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Exhibition Review: Sleeping and Dreaming at the Wellcome Collection

January 1, 2008 / Natalie / 3 Comments

by Natalie Bennett

The exhibition “Sleeping and Dreaming” at the Wellcome collection has much to delight the amateur scientist and collector of trivia. Did you know that lack of sleep changes your blood chemistry? That laudanum was invented by Paracelsus? That some of the first resuscitation devices – there’s one here from 1774 – involved tobacco being blown into the body via the rectum?

There’s also much to please the amateur psychologist. Did you know that roughly every second dream contains bizarre elements? That sexual dreams seem less common than is generally supposed? (Whatever is commonly supposed.) That women dream as often of men as women, but men dream more of men?

Yet this is also an art exhibition, from the traditional sculpture, “The Yawner” by Messerschidmt, part of a set of 100 heads showing all human emotions and moods, to distinctly modern work, such as Nils Klinger’s 2003
“The sleepers” photos – with an exposure as long as candle takes to burn down, so the movements of sombolence are mapped into one space.
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Comedy Review: Stewart Lee – 41st Best Stand-Up Ever at the Soho Theatre

December 23, 2007 / Natalie / 0 Comments

By Robert Bain

When I last saw Stewart Lee perform in 2005, he was even more bitter than usual – worn down by the self-appointed defenders of religion who took issue with ‘blasphemous’ hit show Jerry Springer: The Opera.

The unlikely target of his vitriol was Joe Pasquale – who stands at the opposite end of the comic spectrum from the boundary-pushing Lee. After accusing Pasquale of plagiarising other comedians’ jokes, Lee spent considerable time building up to a punchline so vile, offensive and (if you believe in the concept) blasphemous, that Pasquale could never steal it.

It’s a relief to find Lee has calmed down somewhat in the intervening two years. However, one can surmise from this show’s title (a reference to a recent Channel 4 list programme) and that of his DVD, Stewart Lee: 90s Comedian, that he retains his unhealthy preoccupation with not being as famous as other, lesser, comics, or as famous than he once was himself.

As he points out, he’s pushing 40, it’s 17 years since he won a ‘New Act of the Year’ award, and yet he’s still playing a venue for ‘up and coming’ talent.
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Theatre Review: God in Ruins by the RSC at the Soho

December 14, 2007 / Natalie / 0 Comments

By Robert Bain

Christmas entertainment can be pretty iffy. There are so many people to please and boxes to tick that the music, TV and theatre we’re served up at this “most wonderful time of the year” often ends up either as dull as a brussels sprout or as annoying as a coffee mug that plays “Jingle Bells”. Anthony Neilson and his crew have done well then, in just six months, to come up with a new play that knocks the stockings of most festive offerings.

God in Ruins was commissioned by the RSC and developed by Neilson with a cast of eleven male actors from the RSC’s ensemble. Its slightly odd form reflects the way it came about – by a bunch of blokes messing around for a while. It’s something of a hodgepodge, but it works rather well.

The starting point is A Christmas Carol, and the play begins where Dickens left off, with Bob Cratchit trying to avoid the reformed Scrooge, who has become unbearably jolly. We are then introduced to a modern-day Scrooge in the shape of Brian (played by Brian Doherty – one of several actors using his real first name), an alcoholic whose ex-wife won’t let him see his daughter on Christmas Eve.

From this point on the scenes change quickly and it’s not always totally clear if what we’re seeing is supposed to be real, a dream, a play within a play… Not that it ever matters because the whole thing is so much fun, and the overarching themes hold it all together just enough. With the help of a tiresomely upbeat Scrooge, Brian embarks on a bizarre journey to find his daughter and redeem himself, revisiting memories and confronting ghosts, Christmas Carol-style.
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A central London escape: the Phoenix Garden

By Natalie Bennett

Sometimes Soho and Covent Garden can all be just a bit much – the crowded pavements, the jostling crowds, the cars bullying their way through the scrum, the lines of buses. You might love it, but also need a five minute breather for it.

