Consent, a new play by Nina Raine which premiered at the National Theatre last year, is a biting dark comedy about what lies underneath and in between the lies that people tell each other and themselves. As the play opens, we see Kitty and Ed celebrating their move to a new house and the birth of their baby with another couple, Rachel and Jake. As the friends, three of whom are lawyers, loudly discuss the various rape and criminal cases they are trying, while holding a real baby, we sense that this play is not going to be an easy ride. Although each character is interesting, intelligent and funny, they are not particularly likeable and are incredibly privileged. As soon as Jake and Rachel have departed, Kitty and Ed surmise that something is wrong in their friends’ marriage. Sure enough, the next time we
see the group of friends gathered together, this time with Tim, a prosecutor and Zara, an actress they are trying to match him up with, Rachel is absent. It is soon revealed that she has thrown out Jake as she suspects him of having an affair, which he denies wholeheartedly to everyone who will listen, until he eventually confesses to many dalliances, saying it kept the marriage alive. As Ed and Kitty try to intervene, they find themselves taking opposite sides along gender lines. Kitty is aghast when Rachel eventually takes Jake back, a reunion orchestrated by Ed. Meantime, cracks in their own marriage start to show: in a scene where Tim and Ed are helping Zara to research a role, Tim censures Ed for flirting with Zara. He denies it and in turn accuses Tim of being attracted to Kitty. The real problem, however, is Kitty can never forgive Ed for an affair he had five years ago.
Interspersed with all this is a rape case that is being tried with Tim as the prosecutor and Ed defending the accused, whom we never see, witnessing only his harsh cross examination of the victim, Gayle. She keeps trying to tell them what happened but is told to stick to her original statement and finds herself torn apart by brutal questioning about her drinking and sexual history. We never do hear the whole story and it never seems important to the lawyers involved, even when a distraught Gayle turns up at their New Year celebrations, asking why her personal history was ripped apart and examined while her rapist’s was left untouched. For these lawyers, it is just one more horrible trial to get through. As the play goes on, and we see Ed continually putting the rules of the law above all else and dismissing emotional involvement, we understand when Kitty blows up at him for having no empathy. She says that he spends his life lying, defending criminals and rapists and it’s turned him into an unfeeling, heartless person. Later on, we see quite a different side to Ed as Kitty decides to exact her revenge so that he will know what it feels like to be cheated on. His rage and tears are the stuff of Greek tragedy, earlier referenced by Zara doing a production of Medea.
What follows next brings up yet again the question of consent as Kitty accuses Ed of rape and surprisingly Jake, who earlier had his own wailing and gnashing of teeth, takes her side while his wife sympathises with Ed.
This is a complicated play with complex,
familiar characters. Ed is the sort of person who just always has to be right, no matter what the consequences. Jake is no better and both of them seem to belong to a club where their own self-belief outweighs any ethical code. They freely lie, philander and demean others and are shocked when they are caught out and punished. Tim at first appears very different to them, a kind man whom Zara initially dismisses as probably “gay” and “a bit victim-y” before eventually getting into a relationship with him. Compared to the bombastic, aggressive masculinity of Ed and Jake, he seems gentle and thoughtful. However, we question his motives in having an affair with Kitty; does he really love her or is it revenge on the bullying Ed? The women in these couples are no mere helpless victims and display as much rage and fury as the men. Kitty, who is probably the most sympathetic, hurls a kettle at Ed as she accuses him of having no empathy, a clever reference to Tim’s earlier story of a kettle flying across the room in his poltergeist haunted flat.
There is a nice balance of humour undercutting tragedy throughout the play. As the emotionally out of control Ed weeps with fury at Kitty’s betrayal, he says he hasn’t cried that much since prep school. When Jake thinks he is unjustly thrown out by Rachel, he says he is “basically being bullied”. These men are ridiculous at times and don’t seem to be aware of it, despite their extreme intelligence.
