Author: Bouquets & Brickbats

Stowaway

Unknown

Home, Manchester

06/05/16

Hidden in the wheel arch of a plane from Dubai, a stowaway falls to his death in the car park of a DIY superstore. The fall is witnessed by Andy (Steven Rae), an event that makes his own recently disrupted life begin to unravel – and when a passenger on the plane, Lisa (Hannah Donaldson), a crime writer returning from a prestigious literary festival, reads about the incident, she feels compelled to try and find out about the dead man – who was he and what brought him to such a horrible end? But even when she returns to Dubai to investigate, she finds that nobody wants to give her any answers.

The four actors that comprise Analogue Theatre’s production present a whole series of intertwined stories which serve to flesh out the tale, but also demonstrate how close proximity to a tragedy intensifies the situation. In a series of cleverly constructed flashbacks we find out more about the dead man, seeing him as a child in India with his sister and how his attempts to better his own life lead him into the construction industry in Dubai, working on glittering high rises for the super-rich, whilst being paid slave wages and made to work around the clock. Eventually his only hope of a better future is to try and escape from the awful world into which he has unwittingly blundered.

This is a sharp and sinewy story, one that delivers more questions that it offers answers for. It’s a prescient tale and one that I would highly recommend. An after-show discussion with two of the actors and some lecturers from Manchester University also benefited from a guest spot by Gulwali Passarlay whose book The Lightless Sky is based around his own experiences as a 12 year old refugee fleeing from from Afghanistan.

Stowaway concludes tonight (7th May) at Home, Manchester, before moving on for a single performance at The Civic, Barnsely on the 12th. If you’re able to catch a performance, please do: you’ll be moved, informed and riveted by what you see onstage.

4.5 stars

Philip Caveney

The Jungle Book

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02/05/16

It’s a brave man who takes on a classic like The Jungle Book (John Favreau, in case you were wondering) and emerges from the experience without a generous portion of egg spread across his face. There are already two knockout screen adaptations. As a youngster, I remember being thrilled by the Alexander Korda-produced version, starring Sabu – and who doesn’t love Disney’s 1967 animation, the last film that Walt actually had a personal hand in making? So I admit, I expected this to be at best, so-so. But those expectations were kicked out of the ball park within moments of the film actually starting. Make no mistake, this is a magical production in the purest sense of the word. That creaking sound you’ll hear in the cinema? The sound of an audience’s jaws collectively dropping.

I’m not going into the plot, since it’s so well-known, but suffice to say that Favreau and his team have created a stunning CGI word where everything, from the biggest mammal to the tiniest insect is rendered in absolutely believable detail. The time was (not so very long ago) when you looked at a CGI tiger and thought, ‘hmm, not bad but you can tell it’s not the real thing.’ In The Jungle Book, however, the only element that tells you that Shere Kahn isn’t the real McCoy is that a real tiger wouldn’t tend to talk like Idris Elba. (Elba, by the way, manages to invest his animal character with absolute menace.)

As the only human actor onscreen, twelve year old newcomer Neel Sethi looks like Disney’s animated Mowgli come to life – (i.e. adorable) and though the likes of Bill Murray (Baloo) Scarlett Johansson (Kaa) and Ben Kingsley (Bagheera) merely provide voiceovers for their animal counterparts, somehow, their human characteristics shine through. It’s an extraordinary achievement and one can only wonder how Sethi managed to accomplish his role against nothing more inspirational than a blue screen.

Some caveats? Well, I do have a couple. After a while, you notice that the animals are rendered much bigger (150% bigger) than they actually are in real life. OK, we’re told that King Louie is a Gigantopithecus, but in this world, even a baby elephant towers over Mowgli. Favreau maintains that this was a deliberate move to show the animals ‘as they would appear to Mowgli’ but I can’t help wondering if it was really necessary. Also, he decided to incorporate a couple of the better known songs from the animation – this is a Disney studio picture, after all, so perhaps he felt obliged to honour the film’s progenitor. Mowgli and Baloo’s affectionate rendering of The Bear Necessities is fine, but the scene where King Louie (Christopher Walken) sings I Wanna Be Like You-Hoo-Hoo to Mowgli feels like the film’s one misstep and frankly it’s good enough to have skipped that detail (especially as we get a reprise of the song over the end credits).

But these are minor niggles. The mere fact that a packed audience of youngsters sat in absolute silence throughout the screening will give you some indication of just how appealing this film is. They absolutely loved it… and here was one sixty four year old who was in total agreement with them.

