Pippin at Menier Chocolate Factory

After the disappointment of Les Miserables my attempt to find a decent musical took me to an unknown theatre to see an unknown show.

It is something of a mystery how the Menier Chocolate Factory had managed to escape my attention for so long; not only did I use to work literally around the corner in Southwark Bridge Road but shows there have appealed to me before.

The advance blurb for Pippin suggested something special and unusual, and I like special and unusual.

To clinch the deal was the offer of (slight) reductions during the preview period. The still meant shelling out the best part of £40 which is about twice my usual limit.

The theatre is staged in a glorious Victorian building that, surprisingly, used to be a chocolate factory.

Now it is home to a bustling attractive restaurant, a gallery and a theatre with its own bar.

For some reason the entrance as at the side and the route to it involves a clamber over an uneven and narrow path.

Once inside the path to the theatre winds through the restaurant and then down a short corridor that looks as though it might be leading to the toilets.

The bar area, which also hosts the box office, opens up like a Christmas Aunt's arms. There's plenty of space, reasonable seating and warm spicy cider.

The bell goes shortly before the performance starts and it's an orderly rush to the theatre as, unusually for somewhere this size, the seats are numbered.

The route to the theatre is down another corridor that bends slightly. Along the way the walls are strewn with posters for computer games and the like so you think that you are walking through a student's bedroom.

I was delighted to see included a reproduction of a cover of the Marvel comic Tomb of Dracula. This was drawn by Gene Colan who died earlier this year.

Convincing you that this is a student's room there is a student in one corner doing something with a PC that involves making noise.

The first impression of the theatre is one of confusion. The stage is across one corner, almost triangular, and the seating is defined by rows of foot-wells with the seats the same height as the stage. I had a seat in row B which is, of course, the front row.

The stage was brutally bare with little more than a concrete pillar on it. Computer directed lights drew lines along the edges of the stage and the steps as if to emphasise the strangeness of the shape of the stage.

Then the magic started.

The walls proved to be porous and the players suddenly appeared from all directions. This set the tone for the evening with the performance built on a foundation of intricate, clever and spellbinding theatre technology.

But let's get to the story.

Pippin is the eldest son of heir to the throne of Charlemagne. He is not war-minded like his father and is unsure what direction his life should take. He tries many things, including war, over throwing his father, the priesthood, family life and art before reaching his journey's end.

When Pippin arrives on stage we realise that he was the student that we squeezed past outside. A nice touch.

The music is very musically and there's enough repetition of the main songs for you to remember them afterwards. The only low-point comes when the audience is encouraged to join in singing a chorus when displaying the words does little to encourage participation. This is England and this was too much of a middle-class audience for that to work.

The computer generated effects make several appearances as if to remind you that the direction is the point of the show. One highlight, among several, is when Pippin fences against a shadow figure.

There's quite a bit of dancing and acrobatic movement too and the cast make good use of the small and unusual space. Ladders are climbed and swung from, holes are leaped in to and steps are ascended.

The combination of the story,  the movement, the music, the singing and the set cleverness was captivating, thrilling, amazing and, above all else, entertaining. Pippin is a great show.

Forgotten Spaces at Somerset House

Forgotten Spaces is just my sort of exhibition, and I came across it by chance.

I was planning a visit to RIBA recently and found out about Forgotten Spaces on their website. I could not see it when I went to the RIBA buildings because this is being held some distance away at Somerset House, which is worth a visit by itself.

And, even better than it, the exhibition is in disused tunnels and coals holes under the cobbles courtyard that now plays host to one of London's many ice-rinks.

I would have enjoyed exploring those spaces even if there had not been an exhibition on.

To add to the amusement and sense of exploration Somerset House does not exactly go out of its way to show how to get to the exhibition, or even that it is on.

For future reference you go to the entrance nearest the river and head downstairs. There you find a world of brick and dark corridors. Think Gormenghast.

In the Stygian depths there are spots of soft light to draw attention to posters and models.

These illustrate some of the forgotten spaces of London, the theme of the exhibition.

Each forgotten desolate and derelict space has the prospect of a bright useful and sustainable future and the posters and models show how this could be achieved.

One of the nice things about the proposals is their variety. There are spaces for bees, vegetables, games, walking, resting, sleeping and working.

