I’ve not once, but three times met people who’ve told me that the company they work for had given them tickets to Covent Garden but they never used them as they hated opera. What a waste of tickets, I’ve wailed, appalled. Why not eBay them if you can’t use them? I’ve had more or less three shrugs back, for the sort of people whose work gives them opera tickets are the sort of people who don’t need to get any extra income by flogging tickets on an auction site, so the tickets go to waste.
I’m sitting here wincing at the very thought.
But if your taste runs to the experimental within the genre, then the Tête à Tête Festival at the Riverside Studios in Hammersmith might make a cheap and surprising alternative.
Now in it’s seventh year, Tête à Tête has a programme of over 30 brand new and innovative operas
spread over August and most* tickets are a fiver for concessions or £7.50 waged and if you plan it cleverly you can see three new works in one evening for just over twenty quid (they’re mostly short, lasting anything from half an hour to an hour and a half).
When you’re there, you may also stumble across a Lite Bite, an opera being performed in the foyer for free.
I’ve so far experienced three works and I’m off today for three more and then another three next week. So far I’ve been more than pleasantly surprised by both the venue and the operas themselves.
Firstly, did you know that the Riverside Studios is by the riverside? Yes? Well, it had not once occurred to me. Honestly. Coming at the theatre from the tube station I’d never seen the other side of the building and the name simply hadn’t registered as anything other than a name. I’m pleased to say I’m not the only idiot as my companion James hadn’t thought of it either.
We sat in the sweltering bar until James casually said: “I wonder if that River Terrace sign leads to the river.”
Why yes, you numpties, it does! So we sat outside on a perfect London evening, watching the geese honking at passing boats and each other, sipping our iced water (yes, we like to splash out) and wondering what exactly we were about to see.
Two Clowns turned out to be, well, not an opera actually – more a performance in two acts using opera as its theme, written by Christopher and George Newell, with music by Paul Barker.
The first act involved one of the clowns of the piece, a real one called Marcelo Beré, who had a shock of vertical hair and Marty Feldman eyes with which he gimleted the audience. In full frock coat, although with one leg carelessly tucked into his sock, he sat behind the piano player (George Newell, whose vertical beard mirrored Beré’s hair) and mucked about a bit with his score, ripping it up and then producing it whole again.
It was diverting and mildly amusing, and at only ten minutes long was bearable, but I couldn’t eat a whole one. One woman got up to leave thinking that was the end of the whole piece, only to arrive back sheepishly when the usher informed her it wasn’t. We were in a small studio which James says they use to record Celebrity Juice.
Keith Lemmon would have made mincemeat of her.
Next on were a couple in full evening dress. The man sat at the piano while the woman pressed a button on a machine. A synthesised voice began to speak and to introduce its/himself. He was Oliver Curry, and he was sitting at the piano. A robotic tale unfolded to the strains of Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci.
Oliver was once a famous opera singer. In the 80’s he’d been contracted to play Pagliacci in Italy. In a not so clever ruse, thinking he’d get out of it but still get paid, he feigned losing his voice. A few months later, both his speaking and singing voice disappeared, an event that had (and still has: he’s not regained it) both doctors and psychiatrists baffled.
These were his words we were hearing/not hearing. Funny and moving, was Oliver’s story a morality tale? Don’t make faces, little children, or when the wind changes your face will stick. It could have been. Who knows? Not Oliver, not the doctors, and certainly not me.
I’m sure, then, that Oliver/Pagliacci was the other clown of the title, just not a ha ha one (although it was full of haaaa haaaa’s, the throat-clearing sound many opera singers make to get a clear voice and which sounds very like ha ha when put through a synthesiser). Together, the pieces made up a nice little half an hour of though-provoking entertainment.
Earlier in the week I’d seen and the Crowd (wept), the opera that had garnered Tête à Tête more publicity than all the rest put together, the subject being a journalist’s wet dream: the life and times of the late Jade Goody. So I was a little surprised to find a statement in the blurb that read: “This is not the story of Jade Goody. Of the woman she was, or even of the life she lead. It is the story of celebrity.” A closer look revealed that composer, Erick Flores, when approached by writer Afsaneh Gray and asked if he wanted to collaborate with her on an opera about Goody had said yes, sure, as long as the work was not about Jade Goody. Odd bloke.
I’m presuming this was the compromise they came to.
Anyway, it was happily provocative and this time had proper operatic singing in it provided by three sopranos and a baritone. A work in progress, it told Jade’s story (goal for Gray!) – without naming her once (equaliser for Flores!) – from her South London roots (“She lived in Bermondsey, in dirt and poverty”), to the height of her Big Brother fame, through to her death from cancer at a very early age.
On the hottest day of the year, I’d sat in the pretty small, completely airless Studio 3 with sweat dripping on to my notebook and blurring the words like – appropriately – tears, listening to an orchestra of seven performing some very atonal music while the three sopranos shrieked at the top of their register.
The piece was punctuated with such Jade-isms as “East Angular – that’s abroad, ain’t it?” and “Do chickens eat cheese?”
which will always raise a titter, but the feel was more bleak oratorio than cheeky comedy. A headache had soon grabbed my cranium, shaken it, and refused to let go.
