A few questions for the Barbican surrounding Hamlet ticketing policy

The much-hyped production of Hamlet directed by Lyndsey Turner and featuring Benedict Cumberbatch in the title role went on general sale this morning. Sadly the process appears to be mismanaged at best, with hints of a cartel at worst.

That there are many more hopeful people than tickets is inevitable, and venues, festivals and promoters have struggled for years with the issue of how to disappoint people in the fairest way possible. The Barbican appear to have failed spectacularly.

This morning, before going on general sale, the website claimed that stalls seats were sold out for the entire run, with circle seats "nearly" sold out. This would seem to imply that large numbers had been sold to patrons, members, friends, and all the other various levels of membership for which punters pay a premium in order to enjoy benefits like early booking. This is entirely fair and absolutely standard across the industry. Presumably some tickets have also gone to sponsors and other partners. That isn't pleasant to think about, but a certain amount of back-scratching and palm-greasing (back-greasing?) needs to be done with sponsors in order to keep venues and productions viable. As long as the proportion of tickets going to sponsors isn't huge, this is also acceptable.

So far, so good, and when people logged on to find themselves in queue with upwards of 20,000 people ahead of them, they will have been disappointed but not necessarily surprised. The online booking system assigned places randomly in the queue to all those who were logged on before the booking window opened, which is completely fair. The queueing system was then torturously slow; I moved up 1300 place - a third of the way up the queue - in an hour and a half. Messy and frustrating, but nothing worse.

Then - perhaps inevitably - rumours started swirling around Twitter of alternative locations to purchase tickets. ATG (the Ambassador Theatre Group, of which the Barbican is not a member) was often cited. Sure enough, with a few seconds wait, I was offered 4 tickets for a total of £269 including a "booking fee" of £4 per ticket and a single "transaction fee" of £3 (quite what the difference between a booking and a transaction is escapes me, but I'll let it pass).

Fact time: booking via the Barbican website, tickets for Hamlet cost "£30-£62.50 plus £3 online booking fee". They also mention that "a limited number of Premium Seats are available" (their capitalisation).

Something else to mention: the Barbican advised punters on the best place to buy tickets:

Booking for #hamletbarbican today? Best option is online at http://t.co/9VrGPsUiQ1 You can also call us +44 (0) 20 7638 8891
— Barbican Centre (@BarbicanCentre) August 11, 2014

The ATG tickets available were all "Band A" - and stated explicitly that this was the top price £62.50 + £4 "booking fee" per ticket. They all appeared to be stalls tickets; let's not forget that the Barbican claimed that stalls were "sold out" before tickets even went on general sale. There was no way of choosing individual seats via ATG but anecdotally people on Twitter seemed to be getting hold of some very good tickets.

But the Barbican isn't a member of the Ambassadors Theatre Group. It's owned by the City of London Corporation. So presumably the Barbican have simply sold a load of tickets for a show for which they knew there would be extremely high demand, so that ATG could sell them on at a premium.

Worse is to come.

At around 1030 the reputable theatre website WhatsOnStage.com - always a good source for listings, reviews and debate - tweeted that they had some tickets for sale. I followed the link and sure enough, they had tickets for sale for all nights. Once again there was no facility for punters to choose seats. The price: "from £78" on weekdays, and "from £119" at weekends (no mention was made at this stage of booking or transaction fees).

£119 is a 90% increase on the Barbican's top ticket price.

Fact time again: the Barbican have introduced special anti-touting measures for this production - the lead ticket booker needs to show photo ID.

To reiterate: £119 is a 90% increase on the Barbican's top advertised ticket price.

I tweeted WOS about this and got the following reply:

@EoghanLondon To clarify, not 2x face value but have industry standard 25% bkg fee as per STAR guidelines. Book with Barbican to avoid fees.
— WhatsOnStage (@WhatsOnStage) August 11, 2014

So presumably WOS are selling these "Premium Seats" with a 25% markup on...well, the Barbican don't mention prices so let's assume £95.50 (incidentally, ATG were selling "Premium Seats" for £99.50 which would make sense if their markup is £4 again).

An aside: "STAR" mentioned by WOS are the Society of Ticket Agents and Retailers. They do indeed mention 25% as the maximum generally acceptable markup

To be clear, I don't have (much of) a problem with WOS or ATG; it would appear that they're playing within the rules of the system, even if a 25% markup on top of "Premium Seats" is pretty outrageous. They're businesses trying to make money. However, I do have a very big problem with the way the Barbican are dealing with this and the way they are allocating tickets for one of the most in-demand productions in recent years. To that end I have some questions for the Barbican:

• Did all Barbican members who attempted to buy stalls tickets get them successfully? [**update - see comments below - if I was a member I would be livid]
• Does the Barbican think it is hypocritical to introduce anti-touting measures whilst at the same time allowing tickets to be sold for 90% above the advertised top ticket price?
• Can the Barbican, and indeed other venues such as the Old Vic who operate a system of "Premium Seats" (their capitalisation) admit that this is nothing but a ruse to inflate prices, as there is nothing "premium" or special about them - they are simply standard top price tickets to which a substantial additional sum has been added, presumably to encourage punters that those "standard" top price tickets are better value than they would otherwise appear? (This is classic behavioural economics).
• What is the reciprocal arrangement between the Barbican and ATG [edit - see comments below]? Was the Barbican contractually obliged to sell what appears to be a substantial proportion of stalls seats to ATG, even though they could easily sell them out - probably several times over - themselves?
• Why did the Barbican advise that the "best" place to obtain tickets was from their own website, while it actually appears that ATG was a far quicker and more reliable method? When all stalls and most circle seats have been given to agents, does that mean the Barbican site is "best"?
• What does the Barbican stand to gain from selling off tickets to third party agents versus selling them via their own website? What is the point of going to the effort of a "fair" online ticketing system when agents can sell them however they want?
• Does the Barbican feel that the process has been well managed overall?

** A couple of updates: it seems that ATG and theatrepeople.com are "official ticketing partners". Presumably they bought their tickets from the Barbican more cheaply than at the full retail price. Meanwhile, WOS have an article which summarises the popularity of the show whilst tactfully not plugging their own £119 tickets.

***Update 2: after a 3-and-a-half hour wait in the queue I did get tickets, and for a Saturday to boot. The stalls and circle are indeed sold out being sold via agents only, but there is still decent availability at time of writing (1330 on Monday 11th) - it's a big venue with a long run! The queueing system provided by queue-it.net works fine, even if the wait is extremely long.

***Update 3: some very interesting comments below.

Theatres and companies

This isn't really a blog post, more a list of links, mainly for my own convenience, of the theatre companies and (London) theatres that matter.

Companies

Complicite
Biuro Podrozy
Kneehigh
Frantic Assembly
DV8
Punchdrunk
Grid Iron
National Theatre of Scotland
Filter
RSC
Sound & Fury
Dreamthinkspeak
Propellor
Ontroerend Goed
The Paper Birds
Shunt

Theatres

Little Angel
Tristan Bates Theatre
Camden People's Theatre
Lyric
Donmar Warehouse
The Old Vic
Young Vic
ENO
Royal Opera House
Hampstead Theatre
Bush Theatre
Soho Theatre
Almeida
National Theatre
Barbican
Old Vic Tunnels
Royal Court
BAC
The Tricycle

Autumn/winter theatre highlights & previews

There are plenty of shows worth getting your paws on over the autumn and well into next year. Here are a few that caught my eye.

To kick things off there are some heavyweight Shakespeare productions to look out for. You've just missed Sam Mendes's Richard III at the Old Vic which was excellent. Kevin Spacey was louche in the title role and there was a driving energy powering the whole production. There are  a couple of promising Hamlets: Martin Sheen et al at the Young Vic is the blockbuster (sold out, but more tickets go on sale on 27 September), but there is also a rather exciting proposition at the Barbican where Thomas Ostermeier and his Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz ensemble have a tempting modern interpretation. The Barbican are also behind Jonathan Holmes's take on The Tempest at St Giles's Cripplegate. It's part of the misnomered freeB festival: tickets are £21.

Looking further ahead, in the spring Filter and Sean Holmes return to the Lyric to present their take on A Midsummer Night's Dream. Potentially best of all is the Shakespeare project in the pipeline from dreamthinkspeak, The Rest Is Silence, as part of the World Shakespeare Festival. It kicks off in the Brighton Festival in May, before transferring to the Riverside Studios in London and Northern Stage in Gateshead the following month.

If you can get your hands on a ticket for the sold-out Roadkill at Theatre Royal Stratford East then grab one as reaction from Edinburgh last year was universally positive and it came away laden with awards.

One thing that depresses me is the predictability of opera programming at the moment. Yes, we're in the middle of a recession so less risks are to be expected, but there's a frustratingly familiar cocktail of Verdi, Mozart, Wagner, Donizetti and Tchaikovsky being put on by the main opera companies. A quick scan of the  next twelve months' programmes reveals a dearth of pretty mainstream opera composers like Monteverdi,  Britten, Handel and Strauss. On the other hand, highlights include ENO presenting the UK premiere of Adams's The Death of Klinghoffer which promises to be worth seeing. Also at ENO is Rameau's Castor and Pollux - a great bit of programming and one that shouldn't be ruined by being performed in English. Finally on the opera front, Rory Bremner translates Offenbach's Orpheus in the Underworld for Scottish Opera - might be worth a look - I was unaware that Bremner, a languages graduate, had already made translations of several other stage works. According to the Guardian this one is supposed to be pretty Bullingdonian, which is all good in my book...and the poster looks cool:

Ontroerend Goed's latest show Audience divided critics in Edinburgh but is surely still worth checking out, for better or for worse; it comes to the Soho Theatre in December. As with Internal, it seems that Audience will really screw with your mind as a viewer and the performers will get under your skin...but would we have it any other way? Devoted fans will certainly be going.

