On changing from a Cineworld to an Odeon subscription

The third standalone cultural experience of the week is the opera Il Travatore which I saw on Tuesday the 31^st of January also the Cineworld Bolden. My previous visit to this cinema theatre to watch a relay had been an exasperating experience because as has happened many times before management failed to supervise the relay so that the lights were not turned off until the live performance had commenced and a member of the audience went out to complain to the staff. I gave the performance a zero rating in order to hopefully get through to management that although my continued attendance appeared assured because I enjoy the advantages of the unlimited card I was beginning the extra cost and time of combining cinema visits to the Odon Silverlink which requires the extra expenditure of going through the Tyne Tunnel with journeys to the Gateshead Metro shopping centre where the Odeon there has an Imax projection screen, now that the chain has also introduced its own  version of the unlimited card.

Although I will continue to make use the Vue cinemas in Croydon as my bank provides 6 free tickets a year as part of the account I also travel into London for the Cineworld’s at the 02 Dome and nearby East India Docks, and at Wandsworth via Clapham Junction Station and then a bus. I am looking forward to also experiencing Imax at the new Cineworld at the historic Empire in Leicester Square where there is a £2 premium for the visit plus the extra for the Imax screen. When it comes to Odeon’s nearest to Croydon is at Wimbledon where there is a direct link by tram which recently derailed causing several deaths and serious inquiries. There is course the world-famous Odeon Leicester Square, the huge Imax screen on the South Bank close to Waterloo and a couple of other in the city centre I have used.

 On my as frequent visits to Nottingham there is a Cineworld in the centre of the city there where I take the Tram from the free carpark at the Forest or the free bus from the car park in the southern part of the city near boots and the Riverside Travel Lodge where I stay when watch cricket at Trent Bridge. When staying at Mansfield Travel Lodge I will go to the Odeon to the south east of the shopping complex which also has a Sainsbury Supermarket and restaurants. On my less frequent visits to Brighton and Worthing there is a Cineworld with free parking at the Brighton marina centre and an Odeon where the horrendous car parking cost is always a factor assuming one is also prepared to join the queue when travelling from Worthing.  Thus, any decision to change monthly subscriptions will not be taken quickly but it became under serious consideration and I was therefore relieved that my complaints and possibly that from others was listened to this time and management is now giving special attention again to the live relays which take place at least once a week, sometimes two and this week exceptionally three. The Unlimited subscription also provides a reduction on over £6 on relays, 25% on ice creams, sweets, food and drink and a similar discount on local restaurants. I am yet to establish if there are similar discounts at the Odeon who have operated a points system where I still have an account.

Amadeus at the National and Cinema relay

On Thursday evening February 2^nd, having discovered only in the morning that there was to be a live relay of Amadeus from the National Theatre, I had hastily abandoned the intention to watch 2 Trainspotting and booked ticket for the performance at the Cineworld, Bolden, Tyne and Wear. I had been to see the production at the National Theatre on New Year’s Eve during my visit to London for the New Year. I had wondered if I would make the performance that day because of various industrial actions and road closures from mid-afternoon in preparation for embank firework display at midnight.

I had travelled early to London from East Croydon Station to Victoria Station and then taken the bus to Waterloo, walking the short distance to the theatre, arriving as the lunchtime menu became available. Getting a bench table for four in the restaurant area I had first enjoyed a bowl of soup with a small piece of baguette and then seeing the bowl of chips purchased for a child by a young couple nearby, had done likewise.

I had moved to a table in the main course to read a book but was soon joined by a couple of ladies of my generation who were anxious to arrange a taxi for the end of the performance a where they had previously seen a previous production in New York. It is one of the few joys of aging that strangers of all ages are willing to engage in conversation or show trust as I had been asked to keep an eye on their child by the young couple as they went to order their meal who spoke in an East European language, but spoke English better than most and from conversation had lived and worked in the capital for some time. The conversation had commenced when the child turned around saw me gave a big smile and wave, so I waved back!

I had also previously seen a theatre production of the Peter Shaffer play and the film in cinema theatre and on TV. The unusual nature of the National Production is that a black man Lucian Msmarti plays the central character of Salieri, and in an interview with Lucian shown before the cinema relay performance commenced he confronts those who have questioned his casting without seeing the show performance. On New Year’s Eve sitting at the back of the stalls without the benefit of close I considered his performance on of the greats of my lifetime ranking alongside that of Olivier as Archie Rice in the Entertainer and has one of the two auditoriums at the National named after him. The close on Thursday evening reinforced my first reaction that this was one of the great dominating stage performances which as he explained brought a depth of understanding that his deliberate successful attempt to first restrict the rise of Mozart and then to destroy his reputation and to prevent performances of his music, operas and his requiem mases was more a protest to God than against Mozart whose music he appreciated more than any other contemporary. The reality was at each step he took he own fame, fortune and power increased while Mozart’s work became more creative, revolutionary and eternal.

The performance of Adam Gillam as Mozart is also exceptional and he deserve being second centre stage at the end followed closely by Karla Crome as his wife. The second unusual feature of the production is having the 20 strong Southbank sinfonias as playing actors on the stage together with the six singers and the official 16 actors and integrated cast of 42 and which as members of orchestra explained, usual they sit near blending music with their neighbours to create the required sound, where not only are they without music but stand and move with no immediate awareness of the impact of the total sound on their audience.

On New Year’s Eve, having an end of row seat. The next vacant having returned and gained a credit for the adjacent seat. I had quickly made my way on what had been and remained an unpleasant damp afternoon back to Waterloo station and took the underground Jubilee line to Westminster and then a Circle/District line train to Victoria and where there was no difficulty getting a seat on an early evening one stop train back to East Croydon and the warmth of my Premier Room a few yards from the station. My car was parked on site and purchased some food and a cold drink from the adjacent Co-op for it too closed early. Having brought my printer, the lap top and note book I could check emails, news and watch TV. Breaking off for the firework from the annual Jools Holland show.

