The Trouble With Double

Morality, of course, remains in fashion. The triumphs against the repressive models of moral stricture - such as censorship of the theatre (1968), Clause 28 (rather later than it ought to have been, frankly) - haven't removed the necessity of moral limitations on the arts, but shifted the grounds. While once the representation of homosexuality was either prohibited or satirical - it isn't that simple to reclaim John Inman as subversive - arguments about attitudes towards gender or sexual identity remain dynamic.

It is, however, less fashionable to critique a play on the grounds that it is morally obnoxious. That kind of talk harks back to the complaints of St Augustine (who saw theatre as a distraction from God) or The Daily Mail, which would probably worry about the impact on the children: either that, or it's political correctness gone mad.

I'm probably political correctness gone mad: certainly, my moral parameters are unrecognisable to conservative values. I'd rather see Empress Stah get naked and drink her own blood than see an actress in bra and panties during a lunchtime play - although I can see how, if the matter is simply 'area of flesh exposed,' Stah must appear more immoral.

And finally, I get to The Trouble With Double. It's part of the Oran Mor's A Play, A Pie and A Pint season. I'm not sure whether to begin with the good things or the bad things. The bad thing is that I would, in fact, ban this play - or at least this production of it.

(Of course, I wouldn't really ban anything. I am committed to a liberal anti-censorship argument: liberal in the sense it is vague. I don't begrudge the cast and crew getting paid, I don't begrudge the audience the cheap laughs or the vulgar titillation. The problems that I have with D.c. Jackson's script aren't really that is represents a serious threat to morality or social order.)

Let's start with the good. D.C. Jackson might be the closest thing that Scottish theatre has to a poet - in terms of word wielding, Jackson has the same fluid facility that marks Russell Brand out from the cornucopia of comics, a dizzying command of alliteration and the well framed phrase and fable. Like a poet, Jackson bombs on the punchlines - many of the gags require only a blast from a trombone to become more obvious than the Conservative Party's duplicity. But he can sling words around the stage with the energy of a cage full of chimpanzees flinging faeces.

And Kenny Miller can direct up a story. Trouble never relaxes, keeps the pace fiercer than Beyonce: despite the weakness of the plot's premise (yes, it's an identical twins farce), it moves sleekly to the inevitable resolution.

Johny Austin and Robert Jack and Louise McCarthy do the business on stage. Jack is a geeky sex-pest, not without charm. Austin is the timid groom to be. McCarthy gets to play both limpid wife and sexpot sister.

If as Aristotle says, the plot is more important than the characters, and both are more important than the ideas therein, Trouble  might get a pass. Sadly, Jackson wasn't too fussed about characterisation. All three actors are playing off the shelf personalities, and when McCarthy strips down to her skidders, a horrible truth is revealed.

This is a pilot for a 1970s sit-com that never happened. The ingredients are all in place: the men are hopeless, driven by insecurity or sexual opportunism. The women are either malicious and sexual or prim and demanding. So much talent is wasted on something that Sid James might lend an ironic bite. To the left, we have a scene from the action. Feminists are quite justified in taking this as a reading for the show's temperature. They are also correct to ask why the woman is dressed in an erotic manner and the man... do I have to be PC Gone Mad to object to this?

It is a sex comedy that is neither erotic nor self-aware. It is dated, trivial and, when it relies on the jokes in the script (that is, when cast or director aren't pushing the funny by their performances), it is like a saucy postcard source book.

Now the critic decides: am I to moralise, or judge the play on its performance? If the former, then PPP are banished beyond the city walls, until they can be more mature about sexuality. If the later, they ought to get a raise.

Will Self Can't Write

I am bitter and I am fierce. I would very much like to have a fight with the editorial team of The Guardian. Perhaps this is old age, frustration at my lack of literary success. Perhaps I am slowly relinquishing my attachment to the liberal icons of my youth.

