2019

I don't often get predictions right (you will recall that a couple of months before the election I forecast that Jezza was about to resign), but I was bang on the money this time last year when I said that 2019 would be even worse than 2018; by and large indeed it was. Perhaps that's why this year I have been unusually reticent in inflicting on you my opinions of all the plays etc wot I have seen, but let's have a quick retrospective summary now; be warned, for some reason this is all a lot more quantitative than it is qualitative.

Opera: I saw twenty six operas this year, plus two ballets and a sprinkling of classical concerts. The operas ranged in obscurity from Pfitzner's 'The Christmas Elf', of which I saw the first ever UK performance, to La boheme, which is - I think - the most frequently performed opera that there is globally. My favourite was Vaughan William's 'Pilgrim's Progress' with a nod to Janáček's 'Cunning Little Vixen' and Martinů's 'The Greek Passion'.

Theatre: I saw fifty two plays and musicals of which my favourite was 'Wise Children' from the wonderful company of the same name. A very honourable mention must go to 'Tuesdays with Morrie'. My favourite Shakespeare (out of the thirteen that I saw) was a toss up between 'The Merry Wives of Windsor' at the Globe and Northern Broadsides' 'Much Ado About Nothing'. This section seems an appropriate place for the following photo, which I have been looking for a chance to use for some months and which if nothing else illustrates that Chekhov can actually be made interesting:

Music: I only went to twenty three gigs, which is pretty pathetic really. My favourite were The Stumble whom I saw twice. Their live performances do not translate into their recordings, which is often the case and another reason why I should go to more live shows.

By the way, the lady on your bloggist's left in that photo is a regular, and somewhat wild, audience member at blues gigs around here, indeed she is the instrument fingerer mentioned in this previous post; I could tell you some stories about her, but frankly she terrifies me so I won't.

Film: I've seen sixteen films and am going to choose 'Stan and Ollie' as my favourite; what can I say, I'm a big softie. I made a special trip to the Imax in Bradford to see 'Apollo 11' on a big, big screen and am glad that I did. Still today, after fifty years, it's just an astonishing achievement and spectacularly documented in the film.

Talks: The quantity of gigs may have declined, but for some reason the number of talks attended has increased markedly. The best two were both on painting, one on Klimt, the other on Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven. A prize for making a little go a long way goes to Ian Bottomley, Curator Emeritus of Oriental Collections at the Royal Armouries who managed to speak very entertainingly for an hour on the subject of the current whereabouts of those small number of suits of armour which were given as diplomatic gifts to various European royal courts by Japanese trade missions in the sixteenth century. The most irrelevant and off subject question from an audience member - a category that is very keenly contested every year - was the chap who, at a talk about Nietzsche, asked why god had created gay animals in species other than humans. My own unassuming interventions - the incident with the light cavalry sabre notwithstanding - were, of course, always entirely intended to add to the collective enlightenment rather than allow me to show off my own erudition and knowledge.

Books: For those concerned about my apparent compulsion to count things, I don't really; I work it out retrospectively from my diary. The exception is books, where I kept a specific record this year because I thought it would be interesting. Obviously it wasn't in the slightest bit interesting, neither to me nor anyone else, but despite that I now know that I read one hundred and thirteen books, the pick of which was 'Winged Victory' by V.M. Yeates, which of course has a wargamer friendly theme. Another book I very much enjoyed which falls into that category is 'The March' by E.L. Doctorow; the march in question being that of Sherman.

Boardgames: I played fifty eight different games seventy eight times (figures courtesy of boardgamegeek). Top marks for a game I hadn't played previously go to Quartermaster General: Cold War, which I have no qualms in recommending to wargamers, and the same is true of my top solo game recommendation, Maquis. I hope to step up my boardgaming a bit next year, although the Monday night Yew Tree group has become very dull and cliquey so I may have to look elsewhere.

Wargames: I played or umpired in, I think, twenty three games, many of which were played over two or three weeks. They focussed mainly on James new Peninsular war collection plus, it shouldn't be forgotten, his new bridges. In the annexe it was mainly Great War, but there was a smattering of other stuff as well. My favourite game, apart from my one-sided triumph at Fiasco, was the relatively recent Battle of San Winnoc.