There was no such imperative to rush from Cineworld on Thursday evening  but I noted that the cast did not hang about for more that the two deserved curtain calls, if the National stage had a curtain. A special mention of Peter Schaffer who created this masterpiece of play whose prose also commands thoughtful attention but also uses the music to show Mozart’s development and how the music poured out from regardless of his circumstances until he appears to have struggled before getting perfect his memorials for humanity to grieve. I own a five CD collection of his Masses, The Horn and clarinet Concertos, both on vinyl and CD, plus the concerto for Flute and Harp, Alfred Brendal playing his piano concertos, operatic excerpts from several operas and the 34 excerpts two and a half hours of CDs titled Amadeus, the essential Mozart which has been filling my home for the great part of the day.

This House at the Garrick

I will begin my account of the weekend with the visit to the small Garrick Theatre which is in the Charing Cross Road a little way before Leicester Square underground station to experience the National Theatre production of This House. I and my companion travelled from East Croydon to Victoria in a one stop train at Clapham Junction and then went for 24 bus which stop on the far right as one exits to the right side with buses coming from Pimlico. It was necessary to stand for the first past of journey along Victoria Street and Whitehall, alighting at Trafalgar Square and arriving at the theatre with the opportunity to take seats.  There was time for a coffee and we enjoyed ice creams in the interval. Three decades ago (1979) I purchased a small paperback £4.95 which provides a brief note on every London Theatre, it location and a seating together with transport and list of restaurants and hotels in central London.

There are 675 seats listed a Royal and Upper circle and where I have been able to confirm there was a top tier proving another 125 seats but closed for some years. I had acquired two end of row seats in row G of the stalls with a large pillar next which mean the seat behind was not sold but by the time of curtain up the theatre appeared full with in addition several members of the public/or guests filling the onstage House of Commons balcony which was shared with musicians.  The Theatre is included in the 10 one hour TV documentary programmes on West End Theatres fronted by Sir Donald Sinden and Directed by his son with first appeared on Sly Arts in 2013, the same year as I experienced the play on a relay from the National Theatre. There were to have been 40 programmes in total but sadly Sir Donald died in 2014. The programmes were available on Sky for a while and DVDs were issued with some still available and some costing nearly £50. I have been to the Garrick once before in 1979 to see the Noel Coward play The Vortex.

I have the programme notes for the National Theatre production but cannot locate the date when the relay was experienced. The revival of the play by James Graham is timely because most the Major and now May Government is small and because of some coincidences of issues. However, the focus is on the second Labour government of Harold Wilson 1974-1976 followed by Jim Callaghan of1976-1979 and the challenge faced in getting through Government legislation particularly after the new Tory Leader Margaret Thatcher removed the arrangement to Pair, enabling the balance of power to remain between government and opposition when Members are ill or required leave for family reasons as well as those absent on Government or on official business.

The situation arose because on the 27^th May 1976 the allegation was made that a Member who had been agreed would Pair voted and a Speaker’s Ruling was reversed by one vote. Michael Heseltine, Opposition Industry spokesman made the unprecedented act of removing the Speaker’s Mace which is required to be in place for the House of Commons to conduct its business and the House was suspended and Mr Heseltine persuaded to apologise or risk exclusion. Looking back over the list of such situations during the past century it is noteworthy incidents appear to be grouped at different periods although further research would be necessary to establish if there are any common features to these situations.

It is possible to draw several conclusions from this play which I suggest have resonance to the here and now. On one hand, it is an important aspect of representative democracy in the UK that elected members of Parliament show respect and behave in an honourable way and that Parliament has the power to govern itself in this respect.   However, it is also important that the institution does not become self-protective to the extent that it forget its function to present the interests of all the constituents collectively irrespective of any other consideration.  This is difficult and at times complicated to achieve and was expressed brilliantly by Chris Bryant recently in a BBC Question Time programme who explained the dilemma he is in because as a fervent supporter of Remaining a part of the European Economic Community he was faced with the situation that some 70% of his constituents had voted to Leave, so what is he to do when the House of Commons can vote on substance.

There are similar conflicts which arise within Political Parties and Political Parties when Government which occurred when first the second Wilson Government was  in a minority relying on the votes of Opposition parties and where compromises were required on a range of issues to ensure that the Government did not fall in a motion of no confidence so the loyalty of all Members in paramount and where in the real situation the Member of Parliament was for Coventry South West,  Audrey Wise (born in Newcastle upon Tyne as the daughter to a Labour Councillor (nee Brown). Audrey was arrested on the picket line in the Grunewald dispute in which Asian women workers attempt to gain union recognition and she repeatedly defied her party Whip on matters where she felt the Party was wrong as did not represent the interests of her constituents.

There is a parallel with the performance of the present Labour Party Leader Jeremey Corbyn who persistently voted against the government of his party during the leadership of Tony Blair but where the Government majority was such that his rebellions and that of other colleagues did not affect the ability of the government to pass legislation. The other issue of significance is what lengths will a Party go to keep in power and where the play and history has a different perspective on the passing of a non-confidence vote which led to a General Election and Margaret Thatcher gaining power in 1979 and which brought ten years of attack on local government which I experienced at first hand as a Social Services Chief Officer although this was mild compared to ruthless ideological hatred of  public service which the Cameron Clegg coalition and which was put into full throttle when Cameron gained a majority in 2015 and where despite the rhetoric of Theresa May.

In the play the Government had repeatedly relied on the willingness of the member for Batley and Morley, Sir Alfred Broughton, a Cambridge graduate and a qualified doctor who had served in in the medical Corp of the Royal Airforce during World War II and who had been a local authority Councillor for three years on demob. He was willing to be in the precincts of the House and be walked through despite being at death’s door, but the Prime Minister, but in in the play, the Chief Labour Whip decided against and the motion of no confidence with tied by 310 votes to 310 with the Speaker obliged to vote in favour of motion by tradition thus the government was defeated. The Liberals who had been in coalition with the Government voted with the Tory Party as did the Scottish Nationalists and the Ulster Unionist party who were willing to support government if they agreed to an oil pipeline however in truth Callaghan had decided enough was enough because his repeated inability to pass government measures and the compromises which were required.

