LONDON CITY NIGHTS

Monday, June 11, 2012

'Tumble Circus' at London Wonderground, 10th June 2012

Monday, June 11, 2012 - by londoncitynights · - 0 Comments

There is a strange casual sadism in watching an acrobatics show.  One one hand you're impressed by feats of strength and agility, and on the other you're ghoulishly wondering if they're going to screw up and seriously injure themselves.  Watching people hurt themselves  in various ways is undoubtedly quite popular nowadays (and probably has been since the dawn of time).  I'd imagine that any audience watching people performing dangerous feats is half wondering what would happen if they were to slip off a rope or crash into the audience.  I suppose it is to 'Tumble Circus' credit that most of the enjoyment and suspense came from deeply hoping these nice people would survive their act with a full collection of teeth and no broken bones.

'Tumble Circus' is made up of two performers: Tina Machina, and Kenneth Fall.  They're a modern, no frills kind of act: very stripped down and self-aware with a nice line in self-deprecating humour.  This performance tells the story of the ups and downs in the 17 year relationship of the performers, as they fall in and out love and argue amongst each other.    I don't know how much of it is true or not, the line between reality and fiction seems somewhat blurred.  There are short spoken word sections which punctuate the various circus acts involving clubs, rope climbing, a trapeze, hula-hoops and an impressive range of acrobatics.

The stripped down and personal nature of the performance gives them a bit of a license to make mistakes and get away with it.  There were quite a few screwups near the beginning of the performance involving dropped clubs and hula-hoops that Tina Machina couldn't quite flip off the floor.  Perhaps this was intentional in order to build a genuine sense of danger for the acrobatics to come?  Whether these were intentional mistakes or not, it certainly adds a bit of an uncomfortable air to proceedings.  After all, if they keep dropping these clubs on the floor, how can we be sure that they are going to be able to catch each other when they're swinging high above the audience? I did enjoy the narrative of the performance, which grounded the personalities of the performers very effectively. Maybe the timing and pace could be a little faster, but I half suspect these moments of down time are to give the performers a chance to have a breather.  

The common image of an acrobat troupe is sequined leotards, constant grins and a near total air of consummate professionalism.  When watching a performance like that, you get a vicarious sense of danger, but with the understanding that it's not very likely to go wrong.  The movements are practised and machinelike, with no room for error.  In 'Tumble Circus' there is (at least the illusion) that things are somewhat looser and have more room for interpretation.  The two performers, even as they place complete trust in each other act out little bickering sequences, hitting each other in the head with their shoes and refusing to extend a hand to pull the other up.

The fact that the glamour has almost entirely been stripped from the act makes the performers much easier for the audience to identify with.  You start to think, 'if 'normal' people like this can pull off acrobatics feats, then maybe I could too'.  It's a pretty nice message to give to an audience, and even though the illusion breaks very quickly once you start to consider the massive effort needed to train yourself to this level, it's fun to entertain the idea.

As the narrative proceeds, and the couple make up and break up, parts of the audience are sucked into the narrative.  I had been assured there was no audience participation in the performance, but two members of the audience were picked on quite mercilessly.  One woman was singled out for receiving a series of roses taken from the top of a rope.  Receiving roses plucked from an acrobat's teeth seems like a quite flattering and nice experience.  On the flip side, a man in the audience was quite meanly attacked for being 'old', 'grey' and 'over-the-hill'.  This was the only sour note in the performance for me.  It is a little jarring to hear these pleasant people repeatedly bully someone based on his appearance.  They could have gotten away with maybe one jibe and kept me on side, but throughout the latter half of the show they kept picking on this one guy, who as far I could tell had done nothing to warrant being singled out.  It's not like someone sitting in the audience has much of a chance to respond, and after all he has paid to get in, so I felt a bit sorry for him, whoever he was.

Apart from this slight hiccup though, the audience seemed to be having a great time, applauding at the right moments, and even engaging in an impromptu pillow fight when one was tossed into the audience.  

The music used during the show also hit a sweet spot for me.  Covers of what sounded like 'Today' by the Smashing Pumpkins and 'No Surprises' by Radiohead were played repeatedly as an instrumental soundtrack to proceedings, and to close the act, 'Cannonball' by the Breeders was played.  They're good choices, and contemporary indie songs goes a little way to adding some kind of authenticity and emotional honesty to the act.

I think 'Tumble Circus' achieved what they set out to do, and at no point during the show was I bored.  There is a slightly scrappy nature to the show, and a few more mistakes than you'd expect to see in an act like this, but then it's entirely possible they put those in to increase suspense. It's not exactly a world-shaking show, but it slotted very neatly into the kind of semi-subversive cabaret world that they're trying to establish in the Spiegeltent down at the Udderbelly.  