The cast are uniformly superb as is Roger Michel’s direction. Adam James as Jake and Stephen Campbell Moore as Ed, perfectly embody their entitled, self-righteous lawyer characters who also show a tender side as they are first seen holding a tiny, actual baby in the first scene. These are men who will fight to the death for their children, the only way they know how to show real love. Claudie Blakley is excellent as the dissatisfied and occasionally fierce Kitty, the only one who seems to have any morals until she decides to give Ed a taste of his own medicine. Equally good are Lee Ingleby as the awkward Tim, Sian Clifford as Rachel, Clare Foster as Zara and Heather Craney as Gayle.
This play will provoke much conversation and leave people debating the many issues raised as well as the controversial ending. It’s a disturbing yet entertaining and satisfying evening at the theatre. Consent is one of the best new plays I have seen in a very long time.
Top image: Claudie Blakley (Kitty) and Stephen Campbell Moore (Ed). Consent at the Harold Pinter Theatre. Photographer credit Johan Persson
Bottom image: Clare Foster (Zara) and Claudie Blakley (Kitty) - Consent at the Harold Pinter Theatre - Photographer credit Johan Persson.
Tina Turner’s life has been well documented first in her autobiography I, Tina and then in the film What’s Love Got To Do With It with Angela Bassett and Laurence Fishburne. Therefore, it should come as no surprise to audiences that this fiercely talented singer endured years of brutal beatings from her husband Ike Turner. This violence is central yet again to Tina Turner’s story in this production, turning what could be a rags to riches, typical jukebox musical into a study of domestic abuse. Of course, we know that she will triumph and go on to record her Private Dancer album, become even more successful without Ike and will eventually find happiness, but the journey that takes her there is a difficult one to watch.
Katori Hall’s script has a lot of ground to cover, so doesn’t have much time to delve into any depth or ask too many questions of its protagonist. We first see Tina waiting to go on stage in Brazil in 1988, calmly chanting Buddhist prayers while a huge audience screams in anticipation. We then jump to the beginning of the story, an outdoor prayer meeting in Nutbush, Tennessee, where little Anna Mae Bullock is told off by her mother, Zelma, for singing too boisterously and showing off. Zelma is reprimanded for her criticism by her husband, Richard, the preacher, who hits her in front of the children, a foreshadowing of Tina’s life to come. Zelma soon takes off with younger daughter Alline to St Louis and Anna Mae is left in the care of her grandmother, a kind woman who encourages her. At sixteen, she joins her mother and sister in St Louis and almost immediately meets Ike Turner at a club, who insists that she join his band and charms her mother into letting her, promising that Anna Mae will be well paid and will send money home. He also promises to take care of her, but the early signs are not good. He loses his temper with everyone around him, showing a narcissistic, bullying personality, threatening fellow band members as well as the singers. Nevertheless, Tina joins him and is soon made the lead singer. Although she falls in love with saxophonist Ray, and has a child by him, Ike renames her Tina Turner and pretends that they are married for the sake of their band, the Ike and Tina Turner Revue. Two years later they do marry, despite Ike beating up both her and Ray, and what follows is years of abuse as well as many hit records.
What is glossed over is why Tina stayed all those years with Ike, who was a drug addict and philanderer. We see plenty of scenes of violence but never any love so it makes her look like an unquestioning victim, perhaps because she considered it normal for a man to beat his wife, as she saw in her childhood. Only after her suicide attempt does she eventually decide to stand up to Ike, fighting back and then escaping from him on the spur of the moment, while they are on tour.
Act Two sees Tina now left with no money, a single mum struggling to support two sons by doing Las Vegas shows, and follows her slow rise back to the top of the charts with the help of a new manager and a fortuitous collaboration in London. Along the way, she also finds love with Erwin Bach, a German music producer who is seventeen years younger than her. The rest is history.
Although Tina Turner’s life story is bleak, it is clear that what kept her going was the music and there is plenty of it in this production. The songs
are cleverly interwoven into the story, starting with Nutbush City Limits sung as a hymn by the outdoor church to Gran Georgeanna singing Don’t Turn Around as she sends young Anna Mae off to St Louis, to Let’s Stay Together sung by Ray in one of the rare tender moments.
