The Plastic Bag Awards 2017

It's that time of year again when awards are awarded, winners are overjoyed and losers try to smile through their tears but let's not get sentimental since there can be only one winner (no tied votes here). Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Plastic Bag Awards for 2017, in other words, the Baggies!

Best Theatre - Shakespeare

This has been a poor year for Shakespeare in the Plastic Bag and there are only two nominees in this category. Both are worthy to be nominated but neither were perfect productions.

'Hamlet' at the Almeida Theatre
'The Tempest' at the Barbican Theatre

I liked the new production of 'Hamlet' with Andrew Scott right up until the made-up ending scene and I liked Simon Russell Beale as Prospero and I loved the fluidity of the electronic flying Ariel but it wasn't really all that smooth. So, neither ticked all the boxes, but the Baggie goes to 'Hamlet'.

Best Theatre - Drama

There were some very powerful productions on stage in 2017 and the list of nominees could easily have been expanded but it's limited to five:

'The Glass Menagerie' at the Duke of York's Theatre
'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf' at the Harold Pinter Theatre
'The Ferryman' at the Gielgud Theatre
'Angels in America' (both parts) at the National Theatre
'Young Marx' at the Bridge Theatre

Imelda Staunton and Paddy Considine both gave astonishing performances in 'Who's Afraid' and 'Ferryman' respectively and 'Angels' was a great ensemble performance across both parts of the play. 'Menagerie' and 'Marx' both had their great moments in very different types of play. The award must go to 'The Ferryman' for the excellent writing and poetry in the lines, the great performances and the shocks and twists and turns when least expected.

Best Theatre - Musical

The West End still seems to be full of musicals that have been on forever or jukebox musicals but there are still some gems with revivals and even new musicals being written and produced. The nominees are:

'Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill' at Wyndham's Theatre
'The Life' at Southwark Playhouse
'Follies' at the National Theatre
'42nd Street' at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
'Everybody's Talking About Jamie' at the Apollo Theatre

If there was an award for new musical it would go to 'Jamie' and new one full of life and love and and joy but it's up against stiff competition this year. It was great, as always, to see Sharon D Clarke in 'The Life' and be introduced to new talent T'Sham Williams, and Audra McDonald was astonishing in 'Lady Day. However, the winner has to be the great production of 'Follies' at the National Theatre and the excellent performances by Imelda Staunton and Janie Dee.

Best Entertainment

An 'entertainment' is a performance that doesn't really fit into any of the other categories, such as one-man/woman shows, readings and cabaret. There are only three nominations this year:

'Miss Hope Springs' at the Wigmore Halls
'Bent' at the National Theatre
'A Poem for Every Day of the Year' at the National Theatre

The winner was easy to pick for the harrowing and powerful performance of a staged reading of 'Bent' at the National Theatre, a production I won't soon forget.

Best Gig

There was a time when I'd go to a gig a couple of times a month (or more) but these days it's a much rarer thing. There are only three nominations:

Suzanne Vega at the London Palladium
Bananarama at Hammersmith
The Unthanks at the Royal Festival Hall

It is always a joy to see Suzanne Vega play live and last year was the anniversary shows for 'Solitude Standing' and '99.9C' in which she played both albums all the way through. The Unthanks gave a veery moving performance with an orchestra as backing band and there were some astonishing arrangements of their songs. But the Baggie must go to those three mad girls in Bananarama who brought joy to Hammersmith and made us all young again. Keep it up girls!

Best Dance

I saw a lot of dance in 2017, with lots of triple bills of ballets as well as full length performances. Two Wayne McGregor's ('Woolf' and 'Codes') and both were excellent and innovative. Two one-act ballets from separate triple bills at the Royal Opera House really stood out as well as an innovative production of the story of 'Alice'.

'Woolf Works' at the Royal Opera House
'Tree of Codes' at Sadler's Wells
'Rubies' as part of the 'Jewels' triple bill at the Royal Opera House
'Flight Pattern' as part of a triple bill at the Royal Opera House
'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' at the Royal Opera House

The judging panel found this to be a very difficult decision but they were kept locked away until they could hand over an envelope with one title in it. That title was 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' for the astonishing performances, the innovative designs and the sheer wonder and fun of the thing. Well done Royal Ballet!

Best Exhibition

This category was a difficult one to narrow down the nominees from the large number of really good exhibitions visited this year, but here are the final nominations:

'Revolution: Russian Art 1917 - 1932' at the Royal Academy
'Michelangelo & Sebastiano' at the National Gallery
'Raphael: The Drawings' at the Ashmolean Museum
'Lawrence Alma-Tadema: At Home In Antiquity' at Leighton House Museum
'Cézanne Portraits' at Musee D'Orsay and the National Portrait Gallery

It was great to see artists whose works I;m very familiar with next to those of artists I've never heard of before and wondering why not? Seeing classics from the High Renaissance and revolutionary works from the last century and then seeing painting after painting by an artist who hasn't had his own exhibition in over 30 years. So much to see and wonder at. However, the Baggie goes Mr Cezanne and his portraits of family and friends that I saw both at Musee D'Orsay and at the National Portrait Gallery.