I have just read Will Self's review of Mark Kermode's book. Now, complaining that Will Self's prose has too many long words is like castigating Facebook for too much Miley Cyrus. However, in reviewing Kermode's book - which is partially an advertisement for Self's new role on The Observer as film critic - I wondered whether The Guardian had finally decided to leave in the place-holder text.

Self has always been a nearly-man of British literature: he was nearly as cool a drug writer as Irvine Welsh, he was nearly a social satirist in the tradition of Martin Amis. Still, he was pretty funny that time he took drugs on John Major's campaign bus (or whatever vehicle it was). And he made a half-decent stab at being a sinister, arch alternative to the usual literati they wheel onto culture shows in the late 1990s.

However, this review is so pompous, so self-regarding that, had I read it in a play, I would have assumed it was another attempt by a playwright to represent mental illness - and whipped off an angry blog about how theatrical madness is an insult to sufferers of mental ill-health. It is as if The Guardian doesn't employ sub-editors.

And this is not a first offence. Russell Brand's piece on his wild night at the Awards Where He Called Hugo Boss out on Genocide had that same 'will this do?' stream of consciousness. Yet with Brand, it's possible to imagine him poncing about the stage in a big scarf and enunciating wryly: the monologue read badly, but Brand was probably thinking of the words as a future routine.

Self is supposed to be a writer, a critic, even. I kind of get offended when other artists think they know how to be a critic (even Andy Field, the man behind Forest Fringe, frustrates me when he turns his hand to reviews). Strike one for Self. Then there is the deliberate over-use of fancy words: the point of writing to make ideas become coherent, comprehensible, not hide them in wraiths of trickery: strike two. Then there is the ultimate simplicity of the content: Self is just saying he doesn't like the book. Strike Three.

Dreadful. Dreadful. Dreadful. Of course, I encourage The Guardian to keep it up. The quicker that they dissolve into debt and uselessness, the quicker the cockroaches on the blogs can survive and replace the monolithic bastions of establishment thought.

Other newspapers are available, and I would have a big fight with them, too. Except the Daily Mail, which just scares me.

Soho Theatre - Theatre Listings

Pure churnalism I am afraid - this is an extract from a press release. I excuse it because I have seen some of the shows, and I like to remind myself what I could be seeing if I lived in London. 

DRYWRITE

FLEABAG

Tue 3 – Sun 22 Sep, 7pm

Soho Upstairs

Tickets £10 - £15

Critically acclaimed Soho Associate Company DryWrite return to Soho Theatre with Fleabag, written and performed by Phoebe Waller-Bridge. No more slutty pizzas. No more porny wanks. Lots more lovely threesomes. Fleabag follows on from Mydidae, which debuted at Soho Upstairs and then transferred to the West End.

This was the one I was really annoyed to miss at the Fringe: it picked up plaudits all over the place and managed to bring both the comedy crowd and the serious drama fans. 

THE CRICK CRACK CLUB

Mons 16 Sep, 21 Oct, 18 Nov, 2 Dec, 8pm

Soho Upstairs

Tickets £9

Mon 16 Sep – THE GREEN MAN OF NO MAN’S LAND

A young woman is driven by a dream to search for leaves that have never grown, and Jack watches three swan-women shake off their feathers.

Mon 21 Oct – EROS & PSYCHE

Merging myth, fairytale and raucous Greek philosophy – performance storyteller Sally Pomme Clayton undresses the myth of Eros and Psyche to ask ‘what is the path of love… ?’

Mon 18 Nov – MR SANDMANN – BRINGER OF DREAMS & NIGHTMARES

Internationally renowned for his dynamic and challenging performances, Ben Haggarty slips behind the lights into the dark side of the fairground, where you risk getting more than you bargained for.

Mon 2 Dec – ON COMMON GROUND – THE LIFE AND TIMES OF JOHN CLARE

Master wordsmith Hugh Lupton puts his ear to the ground to tell the story of mad poet John Clare – tormented by romance laid barren by class, and the loss of freedom to walk ancient pathways as, with the enclosure acts of the 1800s, land was seized and divided.

