A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Riverside Studios

It is no mean feat to pull off an adaptation of one of Shakespeare’s best-loved plays. A successful variation must overcome preconceptions by ripping apart the original and reconstructing it in unexpected ways.

Jagged Fence's version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream began promisingly. I had read online that this was to be a ‘rip roaring 1920s production’ and was excited about this innovative time frame for the adventures of four young lovers and their interactions with forest-dwelling fairies.

Director Poppy Burton-Morgan unusually set the first and final scenes outside, on the terrace of the Riverside Studios. This creative if a little chilly choice created the juxtaposition that is so intrinsic to a play riddled with opposites: dream versus reality; fairy versus man; male versus female; comedy versus seriousness. Following Helena, who bid us to “follow me … to Studio three!”, we walked through the entrails of the Studios and physically ‘entered’ the dream world with the four lovers, Demetrius, Helena, Hermia and Lysander.

The main set was basic to say the least: a black studio was brightly lit with white lighting that sadly didn’t alter throughout the performance and was hardly atmospheric for the dreamlike forest where the action was taking place. Mismatched and colourful cushions for the audience were haphazardly but welcomingly strewn on the floor, creating a bedtime, intimate feeling and fuelling the audience’s shared sense of curiosity as to what was about to unravel.

Unfortunately, although these concepts were exciting, the execution was disappointing. The production did not fit well in the black-box space and I later learned that it was designed for an outdoor venue in Derbyshire. The 1920s theme, though sparked, never fully got going: a brief but brilliant Charleston by Titania and Oberon began to evoke the Roaring Twenties atmosphere, but it came too late; Shakespearean fairy songs transformed into a jazz ‘lullaby’ as the fairies lulled Titania to sleep, but such nods to the bygone era were few and far between; though Lysander wore a straw boater, Puck a flat cap and Hermia a feather hair piece, only Helena mastered the tell-tale clipped accent that bespoke the past age and I was left with the slightly gutting feeling of watching partygoers in fancy dress return from a themed evening.

The bare set exposed rather than masked the acting. Cue Emily Dobbs and Hugh O’Shea, the standout performers of the show and its saving grace. Dobbs was a convincing, dithering, and hilarious Helena whilst O’Shea was exceptional as Bottom and Demetrius. Her lust for Demetrius was entirely believable whilst he moved seamlessly between the two parts, delivering Bottom’s soliloquies out to the audience in a convincing Scottish accent and with great pizzazz.

Tim Jackson gave a solid performance as a comically camp Lysander whose dramatic quips resonated with the audience and, though Robert Boulter showed signs of being a splendid actor, his suave swaggering around the stage made him an odd choice as Puck, the mischievous but charismatic imp. One of the production’s major pitfalls was the lack of convincing relationships between the characters: there was a good heated catfight between Hermia, played by Sadie Pickering, and Helena over the two men; but Hermia and Lysander’s relationship lacked flair and they had little chemistry as lovers – Pickering spoke many of her impassioned lines out to the audience, rather than to him, which detracted from Jackson’s more convincing eye-contact and physical contact.

The terrace at Riverside Studios, Hammersmith

Titania’s fairies were white mesh dolls that were simply but effectively mounted on canes and handled by the lovers. There was one moment when all the fairies, ‘hovering’ behind Titania, moved in unison, following her line of vision to the left then the right. Yet this type of well-rehearsed manoeuvrehappened only once and so the device seemed only half-heartedly executed.  

Nevertheless, the performance as a whole was certainly engrossing with a varied pace that was anything but boring: at one point the audience was hooting with laughter when Helena chased Demetrius around the perimeter of the cushioned seating in a slapstick pledge of her love. Moreover, the audience remained engaged and responsive to the jokes, frequent asides, and moments when Puck sat down amongst them. Though the production was based on an unfulfilled Twenties motif and at points seemed unpolished, it was still an incredibly enjoyable show. Dobbs and O’Shea were shining examples of the potential of Jagged Fence and this young and dynamic company is definitely still one to watch.

