Festive Theatre Round-Up

Through accident or design, the big Christmas show at the Wales Millennium Centre this year is the touring version of West End/Broadway blockbuster “Les Misérables”, which sets the appropriate tone for the festive period. Actually, I enjoyed it a lot more than I expected to – the barricade was especially imposing.

"Les Mis" (photo: Helen Maybanks)

A few weeks ago, the season kicked off there with the touring production of “Nativity! The Musical”, Debbie Isitt’s adaptation of her successful film, which was very amusing. The actual Christmas show in the venue’s Weston Studio  is “Red” from Likely Story Theatre – an imaginative, freewheeling, small-scale tale set in the Red Riding Hood universe. The festive show on the Sherman’s main stage  is “The Snow Queen” – as clever and entertaining as is traditional, but it could have done with more magical appearances from the title character.

"The Snow Queen" (photo: Mark Douet)

"Red" (Photo Polly Thomas)

In a non-festive vein, National Theatre Wales collaborated with inclusive theatre company Hijinx for eco-sci-fi extravaganza “Mission Control” at the Principality Stadium: impressive in terms of vision, less so when it came to organisation.

"Mission Control" (photo: Main House)

Last week I attended the latest BBC Writers Room Wales Festival, held at the National Museum. As usual, Russell T Davies was a funny and inspirational speaker; and the evening event involving Rob Brydon and Ruth Jones, and focussing on “Gavin And Stacey” was a joy.

"Calendar Girls" / "Crave" / David Nash etc

The latest big touring show that I’ve been able to see at the Wales Millennium Centre was the musical adaptation of nude-posing-housewives comedy-drama “Calendar Girls” featuring a starry cast and not-quite-stellar tunes from Take That’s Gary Barlow. Suitably amusing and moving, it went down very well with the overwhelmingly female audience.

Also on were two largely devised pieces: “Shooting Rabbits” from Powderhouse at the Sherman was a vaguely hallucinogenic depiction of the experience of Welshmen volunteering to fight in the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s, featuring an excellent live score from Sam Humphreys; and “When It Clicks”, from graduate company Golden Sock in the basement of Little Man Coffee Company – a well-acted but dramatically unsatisfying take on Stockholm Syndrome.

The undoubted highlight of the week was Sarah Kane’s “Crave”, produced under the Professional Pathways scheme at The Other Room, and featuring a talented cast of drama students. The play has no real narrative, and it’s a deeply pessimistic insight into its unhappy author’s frame of mind, but it’s a powerfully cathartic experience, akin to listening to a suite of sad songs (R.I.P. Scott Walker).

"Crave" Poster

And only today, I went to the recently opened and impressively extensive exhibition of largely tree-based sculptures by legendary North Wales-based artist David Nash at the National Museum of Wales. A beautiful evocation of the possibilities which open up when Man develops a creative rather than destructive relationship with the natural world. And it even has a wholesome odour about it.

"Escape The Scaffold" / Gillian Ayres

My most recent theatre reviewing assignment was Titas Halder’s “Escape The Scaffold”, at Cardiff’s The Other Room, fresh from a run at co-producing venue Theatre 503 in London. A slick three-hander set in a vaguely spooky house, it plays like a West End-style middle-class love triangle drama/thriller, but with clear political undertones, and is darkly entertaining.

"Escape The Scaffold" (pic: Aenne Pallasca)

Currently showing at the National Museum of Wales is an exhibition of work by Gillian Ayres, one of Britain’s most renowned abstract painters, and based around some of the work she did whilst resident in Wales in the 1980s. The large-scale canvasses are very striking, with refreshingly bold use of colour; some of the smaller drawings, however, do look off-puttingly childlike. I also took in the gallery full of Chinese bird and flower paintings dating from between the 16^th and 20^th centuries; fascinating to see how whilst working within a very standardised form, artists still manage to display stylistic quirks and express their individual obsessions.

"Cumuli" by Gillian Ayres

"Blackbird" / Artes Mundi 7

David Harrower’s Olivier Award-winning play “Blackbird”, from Those Two Impostors, is the latest piece being hosted by The Other Room Theatre, and my most recent reviewing assignment. The tale of a young woman confronting the middle-aged man with whom she had a sexual relationship when she was 12, it is very well acted, but I found it a tad troubling in its apparent even-handedness.

"Blackbird" (photo: Kirsten McTernan)

Also opening in the past week has been Artes Mundi – the 7^th edition of the biennial, international art prize, exhibiting in Cardiff. I went to see those elements of it which are at the National Museum, and while there was plenty of interesting stuff on offer – I experienced only a few minutes of John Akomfrah’s migration-themed installation films, and Amy Franceschini’s ambitious “Future Farmers” project looked interesting - the most immediately arresting piece was Bedwyr Williams large-scale “slow” video “Tyrrau Mawr”, imagining a futuristic city in North Wales, with accompanying narration. I fully intend to go again and watch the whole 20 minutes.