What really foxed me was the baritone shuffling on to the stage draped in a blanket, wearing a headscarf and carrying a gavel. Yes, a gavel. My reviewer’s mind was whirring. A gavel – the law, justice, a courtroom. Are we all guilty of judging Jade and her poppadom rant too quickly? Is celebrity really a courtroom where the public are judge and jury? It was only when I got home and Googled it that I found out that a woman had managed to get in to Goody’s hospital room when she was dying of cancer, and she’d been found ranting and holding a gavel. See, you can overthink these things very easily (although…….)
Our next Riverside mudlark was a foodie one as James and I experienced Indigestion.
The name of New Space’s food-themed addition to the growing immersive theatre trend rather than us experiencing mild dyspepsia, Indigestion had the perfect venue staring it in the face – the Thameside terrace. So in which direction were we pointed? Yes, to good old Studio 3 again.
The ingredients for New Space’s ‘active installation’ were a room full of round tables, some voices, some food, some music and, of course, us. As we were shown our table, alarm bells started tinkling when the waitress announced herself with:
“I’ll be your waitress for today and I’m here to help you.”
Have you EVER been greeted by a waitress in this country with that tripping off her tongue? No, me neither. I smelt a set-up but was quite happy to go along with it and soon we were joined at our table by seven complete strangers and were chatting along to them happily, asking the usual questions: where do you come from, what do you do, what brings you here?
I wasn’t at all surprised when the waitress burst into song and began to sing about the woes of her profession, of the difficulties she’d had with the people she seats, and how no one seems to talk to each other these days (mainly because of the singing waitresses interrupting them of course).
In a record-breaking feat of tactlessness even for me, I managed to insult the violinist who was sitting discretely in the corner within a minute of taking my seat.
Well, perhaps not insult: I set her self-image aquiver.
Being an old mare, my memory is rather like Rupert Murdoch’s pretend one so I tend to write everything down in a notebook for my reviews: costumes, music, lighting etc. I noticed the violinist. Or was it a violin? It looked immense, like a mini cello and I thought ‘that’s not just a violin – it must be a viol or some other such ancient and obscure instrument’ so I blurted this out to the person on the other side of the table and it came out a little too loudly as I was nervous, sitting with so many new people. “I’m sure it’s just a violin,” said the man, at which the violinist piped up, “Yes, it’s just a violin,” as she looked at me quizzically, as if I was Mr Dumb, Mrs Dumb, the Dumb children and Dumbo, the Dumb’s dog. “It’s just HER, dear,” piped up the latecomer next to me. “It’s HER dear. She’s tiny.” The violinist proudly held her still-too-big for a violin violin aloft for all to see, and continued with a big grin: “Well, it’s not a cello is it.” Afterwards I was secretly pleased to have had my very own Father Ted ‘Small /Far Away’ moment, but I felt a bit of a twerp at the time.
The older, rather posh woman who’d arrived late and put me right on the fiddler’s Tom Thumbness, had sat down and proceeded to empty the contents of her bag on to the table. “Oh dear,” she said, dramatically. “I seem to have mislaid my purse. Ah, it’s because my pac-a-mac was blocking it. I don’t usually do this. I’m so so sorry. What must you think of me, showing you the whole contents of my bag.” Her name was Win and she didn’t stop her charming babble for a minute of the evening. My Spidey senses were tingling.
Along came our starter, thrust at us by harassed Polish waitresses,
and as we started to eat, the young couple next to Win started to sing. So much for my superpowers.
Out on a first date, their tale was one of insecurity, and wondering if they had anything in common (yes, they did – bursting into song at the dinner table). Rather than the indigestion of the title, I was feeling all warm and fuzzy on the inside until it was roughed up a bit by the couple on the next table when they had their time in the spotlight. Theirs was a more caustic take on the world of dating: the twentysomething man and woman couldn’t find a man they could trust and settle down with. Although their bitterness left a slightly nasty taste in the mouth, it was soon washed away with our main course, a vegetable wellington, green beans and the most wonderful mashed potato I’ve ever tasted (including my mum’s).
Meanwhile, Win was still nattering, this time to our boy and girl singers who were muttering noncommittal answers as they’d obviously been told not to break character. I avoided talking to them at all, simply because making conversation with strangers is bloody awkward at the best of times and near impossible if you know they’re actors and might burst into song at any minute. But this didn’t stop Win. I don’t think anything would or could stop Win.
She was one of those forces of nature who win you over with their outright charm and sweetness, but who won’t stop talking for love nor money.
She just liked to communicate, bless her, and it was all good talk, no waffle. And, just as importantly, she listened.
Another voice began to sing, a lone voice on table 3, singing of his poetry, his loneliness, and, again, his insecurities. The woman who was sitting next to him looked so startled I thought she was going to fall off her chair.
