Last week I was told to stand up or fuck off by John Lydon. I remained seated, just to antagonise him - what's the point of an unriled Lydon?Yes I accompanied Owen to see his beloved Public Image Limited at Shepherds Bush Empire and as is our wont these days we had tickets in the seated first level - quite tasty ones too, 2nd row on the centre aisle. Rather see something of the stage than straining to see past the heads of the tall sods who always see the same gigs we do.
Now to be honest I parted company with PIL after DEATH DISCO although I always enjoyed the singles that were released in the ensuing years especially RISE, THIS IS NOT A LOVE SONG and the hypnotic FLOWERS OF ROMANCE. However Owen was so hyper after seeing them last year at the Electric Ballroom that I agreed to give them a go.As becomes the legend that he is, there was no support act, just booming reggae tracks which suited us fine! Just after 9pm the lights dimmed as they strolled on, John accompanied by his minder John Rambo, who looks anything but his namesake and who stands at the side of the stage staring fixedly at his charge.
John was in a natty red waistcoat over a white shirt and after a good gargle of brandy with an extravagant gob-out into a handily-placed dustbin he was off! He started off with a thunderous version of THIS IS NOT A LOVE SONG and off we went into a real journey in sound.It was less of a gig, more of a Sensurround experience with booming bass, thudding drums and Apple computer aural augmentation - oh and John's wailing voice weaving over and under the sound to create something quite hypnotic. My favorite moments were during ...LOVE SONG, TIE ME TO THE LENGTH OF THAT, DEATH DISCO, FLOWERS OF ROMANCE (although I was a bit miffed the drummer didn't do the big drummery bit - I was watching him especially but I assume that was off the Apple), WARRIOR, DISAPPOINTED and RELIGION. Eat your prison cap out Phil Spector - this is real Wall Of Sound stuff.
It was just before WARRIOR that he kicked off at us "lazy sods" who were sitting in the circle and he returned to this subject for the rest of the set - I particularly liked his line "Fuck me I didn't know you could get wheelchairs up in the circle". After CHANT he pointed to the Reserved section and said "Look over there, those are my friends who are standing up... they are real friends... not like you arseholes so fuck off". The fact that most of the reserved section were sat on their arses rather went in the face of Mr. Lydon's argument so we chose to remain seated.I needed to dash to the wees while the lengthy clappy-clappy between set and encore was going on... only to hear the opening bass line of PUBLIC IMAGE start just as I was in situ - OH YOU BUGGER I said aloud and raced back to catch most of the song (I had 'adjusted my dress' before you ask) and whadya know... the end of the song was greeted by me and Owen giving him a standing ovation. See Johnny, that's all it needed. He followed up with rousing versions of RISE and OPEN UP and was gone, with the promise of an album of new material at the end of the year.
Owen's picture captures the atmosphere well... PIL are an experience not forgotten easily.
This week Stephen Sondheim's A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC reopened at the Walter Kerr Theatre on Broadway after the departure of Catherine Zeta-Jones and Angela Lansbury with the new leads Bernadette Peters as Desiree and Elaine Stritch as Mme Armfeldt.
Now I would give my eye-teeth to see them in it but, I don't know, they just look odd on stage...In other Broadway news, Halle Berry and Samuel L. Jackson have been signed to appear in THE MOUNTAINTOP by Katori Hall which was the surprise winner of the Olivier Award last year for Best New Play. Mindful that Denzil Washington has just had such a Tony award-winning smash hit with FENCES on the Great White (ahem) Way, there appears to be a scramble to get black film actors on stage.The latest gossip is that the same producer who blacked up Tennessee Williams' CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF has approached Will Smith and Jada Pinkett-Smith to co-star in a production of A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE! The thought of those two pissing all over one of the greatest plays of the 20th Century is really a step too far.
Oh and on the subject of black actors and productions I would give eye-teeth to see....
The box-office opens tonight!
