Bitter sweet - A Taste of Honey at the National Theatre

The 1961 film version of this play is one of the classics of British cinema. Dora Bryan as Helen and Rita Tushingham as Jo made these characters their own and any later version on stage or screen would have to be very very good to match the Tony Richardson directed film. The current production at the National comes very close.

A Taste of Honey was revolutionary when first performed in 1958. With its cast of a single mother, a pregnant teenager, a black sailor and a gay art student it covered issues which still divide today but were incendiary in the 1950's and 60's. Some doubt has been cast on the continuing relevance of Shelagh Delaney's play, that it no longer has the immediacy it had when first written. At the time, single motherhood was deeply shameful, interracial relationships taboo and male homosexuality illegal. Things have changed since then but single mothers are still blamed for many of society's problems, teenage pregnancies increase and recent anti-gay legislation in Uganda, Nigeria and Russia as well as less than liberal attitudes amongst some communities here at home show that things may not have changed that much.

A Taste of Honey is not only about these issues. It is also about loneliness and the need for love and friendship. Helen is not the world's greatest mother but she wants to be loved. Jo does not feel loved by her mother and seeks it with Jimmy, a black sailor. Geoff, the gay student is forbidden to find love and seeks instead a kind of love with Jo. This search for love leads to trouble - Helen may or may not know who Jo's father is and has a string of unsuitable relationships, Jo becomes pregnant to a man she will never see again and Geoff lives in fear of being discovered. Helen may be feckless. She is certainly selfish and manipulative but she does show some feeling for her daughter summed up in a word of warning "Oh Jo, why can't you learn from my mistakes… It takes half your lifetime to learn from your own". Jo chooses not to listen.

Loneliness drives the relationships in the play. Jo ends up pregnant because she doesn't want to spend another Christmas alone whilst Helen goes off with her boyfriend. Helen goes off with a younger, abusive man because she wants security. Geoff pursues the friendship with Jo so as not to be alone. Jo  makes reference to the fear of loneliness saying "I'm not afraid of the darkness outside. It's the darkness inside houses I don't like".

Set in Salford in the 1950's, the play also affords a glimpse of working class life in that period and is one of a number of plays and films of the time that focused on this subject, some of which are amongst the best British drama ever written. Witness Stan Barstow's A Kind of Loving, Allan Sillitoe's Saturday Night Sunday Morning, Nell Dunn's Up the Junction and another of my favourites Stephen Lewis' Sparrers Can't Sing. This was the period of the angry young men - not all of whom were from working class backgrounds. Women writers were far and few between and Delaney was very much on her own, not fitting in with the male crowd, very young, poorly educated and northern. She objected to the description "angry" preferring to describe herself as "restless"!

The current production at the National has Lesley Sharp as Helen and Kate O'Flynn as Jo. Lesley Sharp is positively regal as the still glamorous, still hopeful and aggressively domineering Helen, all poise and pout. O'Flynn is equally convincing as the long suffering daughter, completely believable as a vulnerable but knowing teenager whilst Harry Hepple is extremely moving as Geoff, too scared to stand up to Helen, desperate for love and security but too weak to hold on to it. There is also a great jazz soundtrack. A Taste of Honey runs at Lyttelton Theatre at the National until 11th May. See it.

Liverpool - another take

I spent last weekend in Liverpool. The main purpose of my visit was to see the Chagall exhibition at Tate Liverpool and that will be the subject of a separate post. For many people Liverpool is the city of the Beatles and a rather good football team, but it has many other attractions and they will be the focus of this article.

Arriving on the Friday evening, I decided to eat in Liverpool's Chinatown - the oldest in the UK. The city's shipping connections brought many Chinese sailors and workers to Liverpool from the 1850's onwards and over time, some began to settle and establish homes and businesses. There was also a significant degree of inter-marriage between Chinese men and local women which we will pick up again a little later.

Liverpool's Chinatown has the tallest Chinese ceremonial gate in Europe leading to a number of restaurants offering different styles of Chinese cuisine. I ate at the New Capital which was cheap and cheerful with large portions of vegetables, rice and the not very traditional lemon chicken that I embarrassed my dinner partner by ordering. Well, I like it. Liverpool's Chinatown is less bustling than London's and has a much more "local" feel to it, with people popping out for dinner rather than making the effort to travel a long way. 

Walking back to the hotel I got a taste of Liverpool's night life when I heard a woman singing with a loud nasal whine the old Lyn Anderson song (I never promised you a)"Rose Garden" . It was the voice of a public house singer but she was ably accompanied by what sounded like the entire pub who were singing along. I was sorely tempted to go in...but Saturday was going to be a busy day.

Royal Liver Building, Pier Head

I had a full programme for Saturday beginning with the wonderful Chagall exhibition which I followed with a walk around nearby Pier Head which forms part of Liverpool's World Heritage status, listed by UNESCO in 2004 as "The supreme example of a commercial port at the time of Britain's greatest global influence". The highlight of the docks area, Pier Head boasts three magnificent buildings, the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board(NDHB) built from 1903 to 1907, the Royal Liver Building (1908-1911) and the Cunard Building (completed in 1916). All three are a testament to Liverpool's former standing as a port of world importance. My favourite is the Royal Liver Building designed by Walter Aubrey Thomas, a magnificent office block claimed to be the tallest in the world when built. It defies stylistic definition but includes traces of baroque, byzantine (according to Pevsner), references to Hawksmoor's churches and to early Chicago skyscrapers. Far too big for the needs of the Royal Liver Friendly Society for which it was built, the building provided a great deal of lettable space. It displeased the owners of the smaller, older neighbour which had wanted a complementary structure rather than the attention grabber this is.

George's Dock Ventilation and Contro Station

Just behind this architectural ensemble stands another Liverpool landmark - the George's Dock Ventilation and Control Station. Designed by Herbert J. Rowse and built in the 1930's it served the first Mersey road tunnel. Having sustained damage during the Second World War it was rebuilt in 1951.  Its Portland stone face features sculptures by Edmund C. Thompson has figures representing speed, day and night (an allusion to the ever-open tunnel) and four panels illustrating civil-engineering, construction, architecture and decoration. I love its quiet elegance and I especially love that central tower, visible from some distance.

Pier Head has become a popular location for monuments and memorials to various individuals. These include the Memorial to the Heroes of the Marine Engine Room by William Goscombe John, completed in 1916. Paid for by international subscription and originally conceived as a memorial to the engineers on the Titanic who remained on the ship to the end, it is a granite obelisk topped by a gilded flame. It also has figures representing earth, air, fire and water and pairs of engineers on two sides. An early monument to ordinary working people it is a wonderful tribute to unsung heroes. 

