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REVIEW: Brighton’s Youth Celebrate Sir John Tavener

Brighton’s Youth Celebrate Sir John Tavener

Brighton Youth Orchestra
Brighton Festival Youth Choir

Sunday, May 18, 5pm at St Bartholomew’s Church, Ann Street, Brighton

Tavener – Ekstatis (written for Brighton Youth Orchestra)
Elgar – Enigma Variations
Schubert – Unfinished Symphony
Bach – Suite No 2 in B minor
with Charlotte Barbour-Condini Recorder

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Brighton Youth Orchestra (BYO)  celebrated the life and music of Sir John Tavener as part of the Brighton Festival.  Sir John Tavener wrote a specially commissioned work for the Brighton Youth Orchestra in 2001 titled Ekstasis which was included in the program and which took full advantage of the particular acoustic properties of St Bart’s and which was a sublime rendition.  The Bach suits alas suffered with the same acoustic and smothered the delightful precision of Bach’s Suite No. 2 although recorder soloist Charlotte Barbour-Condini managed to pierce the smoothed out tones with her elegant touch perfect playing and demonstrate why she was made the finalist of young musician of the year in 2012.

Charlotte Barbour-Condini
Charlotte Barbour-Condini

Hymn to Jerusalem was the best piece of this afternoon’s recital, full bodied and with an inner conviction and rigorous strength that is sometimes lacking in this most ethereal of composers but we were transported by the careful balance of voice and orchestra that this talented young group of people presented. We were seated right in front of the Brass section which was placed at the back of the church and this added an element of surreal northern brass band to this otherwise subtle and elegant piece, not something which wholly detracted from the music and I rather enjoyed the blareing brass overtones. It made Hymn come alive in a way I’ve not experienced before.

For full details of the concert, CLICK HERE:       

A bit of an odd mix of music in the selection. I felt the clash of pompous Elgar and sublime Taverner irritated me, but overall the musical quality was top notch, the choice of venue excellent and the production values of the Youth Choir and Orchestra superb.

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It’s always a pleasure to listen to Taverner, when the air is misted with the scent of frankincense the high eerie brick vaults pierced through with the rays of a setting sun and massed voices rolling around a sacred space then it’s a highlight and serious delight,

Taverner can often feel a little hollow to me, lacking in real spiritual depth but the added fugue of the St Bart’s space joined with the purity and well-rehearsed Youth Orchestra and Choir presented an afternoon of superb and sublime musical entertainment.

I think John was looking down from his soft Orthodox sofa in heaven, nudged Mother Thekla and smiled at us all.

 

 

 

 

REVIEW: Hedwig & The Angry Inch: New Venture Theatre

Hedwig & The Angry Inch

New Venture Theatre, Bedford Pl, Hove, East Sussex BN1 2PT

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“Internationally ignored song stylist” Hedwig Schmidt is a fourth-wall smashing East German rock ‘n’ roll goddess who also happens to be the victim of a botched sex-change operation. Leaving her with just an angry inch. As in the live band that supports her through this incredibly funny and inspirational story.

Hedwig is on a ‘stalker tour’ following a certain rock star she has a connection to. Her travels have brought her all the way to the New Venture Theatre in this dazzling and rocking piece of site specific, musical theatre.

Hedwig owned the stage and the audience from the first entrance. The seen better days costume was wonderful and a conviction of an aggressive drag queen from Berlin was firmly made. Hedwig made me feel excited, she was funny, entertaining, this felt like watching a story of her life, highly subjective and edited.  The set was ironic grunge and the costumes looked like they had been slept in, exactly what is called for in this story of being on and being ground down by The Road. Well-done New Venture on getting the tone of this just right.

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Jonny Parlett was convincing in the tremulous and demanding main role, by turns tender, angry and beseeching but always charming with a slight edge of teasy menace. This is an easy role to get wrong but Parlett brought a believable passion from his first entrance flaunt to the last desperate grasping for identity. With enough honest openness to allow Hedwig to seem human as well as a marvellous self-creation this performance never lagged for a moment, giving us moments of high camp crashing down into an abyss of sadness and disappointment, but always with the whiplash of hope, strong beautiful defiant hope which is the core of Hedwig’s story.

Hedwig is a vulnerable person, burned by her upbringing and saddened by her life. Parlett explored her being taken advantage of, manipulated by men and her older lover wanting to use her for his own entertainment not caring about the future or happiness. There was genuine sadness that her mother seemed to only want her out of her life but this reflection on pain was struck through with endless (seemingly) off the cuff comments and the deliciously dark humour of J.C. Mitchell and his own very personal experince as the musical is based on his own life.  The humour of Hedwig is one of the reasons I love this play so much, and the gummi bear soliloquy was timed perfectly for the pathos, scurrility and raw humour to come bounding out.

As the story continued Hedwig became more aggressive, burned by her life, fuelled by the toxic mix of hope and tragedy that runs through this play. Jonny Parlett hinted at Hedwig hiding her hate by hating everyone around her and managed the tender exposure of finding loves recovery with the right amount of frailty and fear.

The band brought the music out rough and full of raw emotion and it felt like we were part of a tour, the lighting rig working overtime to make the Venture space feel much bigger than it actually is. The sound quality was a little one directional to start but that might have been intentional but it did make the lead singers difficult to pick out on occasion.  The Angry Inch band felt like an authentic touring band the stage crew/roadie/supporting crowd from the rest of the Venture crew were fun and very subtle in their quick changes. This constantly moving dynamic was one of the high points of the eventing allowing Parletts Hedwig to strut like a demented Peacock through the higher vaults of hysteria without losing momentum.

