Review: The Snow Queen at Bristol Old Vic

It's always a challenge to find the story that'll make a Christmas play that isn't a panto or done to death already. The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Anderson might seem like a good candidate in that it's pretty wintery, with lots of opportunities for ice and Christmassyness and a bit of central-European scariness all wrapped up in a nice, heartwarming message. In other respects it isn't, as the story is long and rambling and thus, quite difficult to adapt to stage.

This production met some of these challenges magnificently, while falling foul of others. It's a lavish, technically adapt production which wows with effects and fantastic stage design. The Snow Queen herself is a puppet, and a rather scary one. There's goblins and turtles and reindeer and talking parrots and various sub-stories of the main adventure, all created in neat little scenarios, which in their own right are funny and engaging. The costumes are great, the music brilliant, the design amazing.

Photo (c) Mark Douet/BOV

And yet, even as an adult, there's so many twists and turns it's hard to keep up with the story. This wasn't helped by the theatre makers adding another layer, in which the lead male character is clearly having gender issues and nobody in the village understands him, because y'know, they're peasants. The central relationship between the boy and girl characters is redrawn as 'friendship' in which they 'love each other as they are' blah blah. Because having a boy and a girl whose love overcomes evil in a happy ending is obviously too heteronormative these days. There was also a cringy scene in which the supporting characters recap what the heroine learned as a person on her journey, as if there's some sort of Oftsed review due and they're afraid she might not have met her key learning outcomes. It was so Peak Guardian, I can't even.

Anyway, apart from that there were lots of things to enjoy. What there wasn't, in my opinion, was enough snow. I wanted a bit more peril, a bit more cold, a bit more ice and sparkling frostiness, a bit more Northern European menace. The best bits were with the actual Snow Queen, who was genuinely scary. I know I'm old now but when I was a kid, being forced to consider a bleak wasteland of Scandinavian hopelessness was thought to be good for your education. All in all, could have done with a bit more Scandi-noir, a bit less Generation Snowflake. Also: MORE CHRISTMAS.

Verdict
Puppets: yay!
Politics: yikes.
 

Review: Kneehigh Theatre, The Flying lovers of Vitebsk

The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk is the last thing to be directed for Cornish Company Kneehigh by acclaimed director Emma Rice, who is going on to be the Artistic Director at the Globe Theatre in London. This is a very well deserved promotion, since Rice has directed a few absolute corkers for Kneehigh, and in a theatre world which is as sexist as the movies, is probably Britain's foremost female theatre director. 

Kneehigh are also great, with or without Rice, and so I went along to this with pretty high expectations. The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk is about the painter Marc Chagall, and his wife Bella, both born in Vitebsk in Belarus, in what was then Imperial Russia. I knew very little about them, but it's a fascinating story with plenty of theatrical material to milk, passing through love-at-first-sight, a rich-girl/poor-boy wedding, World War One, the Russian Revolution, the artistic revolutions of expressionism and cubism, Paris in the 20s, World War Two, and a flight from occupied France.

However, I felt like all this, in a play, presented a bit of a problem. There were lots of 'explaining history to the audience' moments going on, and what felt like more speech directed at us, the audience, than between the characters. Kneehigh usually make ensemble pieces, with quite a few actors, but this had just two actors and two musicians, and I felt like there might have been less explaining if they'd splashed out on a couple of extra performers.

Apart from this, it's undeniably an enjoyable production, with lovely music and singing, and great dancing, especially from Audrey Brisson who played Bella. There isn't, despite the title, any flying: the title refers to Chagall's paintings.

One effect this production had is to make me want to see more of Chagall's art, so in that sense it could be called a success. Overall, a decent production, with lots of lovely moments, but I felt it was a bit let down by the script.

The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk is at Bristol Old Vic until June 11th.

Review: A Long day's Journey Into Night

Bristol Old Vic is celebrating it's 250th Anniversary this year, which is pretty awesome. To do so, they're putting on four plays from the four centuries it's been open. So far so good. The specimen representing the 20th century is Eugene O'Neill's classic, A Long Day's Journey Into Night, starring Jeremy Irons and Lesly Manville.

Although this is a classic play, I'd very little idea of what I was in for. What I was in for, it turned out, was three hours of dysfunctional family, drug-taking, consumption, alcohol and criminally negligent behaviour.

I'd like to give credit where it's due, so first of all I'll say that Lesley Manville is an amazing actress and I'd turn up to see her again in anything. Also Jeremy Irons has a lovely sonorous voice and since I was stuck behind a pillar admiring the plaster roses on the ceiling for a good part of the play, it was rather like listening to a radio play with somebody rolling Shakespearianly in the background. I'm not cross about the pillar, it gave me something to cringe behind when Jeremy forgot his lines.

Now, *clears throat* I don't blame Jeremy for this debacle. Or indeed any of the actors on stage. I blame, in descending order, 1) Eugene O'Neill, who wrote this play in the first place, 2) the Director, who thought it was a good idea, 3) whoever greenlit this at Bristol Old Vic, and 4) The Patriarchy.

Oh and Eugene O'Neill's Dad, the 19th Century, and the Catholic Church, but I figured I covered that under the Patriarchy. Anyway, without giving away too many spoilers, this play is about the Tyrone family, a miserable bunch featuring a self-pitying bully, a morphine addict, a consumptive, and an alcoholic. Who shout at each other a lot. Apparently it's based on Eugene O'Neill's actual family, which is why I blame his Dad. It is very long, and entirely without hope. Well, I did experience a brief spark when I realised it was 1912, and that soon, World War One would be along to put the younger family members out of their misery. Then I remembered that they'd have to wait an extra three years, being American, and that a consumptive and alcoholic wouldn't get conscripted anyway, at which point I found no further cause for optimism.