4.6 stars

Philip Caveney

The Heatons Comedy Evening

Heatons Sports Club, Heaton Moor

01/05/16

The Heatons Sports Club seems an unlikely comedy venue and, indeed, the ad hoc nature of the performance space appears to confirm this: there’s no stage, but there is a badly-erected backdrop with dangerously protruding legs (a trip-hazard if ever I saw one), and a couple of lights rigged a little too low, so that they glare right into the comics’ eyes. Still, it works: the gig is a sell-out, there’s a pleasant, convivial atmosphere, and the bar is tantalisingly cheap.

This is a regular event. The first Sunday of every month sees local sleb Justin Moorhouse as the resident compere, introducing a decent range of comedians. No wonder it’s sold out; it’s rare to find such quality in a suburban venue. Hats off to the organisers for sorting this one out.

Tonight’s gig starts well. Justin Moorhouse is a relaxed MC; he’s in command, effortlessly managing some potentially awkward heckling, remaining good-humoured and engaging throughout his introductory set. He’s funny and silly, and sets the tone for the other acts.

The opener is Will Franken, an American comic who does some decent impressions and raises a few laughs, most notably with his generic ‘person/brand name’ advertisement, which is really very good. He misses the mark a bit with some of his jokes though, straying into territory where he appears to be affirming some of the ‘-isms’ he purports to mock. Still, the crowd seems to like him – and he proves me right about the backdrop, stumbling as he catches his foot on one of those protruding legs…

Clayton Jones is a charming, self-deprecating middle, who takes an easy, conversational tone. His set focuses mainly on his experiences growing up mixed-race in London, before moving to the North West (where he never experiences racism, he says – people are too busy hating him for being a Southerner).

Tonight’s headliner is Dave Johns, a seasoned comic, whom we’ve seen a few times before. His is an assured set, delivering laugh after laugh on topics as diverse as his divorce, a Travelodge and the theme from Goldfinger. He also demonstrates that jokes about Isis can be topical, funny and yet inoffensive, with a clever gag about his little girl. Ok, so he does come across as slightly sleazy at one point, attempting to seduce a young woman in the front row with the promise of a Toffee Crisp, but it’s all done with a smile and a wink, and no one could really take offence. He’s due to take the lead in Ken Loach’s new film, I, Daniel Blake, so we’re sure to be hearing more from this comedian before long.

All in all, the Heatons Comedy Evening is a real success, and we’ll definitely be returning. Book now for the next one on June 5th.

4 stars

Susan Singfield

Special Correspondents

Special1

01/05/16

Whatever happened to Ricky Gervais? The glory days of The Office and Extras are now long gone and his occasional forays into cinema have amounted to a few average cameos in other people’s movies and the woeful laughter-free zone that was The Invention of Lying. His new movie, Special Correspondents, is a Netflix original (though actually not original at all, as it’s a remake of 2009 French comedy, Envoyes Tres Speciaux). And, though it pains me to say it, it’s a disaster – a ‘comedy’ that fails to raise so much as a smirk.

Gervais plays Ian Finch, a hapless sound engineer working alongside charmless, bombastic reporter, Frank Bonneville (Eric Bana) who has alienated all his colleagues at 365 News and is now residing at Last Chance Saloon. Ian’s other workmate, Claire Maddox (Kelly McDonald) is the closest thing to a sympathetic character you’ll find in this sorry tale and she isn’t really given all that much to do. Ian is also lumbered with a shrew of a wife, Eleanor (Vera Farmiga) who has all the inherent charm of a car crash and who gleefully cheats on Ian with Frank (though to be fair, Frankdoesn’t know at the time who she is married to).

When a civil war breaks out in Ecuador, Ian and Frank are despatched to cover the story, but Ian, upset by the fact that Eleanor has just walked out on him, accidentally throws their tickets and passports into a passing garbage lorry, leaving them stranded in the USA. Realising that this was his last chance to make good, Frank persuades Ian to help him fake a series of reports from war-torn South America. They are actually holed up in a restaurant across the road with a couple of friends, the almost terminally thick Brigida (America Ferrara) and her husband Domingo (Raul Castillo).

It’s a slight idea and one that is never really nailed – instead, what we get is a lazy, written-by-numbers story featuring embarrassing racial stereotyping, and a series of plot twists you can see coming from several blocks away. More damningly, there’s hardly anyone here you can root for, as McDonald’s character aside, they all appear to be venal, self-interested scumbags with an eye on advancing their own careers. Furthermore, a scene that emulates a faked hostage video is uncomfortably close to images we’ve seen in real life that are a million miles away from anything humorous. I can’t help but wonder if, in the past, the sadly absent Stephen Merchant acted as some kind of quality control for Gervais. Left to his own devices, he seems incapable of creating anything with any depth.