THERE HAS POSSIBLY BEEN AN INCIDENT

By Chris Thorpe

Tue 24 Sep – Sat 5 Oct  7.15pm (Thu and Sat matinees, 3pm)

Press Night: Tue 24 Sep, 7.15pm

Soho Theatre

Tickets £12 – £17.50

When life offers you a choice between heroism and compromise - what happens? Directed by 2013 JMK award-winner Sam Pritchard, and written by Chris Thorpe. This new play tells a series of interlocking stories about the moments when life offers you a choice between heroism and compromise.

THE WRONG CROWD

HAG

Tue 1 – Sun 20 Oct, 7pm (Sat matinees, 4pm)

Press Night: Thu 3 Oct, 7pm

Soho Upstairs

Tickets £10 – £15

The Wrong Crowd re-imagine Slavic folklore’s extraordinary, child-eating hag-witch Baba Yaga through dark, visually inventive storytelling theatre, fusing live action, puppetry and music. Lisa is given something by her dying mother. Something she doesn’t want. Little does she know that learning to accept it might be the only thing that will save her own life. For ages 12+

I saw this, and gave it four stars in The List. The titular witch sounds like she comes from Glasgow, which gives her an edge. The double headed Baba Yaga is cool and a bit terrifying.

BRYONY KIMMINGS

CREDIBLE LIKEABLE SUPERSTAR ROLE MODEL

Tue 8 – Sat 26 Oct, 7.15pm

Press Night: Thu 10 Oct, 7.15pm

Soho Theatre

Tickets £15 – £20

In an audacious, provocative protest against flagrant global attempts to sexualise and commodify childhood for profit, award-winning artistBryony Kimmings and her niece Taylor, nine, decided to play the global tween machine at its own game. Taylor invented dinosaur-loving, bike riding, tuna pasta-eating, alternative pop star Catherine Bennett, Bryony promised to embody her, do everything that Taylor told her to, and get her famous - like super famous!

Saw it and saving my review for when it comes to Scotland. Much to say about Kimmings' new direction, now with added child.

SHOW AND TELL

BEATS

By Kieran Hurley

Mon 14 – Sat 26 Oct, 9pm (Sat matinees, 4.30pm)

Press Night: Tue 15 Oct, 9pm

Soho Theatre

Tickets £15 – £20

BEATS tells the story of Johnno McCreadie, a teenager living in a small suburban Scottish town at the time of the 1994 Criminal Justice Act – a new piece of legislation which effectively outlawed raves, or “public gatherings around amplified music characterised by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats”. BEATS is a coming-of-age story exploring rebellion, apathy and the irresistible power of gathered youth. With techno. Lots of techno.

And my co Subcity DJ Alan Millar on the decks... Hurley gets to grips with the rave generation (when the current rave culture is getting the odd threatening look from the state, again).

DANCING BRICK

PERLE

By Thomas Eccleshare

Tue 22 Oct – Sun 3 Nov, 7.15pm

Press Night: Thu 24 Oct, 7.15pm

Soho Upstairs

Tickets £10 – £15

Dancing Brick’s Perle, based on the oldest poem in the English language, explores one man’s grief over the death of a child, created byThomas Eccleshare. Thomas won the 2011 Verity Bargate Award with Pastoral which was developed with Thomas as a writer in residence and received rave reviews in 2013. Perle uses movement and illustrations from Serge Seidlitz, to create a live comic book.

INCONVENIENT SPOOF

NAÏVE DANCE MASTERCLASS

Wed 23 – Sun 27 Oct, 9pm

Press Night: Thu 24 Oct, 9pm

Soho Upstairs

Tickets £12.50

Inspired by years spent in a love/hate relationship with experimental performance, this provocative show combines physical tomfoolery and deadpan wordplay in a highly original meditation on authenticity and pretension in the world of art. It has previously appeared at the Edinburgh and Brighton fringe, where it was nominated for ‘Best Male Performer’.

