Interview with John Calder, House Magazine, Issue 14, 2011
***Extended Version***
Who won the tennis match you were playing with Rita Hayworth, in Cannes?
Well it wasn’t really a match. She was waiting for the Aga Kahn to turn up, and I was waiting for my brother. She suggested we hit the ball around for twenty minutes, so that’s what we did.
Do you have a process when it comes to writing?
No. Just get on with it whenever you have the time.
You’re quite a personality in the literary world in London.
A lot of people think I’m dead actually.
Oh, really? What do you have to say to them?
So many friends of my age have gone, the new younger people coming up have no idea that we were ever here.
Was there a favourite text that you liked to bring to class when you taught at Nanterre, that got people talking?
I had to teach what I had to teach. I made up my own philosophy course, which worked very well. There were about forty students. At the start I asked them how many of them smoked, and they nearly all did. I made them look at what it said on the cigarette package, and asked them, ‘Now, is this true or do you think it’s a lie? If it’s true, why do you smoke?’ By the end of the course only two of them still smoked.
What was your method to quit smoking?
The first week I smoked sitting in the bathroom, on the edge of the bath, which was very boring. The second week I made myself go down into the street on a very cold January nights. And the third week I used to walk a mile away, have a smoke, and walk back. After a while, you know, smoking was too unpleasant.
And you never went back on them?
The funny thing is I went on dreaming about them for a long time.
Can you remember the best advice you ever gave as an editor?
It’s a very difficult thing to tell people how to write and what to write. What you can help them do is to be self-critical. One of the best things you can tell people is to read their manuscript out loud, if possible with somebody else listening too. The faults will come out.
Do you think the celebrity involved in being a writer today can reduce the quality of the work?
That depends on the writer. In my experience the better the writer, the simpler he is. In those days writers were not very often asked to anything in public. They didn’t expect to get paid; they do now of course.
People were very careful about what they said in public on the whole. Nobody was allowed to say anything particularly outspoken. It was vetted in advance by the BBC.
When people come to you for advice saying I want to be a writer, what advice do you give?
If you want to be a writer, get on with it.
In your book you had direct or in-direct contact with the Lord Chamberlain, Lord Provost, even Senator Joseph McCarthy. What is it about writers’ that scares those in power?
Writers have a long term influence. Politicians, in particular, are always thinking about their heritage; what they’re going to be remembered for. Because of writers, the politician’s final reputation, the way they’re seen, and their authority, can be completely destroyed. They know they’ll be remembered from what writers say about them.
You have large background in political protest. Can people protest anymore?
Well, they’re going to do a lot more protesting in the next couple of years. There’s going to be more and more to protest about.
When you look around today, do you see the change you were fighting for in those early post-war years? Has it been worth it, or has it been a change for the better?
There’ve been a lot of good changes a lot of bad ones too. Things are getting worse now the whole time. First of all, we’ve been electing stupider and stupider politicians and also more and more corrupt ones.
You still read quite a lot?
Oh yes. I don’t have depth of vision, which makes it easy to read quite a lot.
Is there a writer you’re particularly fond of now?
Well, obviously the ones I helped to promote, like Beckett, who I think is a major twentieth century literary figure.
You tell a story about Samuel Beckett fuming because a guard at customs greeted him with ‘Welcome back Paddy’. Was Beckett proud of his heritage?
Oh yes. He was very Irish. Even when he spoke French, Beckett had an Irish accent. But he didn’t realise he had an Irish accent. He always denied he had an Irish accent, but he did, it was a typical Dublin accent.
People keep saying that pretty soon books will cease to exist?
People who like books are not going to stop liking books. The satisfaction you get from a book is quite different from the satisfaction you get from anything else.
Have you any favourite artists?
Yes. But you’re aware of different people at different times. There’s something about certain artists that always strike a chord, like Rembrandt’s self portraits. They say something that nothing else does, because he manages to convey exactly what’s going on in his mind.
How do you like working with actors?
Well, I get on with actors. But some of them don’t get on with each other, so part of my role is peace keeping.
What kind of traits does a good director need?
Talent, and above all a willingness to be faithful to the author.
You recall in your book, someone like Peter Brook, who is not faithful to the author.
