Pot74pouri

Has anyone else received an email from Google purporting to explain how effectively or otherwise one's blog is dealt with by their search engine? I didn't really understand it and, let's be honest, I don't care anyway, but one thing did rather leap out from their analysis. Virtually everyone who gets Discourses on Wargaming's url displayed in their search results is actually looking for gay porn. Your bloggist has lost 8 kg in weight over the last year and is looking pretty buff, even if he says so himself; so on balance, well done Google. However, further investigation also points to a single post from almost five years ago about an opera I went to see, Handel's misleadingly titled 'Joshua' (It's really about Othniel - yes, that Othniel), as the source of the traffic. So, today's post should start it all off again; perhaps I should get get some advertising on the site to monetise the upcoming surge in visitors.

Anyway, while I'm here let me bring you up to date on events in January that I have neglected to mention so far:

Opera: I saw Opera North's revival of 'Madama Butterfly' which was as good as I remembered. Anne Sophie Duprels was wonderful in the title role and appropriately enough kept her clothes on this time. I also saw the Royal Opera House live transmission of 'Rigoletto' which proved once again that closeups can sometimes not work to the advantage of sopranos playing much younger parts. Just to avoid charges of sexism, Michael Fabiano may also have been favoured by watching from further away. He was physically a very unconvincing starving poet in last year's 'La Boheme' and here he appeared to be wearing a costume two sizes too small. I have a good mind to email him with my own proven tips for losing weight (1).

Theatre: Speaking of broadcasts I also caught up with an encore of 'Young Marx' from the new Bridge Theatre in London. I nearly didn't bother because it had mixed reviews, but I enjoyed it and can report that it made me laugh. As did Alan Ayckbourn's 'Role Play' which easily delivered its quota of laugh out loud moments and featured some fairly authentic sounding East London accents. Less convincing was 'You're Only Young Twice' which, whilst well performed and mildly amusing in places, seemed to have very little connection to real life or real people.

Gigs: I've written about a couple of these already. The other one that I will mention is Henry Parker, a very good localish (Bingley I think) guitarist in the Davey Graham fingerstyle mode. I'd seen him before and on this occasion was able to buy a live album of a performance at which I was present in the audience; the third such that I own.

I didn't get to ride on the cherry picker and the roof still leaks, albeit not as badly as before.


(1) Diet and exercise; controversial I know, but there it is.

The odd uneven time

That was how Sylvia Plath described August, and this year at least she was proved right. It's probably easiest to sum it up by saying that my blogging muse disappeared for a while.

There was some wargaming however: mid-eighteenth century in the legendary wargames room using Black Powder. I continue to enjoy the rules, although the effect of broken battalia seems a bit odd to me. I will no doubt return to this in due course; I bet you can't wait. I have also been trying to work out how I feel about 'Through the Mud and the Blood' now we have had a few games and, finding that I wasn't coming to any conclusion, have decided to put the period on the back burner and do something different next time we are in the annexe.

Your bloggist walks it off

Cultural life always takes a dip at this time of year, but there have been events in places as diverse as Keighley (Ayckbourn) and Salzburg (Mozart funnily enough). Conversely there has been a fair bit of walking and visits have been made to Bracken Ghyll, the Seven Arches and various other places. And I can't leave without alluding to the very funny goings on at the relaunch of river boats on the Wharfe in Otley, although the same political considerations which stopped the local paper printing the photos also preclude me from providing details.

Progress Industry Humanity

The town in which I live is part of Leeds and for the most part that's where I go for entertainment and intellectual stimulation. However, I live on the border with Bradford and this weekend has seen me attend events celebrating two of its most distinguished sons.

On Saturday I made one of my infrequent returns to the University of Bradford, the place where I took my first degree, on this occasion for a talk on the time theories of J.B. Priestley. I won't attempt to reproduce what was discussed, which you would be correct in interpreting to mean that I didn't fully understand it. There were names bandied about that I'd never heard of (J.W. Dunne, Ouspensky), haven't read (Proust - shameful but true) or regard as complete charlatans (Myers and Briggs). Still, the main point at issue was that Priestley was a first rate writer, is unjustly overlooked and was ahead of his time. His influence can clearly be seen on novelists such as Borges and Burgess and on playwrights like Stoppard and Ayckbourn, and he was an early explorer of concepts later seen in works as diverse as E.T., Catch-22, Groundhog Day, Sliding Doors and The Purple Rose of Cairo to name just a few. The speakers recommended a range of works which apparently illustrate his interest in the possible circularity of time, but I have chosen to buy 'The 31st of June' on the basis that the panel said it was very funny. I shall report back. I also have to mention that I rather regret not having also been to the session before ours, which featured lots of brightly clothed Nigerians playing drums.