Detail, Memorial to the Heroes of the Marine Engine Room, Pier Head

The Museum of Liverpool is just a few steps from Pier Head and it is easy to combine a visit. The   Museum tells the story of the city and its development as a major port, its many communities and the lives of its citizens. I especially enjoyed the top floor which includes the memories and lives of ordinary Liverpudlians. It includes a focus on the struggle for decent housing that has gone on (and continues today) for many years, the city's often difficult political history, its long association with music of many kinds and a number of videos of its citizens talking about their lives. 

The ground floor of the Museum includes a section on the history of Liverpool's Chinese community including the until recently untold story of the round-up and deportation of hundreds of Chinese men at the end of the Second World War, many of whom were tricked into boarding ships thinking they had signed up to work on them. Many of these men were married to local non-Chinese women and had families with them who until very recently did not know what had happened to their husbands, fathers and grandfathers. The testimony of women who spent years searching for their husbands and wondering if they had been deserted is one of the most poignant elements of the Museum and a little known part of history.

On a lighter note, a series of video interviews about Liverpool style and fashion includes an amusing contribution from a local man who refers to some of the many young women in the city with extreme tans or the "orange" look. He says "seeing ten Liverpool girls coming towards you on a night out looks like the terracotta army in stilettos". This sense of humour and tendency to self-deprecation is one of many reasons to love Liverpool. 

No visit to another city is complete for me without searching out examples of art deco architecture. I spent Saturday evening enjoying my best theatrical experience for some time at the final performance in the run of John Godber's"Bouncers" at the Royal Court Theatre. This art deco building dates from 1938 and was designed by James B. Hutchins of Wainwright and Sons. A more subdued style of art deco, it has a red brick facade which makes use of different types of brick to break the solid face as well as numerous art deco motifs and a beautiful curve at one end of the theatre. Originally built to face Queen Square, the square itself has not survived and today the Royal Court faces a row of bus stops and neighbours a very ugly shopping precinct. 

The play was excellent - a look at the lives of ordinary Liverpudlians working in or frequenting a Liverpool nightclub in the 1980's. Filled with local, often dark humour that had me laughing more than I have in a theatre for ages, there were also moments of amazing poignancy as the sad, darker side of the lives of some of the characters and their communities were alluded to. There is a Royal Court Theatre in London too - in Sloane Square, frequented by the bien pensant frightfully PC brigade. Liverpool's Royal Court has a different audience, largely working class  and able to laugh at and with itself at things the Sloane set might struggle with. Give me the Liverpool lot any time. All four actors gave good performances each with three roles - a bouncer, a Liverpool man on the pull and a Liverpool woman similarly engaged. However, the star of the show was former Brookside actor, Michael Starke. His "plain Elaine" was fantastic and he surprised us with his skills as a "mover" too! Nice one.

Royal Court Theatre, Liverpool

The other art deco lovely I found was the former Forum Cinema just opposite Lime Street Station. Dating from 1931 with the exterior designed by E. A. Shennan, the cinema is also a somewhat subdued example of art deco with an almost plain Portland stone facade, interrupted by vertical windows in threes set in panels and by simple motifs. The interior was by W. R. Glen and has a flat auditorium with a central rosette feature. There are also ornamental boxes and a range of other art deco features. The cinema closed in 1998 and was acquired by a brewery. Proposals in 2007 to turn it into a boutique hotel were eventually withdrawn and so, rather shamefully, it stands empty on this very prominent spot - one of the first things visitors see as they leave Lime Street station.

Former Forum CInema, Lime Street/ Elliott Street

On Sunday morning I managed to squeeze in a visit to the Walker Gallery to see the amazing Alive in the face of death exhibition of photographer Rankin and a look at the Gallery's excellent collection of British art from the first half of the twentieth century which includes ceramics and other crafts as well as paintings. Right next door to the Walker Gallery stands the City Library which has recently been partially demolished, rebuilt and the Victorian special collection rooms lovingly restored. It is a spectacular achievement and what a city library should look lie. Heaving with customers at midday on a Sunday - studying, browsing, using the IT, relaxing in the cafe or on the roof viewing platform - it is clearly the heartbeat of the city. Some readers will know I work in this field. I want a building like this!

And I suppose this revitalised library sums up the very best of Liverpool - preserving the history, building a future, and everything based around the people. 

And I didn't mention football or the Beatles once!

Entrance and atrium to the City Library

New developments on the Docks - the white box in the background is the Museum of Liverpool

Private Lives - "minimal as an art deco curve" - Noel Coward in the West End

Gertrude Lawrence and Noel Coward in Private Lives

Noel Coward's Private Lives is currently being revived on the west end stage at Shaftesbury Avenue's Gielgud Theatre. Premiered in Edinburgh in 1930 before moving to London and then Broadway, critic John Lahr would later describe it as being "Minimal as an art deco curve...a plotless play for purposeless people".

Whilst I see his point I disagree. Private Lives uses the relationship of Elyot Chase and Amanda Prynne  (formerly Mrs Chase number one) as a vehicle to consider a number of issues still pertinent today, not least the position of women. During one of their many spats following their reconciliation after divorce, (despite having re-married in the meantime) Elyot questions Amanda on whether or not she had "affairs" during their five years of separation. He is appalled when she tells him she has and when challenged that he too had affairs replies "But I am a man". Related issues come up too. Interestingly there is a conversation about growing older that includes reference to rejuvenating hormones (!) whilst Amanda's generation of upper middle class women would have had access to Marie Stopes' book Married Love - which encouraged family planning, explaining various methods of contraception and enabling women of Amanda's class to live more freely.

It would be wrong to think that anything other than a small minority of people were able to live like Elyot and Amanda in the 1920's and 1930's and this is to some extent born out by a remark from the hapless Sybil - unfortunate and deserted second wife of Elyot who, commenting on their riotous behaviour says  "I had no idea there were people who live that way". Few people would have had. I was reminded a little of Evelyn Waugh's A Handful of Dust by the selfish behaviour of our privileged characters in Private Lives, the only difference being that there were at least a couple of noble characters in Waugh's novel.

Whilst watching I had to remind myself that the play had been written in the 1920's and that as well as having some contemporary themes, others might be presented in a different way to today, hence the reference to a woman with "a bone through her nose", "strange desires for Chinamen" and the presentation of domestic violence as somehow amusing. Interestingly I sensed hesitation in the audience  during the two scenes featuring domestic violence (from both male and female characters) which Coward may have intended as almost slapstick, but which are viewed differently today. 

