C01   1 <#FLOB:C01\><h_><p_>The world according to Sessions<p/><h/>
C01   2 <p_>THERE was a moment in the second half of John 
C01   3 Sessions's<&|>sic! <tf_>Travelling Tales<tf/> at the <tf_>Haymarket 
C01   4 Theatre<tf/> when the remarkable entertainer lost his way. He was 
C01   5 in the middle of a conversation between Gustav Mahler and Bob Dylan 
C01   6 (such bizarre encounters seem strangely natural in his surreal 
C01   7 world) and suddenly he realised he was repeating himself.<p/>
C01   8 <p_>With a smile, Sessions stopped, apologised and waited for a 
C01   9 lengthy prompt before proceeding on his merry way. In most shows, 
C01  10 such a gaffe would be an occasion of toe-curling embarrassment. 
C01  11 With Sessions it was endearing, offering reassuring proof that he 
C01  12 is human after all.<p/>
C01  13 <p_>The are those who profoundly dislike John Sessions, dismissing 
C01  14 him as an insufferable smart aleck. And it is easy to see why he 
C01  15 provokes such envious sniping.<p/>
C01  16 <p_>It seems unfair that one man should be blessed with so many 
C01  17 gifts - a great facility for mimicry, real erudition, a beguiling 
C01  18 stage presence and a magpie mind that seems equally at home amid 
C01  19 high art and naff pop songs. He is, I suppose, an 
C01  20 <*_>e-acute<*/>litist comedian. Much of the enjoyment lies in 
C01  21 spotting the cultural references, keeping up with 
C01  22 Sessions's<&|>sic! own racing intellect. For those who get left 
C01  23 behind, his shows must be a peculiarly dispiriting, even 
C01  24 humiliating experience.<p/>
C01  25 <p_>What saves him from the charge that he is little more than a 
C01  26 tiresome show-off is his warm enthusiasm. It is infectious, almost 
C01  27 child-like, drawing the audience into the conspiracy of his own 
C01  28 imagination. And that imagination is certainly at full stretch in 
C01  29 <tf_>Travelling Tales<tf/>.<p/>
C01  30 <p_>If the show isn't quite as impressive as his solo <tf|>Napoleon 
C01  31 show, seen at the West End a couple of years ago, it is because it 
C01  32 lacks a single unifying theme. Here Sessions takes on the whole 
C01  33 world and it is a touch too ambitious a subject even for him.<p/>
C01  34 <p_>We begin with God, seated on a step-ladder and lamenting the 
C01  35 pollution and destruction of the planet. Fears that this is going 
C01  36 to be an earnest lecture in Greenery are dispelled, however, with 
C01  37 the realisation that God is in fact Keith Floyd, uncorking another 
C01  38 bottle of wine and slurring instructions at his cameraman.<p/>
C01  39 <p_>From here the show spins dizzily out of control. In the 
C01  40 rainforest, tree frogs are auditioning for the cover of National 
C01  41 Geographic magazine just as Robert de Niro is leaving Manhattan for 
C01  42 the dubious delights of English pantomime, directed by one of 
C01  43 Sessions's<&|>sic! finest creations, the terminally camp Billy 
C01  44 Twinkle. Mahler and the young Hitler travel from Vienna of 1907 to 
C01  45 present-day America, and the ancient Greek heroes somehow get 
C01  46 entangled with the Bront<*_>e-umlaut<*/> family in Yorkshire.<p/>
C01  47 <p_>What's remarkable is that this lunacy all seems perfectly 
C01  48 logical during the show itself and it is only afterwards that you 
C01  49 find yourself rubbing your eyes with wonder as if awakened from 
C01  50 some fantastic dream. For as well as being a fine impersonator (he 
C01  51 does a 'monster' Nigel Kennedy impression), Sessions is a 
C01  52 first-rate story-teller. His dotty narrative is so compelling that 
C01  53 the audience is often reduced to attentive silence, despite the 
C01  54 many excellent jokes, hanging on to the story-line and genuinely 
C01  55 anxious to know what is going to happen next.<p/>
C01  56 <p_>And in the show's final scene, featuring Saddam Hussein, 
C01  57 Sessions creates a shiver of real evil, followed by the 
C01  58 far-from-reassuring news that God is going to take a holiday for a 
C01  59 century or so and is handing over to his deputy, Bob Monkhouse.<p/>
C01  60 <p_>It has to be said that <tf_>Travelling Tales<tf/> leaves a lot 
C01  61 of trailing loose ends, and the director, Tim Supple, might 
C01  62 usefully have suggested a few cuts. But as Sessions leaves the 
C01  63 stage at the end, his whole suit drenched in sweat after such 
C01  64 Herculean labours, only the most churlish could fail to respond to 
C01  65 such a prodigious and individual talent.<p/>
C01  66 
C01  67 <h_><p_>Ibsen's icy epic<p/><h/>
C01  68 <p_>THIS revival of Ibsen's <tf|>Brand at the <tf_>Aldwych 
C01  69 Theatre<tf/> is a rare attempt to stage what would surely have 
C01  70 been, had the wireless been invented in 1866, the first great radio 
C01  71 play. Like <tf_>Peer Gynt<tf/> it is a verse drama which was never 
C01  72 intended for performance, and it is not surprising that there have 
C01  73 been only three British revivals this century.<p/>
C01  74 <p_>The sheer scale of the piece seems to have scared off 
C01  75 directors. The evening requires a storm at sea, an avalanche and a 
C01  76 digestible translation for what was originally seven hours of 
C01  77 Norwegian rhyming verse.<p/>
C01  78 <p_>This icy epic poem (now down to three hours), which Peter Hall 
C01  79 once compared to a Bruckner symphony, comes loaded with Ibsen's 
C01  80 theme of the importance of conscience and individual will. Roy 
C01  81 Marsden has taken on the role of Pastor Brand, a totally 
C01  82 uncompromising figure who violently rebels against the pettiness 
C01  83 and evil of society and who is confronted every step of his way by 
C01  84 a series of agonising choices.<p/>
C01  85 <p_>The part requires a fire in the belly and the air of having 
C01  86 walked out of a poem by Shelley or an engraving by Blake. Brand 
C01  87 wanders about the frozen north like a human blowtorch, his voice 
C01  88 one of terrifying rebuke. His tragedy is that in all that thin air 
C01  89 he forgets how to love his own: he refuses his mother absolution on 
C01  90 her death bed, he allows his son to die of cold, and then takes 
C01  91 away mementos of the boy from his distraught mother.<p/>
C01  92 <p_>Everything and everyone is sacrificed to his all-or-nothing 
C01  93 fanaticism. Ibsen said that <quote_>"Brand was myself in my best 
C01  94 moments"<quote/>, which makes one wonder what he was like on an off 
C01  95 day.<p/>
C01  96 <p_>Marsden certainly looks the part of the eccentric divine in his 
C01  97 frock-coat, his bald dome fringed with long hair, nobly uttering 
C01  98 Robert David MacDonald's rhymed translation - a very fine piece of 
C01  99 work that manages to be satirical, epic and contemporary all at 
C01 100 once. Marsden's performance is impressive rather than inspiring, 
C01 101 but he is particularly good in public scenes where he galvanises 
C01 102 his parishioners or confronts the corrupt mayor (Ewan Hooper).<p/>
C01 103 <p_>More emotional weight is carried in the key domestic scenes in 
C01 104 which he and his wife Agnes (played by a demure Kim Thomson) share 
C01 105 what must be the bleakest Christmas in all drama.<p/>
C01 106 <p_>Roger Williams's<&|>sic! staging wisely opts for a bare stage 
C01 107 with Bernard Culshaw and John Bishop devising between them a set 
C01 108 which uses smoke and giant angular wedges of light. This gives the 
C01 109 whole a non-naturalistic feel, lending Ibsen's symbolism an 
C01 110 <foreign_>al fresco<foreign/> chill.<p/>
C01 111 <p_>In the end this is a long haul up the north face of a grimly 
C01 112 forbidding play. But then again there is something rather heroic 
C01 113 about the whole enterprise of staging this impossible classic in 
C01 114 the West End.<p/>
C01 115 <p_>ROBERT GORE-LANGTON<p/>
C01 116 
C01 117 <h_><p_>Gymnastic Ring<p/><h/>
C01 118 <p_>WITH Maurice B<*_>e-acute<*/>jart's predilection for creating 
C01 119 ballets of epic dimensions, Ring Round the Ring, given by the 
C01 120 Ballet of the Deutsche Oper Berlin at the Playhouse Theatre, 
C01 121 Edinburgh, comes as no surprise. It compresses Wagner's <tf|>Ring 
C01 122 into a long and intricate spectacle of dance, mime, staging and 
C01 123 sound a treatment B<*_>e-acute<*/>jart has meted out in the past to 
C01 124 the Faust legend and to Moli<*_>e-grave<*/>re and Baudelaire.<p/>
C01 125 <p_>The result this time - running at four and a half hours with 
C01 126 one interval - is therefore a test of stamina for performers and 
C01 127 audience alike.<p/>
C01 128 <p_>It is couched in B<*_>e-acute<*/>jart's free-thinking, 
C01 129 technically flexible and completely personal idiom. Inevitably, its 
C01 130 very ambitious intentions lead at times to confusion, obscurity and 
C01 131 an overspill of quixotic ideas. Br<*_>u-umlaut<*/>nnhilde's rock is 
C01 132 a grand piano, coloured Japanese fans indicate a rainbow, and the 
C01 133 court of the Gibichungs seems set in the 1930s.<p/>
C01 134 <p_>Male dancers have always dominated B<*_>e-acute<*/>jart's work 
C01 135 and there was fine and extremely varied dancing from Joakim 
C01 136 Svalberg (Siegfried), Martin James (Hagen) and Peter Schaufuss 
C01 137 (Alberich). Vladimir Damianov was an eccentric and comic Mime, 
C01 138 while the most arresting portrayal came from Bart de Block as Loge, 
C01 139 conceived as a virtuoso Master of Ceremonies.<p/>
C01 140 <p_>The three most felicitous passages, however, involved a woman - 
C01 141 Katarzyna Gdaniec as Br<*_>u-umlaut<*/>nnhilde. Her first duet, 
C01 142 with Patrick de Bana as Wotan, was complex emotionally as well as 
C01 143 physically. The second was a joyously lustful pas de deux with 
C01 144 Svalberg as Siegfried. The third, after Siegfried's death, with de 
C01 145 Block as Loge, was a splendidly fluent ballroom routine danced with 
C01 146 vitality and grace.<p/>
C01 147 <p_>Duplicating mirrors helped to lend interest to banal corps de 
C01 148 ballet choreography that never rose much above unison gymnastic 
C01 149 exercises, while the sound score was a medley of Wagner on tape, 
C01 150 on-stage piano, and declamation in German with occasional English 
C01 151 surtitles. The company, now directed by Schaufuss, made an 
C01 152 excellent impression as both able and admirably disciplined.<p/>
C01 153 <p_>KATHRINE SORLEY WALKER<p/>
C01 154 
C01 155 <h_><p_>Struggle with evil<p/><h/>
C01 156 <p_>FOR the English National Opera to have brought back Tim 
C01 157 Albery's 1988 production of Britten's <tf_>Billy Budd<tf/> to the 
C01 158 <tf|>Coliseum so soon after his harrowing new staging in April of 
C01 159 <tf_>Peter Grimes<tf/> was an astute piece of programme 
C01 160 planning.<p/>
C01 161 <p_>Presented in such close proximity, his productions of Britten's 
C01 162 two great sea-drenched operas emerge as probingly complementary in 
C01 163 their implacably dark, emotionally searing exploration of the 
C01 164 mutual attraction and simultaneous repulsion of good and evil that 
C01 165 brings about man's destruction.<p/>
C01 166 <p_>Each production has its own powerful, clearly defined identity, 
C01 167 yet they share at least one fundamental, crucially important 
C01 168 feature: both are stripped of any specific locale, their stories 
C01 169 set in universal, almost abstractly symbolic or even mythological 
C01 170 contexts.<p/>
C01 171 <p_>Underpinned by David Atherton's magnificent, grippingly 
C01 172 controlled and paced conducting, every aspect of the performance 
C01 173 seems to have deepened and matured in its first revival.<p/>
C01 174 <p_>In his singing and starkly intimidating presence, Richard Van 
C01 175 Allen's Claggart presents an authoritative portrait of the man of 
C01 176 natural depravity, of intellect without manliness, as Melville 
C01 177 described him in his original story, and sadness without 
C01 178 goodness.<p/>
C01 179 <p_>Philip Langridge's superbly sung and acted Captain Vere conveys 
C01 180 even more vividly than before the heavy weight of responsibility 
C01 181 that torments the conscience of the one whose unenviable task it is 
C01 182 to winnow the good from the associate evil that taints it.<p/>
C01 183 <p_>In his looks, natural manner and the mellifluous ease of his 
C01 184 singing, Peter Coleman-Wright is almost ideal as the serene, 
C01 185 unblemished Billy, the <quote_>"fond personification"<quote/>, 
C01 186 again in Melville's words,<quote_>" of perfect human goodness and 
C01 187 virtue"<quote/>.<p/>
C01 188 <p_>Indeed there is hardly a weak link, from the graphically 
C01 189 portrayed Redburn of David Wilson-Johnson in his ENO debut, Flint 
C01 190 of Paul Napier-Burrows and Novice of Barry Banks to the fervent 
C01 191 singing of the chorus.<p/>
C01 192 <p_>There will be nine further performances between now and the end 
C01 193 of the month of what is one of the ENO's finest achievements - it 
C01 194 should not be missed by anyone who cares for music theatre at its 
C01 195 most compelling.<p/>
C01 196 <p_>ROBERT HENDERSON<p/>
C01 197 
C01 198 <h_><p_>On the question of craziness<p/>
C01 199 <p_>MAO II<p/>
C01 200 <p_>by Don deLillo<p/>
C01 201 <p_>Cape, pounds14.99<p/><h/>
C01 202 <p_>DON DeLILLO's unerring critical intelligence and his sense of 
C01 203 the strange relationship between individual lives and the external 
C01 204 world have made him one of the questioners of American society: His 
C01 205 last novel, <tf|>Libra, built a whole structure of personal 
C01 206 craziness and wider conspiracy around the assassination of 
C01 207 President Kennedy, but the final effect was less one of explanation 
C01 208 than a reminder of how persistent complexity can be.<p/>
C01 209 <p_>DeLillo's 10th novel moves between private and public worlds in 
C01 210 a similar way, although with less brilliance. At its centre is Bill 
C01 211 Gray, a reclusive writer whose literary status grows in proportion 
C01 212 to his isolation, as he maintains an exaggerated privacy in a world 
C01 213 dominated increasingly by crowds. In the course of the book he is 
C01 214 drawn from this regulated New England safety into the fluid world 
C01 215 of international terrorism, on a journey which takes him via London 
C01 216 and Athens towards Beirut.<p/>
C01 217 <p_>One phrase from the book - <quote_>"it was hard to adapt to the 
C01 218 absence of sense-making things"<quote/> - conveys DeLillo's view of 
C01 219 a world where reality is constituted by its own media images, but 
C01 220 also highlights one of the novel's flaws. Unlike <tf|>Libra, where 
C01 221 an element of external plot brought a formally impressive linking 
C01 222 of the novel's disparate strands, <tf_>Mao II<tf/> hinges around 
C01 223 disintegration. The action becomes progressively dispersed and the 
C01 224 conclusion, although powerful in its way, fails to bring the book 
C01 225 together structurally.<p/>
C01 226 
C02   1 <#FLOB:C02\><h_><p_>You don't give no lip to Big John<p/>
C02   2 <p_>James Wood<p/>
C02   3 <p_>U and I: A True Story, by Nicholson Baker (Granta Books, 
C02   4 pounds12.99)<p/><h/>
C02   5 <p_>FREUD thought writers fortunate because, unlike most people, 
C02   6 they can make use of their fantasies and daydreams by turning them 
C02   7 into art. Nicholson Baker has produced two novels which do not so 
C02   8 much convert as enact daydream - its cartoonish logic, deep 
C02   9 inconsequentiality and mad focus. Out of the apparently small and 
C02  10 superficial, something enduring emerged. His latest book reaches 
C02  11 glorious new depths of shallowness.<p/>
C02  12 <p_>U And I is about literary love, about a young writer's 
C02  13 (Baker's) love - rivalrous, one-sided, hopeless, word-drunk - for 
C02  14 an old established pro (John Updike). This love is revealed in all 
C02  15 its permutations of pettiness: Baker envies Updike, adores him, 
C02  16 wants to usurp him, wants to play golf with him, indulges his 
C02  17 excesses, corrects his unkindnesses, strives to remain free of his 
C02  18 influence. Hardly a day has gone by in the last 15 years, says 
C02  19 Baker, when Updike has not occupied a thought or two. Baker lays 
C02  20 bare the young writer's embarrassing anxiety, spite and 
C02  21 childishness. And this <tf|>is an embarrassing book: reading it is 
C02  22 like watching an adolescent telephoning his first date. It is 
C02  23 utterly original. In the long heated history of writers struggling 
C02  24 with loved predecessors - Johnson on Milton, Proust and his 
C02  25 parodies, Lawrence on American fiction, James Baldwin on Richard 
C02  26 Wright - there has never been a book quite like this.<p/>
C02  27 <p_>Harold Bloom, whom Baker mentions but says he has not read, has 
C02  28 written about literature as an Oedipal battle of displacement: the 
C02  29 son must slay the father. Bloom spends much time tracing the 
C02  30 influence of predecessors on younger rivals. Look for what these 
C02  31 successors exclude or bury deep, says Bloom. Look for what they 
C02  32 repress. Baker, reacting against Bloom, does not hide his 
C02  33 repressions or bury them deep. He hauls them up, shining and 
C02  34 shameless. His book is thoroughly of its time. It strips away the 
C02  35 grandeur of literary rivalry and reveals its contemporary 
C02  36 pettiness. He admits to childish envy and vanity. He dreams about 
C02  37 Updike, admits to conducting imaginary interviews with the Paris 
C02  38 Review, considers applying for a Guggenheim because it is the only 
C02  39 grant that Updike has ever made use of. At a party, the writer Tim 
C02  40 O'Brien tells him that he goes golfing with Updike. Consumed with 
C02  41 envy, Baker stamps his foot: <quote_>"I was of course very hurt 
C02  42 that of all the youngish writers living in the Boston area, Updike 
C02  43 had chosen Tim O'Brien and not me as his golfing partner."<quote/> 
C02  44 After a digression on the uselessness of male friendship, Baker 
C02  45 admits to his only desire: <quote_>"And yet I want to be Updike's 
C02  46 friend now!"<quote/><p/>
C02  47 <p_>He has met John Updike twice. The two encounters are gripping, 
C02  48 hilarious and a little revolting. At the first, a book signing 
C02  49 session, he takes a book to Updike to sign. Slyly, Baker tells 
C02  50 Updike that he has recently been at the New Yorker office and has 
C02  51 seen that Updike has a story coming up. Updike, politely and 
C02  52 patiently, understanding the greasy etiquette, asks Baker what he 
C02  53 was doing at the New Yorker office. The younger writer announces 
C02  54 that he too has a story coming up. Updike asks for the date of 
C02  55 publication, and then says <quote|>"good". Baker and his mother 
C02  56 walk away with <quote_>"flushed, 
C02  57 what-new-fields-can-we-conquer-now? faces"<quote/>. At his second 
C02  58 meeting, at a Harvard party, Baker blocks Updike's exit from the 
C02  59 party, engages him in obsequious nothings, and then sees Updike 
C02  60 backing away from him, <quote_>"knowing the obligatory 
C02  61 praise-heaping and grovelling scene was coming"<quote/>. Baker asks 
C02  62 his girlfriend if she thinks he is a better writer than John 
C02  63 Updike. She tells him that Updike is a better writer, but that 
C02  64 Baker is smarter. He is crushed. His mother tells him, consolingly, 
C02  65 that he <tf|>will be a better writer than Updike. Baker faces the 
C02  66 terrible truth, in mock-italics: <quote_><tf_>"He writes better 
C02  67 than I do and he is smarter than I am ...<tf/> this observation 
C02  68 will surprise no one; it came, however, as quite a shock to 
C02  69 me."<quote/><p/>
C02  70 <p_>Above all, this delightful book is about the exquisite, 
C02  71 luxurious, sick-making challenge and seduction of <tf|>style. It is 
C02  72 a book about words, and about the envy by one who uses them well of 
C02  73 one who uses them consummately. It is impossible to imagine Baker 
C02  74 having this obsession about, say, Raymond Carver of Joyce Carol 
C02  75 Oates. In this sense, there is no better choice than John Updike. 
C02  76 Of all American writers he is the greatest and most infuriating 
C02  77 stylist. He stuffs his sentences with satiny cushions and padded 
C02  78 delights. His sentences have an easy plumpness which maddens the 
C02  79 young writer: one wants to be as good as him, but not <tf|>that 
C02  80 good. His elastic brilliance, his serene liquidity drives Baker 
C02  81 almost to despair. <quote_>"I wanted so much to have the assured 
C02  82 touch, the adjectival resourcefulness."<quote/> Repeatedly, Baker 
C02  83 confesses astonishment at Updike's almost seasonal prolificity 
C02  84 (<quote_>"A man so naturally verbal that he could write his memoirs 
C02  85 on a ladder"<quote/>). Indulgently, Baker corrects Updike, 
C02  86 especially for using adjectives like shivering, as in 
C02  87 <quote_>"shivering petrol"<quote/>, words <quote_>"slightly too 
C02  88 cutely anthropomorphising for their contexts."<quote/> He ticks 
C02  89 Updike off for criticising Nabokov for lacking suspense: 
C02  90 <quote_>"Updike is no master of cliffhanging himself 
C02  91 remember."<quote/> There is a comic disparity in all this: Baker 
C02  92 envies Updike for his serene, comprehensive, wise professionalism. 
C02  93 But Baker is himself frantic, flickering, partial.<p/>
C02  94 <p_>In the end, <foreign_>amor vincit<foreign/>: <quote_>"I find 
C02  95 that whenever I try to point out a flaw in his writing, I 
C02  96 fail."<quote/> Baker is moving on how, when he was writing his 
C02  97 first novel, Updike's slim perfect book, Of The Farm, was his 
C02  98 constant guide. Every day, he read a few pages before beginning his 
C02  99 own writing. <quote_>"It became the measure of all worth ... more 
C02 100 than once I had tears in my eyes ..."<quote/>, parts of it were 
C02 101 <quote_>"so fine that my competitiveness went away"<quote/>. This 
C02 102 is the catharsis of true love.<p/>
C02 103 <p_>For any writer or strong reader this book will delight. For 
C02 104 this particular reader, who might as well admit to a similar 
C02 105 obsession with Saul Bellow, this book spoke like a friend. Baker is 
C02 106 unique, but he is not alone. A man called Louis Gallo wrote a book 
C02 107 in the sixties a little like U And I called Like You're Nobody. It 
C02 108 was about a young writer's (Gallo's) joy at receiving a fan letter 
C02 109 from the great Saul Bellow, and how he ruined the friendship by 
C02 110 over-reacting, and sending mad and indiscreet letters back. When he 
C02 111 sent 30 pages of his journal, Bellow decided he'd had enough and 
C02 112 closed the correspondence. The end of the friendship made Gallo 
C02 113 wistful: <quote_>"You end where you begin,"<quote/> he writes, 
C02 114 <quote_>"like you're nobody."<quote/> The difference is that Baker 
C02 115 is no nobody. He is a fine writer. Twenty years ago Susan Sontag 
C02 116 asked for a new criticism, <quote_>"an erotics of 
C02 117 criticism"<quote/> - loving, staying close to the loved object, 
C02 118 sensitive to feeling. Baker, in his hilarious, embarrassing, insane 
C02 119 and moving way, has produced just that.<p/>
C02 120 
C02 121 <h_><p_>From Mad Max to the mad prince<p/>
C02 122 <p_>To see or not to see? Mel Gibson's Hamlet is not the 
C02 123 Shakespearean tragedy some critics feared, says <tf_>Derek 
C02 124 Malcolm<tf/> in his review of the new films<p/><h/>
C02 125 <p_>A FILM is a film and a play is a play. What is more, they have, 
C02 126 for the most part, entirely different audiences. This Franco 
C02 127 Zeffirelli understands better than most, as he did with Romeo and 
C02 128 Juliet. With <tf|>Hamlet (Odeon, Haymarket, U) he has produced a 
C02 129 version of Shakespeare that is very likely not to satisfy purists 
C02 130 (who may see no reason why Hamlet and his mum should be 
C02 131 incestuously inclined), but is attractive enough to look at and 
C02 132 simple enough to follow for a wider audience than would usually be 
C02 133 persuaded to pay good money to watch the Bard.<p/>
C02 134 <p_>In the eyes of this wider audience, of course, the bull point 
C02 135 about the film will be the presence as Hamlet of Mel Gibson, who 
C02 136 would pass as a poor man's Laurence Olivier only in the worst of 
C02 137 thunderstorms but has a following of almost lethal dimensions 
C02 138 compared with any classical actor one could name.<p/>
C02 139 <p_>He makes a plain-spoken, rather uncomplicated Hamlet who 
C02 140 sometimes seems scarcely to know what's hitting him but bravely 
C02 141 tries to mould fate to his own ends all the same. Which is not 
C02 142 necessarily a bad interpretation if only because it makes one look 
C02 143 past the character at the play itself.<p/>
C02 144 <p_>What we then find is a very attractive castle, bathed in 
C02 145 unfamiliarly good weather in which almost everybody is slowly going 
C02 146 mad, possibly because of over-familiarity with a score which for 
C02 147 Ennio Morricone is rather lacklustre.<p/>
C02 148 <p_><quote_>"You can't act madness, you can only suggest a lack of 
C02 149 normalcy"<quote/>, the estimable Anthony Hopkins said the other day 
C02 150 of his formidable Dr Lecter in Silence Of The Lambs. And it is to 
C02 151 the credit of Helena Bonham-Carter's sad little Ophelia that she 
C02 152 produces a mad scene that seems to have digested that lesson very 
C02 153 well.<p/>
C02 154 <p_>Ian Holm's Polonius is not so much dotty as nicely eccentric, 
C02 155 as if he's a man used to making even himself giggle but reasonably 
C02 156 trustworthy all the same, and Alan Bates' stolid King surveys the 
C02 157 scene with every hope that, amid the general dottiness, his own 
C02 158 guilty soul is unlikely to be noticed. Certainly not beside his 
C02 159 anxious wife (Glenn Close) whom I must confess reminded me more of 
C02 160 Lady Macbeth than any other Gertrude I have come across.<p/>
C02 161 <p_>All these are sound performances, with Close's perhaps the most 
C02 162 consistently watchable, though some of the auxiliaries only just 
C02 163 pass muster. They are, though, as pretty as the sets and many of 
C02 164 his admirers may possibly think Gibson's Hamlet even prettier.<p/>
C02 165 <p_>Certainly David Watkin's photography bathes everything in the 
C02 166 best possible light and Zeffirelli's conception, which is akin to 
C02 167 the kind of psychological thriller filmgoers will instantly 
C02 168 recognise, is funnier than usual and without its darker, more 
C02 169 complicated undertones. A Hamlet, in short, that is not the tragedy 
C02 170 some thought it might be and is, in consequence, making more money 
C02 171 on the American market than most would have suspected.<p/>
C02 172 <p_>Ken Loach's <tf|>Riff-Raff (National Film Theatre, with a run 
C02 173 from Friday) was one of David Puttnam's developments when head of 
C02 174 Columbia and, when he left, eventually became a Channel Four 
C02 175 project. It will be shown at the Director's Fortnight at Cannes, 
C02 176 where there isn't much doubt that it will be treated as film rather 
C02 177 than jumped-up television.<p/>
C02 178 <p_>And so this beguilingly artful piece of work by one of our best 
C02 179 directors should be, small budget or no. It is his most successful 
C02 180 for some time, a parable that's politically and socially relevant 
C02 181 but also immensely entertaining, like Mike Leigh's High Hopes. It's 
C02 182 sad that television will claim it so soon after Cannes.<p/>
C02 183 <p_> Set on a London building site where a group of itinerant 
C02 184 workers assemble under the orders of a hectoring ganger, it has all 
C02 185 Loach's unforced and unpatronising sympathy for the underdog and, 
C02 186 like most good comedies, a serious point to make. In fact, if 
C02 187 anyone is patronised it is possibly the audience, since just 
C02 188 occasionally its polemic sticks out like a sore thumb as if we 
C02 189 can't know what it is talking about - the greed and exploitation of 
C02 190 the past era - unless we are told in so many words.<p/>
C02 191 <p_>That, however, is my only criticism of Riff-Raff, which 
C02 192 otherwise orchestrates a fine set of players with an unerring feel 
C02 193 for the real truths of ordinary life at the lower end.<p/>
C02 194 <p_>The writer, Bill Jesse, who died before he could see the final 
C02 195 cut, tells his story through Stevie, a young Glaswegian just out of 
C02 196 Barlinnie prison, and Susan, the girl he falls for, a would-be 
C02 197 singer who will probably never quite get it together.<p/>
C02 198 <p_>In these parts, Robert Carlyle and Emer McCourt are excellent 
C02 199 but there are so many fine little cameos that it seems invidious to 
C02 200 single out anybody. This is ensemble playing at its best, and the 
C02 201 result is as impossible to dislike as it is for a one-legged cat to 
C02 202 bury a turd on a frozen pond.<p/>
C02 203 
C03   1 <#FLOB:C03\><h_><p_>Falstaff<p/>
C03   2 <p_>Theatre Royal, Glasgow<p/><h/>
C03   3 <p_>THIS may be Scottish Opera, but Ian Judge's new production of 
C03   4 Verdi's comedy is decisively English. Rather as he did with 
C03   5 <tf_>The Comedy of Errors<tf/> at Stratford last year, Judge has 
C03   6 created a world loud with mid-20th-century references, which 
C03   7 include the nudges, nods, winks and other slickly timed movements 
C03   8 of a very English comic style. If it were needed, the programme 
C03   9 offers a clue to this, though its allusions to Donald McGill are 
C03  10 less apposite than the still from <tf_>Terry and June<tf/>.<p/>
C03  11 <p_>Falstaff becomes a Jimmy Edwards figure, and the Garter Inn a 
C03  12 rather smart hotel, imposing certain standards of dress on its 
C03  13 clientele: even Bardolph and Pistol are in plus fours, plaids and 
C03  14 Argyll socks, while Falstaff's page is a Bunter lookalike, reading 
C03  15 the <tf|>Beano between items of tuck.<p/>
C03  16 <p_>Mark Thompson's set is excellent for the opening scene, but it 
C03  17 provides no effective change of place for Ford's house or for the 
C03  18 final scene in the park, where the chandeliers, mirror ceiling, 
C03  19 doorways, grand staircase and upper landing all convey a 
C03  20 dislocation way beyond the scope of this production. More 
C03  21 consistently successful are Thompson's costumes, a lively parade of 
C03  22 discords between Elizabethan and modern dress. Fenton, for 
C03  23 instance, sports a royal-blue jacket halfway between doublet and 
C03  24 blazer, while the other men have ruffs jammed over essentially 
C03  25 20th-century clothes; and the women's crinolines are made up in 
C03  26 1950s prints.<p/>
C03  27 <p_>It is all very smart, bright and tidy. There is no trace of 
C03  28 dirt and heedless self-indulgence slopping around this Falstaff, 
C03  29 who is already such a trim old gent at the start that when he comes 
C03  30 on attired for his wooing he has to appear wildly over the top. And 
C03  31 at the start of Act III he is presented not drenched with river 
C03  32 water but soaking himself in a hot bath. It seems unlikely that 
C03  33 such a jolly codger represents any kind of sexual threat, and 
C03  34 Gordon Sandison, perhaps bounded by the persona given him, does not 
C03  35 suggest much physical energy on his singing, which is brushed in 
C03  36 lightly and sometimes waywardly.<p/>
C03  37 <p_>There are, however, some excellent vocal performances. Steven 
C03  38 Page is an excellent Ford, deeply dark in tone and absolutely 
C03  39 emphatic; he also nimbly cuts in the comic possibilities of his 
C03  40 disguise without losing an ounce of his power and seriousness. John 
C03  41 Mark Ainsley and Susannah Waters make a very personable pair of 
C03  42 young lovers; it is a delight to hear Ainsley's lovely singing in 
C03  43 the theatre, and Waters, too, is youthfully fresh, with her own 
C03  44 bubbling agility.<p/>
C03  45 <p_>Maria Prosperi, the only native Italian in the cast, uses the 
C03  46 language more wittily and lusciously than her companions, and 
C03  47 contributes a spirited, brightly sung Alice. But when everybody 
C03  48 else in the cast is British, and when this is such a genial 
C03  49 pantomime of a production, it does seem odd to hear it sung in 
C03  50 Italian.<p/>
C03  51 <p_>John Mauceri in the pit seems to be trying to stimulate an 
C03  52 orchestra which responds only with odd moments of beauty or 
C03  53 elan<&|>sic!.<p/>
C03  54 <p_>PAUL GRIFFITHS<p/>
C03  55 
C03  56 <h_><p_>Yet there is method in it<p/>
C03  57 <p_>Geoff Brown on Mel Gibson in Hamlet; Freedom is Paradise, War 
C03  58 Party and (below) Riff-Raff<p/><h/>
C03  59 <p_>So how does Mad Max cope with the Mad Dane? An A for effort, at 
C03  60 least. In preparation for Franco Zeffirelli's Hamlet (U, Odeon, 
C03  61 Haymarket), Mel Gibson's Australian vowels were ruthlessly massaged 
C03  62 by a voice trainer, now he enunciates the unreal clarity of a 
C03  63 speaking clock. Still, you can always grasp the man's meaning: he 
C03  64 shapes and projects Shakespeare's verse (or what remains after 
C03  65 Zeffirelli's scissors have cut their swath) with consistent 
C03  66 intelligence.<p/>
C03  67 <p_>The contours of Gibson's pin-up face are deliberately smudged 
C03  68 by a beard, moustache, and close-cropped hair, though the blue eyes 
C03  69 flash their usual magic. He mounts the soliloquies with fear, and, 
C03  70 barring a tendency to rant and roll his eyes when excited, acquits 
C03  71 himself well. His swordplay dances with force and wit. He is grave, 
C03  72 anguished, tender, playful: all the things Hamlet should be. Yet, 
C03  73 though Mel Gibson is never for one moment bad, almost everybody 
C03  74 else in the cast is better. And for all his effort we never get 
C03  75 under this Hamlet's skin; he remains Mel, Prince of Hollywood, 
C03  76 embarked on a worthy exercise.<p/>
C03  77 <p_>As with his <tf_>Romeo and Juliet<tf/> and the <tf_>Taming of 
C03  78 the Shrew<tf/> films in the Sixties, Zeffirelli's mission is to 
C03  79 bring the Bard - kicking and screaming if need be - before young, 
C03  80 untutored audiences. Gibson is certainly the star to pull them in; 
C03  81 and for those with brief attention spans, the script prepared by 
C03  82 Zeffirelli and Christopher De Vore, forges constant short-cuts to 
C03  83 Shakespeare's highlights. There is no Fortinbras, no opening 
C03  84 battlement scene, no words of advice to the players: everything is 
C03  85 over within two hours and 15 minutes.<p/>
C03  86 <p_>Only the dustiest academic would rage over the lacunae: the 
C03  87 director's task was to deliver a dynamic film, not a sacred relic. 