What's the best way to spend the hottest day of the year Constant Reader? How's about sitting in a 40-seat theatre under a railway arch in Southwark? It works for me - especially if I am seeing one of my favorite Sondheim musicals.
But is ASSASSINS a musical? Not in the usual sense of the word. There are not many musicals where one of the leading characters will have two intensely powerful monologues with no solo number to 'cap' them but then the world of ASSASSINS is unpredictable, just as it should be.
Unsurprisingly the show has never found the acclaim it deserves on the Great White Way, no doubt in part to the unflinching light it shines at that most absurd of concepts The American Dream. If allegedly anyone can find fame as the President then surely it follows that anyone can find fame as the President's killer. 
It's not unusual to say that a Sondheim score haunts you but what I love about ASSASSINS is that John Weidman's morally-questioning book is as powerful and a true equal to the music. Although not without it's flaws one thing this production pointed out strongly is the role of the Balladeer, here played pointedly by Nolan Frederick. As the audience's unofficial guide he is the one who frames the musical numbers of the show's 'historical' assassins - John Wilkes Booth, Charles Guiteau, Leon Czolgosz and Giuseppe Zangara while the 'modern' failed assassins - Sam Byck, Lynette Fromme, Sara Jane Moore and John Hinckley are mostly given scenes by themselves.
Towards the end though as the Assassins and the Balladeer argue during the song ANOTHER NATIONAL ANTHEM, the Assassins force the Balladeer from the stage and by doing so remove the show's moral compass... which leads into the wonderfully-written scene where the Assassins seduce and convince the suicidal Lee Harvey Oswald to the course of action that does indeed unify them finally as a group of people to be taken seriously and not just disparate, sad, random acts. Personally I like to believe that's what really happened in the Texas School book depository!
This also echoes the actions of the fairy-tale characters in Sondheim's previous show INTO THE WOODS who sacrifice the onstage narrator to the avenging widow of The Giant because they don't like his superior tone.
As I said the weather on the day we went was sweltering and the confusing and cramped front-of-house area at the Union - seemingly the alleyway between two buildings - didn't bode well for having to spend the next 110 minutes cooped up inside a small auditorium. Thankfully when once inside the space was deliciously air-conditioned although we did have to sit in the cinema-style seats which wobbled alarmingly on a podium - especially when the not-onstage cast sat on the back of it.
As I said the production was not without it's flaws. The scene changes were frustratingly slow for a show that is supposed to keep hitting you with scenes and songs which stalled the momentum of the scene that had gone before and the choreography for THE BALLAD OF CZOLGOSZ - one of my favourite numbers - seemed needlessly tricksy and prop-heavy - especially as the stage directions are in the song - you just need a line of people queuing up to shake hands with President McKinley! 
Although I am all for atmosphere, the loud blasts of dry ice from behind us were annoyingly diverting and dissipated above our heads before reaching the stage anyway. There were also one or two dodgy voices in the ensemble although I really liked the idea of having them as presidential bodyguards and I thought their singing of Sondheim's added song SOMETHING JUST BROKE - in which we hear reactions to the killings from ordinary people down the ages - was particularly fine.
Despite all these I have to say this is one of the most enjoyable small-scale Sondheims I have seen. Michael Strassen's production is gloriously unrelenting and he has elicited fine performances from some key members of his cast. 
Glyn Kerslake and John Barr are two actors who I know more for their concert or cd appearances than for any stage work but here they both gave eye-catching performances as the vain, 
charismatic Booth and the clearly insane Guiteau, Barr making the most of THE BALLAD OF GUITEAU in which Sondheim used the actual poem that Guiteau recited on the gallows, as he cakewalked and cavorted nearer and nearer to the rope even with his legs tied together.
Adam Jarrell was an impassioned and sympathetic Leon Czolgosz especially in his scene with the brusque but well-meaning Emma Goldman (Lisa Stokke) and Nolan Frederick was fine as The Balladeer.