Forget Hawaii...Surf's Up au Lacanau

Think surfing holiday and your wishful mind may immediately wander to far-away and sublime shores off the coast of, say, Hawaii, Bali or Australia. These locations, renowned for cranking surf, white sand, sunshine and bikinis to boot, are, however, a little far for us Brits to get our regular fill of surfing kicks.

But think again. There’s a little-known French gem that’s (almost) right on our doorstep and needs to be shouted about. Just an hour and a half flight to Bordeaux and then a forty-minute drive, it’s the sleepy little seaside town that comes alive both on the water and at night. Introducing Lacanau…

OK, so it may not have a reputation for 15ft barreling waves and world-class point breaks boasted by some of the abovementioned surfing meccas, but it does have something for us mere dabblers in the sport. The shore breaks are perfect for beginners, powerful enough for white water riding (which, let’s face it, is a pretty exhilarating aspect of beginnerhood) but not overwhelming, whilst the long and peeling waves further out are ideal for the more experienced to strut their stuff.

Rico and Sarah win the Tandem Surf French Cup at Lacanau

La Fédération Française de Surf has clocked this little hotspot and, on 9^th – 10^th July, its 15km of sandy beaches played host not only to my motley crew’s holiday, but also to one of the most important events in the French surfing calendar: the Long Board, SUP and Tandem Surfing French Cup. If it’s good enough for the French pros, it’s just about good enough for the rest of us who can’t help but totally rip, shred and tear it up on the water.

A word of warning: French surf instructors, having taken out a group of schoolchildren who are obediently lined up in the shallows learning how to read a wave (if such a thing can be done), do not take kindly to the English girl whose board surges out of control as she hangs on, belly-down, for the ride, and crashes straight into the middle of said group, sending boards flying, the group scattering and the instructor into a rage. For unfortunate occasions such as this, commit to memory this infallible line: ‘Excusez-moi monsieur, ma planche est cassée. Elle bouge comme un rodéo’. Then, whilst monsieur l’instructeur is left reeling and trying to decipher your meaning, hoist the culpable board under your arm and hastily scamper off to disrupt some other echelon of the French surfing society further down the beach. 

If you’re on a shoestring budget, the misleadingly opulent sounding Hotel Côte d’Argent is your best, and brilliant, bet. The double room makes for an interesting icebreaker if you are sharing with a relative stranger; its shower, complete with a totally transparent glass screen, unashamedly and full-frontally faces the only other feature of the room, the bed. But don’t let that put you off; it works out at just €25 a night on the basis of two sharing and oh-là-là, quelle vue! Its prime position on the seafront offers the best lookout to attain your early morning sneaky peek of the swell, and means that you need only to skip joyfully across the road to arrive at the beach. Moreover, the hotel is inundated with friendly staff who happily ensure that, if forgotten, your board will get a good night’s sleep in the hotel garage, and will thrust a mean mojito into your hand at the first sign of you kicking back on the verandah to the setting sun before trotting off round the corner to Lacanau’s finest bars and clubs.

And so I ask you, who needs Hawaii when we have sunsets, mojitos and a little bit of je ne sais quoi so much closer to home? 

In a moment of pre-holiday rashness at Luton airport, I purchased a bright orange waterproof video camera. Then in various moments of post-holiday boredom at home, I played around with iMovie. This is the result. The videography is about as amateur as the surfing (I speak for myself alone, of course) but hopefully captures the essence of fun had by all. Granted, the waves look piddly. But that’s because we are all such hardcore surfers (as you will no doubt notice if you watch this video) that we were far too busy shredding to capture the really good stuff. You really had to be there. So go on...go to Lacanau!! 

From yawn to brawn: a new trend of Pilates

I tried two new things this week: oysters (a slippery and salty occasion, not to be repeated) and Bootcamp Pilates (also a slippery occasion but, unfortunately, a far more sweaty one).

Bootcamp Pilates. Now there’s an oxymoron. While ‘Pilates’ will fill Fit Freaks with mind-numbing boredom at the thought of lying comatose on a mat and learning how to breathe properly (in through the nose, out through the mouth, in case you’re wondering), ‘Bootcamp’ will reduce the rest of us mere mortals to a trembling heap on the floor at the prospect of military drills and being barked orders at by Sergeant Sadistic who is, of course, shod in thick black boots with which to kick our lazy arses. 