C03  88 If anything, Zeffirelli is too timid. Gertrude's sexual temperature 
C03  89 is raised to suit the spiky Glenn Close (note the impassioned 
C03  90 grapplings in the closet scene); otherwise, the interpretations are 
C03  91 tried and true. Here is Claudius, the pleasure-seeking King (Alan 
C03  92 Bates); here is pottering, crafty Polonius (Ian Holm, pottering a 
C03  93 mite too much); here is Ophelia (Helen Bonham Carter), sweetly 
C03  94 waifish one minute, hollow-eyed with lunacy the next. Best of all, 
C03  95 here is the Ghost: Paul Scofield invests the role with a depth of 
C03  96 despair that takes the film, however briefly, way beyond the dull 
C03  97 realm of competence. Visually, <tf|>Hamlet offers another mixed 
C03  98 bag. For exteriors, Zeffirelli draws on three British castles, 
C03  99 melded together; as photographed by David Watkin, the setting 
C03 100 easily looks cold and imprisoning enough to be Elsinore. Once 
C03 101 characters step through the giant doors, they emerge into 
C03 102 Shepperton Studios. Individual design details please: Hamlet 
C03 103 delivers his 'fishmonger' taunts perched on a library shelf, 
C03 104 forcing Polonius to mount a ladder, which Hamlet impishly pushes 
C03 105 away. But too often sets appear over-dressed, with ugly items that 
C03 106 obstinately resemble cheap stage props. By filming <tf|>Hamlet, 
C03 107 Zeffirelli and Mel Gibson are treading in famous footsteps: 
C03 108 Olivier's and, in silent days, Sir Johnstone Forbes-Robertson's and 
C03 109 Sarah Bernhardt's (in 1900).<p/>
C03 110 <p_>Ninety-one years later, Mel Gibson's Hamlet appears decent, 
C03 111 slick, easily digestible: a fast-food Hamlet for the moment, 
C03 112 without the stature to make it a Hamlet for the ages.<p/>
C03 113 <p_>Characters in the powerful Soviet film <tf_>Freedom is 
C03 114 paradise<tf/> (12, Renoir) are society's cast-offs: delinquents, 
C03 115 tucked away in a boarding school whose harsh regime prepares them 
C03 116 for their probable adult destination - prison. The hero, played 
C03 117 with sullen gravity by a 13-year-old handful called Volodya 
C03 118 Kozyrev, escapes to make the huge trek from Soviet central Asia to 
C03 119 Archangel in the far north, where his father serves a long prison 
C03 120 sentence. Despite the title, the lad finds little sign of paradise 
C03 121 on the road: just world-weary faces, scraping a living by fair or 
C03 122 fowl means, and a few small kindnesses. The writer-director Sergei 
C03 123 Bodrov, born in Khabarovsk, in the Soviet Union's far eastern 
C03 124 corner, never knew his own father until he was 30; he makes the 
C03 125 meeting between questing son and long-lost father the emotional 
C03 126 high<?_>-<?/>point. Elsewhere, Bodrov paints a bleak portrait of 
C03 127 Gorbachov's Soviet Union (the film was made in 1989): drab lives, 
C03 128 class divisions, constant subservience to the state police.<p/>
C03 129 <p_>At first the narrative is compressed too tightly (the film 
C03 130 lasts 75 minutes) but once Bodrov's hero begins his trek north the 
C03 131 scenes expand, the images blossom, and the desolate story of an 
C03 132 urchin at large in a loveless world grips the audience by the 
C03 133 throat. For those worried about value for money, <tf_>Freedom is 
C03 134 Paradise<tf/> is supported by Irene Jouannet's <tf|>Finale, a 
C03 135 precious, 14-minute French short inspired by an incident in 
C03 136 Nijinsky's long mental decline.<p/>
C03 137 <p_>Shot in 1987, released in America in 1989: Franc Roddams 
C03 138 <tf_>War Party<tf/> (18, Cannon Haymarket) has taken its time. The 
C03 139 film emerges after <tf_>Dances With Wolves<tf/> pushed Native 
C03 140 Americans and their plight high up in the public consciousness. 
C03 141 <tf_>War Party<tf/> - no preening epic this, but watchable screen 
C03 142 fodder - offers a contemporary variation. During a re-enacted 
C03 143 battle between Indians and cavalry, staged to boost a depressed 
C03 144 Montana town, a hot-headed white settles an old score by shooting 
C03 145 an Indian youth dead. This launches a spiral of violence and racist 
C03 146 attacks; with blood on their hands, the dead Indian's pals head for 
C03 147 the hills and rediscover their ethnic identity.<p/>
C03 148 <p_><tf_>War Party<tf/> makes a stab at grappling with Indian 
C03 149 culture, and gathers authentic Native Americans to support 
C03 150 brat<?_>-<?/>packers Billy Wirth and Kevin Dillon. Yet his is 
C03 151 basically a pursuit movie in disguise: the lads retreat, a posse 
C03 152 sets out, a helicopter is brought down (with bow and arrow), an 
C03 153 Indian is scalped, and so it goes on.<p/>
C03 154 
C03 155 <h_><p_>Fully persuaded without reason<p/><h/>
C03 156 <p_>In the disconcerting event that I find myself on a desert 
C03 157 island with nothing but a gramophone and a few choice musical 
C03 158 moments for company, I shall certainly hope that the cymbal clash 
C03 159 of Bruckner's Seventh Symphony is among them. Not the entire 
C03 160 gargantuan symphony: life is short, even on a desert island. Just 
C03 161 that cymbal clash, the tinkle from the triangle player that 
C03 162 accompanies it, and the glorious Adagio that surrounds it.<p/>
C03 163 <p_>Why? Because it is irrational, extravagant, arguably 
C03 164 unnecessary - and utterly heartwarming. So it would serve to remind 
C03 165 me of what the art I left behind is all about.<p/>
C03 166 <p_>There is no rationality in making two skilled musicians sit 
C03 167 motionless for 80 minutes in order to play one note each. 
C03 168 Especially the triangle player: the cymbal wielder can at least 
C03 169 flesh out his performance with a few extrovert twirls of wrists and 
C03 170 forearms. It certainly is not economical. An accountant would chop 
C03 171 them, particularly if he knew what some scholars believe: that 
C03 172 Bruckner never actually approved this cymbal clash. Most 
C03 173 accountants don't know this, thank goodness: they already have 
C03 174 enough to say in running the music business.<p/>
C03 175 <p_>Conductors, who do know, realise that this great movement - 
C03 176 which rises on waves of noble sequences from tragedy to something 
C03 177 approaching transcendental triumph - demands, at its peak, the 
C03 178 sheer physicality of metal clashing metal. Man cannot live by 
C03 179 strings and woodwind alone. This is music's equivalent of a scoring 
C03 180 footballer's exultant punch in the air.<p/>
C03 181 <p_>In the Festival Hall on Monday that moment, and what followed, 
C03 182 certainly spoke in heroic terms. Bernard Haitink's marvellous 
C03 183 interpretation, which managed to combine a sense of spaciousness 
C03 184 and long-term purpose with moments of high drama, was the more 
C03 185 remarkable for being achieved with an orchestra, the Dresden 
C03 186 Staatskapelle, that hardly dazzled with technique. The wind 
C03 187 sections were not especially well blended; the strings beefy but 
C03 188 only intermittently shimmering.<p/>
C03 189 <p_>Indeed, the stolid performance of Mozart's 'Haffner' Symphony 
C03 190 that preceded the Bruckner had raised forebodings. But then Haitink 
C03 191 seemed to grip the performers in the fist made by his own vision 
C03 192 and intense concentration, as so often happens when he is 
C03 193 unshackled from Covent Garden and allowed to roam the epic 
C03 194 symphonic fields that are his natural terrain. The way in which his 
C03 195 subtle speed variations and mature, nonsensational approach benefit 
C03 196 the flow of Bruckner's vast paragraphs is easy to fathom. But how 
C03 197 this seemingly placid Dutchman, exuding reason and moderation, can 
C03 198 suddenly inject such searing anger into, of all things, a 
C03 199 lugubrious passage for Wagner tubas: that is a wonderful mystery, 
C03 200 and long may it continue to be so.<p/>
C03 201 <p_>On the following night this unofficial celebration of 
C03 202 Austro-Germanic heavy-weights continued with an orchestra on much 
C03 203 classier form: the London Philharmonic, responding superbly to the 
C03 204 sophisticated demands of Christoph von Dohn<*_>a-acute<*/>nyi. This 
C03 205 was a courageous programme: to open a Festival Hall concert with 
C03 206 the sparse cries and whispers of Webern's ten-minute Symphony, Op 
C03 207 21, is - in audience-stirring terms - like attempting to set fire 
C03 208 to damp leaves.<p/>
C03 209 <p_>But the orchestra overcame an initial tentativeness (no music 
C03 210 exposes individual players so cruelly) and later produced a vividly 
C03 211 characterised, immaculately precise account of Schoenberg's Five 
C03 212 Orchestral Pieces. Emanuel Ax glided elegantly through Beethoven's 
C03 213 Second Piano Concerto, and the concert ended with a muscular, 
C03 214 highly organised account of Schumann's Fourth Symphony, lacking 
C03 215 only the occasional poetic reverie. Dohn<*_>a-acute<*/>nyi is a 
C03 216 ferociously intelligent conductor but not, one suspects, a 
C03 217 dreamer.<p/>
C03 218 <p_>RICHARD MORRISON<p/>
C03 219 
C04   1 <#FLOB:C04\><h_><p_>Proms scale the best of British<p/>
C04   2 <p_>OPERA<p/><h/>
C04   3 <p_>IT WOULD be hard to find a more ideal work for the First Night 
C04   4 Of The Proms than Elgar's great oratorio, The Dream of 
C04   5 Gerontius.<p/>
C04   6 <p_>Its size, sound and style fit the Royal Albert Hall like a 
C04   7 glove, and it is British to its core.<p/>
C04   8 <p_>It received a magnificent performance on Friday when the 97th 
C04   9 season of Proms opened, televised live on BBC2, broadcast on Radio 
C04  10 3, and attended by the Prince of Wales.<p/>
C04  11 <p_>Under the BBC Symphony Orchestra's excellent Chief Conductor 
C04  12 Andrew Davis, it was magnificent.<p/>
C04  13 <h|>Cheers
C04  14 <p_>First rate playing by the orchestra, three superb soloists, and 
C04  15 that glorious sound which only our British amateur choruses 
C04  16 produce.<p/>
C04  17 <p_>These were the BBC Symphony Chorus, joined by the professional 
C04  18 BBC Singers and the London Philharmonic Choir, and they earned our 
C04  19 fervent cheers. There are eight more weeks of exciting Proms to 
C04  20 come.<p/>
C04  21 <p_>Watch this space.<p/>
C04  22 <p_>AMERICAN Peter Sellars' hippy Los Angeles version of The Magic 
C04  23 Flute, at Glyndebourne, remains tacky, tasteless and inept, and is 
C04  24 not helped by being sung this year in Alice Goodman's dated Sixties 
C04  25 American slang.<p/>
C04  26 <p_>Andrew Davis again conducts admirably, and the singing is 
C04  27 stronger than last year. But his Flute remains ruined by the 
C04  28 mindless self-promotion of Sellars. It's all such a waste of talent 
C04  29 and Mozart's music.<p/>
C04  30 <p_>IF Sellars can spare the time, he should go and see Carmen 
C04  31 Jones at the Old Vic. There he will learn, from Oscar Hammerstein's 
C04  32 brilliant adaptation and Simon Callow's inspired direction, just 
C04  33 how the experts update classic operas.<p/>
C04  34 <p_>Carmen Jones, set in an American parachute factory during The 
C04  35 Second World War, has all the drive and passion of Bizet's original 
C04  36 opera.<p/>
C04  37 <p_>The latest arrival in the role of Carmen, Paula Ingram, gives 
C04  38 what must be the sexiest, best sung performance on the West End 
C04  39 stage.<p/>
C04  40 <p_>Not to be missed at any price.<p/>
C04  41 <p_>DAVID FINGLETON<p/>
C04  42 
C04  43 <h_><p_>A racing certainty on the Turf turns into a saddle soap<p/>
C04  44 <p_>WEEKEND VIEW<p/>
C04  45 <p_>By THE SCOUT (John Garnsey)<p/><h/>
C04  46 <p_>HORSERACING folk tend to like a drink. None of the great 
C04  47 tipplers of the Turf I know, however, look quite as disgustingly 
C04  48 healthy as Mike Hardy.<p/>
C04  49 <p_>He is bright-eyed and youthful even when emerging from the 
C04  50 stiff end of the most monumental hangover.<p/>
C04  51 <p_>Hardy, played by Mark Greenstreet, is a central character in 
C04  52 the new racing drama <tf_>Trainer (BBC1)<tf/>.<p/>
C04  53 <p_>He is a young assistant trainer struggling with a drink 
C04  54 problem, but blessed with an immense talent.<p/>
C04  55 <p_>Unfortunately, he and the rest of the cast bear little relation 
C04  56 to racing reality.<p/>
C04  57 <h|>Vices
C04  58 <p_>Furthermore, our hero committed a cardinal sin in the opening 
C04  59 scene of the first episode.<p/>
C04  60 <p_>He was late for morning exercise - and not for the first time, 
C04  61 we were led to understand. No trainer would stand for that.<p/>
C04  62 <p_>He cannot afford to have valuable horseflesh milling around 
C04  63 unsupervised.<p/>
C04  64 <p_>Mike's villainous and womanising boss Hugo Latimer, played by 
C04  65 Patrick Ryecart, was the oiliest and slimiest wretch on earth. You 
C04  66 wouldn't give him house room, let alone allow him to train your 
C04  67 horses.<p/>
C04  68 <p_>He did share certain characteristics with some trainers, but 
C04  69 the ones I know who might qualify for comparison are far more adept 
C04  70 at disguising their vices.<p/>
C04  71 <p_>By the end of episode one, abrasive owner James Brant (Nigel 
C04  72 Davenport) had vowed to place his horses with young Mike as long as 
C04  73 he could cure his love affair with the bottle.<p/>
C04  74 <p_>It is a racing certainty that Susannah York, as recently 
C04  75 widowed owner Rachel Ware, will provide comfort and motherly 
C04  76 advice.<p/>
C04  77 <p_>Assisted by real-life trainer Peter Cundell, producer Gerard 
C04  78 Glaister has taken great pains to ensure authenticity.<p/>
C04  79 <p_>The stable and racing sequences do bring some reality to the 
C04  80 otherwise improbable plot.<p/>
C04  81 <p_>Insiders say the first episode of Trainer is one of the 
C04  82 strongest in the series.<p/>
C04  83 <p_>On that form, it must be rated as just another soap. If the 
C04  84 plot deteriorates, it will be no more than saddle soap.<p/>
C04  85 <p_>I HOPE you also caught Alfred Molina's uncannily accurate 
C04  86 performance as the self-pitying alcoholic genius Tony Hancock in 
C04  87 Screen One's <tf_>Hancock (BBC1)<tf/>.<p/>
C04  88 <p_>From the moment he recreated the famous Blood Donor sketch, you 
C04  89 knew that this was a quality production.<p/>
C04  90 <p_>With documentary intensity, we saw how one of our greatest 
C04  91 comedians since Charlie Chaplin slid down the greasy pole just as 
C04  92 inexorably as Richard Burton did two decades later.<p/>
C04  93 <h|>Creative
C04  94 <p_>Essentially a radio performer, the cult creator of Hancock's 
C04  95 Half Hour would have flourished today with the greater creative 
C04  96 opportunities in TV offered by the advent of more discerning 
C04  97 channels: BBC2 in 1964 and Channel Four in 1982.<p/>
C04  98 <p_>Instead, we saw the Smirnoff bottle first destroy Hancock's 
C04  99 relationship with the brilliant Galton and Simpson writing team, 
C04 100 then his two marriages, and finally himself in 1968.<p/>
C04 101 <p_>My only quibble is that scriptwriter William Humble devoted his 
C04 102 two-hour profile to Hancock's final eight years.<p/>
C04 103 <p_>Younger audiences deserved to know more about why this complex 
C04 104 denizen of Railway Cuttings, East Cheam, was so side-splittingly 
C04 105 funny.<p/>
C04 106 <p_>COMPTON MILLER<p/>
C04 107 
C04 108 <h_><p_>Cooking Boon for absolute beginners<p/>
C04 109 <p_>YESTERDAY'S VIEW<p/>
C04 110 <p_>By CAROLINE HENDRIE<p/><h/>
C04 111 <p_>COOKERY programmes usually fit into one of two categories - 
C04 112 either a methodical step-by-step course from sensible cooks like 
C04 113 Delia Smith, or the kind designed to feed the voracious appetites 
C04 114 of home cooks who know everything, have every gadget and need more 
C04 115 and more strange and elaborate recipes to keep them hungry for the 
C04 116 next week's offering.<p/>
C04 117 <p_>To learn much from either, the kitchen-stool student needs to 
C04 118 put in a good term's work.<p/>
C04 119 <p_>But now Michael Elphick and Don Henderson have stepped out of 
C04 120 their better-known roles as TV detectives, Boon and Bulman, to 
C04 121 solve the mystery of how to get a hot dinner on the table, with the 
C04 122 minimum of investigations. Their four-part series, <tf_>The 
C04 123 Absolute Beginners' Guide to Cookery (ITV)<tf/> is aimed at people 
C04 124 who have survived into adulthood without needing to cook 
C04 125 anything.<p/>
C04 126 <p_>With amiable banter, ad-libbing and passages read aloud from 
C04 127 the cookery book, they quickly rustled up cauliflower cheese, 
C04 128 spaghetti with meat sauce and lasagne. They kept the pace fast with 
C04 129 many digressions, a sensible tactic to keep the attention of an 
C04 130 audience who has not been interested enough in cooking to try it 
C04 131 before.<p/>
C04 132 <p_>And pressing themselves as two clumsy oafs - not terribly 
C04 133 convincingly on Elphick's part as he deftly trimmed a cauli and 
C04 134 effortlessly stirred up a lump-free white sauce - must have given 
C04 135 even the latest starter the confidence to look up a recipe or send 
C04 136 off for the leaflet and have a go.<p/>
C04 137 <p_>It is a great shame, therefore, that the programme goes out in 
C04 138 the afternoon, just the time when the most kitchen-shy of either 
C04 139 sex are generally out at work.<p/>
C04 140 <p_>Only the culinarily clueless of the South West get an evening 
C04 141 repeat.<p/>
C04 142 <p_>LATER, while heating up the frozen fisherman's pie or perhaps 
C04 143 waiting for the faithful spouse to produce a three-course dinner, 
C04 144 the exhausted workforce was able to slump in front of the opening 
C04 145 round of <tf_>The Krypton Factor (ITV)<tf/>.<p/>
C04 146 <p_>For the 15th year running, 36 out of an initial 8,000 hopefuls 
C04 147 are putting themselves through six punishing and pointless mental 
C04 148 and physical tests, in pursuit of the title the presenter Gordon 
C04 149 Burns is careful to call Superperson.<p/>
C04 150 <p_>Since very few women bother to enter, it is highly unlikely 
C04 151 that one is going to win.<p/>
C04 152 <p_>Last night, the token female came last in nearly everything, 
C04 153 though she was better than the heat's winner at general knowledge 
C04 154 being able to name Charles Dickens as the author of The Old 
C04 155 Curiosity Shop - and she did have blonde hair.<p/>
C04 156 
C04 157 <h_><p_>Global warming to witty John's fantasy Sessions<p/>
C04 158 <p_>THEATRE<p/><h/>
C04 159 <p_>THAT malicious mimic John Sessions is unlikely to be on Vanessa 
C04 160 Redgrave's Christmas card list after the disgracefully funny 
C04 161 remarks he makes about his fellow West End star and her 
C04 162 entourage.<p/>
C04 163 <p_>His new one-man show, <tf_>Travelling Tales<tf/> at the Theatre 
C04 164 Royal, Haymarket, roams restlessly around the globe, making witty 
C04 165 connections between the craziest people and places.<p/>
C04 166 <p_>His geographical fantasies feature a cast of thousands of 
C04 167 tree-frogs, all played by Sessions, and a momentous meeting between 
C04 168 Su Pollard and Robert De Niro.<p/>
C04 169 <p_>You want someone to impersonate Adolf Hitler, Saddam Hussein 
C04 170 and the <}_><-|>Bronte<+|>Bront<*_e-umlaut<*/><}/> Sisters? 
C04 171 Sessions is your man, a comedian with ambitions to conquer the 
C04 172 world's accents.<p/>
C04 173 <p_>He is the ultimate school show-off, with a prodigious talent, a 
C04 174 butterfly mind and enough sex appeal to be the new Dudley Moore or 
C04 175 Tom Conti as the next British secret weapon to subvert 
C04 176 Hollywood.<p/>
C04 177 <p_>MAUREEN PATTON<p/>
C04 178 
C04 179 <h_><p_>Cilla's dating game is blind to change<p/>
C04 180 <p_>WEEKEND VIEW<p/>
C04 181 <p_>By SIAN JAMES<p/><h/>
C04 182 <p_>KIMBERLEY, the hairdresser from Cleveland who sold sexy 
C04 183 underwear in her spare time, had a bit of a thing about Dirty 
C04 184 Dancing star Patrick Swayze.<p/>
C04 185 <p_>While David, the clerical officer from Newcastle said he rather 
C04 186 fancied someone like Julia Roberts.<p/>
C04 187 <p_>In the end, Kimberley got Matt from Essex, David went home 
C04 188 disappointed and Pauline and Glen had a nice time at a sausage 
C04 189 factory in Spain.<p/>
C04 190 <p_>Yes, they're back and this time they are really ... well, 
C04 191 pretty much the same as all the 1,200 contestants in the previous 
C04 192 six series. Obviously the justification for Cilla Black's 
C04 193 <tf_>Blind Date (ITV)<tf/> comes down to the cliche<&|>sic! 
C04 194 <quote_>"If it ain't broke, don't fix it."<quote/><p/>
C04 195 <p_>Since its inception in 1985 the programme has changed hardly at 
C04 196 all. Same appalling, scripted jokey chat-up lines, same type of 
C04 197 guests.<p/>
C04 198 <p_>The question is will the seventh season of the show pull in the 
C04 199 same 14 million audience?<p/>
C04 200 <p_>The answer is probably but not definitely, because those who 
C04 201 watch Blind Date fall into two camps. The ones who admit it, and 
C04 202 the ones who don't.<p/>
C04 203 <p_>It's the latter category, in which I include myself, that could 
C04 204 start getting a teensy-weensy bit bored.<p/>
C04 205 <p_>But on Saturday, the contestants didn't disappoint. Not the 
C04 206 sort of people you'd kill for to get on a Trivial Pursuit team 
C04 207 with, they were lambs to our witty slaughter. As usual, behind a 
C04 208 screen, William, David, and Dickie competed for an all-expenses 
C04 209 paid date with Marie Claire from Edinburgh, who wanted to be an 
C04 210 actress.<p/>
C04 211 <p_>Then there was a filmed report from Neil and Sally, who'd won a 
C04 212 trip to Portugal in the last series. They had a great laugh in the 
C04 213 painted-plate shop.<p/>
C04 214 <p_>But then the bit we all love came when Neil and Sally, in 
C04 215 separate studios, had to give their verdicts on one another.<p/>
C04 216 <p_>Neil thought Sally was great fun. He'd take her out with the 
C04 217 lads any day but she was not someone with whom he could fall in 
C04 218 love. Sally could sense it.<p/>
C04 219 <p_>She obviously really liked him and rather sadly said: 
C04 220 <quote_>"After holding hands on the beach, I wished it could have 
C04 221 worked out, that's all."<quote/><p/>
C04 222 <p_>Then three girls competed for the man and another couple, 
C04 223 Pauline and Glen, reported back from Spain. At first madly in love, 
C04 224 she'd gone off him since the last series. Glen looked a bit 
C04 225 upset.<p/>
C04 226 <p_>And so it will go on tirelessly for another five months. But 
C04 227 there is still something compulsive about it.<p/>
C04 228 <p_>Cilla is an excellent hostess and it's all good, harmless, 
C04 229 innocent fun. But for the first time, the format started to look a 
C04 230 little tired.<p/>
C04 231 <p_>I would have liked a couple of changes.<p/>
C04 232 
C04 233 <h_><p_>Bitch is the loser in double trouble<p/>
C04 234 <p_>LAST NIGHT'S VIEW<p/>
C04 235 <p_>By COMPTON MILLER<p/><h/>
C04 236 <p_>ANYONE who watched Mrs Hat and Mrs Red, final episode in BBC2's 
C04 237 half<?_>-<?/>hour comedy series <tf_>Murder Most Horrid<tf/>, had 
C04 238 an unexpected treat.<p/>
C04 239 <p_>I'm normally no admirer of comedienne Dawn French - too brash 
C04 240 and noisy - but she did superbly well here playing these two 
C04 241 roles.<p/>
C04 242 <p_>We first spotted her as frumpy, broke divorcee Katie Hatcliffe 
C04 243 (alias Mrs Hat) dispiritedly pushing her trolley round a 
C04 244 supermarket.<p/>
C04 245 <p_>Enter rude, glamorous Sonya Redfern (Mrs Red) swooshing round 
C04 246 the most expensive shelves and bellowing at staff about 
C04 247 <quote_>"how French brioche could not possibly be made in 
C04 248 Solihull."<quote/><p/>
C04 249 <p_>The pair are suburban doppelgangers<foreign|> who have never 
C04 250 met before.<p/>
C04 251 <p_>On a whim Mrs Hat secretly follows Mrs Red's sports car back 
C04 252 home by taxi and that was when the fun began.<p/>
C04 253 <p_>At tightly-written script directed by Bob Spiers cleverly 
C04 254 established Mrs Red's lady-who-lunches lifestyle, including the 
C04 255 athletic young black stud for whom she is about to leave her 
C04 256 long-suffering husband and daughter.<p/>
C04 257 
C05   1 <#FLOB:C05\><h_><p_>Theatre<p/>
C05   2 <p_>Henry IV Part I<p/>
C05   3 <p_>RST, Stratford<p/><h/>
C05   4 <p_>THIS is Adrian Noble's first production since he took over the 
C05   5 RSC's orb and sceptre, and it is one which suggests that, whatever 
C05   6 the company may lack during his reign, it will not be intelligence, 
C05   7 subtlety or feeling for language. Perhaps significantly, there is 
C05   8 something casual and cursory about the purely physical comedy of 
C05   9 the scene in which Falstaff robs the Kent travellers, only to be 
C05  10 unrobbed by Hal. Certainly, there is no doubting the finesse of the 
C05  11 teasing post-mortem that follows, or of their next encounter: the 
C05  12 prince and his favourite wittily play-acting his impending 
C05  13 confrontation with the king.<p/>
C05  14 <p_>There is much play-acting here. Robert Stephens' Falstaff does 
C05  15 a comical imitation of Michael Maloney's Hal, who in turn cruelly 
C05  16 mimicks Julian Glover's King at his most plummily sombre. Again, 
C05  17 Maloney has different accents for the pub and for the patrolling 
C05  18 sheriff, whom he greets in spoof-Sandhurst tones. Even Owen Teale's 
C05  19 bold Hotspur has a mean vocal line on Glendower, among others. 
C05  20 Whether or not the text asks it, everybody seems able to put on 
C05  21 funny voices at the expense of everyone else.<p/>
C05  22 <p_>This is so marked it must be deliberate policy on Noble's part. 
C05  23 But why? Perhaps merely to add to the evening's humour or to 
C05  24 emphasise the characters' relatively sophisticated sense of fun. Or 
C05  25 perhaps to bring out the amount of role-playing to be found in the 
C05  26 play. After all, many characters have their hidden agendas: the 
C05  27 rebels, Hal's retinue, the prince himself.<p/>
C05  28 <p_>The last is the evening's prime emphasis. Maloney's Hal is a 
C05  29 good, energetic fellow, and genuinely cares for Falstaff. But his 
C05  30 most private monologue is packed with what might, paradoxically, be 
C05  31 called an intensely mystical longing for admiration, fame and 
C05  32 glory. It is equally evident that Peto has his ambitions, and that 
C05  33 there is a deadly jealousy between Poins and Falstaff. There is a 
C05  34 surreptitious battle for the heart of the prince and, through him, 
C05  35 for Britain. The likeliest to gain is, of course, Falstaff, in 
C05  36 Stephens' wonderful performance much more a droll, canny observer 
C05  37 of himself and others than the carousing jester of tradition. 
C05  38 Perhaps the reading edges too far towards wry sobriety. This 
C05  39 Falstaff would never have spent six shillings on sack to a 
C05  40 halfpenny of bread, as the text claims. Again, the great speech on 
C05  41 honour almost becomes a Socratic dialogue. But there is no missing 
C05  42 Stephens' emotional force when, in that celebrated play-acting 
C05  43 scene, he gets a hint of his coming rejection. He dives at the 
C05  44 prince, half-blubbing out his plea that everyone but him be 
C05  45 banished. There, unforgettably, is the character's desperation for 
C05  46 friendship and power.<p/>
C05  47 <p_>Until Eastcheap unfolds, the staging is simple, a matter of 
C05  48 backing a throne with a vast cross or importing a few stark chairs. 
