'Pericles' at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse at The Globe

'Pericles' is one of those Shakespeare plays that I've never quite got round to, either seeing it or reading it, but it's on at the lovely candle-lit Sam Wanamaker Playhouse at Shakespeare's Globe so it's a good opportunity to see it. It's one of those oddities that seems to have the first half written by another playwright and the second half written my Mr Shakespeare - and it shows. The quality of the writing - and the story-telling is vastly different and the second half is obviously better, and, let's face it, more interesting.

It's the picaresque tale of Pericles, the Prince of Tyre and his adventures, most of which seem to involve the sea and storms and shipwrecks. Pericles seems to be a nice enough bloke but he doesn't half get into some scrapes. He seeks the hand of a princess and when he discovers she's in an incestuous relationship with her dad the king he runs back to Tyre. From there he's advised to flee and get shipwrecked only to fall for another princess (it happens) who he wins and marries.  When she's heavily pregnant they decide that's the opportune time to head back to Tyre and she dies in childbirth, is buried at sea and the resultant daughter fostered to another king and queen.

The second half starts 16 years later and the baby has grown up into a virtuous young lady who is kidnapped and sold as a slave to a brothel but Pericles is told that she died. But she uses her wit to retain her virtue and is eventually brought on board yet another ship to try to cheer up an old man with her conversation. And that's when she learns that the old man is her father and Pericles learns that his daughter is alive. It's all rather convoluted and goes on a bit but it's nice to have finally seen it, and seen it at the Sam Wanamaker with candle all over.

I can't pretend it was one of my favourite plays of the year - the acting was solid but the material doesn't send it flying. James Garnon was good as Pericles and Jessica Baglow as fun as his daughter, Marina. I'm pleased to have seen it at last.  And here's the real Pericles...

Top 30 Music over the last 10 years or so

Do you remember the olden days of this blog, when the Plastic Bag was all shiny and new and not a crease in sight? Well, in the olden days I used to put up lists of what music I'd been listening to and all sorts so I thought, to note the end of the 10 calendar year of the Bag, I'd list my all-time most played artists according to Last.FM.

In total, it tells me that I've listened to 3,034 different artists and my Top 30, in descending order, are:

1. Buffy Sainte-Marie
2. Maximo Park
3. The Human League
4. Suzanne Vega
5. Poly Styrene
6. David Bowie
7. Kirsty MacColl
8. SLADE
9. Amanda Palmer
10. Madonna

Are there any surprises there? I'm a bit surprised that Bowie is so high in the list and that Madonna is in the top 10. With Bowie, I rarely 'binge' listen but he's usually in my playlists somewhere and with Madonna, I suspect her position is due to her last album ('Rebel Heart') that I've listened to a lot. The others? Yes, I'd expect to see them in my top 10.

11. Kim Wilde
12. Pet Shop Boys
13. X-Ray Spex
14. Petula Clark
15. The Dresden Dolls
16. Blondie
17. Boy George
18. Siouxsie & The Banshees
19. Beverley Knight
20. Kate Bush


In the teens, I suspect Siouxsie is so high due to the re-releases of all the Banshees albums over the last few years and her gigs as part of Yoko Ono's Meltdown festival a couple of years ago. Kate Bush is there due her gigs at Hammersmith (obv). I don't recall listening to a lot of Pet Shop Boys or The Dresden Dolls this year so their position probably relies on massive listens in previous years.

21. Public Image Ltd
22. Patti Smith
23. T.Rex
24. Marianne Faithfull
25. The B-52's
26. The Kinks
27. Donna Summer
28. Mary J Blige
29. Viv Albertine
30. P!nk

The 20s are all staples in my playlists and the only one I'm surprised at is The Kinks, although this is probably due to binging on Kinks songs when seeing the stage musical. P!nk should be higher up the list since I used to amend the '!' in her name to an 'i' (i.e. proper English) so a lot of plays won't be counted.

That's one of the oddities of lists and Last.FM since it only counts things in a certain way. Just as P!nk would be higher if plays under the two names were added together then so would Siouxsie (add Siouxsie solo to the Banshees and the Creatures) then she'd be in my top 5. Equally, if I added Amanda Palmer to Amanda Palmer & The Grand Theft Orchestra and the Dresden Dolls - and Evelyn Evelyn if you must - then Amanda would be at number two.