Just out of interest, I wonder how anarchist Emma Goldman feels in the afterlife about featuring in two Broadway musicals - this and RAGTIME? I'm sure it makes up for the fact she was deported from America in 1917 eh?
Leigh McDonald was hugely enjoyable as Sara Jane Moore, the hapless assassin who brings her dog and small son to where she is going to assassinate Gerald Ford. McDonald played her with an attractive zaniness and a genuine sense of desperation.
However the most out-there performance was Nick Holder as the paranoid Samuel Byck who in his two long and engrossing monologues took us deep into the heart of the Assassins' psyche - the irrational sense of grievance, the anger at failed dreams, the realisation that nothing changes whoever is in power. Holder was frightening, hilarious, grotesque and tragic within seconds of each other.
What I loved so much about this production is that unlike the recent trend of small-scale shows this one had musicians - yes, SIX real musicians - who got on with playing the score leaving the actors free to get on with their job.
This remarkable work which showcases one of Sondheim's most gloriously theatrical scores will continue to linger long in the mind and will always intrigue me to revisit it's dark carnival of killers.
It's nice to have the odd adventure and last weekend Owen and I left London to simmer in the heat and took to the road (well, railway line) and visited Oxford for the day.It was a bit of a time-travel moment for Owen as he went to college in Oxford at the end of the 70s for a short while before realising it wasn't for him and moving on. So it was interesting to walk around it with him as he kept up the mantra "this wasnt here then". What was there was the tiny pub that he remembered drinking in listening to that heady combination of punk and disco on the jukebox, now very much changed but at least it was still there with a seeming emphasis on live music. Oddly enough this week we walked past the pub in Mayfair which was my 70s after-work drinkerie of choice - namely because the downstairs bar had a great jukebox packed with the same combination of punk and disco.
We went round the Ashmolean Museum which was a nice way to waste an hour or so on a sizzling lunchtime. It had the requisite one-off work by famous painters as all regional galleries have but there were also some paintings that I had on my usual shopping list for when I am allowed to run around with a shopping trolley for 10 minutes namely an evocative John Singer Sargent parting of an Italian balustrade and I got my Bloomsbury fix with Mark Gertler's vividly bold portrait of Gilbert Cannan by his mill home with J.M. Barrie's dog Porthos who was the basis for 'Nana' in PETER PAN.
They have a nice cafe in the basement too by the way.Oxford was pleasant enough but I could hardly see any of it thanks to every building being about 4-deep in people - the place was MOBBED. I heard every dialect on God's earth on the streets - and in particular in the generic High Street... they were all there Next, WH Smith, Odeon, Pret A Manger, HMV, Caffe Nero, Sports Direct... all rather dreary.Now Constant Reader, you really don't believe I went all that way just to look at shopfronts? Not then there is THE HARDER THEY COME playing at the Oxford Playhouse. Yes it was time for my 7th visit to Ivan's ni-night and boy, were they a provincial, small matinee audience! Lines which have always met with BIG audience responses at best get smiles. All very discouraging but the cast still put their all into it and it was great to see Chris Tummings, Victor Romero Evans, Derek Elroy, Joy Mack, Marlon King and Jacqui Dubois for possibly the last time.
Anyways normal service was resumed at the end with the stalls up and hollering for more!All in all, a very nice day out.
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Well Constant Reader, that's *that* crossed off the list. For some reason, I have never seen a production of THE TEMPEST. I know... killing isn't it? Not even when Vanessa Redgrave played Prospero at The Globe - and if I didn't see that....I had seen Derek Jarman's 1979 film version but remember being totally baffled by it as I was not familiar with the play - all I remember was Elisabeth Welch as a Goddess singing STORMY WEATHER - utterly brilliant! Sadly Miss Welch was not available for reasons of mortality to join the cast at the Old Vic on Thursday. More's the pity.