He’s still a little awkward with me, Peter Brook. He’s only just retiring now, I gather. The last time I saw him, he called me a good friend, but I know there’s still a slight uneasiness over the article I wrote about him years ago. I gather he blew up totally at the time. He doesn’t like being criticised. The trouble with Peter Book is he’s a frustrated writer, and he just cannot sit down and face a blank page, so he works with other people.
Kenneth Tynan wrote that art was the ‘happy moments of unhappy men.’ Why was it that Tynan didn’t like Beckett, whose work, I think, presents us with those moments?
He didn’t understand him. He was a champagne socialist who just sort of wore socialism on his sleeve, you know? I said to him one day, ‘How can you call yourself a socialist when you only go to the most expensive fanciful restaurant, and only ever want to be in whatever the big fashion of the moment is. How can you square that with calling yourself a socialist? ‘And he turned to me and said, ‘Oh, Marx never said anything about sacrifice’.
You write that you found your voice in poetry when you turned 70. Do you regret not spending more time on your own writing throughout the years?
You can’t do everything. Whatever you do, it stops you doing something else. I never lost my great admiration for T.S. Eliot, who I got to know later in life, I never shared all his opinions, especially his early ones, but he certainly influenced me when I was young.
You’ve met and worked with so many people. Were you ever star struck? You met Marilyn Monroe?
Oh. Yes. It was the morning of the opening of ‘A View From the Bridge’ in London, I was having breakfast with Arthur Miller, as Marylin was sitting in bed, reading, talking in at us. She looked beautiful even then.
You write about the dumbing down of culture. What is the remedy for that?
I think the remedy for that is what’s happening right now: hard times. People tend to become more serious during hard times. The trivia of people only interested in fashion and so on is bad for intellect, bad for culture, bad for innovation and ideas. The recession in the 1930’s was very different to now, but quite a good time culturally. And I think that’s going to happen again now. We’re not in for a little blip of a recession. We’re in for a long recession.
What was your biggest challenge as a publisher?
I’ve always published minorities and individuals. It takes a long time to establish a writer, especially if he’s doing something unusual or different.
The biggest challenge always was to publish someone you believed in, who got no good reviews, who nobody else understood, and finding a way of establishing them as a writer. One example was a book called Blind Owl by Sadegh Hedayat. It faired badly so I sent a copy to a list of people whose names I got out of the ‘Who’s who’; Bertrand Russell, Graham Green, people like that. A good many of them responded, read the book, liked it and gave it excellent quotes. I was able to take ads in the Sunday papers with the quotes, and it worked: in the end I was able to bring out another edition, and sell the rights to other countries. It’s no good just publishing a book, and sending out review copies and sitting back. You have to get out there.
Do you have a favourite piece by Beckett?
All of them.
How many times were you imprisoned?
It was never for very long. I was a very small fry. I was never bound over like some people were.
You were certainly taken in 3 or 4 times?
Oh, yes.
Which I don’t think is a risk many publishers would take today?
No.
Publishing today, is run by capitalists. There are very few independents left. There are also very few editors, who may have the skill, but no opportunity to do anything with it. Everybody is looking for a book like the last book that did well. Real originality is not what people are looking for. It takes too long to pay its way.
Six Bookshop Reviews for Aubin and Wills Almanac
Lutyens and Rubenstein, 21 Kensington Park Road, London, W11 2EU
Established in 2009, L&R is a playful, intelligent, and refined treasure specialising in literary fiction. Reams of paper hang from the ceiling and burst from the shelves; L&R clearly enjoy paper and words. They should, their famous literary agency representing Michael Chabon, and Irish director Neil Jordan is located behind sliding walls in the basement.
With over 4,000 titles in stock, tea and coffee on offer, an excellent range of custom made cards, hand-printed books, signings and events; L&R is more an occasion, than a bookstore. Treat yourself to their bespoke china teacup/classic novel hamper, and discover from the staff the next literary sensation.
Daunt Books, 83 Marylebone High Street, London W1U 4QW
Without hyperbole - one of London’s finest bookshops. Immaculate displays, antique tables, wooden shelves, wicker chairs, hand-carved children’s stools, and a centrepiece of fragrant flowers below the stained glass atrium, Daunt represents the perfect marriage between style and content.