The music really takes off though when performed by the astounding Adrienne Warren who perfectly embodies Tina Turner; despite not sounding or looking like her, she has Turner’s unbounded energy, strength and size. Her magnificent voice soars in every number. The scene where Phil Spectre is recording the iconic River Deep, Mountain High with Turner, making her do it repeatedly until she gives it her all, is particularly memorable. American actress Warren also captures Turner’s mesmerising stage persona, from the highly energetic, verging on manic dance moves of Proud Mary to the smiling powerhouse of Simply the Best. In addition, she has to age from sixteen to forty- nine, which is no mean feat, even though Tina Turner has always looked remarkably young.
Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, a fine actor who has worked frequently in theatre, including playing Laertes to Benedict Cumberbatch’s Hamlet, has the unenviable task of playing the unrelenting villain of the piece, Ike Turner. He plays it absolutely straight in an unyielding performance that doesn’t ask for sympathy, but unfortunately the script gives him little opportunity to show what first attracted Tina to Ike and what kept her with him for sixteen long years of abuse. He is, without a doubt, a powerful presence, however, and we do sense his resentment at never being recognised as the rock and roll renegade he was. He shapes and forms young Anna Mae into the iconic Tina Turner but cannot control his anger and brutal temper, lashing out at all around him.
Madeleine Appiah as Zelma Bullock, Lorna Gayle as Gran Georgeanna and Francesca Jackson as Rhonda Graam, Ike’s road manager and later Tina’s close friend and personal assistant, all turn in excellent performances. Mention must also be made of the actresses playing the Ikettes, the original back-up singers, who perform with as much gusto as Tina.
This is a musical with heart, showing the bravery, fearlessness and extraordinary talent of Tina Turner, faced with not only an abusive husband but with racism, ageism and sexism from white executives in the music industry. However, it never takes a closer look into the mind of a woman who would endure such abuse for sixteen years, while still asking the audience to witness repeatedly such scenes of violence. It is an uncomfortable story to watch, alleviated by full throttle performances of Tina Turner’s greatest hits by the incredible Adrianne Warren. Although the musical is hard-hitting, it didn’t seem to bother most audience members who happily stood up and danced and sang along to the obligatory end of show numbers including Proud Mary. As Tina Turner had a hand in presenting this version of her life, we have to assume this is what she wants the world to see, that she will not be beaten into submission by anyone and in the end, we just have to keep singing.
American playwright Annie Baker has been dividing audience opinion since she wrote the three hour long, Pulitzer prize-winning The Flick, which was critically acclaimed but apparently had some audience members walking out in boredom. Ms Baker tends to write a lack of dialogue that puts Pinter’s pauses to shame. I went into John, her new three-hour production at the National Theatre, expecting a long, tedious evening. Instead I was completely mesmerised and could not wait to see what happened next.
John is set in a bed and breakfast and also deals with guests interacting with their hosts. However, the similarity ends there as John is a much more humane and spiritual tale about relationships and how we connect with the people in our lives.
Mertis runs a bed and breakfast on the outskirts of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania which could be considered quaint if it weren’t for all the dolls lining the walls, staircases and any nook that can be found. A Christmas tree is
already displayed despite it being only one week after Thanksgiving. The breakfast area is named Paris, and decorated like a French café with croissants for breakfast. Into this strange world comes Jenny and Elias, a young couple from Brooklyn who are stopping over on their way from Ohio. We sense from the start that all is not right, as prickly Elias seems to be constantly picking an argument with Jenny, yelling at her from upstairs, or demanding to know if she hates his loud eating and then accusing her of anti-Semitism. He is intent on seeing all the historical sites Gettysburg has to offer, while Jenny has to duck out due to debilitating period pains. After an aborted trip around the town, Elias goes off on a ghost tour of a cemetery, leaving Jenny alone with the sympathetic but unusual Mertis. It is at this point that we start to learn more about who these people are. Mertis has a husband, George, whom we never see, as he is too ill, of what we never find out. Jenny writes questions for a quiz show. Mertis kindly invites Jenny to join her for dinner with her blind friend Genevieve. After much wine is drunk, more revelations emerge, but always eked out throughout the play, emerging naturally as the characters eventually feel like revealing them.