Sam Mendes' production is the latest in his much-vaunted and slightly pretentiously-titled Bridge Project in which two productions are cast with both English and American actors. Much is always made of this, Kenneth Branagh could bore for Britain on the AMAZING concept of using UK/US actors play Shakespeare, but it's 
been going on for years ffs! John Gielgud's Hamlet to Lillian Gish's Ophelia; Paul Robeson's Othello to Peggy Ashcroft's Desdemona; James Mason's Brutus and Gielgud's Cassius to Marlon Brando's Marc Antony and Louis Calhern's JULIUS CAESAR, Gielgud's Henry IV to Orson Welles' Falstaff in CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT etc.I saw one of Mendes' Bridge productions last year THE WINTER'S TALE which was ok thanks to the performances of Simon Russell Beale and Sinead Cusack but hardly earth-shattering. THE TEMPEST sadly cannot draw on even these talents.Within 10 minutes of the production starting I was groaning. I had heard the reports that Stephen Dillaine as Prospero was muffling his delivery but even before he spoke we had Alvin Epstein making noises as Gonzalo - "Ee o' eh' Ba Ee ho" was all I heard - and I was about 10 rows back in the stalls. I was all but shouting out "Speak from your bumhole not through it!"Ok let's name names - out of the American actors I liked Christian Camargo's Ariel (hardly 'an airy spirit' but well-spoken and an arresting presence), Ron Cephas Jones' Caliban (again well-spoken and with a real stage presence), Jonathan Lincoln Fried as Alonson (a bit stolid but again well-spoken) and Thomas Sadoski as Stephano (a nice hair-trigger feeling of menace)
Now the English - I liked Edward Bennett as Ferdinand but I was aware too that his over-emphatic delivery and stolid presence offers little variety in his performance, Anthony O'Donnell gave his usual sterling support as Trinculo making the 'rude mechanicals' scenes bearable and although Juliet Rylance was a convincing Miranda I found her delivery annoying, horribly reminiscent of Stella Gonet's matronly tones.
Which brings us to Stephen Dillaine as Propero. I must put my hand up to say I don't care for him much, I find his wheedling delivery profoundly irritating and earthbound. But who wants an earthbound Prospero? I don't understand how an actor can be given the opportunity to play one of the great roles and piss it away as Dillaine does. You want to feel the poetry in his lines? You want to hear Shakespeare speaking through him in his farewell to the theatre? Well you won't get it from Dillaine who plays the whole thing like an irritated old giffer moaning from his garden shed.
I can only presume he is taking his lead from Mendes but it's a misguided lead. The production never felt to be leading anywhere or even know it had arrived. I waited for something to happen, to lift us out of the Old Vic to Prospero's unnamed island but we remained trapped in Tom Piper's cave-like set although Paul Pyant's subtle lighting shifts at least gave us an idea of where we should be in our minds.As I sat there I found myself drifting back to Ian Charleson - although to be honest it doesn't take much for that to happen.Ian was a well-received Ariel in 1978 at the Royal Shakespeare Company opposite Michael Hordern's Prospero and would have been sixty this year, the perfect age for Propero. Imagining the way Ian could have made the lines come alive made me resent Dillaine's whittering all the more.
This week I stepped back in time and looked into the future at one and the same time with the unstoppable Blondie!Can it really be nearly THIRTY THREE years since I first saw them? Well I have the ticket still to prove it... and it cost me £2.50 to be 6 rows back from the stage.
As you can see I saw them twice in 1978 as they went from Plastic Letters to Parallel Lines then I took a break from them - for 25 years.Their last show at Shepherds Bush doesn't linger in the mind apart from singing Happy Birthday to Clem Burke but after their Blondiefication of WE THREE KINGS last Christmas and good reports of their new material Owen and I decided a trip to see them at the indigO2 was in order.
Against a massive backdrop of signature b&w parallel lines with their name picked out in alternate stripes, Chris and Clem appeared with their new keyboardist, guitarist and bassist - they work their way through so many of these they are probably called "Hey you" by the three founding members - and of course Herself.It was odd to look at her and think "That's Debbie Harry" one of the greatest pop icons ever - the Diva whose Bardot-like gob and all-knowing eyes were plastered all over my bedroom back in the day, the cool cartoon blonde bombshell to the icy hauteur of Siouxsie, the anarchic avant-garde of Patti and the upper sixth performing arts style of Kate.