The current production features a great performance from Anna Chancellor as Amanda and good performances from Toby Stephens as Elyot, Anthony Calf as Victor and Anna-Louise Plowman as Sibyl. However, I was completely won over by Sue Kelvin's cameo role as the French maid Louise, and her complete disdain for her English employers and their unruly and loutish behaviour, referring to them as "Les idiots". Nice one Sue. 

And going back to Lahr's comment, there was another star of the show - the set in the second and third acts which was an exquisite Parisian art deco apartment with gold plated doors, Eileen Gray influenced rugs, day beds, beautiful lamps and crackly jazz records on the wind-up phonogram. I am assuming this was the work of Anthony Ward, designer. Fantastic. 

The play is currently booking until 21st September.

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London Art Deco part one
London Art Deco part two
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Sweet Bird of Youth - Tennessee Williams at the Old Vic

Tennessee Williams' play Sweet Bird of Youth is set in segregationist small town Florida in the 1950's. First performed in New York in 1959, it deals with themes of jealousy, ageing, gender, sex and race in a direct way that must have been ground breaking at the time and yet many of the issues raised still simmer today.

Several of these themes are played out in the relationship between the play's two main characters - small town gigolo Wayne Chance and former star come on hard times - Alexandra del Lago, the latter the subject of a cracking performance by Kim Cattrall. Both use each other - she uses him in order to feel young, beautiful and desirable again, whilst he uses her in a vain attempt to secure access to break into the film world. Cattrall shines in the scenes where she laments the judgement of the world on an ageing female star. It doesn't matter how good her performance as an actress is because the screen shows a woman past her prime in a world where youth is everything. She describes the terror of exposure, saying "The screen's a very clear mirror. There's a thing called a close-up. the camera advances and you stand still and your head, your face, is caught in the frame of the picture with a light blazing on it and all your terrible history screams while you smile..."

The much younger Chance is also concerned about the passage of time - pushing 30 and nowhere near achieving his ambition of stardom, he concentrates all of his efforts on winning back his former girlfriend - the wonderfully named Heavenly Finlay, daughter of local corrupt and racist politician Boss Finlay. Chance believes Heavenly to be his redemption and his future. And here lies another key theme of the play - the danger of illicit sex. Chance and Heavenly are former lovers. Boss is obsessed with "purity" and blames Chance for his daughter's "ruin". This obsession extends to racial purity and the play drives home the often terrifying, virulently racist atmosphere of much of this period. 

Williams describes sex in interesting terms - as connected to illness, as being threatening and as a commodity to be bought and sold. Even Boss is not exempt from concerns about sex when he hears that there is gossip in the town about his decline in prowess as he grows older. Williams himself 

There are no sympathetic characters in this play. The leads rely on drugs and alcohol to cope with their inadequacy. Boss's interest in purity is a sham. All of the characters use each other in different ways. Director Marianne Elliott and designer Rae Smith have created an atmosphere at the Old Vic that transport the audience back to the period in which the play is set. The hotel room scenes are particularly convincing and the claustrophobia of the room and of small town America (or anywhere) during the period is palpable. A great deal of the play takes place in that hotel room - that's almost three hours, but the performance is so gripping that this considerable amount of time slips away very quickly - further illustrating Williams' theme about the passage of time. 

Despite the darkness of the play, there are moments of humour. Cattrall's change of mood from hopeless, defeated monster to monster resurgent is both convincing and hilarious - demonstrating very nicely the shallowness of the world in which her character operates. And look out for a nice performance from Lucy Robinson as Miss Lucy who also produces a few laughs in her early scenes. Excellent performances also from Owen Roe as Boss Finlay and Seth Numrich as Chance Wayne. The play runs until the end of August. It was a full house last night so don't leave it too late and miss it!

Incidentally, the theatre is looking beautiful and he auditorium truly stunning. What a shame to spoil things somewhat with inadequate toilet provision. There was even a queue for the men's toilets last night whilst the queue for the women's stretched across at least half of the downstairs bar. London theatre is not cheap...how about sorting the comfort facilities?

Boris Aronson and the Yiddish Theatre at the Ben Uri Gallery

Two Hasids, costume design, 1926

Boris Aronson designed scenes, costumes and lighting for some of Broadway's most successful musicals including Fiddler on the Roof, Cabaret, Company, Follies and A Little Night Music. He also designed the sets for for Mikhail Baryshnikov's production of the Nutcracker and picked up numerous awards over his long theatre career in the United States. However, his career started long before most of these musicals were written and included success as a writer, painter and costume designer. He was also a leading light in the hugely influential Kultur Lige, a Jewish artists' organisation founded in his home town of Kiev in 1918. His achievements in New York's Yiddish Theatre in the 1920's and 1930's are the subject of the current exhibition at my favourite London gallery - the Ben Uri in St. John's Wood. 

I first saw this exhibition "Ben Aronson and the Yiddish Theatre" at  the Tel Aviv branch of the Minotaur Gallery a few years ago.  The exhibition covers his early years in the Ukraine as an apprentice to the designer and avant-garde artist Aleksandra Exter, as well as a sojourn in Berlin before arriving in New York in 1923. Exter had a lifelong influence on him and recognising his desire to design stage scenery, invited him to assist her in the design of sets for the Moscow premiere of Romeo and Juliet in 1920. 

The Kultur Lige was established to promote Yiddish culture. It drew membership and support from writers, artists and various cultural figures with branches being established in almost 100 towns and villages in the Ukraine. The Lige established schools, childcare centres, evening classes for adults and children, music clubs and drama classes with the objective of developing a "new Jew" who could easily combine the qualities of universal and Jewish culture. Over the period of its lifetime it included amongst others Marc Chagall, El Lissitzky, Josef Tchaikov, Nathan Altman, Issakhar-Ber Ryback and Sara Shor - many of whom were Aronson's friends and fellow students of Exter. Aronson managed the committee that organised the Lige's first exhibition in Kiev in early 1920. The exhibition included two of his own works which unfortunately have not survived.

At the end of 1921 he moved to Moscow, continued studying and painting and frequenting the theatre, being particularly impressed and influenced by the experimental work of Vsevolod Meyerhold and Alexander Tairov. More importantly he studied closely the sets and costumes of their productions including those designed by Chagall, describing Chagall's mural in the Jewish Chamber Theatre as "the best of his works". Together with Exter, they had a lasting influence on Aronson - not least their devotion to Constructivism. This is reflected in his 1927 design for the cover of Der Hammer, a socialist magazine in New York.

