Suffering of honour-based abuse is given a voice
Theatre
the place in Drew Taylor’s contribution to the Glasgow-wide Take Me Somewhere performance festival. It’s there on the carpet made up of Union Jacks and Stars and Stripes flags, if not on the line-up of show-room dummies who sport Hitler-style moustaches and little else at the back of the Citizens Theatre’s Circle Studio.
It’s definitely there in the co-ordinated retro apparel worn by the show’s performers, Isobel McArthur and David Rankine, as they welcome the audience into Taylor’s loose-knit political cabaret.
Don’t be fooled by the title’s self-help styled implications. As the winner of the Somewhere New strand of Take Me Somewhere, which solicited reinventions of classic works in ways which playwright David Hare probably wouldn’t approve of, Taylor’s piece looks to Brecht for inspiration. Under Taylor’s direction, the pair attempt to tackle the state of various nations through song, slogans and a series of linked sketches that take us around the breakfast tables of assorted electorates over the last century or so.
There are DIY captions and assorted routines spoken into microphones. As McArthur and Rankine step in and out of character, guitars and accordions are played and wigs are worn. The house lights are turned up and down as the pair debate the mechanics of a scene. Audience participation becomes more willing as we go along, a perfect symbol of what’s required to stop the idiots from winning. The end – which it isn’t really, is as downbeat as it is inconclusive. As a barometer of the crazy, mixed-up times we’re currently living in, it’s as good as any of us can hope for. wonder if all seats harbour such evil intent. Will we be able to rise and go when Cameron’s copious monologue ends? Actually, the real danger is that concentration will falter and flag across the 100 or so minutes (with no interval) of Cameron’s performance.
From first to last, she embodies the shifting dynamics of her own narrative with fabulous gusto. She details, with a boiling intensity of descriptive language, how the man, trapped in the chair, develops an insatiable appetite for food.
As he bloats into monstrous blubber, so his wife becomes ever thinner, worn down by the unrelenting cycle of cooking and drudgery. There is a child, a girl, but she’s invisible:cocooned in her attic, feeding her imagination on books.
In fact, this particular narrative was itself a book before the Clod Ensemble, director Suzy Willson and composer Paul Clark, adapted and staged it for Dundee-born author/performer Sarah Cameron.
It’s a genuinely impressive collaboration, the (mostly gloomridden) lighting creating a sense of the claustrophobic isolation that overtakes this hapless family. But as Cameron’s voice dips into cadences of braid Scots,veers into literary tags, soars off into flights of grotesquerie, you’re caught between unstinting admiration for the chameleon nature of her performance and a reluctant disappointment that so much of it has eluded your ears and understanding, despite the reviving sugary tit-bits served during brief pauses. Keith Bruce AS chief conductor designate of the Rotterdam Phil, young Israeli conductor Lahav Shani is obviously far from being an unknown quantity, but the 27-year-old’s debut with the RSNO nonetheless continued Scotland’s recent run of introductions to a new generation of talent.
It is also fair to guess that he would not be familiar with the Concerto for Oboe and Strings by Ralph Vaughan Williams, another of this season’s showcases for the orchestra’s principals, Adrian Wilson following flautist Kath Bryan to the front of the stage.
The parallel did not end there, as her appropriation of The Lark Ascending for her instrument found an obvious echo in the first movement of this wartime piece, which has lovely lyrical long phrases as well as fiendishly fast passages. Especially notable was the dialogue between soloist and cellos immediately before the final folk-like melody.
Shani had begun the evening with a bracing Carnival Overture by Dvorak, leader Maya Iwabuchi in the spotlight and a fine balance between the strings and bold brass in a precision account of Bohemian colour. But anyone expecting fireworks in the conductor’s reading of Beethoven’s Third Symphony in the second half of the concert would have been disappointed. This was a very measured Eroica that followed naturally on from the concerto in its chamber approach, but which Shani knows intimately enough to have no need of the score.
Emphatic but never over-stated, he dictated a pace than seemed rather more leisurely than is fashionable, his body-language dictating an initial sense of containment that later produced moments of breath-holding intensity, but was never as explosive as some might want and was all the more fascinating for it. Miranda Heggie Commissioned by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Saturday evening’s concert saw the world premiere of Sir James MacMillan’s Concertino for Horn and Strings. The final, most substantial movement is a reworking of his 2007 horn quintet, and is precluded by three, short, “preludial” movements.
Beginning with solo horn and four violas in the gallery, and the rest of the strings on stage, the interplay between musicians up and downstairs was effective and engaging. SCO principal horn Alec Frank-Gemmill opened with immediately arresting playing, his warm timbre beautifully shining through the dense harmonies in the strings.
Producing a remarkable breadth of tone and colour, Frank-Gemmill constantly reinvented MacMillan’s forlorn leitmotif, before calmly exiting the stage during the work’s final bars to conclude the piece with serene solo fragments heard from outside the hall, gradually fading into nothingness.
Conductor Andrew Manze drew a vibrant energy from the orchestra, opening Beethoven’s 2nd Symphony with bold and vigorous strength. Manze’s insight into the work was evident, as he led the orchestra with dynamic rigour. The second, larghetto movement had a lush, thick sound, while the third, scherzo: allegro was given some rather serious undertones by swelling lower strings. The final movement saw clear, yet rich playing from clarinets and bassoons, and immaculate precision from Matthew Hardy on timpani.
Opening with Benjamin Britten’s Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge, the orchestra’s string section was on tremendous form, playing with a raw energy under Manze’s sensitive baton. Moving through agitated oscillations, dark, brooking rumblings, and moments of tender poignancy, Manze brought Britten’s tribute to his teacher to a close with a tight, colourful flourish. Jonathan Geddes Olly Murs has proved remarkably durable. Eight years have passed since he appeared on the X Factor, yet here he is, with another chart-topping album in last year’s 24 Hrs, and two nights at the Hydro.
Perhaps the reason why is that he knows his audience, from the ease with which he larked about with items of underwear thrown onstage to pantomime reactions provoked by any mention of his ex-girlfriend or newly single status (Glasgow approved strongly of the latter).
At times he appeared to be on a mission to make sure every cheeky chappie stereotype was adhered to, with the enthusiasm of a wide-eyed puppy on a sugar rush behind each pose, wiggle of his bum or mild double-entendre.
That affable and straightforward nature creates an entertainer who is never likely to cause his fanbase to veer away, but it doesn’t lead to particularly exciting music. The moments when he did show a more serious side stood out most, with the effective ballad of Flaws and the saxophone solo powered I Need You Now providing substance underneath the good time pop gloss.
Tellingly, the set tended to run through various genres without ever finding a sound of Murs own.
It all felt like trying on various guises.
Murs was a likeable showman, but only with the slick dancefloor banger of Troublemaker did he have a pop gem to call his own.
Music