With a new David Brent movie looming on the horizon, the only hope is that he’s put a bit more effort into that script, because this one is frankly dead in the water.

1 star

Philip Caveney

King Lear

Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester

29/04/16

Michael Buffong’s King Lear is a tour de force: gimmick-free yet undeniably modern, a fast-paced production that manages, like all the best Shakespeare, to be at once timeless and of its time.

Don Warrington is the eponymous old man, a case-study in futile bluster, self-destructing in his anger at the ravages of old age. I like the way his impotence is emphasised here: he’s never a magnificent, raging tyrant, just an old man who commands deference only as long as he wears his crown. Pepter Lunkuse’s Cordelia is also a revelation: for the first time, I see why she is Lear’s favourite. She’s as stubborn and destructive as he is, as incapable of compromise. She’s neither sweet nor resolute in this production: she’s a headstrong teenager, with the moral certitude only youth or extreme religion can provide. I love the way her lip curls at her sisters; she’s self-righteous and scathing, a Cordelia for the modern age (maybe this is how she was always meant to be?).

It’s a grim play, one of the Bard’s bleakest, and the comic relief from the Fool (Miltos Yerolemou) and Oswald (Thomas Coombes) is most welcome. They’re witty and engaging, pushing just far enough to undercut the tension and provide those all-important shades of light and dark. While we’re on the subject of grim, the notorious blinding scene is played for horror here; there’s nothing subtle in an eye gouging that results in “vile jelly” flying out across the stage into the audience. It’s so shocking there are gasps and groans – and that’s exactly as it should be, I think.

The storm scene is perhaps a little undermined by the fact that the Exchange’s new water-feature has been enthusiastically showcased in almost all recent productions, so what should be astonishing is more, “Oh, this again.” Still, it’s effective – the lightning strikes, the thunder claps and everyone is drenched.

Lear is a dense and complex play; there’s too much of it to cover in one shortish review. Suffice to say, I loved this production: a pacy, confident interpretation that trusts Shakespeare’s words to do their magic.

4.8 stars

Susan Singfield

Watson’s Bistro

17/04/06

Chapel Street, Conwy, North Wales

The charming coastal town of Conwy is a picturesque place what with the castle, the harbour and the beach. On a sunny Sunday afternoon in April, it also turned out to be a great place for lunch. Watson’s Bistro is tucked away off the main drag, right next to a stretch of the old town walls and it’s well worth seeking out. Step inside and you’ll find a delightful family-owned restaurant, a Diner’s Choice winner in 2015. There are four of us to dine and after some perusal of the menu, we decide to eschew starters and go for two courses at a very reasonable £16.95. Some fresh bread is provided with a saucer of dipping oil, which makes for a pleasant palette cleanser, but we’ve barely finished eating that when the main courses arrive.

I have the 24 hour cooked shin of beef, served with creamy mashed potato and an ‘unctuous’ gravy. I can’t help feeling that the word ‘unctuous’ is an odd one, meaning as it does, oily and insincere, whereas this gravy is quite the opposite, rich and satisfying. Being of a cheeky persuasion, I also ask if I can sample the home made Yorkshire pudding that is really supposed to come only with the roast beef, and happily, the answer is ‘yes.’ A word about that shin beef – it is of the ‘pulled’ variety, full of flavour and melt-in-the mouth tender. Add a swirl of that ‘unctuous gravy’ and you have heaven on a plate. Susan’s roast beef is also deliciously tender and backed up with crispy roast potatoes and a flavoursome thyme jus. One of our companions has the slow roast shoulder of Welsh lamb with a minted port wine sauce and that too is spot on. The Yorkshire puds are light and very dry in texture – I like them, Susan is rather less keen. The meals are accompanied by a dish of perfectly cooked vegetables – boiled potatoes, carrots, broccoli and (a nice touch, I think) tempura cauliflower florets. This is all pretty much note perfect and the generous portions mean that we’re glad we skipped the starters.

Puddings can sometimes be so-so in these places but happily, not so here. Three of our company opt for the pear and toffee crumble, which manages to be moist and crunchy and sticky, all at the same time. I have an orange sponge pudding with chocolate ice cream, the pudding moist and sticky with orange sauce, the ice cream bursting flavour. Mmm. It’s not considered polite to lick your plate clean afterwards, but sometimes these things just cannot be resisted.