Although it sounds like not much happens, everything happens as we discover the truth about Elias and Jenny’s relationship, hear about her dread fear of her childhood doll Samantha, a replica of which sits on a shelf in the bed and breakfast. Mertis asks both Elias and Jenny
separately if they ever feel watched, to which they both have very different responses. This is a house which may be haunted, as Christmas tree lights mysteriously turn on and off and a player piano spontaneously bursts into song. And why won’t Mertis let the young couple sleep in the Jackson room?
The cast are nothing less than extraordinary. American actress Marylouise Burke who plays Mertis is a highly-experienced stage performer who is completely unknown here but won’t be after this. She embodies the elderly and quirky Mertis so completely in her every move and slightly sing song way of speaking. We are fascinated watching her slowly climb the stairs or set breakfast, happy in her routines, yet clearly harbouring so much more
beneath the surface. June Watson is superb as the caustic and outspoken Genevieve, who may be a bit psychotic or a bit psychic, it’s never clear which, but it is unimportant to her friendship with Mertis who accepts her as she is. Tom Motherdale as Elias and Anneika Rose as Jenny were also excellent, inhabiting the moments of silence as much as the words in their painful interactions with each other.
This production feels like an interactive experience where the audience is totally immersed in the world of the play, drawn in bit by bit through clues about the characters’ lives, droplets of information said in passing or blurted out suddenly. This is theatre at its finest, don’t miss it.
Make a date with history as 2018 Britain celebrates a bevy of famous birthdays and anniversaries.
Classical music lovers will be saluting the 350th birthday of Baroque composer Francois Couperin, the 200th birthday of Romantic era’s Claude Debussy and the centenary of American composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein (West Side Story, Candide), as well as that of his peerless choreographic collaborator, Jerome Robbins.
Rock and pop fans will fete Ariana Grande and Miley Cyrus as they turn 25, Kylie Minogue, Bono, Will Smith and Shaggy at 50, Madonna at 60, and Mick Jagger, the grand old man of rock, who will be 75. We’ll be fondly remembering the late Prince and Michael Jackson; both would have turned 60 this year.
Two hundred years ago, in 1818, young author Mary Shelley gave life to Frankenstein’s monster. Feel free to honour the occasion by re-reading her novel, taking part in Dorset’s Shelley-Frankenstein Festival, or seeing for yourself how the story’s been changed— just a titch— in Mel Brooks’ hilarious West End musical, Young Frankenstein.
2018 also marks 100 years since women in Britain first gained the right to vote. Amongst many centenary events saluting Women’s Suffrage will be a major exhibition at the Houses of Parliament, a feminist film season at Barbican Cinema and Old Vic Theatre’s world premiere of Sylvia, a dance, hip-hop, soul and funk modern musical celebrating the life of Sylvia Pankhurst and her pivotal role in the passionate campaign for women’s rights.
Last but by no means least, 1968—50 years ago— was a landmark year at the movies, release year for a feast of films now considered classics: Oliver, 2001: A Space Odyssey, the Odd Couple, Funny Girl, Yellow Submarine, Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang and Rosemary’s Baby, to name a diverse handful. Expect no shortage of Golden Anniversary screenings, fan events and limited-edition merchandise for each.
2001: A Space Odyssey, will be particularly honoured. It was groundbreaking at the time and is still widely considered the best sci-fi movie ever made, with astonishing cinematography and music, Oscar-winning special effects and memorable back-talking computer, Hal. Diehard fans certainly won’t want to miss The Southbank Centre’s exciting anniversary screening in April with live orchestra.