Looking further ahead, I've got tickets to Frantic Assembly's Lovesong at the Lyric; it'll be interesting to see how it compares to the other productions of theirs that I have seen, the lively Stockholm or disappointingly tepid Beautiful Burnout.

Michael Frayn's brilliant farce Noises Off comes to the Old Vic over Christmas. I saw it in the West End a few years ago and it remains a show with one of the best laugh-per-minute ratios I've ever seen. It's classic, old-school laughs and surely can't go wrong. I'm also off to see Playboy of the Western World at the same venue. Not to forget the Boom Boom Club at Old Vic Tunnels - can't wait!

Lundahl & Seitel wowed me with their immersive piece Rotating in a room of images at the 2009 One on one Festival at BAC. Their site-specific work In memory of W T Stead, performed at the offices of Steinway in 2009, returns in February. By all accounts it's similar to Rotating... insofar as there are headphones involved and it's a bit of a spatial exploration. There, however, the similarity ends: it's a live performance of a Bach fugue set to a sort of promenade performance in conjunction with Nomad, if that makes sense (it doesn't to me). Anyhow watch this space, it sounds very promising.

The National has Mike Leigh's Grief, a stage version of my childhood obsession Swallows & Amazons, and some Bible readings to celebrate the King James version's 400th anniversary; although the Bush Theatre have trumped them with a 24 hour epic, entitled Sixty six books. If you've got little ones, or if you can free your mind to being a toddler yourself, then take yourself off to a wonderful show all about innocence and a whole lot more. White - also at the Southbank - is one of the sweetest shows you'll see anywhere. As fascinating as the show itself is watching the expressions of pure wonder on your fellow audience members' two year old faces.

In chronological order:
Richard III - Old Vic - run finished - sold out
The Playboy of the Western World - Old Vic - until 26 November - £10-£49.50
Grief - National Theatre - until 28 February - £12-£32
The Tempest - St Giles's Cripplegate - 21 September-22 October - £21
Boom Boom Club - Old Vic Tunnels - 29 September-1 October - £19.50
Sixty six books - Bush Theatre - 10-29 October - various prices or £80 for 24 hour epic!
Castor and Pollux - ENO - 24 October-1 December - £19-£97.50
Roadkill - Theatre Royal Stratford East - 28 October-20 November - sold out (£18)
Hamlet - Young Vic - 28 October-21 January - £10-£29.50
Hamlet - Barbican - 30 November-4 December - £16-£42
Orpheus in the Underworld - Young Vic - 30 November-10 December - £22.50
Noises Off - Old Vic - 3 December-25 February - tickets tbc
Audience - Soho Theatre - 6 December-7 January - £10-£20
Swallows & Amazons - National Theatre - 15 December-14 January - £12-£42.50
White - Southbank - 17-31 December - £12
Lovesong - Lyric - 11-28 January - £12.50-£30
In memory of W T Stead - Steinway & Sons - February dates and tickets tbc
A Midsummer Night's Dream - Lyric - 9 February-17 March - £12.50-£30
The Death of Klinghoffer - ENO - 25 February-9 March - £19-£97.50
The Rest Is Silence - Brighton, Riverside Studios, Gateshead - May & June - tickets tbc

Ontroerend Goed's "Audience" to come to Soho Theatre

Fantastic news announced today - Ontroerend Goed's latest production, Audience, currently taking place in Edinburgh at St George's West, will do a London stint in December. If reviews are anything to go by, it promises to stay true to the Ontroerend Goed blueprint: challenging, genre-defying, and completely unique.

Tickets go on sale in a couple of weeks, apparently. Don't sleep...

Essential spring theatre

Just a quick heads up on one or two unmissable productions this spring. The Young Vic have Terminus by Mark O'Rowe, performed by the Abbey, which I saw in Edinburgh a few years ago. I remember feeling slightly short-changed when I realised I'd splashed out £17 to see a set of static monologue with no set and seemingly no directions, but that wasn't taking into account the red hot script. The writing is brutal: not a word wasted, as the play wields its savage destruction through words. It's lyrical, poetic, hyper-surreal, intricate, sadistic, very funny and an absolute must-see. The script by O'Rowe - whose films Perrier's Bounty and Intermission are worth watching - sits proudly on my bookshelf. Terminus is the best of the lot though. I hope we see more work from him soon as he's one of the best writers out there at the moment.

Concurrently at the same venue is a joint production with English National Opera of Monteverdi's The Return of Ulysses. Staged Monteverdi is always a.joy (another fond Edinburgh memory was Jordi Savall's Orfeo) and I wanted to see this even before I heard my friend, tenor Thomas Hobbs, was in it. It promises to be a winner.

Then in my inbox and Twitter this morning was news that Battered Arts Centre have given in to popular demand and announced another One-on-one Festival. Ontroerend Goed have star billing once again and justifyably so, although it seems they are not bringing any new productions.
Logistics (perhaps the threat of mutiny from the box office staff, in off their feet last time?) have determined that there will be ten set packages of shows, each with three performances to see. The packages are all themes around a mood, so you could opt for "challenging" or "out of body" for example. At £19.50 a pop, once again it'll be frustrating if you feel everyone else around you has seen more stimulating material, but that's part of the fun. Someone pointed out that compared to last summer's festival there are fewer tickets, so that "sneaking in" to unsold performances may be more difficult. Still, once again it promises to be one of the most exciting events if the year.

Assembly Rooms under threat: why the council must reconsider

It has emerged that Edinburgh council want to "refurbish" James Henderson's magnificent Assembly Rooms on George Street to incorporate some shops and a restaurant. William Burdett-Coutts's Assembly Theatre, the council's key tenant during the summer, are petitioning hard against the plans. It is a worthy campaign.

As a student, I spent four summers working for Assembly on the promotional staff. It's the ultimate student job at the festival: fully involved at one of the most buzzing venues in town, mingling with actors and comedians, chatting and drinking (heavily) with a vast range of fun people, and seeing a whole host of different shows. For a nineteen year old, it was a dream come true; I bust a gut for Assembly, as I was so desperate for things to go well - it was an attitude typical amongst staff there for whom Assembly was, and still is, a way of life. As a venue, it's at the heart of the festival both geographically and metaphorically, with important productions (many of which transfer to national tours following their Edinburgh run), world-class comedy and more contracts and agent signings than you can shake a stick at.

That's not to say the venue is perfect. I was appalled at one or two of the managerial decisions that were made in my final year there (to the extent that it took a while to get over my bitterness), and the backstabbing atmosphere in the main admin office was oppressive to the extent that in my final year, when I was mainly office based, I was desperate to escape to the relative relief of handing out flyers. The programming is desperately dull, with Burdett-Coutts and co wheeling out the usual suspects year after year: Guy Masterson, Bob Kingdom, Adam Hills, Soweto Gospel Choir, Antonio Forcione, and various mainstream dance acts all add up to a painfully risk-averse and predictable programme each year. (That's not mentioning those atrocious Otar Imerlishvili artworks which appear year after year). Not that there's anything wrong with those acts listed; there's just a certain inevitability about opening the glossy brochure for the first time and seeing the same names yet again. There are only so many times one can sit through tango fusion dancing. Like once. The lack of courage on the programming front has resulted in venues like the Underbelly becoming the place to hunt for the really off-beat stuff.

Yet the size of the venue means that a heavy leaning towards the mainstream, the tried and tested, is understandable. The quality of those "old favourites" tends to be pretty strong. From Caroline O'Connor's Bombshells to Jerry Springer the Opera to Lee Mack to John Clancy's explosive Fatboy to Masterson acting in an outstanding Oleanna, there are always likely to be hits worth seeing (if you can afford the ticket prices). They make up for the critically panned moneyspinners (hello Nancy Cartwright).

To lump all Assembly productions in as pre-West End warmup runs would be unfair, too. I have seen some outstanding shows from relative unknowns, and some real offbeat, alternative productions that have been breathtaking. In my first year working at Assembly, Demitri Martin won the Perrier with his particular brand of poetry, gentle one-liners and...palindromes. In the same year I was wowed by Michael Raynor's autobiographical one-man play Who's Floyd Stearn? A fellow colleague of mine (whose own show I saw this year at the Underbelly) was in floods of tears after watching Teatro Sunil's kooky, almost autistically optimistic view of freedom in Icaro in 2003. More recently, mime artist Julien Cottereau (2010) and Northern Firebrand's Scarborough (written by Fiona Evans, herself formerly on the Assembly payroll), in 2008, were highlights. Best of all, though, was back in 1995. Slava Polunin's extraordinary Snowshow was, and still is, the best show I have ever seen, of any kind, in my life. I saw it aged twelve, and saw it again ten years later, and my opinion didn't change. (I believe it was a nightmare for the staff, who had to crawl on their hands and knees to pick up thousands of little pieces of paper from between the seats after every performance).