With this in mind, it was with great trepidation that, at the crack of dawn, I tiptoed into what I could only imagine would be my torture chamber for the next hour, the Bootcamp Pilates Studio in Fulham. And what a torture chamber it appeared: two rows of terrifying looking machines were regimentally lined out, big, black and beastly. As I approached one, ensuring that it was the closest to the exit for the likely event of an emergency, my mind was further befuddled by the various straps and springs protruding from the machine’s underbelly, ready to tangle me up and spit me back out.

I was beginning to curse my so-called friend who had dragged me along to the class, staked her claim on her ‘favourite’ machine and was presently lying prostrate on said machine with one leg flung effortlessly into the air in a hamstring stretch that would give Hubba Bubba a run for its money.

My mind was put to ease slightly when our instructor, Sam, a rough and ready looking chap, noticing the lone misfit, came over to explain the contraption to me. It's the machinery that differentiates this hardcore Pilates from the traditional no-sweat, mat-based (yawn yawn) version. He introduced me to ‘The Reformer’, my very own passport to a gravity-defying behind. Move over, Pippa Middleton. Imagine a psychiatrist’s couch, but with added ropes, strings and pulleys. “You use heavy springs and lots of repetitions,” he tells me, “to really feel the burn”. Bye bye bingo wings, hello tight thighs and toned tum.

Suddenly there was an explosion of sound. Oh yes, hardcore Pilates is accompanied by music, apparently just so that the less rhythmic amongst us can feel extra special. Immediately the other lycra-clad ladies sprang into well-rehearsed action, lunging, squatting, dipping and push-upping in perfect unison to the music, whilst Sam weaved in and out of the machines, air-drumming along to The Arctic Monkeys and intermittently ejecting exclamations of “tuuuuune!!” or “come on, ten more to go!!” After five minutes I’m already feeling the promised ‘burn’ in my triceps and quads. Now, who said that Pilates was easy?



The treacherous Plank

Attempting the plank on The Reformer is not for the fainthearted. Picture yourself stretched out, hands gripping a box that is precariously balanced on a moving platform, your toes clinging to a fixed bar. One sweaty slip from the tootsies and BAM! You shoot backwards, banana-skin-style, as the machine retracts back to its original shape. Needless to say, yours truly fell victim to this fate. The Reformer:1; Me: 0.

I may not have left my first class as Elastigirl, but my body felt as exhausted as if I’d done a long gym session. The mix of aerobic exercise with deep stretches provides the perfect cocktail to fight the flab, tone up and slim down; it’s little wonder that Nicole Kidman, Jennifer Aniston and Ben Stiller are rumoured to be huge fans. But be warned: these classes will set you back £18 per session, and a great deal of non-refundable dignity. Since the first class is free, however, you may as well give it a go. The world of Pilates is your slippery little oyster.



The day that time caught up with the rock stars: A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

You would be forgiven, if judging from the title alone, for coming to the erroneous conclusion that Jennifer Egan’s much-acclaimed novel is a crime thriller, sprawling with mobsters, violence and shameless immorality. And yet, although Egan attributes part of her inspiration to HBO’s The Sopranos, the ‘goon squad’ is in fact a metaphor for that passive, yet omnipresent, entity: time. As one character remarks, ‘Time’s a goon, right? You gonna let that goon push you around?’ A Visit from the Goon Squad is concerned with what happens when time catches up with those who are most eager to keep it at bay and cling to the fantasy of eternal youth; it is about memory in its fragmented entirety; and about human relationships on a cosmic scale. 

The evolution of the US music industry provides a fitting backdrop to Egan’s episodic narrative. Time, or tempo, so intrinsic in music, is reflected by the disjointed form which, in turn, reflects the disjointed framework of life in the States. This is neither a novel nor a collection of short stories, but something in between, as Egan flits between the vibrant assortment of characters, time and space. We tear through settings, from New York to Naples via the African bush, leapfrogging from the grungy 1970s to the techno-savvy near future. Characters who are minor in one chapter come to the forefront of the next, their lives intricately interwoven into the fabric of US society.