Image 1: Happy 100th! Women Campaigners Annie Kenney and Suffragettes and Votes for Christabel Pankhurst
Image 2: 2001 - a Space Image 2: Odyssey at 50, Screening with orchestra at Southbank Centre
Article by Judith Schrut. Contact Judith via her website
Since the tragedy of 9/11, when two planes crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Centre in New York City, there have been many literary, visual and performing arts responses to the day. What did the people trapped inside do and think when they became aware of the unfathomable threat that could end their lives? One such response to 9/11 is the opera Between Worlds, which was performed at the Barbican two years ago. Tansy Davies composed the music; Nick Drake wrote the libretto. The opera takes place for the most part inside the north tower on September 11, covering the time before dawn until the end of the day, by which time both towers had collapsed. Music, song and design are interwoven to create imagined scenes with people expressing their gnawing, desperate need to make contact with their loved ones. They want to be sure that if they die, a loving, enduring spirit will follow in their wake, rather than angst. Looking up, people on the ground, the ‘chorus’, share the captives’ sense of helplessness. Horror is eating them up, too.
Most people think opera is stuffy, elitist, for pompous connoisseurs, obsessed with ego-centric characters and their silly dalliances, adorned in expensive costumery, singing in front of sumptuous sets. Why do people spend so much on flummery? Between Worlds shows how relevant opera can be to our inner and exterior lives; each of us can relate, personally, to the sorrow, grief, fear, love and life experiences of the people in the towers. The tales of the doomed and the grievers could be our stories.
Indeed, there are many historical and contemporary operas that will resonate with all of us; and if, as a scathing critic, you visit the exhibition, Opera: Passion, Power and Politics at the Victoria & Albert Museum (until 28 February 2017), curated in collaboration with the Royal Opera House (ROH), you could find yourself thereafter a frequent member of the audience, listening to opera on Spotify while you are at the computer, or singing arias to yourself as the bath water turns cold. Opera could very well become part of your life.
The exhibition encompasses a collage of visual and performing art (more than 300 operatic objects are on view); it is not just a series of galleries with pretty pictures and explanatory, jargon filled panels. We see – and hear - how music, singing, lighting, set design, graphics, fashion, painting, drawing, printing, sculpture, jewellery making and carpentry work together to bring opera into being. Operatic excerpts and commentary on the audio guide (more a soundtrack than just a guide) enrapture us as we travel through the galleries learning about 400 years of operatic history. Each gallery focuses on a city and an opera that premiered in the city. When the exhibition was in the making, the then director of the ROH, Kasper Holten, determined that the “exhibition will show us opera as the soundtrack to the history of Europe. We hope to show audiences, both those in love with opera already and those who are still missing out, that the art form is alive and kicking and has as much to say to the society around today as it did 400 years ago”.
First we visit Venice in 1642 and explore the premiere of Monteverdi’s The Coronation of Poppea. This tells the story, set in the first century AD, of the Emperor Nero’s infatuation with the beautiful Poppea who tries to make him divorce his wife and make her the Empress of Rome. The challenges of love, lust, greed, immorality, morality and betrayal vie with each other in an intriguing tale, which could be transposed to the pages of the tabloid press of 2017. We then venture in 1711 to London where we learn about Handel’s Rinaldo, the first Italian opera created for the English stage. It was set during the Crusades. This gallery displays somewhat hostile reviews in The Spectator magazine at the time of the opera’s premiere, yet the public loved the opera, in spite of the journal’s derisiveness, for its pageantry. In Vienna, we encounter Mozart’s comic opera, The Marriage of Figaro, premiered in 1786. The opera pokes fun at the arrogance of the aristocracy at the time and their presumption that they had the right to take advantage of the ‘lower orders’; the droit du seigneur is quite an issue here. Are there parallels with parliamentary behaviour today? In 1842, Milan welcomes Verdi’s Nabucco, a biblical story about the plight of the Jews as they are exiled from their homeland by the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar II. The narrative stirs reflection upon the plight of endangered exiles and conflicts in the Middle East in our times. Visiting Paris, we greet Wagner’s Tannhauser in 1861, a tale of lust culminating in damnation. Audiences did not appreciate the opera to say the least; maybe it made them feel uncomfortable. Wagner withdrew the work and despised Paris ever after. The once-scandalous Richard Strauss’ Salome, a setting of an Oscar Wilde play, premiered in Dresden in 1905. In St Petersburg, Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk made its debut. It tells the story of a lonely woman in 19th-century Russia who falls in love with one of her husband's workers and is driven to murder. Stalin suppressed the opera two years after it premiered in 1934. In a newspaper, Stalin attacked Shostakovich for “trifling with difficult matters”…The opera, he wrote, was an “ugly flood of confusing sound”. Its themes of oppressive social surroundings and conventional mores and depiction of the Gulag challenged the righteousness of Stalin the omnipotent.
