The difference between seeing a manuscript illustration in a book and seeing the real thing is almost absolute. Medieval manuscripts are immensely tactile: the smoothness of the parchment (usually calfskin) on which the hair follicles can sometimes be made out, the richness and vibrancy of the colours based on rare pigments such as lapis lazuli, and above all the astonishing glow of gold leaf.
What they did share was a love of representational work and, one suspects, a bloody-minded determination to plough their artistic furrows however unfashionable - or unsettling - they might be. The unique nature of the contributions of each individual artist should be rigorously respected.
At one point, Thierrée brings a grey, paper-thin man to life simply by placing her own arm in his sleeve. ‘They’ talk, grope and dance together. And then, with one slip of her arm, this almost-nothing man is dead again. It’s a strange little scene and and quite frightening too; one lad was crying for his mummy, the night I watched.
Baudrillard, cognitive technology and London theatre
His ‘endist’ proclamations gave him the aura of a prophet. His mysterious pronouncements and penchant for irony, eclecticism and intellectual games had a Quixotic appeal. In many ways, Jean Baudrillard was a modern day Nietzsche: a difficult nihilist and sometimes obscure aphorist - a quintessential Romantic who declared the end of days.
We can argue with the current shape of technology and propose how it might be better. But there is seldom much engagement in this direction. More common is dour warnings about our impotence in the face of new technology; that it is the agent and we the passive recipient.
Howl’s doesn’t quite articulate the totality of its mediums - the acting travels from panto to parody, and this humour doesn’t find its place in the production. Guillermots’s own Fyfe Dangerfield’s score and Stephen Fry’s narrative input do help to lift the energy and convey some of the novel’s charm and dramatic richness, yet they’re not fully integrated in the show.
Ty Glaser’s evocation of Yerma, in her steeling of girl into woman, is truly stunning, from her initial outburst when attempting give her husband some milk, up until her final stand, forcing him to confess his culpability in their barrenness.
David Owen Norris on Winterreise with puppets, plus Shiraz Bayjoo at the Whitechapel Gallery and AD Miller’s Snowdrops
I thought I knew the piece when, some years ago now, Thomas Guthrie asked me to accompany his version with three-quarter life-size puppet and animation. And the dramatic focus provided by the puppet transformed the experience for me. I found new things to enjoy – things I could take back into puppet-less performances with other singers.
What is most refreshing about the story is its understated defiant quality. At a time when too much contemporary fiction seems expected to deliver superficial messages, it is good to read something based on more acute and genuine social observation.
Tower Hamlets didn’t suffer so badly from the riots compared to other areas of London, probably because of this tight-knit community of which Bayjoo’s young men are part.
Just as Sarah Kane twisted Hippolytus into a monster in Phaedra’s Love, Ostermeier strips Hamlet of his nobility and focuses on his faults. He turns what we accept as tragedy into a warped comedy.
The Riots, Matilda: The Musical, The Comedy of Errors and Wuthering Heights
Henry’s infectious incredulity – those massive eyes that role with such relish – emphasises the frantic, unfurling chaos around him. He also takes the edge off what can sometimes seem a cruel play. There’s a flurry of beatings here, as each Antipholus grows increasingly exasperated, but Henry’s fights never sting.