One sign, “Downstairs – Rest of the world,” indicates the range at Daunt, renowned for its travel guides and fiction. Visit the upper gallery, where first-edition hardbacks are wrapped in protective covers. Blow a light peppering of dust off an antique map, and journey awhile in your imagination, or the past. Just don’t forget to return before closing.
KempTown Bookshop, 91 St.George's Road, Kemp Town, Brighton, East Sussex, BN2 1EE
Beginning as a dusty one-room shop fifteen years ago, KempTown has cast its net wide. In the words of owner, Darion Goodwin, ‘we try to do more than sell books’. What an understatement. Workshops range from bookbinding to screenwriting, and even film screenings, which really is the icing on the proverbial cake (the actual cake is served in the cafe upstairs).
KempTown’s gallery space sells wonderful limited edition prints after 20th century British artists, including Virginia Woolf’s sister, Vanessa Bell. If you’re not fortunate enough to be either a hop, skip, or jump away, their website is a tasty entrée.
Fidra Books, The Children’s Bookshop – 219 Bruntsfield Place, Edinburgh, EH10 4DH
You should never judge a book by its cover. What about a bookshop? The first detail of The Children’s Bookshop is its flawless window display. Shortlisted as Independent Children’s Bookseller of the year two years running, it also hosts readings, and workshops, with writers from Neil Gaiman to Cathy Cassidy.
On the shelves, Fidra’s limited reprints of forgotten children’s books retain the original artwork of the titles and include notes on or by its authors. Online you’ll find audio recordings, blogs, detailed biographies, and extracts from books. Maybe it is ok to judge a bookshop by its cover, after all.
Copperfields, 37 Hartfield Road, Wimbledon, London SW19 3SG
Claustrophobics, stay away. Copperfields, founded by two St. Martin in the fields weekend booksellers has over 42,000 titles squeezed into its four rooms. Specialising in signed first editions, antiquarian, and rare titles, Copperfields offers the traditional joy of higgledy piggledy browsing where Shakespeare is sat next to Sharon Osborne.
This is book buying for the determined, offering an excellent humanities range, and, of course, an enviable tennis selection. A veritable Charing Cross road compressed into one shop (and spilling out the door), Copperfields more than lives up to the literary forbearer with whom it shares its name.
Artwords Bookshop, 65a Rivington Street London, EC2A 3QQ.
Aubin and Wills Shoreditch is sandwiched between Artwords Bookshop on Rivington Street, and Artwords, Broadway Market. The former concentrates on contemporary art. It is a tiny, neon-splattered affair, feeling cramped with three people in it. The latter is brighter and bigger, and more focused on stocking design titles.
Surrounded by over 40 galleries in the East London area, Artwords know their business. Rivington Street is focused on new titles, specialist publishers, and an extensive magazine section. Artwords Press is located upstairs, organising events with publishers, artists and designers. If one ever needed proof that size isn’t everything, Artwords is it.
(Published in edited form in Aubin and Wills Almanac, Autumn 2010)
Review of Shutter Island, and The Ghost
"Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board."
Roman Polanski and Martin Scorsese are two of the world's greatest filmmakers. Both achieved success early, in the late 60's and early 70's, with films that essentially modernised their respective genres; for Scorsese it was the gangster film, for Polanski the psychological horror.
The career trajectory of both is fascinating. Polanksi, often the more consistently lauded of the two, certainly the more infamous, has remained dedicated to fiction-film, while Scorsese has delved (often more successfully than with his feature film) into music documentary. In their latest outings, the maestri (that's the plural of maestro, thank you) share some striking similarities in their respective works, 'The Ghost' (Polanski), and 'Shutter Island' (Scorsese).
Both 'Shutter Island' and 'The Ghost' are adaptations of the eponymous novels by Dennis Lehane and Robert Harris, respectively. In 'The Ghost', Ewan McGregor, only known to us as 'The Ghost', is sent to Martha's Vineyard to write the memoirs of thinly veiled Blairite Prime Minister, Adam Lang, played with balanced swarm by Pierce Brosnan. Writing is always a challenge, however writing while your employer is being arrested for war crimes, and your predecessor has died in mysterious circumstances is downright indulgent.