Event of the Year: Newspapers and magazines inevitably have to choose their picks of the year early in order to meet deadlines. Your bloggist has the luxury of posting this on the afternoon of December 31st and can therefore make sure that nothing will overtake what he writes. Or so you would think. Last year I was awakened at 23:45 or so - being teetotal I avoid going out on New Year's Eve and therefore retire early - by the younger Miss Epictetus who wished to inform me that she had got engaged, an event which clearly would have merited inclusion right at the top of my round up of 2018 had she told me a tad earlier. So, this year's choice is caveated by pointing out that it is subject to nothing better happening in the next few hours. However, I think it unlikely that anything will beat this:

Finally, let's hope next year is better than we're all expecting, especially for you and yours.

Peace and love to all.

Pelléas and Mélisande

And so to the opera. English Touring Opera are presenting three works in Harrogate. I passed on Massenet's Werther, mainly because the eponymous protagonist is so insufferable, but also partly because I made the mistake of going to see the very disappointing Spectre instead. But I did catch Debussy's version of Maeterlinck's 1893 play. I always welcome the chance to see opera in a smaller theatre and musically and vocally it was very good. The stage designs are necessarily built around transportability, but I felt they worked less well. The window in the castle tower wasn't really high enough or big enough for the Rapunzel style hair letting down and then there was the filing cabinet which lay on its side centre stage throughout. The opening and closing of various drawers to represent wells, caves, gardens etc sort of worked until late in the second half, when the top drawer was opened for the first time and a pile of papers spilled out. It was impossible to tell whether they represented anything in particular or whether someone had just forgotten to take them out. 

And what things represent is rather important here. The original play was 'symbolist'; in other words everything has a deeper meaning than that being acted out in front of us. I think - and don't quote me on this - that this one's about some things ending and other things beginning, whether we want that to happen or not. I saw echoes of Tennyson's views on the death of Arthur and the end of Camelot ("The old order changeth, yielding place to new"). Maybe that's all tied up with the mock medieval setting; maybe I'm just talking drivel. From our modern perspective it's always tempting to assume that fin de siècle (both temporally and artistically) implied some sort of intuitive awareness of the onrushing global conflict.

Whatever, I actually prefer to draw my lessons from the story as told on stage rather than looking behind it. The recital of infidelity and jealousy provides an interesting juxtaposition with both The Winter's Tale, seen on the same stage recently, and, once again against a background of impending and inevitable social change, the contemporaneous Uncle Vanya. For me, there are two pivotal moments: when the adulterous lovers first acknowledge how deep their feelings for each other are and understand that they are reciprocated; and then, when perhaps inevitably they are discovered and await whatever fate will bring, Pelléas cries "All is lost, all is won".

Uncle Seagull's Orchard

And so to the theatre. I have been to see the Reduced Shakespeare Company do the Complete History of Comedy. which whilst not as good as their Complete Works of Shakespeare was nonetheless full of funny moments.

A chap with a beard

Personal favourites included an Elizabethan Abbot and Costello routine and a number of variations on the chicken-crossing-the-road joke, including a Greek tragedy version and a take à la Samuel Beckett. However, for me at least, the high spot was the Chekhov sketch. Building on the fact that while Anton Pavlovich claimed to write comedy nobody else seems to find his plays amusing, they skewered him good and proper. For someone who recently suffered through Uncle Vanya those few minutes were sweet revenge.

Мы отдохнем, мы отдохнем

And so to the theatre. The West Yorkshire Playhouse has a new production of an old play, Chekhov's 'Uncle Vanya'. I'd never seen it before and came away somewhat baffled. On the surface it appears to be about a group of Russian bourgeoisie getting bored, drinking and carrying on frustrated, unconsummated love affairs while the peasants do all the work. On closer inspection that's pretty much all it seems to be about underneath as well.

It's possible that Chekhov is expounding the sort of existentialist argument being made elsewhere at the time, or possibly he is drawing a moral about the dignity of work. More likely I suspect he was just painting a mood; what the Russians call настроение. Does anyone remember listening to 'tone poems' which to a philistine like me simply meant a piece of music with no tune? This is a play with no narrative arc - despite quite extravagant and theatrical things happening. The Reduced Shakespeare Company apparently did a three-line version of the play - it can be found in its entirety on the play's Wikipedia page - which I think falls into the category 'cruel, but fair'.

I went to a preview and afterwards my friend the theatre critic of the Morning Star tweeted me to ask what she could expect on press night. Given the likely political views of her readers - they'd have to be pretty hard core tankies to still be hanging in there - I would imagine that seeing it for themselves they'd just see it as confirmation that the 1917 revolution was both necessary and overdue. And on this issue at least I would agree with them.