twilightdawning

A writer's thoughts – mainly about music, sport and theatre. Shakespeare, Bob Dylan, live shows, New York Yankees

“Having been praised for bluntness, (he) doth affect a saucy roughness”

Posted on September 1, 2016 by twilightdawning

What: King Lear by William Shakespeare

Who: Royal Shakespeare Company

Where: Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-Upon-Avon, UK

In the recent Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) presentation of Hamlet, a classroom scene is created at the beginning at which the title of the play is spoken to announce young Hamlet’s graduation and then the scene is cleared and the play proper begins. I think it was meant to be clever but really it served no purpose. At the beginning of this performance of Lear a group of maybe 10 actors take the stage shrouded in something like lepers’ attire or flimsy beggar garb as shelter against the cold night. When the actors enter for the first scene proper they leave hastily too – shooed away. But this time the importance of this scene is not lost on the rest of the production. Rather, it adds. And like most everything here, it is solid and meaningful.

Solid.

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Thou basest thing, avoid! hence, from my sight!

Posted on June 1, 2016 by twilightdawning

What: Cymbeline by William Shakespeare

Who: Royal Shakespeare Company

Where: Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-Upon-Avon

When: May 26th 2016

Mmm… first of all you’re asked to delay your night at a Shakespeare play then your hotel manager tells you that the play has had somewhat “mixed reviews”. Then you hear the story of how the first night’s audience were given a refund because the play was running well behind in its mad dash to be ready for press night. As you take your seat in the theatre perhaps you’re right in not having too high an expectation of the night’s proceedings.

On the way in you had handed over your £4 for the programme. Back in the day, the programmes were fully of scholarly essays about the play itself. These days, it has become customary for the programme to be full of pieces about the themes that the director and producer have decided to emphasise in this performance. There is an essay about the European Union and the danger of Britain breaking away from it. There is an interview with the director about the gender changes in the Dramatis Personae.

At least you know what’s coming. The married couple next to us who didn’t buy a programme (having paid £110 for a pair of tickets) left at the interval mumbling that “it wasn’t worth watching”.

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The pleasure of poetry with Paul Cookson

Posted on May 31, 2016 by twilightdawning

I first met Paul Cookson in the early 1980s at an Arts Festival called Greenbelt. Back then he was writing poems for adults and selling them in self-published booklets on the “fringe” area of the festival.

A couple of years later he had found his true vocation and graduated to writing poems for children. We started doing schools presentations of his work about 15 years ago and when I opened the theatre “Ravenscourt Arts@ Ravenscourt Baptist Church”, his performances became a regular if occasional part of our repertoire at the theatre as we have invited Paul to work with local schools groups.

This tradition continued in March 2016 as over 800 young people joined Paul over 6 events and laughed, worked with words, invented rhymes, and wrote their own poetry.

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“…Your play needs no excuse…”

Posted on March 2, 2016 by twilightdawning

What: A Midsummer Night’s Dream

When: 25th February 2016

Where: The Royal Shakespeare Theatre

When the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) last staged “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” (https://twilightdawning.com/2011/08/09/what-masques-what-dances-shall-we-have-to-wear-away-this-long-age-of-three-hours/) , they achieved a production which gave us a strong and evocative (transformed) Bottom and Titania but a rather forgettable Hermia and Helena. Five years later, I think they have perhaps given us the opposite whilst once again managing to give us an entertaining production which like its predecessor is worthy of accolades.

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A Cracker for Christmas

Posted on December 16, 2015 by twilightdawning

What: A Christmas Cracker

Who: Riding Lights Theatre Company

Where: Ravenscourt Arts, Hammersmith, London

When: December 9 & 10th 2015

This was the second annual Christmas play / pantomime at the Ravenscourt Arts theatre in Hammersmith and saw the theatre once again join forces with the Riding Lights Theatre Company from York to bring joy to the lives of an audience who were mostly between the ages of 4 and 11 with a smattering of teachers and parents.

