Depeche Mode...

Last Saturday Stuart and I went to see Depeche Mode at the London Stadium in Stratford's Olympic Park.

What has become West Ham FC's home ground, the old Olympic stadium was converted for the night to house Depeche Mode's biggest home crowd - 80,000 people packed in for a sold out show from Basildon's finest.

Synopsis: The sound was shit, the beer overpriced but the boys did a great show. It was an uplifting, intense music gig that easily demonstrated why they are considered one of the world’s most celebrated live acts.

Dancing and prancing the energetic Dave Gahan took to the stage with hair slicked back like Salvador Dalí or Freddie Mercury in his triumphant days. He stalked the stage, flapping his elbows like a chicken, pirouetting, windmilling and grabbing his crotch, at one stage toppling over at the exertion of it all.

The gig was effectively in three parts.

The least effective part was perhaps their new material with songs from their latest album Spirit – such as Where’s the Revolution? and Poison Heart. Good songs but not classics.

The second part was Martin Gore's piano balladeering and lead vocals on songs like A Question of Lust, Somebody and Home were lovely - hushed and reflective, the crowd sang along with every note.

But it was the final part – the late 80s / early 90s classics - that had everyone singing and dancing like lunatics. Enjoy the Silence was received with nothing short of rapture. The 1986 single Stripped also went down a storm. But it was the 1983 fan-favourite that preceded it that provided the night’s highlight. There can’t be many songs about corporate greed and corruption that prompt 80,000-strong mass singalongs. But in Everything Counts, Depeche Mode have such a song. It’s a ridiculously catchy slice of stadium pop. As was 1987’s Never Let Me Down Again, which closed the main set.

My only minor quibble with an almost perfect set would have been to not perform David Bowie’s "Heroes" as part of the encore but to get the crowd into a further frenzy with something like Just Can’t Get Enough.

Having said that, Personal Jesus – from the Violator album – was as stompy and forboding and gripping as ever to close the night.

The set-list was:

Going Backwards
So Much Love
Barrel of a Gun
A Pain That I'm Used To ('Jacques Lu Cont's Remix' version)
Corrupt
In Your Room
World in My Eyes
Cover Me
A Question of Lust
Home
Poison Heart
Where's the Revolution
Wrong
Everything Counts
Stripped
Enjoy the Silence
Never Let Me Down Again

Encore:
Somebody
Walking in My Shoes
"Heroes" (David Bowie cover)
I Feel You
Personal Jesus

 

St Etienne...

Last Friday Stuart and I went to see St Etienne at the Royal Festival Hall on London's glitzy South Bank.

Promoting their new album Home Counties the English pop funsters were in fine form. Sarah Cracknell seems to get younger every time we see her.

Apart from playing their hits the standout songs from the new album live were the new disco track Dive and the instant classic Train Drivers in Eyeliner.

We had a great time even if some of our fellow audience members seemed to be ob a mission to ruin the night for all around them. Ok, 'intrusive filming and tall people dancing in front of you' you get used to a gig these days but the shouting and loutish drunken behaviour around us was quite beyond the pale. We were astounded the yobs behind us weren't thrown out - shouting at Sarah during the slower songs things like "Sarah! Sarah! SARAH! I can't dance to this one!" Poor form. STFU!

The set-list was:

Lose That Girl
I've Got Your Music
You're in a Bad Way
Whyteleafe
Magpie Eyes
When I Was Seventeen
Take It All In
Who Do You Think You Are (Candlewick Green cover)
Dive
Like a Motorway
Split Screen
Heather
Only Love Can Break Your Heart (Neil Young cover)
Tonight
Sylvie

Encore 1:
Train Drivers in Eyeliner
He's on the Phone

Encore 2:
Nothing Can Stop Us

 

  

London...

It is not the walls that make the city, but the people who live within them. The walls of London may be battered, but the spirit of the Londoner stands resolute and undismayed - George VI

The Treatment...

Last night Jane, Sara, Stuart and I went to see The Treatment at the Almeida Theatre in London's glitzy Islington.

Synopsis: Well produced but ultimately a bit of an exasperating experience. But maybe that was the point.

Lyndsey Turner’s immaculate, neon-lit revival of Martin Crimp’s 1993 play lays bare the ways reality is exploited and distorted by the media.

