Sparks at Royal Albert Hall (30 May 23)

On my second visit in two days to see Sparks at Royal Albert Hall I was only a few seats away from where I was the day before, Rausing Circle Row 1 Seats 94-5, and this time I was with my froend, and long-time Sparks companion, Peter.

We travelled up from Ham together and the efficient public transport got us to RAH in time to inspect the merch (Peter bought some stuff) and to get a couple of beers. The Greene King session IPA had been good enough on the first night to have it again on the second.

The evening went much as it had on the Monday with the same timings and almost the same set, though I was pleased to see Veronica Lake make the selection this time.

 

Perhaps it was a little more familiarity with the new songs or perhaps I was just in a better mood (walking there on Monday may not have been the best idea) but, whatever the reason, I enjoyed the concert even more than I had the day before, and I had loved that one. 

Sparks did everything a Sparks fan coule have wanted them to do, as always, and that is why we are already hoping for another tour (or two) before they decide to retire gracefully.

Sparks at Royal Albert Hall (29 May 23)

Obviously I was going to go to see Sparks when they announced a couple of concerts at Royal Albert Hall (RAH) and the only question was who to go with on which dates, assuming that I could get tickets.

I do not know if it was because of Sparks' increasing fame or the draw of RAH but getting tickets was much harder than I expected. I was on the RAH website the second public booking opened only to find the stalls and the first two circles already sold out! That left me with the uppermost seated circle where the good news was that the front row was available so I got three seats, Rausing Circle Row 1 Seats 120-22, for £50 each with all fees included. A bit more than I had paid before to see Sparks, Roundhouse a year earlier was £43, but significantly less than the sold out sections. I had not sat in that part of RAH before but was happy with the seat and the price.

Having got three seats it made sense to take Julia and Julie, who I had first met at a Sparks gig.

We all met at South Ken to eat having made our ways there separately; Julia got the tube from Richmond, Julie came down from Oxford and went to V&A first, and I walked there.

We got to RAH just before 7pm and I grabbed a pint before we all went into the hall and continued our chatting until the support came on. Mr.B The Gentleman Rhymer did a fairly short session in a Bonzo Dog style enhanced by including a medley of Sparks songs.

8:30pm at Sparks entered to rapturous applause and much cheering.

The setlist was very different from the last time that I saw them as they had a new album, The Girl is Crying in Her Latte , to promote but the style was just the same and was just what all the fans wanted.

Russel spoke quite a bit and danced a lot, Ron sat mostly motionless rising only twice to sing/speak part of one song and, as expected, to perform the legendary Ron Dance.

It was all excellent, and ended on an exceedingly high note with the sequence When Do I Get to Sing "My Way",  The Number One Song in Heaven and This Town Ain't Big Enough for Both of Us. They could have played just those three songs and I would have been happy.

Somehow they managed to keep that level up with an encore that included My Baby's Taking Me Home and finally finished with All That (from their previous album A Steady Drip, Drip, Drip) which I think will be a mainstay of their set from now on; I had my phone's torchlight on for that one.

Yes at the Royal Albert Hall

It was a somewhat tortuous route of my own making that got me to see Yes in concert at the Royal Albert Hall.

I was slow to get tickets through indecision and then they sold out. I checked again much later and some gaps had appeared and when I finally convinced myself that I did want to go there was a brilliant seat available in the Loggia Stalls near the centre.

I am not sure why it took me so long to decide to go as my interest in Yes goes right back to the mid-70's and I had not seen them in concert before. Perhaps I was put off by my one Bob Dylan concert where another life-long idol failed to live up to my estimation or perhaps it was the line-up with no Jon Anderson or Rick Wakeman (who, incidentally, I had seen on an "evening with" tour).

It was obvious that my reservations were not shared and the Albert Hall was packed.

Not only was it busy but everybody seemed desperate to buy a t-shirt too and the merch stand was very busy despite being well staffed. I joined in and after some thinking I settled for the tour shirt based on the Yes Album cover. I like green.

My seat in the Loggia Stalls was even better than I expected from the booking process. It was virtually in the centre and was set a little above the stalls so it did not matter how tall the person in front of me was. I settled down in to my comfortable seat and prepared to be entertained.

The evening had a few surprises all of which worked out for the better.