The play is also true to the characters in the Whips office at the time Bob Mellish 13^th of 14 children, a Docker who became a Major in the Far East during World War II, fell out with left wingers in his constituency, became a Privy Councillor and was made a Life Peer; Walter Harrison the Member of Parliament for Wakefield who had been a member of the West Riding County Council and Council Alderman before entering Parliament in 1964. Walter became expert as knowing what was going on in government and Parliament   mentioning at one moment he used to drink in the same pub attended by the drivers of the Ministers Official cars.  

It was Harrison who refused the offer of the Tory Deputy Chief Whip Bernard Wetherill to Pair when the decision was taken not to bring Broughton to the Commons and which if the offer had been accepted would have ended Wetherill’s political career, but he went on to become Speaker in House of Commons between 1983 and 1992. He had been apprenticed at a tailor in the family firm which moved to Saville Row, becoming a Director, Managing Director, and Chairman and which led to several jokes in the play.

The Labour Chief Whip Michael Cocks went to Silocoates School, Wakefield and then graduated at Bristol University becoming a teacher locally before Member of Parliament for Bristol West. He also became a Life Peer following deselection and being replaced by Dawn Primarolo but he went onto to become a Vice Chairman of the BBC. He remained a member of the Privy Council. Ann Taylor became the first woman senior Whip in 1977, having been educated in Bolton which she served as a Member of Parliament for Bolton West, after graduating at the University of Bradford. She held the seat until defeated by a Tory and then selected and winning at Dewsbury until standing down in 2005 after a Parliamentary career which saw become the Leader of the House of Commons and a Chief Whip, Chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee, and then as Life Peer she became a Defence Minister in House of Lords after the Brown reshuffle. The other notable member in the Whips Office representing the Conservatives was Sir Humphrey Atkins, a gentleman Tory, who served in the Royal Navy for 8 years between 1940 and 1948 and who resigned from Government with Lord Carrington over the invasion of the Falklands by Margaret Thatcher. He served as Secretary of State in Northern Ireland and became a life peer and member of the Privy Council before his death in 1996.  The play is great entertainment and as the lecturer in politics sitting behind me mentioned to his companion at one point its historical accuracy is good and there is lesson foe present Tory administration with a narrow overall majority and a Party split over the issue of Brexit and on Austerity.

The defeat of millionaire Zac Goldsmith by the Liberal Democrats overturning the 2015 23000 majority demonstrates the collective public will can change although too much must not be read into this result which provided the opportunity for the 70% who voted to Remain in the constituency to give Prime Minister Mrs May a severe warning that if she goes for a hard Brexit she will be defeated at a General Election and face a Tory split. The constituency has been Lib Dem until Zac could bring the family wealth and opposition to the 3rd Heathrow runway to gain a 4000 majority in 2010. Zac fought a dreadful racist slanted campaign in the London Mayoral election.

I had an end of row seat six rows from the stage with two seats empty in the row until a few seconds before the curtain was to rise when Michael Gove, former Secretary of State for Education and then at Justice (and Lord Chancellor) and candidate for Tory Party Leader and Prime Minister and the only contender not to be offered a Ministerial position, (and I assume his wife), took the seats.

On Sunday morning I returned from breakfast in my hotel and switched on the Andrew Marr show to find Michael Gove being interviewed and then closing the show with Emily Thornbury before Jools Holland played the music. Then this evening on return from seeing a film at West India dock and discovering Waitrose super store at one end of the Canary Wharf shopping malls I returned to the hotel and switched on the news to find a review of past events at Birmingham schools and Muslim education issues and one Michael Gove was showing making a statement to Parliament. Thus, Michel confirms there is life after political death for some. I presume a public relations firm was involved but I may be presuming too much. Then today Wednesday 30th November he was one of the few Tory party backbenchers who not only attended the Scottish Nationalists engineered debate on the Iraq War but spoke on the issue of should there be a new investigation into whether Tony Blair deceived parliament. The motion was overwhelmingly lost through the combined vote of Government and Labour Members

The Suppliant Woman Aeschylus

I marked the first week of November 2016 with two visits to live theatre, the Sunderland Empire and the Northern Stage, Newcastle and two visits to see films at the Cineworld, Bolden. I also watched two films on TV in addition the DVDs of the Opera AIDA 1989 and 2009.

I begin with my visit on Friday  November 4^th 2016 to Northern Stage, Newcastle, for a performance of a 2500-year-old play against forced marriage by 50 asylum seeking young women who cross the sea thus echoing the plight of the boatpeople of Vietnam recently reviewed in a cinema showing and video of Miss Saigon at the end of October and with thoughts on the latest 200 souls lost off the coast of Libya earlier this week together with thousands of young women forced into marriage, in the present, often still children, now as then.

I had booked end of aisle seat for-The Suppliant women by the Greek poet playwright Aeschylus at Northern State as part of a special two show package for £30 (The Season ticket being the other) and although noting that it was being interpreted as a play about a group of virgin young women seeking asylum and against forced married, I made no other preparation in advance of attending the performance.

I was not aware of the production history or the unique aspects of the production. I arrived early at the theatre having a good journey from Shields to Gateshead vis Jarrow and Hebburn to avoid the roadworks on the main road out of South Shields to the junction between the A1M and the Sunderland Gateshead and Newcastle road.  It was a cold night with the hint of rain so I quickly walked from the Tesco car park Gateshead to the Metro station, missing a train as I took the stairs to the platform, but fortunately another was due within minutes. I arrived early at the Haymarket station wanting to visit Marks and Spencer’s for three cartons of mixed olives for £7 and then found that the sandwich snack and coffee services was already closed. Fortunately, I could find a seat a find the last seat available but close to the stage 2 entrance where the automatic door opened constantly with the early 7pm start at stage 2, people going to the toilets and staff bringing food from the kitchen. I was able then to move to a two-person table later and observe the usual mix of eaters and drinkers, theatre patrons, university staff with families and the wealthier of the students as eating and drinking here includes a subsidy to theatrical productions and its other activities which provides for an ongoing community involvement.

The need for subsidy from the bar was brought out before the play commenced as a spokesman for the production introducing the person invited to give the libation explaining that for every £10 of ticket contribution, the audience paid £5, the arts Council from our taxation £4 and donors 50p hence the need an addition 50p at the bar. The libation to the Gods of Greece comprised emptying one bottle of red wine slowly along the front of the stage. My seat was four rows from the front but as the two next to me were occupied by large people I could sit immediately in front with space on my right enabling a woman also on her own take my original seat.

