Macbeth at Dock X

I have seen Macbeth numerous times and there has to be a pretty good reason to drag me out to see another version, and this production did that. Clearly Ralph Fiennes is a big attraction and I was also very tempted by the prospect of a staging in a performance space rather than a traditional theatre.

This was Julia's birthday treat so we pushed the boat out, quite a long way, and paid £85 each for our seats.

Dock X is in Canada Water which was convenient enough to get to (via dinner at Culture Grub by Waterloo) and a little difficult to find, we had to ask.

The venue was basic with bare concrete floors and simple seating in the auditorium. The stage was simple and raised and I had an excellent view of the whole stage ftom a corner position. I may have read my own biases into this but it looked more like an event audience than a theatre audience to me, e.g. it was much younger than I am used to for Shakespeare.

I was expecting the staging to do more than it did as the uniqueness of the production was billed as a key feature whereas I found it all very obvious. Indeed, productions like the one at National Theatre with Rory Kinnear in 2018 were much more experimental.

Essentially this was a standard production of Macbeth disguised as something more interesting.

Enough with the bad news, the production was probably the best Macbeth I have ever seen thanks to the production letting the words of Shakespeare do all the heavy lifting and to stellar performances by the two leads who gave those words the time and the space to flourish.

Israel is a terror state

Depressingly it is still necessary to show public support for Palestine despite the recent ICJ ruling against Israel as our government is still backing the wrong side and doing so with direct support, including weapons that are being used to kill civilians.

We started at Portland Place, home to the BBC but not our target, and took a simple route past Oxford Circus, Piccadilly Circus and Trafalgar Square before passing along Whitehall to Parliament Square.

Unlike all the previous marches there was an incident this time.

I was marching with the Socialist Workers Party group (I am not a member but am broadly supportive) and soon after we entered Haymarket a small Police snatch squad swooped in and took someone they had clearly targeted plus one other who got involved. The two were dragged into Panton Street where a line of police officers stopped us following. There were quite a few of us and the police called in several groups of reinforcement, though there was no physical contact.

For bout twenty minutes we chanted at them, things like "Let Her Go!", while they took lots of photographs of us. We were soon joined by some Legal Observers and also by several people giving out leaflets on what to do if arrested. It was good to see an organised response but worrying that police action made it necessary.

The stalemate was ended when the two were taken away in a van and we rejoined the march that had been carrying on behind us for all that time, despite us starting towards the back. There were a lot of people there.

Kew Orchids (2 Feb 24)

Kew Orchids 2024 officially opened on 3 Feb but members were given an early preview and I was happy to take up the offer. This year's festival followed the trend of recent years with fewer large displays and a strict one-way system which takes about half an hour, depending how often you stop to take photos.

This year's theme is Madagscar and while there are a few orchids from the island on display this mostly means that the animal sculptures are of the island, which works very well because of the unique environment there.

Having fewer orchids arranged less densly than previously meant that the flowers made more of an impact individually and it was easier to appreciate their unique characteristics. Orchids have been around for approximately 80 million years and over that time they have evolved into over 800 genera; that is a lot of variety.

 

One advatnage of the members' day was that it was quieter thnan usual and another is that coming at the very start of the month-long festoval it means that it will be worth going back again in a couple of weeks or so when different orchids will be in flower.