A Little Bit Of Jane Austen

This morning MD and I pace Daughter around Forest Rec parkrun in 36 minutes. MD is delighted that I don’t make him do it in 25 while L puts a brave face on being on the sidelines but she will probably head off to drown her sorrows in Waterstone's later.

After breakfast at Homemade, I head off to the match where Derby draw with Birmingham.

In the evening we’re all (L, Daughter and me) at Pride and Prejudice which is being staged at Nottingham Playhouse. Yes, you heard correctly.

There is however a cunning difference here. This version is by comedian Sara Pascoe who is basically having a bit of a laugh with Jane Austen’s esteemed novel and questioning the modern day relevance of it.

This is a play for people like me who think oh no, not another costume drama of (insert populist play here). Ok, so this is a populist play but done with a difference, with satire and it’s not subtle either. For starters the whole thing is set in a giant birdcage.

The story is, mostly, an abridged version of the traditional one e.g. there are still five daughters to be married off and boy are they obsessed with finding a husband. Pascoe however questions this obsession and many other aspects of the story both within the main play and also by frequently switching the action to the present. Where discussions about the play take play in a school, the actors explore their own roles in rehearsals and there are two TV producers editing their own version while having their own very modern relationship, illicitly.

There are also songs from Emmy the Great in which the Bennet sisters plead with us not to judge them. As if.

The whole thing might upset the purists of course, hopefully, but I thought it was very clever, very well done, well acted and above all rather funny.

(Saturday 23^rd September)

Sour Grapes

MD and I run the Forest Rec parkrun this morning while L is a tail runner and Daughter makes her parkrun début. It’s quite a family affair. Naturally Daughter picks what is a fast week to do her first one but still does brilliantly.

Its also the day she get the keys to her new flat which is over in almost posh Mapperley Park. You could be pedantic and say it’s only just in Mapperley Park but in it is. We start moving some of her things in but we’ll need the man with the van again to move the big stuff.

Tonight we are at the Nottingham Playhouse for the first time in ages to see The Grapes of Wrath. This is a special request from L, who is struggling to get through the book along with the other 100+ novels on her book pile. It is a shame then that I have to keep nudging her awake throughout and her me.

The story concerns the Joad family who, in the 1930s, travel 2000 miles from poverty struck Oklahoma to hopefully find a better life in California. It is a journey that takes it toll on everyone, mentally and physically including a few deaths. So it’s quite a harrowing story or it’s supposed to be. However this production sees a bit of a rewrite of the story and is, I assume, intended to be a critique of the current migration situation.

This means that the dress code for the Great Depression era is relaxed and alongside characters in 1930s-esk dungarees we have others in tracksuits, jeans, Lycra leggings, a full superman outfit and (possibly the one good pun in the production) an ‘Are we nearly there yet?’ t-shirt.

This re-jigging of the story even included real jigs and there was a lot of unnecessary singing and dancing, including a very puzzling song about user car sales. All of which took time away from the actual story and some meaningful character development.

Those underdeveloped characters were large in number and extremely diverse. This included a multi-racial casting within the same family, which of course I understand the intent of but it really didn’t make things very easy to follow. Nor did the lack of attention to the ages of the family members who were meant to be siblings, parents and grandparents etc.

Then there was the sparse set which comprised of two large transparent containers which I think were supposed to signify their assorted means of transport and lodging but it was generally difficult to keep track of what they were supposed to be at any one time. For me it looked like the play was mostly set in a carriage on the London Underground. The real live river at the front of the stage was a nice touch though.

In the end, the production came over as neither contemporary nor true to the gritty realism of the original novel and I do like a bit of grit. I’m really not sure what John Steinbeck would have thought but he would most probably have hoped for something a little more coherent. It was just a bit of a mess that left you coming out of the theatre feeling neither entertained, educated nor inspired just confused.

I certainly needed the bottle Springhead’s Robin Hood ale they now sell there as well as the drinks afterwards in the Room With A Brew and the Blue Monkey.

(Saturday 1^st April)

Unplaced And Underground

L heads to Beeston parkrun as Forest Rec is closed for the Goose Fair. I’m at a dog show at Catton Park.