Tyrrau Mawr (Artes Mundi)

And another biennial visual arts event, Cardiff Contemporary is also on, and currently livening up the city centre.

Laura Ford's redecoration of Cardiff Castle's Animal Wall for Cardiff Contemporary

Earlier in the week, I was one of a group of filmmakers who met with the latest intake of students of the University of South Wales’ Masters in Film Production, as part of a promising initiative from B.F.I. Wales – aiming to match our proposals with the students’ final projects and the B.F.I.’s know-how in terms of funding. All the others who were pitching were vastly more experienced than me, but it was, at the very least a valuable learning experience.

"The Hunting Of The Snark" / "Star Trek Beyond"

Sherman Cymru’s family offering for the summer holidays is an adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s nonsense mini-epic “The Hunting Of The Snark”, with a lively cast of six, including on-stage musician. Great fun, with lots of topical references, although the fact that it focuses on the relationship between the Banker and his son (a character invented by writer Annabel Wigoder) means that any grander themes with which Carroll may have been toying seem to get lost.

"The Hunting Of The Snark" (photo: Mark Douet)

The weekend saw a visit to the National Museum of Wales, and the exhibition focussing on the Battle of Mametz Wood during World War 1, at which many Welsh soldiers fell. There is much memorabilia, poetry and art, most strikingly the painting “The Charge of the Welsh at Mametz Wood, 1916”, by Christopher Williams. Also showing is an exhibition of the work of legendary children’s book illustrator Quentin Blake which, seemed barely less dark, given his long association with the morally complex work of Roald Dahl; his illustrations for Michael Rosen’s “Sad Book” are particularly stark. Also somewhat downbeat, although inspirational in intent, is Shimon Attie’s vivid video-photographic tribute to the people of contemporary Aberfan, which was famously struck by tragedy in 1966.

“The Charge of the Welsh at Mametz Wood, 1916”, by Christopher Williams

 “Star Trek Beyond”, even though its release is tinged with tragedy following the awful death of Anton Yelchin (“Chekov”), is every bit as heartening as its immediate predecessors, despite the replacement of director J.J. Abrams by Justin “Fast And Furious” Lin. Relationships are foregrounded, as the U.S.S. Enterprise, having been lured to a distant planet, is attacked and the crew separated. Idris Elba plays the villain whose motivation (somewhat topically) is to subvert the Federation’s ethos of peaceful co-operation. The visuals are predictably spectacular, but it is the warmth between the crew-members which leaves the most lasting impression.

The Fall / Chalkie Davies / "Wot? No Fish!!"

It has been pretty much 35 years since I first saw The Fall, in Cardiff University’s Great Hall, and have caught up with them at intervals ever since, although the last time was at some point during the last century, at St David’s Hall, which seemed like a poor fit. When I saw a gig announced for The Globe, a short walk from my residence, I felt that it would have been impolite to resist.

First up on the night were local 6-piece, Chain Of Flowers (melodic, electro-inflected punk-pop, charismatic lead singer); followed by (slightly older) Manc quintet As Able As Kane (industrial indie, beat-based but with live drums; keyboardist and female bass-player/vocalist periodically instrument-swap; co-lead vocalist looks like Peter Hook’s bricklayer brother).

Then came the mighty Fall themselves, Mark E. Smith growling from off-stage, referencing J. G. Ballard, before emerging, to huge applause from a capacity crowd of devotees of all ages. Dressed in his customary “1970s geography teacher” style, he was on vintage form, his remarkably tight band (including two drummers) laying down something of a “solid groove” over which he ranted and snarled poetically, whilst wandering to all areas of the tiny stage. As far as I can tell, he seemed good-natured: no-one got sacked, he spent a good deal of the time actually facing the audience – even briefly handing over a microphone to a thrilled fan – and actually played a hit: the vaguely topical “Sparta FC”; although the bulk of the set was devoted to new album “Sub-Lingual Tablet” (at least, I presume so – I have yet to catch up with it). There was even a crowd-pleasing, sing-along encore – “White Lightning”, which sent me and my fellow worshippers out into the drizzle dazed and ecstatic. Wonderful and frightening indeed.

The Fall

In further rock’n’roll nerd news, I can heartily recommend the Chalkie Davies exhibition at the National Museum of Wales. The Sully-born photographer was on the staff of the New Musical Express in the late 1970s and was one of the founders of biblical style magazine The Face. The cliché is true: his moody snaps truly define an era of working-class (or faux-working-class) defiance. Expect the museum to be crawling with teary-eyed old punks for the next few months.

The Clash (Chalkie Davies)

As I recall, there’s no mention of the punk rock revolution in “Wot? No Fish!!” my most recent reviewing assignment for the British Theatre Guide. The story of a London Jewish family, told via a series of drawings presented to East End shoemaker Ab Solomons to his wife Celie virtually every week of their lengthy marriage, it’s lovingly presented by performer Danny Braverman. Alternately heart-breaking and heartening, it is a beautiful, deeply involving experience.