My favourite play - No Man's Land at the Oxford Playhouse 2002

As the Oxford Playhouse is closed, they were asking us to email our memories of productions there. This is what I sent.

Fortunately, Oxford's Daily Info carried a review of No Man's Land that was performed at the Oxford Playhouse in February 2002 as I only have the ticket to confirm my attendance there on 28th. I know I had the programme, but somehow it's not where it should be.

This production opened at The National Theatre in December 2001 (the photos are from there) and for the tour, a couple of the cast were changed. Corin Redgrave still appeared in one of the lead as Hirst, but John Wood as Spooner was replaced by Hugh Futcher. Andy de la Tour reprised his role as Briggs, but Danny Dyer's role as Foster was played by Gary Shelford. My memory is not good enough to confirm all this, so I am relying on Sheelagh Doyle's review below.

All the reviews for the London production were first class, even Michael Billington (the foremost theatre critic of his day - he retired in 2019) gave it five stars. What made it special was that it was directed by the playwright himself. Billington called Harold Pinter's presentation a poem. I just found it enthralling.

NO MAN'S LAND, by Harold Pinter
OXFORD PLAYHOUSE to Saturday 2nd March, 2002

No Man's Land is about two writers, Hirst (Corin Redgrave), a successful poet and Spooner (Hugh Futcher), a failed poet who meet at Jack Straw's Pub on Hampstead Heath and return to Hirst's impressive, if impersonal, home for a drink. Hirst, a writer who has not written or published for quite some time is unable to unlock his creative powers and is trapped, possibly as a result of his own success, in no man's land. His servants, Foster (Gary Shelford) and Briggs (Andy de la Tour) appear at times to have more control over their employer then he has over them. Spooner, a desperate man in need of some sort of haven, tries to awaken Hirst's creative powers thus rescuing them both from the no man's land. This alcohol-fueled play leaves Hirst in a drunken stupor and Spooner locked in the room for the night at the end of act one. The next morning, Hirst, oblivious to the happenings of the night before, greets Spooner with a different name and proceeds to reminisce about their Oxford days. Spooner eventually joins in with Hirst, making connections with the past as he builds up to use the opportunity to ask for a job as his secretary. Alas for Spooner, Hirst is already too far-gone in that day's drunkenness to consider his request.

No Man's Land asks more questions than gives answers and is about the inevitability of old age. Whilst the play is about the search for connections, all four characters are given the opportunity to speak uninterrupted and at length about their individual chaos. This is an excellent opportunity to watch remarkable acting under Pinter's perceptive direction.

Corin Redgrave gives a superb performance as the impassive, inebriated Hirst. Hugh Futcher comes across magnificently as the pathetic Spooner, a failed man doing menial jobs to sustain himself while desperately trying to escape no man's land.
Gary Shelford's Foster and Andy de la Tour's Briggs are also superb in their intimidating roles and evoke a threatening force over Spooner as he makes efforts to awake the creative forces with Hirst. The stage and lighting directions reflect the central themes and represent Hirst's home as a stagnant hotel like room with an antique drink cabinet as the focal point.

Written and directed by Harold Pinter, No Man's Land is a ingenious mix of the comical and the disturbing which looks at the ultimate emptiness that can accompany old age and asks what is to be done when there is nothing left to do.

Sheelagh Doyle
26/02/02

Great Film Composers: Music of the Movies on Sky Arts - the 1980's Part 1

The 1980's saw the advent of electronic music in films as well as the traditional orchestral scores. Wendy Carlos was a musical prodigy who was at the forefront of synthesised music. She helped with the development of the Moog synthesiser. As well as being a talented musician, she could also build a computer. Her experimental music and three grammy awards led her to being employed by Stanley Kubrick to score A Clockwork Orange. The music included classical pieces played on the synthesiser. This was followed by her work on The Shining with Kubrick again, this time a more chilling medieval score to give the atmosphere of doom. The contributors remarked that it certainly added to the uneasiness of the movie that was "incredibly effective". Her work later on Tron was a perfect fit for this offbeat film.

Vangelis was  another child prodigy who could play the piano at the age of four. From his home in Greece to Paris and London, he made a successful career composing and playing in various bands and under his own name. He was chosen to score the 1980 movie Chariots of Fire for which he won an Oscar and fame for the main theme. The following year he teamed up with Ridley Scott for Blade Runner and a score that was "quite ghostly". For some reason the programme did not mention his music for 1992's 1492:Conquest of Paradise, again with Ridley Scott, that won various award nominations. But that was because it came later in the 1980's.

Yet another composer who featured a synthesiser style was Brad Fiedel. He was the keyboard player for Hall and Oates but it was his score for 1984's The Terminator and it's sequel that he found fame. James Cameron needed the sound of a machine and the beat that Fiedel created is a classic of cinema. Again, his many later film scores fall outside the time frame for this episode.

Maurice Jarre was a French composer and conductor who adopted a style using a number of musicians all playing synths at the same time. He composed the score for 1982's The Year of Living Dangerously that also featured a track from a Vangelis album.

In the early 1980's, John Williams ("the master of the epic movie") continued his association with Steven Spielberg with 1980's The Empire Strikes Back, (individual themes for Darth Vader, Yoda and the battlefield) Raiders of the Lost Ark in 1981 ("an exciting score with a big kick") and the following year saw ET: The Extra Terrestrial (beautiful, poignant music with that flying bicycle theme). All huge blockbusters with amazing music and wonderful themes.

John Barry continued his success with his score for Body Heat in 1981. This saw his transition from the big brash Bond music to something more sensual with a type of British jazz score. Very different to Bond.