The Assembly Rooms may not have quite the same cutting edge as the Pleasance, Aurora Nova or the Traverse (although the latter is falling into the trap of putting on productions by the same people, year after year) but it still a creative hub bursting with talented people, ideas, inspiring conversations. It remains a place where deals of nationwide artistic significance are struck in the Club Bar.

Ah, the Club Bar. An elegant place for the creatively exalted to relax over a coffee? Yes. But also a place for top actors and comedians to get utterly smashed by night. I could tell you some stories. But I won't.

Actually, I will. Which married London stand-up had a drug-fuelled affair with a member of street team staff? Which comedian made a home-made porn film with another street teamer the same year? Which actor drank so much each night that he eventually got alcohol poisoning? Which Hollwood A-lister was thrown out of the Club Bar on his own birthday after going behind the bar and pouring drinks uninvited? (That was Christian Slater). Which fifty-something performer was finally shown the door after a string of complaints from attractive seventeen-year-old staff who he'd been repeatedly pestering for dates? That doesn't even scratch the surface, either.

Those were good times. Not all the stories were booze-and-drugs related, either. There's Gerry, the genial retired American teacher, who practically lives at Assembly for the entire festival, blags his way into everything with his long-suffering wife and two friends in tow, then stands outside loudly giving his opinions on the performance to anyone who'll listen (his opinions are usually limited to a drawling "that was a goooood showwwwwww" or alternatively "pooooooor"; I have noticed his positive and negative reviews seem to be equally good at putting people off buying tickets). In all seriousness, though, Gerry is a solid gold legend, and someone for whom the festival means a huge deal, and Assembly in particular. Edinburgh would be a poorer place without him. Talking of Gerries, there was the famous day when Jerry Spring's lawyer heard about the Opera bearing his name, called up and demanded tickets for him and his twenty-strong entourage. The entire run was completely sold out. The lawyer played hardball. The box office somehow found twenty tickets. The story goes that Springer and co flew in from LA by private jet, went from the airport to George Street in a fleet of limos, went to see the show, hopped back in the limos, and back on the plane having loved the show.

As usual, I digress. The point is that despite having many shortcomings (what about the despicable decision to use their financial and marketing muscle to try and split from the Fringe along with other mainstream venues, leaving the beating heart of the festival - the small, independent venues - fibrillating weakly) Assembly remains a true hub of festival activity, a creative zenith, a theatrical and comedic centre round which punters, critics, performers and tourists alike naturally gravitate. A festival institution in contrast to so many transient ventures in the city. Part of the festival furniture.

Yet longevity alone is not a reason to keep the Assembly Rooms going as a festival venue. They are perfectly suited to performances. The unique layout of the Wildman Room and cabaret vibe of the Supper Room, combined with the opulence and airy space of the Ballroom and Music Hall, with plenty of space for bars and admin all around. Apparently the Supper Room and Wildman Room will be gone forever following the proposed "upgrade", along with the Edinburgh Suite and Drawing Room; not to mention the "Scott Room" which I believe is the tiny space used to such great effect by the production of Scarborough in 2008. The great festival venues range from university function rooms, through tents, churches and inflatable cows, to Masonic lodges; the wedding-cake surroundings of  the Assembly Rooms are part of that wonderful mix.

The focus of this campaign has been on the festival, understandably, since it's Assembly Theatre who are behind it. Yet it is a disgrace that such a magnificent building can be so criminally under-utilised during the remaining months of the year. There is a mish-mash of tired craft fairs, ceilidhs, record fairs, and the occasional wedding. It's all too easy, when the building is covered with hoarding, posters and stage scaffolding for the festival, to forget just how spectacular the building is: the Assembly Rooms are a stunning set of ornate chambers.

So what are the council proposing? With an imagination only seen in the public sector, it's a shops'n'restaurants package which will "transform" the building and "guarantee the building's future as one of the most sensational events venues in the city".

I have several problems with this. Shops'n'restaurants is default thinking. George Street does not lack either. The sterile Multrees Walk, which feels like the afterthought to a business district that it is, can hardly be a model to aspire to. But more worrying for me is the thought that the Assembly Rooms needs a refurbishment. It desperately needs something to be done. But change the physical layout? The Assembly Rooms are a simple set of function rooms, with unlimited possibilities for their use. The problem is not the venue itself - only a numbing lack of imagination. Whilst Burdett-Coutts and Assembly's artistic programming may leave a lot to be desired, they have managed to make brilliant use of the space, utilising some of the unsexy spaces as well as the first floor blockbusters, with areas like the famous Lane Bar a real hub. The council, meanwhile, can only muster a few craft fairs. Why have we not seen art exhibitions? What about musical performances? Awards ceremonies? Entertaining foreign dignitaries? Club nights (Vegas used to put nights on)? Talks? Conferences? One of the most spectacular buildings in the country has had its potential ignored, and now the council are planning to shove in some shops.

When refurbishments of this sort are done well, they can be brilliant. The transformation of an old RBS building (a Grade A listed James Craig construction) by Caledonian Heritable into what is now The Dome, a few doors along from the Assembly Rooms, was a classic example. Such tasteful refurbishment, combined with commercial success, is rare. It's not something you would expect Edinburgh council to emulate. Certainly not if the best they can come up with is bunging a few shops in the front.

Assembly Theatre have tried to convince the council to let them take over the running of the venue year-round. This seems to have failed. Personally I'm not sure I would want the venue to be run solely by the theatre company - its transformation in August is one of the unique selling points of the Rooms and I'm not convinced that the year-round programme would be of much interest. I can, however, see the sense in improving the catering potential of the building. It's all very well for people like me to idly mutter about conferences and events, but unless there's the possibility for world-class catering and facilities to go alongside the world-class architecture, then outside companies won't want to invest. The Assembly Rooms website talks of its proud history "...as a venue that, whilst still catering for both public and private balls, was now equipped to accommodate public meetings, concerts, recitals, music festivals, dinners, banquets, Royal occasions and public readings by celebrated authors such as Dickens and Thackeray." So why does the council think that their "ambitious" plans to shove in a few shops, whilst sacrificing the potential for one of their key clients to operate freely, will suddenly transform the ailing venue to the way things were in the glory days?

The petition/campaign website has been set up by Assembly Theatre Ltd, whose focus, somewhat understandably, is on their own contribution during the summer, which remains the principal operation of the building these days and has, by all accounts, transformed the venue which was in an even worse state in the 70s. The comments on the site reveal some of the depth of feeling for the venue, much of it unconnected the the festival (although understandable as I mentioned, it's a shame that so much of the focus of the campaign is on the venue's use as a theatre rather than is initial and ongoing purpose as a civic function suite). A few examples of comments which I agree with 100%:


The Assembly Rooms as they stand are a priceless reminder of the glory of Edinburgh...


Dare to put a paint brush near your own listed building they come down with a vengance on you...


Please help to keep Edinburgh a beacon of culture and preserve the Assembly Rooms! They are an integral part of Edinburgh's unique and extremely rich heritage, which will only be diluted by more shops and restaurants catering only to mindless consumersim, and will probably end up a Gap, a Banana republic and a TGI Fridays like every other souless urban block in the world! 


To transform the ground floor of such a beautiful historic building into shops and a restaurant is quite frankly vandalism. I have to ask what is motivating the decision for this change? Is it down to money? If so, I am sure refreshing the sales and marketing strategy for the venue would make a significant improvement financially.


Can you imagine Bath turning their Assembly Rooms into shops?? The Assembly Rooms should be used even more for their original purpose.


It is one of the basic foundation stones of Edinburgh at Festival time, and so it should remain.


This decision will impact on the attractiveness of Edinburgh as destination festival to International tourists and companies. (Aurora Nova hero Wolfgang Hoffman)


There certainly have been occasions when a Glory of a City is badly messed up, but such attacks have usually involved enemy bombing. (Jack Klaff)


I feel deeply sad that this melting pot for culture, this down and dirty artistic mash up sited in a beautiful old council building - a PEOPLE's building - is set to be turned into some nasty little franchise bitch. What a terrible shame. (Jackie Clune, another Assembly performer during my time)


Edinburgh council have form for white elephants: the underground "Princes Street Galleries" shopping mall, or the tram, anyone? (It's not just a modern thing; what about the National Monument on Calton Hill?!). Realising the potential of the Assembly Rooms and reclaiming former glories should be a priority for the council, and some sort of action plan is desperately overdue; but turning such an iconic venue into a retail outlet is clearly not the answer. They must rethink.

Blasted (Lyric) - review

Why would anyone want to kill you?

Revenge. Things I've done.

I read a lot of "pre-match hype" about Sarah Kane's Blasted, and found it difficult to shake off the stereotypes of it being a "cry for help" shortly before her suicide, and didn't know what to make of the hypocrisy (there is no other word for it) of critics, who denounced it as "filth" (among other things) at the time of its first production, but lined up to laud its genius after her death. Sean Holmes takes it on at the Lyric.

I went in braced for an onslaught of harrowing visual imagery. Blasted isn't as simple as that, however. It's a series of rather disjointed tableaux, darkly comical at times, post-apocalyptic at others, with shades of everything from Greek tragedy to Wilfred Owen to Kafka along the way.