Costume for Baruch Agadati's oriental dance, 1923

In 1922 he moved again, this time to Berlin which was by then host to a large emigre Russian and Jewish artistic community. During his year in Berlin he published two books - Contemporary Graphic Jewish Art and a work on Marc Chagall. So, by the age of 24 he was an accomplished artist, writer and organiser, but more was to come. In Berlin he met and worked with the dancer Baruch Agadati, a pioneer of avant-garde choreography (and who went on to be a pioneering Israeli film maker!) who attempted a synthesis of ancient folk dances and modern ballet. Aronson produced various sketches for Agadati's dances as well as designing costumes for him. 

In November 1923, Aronson arrived in New York with what he described as "awkward luggage...some drawings, two books, a pair of socks, a membership in a union of German artists, paintbrushes, crowded emotions, little money and less English". Being fluent in Yiddish enabled him to quickly find work - New York being one of the world centres of the language during the 1920's. His initial work involved book cover design, illustrations for children's books and covers for Der Hammer. His work during this period exhibits his continuing commitment to Jewish content and also to the principles of Constructivism. Several items from this period are included in the exhibition including some of the books and magazines - one of the highlights for me.

Cover design for Der Hammer magazine, 1927

He also continued to write in Yiddish magazines including articles about theatre design and when the Jewish Theatre Society opened "Unzer Teater" (Our Theatre) in 1924 he was appointed principle stage designer. The theatre was housed in a small building in the Bronx - then heavily Jewish. Aronson later wrote that "Out of seventy Yiddish theatres in New York, I ended up in a tiny theatre in the Bronx...(where) no-one knew for sure if they would be paid or not, but they had an adventurous spirit and were concerned with the experimental". They were indeed and his work for the costume and stage designs of two of the theatre's three productions "Night and Day" and "The Last Result" are on display at the Ben Uri and show just how experimental those times were. Strapped for cash, Aronson made use of different fabrics and colours in the actors' costumes to create a mood or to highlight the personality of a character. For example, the costume for "the devil" is dominated by grey and black for mood whilst the crimson lining of his coat is a reference to the fires of hell. The plays were well received including by non Jewish American critics.

He went on to work at two more Yiddish theatres - the Schildkraut and Maurice Schwartz's Yiddish Art Theatre, achieving particular fame at the latter where he designed the revival of the Yiddish classic The Ten Commandments in 1926. Aronson's time in the Yiddish theatre ended soon afterwards with his desire to appeal to a broader audience taking him to Broadway in 1932 and to several decades of success.

Design for The Circus 1926

This son of a rabbi from small town Ukraine ended up a very long way from home but always acknowledged the influence of his formative years. Born in a time and place that produced many outstanding artists, significant numbers of whom were Jewish, Boris Aronson was one of those occasional figures that are able to excel in many fields, in his case painting, writing, costume and set design. This incredible set of skills is something rarely seen today. The exhibition runs until June 30th - go and see it! The Ben Uri Gallery, still looking for a home worthy of its collection, is also exhibiting some of the treasures from its permanent collection including works by Soutine, Grosz and London's own "Whitechapel Boys" including Mark Gertler, Isaac Rosenberg and David Bomberg. All the more reason to visit. 

Stage design for Bronx Express, 1925

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Children of the sun - Gorky at the National Theatre

Early on in Maxim Gorky's "Children of the Sun" currently playing at the National Theatre, Protasov, the chemist, complains that if no-one watches his experiment heating then it will boil over and be ruined. The same principle is explored thoughout the course of the play with Protasov (and others) neglecting to watch over their relationships and more importantly, neglecting to watch over developments outside of their comfortable surroundings.

Written in 1905, the play follows the relationships of a group of bourgeois intellectuals, their quarrels, desires, infidelities and inadequacies, played out against the background of growing discontent amongst the villagers, representing the "masses" of Tsarist Russia, most of whom lived in abject poverty and ignorance. These people are represented by the servants and a random vagrant who are treated as either figures of fun or part of the furniture by the circle of scientist, veterinarian, artist and their company. 

The old, accepting working class is represented by the ever dutiful elderly nanny who is also treated disrespectfully despite her devotion, whilst the younger servants grow openly scornful of their masters and in their own way rebel or revolt against them. Furthermore, as the hapless Melania, searching for love but not knowing how to find it, eventually recognises - everything in this society appears to be for sale - cloth and meat - and people too. Melania wants to buy love from the married and unobtainable Protasov whilst other characters discuss the cost of their love - in roubles. Meanwhile, Protasov's delicate sister Lisa has premonitions of approaching tragedy but is considered to be "unwell". This theme of "sickness" recurs throughout the play, again connected to poverty and ignorance.  

Gorky wrote the play in 1905 in response to the failed attempt at revolution that took place during that year and despite setting it in the 1860's, non-one was fooled. At first the Tsarist authorities banned it. When the ban was lifted, it was first performed in the Moscow Art Theatre in October 1905 where the performance had to be halted in the third act when off-stage noises from the mob caused panic in the theatre with patrons thinking the noises were coming from the street. The original cast included Olga Knipper, Chekhov's wife as Lisa and Vassili Kachalov as Protasov. It was Kachalov that calmed the audience enabling it to continue.

Gorky was briefly imprisoned during the Tsarist regime and became close to the pinnacle of the Soviet regime, including to Stalin. However, the dictator turned against him, placing him under house arrest, and it is widely thought that Gorky's death was the result of poisoning on Stalin's orders in 1936. Cynically, Stalin was one of the pall bearers at Gorky's funeral. During one of the many show trials of the late 1930's, former Soviet Bukharin was accused of being party to Gorky's murder. It is unlikely that the truth will ever be known.

Returning to the current production, there were outstanding performances from Lucy Black as Melania, Emma Lowndes as Lisa and Gerald Kyd who was thoroughly convincing as the self-centred dilettante artist, Vageen. Florence Hall as the servant girl Feema also put in a cheeky performance! As ever at the national there was a wonderful set and a special note on the costumers, especially those of Lisa and Yelena, Protasov's wife which were brilliant replicas(?) of Russian arts and crafts style of the early 20th century. A nice touch. The play runs until July 14th.

(Picture above - staircase from Gorky' House in Moscow)

The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari

The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari, acknowledged as an early example of expressionist film. Directed by Robert Wiene and released in Weimar Germany in 1920 as a silent movie. More of the film later, but the simple8 theatre company is currently performing a short run at the Arcola Theatre in Dalston, of a new play based on the film and I saw it a few nights ago.

It is a difficult story to transfer to the stage. The film was after all a "silent" and a whole script has had to be written to enable the transition from screen to stage. Sebastian Armesto and Dudley Hinton have made a good job of this, convincingly communicating the feel of a small German town shortly after the First World War with its prejudices, snobbery and suspicion of outsiders, which at the same time could be almost any small town anywhere. They also include some amusing references to expressionist themes and techniques - look out for the human clock!

