The Noise of Time, The Stranger's Child and Black Water Lillies

After having loved Julian Barnes' prizewinning The Sense of an Ending I was so looking forward to his latest book. Again the writing is highly intelligent, but a fictionalised account of the life of Shostakovitch descends into a meditation about life under Lenin, Stalin and Khrushchev. I didn't really want to read a study of Soviet communism, but this is what we got. Full of philosophical arguments about irony (the only way to treat the regime), integrity ("is like virginity, once lost never recoverable"), cowardice ("Being a hero is much easier than being a coward.......a career that lasts a lifetime"), morality ("the strong cannot help confronting, the less strong cannot help evading"). The composer's relationship with "Power" is somehow heavy handed (the word with that capital letter is used too often). His dark days when his opera "Lady Macbeth of Mtensk" is criticised by the state as "muddle instead of music" again is too repetitive. So I was bored instead of being stirred. But that may just be me who prefers a proper story.

P.S. Julian Barnes ( a lifetime Leicester City fan) shares a common passion for football with Shostakovich and perhaps we could have done with more than one paragraph on this.

P.P.S. A new movie out this week called "Lady Macbeth" is based on the same novel as used by Shostakovitch in his opera.

I should have known after struggling through Alan Hollinghurst's prizewinning The Line Of Beauty that this book would follow a similar format. Full of his trademark set pieces (dinner parties again) and very little plot. I quite enjoy a family saga, and the first half was perfectly fine. the writing is very good. "On the hall stand hung their (dead) father's billycock hat that was always left there, as if he might return, or having returned feel the need to go out again". And "her scholarly firmness of interest and her cool immunity to all aesthetic sensations".

But it was at halfway when a fast forward brought in two completely new characters (not in the family) in a literary device that I felt was amateurish and lazy. It felt in some ways like a completely different book looking at the family from the outside, as one of them says "your family is a bit complicated to work out". You can say that again. Then another jump forward and another new character towards the end. And then it just fizzled out with a very disappointing conclusion, despite what the author is trying to say.

I enjoyed the first two thirds of this crime novel, until I started to become confused about what was going on. Up until then , I loved the conversational tone of our part time narrator (whoever she is?): "does the co-incidence seem to be disturbing you?". It certainly was disturbing me. Despite reviews to the contrary, I found the translation to be superb, almost as if it been written in English instead of the original French. (All apart from when the Inspector says to his colleague's wife "you're gorgeous". Maybe a literal translation, but we would say "you're a very attractive woman" if pushed).

Then we have the last third where everything starts to collapse. If you had guessed what was going on earlier, you would have loved it. I didn't and hated it. There were just not enough clues for me, and that meant I felt horribly cheated. Were we supposed to guess, or instead love the confusion? I think the author worked out the story first, and then made a construction that kept us (me) in the dark as much as he could.

There is even a final twist that is equally pathetic. Which is all a shame as it could have been an excellent read. Like many others I did like Michel Bussi's After the Crash, but I will never read one of his books ever again.

Gravel in the Mixer Tap

A constant drip from the mixer tap in the kitchen was driving me mad. Our local plumber came to have a look, and when he dismantled the tap, what he found was a piece of gravel. On refitting the tap, it has been perfect ever since.

An email with photos to Thames Water has at last resulted in their cheque for the the plumber's charge. Hooray!

Jane Eyre at Aylesbury Waterside Theatre

The concept of squeezing what were two separate plays (as performed originally at the Bristol Old Vic) into one long performance was probably too much to ask. So contrary to the overwhelming critical acclaim, I thought there was much to enjoy but in the end the flaws made this a disappointing evening.

The main mistake, for me, was that the language was either taken straight from Charlotte Bronte's novel, or replicated the language. That must have been why the cast struggled in projecting something that was not too melodramatic. Whilst I liked the movement (this is a very physical production - the constant use of the ramp and ladders up to the timber platform (as photo above) was great to start with but became too repetitive) we only had very few quiet pieces and these lacked the emotion I expected.

I was surprised we had nearly an hour of Jane's childhood, although her transition into being an adult was the highlight of the evening. So it's difficult to be critical of the acting given the dialogue. The inexperienced Nadia Clifford as Jane was possibly not the greatest piece of casting for the lead role. Tim Delap as Rochester did his best. The roles of Bertha (and others) was taken by understudy Dami Olukoya. She was terrific, but then again her songs were modern and showed up the old fashioned text of the play.

Yes, we had music. In fact the three excellent musicians were placed at the back of the stage and were integral to the action. Again, the use of background music would have worked very well if at times it hadn't detracted from the intensity of the dialogue.