Ian and Cate are spending idle time in a hotel. The hotel is plush but bland: perhaps a Hilton or Marriott. The nature of their relationship is never fully revealed; it is mainly sexual, abusive, domineerin on the part of Ian...but Cate does not walk away. Ian's foulmouthed misogyny and vices clearly have some sort of appeal. The dialogue is framented. Many questions are unanswered at this stage: why does Ian carry a gun?

The tone darkens as scene two opens: Lydia spits "Cunt" and it is clear that she has been violated in the night. Even now, the conversations are broken and ambiguous, Ian's paranoia ever more apparent. A soldier bursts into the room, and enages in philosophical debate about the nature of wartime atrocities with Ian. From then on, the surrealism, graphic brutality and black humour crescendo to a grotesque endpiece.

Danny Webb and Lydia Wilson take on the lead roles with mixed success. They are fearsomely difficult parts to play, and the uncomfortable chemistry that is inevitable between a foul-mouthed, abusive, paranoid alcoholic and an attractive introvert thirty years his junior, is clear to see. Webb, despite a rather bizarre accent, was excellent for the most part, although he took a while to warm up. His central conversation with the soldier (it reminded me of Owen's Strange Meeting) crackles with tension, coinciding with some of the best dialogue in the play, while his descent into the tattered rags of a man towards the end reminded me somewhat of the central character of Paul Theroux's deeply disturbing The Mosquito Coast - paranoid, self-destructing, hideous. Wilson, meanwhile, plays her part bravely, but rather surprisingly is let down by technical basics rather than a lack of depth: her hammy stutter, unconvincing movement, and inability to deliver the humorous lines, are all surely details that could be ironed out, as she tackles the uncomfortable role fearlessly.

In truth the script left me rather cold. The soldier dialogue, Ian's complete mental collapse in the later stages, and some of the black gags are terrific, but ultimately I didn't find the play particularly thought-provoking as a whole. Is it shocking? Yes, the material is pretty graphic, but again, I found it all leaving little emotion on me. Much of the attention is understandably on Ian's grapples with the morals of suicide, but these are only really interesting in the context of the playwright's situation - little original thinking is presented. Meanwhile, for truly horrifying rape scenes, look no further than The Paper Birds' In a thousand pieces or Biuro Podrozy's Carmen funebre which are both infinitely more harrowing, without an explicit scene in sight. (The Paper Birds take their latest show Others to the Camden People's Theatre in a couple of weeks). But the shocking truth for me was that it all left me feeling a bit nonplussed.

Sean Holmes left me feeling pretty flat with his Three Sisters earlier this year. This time, his production is terrific, with only irritating details from the actors letting the side down. The post-holocaust latter scenes are quite brilliant, and the final scene rightly had the audience gripped in horror. A special mention to Paule Constable's lighting, which was particularly good.

Finally, a gripe. I was running late, and charged from the tube station, thrust my tenner at the box office staff, and hurried upstairs, sweating, into the auditorium at a minute to seven. It was practically empty. I had to check my ticket to confirm that it was indeed a 7pm start. Only ten minutes later did the press night audience start wandering in, seemingly under no pressure from staff to hurry up and get to their seats, and some even wandered out again to refill their drinks. The show finally got under way at a quarter past, seemingly because the becocktaildressed PR team couldn't be bothered to chivvy the critics inside. Now, I know it's press night and there are whims to be pandered to, but that strikes me as discourteous and disrespectful to the paying punters. If there's an advertised time, there should be no reason (technical hitches apart) not to stick to it.

Verdict: a brutal but disjointed script is overhyped, but neither that nor stilted acting can spoil a thoughtful production of this post-holocaust vision. Worth seeing.


Until 20 November. Tickets from £10.

Autumn theatre: Jack the Knife / Enlightenment / Barbican shows

Gatecrashing a party always feels a bit weird.

And so it felt last night when I went to the Drill Hall - a venue new to me. They have two spaces - it was in the cosier studio space downstairs that I went to see Jack Klaff perform Jack the Knife. Klaff himself was there, shaking hands and greeting the audience: it was the first night, and the entire audience comprised friends and acquaintances. In answer to "Hello, who are you?" I could only lamely retort "just paying audience..."

But the handshakes were deliberate, as Klaff later explained: they are a manipulative technique, sucking you into the performer's inner circle, making you part of his life. For this is a piece about performing itself: the tricks, the subtleties. It's also a personal retrospective of Klaff's career. The combination of not being familiar with his work, there being plenty of theatre industry in-jokes, and surrounded by his mates, all added up to the feeling of being at someone else's party.

None of which detracted from the quality of the show.

It is certainly a show designed for people who are regular theatre-goers - if you're a twice-a-year Blood Brothers-and-panto person, then I might gently point you elsewhere. But Klaff is a natural storyteller in the oldschool sense. The kind of bloke you can imagine holding centre ground in the pub. The show begins organically - you barely realise it's started - and we dart between childhood tales, to outrageous impressions of South African academic colleagues, explorations of philosophical concepts like choice, tongue-in-cheek digs at the theatre industry, Elgar, Paul Schofield, and anecdotes of his foul-mouthed mother. Fiftysomething Klaff had an old school friend in the audience, who tutted and hilariously put him right every time he used artistic license in embellishing old stories (this only added to the experience!)

When I was about eighteen I watched Woody Allen's Sweet & Lowdown and was intensely irritated to discover it was about a fictional character...but, over time, I appreciated the quality of the film. I also read a biography of Kerouac without having read any of his works! Despite being a personal retrospective, Jack the Knife will appeal even if you haven't come across Klaff before. I meant to see it in Edinburgh over the summer (it was at Assembly), definitely glad I was able to put things right. Highly recommended. Final night tonight.

There are plenty of promising things coming up, too. Hampstead Theatre have Enlightenment. The Hampstead have a new Artistic Director in Edward Hall and this is his first production in his new role. He has a good pedigree, having worked with Propellor, and anyone who's directed an episode of Spooks gets thumbs up from me! Enlightenment promises to be a psychological thriller about the lengths to which people will go to find the missing pieces of their lives. The trailer is here - the show looks promising and worth checking out. I've already spotted that local councillor Andrew Marshall has been and loved it. Until Saturday 30 October.

Talking of directorial movements, it's a great shame that Michael Grandage is stepping down from the Donmar Warehouse. Hopefully this will just mean he's off to do even greater things but he's been responsible for some spectacularly good productions over the last few years - notably Othello and Hamlet, although his Ivanov and Twelfth Night were also excellent (only Danton's Death was lame). Big blow for the Donmar, but I'm sure they'll bounce back.

Meanwhile there are all sorts of tasty treats at the Barbican. Black Watch, although it's exorbitantly expensive, is actually one of those rare things that justifies the hype. There's enough of that around already so I won't add to it, everything that needs to be said has already been, just get a ticket and go. It's astonishingly powerful. Lullaby sounds intriguing (Reuters report here), while the excellent Song of the Goat Theatre from Poland bring their own version of Macbeth. Finally, Complicite have Sun-Kin which also promises to be worth trying.

Markus Makavellian's International Order - review

The cross-dressing Markus Makavellian (Drew Taylor to his family) flounces onto stage and confides that he's going to talk about poo. Sat in the front row, my heart sank a little: it's an inauspicious start. But things pick up rapidly and Taylor's loosely rhyming writing is red-hot at times, his lines rattling off like slam poetry at times. As a straight male perhaps I wasn't necessarily the main target audience for the show, but it didn't stop my enjoyment: Taylor is engaging and intimate throughout and there are times (the love-letter reading sequence) where the audience's attention is held rapt. Occasionally we drifted into cliché territory but on the whole, the detail of the writing kept this well and truly afloat.


Markus Makavellian's International Order (Drew Taylor/Proud Exposure, Underbelly)


Verdict: tight writing and a flamboyant performance make this a captivating hour after a wobbly start.

Reviews: Daniel Kitson "It's Always Right Now Until It's Later" a winner but Grandage directs limp "Danton's Death"

It's Always Right Now Until It's Later (Daniel Kitson, BAC/Traverse) ****


Danton's Death (National Theatre) **


Daniel Kitson is the master of coaxing the most out of something so tiny that after an hour and a half in his company, you feel you'll be able to spot something idiosyncratic or beautiful in the tiniest thing you pass. It's Always Right Now... is typical Kitson fare these days, to be honest, and if you've seen any of his more recent material this will have a familiar ring to it. But that doesn't detract from it in the slightest. The night I went was the final preview night at the Battersea Arts Centre, before he transferred to the Traverse in Edinburgh for a (more expensive!) run which is currently in progress. He warned that it might be slightly shambolic, which is was at times, but not in a bad way. Kitson remains incredibly nervous, and was easily put off by shuffles in the audience; eventually this developed into a full-blown heckle from some bell-end sat next to me. As I pointed out to him afterwards, Daniel Kitson hasn't done stand-up since about 2004 (his complaint) but (as the knobwhiff found out) he is possibly the greatest exponent of putting down heckles in the world. The turbomong was duly despatched with, with savage efficacy.