On a more serious note, the play develops some interesting and to some extent disturbing themes. A couple of examples stand out. Oliver Birch was convincing as the mysterious Doctor Caligari in the exercise of power and control. He is confident, evil and bullying - but also to some extent pathetic. The nature of bureaucracy and the "machine" is also examined, including its inability to stop or turn back once it has started to work. Witness the experience of Franzis Gruber played by Joseph Kloska - surely the performance of the night.

The play runs until mid March so I won't give too much away. It will be followed by another simple8 production - a new dramatisation of Moby Dick. It will be interesting to see how this works in the small (and far too hot) basement studio at the Arcola. The programme says that simple8 "...specialise in creating innovative, bold new plays that tackle big ideas using large casts - all on a shoe string budget"- which means the script and the acting have to be good. That shoe string budget also means that the company have to be inventive and lighting, white sheets and shadows are used to full effect in Doctor Caligari. It is a one act, straight through production running for 80 minutes - 80 minutes in which I was in that small town, sharing the anxieties of the characters and feeling concern for the outcome.

Back to 1920 and the Cabinet of Doctor Caligari became one of the most influential expressionist films and is considered one of the greatest horror movies of the silent era. Director Wiene made used of stylised sets with angular and abstract buildings painted on the backdrops and jerky and dancelike movements by the actors. In addition to this, simple techniques involving the use of shadow and of course the lack of colour add to the threatening and disturbing mood of the film. The movie ends a little differently to simple8's production and is credited as having introduced the twist ending in cinema.

Its easy to find the DVD of the movie if you want to see it, and if you want to see it for free, its all on youtube here. If you want to see the play, its running at the Arcola until March 16th. Worth a visit.

Dalston - another look

Dalston has never really been one of my regular haunts. I once worked in this part of London and in those days it was very run down, more or less forgotten and not on most people's list of places to visit. More recently friends, Time Out (what a disaster that is since it went free) and a couple of really good arts venues have persuaded me to give it another try.

Dalston now boasts an excellent jazz venue (The Vortex), a really good theatre with an interesting programme (The Arcola) - and more of those later, but the real jewel in the crown for me is the elegant art deco Rio Cinema on Kingsland High Street. Opened in 1937, the Rio has been entertaining Dalston residents since then, not only with Hollywood hits, but also with a range of less mainstream movies. It also boasts annual Turkish and Kurdish film festivals, fitting nicely with the very substantial Turkish and Kurdish speaking communities in and around Dalston.

The Rio replaced an earlier cinema - the Kingsland Palace established by one Sarah Ludski. Ms. Ludski was the proprietor of an auction hall which she had turned into a 175 seater cinema in 1913. The current building has seen mixed fortunes over the years, with periods of closure, periods of serving as an "adult movie" venue and even a brief time operating as a strip club (!) before a group of local people formed to rescue the cinema, raise money to refurbish it and opened it in its current form in 1997. The Rio is grade 2 listed. And it's lovely.

Entrance to the Rio Cinema, Kingsland High Street.



Gillett Square lies just off Kingsland High Street. It is home to the Dalston Culture House, originally planned as a vibrant arts centre and at one point discussed as a possible location for a new library. I am not sure that the Culture House has fulfilled its original purpose, but it is home to the Vortex Jazz Club, which once "lived" in nearby Stoke Newington. The Vortex is an intimate space with an excellent programme of high profile jazz artists including Ian Shaw, Norma Winstone and a plethora of other UK jazz stars. There are also specialist nights with "world music" performances including a regular gypsy/ Eastern European gig.

 I saw the excellent Ms. Winstone perform there earlier this year as well as enjoying Daphna Sadeh and the Voyagers at one of the world music evenings. This is a little diamond for jazz lovers in this part of London. The crowd is quite mixed with a solid local base but also with people travelling from across London due to the quality of the programme. It is also a bit "old Dalston" and you can sometimes see the occasional person with short hair, dungarees and the de rigeur keffiyeh (yawn) asking for people to sign a petition against the Council before the concert starts!

The Vortex, Gillet Square



Dalston Lane is a an area showing real signs of improvement. Much of this is driven by the fact that the new Dalston Junction London Overground station is located here - ending once and for all the pleas for the London Borough of Hackney to have a tube station. It has more than one now as there are other stations on this line that fall within the borough boundaries. Actually, Hackney always did have a tube station - one of the exits of Manor House station on the Piccadilly Line is on the Hackney side of the road. Admittedly not terribly useful to most Hackney residents, but Hackney nonetheless - I suppose it spoiled the story to admit to its existence.

Dalston Lane also boasts a new library - the replaced CLR James (the cricket and political writer - not Councillor James as many people seem to think) library, which is about 100 times better than the building it replaced and which has a good cafe. A little further along the road is an independent cafe that lacks a name (or at least a name sign - pictured below). Good coffee, great home made cakes and a nice atmosphere. Recommended.

Cafe without a name, Dalston Lane



Just across the road from the library, you can see one of Dalston's best known and most iconic images - the Peace mural. Painted by Ray Walker and Mike Jones and unveiled by the former (and now deceased) MP, and one time GLC member, Tony Banks in October 1985, it is based on an image from the 1983 Hackney Peace Carnival. It depicts the Soviet Union - United States nuclear stand off and is very much of its time, even boasting a "nuclear free zone" sign. Of course as there were no nuclear bombs in Hackney, then  Hackney would have been OK should the Russians ever have turned up. However, it has given a much needed touch of colour and brightness to a part of Dalston that was blighted for many years. A narrow passage beside the mural leads into the Dalston Curve Garden - an open space with a small cafe, stone pizza making and open garden, providing a quiet and green oasis in this most urban of areas.

Detail from the peace mural



Ashwin Street lies just off Dalston Lane. It is really a back lane that has become the focus of much of the arts driven activity of the new Dalston. The catalyst for this was the renovation of the old "Reeves and Sons ltd, artists colour manufacturers" founded in 1766. Lovingly restored, it draws visitors from Dalston Lane with its exquisite external decorative detail including blue and gold mosaic lettering and backgrounds. The building now houses a range of small businesses, a bohemian cafe and the Arcola Theatre. Interestingly, this building was also once considered as a possible new home for the library...its good to see something eventually came of all those discussions and that the two sites previously considered are also thriving.