The setting is New York and Crimp plunges us straight into a study of the way two movie types Jennifer (Indira Varma) and Andrew (Julian Ovenden) – who call themselves “facilitators” – appropriate the lived experience of a young woman, Anne (Aisling Loftus). As she graphically describes the way she was bound and gagged by an electrical engineer (Matthew Needham), they become visibly excited by the narrative’s potential. Anne is reminded that “no one’s story is theirs alone”, and we see how she is exploited by the predatory facilitator husband-and-wife team. They first merge her story with a scenario about voyeurism by a clapped-out playwright, and then recruit a big movie star to give the project financial muscle.

The staging is great and the acting spot on but boy were the characters frustrating and hard to engage with. They were all just so unlikable - and the humour, whilst good-natured, wasn't savage enough for us to admire their bravado much either. They were complex people sure, but inconsistently so. Rather like real life people I suppose! But who comes to the theatre to see real, unlikable people? Ha, ha. But maybe that was the point of The Treatment.

Talking of which, there’s a rich ambiguity to the title of Martin Crimp’s play. It could refer to the movie outline being planned or to the manipulative human behaviour of the facilitors. In fact, both meanings came together in a play that combined satire on the media’s distortion of reality with the nightmarish vision of city life.

In the later stages, Crimp pushes his fable beyond the bounds of probability as it moves closer to melodrama and we don't really believe in Andrew's fixation with Anne and the accidental tragedy seems abit tacked on.

One rather odd, and particularly gory, moment saw a character who whilst earlier on in the piece promised “to introduce a Shakespearean element” to the movie treatment then later found himself treated as cruelly as Gloucester in King Lear. Geddit?!

The standout character in the piece for me was the blind taxi driver who perhaps might have served as an excellent muse to each scene in the story and a better 'way in' to the characters for the audience. The blind leading the blind.. etc... But what do I know? Critics? Cretins! Ha, ha.

Ed Sheeran...

My view of @edsheeran has improved immeasurably. His #DesertIslandDiscs book is #HisDarkMaterials and his luxury tomato ketchup. Good man.

Weeping Angels...

On Monday Stuart and I took a lovely stroll around Stoke Newington's beautiful old cemetery Abney Park.

   

Erasure...

Last night Stuart, Ange and I (along with the world and his husband) went to see the magnificent Erasure perform at The Roundhouse in London's none too glitzy Chalk Farm.

Ostensibly to promote their new album World Be Gone the marvellous duo of Andy Bell and Vince Clark put on a great show, as ever, for a very enthustiatic crowd.

Andy bounded on to the stage dressed in a broad-brimmed hat, glitter ball top and trousers while Vince wore a blue suit.

For the next 1 hour 45 minutes we were treated to all the hits - with one notable exception - along with some fan-voted favourites and five tracks from said new self-produced album.

World Be Gone is Erasure's 17th album and is quite a change of direction. Gone is their sugary pop and uplifting songs of love and hate replaced by a voice of remonstration and discontent. The

songs are a lot more sombre taking on topics that blur the lines between pop and politics. None demonstrates this more adult theme than the beautiful protest song “Still It’s Not Over” - a

lament on HIV/AIDS. Although the new songs are mostly melodic, they are slower and painfully vulnerable and perhaps not suited to a largely standing venue when people really just wanted to

dance, dance, dance baby.  Heart-felt though the performances were of these more thoughtful songs when they came on people were all too often seen running to the bar or the loo.

But then when a high-tempo hit came on to follow it the place erupted again in a sea of cheers, dancing and singing. And the hits kept on coming. It was perhaps the biggest kareoke venue in

town.

Even as the last notes of A Little Respect died away the crowd kept singing it all the way out of the venue, along the street and down onto the Northern Line.

There is a lot of love out there for these boys - even if a new album is not quite up there with their best.

And the notable exception that was missed out from the show? Due to the extra security on the door following the terrible Manchester bombing last Monday getting people in to the Roundhouse was

a very slow affair. With Erasure due to start at 9pm, at 8:50pm there were still over 500 people queuing to get in. Eventually the venue gave on the addition security checks and just let people

flood in. But despite this the gig still started a little over 10 minutes late so something had to go from the set list and sadly is was one of my favourites - Ship of Fools - along with one of

the new tracks A Bitter Parting.