CLEAN BREAK

BILLY THE GIRL

Tue 29 Oct – Sun 24 Nov, 7.15pm

Press Night: Fri 1 Nov, 7.15pm

Soho Theatre

Tickets £10 – £22.50

Celebrated theatre company Clean Break, which works with women affected by the criminal justice system, returns to Soho Theatre following the success of This Wide Night (2008, revived 2009), Charged (2010) and Re-Charged (2011). In Katie Hims’ Billy the Girl a woman tries to deal with the way her family betrayed her over a childhood mistake that they called a crime.

GALLIVANT

BLUEBEARD

Tue 5  – Sun 17 Nov, 7pm, Tue19 Nov – Sun 1 Dec, 9.30pm (matinee, Sat 30 Nov, 2.30pm)

Press Night: Thu 7 Nov, 7pm

Soho Upstairs

Tickets £10 – £15

Bluebeard invites you into his chamber to share in the violent passion of his deviant sexual acts. Will he excite you? Will he seduce you? Will he love you to death? A provocative, intelligently handled exploration of sexually motivated violence, Bluebeard comes to Soho following a critically acclaimed run at Bristol Old Vic Theatre.

COLLECTIVE ARTISTES

ZHE: [noun] UNDEFINED

Tue 19 Nov – Sun 8 Dec, 7pm

Press Night: Thu 21 Nov, 7pm

Soho Upstairs

Tickets £10 – £15

A poignant story of two British Africans at the crossroads of culture, nationality, gender and sexuality. Created by Chuck Mike, Antonia Kemi Coker and Tonderai Munyevu Zhe shows that there are some journeys that make us who we were always meant to be.

CANDIDE – A NEW PLAY BY MARK RAVENHILL INSPIRED BY VOLTAIRE

RSC TWEETS THE ENTIRETY OF VOLTAIRE’S ICONIC BOOK CANDIDE, IN THE RUN UP TO THE OPENING OF MARK RAVENHILL’S NEW PLAY

Directed by Lyndsey Turner

World Premiere

Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, 29 August – 26 October


I met Mark Ravenhill once. He was very charming. I asked him what he did (he was introduced as Mark, so I didn't know). I really impressed him with my awareness of theatre. 

In a desperate attempt to compensate, I am offering the press release of his latest project. My contribution to the article was putting titles in italics, changing a 'xx' to 'uc' for one play title, and cutting out the notes to editors.

In the current intellectual climate, when repeats are as common as new work, Ravenhill's project is intriguing. It refuses to follow the easy routes of either traditionalism or complete re-interpretation, but seems to be a philosophical glance at a book that is as much about the ideas as the narrative.

Press Release begins.


RSC Writer in Residence Mark Ravenhill has responded to Voltaire’s classic novel in a new play which asks the question: Is it possible to be an optimist in today’s world? In the run up to the world première of this new play in the Swan theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon on 29 August, Ravenhill has adapted the entire book that inspired his play into tweets of 140 characters so that everyone has the chance to read and get to know the original book in advance of his version for the stage. These will be sent out daily between Wednesday 26 June and the opening on 29 August at the rate of eight tweets per day.

Ravenhill said: 'My new play is a response to Voltaire's classic tale rather than a 'straight' adaptation. Although it works as a stand-alone piece, I believe audiences coming to the Swan theatre will have their enjoyment enhanced if they read Voltaire's original. The direct, simple wit of Voltaire's style is perfect for Tweeting. I've worked on a new translation of the original, breaking it down into 140 character 'episodes' that can be tweeted eight a day over the next few months.

‘It's been a fascinating exercise. It has deepened my appreciation of Voltaire's writing: it's incredible to see how every single sentence of the book advances the story and how almost every sentence stands alone as a great quotation all by itself. Very occasionally I've nipped and tucked to fit the 140 character form and sometimes I've repeated a character name or place to make each Tweet able to stand alone.

