'Company' at the Gielgud Theatre

'Company' by Stephen Sondheim has opened in the West End with a brand new production and some gender-swapped roles. I've never seen a fully staged production - costumes, scenery, lights - of 'Company' before but have seen an afternoon version as part of the 'Sondheim at 80' season in 2010 that starred Adrian Lester, Sophie Thompson and Haydn Gwynn, all in civvies. That was a 'traditional' version with Adrian Lester as Bobby considering marriage and commitment whereas this new version has Rosalie Craig as Bobbie and, you know what? I think it works better with a female lead.

It's a play very much of it's time - 1970 - on Bobbie's 35 birthday and all her friends are married but not necessarily happily. I can see how it would've been a breath of fresh air in 1970, challenging the traditional form of the musical with it's series of one act scenes with some narrative and a song all around the theme of marriage. Today, though, it seems a bit dated and that's where changing the gender of the lead player worked for me. Not only is there the question of settling down into a relationship (let's use that word rather than marriage) but there's also the biological clock ticking away. And, because it's updated, we also have a gay couple who are getting married (or possibly not).

I couldn't make up my mind about whether I liked the staging or not where most of the scenes took place in big neon light boxes that rolled on and off the stage effortlessly - I can't quite decide if they enhanced the production, detracted from it or were simply annoying. You have that nice big stage so use it, don't confine people in a claustrophobic box. Something that did annoy me was Rosalie Craig's red dress. Please people, give her a costume change? That red dress just really irritated me.

Rosalie Craig played Bobbie who was on stage for virtually the whole time, with friends played my Patti Lupone and Mel Giedroyc. I've seen Rosalie and Patti on stage before but this was the first time I'd seen Mel and I was quite impressed with her acting and (as you'd expect) her comic timing. It's odd to think that, as Chris mentioned, after the Sondheim nerds and theatre queens have seen the production, Mel's will be the biggest name on the bill but she's not very visible in the second half at all. I'm pleased we saw her.

The big draw for many people will be Patti Lupone, a Broadway legend who I saw in Sondheim's 'Gypsy' a decade ago. I saw her again five years ago in a short series of song and chat shows at Leicester Square Theatre. I liked her world-weary performance as the friend who's seen it all and then some, and her big song was 'Ladies Who Lunch' which was great fun.

I enjoyed the production and I'm pleased I saw it. It did rather make me want to see new productions of other Sondheim shows like 'Sunday in the Park'  and I'm sure that'll come back one day. In the meantime, enjoy 'Company'.

PS: I also liked the blue balloons that were all over the public areas of the theatre to mimic the poster for the show. Well done Gielgud!

Bronzino

Agnolo Bronzino (or Agnolo di Cosimo) was a Florentine painter in the 1500s, a painter I've never really paid much attention to and have glanced at his paintings in galleries (such as the famous 'Allegory with Venus and Cupid' in the National Gallery). I've never really 'looked' at his paintings - they're all very professional with clear, smooth surfaces, but not really anything out of the ordinary, at least to my eyes (although this Allegory is rather strange in composition).

He was clearly a very good painter but, then again. there have been lots of very good painters. It usually takes that something extra to make me actually 'notice' a painter and start looking at their works in a different light. That's what happened with Bronzino.

I first 'noticed' Bronzino at the very good 'Charles I' exhibition at the Royal Academy earlier this year which featured loads of works from his collection. Including a painting by Bronzino, 'Portrait of a Woman in Green'. When I saw this painting form across the room I had to take a closer look. It's a portrait of a woman, a real life, living and breathing woman, in amazing detail that brings her to life - give her modern day clothes to wear and you could see her on a bus any day of the week. Looking at that sumptuous gown and I put it in the category of 'show off' paintings with Bronzino saying 'look what I can do so effortlessly, commission me and I'll do the same for you'.  I went back a couple of times to see that painting before leaving the exhibition. Bronzino was now on my radar.

A few months later, I went to Florence, not looking for Bronzinos but I couldn't help but find them in his home town.

