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 the middle of this grey wasteland sat the house, corner-on to the audience with two walls partially cut away to reveal the action. The building could be seen as either growing out of the rubbish that surrounded it, or disintegrating into it - an apt setting for a play so concerned with beginnings and endings. Bennett's Orwellian vision sees a mysterious, silent 'observer' arrive at the house of the elderly Craven couple, explaining, by a letter, that they have come to document the working class culture in "the last remaining back-to-back house in Leeds". What follows is an exploration of nostalgia, memory, social interaction and social change - with distinctly Beckettian touches of damaged characters (a blind husband and an increasingly senile wife) and the gradual encroachment of an eerie outside environment - the aforementioned grey setting creeps in as dust through the house's letterbox and key hole, and wheedles its way through the door as the grey suited 'observer'.
Even the most serious of subject matter is treated with deft comic touches.
Fortunately, however, this is an Alan Bennett play, which means that even the most serious of subject matter is treated with deft comic touches. The comic timing of this performance was nigh on perfect, with only a slightly over enthusiastic Mrs Clegg spreading it on a little too thickly. The play is riddled with dark humour, from the elderly couple's delusions over their daughter Linda's line of work (her vast expanses of leg and tiny, tight tops suggest that she may be more than a "personal secretary") to the wonderfully observed innocence of the wife in the face of her husband's irritation at her rapidly disintegrating memory. It is the interplay between husband and wife that was captured so successfully in this production: Peter Nolan and Gilly Tompkins, playing Connie and Wilf Craven, had the glances, frustration and sense of timelessness that pervades elderly couples perfected - and the explosive arrival of Linda (Katherine Dow Blighton, whom you might recognise as Sally Hunter from Hollyoaks) was worked brilliantly as both the return of the prodigal daughter and a whirlwind smashing through the house.
Throughout the play Bennett reaches an almost Shakespearean level of playing with the idea of the play, or being observed. Aside from the observer there is voyeuristic sex, the idea of 'keeping up appearances' and transvestitism. The most masterly example of this, though, is in the numerous false endings. Although the first half of the play ends exactly how it started, the second half could finish at one of any number of points, a brilliant reflection on the play's theme of one era ending and another beginning, and it is telling that it is only the complete dismantlement of the set that can finally bring the drama to a close.
This is a fantastic production of a rarely performed gem from one of Britain's most talented playwrights. Absolutely hilarious one moment, and totally poignant the next; Enjoy is a must-see this Autumn.
Enjoy runs until the 24th of November, student tickets are only £5 and are available from the Theatre Royal website or the box office on 01904 623568.
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