One of my favourite ideas, and one I really want to see built, is for an Urban Climbing Tunnel in Clapham where you climb, or abseil, down a shaft then crawl your way back to the surface.

There is something especially delightful about seeing this idea when underground. It kind of makes the point of how attractive that space could be.

One of the ideas is to rebuild the former BR station at Highgate that sits above the underground station there.

This came as some surprise to me as on my few visits to Highgate this year I've used the tube without realising that a forgotten space was there.

But that's what being a forgotten space means.

The exhibition starts in former coal holes that sit on the edge of the courtyard but then it gets braver and heads into a broad tunnel that goes right under the courtyard.

In the tunnel there are further recesses that could have been coal holes but it is more exciting to think of them as former prison cells.

Large pipes, sturdy pillars and weak lighting hark back to the tunnel's industrial past. These spaces once had a real purpose much like warehouses did before loft living was invented.

The sunken passageway around the courtyard does its best to join the exhibition by showing you how a forgotten space like this can be brought to life.

Perhaps the most positive thing about the exhibition was the number of people who were clever enough and interested enough to find it.

The place was really busy, mostly with twenty-somethings, and that bodes well for the future of all forgotten spaces, not just those on display here.

Forgotten Spaces is an exciting exhibition housed in an exciting place and it tells a positive story of regeneration and reuse. This may be the best exhibition on in London at the moment.

Discovering the Cartoon Museum

It is to my eternal shame that I had not been to the Cartoon Museum before.

I love comics and cartoons, I have books on their history, I go to talks about them and I have been notified of special exhibitions there. Yet somehow I never quite got there.

And it was by accident that I got there this time.

After a visit to the British Museum I was in The Plough and was using Foursquare to let Twitter know that I was there when it helpfully pointed out that the Cartoon Museum was nearby.

Very nearby. It's next door. And it's free if you have an Art Fund card.

Inside is a small but busy gallery spread over two floors charting the history of cartoons with the occasional foray in to comics.

You are more likely to find Andy Capp here than Superman. And I like that as characters like Andy Capp are part of our culture and my history.

Rupert Bear was a much larger part of my history so it was good to see him here too and his anthropomorphic rival Teddy Tail.

Punch also featured in my formative years and I was reminded of this by a Honeysett cartoon.
I still recall vividly some of the things that he did for Punch such as the old bloke passed out on the floor in a pub during a drinking competition with one of his equally old friends saying that was odd as he had been all right during the lunchtime practise session.

The Cloggies are in there too.

If you like cartoons and comics as much as I do then this is not a museum that you can browse quickly, every drawing demands and deserves attention. That means reading the helpful note that goes with each one too.

A minor detour from the pub turned in to a forty five minute quick browse that left me keen to return soon to wallow at a more leisurely pace.

I regret not having been to the Cartoon Museum before, and missing the Dr Who exhibition was a serious fault, but I have learned my lesson and I left the museum older and wiser. And happier.

Japanese collection at the British Museum

I have worked near to the British Museum at times for a total of some years yet it has never managed to pull me in to its clutches in any meaningful way.

Most of the times that I have been there have been to use it as an attractive route when walking north/south in that area.

These walks take me through the central courtyard that always gives pause to the journey and compels an upward glance or two at the geometric beauty of the new roof that crafts a gorgeous room below.

I wanted to pay a serious visit to the museum as I have been visiting several museums and galleries recently and the final spur was an informal guided tour arranged by the Arts Link Meetup Group.

One of things that kept me away from the British Museum was the daunting task of where to start and what to see. Going with an arranged tour solved that.

Twenty or so of us headed up to the fourth floor and the Japanese collection which is spread over three rooms.

Welcoming you in to the first room is a life-size standing Buddha.

Luckily there is also a large diagram and notice that give a summary of Japanese history that I knew little about apart from the Samurai stories and the invasions of China that I heard so much about when in China.

The defining feature of Japanese history is that they have deliberately kept the rest of the world at arms length and so their culture developed almost completely independently, the ingress of Buddhism and the excursions in to China being two notable exceptions.

Japan is also the place where the earthenware pot was first invented.

