Murder, misery and mutilations – King Lear at the Royal Exchange, Manchester

 

Don Warrington as King Lear – copyright Royal Exchange, Manchester

 

In the ancient realm of King Lear the death count is as high as Hamlet, betrayals on a par with Macbeth and the blood as thick and fast-flowing as Titus Andronicus. Murder, misery and mutilations drive Michael Buffong’s mesmerising adaptation of King Lear, one of William Shakespeare’s most violent and tragic plays.

It was a memorable night at the Royal Exchange, celebrating the 400^th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death, by watching Don Warrington master the lead role of the royal patriarch, who descends into madness. The twisting plot of King Lear requires careful exposition at the start that quickly builds momentum. Buffong’s excellent cast, including Philip Whitchurch and Wil Johnson, deliver sword fights and despicable deeds one after the other, after the other, after the other, until Lear’s tragic downfall is complete. At over three hours long, one audience member commented that, “there was a lot of shouting”. Take heed – this is no Midsummer’s Night Dream but a play charting the catastrophic breakdown of a country and family – clearly there is going to be a lot of shouting.

Christiane Lemieux – Heron Cushion

 

Florals and bird prints are on-trend for Spring 2016 and Christiane Lemieux has launched a stunning new ‘Living by Christiane Lemieux’ range for House of Fraser. Lemieux’s elegant designs feature an Hiroto-inspired print of a heron soaring over orchids and clouds. As the signature piece of Lemieux’s new collection, the heron (which is a Chinese symbol of strength, purity and patience) adorns a range of bedding, dinnerware and soft home furnishings.

Lemieux’s inspiration for the design came whilst scouring Parisian flea markets and finding a vintage swatch of two herons in flight. Where the original swatch uses Prussian blue and dusky pinks to accent the heron’s outstretched wings, Lemieux uses fine hand-drawn monochrome details. The back of the cushion is also complemented with the scalloped edging of the cushion’s clouds, creating a vintage pattern that features elsewhere in the range. This simple yet intricate design – that makes the everyday seem remarkable – is sure to be a talking point in whichever room it’s placed in.

The Hiroto heron print cushion has been reduced to £24 and is on sale now at the House of Fraser. To view the cushion and the complete ‘Living by Christiane Lemieux’ range click: http://www.houseoffraser.co.uk/Living+by+Christiane+Lemieux+Hiroto+Crane+Cushion/226538293,default,pd.html

Dimensions: 50 x 50cm

Fibre content: 100% Cotton, machine washable

The Loft Country Kitchen and Restaurant – Review

Blair Atholl is a beautiful village located on the southern foot of the Cairngorms National Park, Perthshire. Famous for its whisky and Blair Castle, the village is also home to a handful of independent craft shops and hotels. One of the newest additions is The Loft Country Kitchen and Restaurant, which is run by partners Jennifer and Stuart.

The country kitchen is located just off the village’s main road, and The Loft, as its name suggests, is housed in a building whose roof space overlooks the scenic River Garry and stunning moorland hills. It would be easy to say that the views of The Loft make this restaurant special, but that would be doing disservice to the passion and service exuded by hostess Jennifer and chef Stuart.

Boeing Boeing – Oldham Coliseum Theatre Review

Boeing Boeing touched down last week at the Oldham Coliseum Theatre for its opening night, after originally flying into the West End for a seven year run during the 1960s. The play navigates the confusing love life of Bernard (Robin Simpson), a Parisian architect, who has not one but three air hostess fiancés. Set during the early 1960s when a jet set lifestyle was still in its infancy, Bernard is able to take advantage of international scheduled flights to plan out his love life and create a dating system he describes enthusiastically as being mathematical “perfection”.

Luckily for Bernard his three fiancées all have names beginning with ‘G’ there’s Gloria from America (Laura Doddington), Gabrielle from Italy (Maeve Larkin) and Gretchen from Germany (Sarah Lawrie). All three also wear colour-coded clothing that makes it easy for not only Bernard, but also the audience to identify his different fiancées. The play takes off without a glitch as the coordinated comings and goings of Gloria, Gretchen and Gabrielle are as hassle-free as a place in first class. However, Bernard’s dating system soon meets turbulence when stormy weather and faster planes conspire to bring his system into free fall.