MD goes clear first run and comes 3^rd. So it’ll be all downhill from here. Which is a pretty fair assessment as his paws don’t go anywhere near a contact are all day long but all his jumping runs have been good. We do get another clear in Jumping but we’re unplaced.

L is also ‘unplaced’ of sorts. She celebrates because she thinks she’s gone under 33 minutes, and she has, but the organisers disagree by three seconds. Clearly she was not on the front row at the start. e.g. when they start the timing. I keep telling her...

Tonight we are in the back room of the Nottingham Playhouse known as the Neville Studio for the

Underground Man. This is loosely based on the life of the Fifth Duke of Portland who lived locally at Welbeck Abbey.

It is, without doubt, an interesting tale about an eccentric recluse who has a mania for building elaborate tunnels under his house (hence the title). In the play he is followed around by an apparition of a floating boy and at one point tries to drill a hole in his own head before eventually being gunned down while roaming his estate naked on all fours.

It sounds quite a riot does it not? 

It is performed with by a cast of just two and you might figure from the synopsis that it would be a touch hard to follow and you'd be right.

Sadly a lot of it is taken up by the old man moaning about his largely imagined illnesses and the tunnels, which you would expect to be a major feature, are barely mentioned. The thing that baffles me the most though is that the reclusive Duke meets up with an impressive range of characters all played by his on stage colleague. He debates with his butler, goes caving with the vicar, has conversations with his driver and other servants, sees his local doctor and seeks out other experts for help with his ailments.All giving the impression of him being actually quite the socialite and leaving me a bit confused. 

It's all very well acted though.

(Saturday 8^th October)

Richard III

Birmingham City don’t look like a side that lost 4-0 to Leeds last week. They come to us looking well organised and, well, tall. Very tall. They don’t give us much of a sniff and the game finishes 1-1. At least leaving Steve McClaren still unbeaten.

In the evening we visit Nottingham Playhouse to see Richard III. It's one of my favourite of Shakespeare's plays and also one of his best. Sadly it doesn’t seem to get performed as often as it should. So full credit to Nottingham Playhouse for taking advantage (hopefully) of Richard’s recently enhanced ‘media profile’ after the discovery of his remains and putting this production on.

 

Ian Bartholemew plays the scheming Richard, who murders his way to the throne, and plays him well. Evil b****rd that he is. Bartholemew adds humour to the role with a nice range of facial expressions to the audience, he has very active eyebrows, and a decent humpback. He also forgets his lines a couple of times and has to be prompted, which is a nice humanising touch. I can empathise with him. Despite knowing the story well, I still got lost in the Shakespearean mist a few times myself.

The set layout is interesting, providing a patio of gravestones for the cast to walk upon (or perhaps this signifies a Leicester car park) and full use is made of the auditorium, with the performance extending into both the stalls and up on to the balcony.

Richard of course dominates the play but the supporting cast are good too. It is staged with a modern, perhaps political, twist which mainly seems to revolve around the cast wearing updated clothing and I’m not sure that worked but it certainly didn’t distract from things.

There’s wit too or was it just me who thought that when Hastings's severed head was plonked upon the table it looked just like a bag of dirty washing.

Afterwards we have a few beers in the playhouse bar Cast where they are admirably promoting local breweries such as Magpie and Lincoln Green.

(Saturday 26^th October)

Literary Matters

As I cycle to work I almost get wiped out by one of those street cleaning vehicles which was driving down the wrong side of the road and stalking the entrance to the footpath at the bottom of Harrow Gardens. It’ll never get down there, I struggle to get my bike though those metal barriers.

Sure enough the chap has to get out of his vehicle and resort to using a brush. Unfortunately for him, L and the boys are following behind me on their morning walk. So MD gets chance to give him a right good telling off on my behalf.

In the evening both L and I are at literary events. What a cultured pair we are. L’s book club has a guest author while I’m at Nottingham Playhouse to see the journalist David Walsh promoting his book about his outing of Lance Armstrong. It’s a fascinating evening, although most of what he tells us is in his book, which I have already read. 

The most interesting bit is when he comes back for an encore and does a Q&A, in which we move on to more recent issues. Like British Cycling president Brian Cookson emerging as a challenger to the discredited head of the International Cycling Union (UCI) Pat McQuaid. That could get interesting.

(Tuesday 11^th June)