C05  49 Then, suddenly, we are confronted with something beyond a mere 
C05  50 red-light district. There are red sofas, tables and stairs and, cut 
C05  51 into a vast red wall, a red upper-room in which a whore is 
C05  52 absently-mindedly<&|>sic! serving a priest. As for the battle 
C05  53 scenes, they begin excitingly, with both armies rising from the 
C05  54 stage's bowels in a huge pyramid of heaving chivalry. But can we 
C05  55 have better fighting in <tf_>Henry IV Part II<tf/>?<p/>
C05  56 <p_>If <tf_>Part I<tf/> is anything to go by, we can expect still 
C05  57 more complexities from Stephens, Maloney and Glover, a Henry IV who 
C05  58 begins the evening full of confidence and zeal and ends it wanely 
C05  59 clutching at his evidently dicky heart. I for one can hardly 
C05  60 wait.<p/>
C05  61 <p_>Benedict Nightingale<p/>
C05  62 
C05  63 <h_><p_>THEATRE<p/>
C05  64 <p_><tf|>Matador<p/>
C05  65 <p_>Queen's<p/><h/>
C05  66 <p_>IF BIZET'S original story for <tf_>Carmen Jones<tf/> is 
C05  67 included in the tally, this is the third musical with a Spanish 
C05  68 theme to open in a week and, as its title indicates, the 
C05  69 bullfighter this time is not the bully boy but the hero: Domingo 
C05  70 Hernandez, <tf_>El Ni<*_>n-tilde<*/>o de la Nada<tf/>, or The Boy 
C05  71 From Nowhere.<p/>
C05  72 <p_>His rise from a nowhere village in Andalucia is thrillingly 
C05  73 staged by Elijah Moshinsky against a succession of William Dudley's 
C05  74 spectacular sets. A bull ring opens out to become a steep 
C05  75 hill-town; a grove of moonlit trees gives place to a horizon of 
C05  76 pasture, and from the towering silhouette of a black bull the six 
C05  77 dancers who personify this animal advance upon the raw young 
C05  78 matador.<p/>
C05  79 <p_>Arlene Phillips is credited with the overall choreography but 
C05  80 the flamenco dances for the bull men are the work of Rafael 
C05  81 Aguilar. With upraised arms held forward, the dancers approach in 
C05  82 their tight phalanx, turn, stamp heels or pause with toes poised on 
C05  83 the ground like the point of a hoof. In their presence the glamour 
C05  84 of a bullfight and, though I hate to say so, its glory, seizes the 
C05  85 imagination.<p/>
C05  86 <p_>The other dancing is hardly less arresting. Village women, 
C05  87 crashing pebbles together for emphasis, enact the atrocities of the 
C05  88 civil war while the brass section of the orchestra zigzags up the 
C05  89 scale. Hooded penitents, Moorish maids and orange-sellers weave 
C05  90 amongst each other (a mite kitschy, this) to suggest the richness 
C05  91 that is Spain. The orchestration of Michael Leander's music is also 
C05  92 ingenious - note the sound of steam punctuating the melody when 
C05  93 Domingo and his pal Tomas (Alexander Hanson) are sheltering in 
C05  94 railway sidings.<p/>
C05  95 <p_>For the first half the story is workmanlike, not too fettered 
C05  96 with clich<*_>e-acute<*/>s, and Edward Seago's lyrics contain 
C05  97 clever half-rhymes. The hero's rise is told from the point of view 
C05  98 of the disillusioned Tomas, and the Nicky Henson, Domingo's 
C05  99 would-be Svengali, takes over. But what happens after the interval? 
C05 100 Stefanie Powers arrives, playing a Hollywood film star 
C05 101 power-dressed in heliotrope, and utters fearful banalities aimed at 
C05 102 showing our hero that shedding blood is horrible.<p/>
C05 103 <p_>The drama collapses, and John Barrowman, who has a toreador's 
C05 104 shape and his sulky grin, and who sings <quote_>"A Boy from 
C05 105 Nowhere"<quote/> as though he truly feels it, must take on the role 
C05 106 of representative of the oppressed. I hesitate to suggest leaving 
C05 107 at the interval, but the evening will seem better by so doing.<p/>
C05 108 <p_>JEREMY KINGSTON<p/>
C05 109 
C05 110 <h_><p_>Theatre<p/>
C05 111 <p_>Eight Miles High<p/>
C05 112 <p_>Octagon, Bolton<p/><h/>
C05 113 <p_>THE Sixties were the best of times and the worst of times, an 
C05 114 era of such extremes of hope and horror that Jim Cartwright, author 
C05 115 of the blisteringly angry <tf|>Road, could have hooked out some of 
C05 116 the decade's most typical fish and served them up garnished with 
C05 117 flower petals and napalm. But Cartwright, author of <tf_>Eight 
C05 118 Miles High<tf/>, is a changed person, content to give us an 
C05 119 amiable, uncontentious trip back into Flowerland.<p/>
C05 120 <p_>Director Andrew Hay turns the Octagon arena into some corner of 
C05 121 a festival field where half the audience can sit on the floor, lie 
C05 122 back and prop their heads on one another's legs, while nymphettes 
C05 123 in cheesecloth and crushed velvet wander among them, blowing soap 
C05 124 bubbles. Up on the dais the actors take turns to sing period hits 
C05 125 from Jimi Hendrix, The Who, The Rolling Stones and others of that 
C05 126 kidney; between the songs a bit of dialogue between characters is 
C05 127 allowed, or a longish monologue.<p/>
C05 128 <p_>These lengthy speeches are a Cartwright characteristic and, at 
C05 129 their best, they catch the spirit of a part of those times, the 
C05 130 <quote_>"Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out"<quote/> faction, confident 
C05 131 that love was here to stay, and the spicier Hell's Angels fringe, 
C05 132 treated here as a monstrous but merry sideshow.<p/>
C05 133 <p_>Cliff Howells, who rides in on his Norton, showering the 
C05 134 audience with beer, is entertainingly awful, but his arms are too 
C05 135 clean for us to believe his claim to be wearing unwashed 
C05 136 underpants. More convincing is Bob Manson's benign traveller, 
C05 137 making appearances in various parts of the theatre to report on his 
C05 138 circumnavigation of the hippy globe. Jason Yates and Paul Kissaun 
C05 139 make a likeable pair of workers taking time off to groove: when he 
C05 140 sings, Yates recalls the strutting postures and tilting torso of 
C05 141 Mick Jagger, but he has a nicer grin.<p/>
C05 142 <p_>A sprinkle of harsh irony is added at the end but the piece is 
C05 143 essentially a three-hour gig: pleasant to hear and see, but too 
C05 144 pretty. The Sixties were something of a Golden Age, where even the 
C05 145 light shows, attractively reproduced here, were simple; but the 
C05 146 decade was shot through with iron and hot steel and to reduce this 
C05 147 harshness to so little is to falsify the past. Highs come with lows 
C05 148 and Cartwright has withheld them.<p/>
C05 149 <p_>JEREMY KINGSTON<p/>
C05 150 
C05 151 <h_><p_>Theatre<p/>
C05 152 <p_>Getting Attention<p/>
C05 153 <p_>Royal Court Upstairs<p/><h/>
C05 154 <p_>THE prolific Martin Crimp's new play, arriving in Sloane Square 
C05 155 from the West Yorkshire Playhouse, comes over more like a sketch 
C05 156 than the finished article. Battered children make horrifically 
C05 157 commonplace copy in the news these days, and Crimp's attempt to 
C05 158 enter the mind of a young man who mistreats the little girl of his 
C05 159 common-law wife has a dreadful topicality. Good intentions - to 
C05 160 show the confused human being behind the monster's mask - fizzle 
C05 161 out in clich<*_>e-acute<*/> and stereotype, elliptical hints and 
C05 162 oblique suggestions. The abrupt ending, the beaming social worker's 
C05 163 approval of the couple's birthday treat for a child who might even 
C05 164 be dead, is less ironic than perfunctory.<p/>
C05 165 <p_>Much of the action is seen through the eyes of the neighbours. 
C05 166 Bridget Turner, a matchless comic actress, is wasted in the part of 
C05 167 the thin-lipped old woman, respectable, inquisitive, unforgiving, 
C05 168 but defensively demanding her right to interfere. Predictable she 
C05 169 may be, but the character hangs together, unlike her male 
C05 170 counterpart (Paul Slack): a slob deserted by his wife, his own 
C05 171 children in care, and half conniving at the couple's abuses through 
C05 172 prurience. If the message is that <tf|>all men are potential 
C05 173 abusers, it needs more coherent expression than the shapeless 
C05 174 writing it gets here.<p/>
C05 175 <p_>The second half brings the neighbours forward to their shared 
C05 176 landing to address us as witnesses. Meanwhile, nothing much 
C05 177 illuminates the behaviour of the brutal couple: a pair closely 
C05 178 bound sexually, whose dialogue has the terse repetitiveness of the 
C05 179 non-communicating. Sal (Diana Hunter) is physical, amiable, a bit 
C05 180 clueless. Nick (Nigel Cooke) is nervy, tense and demands respect, 
C05 181 especially from the child, who is a constant reminder of his 
C05 182 predecessor. He is quite capable of breaking a toy through 
C05 183 carelessness or scalding a baby, with no malicious intent.<p/>
C05 184 <p_>The exploration of motives goes no further, and the rather 
C05 185 superficial exercise is not helped by the unvaried pace of Jude 
C05 186 Kelly's production. Rob Jones's design, interiors and exterior of 
C05 187 south London council flats sprawling over the acting area, mirrors 
C05 188 the play's uncertain social location somewhere between decaying 
C05 189 squalor and entrepreneurial acquisitiveness.<p/>
C05 190 <p_>Martin Hoyle<p/>
C05 191 
C05 192 <h_><p_>Popular Music<p/>
C05 193 <p_>Harry Connick Jnr<p/>
C05 194 <p_>Albert Hall<p/><h/>
C05 195 <p_>SOMETIMES miracles do happen. Harry Connick's London debut last 
C05 196 year was a mesmerising display of all<?_>-<?/>round talent and 
C05 197 charisma. It scarcely seemed possible that the American entertainer 
C05 198 could reach those heights again. Rest assured, the opening night of 
C05 199 his Albert Hall season was every bit as impressive.<p/>
C05 200 <p_>Despite the standing ovation, I doubt whether it was good 
C05 201 enough to silence the curmudgeons in the jazz community. Connick, 
C05 202 they say, is just a Sinatra imitator with a cute haircut. As for 
C05 203 his piano playing, they will tell you that it is a bare-faced copy 
C05 204 of Thelonious Monk.<p/>
C05 205 <p_>He might well plead guilty on both counts: he is still in his 
C05 206 early twenties, and is still learning. Besides, Sinatra took out 
C05 207 copyright on these songs many moons ago, and nobody can recreate 
C05 208 the sound of Monk in full flow at the Five Spot. But equally, no 
C05 209 other contemporary artist brings together jazz and popular song 
C05 210 with as much panache as the man from New Orleans.<p/>
C05 211 <p_>What is more, he is reaching an international audience without 
C05 212 resorting to gimmicks or Gaultier jockstraps, but getting by with a 
C05 213 natty striped jacket, phenomenal stage presence and bubbling swing 
C05 214 orchestrations. His musical director Marc Shaiman and his young 
C05 215 musicians - who all deserve credit - have proved that, after all 
C05 216 these years, there is still nothing quite as thrilling as a 
C05 217 well-drilled big band.<p/>
C05 218 <p_>Connick's trio was, alas, shunted into the background on this 
C05 219 occasion, with a string section being added to the orchestra after 
C05 220 the interval. The pure jazz material was mainly confined to the 
C05 221 first half.<p/>
C05 222 
C06   1 <#FLOB:C06\><h_><p_>Paula leads us a merry dance<p/>
C06   2 <p_>Marcus Berkmann<p/><h/>
C06   3 <p_>LISTENING to Paula Abdul's new album, you realise just how much 
C06   4 pop music has changed in the age of MTV. By any normal standards, 
C06   5 <tf|>Spellbound (Virgin America) isn't really a pop record at all; 
C06   6 it's a soundtrack, to a series of videos that probably haven't yet 
C06   7 been made.<p/>
C06   8 <p_>Miss Abdul, who used to be best known as a dancer and 
C06   9 choreographer, is a product of our times: living proof that 
C06  10 willpower and marketing can create success, if for some reason 
C06  11 talent is hard to come by.<p/>
C06  12 <p_>Her voice, for instance, is nothing very much - a nasal chirp 
C06  13 in the Minogue family tradition - and beside it even Madonna's 
C06  14 vocal limitations fade into insignificance.<p/>
C06  15 <p_>She's no songwriter, either - her occasional credits seem to be 
C06  16 more an act of politeness than a sign of any burning creative urge. 
C06  17 No, she remains primarily a dancer, and if these songs have a 
C06  18 strangely incomplete air, that's probably because we haven't seen 
C06  19 her dance to them yet.<p/>
C06  20 <p_>Whoever is calling the shots here, whether it's Miss Abdul or 
C06  21 various marketing men in suits, they certainly know how to put 
C06  22 together a commercial pop album that will sell trillions.<p/>
C06  23 <p_>Spellbound is so calculated that you can't help but admire it. 
C06  24 There are the acres of modish dance-pop from the latest hip 
C06  25 producers, in this case V. Jeffrey Smith and Peter Lord from The 
C06  26 Family Stand. There's the token Prince song, produced by the 
C06  27 mini-maestro under another of his silly pseudonyms (Paisley Park). 
C06  28 And there's the traditional Stevie Wonder guest star harmonica 
C06  29 solo, which not surprisingly sounds like all of his other 478,875 
C06  30 guest star harmonica solos.<p/>
C06  31 <p_>And if the dance stuff doesn't work - and music fashions are as 
C06  32 fickle as any - there's still crossover potential, thanks to two 
C06  33 tracks produced by adult rock's current favourite, Don Was. These 
C06  34 are so utterly unlike anything on the rest of the album - real 
C06  35 instruments, nice tunes, no electronic percussion at all - that you 
C06  36 instantly assume they have been put on the album by mistake.<p/>
C06  37 <p_>But no, the sleeve notes say otherwise, and I imagine that the 
C06  38 millions of Miss Abdul's teeny fans who snap this up in the first 
C06  39 week of release will find it all deeply confusing.<p/>
C06  40 <p_>Few observers would have predicted that Natalie Cole's latest 
C06  41 single, a slightly ghoulish duet of Unforgettable with her 
C06  42 long-deceased Pa Nat King Cole, would have been the massive hit 
C06  43 it's become, but then good taste and the charts are rare 
C06  44 bedfellows. I was vaguely dreading the accompanying album, 
C06  45 <tf|>Unforgettable (Elektra), expecting more of the same, but 
C06  46 happily Natalie has decided to record the rest of her father's 
C06  47 best-known songs by herself, with no apparent assistance from 
C06  48 beyond the grave.<p/>
C06  49 <p_>EVEN so, it seems a strange career move. Miss Cole has spent 
C06  50 more years than I can remember trying to escape her illustrious 
C06  51 parent's shadow, and with her last two successful albums had by and 
C06  52 large succeeded.<p/>
C06  53 <p_>I bow to no one in my virulent loathing of the song Miss You 
C06  54 Like Crazy, but it was much-loved by millions and certainly added 
C06  55 quite a few pennies to the Cole fortune. Unforgettable, though, is 
C06  56 a tame and unnecessary piece of work. The tone, predictably, is 
C06  57 unequivocally sentimental, and while Miss Cole's readings aren't 
C06  58 bad, her heart doesn't seem to be in it. I suspect she felt she 
C06  59 just had to get it out of the way - it was a duty that as Nat's 
C06  60 daughter she eventually had to bear.<p/>
C06  61 <p_>Meanwhile, James Brown's release from prison has brought the 
C06  62 predicted upturn in his career - wildly praised live shows, a 
C06  63 massive box set of his best material, and now even a new album, 
C06  64 <tf_>Love Overdue<tf/> (Scotti Bros).<p/>
C06  65 <p_>It would be nice to report that his days of reflection and 
C06  66 contemplation in the slammer have produced a profusion of new 
C06  67 ideas, but this is very much business as usual - Seventies funk, 
C06  68 just as Brown invented it, with no concessions to current soul 
C06  69 trends. It's not quite as loose-limbed as it was 15 or 20 years 
C06  70 ago, but then neither is Brown, who can hardly be blamed for 
C06  71 coasting after all he has achieved.<p/>
C06  72 <p_>Coasting this undoubtedly is, though - some songs chug, 
C06  73 <}_><-|>other<+|>others<}/> positively droop - and anyone who feels 
C06  74 that the time has come to invest in some James Brown would be 
C06  75 better to stick with the box set, <tf|>Startime (Scotti Bros). 
C06  76 That's the real business.<p/>
C06  77 <p_>BEST album of the week, by about a parsec, is <tf_>The Jam's 
C06  78 Greatest Hits<tf/> (Polydor), a 16-track compilation that will 
C06  79 delight all those thirtysomethings who have been wondering how 
C06  80 white pop music went so tragically wrong.<p/>
C06  81 <p_>By today's CD standards, of course, these three-minute wonders 
C06  82 sound almost primitive, but their energy, attack and sheer 
C06  83 unbloodied tunefulness is wonderfully refreshing after the studied 
C06  84 mediocrity of a Paula Abdul.<p/>
C06  85 <p_>The Jam were one of pop's greatest singles bands, and this is a 
C06  86 timely memento of their brief heyday.<p/>
C06  87 
C06  88 <h_><p_>Nothing to make Pip squeak<p/>
C06  89 <p_>by PETER PATERSON<p/><h/>
C06  90 <p_>THE VERY title of Great Expectations sets a challenge for 
C06  91 anyone filming Charles Dickens's most autobiographical of novels. 
C06  92 And thanks to TV, almost everyone is able to judge any new 
C06  93 production, if not by the book itself, then by the yardstick of 
C06  94 David Lean's classic 1946 version.<p/>
C06  95 <p_>The opening scene, therefore, where Pip is frightened in the 
C06  96 churchyard by the escaped convict Magwitch, must shock the audience 
C06  97 as profoundly as Finlay Currie managed in one of the cinema's most 
C06  98 terrifying moments.<p/>
C06  99 <p_>Alas, HTV, in association with Disney, despite having secured 
C06 100 the services of Hannibal Lecter, the awesome killer from the 
C06 101 current film shocker, The Silence Of The Lambs, failed to achieve 
C06 102 the heart-stopping terror that Lean managed to inject into the 
C06 103 scene.<p/>
C06 104 <p_>Anthony Hopkins, as Magwitch, was just too much of a designer 
C06 105 convict, with a fashionable scarf around his head reminiscent of 
C06 106 recent duels on the Centre Court at Wimbledon. The young Pip, too, 
C06 107 played by Martin Harvey, was prematurely well-dressed for the scion 
C06 108 of a poor blacksmith's household, who is only later to come into 
C06 109 money. There was on link, however, with the Lean film - Jean 
C06 110 Simmons, who played Estella all those years ago, is now the 
C06 111 reclusive Miss Havisham, and looking still far too attractive to be 
C06 112 entirely convincing.<p/>
C06 113 <p_>This first of six episodes was a decent and straightforward 
C06 114 effort. But it slipped up in having the carol singers deliver an 
C06 115 enthusiastic rendition of Away In A Manger: Dickens died in 1870, 
C06 116 13 years before that carol was written.<p/>
C06 117 <p_><*_>square<*/>Building a mini-series around the Holocaust is a 
C06 118 good way to avoid the critics. The least they can say about a story 
C06 119 like For Those I Loved, which deals with this sensitive historical 
C06 120 event, is that its heart is in the right place.<p/>
C06 121 <p_>But that is about all that can be said for this Franco-Italian 
C06 122 effort, starring Michael York, and apparently aimed more at the 
C06 123 American market than our own.<p/>
C06 124 <p_>Last night's first episode (of three) opened with prosperous 
C06 125 architect Martin Gray (York), back from a business trip, being 
C06 126 reunited with his wife and four children at their villa on the 
C06 127 Riviera.<p/>
C06 128 <p_>Within minutes, however, the happy family idyll is shattered by 
C06 129 a forest fire in which the wife and children, plus the family dog, 
C06 130 die, leaving Mr Gray contemplating suicide. Urged on, however, by a 
C06 131 posthumous message from his wife on his tape recorder, he decides 
C06 132 to fulfil a promise by telling the story of his life. That takes us 
C06 133 to Warsaw under the Nazi occupation, with York now playing his 
C06 134 father, a Jewish community leader, and Jacques Penot handling the 
C06 135 role of the youthful Martin Gray.<p/>
C06 136 <p_>A curiosity here is that the architect Gray has an American 
C06 137 accent, while his father assumes Michael York's normal impeccable 
C06 138 English. Some of the voice dubbing of the foreign actors is also 
C06 139 fairly hit or miss.<p/>
C06 140 <p_>Much of the effort goes towards emphasising that some Poles - 
C06 141 mainly criminals - helped the Jews when they were herded into the 
C06 142 ghetto.<p/>
C06 143 <p_>It is said to be based on a true story, though some incidents - 
C06 144 for example, the ease with which young Martin commuted to and from 
C06 145 the ghetto, and his escape from a Gestapo hospital by feigning 
C06 146 typhoid - looked distinctly far-fetched.<p/>
C06 147 
C06 148 <h_><p_>From pop to the Pope<p/>
C06 149 <p_>by ROBIN SIMON<p/><h/>
C06 150 <p_>THE major exhibition this autumn is one of the most spectacular 
C06 151 for a decade as the pick of the Queen's pictures go on view in the 
C06 152 new exhibition rooms of the Sainsbury Wing at the National 
C06 153 Gallery.<p/>
C06 154 <p_>The story of the Royal Collection is a tale of inept monarchs, 
C06 155 degenerate heirs to the throne, near-lunatics and wastrels who just 
C06 156 happened to have excellent taste. The show revolves around this 
C06 157 motley bunch, such as George III who lost the American Colonies, 
C06 158 his father Frederick, Prince of Wales, who lost his life through 
C06 159 being hit by a cricket ball, and Charles I who lost his head.<p/>
C06 160 <p_>Then there was George IV, perhaps the most aesthetically 
C06 161 refined of them all, but physically revolting and grotesquely 
C06 162 overweight. He was always debt-ridden yet hugely extravagant, 
C06 163 staggering drunkenly from one scandal to another.<p/>
C06 164 <p_>The size of the Royal Collection defies belief, and hitherto it 
C06 165 has defied every attempt to list it. Now a computerised inventory 
C06 166 is under way to detail the 7,000-plus paintings - contrast the 
C06 167 National Gallery's mere 2,500 - the half a million prints, the 
C06 168 3,000 miniatures, and the 30,000 Old Master drawings. And that is 
C06 169 before we come to the 'works of art', the quaint royal term for 
C06 170 everything except pictures. There are thought to be more than 2 
C06 171 million of them distributed through the various palaces and houses 
C06 172 in the form of sculpture, porcelain, silver, clocks, tapestries and 
C06 173 furniture.<p/>
C06 174 <p_>AND the stunning selection of paintings on view at the National 
C06 175 Gallery is quite unlike the usual art show because each room is 
C06 176 given over to a particular royal collector or period of collecting, 
C06 177 from the Tudors to Victoria and Albert. The result is startling, 
C06 178 because we are used to the clinical and artificial divisions of 
C06 179 museums according to country and chronology. This exhibition 
C06 180 re-creates the stimulating chaos of the private collection.<p/>
C06 181 <p_>Vermeer's Music Lesson, a George III purchase, hangs near Guido 
C06 182 Reni's sensuous Cleopatra - a 'poor Fred' acquisition - while the 
C06 183 'gold-ground' 13th century triptych of Duccio, the result of Prince 
C06 184 Albert's advanced taste, is jumped up with Winterhalter, Landseer 
C06 185 and Hans Baldung Grien.<p/>
C06 186 <p_>In the earlier Tudor and Stuart rooms we sense the more 
C06 187 chilling use of art as propaganda. Hans Holbein was the chief of 
C06 188 glory of Henry VIII's court but in addition to his unforgettable 
C06 189 portraits he was kept hard at work enhancing the King's terrifying 
C06 190 image and power. And Henry VIII could be quite crude in his 
C06 191 approach. He persuaded an Italian artist to paint The Four 
C06 192 Evangelists Stoning the Pope. Today it looks hilarious but it was 
C06 193 commissioned in deadly seriousness.<p/>
C06 194 <p_>From the sublime to the ridiculous, and the Pop Art show at the 
C06 195 Royal Academy. The best thing that can be said of the 'Pop' of Roy 
C06 196 Lichtenstein and the rest, is that it can be fun. As such it is the 
C06 197 classic 20th century art form - jokey, self-indulgent and 
C06 198 ultimately trivial.<p/>
C06 199 <p_>It is equally hard to think of anything encouraging to say 
C06 200 about the Tate's exhibition of the metal constructs of Sir Anthony 
C06 201 Caro. Owing to a number of deaths in his profession he has 
C06 202 graduated to the position 'Britain's greatest living sculptor'. If 
C06 203 so, British sculpture is in a bad way.<p/>
C06 204 <p_>He is a barren artist. Some of his metal girders form a work 
C06 205 called After Olympia which is 76ft long. It is said by the artist 
C06 206 to be 'inspired' by the Temple of Zeus at Olympia. The ploy is 
C06 207 typical of pretentious abstract work - the inflated title borrowing 
C06 208 a spurious respectability from the great art of the past.<p/>
C06 209 <p_>It will be impossible to avoid all things Japanese this autumn 
C06 210 when London is the setting for the Japan Festival 1991. The major 
C06 211 art shows are Japan And Britain at the Barbican and Visions Of 
C06 212 Japan at the Victoria and Albert.<p/>
C06 213 
C07   1 <#FLOB:C07\><h_><p_>Extraordinary, Jesus or not<p/>
C07   2 <p_>Jonathan Keates<p/><h/>
C07   3 <p_>AT THE heart of American academic life lies a singular paradox. 
C07   4 Outwardly the apparatus, voluminous libraries, bulging archives, 
C07   5 foundations, endowments, university presses, looks magnificent, 
C07   6 especially to the British, citizens of a country in which 
C07   7 openly-articulated contempt for higher education has now become an 
C07   8 article of faith. Yet a creeping timidity seems to paralyse its 
C07   9 operators, numbed by the apparently limitless prospect of causing 
C07  10 offence to somebody or other through the merest word or sign.<p/>
C07  11 <p_>The results of this bizarre climate of fear, created by raucous 
C07  12 and implacable special-interest caucuses lying in ambush along the 
C07  13 scholar's path, include a terminological pussyfooting whereby 
C07  14 familiar labels are altered for the sake of dubious peacekeeping. 
C07  15 One of the more preposterous examples of this involves replacing 
C07  16 the initials AD and BC with CE and BCE, <quote_>"Common 
C07  17 Era"<quote/> and <quote_>"Before Common Era"<quote/>. Not merely 
C07  18 are both terms in themselves meaningless - <quote|>"common" to whom 
C07  19 or what? - but by preserving the before-and-after distinction they 
C07  20 undermine the point of the change intended to preserve 
C07  21 non-Christians from sullying contact with the name of Jesus.<p/>
C07  22 <p_>William Klingaman is a convinced CE man, though ironically his 
C07  23 tour of the First Century AD reminds us that there was nothing 
C07  24 common about this era. Indeed, if one had to choose an age in which 
C07  25 practically every event or personality was in some way 
C07  26 extraordinary, this would unquestionably be it.<p/>
C07  27 <p_>A century which bundled together Ovid, Caligula, Agrippina and 
C07  28 St John the Divine could hardly go wrong. That even its least 
C07  29 attractive figures have since achieved a certain tainted glamour is 
C07  30 largely due to the accomplished professionalism of contemporary 
C07  31 historians, Tacitus, Suetonius and the rest, whose work underlines 
C07  32 the embarrassing truth that the historiography which gives most 
C07  33 pleasure is invariably the most prejudiced.<p/>
C07  34 <p_>As BC became AD, the Emperor Augustus, fretting over a 
C07  35 successor, recalled Tiberius from self-imposed exile in Rhodes and 
C07  36 sent him to lead a campaign against the fractious Germans. In Rome 
C07  37 itself, to appease the gods who had harried the city with floods 
C07  38 and food shortages, the ailing Caesar bombarded moral decadence 
C07  39 with a sequence of draconian decrees, criminalising adultery, 
C07  40 forcing men under 60 and woman under 50 to marry and produce 
C07  41 children on pain of forfeiting their inheritable property, and 
C07  42 rewarding philoprogenitive families with special privileges and tax 
C07  43 incentives. When Ovid dared to mock imperial hypocrisy he was 
C07  44 banished to Tomi on the Black Sea, where the Danube delta froze 
C07  45 solid in winter, icicles formed in men's beads and the stupid 
C07  46 Goths, laughing at his Latin, encouraged him to make poems in their 
C07  47 own barbarous tongue.<p/>
C07  48 <p_>More or less at the same time a small boy, whose Galilean 
C07  49 parents had taken him to Jerusalem for Passover, went missing in 
C07  50 the Temple and was found by his distraught mother sitting at the 
C07  51 feet of learn<*_>e-acute<*/>d rabbis, immersed in discussion of the 
C07  52 Law. Klingaman presents the mature Saviour as an eccentric swimmer 
C07  53 against the prevailing tide of Jewish militancy; not a 
C07  54 knife-brandishing zealot or a freedom fighter like the 
C07  55 die<?_>-<?/>hards of Masada, but an heir to the anti-materialist 
C07  56 millenarism of John the Baptist, a visionary eccentric with a 
C07  57 following of dropouts and no-hopers, dealing in circus-act miracles 
C07  58 and allegorical conundrums.<p/>
C07  59 <p_>This is one of those 'meanwhile' narratives whose chapters 
C07  60 lurch dramatically from one end of the world to the other, not 
C07  61 quite, but very nearly, a case of 'from China to Peru', with the 
C07  62 Chinese sections made all the more absorbing through a combination 
C07  63 of their sheer unfamiliarity with Klingaman's gift for lucid 
C07  64 exposition. There is as much heady delight to be gained from the 
C07  65 tale of Ma Yan, 'General Who Calms the Waves', trouncing the 
C07  66 Vietnamese virago Trung Trac and turning her bronze drums into a 
C07  67 horse, as there is from the story of the hubristic Wang Kang, whose 
C07  68 concubines were graded as Harmonious Ladies, Spouses, Beauties and 
C07  69 Attendants, but who ended up as a severed head stuck on a pole.<p/>
C07  70 <p_>Klingaman, marshalling and sifting his sources with 
C07  71 considerable deftness, is entertaining but never irresponsible, yet 
C07  72 finally there appears little point to a book of this kind save to 
C07  73 impress on us the significance of these impacted episodes and 
C07  74 <tf_><p/>dramatis personae<foreign/><tf/> thrown hugger-mugger into 
C07  75 a hundred-year span. His retelling of the catastrophic annihilation 
C07  76 of Quintilus Varus's<&|>sic! legions by Germanic tribesmen in the 
C07  77 forest of Westphalia is as graphic as the account, several chapters 
C07  78 later, Boadicea's revolt, yet neither achieves the austere 
C07  79 detachment and lethal suavity of tone for which we willingly return 
C07  80 to the Roman historians. No conclusions are drawn, we are required 
C07  81 to grasp no meaningful parallels. As the sort of history which 
C07  82 could be reliably offered to an inquiring teenager, <tf_>The First 
C07  83 Century<tf/> works splendidly, but something more striking is 
C07  84 needed to bring home to us the peculiar uncommonness with which our 
C07  85 Common Era began.<p/>
C07  86 
C07  87 <h_><p_>Post-revolution treasure trove<p/>
C07  88 <p_>Music<p/>
C07  89 <p_>Nicholas Kenyon on a Russian spring at the South Bank.<p/><h/>
C07  90 <p_>THERE is something ironic in the South Bank centre launching 
C07  91 its <tf_>Russian Spring<tf/> festival at a time when a chilly 
C07  92 winter is enveloping Russia's artistic life. The possibility of the 
C07  93 strongly characterful developments of the past few years being 
C07  94 thrown away by economic deprivation and political turmoils is all 
C07  95 too real.<p/>
C07  96 <p_>Increasingly, however, Russian artists and composers are 
C07  97 turning their eyes to Western Europe as their main source of 
C07  98 activity and support. Freedom to travel combined with lack of 
C07  99 opportunity at home means that there is plenty of very important 
C07 100 work for our promoters to explore for the first time. The 
C07 101 Huddersfield and Almeida festivals have already made successful 
C07 102 presentations of the work of younger Russian composers, and there 
C07 103 has been the astounding Schnittke festival which with the artists 
C07 104 of the calibre of Gidon Kremer and Yuri Bashmet, drew enthusiastic 
C07 105 crowds to the Barbican.<p/>
C07 106 <p_>Now, the South Bank has assembled its own festival in which, 
C07 107 however, the younger generation features less strongly than might 
C07 108 have been expected. Later in the month, there will be new works 
C07 109 from Elena Firsova and Dimitri Smirnov, as well as the long-overdue 
C07 110 first London performance of Sofia Gubaidulina's fine 
C07 111 <tf|>Offertorium.<p/>
C07 112 <p_>But the emphasis in this springtime festival falls much more 
C07 113 heavily on those who awakened Russian music from its romantic 
C07 114 slumbers after the revolution: Stravinsky, Prokofiev (whose 
C07 115 centenary is conveniently subsumed in the celebrations), and the 
C07 116 shadowy figure of Nikolai Roslavets, whose achievement has been 
C07 117 forgotten for half a century.<p/>
C07 118 <p_>In the festival's opening weekend there was even Tchaikovsky, 
C07 119 as the wellspring of the Russian romantic soul, ensuring good 
C07 120 houses for a pair of concerts that also featured Schnittke (from 
C07 121 the London Philharmonic) and Denisov (from the BBC Symphony 
C07 122 Orchestra).<p/>
C07 123 <p_>Tchaikovsky's neurotically intense achievement in uniting 
C07 124 symphonic form with nationalist sentiment can scarcely be 
C07 125 overestimated in the history of Russian music, and indeed one 
C07 126 feature of this series will be to emphasise the continuity of that 
C07 127 folk music-based tradition right through Stravinsky's own spring - 
C07 128 though a little Rimsky-Korsakov would have made the point even 
C07 129 better.<p/>
C07 130 <p_>Edison Denisov is fascinating among contemporary Russian 
C07 131 composers, a mild but forceful godfather figure whose house has 
C07 132 provided a treasure trove of scores, tapes, records and discussions 
C07 133 both for the younger generation and for visitors from abroad. But I 
C07 134 have never quite felt that his music lives up to his undeniably 
C07 135 positive influence.<p/>
C07 136 <p_><tf|>Peinture, which was the only work new to this country in 
C07 137 the opening weekend at the Festival Hall, was more than two decades 
C07 138 old, and although its sound patterns were woven with evident skill 
C07 139 and a wonderful ear for passing colour, it was difficult to feel 
C07 140 that at this point it had anything major to say.<p/>
C07 141 <p_>The BBC Symphony Orchestra played responsively for Andrew Davis 
C07 142 (they also shone last Thursday, at the Festival Hall in a 
C07 143 convincing revival of Hugh Wood's passionate 1982 Symphony). And 
C07 144 everyone was brought to life by Dimitri Sitkovetsky's razor-sharp 
C07 145 account of Shostakovich's Second Violin Concerto. But even 
C07 146 Sitkovetsky's ideal mixture of deep tone and rhythmic incisiveness 
C07 147 did not change my feeling that this is one of the most 
C07 148 unsatisfactory and unconvincing of Shostakovich's pieces, where a 
C07 149 clever and actively decorative style covers up a depressingly blank 
C07 150 centre.<p/>
C07 151 <p_>In a varied week, it was the <tf_>Orchestra of the Age of 
C07 152 Englightenment's<tf/> revival of Beethoven's complete incidental 
C07 153 music to <tf|>Egmont, at the Elizabeth Hall, that lingered in the 
C07 154 mind: superbly resourceful music which we rarely hear because of 
C07 155 the awkwardness of finding a concert format within which to perform 
C07 156 it.<p/>
C07 157 <p_>Which is not to say that the solution adopted here, of a 
C07 158 narrator reading a text-book version of Goethe's plot assembled 
C07 159 with all the flair of an entry for <tf_>Grove's Dictionary<tf/>, 
C07 160 really did the trick. But Nancy Argenta's singing of the songs was 
C07 161 so delightful and the overall quality of the dark, brooding music 
C07 162 so high that the project was a triumph.<p/>
C07 163 <p_>In the short melodrama, where speech is heard over music, 
C07 164 Goethe's own poetic language was briefly sensed, and one could see 
C07 165 what attracted Mozart as well as Beethoven to this unique 
C07 166 expressive form of speech-and-music. Mozart at one point, indeed, 
C07 167 suggested that he would always compose melodrama instead of 
C07 168 recitative: he never did anything so radical, but the melodramas he 
C07 169 composed for the unfinished <tf|>Zaide, recently heard in the 
C07 170 Mozart 200 series at the Barbican, were powerfully inventive.<p/>
C07 171 <p_>The orchestra of the Age of Englightenment, playing here under 
C07 172 the impassioned direction of Ivan Fischer, were on exciting form. 