On another Island, in 1954, just north of Martha's Vineyard, US Marshal, and WW2 US Marine, Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio), is sent to Ashecliffe Hospital, Shutter Island, to investigate the disappearance of one of its patients. Ashecliffe is a hospital for the criminally insane, overseen by the progressive therapist Dr. Crawley (Ben Kingsley), who arches his eyebrow a plenty, so he must be bent. Much of Daniel's investigation is aided or deflected by Crawley, which doesn't really matter as Daniels is really there to avenge the death of his wife, who died in an arson attack, and is another contributor to Daniels' Shell Shock or PTSD. To complicate things, the arsonist is present on dun,dun, dun - Shutter Island.
Both McGregor's 'Ghost' and Daniels are marooned on their east coast islands, fighting to uncover the truth behind the disappearance or death of someone whose identity is at question. In the process of investigation both realise it's the identity of their employer which is more interesting. What follows is typical thriller fodder, chase scenes, hurdy-gurdy, scene stealing cameos and ultimately revelations not worthy of Nancy Drew or The Famous Five.
Polanski works hard at establishing a suitably muted, disconnected environment for Lang's world. It's all sand dunes, grey skies, and modernist art and architecture. The movie is at its best when the camera allows the subtleties of the relationships between Lang's team (Kim Cattrall) and family (Olivia Williams) to surface, using the house itself as a character, all skeleton, and dripping red artwork, and glass, signalling, erm, exposure? Scorsese too, creates some visually impressive moments, especially in his use of flashbacks and dream sequences.
Sadly, it is the plot that lets both films down, as the twists and turns never fully satisfy what was initially set up.
What is interesting here is the modernisation of the desert Island genre, with each marooned hero trying to find treasure or answers, that arrive to late, or fail to arrive at all.
There is also something lurking in both movies, but neither really wants to deal with it. Where Lang is arraigned for war crimes, and Polanski's film is reproaching, Daniels (who was complicit in the execution of Nazi Soldiers) is represented more as a hero, whom Scorsese treats sympathetically. Could this be another instance of differing attitudes between Americans and English on the rules of war?
'Shutter Island' is, perhaps, a metaphor for possibility or delusion. One isn't sure. Is Daniels a victim or a hero, and of whose delusion? What's the relevance of his being a WW2 liberator, and executor, when at the end it's suggested his all delusion comes down to is parental grief?
'The Ghost' is best when it is evocative and atmospheric, reflective rather than active. The movie is interesting when McGregor is surrounded by Lang's entourage, and flailing when it pushes for the John Grisham in the story. Everybody appears to be a pawn in the game, and with no one in charge one stops caring or knowing who to root for.
McGregor, like DiCaprio is surrounded by an excellent ensemble cast, ridiculously talented actors, but unfortunately acting in different movies. Who is the real Ghost, surely those at the mercy of Lang's foreign policy and human rights infringements? More attention paid here might have made 'The Ghost' an entirely different movie, but it's interesting that once again those on the margins remain there rather than being written in.
Both 'The Ghost' and 'Shutter Island' open with the establishing shot of a boat at sea, which has, I borrow from Zora Neale Hurston's line above, 'every man's wish on board' - or certainly this critic's. I regret saying that the wish sits there, on the misty atlantic sea, cold and unfulfilled.
(Remote Goat, Online 3.05.10)
Euros Childs, “Chops” 2006
Euros Childs (yes that’s his name!) releases his debut solo album “Chops” February 17th on Wichita. Many will know Euros as the founder and lead singer with popular Welsh band Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci (pronounced monkey). Mynci, known for their neo psych-folk pop songs, have been described by NME as “faeries at the bottom of pop’s garden, magical in some ways but hard to believe in”.