The book opens with the confessions of Sasha, the kleptomaniac PA, who is hired by the music producer, Bennie, who was once an untalented young bass player in the quaintly named punk band, the Flaming Dildos, mentored by the coke-snorting, teenage-girl-seducing Lou who ends up IV-fed and dying in hospital, whilst Bennie now extravagantly sprinkles gold flakes into his coffee in an attempt to bring back his former libido. The effect is a disorientating cacophony of voices that demands the reader’s full attention, or even – if you can muster up the will to sit through the melancholy and drab portrait of America for a second time – a subsequent reading. Since all characters are touched on so lightly, it is difficult to empathise with any of them; Egan takes this literary convention and turns it on its head: time becomes the chief protagonist in this book, a character in its own entity that takes no prisoners.

If Egan can be criticised for the lack of a gripping plot, then she makes up for it with a rich array of ideas and literary pizzazz. Goon Squad becomes more fragmented and more formally experimental as it progresses. The penultimate chapter is written entirely as the PowerPoint slide diary of Sasha’s teenage daughter, and I became increasingly lost, I admit, in the last chapter where the English language decomposes into extreme text-speak: ‘if thr r children, thr mst b a fUtr, rt?’ Yet this alienating effect, whilst not gratifying to read (be not fooled, this is no beach read), underpins the essence of the book: technology lends a hand to the erosion of communication and, therefore, the breakdown of human relationships.

For those who require an antidote to this bleak outlook, however, look no further than the interconnectedness that pervades the book’s format and content: the impacts these characters have upon each other are a direct result of their inherent connectedness, not mere coincidence. And so it seems that, although at times we come dangerously close to isolating ourselves from our own kin, humanity, with all its interlinking and colliding relationships, is far too deeply etched into our very being ever to be annihilated. A Visit from the Goon Squad is the type of book that, after a first reading, leaves you unmoved but after a second or third, leaves you sort of jelly-legged.

One Day by David Nicholls - Book review

This book is brilliant - I can't recommend it enough. I think everyone can relate to it on some level. Defy the critics. Go on, if you haven't read it yet, start today! This review is also published on creaturesofculture.com - check them out...



One Day by David Nicholls

You’ve seen it in the hands of commuters and all over the shelves of WH Smiths and Tesco; you’ve heard that the film is coming out this summer starring Anne Hathaway (Heaven forbid) and Jim Sturgess; and, unless you’ve read it yourself, you’re probably wondering what all the fuss is about. Well, make haste; get yourself down to those Tescos shelves, befriend a commuter – however you do it, get your hands on a copy and only then will you truly understand why One Day is such a wonderful book.  

The opening concept is admittedly nothing out of the ordinary: two students at Edinburgh University have a post-finals fling, wake up together, bleary-eyed and boozey, engage in some semi-awkward pillow-talk and, after spending the day together, go their separate ways. It is 15^th July 1988, St Swithin's Day, a date charged with significance and to which the title alludes. One Day revisits Emma and Dexter on this day, every year for the next two decades. It traces their increasingly divergent lives, occasionally in parallel but frequently perforated by intense instants of crossover. It dawns on them, as it does us, that they are happiest when they are together; nay, they are in love. Yet they remain just friends, albeit ‘best’ friends in some ways. David Nicholls succeeds in encapsulating the quintessence of young adulthood, first love and heartbreak whilst spinning a tangled web of a platonic friendship that continually teeters towards romance.

Working-class northerner Emma moves to London and becomes a waitress in a bad Mexican restaurant, whilst secretly nurturing a desire to become a writer. Yet she ends up teaching English and moving in with her bland boyfriend, Ian, a failing stand-up comedian, whose choicer puns include pasta ‘penne for your thoughts’. Emma is immediately likeable, in spite of her flaws: ‘self-pitying, self-righteous, self-important, all the selfs except self-confident, the quality that she had always needed the most’.