Cafe Oto attracts a diverse clientele, with a fair share of plum voiced folk on the day I visited - sipping various types of coffee and pushing the very tasty cakes and cookies from one side of their plate to the other whilst speaking just loudly enough to let neighbours known they had "done the fringe" this year. Perhaps evidence of a changing community in the new Dalston or adventures staying close to the station - just in case. As I was getting ready to leave a lunchtime menu of Persian themed food was being distributed. It looked good and the prices seemed OK too. Might come back to try it. They also have a programme of performances and occasional exhibitions.

The Reeves building, Ashwin Street



The Arcola Theatre is the main occupant of the old building, having moved from further up Dalston Lane. It has a good programme, often featuring new material as well as revivals, workshops and a small cafe-bar. I have seen two performances there this year Purge and The Smell of Sweet Success which I saw this weekend - and may yet write about. The theatre has undergone more renovation recently and the new auditorium is comfortable and worked well for what should really be a larger stage performance. In December, they are helping Kali Theatre celebrate their 21st birthday with two productions- Kabaddi Kabaddi, a new drama about sport and a revival of Shelley Silas' Calcutta Kosher which I saw a few years ago at Stratford East and liked very much. Both are scheduled for short runs - go and see at least one of them!

So has my opinion of Dalston changed? I went there a few days ago to take some photographs. I was enjoying myself until I stopped for a moment to take some pictures of the Rio Cinema. Within a minute I had been approached by an aggressive beggar who was so drunk he couldn't string a sentence together and he was followed by a young man who accused me of taking his photograph - despite being somewhat un-photogenic. Yes, things are much better than they once were...but still a little rough around the edges.

Matthew Bourne's Play Without Words - revived at Sadler's Wells

Matthew Bourne's Play on Words, his take on the 1960's Robert Maugham novella and Joseph Losey film, The Servant, is currently being revived at Sadler's Wells by his New Adventures company.

I saw the 2002 version at the National Theatre and was thrilled that Mr. Bourne had once again created something fresh, exciting and innovative, following on from his successes with his takes on Swan Lake, The Nutcracker and Carmen. Ten years later, Play Without Words retains the magic I remember from the first time around and is still gripping, holding the audience in its palm as the story plays out.

As with the novella and the film, Play Without Words tells the story of rich boy Anthony, his relationship with fiancee Glenda but more importantly with the manservant Prentice and the housemaid Sheila. In this version, each of the main characters is played by three dancers - who are all on stage at the same time, and are thus able to show the passage of time as well as providing a fantastic visual experience. The story is extremely dark and shows the balance of power shifting between the different characters and classes. In the early scenes, Prentice does everything for Anthony, including dressing him and applying his deodorant, but this quickly turns into dependancy that allows the manservant to turn the tables and to exercise a dark power himself.

The use of servants as characters to illustrate the power struggle between classes is very much of the time the novella and the film first appeared (the book was published in 1948 and the film came out in 1963) - but the principle is still relevant today showing the dependency of one level of society, or individual, on another and how easily the relationship can be manipulated. But stronger than this is the message that desire, including forbidden desire, can be used to bring down those in positions of power or to gain influence over them. Anthony makes advances to Sheila as well as there being distinctly sexual overtones of the relationship between Anthony and Prentice. It is important to remember that the Profumo Scandal  was contemporaneous to the film version.

This story in all of its formats has a star-studded history. The film starred Dirk Bogarde as the manservant in what became a signature piece for him, with Edward Fox as Anthony, Wendy Craig as the fiancee and Sara Miles in her second film as the housemaid (for which she won a BAFTA). Not a bad line up! As if this wasn't enough, the screenplay was written by Harold Pinter. Bogarde was at his peak during this period, tackling difficult social issues, including in Victim which debuted in 1961 and is said to have influenced the Wolfenden Act of 1967.

Back to the performance. The soundtrack is excellent, with original music by Terry Davies, the score includes some great jazz moments, not least those performed by Mark White on trumpet and Sarah Homer on clarinets and tenor saxophone, but more than this, the soundtrack really sets the mood for the performance, perhaps even outshining that of the movie which was itself significant and included compostions by Johnny Dankworth and a recurring theme sung by Cleo Laine.

I loved the references to the 1960's - the conversation between Mrs Peel and John Stead when Anthony is watching The Avengers on TV, the re-creation of the Salisbury Pub from the 1960's for some of the more sleazy scenes and even the use of Dusty Springfield's I Only Want to be With You for the audience to exit to. The Salisbury is a particularly clever inclusion as the pub also featured in Victim, and was indeed a well known haunt for gay men, prostitutes and other "outsiders" pre the Wolfenden Act. The Salisbury is still there today but is more of a tourist attraction these days with the air of risk having long disappeared. The 1960's are also referenced in other ways. The very clever set includes a backdrop of Soho sleaze signs from that daring decade and of course the sharp suits and Mary Quant styles worn by the female members of the cast all look back to that period.

The audience at Sadler's Wells is a young audience-  and that's a good thing. Many of them will not "get" the references to the 60's in this piece and I suspect many of them will not know of the movie or the novella - although both are referred to in the excellent programme (!), but that doesn't seem to matter as the performance visibly captured the audience's imagination for what seemed like a very speedy one and three quarter hours. If you haven't seen it already then hurry - its only on until 5th August!

Torch Song Trilogy - a very hot evening in the Menier Chocolate Factory

I first saw Torch Song Trilogy - the movie - more than 20 years ago at the pre-rennovation and pre-extension Ritzy Cinema in Brixton. I have seen it several times since then and have never been able to imagine this story without Harvey Fierstein or Ann Bancroft taking the roles of Arnold and his mother. The voices, the facial expressions, the one-liners...for me, they are Arnold and his mother.

I saw the stage version for the first time recently at the Menier Chocolate Factory. Any worries I had about not being able to accept other actors in these roles were soon swept away, with outstanding performances from Sara Kestelman in the role of the mother and Perry Millward as David, the teenager who comes into Arnold's care, as well as an endearing performance from David Bedella as Arnold.

It took me a little time to settle into the stage play as my memories from the film are so vivid, but shortly through the first scene as Arnold is applying his "female impersonator" persona I began to be drawn in to this reading of the story. At least one "official" review of the play has remarked that the drag queen theme is dated and somehow irrelevant to the 21st century. Well I don't know about that but my reading of it was that Arnold was applying a mask that many gay men and women had (and have) to wear in order to survive. This theme continues throughout the play with the fresh faced Joe McFadden as Ed unable to remove his "mask" and face up to who he really is, whilst from a different perspective we see Arnold's mother desperate for her son to "...just not talk about it..."

