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I went to the platform event with James Macdonald, director of The Hour We Knew Nothing of Each Other yesterday. He had some interesting things to say. One thing he said that I've always felt strongly about this play is that you need very very good actors to do it. Dancers can't do it because you need people who can tell a story in a very short space of time. He said he'd met Handke in Paris and found him "very charming and entertaining" and forthcoming about the play.
In the Q&A, I asked him if there were any other Handkes he'd like to direct and he said not really but would like to see Offending the Audience staged. Another question that came from the floor is what would be the difference between the play and pointing a camera at a real square and recording the coming and going. This pinpoints an absolute lack of understanding of the play that seems to be dogging a lot of people. It is NOT a slice of life but a highly artifical, structured work of patterning and musical structure. If you don't get that, you're going to struggle with it.
I stayed on for the performance and found watching it a second time, I picked up much more detail (having re-read it a couple of times since first seeing it helped). I even heard the earthworm this time (joke). I did see some flaws in the production this time. Michael Coveney in his review described it as "more rooted in urban reality, less surreal" (than Bondy's production) and he's right, this is a weakness. It has to be played very truthfully but it's the surreal aspects that work best and there's a slightly prosaic feel to the production. Certainly, the design is a problem (something I didn't mention in my own review) and I'd like to see the set minimalised and preferably freed from a proscenium setting.
The curtain call was met with a lot of booing from one section of the audience. While this is not uncommon at the opera, I can't recall many occasions when I've heard it at a play. Are these the same sort of people who think all classical music is "shit" or feel the need to picket Harrison Birtwistle? One blogger writing about the play has said, accurately in my view, that anyone used to seeing contemporary dance or attending orchestral concerts would have no difficulty with this play.
Perhaps these are just people who are passionate about particular traditions of theatre and can't see over the edge of their ruts. They may just have hated it, which they are free to do, but anyone with any artistic sensitivity or judgement would be able to see that this is a fine production of a great work. I'd like to know what it was that they were booing.
It's sad that in this country many people are so hung up on content and can't cope with exploration of form. There again, this was just a small minority and most of the audience seemed enthusiastic, if a little bewildered.
It was leaked last November so it's a reasoble bet that it's been heard by a lot of people already, but on Monday 25th February Goldfrapp's fourth album Seventh Tree is finally available to buy.
For fans of Goldfrapp's last two electro-centric records who missed the debut, Felt Mountain, there's much to bemuse. And while there are rhythmic and atmospheric harks back to that first - still gorgeous - record, Seventh Tree is a more complete work than that, or indeed Black Cherry and Supernature.
Will Gregory has amassed some truly gorgeous synth sounds. On Cologne Cerrone Houdini there's a plunky bass that's surely straight out of Berlin's Take My Breath Away. And it does - this track seems destined to soundtrack an advert for chocolate. Or sex. Or maybe both together.
Caravan Girl is the poppiest moment on the record, but it's the hues and shades of the subtler songs that make this album what it is.
Anyway, John has reviewed it here. Four stars, he says, and that's despite no deviant theremin sex moments, for shame.
The whole shebang is streaming at their MySpaz page. What do you make of it?
Two of the words in this post's title began with the letter B. Neither of those words was "BRITs".
No, instead this post concerns something on a rather different level to being told that a superannuated boy band make the best music in Britain, and that somehow M.I.A. wasn't even worthy of a nomination, even if she'd wanted one.
Well away from Earl's Court, ITV and industry hand-wringing, musicOMH.com's netjetter-in-chief Alvin Chan has knocked up a little ditty of a feature on Beijing's burgeoning alternative music scene. You can read the fruits of his toil here.
One of the most intriguing points in his piece, at least to me, is the difference one live music venue can make, even to a city the size of the Chinese capital. Filling in a survey the other day, I was asked which was my favourite live music venue. I think there might be a blog post on that in the near future.