The first painting I found was at the marvellous basilica of Santa Croce, a very large painting of 'The Descent of Christ into Limbo'. This was, apparently, one of the first acts of the risen Christ, to save the 'good' souls of people from their eternity in Limbo, starting with his forefather, Adam. We see an athletic Christ helping the old man out of the morass of bodies consigned to Limbo, surrounded by lots of other very individual-looking people - there's no homogenisation here. I think the thing that first attracted me to the painting was the skin tone - I'd recently finished a course in portrait painting and I'd started looking at paintings and wondering how they'd achieved different colours, wondering what paints had been mixed to arrive at those tones.

In particular, there's the two slightly elongated women in the front of the scene at bottom right, with one looking out at the viewer. I've got no idea who they're meant to be but they do pull the eye away from Christ. The skill that's gone into this painting is quite incredible.

A day or two later I went to the Uffizi to look at paintings and, in a small corridor, I found a series of paintings that Bronzino had completed of people in the Medici family.

The 'Portrait of Eleanor of Toledo and her Son' is gorgeous with that elaborate dress, the stately, almost stiff, pose, with her arm around her son. She looks impassive, an almost total lack of emotion in her face but it's an incredible rendering of a young woman at the peak of her almost cold beauty. Apparently she was aged 22 when this painting was made and that was one of her favourite dresses.

It's the detail of the face that kept me looking at this painting, the almost photographic realism that brings it to life.  What was she thinking while she sat there, probably wanting to be off doing something else while he son fidgets at her side. I think the frame is a bit too ornate and detracts form the beauty of the painting.

Another incredible portrait is that of Bia de Medici. The painting was commissioned after the child had died and is based on her death mask. It's a lovely little painting and, as ever, it's the details that add to the whole, like the hints of movement in her hands, almost as if she's fidgeting on the chair to get comfortable as she sits still for the painting, bringing her back to life. There's little emotion in the face but it's still a warm and welcoming portrait.

The rather impassive, if not cold, nature of his portrait faces seems to be a trademark of his particular style but that doesn't affect their beauty or the skill exhibited. You can't really look into the soul of his sitters, their faces are a mask which the real person hides behind. Does that matter? I don't think so.

There are a few paintings by Bronzino at the National Gallery and a painting attributed to his studio in the Wallace Collection so he's not under-represented in London. I'll certainly keep my eyes peeled for more when I'm wandering around galleries.

'The Inheritance' at the Noel Coward Theatre

'The Inheritance' is a new play in two parts by Matthew Lopez set in present day New York and which plays for over three hours each. That's a lot of play. It immediately draws comparisons with 'Angels In America' which is of similar length and, while the subject is broadly the same (the lives of young gay men) it's very different. I first heard about it a couple of years ago during a discussion panel that included Stephen Daldry (the director of the play) after a staged reading of 'Bent' at the National Theatre.

We had tickets to see it at the Young Vic on its original run but were there the night the electricity went off for some reason so were given tickets to see it on its West End transfer to the Noel Coward Theatre on St Martin's Lane. It's a bit of a marathon but it doesn't feel that long since it's so engaging and I'm so pleased to finally see it.

It's an epic tale - as it would be at over six hours - of Eric and Toby and the ups and downs of their lives. Long-term lovers, they live together in a rent-controlled apartment in Manhattan surrounded by good friends in a safe middle-class life. Eric works for a right on social enterprise and Toby is a writer whose first book is picked up as a play and their friend Adam is picked to play the lead on stage. Toby wants to sleep with rich-boy Adam and the relationship with Eric is wrecked. In the meantime, Eric has become good platonic friends with Walter, an older man and partner to rich Henry, who has an apartment upstairs in the building. And Toby finds down and out rent-boy Leo, who  looks like Adam and has a thirst for books and education.

Of course, it's not that straight forward and the play opens with a creative writing class with the group of friends all wondering how to start their novels. Luckily, EM Forster appears as their guide and inspiration and narrator of the first half of the play. Coincidentally, he's also Walter who has a house out in upstate New York where he helped young men with the HIV virus in the 'plague' years. There are lots of references to the 'plague' of the '80s and '90s, a time before the group of friends knew about it and understood the consequences.