A glance at the evening specials and the a la carte menu seem to offer endless possibilities for further investigation, but sadly we’re not close enough to Conwy to make this a regular haunt, which is a pity. This is one of the best Sunday lunches I’ve ever had. If you’re in the area, you’ve no excuse, get down there and enjoy!

4.8 stars

Philip Caveney

Pokusevski’s

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16/04/16

Shaw Road, Heaton Moor

Finding the right place for a leisurely Saturday afternoon lunch, isn’t always easy – especially when you’re meeting up with a couple of old friends who are bringing along their first baby in order to introduce him to you. Pokusevki’s has been on Shaw Road for many years, but it was previously an upmarket delicatessen with a couple of indoor tables and a few more out in a (rather nice) walled garden at the back. But recently it’s undergone a transformation; the indoor dining space has been extended into what was previously the garden and the result is a charming, bustling interior that no longer has to bow to the vagaries of the English weather. Background music is kept discrete enough so that conversation can flow without the need to bellow over the top of it – exactly what we needed. (There’s also a new Pokusevki’s at Media City. Do be careful when making a booking to ensure that you’re talking to the right establishment, something that we spectacularly failed to do. Luckily, they managed to fit us in anyway!)

We took our seats and perused the lunchtime menu. The staff were relaxed and helpful – when a highchair was requested for the smallest diner it was promptly provided. The soup of the day was pumpkin so we all chose a bowl of that and a toasted sandwich apiece, each of which can be supplied on white bread, wholemeal bread or focaccia. The food arrived quickly and when it came, it was piping hot and nicely done. All right, soup and a sandwich isn’t the toughest meal to prepare, but it’s amazing how often places can get it wrong. This however was wonderful. The soup was thick and wholesome, deliciously seasoned and satisfying. My club sandwich was generously loaded with chicken, bacon, rocket and mature cheddar, while Susan’s goat cheese sandwich featured caramelised onion, tomato and rocket. A side order of chips was just the ticket, crispy and salty and exactly what was needed.

We had coffees to follow and the bill came to around £15 per head. Mission accomplished. While we there, we couldn’t help noticing the long list of tapas-style dishes and main courses available later in the day, so we resolved to return at some point for further investigation.

But for what we needed today, this would be hard to beat.

4.5 stars

Philip Caveney

The Chairs

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15/04/16

The Lowry, Salford Quays

Ionescu’s The Chairs is an absurdist play, depicting the claustrophobic relationship between an Old Man and an Old Woman, excitedly preparing for the arrival of an orator. They have invited ‘everybody’ to hear the Old Man’s discovery, but the guests, when they arrive, are all invisible, and we, the audience, do not know if they are real. This, it seems, is a post-apocalyptic world, and the Old Man and the Old Woman might just be the sole survivors.

It’s an interesting premise, and the translation (by Martin Crimp) is beautifully done. The set is charming too: a dilapidated, shonky-looking research station, which reminds me, oddly, of 1980s kids’ TV. It works, creating that other-wordly vibe that the piece needs; it’s unsettling and strange.

Extant is a performing arts company of visually impaired people, and their production has some excellent features. I loved the audio recordings of stage directions, spoken by the actors, describing what they were doing as they did it. It worked: not only was it a means of “integrating access for visually impaired audience members” (director Maria Oshodi), it also added to the surreal nature of the piece.

The stand-out moment is the chair-setting scene, which sees the Old Woman bringing out chair after chair, each one more damaged than the last, until, in the end, she produces a single broken leg. The frenzied tension developed in this sequence is mesmerizing – and very funny too.

The acting is good, with Heather Gilmore (Old Woman) clearly reveling in the comedy, while Tim Gebbels (Old Man) has a calmer, more serious presence. The relationship between the two is convincing, and the dynamic is strong. Their blindness adds an extra dimension to the play: the guests’ invisibility imbued with new layers of meaning, as the whole notion of ‘what we can see’ is given prominence.

If there’s a problem with this piece, it’s that it’s all a bit one-note. It feels long and quite repetitive; the mood never really shifts. The truth is, it’s too similar to the more familiar (and slightly later) Endgame – and it’s not as good. Ionescu got there first, but Beckett did it best.