Mrs Tyrone, the mother of the family, is apparently a morphine addict due to her husband's stinginess in providing medical care, and her repeated breakdowns down to the fact that he won't provide her with a stable home. Both the children are wrecks, ditto. This is billed as a family tragedy. I hate to be politically correct here, but that's not a tragedy, is it? It's one person with all the power, and that person being an arsehole, and failing in their responsibilities. Which doesn't meet the Greek standard of tragedy which is some sort of unavoidable woe which is handed out by fate. All these woes are apparently the result of drunkenness, self-regard, and greed, which aren't tragic vices, they're just nasty, petty mean ones. I didn't feel a speck of sorrow for patriarch Tyrone as he bewailed how he wasn't what he could have been. I was just rolling my eyes so hard it's a wonder they didn't fall off the balcony, onto the stalls, below.

This is a terrible, terrible, self-indulgent, boring, interminable, play, and I have no idea what possessed anyone to consider it a classic, unless it were a bunch of old white men thinking that old white men woes are woes of the world, and nothing is ever their fault.

I don't blame Jeremy for forgetting his lines, I'd forget 'em too, if I was expected to learn three hours worth of this repetitious drivel.

Anyway, I'm a bit puzzled as to why this play was picked, as there are so many good plays from the 20th Century that do have contemporary resonance. The BBC put on an amazingly contemporary version of An Inspector Calls last year; or Plenty, which mirrors the slow disillusionment of post-war Britain; or An Accidental Death of An Anarchist, which could happily be played in modern Turkey, or Greece. But instead somebody chose this, which left me contemplating only one, really salient question: was there ever a chandelier in the middle of the Old Vic ceiling, and if so, what happened to it? How did they light it? Most importantly, can we have it back?

Anyway, I think Kneehigh are coming round next month, with The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk, and I'm sure it'll be fantastic, chandelier or no, so you might want to book tickets, for that.

Review: The Light princess, Tobacco Factory, Bristol

As a kid I was a massive fan of George MacDonald's stories, including the Princess and the Goblin, At the Back of the North Wind, and the Light Princess. MacDonald is a largely forgotten Victorian author who nonetheless was a massive influence on writers like CS Lewis and Tolkien. He trained as a clergyman but by all accounts wasn't awfully successful at it: he didn't like the idea that hell was a permanent sentence and believed every soul would come to God eventually.

It's easy to see why MacDonald didn't go down too well in the Victorian church: his stories are oddly un-Victorian, with an idealistic,  yet satirical edge. He tends to poke fun, or worse, at the pompous and hypocritical. His heroes are often lower class (a miner's or a cab driver's son), while the upper classes are ineffectual or horrid. There is an odd, proto-feminism going on, since workers of miracles, dispensers of wisdom, and figures of supernatural power in his stories tend to be female, older, and often rather sexy with it. "Princes get away to follow their fortunes. In this they have the advantage of the Princesses, who are forced to marry before they have had a bit of fun. I wish our Princesses got lost in a forest sometimes," he writes, a bit mournfully.

The Light Princess is a story about a Princess who is cursed to lose all her gravity, both in a literal and a metaphorical sense. Not only does she float around, she also can't take anything seriously. Like all MacDonald's writing, it has funny bits but is also really, really dark in places. There's also water, water, everywhere.

That given, I'd always assumed it'd be fairly hard to make a film of it, let alone a play. The National Theatre made a musical a couple of years ago, but completely rubbished MacDonald's original plot. So I was keen to see what the Tobacco Factory had made of it.

(C) Farrows Creative

I was really pleased that this production of the Light Princess, by the Tobacco factory in association with Peepolykus, used MacDonald's original story. They didn't skip a bit of it, and added a few new elements as well. They got round some of the more fantastical elements of the stories by using shadow puppets and projections, and very well done it was too - genuinely adding to the atmosphere of the story. All of the main characters were excellent. The Princess was both irritating and sympathetic, the evil witch was enjoyably evil, the King insisted on mansplaining at people (which he does in MacDonald's original story), and the poor over-serious Prince was hilariously, earnestly Teutonic, wandering round the woods having nihilism problems, before falling for the Princess.

There were two invented characters and a couple of bit parts that'd been worked up as well. These were there to provide comedy and also some of the more slapstick parts of the show. There were lots of genuine laughs but to be honest I could have done with a bit less of these comic characters. The whole thing could probably have been about ten minutes shorter but all in all an excellent show and a really clever adaptation of something that might seem very difficult to stage. There was even real water! The set and design were great - working the traditional fairy tale look without overdoing it, and handling the fact that half the story takes place in a lake without even batting an eyelid.

Also thankfully - so thankfully - no mention of Christmas spuriously shoehorned in, even though this is the Tobacco Factory's Christmas production. So if you feel you can't cope as an adult with any more seasonalness, it's ok, you're safe. The show is recommended for ages 6 upwards, and I don't think it is suitable for very young kids, since there's a complex plot and reasonably long running time. But there's plenty of slapstick for the kids and more sophisticated jokes for adults, so for anyone else, aged 6 to 86, it'll do very nicely.

(C) Farrows Creative

If you haven't read the story, you can read it either before or after, it won't spoil your enjoyment, either way. But if you've never read George MacDonald, I do recommend that you acquaint yourself with him. You could do a lot worse than starting with this production: I feel like he'd approve.