The set-list was known in advance as Yes were playing three albums in their entirety, The Yes Album (1971), Close to the Edge (1972) and Going for the One (1977). However, I expected them in that order but Yes played them in the sequence Close to the Edge, Going for the One, interval, and then The Yes Album. That meant that they finished with what is arguably the most important of those albums.

The biggest surprise for me was the audience. Based somewhat on other concerts, and Roger Waters' in particular, I had expected a lot of loud singing-along, some shouting, a bit of dancing and a lot of talking. Not a bit of it. This lot were as well behaved as any at Glyndebourne. Until the encore anyway and you are meant to be a little lively then.

So having gone expecting to have my evening disturbed throughout I was, instead, able to relax and enjoy the music.

And what good music it was.

Jon Davison on vocals was close enough to the distinctive sound of Jon Anderson for the difference not to matter. Geoff Downes (keyboards) had been with Yes/Asia for so long that he almost counted as an original member. Then there were Alan White (drums), Chris Squire (bass) and Steve Howe (lead guitar) who had been there for all, or almost all, of Yes' long journey.

The first two albums were played pretty much to their original recordings and The Yes Album was extended slightly in places, which everybody was very pleased about.

I fought hard to be as well behaved as everybody else and managed to curtail my wish to sing to just mouthing the words and reduced my desired movements to just a bit of foot tapping and head shaking.

There was an encore, of course, and it had to be Roundabout; hence the Fragile image above.

The concert was as near to perfect as makes no difference. These were three stunning Yes albums that I have kept playing (and buying) since they came out played by a group that were both technically and artistically proficient.

Next time I'll be quicker to buy tickets.

Carmen at the Royal Albert Hall

If Swan Lake is the definitive ballet then Carmen is the definitive opera. It has the story and the songs to justify that claim.

I have seen a few very different versions of Carmen in recent years, including two dance versions, and this was the chance to see it performed as a "normal" opera.

Well, not that normal. This was at the Royal Albert Hall and I expected, and saw, a performance that put a lot of emphasis on the staging to make a spectacular show. This is the first time I have seen people juggling fire in Carmen.

I had not given it much thought beforehand, perhaps I should, so it was a surprise to discover that it was sung in English and there were no sur-titles.

I was on the uppermost level, the cheap seats, which gave a good view of the stage at the expense of some difficulty in hearing some of the singers. There were no problems listening to Don José whose voice was loud, clear and beautiful. He was the star of the show.

Carmen herself was not bad either and she had the advantage of looking like a gypsy seductress with black shoulder length wavy hair and head-turning looks. 

The stage was set in the round, understandable given the shape of the Royal Albert Hall, with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra filling a wedge to one side. They were superb too.

Perhaps it was the distraction of what was happening on the stage or I was just lucky to be sitting amongst educated people but the annoyances were less than usual. There was some whispering but that was all there was and these days that is remarkable. The lack of sweet wrappers was much appreciated.

The lack of sur-titles and the distance from the stage made some of the lines hard to follow (not with the impeccable Don José) so it was useful that I knew the story quite well. There were some minor liberties made with the story due to the restrictions of the staging, i.e. the difficulty of reconfiguring it to make different scenes, and they may also have caused me to lose the thread at times.

Carmen was at its best when it filled the stage with people and, literally, played to the crowd. It was less successful in the quieter moments when the distance was more of a problem but even then the delightful music from the orchestra shone through and the opera never seriously flagged.

I am not sure that I would rush back to the Royal Albert Hall to see another opera there as it takes an opera with the richness of Carmen to fill the large space, and there are not too many like that.

Mathematics of the Heart at Theatre 503

I was quite impressed by my first visit to Theatre 503 in Battersea.

The location on Battersea Park Road is conveniently connected to Clapham Junction by more buses than I knew there were.

It's above the Latchmere Pub which is nice enough despite having ideas above its station that are reflected in the remarkably high prices for everything. And a distinct lack of vegetarian options on the menu.

The theatre is reached by a period staircase from the pub and that takes you to an unexpectedly large and modern reception area. This feels like a proper theatre.

When the doors open a few more steps are climbed in to the theatre and then a few more back down to the front row. There your bum is the same height as the stage and your feet below it, just like at the Chocolate Menier Factory.