A year or so ago that would have been a complete surprise for me, I would have guessed the Middle East, but the secret was let out in the landmark Radio 4 series A History of the World in 100 Objects.

The oldest pots are 7,000 years old.

Most of the pottery on display is functional rather than decorative with a notable exception being a pair of white elephants. These were enhanced by our guide explaining that white elephants were considered sacred and so were not worked, hence the phrase a white elephant meaning something that has no worth.

There were decorative arts on display in the form of drawings and prints.

The summoning of a skeletal ghost may not have been typical of the drawings on display but it was the most eye-catching. Actually it was the second most eye-catching but while I lived the Astro Boy poster I felt it more appropriate to feature something a little older.

The three rooms are a little Spartan and lacking in the expected samurai relics, there is only one suit and that is an amalgam of several suits from different ages and styles, and the display verges on disappointment. It was rescued from this by our guide and somehow the scant relics kept us entertained for forty minutes or so.

An unexpected treat was to be found in the floor below.

Manga at the British Museum, drawings by Hoshino Yukinobu is a display of some of the original drawings from the manga series Professor Munakata’s British Museum Adventure.

The story includes famous exhibits from the museum, such as the Rosetta Stone, and I am hoping that the book may give me suggestions for other parts of the museum to visit on future occasions.

All I need to do know is to persuade somebody to buy me the book.

The slight detour over I rejoined the rest of the group that had moved on from the museum and taken up residence in the upstairs room at The Plough.

I am still not completely convinced by the British Museum and it may take another guided tour to get me there, however, this visit did all that I hoped that it would and it has made it more likely that I'll return.

The Unrest Cure at Pentameters

I came to this by a circuitous route.

A Space Rock contact told me about a Robert Calvert play that was being performed at Pentameters, a small theatre in Hampstead unknown to me at the time.

Sadly I was unable to go but being very interested in small theatres that are unknown to me I kept an eye on what else they were doing.

When I saw The Unrest Cure announced the clincher was that it was set in Chickerell, West Dorset. This is where I went to secondary school and having lived in Weymouth for around 25 years it's a part of the country that I know very well.

I later discovered that one of the plays co-authors, Rob Groves, went to the same school and while we never met there he does remember my Dad who taught him Geography at some point.

The scene set, I headed for Hampstead for the very first time. It's quaint and hilly but I fail to see what all the fuss is about. Give me loft living by a dock any day.

The theatre is above The Horseshoe, an absolutely typical gastro pub with high-end prices. A nice enough place to savour some cauliflower soup and a beer before the show.

The entrance to the theatre is from the side of the pub and is through an impressive doorway with Pentameters above it. Things take a turn towards student accommodation after that as you climb a narrow wooden staircase up to a cluttered landing and enter the small room via the ticket booth.

There before you is a period reception room assembled on a slightly raised stage. It is free seating and I was early enough to get the usual front-row seat.

The play is a light whimsical tale of an middle-aged brother and sister who have settled too early in to their ways running a hotel.

A chance overheard conversation on a train suggests to an younger upper-class brother and sister that they should provide the hotel owners with an unrest cure to add some excitement to their lives.

The unrest comes from acting the part of royal aides and claiming the the Prince of Wales (who is the area opening a new power station) will be staying at the hotel for the night. The PoW also has some unusual demands such as no meat on the premises, no cats and no Cornish people.

The young couple's plans to scarper before the anticipated arrival of the PoW are thrown in to disarray by the unexpected arrival of somebody else, pandemonium follows and is followed by a happy ending.

The Unrest Cure is a delightful comedy of characters and circumstances. The plot is believable, simple and twists nicely. The characters are bold and bright, from the overwhelmed hotel proprietor to the lordly Lord Abbotsbury, and all the cast play their parts well in bring the diverse characters to life.

The story is a treat with gems like the disposal of the cat and rose-petal dance to greet the PoW's arrival.The dialogue delivers a steady stream of gentle mirth punctured with plenty of laugh out loud moments, such as the announcement by Lord Abbotsbury that he much prefers the works of Wodehouse to (local hero) Thomas Hardy because Wodehouse writes about real people, "people like us".

The Unrest Cure is marvellously entertaining and is a heartening example of what smaller theatres can do with unfamiliar writers and actors. A joy to watch.