And you can get it, in an astonishing quiet and peaceful little corner of community-preserved peace: The Phoenix Garden, just off the bustle of Shaftesbury Road.

It is not a public park, but a little oasis of maintained by a volunteer trust and open from 8.30am to dusk 365 days of the year. As you might expect on workday lunchtimes even it can get a bit hectic, but most of the rest of the time you’ll be sure to be able to rest your legs as you sprawl on a comfy bench, watching the bees buzz and the birds flock.

Even today, in the midst of December’s cold and rain, it boasted a flock of 20 or so remarkably contented-looking sparrows, and I’m told that notable other regulars are a pair of kestrels who drop in regularly, and a woodpecker who last year nested in one of the old trees.

It even boasts what are described as “the West End’s only frogs”, in a peace pool.

Should you not want rest, but a bit of exercise, every second Sunday there’s a community workday, to which anyway is welcome to contribute their efforts. I’ll definitely be going along, even if it isn’t until the weather gets just a touch warmer.

Music Review: The Tailors, The Borderline, Thursday 22 November

November 23, 2007 / Natalie / 0 Comments

By Robert Bain

Thursday night at the Borderline, and there’s a distinct tone of what I understand is called “Americana” by people who want to avoid any association with the term “country music”. I could have sworn we were just off the Charing Cross Road, but it feels like we’ve travelled back a few decades and are deep in the midwest.

As if to prove the point, the collection of Americana-tinged acts are preceded by the very British Jack Cheshire. He takes the stage alone to kick things off, armed with his acoustic guitar (probably the only one of tonight’s acts who doesn’t pronounce it “geet-tar”) and his flat English vowels.

He’s an unassuming, even slightly awkward figure, but he bashes out his melancholy songs with such conviction that he’s a joy to watch – it’s like seeing someone practising in their room when they think no-one else is there. In fact, Cheshire’s slurred singing style, nervous twitches and sudden excited outbursts between songs give the impression that he may be somewhat unhinged. In a good way.

It’s a shame he doesn’t get the audience he deserves before having to make way for the nights other, janglier acts.

Jangliest of all are the Desert Downtown, who look like they’ve got lost on the way to a ‘50s theme party. They serve up polished, foot-tappy country tunes with nice male-female harmonies – a little too nice, if anything.
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Theatre Review: The Lightning Field at the Oval House

November 23, 2007 / Natalie / 0 Comments

By Natalie Bennett

A couple have gone for a cultural trip come “weekend of decision about their future”, but one of them has deliberately complicated matters — perhaps with the aim of putting off the moment of decision — by inviting one each of their respectively divorced parents. It could be the set-up for a romantic comedy, with plenty of light innuendo, a few unfortunate misunderstandings, and a happily-ever-after ending.

It is the starting scenario of The Lightning Field, the new play by David Ozanich that has just had its European premiere at the Oval House Theatre in South London, in a Banner New York production. And there are plenty of laughs in this fast-moving one act production, but “light” it certainly isn’t – as you might expect from a production associated with the Shamelessboyz Theatre Company in London, which has previously presented work on some pretty confrontational topics.

The couple are Sam, a New York veterinarian who’s plunged into the depths of the gay scene, and Andy, his much younger partner who has to decide how he’s going to respond when the question is popped. And so there are plenty of “social issues” questions in the air for Gerrit, Sam’s country club-frequenting, hard-drinking father, and Lori, Andry’s ex-teen bride, now bitter divorcee, mother.

But Ozanich doesn’t fall for the obvious ploy of making this pair, who are getting perilously close to becoming a couple themselves, homophobic. Each seems entirely adjusted to their son’s homosexuality. What’s hanging over them, and their sons, are the scars of their own previously failed, traumatic relationships. Whatever the sexuality, it seems the problems are almost the same.
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