Review: Fanny Hill vs 50 Shades

Last week I went to see Bristol Old Vic's new production of Fanny Hill. This is a theatre version of John Cleland's 1748 erotic novel, banned until the 1960s. I have read the book and much of it you couldn't put on stage, on film or screen, which is why adaptations are often a bit limp. Anyway, I couldn't help wondering how it stood up against this week's other sex blockbuster, 50 Shades of Grey. So I went to see 50 Shades. Readers, the things I do for your pleasure. For a start, that's £8 I'll never get back. The Old Vic, on the other hand, gave me one for free, the sluts. Look, I don't want to end up in some kind of compromising situation, this isn't the the Telegraph, you know. Anyway, in the interests of full disclosure I should point out that I insanely adore Fanny Hill the novel. I dumped 50 Shades, the novel, at page 173. That done, let's get started:

Overview:

Fanny Hill (the play) adapted from the funny, literary pornographic novel, which follows the trials tribulations and ah, other activities of Fanny as she goes from hapless rural orphan to brothel jail-bait, through true love, whoredom, and a good many scenarios besides.

50 Shades (the film) adapted from the unfunny, unliterary pornographic novel, which follows the trials tribulations and ah, other activities of Anastasia Steele as she goes from hapless literature student to being the mistress of controlling, BDSM-obsessed tycoon Christian Grey.

Acting

Fanny Hill (the play) 5/5 Sometimes TV actors are rubbish on stage, but Caroline Quentin looked very much at home. All the supporting cast, especially Gwyneth Keyworth, were excellent.

50 Shades (the film) 3/5 I feel sorry for Jamie Dornan. If he were to beat anyone with a whip, I think should probably be his agent. This is such an awful, implausible character to portray, the fact that he did it without visibly looking like he wanted to die is credit to his acting commitment.

Likeability of central character

Fanny Hill (the play) 4/5 Funny, rude, lewd, assertive and businesslike: but this version of Fanny Hill, as an older woman attempting to recount her youth as a whore, is a static creation, and less engaging than the one in the book, who changes as the narrative progresses.

50 Shades (the film) 2/5 Despite the best efforts of the actress who plays her, Anastasia is a clueless, personality-less void of a human doormat. In the book, she's like that so that readers can insert themselves into the narrative (there's a name for this, only I can't remember it). She's so thick that when Christian does stuff she doesn't like, she doesn't even use the safe word he's given her, she just starts crying instead.

Likeability of love interest

Fanny Hill (the play) 2/5 very disappointed in this. In the book, Fanny escapes the brothel to live with love of her life, Charles. Charles is skint but he loves Fanny, and when his horrid family find out they have him shipped off to the navy against his will. Later he comes back to find her, and he's such a nice guy he never even reproaches Fanny about working as a whore, he's just damn glad to find her. In the play, Charles has been completely removed as a character, thus destroying the central conceit of the story, which basically runs the gamut of sex from depraved lust to the passion of true love.

50 Shades (the film) 1/5 He might have ripped abs and loads of cash, but Christian Grey is really an unattractive man. He has no wit, no humour, and no interests apart from weird sex. Also, he has fucking terrible taste in interior decor. Christian Grey reproaches Anastasia about everything.

Sense of humour

Fanny Hill (the play) 4/5. Lots of humour, but got bogged down in political correctness at some points.

50 Shades (the film) 1/5. None. Though I did LOL at a couple of things that weren't meant to be funny.

Costumes

Fanny Hill (the play) 5/5 oh these were brilliant. Everyone involved, male and female, looked brilliant and scorching hot. Fab fab fab 18^th century costumes. Bring back breeches I say.

50 Shades (the film) 1/5 these were awful. Christian wears expensive, dull suits, and Anastasia is so free of free will or personality of any kind that she mostly wears jeans and white T-shirts.

Design

Fanny Hill (the play) 3/5 there was a great box that opened up to show an 18th-century bedroom but overall I felt the look wasn't as dank and dark and atmospheric as might have been justified by the period.

50 Shades (the film) 1/5 Christian Grey's oh-so-expensive penthouse apartment is furnished like the window of House of Fraser furnishings dept. The room he makes Anastasia sleep in is like a suburban dream of sophistication that wouldn't look amiss in a semi-detached in Surrey. Everything around him has that soulless, characterless look of an upmarket chain hotel.

Music

Fanny Hill (the play) 5/5 this was great, wonderful fiddling and bawdy singing by all involved.

50 Shades (the film) 2/5 Pleasant enough background, but I literally can't remember one thing that stood out.

Faitfulness of Adaptation

Fanny Hill (the play) 2/5 I do understand it's difficult to render 240 pages of varied shagging in a manner that won't get your theatre closed down. But they literally lost the plot! The whole thing became massively less interesting by the removal of the dramatic arc. Quite miffed about this.

50 Shades (the film) 4/5 Basically the plot intact but with the fortunate removal of EL James unfortunate writing style.

How long you have to wait before getting any

Fanny Hill (the book) 9 pages. About the same on stage.

50 Shades (the book) A godawful 146 pages. The film mercifully a lot less.

Actual levels of sexiness:

Fanny Hill (the play) 3/5 Bawdy and funny, but not particularly titillating.

50 Shades (the film) 1/5 Christian Grey made me think of Dominique Strauss-Kahn. I literally can't imagine anything worse. The entire thing was completely devoid of erotic charge, unless you get an erotic charge by thinking about being able to buy all the things in the House of Fraser furnishings dept.

Quality of Climax:

Fanny Hill (the play) 2/5 This was good fun for a while, but ended more with a whimper than a bang, and to be honest I'd lost interest about ten minutes previously.