Who do you listen to?

'The Nutcracker' by The Royal Ballet at The Royal Opera House

What could be more Christmassy than seeing 'The Nutcracker' at the grand Royal Opera House with enormous Christmas trees and sparkly garlands wrapped around the pillars outside? O yes, the look of the place raises the ante for the show and it delivered to all my expectations. What a wonderful show!

I've seen Matthew Bourne's interpretation of the story a couple of times and loved it, but this was my first viewing of the 'traditional' show and featured the choreography of Peter Wright. And what a marvellous show it was too, perfect for Christmas, especially since it's set at Christmas.

It's Christmas Eve and Clara is given the Nutcracker, a toy that contains the soul of Hans-Peter, the magician and toy-maker's nephew. She creeps downstairs after the party to make sure the toy is all right and is transported to a magical world as the Christmas Tree grows and grows and the toy soldiers battle with the mice and their king. Clara and the Nutcracker prevail to be transported to the Land of Snow with ballerina's as snowflakes filling the stage. After the half-time we go to the court of the Sugar Plum Fairy and her Prince for some grand entertainments before returning to Clara's home before dawn and, astonishingly, Hans-Peter is now free from the Nutcracker and loans Clara his cape to protect her from the snow and cold. Our hero is safe and who knows what might happen in the future…

I loved this production! The magic and beauty of the whole thing, the enormous Christmas Tree growing and growing as Clara shrinks, the wonderful snowflakes and then the Fairy and her Prince. O wow. Once again, it drives home to me that ballet isn't just a load of athletic young people doing their stuff on stage, it's the whole production - the music, the dance, the sets, the costumes, the lighting and the whole atmosphere of the thing that ignites the Art.

I loved our heroes in Francesca Hayward as Clara and Alexander Campbell as the Nutcracker, Gary Avis as the magician with his swirling cloak and the lovely Iana Salenko and Steven McRae as the Sugar Plum Fairy and her Prince (who were also my Romeo and Juliet). Thank you Royal Ballet for introducing me to 'The Nutcracker' and welcoming in Christmas!

'In The Heights' at Kings Cross Theatre

Finally got round to seeing 'In The Heights', the Southwark Playhouse's production of the much lauded Broadway show that's been put on at Kings Cross Theatre. Yes, Kings Cross Theatre was a new one on me too, but I think it's a temporary theatre space behind Kings Cross station until the powers that be finally decide what to do with that area. 'In The Heights' was, I think, just starting it's Broadway run on one of our New York trips but didn't see it so this was a chance to see what all the fuss was about.

'In The Heights' is the 'rap musical' set in the Washington Heights area of Manhattan over a few hot summer days in the early 2000s. It's the Puerto Rican area and everyone knows everyone else and their business, a close-knit community threatened on all sides by rising rents and the challenges of modern living. It's the real world, kids. We have Usnavi who runs the local shop, Daniela who has the local hairdressers and centre of gossip and Kevin who runs the local cab company, it's all very local. And their stories inter-twine and develop. Over a few days they all learn, they all evolve and become different people - or maybe they expose the people they really all were all along?

So, okay, there's nothing new in the story to the show - boy fancies girl he grew up with, girl wants to better herself, girl finds she fancies boy then the lights go out - but I liked it. It's not the show, it's the energy I liked, the full-on commitment of the cast, the beaming smiles of the ensemble during the dance numbers, the whole thing. I even bought a programme.

I liked Sam Mackay as our hero, Usnavi (i.e. US Navy as inscribed on the side of ship) even though his delivery of the rap was a bit white-boy Eminem, and the heavily pregnant Victoria Hamilton-Barritt as Daniela (who I saw and enjoyed in 'A Chorus Line' a few years back). Lily Frazer was great as Nina, the girl who escapes the neighbourhood to go to university bout comes back as a drop-out, and what a great voice and presence she has. I must also mention Jade Ewen, the last Sugababe, who plays Vanessa, the girl who wants to get on for her acting and singing and the incredibly short skirts.

I liked it and it's great fun. Go and see it!

Madonna at the O2, London

Madonna has hit the road again, this time to promote her 'Rebel Heart' record, and last week she arrived at the O2 Arena in London, a venue she's played several times before.