Today saw celebrations to mark the 80th birthday of David Hockney. The weather was nice, a big crowd turned up, there was a wide choice of food (I went for Tilapia and Jollof rice, perhaps still regretting missing out on the Nigerian drumming) and loud music; judging by the playlist DH is a fervent disco fan. There was even a large birthday cake representing his large work Le Plongeur, which is the cornerstone of the excellent new Hockney Gallery at Bradford's Cartwright Hall.

The other notable feature was a Hockneyfication Station where those with a more frivolous nature than your bloggist could be transformed into lookalikes of the great man.

Plastics

 “What a fine persecution - to be kept intrigued without ever quite being enlightened.” 

- Tom Stoppard

And so to the theatre. The stage version of  'The Graduate' is best known for providing famous, middle-aged actresses with a chance to show that they're still worth looking at, but it also captured the interest in a number of other ways. It featured the second actor in a wetsuit in a fortnight, this time somewhat more relevantly; Benjamin's mental floundering is being underlined by a visual 'out of his depth' metaphor. There was also what I'm pretty sure was the first time I've ever seen a door being smashed down with an axe live on stage, and very enjoyable it was too. Last, but by no means least, was the vigorous tassle twirling of professional burlesque artiste Elsie Diamond; I think one knows where one is with someone who chooses the stage name 'Elsie'. In any event the programme observed that if one didn't like the character of Benjamin then one wouldn't 'get on' with the Graduate; I didn't and , by and large, I didn't. Elaine - who gets more of the story on stage compared to the film - did make one philosophical statement that appealed to me as a Stoic: "If you allow yourself to have dessert every time you see a little pig," she said "then you will see a lot more little pigs and eat a lot more dessert". Wise words.

I'm always happy to see any play by Alan Ayckbourn because one is guaranteed at least half a dozen good laughs and  'Sisterly Feelings' was no exception. I have long held the theory that a successful farce will involve sardines, and sure enough they pop up here, as does the slightly creepy concept of stalking someone leading to a positive 'happy ever after' result, a trope it shares with 'The Graduate'. As this happened in the second half its occurrence was apparently determined by an on-stage coin toss in the first half, Ayckbourn having written two alternate conclusions to the piece. Whilst this is an intriguing idea, it strikes me as essentially pointless because most people are only going to see it once. It would be particularly galling to choose to see it a second time to catch the alternate ending (which hopefully shows stalking to result in imprisonment) only to find that the coin landed heads twice in a row and one had to sit through the same thing again.

Of course dozens of heads in row are the result of a coin being repeatedly tossed in the opening scene of 'Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead', Tom Stoppard's youthful masterpiece. I have been to see the live streaming of the Old Vic production starring Daniel Radcliffe and Joshua McGuire. It is possible that many of those in the screening that I went to came along attracted by the former's previous role as a boy wizard rather than by Stoppard's absurdist wordplay or his existential examination of the limitations of man's real freedom of action in the light of his inevitable demise, and nor perhaps were they aware of the need to have some familiarity with 'Hamlet' in order to make head or tail of it all. For whatever reason there were many fewer of them after the interval. It rather put me in mind of when I saw Ross Kemp give his Petruchio, although on that occasion Dutch courage allowed most of the soap fans to stick with the blank verse all the way through. In this case the show was rather stolen by David Haig as the Player, but it was all, as one would expect, excellent.

In a short time, this will be... a long time ago

The cinema hasn't featured in my life much recently, but suddenly I've been twice in fourteen hours. Firstly I saw 'Slow West', a western from last year that will appeal to anyone who liked Tarantino's 'Hateful Eight'. It's leisurely and amusing, interspersed with bloody violence. Look out for some literal visual interpretation of proverbs; I spotted 'salt in the wounds' and 'giving an arm and a leg'. Then, by way of a change, I went to see Woody Allen's latest 'Café Society'. It's set partly among 1930's New York organised crime gangs and so there is violence here as well. In what I thought was the one thing wrong with what is otherwise a fine, if typical, Allen film, the violence is made a source of amusement and somehow our hero is allowed to drift through untainted by it. There's nothing revolutionary about this film - the other setting is golden age Hollywood as already seen this year in 'Hail Ceasar' and the main theme of the film isn't that dissimilar to that in Ayckbourn's 'Relatively Speaking' which I saw at the theatre the other week - but it's highly enjoyable. The elder Miss Epictetus with whom I saw it - she leaves for pastures new on Wednesday - assures me that Kristen Stewart is a lot better here than in the Twilight films, and Jesse Eisenberg gives a pitch perfect impersonation of Woody Allen.