50 Shades (the film) 2/5 Anastasia leaves in a lift after Christian slaps her bottom too hard. I can't describe the feeling of relief.

Best bit:

Fanny Hill (the play) Caroline Quentin hanging off a chandelier with a bloke's head up her skirt.

50 Shades (the film) The helicopter. Look, we'd all like a free helicopter ride.

Worst Bit:

Fanny Hill (the play) All the tortuous attempts to be politically correct about sex work.

50 Shades (the film) Every single bit of furniture in Christian Grey's apartment.

In conclusion:

Fanny Hill (the play) 35/50 A decent effort, a good night's entertainment with great acting, music and costumes, but ultimately let down by the pointless, post-modern messing with the narrative of the original novel.

50 Shades (the film) 18/50 A soulless, charmless lovesong to corporate capitalism, and less sexy than a James Bond movie. The only startling aspect was being in a cinema full of women. I say full. I mean half-full. It's like someone actually noticed that we're allowed out on our own.

The conclusion, concluded:
Fanny Hill: Try reading the book
50 Shades: Try watching Secretary
 

Review: Terror and wonder: the Gothic Imagination at British Library

This week I was lucky to have work stuff in London, so I had a spare afternoon to visit 'Terror and Wonder: the Gothic Imagination' at the British Library. Bearing in mind that this is a library, not a museum, and the majority of the exhibits are books, you might be forgiven for expecting it to be a bit unchallenging. About four minutes in, I thought so too, then two hours later I was still there, poring over the exhibits.

The exhibition begins with the Castle of Otranto, by Walpole, the original British Gothic Novel written in the 18^th Century, and works its way through the Romantics, the influence of Gothic on Jane Austen, the Brontes, Victorian sensationalism, Dickens and Robert Louis Stevenson, Dracula and the history of vampires, Hammer Horror and modern gothic, and finishes with an exhibition of photos by Martin Parr, of Goth Weekend in Whitby, 2014.

I was totally blown away by seeing original manuscripts of Frankenstein and Jane Eyre. Seeing them in their handwritten state is akin to looking at the innards of a bomb, as one suddenly realises what a massive effect such a small, fragile-looking thing may have when it explodes into being. Shelley was only 19 when she wrote Frankenstein, and it is chaotic and scribbled, with Percy Shelley's nerdy, pedantic handwriting in the margin, like the annoying boyfriend who thinks he knows better. Frankenstein is a book about technology and about nightmares, and was written when both the horrors and wonders of the industrial revolution were steaming into full gear. Looking at the manuscript, I felt a moment of unease, a lurching sideways like the deck of an unsteady ship, and I thought, what an upending of the old order, what a moment of terror, that nineteen-year-old girls might be let loose to document our fears and dreams, and set down the ghosts of the future, and all the the things that frighten us. I have seen all the usual things and images that anyone in the 21^st century has, but I honestly can't remember seeing anything more transgressive than those scribbles by Shelley and the Brontes, scraped away with a quill pen, in candlelight and darkness.

I was less fascinated by Dickens but it is interesting to be reminded that what now seems like cosy old-worldy Victorianism was actually written with the intention of revealing injustices and horrific poverty, and that he faced complaints and lawsuits because of it. Also, as the exhibition points out, how the background of gothic changed from one of rural horror to a very urban one. I was startled to find links between things that I was familiar with, but hadn't connected: that the play or Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde premiered at the theatre at the exact time that the Ripper murders were happening, and that the manager of said theatre was Mr Bram Stoker, author of Dracula. 

Some lovely non-book items from the 20^th century included costume and set design from theatre and horror movies, as well as a brief section detailing the rise of modern 'goth'. Martin Parr's photographs give their subjects dignity without concealing any flaws or oddities, and the homemade outfits portrayed are far more interesting than the one underwhelming dress by Alexander McQueen.

There was actually a huge amount to take in and think about, but what I particularly liked was that there was no attempt to dumb down a whistlestop tour of the subject, which nonetheless only touched on half the material it could. The subject is dealt with chronologically, not thematically, so you can see how the genre developed and changed as it went on, but that it keeps being rolled around to deal with the same issues – deep-seated unease around change, cultural identity, sexuality, and social conflict, that it first did right at the start of the industrial revolution. Also how, as a form of art often dismissed as 'trashy' – suitable for impressionable females and excitable poor people – it has consistently dealt with the big questions in society, like gender and sex, technology and colonialism, in the way that 'respectable' literature has not.

I really feel that the British Library should congratulate itself on this exhibition. It's like the kind of public communications that fell out of fashion a few decades ago, when somebody very intelligent and expert just explains something they know a hell of a lot about, with some fabulous and fragile objects, but no CGI. It made my brain hurt, in the best possible way. Also, I now have a reading list as long as my arm.

Finally, to go off at a tangent, if you think all this is only interesting in a historical, literary, intellectual sense, I have to point out you're wrong. Why? I'll tell you a story. Like a proper gothic story, it starts with a country bumpkin (me) who gets lost somewhere alien and terrifying (London underground). At night, obviously. I passed through Westminster, where the bomb blast doors protect the politicians, and up from the Jubilee Line, which looks like something designed for the set of Aliens. I ended up at Blackfriars, under the foot of the shard, where the cranes still worked at ten at night, and a human feels ant-sized, and the City squats like the operating headquarters of some alien invaders, over an older, more human-sized version of London. And then another station, I'd lost track of names by then, brand new and brutally designed in concrete and lit by a violent blue light. Why? Why has someone made these things like this? I am not an especially anxious person in foreign environments, but these places made me afraid. Because somebody made up a nightmare, then built it. These things are not frightening by accident, but because someone designed fear right into it. 