There's a lot going on in this play which is deliberately modelled on EM Forster's 'Howard's End' and 'Maurice' while telling the story of modern day gay young men in the present time. The men are all middle class with good jobs and worthy politics, some married and a couple adopting a child, something unimaginable to the previous generation in the 'plague' years. Their freedom has come at a cost. In an angry exchange between Henry, the older man who wants to marry Eric, and the youngsters he shouts 'There are no gay men my age ... or not as many as there should be'  to throw the realty of his life at them, a life in which he might be rich but he's also a survivor of the 'plague'.

The only woman in the play is Margaret who's son died of HIV in the '80s at Walter's house and she's helped Walter look after his young proteges ever since, burying their ashes in the private grave yard in a grove of trees around his house. By the end of the play Leo has contracted HIV and Eric takes him to the house to wean him off drugs and sex work and help him recover and they meet Margaret who looks after the house.You could've heard a pin drop during the scene where Margaret tells Leo about holding her son's hand while he died in that house. That's class acting.

There are lots of scenes to pick out and say 'look at this' and 'this' and 'this' but that would spoil the play for you seeing it. It's a strange play in a way, with the characters narrating what's going on as well as acting it out and I think that's one of the strengths of the play, that it plays with the form rather than following it. There are also some very engaging performances with Kyle Soller and Andrew Burlap as Eric and Toby, Samuel H Levine as Adam/Leo, and Paul Hilton and John Benjamin Hickey as Walter and Henry. Vanessa Redgrave played Margaret. The play is directed by Stephen Daldry who was in the audience on both nights I attended and the writer, Matthew Lopez, was there when I saw part two of the play.

I liked the virtually empty set with a custom-built stage that raised or lowered depending on the scene, and I loved the cherry tree that appears from time to time. The lighting was excellent, sometimes crystal clear and sometimes warm and sultry. All told, it's a great production.

The audience was predominantly male, either in their '50s/'60s or '30s with the younger tending to be in groups. There was also a group of women in their '60s to make me feel embarrassed on their behalf with the talk of orgies. There's a lot of talk of explicit sex in the play and why not? it's part of life, after all. There's also talk about the recent American election and Trump to bring it slap bang up to date. Part of me wondered what the younger section of the audience really thought and understood about the 'plague' and everything that was going on back then.

This is a very good play with a great ensemble cast. I'm very pleased to have seen it and you should get tickets as soon as you can.

The Scottish National Galleries in Edinburgh

There are three Scottish National Galleries in Edinburgh: the Scottish National Gallery, The Scottich National Portrait Gallery and the Scottish Museum of Modern Art. The National Gallery and Portrait Gallery are about 10 minutes walk apart, with the Modern Art museum about 45 minutes walk away.

The Scottish National Gallery is a few hundred yards walk from Waverley Station, on the other side of the incredibly gothic memorial to Sir Walter Scott. It's small (-ish), but it really is quite lovely. The Renaissance rooms were closed for re-hanging when I was there otherwise my view might have been totally different. It has a nice selection of works, lots of Scottish themed works (as you'd expect) but lots of international works as well.

There were paintings of heroes and battles, of history and antiquity, a bit of this and a bit of that from named artists and those you've probably never heard of, but all interesting and worth seeing. I was enchanted by the painting of Oberon and Titania and their realm of fairy folks by Sir Noel Paton, a very Victorian fascination with the faerie world and Shakespeare. The rooms were smallish and comfortable and I was pleased it was so full on a weekday afternoon. Free entry helps, of course.

The best room, in my view. was the late 19th Century room of Impressionists and Post-Impressionists with it's Van Goghs and Sargent and Gaugin. I loved Vincent's twisted, tortured 'Cyprus Trees' and Sargent's beautiful and serene 'Lady Agnew of Lochnaw'. These paintings were worth seeing so why were there no postcards in the shop? So typical of galleries these days.

About 10 minutes walk across the road and over a hill (there are lots of hills in Edinburgh) is the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, a rather lovely gallery, much smaller than the National Portrait Gallery in London but, I think, better, Whenever I think of the London gallery I think of rooms full of old Victorian men with beards wearing black frock coats. That's not a real reflection of the gallery but it's what my head summons up about it. The Scottish gallery is full of colour and light and I loved the different colours on the walls, the strange range of portraits and the attempt to make them relevant to the viewer. I'm really pleased I visited the gallery.