The special aspect of the production which first opened at the Lyceum Edinburgh, then in Belfast and then here in Newcstle was the recruitment of the chorus locally from anyone interested and available in the two age brackets of 16-26 for the young women and above an unstated age for the wise women. It is my understanding from the after show discussion that despite the varying abilities and varying previous amateur experience all wanting to participate could do so in all three cities. The Newcastle stage is open and theatre wide which provides great proximity and interaction with the audience, although limiting scenery and props compared to the traditional constructed theatres.

The play is presented as a chorus work creating a singing tempo with the use of the Greek Aulos wind instrument (Callum Armstrong) and Percussion (Ben Burton) which provided the period and the beat. John Browne who composed the music and directed and where the rhythmic movement was also essential (Choreographer Sasha Milavic Davis) and Director Ramin Grey knitting the production team together with professional actors and those recruited locally.  There were special vocal and movement coaches recruited for the Newcastle production (Marian Rezaei and Nadia Iftkar).

An issue taken up with the scripting by David Grieg who used an English Translation by Ian Ruffell was the extent to which the work was given a deliberate contemporary slant which at one level appears a degree of anti-men feminism unthinkable at the time the play was performed sometime after 470 BC and this led to find an online free full translation via Wikipedia via the Bacchicstage link as the first mentioned does not work and the second involves a fee. Marriage with the close family structure was normal at the time and a widow could be expected to marry her brother and which was designed to protect the family wealth, estates and power.

The play is based on Greek myth where in the legend Danaus who becomes King of Argos, a real place to this day, agrees in the end to the request that his daughter marry their first cousins but orders that the men be killed on the wedding night which all do except one and who in some versions are said she kills her father and take power with her husband. It is also alleged that those daughters with immediate suitors were to be auctioned off in a foot race to winners. There is also a play of the same name by Euripidies and which is also set in Argos and first performed in 423 BC.

In the play the chorus should have fifty daughters symbolically of one man (Danaus) fleeing from the requirement to marry the fifty sons of his brother. None of the productions managed to recruit the intended full cast of the daughters although the stated maids are presented in the production as the wise women who come on stage later in the production. The young women have fled across the sea from Egypt to an altar on a hill with statues of various Gods outside the walled city of Argos in Greece and where they are using olive branches adorned with white wool and they explain that they have fled because were being forced into a sinful marriage. Photos of present day Argos do show a temple site rising just above the present city located on a plain with the sea in the distance.

The daughters call on Zeus to look kindly on their innocent hearts with justice, to stand by and protect from the hateful marriages. They pray and in line 160 that they refer to themselves as the Suppliant Women.

Their symbolic father Danaus (played by Omar Ebrahim (and who also performs the role of the Egyptian Herald) who has accompanied them on the escape gives sound advice as the army from the city approach to inquiry about their visitors and when he suggests their show respect and humility as they are foreigners, hunted and in great need, but adding” The weak must never speak too freely,” having also commented that “the men here are easily offended.”  Given that originally the players were men to an all-male audience, the play can be interpreted as a warning to the men to be on constant guard against the emancipation of women. It must also be pointed out that slavery was natural in Greece and the personal maids accompanying the daughters would have been slaves.

The young King of Argos arrives (Oscar Batterham) and comments on their bravery coming without military support and sees the olive branches which mark them as Suppliants seeking protection). The young women explain they are being required to marry the sons of their father’s brother. They have come to Argos because it is there original homeland, reminding of the applications from the Calais refugees to join relatives already in the UK. The king is sympathetic but the decision will be that of the people through a referendum vote (of the eligible men)!

There is a unanimous vote in favour of providing hospitality and protection. Later the chorus call on the citizens to give them just rights and due process to the strangers at their gates. Then ships arrive from Egypt and the chorus warns that the daughters would rather hang from the noose than be touched by the men they hate. The Egyptian Herald arrives and threatens to drag them by the hair soaked in their own blood if they refuse to return voluntarily. The King asks the Herald if such dreadful behaviour reveals they are bereft of brains? The King is then accompanied by men from the army of the people to make sure he is not attacked as he warns the Herald the women have the protection of the people.

It is time for Danaus to give further advice to the young women-  Time will reveal the true nature of a foreign stranger. Scornful words are at the forefront of everyone’ s mind when it coma to strangers and they are easy to utter and easy for those evil words to stick. But I advise you to be careful and do not shame me, you are in the youth now, and age that attracts and pleases the eyes of men. Fruit that is ripe and ready for picking is hard to protect: both beasts and gods destroy it and why not? And - take care then that we don’t suffer what we have tried so hard to avoid. Struggle a crossing raging seas and distant lands. See that we bring no shame on us and thus make our enemies happy (line 1011). The production ends as the chorus comes to the edge of the stage and along both sides of the theatre and declares with Passion-Let Justice follow Justice, which was always my prayer to the Gods and that is our Liberation. The chorus was led by Gemma May

The play is performed without interval over 90 minutes which requires the chorus of amateurs to be on stage, to sing, chant and dance and remember the words without a break which is a great feat. The intention was to create a hypnotic switch from the present to a Greece of the past with and awareness of its resent significance. This was successful. On arrival in the auditorium an assistant hoped I would enjoy the play to which I could not resist saying that I did not think it was a play to enjoy. This made her think to question what word she should have used as much to herself as me. So, I suggested “think, challenge, become engaged, emotionally involved, and we had to stop the exchange as other arrived. I did enjoy the film experienced earlier that same morning although it had some challenging aspects-it engaged, it was entertaining, it was surprisingly funny using clever wit and it also had a serious aspect which provoked thought at the time and reflection since-. The Accountant.

The Entertainer

On Thursday October 27^th October, I made a third visit in three days to Cineworld Bolden for a relay of the Kenneth Branagh Theatre series in which he stars as Archie Rice, John Osborne’s Play the Entertainer, a role which Sir Lawrence Oliver made his own on stage and in a film production. The play has been part of my life for over 50 years first with the touring production at Croydon in 1958 with John Slater as Archie Rice. I also remember the 1960 film with Lawrence Oliver and which was subsequently shown on Television which I watched earlier on Amazon Prime.  There was a subsequent TV production but I only had brief visual memories of all previous experiences so the crude directness of the stage play performed by the Branagh company was something of a surprise, particularly racism, homophobia, anti-foreigner lecherous right-wing Archie and his nostalgic father, and where much of it was removed from the 1960 film version.

