Stones in His Pockets has been around for twenty years now (exactly the same as Riverdance) and, from its humble beginnings in rural Ireland, has played the West End and Broadway and generally taken over the world even though, to a certain extent, it still hides its light under a bushel . . . A little gem of a play very nicely done. Recommended.
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The ukulele has become really popular, almost nerdily so, in the past few years with clubs, conventions, festivals and orchestras. Everybody seems to have one, I suppose because they are small, cheap and perceived as easy to play. Big mistake, as Steven Sproat’s playing demonstrated . . . I think it is here that Steven’s real strength lies, with an instrument on which he truly is a virtuoso.
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The present – whatever the truth – is always seen as a grossly lacking, cynical, depressing and ignoble era. So why not simply ignore reality, pick a supposed golden age and dream-shift into it?
That’s the plot of Cervantes’ 400 year old classic novel: Don Quixote. And at its best this stage version by James Fenton, shows why that idea continues to resonate with meaning and amusement.
THE BARBER OF SEVILLE – In this the first of the trilogy, as well as being the barber, Figaro is the fixer of romantic assignations between Count Almaviva and the beautiful Rosina, about which all else spins. This is comic opera in which flawed very human humans parade their frustrations and desires, flaunting whatever power and influence they can bring to bear. . .
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Private Lives does not poke fun at the way the middle classes actually carried on but, tongue-in-cheek and with ironically raised eyebrows mocked the way they might have behaved in the elegant world created by Mr.Coward. Of course times change and what was once risqué – for example unmarried, albeit divorced people, making love on stage – becomes unremarkable. In director, Tom Attenborough’s, production we find, unsurprisingly, no maturity, but a group of adolescents pretending or at least trying hard to be grown-ups.
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The story they tell is a history of a thirteenth-century Malian king, Sundiata Keita. It doesn’t tell of his reign or exploits, but rather of the women who shaped his destiny . . .
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