In 1980's Ordinary People, Marvin Hamlisch took that classical theme and created variations through the film. Then for Sophie's Choice in 1982, he was nominated again for an Oscar.

Enrico Morricone worked with Sergio Leone for the last time in 1984 on the gorgeous Once Upon a Time in America. This was Leone's last film and his only American gangster movie with Robert De Niro. The music was more romantic and melancholic than those earlier Westerns. And Morricone made use of the pan flute to replicate the whistling from his earlier work for which he was so well known.

It was Ian Nathan who summed up the early 80's by reminding us that "those scores were just so memorable".

Glastonbury 2019 on YouTube - Freya Ridings

Following a lockdown suggestion for Glastonbury 2019 on YouTube, I only found one act I wanted to see. Freya Ridings performs one of her best songs Lost Without You. A class act.

Late in the Day, The Doll Factory and Girl, Balancing

Middle age, it's a funny time of life. Well, not exactly funny in the hands of author Tessa Hadley, the jokes are pretty rare. In Late in the Day, two couples, "both alike in dignity", are lifelong friends. The men were boys together at school and so were the girls. To tell their story, Tessa Hadley jumps back and forth in time, a device that works really well. The penultimate chapter could have easily been the first.

In less capable hands, this novel about the domestic lives of the four and their families could have been a bore. But Hadley is such a good writer, her prose slips effortlessly off the page. The one section I will never forget is when one of them buys a run down chapel and converts it into an ultra modern art gallery. A little pretentious, but I loved it. In retrospect, the last third of the book had a growing inevitability of something quite dramatic. My fourth book by this writer and it wont be my last. 

What a dissapointment. The first two thirds of The Doll Factory by Elizabeth Macneal were fine. An enjoyable, evocative story, well written and cleverly constructed with very short chapters, alternating passages for Iris, Albie and Silas. Some good humour and wit with occasional menace. Lots of interesting stuff about painting, perhaps some study of art appreciation along the way. (I failed Art "O" Level). The sudio was "brimfull of clutter". Louis says " I've never belived in cataloguing things - of putting books here, and others there, and what not. It shows such a want of taste and imagination ........ such a dismal mechanical mind that tidies". (Well that's me told).

Then the last third changes direction completely to become a made for TV sordid thriller. Lots of repetition. Such unoriginal and gratuitous female abuse leading to an inevitable conclusion. I rushed through the last hundred pages. Such a shame. 

More than 30 short stories published after the death of the brilliant Helen Dunmore are, in the end, an uneven set. Some are very short, just a few pages, whilst others are a lot longer (between 20 and 30 pages). I much preferred the earlier ones. "Taken in Shadows" is a portrait of John Donne that is eloquently imagined. Others are quite unnerving, a prisoner in one and an almost drowning in another. I loved "A Night Out" with Ruth and Aruna. However the stories of the final third of the book go under the title of "THE PAST", and these I found generally tedious. But they do not detract from the superb earlier collections. 

Virtual Film Club - The Directors Series 3

These films are from the third series of The Directors on Sky Arts.

Bad Day at Black Rock - John Sturges

The Killers - Don Siegel 

On The Town - Stanley Donen

A Place in the Sun - George Stevens

The Sand Pebbles - Robert Wise

All the President's Men - Alan J Pakula

Odd Man Out - Carol Reed

The Manchurian Candidate - John Frankenheimer

Serpico - Sidney Lumet

Once Upon a Time in America - Sergio Leone

The National Gallery - Ten Minutes or Less

It was in one of the weekend papers that I read about a collection of videos from The National Gallery on their YouTube Channel. Of particular interest to me (not being an art aficionado)  were those called "Art History in Ten Minutes or Less".

The first I tried was "The Painter's Daughters Chasing a Butterfly" by Thomas Gainsborough. The presenter opened my eyes to the subtleties of the children's expressions and how they were presented by their father.

Equally good was the description of John Constable's "The Hay Wain" and the detail in this landsacpe.

I was not so impressed by "Fire" by Joachim Beuckelaer. It wasn't the presentation, but the picture itself. Again, it was full of so much going on, but so less subtle than the previous, more modern paintings. But as a (very) short course in art appreciation, these videos were perfect.

The Garden in May

The main feature of the garden this May has been the Alliums which seem to have multiplied over the years.

Here they are with the peach poppy that has just flowered.

In the wildflower border, the cornflowers and forgetmenots have filled the space. There is a rose, some lilies and a penstemon in there somewhere.

The pink Astrantias that I split and replanted have done well, but need a lot of watering.

The white Astrantia at the far end is just coming into flower.

It's neighbour the Cistus is flowering well despite the lack of soil in this border.

The blue Campanula around the conservatory is at it's best and is leaving little space on the path.

The small red Heuchera has survived, just.

And here is the Veronika Shirley Blue.

Now at the end of May, the roses are beginning to bloom.

Most of all, the star performer in late May has been the Delphinium, possibly Pacific Giant as it is actually seven feet tall.

A bumble bee has appreciated the large flowers.

Two poppies are out, the peach in the main border and the red in the hot bed.

Onto the shrubs where the Weigelia is always a star performer.

The Honeysuckle has taken a few years to bloom this well.

The Photinia at the front has these flowers in abundance.

As has the Lilac at the end of the garden.

At the end of the month, the first of the Philadelphus is flowering.

The side patio looks better for a jet wash.

The main border has changed over the month from the photo at the top with all the Alliums, to the end of the month as below.

That just leaves the lawn which has been fine, but now needs some rain!