I learned many years ago that it's worth seeing Madonna play live when you can - it's a relatively rare event and she gives good gig, with fab dancing, great lighting and sound and, of course, some fab songs. With Madonna it's easy to think of her as a 'personality' rather than as a musician but she's written some great songs over the years and she knows how to put them across. They're her songs and she can interpret them however she wants but always in a way to please the crowd. And she knows her audience.

M was on top form and actually talked to the audience far more than any other time I've seen her, which was nice. Chatting and joking and giving a heart-felt speech about it being World AIDS Day was very touching, when she almost went tearful.

She played lots of songs, old and new, and I loved the way she includes parts of old songs while performing the new ones - this worked really well throughout the set. She'd also built the runway to at least half way back in the auditorium so more people got to see her up close. She's also a consummate professional, with her dancers trained to perfection and all performing as part of  a family. They were an astonishing bunch, all over the stage but so together and always re-focusing again on Madonna.

Favourite songs were 'Burning Up', 'Devil Pray', 'True Blue', 'Like a Virgin' (obvs) and 'Who's That Girl'. She did a stonking version of 'Music' and a lovely version of 'Material Girl' with a solo, acoustic version of 'La Vie En Rose' which got an enormous applause. I must single out the lovely version of 'Rebel Heart' from the last album, one of my favourite M songs and so her.  I also loved the exerpts of 'Love Don't Live Here Anymore' and 'Justify My Love' included in other songs and, of course, 'Holiday' was the mandatory finale.

Love her or hate her, Madonna works hard and produces some amazing set pieces on stage and she's got an amazing back catalogue of 30 years to choose from for her stage sets. And, of course, she can fly - backwards. Hail Madonna and thank you for a great show!

Branagh at The Garrick

Kenneth Branagh's season at the Garrick has begun with a marvellous production of 'The Winter's Tale' with a separate Terence Rattigan's double bill of 'Harlequinade' and 'All On Her Own'.

'All On Her Own' is a short, solo play with the wife of a newly dead man wondering whether his death was actually suicide and going through the guilt she can't help but feel. Zoe Wanamaker took the part of the smart wife with a drink in her hand as she wonders about her late husband's last hours. Did he not go to bed deliberately so he could swallow too many pills with whisky or was it an accident? We'll never know.

More fun was 'Harlequinade' about a repertory theatre company playing an opening night in some small town somewhere. They've been on the road for so long with so many productions that it's all a bit of a blur but in this one we have Branagh as the company manager and lead actor playing Romeo despite his age (I loved the reveal of whipping off the very convincing wig!). It's a farce of ludicrous proportions and is a bit of light relief that had some of the older members of the audience guffawing every now and then (not sure what at, though). Mistaken identities, theatrical in-jokes, everything you could think of except falling down trousers, it's all in there. I enjoyed it for what it was and Zoe Wanamaker played the part of the rather tipsy nurse.

The production of 'The Winter's Tale' was altogether in a different league (quite probably due to the writing, of course). This is one of Shakespeare's odd plays in which jealousy emerges out of the blue and wrecks a marriage, no sign of it until it's there and that makes me wonder at where that central motif came from. Leontes, king of Sicily, is entertaining his friend the king of Bohemia when he grows jealous of his relationship with Leontes' pregnant wife, Hermione. And that's where the problems begin. It's set at Christmas with the giving of presents, ice skating and everything festive you'd get up to in Sicily. I always think the kingdoms should be swapped round, with Bohemia being the winter kingdom, not Sicily.

Jealousy is the ending of the marriage and Hermione dies in childbirth and Leontes banishes the child since he can't believe it is his. The child, of course, survives and grows up to be a beautiful young women who, coincidentally, falls in love with Bohemian king's son. Queue complications and a rather long rustic scene. I've never been a fan of Shakespeare's rustic scenes but these seemed really quite sweet and delightful compared to previous productions I've seen, with the love of the young people coming through as the driving force.

They eventually go to Sicily to marry and find themselves in Leontes' court when it's revealed that Hermione didn't actually die all those years ago, but has been alive as a statue all this time, cared for by Paulina, a senior courtier. There's no explanation of this phenomenon or why she might want to get together with Leontes again but it works, particularly the big reveal with everyone now having grey hair to show the moving of the years.