With the release of “Chops” it becomes easier to believe in Childs and even in his magic. “Chops” is nothing if not eclectic, though a bit repetitious melodically and instrumentally. Tracks such as ‘Surf Rage’ (ironically a slow moving lament) and ‘Circus Time’ benefit from a simple piano accompaniment, vocal harmonies and sparse strings. Track 2 “Donkey Island” belongs to the genre of tacky party songs, though the press release calls it a “terrifying Vangelis-meets-Black-Lace disco blowout”. ‘H Mewn Socasau’, ‘Costa Rica’ and ‘Cynhaeaf’ suggest a definate Beach Boy’s influence while ‘First Time I Saw You’ is perhaps the most durable number with its simple minimalist bass and repeated harmonies.
Simplicity is defiantly an attractive feature of this album and the fact that I hadn’t a clue what language Childs was singing in half the time did not hinder the charming effect many of the songs have, especially those tracks not even approaching one minute in duration i.e. ‘Stella is a Pigmy’. Though a bit repetitious melodically and instrumentally, “Chops” remains an interesting, quirky and, at times, smile inducing album that deserves to reach a wide audience. To preview tracks visit http://www.wichita-recordings.com/podcasts.htm
(Student Independent News, SIN, Feb 06)
The Man of Mode
(Royal National Theatre, Olivier, 2007)
He is charming. He is rich. He is very, very sexy. When he talks to you he makes you feel like the only person in the room. When he moves away from you, you feel empty and alone. You hate to love him and you love to hate him. Most of all, he knows all this. He’s the man of the minute and the man of mode. To him you are an accessory, a fashionable dalliance. He’ll drop you like the winter line when he sees the spring line in Paris. If curves are in he’ll buy you chocolate. If Kate Moss is in you don’t stand a chance. He’s on stage at the National until March. He’d love you to love him and stop on by.
George Etheridge premiered The Man of Mode, or Sir Fopling Flutter 331 years ago to huge acclaim. Nicholas Hytner with The Man of Mode aims for the same success in his modern re-working of this Restoration Comedy of Manners with a cast of twenty-five.
Essentially the story is about Dorimant, a playboy who, as soon as he can’t have a woman, wants her, and as soon as he gets her, doesn’t need her anymore. Your ordinary bloke then? Throw into the mix mistaken identities, slapstick humour, feisty scorned lovers, elopement, drinking games, lots of techno music, art, rhymed verse, drink and gallic jokes and you get a pretty good picture of what awaits you at the Oliver Theatre.
Though it is a lively energetic production, with some wonderful performances (Tom Hardy as Dorimant and Rory Kinnear as Sir Fopling Flutter) there remains something superficial about the production, which is even more lamentable owing to the fact that the whole play questions superficiality. The choreographed dance routines that link the scenes, though enjoyable in their own right, do little to add meaning to the piece. Due to the number of characters and the importance of choreography and dance in the piece, pace is everything and seemed uneven in the second act. Some key stage business and even a very important revelation were completely missed by the audience, but perhaps this has been corrected since previews. Though the set sought to represent the current penchant for architectural minimalism and retrospection, it remained bland, when it should only have evoked it.
It was the actors who brought colour to the stage. But overall they were primary colours, with a great deal of tonality and self-reflection diffused with the designer perfume. Sure, we live in an age defined by the image and the superficial, my guess was this production sought to comment upon that, not fall victim to it. Charming, slick and very, very sexy, The Man of Mode awaits you.
(The London Student, 26 February 2007)
Vernon God Little
Young Vic Theatre, 2007
America is a patchwork of myths and icons, an amalgamation of cultures and, at the same time, unique. For many, America’s myths are most discernable in the South. This is in part thanks to the vocabulary southern writers, from Tennessee Williams to Truman Capote, established, depicting southerners as heightened, borderline-caricatures.
Rufus Norris, in Tanya Ronder’s adaptation of DBC Pierre’s Vernon God Little, continues to use this vocabulary, unravelling America’s more modern myths; outsider, celebrity, teenager, and terrorist; and as if puberty isn’t enough, Vernon Little finds himself in the midst of each one.
Accessory to a high school massacre, bowel-sensitive, wanted criminal on the run, amputee-porn connoisseur, and gangly, Vernon is the perfect scapegoat; ignored, hunted and failed by the Texan community of Martirio (pronounced with a Texan drawl as Mort-irio). Vernon’s world is a vibrant one, and there is no attempt, on Norris’ behalf, toward realism. These characters are larger than life: colourful, engrossing and melodramatic.