My friend Travis came along with me, and stroked Hedwig’s inner thigh, he was ‘well impressed’ with the show.

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This production of Hedwig is great fun and holds the energy levels right up there until the very last moment, the audience were thrilled at this performance and a lot of them were on their feet at the end showing their appreciation of the efforts of this slick and passionate team in entertaining us all so well. Hedwig’s are often funny or mad, or sexy or lyrical it’s a rare performance that manages to balance all the tensions of this most complex of characters and supporting characters and still allow the funnies to shine.

This is an authentic production of Hedwig keeping to the spirit and intention of John Cameron  Mitchell’s writing and giving us a Hedwig who demands our unconditional love whilst slightly scaring us with the intensity of a life lived at full throttle.

For more info or to book tickets: CLICK HERE:    

 

 

 

REVIEW: Alex Through the Looking Glass: Alex Bellos

Alex Through the Looking Glass,

Alex Bellos,

May 17 at 5pm,

Dome Studio, New Road, Brighton, East Sussex, BN1 1UG

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Writer and broadcaster Alex Bellos lead us on a journey of mathematical discovery taken from his new book, Alex Through the Looking Glass, to show how numbers have become our friends and changed our world. From triangles, rotations and power laws to fractals, cones and curves, mathematics informs our lives in ways we cannot – or refuse to – imagine. Alex narrated a series of encounters with folk he’s met from all over the world as he conveyed the joy of mathematical thinking with wit and enthusiasm. He’s also very cute and easy on the eye too which always helps this easily distracted critic in a Saturday afternoon lecture about math..…

Quite charming and in control of his subject he rambled on – not quite as randomly as he seemed to be –  but then that’s part of the charm in talking about such a educative subject and Bellos actually dodged much fact, but although it was low on real maths and my geek of a boyfriend moaned rather about the lack of decent math,  Bellos was engaging and fun and the audience seemed entertained by his dipping in and out of his new book and bringing titbits about the wonderful world of numbers and the way we relate and emotionally respond to them both when they obviously jut out into our cosy human world and the more subtle interactions we as a human race have developed to live side by side with these odd, eccentric and delightful abstract things; the numbers.

For more details of this event see this link

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You may already know of him from his endlessly entertaining and informative Guardian column, if not, check him out here and learn something cool today.  I learned some cool stuff about catenary-generated curves in the form of a cross-section of a sail from Alex this week, and spent a pleasant afternoon skimming the integer ocean in search of deeper mathematical currents.

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Bellos is at his best when talking about the gritty nerdy bits of numbers which seem to interest only him and although he seeks to share the joy of numbers by attaching curious personal stories to them, and he’s kind enough to share with us as long as we are kind enough to show enough interest.  However it’s his own interpretations that are the most interesting and there are fascinating glimmers of real obsessive interest on occasion from him, before he moves swiftly on.

For more info about Alex or to see his books check out his website here:

 

 

REVIEW: Tea at 5: Old Joint Stock Theatre Company

Tea at 5

Writer: Matthew Lombardo

Old Joint Stock Theatre Company

The Burrow, Russell Place, Brighton

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Known for her headstrong independence and spirited personality, Katherine Hepburn was a leading lady in Hollywood for more than 60 years. This play adapted from Hepburn’s memoirs, Me: Stories of My Life by the Old Joint Stock Theatre Company have pulled out this delightful hour of the real Hepburn life.

Mathew Lombardo’s celebrated play Tea at Five featured at The Burrow at The Warren and what a perfect set and venue it was for this little gem. We are invited, at 5, to join Kate as she regales us with her feelings and thoughts on where and how she is. A trip down Broadway, Hollywood Boulevard and memory lane, this is an interesting perspective on this greatest of movie stars. We sit around the huge hearth in the Warren which transforms to the Hepburn Estate ‘Fenwick’  before She sweeps in, full of trousers and concern but utterly charming.

The polish on this show is as well buffed as the silver teapot that Hepburn serves tea from at one point, it’s reflective glare highlights not only the gloss of Hepburn but also the cracks and vulnerability of this tremendous tremulous women, all swishing trousers, bravado and trembling lip we get to see Hepburn at two points in her life, early on during her stellar rise and much later as an older woman, still in demand but much further in decline and doubt.

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Meghan Lloyd gives us a remarkable Hepburn and I was charmed by her poise, graceful deportment, perfectly judged arch asides and worrying twitches, this was women as force of nature, but also as tender private rose and Lloyd worked hard to present a well-rounded character. I was delighted by this performance my only criticism though is why no voice? Although the elegant pronunciation of Hepburn was spot on, her glazed precise form of speech nailed, there was no hint of the gravel tones of Connecticut drawled society burr that Hepburn so famously owned. It felt like something essential was missing and I was surprised after so much work on getting it right that Lloyd didn’t attempt the tones, we surmised that to avoid parody Lloyd was directed to the mid-Atlantic received pronunciation of Hepburn’s golden cinema years.

Other than that rather surprising omission this whole show was an engaging, believable and informative afternoon in the presence of one of Hollywood’s legends. Well done Ms Lloyd, well done indeed. As Hepburn said herself ‘It’s life isn’t it? You plow ahead and make a hit. And you plow on and someone passes you. Then someone passes them. Time levels.’ Lloyd captures this attitude with perfection and just the hint of tremor, allowing the humanity of huge talent and humility to combine in just the right subtle way.

For more info or to book tickets, CLICK HERE:

 

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