C07 173 Monica Huggett, risking a great deal by tackling Beethoven's 
C07 174 technically advanced Violin concerto on a period instrument, drew 
C07 175 out all the French-inspired delicacy and refinement of the work.<p/>
C07 176 <p_>Darting pairs of wind instruments, an eloquent bassoon, horns 
C07 177 chirruping under the bouncing violin lines: the chamber style of 
C07 178 the performance seemed exactly right for the venue.<p/>
C07 179 <p_>This is not one of Beethoven's heaven-storming pieces, but one 
C07 180 directly inspired by the then new achievement of the French violin 
C07 181 school, and this performance matched that character very 
C07 182 accurately.<p/>
C07 183 <p_>I didn't enjoy the Old Vic <tf_>Carmen Jones<tf/> quite as much 
C07 184 as my colleague Michael Coveney, though I must say I was pleasantly 
C07 185 surprised by the piece itself: clever orchestrations, splendidly 
C07 186 played by the pit band under that by no means negligible conductor 
C07 187 Henry Lewis, and ingenious reworkings of the lyrics to fit Bizet's 
C07 188 ever-fresh music. But the production found its punch only in the 
C07 189 choreography, and the characterisations were lacking in grit: 
C07 190 indeed the whole story line fatally sentimentalises Bizet's 
C07 191 opera.<p/>
C07 192 <p_>From the first cast of the two which will share the run, there 
C07 193 was high-class singing from Wilhelmina Fernandez as Carmen and 
C07 194 Damon Evans, though the latter was a milk-and-water 
C07 195 Jos<*_>e-acute<*/>. As a son-of-<tf_>Porgy and Bess<tf/>, the show 
C07 196 seemed less than substantial. And is amplification, particularly of 
C07 197 such a crude nature, really necessary in such a perfect little 
C07 198 theatre as the Old Vic? Electronic intrusion between singer and 
C07 199 audience is going to become an ever greater issue as opera and 
C07 200 musicals become inextricably intertwined.<p/>
C07 201 
C07 202 <h_><p_>Caribbean orange juice<p/>
C07 203 <p_>First novels<p/>
C07 204 <p_>Boyd Tonkin<p/><h/>
C07 205 <p_>DISENCHANTMENT came quickly to the Caribbean diaspora. As early 
C07 206 as 1954, George Lamming's novel <tf_>The Emigrants<tf/> gave a 
C07 207 voice to West Indian dismay at the gap between the bleak streets of 
C07 208 the real England and the imperial fairyland conjured up in tropical 
C07 209 schoolrooms. Elean Thomas, writing about the same period and 
C07 210 process in <tf_>The Last Room<tf/> (Virago, pounds13.99), has her 
C07 211 heroine smuggle two Seville oranges from Jamaica through customs at 
C07 212 Heathrow. Once in Birmingham, the bitter-sweet fruit 
C07 213 <quote_>"shrivelled up, lost their juice, became crisp, dry and 
C07 214 hard"<quote/>.<p/>
C07 215 <p_>In the eyes of her clan, bright young Putus will shut the door 
C07 216 on the <quote_>"last room"<quote/> of their colonial prison. Though 
C07 217 her mother insists that <quote_>"you wi be de Barton who true lef' 
C07 218 slavery back-a-door"<quote/>, emigration pushes her fast into a 
C07 219 deepening nightmare of hardship and insult. Her own daughter 
C07 220 Icylane, fostered in a Jamaica where reggae and tourism have ousted 
C07 221 cane-cutting and rural folkways, makes the trip to England to save 
C07 222 Putus from a freezing bedsit and a mind racked by taunting inner 
C07 223 voices.<p/>
C07 224 <p_>'Icy' hangs out with Rastafarian musicians and has a skin 
C07 225 <quote_>"black as midnight"<quote/>; her mother despises her 
C07 226 <quote|>"lowclass" Jamaican neighbours and remembers the royal 
C07 227 visits of her childhood.<p/>
C07 228 
C08   1 <#FLOB:C08\><h_><p_>Nothing left to win<p/>
C08   2 <p_>Trials of an Expert Witness:<p/>
C08   3 <p_>Tales of Clinical Neurology and the Law<p/>
C08   4 <p_>by Harold L Klawans<p/>
C08   5 <p_>Anne Smith<p/><h/>
C08   6 <p_>Poor Mrs Sherman. She went to hospital for plastic surgery to 
C08   7 have an ulcer removed from her ear. The anaesthetist included 
C08   8 morphine in her pre-med. She suffered from emphysema. Morphine and 
C08   9 emphysema do not mix. By the time the porter had wheeled her to the 
C08  10 operating theatre and waved her a blithe goodbye, she was dead. A 
C08  11 nurse noticed. Sherman was resuscitated. But her lungs could not 
C08  12 cope and the task of keeping her alive was passed over to the 
C08  13 respirator.<p/>
C08  14 <p_>The hospital re-trained its porters so that they might more 
C08  15 readily spot the difference when the odd patient died on the 
C08  16 trolley - all but the one who had failed to notice that poor 
C08  17 Sherman had wheezed her last. He was untrainable, so they made him 
C08  18 a message-boy. One day Sherman asked for a television set in her 
C08  19 room. This same porter delivered it while she was asleep. Quietly, 
C08  20 he pulled out one of the plugs beside her bed and replaced it with 
C08  21 the television plug. In doing so, he cut off her respirator. Poor 
C08  22 Sherman died after all. Her family's claim against the hospital was 
C08  23 settled out of court.<p/>
C08  24 <p_><tf_>Trials of an Expert Witness<tf/> covers 19 cases such as 
C08  25 this from America, each one as fascinating and alarming as the 
C08  26 last. Against Richardson's Law, which states that every doctor is 
C08  27 ready to swear that every other doctor is an excellent physician, 
C08  28 Klawans insists on high standards in his profession: 
C08  29 <quote_>"Belief in the right of a patient to have legal recourse 
C08  30 for an injury resulting from malpractice is like belief in 
C08  31 God."<quote/><p/>
C08  32 <p_>The trouble is, that when the time comes to sue in these cases, 
C08  33 you have already lost. As did Sherman, or Mrs Greengrass, who was 
C08  34 left waiting for the obstetrician who had prescribed glucose drips 
C08  35 to keep her going until he was free; he went home and forgot her, 
C08  36 and she became a vegetable with brain damage caused by sodium 
C08  37 deficiency. Or Tom Thompson III who had a tumour which made him 
C08  38 lame, impotent and incontinent, but who was diagnosed as having 
C08  39 amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. By the time the correct diagnosis 
C08  40 was made and the benign tumour removed, he was left lame, 
C08  41 incontinent and impotent for life.<p/>
C08  42 <p_><quote_>"Science moves forward,"<quote/> is Klawans's comment 
C08  43 to a lawyer who asks him to repeat his successful testimony that an 
C08  44 accident can precipitate multiple sclerosis; they thought it could 
C08  45 then, they know it cannot now. He does not go into the ethics of 
C08  46 this; it's all in the game, he says. That takes a kind of courage 
C08  47 as does his examination of Ezra Pound's case, inspired by a poem by 
C08  48 Dannie Abse, Pound was not mad, just <quote_>"crazy like a 
C08  49 fox"<quote/>.<p/>
C08  50 <p_>Nor was the man who shot the gay rights campaigner Harvey Milk, 
C08  51 who claimed to have been driven temporarily nuts by the 
C08  52 overconsumption of Twinkie bars. Unlike the man who murdered in his 
C08  53 sleep, who was deemed to be irresponsible through <quote_>"sleep 
C08  54 drunkenness"<quote/>, a theory borne out by the case of Colonel 
C08  55 Culpeper, who shot a guardsman in similar circumstances in 1686.<p/>
C08  56 <p_>Although the human factor is clearly present in all these 
C08  57 cases, either in the attitude and behaviour of the patient or in 
C08  58 the lawyers' cynical manipulations, it is absent from Klawan's book 
C08  59 in the most important way. A science moves forward, cases cease to 
C08  60 be persons. A little fleshing-out round the neurology would have 
C08  61 gone a long way.<p/>
C08  62 
C08  63 <h_><p_>Festivals blessed by mixed Marriages<p/>
C08  64 <p_>Hugh Canning on two traditional but entirely different Figaro 
C08  65 productions<p/><h/>
C08  66 <p_>The Mozart year gets into full swing as the summer opera 
C08  67 festivals burst into action. Last week Glyndebourne opened its 
C08  68 first all-Mozart season since the 1956 bicentenary of its favourite 
C08  69 composer's birth, appropriately with a revival of the first opera 
C08  70 ever performed there in 1934, Le nozze di Figaro, this time in Sir 
C08  71 Peter Hall's 1989 production. This month, too, Jonathan Miller 
C08  72 unveiled his new Figaro at the Vienna Festival, to rapturous 
C08  73 applause and high critical praise.<p/>
C08  74 <p_>Miller is long acquainted with the inhabitants of the castle of 
C08  75 Aguas Frescas near Seville, since he directed 
C08  76 Beaumarchais's<&|>sic! comedy for the National Theatre at the Old 
C08  77 Vic in 1974 and his elegant, cool, very French production of 
C08  78 Mozart's opera has become a staple of the repertoire at the London 
C08  79 Coliseum. His latest thoughts on the Mozart opera make a 
C08  80 fascinating comparison with those of Hall.<p/>
C08  81 <p_>This Glyndebourne revival is restaged by Stephen Medcalf, 
C08  82 producer of the Opera 80 Magic Flute I wrote about last week, and 
C08  83 though there is certainly more theatrical life in it now, it lacks 
C08  84 the close focus in the complex relationship within the Almaviva 
C08  85 household which mark Miller's staging.<p/>
C08  86 <p_>Where the Hall production suffers from lazy, commonplace 
C08  87 naturalism, in John Gunter's insipid and already tatty-looking 
C08  88 sets, the new Miller <foreign|>mise-en-sc<*_>e-grave<*/>nes has a 
C08  89 brilliant young designer in Peter J Davison, who transports us from 
C08  90 the down-at-heel backstairs milieu to the Countess's boudoir with 
C08  91 magical use of a revolve. Later, in the middle of Act IV, Davison 
C08  92 takes us instantly from the great hall to the exterior of the 
C08  93 palace for the garden scene.<p/>
C08  94 <p_>Both transformations are stunning <foreign_>coups de 
C08  95 th<*_>e-acute<*/><*_>a-circ<*/>tre<foreign/>, whereby Figaro 
C08  96 becomes the two-part opera in four acts its musical structure 
C08  97 suggests it is and the drama moves inexorably towards the great 
C08  98 crisis of the denouement. Not only is Davison's set a miracle of 
C08  99 engineering, but it looks ravishing, inspired by the bourgeois 
C08 100 painting of Chardin, rather than the cut-price Boucher on offer at 
C08 101 Glyndebourne.<p/>
C08 102 <p_>Miller underplays the revolutionary aspect of the drama - as 
C08 103 Mozart and Da Ponte necessarily did in order to get the opera on at 
C08 104 all in 1786 - so there is no blunderbuss<?_>-<?/>brandishing 
C08 105 peasantry bursting into the place as at Glyndebourne. Instead, 
C08 106 Miller, aided by Davison's sets and the beautifully detailed, 
C08 107 historically researched costume designs of James Acheson, evokes an 
C08 108 <foreign_>ancien regime<foreign/> not yet in terminal decline, but 
C08 109 getting there. The Countess's pinkwashed walls need a new coat of 
C08 110 paint, the plasterwork is crumbling and the old social distinctions 
C08 111 are gradually breaking down. The older members of the Count's 
C08 112 retinue are deferential, while the young girls know and exploit his 
C08 113 sexual proclivities. Susanna and Barbarina are not the only women 
C08 114 who look for social advancement.<p/>
C08 115 <p_>By concentrating on the interplay of the characters without any 
C08 116 specific dialectic or concept, Miller paradoxically underlines the 
C08 117 eternal modernity of Figaro. In Vienna's intimate Theater an der 
C08 118 Wien, the polemical German director Ruth Berghaus was in the 
C08 119 audience, and she must have been dismayed by Miller's traditional 
C08 120 approach. But it revealed more about the psychology of the 
C08 121 characters than any intellectual production I have seen. The 
C08 122 Viennese audience was overjoyed, too, not to have any ideology 
C08 123 rammed down their throats in their favourite opera.<p/>
C08 124 <p_>There is not much ideology behind the Hall show, but neither is 
C08 125 there Miller's illumination of character and situation. In 
C08 126 retrospect, I wish Miller could have had the Glyndebourne cast, 
C08 127 which has a mature and familiar Figaro in Alan Opie, but otherwise 
C08 128 very young principals, too young in the Case of Susan Bickley's 
C08 129 Marcellina who could never be this Figaro's mother.<p/>
C08 130 <p_>In Vienna, Miller had grand opera stars for the Almavivas, the 
C08 131 blossoming American soprano Cheryl Studer and veteran Italian bass, 
C08 132 Ruggero Raimondi, and however effectively they suppressed their 
C08 133 super-egos in favour of a close-knit ensemble, Glyndebourne's 
C08 134 youthful Count and Countess, Jeffrey Black and Gunnel Bohmann, were 
C08 135 both vocally and histrionically more affecting. Bohmann has vastly 
C08 136 improved her form since the opening night in 1989 and presents the 
C08 137 Countess, rightly in my view, as a young wife deeply anxious about 
C08 138 the state of her marriage, rather than the tragedy queen of many 
C08 139 large-house productions.<p/>
C08 140 <p_>Studer steers clear of that, but only just, and she sings with 
C08 141 an amplitude of tone and breadth of phrasing turning her two big 
C08 142 numbers into show<?_>-<?/>stoppers. Vocally, Raimondi's Count was a 
C08 143 big surprise, for his large Italianate bass-baritone can sound 
C08 144 lugubrious in Verdi let alone Mozart, but here he was elegance 
C08 145 itself and he characterised the noble skirt-lifter as a frustrated, 
C08 146 satyr-like buffoon rather than the glowering villain suggested by 
C08 147 his recording of the part.<p/>
C08 148 <p_>Both companies field fine Cherubinos: Gabrielle Sima in Vienna 
C08 149 is a charming soprano paggio in the Jurinac mould who deserves to 
C08 150 be seen at Covent Garden, while Glyndebourne's Marianne Rohrholm, 
C08 151 though not so well-endowed vocally, is a real charmer. The 
C08 152 high-light of the production for me is the moment she scarpers when 
C08 153 Barbarina suggests marriage.<p/>
C08 154 <p_>Both productions are, quite properly, dominated by their Figaro 
C08 155 and Susanna, and it is a measure of the opera's infinite variety 
C08 156 that both couples are entirely different and both work 
C08 157 triumphantly. Vienna pairs a fine young Italian Figaro, Lucio 
C08 158 Gallo, who will sing in the Covent Garden production next season, 
C08 159 with the still youthful-looking, but seasoned Susanna of Marie 
C08 160 McLaughlin, while at Glyndebourne the reverse is the case.<p/>
C08 161 <p_>If I reserve special praise, it is for the quite wonderful 
C08 162 Susanna of Alison Hagley at Glyndebourne, deservedly promoted from 
C08 163 Barbarina in 1989. Hagley registers every nuance of da Ponte's 
C08 164 detailed expression marks - <quote|>"ironically", 
C08 165 <quote|>"maliciously" and so on - and deploys a creamy lyric 
C08 166 soprano which suggests the promise of the young Kiri Te Kanawa. Her 
C08 167 Act IV aria was the crowning moment of her performance as her 
C08 168 soprano intertwined erotically with the wind soloists of the Age of 
C08 169 Enlightenment orchestra.<p/>
C08 170 <p_>It is in the orchestral performance where the two productions 
C08 171 go entirely separate ways. At Glyndebourne, Andrew Davis conducts 
C08 172 period instruments in a fast and furiously theatrical account of 
C08 173 the opera, while in Vienna Claudio Abbado conducts the luxuriously 
C08 174 upholstered State Opera Orchestra (alias the Vienna Philharmonic). 
C08 175 Abbado is far from stately, though, and his brilliant conducting of 
C08 176 the two great finales recalled the inexorable momentum of the 
C08 177 classic 1956 Erich Kleiber recording with the same band. At 
C08 178 Glyndebourne, Davis seems to have solved all the problems Simon 
C08 179 Rattle encountered when the production was new. This bodes well for 
C08 180 the new Rattle/Trevor Nunn Cosi fan tutte which opened on Friday 
C08 181 and about which I will write next week.<p/>
C08 182 
C08 183 <h_><p_>Murder, melodrama and mistaken identity<p/>
C08 184 <p_>IAIN JOHNSTONE on Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead and the 
C08 185 week's releases<p/><h/>
C08 186 <p_>It was perhaps fortuitous for Tom Stoppard that the film of his 
C08 187 1967 play, <tf_>Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead<tf/> (Curzon 
C08 188 West End et al, Pg), was delayed by Sean Connery's withdrawal from 
C08 189 the project. A working knowledge of Hamlet is essential to one's 
C08 190 enjoyment of the comedy, and until this year movie<?_>-<?/>buffs 
C08 191 had to rely on Laurence Olivier's version, in which Rosencrantz and 
C08 192 Guildenstern are absent. Fortunately, Mel Gibson has now ridden to 
C08 193 the rescue and the plot point has been restored, with the 
C08 194 Wittenberg students unwittingly carrying Hamlet's death warrant to 
C08 195 England.<p/>
C08 196 <p_>In Gibson's Hamlet, as in nearly every version since the 
C08 197 Stoppard play, the expression of royal gratitude to the pair - King 
C08 198 Claudius: <quote_>"Thanks, Rosencrantz and gentle 
C08 199 Guildenstern"<quote/>; Queen Gertrude: <quote_>"Thanks, 
C08 200 Guildenstern and gentle Rosencrantz"<quote/> - has the emphasis of 
C08 201 the consort correcting the monarch, although there is no stage 
C08 202 direction to that effect. Gertrude could well have reversed the 
C08 203 names out of pure politeness.<p/>
C08 204 <p_>But confusion of identity is the precise target of Stoppard's 
C08 205 humour. In the title roles he has even cast two actors, Gary Oldman 
C08 206 and Tim Roth, who could almost pass for one other. Not even 
C08 207 Rosencrantz is sure whether he is Rosencrantz or Guildenstern, so 
C08 208 how can the pair expect anyone else to distinguish them? What both 
C08 209 do know is that they provide itinerant irrelevance. Hamlet greets 
C08 210 them warmly as good friends but shares not a single student 
C08 211 reminiscence with them; only Rosencrantz's retort to his request 
C08 212 for news - <quote_>"None, my lord, but that the world's grown 
C08 213 honest"<quote/> - suggests there might be ironic depths to the man, 
C08 214 which Shakespeare was unprepared to plumb.<p/>
C08 215 <p_>Stoppard has taken liberties with his own work to put in on 
C08 216 film, but it still gets off to an uncertain start. The gag about 
C08 217 the spun coin always landing heads-up builds brilliantly on the 
C08 218 stage but fails to find the same crescendo in the film.<p/>
C08 219 
C09   1 <#FLOB:C09\><h_><p_>All is far from true<p/>
C09   2 <p_>THEATRE<p/>
C09   3 <p_>John Gross on 'Henry VIII'<p/>
C09   4 <p_>'Sailor Beware!' and<p/>
C09   5 <p_>'Black Poppies'<p/><h/>
C09   6 <p_>HENRY VIII was offered to its first audience as a docudrama. 
C09   7 Its subtitle, boldly underlined in the new production at the 
C09   8 Chichester Festival Theatre, is <tf_>All is True<tf/>.<p/>
C09   9 <p_>Whatever the private thoughts of spectators at the time, today 
C09  10 it is almost impossible not to murmur, <quote_>"Oh no, it 
C09  11 isn't."<quote/> You do not have to be much of a historian to 
C09  12 recognise that the story has been tidied up, and that the king in 
C09  13 particular was altogether less amiable a character than he is shown 
C09  14 as being.<p/>
C09  15 <p_>To the extent that the play is a documentary, on the other 
C09  16 hand, it has the untidiness and discontinuity of life itself. True, 
C09  17 it also has a recurrent theme in the fall from greatness - 
C09  18 exemplified first by the Duke of Buckingham, then by Queen 
C09  19 Katherine, then by Wolsey - but it still remains irredeemably 
C09  20 episodic.<p/>
C09  21 <p_>Then there is the question of mixed authorship. For over a 
C09  22 hundred years scholars have assigned whole scenes and chunks of 
C09  23 scenes to John Fletcher rather than Shakespeare (including, 
C09  24 disconcertingly, Wolsey's famous farewell speeches after this 
C09  25 fall). No one can know for certain whether they are right; but if 
C09  26 they are, it would help to explain why the play is notable for 
C09  27 rhetoric rather than true free-flowing poetry.<p/>
C09  28 <p_>Not the most rewarding work in the Shakespeare canon, then (in 
C09  29 so far as it belongs there at all). Yet given even a halfway decent 
C09  30 production, it can hold the stage surprisingly well. It has plenty 
C09  31 of dramatic pace, it offers some fine opportunities to actors, and 
C09  32 much of the rhetoric is at any rate rhetoric of a very high 
C09  33 order.<p/>
C09  34 <p_><quote_>"Halfway decent"<quote/> just about sums up Ian Judge's 
C09  35 Chichester production, although at times it is a good deal better 
C09  36 than that. The best thing in it is Tony Britton's Wolsey. He makes 
C09  37 a powerful impression as the proud, impatient politician, and in 
C09  38 spite of shouting one or two lines that would be better left 
C09  39 unshouted he extracts most of the majestic pathos from the farewell 
C09  40 speeches. (Can they really be by Fletcher?)<p/>
C09  41 <p_>The other principals are disappointing. Dorothy Tutin is good 
C09  42 at conveying Katherine's flashes of anger, but not her more 
C09  43 important qualities of melancholy and resignation. Keith Michell's 
C09  44 Henry is much less formidable and four-square than one might have 
C09  45 expected.<p/>
C09  46 <p_>Elsewhere Benjamin Whitrow makes a credible Cranmer, and Fiona 
C09  47 Fullerton has some eloquent silences as Anne Boleyn. But the Tudor 
C09  48 pageantry ought to be more full-blooded than it is (Mr Judge has 
C09  49 not been able to resist putting some of the minor characters into 
C09  50 modern double-breasted suits), and so should the production as a 
C09  51 whole.<p/>
C09  52 <p_>The one thing wrong with <tf_>Sailor, Beware!<tf/> is its 
C09  53 title. It suggests (to my mind, at least) falling trousers, seaside 
C09  54 postcards and hastily concealed bimbos. But although Philip King 
C09  55 and Falkland Cary's 1955 success contains plenty of comic 
C09  56 exaggeration, it is far from being a farce. You care too much about 
C09  57 the characters and their predicaments for that.<p/>
C09  58 <p_>In the right-hand corner, Emma Hornett, an amazing 
C09  59 fire-breathing dragon of a wife and mother, about to become a 
C09  60 mother-in-law. In the left-hand corner, a downtrodden husband, a 
C09  61 pretty daughter (though just occasionally she sounds like a chip 
C09  62 off the old block), a perky sailor, a sailor's pawky Scottish 
C09  63 shipmate, a sexy niece ... just about everyone else, in fact - but 
C09  64 will their combined forces prove a match for her?<p/>
C09  65 <p_>In the end the play comes down on the side of marriage and the 
C09  66 family, but it is a close-run thing. It is a very funny play - 
C09  67 partly because of the author's sheer craftsmanship, but still more 
C09  68 because our sympathies are involved. Many of the laughs are fuelled 
C09  69 not perhaps by pity and terror but by something very close to anger 
C09  70 and alarm.<p/>
C09  71 <p_>The new revival at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, directed by 
C09  72 Peter James, is a triumph. That means, inevitably, that the chief 
C09  73 honours have to go to Jane Freeman as Mrs Hornett. She is appalling 
C09  74 and enraging but you can never quite dislike her. There is always 
C09  75 just room, as there ought to be, for a change of heart.<p/>
C09  76 <p_>The rest of the cast, from Sheila Steafel as a dotty 
C09  77 sister-in-law to Richard Howard as vintage vicar, are excellent, 
C09  78 and the whole production spins along with assurance and verve. It 
C09  79 would surely do well if it transferred to the West End.<p/>
C09  80 <p_>In <tf_>Black Poppies<tf/>, at the Theatre Royal, Stratford 
C09  81 East, a group of actors take turns at recounting the experiences of 
C09  82 blacks in the British armed services from the Second World War 
C09  83 until more or less today. Their monologues are based on interviews 
C09  84 - edited but otherwise unaltered - that were conducted with a group 
C09  85 of ex-servicemen in 1987. All is true.<p/>
C09  86 <p_>All is also remarkably interesting. The individual narratives 
C09  87 are full of character, humour, sharply defined detail; and you 
C09  88 never doubt their authenticity.<p/>
C09  89 <p_>The older men tell a tale of a time when colour differences 
C09  90 were submerged - up to a point - on account of the war. Only 
C09  91 afterwards, when they had to look for jobs and lodgings, did 
C09  92 disenchantment set in.<p/>
C09  93 <p_>Since then, many blacks have found more security or opportunity 
C09  94 in the forces than they were able to find in civilian life. But all 
C09  95 of them, even the successful ones, know that racial prejudice is 
C09  96 never very far away. They have all learned, in the phrase one of 
C09  97 them clings to, that they have got to be 'atmosphere-sensitive' if 
C09  98 they are going to survive.<p/>
C09  99 <p_>Not that there is anything unduly repetitious about their 
C09 100 stories. Their motives for joining up varied a good deal; so did 
C09 101 their circumstances once they were in, and their reactions.<p/>
C09 102 <p_>As though to underline the point, one episode interweaves the 
C09 103 reflections of a regular who enlisted in the 1950s - pipe-smoking, 
C09 104 fond of long words, stolidly respectable - with those of a 
C09 105 street-smart young recruit from present-day Brixton. It holds the 
C09 106 balance very fairly between the two of them.<p/>
C09 107 <p_>We also hear the sad story of a gifted bugler who ran up 
C09 108 against the unwritten law of 'thus far and no further': there comes 
C09 109 a point beyond which, if you are black, you have very little chance 
C09 110 of being promoted. There are some unforgettable glimpses of service 
C09 111 in Northern Ireland, and a horrifying account (though it has its 
C09 112 exhilarating moments) of a black military policeman standing up to 
C09 113 a pathological brute of a white NCO.<p/>
C09 114 <p_>You are never less than absorbed by these reminiscences, and 
C09 115 often transfixed. And the actors - all black, of course - are so 
C09 116 good that it is hard to realise that you are not listening to the 
C09 117 men themselves.<p/>
C09 118 
C09 119 <h_><p_>A threadbare club tie<p/>
C09 120 <p_>ART<p/>
C09 121 <p_>John McEwen visits the new Irish Museum for Modern Art<p/><h/>
C09 122 <p_>THERE is an invigorating sense of civic pride in Dublin, as 
C09 123 well there might be in a city which boasts - quite apart from 
C09 124 anything else - the richest and most various stucco work of any in 
C09 125 Europe; and nothing could symbolise it more dramatically than the 
C09 126 transformation of its finest 17th-century building, the old Royal 
C09 127 Hospital at Kilmainham, into the country's first museum of modern 
C09 128 art, officially declared open by Mr Charles Haughey, the Taoiseach, 
C09 129 yesterday.<p/>
C09 130 <p_>Ever since New York invented the idea of a Museum of Modern Art 
C09 131 60 years ago, this oddly contradictory notion for an institution 
C09 132 has taken hold, so that to have one has become a mark of a 
C09 133 country's superiority. Ireland joins an elite club with the opening 
C09 134 of IMMA, something of which Mr Haughey, who has pushed the idea 
C09 135 through with the high-handedness of a Mitterrand, is well aware. No 
C09 136 wonder Declan McGonagle, late of our own ICA and now the museum's 
C09 137 first director, regards it as his first task to demonstrate that we 
C09 138 can now be part of an international family of museums.<p/>
C09 139 <p_>But will it work? In Dublin where, as one participant put it, 
C09 140 <quote_>"confidentiality is a secret told to one person at a 
C09 141 time"<quote/>, there is plenty of back-chat for and against.<p/>
C09 142 <p_>The choice and conservation of the building are predictably 
C09 143 controversial. The position of Kilmainham, one and a half miles 
C09 144 from the city centre, would seem to be the most reasonable of these 
C09 145 complaints. This inconvenience is something it has in common with 
C09 146 its Scottish counterpart in Edinburgh - but in the case of the 
C09 147 Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art being in the sticks does 
C09 148 not seem to have mattered too much. If a programme is good enough 
C09 149 the public will follow.<p/>
C09 150 <p_>IMMA - a copy of Les Invalides in Paris - is itself an 
C09 151 architectural spectacle: four noble ranges surrounding a square 
C09 152 courtyard, its grass now removed in favour of gravel to give a 
C09 153 suitable parade-ground effect, with a continuous internal arcade 
C09 154 linking the three residential sides of the building.<p/>
C09 155 <p_>Certainly it has been restored with style. The initial job, 
C09 156 costing pounds21 million, was finished seven years ago when a new 
C09 157 role for the building had yet to be decided; then in 1990 a further 
C09 158 pounds900,000 was granted to turn it into a place more suitable for 
C09 159 the varied requirements of a modern art museum.<p/>
C09 160 <p_>Traditionalists may shudder at the creation of a new entrance - 
C09 161 particularly of the staircase inside, made of glass and iron 
C09 162 girders - but it does declare the change of use. Elsewhere the most 
C09 163 has been made of a restrictive plan (again reminiscent of the 
C09 164 Edinburgh gallery) of corridors and small inter-connecting rooms. 