Monday, May 28, 2012

‘Infinite Riches’ directed by Shani Erez, Old Red Lion Theatre, 27th May 2012

Monday, May 28, 2012 - by londoncitynights · - 0 Comments

(from left to right, Charlotte McKinney, Daniel Simpson, Zazie Smuts, Lesley Wilson)

How do you truly terrify a modern audience?  Vampires, zombies, ghosts, aliens – all of these have been tamed.  ‘Infinite Riches’ is a play that knows how to truly scare an audience – how to give them stomach-twisting, back-sweating, dry-mouthed terror. 

An unknown number flashes up on your phone, you answer it and…

“Excuse me Miss, there seems to be some kind of problem with your direct debit this month.”

This is the kind of fear that Catherine Harvey’s ‘Infinite Riches’ exploits.  It’s a sobering thought to those of us who consider our existences fairly comfortable, but are really only 2 or 3 missed paycheques away from being completely fucked.  ‘Infinite Riches’ is a modern morality play about the dangers of indebtedness, consumerism and greed.

The narrative is the downward spiral of an individual frantically fighting off creditors and seeking the validation in materialism.  As the play begins he is desperately seeking a way to pay off his credit card and utility bills.  He makes a Faustian deal with an unlikely loan shark – an elderly lady, but finds himself sucked into a world of skyrocketing interest and broken fingers.

The play begins with ‘Nan’ (Lesley Wilson), a mysterious punky, elderly woman telling us the story of Icarus.  She is who other characters revolve around, a foul-mouthed, charismatic woman with shades of Vivienne Westwood and Germaine Greer.  She generally sits in a wheelchair decorated with a skull motif, and the image of skulls and death seems to surround her.  She treats her wheelchair as a throne rather than as a nuisance, and tends to dominate every scene she’s in.  As the play goes on, there are repeated diabolical hints as to her true identity.  She tempts, she coerces – there is an unmistakable toughness and omniscience to her throughout the production.  Lesley Wilson does a great job in this role – there are two archetypes at work here, the eccentric older ‘cool’ grandmother, and the outwardly friendly, but secretly vicious loan shark.  She does a great job of balancing them both, and tends to get a lot of the best lines. 

Acting as a kind of lieutenant or saleswoman for Nan is her granddaughter, Julie (Zazie Smuts).  She is by far the most dynamic and intelligent character in the play, running rings around the poor couple she ensnares.  Smuts is great here, tormenting the other characters with a kind of impish glee.  Julie is the most overtly diabolical of characters, souring milk and withering plants with just her presence.  Her body language is taut and expressive, perching on the edge of chairs, wrapping herself around the bewildered Phil’ or cheerily threatening violence through a letterbox.  She has an aggressive, wiry sexuality, tempting, yet as clearly dangerous as a poison arrow frog. Her language is full of fascinating contradictions, she frequently uses “ Am I bothered, yeah?” modern vernacular, but will effortlessly slip into Latin or Greek.  She seems obsessed with etymology, wondering out loud what the root language of words like ‘skimped’ is (her guess at Norse seems to be accurate).  It’s a great character, simultaneously showing a vast knowledge and education, as well as a hard-edged modern sensibility.

On the other side of the equation we have the unsuspecting couple, Phil (Daniel Simpson) and Linda (Charlotte McKinney).

Phil is our protagonist, but a more pathetic and unlikable hero I haven’t seen in a long time.  We meet him sitting, sniffling and coughing on a park bench.  He is a truly feeble character, in cheap clothes, with flat, style-less greasy hair.  He is so deeply pitiful that even though his situation of debt and over-spending is familiar, it is hard not to feel contempt for him.  He works in a fairly undefined middle management job and seems to be dull enough to suit it well.  As the plot develops he is sucked into Nan and Julie’s world, borrowing a large sum of money from Nan and being seduced by Julie.  He seems almost wilfully stupid.  He repeatedly lies to his wife about his finances, doesn’t see anything particularly untoward about borrowing tens of thousands of pounds from a clearly hard as nails loan shark (even if she is an old woman), he skips his payments on this, causing more trouble.  Everything about him screams spinelessness, from his unkempt appearance to his stooped, submissive body language. As things get worse and worse for him, he becomes increasingly pathetic and desperate, and it is hard to conjure up much sympathy for him.

