Housing, a film from the BFI National TV Archive, and Robin Hood Gardens, a film by Thomas Beyer and Adrian Dorschner at Barbican Cinema, London

Peter and Alison Smithson were influential Modernist architects who were responsible for the 1970 housing structure in Poplar, East London, known as Robin Hood Gardens. It was demolished in 2019, considered as an architectural and social failure, despite protest from the architectural establishment. 

The first film was illuminating, knowing what we now know of their work, as we see the architects discussing their craft in 1970 at a time when social housing was still being built by city councils and modernist architecture was the norm for such projects.  They recognised thats the main problem facing social housing architecture was vandalism and spoke disparagingly (in an unacceptable way by today’s standards) or the lack of respect of social housing tenants for their environment. The Robin Hood Gardens project was their solution to the problem.  In a way that now seems arrogant and unrealistic, they explained how they believed good architecture could solve social problems. 

At the time Robin Hood Gardens was built, the area consisted largely of unused or semi-used docks (Tilbury was still not fully established) and other decrepit industrial buildings, with railway lines and roads leading to the Blackwall Tunnel. The financial offices of the City had not yet moved eastwards to Canary Wharf etc. The whole place looked a mess and it seemed ridiculously optimistic of the architects to suggest that the area was a desirable place to establish 216 homes. And so it turned out, as we then see in the second film, which took 6 years to make from 2016 to 2022. 

The film shows the evacuation and demolition of Robin Hood Gardens and the preservation of part of the structure in the Victoria and Albert Museum. The architectural establishment are interviewed extensively, with markedly different opinions expressed about the value of the architecture and the reasons for the project’s failure. Some of those interviewed were in the audience for the film, but a number are now deceased, e.g. Richard Rogers, Christopher Woodward and Charles Jencks.  A considerable time is spent in following the photographer Hélène Binet, who produced a photographic record of the buildings’ demolition. 

The overall tenor of the film promotes the still held idea that an architectural masterpiece has been unfairly demolished.  It interviews some of the tenants in their flats and finds a couple of tenants who are very enthusiastic about their homes, yet also includes the author of a social study at the time that showed that 53% of tenants did not like living there.  Beyond that, the film made no real attempt to draw conclusions about why the project had failed so badly. 

The films were followed by a discussion with the film’s directors. Comments from the audience were surprisingly critical, particularly of the way that the film had failed to point out the abysmal failure of the local authority (then the GLC) to maintain the buildings and also the fact that the subsequent development of the area meant that the current local authority was under huge financial pressure to decant the tenants and sell the site for other private housing and office projects in the redeveloped docklands. Most importantly, though, the short life of Robin Hood Gardens had covered an enormous change in the whole political approach to social housing that is not going to be reversed any time soon. 5*

The Journey to Venice, a play by Björk Vik at the Finborough Theatre, London

Finborough Theatre is a very smal, intimate venue in a room above a pub in Earls Court.  It is known for the quality of the work it puts on and for its attempts to bring good theatre into the local community.  The Norwegian playwright has won numerous Scandinavian prizes for her theatre works.  This play had its debut in 1992.  

This is a beautifully crafted compact stage work.  The two main characters are Oscar and Edith, a couple in their 80s couple who, one finds early in the play, have lost an only child at the age of 6 days.  They find, and resent the fact, that much of their conversation now relates to their age, its limitations and their pending death. They have spent their lives engaging in intellectual pursuits, which they still enjoy together as much as they can.  But, being housebound as a result of poverty and some ill-health, they are now unable to travel as they once did. 

So they have developed a fantasy world in which they pretend to travel to the mountains of Norway in a train and then to Venice, where they set up and enjoy an Italian meal and speak the language to each other.  They play home movies of these previous journeys in the background.  A particular favourite trip for Oscar was a visit to a nudist beach in Austria but we don’t see that fantasy played out.

Two other character are involved: an apparently empty-headed young female home care worker, who appears in their house for the first time, and a young male plumber, who arrives to fix a toilet leak. They arrive independently at a time when Oscar and Edith are engaging in some of their fantasy experiences and they are invited to participate, which they do after initial bemusement and reluctance.  Before long we acquire some surprising information about these additional characters. 

There is no major denouement in this play: we expect the main characters to continue with their lives after we leave them.  But their close relationship is revealed with a beautiful sense of both pathos and humour, with some very moving dialogue. Superb acting too from all the cast. 5*

Trouble in Butetown, a play by Diana Nneke Atuona at the Donmar Warehouse, London

Butetown is the area of Cardiff centred around the Bute Docks.  Also referred to as Tiger Bay, it contained a hugely cosmopolitan population that had developed during the 19th century. Although racial tensions existed, it (there was a famous race riot in 1919), it also had a reputation for a  high level of integration between Black and local Welsh communities. Towards the end of World War II, a high number of Black American GIs made their way to Butetown where they experienced a far lower level of discrimination than they did in their own country.

That is the background of this play, which tells a story of a local family: a widow and her two mixed race daughters, who take operate an unlicensed boarding house in Tiger Bay with a clientele of immigrant seamen. One of the residents is a sailor from Georgia, USA; another a Middle Eastern immigrant who has formed a relationship with the landlady's neice.  Interactions between these residents make up the story line until an incident occurs in which a Black GI takes refuge in their backyard as he attempts to escape from the Welsh constabulary and the US Military Police who wish to arrest him for a recent murder of an American soldier int he vicinity. The family provide him with shelter without knowing the real reason for his flight and he starts an affair with the older daughter of the landlady, who is attracted to him.  To reveal the rest of the story and particularly the ending would be a spoiler.

