A Slow Fire at Jermyn Street Theatre

I try to see Simon Stephens'  plays whenever possible (and to write about them here) so when Jermyn Street Theatre (a favourite) announced A Slow Fire I was quick to pay my £28 for a central front-row seat (A5).

I got a bit distracted on the way there and left myself with little time to eat something beforehand so, yet again, I ended up in the pub around the corner, Three Crowns, where I had just about enough time to scoff a couple of starters and drink a pint of Level Head.

Having seen several Simon Stephens plays I am not sure that he has a style, other than swearing, but this still seemed different, possibly because of the post-apocalyptic setting.

The structure of the play fooled me immediately. The first scene had one of the two main characters try to prise the other man away from a gay relationship. I was not impressed by the acting at this point.

But the joke was on me. This was not the actors acting, this was their characters acting as they relived a hopeful scene from one of their lives. They acted out several scenes and had their favourites that they returned to. These scenes of hope were what kept them going in whatever bleak world they were living in.

And somebody was stealing railway tracks.

This strange but stable situation was rudely interrupted by two separate visitors and things changed.

It was not really a story, rather it was about real people in a series of weird situations and the characters, the actors who played them and Simon Stephens who wrote the words they said made it all work beautifully.

... later ...

I deliberately leave writing anything up to give me time to reflect and this time it took a little while for the obvious truth to dawn.

I was trying to categorise this play by thinking of something comparable and finally it hit me, this has the hallmarks of a Philip Ridley play and, to be specific, it owes an awful lot to The Pitchfork Disney, so much so that the connections must be deliberate on Stephens' part. Both have an odd couple living an isolated life in a dysfunctional world that is not explained, both have two visitors who shake things up, one of those visitors is decidedly weird vocally, there is a brother and sister and there is someone called Presley. All that cannot be a coincidence.

The relationship to The Pitchfork Disney was a nice bonus, a little easter egg for Ridley fans, and A Slow Fire remained superb play that was excellently delivered by all involved.

Tao of Glass at @sohoplace

The simple explanation is that this is a story with music about the making of this production and the Taoist ideas that inspired it.

To add to that the music is by Philip Glass and the writer/directot/performer is Phelim McDermott who had worked with Philip Glass previously on, amongst other things, several productions of Satyagraha and Akhnaten which I had seen and loved several times.

All that made Tao of Glass unmissable and I gladly paid £65 for my seat at @sohoplace, my first time there.

Given the nature of the narrative it is hand to describe sequentially, and that would serve no purpose anyway as it was not really a sequential story. The opening set the scene with Phelim McDermott talking from his seat in the audience as if he was also watching the show.

Narratively we heard various stories about his love of theatre, of Philip Glass' music, Taoist texts, an aborted opera and the show that replaced it, this one.

The narration was embellished with folded paper and puppetry, familiar from his production of Satyagraha, along with Philip Glass music composed for this show.

It was very much aimed at fans of Philip Glass, his music and themes he had explored before and as one of those I absolutely loved it. So did everyone else judging by the extended clapping and standing ovation at the end.

I have walked every street in Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea

I continue to use MapMyWalk to record where I have been when venturing to places new and CityStrides to keep track of all of the places that I have been.  

CityStrides tracks progress by London Borough and having previously walked every street in Kingston upon Thames, Richmond upon Thames and City of London, I have now also completed Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC).

Given its central location, I had walked through lots of RBKC over the years but it took significant effort to stretch that to every street. London is not a grid and planning the best way to cover every street in an area is a constant challenge and always requires some retracing of steps.

The character of the area varies widely, as you would expect. In the south of the Borough I had to content with many dead-end mews that I had to walk all the way to the end of only to turn around and walk all the way out again. In the north Westway, the railway lines out of Paddington and the canal were all formidable barriers to navigate.

I hope to do Westminster next which is a similar Borough with similar street layouts. I have managed 87% so far and it will take five or six trips there to finish it off; always presuming that I can, I have one road left to do in Hammersmith and Fulham but that was in a construction site when I last tried to walk it.

Sparks at Bournemouth International Centre

Seeing every possible Sparks gig in London was not enough to I went to see them in Bournemouth as well. The timing worked well with my sister's birthday and we dragged her along too as part of a celebratory weekend.

But first we had to get to Bournemouth and while the trains worked well (Richmond to Clapham to Bournemouth) the station is just outside of the town and we had to walk the mile and a bit in. For that I used GoJauntly to find a pretty route and that worked well.

We had to eat somewhere and failing to find anything along the way we went to Elevate Brassier and Bar within BIC which was excellent with good food, great service and superb value. If I ever make it back to BIC I will eat there again.

 

I had not been to BIC before so the seating arrangement was a surprise. We were in row E (£75.25) which was a level area; normally that would worry me but the stage was high enough for the tall people not to worry me.

The photo, taken during Ron and Russell's duet in Let's Get Funky, shows how good my view was.

While this was a seated area people kept getting up to dance and after a few false starts we all were. The video my sister supposedly took of me dancing is fake.

The setlist was the same as it was a few days earlier in Chelsea, as expected, and it was just as good musically this time round and the better seat made it a better show.

Stand-out songs were the usual singalongs When Do I Get to Sing "My Way", The Number One Song in Heaven and the closer All That. Of course they played  This Town Ain't Big Enough for Both of Us which went down a storm but, oddly, it is not one of my top favourites of theirs. It was also good to see the very political and (still) very topical  (Baby, Baby) Can I Invade Your Country from 2006.

Sparks always entertain mightily and I hope they live up to their promise of touring again soon.

Sparks at Royal Hospital Chelsea

Another year brings another Sparks tour and that meant going to their London date. There are rules.

Once again it was another eclectic venue, the Royal Hospital Chelsea (home of the Chelsea Flower Show) where they were appearing as part of the Live at Chelsea series of summer concerts.

I bought tickets the instant they went on general sale and bought the three best seats then available,, Block A Row G 14-16 for a shade under £300.  The view was good enough from there and the sound quality was excellent so no complaints.

The support act (!) was Chelsea Pensioner Singers who filled their time admirably, especially as they opened with It's a Sparks Show, a song which Sparks used to open their shows with until it was replaced by So May We Start from the film Annette.

The joining instructions did say "People are likely to choose to stand and dance within the seated area, particularly during upbeat numbers." which in practice meant that everyone in the front area, including us, stood up immediately Sparks came on stage.

For the next hour and a half or so it was non-stop dancing to a succession of great songs with a few newer less familiar ones scattered amongst the many familiar hits like This Town, No 1 Song and My Way. It was relentlessly excellent and even the brief power cut did nothing to dampen the mood.

And it is  only a week or so until I do it again in Bournemouth!