Despite the American-ness of the play, which is always evident in the bluegrass, country and folk music played and sung throughout, the plays larger strands - the failure of adults towards children, finding a face behind terror, the triumph of good over evil, and reality television – bounce and resonate on the walls of the Young Vic’s main auditorium. One characters claim that ‘God, Himself, can’t stop a camera,’ sums up completely the plays stance on the power of the media in deciding who lives and dies, and who determines truth, and fiction.
Ian MacNeil’s design is inventive and colourful; couches are used as cars, cops abseil through the roof, and projected faces emerge from the darkness. However, even with creative set design, lighting, direction, and a very talented cast, the play loses momentum in the second act. This is partially down to structure and shift in tone from carnival to philosophical investigation – in effect, an attempt to dress mutton as lamb, or deep-fried grits as risotto. However, the climatic ending is recompense for the loose reign on the second act.
Colin Morgan gives an engaging performance as Vernon and is supported by a multi-talented cast of nice, who together create over 50 characters, at times singing, dancing, and playing instruments. Certainly Vernon’s world is American gothic, full of grotesque figures brandishing guns and surrounded by a wasteland. The question of why Vernon’s friend Jesus, and whether Vernon himself, shot dead a class of high school teenagers is answered in the behaviour of the townspeople, who represent the best and worst of human nature. America itself seems to be the culprit. It is only when Vernon escapes to Mexico, that he feels safe and free.
In Mexico, the American-ness is confirmed when the Mexican bar men singing Johnny Cash in Spanish and when Vernon, now a rebel with a cause, says ‘you just have to look at me, I mean, I’m American all right.’ And that’s where Vernon God Little leaves you - with the superficial, and the deceptions that ensue. Even the most American thing on stage – Bluegrass - isn’t truly American; its history is in Scots-Gaelic and African American Blues. American-ness is only a deception: a kind of trope for the Everyman-ness of a coming-of-age story. Whether that is Vernon’s coming of age or America’s is up to the audience to decide.
(The London Student, 28 May, 2007)
A Novel Idea: Money, Morality and Modern Ireland
Gerald Stembridge – According to Luke
Perhaps you’ve had enough of Ireland’s literary giants, Yeats, Beckett, Joyce? Perhaps you’d like to get a sense of Dublin, as it is in the 21st century? Perhaps you’d like to read a book about Ireland that is actually about the way people are affected by the country, rather than with the country serving as a backdrop to some existential and Atlantic crises?
The latter is found more recently in John Banville’s The Sea (2006) and Colm Tobin’s Mothers and Sons (2006), the former in Gerry Stembridge’s According to Luke (2006). Whereas Banville and Tobin focus on the elusive inner feelings of, on the one hand a widower (The Sea) and mothers and sons (Mothers and Sons)and hence aspire towards the equally elusive ‘univeral’ nature of what it means to be human, Stembridge makes a u-turn towards the specific and the local, showing the consequences of political corruption in Ireland on those who benefited from said corruption. Consequences brought about through admission and denial.
It would, of course, take a satirist to represent Ireland as it really is today, bravely focusing on the urban celtic tiger chique of middle class Dublin. Stembridge wrote the famous Scrap Saturday radio show with the late Dermott Morgan, known to many as Fr. Ted.
It would also take a satirist to acknowledge the corruption that shadows the wealth and benefits Ireland currently enjoys in terms of it’s economy. However According to Luke isn’t a satire, nor the didactic parable the title suggests.
Luke Reid discovers his father is implicated in the shady activities of Ireland’s leading political party of the 80’s and early 90’s. When Luke realises his luxuries and education were all made possible through corruption he strips himself of all the trappings of his class, alienating those he loves in the process. While the character of Luke is nicely written, I was more smitten with Luke’s cousin Barry and Luke’s girlfriend Emma.