Which left the full set-list as

Breath of Life
Drama!
It Doesn't Have to Be
Love You to the Sky
Oh L'Amour
Chorus
Oh What a World
Just a Little Love
Blue Savannah
In My Arms
Sweet Summer Loving
Knocking on Your Door
Love to Hate You
Sometimes
Still It's Not Over
Phantom Bride
Here I Go Impossible Again
Stop!
Always
World Be Gone
Lousy Sum of Nothing
Take Me Out of Myself

Encore
Chains of Love
Victim of Love
A Little Respect

Arsenal FA Cup Win...

An amazing game last Saturday saw the might Arsenal defeat a sub-par Chelsea to lift the FA Cup.

Arsene Wenger has become the most successful manager in the history of the FA Cup after winning the competition for the seventh time.

Woyzeck...

Last night Stuart and I went to see Woyzeck at the Old Vic in London's glitzy Waterloo.

Synopsis: Good play. Rather grim though.

Starring Star Wars: The Force Awakens' John Boyega this Woyzeck is in the British Army living in the grim Berlin apartment in 1981 with his partner Marie (Sarah Greene) and their baby. Unable to afford the rent, he takes part in a paid medical trial and his world starts to fall apart. Big time.

The play is adapted by Harry Potter and the Cursed Child writer Jack Thorne from German playwright Georg Buchner's original work, which was unfinished at his death in 1837. With less philosophising that in many

English translations of the piece Thorne's version is firmly about class, masculinity and mental health.

My only quibble with this version might be that to reinforce the reasons behind Woyzeck's descent into madness Thorne rather over eggs the pudding. We know Woyzeck suffers from mental health issues but let's include:

orphan (check), abusive father (check), sexually explicit mother (check), seven unhappy foster homes (check), traumatic tour of duty in Northern Island (check), bullied by his commanding officer (check), on a dodgy

drug trial (check), jealous personality (check)... the list goes on and on. Yes, we get it. He is not a happy chappy.

The play is certainly dark and yes at times gruelling but Boyega is always compelling to watch. His eventual madness is well handled and we are genuinely shocked when he bangs his head against the wall.

That said, there is much humour to be had from Ben Batt’s roguish, laddish Andrews - Woyzeck's best mate. Mind you, there is a touch of the Iago about Andrews to Woyzeck's jealousy-torn Othello (a role Boyega must

surely play soon). Traitors come in all shapes and sizes, it seems?

Talking of size... Young Batt gets his kit off quite a lot (the programme warns us of full-frontal male nudity) and it doesn't hurt the fact that he's as fit at a butcher's dog.

Oh and the 2017 fashion of using the C-word gets a good old outing here - we counted its use on eighteen occasions. Stuart and I should play Theatrical Sweary Bingo; eyes down for a ‘fuck’ and ‘cunt’.

Kings Cross (Remix)...

Last Saturday night Stuart and I went to see Kings Cross (Remix) at the Camden People's Theatre in London's none-too glitzy Euston.

In Tom Marshman's latest show Kings Cross (Remix) he has brought to light testimonies of hidden histories in the Kings Cross area in London from the 1980s. A painter, a barman at The Bell ("Mrs Bridges", punters, activists, a sex-worker... how the area has changed, HIV, Thatcherism, the music, the sex, the politics, the drinking...

Using mime, dancing, monologues each of the stories is brought to life in vivid detail. It is funny, tragic and - for us who inhabited Kings Cross and The Bell in the 1980s - deeply nostalgic.

Kink, drink and liberty.

Go see.

Half A Sixpence...

Last night Roger and I went to see rags-to-riches-to-rags-to-riches again musical Half A Sixpence at the Noel Coward Theatre in London's glitzy West End.

Synopsis: Perky show. Strong cast. Like the lead’s trousers though - rather weak material.

Originally a star-vehicle for Tommy Steele this revival has been marvellously conceived by writer Julian Fellowes with a slick production, a wonderful cast, even if a few of the songs were perhaps - how can I put this? - rather less memorable than some of the others.

That said, when the songs were weak these boys and girls stepped up to the plate and certainly knew how to make a little go a very long way.

The source material is HG Wells’s 1905 novel Kipps what tells the story of a cockney draper Arthur (played by the outstanding Charlie Stemp) who strikes it rich, dallies with the toffs, gets swindled out of this money, goes back to his childhood sweetheart and then strikes it lucky all over again.