Back to the show. Kitson tells the tale of two lives, independent of one another, in fleeting moments: falling off a bike, or a moment on a bus. It's loose and sprawling, but the tenderness with which he spins his yarns, and acute social observations, make it an utterly compelling 90 minutes. I emerged wide-eyed and inspired to look for more beauty in the mundane: if Kitson has a message, it is that all our lives are extraordinary. Which is an inspiring thought in itself.

Donmar Warehouse director Michael Grandage has been exalted to near-legendary status in recent years with some brilliant productions: I can vouch that his Othello with Chiwetel Ejiofor and Ewan MacGregor, Hamlet with Jude Law, Ivanov with Kenneth Branagh and Twelfth Night with Derek Jacobi were all superb.

With Danton's Death, however, Grandage hits a massive dud. It is a lengthy French Revolution saga which is completely one-dimensional (lots of shouting) and linear (brave revolutionaries jockey for position and make "inspiring" speeches, ad infinitum). Toby Stephens as Danton is completely indistinguishable from the rest of the cast, and the only memorable feature, a nice guillotining gimmick at the end, only goes a small way to recouping the time wasted in seeing this show. Avoid.

One-on-One Festival (part deux): Ontroerend Goed leave the best until last

*** Edit, February 2011 - if you're thinking about going to the 2011 One-on-One Festival, you might not want to read this, because it's a little bit spoilerish. Suffice to say that the essential shows I saw last time, and which are coming back, are the two Ontroerend Goed shows ("Internal" and "A Game of You"), "Rotating in a Room of Images" and "Rendez-Vous", all of which are outstanding ***

What a week this has been. The emotional rollercoaster of seeing the One-On-One Festival on Sunday (read that review before this one if you haven't already), the horror of Carmen Funebre, then last night a trip back to BAC to further the experiences of the other day. With it, I was hoping for some sort of closure. Closure I got.

Throughout, the key element is you the audience member; so much depends on your ability to cast yourself loose on the waves and allow yourself to be taken over by the performance, to slip into character as required. You need to be able to let your imagination run away with you pretty quickly, too: most performances are over in a matter of minutes. Those whose lack of imagination boxes them in are unlikely to benefit. In virtually every show, I came out wondering what would have happened if I had done things differently. 

A Game Of You (Ontroerend Goed) *****

After the frustration of the two previous shows, the musings, wondering "what if I had said something else?", wondering if the performances were unique to me, feeling self-centred and infuriatingly full of self-doubt, I was a little nervous before seeing A Game Of You. I purposely avoided any reviews or previews; my experience of Internal was slightly dampened by the fact I had a fair suspicion of what was to follow (not that I didn't fall into the trap). This turned out to be the key.

As a result, I won't say much about the content - there's no need for spoilers. Suffice to say that as with the other parts of the trilogy, you are played for a fool the whole way along; I walked out with a huge, imbecile grin on my face as I realised how I had been used as a plaything for half an hour. But as the company seem at pains to point out, this is a gentle piece. They have a lot of fun at your expense, but it's light teasing, not cruelty. Events move fast - you end up evaluating yourself in many different ways. A microcosm of the whole festival, you the audience equals you the performer and by placing yourself at the centre of attention, you will learn some things that perhaps you rather wouldn't.

I found out that my name is Steven, I am an artist, and I look like I spilled my dinner down my t-shirt. Tough times.

And yet seeing A Game Of You, as well as a long conversation with somebody else who'd been at Internal, confirmed something that I'd already wondered about: the Ontroerend Goed performers - barely older than me - are the masters of making you a pawn in their world, chewing you up, spitting you out, throwing you around for a while and then dumping you. They have a frighteningly powerful influence over people - shades of The Manchurian Candidate. They would be dangerous tyrants. But they aren't, they'er just frighteningly talented artists, and in the Smile Off Your Face-Internal-A Game Of You trilogy, they've created one of the top five artistic experiences I've ever had in my life.

And the feeling of being manipulated, that I had been a sucker all along, slowly gave way from one of intense self-pity to one of relief, and I started to laugh.

"He hath been most notoriously abus'd" - Olivia, Twelfth Night

2 Free (Ansuman Biswas) ****

Half an hour of breaking personal boundaries and entering situations which you would never wish to be in. Armed with a sand timer and a lantern, the participant explores a space where only by crossing the discomfort line can you experience the next stage of the show. In contrast to Ontroerend Goed, here you are on your own; there is no twist, nobody to laugh at you (which is just as well). This is about testing your own personal limits. What was it Eleanor Roosevelt said? "Do one thing every day that scares you." I let my imagination run riot. The figure in front of me - why was he there? What was his purpose? What did he need from me? How long had he been there? What should I do?

It was a deeply unsettling experience throughout, but I was proud to have overcome my doubts and inhibitions and proved my strength. The opportunity to test your inner mettle in a private half hour where nobody will judge you but yourself, is very enlightening.

Oh, and a tip: don't start emptying out the bag. You won't be popular!

Headlines (Ampersand) ****

Short and sharp. Swept off my feet and thrown into character in seconds, I had to respond instantly, and made a decent fist of it. It's a simple principle: you're thrown into an improv situation with no time to react. Again, nobody is watching except yourself, so there is nobody to judge you. Each day is a unique show; I was Ken Clarke's junior minister for the day, having to justify Clarke's statement that prison sentences should be scrapped for minor crimes. Again, as with so many shows, mental dexterity is required on the part of the participant. A bit of me wishes I had got irate and told my constituent to "fuck off and die". Ah well, next time.

I also played a minor role in a performance of The Fifteen Minute Relationship, and went Through The Wardrobe a second time; I found myself surprised to enjoy it more second time round.

------------------------

Over the last few days I have faced my own death and realised what a miserable life I've led, fallen in false love, gone through a portal to the past, gone into a dressing-up Narnia, been "notoriously abus'd" by Belgian geniuses, battled through intense discomfort, had a karaoke moment with a serving soldier, judged and been judged, laughed, cried, appreciated the inner beauty of something raw and functional, and generally seen myself from more different angles than I could possibly imagine. As others have said, as individual pieces, some were more self-contained and complete than others. But the whole festival hangs together brilliantly; let's hope it's not the last. Most importantly: damn, it was a lot of fun.

15 years on, Carmen Funebre is just as terrifying

Carmen Funebre (Teatr Biuro Podrozy; National Theatre) *****


I saw Carmen Funebre in 1995 in a school playground as part of the Edinburgh Festival. I was twelve at the time and it made a huge impression on me; dark, robed, hooded figures appearing out of nowhere at lightning speed with fire and whips, like demons. They were menacing and I've had vivid images of them ever since. But much of what the work was about was lost on me, and with the exception of those demons, which were burned onto my retinas, the memories were starting to fade.

Fifteen years later, the show, from Polish group Biuro Podrozy, is still a hit worldwide and is back on these shores at the National Theatre. My attention was drawn by a tweet from the NT highlighting last night's "priceless preview" (ie pay what you think it's worth) and at the very last minute, I shovelled down some food, grabbed my girlfriend and hurried down to Waterloo. It was a real impromptu trip. Would it be worth seeing again?

Subtle it ain't. While the events it's based on - the atrocities in Bosnia in the nineties - may not be foremost in people's minds in this country any longer, the horrors portrayed are universal. The ten-foot hooded demons scoured the audience and plucked out their victims, who were summarily beaten and gang-raped - the defiling of a woman superbly intimated by means of the contents of a bottle of wine. Refugees attempted to create normal lives for themselves and were soon harassed by the soldiers. The wounded dragged their way around the set, rattling coins in tins, seeking succour from the audience. There was none. The figure of Death prowled around the surrounding horrors, forking the flaccid imagery of the dead for the peasants to burn. Thunderous strings alternated with a cheerful accordion.

It's a universal commentary - although no comment is required; the images are simple and brutal. Having seen Carmen Funebre more than half my life ago, I can say that it's just as terrifying as an adult. But it resonates even more.

More Edinburgh Festival 2010 tips

A few more shows that have come to my attention over the last couple of weeks in the 2010 Fringe:

Metamorphosis (Belt Up) - C Soco

Beautiful Burnout (Frantic Assembly/National Theatre of Scotland) - Pleasance

Roadkill - Traverse

Freefall (Corn Exchange Theatre Co) - Traverse

Cirque de Legume - Gilded Balloon

I've only seen one Frantic Assembly production (Stockholm) which was excellent, and have meant to see other things; reviews are consistently good. Meanwhile, Aurora Nova may be no more, but Wolfgang Hoffman started up Aurora Nova Productions in 2009. They are producing Cirque de Legume; if it's good enough for Hoffman, it's good enough for me.

I know I mentioned other shows previously, but just so I can see them in one handy place, these are the other things that appeal to me:

Sub Rosa - Remarkable Arts

Ballet Work No 1020 - Traverse

Jack the Knife - Assembly

Teenage Riot (Ontroerend Goed) - Traverse

Decky Does A Bronco (Grid Iron) - Traverse

En Route - Traverse

The Girl in the yellow Dress - Traverse

Apple - Traverse

no child - assembly

Tripod vs The Dragon - Assembly

Pajama Men - Assembly

Camille O'Sullivan - Assembly

I'll keep adding to that list as I hear about things. Wallet constraints mean that I'll need to be selective, unfortunately! If anyone hears of any freebies/cheapies (not likely, given that I won't be up until the 21st), then let me know...x

PS I still have to take issue with prices. Almost everything is more expensive than in London; this should not be.