Barry represents the Irish metrosexual. When he’s not on the sun bed, he’s at the gym, or refusing to see his mother because of his recent nose job. He’s afraid of committment and works hard to feed his expensive social engagements. It is through Luke’s fanatacism that Barry appreciates the value of the middle ground, the sunbed becomes less frequent and his hair grows giving him a softer look. Chapter Eight is given over to Emma, as she prepares for a funeral. In her mind her black clothes ‘just didn’t strike the correct sombre tone. She could get up early...go to Zara, get a suitable outfit... that would allow her much more attractive mix-and-match possibilities for this evening. Frankly, her present wardrobe couldn’t cope with two funerals.’
The reality is that Ireland is no longer the land of the aran jumper or pale skinned, thick eye-browed beauty. It is the land of gang wars, materialism and image where traces of cocaine are found on most bank notes. As with his movie About Adam, starring Kate Hudson, Stembridge is finding a way of talking about the amoral and immoral challenges that face those living in Ireland today, now that the church and the traditional political parties, their gospels and all, are losing credibility with the multi-cultural, dare I say it, post-modern grandchildren of the Saints and the Scholars.
(The Founder, Feb, 2007)
Porgy and Bess
(Savoy Theatre, 2006)
Porgy and Bess has a long history. A book, a play, a folk opera and a movie, it is now, with the permission of the Gershwin Estate, a Musical. It’s famous songs ‘Summertime’, ‘I Got Plenty O’ Nothin’, ‘I Loves You Porgy’ and ‘It Ain’t Necessarily So’ are perhaps some of George and Ira Gershwin’s most famous numbers.
Opening on Broadway in 1935, P&B was not accepted into the Musical Canon until nearly thirty years later. It has never been without its critics either, many of whom see the representation of African American’s as racist and stereotyped. More balanced critics see the show as a slice of American history and storyline aside, an inventive musical composition.
Trevor Nunn’s current production presents P&B as a musical, cutting down its running time, and allowing for dialogue. The staging is lively and full of movement. What comes across most is the community of the characters on stage, Crawfish Row. This is established with a talented cast, the soft voice of Porgy (Clarke Peters) soulful depths of Bess (Nicola Hughes) and aching faith of Serena (Dawn Hope). The mixture of musical styles, jazz, spiritual, classical, jewish liturgical motifs, blues, creates a fascinating aural experience that makes the score seem avant garde, even by today’s standards. Overall this is a strong production, but also a safe one.
While this adaptation is successful, and it’s three hours glide by, it seems to me, that today, the staging of a show of this nature needs to be more inventive, more radical, not just for the sake of it of course, but so its themes of love, change, faith, class and race resonate as powerfully as Gershwin’s music continues to do.
(The Orbital Magazine, Feb 2007)
The Dumb Waiter
(Trafalgar Studios, 2007)
The eye picks them out. Two men in the darkness. One asleep. One resting. Then reading the paper. Gus (Lee Evans) stretches, shaking the sleep from his body. Ben (Jason Isaacs) shares a story from the paper. In the next sixty minutes their world revolves around the mechanics of a toilet, a gas stove, Birmingham, a dumbwaiter, Cadbury’s fruit and nut, Alka-Seltzer and a revolver.
Harold Pinter’s The Dumb Waiter (1957) picks up where Samuel Beckett’s Waiting For Godot (1955) and John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger (1956) left off. Whereas Gogo, in Godot, can’t seem to take his shoes off, Gus in Waiter, can’t seem to put them on. Ben, a restrained Jimmy Porter calls for tea and wonders at the inanity of the news reports.
These parallels aside, The Dumb Waiter combines the absurdity of Godot with the violence of Anger, with Pinter throwing into the mix his own brand of humour. Ben and Gus resemble many of Pinter’s characters, in particular McCann and Goldberg from The Birthday Party (1958). Two men hired to do a job, trapped in a cycle of violence that, in The Dumb Waiter, folds in upon itself.
For the most part the audience at Trafalgar Studios are in stitches, unable to suppress their laughter. Lee Evans can have the audience burst these stitches with he arch of an eyebrow. However, the prevailing atmosphere of Peter McKintosh’s damaged set makes the audience and Pinter’s characters face the ‘reality’ of the situation. Laughter turns to silence. The lights become brighter and the dumbwaiter, rickety and screeching in the background, sees to it that Gus and Dan are put in the place of those they have preyed upon.
(The London Student, 12 March, 2007)