Humans are one big mush of fear and wonder, really, and we don't like to admit to it. But if you are able to recognise the shapes and tropes of it - and give those things names - then you will better see the strings and ropes of it. And remember that monsters always, have a weakness. 

XX

Review: Dracula, Bristol Old Vic

Like most people I love a good vampire story, preferably one in which no-one sparkles. If you too like vampires I can't recommend anything more than that you leg it down to Bristol Old Vic immediately to see Mark Bruce's dance version of Dracula. It's on in Bristol till Saturday and then at these other venues.

All photos: Farrows Creative

The story of Dracula has been told and retold so many times it's become little but camp and caricature in most versions, but this, which takes place on a half-dark stage filled with a wrought-iron gate, is genuinely scary. Despite the lack of dialogue the story is always easy to follow, and stays fairly true to the Victorian original.

Using ten performers, five male five female, events unfold via a variety of dance styles, all danced with passion and athleticism. There is plenty of darkness, plenty of blood, and plenty of death. Dracula is always awfully sexy, and the fact that he never speaks means his physical presence says more of his powers than any Hammer Horror ever could.

The original Dracula novel was written in 1897 by Bram Stoker, and for the time is startlingly modern in format: there is no writer commenting on the action, as in most Victorian novels, but the reader has to put the story together from fragments of letters and journals. One reason the story has stuck around is that it's about things that still bother us: sex, death, unnerving foreignors, and the eternal battle between civilised respectability and uncivilised passions. Most of these are things that bother us on a sub-verbal level, so there's probably few better ways to represent these conflicts than in an unspoken format.

One of the things I liked most about this production is that it had many contemporary resonances (at the beginning, a blood-crazed Dracula and his black-hooded wolves steal a baby from a screaming, head-scarfed peasant woman, like some awful news story from Iraq or Syria) without losing the quality of the time it was written in. The score used many beautiful (and unusual) pieces of classical music, the costumes were simple and appropriate, and the wrought iron gates, finally, festooned with the bodies of the vampire brides, looked like an Aubrey Beardsley drawing.

I would very happily sit through this production again, as I'm sure there were things I missed. Also, it was just beautiful.

Review: The Libertine, Bristol Old Vic

I am always a sucker for a few ruffles and double-entendres, so theoretically The Libertine, the latest thing at Bristol Old Vic's main house, should be right up my street.

Photo: Eoin Carey

This production, by Glasgow's Citizen's Theatre has lots to recommend it, from excellent sets and costumes to great acting and a witty script. It follows the fate of the real-life John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, who was a famous rake and poet at the court of Charles II. Rochester, who points out at the beginning of the play that he is quite unlikeable, then proceeds to drink, shag, and provoke other people until he finally ensures his own destruction.

I couldn't find anything to fault in any of the performances, and it was great to see a play with a whole bunch of functional female characters, who have personalities and motivations in their own right. There was certainly plenty of ruffles, and double-entendres, and I did genuinely laugh.

Nonetheless, I just couldn't get caught up in the earl's #seventeenthcenturyproblems enough to feel involved. The Earl is rich, he is privileged, he commands the love of several women, to whom he is routinely unfaithful. He might be a genius, but can't be arsed to write a play to prove it. It's true that the character says you will not like him, but at the end, I couldn't help wondering, really, is he an iconoclast, or just a bit of a self-indulgent bore? I mean this as no disrespect to the actor that played the part, since this is a question for the playwright.

The play the Libertine was written by Stephen Jeffreys 20 years ago, and the odd thing for me is not how much it whiffs of the Restoration, which it is supposed to evoke, but of the cultural mores of the baby-boomer generation, with their veneration of rock stars, and the cult of the drunken genius rebelling against conformity. Twenty years later, amidst the massive and unshifting corruption of politics, the unravelling of the ghastly sex offences of the rich and famous in a series of almost-televised trials, and the omnipresent lurk of pornography on the internet, the poor Earl's attempts at debauchery look positively mild.

To put it bluntly, if you find Russell Brand dangerous and edgy, you'll like this. If you don't, you won't. Personally, I find myself caring less and less for anti-heroes in any story I'm exposed to. I'm so cynical about cynicism, these days. Perhaps when one lives in harder times there seems less romance in self-destruction, and more in the simple act of surviving.

Review: Jane Eyre, Bristol Old Vic

I love Jane Eyre, it's one of my favourite books. I love film adaptations of it. Nonetheless, I'd have thought it a hard book to put on the stage, not least because it's quite long and complex, but also because lots of the action takes place in open, bleak locations.

This new production at Bristol Old Vic gets round the first issue by dividing the novel into two parts. It gets round the second by having almost no scenery at all, just a structure that the actors work round. When the play began I looked at this dubiously. I was even more dubious about the first five minutes, in which the infant Jane Eyre is born and orphaned. Fortunately, my doubts were swiftly dismissed as the play got into the swing of things. I was pleased they hadn't tried to modernise Charlotte Bronte's magnificent dialogue, instead picking judiciously from her words, adding a few new where necessary. But the stirring speeches in which Jane Eyre stakes her claim to justice, humanity and dignity are present and correct, and as moving as they should be.