It's not the most satisfying of Shakespeare's plays but I really liked this production and there's a great partnership between Kenneth Branagh as Leontes and Judi Dench as Paulina. I loved the set that placed the play at Christmas in an opulent and red-plush Edwardian court with people swapping presents and playing out the Christmas spirit, including going ice skating. There was even a big Christmas Tree and the supporting cast came to the stage through the audience blowing horns and singing. It was a great start.

I think the production is going to be screened in cinemas so if you get the chance I'd urge you to see it - it's worth it, believe me.

Elisabeth Louise Vigee Le Brun at Le Grand Palais, Paris

While over in Paris we went to see the first major retrospective of the works of Elisabeth Louise Vigee Le Brun to be held in France, which is very odd but shows that her status as a painter is increasing.

She was a painter to the court of Louis and Marie-Antoinette before the revolution, travelled round Europe during the revolution and Napoleon's empire and returned to France to take up her place as a painter again once stability had returned. She must have had an eventful life, leaving Paris because of her close association with the royalists to travel round Europe with her daughter, visiting the major cities and centres of art, making her living as a painter and spreading the word about her great skills with her brushes. This exhibition is almost entirely made up of portraits and some wonderful works they are too.

The exhibition is chronological, starting with her early world as she established herself as a portraitist with the aristocracy and the wealthy, refining her skills and creating her own contemporary legend as the go-to portraitist for the not-so-pretty because she could work wonders. The poster-girl for the exhibition is clearly pretty, with a slight blush on her cheek, covered in laces and bows but it was the tiny flowers on her hat that entranced me, such delicate little flowers adding to the beauty of the whole. The majority of her paintings are of women but she did paint some men, such as this lovely portrait of a long-forgotten actor in his silken garb. I suspect he was a little bit more portly than portrayed in this picture (his chubby face and neck doesn't quite match his waistline) but it works very well.

She knew the potential power of painting as propaganda and used it to great effect in her portraits of Marie-Antoinette, such as this one with her three children. Marie sits ramrod straight, every inch a regal queen with her feet resting on a thick cushion, but the whole effect is humanised by the poses of the children, leaning into her, playing around her and clearly loving her. Here we have queen and mother, mother to France and, through her children, to the future of France. The painting is very well constructed leaving the viewer in no doubt as to what you see, with the lush reds and velvet textures, the richness of the clothes but the almost down-to-earthness of children pulling at their mother, cuddling her  and wanting attention. They are clearly loved and indulged. That message obviously didn't work in some quarters.

The portraits became far more interesting to me once Elisabeth had left France after the revolution and went on her travels for a decade or so. The painting become richer and more intense, a wider colour palette and variety of subjects. The portraits are still mainly of women (or at least they are in this exhibition) but what an assortment of women - ladies and countesses, princes and mistresses, what characters they display. There are two portraits of Lady Hamilton (Nelson's lover) at the start of this section of the exhibition (upstairs from the first half) and these re richly drenched with colours that steer away from the light pastels of many of the earlier portraits. She is a woman, not a girl, of great beauty and energy, the lover of a warrior. Here she is, painted as a Bacchante dancing before a smoking Vesuvius, hair flying with her movements.

The portraits from her stay in St Petersburg are what really attracted me, with their bold colours and naturalistic poses capturing movement and passion. What glorious paintings these are and why has it taken so long for Vigee Le Brun to be recognised as a great portraitist? They are of individual people that were recognisable at the time and full of character for us looking on 200 years later. I was taken by this painting of a woman looking straight into your eyes, almost saying 'don't play your games with me Elisabeth, I know your tricks' and so Elisabeth did exactly what she does so well and painted the young lady with a direct gaze. Varvara Ivanovna Ladomirskaya was clearly a strong young woman who knew what she wanted and wouldn't put up with anyone trying to change her.

My favourite portrait was from about the same time, a strong young woman with a scarf in her hair and scarlet shawl wrapped close, looking straight out at the viewer, almost saying 'pay attention, I'm here and I have something to say'. I took the opportunity of a rare bench in front of this pinging to sit down and gaze at this painting and she drew me in, the plain background and bright red clothing. Her name was    but who was she really? That's one of the beauties of portraiture - these are real people with their own points of view and loves and challenges. They might have been nice or might have been nasty. I think the Countess Varvara Nicolayevna Golovina was nice and I'd have loved to have a chat with her. Her face says she's lived and she has a brain so she will have views to debate.