The play is quite traditional in the sense of its static conventional set, the development of the relationships and the revelations towards the end. But in this performance the acting was superb and the characterisation and dramatic tensions were built up extremely well. One left with a real sense of how it must have been to be living in that mixed race community in that strange period at the end of the War. 4*

Half-six Fix at Barbican Hall, London

A clever idea. Come along to a short concert after work: just one piece of music played by the London Symphony Orchestra (almost certainly a piece they will be playing subsequently at a full concert), hear it explained in detail and do so at a relatively low cost.  I thought it would be of interest to a relatively select audience, but the Barbican Hall, capacity nearly 2000, was completely full. 

This one was Beethoven’s 5th Symphony, conducted by François Xavier-Roth, who provided a very humorous and interesting introduction to each of the movements, followed then by the whole work.  It’s such a familiar work that it’s easy to let it play in the background without listening, or to forego a performance as being uninteresting.  But of course it is one of classical music’s major masterpieces and that came to life in the performance. 

This is one of a new series of such concerts; I’ve booked for the next one. 5*

Mitsuko Ushida and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall, London

Ushida conducted and performed two late Mozart piano concertos with the absolute perfection and refinement that she is renowned for.  I can’t imagine better performances from either soloist or orchestra. 

Between the concertos the orchestra gave an amazingly intense performance of Arnold Schoenberg’s Chamber Symphony No. 1.  Whether a consequence of the performance or the score, I got the impression that the 15 players of orchestra were struggling against the size of their ensemble to make it sound like a full late-19th century symphony.  But interesting to hear it in the setting of the RFH auditorium, which I had never been in before.  5*

All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, a film by Laura Poitras at Barbican Cinema, London

This is a documentary on the life of artist and activist Nan Goldin.  Goldin was a photographer active in the post-70s Punk scene in Boston, USA, where she engaged with, and participated in the lives of, many of the subjects of her photographs: Drag Queens, sex workers, sufferers from AIDS and drug addicts.  Her acquaintance with this last group led in the 1990s to her spearheading a campaign to obtain compensation for the increasingly large number of people whose lives had been damaged by dependency on the drug OxyContin, including Goldin herself.  

OxyContin is a slow-release preparation of oxycodone, a synthetic opioid analgesic.  It was marketed by Purdue Pharma, owned by the multi-billionaire Sackler family, and was wholly wrongly marketed as an effective analgesic with lower risk of addiction.  Only after its use for several years did it become clear that dependency on the drug had become rife, leading to widespread addiction and associated crime.  The Sackler family, however, appeared impervious to criticism largely as a result of the huge bequests they made to arts establishment, including the Metropolitan Gallery in New York, the Louvre in Paris and the National Gallery in the UK.  

Goldin’s group staged protests in various international locations to draw the attention of the media to the problem and of course faced denials and lawsuits from Purdue.  In the end, the medical evidence for the damage caused by OxyContin led to its withdrawal as an analgesic for general use and hence removal from the market and Purdue went bankrupt.  But shockingly the bankruptcy was filed only after $13 billion dollars of assets had been transferred to the Sackler family. This was challenged in court and, shown satisfyingly in detail in the film, the judge ordered the family to view the testimonies of those people whose lives had been affected by the drug.  

Prior to that, many galleries and art institutions had ceased to accept donations from the Sackler Foundation and, more recently, their name has been removed from, among others, the National Gallery, the Louvre and the Victoria and Albert Museum. 

So, an interesting story, but a difficult film.  Much of the film is an exposé of Goldin’s work, which was cutting-edge at the time, but has aged badly (her images no longer shock but simply appear unattractive) and their presentation is accompanied by badly recorded contemporary comment from Goldin, who speaks through a haze of cigarette smoke and/or alcohol and other drugs.  Only at the end of the film do we gain more respect for her work as a successful influencer and campaigner against the establishment. 3*

Mystery Plays from the Coventry Corpus Christi Cycle by the  Players of St. Peter at St. Bartholomew the Great, London

The players are an amateur group of long standing with some variability in their acting skills.  The musical accompaniment by the Mystery Band was a quintet of period instruments and the church organ.

Coventry Mystery Plays date from the 14th to the 16th century and were well known throughout England in the time of Shakespeare, who would probably have seen them as a child. Only two remain — those performed here.  The plays contain both pathos and humour, covering the Anunciation and birth of Jesus and Presentation of Christ in the Temple.  Herod is portrayed as a madman and the Massacre of the Innocents pulls no punches  

St. Barholomew’s Church celebrates its 900th anniversary this year.  It was fascinating to think that such plays were performed in the recognisable streets around here over 500 years ago and to imagine the lives of the people in the audience at the time.  On one of the coldest nights of the year, it was unfortunate that the church’s boiler had broken down.  I don’t recall ever being so cold at an indoor performance.  3*

Kees Nottrott (organ) at St. Paul’s Cathedral

A short programme of French organ music on the massive and famous Cathedral organ.  It was interesting to hear this but the Cathedral itself is so huge that the reverberations under the dome, where I was seated, seemed to completely diffuse any discriminating features of the music.  Not to my taste as a musical experience, however expert the playing was. 1*