Let's not look too deeply into the subtext of the piece - well, ok, just for a bit - but whereas some might think of this as a "We were poor, but we were happy" or "Money can't buy you happiness" tale in fact it's told closer to a "Oi! Poor people! Know your limits!" fable.

The poor are severely downtrodden and only dream of one thing - money. And if they get it they can never be accepted in high society. The poor women in particular only seem to want a husband, a baby or both. Fellowes seems to acknowledge this one-dimensional portrayal of the masses and introduces a socialist (but who soon takes the money) and 'gives' him a Suffragette girlfriend (but to whom he gives no lines and marries her off quick sticks.) Oh, well. It is just a musical!

Talking of which, if the first-half was just OK, the second-half really picks up as it includes a show-stopper called Pick Out a Simple Tune, which starts with a rudimentary plucking at a banjo and gathers into an almost orgiastic cockney knees-up, engulfing stiff sophisticates at a Folkestone soirée.

And to crown the night off we were treated to an eight minute all-singing, all-dancing, jazz hands, table thumping, version of Flash Bang Wallop (What a Picture!) which was worth the ticket price alone.

Good to see the show reinvented from its 1960s roots but I think it might need a bit more work to be the outstanding show the excellent cast really deserve.

Explosion...

Terrible news last night. Manchester Arena. 22 dead, 59 injured in suicide attack at pop concert.

Children are among the dead as police say one male suicide bomber detonated an improvised explosive device after the concert.

Witnesses say they saw a "massive explosion", with nuts and bolts from the bomb littering the ground.

Arsenal 3 - 1 Everton...

The final game of the season was a bad tempered one. We won but list out on a champions league place for the first time in 20 years. And who caught the ire? Stan Kroenke.

Salomé...

Last night Stuart and I went to see Yaël Farber's new play Salomé at the National Theatre on London's glitzy South Bank.

Synopsis: Lovely lighting.

Although visually striking the whole night was fatally undermined by a thoroughly turgid script. And at a snail-like pace.

Encouragingly Salomé here is presented as a fresh and politically potent concept. Farber sets out to strip away the veils of myth and misogyny that hide the figure of Salomé (Isabella Nefar). She finds in her a young woman in a brutally male world and an occupied country. Raped by her stepfather (a creepily lascivious Paul Chahidi), Salomé slides around the fringes of power, her abused body a metaphor for her colonised country. Then she meets Iokanaan (John the Baptist) and realises that, by demanding his execution, she can turn him into a martyr and ignite a revolution. That apparently whimsical demand for his head is neither sexual nor capricious here but a provocative, political act.

 It’s a fascinating proposition that, in theory, gives a shadowy woman voice and agency. In practice, we get no closer to Salomé. She remains a near silent, symbolic presence.

And in this silence a few people simply saw boredom. And with that boredom left mid-performance. Which was a shame. Because the bit at the end with the curtains was pure Eurovision.

A classic case of style triumphing over content.

American Style - Philip Glass & Laurie Anderson...

Last night Stuart and I spent an evening in the company of Philip Glass and Laurie Anderson in the Barbican Hall in London's brutalist Barbican Centre.

Philip Glass and Laurie Anderson might have known each other for forty years but the 100 minutes on stage together barely scratched the surface of what either of them have achieved either separately or together in that time.

Part improv, part jamming session, part greatest hits Ms Anderson and Mr Glass each treated us to some of their solo work while the other played along. It sometimes worked and it sometimes didn't. The playing of the instruments all too often drowned out the speaking.

The stage was set up with a piano for Glass, a desk with laptop and electric violin for Anderson’s music, and a comfortable fireside chair for her story telling. The backdrop was a large screen on which were projected images – photographs by Anderson that had been manipulated in various ways and bringing attention to the many facets of Anderson’s creativity.

Anderson, one of the most creative and influential artists of her generation has collaborated with the Kronos Quartet, John Cage, Peter Gabriel from the world of music and with writers such as Allen Ginsberg and Lou Reed to whom she was married. It was works by these last two writers that formed the basis for the performance.