Elisabeth was also a great self-portraitist and the notes for the exhibition state that she used these to publicise herself. She was clearly a marketing genius ahead of her time. One of my favourite self-portraits was this one, painted with her daughter Julie, a loving mother and daughter, and the mother just happens to have been one of the greatest portraitists of the time.

This was a bit of an eye-opener of an exhibition. Before this I'd seen one of her paintings and now, having seen room after room of her work, I can really appreciate her skills. I'd like to know more about her - there were a few biographies in the shop at the end but they were all in French. The exhibition continues in Paris until January and then transfers to the USA and Canada so, if you get the chance, go and see it and wonder at this brave and incredibly talented woman. 

La Soiree on the Southbank

Last week we went to see the return of the cabaret-circus spectacular that is La Soiree in its spiegeltent on the Southbank. I first saw La Soiree a couple of years ago and was wowed by the show. The winning format is the same with non-stop action on the small stage in the middle of the tent, one act immediately following the previous act without a break. There are acrobats and hula hoops, comedy and contortionists, audience participation and bubbles. Yes, bubbles, but more of that later.

It was compered by Mario Queen of the Circus with his Freddie Mercury look-a-likey juggling, hoola-hooping and comedy act, ultimately crowd-surfing round the stage to 'We Will Rock You'. Another newby was Melanie Chy, the little tough girl on an enormous motorbike who balanced off the various bits of the bike in an amazing demonstration of skill and strength. Another great act was Captain Frodo who squeezed himself through two tennis rackets, falling over and off the stage mid-way through and throwing handfuls of confetti around. He was great fun!

It was also nice to see Asher Treleaven, the Sexualized Gentleman, again, particularly his unique reading of a Mills & Boon-type story that goes just that bit further spoken than it might do in print. He's very naughty.

Stars of the show were, of course, the English Gents in their pinstripe suits and bowler hats, with Denis Lock effortlessly lifting Hamish McCann in all sorts of ways, showing how well trained and strong they both are. And then comes the inevitable strip as they rip of their clothes to stand there in their union jack underwear and do some more startling lifting and balancing. The endless practicing that must go into their act - and probably no few stresses and sprains - is astonishing. How can they do that?

Hamish has his own act at the end of the show to the tune of 'Singing in the Rain' when he plays with the lamp-post, walking upwards in the air while holding onto the post, doing the splits along the length of the post and all sorts. I've seen the act before and it's still gob-smacking. What I hadn't seen was Denis's bubble act in which he delves into bubble magik, creating all sorts of astonishing sights, training the bubbles to do what he wants, even explode into flames at one point. I gave up wondering how he did it to wondering how on earth he had the idea for the act in the first place. It was really marvellous to see. The strong man taming fragile bubbles...

If you get the chance to see La Soiree over the festive season then do so - it really is a great fun show with lots of laughs as well as gasps of wonder. And the staff running the show are the friendliest I've met at any performance - well done folks!

Two Tates and Four Exhibitions - The Second Two

The second two exhibitions were at Tate Modern on Bankside and were visited after the obligatory wander round the Christmas market that fills the forecourt of the gallery. The first was the exhibition of works by Alexander Calder, his wire creations and his lovely mobiles gently turning with any stray breeze. They brought many a moment of delight and childishness, along with great fun too! I'd happily have one of his mobiles hanging from my ceiling.

Some artists find something new and different, something that makes you smile with wonder and that's what Mr Calder managed to do. His delicate creations slowly turning with shadows on the walls and floor adding to the magic of the mobiles. With a few it was as much - if not more - fun to watch the shadows gradually changing, growing and receding than it was to watch the mobiles. But that doesn't matter, it's the total experience. And it's the same with his wire sculptures - they're not line drawings, they're 3D sculptures and great fun they are too. I particularly liked the wire faces that had to be looked at just right to see the full face otherwise they were a mass of mangled wires.