The first half of the play really begins to pick up the pace when Gloria takes off for America and Gabrielle flies in from Italy. Not long after this, Gretchen touches down in Paris from Germany and Bernard faces the uneasy prospect of entertaining both fiancées at once in his apartment – without either knowing about each others’ existence. From this moment on, the farce soars and things soon start to unravel faster than a transatlantic flight on Concorde. Bernard enlists the help of his best friend Robert (played by Ben Porter) who is visiting from the provinces, to act as a comic foil. He also needs his housekeeper Bertha (played by Gilly Tompkins) to help keep his love life airborne.

Because the action unfolds in one room, some elements of the plot are a little implausible at times. Gloria, Gretchen and Gabrielle would definitely be able to hear each other in the apartment and they would also be able to hear Robert and Bernard’s high-pitched, Carry-On-esque outbursts during the closing scenes. But this is a farce, and by its very nature should not be taken seriously. What prevents Boeing Boeing from becoming farcical is the onset choreography as the different actors coordinate their moves seamlessly between seven doors of the Parisian apartment. The energy of the choreography and comic performances by the cast are exciting and engaging throughout. The set itself is also impressive with a convincing view of the Eiffel Tower illuminated in the background to remind the audience that this is Paris in the swinging sixties.

Boeing Boeing has been adapted for Oldham Coliseum Theatre by director Robin Herford from Swiss-born Frenchman Marc Camoletti’s play written in 1960. The original was a huge hit and it appears in the Guinness Book of World Records for holding the title of the most-performed French play ever. It’s well worth watching this classic hit at the Oldham Coliseum theatre before it’s Boeing Boeing gone.

Reviewed on behalf of this rather brilliant Manchester blog: http://thingstodoinmanchester.blogspot.co.uk/ Thank you Liz!

Boeing Boeing is on at the Oldham Coliseum Theatre until 6th June for more details click this link www.coliseum.org.uk

(All Mist in the Mirror production shots: credit Joel C Fildes)

Mist in the Mirror – Oldham Coliseum Theatre – 500 word review

Oldham often bears the brunt of the wintry weather in Greater Manchester and there was definitely a strange chill over the town on Tuesday evening, when Oldham Coliseum Theatre hosted the world premier of Ian Kershaw’s adaptation of Susan Hill’s The Mist in the Mirror.

Avid fans of the Gothic tradition will not be disappointed with this chillingly entertaining production as Kershaw’s adaptation retains all the terrifying plot elements of Hill’s Gothic novel including: orphaned hero, terrifying villain, lots of thunder and lightning, eerie old houses, and even the Yorkshire moors.

Set at the turn of the 20^th century, The Mist in the Mirror follows orphaned hero James Monmouth (played by the affable Paul Warriner), as an ‘honest’ gentleman on a quest to trace his family history. James travels from Africa, where he was sent to live at the age of 5, back to his native England. One gloomy evening he finally arrives in a Dickensian-like London that is smothered in fog and harbouring secrets down every alleyway.

It is at this moment that the production really brings the dark magic of the play to life. Whilst the narrator of the tale (played by Jack Lord) starts to recount the journey, a steamboat lurches into view and words appear to write themselves around the interior rim of the set. Actors pull wings from the blackened stage, and the dark set is suddenly transformed into an inn, then it morphs into a London street, and then an antiquarian bookshop. The list of set transitions and locations is copious, and all morph within the blink of an eye.

The stunning video and light projections by imitating the dog are perfectly choreographed to every actor’s movements. Even the act of holding a lamp or candle is visually arresting in this play as the glow creates creeping shadows on the walls, illuminates a door that definitely wasn’t there a second ago, and allows the audience to glimpse the terrifying epitaph of the play’s arch-villain, Conrad Vane. Some of the set-pieces of the video projections include Monmouth’s spine-chilling amble around a library in search of Vane’s demonic writings, and a journey on a steam train to Yorkshire, complete with moving landscapes and falling snow.