Torch Song Trilogy is a bitter-sweet story with many moments of humour that had the audience roaring. The quick fire exchange between Arnold and his mother and Arnold and David stood out, and who could help but be amused by the mother's statement "If I had ever talked to my mother the way you just talked to me, you'd be looking at a woman with a size ten wedgie sticking out of her forehead". Class.

But there are lots of tears too. I always have to steel myself up for the cathartic confrontation between Arnold and his mother where all masks are finally stripped away as she gives voice to her real feelings that he has " a sickness" and that he caused his father's illness and death. Arnold's response is equally cathartic - he loves her but if she can't respect him she has no business being in his home. My friend Louise brought tissues because this part always make her cry. I first saw the movie with Louise all those years ago - she cried then too.

The David character was much more alive for me in this production than in the film. Zanily portrayed by Perry Millward who displayed the right mixture of bravado and vulnerability as the tough talking street kid, equally able to charm, annoy and amuse and to represent hope for the future.

I liked Douglas Hodge's direction. The Menier is an intimate venue and seemed right for this production, where we are in Arnold's changing room, in various bedrooms and in a bar where people don't go for the conversation. There were also some nice touches with pictures of Billie Holiday on Arnold's changing room mirror and the bunny rabbit slippers so loved from the movie, which are echoed in the apartment's wall paper! But Douglas, I preferred the songs in the movie - Arnold will forever remind me of Ella's recording of "This Time The Dreams On Me" - any chance of using it here?

Some of the press reviews of this production have been less than complementary, some suggesting that the theme of the play is outdated, that many of the issues it deals with are no longer problematical and that the world is more accepting and tolerant generally. It is certainly true that in many countries significant progress has been made, progress that was only dreamt about when this play was first performed.  However, its also true that a member of the Italian football team can still say publicly that he hopes that there are no gay men in his team, its still possible for a gay man to be beaten to death crossing the Thames between the South Bank and the Embankment and of course its still possible to be beheaded, stoned to death, hung from a crane or thrown from cliffs in Iran, Saudi Arabia and a number of other countries.

One small complaint. The Menier had a full house which is good. The heat was searing. Good for recreating a New York summer for the setting of the play. Terrible for the audience. We need air cooling or it may be appropriate to stage only Tennessee Williams plays in future. Just a thought.

Long Day's Journey Into Night

Last night at the Apollo Theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue I saw what my friend Matthew described as "a journey into the depths of human misery". He wasn't joking. Eugene O'Neill's "Long Day's Journey Into Night", completed in 1941, is a torturous visit into the darkness of an Irish-American family, based to a large extent on O'Neill's own experiences.


The play centres on the Tyrone family; father James one time great actor haunted by the shocking poverty of his childhood; his wife Mary, in the terminology of the day is a "dope fiend" addicted to morphine after being treated by a quack doctor during childbirth; older son James Junior a heavy drinking womanising spendthrift and Edmund the younger son, also a heavy drinker and suffering from what was then known as "consumption".


All are haunted by childhood experiences. The father, convincingly played by David Suchet cannot escape the fear of returning to the poverty of his childhood and despite declaring "I am not a miser", he is one. His miserliness is the root of many of the family's problems, opting for the cheap doctor to treat his wife with a morphine "cure" and choosing to send Edmund to a state hospital rather than a more expensive better equipped facility. James Junior is haunted by the childhood experience of seeing his mother inject morphine for the first time and the realisation of what was wrong with her.


Mary is also deeply troubled. She can't forgive herself for the death of a child that came between her two sons but also blames James Junior for the child's death from a childhood disease passed between the children. Mary is also resentful of her younger son as the morphine "treatment" followed his birth and she openly says that if he hadn't been born she would not be an addict.


The characters veer from vicious, violent, hatred towards each other to deep affection and reconciliation, often in a very short space of time and all seem trapped in a cycle of recrimination and blame. There is much symbolism in the play. The father refuses to have more than one light bulb burning at a time  - "why make the electricity company rich?" he regularly asks. The darkness is real and physical but also symbolic of not wishing to see things as they really are and of hiding from the truth. His need to constantly acquire additional property is symptomatic of his fear of being made homeless again as he was twice in his childhood. His being trapped into continuing his destructive and isolating behaviour is referred to in his comments about playing the same role night after night for many years, telling Edmund that no-one wanted to see him in any other role. In life as on the stage. 


Isolation and loneliness are key themes in the play. Both James Senior and Mary speak of being lonely. Mary combats the loneliness through drinking with the maid Cathleen, cheekily played by Rosie Sansom, before casting her off once the effect of the morphine kicks in telling her she doesn't need her anymore. James tells Edmund he has been lonely sitting up waiting for his sons to come home once Mary has gone to the spare room to roam about through the night as she drifts further away from them. James Junior visits a brothel and chooses the fattest prostitute threatened with dismissal for being unpopular so that he can have company and because she too is lonely. There is no end to or escape from loneliness for any of them.


The play follows a single day in the life of the family. It does not resolve any of their issues and the final scene sees the four of them looking into the audience each with their own pain, loneliness and fears. Perhaps Mary best sums up their weaknesses in the second act she when she says "None of us can help the things life has done to us. They're done before you realise it, and once they're done they make you do other things until at last everything comes between you and what you'd like to be and you've lost your true self forever''.


O'Neill never intended the play to be performed and also gave express instructions that it should not be published until 25 years after his death. He died in 1953 and his estranged third wife, Carlotta Montery inherited the rights to his works. She chose to disregard his wishes and eventually had the play published by Yale University press in February 1956. The first production of the play took place the same month in Stockholm, performed in Swedish at the Royal Dramatic Theatre which had already staged several of his other works. The Swedes apparently felt his work was similar to that of Strindberg and knew him well enough from his Nobel Prize for literature awarded in 1936. Perhaps they liked the constant references to the fog outside the house! The first English production took place on Broadway in 1956.


O'Neill described Long Day's Journey Into Night as a "...play of old sorrow, written in tears and blood". Much of the play relates to his own and his family's experiences. Like James Senior, he purchased the rights to a play "The Count of Monte Cristo" and became typecast, unable to escape the role, was no longer offered classical roles and slipped into regret and bitterness. It is believed that Mary Tyrone was partly based on Carlotta Monterey who liked to regale friends with love-hate tales of her relationship with O'Neill in the same way Mary veers from love to hate in her feelings for her sons.


Good performances from the already mentioned David Suchet and from Kyle Soller in the role of Edmund, the only "hope" for the future - but even this is lost when his consumption is confirmed. Not for the feint hearted or the easily depressed, but this is a great and moving play. Three hours in length (including the interval) it demands concentration but quickly draws the audience into the web of the Tyrone family and involves us in their journey into darkness. 