Middle-class Dexter, on the other hand, does not lack self-confidence. After a couple of gap years, he pursues an initially successful career as a laddish television presenter and becomes addicted to sex (his girlfriends are ‘like funfair goldfish; no point giving them names, they never last that long’), drugs and his own pathetic C-list celebrity. Although it seems at first, blinkered, glance that he has it all, he becomes increasingly hedonistic, ostracising Emma so entirely that we feel that the emerging chasm between them may never close: ‘Their friendship was like a wilted bunch of flowers that she insisted on topping up with water. Why not let it die instead?’

Cynics are quick to point out the ‘limiting’ structure of the novel, arguing that returning to the same day each year means that some of the most important events in their life are never recounted. But would you really want to read every intricate detail of these two characters’ lives for twenty years? Doubtful. And it is precisely because the novel spans for such a vast amount of time that it is so affecting: you really do put down the book with the irrational feeling that Em and Dex are as well known to you as your closest friends. Besides, not only can we use our own capable imaginations to fill in these gaps, but also the event that is the ‘most important’ in this book is arguably the relationship between Emma and Dexter in its twenty-year entirety, and this is certainly recounted.

For all its comic gloss, One Day personifies the gritty reality of loneliness and unmasks the savagery of fate; the tragic abyss between youthful ambition and the compromises that we come to endure. Yet despite Nicholls’ refusal to provide easy consolations – at points this book is unbearably sad – his witty prose is uplifting and resonates above the desolation. This is Nicholls at his best; a warm-hearted, engaging and totally brilliant book that you will fall in love with.

The Help - Book Review

Here's the second of my book reviews, also published on www.creaturesofculture.com. Looking forward to the film coming out this summer...


The Help by Kathryn Stockett


After reading The Help, you will be unable to divorce the words ‘Jackson, Mississippi, 1962’ from notions of racial discrimination, and all that this entails. Kathryn Stockett chooses to set her novel in a milieu predicated on the racial divides between white families and their black maids, at a time when the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was beginning to gain momentum. In doing so, she delves into a seriously controversial, taboo subject of modern American history, predominantly using a black voice. This may seem like an ambitious ploy in the debut novel of a white woman who grew up in Jackson, but Stockett pulls it off incredibly well. The result is a beautifully written novel in its most human form, simultaneously heart-warming and heartbreaking. 

Stockett takes a three-pronged approach to the narrative: the story unfolds through the eyes of Aibileen and Minny, two black maids who work for ladies from the cream of white society, and Miss Skeeter, the 23-year-old daughter of a cotton plantation owner and seemingly a pillar of this segregated community. Aibileen, raising her seventeenth white child and nursing the pain caused by her own son’s tragic death, is a model of obedience and submission, whilst Minny’s sassy tongue earns her continual dismissals, and leads her to do a ‘Terrible Awful Thing’ to one of her previous employers. Skeeter, so called because of ‘mosquito-thin’ looks she had as a child, is desperate to be a writer. Longing to discover what has become of her own cherished maid who has disappeared, she hits upon the idea of collating stories that the domestic maids of Jackson have of working for white Southern families. Thus our unlikely trio is brought together by the compulsion to voice previously silenced tales and by the subsequent consequences of this radical and controversial act.

Interestingly, those most alienated in this novel are actually white: Miss Skeeter lives just outside of town, reflecting her status as an outsider from the white circle of friends dominated by the chief baddie, Miss Hilly; Celia Foote, a pink and fluffy delight, lives in an isolated area and, too poor to be prejudiced, is eschewed by the white women because she married Miss Hilly’s ex-boyfriend. Their ultimate alienation exemplifies what happens to enemies of the society’s ringleader, regardless of race. Whilst the black community has an indomitable sense of solidarity, the white community is fickle, where ‘friends’ come and go: Miss Skeeter is a shining example of this. The Benefit that Miss Hilly organises for the ‘Poor Starving Children of Africa’ (despite victimising the Poor African-Americans of Jackson) is Stockett’s critique of this hypocrisy and is arguably still relevant today: how often are our heads turned by a well-publicised disaster and subsequent charity, thereby ignoring the problems under our own noses?