It has been a source of some discomfort down the years that Debbie has aligned herself with the former First Ladies of Pop who snipe at Madonna who has always praised Deb as an inspiration. But then Debbie seems to always bring the drama, be it with Patti Smith or the ex-members of Blondie. Still credit where it's due, she is a pussycat next to that moaning cow Joni Mitchell. 
And she's still hypnotic despite herself! As usual Debbie was dressed very individually - a tight-fitting blouse over an A-line mid-calf skirt of black taffeta and net (which put me in mind of something you might see at a 1950s mafia christening) offset by some colourful chains and belts around her waist.After opening with a new song D-DAY Debbie slurred "Hi, it's Blondie calling" before they smashed into HANGING ON THE TELEPHONE, one of my all-time favorites. They kept me bouncing in my seat when they followed it up with the other Jack Lee song from Parallel Lines WILL ANYTHING HAPPEN. Je squeal!
They then alternated between new and old songs - they gave us THE HARDEST PART (which I never cared for!), ATOMIC, RAPTURE, CALL ME, THE TIDE IS HIGH, MARIA and ONE WAY OR ANOTHER.The good news is that the group have found their inner Blondie again - all the new songs sounded fine with a couple that were real standouts and have me squirming till the cd is allegedly released in September, in particular I really liked LOVE DOESN'T FRIGHTEN, THE END, WHAT I HEARD and MOTHER.
The encore included of all things a cover version of Taio Cruz' BREAK YOUR HEART - yeah as if I knew, I did a lyric search when I got back home! - which I guess was interesting but when you have a wealth of hits etc. etc.Normal service was resumed with blistering versions of PICTURE THIS and of course the disco glory of HEART OF GLASS with extended "Oooowooo woe-hos" at the end which gave me more time to watch my drumming god Clem pulverise his kit with mighty runs across the drums to keep the momentum going. It was 1978 all over again.
Hopefully there will be a follow-up tour when the album PANIC OF GIRLS is released in September. Go on Deb... you know you want to!
Owww bumflaps.
I hate New York.It's just been announced that Vanessa Redgrave is going to return to the stage - but in New York.This October she will be appearing with James Earl Jones in a revival of the play DRIVING MISS DAISY at the Golden Theatre. Already some Americans have set to whinge about how someone who is anti-Zionist can play a Jewish woman.It's called acting you tossers.This will be Vanessa's first appearance on stage since the death of siblings Corin and Lynn.
Well my run of good theatre had to end eventually I guess... the combined memories of fine productions of Thomas Middleton, Arthur Miller, Terence Rattigan and Tennessee Williams crumbled after a visit to the worst funfair ever and the most laughable use of character pathos since Eliza went on the ice in UNCLE TOM'S CABIN or Tiny Tim warmed his crutch by the fire.
Owen had wanted to see one of his 70s Guilty Pleasures David Essex onstage so this seemed as good a time as any as there was the chance to hear some of his hits as well - oddly nothing from MUTINY!He had booked for the Dress Circle but we arrived to find it closed so were moved down to the Premier Price seating. Now I have been in the Garrick circle this year to see THE LITTLE DOG LAUGHED and it's only 5 rows deep so I am suspecting that it would have been just us two and the couple sitting next to Owen who would have been sat there. The stalls were hardly thriving either. Surely a major contributing factor must be the prices - £55 down to £25! For this??
Mostly the audience appeared to be large 'n' loud women with their rather nervous-looking husbands who I presume were there to make sure they didn't damage themselves climbing over each other to get near their 'ero. By the noises they made they obviously overlooked little things like a woeful script, the automaton staging or the stale atmosphere of pure by-the-numbers performance.For what it's worth, the story concerns Levi's touring funfair which has been losing punters since he closed the Wall Of Death attraction after his wife was killed during a stunt involving the two of them and their son Jack - and yes he is introduced as 'Jack the Lad'. Sigh...