One On One Festival (BAC) - mindblowing

*** Edit, February 2011 - if you're thinking about going to the 2011 One-on-One Festival, you might not want to read this, because it's a little bit spoilerish. Suffice to say that the essential shows I saw last time, and which are coming back, are the two Ontroerend Goed shows ("Internal" and "A Game of You"), "Rotating in a Room of Images" and "Rendez-Vous", all of which are outstanding ***

For the umpteenth time I scurried up the stairs to the Yellow block and chattered senselessly at the staff about how I'd been looking forward to this for WEEKS and how excited I was and how the show 'd just seen was nuts and how you've got to...they indulged me patiently. A fair few people seemed as wired as I was. Two years in the making, the One on One Festival is a mammoth project that the Battersea Arts Centre have put together, and confirms for me why it's the most exciting venue in London. A series of loosely related projects, exhibits, installations and performances all based around the concept of a one-person audience: a show created especially for you. I sensed that this might be an opportunity to throw off the shackles and let myself go. I wasn't disappointed. While the real reason I was there was to see my heroes, Belgian geniuses Ontroerend Goed (and I'm about to shell out another £22.50 to see their other show, along with whatever else I missed) but the rest was an unknown quantity. I was not disappointed.

Every inch of the space is used, including all the foyer and bar areas. More than anywhere else in London, it reminded me of being in Edinburgh during in Festival time. Every other person seemed to be either BAC staff, volunteers or a performer. The staff were all great banter, especially the box office girls who had a hellishly complicated system to navigate and still seemed pretty chipper, happy to help greedy people like me who wanted to see show after show, on top of our paid-for allocation. It seemed a shame to be a mere paying punter - as usual in these festival situations, I felt a little wistful that my career path has taken an infinitely less interesting turn.

As for the shows: you just need to relax, let yourself get into the spirit of things and they range from sweet to extraordinary. A fabulous project from BAC - start preparing for another one in two years' time please. Every bit as I expected. And then some. Go, quick. I'm on the phone to the box office to get my second ticket as I type.

Other reviews worth reading here:
Matt Boothman
What's On Stage

Through the wardrobe (Breathe) ***

My first encounter of the evening. The greatest thrill came at the start: to be sat in the dark, armed only with a failing torch, and faced with a knee-high door bearing the placard "Enter when you hear the knock." The adrenaline rushed as I waited for the knock. Once inside, it was tmie to explore, to choose, and to dress. It was a charming encounter - tempered only by the fact that it felt rather hurried when I would have been happy to stay longer.

The Soldier's Song (Quarantine) ***

I think I went into the karaoke shack with the wrong state of mind. I belted out "Please Release Me" with nobody but an army sergeant for company. It was a lot of fun, but I think I was too drained by the time I got to it to get myself up for anything more.

Drag Mountain (Thom Shaw) ***

Theatrically limp (perhaps I couldn't get properly into the "become an agent of gender resistance"?) but visually stunning: there is something truly regal about this drag queen. My creativity - not to mention knot-tying - was utterly embarrassing.

It's Your Film (Stan's Cafe) ***

The ultimate one-on-one experience: a film produced live, and exclusively for one person. Through a screen-sized peephole, two white-collar workers - or are they gangsters? - are on the hunt for someone. With Orson Wellesian cool, they smoke, sling their jackets over their shoulders, smoulder and pout. Will they find their quarry?

You me nothing (Franko B) ***

An ideal warmup to get you to "free your mind". It's an installation where you are the key element. What is there? Nothing. What can you do? Very little. I managed to work myself into an agitated state of mind where the most obvious thing that you would do with the key prop...I just couldn't bring myself to do it. When I finally forced myself to do it, I knew my time in the exhibit was over.

A little bit of a beautiful thing (Barnaby Stone) ****

This one only really grabbed me afterwards. A log which has been through the wars - perhaps literally. Once it had a life. Then it died, and had a new, functional life. Then it had a third life - for 400 years. Now, the log is retiring from active service - with one final adventure.

Barnaby Stone tells the story of the beaten up lump of wood. From the far end of the sanitary corridor (no, really) it seems like he is raping the log with tools: sanders, hammers, pegs. Only at the end can you appreciate just how this log's final journey is to become something of beauty and delicacy that you jsut could not imagine from looking at it.

One key element of being the only member of the audience is that the normal rules of behaviour can be broken. As a regular theatre-goer, it's my instinct to keep my trap shut throughout, applaud at the end and go on my merry way. When there are no other audience members to disturb, can those rules be broken? I found it difficult. As a result, in this show and others, I mainly sat in lumpen silence. I grabbed my present, muttered thanks and scuttled out. I wish I'd shown a bit more gratitude, both to Barnaby and all the other performers.

Talking of shows where you don't quite know how to behave...

Internal (Ontroerend Goed) ****


My head is full of questions.

In the summer of 2007, in a tiny room in Edinburgh, I allowed myself to be taken over by hands unseen, bound and blindfolded, put in a wheelchair, then controlled, manipulated and manhandled for a terrifying yet exhilarating twenty minutes that left me in tatters. The focal point of the evening was a moment on a bed. A voice whispered sweet nothings in my ear in the blackness. It was the first time in what seemed ages that I had contact with a real human being. The voice asked me what I thought. I said that at that moment in time, she was my only friend.

Should I be doing this?

Fast forward three years. I am sitting in a private booth sharing a table - and some vodka - with a stunning girl whose eyes punctured my defences from six inches away. I was mesmerised. I babbled about idioms and dams for a while. I told her about the moment on the bed.

If we weren't in a performance, would we...

"That was me."

Isn't she a great actor. I'm supposed to think these thoughts, aren't I?

I nearly keeled over. That voice had stuck with me all that time, haunted me. And now here she is holding my hand.

In another life, would I...

Ontroerend Goed are masters of finding your weak points. Within minutes, she knew everything about me. In a flash our date was over and we were sharing our experiences in a group post-dating counselling session. No punches were pulled. Some uncomfortable truths came out. Questions were asked. Sophie looked at me again. "Did we click?"

Should I have kissed her properly?

The brilliance of this show is that if you can let yourself go, you'll be cast into a horrible illusion - no, delusion. You'll be elevated to a status you're utterly unworthy of, then become the plaything of a few young Belgians, and tossed away again. The delusion that you are something special is brilliantly executed. I believe professional prostitutes work in the same way. For just a moment, you wonder if the money you paid has anything to do with this. Questions that really shouldn't be asked start flashing across your mind.

What would my girlfriend...

The performers' ability to find your weaknesses and prey on them is uncanny and scary. The delusions are kept up until the end, leaving a disturbing aftertaste. Watching the video trailer afterwards gives a hint. The performers pierce the camera with their eyes and explain why they are searching. Only at the end, a voice off-camera shouts "because you're a slut" and the actor dissolves into giggles. The spell is broken; the session with the prostitute is over and it's time to hand over the cash, before she goes in search of a new punter. Next morning, I was reminded of a song which I played over and over on my way to work: Irene Kral - Is It Over Baby? "Once you told me that our love would never die...now I have to wonder if it all was just a lie...Is it over baby? Have you got a date with someone new?"

Am I falling in love with her? (That one's easy. Yes - three times over).

I'll be back for part three of the trilogy , "A Game Of You" this week. Incidentally, I wonder if Ontroerend's latest show, "Teenage Riot" will make it to BAC - if so, I bet it'll be cheaper than the £19 the Traverse are charging in Edinburgh.

Sophie.

Rotating in a room of images (Lundahl & Seitl) *****

By a distance, the most polished and sophisticated show that I saw at the festival, and pound-for-pound, my favourite of the whole lot. Rotating in a room of images is a full-on sensual experience. It's also downright creepy - shades of horror films, but the best comparison for me would be Lucy M Boston's books about The Children of Green Knowe. In complete darkness, with all sounds blacked out, a child's voice in my head. Imploring, commanding, reassuring. I found myself taking steps through the void. The voice is at once in front and behind, above, below, it is all around. "I am here with you." A hand guides you, leading, cajoling. You are in The Room. Now there is a screen. I see myself projected. There are footsteps behind me. Multiple footsteps. "We are behind you." I spin around. Nothing. I spin back in front. Ghostly figures from another era are with me on the screen. are they my ancestors? Who have I got mixed up with? Where am I? When am I? The ride is not finished. There is a glimpse of another world. Just a glimpse - tantalising but spinetingling. Then a shaft of light and a door leading to the 2D world. Rotating in a room of images is a extraordinary, mind-altering experience - let yourself go and allow yourself to be taken through time and space to somewhere forgotten. Lundahl & Seitl are the closest I've come to another Ontroerend Goed moment - that's a compliment of the highest order. Creepy, exhilarating, magnificent.

Rendez-Vous (Villanella/Hanneke Paauwe) *****

You may confront your greatest fear in this show. I thought my greatest fear was electric shocks (Ray Lee's "Electric" was off-limits for me). I went into Rendez-Vous and was presented with the prospect of my own death. "This is the end of the journey."

I had still not faced my greatest fear.