3.2 stars

Susan Singfield

Victoria

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13/04/16

Victoria (Laia Costa) is a young Spanish woman, living and working in Berlin. We first encounter her dancing by herself at a nightclub and it’s there that she first meets Sonne (Frederick Lau) and falls for his boisterous chat-up lines. She’s supposed to go and open up the cafe where she works, but instead falls in with Sonne and his friends, Boxer, (Franz Rogowski), Blinker (Burat Yigit) and Fuss (Max Mauff) and agrees to go with them to visit a favourite hangout of theirs. As the night progresses, it’s clear that Victoria and Sonne are falling for each other – but when Boxer enlists Victoria’s help to drive a car for him, so he can do a friend ‘a favour’, the mood quickly switches into thriller mode and it becomes apparent that this is not going to end well for anyone involved…

As you may have heard, the ‘gimmick’ with writer/director Sebastian Schipper’s film is that it’s shot in one continuous take, which is of course, a monumental undertaking in itself. (Innarutu’s recent hit Birdman gave the impression of being shot in this way, but he managed to sneak in a few clever edits. This, however, is the real McCoy.) Schipper and his cast and crew manage to achieve their goal with such verve and brilliance, that you feel like applauding their ingenuity. (Apparently they could only afford three attempts to get everything right and the third take is the one they used).

But don’t go thinking that a gimmick is all that this film has to offer. There’s more. Much more. As the story progresses and Victoria and her new-found pals fall deeper and deeper into the brown stuff, Schipper expertly racks up the tension to an almost unbearable degree. This is gripping, nerve-shredding stuff that will keep you on the edge of your seat right up until the brilliant conclusion.

An unqualified triumph. Don’t miss it.

5 stars

Philip Caveney

An Evening with Jo Caulfield & Friends

Unknown

12/04/16

The Stand, Edinburgh

We missed Jo Caulfield at this year’s Ed Fringe, so here’s a golden opportunity to rectify the situation. It’s an unusual gig – she’s recording her stand up set for a new CD, Disappointed With You; and also an episode of the podcast gameshow The Good , The Bad and the Unexpected.’ The UK’s most iconic venue is packed with eager punters, ready for a good laugh, which is pretty much what they get tonight.

After a brief good-natured warm up from another Jo entirely – Jo Jo Sutherland, on comes Ms Caulfield, clearly in a mood to take no prisoners. A luckless Australian visitor, picked out in the intro session, is bluntly told that his country is of ‘no interest at all.’ ‘I’ve looked into it,’ she adds, ‘but… no, nothing.’ She then proceeds to take on a whole series of scattershot targets, knocking each one down with glee, revelling in the cantankerous middle class persona she habitually adopts. Subjects range from indecisive shoppers in queues, buying a fitted kitchen and the over friendly staff in Marks and Spencers – not the most promising list of subjects, I’ll grant you and yet, her world-weary, bitchy demeanour manages to extract the maximum amount of laughter from each subject. Her occasional potty-mouthed utterances are delivered with perfect timing and one childhood memory concerning being disciplined by her Irish Catholic father results in a punchline so shocking, we feel guilty even as we laugh out loud. She finishes by thanking us for laughing ‘for the recording’ but it was ridiculously easy. She’s a funny woman and I can’t help but wonder why we don’t see more of her on TV.

Next up, Jo introduces a short set by a young newcomer, Tony Sloan, looking like a chunkier Rick Moranis. He expertly plays the persona of the helpless loser, still living with his mother (‘It’s OK, she has the top bunk!’) and looking for romance – (‘You know what Tony is, backwards? Y-not?’) One or two of his more obvious puns draw audible groans from the crowd, but there’s an interesting idea to be developed here and I’m sure we’ll be hearing more from him in the future.

After a short interval, on troop the four comedians taking part in the podcast – Keir McAllister, Stuart Murphy, Richard Melvin and Gareth Waugh, together with Jo acting as question master. Getting them all onto the tiny stage is quite an achievement in itself. Like so many of these podcasts, the show stands or falls by the quality of the comedians in any particular episode and it is well served tonight, particularly by Stuart Murphy, who must be one of the most quick-witted comics currently treading the boards. (Interested parties should check out his free Sunday lunchtime improv shows at The Stand, with partner Garry Dobson). He manages to reduce Jo to helpless laughter at several points so perhaps it’s little wonder that his team win by a wide margin. There’s a whole series of these shows which can be found, free of charge via iTunes.

Then it’s all over and we troop off into a rainy Edinburgh night.

Jo Caulfield – 4.6 stars

The Good, the Bad and The Unexpected – 4 stars