Loitering with Intent, In the Dark and Little Fires Everywhere

Not only a quaint and dashing story, but from our novelist narrator, in Muriel Spark's superb Loitering with Intent, we are given a crash course in aspects of creative writing. These are some of the hints:

"Since the story of my own life is just as much constituted of the secrets of my craft as it is of other events, I may as well remark here that to make a character ring true it needs must be in some way contradictory, somewhere a paradox".

"I didn't go in for motives, I never have".

"I never described (his) motives, I simply showed the effect of his words, his hints".

"It is not to be supposed that the stamp and feeling of a novel can be conveyed by an intellectual summary".

"So I am writing about the cause of an effect."

"He had fallen back on phonetic spelling, always a literary defect in my opinion".

Do we believe all these pronouncements from Fleur, the young woman created by Muriel Spark, or are some just for fun? Does it really matter? Spark has always considered herself to be a poet first and foremost, so she feels she writes her novels in a poetic vein. Here she pokes fun at autobiographies, especially those from uninteresting people. And she has lots to say about publishers: "I didn't know then, as I do now, that the traditional paranoia of authors is as nothing compared to the inalienable schizophrenia of publishers".

She even mentions her readers: "I always hope that readers of my books are of good quality. I wouldn't like to think of anyone cheap reading my books". The cheek!

Finally, my copy (a 2007 Virago edition) has a wonderful introduction by Mark Lawson. On a personal note, in 1950 (the Kensington setting for this book) I was five years old and it was still three years until we moved to that borough. All the places are so familiar.

This book certainly has atmosphere. The crumbling South London boarding house with a curious mixture of lodgers. Set in the middle of WW1, the hardships at home are vividly portrayed. At the centre of In the Dark is Eithne Clay and her 16 year old son Ralph. His father is a casualty of the war and he misses him terribly. Less so his mother and her relationship with Mr Turk, the dreadful butcher, effects the household in different ways. I thought that Winnie, the ugly housekeeper, was a wonderful character, her beautiful mistress less so. An enjoyable, if not happy, story that pitches us headlong into wartime London. 

I enjoyed the first half of Little Fires Everywhere, an interesting story of the relationships between the two families. They are poles apart. The Richardson family are well off and are a long established part of the community that is Shaker Heights. Mia Warren and her daughter have just arrived and are renting the other family's apartment. We know from the outset that things will get "hot", but there is nothing in the first half to suggest this turn of events.

So when new characters are introduced half way, the story takes a completely different path. I found this to be too contrived as if to pave the way for a more dramatic second half. But given what we know in the first few pages, it was always going to end badly. I skipped the too detailed court case and everything that went with it but was delighted in the superb back story of Mia that comes out of the blue. A little gem in itself. It proved to me that just when you thought you might ditch the book, you never know when something great might happen. This time it did.

There is too much repetition of descriptions of Shaker Heights itself and the book could have been much better if it had lost a hundred pages. The author needs a more forceful editor.

The Duchess of Malfi at the RSC Theatre Stratford

Everybody dies! Wake up Shakespeare, if you want a real tragedy look no further than this John Webster classic. There will be blood, and this time lots of it! Maria Aberg is one of my favourite directors having already seen her RSC productions of Doctor Faustus, The White Devil, As You Like It and the brilliant King John. All reviewed on this blog and all hugely colourful and entertaining.

But Aberg's realisation of The Duchess of Malfi is neither of those, instead it is quite a departure to something much more serious and shocking. As ever, Aberg's visuals are impressive, but |I found the huge theatrical device in the second half (I spent the whole of the first in eerie anticipation) to be far too overpowering that it dominated the play so much that the story seemed secondary. Suffice to say, this was not my favourite production from this director.

I was disappointed with the casting. Joan Iyiola is a powerful presence as the Duchess, but her diction left a lot to be desired. Alexander Cobb and Chris New are not convincing as her two malevolent brothers and nor is Paul Woodson as Antonio. It is left to Nicolas Tennant to hold the play together as a terrific Basalo. The supporting cast were fine.

The music from the live five piece band was dynamic, and the performance of "I Put a Spell on You" by Aretha Ayeh as Julia was a highlight of the evening. But it's dark and dramatic presentation was so different to the joyous songs in all the other plays from this director, and typified the undercurrent of violence and abuse that she wanted us to endure.