A figure in white, reassuring words, a welcoming smile. This isn't so bad after all. I know exactly how I'll leave this world, by the way; the strings will fade away at the end of the Adagietto of Mahler's Fifth Symphony, and at the precise moment where I cease to exist, the pure horn note at the start of the final movement will sound. I know this will happen. If I get invited to heaven, then it'll be here (hence my prattling to Sophie about damming up streams). Maybe Hanneke will be there to greet me. But then, a life's retrospective.

I faced questions about what I'd achieved. What I had done. Who had I influenced. Who had I changed. Whose lives had I made better. Had I done everything I set out to do. Would people cry for me. Would anyone remember me.

Are you afraid of death?

I was facing my greatest fear. Not of death, not even of being forgotten - although that was pretty painful. My own answers to the questions did not make for a comfortable analysis. Worst of all: I have done nothing to be proud of. I need to rectify this, do something to be proud of, change somebody's life. But I am about to die. It is too late.

Suddenly, I was in pieces. My imbecile grin as I left, and casual "Yeah, it was wicked" to the ushers, managed to stifle the tears.

I didn't open the envelope until I was nearly home. Kidney punch. But at least a reminder that I've still got time. This is how it ends...

Ontroerend Goed - The Smile Off Your Face (review from Edinburgh Festival 2007)

I actually wrote the following review of Ontroerend Goed's The Smile Off Your Face three years ago, when I saw it in Edinburgh, at C Venues, as part of the Edinburgh Festival. If I'd written it today, I'd probably have written it slightly differently; as it is, I've left it untouched. I only posted it to my Facebook at the time, though; time it got a more public airing, particularly as it's pertinent to another review I'm about to write. Looking back over it, this contains spoilers; the edited version says "Just buy a ticket".

Quite simply the most surreal, most sensual, most utterly extraordinary 20 minutes of my entire life. I read the first couple of sentences of a review, realised that I needed to literally RUN to buy a ticket that day and did without bothering to read the rest of the review. The premise is simple: you are blindfolded and bound to a wheelchair and...things happen. The audience capacity is exactly one, so I sat in the waiting room with a slight feeling of trepidation which, as previous 'victims' came out in floods of tears, was mixed with nervous excitement. (The show isn't playing any more in the UK as far as I know but I'm about to spoil it so you might want to look away if you think you might hunt them down...which you SHOULD). Anyhow.

Blindfolded and with my hands bound, I was sat in a wheelchair and wheeled through a curtain into the unknown. For the next 20 minutes I was subjected to the complete range of sensual experiences and invasions of privacy. Faint music sounded from all directions. The a clock ticked just beside my right ear, then my left. Sudenly I was aware of the feeling of warmth, followed by the smell of cinamon just under my nose as I was wheled round. Apart from the faint ticking and music, there was no sound - it was impossible to tell if there was one person beside me or ten - or any at all. Sudenly I flinched violently; the unmisakeable sound of a cigarette lighter being lit beside my face. Not a pleasant experience when you're so vulnerable and my emotions were dominated by fear and paranoia at this point. Then I was encouraged to stand up and I felt a pair of hands touching my face, exploring me, feeling my shape. My hands were led to explore the other person's face. Who were they? was it someone blindfolded like me? Was it an actor? Or was it someone who was genuinely blind? I realised that I would leave the theatre with a lot of questions either answered or unanswered. Then another figure led me in a dance. I was sat down once again in the relative comfort and safety of the wheelchair. Or so I thought.

Suddenly I was violently thrown backwards - the wheelchair had no back. A girl was lying on top of me, arms around me, nuzzling me, dominating. Erotic? Hmmmmm. Alarming? Most definitely. She began a whispered conversation in my ear. Personal, yet abstract questions; every one of them seemed so profound I had to pause each time to come up with an answer that seemed inadequate in the circumstances, each time. Then she was gone as quickly as she'd arrived. As the first time anyone had spoken to me in the whole process, I was astonished at how quickly she had become my only friend and I felt lonely once again at her departure.

One disconcerting aspect was that it was impossible to work out how far I had been wheeled - it felt like a long ghost train. Soon another girl was talking to me, a new conversation, and once again I had to place my complete faith in her as she fed me various flavours. Then she said 'now I want you to see me' and for a second the blindfold was lifted to reveal a girl sitting, goddess-like, on a golden throne in a blaze of light, dressed entirely as Father Christmas.

Finally, feeling exhusted, came the climax. A young man spoke to me and took the blindfold off. He was sat staring into my face, about 6 inches from my visage, with electric blue eyes. Slowly he asked me to explain my experiences in a sort of 'debrief'. Then he asked me to give me the widest smile I had ever managed, and hold it. His own face gave me a strange, distant smile. I beamed at him enthusiastically. We stared into each others eyes, until I realised that there were tears rolling down his face. Slowly I was wheeled back through the arena - it turned out the whole thing had taken place in a tiny room.

Astonishing. I left exhausted and with my emotions in complete turmoil.


Click here for more Ontroerend Goed reviews.

The Misanthrope - review

The Misanthrope, Comedy Theatre ****

Damian Lewis is excellent as protaganist and main character Alceste: at once ebullient, volatile, believeable and human and has terrific stage presence as well as good comic timing. His main sparring partners are Dominic Rowan, who plays friend John squarely and confidently without attracting too much attention to himself, and Keira Knightley as American movie star Jennifer. Knightley is convincing as the vacuous diva and manages to keep her friends strung up for the entire play until the bombshells are dropped towards the end. It's a part that could easily be turned into a hammed-up mess but Knightley manages to be irritating for the right reasons and is a good foil for Lewis.

The production stays true to the stage directions with a lush drawing room setting. Best of all is a red-hot script by Martin Crimp, which updates the Moliere original and puts it in a 21st century celeb-paparazzi setting. With a loosely rhyming script, which keeps its rhythm throughout and adds bite to the humour, it's a terrific piece of writing. Overall, a very enjoyable show.

First Edinburgh Festival thoughts and BAC One on One festival

The Fringe programme launch is one of my most eagerly anticipated days of the year - although I'll be no clearer to actually knowing what to go and see.So far I've only had a chance to have a quick spin through the programmes of two of the main venues: Assembly, which is still close to my heart, and the Traverse.

Assembly present the usual safe mixture of mainstream dance/light entertainment fusion blockbusters, Guy Masterson productions and easy been-around-for-years-thus-bums-on-seats comics (Jason Byrne). It's a disappointingly familiar programme. Camille O'Sullivan, "downgraded" to the Assembly Rooms proper after a couple of years on the Mound, will be a highlight (I'm now a full-fat fan). Other big guns wheeled out by Assembly include the Soweto Gospel Choir - nearly as inevitable as William Burdett-Coutts using the press launch to call on the Fringe and International Festival to merge. Taking up residence on the Mound are the brilliant Pajama Men with their unique show, one of the funniest things I've seen in years. Other shows I'll be keeping my eye on include No Child, Tripod Versus The Dragon and Jack the Knife.

Assembly are going to have some sort of tent in Princes Street Gardens which, if WBC has chosen well, could be the highlight of the festival. A quick look at the programme, however, and I'm not so sure: the insistence on programming granny-friendly "fusion" acts such as the Bala Brothers (described as "the latest singing sensations from South Africa...soaring harmonies...infuse opera sounds with popular African music." In other words, business as usual for Assembly. A daytime Best of the Fest is a great idea, and The Crack is likely to create the most word of mouth. Meanwhile something called Guilty Pleasures is already showing up as sold out on the Assembly website for the first few days, which I find hard to believe. Burlesque singer Meow Meow, who I very nearly booked tickets for at the Soho Theatre a few weeks ago, is another one to watch. Will it be the new Spiegeltent? Who knows, but fair play to assembly for taking on the mantle as it was an obvious hole that needed plugging, and putting it in Princes Street is a novel idea, despite being slightly less part of "Festivalville" than George Square.

I can't think about Assembly comedy without remembering Daniel Kitson at Best of the Fest in about 2003, when his voice when he teased Adam Hills about playing is safe at the Assembly Rooms was laden with deep scorn. The intimation was clear: Assembly is a venue deeply committed to playing things safe. Yet they inevitably end up with an unexpected gem or two - I'm sure the same will happen this year.

The Traverse programme is more heavyweight than ever: productions from the likes of the Royal Court, citizens and Birmingham Rep. Like Assembly, the Traverse have their favourites - Daniel Kitson returns with It's Always Right Now, Until Later, Druid put on another Enda Walsh play (Penelope) while Ontroerend Goed will be a short price to take awards for Teenage Riot which will presumably be some sort of natural sequel to the brilliant One and for all... One of the most promising shows is a dance production, Ballet Work No 1020 by Martin Creed - it sounds like a minimalist ballet production. Ever dependable Grid Iron showcase their Fringe First winning Decky Does A Bronco. To be honest, I would see any show blind at the Traverse, but others which look especially promising to me are En Route, The Girl in the Yellow Dress and Apple.

The main problem with the Traverse is the cost of the shows. Weekend performances are now £19 - I'd like to see virtually everything that's being put on, but can't afford to spend hundreds on a few plays. For a Londoner like me, the temptation is to wait until they come down to London; many Traverse hits will filter through at some point in the year following the Festival, to off-West End venues like the Tricycle, BAC, or Lyric...where the tickets will be barely half the price. Holding out is a risky strategy, as theere's no guarantee that any of the shows will make its way down - but historically, many of them do and I may take my chances on seeing most of them in London, if only for financial reasons. While I don't have a problem with the Traverse charging relatively high prices, it's a shame that there's no discount for multiple purchases. There will be many people who would be prepared to book tickets for several shows at once and some sort of "loyalty card" scheme would be a nice touch.