‘It makes me wonder which other great authors could be tweeted and which would be unsuitable. For instance, Dickens’ sentences and thoughts are too long. But maybe the best way to read Finnegans Wake would be a Tweet at a time.

'Candide has long been a favourite book of mine. I wanted to explore Voltaire's satirical view of humanity's capacity for optimism and ask what it might mean for us today. I'm fascinated by Doctor Pangloss' belief in the book that this is 'the best of all possible worlds'. This got me thinking that it would be exciting to write a play set in a number of different possible worlds, each of them exploring the question of optimism in a different way. I enjoy stories such as David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas and Charlie Kaufman films such as Adaptation and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, all of which use a number of parallel universes. And since I was a child I've enjoyed Doctor Who stories in which different worlds and times exist side by side.

'In my play, we visit a Venetian noblewoman's house as she puts on a play of the life of Candide, an eighteenth birthday party set in contemporary Britain which ends in terrible disaster, the offices of an international mogul as he sets out to make a movie based on a real life story of survival, the utopian world of Eldorado where gold is worthless and sheep fly and, finally, the slightly-in-the-future Pangloss Institute, where optimism has become a thriving business venture'.

Mark's version of Brecht's A Life Of Galileo was recently produced in the RSC's Swan Theatre. His previous work includes Shopping and Fucking (Royal Court) , Mother Clap's Molly House, Citizenship (both National Theatre) and Pool No Water (Frantic Assembly). His plays have been widely translated and produced all over the world. He is the co-creator of the ITV sitcom Vicious.

The production is directed by Lyndsey Turner, Associate Director at Sheffield Crucible and The Gate Theatre, who has most recently directed Chimerica at the Almeida (transferring to the West End shortly) andPosh at the Royal Court/ West End. This will be her RSC directorial debut.

The cast is led by Matthew Needham in the title role of Candide, with Ian Redford as Pangloss. Matthew and Ian are both currently appearing with the RSC, Matthew in Titus Andronicus, and Ian in A Mad World My Masters. Susan Engel joins the company as Cunegonde.


The production’s designer is Soutra Gilmour, with lighting by Tim Lutkin and Christopher Shutt. Music is by Michael Bruce and sound by Christopher Shutt. Movement by Scott Ambler.

This performance includes strong language, violence and reckless optimism. Suitable for ages 15+

Critical Ratings

I am starting the new year (that is to say, the new academic year) with a commitment to making my critical intentions clear. This blog will continue to broadcast four types of criticism. I'll even mark the type up in the labels.

Type O: Traditional Criticism (reviews, previews, interviews - the sort of thing you can get less personal versions of by reading a proper newspaper or magazine)

Type A: Churnalism (press releases, either with or without my sardonic comments. Again,you can get this in proper newspapers, although I tend to identify it rather than pretend that the press release is either my own work or the genuine research of scientific scholars)

Type AB: Experimental Criticism (not available anywhere else, aside from the output of my Young Critics classes - this group can include reviews of events that never happened, a pretty picture based on a show, anything that denies Type O)

Type B: Provocations (rather like one of those columns you get from proper newspaper, except I am less likely to believe a word that I am saying. For best results, please bear in mind the Erisian mantra: 'this is true, in some sense, this is false, in some sense, this is meaningless, in some sense.')

There is also an additional level of grouping: each piece can be RhD positive or negative.

RhD positive: concerned with issues around an event or performance, seeing it within a cultural context. We could call these extroverted.

RhD negative: focuses on the event as an end in itself.

If it lacks a RhD rating, it is most likely all about me.

Let's see how long I remember to put these warnings onto the articles. In addition, please assume that a large minority of articles will include some swearing. After I saw A Respectable Woman Turns to Vulgarity, I decided it was Big and Clever.