Archie Rice and his father are part of the traditional musical hall which ended in the fifties and the end of the pier Summer show which was revived in 1970’s and 1980 with performances by stars who made their names in television. My childhood seaside memories including being taken to the seaside shows, the De La Warr Pavilion at Bexhill on Sea comes to mind and in my middle age I went to shows at Scarborough and Great Yarmouth. Although the 1960’s film was made at Sheperton a large part of the film is at a coastal resort and at one of the huge open air swmming pools with tiered seating for spectators to watch shows and the beauty competitions. The end of prolonged second world war austerity, the temporary popularity of traditional jazz, the growth of rock and roll, the growth of television, the end of the Empire, the boom in cheap continental holidays, especially to Spain, the more discerning to Greece, Italy and the South of France, the British summer weather were all issues in this play which the play which coincides with the time of the ill-fated Suez War.

Archie discloses to his daughter Jean (played by Joan Plowright in the film for whom Olivier left world famous second wife actress Vivien Leigh wife of twenty years) that his first wife walked out when she found him in bed with his present wife and during the play Archie begins an affair with a girl the same age as his daughter because her father has the money to back his latest show venture. The actress Shirley Ann Field plays a beauty Queen with stage ambitions who Archie chases as just another conquest until finding out that her father is a businessman with money (this man’s wife is played by Thora Hird although what the trio are doing staying at a holiday camp is odd).

The play begins with the arrival of Jean to visit her father and grandfather having run away from a planned weekend trip with her fiancée because of perceived irreconcilable difference. The fiancé only appears at the end of the play but in the film, he takes centre stage, ridiculing his fiancé’s work, critical of her family and her opposition to the Suez War, having joined the in large central London protest at the time against the action of Prime Minister Anthony Eden jointly with France but not supported by the USA after Egypt’s nationalist leader Colonel Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal, recognised China and made a bid to become the leader of the Arab States. The lack of USA support and opposition at home led to the withdrawal and a major blow to the standing in the world of the UK and national pride until the success of the Falkland’s venture although this came at a high price.

Archie has two sons played in the film by two of the UK’s finest film actors who also had careers on stage and on TV. I have seen nearly all the thirty fiveish films of Alan Bates who was born five years before me and died in 2003. He had first made his in mark on stage in John Osborn’s successful launching the era of the Angry Young Man play Look Back in Anger and Alan became a household name with his film performance Whistle down the Wind with the daughter of John Mills, Haley. In the Entertainer Alan plays a national service conscience objector sentenced to six-month imprisonment and who works as a hospital porter and in the film, he is a stage manager. I have seen Alan Bates in one London Stage play Still Life

The other son who is doing his national service is not seen in the play but is given a role in the film with a send-off at a station by his sister and fiancé. This is the first film role by Albert Finney in a part as a carefree fatalist what will be will be. The capture of this son becomes national news and his execution by Egyptians make him into a national hero, and brings welcome attention to the dysfunctional struggling family. Albert Finney made his international name in the film Saturday Night and Sunday morning in a career which continued with appearances in the Jason Bourne films of the past decade and the Bond movie Skyfall.

A feature of Billy and Archie Rice that they bring nationalism and Patriotism into the their acts through their songs representing a Britain finding it difficult to adjust to the world as it rapidly changed and finding that gunboat diplomacy is not only ineffective but has come back bite through the execution of son. It has taken another fifty years before the public through the parents and relatives of the men who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan, those who pressed for the Iraq Inquiry and who questioned the proposed decisions to enter the war between Syrians in what will appear too many to be another forsaken failed state.

Both men are bigots who ought to know better and I can only assume that some of the offensive words used are in the original script and deleted from the film making Roger Liversy who plays Billy appear a warm, understanding and tolerant of his son and grandchildren, nostalgic clinging to the standards of his generation where the truth of life are not mentioned even especially within families. Archie is portrayed as honest in his willingness to save his career and pay the wages of the company by sacrificing his wife who he has used in his stand-up comedy. The word coloured in the 1960 film become black in the play but if this an acceptable modernization to the original text why is reference to wogs retained and used more than once? Are the several references to Poles in the original text or is this also an attempt to bring Archie up to date as a UKIP/national front supporter?

His wife, Greta Scacchi with Branagh, Benda De Banzi with Olivier, and who in the film retains her big explanation of why she has become alcohol dependent, is presented as all the wives who have put up with womanizing men, because of gifted kindness, and from her perspective being a good father, from guilt at having set her cap at him and from fear that being without him, she would be without anyone. Or maybe the underlying reason is more simple, that she did not enjoy sex, she was content for him to get that satisfaction elsewhere if someone else did not do to her what she had done to his first wife. The modern women in 1956 is played by Joan Plowright t and a less worldly accepting in 2016 by Sophie Mcshera-  Daisy of Downton Abbey.  In the film, she invites the fiancé into her bed whatever the landlady’s rules reminding that in childhood we stayed at one family holiday where after breakfast we were not allowed back until time for the evening meal.  Plowright does not batter an eyelid at some of the sayings of the men, you do not look at the mantelpiece when you stoke the fire which are the time had the same impact as the bun in the oven comment in The Cruel Sea.  Mcshera is not happy with a lot of the men talk and in the latest production she rejects the fiancé when he comes calling at the end of film with the position at best ambiguous in the film. I cannot remember if it was the surviving son who makes the comment about a servile public content with the wave of a gloved hand from the golden coach.

In both productions, it is Jean who tells her father the proposed marriage is not acceptable when father seeks to gain her blessing and in both instances, she tells grandfather and he contacts the parents to explain that the suitor is already married with a grown-up family.