I think my favourite mobile was 'Snow Flurries', a group of round snowflakes of different sizes slowly rotating this was and that, very slowly, with shadows gradually changing. There was something really quite magical just standing there and staring at the mobile as it settled and then set off again. It's gentle and lovely and I can quite see that this mobile would bring the snow in the depths of winter since it mirrored a real flurry of white flakes. If it was real I'd catch some on my tongue.

The second exhibition was the much hyped 'The World Goes Pop' that aimed to show that pop art wasn't just a USA/UK phenomenon but took roots all over the world. That's a very worthy aim but sometimes worthy can go to far and tip into so-so. And that's what I felt, really, a great big 'so what?'.

I liked some of the pieces and they certainly chose one of the best for the poster to advertise the exhibition but it wasn't as busy as the Calder exhibition. There were some interesting exhibits but none of them really grabbed me, certainly not in the way that Calder's works did.

Two Tates and Four Exhibitions - The First Two

I went to Tate Britain to see the Frank Auerback exhibition but accidentally went into the strangely fascinating 'Artists & Empire' exhibition first. 'Empire' is a bit of a charged term these days but it's ripe to plunder for its artistic heritage, as this exhibition amply demonstrates. Yes there are maps showing one quarter of the world coloured red to show the expanse of Empire and yes, there are paintings of governors and others in their version of exotic 'native' costumes and yes, there are paintings illustrating the military might of Empire. But there is a lot more to the exhibition than that.

It's a mix of paintings, sculpture and some textiles and head-dresses and many of the paintings are by non-British artists, artists from around the world that painted scenes from the last big empire. And the paintings aren't just of the great and wealthy, there's a painting of the first former slave Black Barbadian freed woman and property owner who went on to own slaves herself, paintings of crowded cock-fights, of Indian princesses in their finery, of the army taking custody of the sons of enemy nobles as a guarantee of good behaviour, of sad scenes of lovers parting as the man boards a ship to do his duty in some far off place and of women hiding during the Indian mutiny.

Some of the painting stirred strange emotions, such as the scenes of fallen soldiers in some far off and little know war, the last dozen of a regiment surrounded by fallen comrades as the Afghan warriors charge and, reading the sign beside the painting which tells of a captain wrapping himself in the regiment's colours to die only to be left to live and subsequently released by the Afghans. These were real stories that barely trouble the history books but were known at the time. What must it have been like for these young lads to go off to fight in far-flung places when the world was much bigger than it is today, when distances were impossibly huge and they ended up fighting strange peoples at the word of their masters and, let's face it, it was all about money and power for the few at the top of the pile that never faced these dangers. Was it all about adventure or did they have little choice but to go and take the King's shilling?

There are also paintings of the subjects of Empire as well, such as an intense double portrait of two Sikh gentlemen in their turbans and uniform before they went to fight for the British in the trenches of  First World War France. They were captains who survived the war but what must it have been like for them? A sign elsewhere noted that one in six of the soldiers in the First World War were from the Empire but where is this history told and what happened to them, dying half a world away from where they grew up for an Empire that barely valued them other than as fodder. 

The exhibition ends with some more contemporary works to show how the former colonies have been able to reconcile their more recent histories and draw new artistic freedoms from it. It's odd to think that the Empire isn't that long gone and it was the First World War that was the beginning of the end and the  Indian partition finally ended it. Do I feel guilty about the Empire? It brought massive wealth to this country but my people were just as much servants of Empire as anyone else under its rule around the globe, working in the fields and down the mines. I suspect that if I'd been born 200 years ago and sought to escape poverty by adventuring abroad I would've 'gone native' under the Raj and lived as an eccentric. I still might do that.

The Frank Auerbach exhibition was a very different creature, showing his works from the 1950s onwards as his style and vision developed. I know nothing about Mr Auerback but I now know that he's had a studio at Mornington Crescent (just up from Camden in North London) for decades because he painted the area so frequently. And what vibrant paintings they are too - or at least some of them.

His paintings are thick with paint, laid on by a palette knife and chunky brushes, lots of layers and textures on the canvas. A few of them made me want to climb into that froth of paint and explore his colourful North London streets  No doubt it'll be far from the grey concrete and red brick reality of those streets.

I'm not entirely sure what he was trying to say - and is still trying to say - but I'd love to have a chat about it over a glass of wine some day and how I can find my way into his vision of Mornington Crescent ...