Also present is Rosa an Oirish fortune teller and her equally Oirish daughter who both fancy Levi and Jack respectively but to little actual interest - it's odd Mama Oirish can't see that in her cards. The coconut is REALLY knocked off it's pole when Alice - the teenager daughter of Harvey a cockney heavy - falls for Jack and the dad starts getting protective as does his dangerous sidekick Druid. I can't remember why he's called Druid, I was probably looking at the set.Will Jack and Alice find love? Will Harvey strongarm Levi into closing his funfair? Will Rosa and daughter Mary realise that their Tarot cards ain't going to get shuffled by Levi & son? Will Levi give in to his bouncy son's pleas to re-open the dreaded Wall Of Death... and how will 'Slow Johnny' - yes you read that right 'Slow Johnny' - the twitching and simple lad who has been 'adopted' by the funfair workers fit in?No I didn't really care either.
Ok I will put my hand up and say I didn't hate it - in retrospect I'd rather sit through this than sit through SISTER ACT again - what I found teeth-grindingly bad was the total banality of Jon Conway's book with it's square-peg-in-a-round-hole approach to jamming in the hits from Mr. Essex's distant youth, paper-thin characters and gossamer-thin plot which at it's climax just stops... as if the cast couldn't stand to say those lines or play those roles a minute longer.The ultimate punchable offence is the inclusion of the 'Slow Johnny' character. A woeful attempt at knee-jerk sympathy while also setting him up to be a character who is laughed at and not with. Added to all this he also spends most of the time walking around with a sawn-off shotgun which is referred to again and again in the time-honoured tradition of "Ooo do you think that's going to be a plot device at the climax?" In case you were curious... yes it is.... I mean, they couldn't have the bizarre final scene if he didn't get shot.Oops.It also doesn't help that in his unrelenting performance Tim Newman speaks in a voice stolen from Matt Lucas as Margery Daws. Really.
Ok time to cut to the chase: 1) the chorus work hard but don't appear to do anything apart from that godawful we-are-good-mates-who-love-each-other acting which involves putting your arms around each others shoulders, smiling as you sing into each other's faces and occasionally punching your mates arm. They also do the equally irritating bad-chorus thing of about 3 of them wandering on zombie-stylee while the leads are singing and stand grouped at the back just to provide backing vocalese - like, stay in the bloody wings and sing there!2) Nicola Brazil as Alice will be a shoe-in should they ever do STEPHANIE LAWRENCE- THE MUSICAL as she was the spitting image of her and also sounded like her too3) Michael Pickering as Jack The Lad actually wasn't too bad and showed some promise for better shows to come4) Louise English as Oirish Rosa had the low wattage needed by a production that needs a female co-star who won't pull focus
5) Christopher Timothy was ok - absolutely nothing to do but at least did it with a panache
6) I don't like him particularly but datgummit there is no denying David Essex is a genuine star, you notice him when he is onstage. It's just a shame that he is not bringing that wattage to a better show that might give him something more to do than chill out in his star vehicle and every so-often shoot cute glimpses at the adoring fans to make them shout out loud.7) His score was insistent but not without it's nice spots - I really liked a moody ballad early in the 2nd act called "You're In My Heart" - but it's a shame that his hit songs stuck out so glaringly and were signposted a mile before they arrived.8) There was no megamix for which I was profoundly grateful.9) Ian Westbrook had designed a remarkably unoriginal set bearing in mind it was a fairground but dear God I was happy to gaze up and around it while the gurning feeb act was on.
10) For a while I was impressed with the sound design which included ominous muted soundscapes which were heard every so often, no doubt to remind us that it was bound to end in tears... then remembered that whatever you see at the Garrick it's punctuated every 5 minutes with the sound of the Northern Line.All in all, a show I really cannot recommend. But all the time I was there I was aware of being just happy to be sitting in a theatre. Says a lot about me that...