The entrance hall was rather splendid, a painted Victorian gothic hall with statues of the Scottish great and the good, marvellous painted walls with their strange tales of an invented past. On the sides of the balcony is a procession of men and women through the ages leading up to the (present) Victorian day. I loved the hall and the incredible contrast with the very modern cafe through a door on the right. The entrance hall alone could be the subject of a blog post but I must move on to some of the paintings in the gallery rooms.

The first painting that grabbed my attention on entering the galleries proper was a portrait of 'Tom Derry or Durie' by Marcus Geeraerts the Younger dated 1614. What an astonishingly real portrait this is, especially for portraiture in this country at the time. Look at that face. That man lived and could live today - watch out for him on the 159 bus tomorrow because he could be there, only dressed in a jacket and shirt rather than a ruff.

I also loved the full-length portrait of 'Kenneth Sutherland, 3rd Lord Duffs' by Richard Waitt with his wig and mini-kilt and his faithful hound. I couldn't help but crack a smile and wonder what on earth was going on back in those days to wear that get-up.

It was also a pleasure to see Dora Carrington's portrait of Lady Strachey (Lytton Strachey's mother) and the self-portrait by a young Duncan Grant.

All in all, I was very pleased with the Scottish National Galley, it's well curated and the works are well hung - there's something there for everyone to engage with. It's not just showing old paintings, it's trying to tell a story of particularly Scottish history through portraiture and it succeeds very well in doing that. It doesn't overdose on any particular period or theme but calmly moves the viewer forward through history into different coloured rooms with some great portraits. The shop beside the entrance hall has a great guide to the gallery with some lovely reproductions and text - I bought it. I think a lot of galleries could take lessons from this gallery. Well done people.

The third gallery was the Scottish Museum of Modern Art which is split over two buildings about 45 minutes walk outside the city centre, down roads of lovely old stone buildings but with the endless traffic of all modern cities. Having spent a lot more time in the Portrait Gallery than anticipated, I didn't have time to explore the modern art and focused on the Emil Nolde exhibition that I've already blogged about. It's in an old country house in its own grounds so is limited to what it can do by the architecture but I was impressed by the Nolde exhibition and, if that's an example of the kind of exhibitions it puts on, I'd be more than happy to return again. Preferably in sunshine rather than rain.

I'm very pleased to have visited the Scottish National Galleries and would be happy to explore them again, preferably when they're fully open next time. The Scottish Portrait Gallery was my favourite on this visit, for the colour and the story-telling, but I'd still like to see the Renaissance collection in the Scottish National Gallery. Next time...  

'The Importance Of Being Earnest' at the Vaudeville Theatre

Last week we went to see the last play in the year-long season of Oscar Wilde plays at the Vaudeville Theatre, 'The Importance of Being Earnest'. This is probably Oscar's best play, far more subtle and funny than his earlier plays and I can quite imagine him keeping a notebook specially for his wittiest lines to save them up for this play. It has all the social commentary and absurdity you expect from Mr Wilde and it's effortlessly funny. So why were there empty seats?

This is the tale of Jack who wants to marry Gwendolen but there's a problem since he's pretending to be called Ernest and his best friend Algie, Gwendolen's cousin, finds out there's something afoot and quizzes him about his life in the country. It turns out that Jack is upright Jack in the country but pretends to be his younger brother, the rake Ernest, in town. And that's where the confusions starts with Algie travelling down to the country to pretend to be Ernest and falls in love with Jack's ward, Cecily, and the story gets more complicated.

Of course, Jack is an orphan who was found in a handbag in Victoria station by a kindly old man who adopted him and left him his wealth. If we know anything about this play it's Dame Edith Evans' rising shout of 'a handbag????''. There's so much more to the play than just that line. There are twists and turns aplenty in this play and the production does them proud. Double identities, put upon servants, the power of money, society, town versus country and the clergy, it's all in there somewhere.

While the play is fab and some of the performances were great, I wasn't all that taken with the cast as a whole or with some of the direction. Sophie Thompson was a joy as Lady Bracknell and I loved her under-playing of the 'a handbag' line (you just know that most of the audience - including me - was expecting the Evans outburst at that point). Everything worked so well when Sophie was in control of what was happening on the stage. Less so when other characters and actors took the lead.