Archie and the family are still offered a way out as his wife’s brother has emigrated to Canada and made such a success of a running a hotel that has opened another which he wants Archie to run. In the play the offer includes the air fares while in the film it is Archie’s brother who offers to pay the fares and meet the outstanding debts    having been told of the offer.  The  present play production takes a swipe at Gateshead and Hartlepool of the  950’s, probably justified  given the position of towns in the early 1970’s was town where I first  arrived in the North East  as likely venues for  the end of pier Salad days  type of musical or even the Good Companions of J B Priestley although the stand-up  comedy of Bobby Thompson the Little Waster remains legendry and who made a point of trying to make me belly laugh one evening doing a turn for a Councillor friend at a home for the Elderly, and where in  fact northern comics did turns at the male  dominated social and working men’s club at weekends  when wives and girlfriends were encouraged to also attend.  It was the pubs in the North East who took up the strippers and pole dancing as clubs would have found acceptable the posed nudity with which Archie commenced to dabble to try and get the punters to keep coming through the doors

Archie goes to London to try and get the funds to keep the show going, a new show with a headliners and new costumes but the impresario in question wants to see the goods before putting in the cash for a tour. This reminds reading that it cost a quarter of million to move the original production of Miss Saigon from theatre to theatre. When the deal involving a new wife as a headliner collapses, the grandfather suggests his name is still able to draw in folk and offers to go back on the boards but Jean’s premonition that this will kill him is proved right.  It is as this point that Archie admits he has signed a cheque for the new production on the strength of the withdrawn investment which means he will go to prison, and miss the opportunity to celebrity 21 years of not paying any income tax.

The play ends with Archie making what he knows is his last performance and having rejected the opportunity to go to Canada with his wife and son he accepts going to prison to see if it will bring him to life being dead behind his eyes. In the most revealing admission of the play and using far more crude language than permitted in the film script Archie tells Jean that it was the singing of a blues/gospel black woman at a club when after war he visited Canada that she brought home to him real ability to communicate the emotions of a life through a voice in a song. He tries to do the same on learning of the death of his son but he and we know while a good attempt there something missing in his makeup. At one level, he hopes going to prison will change him although he jokes about it. Those of us who have had the experience know that it can have the opposite outcome destroying without recreating or hardening into the life long criminal.

Those who are critical of the work, pointing out that it is not a great play with music song and dance fail to appreciate that it marks not only the end of an era between Britain’s past and future but was part of a whole genre of theatrical works reflecting life as it was and not life as the middle class wanted it to be portrayed. The Hollywood of the twin-bedded rooms for married couples or the sophisticated interactions of Noel Coward’s Private Lives and Terence Rattigan’s Deep Blue Sea. I have been struck recently how white the audience at Bolden always is. This brings me to the second of the three visits in three days to see the Queen of Kitwe in Uganda.

Miss Saigon over 25 years

Along with the film Casablanca Miss Saigon is the one work which I can experience time and time again.  When it opened in 1989 I had on impulse gone to see if I could get a ticket for a matinee performance after a morning meeting of a national committee. As the start approached and there was still a number of others waiting a young woman jumped out of a taxi and said she had spare ticket for the stalls for which I willing paid the full price arriving at our good seats just as the curtain was rising.  At the interval she complained it was Madam Butterfly, true but only at the level of the basic story and where I believe she failed to appreciate the great tunes and the political aspects of USA imperialism in Asia.  My family had been to see Les Miserables on a family visit to London and I had gone to see Les Miss on my own, not appreciating its length and having to leave early to meet up with the family for the evening performance of Miss Saigon. Of course this meant going to see Les Miserables  again as well as seeing Miss Saigon at least once or even twice after that. I remain convinced that I have written about the work before but cannot presently locate the evidence and could not find wo tape recording of the show among the 200 tapes in my collection which is odd.

You Tube has come to rescue with the full sound track while I write. The musical retains its hold because of the music, the song, the story and its topicality with the Syrian boat people replacing those from Vietnam as they made their way to Bangkok and onwards to the USA and to here in the UK. Most of all the musical remains important to me and others who because of parental and subsequent circumstances feel ourselves to belong to the Bui Doi, the dust of life children without a meaningful identity and without a meaningful home.  On Sunday 16^th of October the relay was in fact a film of the actual anniversary production which took place the previous month.

The latest production makes the use of back screen projection but all the element of the original production is included where in the after show it was admitted that over the year’s emphasis of the acting has become stronger and I felt there is now an even greater edge to the production than the original.

I saw Lee Solanga in the title role of Kim, Miss Saigon as a 17-year-old and she returned to the stage as a mature middle aged person with all the ability to project the emotion of experience she will not have had in the first production.  Lee vied as the star of show with Jonathan Pryce who played the Vietnamese bar owner, brothel keeper, pimp and fixer, the Engineer, for which he won awards, and I found that in some respects the new Kim is outshone by the latest ethnic correct actor who is brilliant as Engineer and praised by Jonathan Pryce who made some great jokes introducing the dancing girls for the showing stopping number towards the end, The American Dream as his careers. Humour there was but despite the glitz of the spectacle this is a very serious work of timeless significance.

The show open with an overture and the sound of a helicopter as we are introduced to the Engineer and his bar brothel as the Americans are about to cut and run. Kim aged 17 years is the latest recruit from the country, as her parent died under the bombing and she fled to the city in search of means of survival with prostitution the only source available. The creators of the show avoided the problem of Madam Butterfly who is underage as 17 years’ old’s remain in a number of USA States but the reality is that children have been forced into the bar brothels sometimes sold by their parents as the only means of their survival or to get sufficiently ahead to break from their cycle of survival poverty. In every town where there is some form of military, or naval base, and  from the last century the airbase, or places sympathetic to the need for fighting men to have relax and recreation breaks when they are at war or far from home, the problem has existed and early on in my work in child care, I was allocated a mother with three children, all by different USA service men, from an airbase in the recent constituency of former Prime Minister David Cameron and where the first was the product of a visit to the base dance when she was only 15.