The voices of both writers were present as recordings of them reading their works were played. Wichita Vortex features the voice of Allen Ginsberg reading his anti-war poem and Junior Dad is a song from the rock opera Lulu created by Lou Reed in 2011. Anderson accompanied the songs on an electric violin that could be manipulated into different sound effects by way of laptop wizardry, while Glass performed the piece at the piano. Voices from the past formed a theme to the evening’s pieces, the performance beginning with a very personal piece by Anderson "I’m Standing in a Room" recalling the loss of her mother. Anderson is one of the best story tellers around. Her timing is superb and her voice, though often pitched at a monotone is amazingly expressive. It was like she’s speaking to each member of the audience personally, almost in a whisper. Her juxtaposition of unexpected ideas is nothing short of miraculous. Anderson’s poem "World Without End" had lines that stop you in your tracks and ponder that big things in life – “When my father died it was like a whole library had burned down.” It was just a shame the sound production on the night was sub par.

To be honest, big fan though I am of both, I think I prefer them performing separately. That way they get the sound right.

Arsenal 2 - 0 Sunderland...

A very empty Emirates Stadium last night. We made heavy work of it too. And now it's all down to the last day of the season. We need to win and everyone else needs to lose. Fat chance. Hey ho. 

 

Angels in America...

Last Saturday Stuart and I went to see both Angels in America plays back to back at the National Theatre on London's glitzy South Bank.

Synopsis: A simply outstanding production. There is blood, tears, laughs aplenty, Russell Tovey getting his kit off, and we see lesbian sex with an Angel. What's not to like?

An epic eight-hour duo of plays featuring more than 30 characters, from travel agents and lawyers to divine emanations and bisexual Mormons, Angels in America is unique.

It creates a world where illness and sexuality are unapologetic and political diatribes sit alongside angelic visions.

It is also very, very funny.

Set in 1985 Tony Kushner's two plays (full titles) Angels in America - A Gay Fantasia On National Themes - Part One: Millennium Approaches - Part Two: Perestroika tell the stories of three gay men living tortuous lives in Reagan's America. AIDS is rife and people are dying.

Prior Walter (a sublime Andrew Garfield) is one of these unfortunate souls but who has a rather fabulous journey to make before he meets his maker.

A second Joe Pitt (hunky Russell Tovey) is a bisexual Moron whose wife (Denise Gough) has her own illusionary world to explore.

A third man Roy Cohn (outrageous Nathan Lane) is a real-life vicious closeted lawyer who knows the cost of everything but the value of nothing.

Tragedy strikes each of them, but not before a world of fantasy touches them all.

All the cast are excellent but especially Nathan Stewart-Jarrett as the nurse Belize.

Highly, highly recommended.

Alien...

"I don't wanna play any more. She'll only whoosh me out the door again."

 

Lettice and Lovage...

Last night Stuart and I went to see Peter Shaffer's play Lettice and Lovage at the Menier Chocolate Factor in London's rather unglitzy 'London Bridge Quarter'.

Synopsis: Amusing rather than funny.

Directed by Trevor Nunn and starring Felicity Kendal and Maureen Lipman the play is about a stately home tourist guide (Kendal) who makes up exaggerated and oft outlandish stories to make her tours less boring. This is by far the best it on the play. She then is hauled in front of her boss (Lipman) who despite firing her also feels some sympathy for her. They develop a friendship, which is sweet if rather improbable.

The play is in three acts and although at times drole the piece ends up being a rather thinly veiled attack on post-war Britain including English modern architecture, (Shell House comes in for some particularly vicious stick). They even propose a tour of the "fifty ugliest new buildings in London".

We saw it in previews and to be honest although great actors both Ms Kendal and Ms Lipman seemed rather under rehearsed. More than once, they fluffed their lines and did not always know where to stand.

Originally, the play was written for Maggie Smith. I bet she did it better.

The show did not start until 8pm (why?) and finished closer to 11pm, which on a school night lead some of the audience to head for the door for their last train.

Recommended only if you really, really like Felicity Kendal and Maureen Lipman.

Philip Glass Music in 12 Parts...

Last Monday night Paul, Stuart and I went to see a recital of Philip Glass's Music in 12 Parts at the Barbican Hall in London's glitzy and savagely brutalist Barbican Centre.

Coming in at five and half hours the twelve pieces were written in the early 1970s and reflected early experiments with minimalism. Repetitive, hypnotic and at times genuinely euphoric the time just flew by.