The second little-known play I have seen this week at the National Theatre was SPRING STORM, one of the first plays written by Tennessee Williams.I had wanted to see this production which started at Northampton's Royal 
& Derngate Theatre but as it was in the Cottesloe it had sold-out thanks to the advance booking knobstains. I had hoped that it and it's companion piece, Eugene O'Neill's BEYOND THE HORIZON, would transfer to a bigger space but that hadn't transpired. Constant Reader, imagine my surprise when, while idly checking for an odd matinee seat, I found a couple of tasty H row seats going begging for the next evening! See... always worth double-checking these things. Owen braved yet another Williams play although his current batting average after 3 productions was liked 1, disliked 2.Although SPRING STORM does betray a youthful over-egging of the play's pudding - Tennessee was 26 at the time with two plays already staged by a St. Louis am-dram society - it was still great to see and to realise that the themes of survival, lust and despair that are so prevalent in his later works were there from the beginning. It also helped that Laurie Sansom's production was in itself hugely entertaining.
The play takes place over a few days in a small Mississippii River town in early 1937 and the action centres on a wilful 22 year-old, Heavenly Critchfield. She is the only daughter of a respected Southern Old Family who are now living in reduced circumstances, always keeping an eye on the cotton share price.Her overbearing mother Esmeralda refuses to let her current surroundings sway her from her rigid believe in her family's noble traditions while ruling her household with steely determination much to the chagrin of Heavenly's placid father - already troubled with a recurring stomach complaint that bodes ill - as well as his widowed sister Lila.
Unknown to Esmeralda, Heavenly has already "given herself" to the rough and ready Dick Miles who wants to get out and see the world and is urging Heavenly to join him. However, much to Esmeralda's joy, the scion of the town's leading family Arthur Shannon has returned from being educated in England and wishes to start courting Heavenly. Heavenly bridles at the pressure being put on her to marry for money but goes along with Shannon's attentions.However Shannon, who has loved Heavenly since their schooldays where he was hated for being studious, still has the the memory of her laughing at him as he was bullied. Unknown to Arthur, he is also the object of quiet desire by Hertha Neilson, a bookish lonely girl who works in the town library. However, like in AFTER THE DANCE, the events that take place on the night of a summer party change the lives of the four young people forever.
As I said, Tennessee's youthful desire to leave nothing uncrossed or undotted sometimes leads to the play running away with itself but on the whole I enjoyed immensely. The joy for us fans of his work was seeing the seeds being sown for later plays: refined Heavenly's pleasure with her manual worker lover echoes Stella with Stanley in STREETCAR and her chance of a secure if unexciting possible husband echoes Blanche and Mitch in the same play; Esmeralda has traces of the controlling Southern mothers of Amanda Wingfield in THE GLASS MENAGERIE (even down to the Jonquils) and Mrs. Venable in SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER; Heavenly and Arthur's painful courtship in the parlour appears to be a dry run for Laura and The Gentleman Caller in THE GLASS MENAGERIE while Heavenly's dread of enduring the living death of the Old Maid, sitting alone on a porch waiting for a gentleman caller who will never come, reminded me of Blanche's bitter memories in STREETCAR of living alone at Belle Reve with the squabbling old women. 
And of course there were the sudden flashes of pure Tennessee prose such as Heavenly telling Arthur about Lila's penchant for saving fallen rose petals "she puts them in sachets to perfume her handkerchiefs, the scent of old maid's memories" or Hertha's heartbroken wail of "Why did God have to give homely girls the same dreams as pretty girls?" Mind you the script also contained a great line shouted by Heavenly at her shocked mother "I'm going to be married to Dick... by a black preacher... and live on a houseboat!" Surely the greatest line John Waters never wrote for Divine.Laurie Sansom's direction was as fluid as the Mississippi moving the action swiftly around Sara Perks' standing set, a promontory fashioned from a collapsed house with the playing areas littered with debris, a constant reminder of the fickle nature of the river which could easily sweep lives and houses away with no warning.