Photo: Simon Annand

I was also really pleased that the costumes were undistracting, and era-appropriate. The plain set worked well, matched with the simple costumes and - though this might seem a strange thing to praise - absolutely brilliant lighting design. A number of lanterns did multiple duty as the stars, the windows of Thornfield, and also as the fires that the characters huddle over. It made for a very atmospheric production, in which there was often darkness or half-light on the stage. You really feel yourself clinging to the little warmth which warms poor frozen Jane, as she arrives at Thornfield for the very first time. In the scenes at Lowood School, they threw up the giant, terrifying shadow of the proprietor, making you feel you'd shrunk to the size of a child.

One thing which marked this version out from others I'd seen was that it was very much interested in the journey of Jane, and that Mr Rochester was only a part of this. In other versions the affair with Rochester is the story, with all else thrown into the background, whereas in this I felt that Jane Eyre herself, not Jane Eyre the romance, was really the item of interest. Whether this was because the production was directed by a woman, and so came out with a slightly different emphasis, I can't say. But I liked it. It's a subtle difference, but it's a difference between a story in which love wins the day, or one in which integrity and courage wins the day. This version, I think, was the latter.

Any actor who plays Jane Eyre has a challenge on her hands, as she needs to be both small physically and yet great as a person, and rather mousy, yet have enough attractive about her to drive a man to distraction. Madeleine Worral, as Jane Eyre, was absolutely and entirely perfect, being both dwarfed by the emptiness of the stage, and yet quite able to command it. As for Mr Rochester, played by Felix Hayes, he was fine, though a bit shouty for my tastes. But he had a hipster beard and I'm sorry, Mr Rochester should not have a hipster beard. Also, he was sometimes upstaged by his dog. The dog, played by Craig Edwards, was one of the highlights of the production. Another highlight was Melanie Marshall, whose beautiful, haunting singing was worth the ticket price alone. It's such a relief and a pleasure to see female performers who are not interchangeably blonde, and who have a bit of presence and force to offer.

My only quibble is that I'm not totally convinced they had to stretch it to two separate plays, and do think a bit of judicious cutting could have seen it off as one (maybe a three-act?) play. Nonetheless, a thoroughly excellent production, and one of the best things I've seen at Bristol Old Vic in a long time. I really hope it makes it beyond Bristol, as it definitely deserves more than a short run.

Jane Eyre Parts 1 and 2 is on till 29th march.

Review: Beauty and the Beast/Improbable Theatre

Last week I went to see Beauty and the Beast at Bristol Old Vic. Now, I love fairy tales and Beauty and the Beast is one of my favourites. When I looked through the blurb, I saw that it had a disabled actor playing the beast. Fair enough, I thought, I can see what they're doing there: should be interesting. I was pretty much excited about seeing it.

Boy oh boy was my disappointment swift. This show is awfully awful, like a monument to the monster of the theatrical ego, and everyone involved really needs to have a very serious word with themselves.

To start with, the two lead actors, Mat Fraser, and American burlesque performer Julie Atlas Muz came on and introduced themselves, as themselves. Now, in theatre there's this thing called the fourth wall. It's the like the invisible tv screen between the actors and the audience, by which the actors pretend the audience aren't there, and thus get on with the story. Sometimes, actors like to break the fourth wall and interact with the audience. The first few times I saw this in the theatre, I thought it was cute. After a few more times, I started wanting to shove my hand in the actors' faces and shout 'Get back behind the fourth wall!'. Also, the phrase 'artistic practice' was invoked, which further moved me to violence.

Anyway, they then started to tell the story with shadow-puppetry. That was fine, if tedious. Then the female lead came on, in character, being Beauty, entering the beast's castle. With the aid of two puppeteers, they seemed to be trying to recreate some famous, entirely fantastic, scenes in Jean Cocteau's black and white film, La Belle et La Bete. They had even taken some lines of dialogue directly from it. Then Mat Fraser, as the Beast, appeared. Now, I understand what they were trying to do. The Beast in the story of Beauty and the Beast is hiding from society, because he isn't like everyone else, he's not human, and he's not normal. So by having a disabled actor play that role, you're asking people to think about how people regard disability in that way. The thing is, is disability beastly? I am not convinced it's a working metaphor, personally.

They then told the rest of the story, occasionally jumping in and out of the effing fourth wall, to tell us about their relationship in real life. They involved the puppeteers, to play themselves, which was hideously awkward. They got their kit off. They kept it off. And off. And off, thus rendering it completely uninteresting, and unsexy, as they just wandered round the stage in the buff. They ate fruit in an allegedly sexy manner. It all descended into a simulated sex scene which went on for what felt like hours, and made me realise that there is nothing more unerotic than watching two practised performers writhe gymnastically in front of a hundred slightly embarrassed English people. I was relieved when the puppeteers got naked as well, as at least I some different arses to look at. The only thing I could find to recommend was that everyone involved clearly had real pubes, which I haven't seen in public for ages.

The show wouldn't settle into any one thing: it wasn't exactly meaningful, about an issue; it wasn't exactly a comedy. It wasn't dark enough, or mysterious enough, or shocking enough, although I am sure it would have liked to have been all these things. I felt they were trying to poke holes in a taboo that didn't exist, and congratulating themselves about it.

The thing is, Beauty and the Beast is quite a dark, sexy and disturbing story anyway, unless you've only seen the Disney version. In La Belle et La Bete, made in the 1940s, the Beast is a kind of a cat human. The cat-human is so disturbingly attractive that when he turns back into a human, you're kind of disappointed. And if you do want a kinky, transgressive version of the story, I suggest you watch Secretary, which is poignant and moving. Both these films are available on dvd for less than a tenner, either would be a better night's entertainment than this awful pig's ear of a theatre piece.