Every night at the bar run by the Engineer, he appoints one of the girls Miss Saigon the premium lady of the night, and when one become available, he auctions a young virgin, the fresh meat to quote the words of the lyricist by Alain Boubil who also created the original French Lyrics, along with Claude-Michael Schonberg who created the music and the story. They created their first work together in 1973, Les Revolution Francaise and it was in 1978 that they commenced work on what has become their more famous creation, Les Miserables which opened in Paris in 1980.  but it was when the decision was taken to translate the Lyrics into English and for productions to commence in London and New York that through Cameron Mackintosh their work received international recognition. Cameron Mackintosh started theatre life as a stagehand and he is also responsible for to other worldwide ongoing shows, The Phantom of the Opera and Cats. It is also notable that Cameron has donated part of the proceeds of Miss Saigon to a Foundation in support of refugees.  One of the highlights of the anniversary after show was the arrival of Alain, Claude and Cameron in the American Dream Car as the number was performed by Jonathan Pryce with Jon Jon Briones. 

Miss Saigon first opened in 1989 in London and then in 1991 in New York, revived in London in 2014 and opens again in New York next year, It opened in Tokyo 1992 followed  Toronto  1993, Germany Stuttgart, not Berlin  and Hungary 1994, Holland and Austraila1996, and then New Zealand and Sweden with Estonia in 2002, Denmark 2004/2005 and Finland, then Korea 2004 and most interesting perhaps of all Bangkok in Thailand in 2012, also Austria,  Finland and the Philippines and  revivals in Japan in 2004 and again 2008-2009 and 2012, 1914 and 2016 in South Korea, in Canada and Holland. A production has also toured in the UK. The number of productions is mentioned because changes have been made over the years to take account of changing times, the different countries and their varied audience.

The storyline is established with the arrival of young single USA service men into the bar  with John  now  played by a Black actor arranging to buy Kim ( paraded as  a Virgin)  for his troubled friend Chris and where the presence of Kim is seen as a threat by the experienced Gigi who portrays a young woman still dreaming of finding an American who will sweep her off to the USA and where she and Kim sing the first of the haunting songs in the show, “The Movie in my Mind” and this is soon followed  by “the Dance” with its haunting saxophone and in which the Engineer arranges for the Kim and  Chris who are  genuinely attracted to each other to go  to her room away from the bar.

It is then the number “Why, God” which elevates the work away from a simple sexual exploitation story to the perspective of the USA servicemen in a strange country with a challenging culture and which in my view makes it more significant than Madam Butterfly where Pinkterton always comes across as fitting in only for the purpose of having a young wife and without questioning his role.  The difference is reinforced when Kim gives an account of what happened to her family and how she is in her present situation “Sun and Moon” and Chris wants the relationship to become serious entering into a marriage ceremony according to local tradition and custom, having in effect purchased Kim from the Engineer who wants a Visa to get to the USA as he realizes the USA’s role in the country is ending. This is reinforced by John in a phone call who declares that the situation is falling apart and the USA is abandoning the people as it did in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya subsequently, along with the UK and other interventionist countries, unwilling to devote the resources to establish effective and lasting governments before departure.

This leads to another pivotal moment when the young man, Thuy, betrothed by their parents when adolescents aged thirteen arrives and is stunned to find what has happened. Kim’s rebuke that he changed sides leaving her during the week her parents were killed justifies her new circumstances but those able to take a more detached view of events will have sympathy for the young man brought up in one tradition and coming to recognise that the insurgent army represented the way forward for the majority of people after decades of colonial exploitation by the French and then the USA Americans. His sense of betrayal is matched by the lovers forced to separate in the haunting “Last Night of the World”.

There is then the powerful statement of the success of Ho chi minh, the leader of the revolution with “the Morning of the Dragon” in which we learn that the Vietnamese young nan Thuy has become a commander with authority and demands that the Engineer locates Kim if he wants to retain his freedom. The juxtaposition between the realities of geo politics and the complex emotional relationships between individuals of different cultures is then powerfully portrayed by “I still believe” in which Kim and the present USA wife of Chris unite in their respective love and appreciation of his and their situation.

The intensity of the story is further heightened when Kim and the Engineer is located and Thuy attempts to use his new power to force marriage or she to risk death by his men. Kim defends her situation by introducing her son by Chris which infuriates Thuy more and he issues the ultimatum of survival through without the child, a symbol of his enemy. In desperation she kills Thuy using the weapon Chris had given her for protection when he returned the base in the attempt to secure passage for his bride. Kim pleads with the Engineer help her go to America which he ridicules before realizing that that her son is that of Chris and their entry ticket if he poses as her brother “Let me see his Western nose.” In the new production it is possible to project film of the boatpeople crossing between Vietnam and Thailand, not lost on the Cineworld audience now familiar with the attempts of the Syrians and others to reach mainland Europe. Before the final chorus of the Exodus at the closure of the first act Kim warns of want is to come, “I’d give my life for you.”

Before writing of the Second Act It Is a good point to mention the substantial subsequent change in USA Vietnam relations which occurred with President Clinton came into office and that within a couple of years of the opening of the show in the USA there was official recognition followed by trade agreements in 2000 and 2007 and over one and half million Vietnamese Americans and a large cultural exchange of Vietnam student studying in the USA and making their subsequent homes in the country.

The choice of the number which opens the second Act of the musical is therefore of significance in understanding that the work was always intended to be more than entertainment or to duplicate the tragic sexual exploitation story of Madam Butterfly but of all children like me caught in a no man’s land of no identity and no homeland.

The Bui Doi, the Dust of life is our song and we stretch throughout human history to the children at Calais and the children, the products of Isis and the woman and girls they are using. John on returning home has achieved maturity as a human being and sanity as a former soldier by representing an organization seeking to trace the fathers of the children abandoned in Vietnam and across Asia and receives a report that Kim is alive with a child, a bar girl in Bangkok and he contacts Chris with the news. 

This throws Chris into turmoil because he has not told his wife of the relationship and is someone who he genuinely loves as she attempts to cope with the distance between them and his nightmares, the consequence of his experience and relationship in Vietnam.

We learn that in Bangkok the Engineer has become an employee, an on commission hustler with Kim the experienced bar girl both surviving on dreams of getting to the USA, “What a waste” girls available for the sexual tourist for only10 cents an hour, the offer of boys, first girl free and himself for extra fee. Chris has arrived with his wife and John goes in search of Kim and meets up with the Engineer “Chris is here”, but John cannot bear to tell Kim the truth after witnessing her continuing devotion and belief he has come for her and for his child. The bar owner arrives and warns them both because of the child on the premises. John goes off to bring Chris but the Engineer does not trust the situation fearing he will excluded and persuades Kim to go to the hotel after finding out the address.  