A Gothic tale couldn’t be ‘gothic’ without exaggerated pathetic fallacy and Kershaw’s production brought the first audible gasps of fright from the audience with a huge crack of lightning that rippled across the backdrop. Further gasps and jumps were created by the lingering spectre of an unknown boy with a cloth sack for a head, who haunts James Monmouth throughout the play, and it’s a spectre that isn’t a video projection. This makes his appearances all the more terrifying and it will be impossible to look at a scarecrow in the same way ever again.

So, whilst the wintry mist still lays thick over Oldham, go and see The Mist in the Mirror before it descends on another town as part of its nation-wide tour.

Reviewed on behalf of this rather brilliant Manchester blog: http://thingstodoinmanchester.blogspot.co.uk/ Thank you Liz!

Mist in the Mirror is on at the Oldham Coliseum Theatre until Feb 21st for more details click this link www.coliseum.org.uk

(All Mist in the Mirror production shots: credit Joel C Fildes)

Explore Everything: Place-Hacking the City – Book Review

Just think for a minute… what’s the most exciting place you have ever explored?

The 76^th storey of The Shard (whilst under construction) is probably not what you’re imagining. Ask Bradley L. Garrett, the above question, and The Shard will be high on his list, as the opening of his book Explore Everything: Place-Hacking the City (EEPHC) documents his own account of a euphoric assent up the skyscraper.

In a world full of rules, regulations and CCTV, Urbex (Urban Exploration) offers its practitioners an escape from the norm, tapping into a childhood psyche of not knowing, or being afraid of what’s out there. UE practitioners, who often operate under aliases, are able to infiltrate usually off-limit places like abandoned buildings (derps), buildings under construction (live sites), sewers, and transportation systems. Once on-site, Urbexers admire the views, take photographs, and then leave without trace.

Garrett’s early forays into the world of Urbex began as an ethnographer gathering research for his PhD in Geography at the University of Oxford, however, he quickly became intoxicated on Urbex; buzzing off the adrenalin rush that comes with avoiding the seccas (security guards) of live sites, or cracking a location that very few other people will have ever seen. The most gripping passages of EEPHC are the descriptions of Garrett Urbexing in situ, like infiltrating a derelict Soviet submarine on the River Medway, exploring the catacombs of Paris, mapping abandoned stations of the Tube, and even breaking into an abandoned Government nuclear bunker.

In 500 words: Was Lorne Malvo a Devil in disguise?

The etymological case for Lorne Malvo being a devil in disguise

Lorne Malvo. The name itself has malevolent undertones and echoes of long-vowelled Shakespearean villains like Iago, Tamora and Shylock. In the French language, ‘mal’ denotes bad and evil; look up the derivative ‘mal’ in an English dictionary and you’ll find 99% of the entries have negative connotations, including; malady, malaria, malnourishment and malignant – you get the idea.

Fargo is essentially a fictional detective story set in Minnesota, USA. Produced by the Coen brothers, the TV series recreates the world of their 1996 film classic Fargo. Lorne Malvo is Fargo’s archetypal villain, superbly played by Billy Bob-Thornton as a cold-blooded, calculating and charismatic psychopath…. Or should that be devil?… Or vampire?

The case for Lorne Malvo as a devil in disguise (includes spoilers)

Like many Cohen brothers’ characters, Malvo revels in toying with Chance and likes a good riddle (think Javier Bardem’s, Anton Chigurh in No Country For Old Men). Like any devil worth its salt, Malvo taunts little kids with stories about murders that happened in their homes, and has an incredibly charismatic personality, despite murdering a LOT of people. He also made cassette tapes of his victims for presumably sadistic purposes and oozed so much charisma that ordinary-Joe, Lester Nygaard, wanted to be just like him.

Throughout Fargo there is also the hint that Deputy Molly Solverson’s Dad (Lou) may have met him in 1979, when Molly was only 4 years old. Lou was so scared of ‘HE that is never named by Lou’ that Lou had to sit fearfully on his porch overnight with a shotgun. He also refers to a work ‘incident’ when the bodies were, “piled two floors high.” That’s a lot of bodies, and in the environs of Fargo, only Malvo would be capable of such an ‘incident’.