Best Film

Given the many different film genres it's probably unfair to try to compare films showing wild leaps of imagination next to documentaries but there's only one category for film I'm afraid. The nominees are:

'La La Land'
'Wonder Woman'
'Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2'
'Here To Be Heard: The Story of The Slits'
'Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked The World'

'La La Land' was a joy and a sadness, 'Wonder Woman' was an inspiration and 'Guardians' was just daft fun. 'The Slits' told a story I was partially familiar with but from a different perspective and 'Rumble' told a story I wasn't familiar with at all and I learned so much from it. The winner has to be 'Here To Be Heard: The Story of The Slits' because I go back so many years with those women. Well done!

And there you have it, the Baggies for 2017! I wonder what 2018 will be like?

'The Ferryman' at the Gielgud Theatre

Last week we went to see 'The Ferryman', Jez Butterworth's new play set in a republican house in 1981 in rural Northern Ireland.  Jez wrote the great 'Jerusalem' 8 years ago (or something like that) and this is in similar territory - small people that big things are happening to - but with a powerful political backdrop to the whole thing if you're old enough to know about it. I was sitting beside an American couple in the theatre who clearly didn't know about the 'troubles' and every now and then laughed in the 'wrong' places. I found that both annoying and distressing but never mind. That helps to give some context for the play.

Yes, we're in rural Northern Ireland - the bit that remained part of the UK rather than be part of the Republic of Ireland - at the height of the 'troubles' and the hunger strikes of Bobby Sands and others. I remember those times. After a short scene with some IRA men and a priest to ram home the timing, the play opens in a farmhouse kitchen on the morning of the annual harvest and all the menfolk will be out harvesting when their cousins arrive from Derry to help out. The family has it's harvest traditions and we watch these been followed that involve a kite and a goose. It's all normal, small things happening as we meet the extended family over three generations and an adopted English farm worker, all with memories of this special day in their rural calendar.

Then a shadow arrives in the shape of the family priest with news that Quinn's younger brother has been found dead ten years after vanishing. Quinn is head of the family and the farm is his and we realise that Caitlin isn't his wife and mother of the house but she's the wife of his younger brother who's been living with them along with her son. Quinn isn't surprised at the news - he was an IRA man in his youth and understands these things. And then the IRA men appear to ask the family to keep quiet when the news of the body is released to the press.

The darkness gets deeper when we have a scene with the lads of the family and their cousins from Derry who seem to aspire to be the next generation of IRA men. As the drink flows the friendliness of the lads turns to arguments and threats and poison is poured into the ears of Caitlin's son whose father was Quinn's younger brother who was found executed in the peat bogs the day before. The priest has betrayed Caitlin's secrets to the IRA to protect his sister but at the cost of his immortal soul for breaking the laws of the confessional. And then the tragedies strike. It's a powerful and shocking last few minutes that left me needing a deep breath.

It's a very powerful, visceral play with love and death at the centre, family bonds and friendship, of old friends lost and strangers found. It's not all dark, of course and there's some lovely lyrical passages written for some of the characters. One of my favourites was when Aunty Maggie 'came back' and started her story of visiting the fairies in the south at the peak of their war and then goes on to deliver prophecies about how many children the girls will have. She tells us how she saw the banshees years before and, on the morning of the tragedies to come she hears them again. There's still magic in the modern world after all.

The reason for the name of the play becomes clear towards the end of the play when the old uncle is talking to the priest about what might've happened to his nephew's soul in the ten years he's been dead and buried in unconsecrated ground. Then he quotes the classics as lost souls cry out to Charon to ferry them across the Styx but they're condemned to wander the world for a thousand years. It's these little insights, poetic turns and flights of fancy that add to the power of the play.

I'd highly recommend seeing this play if you possibly can. Paddy Considine was excellent as Quinn with Laura Donnelly matching him as sister-in-law Caitlin. The older members of the extended family seemed to have some of the best lines particularly Brid Brennan as Maggie, Dearbhla Molloy as bitter Aunt Pat and Des McAleer as Uncle Patrick. I also liked John Hodgkinson as the strange English farm worker who was adopted into the family years ago. And, of course, the real baby, the baby rabbit and the goose. The whole cast worked well together and gelled as a family both protecting and fighting each other the way families can do. Well done all!