Thuy reappears as a ghost cursing Kim that she will not fulfill her dream and next there is a return in time to the fall of Saigon with Kim and Chris desperate to get to each other are separated by the compound, just as the German people were by the Berlin Wall, the Syrian and others by the European Wall, and Trump and the Republicans and their proposed wall with Mexico and the last helicopter arrives to take the remaining solders and Vietnamese away communicating the panic and despair of those left behind as those  more recently experienced  in Iraq, in Afghanistan and Libya and no doubt in Syria once the threat to Europe and the USA has been contained.

Kim prepares to go to the hotel, dressing as Chris knew her while singing a reprise of “the Sun and the Moon.” At the hotel she encounters Kim’s wife quickly recognizes who Kim is while Chris makes his way to the bar. Kim is shocked by the news that Chris has married and feels betrayed because of the vows he made and demands that Chris comes and tells her the truth. When Chris returns to the hotel there is another number which again raises the work above others, including the Opera Madam Butterfly, a she tells the reality of young men out of college being sent to war in lands with different cultures for reasons they do not understand.

What is now to happen is inevitable and the couple debate staying in Thailand to ensure the future of Kim and his son, as at first his second wife cannot accept the possibility of returning to the USA with the son. Before the end there is a spectacular reminder of the American Dream with a chorus line of Marilyn Monroe blondes as the dream car, and yes there is now an internet site selling the Cadillacs and the Chevrolets called Dream Cars, comes on the stage which the Engineer humps at one point, and ends with a lit Statue of Liberty young woman emerging from the back seat.

To ensure she keeps the vow to her son she dresses him as an American and kills herself thus ensuring Chris and his wife takes her son but we the audience know this is likely to doom the marriage and create lifelong problems for the child.

At the Cineworld West India Dock there was a brief five-minute interval between the two Acts and then ten before he 25^th anniversary celebration when all the original London cast comes on stage and with the principal singers giving encores with the artists from the present production. It was a memorable and where it was evident the audience had a similar reaction. I have ordered the official video of the evening with copies for family members.

King Lear Royal Shakespeare Productions 1991-2016 the David Troughton connection

On Wednesday evening12th October I saw my third Royal Shakespeare Company production of King Lear, this time in a Relay from Stratford at the Cineworld Bolden. The first occasion was a live performance at the Theatre Royal, Newcastle in 1991 as part of one of several seasons at which they also played at what is now the Northern Stage and before then some productions were at the Newcastle People’s Theatre.  Lear was played by John Wood but of more interest today Ralph Fiennes played Edmund and David Troughton as Kent and Alex Kingston as Cordelia. The play was also part of the 1994 season with Robert Stephens as Lear. Simon Russell Beale played Edgar and Cordelia Abigail McKern, the daughter of Leo, who played with him the last three episodes of Rumpole of the Bailey.

During the years when the RSC visited Newcastle for a long season with a broad mixture of Shakespeare. Old English dramas and comparatively modern plays often performed in a studio theatre environment as a family of four at times we were often in the second tier of the theatre unable to see any close ups of the actors/ No such restraints on Thursday where the cost was only £8.10 saving a similar amount through holding the unlimited card. Thus we were all able to appreciate the impressive performance of Anthony Sher as the King once powerful and strong decides to retire and divide his kingdom between his three daughters with the plan to also divide living with them. But instead of doing this in a straightforward way he attempts to find out who loves him best and this results in two of his daughters faking while the third Cordelia refuses to play and is honest and direct a kind of Jeremy Corbyn comes to mind, and does not get a share and marries the King of France who respects her integrity and does not mind the lack of wealth or power.

The story is complex with the theme that it is unwise to judge on just appearance so I focus on characters. The official Fool is an established form of entertainment although I usually find little humour in such characters except for their play on words and quick sharp barbed wit. In this play there comes a time when the King plays the fool and fool the King in terms of understanding what is happening.

Having divided his Kingdom between two of his daughters Lear finds that they refuse him bringing 100 men with him, then 50 and then 25 and he becomes effectively homeless and during a great storm with repeated shafts of lightning encounters Edgar the son of Gloucester playing a lunatic fool Tom O bedlam played convincingly by Oliver Johnston and he leads the King to temporary safety in a hovel. Edgar has been forced to go into hiding, disinherited by his father through the treachery of his illegitimate half-brother Edmund. Because Gloucester (played by David Troughton closing the circle with the 1991 production) helps the king he is blinded by the two sisters in an effective gruesome on stage event and he seeks to ends his life, especially when encountering the King and realising the state he is in. He is saved in every sense when Edgar finds him and stops playing the mad man.

It is during the second act that the world of the two sisters falls part because of competition for the love and attention of Edmund and all seems to promise a good story ending when Cordelia and her husband arrive at Dover to reclaim her role rightful role and Edgar goes to meet them to advise of what is happening. A battle takes place shown in the production as a back projection in silhouette and unfortunately Cordelia and the King lose and are taken prisoners but the two are reconciled and look positively about being together in prison. However, Edgar appreciates the likely treachery as the two sisters fall out and plan revenge on Cordelia and too late she dies, hung and cannot be revived by her distraught father.

By this time Edgar has fought a dual with Edmund and dispatched him. One of the sisters has poisoned the other and commits suicide thus the King is left childless although back in charge of his country, his friend Gloucester blind and Gloucester’s son and the Fool his trusted allies. The Dukes of Cornwall and Albany also vying for power through their marriages to the Kings daughters are out in the cold once more. There is a large cast for this production of some thirty doubled with the creative team. The musicians and those involved in the Live relay.

During the interval we are given insight into the wardrobe department, the design of the costumes and the beautiful and fragile lace upon lace dress worn by Cordelia in which she is not allowed to sit and which requires the utmost care. We learn that the robes are heated to remove accumulating odour and we learn that the RSC is to use Avatars and motion capture for its forthcoming production of the Tempest.  The Tempest will be shown live in cinemas on January 11^th 2017