Review: Midsummer Night's Dream, Bristol Old Vic

Bristol Old Vic's latest in-house production is Midsummer Night's Dream. If you don't know what Midsummer's Night Dream is about you're probably either a) daft or b) Polish, like the friend I went with. 'So what's this all about then?' he said, blithely, as we entered the theatre. 

Well, it's one of those things with three couples and some mistaken identity and probably some drugs and a play-within-a-play-thing. Except in this case, with puppets as well. There is a gloriously stinking review in the Telegraph, here, in which Charles Spencer freely admits he hates puppets. Now me, I love puppets, and that was one of the reasons I actually bothered to see a play I've seen four or five times. 

 

Photo (c) Bristol Old Vic

Having said that, there were some things in this production - puppets included – which were great, and others which didn't work so well. At the beginning, three of the characters came on stage with doll-sized puppets of themselves. They began to speak as if it were the puppets speaking, and then broke out and played themselves. This confused me, and I couldn't concentrate on what was happening in the story. What were these dolls – were they people's other selves, like the daemons in Phillip Pullman? Were they there to signify that we were operating in a dreamspace? The actors continued to carry these around all play and I still couldn't work out what their function was. 

Other puppets were much better. Puck was a collection of objects, manipulated by three actors. Titania and Oberon were masks, held aloft by actors. I liked this disembodiment of the spirit characters, it made them authentically ghostly. Bottom was a bottom. No, really.

One of the things about Shakespeare is that he played to his audience, which meant both the people in the posh seats wanting wafty stuff about love, and the people scratching their arses and shouting in the the standing areas, wanting fart gags, and a funny bit with a dog. So often modern directors, who feel Shakespeare should be something highbrow, are ashamed of the fart gag sections, and just scoot over them in an embarrassed sort of way. I think it's fair to say that this is a version that's not ashamed of its fart gags, so I can fully understand why the Telegraph – and its readers – might hate it. 

After a wobbly start, it seemed to hit its velocity, and the last half hour was fantastic. I don't know if this was because of first-night nerves. All the actors were excellent, individually. Given that the actors were good, I felt that sometimes they were upstaged by the puppets, and that a little less puppetry might have made the whole thing a little more somehow. 

The puppets themselves are by a South African company called Handspring. To me, there were a number of things in the show that looked, and sounded African. The sounds (music played on tuned planks of wood) the masks, and the way the set, right at the end, became strangely reminiscent of a great wooden roundhouse. But that won't bother you if you don't notice it. 

Incidentally, said Polish friend, who had no idea what it was about, loved the entire thing. 'I had no idea Shakespeare could be fun!' he said, and bounded cheerily off into the night, leaving me standing outside the theatre door, overhearing an elderly couple moaning how they'd hated every minute.

Review: Peter Pan, Bristol Old Vic

Before I went to see Peter Pan, it occurred to me that although I knew the story pretty well, I had never actually read or seen the original. So I went to the library and cribbed JM Barrie's original script, and then I went to Bristol Old Vic and saw their version.

One is not much like the other. JM Barrie's script is a lush, sentimental, Edwardian visual extravaganza which was partly a vehicle for delivering tableau of themes which would have been familiar to fans of children's literature at the time: pirates, Indians, and fairies. The Bristol Old Vic version, on the other hand, is a modern physical theatre show without a trace of brocade or lace. The whole thing has been 'de-Victorianised'.

In some ways, this is an improvement. Time has made some of the original 1904 script almost unsayable, and reading the phrase 'Mother wants you to die like English gentlemen' made me shudder.

Photo: Bristol Old Vic

Aside from this, JM Barrie's story is rambling and confusing, and by using the story but not the script, they had made it all less unweildy. This production skims off the ickiness and creepiness from the original, and turns it to humour instead.

I have lots of good things to say about the show. The actors were all excellent. The music was excellent. Tinkerbell was genius. Homicidal Captain Hook, in a kilt, played it like Begbie and was really scary. Wendy, who in the original is a bit drippy, was a lot more feisty.

The acrobatics, which were done with all the ropes and mechanics in full view of the audience, were lively, and everyone threw themselves around with abandon. It must have been a demanding production for the performers, who had to have a good deal of circus skills as well as singing and acting.

However, there was one thing that disappointed me, and that was the look of the thing. The set was junk-scavenged, paint-splattered metal and plastic. Neverland looked like an urban warehouse, and the Lost Boy's den  somewhere the homeless would hide. I'm sure all this was deliberate: an attempt to strip the play of its sentimental tweeness and make it relevant to modern yoof. While I don't have a problem with this as a concept, I thought the end result was ugly. Also, in doing so, they'd lost the difference between the drabness of the childrens parents' flat and the colourful wonders of Neverland.

All of which made me, as a person who can tolerate as much fin-de-siecle kitsch and dusty edwardian colour-bookness as would kill a normal person, a little sad. I was begging for one opulent flourish, but no, austerity Britain it was. Still, I don't suspect people who take their children will complain. There was a row of children in front of us, and they loved it.

|For the adults, it's also worth mentioning the Old Vic have got rid of their monstrously uncomfortable seats and that the theatre, which nearly went bust a few years ago, is looking full and lively instead of run-down and sad. Which is a good thing, unequivocally, and I would have said that even if they hadn't given me a free glass of wine, honest.

I'm quite sure this show will be rammed from now until it's closing date, so good for them. I, personally, will skulk off read a George MacDonald novel, and dream about the day when theatres can afford to produce a stageload of damask-coloured dreams without worrying about price tags.