C09 165 In the broad and continuous corridor of the first floor and the 
C09 166 rooms it served (where the old soldiers once slept two to a bed), 
C09 167 Declan McGonagle has pieced together an opening show more in the 
C09 168 form of a menu than a spectacle.<p/>
C09 169 <p_>An art student in the early 1970s, he remains true to many of 
C09 170 the artists and contradictory attitudes of that time. Thus he is at 
C09 171 pains to be a man of the people - to show <quote_>"the extent to 
C09 172 which an artist merges with a society"<quote/> - while confronting 
C09 173 us for the most part with minimal and conceptual works of an 
C09 174 essentially dehumanised and autocratic kind - most of them 
C09 175 demanding a king's ransom of space to make their visual point.<p/>
C09 176 <p_>Kingpin of his selection is characteristically the artist who 
C09 177 most personified this late Modernist/late Marxist confusion - the 
C09 178 late Joseph Beuys. He made the fatuous statement that, 
C09 179 <quote_>"Everyone is an artist"<quote/>; meanwhile becoming the 
C09 180 hottest commercial property in the art world himself by exploiting 
C09 181 the credulity of the young and the cynicism of the market. His very 
C09 182 touch was enough to impose a price on an object, his (in this 
C09 183 instance) <tf_>Bits and Pieces<tf/>, selected during visits to 
C09 184 Ireland and now reverentially displayed in a series of cabinets, 
C09 185 the secular equivalent of holy relics.<p/>
C09 186 <p_>And yet if, in Beuysian mode, McGonagle is most committed to 
C09 187 the gobbledygook of engaging <quote_>"with artists and non-artists 
C09 188 as equal participants in an ongoing cultural process, not as 
C09 189 producer and consumer"<quote/>, he is also understandably anxious 
C09 190 to demonstrate that this does not mean that IMMA cannot be all 
C09 191 things to all men. To placate traditionalists he has secured the 
C09 192 loan of some 20th-century masters from Holland (a token Picasso, 
C09 193 Mondrian, Dubuffet, etc<&|>sic!), and a minimalist collection (Judd 
C09 194 Andre, Ellsworth Kelly et al) from Germany.<p/>
C09 195 <p_>He has found a place for Jack B. Yeats and the collection (the 
C09 196 selection here mostly of Op Art and other 1960s styles) of a 
C09 197 contemporary Irishman, Gordon Lambert. He has begged, borrowed and 
C09 198 bought a selection of things by a motley of 50 middle-aged artists. 
C09 199 (Richard Long and Georg Baselitz among the better known). He has 
C09 200 included three young and Irish artists-in-residence; a video 
C09 201 programme; a community arts project. But in his anxiety to please 
C09 202 he hides, or exposes (depending on your view) the problems he 
C09 203 faces.<p/>
C09 204 <p_>Chief of these is lack of cash. The State has given IMMA an 
C09 205 initial pounds250,000 for purchases, with the promise of an annual 
C09 206 purchasing grant of pounds50,000 in future; so hopes of a permanent 
C09 207 collection, particularly in a country which makes no tax 
C09 208 concessions to collectors, are unrealistic.
C09 209 
C10   1 <#FLOB:C10\><h_><p_>Bio-degradable scandal<p/>
C10   2 <p_>Curtain<p/>
C10   3 <p_>by Michael Korda<p/>
C10   4 <p_>Sheridan Morley<p/><h/>
C10   5 <p_>Michael Korda is an American publisher of considerable 
C10   6 expertise and distinction whose own writings form an uneasy pattern 
C10   7 over the past 20 years. His first titles, always followed by 
C10   8 <}_><-|>a<+|>an<}/> exclamation mark, were yuppie handbooks for the 
C10   9 1970s: Power! was one. Success! the other. Then he wrote Charmed 
C10  10 Lives, an admirable history of his own flamboyant, movie-mogul 
C10  11 Uncle Alex, before inventing, in the middle 1980s, the 
C10  12 'bio-novel'.<p/>
C10  13 <p_>This grew out of Charmed Lives in that it chronicled the exotic 
C10  14 life and career of his aunt, Merle Oberon, who was Sir Alex's 
C10  15 discovery, mistress, wife and star, but it was never conceived as a 
C10  16 biography. As a novel, Queenie conveniently freed Korda from any 
C10  17 problems with factual accuracy or libel suits. Everybody knew 
C10  18 Queenie was really Auntie Merle, in celluloid thin disguise, but 
C10  19 nobody cared enough about her memory to object to her nephew's 
C10  20 repackaging it.<p/>
C10  21 <p_>Now Queenie has spawned <tf|>Curtain, Korda's latest bio-novel, 
C10  22 and one presumably now making an only-ritual appearance in hardback 
C10  23 before finding its natural home on the airport carrousels. But, 
C10  24 British audiences are going to have rather more of a problem with 
C10  25 it than with Queenie: for the principal characters of Curtain are 
C10  26 blatantly and unmistakably 'inspired by' Laurence Olivier and 
C10  27 Vivien Leigh. Several key episodes are meticulously modelled on 
C10  28 sequences in their many biographies, from the catastrophic Romeo 
C10  29 and Juliet tour of America through to Olivier's wartime seasons at 
C10  30 the Vic, and the accusations by Kenneth Tynan that Larry was 
C10  31 sacrificing his stage career to Viv's mental instability.<p/>
C10  32 <p_>The trouble with all of this is that Korda is excellently 
C10  33 placed to separate Olivier fact from Olivier fiction: his uncle was 
C10  34 their most frequent movie producer (both were under contract to 
C10  35 him), Korda junior was Olivier's American publisher, and edited the 
C10  36 Anne Edwards biography by Vivien, which was the first to uncover 
C10  37 her clinical depressions. It is indeed more than possible that 
C10  38 Korda's central plot-hypothesis - that Olivier had a brief and 
C10  39 guilt-ridden homosexual affair with Danny Kaye - can be sustained 
C10  40 by a line or two in the Olivier autobiography where he wrote of 
C10  41 <quote_>"a passionate involvement with the one male with whom 
C10  42 sexual dalliance has not been loathsome to contemplate."<quote/><p/>
C10  43 <p_>But is this book, a few months after Olivier's death, really 
C10  44 what his widow and children, or indeed Vivien Leigh's surviving 
C10  45 daughter, best deserve by way of a publishing memorial from a 
C10  46 writer whose family have made more than a little money out of the 
C10  47 Oliviers over the years? Especially when elements of truth are 
C10  48 couched in a plot of such melodrama (a suicide and a murder and a 
C10  49 knighthood all in the last couple of pages) that not even Korda 
C10  50 senior would have dared film it?<p/>
C10  51 <p_>This is grave-robbery of an especially unpleasant nature, a 
C10  52 tacky little tale given spurious interest and credibility by the 
C10  53 mixing of undeniable fact into a pudding of pure fiction.<p/>
C10  54 <p_>What Korda has written may well be the manuscript he would have 
C10  55 yearned to receive from Olivier by way of autobiography, but that 
C10  56 doesn't guarantee any of its authenticity. You have only to compare 
C10  57 the way Olivier's dead peers, Richardson and Rattigan (all safely 
C10  58 beyond libel) appear in the book with the carefully gloved 
C10  59 treatment given to Gielgud and others still around, to realise the 
C10  60 extent of the opportunism employed here by a writer and publisher 
C10  61 who once knew more than a little about the boundaries of good 
C10  62 taste. Korda is fast becoming the Bret Easton Ellis of the 
C10  63 nostalgia trade.<p/>
C10  64 
C10  65 <h_><p_>Announcing a poor state of health<p/>
C10  66 <p_>Radio Waves<p/>
C10  67 <p_>Paul Donovan<p/><h/>
C10  68 <p_>Radio 5 has just finished a series of programmes called Hard 
C10  69 Times. This was not a serialisation of Charles Dickens's novel for 
C10  70 GCSE pupils, but a week-long look at poverty in today's Britain. 
C10  71 Homelessness, ill-health, debt, divorce, mortgage arrears, old folk 
C10  72 dying from the cold each winter: the grim catalogue of social 
C10  73 breakdown mounted as the week wore on.<p/>
C10  74 <p_>The Topical peg for this was the publication last month of a 
C10  75 European commission report which claimed that Britain was the 
C10  76 poorest, or second poorest, or seventh poorest country (depending 
C10  77 on which index you chose) in the European Community, and that the 
C10  78 proportion of this country's 'poor' relative to the whole 
C10  79 population rose markedly in the years of Thatcherite ascendancy 
C10  80 between 1980 and 1985.<p/>
C10  81 <p_>You would hardly have learned from Radio 5's week, however, 
C10  82 that far from being a document handed down on tablets of stone and 
C10  83 accepted by all, the report was in fact roundly rejected by the 
C10  84 British government. Nicholas Scott, social security minister, said 
C10  85 its authors were talking about <quote_>"inequality, not 
C10  86 poverty"<quote/>. (One idiosyncratic feature of the report was that 
C10  87 it based its comparisons on household spending, not income, thus 
C10  88 departing from the standard practice of its predecessors.)<p/>
C10  89 <p_>Such complexities did not blunt the thrust of Radio 5's series 
C10  90 of specially tailored programmes, which was that poverty has 
C10  91 reached crisis level and the gulf between rich and poor is widening 
C10  92 fast. <quote_>"The whole idea of there being a floor through which 
C10  93 you can't fall has gone,"<quote/> said Carey Oppenheim of the Child 
C10  94 Poverty Action Group on Tuesday's edition of Sound Advice.<p/>
C10  95 <p_><quote_>"The idea that our patients can 'knit themselves woolly 
C10  96 hats and buy healthy food', in the words of one previous minister, 
C10  97 just doesn't apply,"<quote/> said an inner-city doctor from Bristol 
C10  98 on Thursday's edition of The Health Show. <quote_>"Our patients 
C10  99 don't have the ability to choose. If you're stuck in a high-rise 
C10 100 block with three children and no father figure around, you can't 
C10 101 actually make the choice to go out and buy yourself healthy food, 
C10 102 and perhaps your cigarette is your only way of relieving the 
C10 103 tension."<quote/><p/>
C10 104 <p_>His comments followed a lengthy monologue by another GP, Dr 
C10 105 David Widgery, who practises in London's East End. <quote_>"After 
C10 106 40 years of slowly trying to build a welfare state and 10 years of 
C10 107 trying rather more rapidly to replace it with a social market, 
C10 108 poverty is widespread and growing, and with it ill-health,"<quote/> 
C10 109 he said.<p/>
C10 110 <p_>Was there nobody who argued from the opposite perspective? Not 
C10 111 quite, but they were in a tiny minority. On the fourth day, the 
C10 112 Department of Social Security said that none of its ministers had 
C10 113 been invited to contribute to any of the programmes, which seems a 
C10 114 remarkable omission for a politically sensitive subject, especially 
C10 115 in what may turn out to be election year. Shortly after that Radio 
C10 116 5 approached the DSS to see if the benefits minister, Michael Jack, 
C10 117 was available for Friday's studio debate which wrapped up the 
C10 118 week.<p/>
C10 119 <p_>Hard Times began on Monday on Johnnie Walker's show, This 
C10 120 Family Business. A sociology professor from Brunel University, 
C10 121 David Marsland, argued that the welfare state discouraged 
C10 122 individual initiative and did not target those in real need with 
C10 123 sufficient precision, and that the confusion of poverty and 
C10 124 inequality was a deliberate ploy by the Left. He was outnumbered by 
C10 125 spokesmen from both the Child Poverty Action Group and Family 
C10 126 Policy Studies Centre, who criticised both him and supposed 
C10 127 government inaction.<p/>
C10 128 <p_>The next morning's Sound Advice contained much sensible 
C10 129 guidance from people in Citizen's Advice Bureaux on managing your 
C10 130 money and <quote|>"prioritising" on low incomes. It was enlivened 
C10 131 by a man who rang in and explained how he lived on a diet which 
C10 132 seemed to consist mainly of porridge and pitted apples, which he 
C10 133 bought for 10p/lb. He had no car, no TV, avoided meat, used his 
C10 134 library, bought books for a few pence each at his local charity 
C10 135 shops, and sounded like one of life's natural broadcasters. But 
C10 136 there were also the usual campaigners, including the academic Peter 
C10 137 Townsend, vice-president of the Fabian Society. He popped up again 
C10 138 on The Health Show, talking about the dangers of damp concrete 
C10 139 tower blocks.<p/>
C10 140 <p_>Wednesday's edition of This Family Business dealt with poverty 
C10 141 as a cause of stress in the family, and we heard that divorce is at 
C10 142 its highest among the low-paid. It was followed by Education 
C10 143 Matters, on cutbacks.<p/>
C10 144 <p_>The message of the week, rammed home repeatedly, was that 
C10 145 poverty is growing and can only be averted with a caring, 
C10 146 compassionate government of the sort we do not have. There were 
C10 147 times when it sounded like a party political broadcast.<p/>
C10 148 <p_>Caroline Elliot, chief producer in the continuing education 
C10 149 department and the executive who oversaw the week, denies any 
C10 150 propagandist intent. <quote_>"Our object was not to give anyone a 
C10 151 political soapbox but to dispense advice to those on a low income 
C10 152 or no income. We did ask the education minister, Tim Eggar, to 
C10 153 contribute to the item on nursery education on Education Matters, 
C10 154 but he turned us down, so we got a Conservative councillor instead. 
C10 155 We have tried to balance the partisan voices."<quote/><p/>
C10 156 <p_>Somehow, it didn't always sound like that.<p/>
C10 157 
C10 158 <h_><p_>It takes 17 to tango but fewer to flamenco<p/>
C10 159 <p_>David Dougill on the fiery Tango Argentino and a half-hearted 
C10 160 Night in Seville<p/><h/>
C10 161 <p_><tf_>Tango Argentino<tf/>, the music, song and dance show which 
C10 162 opened at the Aldwych Theatre last week, has toured the world since 
C10 163 it was first staged in 1983, but missed out on an intended British 
C10 164 visit some years ago because of that unfortunate episode, the 
C10 165 Falklands conflict.<p/>
C10 166 <p_>Now that all is lovey-dovey again, Claudio Segovia's and Hector 
C10 167 Orezzoli's production, which might be described as a high-class 
C10 168 cabaret, has at last arrived, amid a blaze of publicity about 
C10 169 tangomania to which it doesn't fully live up, although the show has 
C10 170 its delights and the first night audience went mad. I don't doubt 
C10 171 it will be a big success.<p/>
C10 172 <p_>The only decor is a starry sky and the tiered podium for the 
C10 173 orchestra, who are visible throughout, behind dancers and singers - 
C10 174 as is right enough, since the band's contribution is vital, 
C10 175 non-stop and quite brilliant. What seems curious is that such 
C10 176 marvellous music is produced by 11 players with consistently glum 
C10 177 expressions. Luis Stazo, the leader and one of the four 
C10 178 bandoneonists (accordionists) with his put upon face, is the image 
C10 179 of Les Dawson. The piano and strings have much to do, but it's the 
C10 180 hard work and energetically played bandoneon that gives tango music 
C10 181 its breathy, heady, yearning flavour.<p/>
C10 182 <p_>As to the 'soul' of tango, there's plenty of it in the solo 
C10 183 spots, for the four singers of a certain age, one of whom, Maria 
C10 184 Gra<*_>n-tilde<*/>a, has been called <quote_>"Tango's Judy 
C10 185 Garland"<quote/>, and the likeness is indeed striking. A notable 
C10 186 feature of this company is that it includes many artists who have 
C10 187 made their names on the tango circuit in independent careers, some 
C10 188 of them quite long ones - and this goes for the dancers, too.<p/>
C10 189 <p_>While one of the younger men, Luis Pereyra, with his sultry 
C10 190 looks and slicked-down black hair, is astonishingly like the 
C10 191 youthful Serge Lifar of Diaghilev's company in the 1920s, others in 
C10 192 the troupe are middle-aged and portly - but nonetheless stylish, 
C10 193 even endearing in their dancing. The guest artists, Juan Carlos 
C10 194 Copes and Maria Nieves, have danced together for 40 years: she, 
C10 195 with short-cropped hair and fringed black dress, is a 
C10 196 Latin-American Zizi Jeanmaire; he partners her with the 
C10 197 imperturbable, no, implacable air of a head waiter at the Ritz.<p/>
C10 198 <p_>The tango was born a century ago, from many influences, in the 
C10 199 slums and bordellos of Buenos Aires; its dancers then were pimps 
C10 200 and prostitutes and their clients; its main theme, of course, was 
C10 201 sex. Graduating to theatres and cabarets, and getting refined in 
C10 202 the process, the dance enjoyed a famous tea-room craze. What Tango 
C10 203 Argentino offers - with the leggy women in glamorous split skirts 
C10 204 and plunging backlines, the men suavely suited and hatted - is 
C10 205 chiefly elegant, polished, sophisticated dancing.<p/>
C10 206 <p_>Only one number, in which the tail-coated man partners a girl 
C10 207 dressed as Mata Hari, represents the caricature Come Dancing style 
C10 208 of tango. But in each of the duets, the sexual element has become 
C10 209 stereotyped, the woman submitting at the climax in predictable 
C10 210 bent-kneed, bent-backed or straddled poses.<p/>
C10 211 <p_>The single item which tries for more, Milonguita, with its 
C10 212 slight plot about a girl seduced by a ruffian and eventually 
C10 213 stabbed, is fairly awful.<p/>
C10 214 
C11   1 <#FLOB:C11\><h_><p_>Sinners and winners<p/>
C11   2 <p_>Dahl says farewell with an enchanting tale of naughtiness<p/>
C11   3 <p_>by NANETTE NEWMAN<p/><h/>
C11   4 <p_>FEW writers have achieved the mass acclaim and devotion that 
C11   5 Roald Dahl elicits from his young readers.<p/>
C11   6 <p_>He has created a style that allows imagination a free rein, 
C11   7 encourages healthy rebellion, is funny and inventive and cocks a 
C11   8 snook at convention.<p/>
C11   9 <p_>He had that rare gift, the ability to write books that children 
C11  10 want to read, and his final story, <tf_>The Minpins (Cape 
C11  11 pounds8.99)<tf/>, will not disappoint his followers.<p/>
C11  12 <p_>It begins with little Billy, tired of being good, gazing out of 
C11  13 the window. His mother is always telling him the things he is 
C11  14 allowed to do (which are boring) and the things he is not allowed 
C11  15 to do (which are exciting).<p/>
C11  16 <p_>One of the things he is never, ever allowed to do is the most 
C11  17 exciting of all - and that is to go through the garden gate and 
C11  18 explore the world beyond. Right from the beginning we know we are 
C11  19 only a turned page away from Billy disobeying his mother and doing 
C11  20 just that.<p/>
C11  21 <p_>In spite of her warning - <quote_>"Beware, beware the forest of 
C11  22 Sin, none come out but many go in,"<quote/> and the threat that he 
C11  23 will encounter the Terrible Bloodsuckling, Toothpluckling, 
C11  24 Stonechuckling Spittler - Billy goes through the gates into the 
C11  25 black, secret wood.<p/>
C11  26 <p_>While trying to escape from the fearsome Gruncher who bellows 
C11  27 orange-red smoke, Billy climbs a tree and discovers the Minpins - 
C11  28 tiny families no bigger than a matchstick who live in trees and 
C11  29 wear welly-type suction boots to enable them to walk up and down 
C11  30 branches, defying gravity.<p/>
C11  31 <h|>Adventures
C11  32 <p_>Dahl leads Billy through many scary adventures, finally landing 
C11  33 him back, safe and sound (and a hero to boot), in his own home.<p/>
C11  34 <p_>When his mother asks him what he's been up to, he replies with 
C11  35 blatant untruthfulness: <quote_>"I'm being very, very 
C11  36 good."<quote/><p/>
C11  37 <p_>Billy's magical and amazing adventures are enchantingly 
C11  38 visualised in Patrick Benson's superb illustrations. This is a 
C11  39 splendidly produced book, which has all the makings of a winner.<p/>
C11  40 <p_>The last sentence in the story reads: <quote_>"Those who don't 
C11  41 believe in magic will never find it."<quote/><p/>
C11  42 <p_>Roald Dahl found it and wrote about it in a way that will 
C11  43 enchant generations to come.<p/>
C11  44 
C11  45 <h_><p_>Viv hits the spot on a slow wicket<p/>
C11  46 <p_>David Thomas<p/>
C11  47 <p_>TV REVIEW<p/><h/>
C11  48 <p_>FORGET sunshine and fresh air. For us armchair sportsmen the 
C11  49 summer is a season of long afternoons spent sprawled in front of 
C11  50 the box, cans of beer strategically situated around the living 
C11  51 room, and the family despatched on a day trip to granny.<p/>
C11  52 <p_>Midway through the first afternoon of the <tf_>Fourth Test<tf/> 
C11  53 (BBC, Thursday-Monday) I had almost been lulled into sleep by the 
C11  54 BBC's most deadly commentating duo, Jack Bannister and Tom 
C11  55 Graveney. But then years of training as a professional couch potato 
C11  56 really came into their own.<p/>
C11  57 <h|>Slipped
C11  58 <p_>I was able to maintain my concentration for long enough to 
C11  59 glimpse the most highly prized sight in modern Test cricket - Viv 
C11  60 Richards' bald spot.<p/>
C11  61 <p_>Yes, the King of the Caribbean slipped while attempting to 
C11  62 field the ball and there it was, an unmistakable flash of bare 
C11  63 scalp where once his mighty tresses grew. If concentration is an 
C11  64 important virtue, so is team selection. Much the most controversial 
C11  65 example of this was the omission of Geoffrey Boycott from the 
C11  66 Beeb's opening attack. The curmudgeonly Yorkshireman has been 
C11  67 slated by some critics. Apparently, he isn't nice enough to 
C11  68 England's cricketers. But if he is never slow to criticise, he is 
C11  69 also generous to a fault on those rare occasions when praise is 
C11  70 deserved. And Boycott has one other gift: He points out things the 
C11  71 average viewer would not notice.<p/>
C11  72 <p_>This is the key Test of any sporting pundit - and about 90 per 
C11  73 cent of TV's rentamouths fail it. I can only hope Our Geoffrey's 
C11  74 absence was merely temporary.<p/>
C11  75 <p_>Test cricket is TV sport's answer to the mini-series. The only 
C11  76 difference is that you get to see hours of Graham Gooch and Curtly 
C11  77 Ambrose instead of Jane Seymour and Sir John Gielgud.<p/>
C11  78 <p_>There is something genuinely terrifying about the sight of 
C11  79 Curtly pounding in at full speed to shatter another set of English 
C11  80 stumps. Which is more than can be said for <tf|>Chimera (ITV, 
C11  81 Sunday).<p/>
C11  82 <p_>The series has become progressively sillier and is in great 
C11  83 danger of ceasing to be entertaining junk and becoming merely 
C11  84 irritating.<p/>
C11  85 <p_>One cause of this is the complete humourlessness of everyone 
C11  86 concerned. Good thrillers benefit from the occasional wisecrack but 
C11  87 Chimera's actors all have their jaws clenched as tightly as their 
C11  88 buttocks.<p/>
C11  89 Glimpses
C11  90 <p_>Then there's the monster. It's half man, half monkey and 
C11  91 completely unfrightening. A bit like <tf_>Terry Wogan<tf/>, except 
C11  92 that Terry's half man, half wallet. Last Monday (BBC1) he 
C11  93 interviewed Madonna, who is half woman, half bra.<p/>
C11  94 <p_>It was fascinating, partly because Madonna is an extraordinary 
C11  95 woman, and partly because one kept catching glimpses of the 
C11  96 intelligence that lurks behind Wogan's bland, self-satisfied 
C11  97 mask.<p/>
C11  98 <p_>Wogan could have been a man whose perceptiveness and charm drew 
C11  99 genuine insights from his guest. But he made the career decision to 
C11 100 turn down the challenge to his intellect and rely on easy, idle 
C11 101 chatter.<p/>
C11 102 <h|>Famous
C11 103 <p_>One thousand shows later, he's rich, famous and successful. But 
C11 104 surely there's more to life than patting knees and being smug?<p/>
C11 105 <p_>Let me end as I began, with sport. For the past few weeks LWT 
C11 106 has been broadcasting <tf_>The Game<tf/> (Friday), a programme 
C11 107 devoted to Sunday morning football, as played on Hackney 
C11 108 Marshes.<p/>
C11 109 <p_>The players move with the grace and speed of geriatric rhinos. 
C11 110 Big-bellied and out of breath, they are a chilling reminder that 
C11 111 when we scream, <quote_><quote_>"I could do better than 
C11 112 that!"<quote/> at some hapless pro-footballer, we're lying.<p/>
C11 113 <p_>The Game is riveting: other ITV regions should give local pub 
C11 114 sides the same chance to achieve a moment of sporting immortality 
C11 115 and give long-suffering wives and girlfriends the best laugh 
C11 116 they've had in years.<p/>
C11 117 
C11 118 <h_><p_>Maid in the grand style<p/>
C11 119 <p_>Clive Hirschhorn<p/><h/>
C11 120 <p_>BALLERINA Natalia Makarova certainly looks - and sounds - like 
C11 121 a Russian grand duchess.<p/>
C11 122 <p_>Indeed, on paper she is perfect casting for Tatiana Petrovna, 
C11 123 the heroine of Jacques Deval's 1934 comedy <tf_>Tovarich 
C11 124 (Chichester Theatre)<tf/>.<p/>
C11 125 <p_>The fact that she is still somewhat tentative in the role and 
C11 126 that her command of English is rather less secure than her 
C11 127 arabesques, are minor blemishes.<p/>
C11 128 <h|>Aristocrat
C11 129 <p_>She brings star quality to the role of an aristocrat who, with 
C11 130 her husband Prince Mikhail, fetches up in Paris after the 
C11 131 Revolution.<p/>
C11 132 <p_>Poverty stricken, Tatiana and her Prince (Robert Powell) hide 
C11 133 their real identities and become maid and butler to the wealthy 
C11 134 Parisian family Arbeziat.<p/>
C11 135 <p_>Their successful deception is the fulcrum on which Deval's 
C11 136 enjoyable jape pivots and it fleshes out an evening that begins 
C11 137 slowly, gathers momentum but loses steam as it wordily chugs 
C11 138 towards the finale.<p/>
C11 139 <p_>For Powell, who made his name playing Czar Nicholas opposite 
C11 140 Janet Suzman's Alexandra, the part is something of a homecoming and 
C11 141 he fills it splendidly.<p/>
C11 142 <p_>Patrick Garland's well<?_>-<?/>paced and enjoyable production 
C11 143 also benefits from Sarah Badel and Rowland Davies, as the 
C11 144 Arbeziats, and Tony Britton as a Bolshevik.<p/>
C11 145 <p_><*_> square <*/>THOUGH farce has rarely sat comfortably on 
C11 146 musical comedy, The Boys From Syracuse (Regent's Park) by Richard 
C11 147 Rodgers, Lorenz Hart and George Abbott (based on the Comedy of 
C11 148 Errors), remains a crowd pleaser. All about the confusion wrought 
C11 149 by two sets of identical master-servant twins in the town of 
C11 150 Ephesus, it is spiritedly directed by Judi Dench.<p/>
C11 151 <p_>Gavin Muir and Richard O'Callaghan as the brothers Dromio, and 
C11 152 Bill Homewood and Peter Woodward as the servants, have splendid 
C11 153 opportunities for clowning - and cloning.<p/>
C11 154 <h|>Harmony
C11 155 <p_>The women aren't bad, either. Louise Gold, Gilian Bevan and 
C11 156 Jenny Calloway are collective show stoppers as they trill, in close 
C11 157 harmony, Sing For Your Supper.<p/>
C11 158 <p_>Weather permitting, you are in for a good time.<p/>
C11 159 <p_><*_> square <*/>SIAN PHILLIPS looks great, but mouths a most 
C11 160 bizarre Deep South accent in John Lahr's clever adaptation of 
C11 161 Richard Condon's <tf_>The Manchurian Candidate (Lyric, 
C11 162 Hammersmith)<tf/>.<p/>
C11 163 <p_>Updated from Korea to the aftermath of the Gulf War, with fear 
C11 164 of Japanese economic power replacing commie phobia, Robin Midgley's 
C11 165 busy production of Condon's prophetic thriller still packs a 
C11 166 punch.<p/>
C11 167 <p_>But the movie is better.<p/>
C11 168 
C11 169 <h_><p_>Butter-fingered monster is a cut above the rest<p/>
C11 170 <p_>Snip goes a new star<p/>
C11 171 <p_>Clive Hirschhorn<p/><h/>
C11 172 <p_>TIM BURTON'S <tf_>Edward Scissorhands (PG)<tf/> stylishly 
C11 173 recycles the legend of Frankenstein's monster, relocates it to 
C11 174 middle America in the 1960s and illustrates, in ravishing pastel 
C11 175 colours and stylised sets, the poignant story of young Edward 
C11 176 (Johnny Depp) whose creator (Vincent Price) endowed him with 
C11 177 razor-like scissors rather than hands.<p/>
C11 178 <p_>Though Edward is a lot better looking than Mary Shelley's 
C11 179 durable creation, what he has in common with his predecessor is 
C11 180 that he is basically a very nice guy.<p/>
C11 181 <p_>And talented, too, being adept at hedge-making, dog-trimming 
C11 182 and hair-styling. Thus, when he is rescued from his Gothic hill-top 
C11 183 mansion by a local Avon Lady (Dianne Wiest) he becomes something of 
C11 184 a celebrity.<p/>
C11 185 <p_>It is only after he rejects the amorous advances of a 
C11 186 manipulative neighbour (Kathy Baker), thereby incurring her hatred, 
C11 187 that things turn nasty and the misunderstood Edward is hounded back 
C11 188 to his lonely hill-top existence.<p/>
C11 189 <p_>Narratively speaking the story couldn't be simpler, nor more 
C11 190 familiar.<p/>
C11 191 Unanswered
C11 192 <p_>What makes it special (despite such unanswered questions as why 
C11 193 the decrepit mansion hadn't been broken into by the locals a long 
C11 194 time ago, or why the inventor endowed his creation with blades in 
C11 195 the first place) is its look.<p/>
C11 196 <p_>Also contributing to its success are Burton's magical, 
C11 197 fairy-tale approach to the story, and Johnny Depp's expressively 
C11 198 inexpressive central performance.<p/>
C11 199 <p_>In fact, all the performances score. Dianne Wiest skilfully 
C11 200 avoids caricature as the compassionate Avon Lady, Alan Arkin is 
C11 201 just right as her accommodating husband and Winona Ryder - as their 
C11 202 teenage daughter - manages to make plausible her attraction for 
C11 203 Edward, though she knows he can never embrace her.<p/>
C11 204 <p_>And it is always nice to see - even in a cameo role - veteran 
C11 205 horror merchant Vincent Price.<p/>
C11 206 <p_>Although it evokes such classic horror movies as Frankenstein 
C11 207 and The Beast With Five Fingers, its look and atmosphere is 
C11 208 uniquely its own.<p/>
C11 209 <p_>Like the best fairy-tales, Edward Scissorhands resonates long 
C11 210 after you've left the cinema.<p/>
C11 211 
C11 212 <h_><p_>Lively exile is out to lay his African ghosts to rest<p/>
C11 213 <p_>by William Boyd<p/><h/>
C11 214 <p_>THE child is father to the man, so Wordsworth said, and a happy 
C11 215 childhood will cast a glow over an adult life that exerts a 
C11 216 constant influence.<p/>
C11 217 <p_>If have often wondered if a colonial childhood, or more 
C11 218 precisely an African one, multiplies this general effect several 
C11 219 fold. There seems to be an irresistible tug of nostalgia that 
C11 220 operates whenever that continent is involved.<p/>
C11 221 <p_>Graham Lord's book, <tf_>Ghosts Of King Solomon's Mines 
C11 222 (Sinclair Stevenson, pounds16.95)<tf/>, is a fine testimonial to 
C11 223 this effect.<p/>
C11 224 <p_>Born and raised in Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia) and Mozambique in 
C11 225 the Forties and Fifties, Lord quit Africa as a teenager to go up to 
C11 226 Cambridge.<p/>
C11 227 <p_>Thirty years later the opportunity to return to the Dark 
C11 228 Continent presented itself and this is the result, a lively blend 
C11 229 of autobiography, travelogue and reportage that revisits key 
C11 230 locations of Lord's youth and fills in the troubled history of the 
C11 231 intervening years. In addition there are interviews with 
C11 232 significant players in Central African colonial politics: Garfield 
C11 233 Todd, Sir Roy Welensky and Ian Smith. Lord writes with a candour 
C11 234 and a nicely sceptical and unsentimental eye, that make these 
C11 235 portraits singularly vivid.<p/>
C11 236 <p_>This same candour and freshness is also apparent in the book's 
C11 237 more personal sections. Zimbabwe was known as <quote_>"The jewel of 
C11 238 Africa"<quote/> and Lord finds, after his years abroad, much still 
C11 239 to celebrate and admire.<p/>
C11 240 <p_>By strong contrast Mozambique now enjoys the unhappy sobriquet 
C11 241 of 'Africa's sewer' and Lord's sojourn there is typically hellish: 
C11 242 Heat, stench, apathy, grinding poverty. Everything has changed - 
C11 243 and for the worse. Perhaps this is what makes Africa's appeal so 
C11 244 potent: The quality of its joy is as marked as its despair.<p/>
C11 245 <p_>Your life there is characterised by an intensity - benign and 
C11 246 sinister - that produces memories and reveries that will haunt you 
C11 247 for ever.<p/>
C11 248 <p_>At the end of the book Lord declares that he will never return, 
C11 249 that the <quote|>"ghosts" of his past have been finally laid.<p/>
C11 250 
C12   1 <#FLOB:C12\><h_><p_>Armchair arias<p/>
C12   2 <p_>ANDREW HUBBARD<p/><h/>
C12   3 <p_>Anybody setting out to produce <tf_>Don Giovanni<tf/> must face 
C12   4 the issue of whether the work is fundamentally a tragedy with some 
C12   5 comic episodes or a comedy with tragic reverberations. This is, of 
C12   6 course, the crux of a debate that has been running almost since the 
C12   7 opera was first performed. If nineteenth-century commentators saw 
C12   8 the work as essentially a moral tragedy, in the present century we 
C12   9 have been readier to recognize its comic and farcical elements. 