Sally Cookson, the Director, has to be congratulated for coming up with a fresh and lively take on a well known classic. There are certain similarities with how she staged Peter Pan that we saw at the National Theatre, and perhaps that style suited that play more. And in both an actor played the dog.

She says in her programme notes that on that first day of rehearsal , there was no script, just a rough structure in place with Mike Akers (dramaturg, whatever that is). Unfortunately, for me, it showed.

Tring Book Club - "Golden Hill" by Francis Spufford

There is lots to admire in Francis Spufford's first novel. The picture and feel of eighteenth century New York are particularly vivid. Not only is Smith, our hero, but also a different third person narrator are also obviously from this time: "the careful removal, meantimes, from out his conversational reach of all the women except Tabitha". And there is the main disappointment. Tabitha is by far the most interesting character ( we somehow never quite get under the skin of Smith) but she almost disappears after halfway through.

The crux of the story, the thousand pound order presented by Smith on his arrival, takes far too long to be revealed. I'm all for keeping us in suspense, but not until the last pages. Please! Some of the set pieces are nerve jangling but others just seem contrived. The writing is good, especially some of the witty dialogue. But it is New York itself that shines through. And the superb last twist.

P.S. Heather at book club explained that not only was the book written in the style of an eighteenth century novelist, but that the contrivances and the time it takes for the final revelation are also of the period. Now I know.

We now have a new way of choosing books to read in that we take it in turn to come up with a suggestion. We are now at the end of the first batch of books chosen this way and what an amazing cross section they are:

Jenny: “Missing, Presumed” by Susie Steiner

Heather: “The Loney” by Andrew Michael Hurley

Linda: “This Boy” by Alan Johnson

Janet: “Remarkable Creatures” by Tracy Chevalier

Hilary: “Golden Hill” by Francis Spufford

David: “The Talented Mr Ripley” by Patricia Highsmith

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead - NT LIve

The only other time I saw Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead was at the Oxford Playhouse in 2005, a production by English Touring Theatre. I thought it was just wonderful so I was looking forward to seeing it again. For me, it has lost none of it's verve. One critic says Stoppard is "the most intellectually dexterous dramatist of our time" and this, one of his earliest plays, is him practicing the art of wordplay. But is R&G more than verbal acrobatics? Google Books have an extract from Act 1 which includes Guildenstern's speech about the law of probability. If you find this boring, this play is not for you. I found it dazzling.

I also think it is very funny. I laughed all the way through, chuckling quietly when even the live audience missed a beat. I never thought I would say this, but most of this was down to Daniel Radcliffe as the hopeless Rosencrantz ( or is that Guildenstern? They can never make up their minds although the script is quite clear.) Or is it that Radcliffe gets all the best lines? His dismay at their not having quizzed Hamlet properly is unforgettable. He is the Eric Morecombe to Joshua McGuire's brilliantly verbose Ernie Wise. (I remember McGuire as being one of the best things in the film About Time).

Then there is David Haig as The Player, the leader of the group of "actors" who perform that play in Hamlet. Haig will always be, in our house, associated with the TV comedy The Thin Blue Line as Detective Inspector Grim. Here he revives the same antics, but this time with Stoppard's words. He almost steals the show.

David Levaux has directed with a flourish and his coaching of the two leads pays dividends. I wasn't sure about how he presented the acting of the actual scenes from Hamlet. Luke Mullins as the Prince is like a third division John Neville. But was that on purpose? As R would say "I don't know?"

P.S. The live showing was from The Old Vic where we saw The Liar in 1990 and The Tempest in 2003. A wonderful theatre, even better with the stage projecting into the audience.

The Maidenhead 10 Mile

This was the fourth time I had run the Maidenhead Easter Ten. According to my post of 23rd April 2014, that was my fastest time so far at just over 1 hour 35 minutes. This year I was not expecting anything so fast, a few days before I tried a training run at race pace but could only manage 10 minute miling.

So when I started of at around 9.20 pace, it was quite a surprise and I thought this would gradually come down. However, after three miles as we left the business park and out onto the fields, I was still at the same pace. I slotted in behind a couple of fifty year old guys who were running the same steady rate and decided to see if I could stay with them. In fact I took a turn at pacing them.

When we hit the footpath on the main road after seven miles they had crept ahead but I didn't lose much distance and by the time we reached the last field I had actually got ahead, still running at around 9.22 cumulative pace. The last mile is back into the business park and a kind of sprint at the end brought me back to 9.20 and a time of 1 hour 33 minutes 26 seconds. I have no idea where that came from, only that the half marathon a few weeks ago must have helped.