I wasn't terribly keen on the male leads and don't understand why Ernest turned into John Cleese in the 'Ministry of Silly Walks' in the final scenes with his silly and unnecessary jumping, and the young ladies could've done with some real backbone. That might be why there are some empty seats, it's the cast not the play.

Still, it's been a great year for this season and more theatres ought to take the plunge and dedicate a year to productions of a specific playwright. This season has demonstrated how effective this can be and it's been a breath of fresh air in the West End. Well done to Classic Spring and the Vaudeville, I hope to see more in the future!

Mantegna and Bellini exhibition at the National Gallery

The new exhibition at the National Gallery is a joint one about the paintings and drawings of Andrea Mantegna and Giovanni Bellini, brothers in law and painters from the second half of the 15th century in north eastern Italy. The National Gallery is lucky to have a number of their paintings in its collection including paintings of 'The Agony In The Garden' they each painted separately.

It was these 'compare and contrast' elements of the exhibition that I really liked. I'm very familiar with the two 'Agony in the Garden' paintings but it was interesting to see how they dealt with other themes, such as Christ's descent into Limbo and the 'Presentation of Christ in the Temple' - I really liked at the intricate detail in Mantegna's version, such as the gold thread on the hems of clothes. It was also good to see their different treatments of the Crucifixion.

Bellini's version is stripped back and personal, setting the scene in an Italian landscape whereas Mantegna's is a much bigger scene with crowds, a fainting Virgin and soldiers gambling at the foot of the cross. Same story but very different treatment.

One painting that really captured my attention was Bellini's 'Lamentation Over The Dead Christ' which, I think, was painted with ink on a base of gesso. A simple composition completed with a minimum of fuss but it is incredibly powerful. Just look at the faces of the three men in the background, how individual they are and admire the skill that takes. They're distinct from one another, not generic faces - those men lived.

As well as the inevitable religious paintings both artists lived at a time when the classics were being rediscovered and paintings on classical themes were popular so we have a number of those on display. There are three very large paintings by Mantegna that are part of his nine painting series on the 'Triumph of Caeser' (my favourite was the one with the elephants) which are full of classical detail. There is also Mantagna's 'Minerva Expelling The Vices From The Garden Of Virtue'.

I first noticed this mad painting while wandering around the Louvre a few years ago and it grabbed my attention - what on earth is going on here? what are these strange creatures and why is that fat man being carried away? I don't know the story this painting is telling and part of me doesn't want to know. I like the madness and mystery of it as a rather over-dressed warrior Minerva chases all the weirdos out of her garden.

Bellini also explored classical themes and my favourite was his 'Feast of the Gods' that later had bits added to it by Titian. Here we see the gods having an outdoor party in the woods and the men are feeling amorous, one with his hand at the crotch of his female companion and another lifting the hem of a sleeping woman's robe. I loved the satyr on the far left whose goats body seems to begin just under his bare bum. I wonder who commissioned this painting and what was specified in the contract?

There's a lot to see in this exhibition and it's worth taking your time to drink in the detail. There's a lovely catalogue in the exhibition shop but the postcards are a disappointment, only available as packs rather than individual cards. The National Gallery has done this for its last few exhibitions and that's a shame since everyone likes to take something home from an exhibition and postcards are ideal, but not necessarily a pack of them. I'll be returning to the exhibition again to see what else I can spy that I missed on this visit.

'The Merry Wives of Windsor' at the RSC Stratford-upon-Avon

Strangely, I'd never been to Stratford-upon-Avon, Shakespeare's home town, so when I did finally go I wanted to see a play and it so happened that 'The Merry Wives of Windsor' is on at the moment, a play I haven't seen before, so why not? This one seems to have been updated to Essex and has wheelie-bins, swimming pools, golf buggies and all sorts of modern stuff but it still hits its pompous mark. The mark is that everlasting epicurean rascal, Sir John Falstaff and everything he stands for. Poor Sir John.