C12  10 Perhaps the pendulum is swinging back. This is certainly the 
C12  11 impression given by Tim Albery's new production of the opera for 
C12  12 Opera North.<p/>
C12  13 <p_>Albery wastes no time in letting us know that his view is one 
C12  14 of uncompromising seriousness. Even before the overture has 
C12  15 started, the principals enter the gloomily lit stage with faces set 
C12  16 in unrelieved solemnity. This is entirely at one with the opening, 
C12  17 but it is a serious miscalculation for the tableau to continue 
C12  18 unchanged throughout the allegro section of the overture. There is 
C12  19 a modern tendency to regard Mozart's lively <tf|><foreign|>buffo 
C12  20 music as deliberately cynical, but I find it hard to believe that 
C12  21 this high-spirited, joyous music was meant to be taken at anything 
C12  22 other than face value. A production that does not respond to such 
C12  23 contrasts (and this is only one example), whatever its other 
C12  24 merits, offers only an incomplete view of Mozart's imaginative 
C12  25 vision.<p/>
C12  26 <p_>The incidental merits of the production are considerable, 
C12  27 however: the graveyard scene and the descent to hell, for example. 
C12  28 Giovanni's triumphalism in the face of ultimate disaster can hardly 
C12  29 fail to thrill even in the most leaden production, but Albery's 
C12  30 fine sense of theatre has the audience on the edge of their seats. 
C12  31 The image of Helen Field's half-crazed yet dignified Donna Anna 
C12  32 swearing vengeance in front of a burning orange sun is enough to 
C12  33 make even the most innocent man in the audience fear for his 
C12  34 safety.<p/>
C12  35 <p_>The production is based on a single, deliberately nondescript 
C12  36 set raised on one side to suggest a wall. Dramatic space is defined 
C12  37 by the use of armchairs, on which members of the cast also sit when 
C12  38 not involved in the action. The chairs are a useful hiding-place 
C12  39 and come into their own when forming a circle around Leporello 
C12  40 during his interrogation - but their constant movement rapidly 
C12  41 becomes distracting, especially during <foreign_>'Il mio tesoro 
C12  42 intanto'<foreign/>, an aria which is difficult to sing without the 
C12  43 distraction of furniture removals. This might be a suitable device 
C12  44 to cover up the inadequate <tf|><foreign|>fioratura of the 
C12  45 second-rate Don Ottavin: Paul Nilon was in no need of such 
C12  46 assistance.<p/>
C12  47 <p_>Paul Daniel's conducting, and much of the singing, is imbued 
C12  48 with the spirit of the production. Exciting to the point of being 
C12  49 hard-driven in the dramatic moments, Daniel appears unwilling to 
C12  50 relax in the more lyrical episodes, almost, it seems, for fear of 
C12  51 admitting that there is another side to the opera. Certainly the 
C12  52 dry acoustic of the Lyceum theatre is never going to bring out the 
C12  53 full resonance of the woodwind tone, but even so this is not a 
C12  54 performance for those who relish the richness and variety of 
C12  55 Mozart's scoring.<p/>
C12  56 <p_>There remains the matter of Don Giovanni's wearing of women's 
C12  57 clothes and make-up during the champagne aria. This is a successful 
C12  58 <tf_><foreign_>coup de 
C12  59 th<*_>e-acute<*/><*_>a-circ<*/>tre<foreign/>. It certainly adds a 
C12  60 new dimension to the relationship between master and servant, 
C12  61 although one wonders how Giovanni had time for homosexual conquests 
C12  62 as well as the 1,003 Spanish women. What was most surprising was 
C12  63 that none of the guests at the party seemed to notice that their 
C12  64 host was wearing an elegant couture number.<p/>
C12  65 
C12  66 <h_><p_>With the naked eye<p/>
C12  67 <p_>BRIAN CASE<p/><h/>
C12  68 <p_><quote_>"He moved his eyes off her, an act of will"<quote/>, 
C12  69 runs the epigraph to Lee Friedlander's book of nude women. His 
C12  70 models are sometimes ill-favoured with cellulite and scars. Few 
C12  71 would pass for Page Three girls. Egon Schiele is cited in Ingrid 
C12  72 Sischy's afterword, but Bonnard's domestic nudes may be more to the 
C12  73 point. Friedlander photographed women in their own homes, and, we 
C12  74 are told, let them determine the poses. <quote_>"They're the world 
C12  75 and the heavens boiled down to a drop"<quote/>, runs the next 
C12  76 epigraph.<p/>
C12  77 <p_>The breadth of his subject matter is on exhibition at the 
C12  78 Victoria & Albert Museum, and it falls into the categories of jazz, 
C12  79 street, work, trees and American monuments. Very much in the 
C12  80 tradition of Walker Evans and Robert Frank, Friedlander finds 
C12  81 statements in the humdrum surfaces of American life. Car bonnets, 
C12  82 street signs, shop window reflections, the random configurations of 
C12  83 pedestrians: it is not quite honest reportage since an informing 
C12  84 aesthetic is at work here. He uses a Leica because <quote_>"with a 
C12  85 camera like that you don't believe that you're in the masterpiece 
C12  86 business. It's enough to be able to peck at the world."<quote/> The 
C12  87 photograph of the Count Basie band asleep on the band bus is 
C12  88 amusing if one anticipates the impact of sixteen men swinging, and 
C12  89 contrasts the undefended faces of the sleepers with the practised 
C12  90 stage reflexes; but Val Wilmer has got it closer and cared more. 
C12  91 Coleman Hawkins, the father of the saxophone and a slippery 
C12  92 customer for all chronicles to date, is caught without his shirt. 
C12  93 Also caught without his shirt is the photographer himself: though 
C12  94 not, as feminists may wish, without his pants. Friedlander sits 
C12  95 under a floor-standing lamp next to a radiator in his shorts like a 
C12  96 man on Death Row.<p/>
C12  97 <p_>Broadly, the book of female nudes groups the photos into 
C12  98 headless poses, reveries, and odd angles. The eye is caught by the 
C12  99 revelations of flashlight. Some images rush at the viewer with 
C12 100 disconcerting blatancy, others appear as flattened as cut-outs. A 
C12 101 few glisten with the sort of strength-through-joy patina associated 
C12 102 with Leni Riefenstahl. Avoirdupois becomes a plaything. The weight 
C12 103 of a reclining bottom swags down the sofa so that the edging strip 
C12 104 on the cushions echoes the line of the body; elsewhere, weightless 
C12 105 swimmers and divers float on the upholstery. The photographs 
C12 106 emphasize the contrast between the rich eventfulness of the bodies 
C12 107 and the functional lines and textures of a door frame, a flowerpot, 
C12 108 a roll top desk. Was kitchen chair ever more inanimate than when 
C12 109 occupied by a nude? Bodies are paired across a double spread, a 
C12 110 palindromic landscape of hills and dales, a symmetry of shapes and 
C12 111 spaces, a knot of flesh.<p/>
C12 112 <p_>Friedlander's is not a reverent eye. Breasts are a rich jest, 
C12 113 and hang pendant into the top frame of the photo. A shelf of books 
C12 114 in the background perhaps prompted the schoolboy phrase, four-eyes, 
C12 115 and the breasts become spectacles. A nude lying under a low table 
C12 116 shares her photo with a photo of the Marx Brothers. Perhaps the 
C12 117 broadest joke occurs on pages sixty-three and sixty-four which 
C12 118 seems to centre on super-abundant pubic hair. A model, 
C12 119 foreshortened at the start of a handstand, becomes a copse of 
C12 120 crotch and armpit hair, while, as if to balance this, one 
C12 121 delicately cocked foot peeps into frame. Some models appear to be 
C12 122 lying in a hammock of their own gender. Clearly, Friedlander is no 
C12 123 fan of depilation. Among the reveries, women's faces are cocooned 
C12 124 in dreams, lost as Rossetti heroines, while the foreground is 
C12 125 dominated by a breech presentation of vulva and foot soles. 
C12 126 Tristesse contends with a giant knee, a looming foot, and net 
C12 127 curtains blow in a breeze. Some of the photographs are severely 
C12 128 cropped and may remind the viewer of Edward Weston's work in the 
C12 129 genre, or the great Blue Note album covers.<p/>
C12 130 <p_>There are four studies of the pre-stardom Madonna, interesting 
C12 131 in view of her cultivatedly raunchy image, amusing in view of the 
C12 132 photographer's selection of <quote_>"women in their prime"<quote/>. 
C12 133 She could be an extra in some Italian Neo-realist film with her 
C12 134 unshaven armpits, bobby pins and hairy legs. Bob Guccione Sr, 
C12 135 publisher of <tf|>Penthouse, rejected the studies. Madonna was not 
C12 136 well groomed; to use Friedlander's photos would be <quote_>"like 
C12 137 scraping the bottom of the barrel"<quote/>. According to 
C12 138 photographer Herman Leonard, who also started in jazz before 
C12 139 gravitating towards the female nude, Heffner's directive to 
C12 140 photographers was that there should be something in the photo to 
C12 141 imply the presence of a man within the last five minutes. There's 
C12 142 none of that here. None of the brouhaha that surrounded Marilyn 
C12 143 Monroe's 1949 nude <}_><-|>calender<+|><}/>calendar poses for Tom 
C12 144 Kelley - he paid her $50 - has attended Madonna's unveiling.<p/>
C12 145 
C12 146 <h_><p_>The one and the many<p/>
C12 147 <p_>A. W. MOORE<p/><h/>
C12 148 <p_>Mathematics, according to many philosophers and mathematicians, 
C12 149 is set theory. They may be overstating their case. But it is a 
C12 150 primary task for anyone who aspires to a self-conscious 
C12 151 understanding of mathematics to say what a set is. And the standard 
C12 152 explanation, David Lewis complains, is inadequate. A set, we are 
C12 153 told - this is Cantor's definition - is <quote_>"a many which can 
C12 154 be thought of as one"<quote/>. Alternatively, it is a one which 
C12 155 corresponds to a many. But what about a singleton (a set with only 
C12 156 one member)? Where is the <quote|>"many" in that? The standard 
C12 157 explanation seems to fail already in this most basic case.<p/>
C12 158 <p_>Lewis's<&|>sic! guiding idea in his <tf_>Parts of Classes<tf/> 
C12 159 is as beautiful and as powerful as it is simple: to take seriously 
C12 160 the conception of the singleton as the most basic case, and to 
C12 161 regard bigger sets as quite literally made up of singletons. Thus 
C12 162 your singleton and my singleton together constitute the set of 
C12 163 which you and I are the only two members: each is a part of it. Set 
C12 164 theory, on this conception, is not fundamentally about how many 
C12 165 begets a one; it is fundamentally about how a one begets a 
C12 166 (different) one - which in turn begets a (yet different) one, and 
C12 167 so on. Thereafter it is just a matter of putting the bits 
C12 168 together.<p/>
C12 169 <p_>This does not solve traditional philosophical perplexities 
C12 170 about sets. But it does, in Lewis's<&|>sic! view, locate them. We 
C12 171 need to know what kind of thing a singleton is; how, if at all, we 
C12 172 grasp the concept; why some things (and in particular, some things 
C12 173 which are otherwise just like sets) are too <tf|>big to have 
C12 174 singletons; and so forth. Lewis is content for the most part just 
C12 175 to raise such questions. His more immediate concern is to 
C12 176 establish, from within a logical framework that governs the 
C12 177 relation of parts to wholes, that he has an adequate formal base 
C12 178 for set theory. This he does in rich, fascinating detail. He argues 
C12 179 <tf_><foreign_>en passant<foreign/><tf/> that the relation of a 
C12 180 thing to its singleton is the very same relation as that of a 
C12 181 natural number to its successor (so 6 is a set whose sole member is 
C12 182 5). And in an appendix, written jointly with Burgess and Hazen, he 
C12 183 spells out a structuralist construal of singletons to which he is 
C12 184 nevertheless unsympathetic (because he takes it to be too 
C12 185 revisionary). His presentation is throughout brilliant, elegant and 
C12 186 witty.<p/>
C12 187 <p_>I am less clear how much it has in the way of philosophical 
C12 188 impact. Two things are crucial to Lewis's<&|>sic! overall 
C12 189 conception. (1) Pure assembly - putting things together - does not 
C12 190 yield anything new: wholes are nothing over and above their parts. 
C12 191 (2) Wholes, just like their parts, can have singletons. It seems to 
C12 192 me that, given (1), (2) is every bit as mysterious (or as 
C12 193 unmysterious) as the idea that a one is a special case of many, the 
C12 194 idea that Lewis finds objectionable in the standard explanation of 
C12 195 what a set is. It is true that someone broadly sympathetic to 
C12 196 Lewis's<&|>sic! reconstruction of set theory need not accept (1). 
C12 197 They could say that putting many things together, and applying the 
C12 198 singleton operation to one thing, are two different ways of getting 
C12 199 a new thing; and this would ease the mystery, such as it is. But 
C12 200 how much of a mystery <tf|>is it? I find myself much less troubled 
C12 201 than Lewis by the idea that a one is a special case of a many. 
C12 202 (Likewise, for that matter, a none. Lewis is forced to make some 
C12 203 very bizarre claims about the <quote_>"null set"<quote/> - the set 
C12 204 with no members.)
C12 205 
C13   1 <#FLOB:C13\><h_><p_>Literature<p/>
C13   2 <p_>The spellbinding story-tellers<p/>
C13   3 <p_>Oral epic from Homer to Hercegovina<p/>
C13   4 <p_>ERICH SEGAL<p/><h/>
C13   5 <p_>In the beginning were the words, wing<*_>e-acute<*/>d at first 
C13   6 until, paralysed, they fell to earth and were imprisoned by their 
C13   7 nemesis, the alphabet. The late E.A. Havelock, a brilliant, 
C13   8 controversial classicist, made this paradox about Homer the focus 
C13   9 of his scholarship during the entire second half of his long life: 
C13  10 <quote_>"two poems we can read in documented form, the first 
C13  11 'literature' of Europe ... constitute the first complete record of 
C13  12 'orality', that is 'non-literature' ... a statement of how 
C13  13 civilized man governed his life and thought during several 
C13  14 centuries when he was entirely innocent of the art (or arts) of 
C13  15 reading"<quote/>. This is dramatic enough, and one need not go to 
C13  16 the extreme of B.B. Powell whose recent <tf_>Homer and the Origin 
C13  17 of the Greek Alphabet<tf/> (reviewed in the <tf|>TLS on June 14, 
C13  18 1991) puts forth the rather too coincidental notion that the Greek 
C13  19 alphabet was invented by a single man - in Euboia, to be precise - 
C13  20 for the specific purpose of recording the two Homeric epics. It is 
C13  21 enough to say that, when committed to writing, the unique character 
C13  22 of oral poetry evanesces.<p/>
C13  23 <p_>Anyone who has studied Homer in the second half of this century 
C13  24 is aware of the pioneering work of Milman Parry and Albert Lord, 
C13  25 and the conclusions they extrapolated from studying and recording 
C13  26 the works of Serbo-Croatian bards. In 
C13  27 <quote_><foreign_>"L'Epith<*_>e-grave<*/>te traditionelle dans 
C13  28 Hom<*_>e-grave<*/>re"<foreign/><quote/> (1928) and subsequent 
C13  29 essays, Parry called attention to the use of formulas in 
C13  30 traditional poetry, groups of words <quote_>"regularly employed 
C13  31 under the same metrical conditions to express a given essential 
C13  32 idea"<quote/>. In various articles and his landmark book, <tf_>The 
C13  33 Singer of Tales<tf/> (1960), Lord explained the nature of thematic 
C13  34 composition: <quote_>"groups of ideas regularly used in telling a 
C13  35 tale in the formulaic style of traditional song"<quote/>. We now 
C13  36 understand that when Homer 'nods' with repetition, or seems to 
C13  37 assign banal or inappropriate epithets to various characters, these 
C13  38 features are likely to be reflexes of the traditional diction that 
C13  39 the bard finds metrically useful, while inwardly he busies himself 
C13  40 composing what will follow.<p/>
C13  41 <p_>Oral poetry presupposes illiteracy on the part of the audience 
C13  42 no less than the minstrel. Since by its very nature it has no 
C13  43 universally fixed text, how can one address the material using the 
C13  44 conventional critical armamentarium? The printed grapheme is vastly 
C13  45 different from the ephemeral phoneme. In Havelock's words, 
C13  46 <quote_>"oral language does not fossilize"<quote/>. In fact, what 
C13  47 we have in the Homeric epics is at best oral-<tf_>derived<tf/> 
C13  48 poetry, edited most famously under Pisistratus in the sixth century 
C13  49 BC and meticulously divided into their now canonical twenty-four 
C13  50 books by the librarians at Alexandria in the third. The words were 
C13  51 now trapped on papyrus. The music was lost for ever.<p/>
C13  52 <p_>John Miles Foley, one of the distinguished scholarly heirs of 
C13  53 Parry-Lord (they have become a critical hyphenate), has attempted 
C13  54 to bring the discipline of oral studies to its necessary conclusion 
C13  55 - the establishment of an appropriate poetic. At the outset of 
C13  56 <tf_>Traditional Oral Epic<tf/>, his second book on the subject (a 
C13  57 third is already in progress), he puts forth the reasoning behind 
C13  58 his methodology: <quote_>"A traditional text is not simply a 
C13  59 synchronic lattice-work, but also a diachronic document of great 
C13  60 age and depth. For tradition is nothing if not diachronic: it has 
C13  61 roots which reach back into its pre-textual history and which 
C13  62 inform the present avatar of its identity."<quote/> Foley employs 
C13  63 linguistic, metric and thematic analysis to compare the 
C13  64 <tf_>Odyssey, Beowulf<tf/> and Return Songs by three 
C13  65 <tf|><foreign|>guslari from the Stolac district of central 
C13  66 Hercegovina. He is splendidly trained for this daunting task, 
C13  67 conversant not only in the classical and medieval Germanic tongues 
C13  68 but in the Slavic dialects as well.<p/>
C13  69 <p_><tf_>Traditional Oral Epic<tf/> begins with a microscopic 
C13  70 examination of so-called formulaic phrases to distinguish what is 
C13  71 truly the stuff of traditional poetry. Understandably, this yields 
C13  72 special riches where field-workers have been able to converse with 
C13  73 living authors. What do the singers themselves mean by 'words' 
C13  74 (<tf|><foreign|>epea in Greek - whence epic - 
C13  75 <foreign|><tf|>rije<*_>c-hacek<*/>i in Serbo-Croatian)? How can a 
C13  76 Yugoslavian singer repeat a familiar episode using different 
C13  77 vocabulary and still insist he is telling it 
C13  78 <tf_><foreign_>rije<*_>c-hacek<*/> za 
C13  79 rije<*_>c-hacek<*/><tf/><foreign/>, word-for-word? As Foley 
C13  80 explains, the bard's idiosyncratic concept regards 'words' not as 
C13  81 verbatim echoes, but as <quote_>"poetic lines, units that epitomize 
C13  82 what Parry called an 'essential idea' and which are governed by the 
C13  83 metrical structure of the tradition"<quote/>.<p/>
C13  84 <p_>Demonstrating the enormous complexity involved in the 
C13  85 contemporary study of epic diction, Foley convincingly argues that 
C13  86 some of the poetic language can be non-formulaic but still highly 
C13  87 traditional. He devotes three chapters to careful readings of 
C13  88 <quote_>"the prosodies that exist in symbiosis with the ancient 
C13  89 Greek, Old English, and Serbo-Croatian epic phraseologies, and 
C13  90 which thus ultimately figure in the verbal expression of narrative 
C13  91 patterns"<quote/>. At this point, he cites Roman Jakobson's 
C13  92 comparison of the Yugoslavian epic line and metres from other 
C13  93 Slavic traditions, all of which provide a 'third witness' (in 
C13  94 addition to Greek and Vedic) to the foundations of Indo-European 
C13  95 verse. Examining the 'inner metric' (a phrase coined to complement 
C13  96 the 'outer metric' described by Eugene O'Neill Jr in an important 
C13  97 1942 article), Foley argues that the hexameter and the 
C13  98 Serbo-Croatian epic decasyllable can <quote_>"reach beyond the 
C13  99 synchronic surface of the texts to their diachronic roots"<quote/>. 
C13 100 He carefully evolves a set of <quote_>"traditional rules"<quote/> 
C13 101 which provides new insights for oral poetry (including Old English, 
C13 102 whose prosody is somewhat different).<p/>
C13 103 <p_>Fine examples of Foley's method in action include his 
C13 104 discussion of the formulaic density in the famous 'octopus simile' 
C13 105 (the hero clinging desperately to a rock) at <tf|>Odyssey 5.432, 
C13 106 his analysis of an extract of a Yugoslavian Return Song and a 
C13 107 treatment of <tf|>Beowulf 717b, one of the several passages that 
C13 108 contain the phrase <foreign_>ham gesohte<foreign/> (<quote_>"he 
C13 109 sought his home"<quote/>). In each instance he goes beyond the 
C13 110 simplistic exhuming of formulaic devices, some of which he has 
C13 111 already found hidden, not merely in hemistichs and full lines but 
C13 112 even in enjambed verses.<p/>
C13 113 <p_>We now enter the realm of what might be called macro-criticism. 
C13 114 Following the pioneering study of W. Arend, <foreign_>Die typischen 
C13 115 Szenen bei Homer<foreign/> (1933), Foley analyses conventional 
C13 116 episodes in the three epic traditions. Studying the seven 'bath 
C13 117 scenes' in the <tf|>Odyssey, he concentrates on the morphology of 
C13 118 the passage in Book 23.153ff, in which the faithful housekeeper 
C13 119 Eurynome washes and anoints the hero, who has just dramatically 
C13 120 announced his reappearance by slaughtering the suitors. This is the 
C13 121 single occurrence where the bath set-piece does not lead directly 
C13 122 into an equally conventional 'feast scene'. Instead, the poet 
C13 123 presents Penelope confronting her long-lost husband with the riddle 
C13 124 of the olive-tree bed. Foley concludes: <quote_>"this instance of 
C13 125 the pattern shows not a deviation from expectation but an 
C13 126 augmentation of the conventional sequence, and its extraordinary 
C13 127 make-up derives directly from the traditional expectation on which 
C13 128 Homer, or his poetic tradition, has so brilliantly built."<quote/> 
C13 129 Perhaps the operative word is <quote|>"expectation". The audience, 
C13 130 its own mnemonic powers enhanced in a non-literate society, is 
C13 131 assumed to know the basic narrative and hence has its sensibilities 
C13 132 delighted just as a modern musical audience would be surprised and 
C13 133 entertained by a 'deceptive cadence'.<p/>
C13 134 <p_>Foley also points to an analogous variation on the theme of the 
C13 135 sea-voyage in <tf|>Beowulf. Well before the protagonist appears, 
C13 136 the archetypal hero, Scyld Scefing, embarks upon a maritime 
C13 137 journey. The passage is laden with conventional language and we are 
C13 138 even told that Scyld <quote_>"led his men to the ship"<quote/>. The 
C13 139 significant difference is that this voyage is Scyld's funeral. 
C13 140 Recognition of a familiar topos, so Foley argues, <quote_>"enlarges 
C13 141 our notion of thematic morphology and offers a perspective on the 
C13 142 poet's art ... This view of Scyld's passage from the world is made 
C13 143 possible through the metonymic poetics of oral tradition, without 
C13 144 whose associative dynamics such a perspective could not be 
C13 145 achieved."<quote/><p/>
C13 146 <p_>In discussing the basic schema of the Yugoslavian Return Song, 
C13 147 Foley distinguishes an archetypal story pattern consisting of five 
C13 148 elements: Absence, Devastation, Return, Retribution and Wedding. 
C13 149 The resemblance to the <tf|>Odyssey is striking, down to many 
C13 150 smaller details, and we are very close to the essential, 
C13 151 irreducible elements of traditional narratology here.<p/>
C13 152 <p_>Homer is an orally derived text and <tf|>Beowulf an 
C13 153 eighth-century AD poem even more wedded to the written word by its 
C13 154 single manuscript. Foley's richest lode for the establishing of an 
C13 155 oral poetics would therefore seem the Yugoslavian connection - 
C13 156 especially when the <tf|><foreign|>guslari sing into a modern 
C13 157 tape-recorder, their words still in flight and untranscribed. And 
C13 158 yet he seems to have ignored the abundant treasures of the Indian 
C13 159 tradition. India has a contemporary performance tradition which 
C13 160 includes not only folk epics but even the national Sanskrit 
C13 161 masterpieces, the <foreign|>R<*_>a-length<*/>m<*_>a-length<*/>yama 
C13 162 and the <tf|><foreign|>Mah<*_>a-length<*/>bh<*_>a-length<*/>rata, 
C13 163 which, although classical texts with standard editions, also 
C13 164 coexist in ever-changing folk reinterpretations.<p/>
C13 165 <p_>Another area still left relatively unexplored is aurality or 
C13 166 the acoustic dimension. What of the 'hearer' - the traditional 
C13 167 poet's audience in the literal sense of the word? In his study of 
C13 168 Hesiod, <tf_>The Wing<*_>e-acute<*/>d Word<tf/> (1975), Berkley 
C13 169 Peabody called our attention to what he (somewhat uneuphoniously) 
C13 170 calls <quote_>"phonic clumps"<quote/>. In the case of Homer at 
C13 171 least, we will never be able to appreciate the true effect of his 
C13 172 verse. For his <tf|>performances are not only unrecorded in the 
C13 173 electronic sense, but are by definition unrepeatable.<p/>
C13 174 <p_>In matters of Homeric diction, no scholar fails to adduce the 
C13 175 authority of J.B. Hainsworth, whose publications include <tf_>The 
C13 176 Flexibility of the Homeric Formula<tf/> (1968) and several 
C13 177 important articles, including <quote_>"The Criticism of an Oral 
C13 178 Homer"<quote/> (1970). He is also co-editor of the first volume of 
C13 179 a new commentary on the <tf|>Odyssey. With <tf_>The Idea of 
C13 180 Epic<tf/>, however, Hainsworth reveals a new facet of his 
C13 181 scholarship. This is a delightful survey of the rise and - in the 
C13 182 author's opinion at least - fall of a literary form. Though 
C13 183 beginning with a glance backwards at the Sumerians of the third 
C13 184 millennium BC, the vast majority of his book deals with Homer and 
C13 185 his eight extant classical successors. Hainsworth pays scant 
C13 186 attention to mock-epic. Petronius, for example, is not cited for 
C13 187 his ironic parodies (of Lucan, perhaps even of the <tf|>Odyssey), 
C13 188 but only for his remark on the impossibility of epic: <quote_>"the 
C13 189 free spirit of genius must plunge headlong into allusions and 
C13 190 divine interpositions and rack itself for epigrams colored<&|>sic! 