By this time, I’d christened them all – the singers – as I need a shorthand in my notebook as I can’t remember names instantly. Gay guy on table 2 was Toby (Young – that right-wing columnist twerp who loves the idea of ‘free schools’), and he sat next to Bitter Ginger. Our pair were Sweetie and Jason (Manford – I’m 90% sure he was his younger brother), and the poet was the Poet (sometimes it’s remarkably straightforward – I don’t bloody work for Bletchley Park).
As we munched the tasty fare, they belted out their very ‘musical theatre’ numbers and I wondered where the opera came into the mix. It turned out it didn’t, but as I’d realised when seeing other shows in this bijou fest, they’ve tended to stretch the definition of opera as far as a pizza chef stretches a thin-crust pizza.
The overall feel of Indigestion is one of lamentation – lamentation that we don’t speak to each other enough, that our style of dining out is isolating, and that what we need is a great big melting pot, big enough to take the whole world and what it’s got. Sorry. Went a bit hippy there, and it’s unfair to New Space who’s piece is really rather interesting and lovely.
On to pudding, and Win was by now getting me to recount my life story, having left Jason and Sweetie alone for five minutes.
When I’d booked by email I’d been asked to select what we wanted from the menu. As I’ve mentioned, both James and I are veggies so the starter and main were easy – we had a ‘choice’ of one thing. When it came to afters (sorry, but I’m not calling it dessert) I really wanted the chocolate mousse but didn’t know if it was veggie, so said mousse if no gelatine, apple tart if there is. Simple? You’d think so, but our waitress didn’t seem to.
“Tart!” she barked, marching purposefully up to our table and skidding to a halt. “Tart! You want tart?”
“Well,” I began nervously, “We’re not sure because…..”
“You want tart?!”
“Is it veggie?”
“It is tart. You want it?”
“I ordered chocolate mousse if it was veggie but tart if it wasn’t.”
“Ah, tart! You DO want tart!”
“No, only if the mousse isn’t veggie.”
She thrust the tart at me. “Here is tart.”
I saw the delicious looking mousse being served up to others. It is my favourite afters.
“No, I emailed…..”
“You want tart or not?!”
The original, singing waitress came to my aid at this point and tried to smooth things over. I sighed with relief, but my respite didn’t last long.
“Tart?!”
And so it began all over again with James.
Our Poet began to sing again, only to do what I call a ‘Hong Kong Fooey’ which I don’t expect anyone under 40 to understand, but it’s simple. Mr Kong Fooey was by day Henry the mild-mannered janitor but by night he morphed into a martial kick-ass who, in the great tradition of superheroes, was disguised only by a thin strip of material covering his eyes. OK, that’s an awfully long way to say Dr Jekyll turned into Mr Hyde, but that’s just such a boring cliché….
Anyway, the Poet roared and became a caustic, grating, hateful, idiotic, nasty, pompous, twattish, snotty, bilious, punchable food critic for the Times. Oh no, wait. That’s Giles Coren. This was Gerald deVere who the Poet transformed into with the twitch of a shoulder.
The woman sitting next to him now looked like she was going to wet herself.
The glasses came off as tears of laughter streamed down her face as she desperately tried to hide herself under her napkin. I’m really not sure how Adam Urey as Poet/deVere managed to get through his performance with such a human wreck crumpled up and snorting beside him, but he did, and he did it with a straight face. By the end of his song the poor woman looked so agonised that I feared she’d never recover (and I’m pretty sure they’d have needed a new chair for the next performance).
The ‘great reveal’ over with, and Tart!! eaten, it was left to the singing waitress to wind it all up, which she did elegantly and movingly…..I presume. I was laughing too hard at the husk of a diner collapsed by the Poet’s side to be able to listen properly.
And it was over.
Jason and Sweetie gave an audible sigh of relief
and Jason put his arms round Win while burbling ‘thank you, thank you, thank you’ through tears of laughter. Blimey, this was turning out to be a laugh-a-minute catharsis-fest!
“I usually get people clam up on me,” he managed, “but you, you?! God, you never stopped! Not once! Don’t get me wrong, that’s a good thing! I loved it!”
Win looked pleased as punch and her face was nearly as red as the puppet’s as she’d confessed to us beforehand that she’d “just been to The Colour Purple matinee and I had a fair few glasses there.” And she’d had a fair few glasses here, too.
Tension dissipated, they turfed us all out quick smart seeing as the thing had already overrun by an hour. So much for diners getting to know each other better. No, only kidding. It had been a smashing night out and certainly a memorable one.
The only thing I was disappointed with was the lack of ‘bite’ in the show. With a title like Indigestion you expect something a little more experimental and challenging, something to spoil your dinner, not compliment it. It’s a funny, strange quibble, I know, but there you go….
Anyway, that’s enough of my operafest jaunts for now. I’m back at the Riverside soon for a second helping of bijou opera, and this time I’m determined to both walk across Hammersmith Bridge and get to visit Hogarth House. The area is like so much of London: a mix of scummy and yummy, and I really want to have a good poke around both bits. And a mudlark on the foreshore beckons too.
* The tickets for Indigestion are dearer as you also get the meal
The Tête a Tête Opera Festival runs at the Riverside until 18th August.
To find more information, CLICK HERE: http://www.Tête-a-Tête.org.uk/
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