We are sitting in the living room of Dr Paul MacMillan, the mathematician in the title. He is a professor of Chaos Theory with an interest in storm patterns. He is not married but has a steady girl friend, Emma, a lawyer, who has her own place.

Things look fine, if slow, until his father dies bringing two new things in to his life.

The first is his brother, Chancer, who is, to put it simply, a layabout.

He sings in a band but that seems to be more for the fun than the money and he puts little effort in to furthering his career despite talking about making it big one day.

The other is a boat.

Their father made model boats and was working on a full-sized one when he died.

The boat is the hook to get the brothers talking about their shared past and their different impressions of it.

One ship-in-a-bottle had been a turning point for both of them. Paul broke it accidentally and Chancer saw the opportunity to impress his father by mending it only for Paul to trump him by discovering a mathematical trick.

Another complication arrives in the shapely shape of research student Zainab. Chancer takes an immediate shine to her, obviously not the first time that he does done this, and his persistent and exaggerated wooing soon works.

In turning his attention to the boat and the past, Paul neglects his future and Emma who wants their steady-state relationship to evolve. Another turning point comes when she thinks that the next step is being taken but Paul is oblivious to this and misses the moment.

The play is both poignant and funny and Kefi Chadwick can be proud of what she has achieved here. I also loved the Andy Warhol dress that she was wearing. It was nice to be able to congratulate her in person afterwards.

I am never scared to criticise a play where I feel it is necessary and it's necessary now.

Who on earth decided that a professor of mathematics should have a copy of Enid Blyton's Island of Adventure on his bookshelf? I have this edition myself and recognised Kiki the parrot immediately!

That intriguing blemish apart MOTH was a superb experience on all fronts; script, staging, acting and setting. Yet another example of why small theatre can be so much more rewarding than the sometimes canon fodder theatre of the West End.

Theatre 503 is a little gem that sits alongside the likes of Arcola and Jackson's Lane. This is why I live in London.

Cirque du Soleil's Totem at the Royal Albert Hall

I was obviously aware of Cirque du Soleil but somehow had not managed to get to a show before so when a ticket offer came up at work I took the opportunity.

Somehow I had also managed to miss the Royal Albert Hall since Paul Weller's Live Wood tour way back in 1993 so this was also an opportunity to renew acquaintances.

It was an after work event so the first priority was to find some food. The Hoop and Toy was far too busy, and the beer was not up to much either, so I headed round the corner to Sole Luna for an imaginative choice of a Fiorentina Pizza and a glass of wine that did the job.

Queen Victoria inconveniently built the Royal Albert Hall as some distance from any tube station so it was a lazy shuttle bus from South Ken to the venue that was already surrounded by then as people queued up at the various entrances that ring the building.

I had completely forgotten what the RAH looked like from the inside so I took a photo of it!

The RAH was the steep sides of an opera house with some stall seating sweeping towards the middle where the centre is hollowed out according to the needs of the show. This night it was a high stage for circus.

Clustered almost randomly around the stage were some other seats, just normal chairs placed there to fill the gaps, and I was in one of those with a good close-up view of the performance.

The little that I knew about Cirque du Soleil was that it was an old circus (sans animals) with a lot of emphasis on the presentation. Brash Las Vegas comes to genteel Knigtsbridge.

And that's rather what we got.

The Totem website makes claims that it was inspired by founding myths and traces the journey of the human species from its original amphibian state to its ultimate desire to fly but while that may have been the excuse for the linking pieces and some of the costumes the theme was, in all honesty, irrelevant to the proceedings.

The series of acts that we presented with were mostly familiar circus acts delivered with some style.

Some of the acts were more familiar than other and despite not having seen many circus acts before I was surprised at just home familiar they were. So while they were done well there was little to get excited about with the Chinese unicyclists, balancing pole or the foot jugglers. They all lacked the wow factor.

The second half was a lot better for me and three acts really stood out. First there were the roller skaters spinning quickly and wildly within a small circle and then the juggler who started normally but then moved in to an inverted cone and the act transformed in to something really special.

Last up was the Russian Bar, a cross between a trampoline and a balancing act that threw the performers high in to the air expecting them to land on a bendy plank. Somehow they did to the surprise and delight of an enthralled audience.

The whiz-bang finished helped to compensate for some of the formulaic acts that had gone before and lifted the evened overall from average to good. But not quite good enough to make me think about going back to see it again.