Review: Invisible Circus, No Dress Rehearsal

Invisible Circus: No Dress Rehearsal is a feature length documentary by Bristol film-maker Naomi Smyth, about the Invisible Circus, who started in a Bristol squat in 2006. By 2009, they had moved on to throw a series of massive, legendary show/parties with the complete acquiescence of the authorities. I know they were massive and legendary: I was there.

I saw this film earlier this year, when I mainly went to check that there was no footage of me, falling out of my corset. (It's ok, you're safe, and so am I!) What I hadn't expected was that the film really delivers a gripping narrative, albeit one told quite slowly.

The Invisible Circus start in a squat (about to be converted into yuppie flats) and put on a show. They get evicted. So far, so very countercultural. But then they get ideas above their station, and astonishingly, start to make them happen. They move into another squat (the film doesn't stint on the squalor and filth left by the previous occupants) get evicted, then a small, disused police station, on lease from the council. Then they make an agreement with a property developer, get access to a Victorian ex-Cathedral, and start turning themselves into a proper organisation, with all the bureaucracy that entails.

Finally, they agree a lease on a whole city centre block, the gothic Old Police and Fire Station, and start putting on huge immersive circus shows which transform the entire block into a strange, twisted, neo-Victorian fairground. In one of the final scenes of the film, the camera zooms down on hundreds of faces, as aerialistes bounce from ropes between buildings, and fireworks explode off the balconies. I am, I think, one of those faces, staring up, in a sort of childlike ooh of wonder. It really was wondrous, and one thing the film, perhaps, fails to capture was the sheer atmosphere conjured up in this weird world.

There are a number of really interesting things about this film. First, all the contradictions that are thrown up by moving a 'countercultural' project into legal status. Second, the internal struggles of the group as they attempt to resolve anarchist, co-operative politics with the 'leadership' of charismatic frontman Doug Francis. As dictators go, Francis seems rather sweet, and the film's funniest and most moving moment is when listings mag Venue manages to reduce him to tears, by giving an award that was meant for the company, to him alone.

Naomi Smyth

Weirdly, it is also a fascinating picture of a phenomenon, as assorted property developers bang on about how people will always want upmarket flats. The film goes as far as 2009, so doesn't actually mention that most of the property firms who so generously allowed this bunch of talented scruffballs to access their property have since gone bust. The Invisible Circus, incidentally, are in rude health, which is quite funny. 

Naomi Smyth filmed the Invisible Circus, as part of the crew, over a period of four years. She has never made a feature film before, and can be very proud of what she has turned out. The film is fascinating and thought-provoking in so many ways. It is not without its contradictions, principally between the act of archiving what went on and making a running narrative. It could probably do with being ten minutes shorter, but still it's a fascinating watch.

The best thing about this film is that it is a genuine narrative, peopled by a vibrant array of characters, and like any proper story has a happy ending, via a lot of struggle on the way. It is also a moment in time, caught, like a fly in amber, the world before the boom went bust, and its counterweight, those who were locked out but who wouldn't go away. If you get a chance to see it, do, you'll find yourself thinking about it for a long time after.

Invisible Circus: No Dress Rehearsal is distributed by Future Artists. For info on screenings in Newcastle, Manchester, and London click here, or for showings at Bristol's Tobacco Factory, here. It will also be showing in London at Channel 4 on the 16th Nov.

Review: Midnight's Pumpkin, Kneehigh Theatre

Somewhere in a field in Cornwall...

Midnight's Pumpkin is the ninth show I've seen by Kneehigh, and the first in their brand-spanking-new tent, the Asylum. I went with about a dozen people of varying ages, and the first thing to say is that everyone loved it.

Photo (C) Steve Tanner

Midnight's Pumpkin is basically Cinderella, and the company pulled off the difficult trick of making it entertaining for both adults and children, with singing mice, disco dancing, a talking pumpkin and lots of ridiculousness, nicely balanced by a well-judged send-up of the commercialisation of Romance. Phil Brodie's Duke of Blackwater is a posh bloke in search of love, having to deal with the horror that is video-dating, while fending off the attention of gold-diggers and OK! Magazine. He was extraordinarily funny, and did the boy-band ballad singing perfectly.

Photo (C) Steve Tanner

Audrey Brisson as Midnight (that's Cinderella to you and me) was much quieter, but managed to pull off being both mousey and suitably alluring at the same time. She sang, she danced, she did some very pretty acrobatics on a hoop, and she did really have very, very small feet. The only performer who was slightly tedious at times was Mike Shepherd, who turns up in every Kneehigh show doing his pantomime dame routine. He is the company director so presumably no-one dares to tell him to cut his stage time. But really, it was the trashy, flashy Prince of Blackwater who made the whole thing shine.

I know Kneehigh have a certain formula, and sometimes it works better than others, but this was definately one of their better shows. As they have have got more successful, Kneehigh's productions have got less disturbing, which is shame for those who like a bit of darkness in the theatre. But this is a family show, and as such, really excellent. You even get to participate in the embarrassing dancing at the wedding disco, and most of the audience did.

That's the show: as to the tent, it was a large white tent, and I can imagine why a theatre company would want a customised space they can take anywhere. It looks like the Eden Project domes, and is probably terribly eco-friendly. However as an audience member I found it a bit blank. I was hoping for a magical space like a circus big top, but it was more minimalist than that, and I thought it lacked atmosphere. It must have cost a pretty penny, as adult tickets were £22.50, which is way too much in an area like Cornwall, where incomes are very low. I certainly would not have been able to afford a ticket if it had not been for a friend negotiating a deal.

So:
Midnight's Pumkpin - 5 stars
The Asylum Tent - a slightly disappointed 3 stars
Ticket Price - Ouch!