A Bit of Drama

The Cameri Theatre in Tel Aviv has an international reputation for staging high quality, cutting edge drama and some innovative takes on selected classic musicals. Over the years I have seen a number of great plays there  - Ghetto, The Warm Family, Was it a Dream, Havdala and a fantastic Hebrew production of Fiddler on the Roof.

Before you get too impressed, please note that I attended performances with English surtitles.  The Cameri has a couple of performances with this facility most weeks, which is great for those of us who are not (yet) fluent in Hebrew. On my recent visit to Tel Aviv I managed to see two performances - a revival of the musical Cabaret, immortalised in Bob Fosse's 1972 movie version, and Aristocrats, an Israeli drama by Edna Mazya. Mazya incidentally also authored the aforementioned Was it a Dream - perhaps the best play I have seen at the Cameri.

Cabaret was staged in the theatre's main auditorium and is one of Tel Aviv's current hottest tickets. I have seen two other productions of Cabaret - the 2006-8 London revival with Tom Dreyfus and Sheila Hancock outstanding as the Emcee and Fraulein Schneider, and a student version in Bangkok (!) in 2001, which was surprisingly good if a little "displaced" with the songs being sung in Thai.

The current Cameri version is a triumph. For me it compares very favourably with the London version referred to above, with excellent performances from newcomer Ola Schur-Selektar in the role of Sally Bowles and veteran Miki Kam in the role of Fraulein Schneider. (Hear Ola singing a Leah Goldberg lyric here). Ola Schur-Selektar was convincing as the self-obsessed, lonely, thoughtless and ultimately sad Sally Bowles. Her voice is extremely powerful and worked especially well in the big show stopping number "Maybe this time" (hear Liza Minelli's performance here), which was heartbreakingly sad as those of us who know the story knew that "this time" wasn't going to end well either. Miki Kam was endearing in the role of the, not quite prim and proper Fraulein Schneider and I am told that some years ago she played the Sally Bowles role, so this was a nice touch.

Aki Avni as Cliff Bradshaw, the erstwhile narrator in the movie, and based on Christopher Isherwood, author of the two novels that the play references "Goodbye to Berlin" and "Mr Norris changes trains" was good, but the real star of the show was Itay Tiran, outstanding as the Emcee. By turns amusing and  threatening, captivating throughout, his character holds a mirror up to German society in this period, showing the acceptance and approval of, or compromises it made with evil and the devastating finale of this period. He is not a character for good, but is the only one facing up to what is really happening around him.

Another good performance came from Motti Katz in the role of Max. We see Max at the beginning of the play, using Cliff to smuggle goods into Germany and are encouraged to think of him as a good hearted villain as he helps Cliff secure lodgings and shows him a good time in Berlin. But we also witness his slide into acceptance of Nazism, taking advantage of the opportunities it offers him for financial gain and the vicious turn this takes as he moves on to visiting violence on former friends. This descent into darkness is also played out at the engagement party of  Fraulein Schneider and Herr Schultz, who happens to be Jewish. When Max realises that Schultz is a Jew he tells the Fraulein the she can't and mustn't marry him, whilst Fraulein Kost (convincingly played by Irit Kaplan), lodger and hooker, leads the party in a chilling rendition of the Nazi song "Tomorrow belongs to me". Chilling, as she begins singing alone and one by one the guests step forward to join her in the song, leaving Schultz, Schneider, Sally and Cliff looking on. All this whilst they drink the wine, eat the food and enjoy the hospitality of Herr Schultz.

As ever, the songs are truly great and all are well performed, with a few clever plays on words, inserting Hebrew rhymes into songs sung partly in German and English. For those of you who know Hebrew, you might be amused by the witty rhyming couplet of one of Sally's songs "Farewell my liebe herr, lehitraot haver (להתראות חבר) which seemed to catch the attention of a large part of the audience. And speaking of the songs, the "chorus", that is the dancing girls and boys of the kit kat club were truly excellent, glamorous, funny, raucous and convincing in their roles as "entertainers" for which read prostitutes. (That's meant as a compliment by the way!). Anyone living in or visiting Tel Aviv during the run of this production MUST go to see it!

Aristocrats was something very different. A fast moving, one act play lasting just 90 minutes, it told the story of the Ben-Canaan family from the 1950's through to the 1970's. Parents Yair and Hagar are committed Zionists, working hard to build the state, serving in the army, representing the country overseas to raise much needed funds and in the case of Yair eventually serving as a government minister. All laudable you might say, but playwright Mazya shows this to be at the expense of their children - Oz and Debby who are left on the kibbutz whenever the parents are away (which is often) and also Yair's gay brother Rudi.

Rudi is a failed business man, trying to recreate his former Berlin fur business in steaming hot Tel Aviv, running up debts and getting into trouble with gangsters. Persuaded by Hagar, Yair eventually bails him out but only on condition he marry and live a "normal" life, so as not to embarrass the family. Married off to the inconvenient and unstable Helena, a young Holocaust survivor, he is unable to cope and commits suicide. Yair forbids his name to be mentioned or for him to be discussed ever again.

Wind forward to the 1970's and Yair is at the height of his career in Government, son Oz (extremely well played by Ido Rosenburg) is gay, living in America and has a career as a dancer and daughter Debby is a left wing journalist campaigning for Palestinian causes and in conflict with her father. The denouement of the play comes with a what could be seen as a double act of betrayal as Debby becomes involved with a terrorist organisation and Yair, turns her in to the security services. Yair is struck down with a stroke that removes his ability to speak and although reconciled to his son, turns his back on his daughter.

The play deals with issues on a macro and a micro level. The problem of communication between generations is clearly played out as is the challenge of communication between political enemies, but I found the issues presented a little too obviously and without acknowledgement or examination of the motives of the parents. Hagar, the mother, has a moment of truth when she admits that she thought of her children as an inconvenience, which is brave and probably true, but I felt that the play dealt harshly with the generation that had to literally, fight to establish a safe homeland and to develop a modern society from very little. Worth seeing but I left feeling I needed more explanation.

One of the quirky things I like about the Cameri is that if you go to an evening performance, when you leave, there is almost always a bagel seller outside, shouting "bagelim, bagelim" which is infinitely nicer than being assailed by the dreadful stench of hot dog and hamburger carts in central London late at night. There are also often extremely good musicians playing in the square after performances. I have a lasting memory of leaving a play a few years ago to discover many couples - several of them in their 60s and beyond - dancing to the trad-jazz/ kezmer inflected "Midnight in Moscow". I'd like to stand in Red Square at midnight and listen to this...but then I'm a bit of a romantic.