Skeeter (Emma Stone) with her friends in the upcoming film adaptation

In spite of the serious subject matter with no easy resolutions, The Help is immensely readable because it is peppered with light-hearted images: there is a farcical image of Miss Hilly’s garden overflowing with toilets, and it is surely no coincidence that Aibileen’s neighbour is called Ida Peek (‘I had a peek’). This is fundamentally a novel about women; men remain distanced and largely two-dimensional. Minny in particular rises out gloriously: her exterior toughness masks an interior vulnerability that comes from an abusive alcoholic husband. It is when she, our strongest character, frees herself that we see a metaphorical glimmer of hope for future freedom. The Help is a compelling read and a novel to cherish.

Book review numéro un: Mornings in Jenin

A while ago I began doing what my good friend, Anna, described as 'getting back onto my creative bicycle'. In other words, keeping up my literary pursuits. Being a book worm, I thought the best way for me to begin remembering how to ride my 'bike of creativity' (oh Anna, your analogies) would be to write book reviews. This blog begins its life as a compilation of these reviews...

And voilà, here is the first of them. To be totally honest, I chose this book for the very reason that you should never choose a book: because of the front cover. I don’t know why, but I was intrigued by the face of the little girl peering around the big wooden door (and, I guiltily admit, where was Jenin?!) Although it took me a while to get into this book, having started it in less than ideal circumstances on the train home on a Friday night, I’m glad I finally did. It’s a good book, well written, and I learned a lot about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It has also been published on the cultural review website, Creatures of Culture (www.creaturesofculture.com - check it out!!) Enjoy...

Mornings in Jenin by Susan Abulhawa

Mornings in Jenin, originally entitled The Scar of David, is not for the faint of heart. Susan Abulhawa wields a persuasive pen of anguish, brutality and destruction to force us to take a fresh look at one of the most tenacious and defining political conflicts of our time. A thought-provoking, moving and extremely powerful testimony to the Palestinian plight, it exposes the fragility of humanity in times of upheaval.

The story begins in Palestine, 1941. The Abulheja family are at home in the small, tranquil village of Ein Hod. It is ‘a distant time, before history marched over the hills and shattered present and future’: a balmy era of ripe fruit, marriages and harvests that will of course serve as a sharp contrast to the
devastation that is to come.

Sure enough, el nakba, the catastrophe of 1948, quickly unfolds. Israeli soldiers descend upon Ein Hod, forcibly removing its villagers and sending them to a refugee camp in Jenin. A mother has her six-month old son snatched from her arms by an Israeli soldier, who gives the child to his wife, a survivor of the Holocaust. The boy, renamed David, is raised an Israeli and unknowingly becomes an enemy soldier to his own blood brother who loses everything in the struggle for freedom. Yet Abulhawa chooses not to focus her story on what could be an original cross-faith narrative of these brothers’ conflicting perspectives. Instead, the story is exclusively Palestine’s, as events unfold through the eyes of these boys’ younger sister, Amal.

Born and raised in the refugee camp, Amal is injured by shrapnel in the 1967 war, leaving her physically and emotionally scarred. It is as painful to witness the continual dashing of her hope for her father’s return, as it is to see her disown her mother who has been left mentally vacant by the war. Orphaned, she moves to boarding school in Jerusalem where she meets friends who ‘shared everything from clothes to heartaches’ and then finds herself alienated and alone in the United States. On a visit to her brother in Lebanon she marries a Palestinian doctor and we have a momentary glimmer of hope of new beginnings as she becomes pregnant. Yet again her losses accrue once she is back in the cocoon of America, a helpless witness to the atrocities in her homeland.

It may at times feels as though Abulhawa is laying it on a touch thick; she extracts horrific eyewitness accounts from real sources giving the novel a documentary quality and making it a blatant diatribe against the Jews and the unresponsive UN. Yet the novel is essentially about love – love between a farmer and his land, a mother and her children, between lovers and friends. Whilst the novel is written according to Anglo-American conventions, the poetic prose that gives the book its Arabic edge resonates throughout. It is this blend of fact and fiction that is one of the novel’s strengths; like Amal, and indeed Abulhawa who was born to Palestinian refugees and later moved to the USA, this novel is a hybrid, caught as it is between two worlds. Mornings in Jenin is a discomforting read, but as it is based on real events and told with such passion and conviction, it is well worth the heartache.