Joining Phil on the axis of uselessness is his wife, Linda.  She is slightly more sympathetic, but only because of her obliviousness to the situation she’s in.  She is portrayed as a somewhat woolly housewife, someone who cares for her houseplants too much, talking to them, getting frustrated if people treat them badly.  She’s a bit of a ditz, never fully knowing what’s going on.  It is intimated fairly early on that Phil and Linda are unable to conceive, which I suppose is why she has sublimated her maternal instincts into her plants.  Her biggest flaw is her consumerism.  She longs for material possessions, and it is implied that this is what has run up the couple’s debts.  Certainly Phil doesn’t seem to have much desire for expensive clothes and houseware.  Following the loan from Nan, the house becomes full of shopping bags as she gleefully gives in to every buying impulse she has.  It is not too hard to pity Linda, who just wants the kind of home designer lifestyle that blares from newspaper weekend supplements. 

Production wise this is a fairly small-scale production.  The Old Red Lion Theatre is above a pub, and seats around 50 people (although for the first half I was perched on a step rather than in a seat).  The scenery is more suggested than shown, for example in the initial scenes we know we are in the park because a piece of blue crepe paper and a rubber duck acts as a pond.  The difference between Nan’s chaotic house and Phil and Linda’s cosy domesticity is shown by lighting changes, and draping Halloween style netting over the furniture.  It’s effectively small scale, and considering the cast doubles up as the stage crew, quickly and efficiently put together scene to scene. 

I enjoyed the use of music to hint at the devilish themes, both the Rolling Stones’ ‘Sympathy for the Devil’ and “Under my Thumb, and the Velvet Underground’s “Waiting for the Man” are Satanic style tunes.  I also particularly enjoyed the use of Lady Gaga’s ‘Poker Face’ which was played repeatedly as a song of temptation by Julie.  The Greek chorus of call-centre jockeys politely but firmly asking for payment, using the clinical language of debt is also very well-realised, anyone who’s had bill collectors chasing them will feel a cold shiver of recognition.

As for the play itself, on a purely visceral level, it is entertaining and fast-paced.  All of the characters have various complexities and secrets that are teased out of them.  I was sitting in the front row, with the action taking place fight in front of my nose.  During the more threatening, violent scenes it was remarkably intense, while still remaining darkly comedic.  The circumstances faced by Phil are those which could easily befall any of us – sinking inexorably into the quicksand of unpaid debt.  It seems a little odd then, that such effort is made to make Phil and Linda such unsympathetic characters.  His responsibility for their downfall is never in question, and he doesn’t seem to take any actions which could reasonably extricate himself from his situation.  Possibly he is meant as an example of how not to behave, but it is somewhat remarkable that the audience’s sympathies end up with Nan and Julie – and they’re portrayed as the devil!  It may be that having a relatable character be exploited by these two would rob the play of some of its comedic nature – on some level we need to be able to laugh with Nan and Julie, but it puts the audience in some rather cruel company in making us find humour in this poor loser’s downfall.   Even the slight glimmer of hope at the end is cruelly stamped on in the closing lines.

It’s very much a play worth seeing, and in these credit-poor times, a relevant one to boot.  It’s got four taut, lively central performances and the small performance space lets the cast get right up in the audience’s face.  Though I do wonder that if, by spending our time enjoying this poor schmuck’s torture and downfall we are not sacrificing a bit of our own souls in return.  It’s always good to keep in mind that:

“There but for the grace of God, go I.”

Monday, May 21, 2012

Scope Big Comedy Night at the Hammersmith Apollo

Monday, May 21, 2012 - by londoncitynights · - 0 Comments

featuring Ben Elton, Al Murray, Doc Brown, Richard Herring, Hal Cruttenden, Robin Ince, Milton Jones, Francesca Martinez, Sally Phillips, Paul Tonkinson and Kevin Eldon

The Hammersmith Apollo seems like a strange venue for stand up comedy.  I’ve been to gigs here before, but only down in the stalls.  It’s only when you’re up in the Circle that you can understand just how vast it is.  I’ve always thought stand-up works best in somewhat smaller spaces, for one thing you can actually see the expressions on the comedian’s face as they perform.  But, on the upside, I suppose being in Row Q of the circle means I’m unlikely to get picked on by the comedian, (unless they come on stage with a telescope or something).

The night was organised by Scope, who seem like a fine and extremely worthy charity by all accounts. The lineup was particularly interesting to me, with a few comedians I’ve long admired, but haven’t had a chance to see.  Ben Elton, Al Murray, Richard Herring, Robin Ince, Sally Philips, Kevin Eldon and Paul Tonkinson I am familiar with, but Doc Brown, Hal Cruttenden, Milton Jones and Francesca Martinez were new to me.