Cracker the Dog

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Steely Dan – The Most Unforgettable Night of Whatever

Posted on November 20, 2015 by twilightdawning

About a lifetime ago, my friend, Andrew, and I went to Leeds for the day and in the course of our shopping I brought home every Steely Dan album that had been released to that point, that I didn’t already own. By the time I had worked through albums like Pretzel Logic I was a fan for life. Indeed, Katy Lied joined Van Morrison and Bob Dylan in seeing me almost single-handed through some very tortured teenage years.

Flash forward to 2015 and my wonderful opportunity as I was invited to fly out to the U.S. and cover their residency at the Beacon in New York. I’d seen them a number of times but to see them on home territory playing with imagination and verve — well, this is the stuff that dreams are made of. So let’s take a look at their final night:

Who: Steely Dan

What: rockabye gollie angel tour 2015: “The Most Unforgettable Night of Whatever – Featuring Spectacular Musical Guests, Glorious Tunes and Riffage, and Whatever the Party Calls for! “

When: October 17th, 2015

Where: Beacon Theatre, New York, New York, USA

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The Greatest Damn Steely Dan Band to Ever Come Down the Pipe

Posted on November 14, 2015 by twilightdawning

Who: Steely Dan

What: rockabye gollie angel tour 2015: “By Popular Demand” night

When: October 16th, 2015

Where: Beacon Theatre, New York, New York, USA

“The greatest damn Steely Dan band ever to come down the pipe”. So said Walter Becker on this “By Popular Demand” night at the Beacon. And you know what – in terms of live performance, – I think he is just about right. This was an outstanding night of music. The “By Popular Demand” thing might just have been a cool cover-up: I’m not really sure what was so different from some other nights on the tour – but slightly dodgy promotional tools aside, this was a very, very good performance indeed.

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Ascend the Bright Heaven of Invention

Posted on October 5, 2015 by twilightdawning

What: Henry V by William Shakespeare

Who: The Royal Shakespeare Company

Where: The Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-Upon-Avon

When: October 1st, 2015

Sometimes the Royal Shakespeare Company’s “devices” to make a particular production innovative and relevant to the modern audience don’t work. I’m amongst their sharpest critics when they don’t. Occasionally they do. Now whilst audiences members that I spoke to after the performance and during the interval were divided, I have to say I fall into the positive camp when it comes to this most recent production of Henry the Fifth.

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(It) may not fare a whit the worse, for the false pace of the verse.

Posted on July 26, 2015 by twilightdawning

What: Volpone or the Fox

Who: Ben Jonson

Where: The Swan Theatre, Stratford-Upon-Avon

When: July 16th, 2015

If I was going to see the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) at either The Royal Shakespeare Theatre or The Swan Theatre in Stratford-Upon-Avon or any of their increasingly frequent transfers to London, New York and the world at large, I would always buy a programme.

They are only £4 and reading between the lines, you will find an awful lot about the RSC’s goals in their production of the play at hand. You will then, in turn, get a feel for how their production will differ from the one you were hoping for (for some infamous examples, see my reviews of the 2011 production of The Merchant of Venice https://twilightdawning.com/2011/05/28/all-at-sea/ and the following year’s Troilus and Cressida https://twilightdawning.com/2012/08/13/remixed-shakespeare-for-the-hip-hop-generation/ amongst others). You will also find that sometimes the play production that they are presenting falls short of its own goals.

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Oh! What a Night!!

Posted on July 11, 2015 by twilightdawning

Who: Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons

Where: Bournemouth International Centre (BIC)

When: July 3rd 2015

About 3 years ago, I was at the Royal Albert Hall reviewing the Frankie Valli and Four Seasons concert (https://twilightdawning.com/2012/06/27/seasonal-returns/).

It was a fine show but it had the air of being nothing more than nostalgia puffed up by the success of the “Jersey Boys” musical.

The next time Valli was in town my health was poor and I was prevented from attending.

In 2015, I was elsewhere when the band played their London show but I was commissioned to cover their show in Bournemouth. How would it be?

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