Congratulations to ENO for the coverage they've got out of the complete non-story of Paul Whelan singing from the wings at Lucia on Saturday. Nearly every TV news programme, and plenty of print media besides, have fallen for it. I don't know if the team at ENO did it themselves or if they got an agent in but they've done a great spin job. Well done to them.
Following its success throughout the awards season, the French biopic of Edith Piaf La Vie en Rose has been re-released today in cinemas across the UK. The film stars Marion Cotillard as the singer in a performance that won a Golden Globe and a BAFTA and has also received a nod from the Oscars.
Read musicOMH.com's review.
I must say I'm quite dismayed by the reaction to Peter Handke's The Hour We Knew Nothing of Each Other at the National Theatre. While of course not all responses have been negative, for the most part it's been greeted with incomprehension and even some hostility. The extraordinary musical qualities of the work have been largely unrecognised and unappreciated by the critics and public alike. Why do people have such difficulty with abstraction when it comes to drama? Nobody pulls out their hair and screams "but what does it all MEAN?" when they hear Mozart.
Mind you, we have a rash of Harrison Birtwistle operas about to hit London, so maybe we're in for more of the same. I've been watching on Youtube the scenes that greeted the revival of his Gawain in 1994, when people actually picketed the Royal Opera House with placards, protesting against modernism in music. Unbelievable. I acknowledge that both Handke and Birtwistle produce "difficult" work that makes you work a bit but they are also among the most exciting artists of today in their respective fields.
The first trailer for the new Indiana Jones film is now online.
At least half is footage from the older films, but there's some definite whip-cracking, a few temples, some angry natives and Cate Blanchett. Check it out for yourself at www.indianajones.com
(Doesn't he look old?)
Portishead are back in our midst with a new album this year, and as if by coincidence, Massive Attack have emerged from the woodwork too.
In quick succession Robert Del Naja and co have announced a new album due for release in September, a Glastonbury Other Stage headlining slot, and now that they'll become the first group to curate the South Bank Centre's Meltdown festival. It's the 15th such shindig, and runs from 14th to 22nd June.
Massive Attack haven't been away as long as Ms Gibbons and Messrs Barrow and Utley, mind, but it's looking like a Bristol renaissance of sorts all the same. All we need now is Tricky.
The trip-hoppers of course follow in the footsteps of Jarvis, Nick Cave, Morrissey, Patti Smith, David Bowie, Lee 'Scratch' Perry', Robert Wyatt, Scott Walker and the late John Peel as curators of the event.
So who's playing? We don't know yet, but I reckon I can hazard a guess at three of the acts they'll be booking already. Want a clue? Two I'm thinking of are solo female singers. One's been around for decades and the other recently released her debut album. A third is, like Del Naja, a sometime pretty boy front man who's getting on a bit, but still definitely has what it takes, in various guises...
Whoever gets booked, the final word has to go to Michael Lynch, the SBC's excitable CEO: “Meltdown 2008 will be Massive!”
Two features up on the musicOMH.com site today: firstly a review of the DVD release of Michael Clayton, which is out to buy on Monday, fresh from its win at the BAFTAs and looking likely to scoop another prize at the Oscars... if they happen.
Secondly we have a competition to win Jumper goodies, though sadly we can't offer an instantaneous holiday in Egypt or even a nice jumper: you'll have to settle for hoodies and copies of the book. Entries for that need to be in by the 20th of February, so get thinking!
Tune in to BBC1 at 9pm tonight for all the posh frocks, dazzling smiles and tearful speeches from the BAFTA awards.
With writers still feeling militant over the pond, it's likely that the BAFTAs will take on more significance than usual this year. The Golden Globes were a mere news conference, and it's not yet clear what form this year's Oscars will take.
Not only that, but there are British entries in all the main categories, with Atonement amongst the favourites.
A full list of nominations can be found at the BAFTAs website.
UPDATE, 21:30 GMT:
Atonement was named as best film, Daniel Day-Lewis as best actor for There Will Be Blood and Tilda Swinton as Best Supporting Actress for Michael Clayton. But Julie Christie missed out.
Full list of winners:
BAFTAs website
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