Catherine Bennett resumes the weekly look at the performing arts world, with the sad end of Jerusalem, the luck of a cabbie, and French revolt. Do you hear the people sing?
Adam Alcock reviews Nigel Kennedy playing Vivaldi's Four Seasons and his own Four Elements at York Opera House.
Catherine Bennett highlights the trends in the performing arts world today.
Jonathan Cridford reviews 'Ghosts', one of the Freshers' plays for this year.
In an ambitious attempt to perform an adaptation of Malory’s Le Morte D’Arthur before the Royal Shakespeare Company take their version to the stage in June, The Lords’ of Misrule presented a self confessed, somewhat slapstick approach to one of the great fourteenth century texts.
Le Morte D’Arthur, adapted to this version for the stage by director Tom ‘Strasz’ Straszewski combines a mixture of the originals text’s Middle English with modern references and quips. An ambitious idea because of both the language and the volume of Malory’s original; the plot, while following the most well known legend of King Arthur, was chaotic and a little too full. It seemed to make up for lack of wit and content in the lines, with too much action and over-the-top acting. While hard to see how it could have been altered without making the play into a Monty Python sketch; some of the witty humour, apparent in the bibliographies in the program, was sadly lacking, making many of the aspects of physical humour fall flat to audience members who couldn’t appreciate a friend making a fool of themselves on stage.
While the enthusiasm of the cast did shine through to an audience seemingly made up of almost all friends and family, some of the characters added one-liners, while being funnier than the apparently scripted laughs, did appear to throw other character a little off guard. Galahad’s (Robert Sager) remark to Lancelot (Brad Kirkland) that he would always remember what Lancelot had taught him: ‘bros before hoes,’ being one of several examples. It was lines like this, however, which kept the somewhat overly long production going.
Produced fairly obviously by a group of friends, the sense of community spirit did shine through in the costumes and the set. The cast utilised the available space well and some of the props, such as the round table, were both well made and intentionally amusing. Some of the characters however were extremely difficult to understand, a point even alluded to in one of Sager’s apparently unscripted lines.
Overall, while some of the audience did seem to find it hilarious and some of the jokes were funny, the first few times: my names is Launcelot du Lake (insert female sigh here), there is a limited amount of times that this can be uttered to everyone’s amusement. The play could have been more successful with a bit more time devoted to the script and a better idea of the purpose of the play – as the mixture between a serious work and a humorous one didn’t really work.
A review of the professional adaptation:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2010/jun/06/rsc-morte-d-arthur
Intriguing to find that the 'blend of gravity and absurdity' is familiar to both, although I doubt the RSC will have quite the levels of ad libbing that the Lords hit on their last night.
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