C13 191 by mythology ..."<quote/>.<p/>
C13 192 <p_>Few would dispute Hainsworth's observation that 
C13 193 <quote_>"survival is not a sure guide to quality"<quote/>. Indeed, 
C13 194 like the names on Koko's little list, Valerius Flaccus' 
C13 195 <tf|>Argonautica, Silius Italicus' <tf_>Punic War<tf/> (which, 
C13 196 quipped Pliny the Younger, was written with <quote_>"more 
C13 197 perspiration than inspiration"<quote/>), Quintus of Smyrna's 
C13 198 <tf|>Posthomerica, Nonnus' <tf|>Dionysiaca and Statius' 
C13 199 <tf|>Thebaid <quote_>"would none of them be missed"<quote/>. Yet 
C13 200 Apollonius' <tf|>Argonautica offers a fascinating picture of the 
C13 201 heroic world in twilight, strains of romantic melody growing 
C13 202 audible in the background. Lucan's <tf_>Bellum civile<tf/>, with 
C13 203 its theme of virtue opposing tyranny, inspires the poet to 
C13 204 passionate rhetorical heights, his concept of a political epic 
C13 205 <quote_>"the last significant development of the genre made in 
C13 206 antiquity"<quote/>. But Virgil's <tf|>Aneid is without question an 
C13 207 unrivalled work of genius. Different from Homer to be sure, but not 
C13 208 less a classic, despite Quintilian's supercilious preference for 
C13 209 the Greek poet.<p/>
C13 210 <p_>Not surprisingly, Hainsworth is best on Homer and Homeric 
C13 211 <tf|><foreign|>Kunstsprache -  that peculiar amalgam of archaisms, 
C13 212 neologisms and various dialects which is the altogether appropriate 
C13 213 medium for an epic that was quintessentially Greek before the 
C13 214 notion of Greece existed. One might, however, take issue with one 
C13 215 or two of his assertions. His statement that <quote_>"in the 
C13 216 <tf|>Illiad death is absolute, unmitigated by any meaningful hope 
C13 217 of survival"<quote/> should be read against the eloquent discussion 
C13 218 of death and heroic glory in Jasper Griffin's <tf_>Homer on Life an 
C13 219 Death<tf/> (1980).<p/>
C13 220 <p_>Hainsworth is also excellent on the language and style of 
C13 221 Virgil's Augustan masterpiece. He reminds us of the difficult task 
C13 222 faced by the author of the <tf|>Aneid - to be as Greek as Homer, 
C13 223 yet as Roman as his patrons: <quote_>"Virgil makes a fantasy, the 
C13 224 Homeric Olympus, stand for something real, the Roman sense of 
C13 225 history"<quote/>. Nor is he afraid to confront more difficult 
C13 226 literary issues that might justifiably have been avoided in so 
C13 227 brief a study.<p/>
C13 228 
C14   1 <#FLOB:C14\><h_><p_>Breezy Whistles from the subway<p/>
C14   2 <p_>By GEORGE WATSON<p/><h/>
C14   3 <p_>MOST HISTORIANS who deal with intellectual flirtations with the 
C14   4 totalitarian idea concentrate on the inter-war years and the rival 
C14   5 camps of Fascism and Communism, earnestly sorting out their 
C14   6 camp-followers and fellow-travellers. John Hoyles of the University 
C14   7 of Hull, who has been giving a course there on the matter, starts a 
C14   8 lot further back, with Rosseau<&|>sic! and Dostoevsky; and the last 
C14   9 third of his book is dominated by Franz Kafka who (like Lenin) died 
C14  10 in 1924. He does not even mention Nazi sympathisers like Wyndham 
C14  11 Lewis, which seems odd, or 1930s Marxists like Auden and Co, which 
C14  12 seems odder. So perhaps the book is meant as a source-study, though 
C14  13 much of the critical comment is post-war.<p/>
C14  14 <p_>An eccentric shape is matched by tone. Mr Hoyles casually calls 
C14  15 himself a humanist and surrealist in his introduction, which 
C14  16 suggests a sense of strain but apparently isn't meant to, adding 
C14  17 engagingly that he pays <quote_>"lip-service to critical 
C14  18 Marxism"<quote/>, though it remains unclear whether critical here 
C14  19 means literary or sceptical; and he plainly admires Adorno, 
C14  20 Andr<*_>e-acute<*/> Breton and Walter Benjamin a lot. Lip-service 
C14  21 commonly implies hypocrisy, but something else must be meant since 
C14  22 nobody accuses himself of that, and one is left wondering what it 
C14  23 might be. Much of the book is likely to have been written before 
C14  24 the death of Communism in 1989, or it could hardly declare that 
C14  25 Communism <quote_>"embodies the birth-pangs of the new"<quote/>. 
C14  26 The mystery occasionally clarifies. At one point, for example, in a 
C14  27 rare burst of conviction, he remarks that <quote_>"the Greenham 
C14  28 Common women have succeeded in dramatising the reality of American 
C14  29 occupation of this island"<quote/>, which situates the author 
C14  30 firmly on the political map. Reality is a highly committal word. 
C14  31 But it is only a passing phrase.<p/>
C14  32 <p_>For the rest, the book is whimsical, marked by a sort of 
C14  33 bucket-and-spade intellectualism that makes one begin to guess what 
C14  34 lip-service might mean. Where truth is despaired of, there is 
C14  35 nothing left, as of the Cheshire Cat, but the grin. Jesting Pilate 
C14  36 asked <quote_>"What is truth?"<quote/>, and the tag might have been 
C14  37 made for the book; and one imagines that Hoyles, like Pilate, would 
C14  38 not stay for an answer.<p/>
C14  39 <p_>There are few answers here, plenty of hypotheses. To be told 
C14  40 that Kierkegaard <quote_>"with eccentric and iconoclastic brio 
C14  41 <}_><-|>hypoststasises<+|>hypostases<}/> into absolutes the 
C14  42 variables of the modern condition"<quote/> is to be told nothing 
C14  43 about Kierkegaard or the modern condition, even if one reads on. 
C14  44 The sense of history, too, is slap-happy, though buoyed up with the 
C14  45 hope that where carelessness is owed it may look like something 
C14  46 else.<p/>
C14  47 <p_>There are <quote|>"date-clusters", for example, or happy 
C14  48 coincidences of books and events, probably rather useful on a 
C14  49 blackboard, and in general a light-handed way with detail. George 
C14  50 Orwell did not call his most famous novel 1984, for example, and 
C14  51 Thomas Mann, who was not in Germany when the Nazis seized power, 
C14  52 was not forced into exile: he chose not to return.<p/>
C14  53 <p_>But then research is neither the method nor the object of the 
C14  54 book. To read the first date-cluster, which figures the 
C14  55 <tf_>Communist Manifesto<tf/> of 1848, Gobineau's <tf_>Essay on the 
C14  56 Inequality of the Human Races<tf/> of five years later, and the 
C14  57 death of Kierkegaard, one would never guess that Marx and Engels 
C14  58 publicly advocated genocide -  or that Gobineau, that monster of 
C14  59 the Right, did not. This is a world of simple oppositions; and 
C14  60 though the book itself is not tidy, its assumptions are.<p/>
C14  61 <p_>Kafka broods over the book and decorates the dust-jacket. He 
C14  62 never knew totalitarianism, but he had a bossy father and arguably 
C14  63 prefigured the whole thing. There is a point to be made here: 
C14  64 perhaps that he urged submission to bullying before the bullies 
C14  65 marched in step or built their concentration-camps, since his 
C14  66 opposition stopped short at writing an indictment of his father 
C14  67 which he did not publish.<p/>
C14  68 <p_>But no coherent case is built here, though Kafka is rightly 
C14  69 seen as heroic, in his grief if nothing else. It would be a rash 
C14  70 historian, in any case, who claimed that his writings had any 
C14  71 effect on the course of history.<p/>
C14  72 <p_>The book is altogether a pleasant pastime, and may mask more 
C14  73 conviction than it shows. Its tone is at once knowing and bland, as 
C14  74 if the author had seen, and seen through, a lot of profundities of 
C14  75 which he is prepared to report only a little.<p/>
C14  76 <p_>Hence the whimsy. Strange that gulag and gas-chamber should 
C14  77 inspire a tone of mild amusement and cosmic scepticism. But then it 
C14  78 is the product of a department of literature, and literature can do 
C14  79 that to people, if they let it. Hoyles has read a lot of books, and 
C14  80 he will be a good critic if he can brace himself to ask whether the 
C14  81 lip-service he still pays is still worth paying.<p/>
C14  82 
C14  83 <h_><p_>From Hysteric to analyst<p/>
C14  84 <p_>By CHRISTINA BRITZOLAKIS<p/><h/>
C14  85 <p_>SINCE Sylvia Plath's suicide in 1963, the history of her 
C14  86 reception as a writer has been beset by the language of scandal and 
C14  87 controversy. Robert Lowell's description of the posthumously 
C14  88 published <tf|>Ariel poems as <quote_>"the autobiography of a 
C14  89 fever"<quote/> set the keynote for many febrile accounts of Plath's 
C14  90 life and work as the symptoms of a self-destructive pathology. 
C14  91 Madness and suicide became the <tf|><foreign|>telos and ultimate 
C14  92 meaning of her career: on the one hand, she was positioned as the 
C14  93 prototypical female subject of psychoanalysis, the hysteric who 
C14  94 confesses her illness; on the other, she became a literary martyr 
C14  95 to the feminist cause, doomed victim of a culture in which genius 
C14  96 was defined as a male cultural preserve.<p/>
C14  97 <p_>Jacqueline Rose's incisive and carefully researched critique of 
C14  98 Plath's cultural afterlife starts from the bold assumption that 
C14  99 <quote_>"Plath is a fantasy"<quote/>. In the <quote|>"haunted" 
C14 100 responses of biographers and critics, the poet becomes accountable 
C14 101 for the spectre of female sexuality which her writing summons up. 
C14 102 Pathologising critical discourse, whether celebratory or damning, 
C14 103 projects fears about the decline of high culture on the image of a 
C14 104 deathly femininity. Part of Rose's polemic is, however, reserved 
C14 105 for feminist criticism, which has, she argues, too often tended to 
C14 106 recapitulate the dualistic terms of this debate, reading women's 
C14 107 writing either as a narrative of unified selfhood or as a 
C14 108 hysterical outpouring of the body. The book's project is to avoid 
C14 109 the pitfalls of these alternative extremes, using the 
C14 110 psychoanalytic concept of <quote|>"fantasy" to attend to the 
C14 111 interface between the psychic and the historical. The terms of the 
C14 112 debate are thus neatly reversed: Plath becomes the analyst, whose 
C14 113 writing diagnoses the symptomatic discontents of criticism.<p/>
C14 114 <p_>In her most persuasive chapter, 'The Archive', Rose provides a 
C14 115 detailed and scrupulous mapping of the multiple ways in which the 
C14 116 corpus of Plath's writings has been controlled and indeed censored 
C14 117 by the Plath Estate. This is a timely assertion of <quote_>"the 
C14 118 diversity of interpretation"<quote/> against the restrictions 
C14 119 placed on it by Ted and Olwyn Hughes. Rose's target is not, 
C14 120 however, the estate itself, but the self<?_>-<?/>defeating 
C14 121 <quote_>"logic of blame"<quote/> at work in the editing of the 
C14 122 papers, which attempts to legislate between the different and 
C14 123 contradictory selves produced by the letters, diaries, novels, and 
C14 124 poems.<p/>
C14 125 <p_>If the archive attempts to constitute a Sylvia Plath cleansed 
C14 126 of anger, sexuality, left-wing politics and popular culture, Rose 
C14 127 goes some way towards restoring these crucial texts of her life and 
C14 128 work. In particular, she argues that Plath's long-standing ambition 
C14 129 to be a writer of fiction for women's magazines, which has been 
C14 130 censoriously relegated to the margins of her identity as a writer, 
C14 131 should be recognised as central. This is a valuable insight, even 
C14 132 if it seems something of an overstatement; Rose tends to stress the 
C14 133 <quote|>"pleasure" derived from <quote|>"low" forms of writing at 
C14 134 the expense of the many guilty, ambivalent or contemptuous moments 
C14 135 in Plath's writing. Rose's close readings of individual poems form 
C14 136 the least successful part of the book's exposition. 
C14 137 <quote|>"Fantasy" is too capacious a paradigm to account for the 
C14 138 specificity of a poem's address to its readers. The concluding 
C14 139 analysis of 'Daddy', for example, draws on a plethora of diverse 
C14 140 contextual material, which, however fascinating in itself, tends to 
C14 141 swallow up the poem. What is elided, in the fraught and circuitous 
C14 142 route to the conclusion that Plath's poems <quote_>"lay out a 
C14 143 psychic economy of writing"<quote/>, or illustrate <quote_>"the 
C14 144 uncertainty inherent to language and subjectivity"<quote/>, is the 
C14 145 intermediary level of literary history. None the less, the book 
C14 146 more than fulfils its aims, opening up the direly impoverished 
C14 147 debate on Sylvia Plath to the salutary air of critical theory.<p/>
C14 148 
C14 149 <h_><p_>Young Artists in the marketplace<p/>
C14 150 <p_>John Cornall<p/><h/>
C14 151 <p_>IN THE art world, August is the quiet season. In London, 
C14 152 private galleries tend to stay open, but only to put on mixed 
C14 153 exhibitions, of established and new 'on-trial' artists, showing 
C14 154 small, modestly priced works aimed at the small domestic market and 
C14 155 the passing buyer. In recent years, private galleries have also put 
C14 156 on summer exhibitions of graduate and student art.<p/>
C14 157 <p_>Though often packaged as if they were award shows, these 
C14 158 exhibitions serve the same commercial function as the mixed 
C14 159 exhibitions. The dealers hope for a higher than average turnover of 
C14 160 low priced works and they also have an eye out for promising new 
C14 161 individual sellers.<p/>
C14 162 <p_>The fourth annual <tf_>Northern Graduates<tf/> at the New 
C14 163 Academy Gallery until august 31 includes works by 26 graduates 
C14 164 chosen from Midland and Northern art schools and polytechnics by 
C14 165 Nairi Sahakian of the gallery and Paul Mason, head of sculpture at 
C14 166 Staffs Poly. There are some memorable works including two 
C14 167 intriguing <}_><-|>dyptych's<+|>diptychs<}/> by Cypriot painter, 
C14 168 Paul Kouroussis decorative paper-works by Fernanda Santos. But 
C14 169 mostly the works, jam-packed into a long room, are polite, sellable 
C14 170 pieces (cartoon cats, desktop post-modernism, landscapes with a 
C14 171 frisson of modernist style).<p/>
C14 172 <p_>The prices of the works in the New Academy range from pounds110 
C14 173 to pounds 2,000. But though cheap, student art can also be big 
C14 174 business. This year the New Academy and others had to pick from 
C14 175 what <tf_>Fresh Art<tf/> had left behind. <tf_>Fresh Art<tf/>, 
C14 176 earlier in the summer, was a huge exhibition of student work put 
C14 177 forward from art colleges held at the Business Design Centre in 
C14 178 Islington. <tf_>Fresh Art<tf/> was like a trade fair for student 
C14 179 art. Leaflets and posters with the <tf_>Fresh Art<tf/> acid-house 
C14 180 type flower logo were widely distributed. A steep entrance of 
C14 181 pounds6 was charged and the organisers apparently took 50 per cent 
C14 182 of all sales.<p/>
C14 183 <p_>Showing near the New Academy, there are also two more student 
C14 184 exhibitions - less commercially biased than <tf_>Fresh Art<tf/>. 
C14 185 These are the British Telecom New Contemporaries at the ICA, 
C14 186 <quote_>"a national showcase for the best of Britain's art students 
C14 187 and recent graduates"<quote/>, selected from over 1,200 entries, by 
C14 188 two European museum curators, and an artist. Alistair Maclean; and 
C14 189 <tf_>Into the Nineties<tf/>, at the Mall Galleries, showing work 
C14 190 from London's postgraduate colleges, the Slade, Chelsea, The RCA, 
C14 191 Goldsmiths' and the Royal Academy schools.<p/>
C14 192 <p_>Like last year, the New Contemporaries contained much slick 
C14 193 museum-sized internationalist art from the academy of 
C14 194 conceptualism. Neat parodies and gags neatly packaged. Some of the 
C14 195 work in the Mall Galleries, as might be expected from MA students, 
C14 196 was very good, notably Julia Stovell's green and orange painting, 
C14 197 'Eyes I dare not meet in dreams'.<p/>
C14 198 <p_>Overall, the Northern and Midland graduates' work looks 
C14 199 different next to the brashness and polish of the best publicised 
C14 200 work from London colleges. At Goldsmith's, for example, students 
C14 201 are encouraged to be street-wise - to avoid the bohemian manner of 
C14 202 the 1970s and to present themselves and their work in a 
C14 203 business-like way.<p/>
C14 204 <p_>Bernard Cohen, Slade professor, reflects anxiety about the 
C14 205 market pull on young artists when, in the catalogue to the 
C14 206 <tf|>Nineties, he writes: <quote_>"The educational policy of the 
C14 207 Slade does not concern itself with the marketplace. Our students 
C14 208 make Fine Art."<quote/> Clyde Hopkins, head of painting at Chelsea, 
C14 209 makes a similar point, when he states that their course aims to 
C14 210 develop <quote_>"practical and technical abilities as well as 
C14 211 professional awareness."<quote/><p/>
C14 212 <p_>But Cohen and Hopkins should also know that, post-art college, 
C14 213 there is little or no supporting system (meaning critics, 
C14 214 galleries, curators, funding) for serious progressive art based in 
C14 215 traditional fine art values.
C14 216 
C15   1 <#FLOB:C15\><h_><p_>Co-Producers with the Library Theatre Company 
C15   2 in I'm Not Rappaport at the Arts Theatre, Cambridge, until 
C15   3 Saturday.<p/>
C15   4 <p_>Reviewed by STEPHEN SWAIN.<p/>
C15   5 <p_>Life and survival in the Park ...<p/><h/>
C15   6 <p_>GREAT mysteries of life, number 1,217: Why did Herb Gardner 
C15   7 give this warm, witty and wise comedy such an off<?_>-<?/>putting 
C15   8 title?<p/>
C15   9 <p_>After all, the man's been getting it right for years, ever 
C15  10 since his first play, <tf_>A Thousand Clowns<tf/>.<p/>
C15  11 <p_>But those few who bothered to stir from the TV on a drab Bank 
C15  12 Holiday Monday were rewarded with a consummate display of comedic 
C15  13 talent from the two principals, Alan Dobie and Thomas Baptiste.<p/>
C15  14 <p_>Dobie plays Nat, a dapper octogenarian who decides to share a 
C15  15 bench in Central Park with equally elderly Midge, a black caretaker 
C15  16 - whether Midge likes it or not.<p/>
C15  17 <p_>Nat is economical with the truth of his many life stories - 
C15  18 maybe he's a CIA agent in deep cover, maybe he's a social 
C15  19 psychologist named Dr Friedrich Engels ... Maybe.<p/>
C15  20 <p_>Midge, a battered ex-boxer with cataracts, has a problem - he's 
C15  21 about to be turned out of his home and his job by yuppies.<p/>
C15  22 <p_>But Nat has the solution: <quote_>"Who needs sight when you've 
C15  23 got vision?"<quote/>.<p/>
C15  24 <p_>By adapting yet another persona, as a sharp lawyer, he wipes 
C15  25 the floor with Danforth (Graeme Edler), the jogger who's come to 
C15  26 deliver Midge's marching orders.<p/>
C15  27 <p_><quote_>"Old people are the survivors,"<quote/> he tells him. 
C15  28 <quote_>"They know something - they didn't just stay around to 
C15  29 spoil your party."<quote/><p/>
C15  30 <p_>So far, so good. More throwaway one-liners than an early Woody 
C15  31 Allen film, and the old guys appear to be kicking against the 
C15  32 pricks - and winning.<p/>
C15  33 <p_>But then shadows begin to fall across the park, first with 
C15  34 nasty little punk Gilley (Martin McDougall), then drug dealer the 
C15  35 Cowboy (David Crean).<p/>
C15  36 <p_>And both old men find that there is no real defence against the 
C15  37 young, the strong and the unprincipled.<p/>
C15  38 <p_>Nat has an additional problem, his put-upon daughter Clara 
C15  39 (Joanna Hole), who wants to put him into a <quote_>"home for the 
C15  40 forgettable"<quote/>.<p/>
C15  41 <p_>She has presented him with grandchildren whose ethics revolve 
C15  42 around cable TV, and has herself become an estate agent, 
C15  43 <quote_>"Queen of the condominiums"<quote/>.<p/>
C15  44 <p_>This is a long way from Nat's own socialist ideals, which have 
C15  45 kept him in fighting mood for his whole life.<p/>
C15  46 <p_>This well-turned production, directed by Eric Standidge, earned 
C15  47 the loudest applause from the smallest audience I've yet seen at 
C15  48 the Arts. You needed to have been there.<p/>
C15  49 
C15  50 <h_><p_>Scrawny voice is just too much these days<p/>
C15  51 <p_>SINGLES<p/><h/>
C15  52 <p_><tf_>CRITTIE AND SWEETIE - Take Me In Your Arms And Love 
C15  53 Me<tf/>: Everyone deserves the right to make a living but why did 
C15  54 Green Gartside have to choose music?<p/>
C15  55 <p_>He has a scrawny, little voice that was once judged to have 
C15  56 artistic interest but after all these years it's just too much.<p/>
C15  57 <p_>He dabbles unconvincingly with reggae and should really leave 
C15  58 Sweetie and his pals to it. Dreadful, and pretentious.<p/>
C15  59 <p_><tf_>DIED PRETTY - Godbless<tf/>: While it's refreshing to see 
C15  60 a non-dance, non-pop band receiving vinyl space, it should really 
C15  61 go to a more deserving cause.<p/>
C15  62 <p_><tf_>TOP - Number One Dominator<tf/>: Top make great play of 
C15  63 the fact that when they were in other hands they were not the main 
C15  64 song<?_>-<?/>writers. On this evidence it's hardly surprising 
C15  65 news.<p/>
C15  66 <p_><tf_>KINGOFTHEHILL - I Do U<tf/>: Another gimmick - a band that 
C15  67 doesn't like any space between it's name. Hopeitdoesn'tcatchon.<p/>
C15  68 <p_>The title is straight to the point and so are the band. Bad 
C15  69 rock.<p/>
C15  70 <p_><tf_>YA KID YA - Awesome (You Are My Hero)<tf/>: Dive back down 
C15  71 the nearest sewer, it's another song about those mutant ninja 
C15  72 turtles.<p/>
C15  73 <p_><tf_>COOKIE CREW - Secrets (Of Success)<tf/>: Sad but true, 
C15  74 rappers are still saying <quote|>"yo" on their records.<p/>
C15  75 <p_>Cookie Crew have previously released some dreadful thin records 
C15  76 but this one is a tasty sandwich with lots of filling.<p/>
C15  77 <p_>There's some unusual scat singing and it's their most muscular 
C15  78 and tuneful release so far. Nice one.<p/>
C15  79 <p_><tf_>MARILLION - No One Can<tf/>: And we thought Chris de Burgh 
C15  80 was bad. Steve Hogarth sounds worryingly similar to De Burgh and 
C15  81 the plodding, dismal backing could almost be the Argentinian-born 
C15  82 Irishman with the French name.<p/>
C15  83 <p_>Housewives only and those people that light up cigarette 
C15  84 lighters at rock concerts.<p/>
C15  85 <p_><tf_>JELLYFISH - The Scarey Go Round EP<tf/>: Los Angeles's 
C15  86 Jellyfish raid the vaults of 1960s music and put it back together 
C15  87 with great loving care.<p/>
C15  88 
C15  89 <h_><p_>With and without soul<p/><h/>
C15  90 <p_>Albums available this week include:<p/>
C15  91 <p_><tf_>Paula Abdul - Spellbound<tf/> (Virgin America): Three 
C15  92 plays in, and it's still hard to see what the title is about. Maybe 
C15  93 <tf_>Vaguely Pleased<tf/> would be better, because only diehards 
C15  94 will be left spellbound by Paula's efforts, even if they are 
C15  95 earnest.<p/>
C15  96 <p_>She has an ordinary, rather squeaky voice, and unlike other 
C15  97 female contemporaries such as Madonna she is reluctant to open up 
C15  98 her lungs and really cut loose.<p/>
C15  99 <p_>Most tracks are delicate, flimsy and often anaemic dance cuts. 
C15 100 In places she accidentally sounds like Cyndi Lauper, and after the 
C15 101 general mundanity of the rest, the gravelly bits and more 
C15 102 aggressive squeaks are perversely quite enticing.<p/>
C15 103 <p_>The critics, and there are many, will still claim Paula should 
C15 104 have stuck with dancing or cheer-leading, and she must release 
C15 105 stronger and more consistent records before that argument will 
C15 106 subside. (6/10)<p/>
C15 107 <p_><tf_>Diana Ross - The Force Behind the Power<tf/> (EMI): 
C15 108 According to the press release, this is Diana's 58th album, which 
C15 109 must include her work with the Supremes, and the myriad 
C15 110 compilations.<p/>
C15 111 <p_>In recent years, her quality control has slipped somewhat, but 
C15 112 this outing shows a considerable tightening-up. The late 1980s 
C15 113 tweeness has been forsaken, and she has side-stepped the 
C15 114 temptation to embrace modern dance elements.<p/>
C15 115 <p_>Instead, her voice is rightfully shoved up in the mix and it's 
C15 116 still a wonderful and soulful experience, despite the shortage of 
C15 117 major league pop classics and a spot of interruptive musical 
C15 118 posturing.<p/>
C15 119 <p_>From the bouncy <tf_>Change Of Heart<tf/> to ballads like 
C15 120 <tf_>Heavy Weather<tf/>, this is a fine, accomplished set just the 
C15 121 same, and collectively it showcases a singer with a lasting 
C15 122 relevance.<p/>
C15 123 <p_>If you've got a note in your pocket, and are unsure which lady 
C15 124 to pick, Diana or Paula Abdul, stick with a tried and tested 
C15 125 formula and make it Lady Di. (7/10)<p/>
C15 126 <p_><tf_>Pete Wylie and Wah! - Infamy<tf/> (Siren): He's been away 
C15 127 a long time and many thought he had finally talked himself to 
C15 128 death. Liaisons with the Farm and an appalling new haircut rightly 
C15 129 had many worried about the contents of his first LP in years.<p/>
C15 130 <p_>While it's pleasing to note that he has not succumbed to the 
C15 131 current dance fad, it's a long way short of his stunning early 
C15 132 music like <tf_>The Story of the Blues<tf/>. The guitars are turned 
C15 133 right up and sometimes it appears that he has tried too hard to 
C15 134 make a raw rock album.<p/>
C15 135 <p_>Too many tracks are swamped in instrumentation, so that both 
C15 136 Wylie's singing and choruses go astray in the melee. The lyrics 
C15 137 still have the naive charm of old and there are enough anthems to 
C15 138 incite the interest of fans but generally this is a 'Hey, I'm still 
C15 139 around' LP more than a thrilling new statement.<p/>
C15 140 <p_>Hang on in there with Wylie, he's a great British songwriter 
C15 141 currently treading water and nothing more, hopefully. (6/10)<p/>
C15 142 
C15 143 <h_><p_>Delights of tea, scones and poetry<p/>
C15 144 <p_>Rupert Brooke, written and performed by Mark Payton, at the Old 
C15 145 Vicarage, Grantchester. Reviewed by ALAN KERSEY.<p/><h/>
C15 146 <p_>SULTRY, soporific, with woodpigeons bursting from the chestnuts 
C15 147 that once assured Brooke he was back home, this was indeed an 
C15 148 afternoon for tea, honeyed scones and poetry.<p/>
C15 149 <p_>But this one-man show brings out less familiar aspects - he 
C15 150 found Cambridge itself boring and was under no illusions that this 
C15 151 was heaven on earth.<p/>
C15 152 <p_><quote_>"All the best poetry about England is written when you 
C15 153 are out of the wretched place,"<quote/> he said.<p/>
C15 154 <p_>Nor was he as serious as the perceived image suggests - he even 
C15 155 jested about the slightly ridiculous way in which he died.<p/>
C15 156 <p_>An annual event, the performance was combined with a Sunday 
C15 157 afternoon rendition of <tf_>Shakespearean Lovers<tf/> in aid of a 
C15 158 students' charity to help the physically and mentally handicapped 
C15 159 and of the Sharon Allen Leukaemia Trust.<p/>
C15 160 <p_>For those having only a nodding acquaintance with his ode to 
C15 161 Grantchester the show was an education as well as an 
C15 162 entertainment.<p/>
C15 163 <p_>But the mood bleakened inevitably as his fever and the effects 
C15 164 of that fatal mosquito bite on his lip steadily worsened.<p/>
C15 165 
C15 166 <h_><p_>Delicate and classy performance marks the end of festival 
C15 167 era<p/>
C15 168 <p_>Melanie and Wayne Marshall Music School, West Road, Cambridge, 
C15 169 Sponsored by Sindall. Reviewed by James Day.<p/><h/>
C15 170 <p_>FOR his final coup in six years as Cambridge Festival director, 
C15 171 Guy Woolfenden chose to go out not with brass blaring and strings 
C15 172 sawing away in some great orchestral showpiece.<p/>
C15 173 <p_>Instead, he engaged just about the most laid-back musical duo 
C15 174 imaginable.<p/>
C15 175 <p_>Melanie Marshall is no stranger to Cambridge, having appeared 
C15 176 as soloist with our major musical societies; but although her 
C15 177 brother Wayne has given organ recitals in the city, I don't 
C15 178 remember hearing him.<p/>
C15 179 <p_>Wayne's musicianship was amply demonstrated in his delicate 
C15 180 touch, supple rhythm, deft pointing of little details in the 
C15 181 lyrics, and the alert timing of the accompaniment to fit his 
C15 182 sister's justifiably elastic tempi in the repertoire she chose to 
C15 183 perform.<p/>
C15 184 <p_>Add to that some classy improvisations and you had a nice 
C15 185 wind-down from the more hectic activities of this year's 
C15 186 festival.<p/>
C15 187 <h|>Delighted
C15 188 <p_>Together, they delighted the audience at West Road with an 
C15 189 evening of sophisticated cabaret, performed with a suitably 
C15 190 intimate approach, which ranged from Stephen Sondheim to negro 
C15 191 spirituals, with a dash of Bernstein, Gershwin, Jerome Kern and 
C15 192 Richard Rogers.<p/>
C15 193 <p_>Not forgetting Andrew Gant, ex-King's choral scholar and 
C15 194 up-and-coming singer and composer.<p/>
C15 195 <p_>Andrew's contributions stood up well in this company; and the 
C15 196 Marshall duo gave them the same polished attention as they devoted 
C15 197 to everything else.<p/>
C15 198 <p_>Some might have regretted the absence of waiters serving drinks 
C15 199 and a haze of two-in-the-morning smoke. The Marshalls managed the 
C15 200 right atmosphere without all that - I almost put 'jazz'.<p/>
C15 201 <p_>So the Woolfenden era ended on a quiet but definite high.<p/>
C15 202 <p_>Guy and Jane have stamped the festival with both character and 
C15 203 quality in their thematic approach and their choice of artistes and 
C15 204 programmes.<p/>
C15 205 <p_>I'm sure that the dynamic Nicholas Cleobury will make it even 
C15 206 more of a national event. Here's to 1992!<p/>
C15 207 
C15 208 <h_><p_>Folk spectacular goes out in style<p/>
C15 209 <p_>By GRAHAM McMORRIN<p/><h/>
C15 210 <p_>THE 27th Abbot Ale Cambridge Folk Festival ended with a bang as 
C15 211 an international cavalcade of top names vied for thunderous 
C15 212 applause.<p/>
C15 213 <p_>More than 11,000 people crowded onto the Cherry Hinton Hall 
C15 214 site, many to witness Janis Ian's first UK appearance in a decade, 
C15 215 an honour she reserved for Cambridge.<p/>
C15 216 <p_>The Nashville singer said: <quote_>"I'm trying to look fairly 
C15 217 cool, but I keep wiping my hands on my pants and destroying the 
C15 218 whole thing."<quote/><p/>
C15 219 <p_>But she far from destroyed the material, as standing ovations 
C15 220 greeted a selection from her <tf_>Between the Lines<tf/> classic 
C15 221 album, along with such new material as the warm and moving 
C15 222 <tf_>Stolen Fire<tf/>.<p/>
C15 223 <p_>The high spot of the festival was a widely proclaimed set from 
C15 224 'New Waif' New Yorker Suzanne Vega.<p/>
C15 225 <p_>It was standing room only as Vega, one of folk's superstars, 
C15 226 stepped up to the microphone and belted into her early hit 
C15 227 <tf_>Marlene on the Wall<tf/>.<p/>
C15 228 <p_>The traditionally wry irony and casual delivery of her lyrics 
C15 229 quickly entranced a crowded audience.<p/>
C15 230 <p_>Such sadly sentimental lyrics soon gave way to the 
C15 231 tough-hearted strumming of <tf|>Cracking, with its almost whimsical 
C15 232 refrain of love lost and love just thrown away.<p/>
C15 233 <p_>Harsh tempo and angry chords marked her new material, 
C15 234 particularly the haunting <tf_>Behind Straight Lines<tf/>.<p/>
C15 235 <p_>The applause and enthusiasm was massive, but I was left with 
C15 236 the thought that not much had changed, and for Vega it was all just 
C15 237 another song in just another place.<p/>
C15 238 <p_>Yesterday saw the return of Irish folk stars Clannad, after an 
C15 239 absence from Cambridge of over 13 years.<p/>
C15 240 <p_>They strode through Donegal love songs, led by Maire Brennan's 
C15 241 powerful lead vocal.<p/>
C15 242 <p_>The climax came with the pathos and finely crafted 
C15 243 <tf_>Something To Believe In<tf/>, which proved an excellent 
C15 244 showcase for the backing vocals of Bridlin Brennan and June 
C15 245 Boyce.<p/>
C15 246 
C16   1 <#FLOB:C16\><h_><p_>Poetic turn of wit<p/>
C16   2 <p_>English Serenata/ Civic Theatre, Mansfield<p/><h/>
C16   3 <p_>THE <tf_>Tango-Pasodoble<tf/> of William Walton's <tf|>Facade 
C16   4 took on extra colour when Susana Walton, the composer's 
C16   5 Argentinian-born widow, appeared in a Mansfield Festival 
C16   6 performance at the town's Civic Theatre last night.<p/>
C16   7 <p_>Not that Lady Walton believes in <quote_>"additional caprices 
C16   8 or embellishments."<quote/> As she says of this brilliant 'Twenties 
C16   9 work, all the entertaining is done by Edith Sitwell's poetry in 
C16  10 tandem with the music.<p/>
C16  11 <h|>Book
C16  12 <p_>Lady Walton had opened the three-part evening with thirty 
C16  13 minutes of reminiscences - her first meeting with William, his 
C16  14 instant proposal of marriage, and her initiation into his circle of 
C16  15 talented friends and patrons.<p/>
C16  16 <p_>It's all, of course, in her recent book, along with much more. 