The company have been performing this and the O'Neill play since last October so unsurprisingly the whole company had a unity of style and commitment which helped the feel of a close-knit onstage community.Liz White was a hypnotic Heavenly, a girl who knows she has a power over men but who does not know what to do for the best. Skittish, imperious, hilariously gauche and wildly impassioned, White captured all these moods without becoming a caricature - at times she resembled a young Lee Remick which is no bad thing for any actress - and her final capitulation to fate had a tragic sadness.It is almost certain that parts of her character were inspired by Tennessee's older sister Rose. It is sadly ironic that as he was writing the play while attending a playwriting course in Iowa, back in his St. Louis family home Rose - who had declined over several years with increasingly manic behaviour - had been diagnosed with a form of schizophrenia and lobotomized with the consent of their parents.
Although the role of Esmeralda was written with a furious pen - based almost to the letter on his mother it seems - Jacqueline King played the role wonderfully, with a unbending genteel ferocity which reaches it's zenith when she finds herself alone with Arthur Shannon in the parlour while her daughter is upstairs loudly packing to run off with Dick. She jabbered, prattled and kept up a non-stop stream of inconsequential chatter to distract his attention before exiting, still chattering as she leaves. It brought the house down. She was delightfully partnered by Joanna Bacon as her amiable but more empathetic sister-in-law Lila.The role of the unloved but loving Hertha was touchingly played by Anna Tolputt who spiralled wonderfully into despair after being confronted alone in the Library by a drunken Arthur who trashes the room and her last hope of happiness. I would also like to mention Janice McKenzie who, as the head librarian Birdie, in this one scene created a character one knew instantly and wanted to see more of.
Although well-played, the male members of the cast - Michael Thomson as Dick, Michael Malarkey as Arthur and James Jordan as Heavenly's father - were all saddled with under-written roles, only there to give the powerful women in the play something to react to.I suspect of these two plays that Rattigan's AFTER THE DANCE will now be revived more often but I am grateful to have been able to see them both in such great productions. It would be heartening to see some more of Tennessee's work other than the usual STREETCAR, GLASS MENAGERIE, CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF trilogy, no matter how great those plays are. Enough of his work from the early 1960s onwards have the taint of being 'problematic' but surely what these two productions prove is that given a director's insight into the text anything is possible.
Gore Vidal is quoted in the SPRING 
STORM programme as saying that what made Tennessee Williams a great writer was his channeling of his life into his plays - that unhappy love affairs or family memories could be exorcised by the arranging of them into scenes, words, themes so ultimately they were his, and not God's, to bring to life and to own. I think much the same, in his own way, can be said of Terence Rattigan.
Last week I was told to stand up or fuck off by John Lydon. I remained seated, just to antagonise him - what's the point of an unriled Lydon?
Now to be honest I parted company with PIL after DEATH DISCO although I always enjoyed the singles that were released in the ensuing years especially RISE, THIS IS NOT A LOVE SONG and the hypnotic FLOWERS OF ROMANCE. However Owen was so hyper after seeing them last year at the Electric Ballroom that I agreed to give them a go.
John was in a natty red waistcoat over a white shirt and after a good gargle of brandy with an extravagant gob-out into a handily-placed dustbin he was off! He started off with a thunderous version of THIS IS NOT A LOVE SONG and off we went into a real journey in sound.
It was just before WARRIOR that he kicked off at us "lazy sods" who were sitting in the circle and he returned to this subject for the rest of the set - I particularly liked his line "Fuck me I didn't know you could get wheelchairs up in the circle". After CHANT he pointed to the Reserved section and said "Look over there, those are my friends who are standing up... they are real friends... not like you arseholes so fuck off". The fact that most of the reserved section were sat on their arses rather went in the face of Mr. Lydon's argument so we chose to remain seated.
Owen's picture captures the atmosphere well... PIL are an experience not forgotten easily.