Falstaff is a bit short of the readies so he cocks his hat at the two richest women in town, ignoring the fact that they're both married, because, after all, why let technicalities get in the way. He's a fine figure of a man, in the most rotund and beer-sodden meaning of man, so what's not to like. The two ladies are best friends and confide to each other that they've received letters from Sir John professing his love and, when they see the letters are identical, decide to play a prank on their would-be lover. Several pranks, in fact. And so falls our noble knight.

 Poor Sir John suffers indignity after indignity but pursues his beloved - or rather her money - like a true Englishman and never gives up. It's this dogged persistence that means you've almost got to admire him, going back time and again to be humiliated but always with the hope of success. A bit like Brexit really.

His final humiliation is in the town square when he's dressed in furs and horns as Herne the Hunter and he's taunted by the great and good of the town. I'd question their goodness, to be honest, but this is Shakespeare. If you ignore the rather unpleasant bullying and humiliating of one person then it's a very enjoyable play about relationships, social mores and gentlemen. For a Shakespeare comedy it even had me laughing and my favourite line was when, after asking for an egg to be in his beer in a time of need he asks for another beer and says he'll have "no pullet-sperm in my brewage". I went into one at that!

It was rude and so unsubtle it should win awards but, you know what? I enjoyed it immensely. Effective, simple sets and lighting, modernised language where appropriate, talk of wheelie-bins - it all worked for me. David Troughton was excellent as our Falstaff and he must be exhausted every night when he gets out of that fat-suit. I also liked Rebecca Lacey as a no-nonsense Mistress Page that reminded me of Prunella Scales. It was great fun and I'm pleased that I've seen it.

'Courtauld Impressionists' Exhibition at the National Gallery

I went to a members' preview of the new exhibition at the National Gallery about the Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings collected or payed for by the Courtauld family. It's made up of a selection of 40 paintings picked from the collections of the Courtauld Gallery, the National Gallery, the Tate collection and a few private collections. The exhibition is in three rooms normally assigned to the Impressionists in the National Gallery collection, and the paintings not associated with this exhibition are currently on show in the Central Hall of the Gallery.

I've seen the majority of the paintings many times - and so will you if you've visited the National Gallery or the Courtauld Gallery - but I haven't seen them hung in this particular way and that made it a very pleasant experience. They're hung by artist rather than chronologically or by theme and that added to the pleasure of seeing them showcased in the exhibition. So we have four Van Gogh's hung together and nine Cezannes, as well as other artists.

There were giant photos of some of the paintings hung in situ in the Courtauld's house before they found their way onto the walls of galleries and this was  bit of a thrill. Imagine being a visitor and being able to see all these glorious paintings, maybe even touching them? Wouldn't that be an amazing experience?

There are paintings (and sometimes rows of paintings) by Manet and Monet, Renoir, Degas, Pissaro, Seurat, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cezanne, Bonnard and more. It's not a huge exhibition by any means but there's a great selection of paintings, all of which can be traced back to the Courtauld family. It's nice to see the notes telling us that 'X' was the first by him in the collection or that 'Y' was bought several months after it was completed. It's one of the things about 'modern' art that so much is documented about it that you can trace it back to the studio on a specific date in some cases to provide a history.

The exhibition coincides with the closure of the Courtauld Gallery for two years while it refurbishes the building, so it's one way of seeing some of its great collection in the paint (always so much better than seeing reproductions). It's also very nice to see the collections of different galleries 'merged' in this way so you see the works by the artist as specifically collected by someone rather than just a random hang on a gallery wall (if they're ever 'randomly' hung!).

The exhibition opens on Monday 17 September and is bound to be popular so book your tickets in advance.

Fra Angelico Exhibition at the Prado in Madrid in 2019

Next year will see a new Fra Angelico exhibition as part of the Prado's 200th anniversary celebrations. Called, 'Fra Angelico and the Rise of the Florentine Renaissance', the exhibition seems to use the good Fra as the jumping off point for the exhibition and will focus on his two masterpieces in the Prado collection, the 'Annunciation' altarpiece and the recently acquired 'Virgin with the Pomegranate' (or 'Alba Madonna').

The exhibition has only just been announced so there aren't many details yet but click on the exhibition page on the Prado website. The exhibition will be on from 28 May - 15 September 2019.