Incredibles 2, Skyscraper and Hotel Artemis

I couldn't avoid Incredibles 2 given the ecstatic reviews. Well, the script was fine, so were the voices and the music. Obviously the best fun was with the baby Jack Jack. Otherwise the combination of animation and superheroes proved that I must avoid these in future.

Skyscraper was reasonably entertaining. Absolutely the cross between Die Hard and Towering Inferno. Although this time we have to wait until well over half way to find out what the crooks are after. It was just a shame that the use of a green screen for the background of the fire was so ridiculous and for so long. A bit of a let down in the end.

Sometimes, out of the blue, comes a movie that reminds me why I go to the cinema. Hotel Artemis is truly outstanding. A great story, set in the future, where a hotel caters for the gunshot wounds and other injury's sustained by the hoods of L.A. This is the directorial debut of Drew Pearce, formerly a busy blockbuster screenwriter, who this time gets to direct his own superb original script. Good for him, good for the producers.

Pearce is British but now works in the USA. He has assembled a terrific cast, as he says "none of whom got really paid for it" but who had recognised something special with the writing but knowing that it was hard to finance. Jodie Foster is quite brilliant as The Nurse and there are some good supporting roles. Even better is the cinematography by Chung-hoon Chung from Korea that Pearce was thrilled to have on board.

The soundtrack by Cliff Martinez is also excellent and this is supported by four great songs:

"California Dreamin'" by The Mamas and the Papas
"Helpless" by Buffy Sainte-Marie
"City of Angels" by Elyse Weinberg
"Gilded Cage" by Father John Misty

RSC Romeo and Juliet - Live in Cinemas

Gang violence on the streets. Knife crime out of control. No, it's not inner city UK but Verona. And it's all here in Erica Whyman's contemporary and hugely multicultural production of Romeo and Juliet. Erica is deputy artistic director of the RSC and has made this familiar story into something brilliantly modern.

We really believe that Karen Fishwick's Juliet is only thirteen. The very epitome of a twenty first century teenager. Bally Gill as Romeo seems too old for her, but who can blame her for falling under his spell.

Ishia Bennison as the Nurse (above) steals all her scenes with her wicked humour. I thought I would be impressed with Charlotte Josephine's Mercutio, but her powerful portrayal became irritating in the end. I liked the stage design. It suffered some criticism for being so bare, but the cube (below) definitely worked for me as a modern reference to all the action.

The music was amazing, the rock band at the ball was perfect. When the sound dies away at the end of the dancing, the lingering note did remind me so much of a Dire Straits chord.

There were very few young people in the audience, but this is one production that should be seen in eveTry school in the country. It is completely relevant to the youth of today.

P.S.
I loved the Prologue spoken, not by a single narrator, but a chorus of all the actors alternating lines and ending with a cacophony of voices. Superb.

Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes

A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
Do with their death bury their parents' strife.
The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love,
And the continuance of their parents' rage,

Which, but their children's end, nought could remove,
Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage;
The which if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend. 

Copyright ©2005-2017 by PlayShakespeare.com.
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Copyright ©2005-2017 by PlayShakespeare.com.
Visit http://www.playshakespeare.com/license for deta

Adrift, Leave No Trace and Sicario 2: Soldado

It seemed strange at first to alternate the sea voyage and the earlier relationship between the two leads in Adrift. But as the tension rises during the storm, I was glad for that intermittent relief. Shailene Woodley is convincing as our novice sailor caught up in tragic circumstances, less so Sam Kaflin as her partne. Director Baltasar Kormakur just about keeps our interest throughout but he and the actors are hampered by a poor screenplay.

A complicated relationship between father and daughter is superbly constructed with a wonderful script from director Debra Granic and Anne Rosellini. In Leave No Trace Ben Foster plays Will, an army vet who is struggling to reconnect with the real world by living in the woods with daughter Tom, played brilliantly by newcomer Thomasin McKenzie.outside Portland, Oregon.

It takes concentration to determine why Will is putting his supportive daughter through such a lonely existence? Doesn't he think she deserves more? But as time passes, we really know why. His demons are stronger than any other feeling. In some ways, I thought this movie falls into the same bracket as Manchester by the Sea. The location photography is equally fine, I just love the different landscapes of America. This can be a slow moving film, but is never less than engrossing.