As we move from city to city we see pass opera related exhibits such as the amended and re-amended notes on Handel’s original score for Rinaldo, costume armour for the opera’s Crusaders, and a working, mechanised, colourful replica of a Baroque theatre, where mermaids in Rinaldo sing as we watch a ship pitching through a stormy sea before the clouds part and it reaches safety. Mozart’s own piano is displayed. The material from the opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsenck includes Shostakovich’s autograph score, costume and set designs, posters and programmes. Archive footage reveals Shostakovich playing the music for Act III feverishly on the piano. We see Salvador Dali’s costume designs for Salome and opera related paintings by Manet and Degas. In a closing section we watch excerpts from 20th century operas, such as Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess and Einstein on the Beach, composed by Philip Glass, screened on the walls.
Would the exhibition be too ‘grown up’ for young children, those perhaps under 11? The music and artistic artefacts would undoubtedly appeal to anyone of any age. Would the large screen extract from George Benjamin’s Written on Skin, revealing domestic brutality, disturb? Given what children are exposed to by social media and television, and the prettified violence of fairy tales and children’s novels, it is debatable how affecting it would be. Think deeply! On a more benign note, young people studying music would be fascinated by the exhibition, mesmerised, appreciating how the power and vigour of both the libretto and the music relate to each other.
There are operas written especially for children, which are enjoyed by so-called adults, too. Recently, the company OperaUpClose commissioned and staged an enchanting opera, Ulla’s Odyssey. Homer’s Odyssey inspired Ulla’s, which grapples judiciously with contemporary issues such as climate change and female leadership. The audience, toddlers included, hailed the work with a standing ovation. Indeed, OperaUpClose Close is dedicated to increasing awareness and appreciation on of opera among the population at large. It presents contemporary and historic operas, in English, which are transposed to modern settings. The artistic director, Robin Norton-Hale, notes that 82% of the audience attending Ulla’s Odyssey at Kings Place were seeing their first opera, and “a staggering 92% of that group told us that they will now definitely see another opera in the future”. Britten’s Noye’s Fludde, for three adults and ninety children, The Firemaker’s Daughter, composed by David Bruce, which is based on the same named children’s novel by Philip Pullman, Jonathan Dove’s The Adventures of Pinocchio, Hansel and Gretel by Humperdinck and Janáček’s Cunning Little Vixen are several of the most highly acclaimed and endearing operas for children.
Enlivening and enriching, the exhibition is living proof that opera is for each and every one of us, not just for ‘them’. Take deep breaths before you start singing about its wonders so that your voice will be all the more potent.
Consent, a new play by Nina Raine which premiered at the National Theatre last year, is a biting dark comedy about what lies underneath and in between the lies that people tell each other and themselves. As the play opens, we see Kitty and Ed celebrating their move to a new house and the birth of their baby with another couple, Rachel and Jake. As the friends, three of whom are lawyers, loudly discuss the various rape and criminal cases they are trying, while holding a real baby, we sense that this play is not going to be an easy ride. Although each character is interesting, intelligent and funny, they are not particularly likeable and are incredibly privileged. As soon as Jake and Rachel have departed, Kitty and Ed surmise that something is wrong in their friends’ marriage. Sure enough, the next time we
see the group of friends gathered together, this time with Tim, a prosecutor and Zara, an actress they are trying to match him up with, Rachel is absent. It is soon revealed that she has thrown out Jake as she suspects him of having an affair, which he denies wholeheartedly to everyone who will listen, until he eventually confesses to many dalliances, saying it kept the marriage alive. As Ed and Kitty try to intervene, they find themselves taking opposite sides along gender lines. Kitty is aghast when Rachel eventually takes Jake back, a reunion orchestrated by Ed. Meantime, cracks in their own marriage start to show: in a scene where Tim and Ed are helping Zara to research a role, Tim censures Ed for flirting with Zara. He denies it and in turn accuses Tim of being attracted to Kitty. The real problem, however, is Kitty can never forgive Ed for an affair he had five years ago.