C16  17 But here was an opportunity to experience her wit and vitality at 
C16  18 first hand.<p/>
C16  19 <p_>Fellow-reciter Richard Baker then introduced members of the 
C16  20 English Serenata in a group of three pieces - all, like 
C16  21 <tf|>Facade, with the accent on wind instruments.<p/>
C16  22 <p_>Mozart's <tf_>Quintet in E flat, K452<tf/>, for piano, oboe, 
C16  23 clarinet, horn and bassoon, dovetails phrases that are shared more 
C16  24 or less equally between the performers. In the Serenata's well 
C16  25 focused rendering, Michael Revell's beautiful horn playing 
C16  26 particularly caught the ear.<p/>
C16  27 <p_>Poulenc's piquant <tf|>Sextet, a 'Thirties piece which adds a 
C16  28 flute to the Mozart ensemble, is even more of a concert hall 
C16  29 rarity. Its three movements threw up deliberate references to 
C16  30 Mozart, Prokofiev and Stravinsky.<p/>
C16  31 <h|>Patchwork
C16  32 <p_>A patchwork quilt, but seamlessly designed and absorbing to 
C16  33 listen to.<p/>
C16  34 <p_>The same players contrived to alternate as a percussive rhythm 
C16  35 section in the course of Rory Boyle's <tf|>Cinderella, commissioned 
C16  36 for the 1990 Solihull festival.<p/>
C16  37 <p_>Definitely another tongue-in-cheek composition, in which the 
C16  38 Ugly Sisters literally lose their heads, and Cinderella gets 
C16  39 hitched to a jam-maker. Roald Dahl's <tf_>Revolting Rhymes<tf/> 
C16  40 provided the text.<p/>
C16  41 <p_>PETER PALMER<p/>
C16  42 
C16  43 <h_><p_>Sounds comical<p/><h/>
C16  44 <p_>A CROSS between Gilbert and Sullivan and Toytown, there's a 
C16  45 not-to-be-missed comic opera coming our way when Opera North makes 
C16  46 another welcome visit to Nottingham Theatre Royal.<p/>
C16  47 <p_>Among the bicentenary Mozarts in abundance this year can be 
C16  48 spotted two performances of jollity and high jinks with 
C16  49 <tf_>L'Etoile<tf/>. (November 6 and 8). It's staged as a tribute to 
C16  50 its composer Emmanuel Chabrier on his 150th anniversary.<p/>
C16  51 <p_><tf_>L'Etoile (The Star<tf/>, or, as W.S. Gilbert had it in his 
C16  52 version, <tf_>Lucky Star<tf/>) whisks the audience off to a garish 
C16  53 world where a king lurks disguised as a dustbin and where a 
C16  54 princess elopes in a balloon  which explodes over a lake. The 
C16  55 bedraggled girl totters in to explain: <quote_>"It went bang 
C16  56 ..."<quote/><p/>
C16  57 <p_>The opera gives Chabrier a glorious excuse to write witty and 
C16  58 melodious music with sly parodies of such heavyweights as 
C16  59 Wagner.<p/>
C16  60 <p_>It's all about King Ouf I who believes everything the stars 
C16  61 foretell. To avoid premature death he has to take care of Lazuli, 
C16  62 an amorous pedlar in love with the king's daughter and whose 
C16  63 destiny is linked with his by the star of the title.<p/>
C16  64 <p_>This hilarious fantasy marks an operatic director's debut for 
C16  65 Phyllida Lloyd, recently responsible for the Royal Shakespeare 
C16  66 Company's production of <tf|>Virtuoso.<p/>
C16  67 <p_>EMRYS BRYSON<p/>
C16  68 
C16  69 <h_><p_>Peta and Pete get in the beat<p/>
C16  70 <p_>FOLK BEAT WITH ROY HARRIS<p/><h/>
C16  71 <p_>TONIGHT'S the night for the pair with the soundalike names at 
C16  72 Beeston. Peta Webb and Pete Cooper make a sterling duet with an 
C16  73 impressive combination of fiddle and song.<p/>
C16  74 <p_>Peta Webb, slight of stature but mighty in vocal power, is one 
C16  75 of the best stylists around. Her keen-edged voice with its hints of 
C16  76 the late Margaret Barry is an instrument in itself. Peter Cooper 
C16  77 has a background in American style fiddle playing as an accompanist 
C16  78 to Holly Tannen for some years.<p/>
C16  79 <p_>His all-round ability has proved up to the task of backing 
C16  80 Webb's very different repertoire, the result being a very classy 
C16  81 act indeed.<p/>
C16  82 <p_>Please note that the Scheme Folk Band continue with their very 
C16  83 valuable workshop type sessions at the Crown, Beeston, on Tuesday 
C16  84 nights. The open-floor concept they hold to at the Crown offers a 
C16  85 conducive atmosphere for newer players to get into folk music 
C16  86 alongside more experienced players.<p/>
C16  87 
C16  88 <h_><p_>Backing off live bands<p/>
C16  89 <p_>CLUB NIGHT WITH REG ENDERBY<p/><h/>
C16  90 <p_>I GOT out to see a few solos and duos over the week and was a 
C16  91 little disappointed to see all of them using backing tapes. What is 
C16  92 happening to live music?<p/>
C16  93 <p_>There seem to be more and more live bands giving up the ghost 
C16  94 because they cannot compete in price with the likes of the 
C16  95 aforementioned who, helped with today's technology, manage to sound 
C16  96 like a band.<p/>
C16  97 <p_>If venues continue to accept increased use of taped backing 
C16  98 then I'm afraid there is going to be a severe shortage of good 
C16  99 bands in the near future.<p/>
C16 100 <p_>On a brighter note I got to see a new live band from Leicester 
C16 101 by the name of Dirty Duvet, who are a breath of fresh air.<p/>
C16 102 <h|>Alternative
C16 103 <p_>A lively stage show <}_><-|>complimented<+|>complemented<}/> 
C16 104 with lighting, various brass instrumentation, outrageous costumes 
C16 105 and a great attitude of fun and enjoyment is returned with equal 
C16 106 enthusiasm by their audience.<p/>
C16 107 <p_>Their show is based mainly on rock classics performed with 
C16 108 Dirty Duvet's own interpretations as an alternative to how they 
C16 109 might have been performed by the likes of Screaming Lord Sutch or 
C16 110 spoof band Spinal Tap.<p/>
C16 111 <p_>I look forward to seeing more of them as they make their 
C16 112 assault on the Nottingham clubs.<p/>
C16 113 <p_>Poppy Appeals continue throughout the Royal British Legion 
C16 114 clubs and on Wednesday November 6 entertainment secretary Dougie 
C16 115 Ward has a show on at the Clifton RBL with vocalist Julie Keightley 
C16 116 and refreshingly live backing from Roy Marriott.<p/>
C16 117 <p_>I was asked recently if rock horror show Nightmare are in the 
C16 118 area soon and I am pleased to inform you that they can be seen at 
C16 119 Rainworth MW on Sunday November 3.<p/>
C16 120 <h|>Bizarre
C16 121 <p_>This act is not for the <}_><-|>squeemish<+|><}/>squeamish. I 
C16 122 have seen human hangings, snakes, blood and guts as just some of 
C16 123 their bizarre antics, but with Halloween night just around the 
C16 124 corner it couldn't be a better time to see the scariest show in 
C16 125 town.<p/>
C16 126 
C16 127 <h_><p_>MARRINER RULES THE AIR WAVES<p/>
C16 128 <p_>Academy of St Martin in the Fields/ Royal Concert Hall<p/><h/>
C16 129 <p_>SIR Neville Marriner and the Academy of St Martin in the Fields 
C16 130 enjoyed one of the warmest receptions I can recall for a British 
C16 131 orchestra when they played at the Royal Concert Hall on Friday.<p/>
C16 132 <p_>Doubtless this had much to do with their recording reputation. 
C16 133 Few people who have collected classical discs - or just tuned in to 
C16 134 Radio 3 - can be unaware of the partnership.<p/>
C16 135 <h|>Diversity
C16 136 <p_>So Friday's concert was a chance to thank Marriner and his 
C16 137 players for more than thirty years of top flight music-making.<p/>
C16 138 <p_>It also marked the climax of the <tf_>Evening Post<tf/> Amadeus 
C16 139 series, which has seen a diversity of stylistic approaches to the 
C16 140 question of performing Mozart.<p/>
C16 141 <p_>The evening opened with Mozart's festive <tf|>Haffner Symphony. 
C16 142 By current standards the string section seemed a bit on the heavy 
C16 143 side, hence rather lacking in subtlety. But the minuet's trio was 
C16 144 nicely executed, and Marriner kept things firmly together in a 
C16 145 hell-for-leather finale.<p/>
C16 146 <h|>Aristocratic
C16 147 <p_>Both the symphony and Mozart piano concertos like the one in A 
C16 148 major, K.488, come very close to the world of the composer's 
C16 149 operas.<p/>
C16 150 <p_>In the case of K.488, it's the world of <tf_>The Marriage of 
C16 151 Figaro<tf/>. Aristocratic in her playing, as in appearance, Imogen 
C16 152 Cooper displayed her usual verve and clarity at the piano.<p/>
C16 153 <p_>She had the audience hanging on every beautifully judged note 
C16 154 in the widely-spaced theme of the <tf|>Adagio movement. In the 
C16 155 final <tf|>Allegro, the Academy's first bassoon briefly shared the 
C16 156 honours with its virtuosity.<p/>
C16 157 <p_>Its next-door neighbour, the clarinet, eventually stole the 
C16 158 show in a skilfully piloted performance of Mendelssohn's <tf_>The 
C16 159 Hebrides<tf/>, the second half opener.<p/>
C16 160 <p_>Like most maestros, Marriner opted for the revised version of 
C16 161 Schumann's Fourth Symphony, although the lighter scoring of the 
C16 162 original can make a more Mendelssohnian impression.<p/>
C16 163 <p_>Either way, it begs to be heard more often, especially when 
C16 164 delivered with such panache. Totally Schumannesque was the eerie 
C16 165 prelude to the last movement. The concert ended with a similar 
C16 166 brilliance - only more romantic - to that with which it began.<p/>
C16 167 <p_>PETER PALMER<p/>
C16 168 
C16 169 <h_><p_>BLUE MOODS?<p/>
C16 170 <p_>David Badiel and Rob Newman/<p/>
C16 171 <p_>Nottingham Polytechnic<p/><h/>
C16 172 <p_>HALF the Mary Whitehouse Experience - the half that mattered - 
C16 173 played a full house at the Poly last night. But it wasn't as good 
C16 174 as their last visit to the region in the spring.<p/>
C16 175 <p_>Watching David Badiel and Rob Newman is rather like undergoing 
C16 176 police interrogation. There's the hard one and the soft one, in the 
C16 177 shape of two alternative comedians who take the cult of personality 
C16 178 to the limit.<p/>
C16 179 <h|>Friendly
C16 180 <p_>David Badiel, the soft one, comes up with some friendly and 
C16 181 familiar Jewish jokes and reminds us all what the original Yiddish 
C16 182 insult <tf|><foreign|>Schmuck means.<p/>
C16 183 <p_>His pal, Rob Newman, is a lot tougher. His range covers the 
C16 184 fact that Professor Stanley Unwin might be in league with the devil 
C16 185 because the gobbeldy-gook<&|>sic! used in his act resembles the 
C16 186 kind of backwards-talk allegedly favoured by heavy metal bands, 
C16 187 then takes in far more topical comments about the current musical 
C16 188 scene and his own failure to be a New Man.<p/>
C16 189 <h|>Funny
C16 190 <p_>Material from the BBC-2 series was much in evidence - with blue 
C16 191 variations tailored for a student audience and a familiar closing 
C16 192 sketch parodying the <tf_>South Bank Show<tf/> failing to live up 
C16 193 to expectations. But you don't go to see them for that. You go to 
C16 194 see half the <tf_>Mary Whitehouse Experience<tf/> because they're 
C16 195 darned funny - and because at a live gig they can relish the kind 
C16 196 of political comment and profanity that is still banned on TV.<p/>
C16 197 <p_>CATHERINE ARNOLD ADAMS<p/>
C16 198 
C16 199 <h_><p_>Kylie turns on the style<p/>
C16 200 <p_>Kylie Minogue/Royal Concert Hall<p/><h/>
C16 201 <p_>SHE may be tiny, but Kylie's pop packs an almighty wallop.<p/>
C16 202 <p_>And she received an almighty reception for her first, long 
C16 203 overdue performance in Nottingham.<p/>
C16 204 <p_>The capacity crowd - Kool Kat trendies rubbing shoulders with 
C16 205 tots and teenies - couldn't have cheered louder or danced more 
C16 206 furiously if their lives depended on it.<p/>
C16 207 <p_>And Kylie, out to shock as well as to sock it to 'em, couldn't 
C16 208 have worn less if she'd tried.<p/>
C16 209 <p_>Clearly she's been raiding Madonna's undie drawer. Panty 
C16 210 girdles, <}_><-|>miniscule<+|>minuscule<}/> bra tops, thongs and 
C16 211 just about anything see-through constituted John Galliano's costume 
C16 212 design.<p/>
C16 213 <h_><p_>Fickle bid<p/><h/>
C16 214 <p_>You could just about see through Kylie's concept, too - a 
C16 215 fickle bid to out-raunch her idol.<p/>
C16 216 <p_>But if you're going to rip someone off when you're ripping off 
C16 217 your clothes, who better than Madonna?<p/>
C16 218 <p_>And if you're going to put on a show to prove that you're not 
C16 219 just a record company puppet, what better way to do it than 
C16 220 this?<p/>
C16 221 <p_>Kylie showed us she could sing, dance and really get an 
C16 222 audience going.<p/>
C16 223 <p_>She deserves an award, as well, for value for money: Nearly 
C16 224 every song she's ever done crammed into 90 high-energy minutes with 
C16 225 barely a pause for breath.<p/>
C16 226 <p_>Some of the well-trendy dance routines - Kylie at the centre of 
C16 227 a five-strong troupe - echoed those in Whitney Houston's recent 
C16 228 show, but without the showbiz schmaltz.<p/>
C16 229 <h_><p_>Good time<p/><h/>
C16 230 <p_>And while Madonna, who also might have spotted a couple of 
C16 231 familiar dance steps, is all about politics, feminism and 
C16 232 thought-provoking controversy, Kylie is simply and purely about 
C16 233 having a good time.<p/>
C16 234 <p_>She sang the title track of her <tf_>Enjoy Yourself<tf/> album 
C16 235 early in the set. By the end, I can't imagine anyone claiming they 
C16 236 hadn't.<p/>
C16 237 <p_>SIMON BUTTON<p/>
C16 238 
C16 239 <h_><p_>Songs evoke Tudor times<p/>
C16 240 <p_>Willoughby Consort/ Holme Pierrepont Hall<p/><h/>
C16 241 <p_>A MERE three centuries or so since their last performance at 
C16 242 Holme Pierrepont Hall, songs by the former house composer Thomas 
C16 243 Greaves were heard there on Saturday.<p/>
C16 244 <p_>Tenor Michael Sanderson sang them affectingly as part of a 
C16 245 recital by the Willoughby Consort, divided between music of the 
C16 246 Tudor and the Stuart eras.<p/>
C16 247 <h|>Expertise
C16 248 <p_>The Consort has been playing together for some time, and its 
C16 249 entertainment value matches its expertise. The quincentenary of the 
C16 250 birth of Henry VIII was a good pretext for opening with items from 
C16 251 a manuscript named after him, including a Cornish hunting song.<p/>
C16 252 <p_>Stewart McCoy played fantasies from the lute book of Wollaton 
C16 253 Hall's Sir Francis Willoughby during the first half.<p/>
C16 254 
C17   1 <#FLOB:C17\><h_><p_>Star most impressed<p/>
C17   2 <p_>By Nancy Oatridge-Budd<p/><h/>
C17   3 <p_>ON THE occasion of their 10th anniversary the Bodmin Players 
C17   4 AOS presented, for the second time, the Rodgers and Hammerstein 
C17   5 musical 'Carousel' at the Foster Hall, Bodmin.<p/>
C17   6 <p_>The stage producer was Chris Batters, a founder member of the 
C17   7 society and the musical director was David Cheetham, a comparative 
C17   8 new-comer to Cornwall. Both Chris and David are to be congratulated 
C17   9 on the results of all their hard work.<p/>
C17  10 <p_>This was a most colourful production, with lovely scenery and 
C17  11 costumes. The chorus and dancers were excellent and together with 
C17  12 the orchestra they carried the show along at a good pace. It was a 
C17  13 pity that in the spoken sections the pace and timing were allowed 
C17  14 to drag.<p/>
C17  15 <p_>The principal characters sang their solos beautifully and fully 
C17  16 deserved the applause they received. But in one or two instances a 
C17  17 little more thought about the characters to be portrayed and the 
C17  18 acting involved would have made their performances even better.<p/>
C17  19 <p_>At the end of the evening the president, Mr. Gerald Thomas made 
C17  20 a short speech thanking the performers and all the helpers who had 
C17  21 done such wonderful work backstage. Without them, he said, the show 
C17  22 could not have taken place.<p/>
C17  23 <p_>Plans are already being made for the 1992 production which will 
C17  24 be Calamity Jane.<p/>
C17  25 <p_>Among the audience at the Friday night performance was singing 
C17  26 star Frank Ifield who later drew the raffle and went backstage to 
C17  27 meet the cast and sign autographs. He told the Players it had been 
C17  28 an excellent show and that he did not realise there was such talent 
C17  29 in the area.<p/>
C17  30 
C17  31 <h_><p_>Susan taps inner strength<p/><h/>
C17  32 <p_>WOMEN HAVE been cheering in the aisles in America at the highly 
C17  33 controversial movie <tf_>Thelma And Louise<tf/> described by one 
C17  34 critic as <quote_>"a post feminist howl"<quote/>. And no-one could 
C17  35 be more pleased at the reaction than the film's star, Susan 
C17  36 Sarandon.<p/>
C17  37 <p_>Scottish director Ridley Scott is clear about why he picked 
C17  38 Sarandon to play the pivotal role of Louise in the story of two 
C17  39 women who break out of their smalltown repressive lives and cut a 
C17  40 swathe through a landscape of flawed males. Scott felt Sarandon was 
C17  41 <quote_>"a ballsy Lady"<quote/>.<p/>
C17  42 <p_><quote_>"She's a very smart woman and always had a selection of 
C17  43 material with some kind of a strong subtext to it,"<quote/> he 
C17  44 says. In Thelma And Louise, the red-headed actress with the Bette 
C17  45 Davis eyes plays a working class woman with a lot of inner rage who 
C17  46 provides the drive for her and Geena Davis's Thelma to break out 
C17  47 and head for the south western desert in a 1966 Thunderbird 
C17  48 convertible.<p/>
C17  49 <p_>It's the kind of buddy movie we've seen before but this time 
C17  50 the central characters are two women. The film's violent depiction 
C17  51 of retribution for molesting males has had a fantastic response 
C17  52 from women in America with critics labelling it a feminist version 
C17  53 of the Rambo syndrome. <quote_>"What we are seeing is a sort of 
C17  54 post-feminist howl,"<quote/> suggested Peter Rainer of the Los 
C17  55 Angeles Times. <quote_>"It's a sisterhood bash-a-thon."<quote/><p/>
C17  56 <p_>To Sarandon, it's about women discovering their own inner 
C17  57 strength. For an actress who put her reputation on the line by 
C17  58 opposing the Gulf War when it was still popular and by staying true 
C17  59 to traditional liberal values during the Reagan decade, it's 
C17  60 obvious that self-determination is an important aspect in her 
C17  61 life.<p/>
C17  62 <p_>Thelma And Louise is likely to give a sizeable boost to 
C17  63 Sarandon's career. Callie Khouri's screenplay gives more than a 
C17  64 hint to the notion that women need a certain separatism in order to 
C17  65 be themselves in a very male-dominated world. The 44-year-old 
C17  66 actress has come close several times to establishing mainstream 
C17  67 commercial appeal, and yet her penchant for pursuing a very 
C17  68 individual path has just as quickly drawn her back to relative 
C17  69 obscurity. <quote_>"I haven't been offered a lot of mainstream 
C17  70 parts and I guess Hollywood is going to change its attitude towards 
C17  71 middle-aged women only if it makes a profit changing. They're not 
C17  72 going to change through some sort of enlightenment,"<quote/> 
C17  73 Sarandan asserts.<p/>
C17  74 <p_>Hers has been a rather odd career path, with some notable 
C17  75 performances in the likes of The Witches of Eastwick, Atlantic City 
C17  76 and Bull Durham.<p/>
C17  77 
C17  78 <h_><p_>Choir welcomes Canadian friends<p/><h/>
C17  79 <p_>THE County of Cornwall Male Choir was fully engaged during the 
C17  80 weekend of the 5th, 6th, and 7th July.<p/>
C17  81 <p_>On Friday evening, members of the Choir and The Ladies 
C17  82 Committee, gathered in Plymouth to welcome The Vancouver Welsh 
C17  83 Mens<&|>sic! Choir and their supporters from British Columbia, 
C17  84 Canada, who are on a tour of the U.K. During a reception at the 
C17  85 Moat House Hotel friendships and acquaintances were renewed because 
C17  86 during April 1991 The Vancouver Welsh Mens<&|>sic! Choir were hosts 
C17  87 during the County of Cornwall Male Choir's very successful tour of 
C17  88 Canada and North America.<p/>
C17  89 <p_>On Saturday evening both choirs and soloist, Margaret Holden, 
C17  90 (Mezzo) gave a most entertaining concert to a near capacity 
C17  91 audience at the Guildhall, Plymouth, in the presence of the Lord 
C17  92 Mayor, Mrs Elizabeth Easton and other civic 
C17  93 <}_><-|>dignatories<+|>dignitaries<}/>. The concert was organised 
C17  94 by the Plymouth Music Trust and received a standing ovation.<p/>
C17  95 <p_>On Sunday evening, the two choirs performed at the Cornwall 
C17  96 Coliseum to a large audience which included the High Sheriff of 
C17  97 Cornwall, Mr David Trefry and other County and local civic 
C17  98 dignatories in support of the Hall For Cornwall Appeal. Soloist was 
C17  99 Peter Julian.<p/>
C17 100 <p_>The first half of each concert afforded the opportunity to hear 
C17 101 music new to West Country audiences. The Vancouver Welsh 
C17 102 Mens<&|>sic! Choir brought with them songs and choruses from Canada 
C17 103 and North America which were sensitively performed under the 
C17 104 Musical Directorship of Robin Thomas and accompanied on piano by 
C17 105 the very talented Miss Miho Kuroki, from Japan, who is studying at 
C17 106 British Columbia University. George Roberts a very fine Baritone, 
C17 107 sang various solo parts within the Choir's 
C17 108 <}_><-|>repetoire<+|>repertoire<}/> and Vincent Gogag, a Canadian 
C17 109 Indian played the Indian Drum.<p/>
C17 110 <p_>During the second half of each concert, the County of Cornwall 
C17 111 Male Choir under the Musical Directorship of Nick Hart, 
C17 112 <}_><-|>acompanied<+|>accompanied<}/> by Dennis Osborne and Judith 
C17 113 Mumby, gave an exciting performance of part of their 
C17 114 <}_><-|>repetoire<+|>repertoire<}/> which included the Folk song 
C17 115 'Away from the roll of the sea' by Macgillivray which was 
C17 116 <}_><-|>aquired<+|>acquired<}/> by the Choir when on their 1990 
C17 117 tour in Canada.<p/>
C17 118 <p_>Both choirs <}_><-|>cobined<+|>combined<}/> the close of each 
C17 119 concert for Welsh Hymn favourites, 'Morte Christe and Gwahoddiod' 
C17 120 and 'Trelawney', which the Vancouver Welsh Mens<&|>sic! Choir had 
C17 121 learnt before coming on tour. The Vancouver Welsh Mens<&|>sic! 
C17 122 Choir is now continuing its tour in Wales.<p/>
C17 123 
C17 124 <h_><p_>GUARDIAN At the Movies<p/><h/>
C17 125 <p_>PLAYING the home-loving little woman isn't the normal image 
C17 126 associated with a Hollywood movie mogul. But when it comes to 
C17 127 producing films, actress Sally Field admits: <quote_>"I'd rather 
C17 128 being<&|>sic! making jam."<quote/> The 44-year-old star has turned 
C17 129 in some powerful portraits of defiant women facing up to sizeable 
C17 130 odds in films like Norma Rae and Places In The Heart.<p/>
C17 131 <p_>Now she's also making films and proving she has a good eye for 
C17 132 what works for others on screen. A few years ago, before many 
C17 133 people had heard of Julia Roberts, budding producer Field lined the 
C17 134 young actress up for Dying Young and told the industry: 
C17 135 <quote_>"No-one knows Julia Roberts yet, but you will."<quote/> And 
C17 136 sure enough, they did. In fact, Field is becoming something of a 
C17 137 behind-the-scenes star in the film world, although she's back in 
C17 138 front of the cameras for her latest role in the comedy 
C17 139 <tf|>Soapdish.<p/>
C17 140 <p_>Juggling the demands of being a mother, actress and producer is 
C17 141 a tall order by any standards and Field is the first to admit to 
C17 142 the strain. "I am not a terribly strident or aggressive woman, and 
C17 143 being shy I found it very hard to get into the arena of producing 
C17 144 films. <quote_>"I would rather go home and make jam and be a girl 
C17 145 which is still the honest truth,"<quote/> she maintains.<p/>
C17 146 <p_>On the other hand, the actress is very clear about why her 
C17 147 screen career has proved so durable. It boils down to talent. 
C17 148 <quote_>"When people say I'm a survivor, I feel it underestimates 
C17 149 why I'm here. I don't think I've made it to here because I simply 
C17 150 have the ability to keep my head above the water. I'm here because 
C17 151 I have talent."<quote/> Field says she has turned to producing 
C17 152 films simply because that's the only way she can get any control of 
C17 153 her career. She certainly had a lot to do with getting her latest 
C17 154 starring role off the ground.<p/>
C17 155 <p_>The actress had always wanted to appear in a film about the 
C17 156 world of actors. So when the script for <tf|>Soapdish, a satire on 
C17 157 the lives and absurdities of the cast of a fictitious daytime 
C17 158 television soap opera came along, she worked hard to keep the 
C17 159 project on track in the face of all the usual Hollywood production 
C17 160 melodramas.<p/>
C17 161 <p_>With Kevin Kline (best known for his role in A Fish Called 
C17 162 Wanda) and Whoopi Goldberg along for the ride, Soapdish features 
C17 163 Field as a celebrity soap queen who's frightened of growing older 
C17 164 and has to make regular tours of <}_><-|>surburban<+|>suburban<}/> 
C17 165 shopping <}_><-|>mails<+|>malls<}/> to boost her frayed ego. Field 
C17 166 believes her portrait of a crabby star who chews up those around 
C17 167 her because she is really miserable and scared inside highlights 
C17 168 the pain and agonies that can go on behind the cameras.<p/>
C17 169 <p_><quote_>"It's about actors whose soap opera identities have 
C17 170 overwhelmed their private lives. My own experience is not quite 
C17 171 like this, but there is something of the absolute paranoia and 
C17 172 utterly insecure life in Celeste's terror of getting older and 
C17 173 being pushed aside by the younger crop."<quote/> A none-too-subtle 
C17 174 dig at soap operas, Soapdish is a rare comic outing for Field. In 
C17 175 spite of the fact she made her debut acting in lightweight 
C17 176 television series like The Flying Nun, she has made her name in 
C17 177 tense dramas like Not Without My Daughter.<p/>
C17 178 <p_><quote_>"Comedy is not really my territory, I don't feel as 
C17 179 comfortable doing it as I do with drama,"<quote/> she admits. It's 
C17 180 probably not surprising that Field feels more of an affinity with 
C17 181 drama because her own life has certainly been no cakewalk. She may 
C17 182 talk enthusiastically about how good her second marriage is (she 
C17 183 has a three-year-old son with film producer Alan Greisman and two 
C17 184 sons in their late teens by a previous marriage), but there have 
C17 185 been some difficult times in her past. Field is still touched by 
C17 186 the decade of eating disorders, confusion and loneliness that once 
C17 187 afflicted her.<p/>
C17 188 
C17 189 <h_><p_>New releases by MATT VINYL<p/>
C17 190 <p_>VAN MORRISON<p/>
C17 191 <p_>HYMNS TO THE SILENCE (POLYDOR)<p/><h/>
C17 192 <p_>WHAT am I doing reviewing this? Surely you know by now that 
C17 193 this man is not so much a musical genius as a veritable god for me. 
C17 194 Such is my bias that even if Van The Man produced a double album 
C17 195 <}_><-|>narrting<+|>narrating<}/> the telephone directory, I'd be 
C17 196 the first in the queue to buy it. What is it about this man who 
C17 197 commands such spiritual power through his songs and 
C17 198 compositions?<p/>
C17 199 <p_>Last year's Enlightenment album was difficult to follow ... but 
C17 200 to come back with a CD of such calibre is a mark and measure of the 
C17 201 true <}_><-|>qwuality<+|>quality<}/> of his experience and 
C17 202 expertise. <}_><-|>Noone<+|>No-one<}/> can blend or harmonise 
C17 203 gospel, soul, Irish country, jazz and folk into one so well or 
C17 204 contrast gutsy, growling songs next to the spoken word without 
C17 205 sounding <}_><-|>petentious<+|>pretentious<}/> or in conflict. 
C17 206 Van's music is about faith, love or the search for love in a deep 
C17 207 spiritualistic belief firmly embedded in music. Hymns To The 
C17 208 Silence is a homage to that faith. Not with syrupy sentimentality, 
C17 209 but with warmth, conviction and a secure glow which emanates from 
C17 210 all the songs. Outstanding tracks are too many to mention but Take 
C17 211 Me Back takes me back to the brilliant repetitive lyrics of 
C17 212 Summertime In England and the title track and the spoken, 
C17 213 reflective On Hyndford Street must be among the finest -   only to 
C17 214 be topped by the emotional Carrying A Torch. First class production 
C17 215 and assistance from Candy Dulfer, The 
C17 216 <}_><-|>Chieftans<+|>Chieftains<}/> and now resident keyboard man 
C17 217 Georgie Fame, Hymns To The Silence must rate as a Van Morrison 
C17 218 classic.<p/>
C17 219 
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