Alison was also running but trying not to go too fast as she wanted to save something for her next half marathon in just over 2 weeks, so under 1 hour 39 minutes was excellent. We met up with a few people from Aylesbury parkrun  before heading off to John Lewis in High Wycombe for our usual refreshments.

One notable event on the day. Theresa May had always marshaled at the same spot every year since we have run at Maidenhead, it being her constituency. I had my doubts whether she would be there this year, although Alison was convinced she would be. And she was right.

Well done Prime Minister, I doffed my cap on passing.

Forsythia

This was how the forsythia flowered this year, not so good considering the growth. So a major prune was in store once the flowers were over. The general advice seemed to be that if the shrub was overgrown, ruthless pruning was necessary, even cutting it all back to 4 inches above the ground.

I didn't go quite that mad. Although I did take out some of the oldest and thickest branches, I tried to leave something that covered the fence behind.

It did expose part of the border that was covered by old growth, to which I will now have to give some thought.

The prunings ranged from the large old branches ....

..... to the piles of shrubbery that all had to be bagged and taken to the tip for recycling.

Next up is a major prune on the clematis after that has flowered.

Life, Get Out and Ghost in the Shell

An enjoyable though familiar story, Life is saved by a reasonable script, good performances and clever effects. The alien life form is pretty scary in the first half but less so later. Daniel Espinosa has directed with great competency. Just a shame about the ending.

Get Out is a wonderful movie. Full of ambiguous twists and turns, The auction dressed up as bingo was one such amazing scene. Satirical, thought provoking, scary, funny and well shot, writer and director Jordan Peele has made something intelligent and very watchable. One of those movies that stay with you a long, long time.

The highly stylised city landscape of the distant future in Ghost in the Shell would have been fine if it had not been repeated so may times. It shouted "look at the CGI on which we spent most of the budget". The rest must have been spent on Scarlet Johansson's fee. It had to be a fortune to persuade her to carry this poor action film. The gunfights said it all, totally unimaginative and again far too repetitive.

Amy Macdonald at the Royal Albert Hall

The last time I saw Amy Macdonald live was at the Cambridge Corn Exchange in October 2010. I said in my post of that concert that she had gone up in size of venue. Six years later and now she can fill the Royal Albert Hall.

Her voice seems to have got stronger as she belted out new songs from her latest album Under Stars (note the lights in the following photo) and lots of old favourites. Setlist.fm shows all 21 songs.

Amy was accompanied by a six piece band who were all terrific. The sound was absolutely spot on, just loud enough, and the light show was fine with a superb glitterball. On YouTube there is a recording of a concert in Hamburg earlier in the tour. The audience never seem to move, unlike last night when the uptempo songs brought most to their feet. Particularly the last song of the night which was Lets Start a Band, brilliant.

Somehow I had found an excellent seat in the second row of the stalls, although I have to admit these days I seem to be the eldest there. But as Amy said "Rock and Roll is alive and well" and this is music that takes me back to my youth. Except no band from those days had a cello. Thanks Amy.

P.S. I arrived just in time to see the end of the support act. And I was so glad I did as Newton Faulkner (that cannot be his real name), for his last song, performed a solo acoustic version of Bohemian Rhapsody. Absolutely fantastic.

P.P.S. As I sat waiting for Amy to come on, I thought back to when I first visited the Royal Albert Hall. And then I remembered. It must have been 1953, just after we arrived in London and I was eight years old. At my last school in Alton, Staffs, there had been a collection for one of Princess Margaret's charities. Each school had been invited to send along one pupil to present their collection. So as we were already living in London, my old school thought I might like to go. The main memory from that day is queuing for what seemed like hours in the bowels of the Royal Albert Hall, waiting for my turn and then suddenly bursting into the dazzling light to shake hands with the Princess and hand over the envelope.

It then must have been a few years later that Dad took my bother John and me there to see the London Championship Finals for the ABA. Dad always loved his boxing. He would get up in the middle of the night to listen to world title fights from the USA.

P.P.P.S. This was a first. On entry to the venue they checked my ID with the ticket. A good job I had my photo driving licence with me.

The Garden in March

It's the time of year that I love best. So much is happening in the garden. Apart from the daffodils that have been better than ever, the Magnolia stellata at the front has been nothing less than spectacular.

I'm not sure what these pink bulbs are, but after they finished in some pots last year, I planted them under the Hypericum.

The perennials in the main border are starting their new growth.

The Corylus contorta has never had so many catkins.