I was particularly curious to see Ben Elton.  I had a few cassette tapes of his stand-up act when I was about 12 or 13, and I thought he was pretty great then – but haven’t heard of him doing any stand-up in a very long time.  He was the compere, and strode onto stage immediately launching into his act.  It was somewhat obvious that he hadn’t done much stand-up lately, judging by the topics of his jokes I’d guess he’d maybe written them in the early 00s.  Observational routines about spam email and how people are glued to their smartphones seem just a little dusty, as was a bit about the experience of having to wait on hold to buy something over the phone (which has never happened to me or anyone I've asked).  But while his material might be pretty dated, he’s still got a good stage presence.  It was good to actually see him being funny in a live setting, rather than his usual day job of writing crappy musicals with Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Richard Herring, on the other hand couldn’t be more of a sure hand at this kind of thing.  I follow his blog, and he’s recently finished his exhausting sounding nationwide tour of the country with his “What is Love, Anyway?”.  I’ve seen him twice previously, on his ‘”Hitler Moustache” and “Christ on a Bike” tours.  I was looking forward to him the most.  I’ve liked him ever since he singled my Dad out as looking like a paedophile during the DVD recording of “Hitler Moustache” in Cardiff.  It’s a shame then that he wasn’t so great tonight.  Maybe it was over-familiarity with the material (I think I’ve seen him do the routine he did tonight twice in various surroundings before).  Maybe it’s that I was miles away from him and couldn’t really see what he was doing on stage.  Later in the show he did a sketch with Kevin Eldon and Sally Philips that didn’t really work very well. I don’t know if it quite fit in with the rest of the night, and the only highlight was a dig at Ricky Gervais and Frankie Boyle that seemed to go down pretty well. I’m still looking forward to going to the recording of Richard Herring’s podcast with Armando Iannucci in late June though.

The highlights of the evening were the comedians that I hadn’t seen before.  Doc Brown’s ‘fill in the blanks’ rap song break down was great – as was his sarcastic look at fuck-the-police rappers.  He seemed confident on stage, and nicely self-deprecating.  He’s got a kind of slightly over-optimistic personality and gets a lot of mileage from how he’s “supposed” to be angry about things, but can’t help himself from seeing things from a more nuanced point of view.  

Milton Jones’ one liners were so witty that I imagine he spends most of his time being angry about other comedians ripping off his jokes.  The multi-part joke about school bullies which depended on knowing exactly how the audience will react to each stage of the joke was technically fantastic.  He’s obviously indebted to Steven Wright in his deadpan delivery, but if you’re going to do one-liners, you can do a lot worse that Steven Wright.

I’ve always been put off Al Murray’s pub landlord character a bit.  I know it’s satirical and ironic, but I’ve seen way too many people enjoying the character unironically, which makes me a bit uncomfortable.  I know it’s a mistake to let others perceptions and opinions of things colour my own, and none more than in this case.  More than the other acts, Al Murray mostly improvised his material (or at least appeared to), chatting with people sitting on the front row.  Some of the other acts were a bit overly scripted, so it was nice to something a bit looser and more unpredictable.  

Francesca Martinez was also great.  It’s a bit depressing that she doesn’t appear on panel shows because she’s apparently “too scary”.  I think producers are being a bit timid if they consider her scary.  The anecdote about her being offered a part on a show playing someone who can’t move, can’t talk and can’t make facial expressions was funny but sad.  Her performance also clued me into the fact that there’s lots of great comedians who don’t show up on panel shows – if you don’t keep your finger on the stand-up comedy pulse, then how are you supposed to find out about them? 

It was a little annoying that Francesca Martinez was the only woman to get a set.  I’m a fan of Sally Phillips and after seeing that she got a whole page to herself in the programme it was quite disappointing that she was only on stage for about 5 minutes as part of someone else’s sketch, particularly as she was one of only two female comedians on the bill.

It’s weird that it was the comedians I was a fan of that were a little disappointing.    Ben Elton, Robin Ince, Richard Herring and Paul Tonkinson all did extended routines on the perils of middle age and having children.  They all went down pretty well, but I don’t really feel much sense of identification with them.  Jokes that boil down to “ha, kids can be so precocious”, and “my pubes are turning grey” might be a bit funnier to me later on in life, but not right at the moment.  I guess if you’re an 40 something observational comedian, then middle age and children are going to be what you’re observing.

As the show ended, and before Ben Elton finished up the show and thanked everyone for coming, there was a kind of mass exodus from around us as half the audience left, presumably to get a tube home.  Seems a little bit rude to leave before the end of the charity comedy gig and skipping out on the applause that everyone on stage deserved.  

On the whole the positives far, far outweighed the negatives.  I don’t want this review to sound too negative.  It’s easier to talk about the jokes that didn’t work, as they were the ones I wasn’t laughing at. These were 10 or so highly experienced comedians doing a fine service in aid of Scope.  Even though I was at the back of the room, squinting at the comedians far, far away from me I was surrounded by laughter throughout the show.  Well worth the trip out to Hammersmith on a Sunday night.