This is a complicated play with complex,
familiar characters. Ed is the sort of person who just always has to be right, no matter what the consequences. Jake is no better and both of them seem to belong to a club where their own self-belief outweighs any ethical code. They freely lie, philander and demean others and are shocked when they are caught out and punished. Tim at first appears very different to them, a kind man whom Zara initially dismisses as probably “gay” and “a bit victim-y” before eventually getting into a relationship with him. Compared to the bombastic, aggressive masculinity of Ed and Jake, he seems gentle and thoughtful. However, we question his motives in having an affair with Kitty; does he really love her or is it revenge on the bullying Ed? The women in these couples are no mere helpless victims and display as much rage and fury as the men. Kitty, who is probably the most sympathetic, hurls a kettle at Ed as she accuses him of having no empathy, a clever reference to Tim’s earlier story of a kettle flying across the room in his poltergeist haunted flat.
Tina Turner’s life has been well documented first in her autobiography I, Tina and then in the film What’s Love Got To Do With It with Angela Bassett and Laurence Fishburne. Therefore, it should come as no surprise to audiences that this fiercely talented singer endured years of brutal beatings from her husband Ike Turner. This violence is central yet again to Tina Turner’s story in this production, turning what could be a rags to riches, typical jukebox musical into a study of domestic abuse. Of course, we know that she will triumph and go on to record her Private Dancer album, become even more successful without Ike and will eventually find happiness, but the journey that takes her there is a difficult one to watch.
The music really takes off though when performed by the astounding Adrienne Warren who perfectly embodies Tina Turner; despite not sounding or looking like her, she has Turner’s unbounded energy, strength and size. Her magnificent voice soars in every number. The scene where Phil Spectre is recording the iconic River Deep, Mountain High with Turner, making her do it repeatedly until she gives it her all, is particularly memorable. American actress Warren also captures Turner’s mesmerising stage persona, from the highly energetic, verging on manic dance moves of Proud Mary to the smiling powerhouse of Simply the Best. In addition, she has to age from sixteen to forty- nine, which is no mean feat, even though Tina Turner has always looked remarkably young.
American playwright Annie Baker has been dividing audience opinion since she wrote the three hour long, Pulitzer prize-winning The Flick, which was critically acclaimed but apparently had some audience members walking out in boredom. Ms Baker tends to write a lack of dialogue that puts Pinter’s pauses to shame. I went into John, her new three-hour production at the National Theatre, expecting a long, tedious evening. Instead I was completely mesmerised and could not wait to see what happened next.
Last but by no means least, 1968—50 years ago— was a landmark year at the movies, release year for a feast of films now considered classics: Oliver, 2001: A Space Odyssey, the Odd Couple, Funny Girl, Yellow Submarine, Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang and Rosemary’s Baby, to name a diverse handful. Expect no shortage of Golden Anniversary screenings, fan events and limited-edition merchandise for each.
As we move from city to city we see pass opera related exhibits such as the amended and re-amended notes on Handel’s original score for Rinaldo, costume armour for the opera’s Crusaders, and a working, mechanised, colourful replica of a Baroque theatre, where mermaids in Rinaldo sing as we watch a ship pitching through a stormy sea before the clouds part and it reaches safety. Mozart’s own piano is displayed. The material from the opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsenck includes Shostakovich’s autograph score, costume and set designs, posters and programmes. Archive footage reveals Shostakovich playing the music for Act III feverishly on the piano. We see Salvador Dali’s costume designs for Salome and opera related paintings by Manet and Degas. In a closing section we watch excerpts from 20th century operas, such as Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess and Einstein on the Beach, composed by Philip Glass, screened on the walls.
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