And staying on the gangster theme, here's an in memoriam tribute to the great Prince Buster

Une piece bien faite

And so to the theatre. I have been to see Alan Ayckbourn's 'Relatively Speaking'. Whilst there is an overlap with the themes of 'Deep Blue Sea' and both are 'well-made' plays - Rattigan's because that's what he did and Ayckbourn's because Stephen Joseph told him to write one - this piece isn't trying to make any particular point; the author fully abides by the limits that farce places on character depth and development. He's just trying to make people laugh and, as usual with this playwright, he succeeds. It's a very funny play, despite essentially being one joke stretched over two hours. And as it happened the largest laugh came in response to the suggestion that a husband's shame at finding out that his wife is having an affair would apparently be all the greater if it was discovered that the man in question was very much older than her, albeit coupled with admiration for the fact that the lover was still up to it at his age.

The stars were Robert Powell and Liza Goddard. I don't wish to diminish Goddard's career, but surely the most interesting thing about her is that she has been married to both Doctor Who and Alvin Stardust; she should be a pub quiz question. Powell on the other hand will always be, at least for someone of my vintage, the Son of God in Zeffirelli's 'Jesus of Nazereth'.

Possibly the least followed of all Christ's teachings, although there are many contenders

Powell had no problems delivering Ayckbourn's lines though; after all he had long ago demonstrated his comedic chops in 'The Detectives' with Jasper Carrot. If you've never seen it then you're in for a treat; it can be found on YouTube.

Possibly the funniest of the episodes of 'The Detectives'; although there are many contenders

I can't remember whether I mentioned it, but the Carmen I saw in Verona was also directed by Zeffirelli. He is, and like Alan Bennett he is still thankfully with us, a man of huge influence and range of achievements. My own personal favourite is that he was reputedly the inspiration for Uncle Monty in 'Withnail and I' as played by the late, great Richard Griffiths: "There is a certain je ne sais quoi - oh, so very special - about a firm, young carrot...Excuse me..."

No ifs, no buts, no disability cuts

No doubt foremost amongst your worries is whether all this work has interfered with my dedication to cultural vultureness. Fear not, I am as pretentious as ever and have been packing them in.

First up was 'The Threepenny Opera' in a lyrically updated version by the Graeae Theatre Company that was in-your-face in a way that would doubtless have been admired by Brecht and Weill themselves. This is yet another of those classics that I had somehow managed to miss previously, although we are all familiar with the opening song. Altogether now:

"Oh the shark, babe, has such teeth, dear

And it shows them pearly white"

Graeae champion 'accessibility' and they integrate deaf, blind and physically disabled performers into the action in a performance enhancing manner that doesn't make one not notice them, but actually makes one glad that's the way it is. Personally I was very taken with the way that the BSL interpreters' roles became as important as the singing main characters. Top marks to Jude Mahon in particular.

Next was 'La Boheme' in a revived Opera North production, but one which still did it for me. Classic Puccini and an opera that I would suggest for those who have never been to one. Lush tunes, nonsensical plot and it doesn't end well for the heroine; what more could one want?

And finally Bedroom Farce, another play that I had seen before, and one that reinforces the point that British farceurs regard the word sardine as inherently amusing, although in this case the fishy comestibles are - in a very minor plot point - replaced in due course by pilchards. Despite that slightly incoherent exposition of the plot you should see it when it comes your way; as it will because it is regularly revived. As with any Alan Ayckbourn play one is guaranteed several laugh out loud moments. Oh, and can I just preempt any rumours that MS Foy may be about to spread on his blog; Mr Ayckbourn is as alive as his namesake Mr Bennett.

P.S. In one of life's unaccountable coincidences, immediately after writing the above I opened the door to a furniture delivery man who was whistling 'Mack the Knife'. Spooky.

Mystery

It is so unclear what the latest re-enactors at the Royal Armouries are meant to be that I have decided not to go and find out in case it's too big a disappointment. They look like they are supposed to be playing for the Wanderers against the Royal Engineers in the 1872 FA cup final, or possibly they are extras from Chariots of Fire. Having said that, one of them is wearing a sort of medieval quilted jacket and another is carrying something that looks like an oar but is only about five feet long.

On the cultural front, I have found some room for a bit of middlebrow entertainment and have been to see Ayckbourn's Sugar Daddies. The narrative line was unconvincing and didn't go anywhere, but with Ayckbourn one is guaranteed at least a dozen or so big laughs and so it proved.

And finally in this mixed bag of postings I offer a belated and perhaps oblique farewell to Hugo Chavez.