Malvo also seems to shapeshift (see entry below on the Vampire theory).

The case for Lorne Malvo as a vampire (includes spoilers)

12 Years A Slave – Film Review (or why I think it should win the Oscar for Best Film 2014 in 500 words)

In 2009 I watched The Road at the AMC in Manchester on a cold and grey Autumnal day. The film has never been far from my thoughts, mainly because I have a morbid fascination with post-apocalyptic/dystopian literature. It’s a fascination which probably stems from reading Frankenstein in Year 8 at high school, followed by Lord of the Flies in Year 9.

Anyway, not since watching The Road have I been so affected by a film until I went to watch 12 Years A Slave at Ashton Cineworld on a cold and icy Winter’s evening. Prior to watching the actual film I tried to inspire some English students to go and watch it on release by shoehorning YouTube clips of the trailer into discussions on ‘Crooks’ from Of Mice and Men. Not one student has said they’ve been to watch it.

Steve McQueen’s film is based on the remarkable and emotive biographical account which begins in the year 1841, when Solomon Northup, a black African-American freeman of the state of New York, is forcibly taken into slavery and transported to the cotton fields and sugar plantations of Louisiana.

I think the film should win the award for Best Picture 2014 because:

12 Years a Slave – Book Review

12 Years a Slave is a remarkable and emotive biographical account that begins in the year 1841, when Solomon Northup, a black African-American freeman of the state of New York, is forcibly taken into slavery and transported to the cotton fields and sugar plantations of Louisiana.

The slave narrative follows Solomon’s incarceration fettered to chains in a Washington DC slave pen and subjected to brutal floggings in the cotton fields of the South. Prior to his bondage, Solomon (aged 21) had acquired, “humble habitation” which provided him with the means of “happiness and comfort.” He married his wife Anne and worked on an old Alden farm until 1834, where he raised his young family of two daughters and a boy. Though the work was hard, Solomon prospered and became a self-sufficient and well-respected member of his community. Anne was also renowned as being a tantalising cook.

In March 1834, Solomon and his family moved to Saratoga Springs where he laboured on the Troy and Saratoga railway. It was here that Solomon, himself the son of an emancipated slave, had his first encounters with subjugated slaves from the South who were accompanying their masters.

Unseen Forces: A Tribute to Seamus Heaney

Saturday 14^th September, Martin Harris Centre, Manchester University

A night that should have included a recital by a great Irish poet sadly became a posthumous celebration of the greatest Irish poet to have ever lived, Seamus Heaney.

Upon opening the evening’s recital, Irish poet, Vona Groarke, said: “we have been left in the lea of Heaney,” heavy sentiments which were also echoed by renowned poets, Don Paterson and Paul Muldoon.

Irish poet, Paul Muldoon, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 2007, was due to appear at the event alongside Heaney, but instead took to the lectern with the Scottish Forward Prize-winning poet, Don Paterson. The event was part of the 3^rd British and Irish Contemporary Poetry Conference, held by The Centre for New Writing at The University of Manchester, in association with the Manchester Literature Festival, 2013.

In 2010, Heaney headlined the Manchester Literature Festival and spoke warmly of his links with the city as it was here that he had some of his earliest works published in a literary magazine set up by Harry Chambers. He also heaped praises on the university’s Centre for New Writing which he said has cultured some of the best Irish poets of recent years.

Paterson began the evening’s recitals acknowledging that, “we cannot disguise the sadness of the situation […] we’re on our own now.” Despite the melancholia surrounding the event, the night was a celebration and reassessment of Seamus Heaney’s work, the sadness and loss of which was reflected in both poets’ choice of poems. Each poet chose poems that tapped into Heaney’s psyche and borrowed from Opened Ground: Poems 1966-1996. They traced Heaney’s upbringing on his parents’ farm at Mossbawn (‘Death of a Naturalist’, ‘Follower’, ‘The Harvest Bow’), Ireland and The Troubles (‘Two Lorries’, ‘A Lough Neagh Sequence’) and ending fittingly with poems associated with peace, such as ‘St Kevin and the Blackbird’ and ‘The Wishing Tree’.