I found Sicario 2: Soldado to have a pretty incomprehensible story. However the dialogue is fine, courtesy of Taylor Sheridan who wrote the original movie and the outstanding Hell or High Water. The film packs plenty of punch and there are some fabulous action sequences, particularly the aerial shots. Director Stefano Sollima has used his big budget to good effect and is helped by the ultra masculine performances of Josh Brolin and Benicio del Torro. Not quite up to the standard of the first Sicario (like most of the critics, I did miss Emily Blunt) but overall an exciting experience.

Tring Book Club - The Story of Lucy Gault by William Trevor and Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

An interesting novel by a respected author I hadn't read before. We don't get to know Lucy Gault for the first 21 years of her life. A decision she made at the age of eight has devastating consequences for her family, but the writer glosses over her school life after that event. He wants to get on with what happens to her from her twenties but I wanted to know how her feelings as an older child formed the young woman now presented to us in detail.

I struggled with some of the prose: "It was apparent to him also that the bewilderment possessed the household at Lahardane as unproductively as did the agitation that disturbed his thoughts when he dwelt for too long on what had come about." I really don't want to read a sentence over and over to get the meaning, although this doesn't happen very often here. I prefer simple prose that rushes off the page. 

However, Lucy soon becomes a strong, sympathetic, though heart breaking character, and I enjoyed how we follow the story of her life and the people that are important to her.

She may tell people she is fine, but the truth is very different. Eleanor is one of the most complicated characters I have read for many years. She is bright and highly educated (who else would have a three words of Latin for a password) but without any social skills, all due to her past. She has little time for other people but would be horrified if she knew what they thought of her. She mentions "Jane Eyre; strange child, difficult to love". She doesn't know that could be a description of herself.

There are shattering glimpses of what happened to her as a child, a back story that is brilliantly constructed and revealed only in bits and pieces. The author has the most wonderful turn of phrase, some of the dialogue is extremely funny. There are times, after I had put the book down, that I would again burst into laughter. Maybe there is too much advertising for Glen's Vodka (Scottish of course), Tesco, Greggs and Magners. So the book is not perfect. How can a small modern house have space for "several cars on the drive".

This was the second time I read the book and felt much happier about the huge twist at the end than I did before. There are some important themes that punctuate the novel in brilliant ways: loneliness, how an act of kindness can have major repercussions, and how someone can change given the right circumstances and the right person. 

Visit to the Lake District

Last year we had sunny weather for the first few days before it became cloudy and wet. But nothing like the wall to wall sunshine and clear blue skies that we encountered last week, with temperatures at times reaching 30 C, warmer than the south east.

After the long drive up on the Saturday, we unpacked before Anne and Chas arrived. This was our fourth successive year at Coachman's Cottage on the edge of Grasmere with it's wonderful views of the surrounding fells.

An early evening stroll around the village culminating in drinks at Tweedies Bar which is actually just across the road from where we were staying. It was the only time during the week that we needed jumpers.

Sunday was to be a quiet day. England were playing Panama in the World Cup at 1 pm, so after breakfast outside, Alison went off for a run while the three of us took the short walk up to the National Trust property that is Allan Bank. We found a swingball and badminton set outside and took turns before a walk around the grounds. We can see the gardener's bothy from the cottage.

After enjoying England's easy win, Alison, Anne and Chas went for a walk to Easedale Tarn and back while I read the papers outside.

Mondaty started with breakfast outside again and then we were off on the Elterwater, Colwith and Little Langdale circuit that is described in Bob Allen's The Best Walks of the Lower Lakeland Fells - Book Four: South-East. We stopped off at Chesters at Skelwith Bridge for provisions after passing Skelwith Force.

Into the Little Langdale valley our next stop was Colwith Bridge and lunch overlooking Colwith Force.

Joining the road at High Park Farm and Stag End, we had lovely views of the surrounding fells.

Then on to Slater Bridge.

And Little Langdale Tarn.

This was where we took the unremarkable path (the final section of the triangular circuit) called "Owlet's Nest" that is the last third of the route back to Elterwater. Doing so, we missed the Three Shires where we had planned to stop for a drink, so we went instead to The Brittania Inn in Elterwater, our final destination.

In the evening, Anne and Chas treated us to dinner at The Jumble Room, again just across the road from the cottage.

