Discovering Banska Stiavnica

The Slovak Embassy in London is on bit of a roll at the moment and I was delighted to be back there recently for a presentation on the town of Banska Stiavnica, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

I did some research on the town prior to the event and had already adjusted my Summer holiday plans to include a few days there. The itinerary is now Berlin, Brno, Bratislava, Banska Stiavnica, Zilina and Prague, with at least one day and two nights at each place. All the travel is by train and one bus (are there really no international trains out of Prague?!).

The taste of Banska Stiavnica started as we waited patiently outside for the presentation to begin with some local dress, music, song and dance from a group of musicians.

Once inside we were treated to some wine and could enjoy the exhibitions of art in wood by Arpad Pal and some early Beatles photographs by Dezo Hoffmann.

The one low point was the couple who compèred the evening who went through a scripted and stilted fake conversation that reminded me of the infamous Fox/Fleetwood incident. But that was all that was wrong.

The good bits included a talk by Arpad Pal on his art, the return of the musicians with instruments similar to bagpipes and the didgeridoo, a talk on the sympathetic restoration of some of the town's old buildings, a welcoming talk by the mayor and more food and drink.

I had a fantastic time listening to the talks, mixing with some of my Czech/Slovak friends and meeting lots of new people.

I managed to corner all of the main speakers (not the compères!), got their business cards and agreed to meet up in July when I am over there.

I first fell in love with Czechosolvakia (as it was then) some nineteen years ago when working in Prague and I've been trotting back there regularly ever since. With places like Banska Stiavnica still to explore I can see me going back for quite a while to come. I may even move there.

Stitch up at the V&A

For second month in a row I was lured out on the last Friday to take advantage of the V&A's late night opening. Last month it was games and puzzles, this month it was quilts and sewing!

OK, so I did not actually do any of the sewing myself but I did witness hordes of women throwing themselves enthusiastically into various challenges with material and thread.

Instead I chose to trawl some of the open galleries starting, not for the first time, with the small but stimulating architecture section on the top floor by the main entrance.

My somewhat random ventures after that took me through a corridor of stained glass and silver and my attention was unceremoniously grabbed by some of the pieces of modern glass at the far end.

I am not religious but I don't mind iconography when it is as powerful as this. It helps that the overall effect is more abstract art than anything meaningful.

In almost complete contrast, the other highlight of the wanderings were some dresses made out of waste materials, such as crisp packets, that were designed by 14 year old girls.

It's these unexpected discoveries that make the V&A a constant joy.

Isabella Plantation (and zombies)

Richmond Park, with its sweeping hills thick with trees, grasses and ferns, hardly needs a garden to make it special but it has one anyway. Isabella Plantation, a short walk from Ham Gate, collects trees, bushes and shrubs around some small natural streams that trickle down to a duck pond by the entrance.

Isabella Plantation largely gives the impression that it has been left to grown on its own, and I've never seen a gardener at work there, but the many paths and the few trimmed bushes show that somebody has been busy at sometime.

One of the newer features to creep almost unnoticed in to the garden is another pond with its attendant water-loving plants and wildlife.

And in the middle-ground, a shock of red to remind you of the clumps of Azaleas that congregate in this part of the garden.

The discrete paths follow the streams and cross them frequently giving the impression of an overly complicated board game that involves something like collecting flowers, rescuing princesses from goblins or, more likely, disemboweling zombies.

Whatever games of imagination you want to play, Isabella Plantation is a great place to play them with its mysteries, colours and spaces.

Reggie Perrin Series 2 is promising

Series 2 of Reggie Perrin, the modern remake of the 70s classic, is now being filmed at Teddington Studios and I went to see it.

The studios, not surprisingly, are in Teddington on the river by the lock, and so it is easy for me to get there for recordings. It's little more than a 15 minute walk. I've seen a few things filmed there but not for a little while so I jumped at the chance to see Reggie Perrin with it's great cast and solid writing team.

Martin Clunes heads the cast and, frankly, dominates the show despite the good people behind him. But he plays the lead role so that is good.

He also added a lot to the filming with his bemused expressions at other actors' mistakes and his ad libs, sadly too rude to repeat here!

Series Two continues to mimic the 70's original without directly copying it so there are many familiar features and catch-phrases but a lot of new things too, such as the love interest for Reggie's wife.

The filming went well with only one fit of the giggles to extend the retakes, though most scenes were shot twice for little or no apparent reason.

We had a warm-up guy to keep us amused between takes but while he was quite good I am not sure that he was needed as the breaks were short, unlike at Karen Taylor where the breaks were so long at the warm-up guy got cold.

The humour in Reggie Perrin comes from the situation and the rich dialogue where every word is important, rather than from any overt punchlines or slapstick. This means that there are few audible laughs but the situation and the script sustain the comedy and the drama throughout and the show is well worth watching.

Taking Steps at the Orange Tree Theatre

Alan Ayckbourn's Taking Steps makes a welcome return to the Orange Tree Theatre under his own direction.

This is farce in its basic form with a small group of characters interwoven in each other's lives with increasing complexity and confusion to produce genuine laugh-out-loud moments throughout.

The steps that are being taken are those of a new bride leaving her husband but getting in the way of this are her brother, the woman who left him at the alter, the man who owns the house the husband wants to buy, the lawyer from out of town who has come to help with the deal and the ghost of a prostitute.

The plot complications include the return of brother's former fiancée (and the different expectations from this), ghostly noises from old plumbing, and mistakes made with sleeping pills and with the interpretation of notes.

All this happens in a large three story house that is cleverly laid out on one stage.

Here the bed and dressing table (far left) are in the master bedroom on the first floor and the two easy chairs are in the lounge on the ground floor. The little attic room is just off to the left. The (flat) stairs are on two sides of the stage (to the right and ahead).

This imaginative setting introduces its own comedy elements. For example, we can see the wife doing her dancing exercises in the bedroom while the people in the room below look up to see where the noise is coming from when, in real life, they are standing next to her.

This may sound confusing but you quickly get the idea of how it works and it all seems natural after that. Alan Ayckbourn's direction really succeeds here.

The small cast is engaging and (mostly) believable, the hard-working and hard-drinking rich husband particularly so. I also enjoyed the timid ex-fiancee and the incompetent lawyer.

The rich humour came from both the dialogue and, being a farce, characters not being aware of situations that we could all see, e.g. the girl hiding in the attic or the wife trying to sneak down the stairs.

There was a story too and that provided a place-holder for the humour for most of the two hours and twenty minutes before giving up and letting the farce do the work. There was an ending of sorts, or rather several endings as there was a big change for each character. Some of those endings were happy and some less so but they seemed to be more a way to bring the play to a close than to complete the story.

But the lack of a strong or believable story did little or nothing to detract from a play that simply did not need one to be funny. And Taking Steps was very funny.