I'll only be in Edinburgh for the last week of the Fringe - note to self: stay on top of the reviews, the blogs, the rumours, the gossip, and get those tickets booked early for the must-see shows. Otherwise you'll just spend the time getting pissed in the Princes Street tent or sitting in the Traverse cafe.

Rather more pressing is the need to get tickets for the One On One festival at the Battersea Arts Centre which brings a whole host of shows exploring intimate theatre and the on-on-one performer-audience experience. Ontroerend Goed are the standout highlight - their The smile off your face is extraordinary and I still haven't seen Internal which is supposed to be similarly mindblowing. The ticketing concept is intriguing - a ticket buys you admission to three shows (out of over twenty) but due to scheduling requirements you don't have much choice in what you see other than one show of your choice. I hadn't heard of many of the companies and artists but pretty much everything looks right up my street and well worth a look. For me, this is what real modern theatre is about and I'll be like a kid in a sweet shop. Have a look at the programme here. My problem is that I have no idea how to go about choosing...I want to see them all...

***Update*** Review here.

Lyric's Three Sisters solid, but unmemorable

Three Sisters - Filter, Lyric Theatre ***

The Lyric Theatre's latest production with Filter of Chekhov's Three Sisters is frustratingly average. I was looking forward to seeing Sean Holmes' work with Filter having heard so many good things about their Caucasian Chalk Circle; the Checkhov turned out to be a very straight production, with rather limp humour, a complete lack of tension, and a narrative that was not fully explored.

First a gripe. It is not trendy, groundbreaking, or edgy to set up the soundbox on the stage. It is not "warts-and-all" theatre; it is lazy and merely a distraction from the fact that no money has been spent on a set. And having stage crew wander across the stage willy-nilly just papers over unprofessionalism elsewhere. I've seen this approach taken three times in the last year and a half (also with Complicite's A Disappearing Number and Kneehigh's Don John). The "let it all hang out" approach has added nothing to any of those productions.

As for the Sisters: Poppy Miller steals the show with a brilliantly repressed Vershinin. Romola Garai simply doesn't make the most of Masha - graduating from pouty to whiny via droopy and not a great deal else. A disappointment. Claire Dunne as Irina occasionally sparkles, but there were a few too many histrionics for my liking. Apart from Miller, only Ferdy Roberts as Andrei really shone.

The text had some wonderful moments and there were times when the tension of the small town life and frustration of the characters really manifested itself; and moments with the cleverly positioned microphones wored quite nicely. But I am writing this review barely a fortnight after seeing the production and I am already struggling to remember most of the production. Not bad, solid, but hardly life changing.

Hype, masters at work and bleak brilliance: three West End blockbusters

Hamlet (RSC, dir Gregory Doran, Novello Theatre) **
Waiting for Godot (Theatre Royal Haymarket, dir Sean Mathias) *****
Hamlet (Donmar Warehouse productions, dir Michael Grandage, Wyndham’s Theatre) ****
2009 has been the year of the classic megaproduction. Rarely can there have been so much anticipation surrounding a Hamlet, let alone a Godot. Would the productions themselves withstand such hype and scrutiny?

The RSC Hamlet (**) , perhaps better known as the David tennant Hamlet, was perhaps the most eagerly anticipated Shakespeare production EVER – certainly in my lifetime. Tickets sold out for the entire London run in a matter of hours. As a result, I found myself queuing one freezing January morning at 5am on Aldwych, for one of the day seats that were held back.
Queuing for returns and day seats is a particularly British pastime and one which always brings the same characters together, time after time. There was the woman at the front, with picnic hamper and shooting stick, who had sat on her own for four hours until the second person in line arrived. There was the bright American student, who prattled on, brightly, about nothing in particular in a loud voice which had just the right tone to pierce whatever defences I attempted to put up as I made manful efforts to sleep on my haunches. It was an incessant noise and I would have pleaded manslaughter on the grounds of both self defence and diminished responsibility. There was the silent, anorexic male, reading Dostoyevsky. There was the matronly type, offering tea and sandwiches to all around her. There was the plummy type in her sixties, who discussed all things theatrical with her neighbours, until at one point she came out with “Oh reaaaaaly? What an absolute fucking bastard.”
Workers, clubbers and homeless alike looked on, wondering why such a motley crew of middle class (mostly) fiftysomethings would sit in freezing drizzle at the crack of dawn. There is little to keep one amused. Sandwich delivery vans, all from firms with punnish monikers (“The Well Bread Sandwich” and the like), provided the bulk of the entertainment. Apart from that it is a long, hard slog to 10am.
These were the hottest tickets in town. Seeing the Doctor Who Hamlet was like getting tickets to the Governor’s Ball after the Oscars. This was real deal gold-dust business. But what of the performance itself? On paper it was an embarrassment of riches. Not just Tennant, but Patrick Stewart too; and the kitemark of an RSC production. Surely nothing could go wrong.
Personally, I was sorely disappointed, but it must be said that I was in the minority. First things first, let’s get Tennant out of the way. He hammed everything up, he leapt and gurned, contorting his face in his trademark way. He was never Hamlet; he was always David Tennant doing Hamlet. He has the misfortune of a very distinctive style, and thus it is always hard to shake off the feeling of watching the actor rather than the part. He was not helped by a production that attempted to inject humour at the most inappropriate places while missing obvious jokes in the text; as a result, is had a disjointed, uncomfortable feel, while making Tennant look as if he was going for cheap laughs half the time. The second half picked up well as the action intensified, but I still came away slightly short-changed (as the day seats were a fiver, perhaps an inappropriate choice of phrase).
The supporting cast were mixed. Patrick Stewart, as the Ghost and Claudius, was understated and had suitable grandeur without being spectacular. Penny Downie as Gertrude was majestic; she was terrifyingly powerful and the bedroom scene with Hamlet was electric. Also of particular note was Edward Bennett as Laertes.
As soon as word went around that the two veteran giants of the Shakespeare-Hollywood crossover, Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen, were joining forces to do Waiting for Godot (*****), there was only one word in my head: unmissable. Of course, like the rest of the world I had seen them together for a few fleeting moments in the X Men films, and despite the CGI that was enough to make me realise that the two of them had the potential to create something very, very special together.
Never having seen Godot before, I went with a light heart: I knew that it might well be something that I wouldn’t enjoy, but I also knew that if these two couldn’t make it work, then it could simply be written off as a piece for which I don’t have the intellectual capacity.
McKellen and Stewart were, simply brilliant by virtue of the fact that they managed to put the real star of the show to the fore: Beckett himself. Their considerable acting skills and Sean Mathias’ directing ensured that far from being a play consisting of two old men talking about nothing, it became a wonderfully uplifting journey through static  - or cyclical, depending on which way you look at it – time. Simon Callow’s brutal and grotesque Pozzo provided horror and light relief in equal quantities, while the bizarre Lucky (Ronald Pickup) was distressing to watch. As for the leads themselves: they eked humour out of every line. It was a production full of pathos, but ultimately uplifting: two men in the twilight of their lives, watching time tick by, but making the most of every second of their lives by enjoying each other’s company. A better depiction of friendship I have never seen before. The production also seemed to emphasise just how Irish the play is: men talking about nothing, for days on end, and yet remaining  stoically upbeat about the future (with lashings of healthy cynicism thrown in). The best was left until last: the vaudeville curtain call, with bowler hats the stars of the show, was a wonderful way to leave this magnificent production.
Michael Grandage is without doubt the director du jour and having seen his Donmar-on-West-End-residency productions of Ivanov and Twelfth Night, as well as his superb Othello last year, I had high hopes for his Hamlet (****). For those who hadn’t been to the RSC version, there was a feeling of going off to Bristol University having missed out on Cambridge: probably a decent experience, but not the unforgettable, lifechanging affair that seeing David Tennant might have been.
By contrast to the RSC’s patchy effort, this  was a simpler affair: a Jude Law tour de force. Law, a much underrated Hollywood actor in my opinion (his performance in Closer is the highlight of a superb film), covered a vast range of emotions and philosophies throughout, but always emphasising the confusion and self-doubt that the Prince feels. Whether berating those around him for their moral flimsiness or demonstrating Shakespeare’s exquisite existentialist soliloquies, Law engaged with the audience from the word go and never let up.
It occurred to me that perhaps Law was projecting a little of himself into the part; he has always been an enigma, with rumours of a cold heart where women are concerned and just the other day was pictured lashing out at a photographer. I wondered if he had managed to put himself not only in Hamlet’s shoes, but in his mind as well.
The production was based purely around highlighting the Prince’s inner turmoil. Action and humour were downplayed – indeed, this was a bleak, almost elegiac performance at times. Some of the action was inadequate; there was not enough tension towards the end (partly because Law’s titanic philosophical effort in the first half had been so exhausting) and of the supporting cast, only Matt Ryan as Horatio was convincing, providing a strident foil to Law for Hamlet at his most positive: in true Love.