They were leaving on the Tuesday and I joined them on a trip to Holehird Gardens, the most fabulous gardens of the Lakeland Horticultural Society on Patterdale Road, Windermere. You can see the lake in the distance.

Alison had taken herself off for a run while Anne, Chas and I walked around the gardens in warm sunshine. The walled garden is spectacular.

And I really liked the brand new Victorian style Display House.

The views from the woodland walk are amazing.

A plaque details all the fells you can see. From Crinkle Crags on the left, to Bow Fell and the Langdale Pikes.

There are a number of National Collections of plants, these are the Astilbe.

Finally we found the rock garden.

It was past lunchtime when Anne and Chas left for home, and I made it back to the cottage for a quiet, hot afternoon outside.

On Wednesday Alison had suggested we leave early (it turned out to be 8.40 am) and walk from the cottage to and up Helm Crag. You can see the fell from the garden.

I was surprised how quickly we reached the summit that is 405 m.

We had great views on the way up.

We then took the path that runs along the ridge above Far Easedale. On one of the maps it shows a broken line and although the path does disappear in places, in the clear weather we could see the next section of path ahead.

This was the route up to Gibson Knott at 422 m.

The ridge path was a great choice. In Collins' Central Fells it is described as "A curved ridge sweeps north-westward from the Vale of Grasmere. It begins auspiciously with Helm Crag ...... from where it takes a roller coaster ride over Gibson Knot climbing over Pike of Carrs to land eventually on Calf Crag" and "engages in several switchbacks to the summit (of Calf Crag)".

Gibson Knott is described as "simply an element of a greater whole (of this) triple top ridge".

So finally on to Calf Crag, the highest point of our walk at 537 m.

We found a fairly sheltered spot to have lunch with good views down the valley.

From Calf Crag it is short distance to a main junction of paths where we found a number of walkers having a rest. We had reached here in 4 hours and 20 minutes. This is where we split up. Me to take the long direct route back down Far Easedale (it was getting hot in the sun by then) and Alison off to climb Sergeant Mann and back down via Easedale Tarn. This was the start of my way back with the ridge we followed in the middle distance. Helm crag is at the end.

It was good to see the ridge above me as I walked down into the Far Easedale valley.

It was a long haul down back to Grasmere, especially the last hour in the hot sun. Temperatures that day had reached over 30 C, hotter than the south-east.

In the book Walking Country - Lakeland Fells - Ambleside and the South it describes the circuit as being 8 miles with a total of 610 metres of ascent, although by Alison's GPS it was more like 700 m for me, Alison having climbed 1,000 m.

Thursday dawned again to warm sunshine, so we took an early stroll around an extremely quiet Grasmere before having breakfast outside. We stayed in the garden all morning before walking down to Grasmere lake and on towards Rydal. By that time in the afternoon it was once again very, very warm, over 30 C again.

After the rest day, on Friday we drove to the National Trust car park at Dungeon Ghyll in Great Langdale to take the vertical climb up the side of the Langdale Pikes to Stickle Tarn. Another early start, we were walking by 8.45 am. The climb was steep.

But it was worth it for the views of Stickle Tarn at the top.

With Harrison Stickle and Pavey Arc on the far side of the tarn.

We then followed a path away from the tarn and headed for Blea Rigg, our final destination at 556 m. Again the path comes and goes, but is easy to find in the clear weather. We could see Sergeant Mann on our left.

Eventually seeing Blea Rigg ahead.

This was where we stopped for lunch with great views down to Easedale Tarn with higher fells in the distance. Collins details all the panoramas which North to East has Hevellyn to the left and Fairfield to the right.

There are great 360 degree views all round. I cannot remember a better spot in Lakeland.

This time we headed back the way we came, a fairly gruelling climb back down to Dungeon Ghyll. But waiting for us there was the Dungeon Ghyll Inn and a refreshing pint outside in the shade. It had been a round trip of 5 hours 20 minutes.

We had arrived at the pub at 2.10pm, so there was time in the late afternoon to walk into Grasmere for ice creams at Ella's Dell and some final shopping.

On Saturday we packed the car and stopped in Ambleside for breakfast and a wander round the town before heading home.  An amazing week, notable for the relentless sunshine. Something that is hard to imagine in the Lake District.