Monday, 4 August 2014

.--. . .- -.-. . .-.-.- .... --- .--. .


Mahler's 9th Symphony at the BBC Proms
and of course there will always be Claudio Abbado

Ryoji Ikeda: spectra (Dusk until dawn, 4 - 11 August 2014)

Sunday, 20 July 2014

a drop of prophecy

Russian conductor Valery Gergiev and the World Orchestra for Peace allows Mahler to sound like Shostakovitch and Bernstein...live now BBC Proms 2014! More movements to come...


Sunday, 6 July 2014

less than a drop in the great blue ocean of the sunlit sea


“I want the light of God, I want the sweet love of Jesus! I danced for the Devil; I saw him, I wrote in his book; I go back to Jesus; I kiss His hand. I saw Sarah Good with the Devil! I saw Goody Osburn with the Devil! I saw Bridget Bishop with the Devil!”

“Pray calm yourselves. I have eleven children, and I am twenty-six times a grandma, and I have seen them all through their silly seasons, and when it come on them they will run the Devil bowlegged keeping up with their mischief. I think she'll wake when she tires of it. A child's spirit is like a child, you can never catch it by running after it; you must stand still, and, for love, it will soon itself come back.”

“Great stones they lay upon his chest until he plead aye or nay. They say he give them but two words. "More weight," he says. And died.”--quotes from Arthur Miller's play The Crucible. But who cares about the truth of theatre any more. The truth clearly lies in the internet and social networking and television that promised so so much for all...and if sense of truth changes from year to year from decade to decade does anybody notice or care...


“one of what we all are…less than a drop in the great blue ocean of the sunlit sea. But it seems that some of the drops sparkle…some of them do-oooooo SPARKLE! “
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Thursday, 1 May 2014


Two (there may be more...;) must sees for May:

Joanna Hogg’s new film Exhibition and the world premiere of Julian Anderson’s first opera Thebans at the ENO with a libretto by Irish playwright Frank McGuinness (In Tune BBC interview May1)

Monday, 14 April 2014

the colours of yesteryear's darkness


In his latest post indefatigable movie poster advocate Adrian Curry spotted the unearthing a few years ago of 50s posters in the depths of the London underground. Even more interesting was to learn that Italian artist Nicola Simbari began his career designing posters! (revelatory if like me you may have been Simbari 'artistically challenged' to date). And a website by his wife certainly illuminates why he ever became famous in the first place e.g. the sporting page has some great images.
For more colour there could be far worse things for a Londoner to believe in than the angel in Stella Scott’s new short film.
All universe’s palette from (the lately deceased) Claudio Abbado conducting the Berlin Philharmonic in a concert recorded last May - Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique (1830). Moments where your heart stops a beat as Abbado and the Berlin Phil conjure a plangent meditative Debussy world. Berlioz dreaming. Out of place and out of time.

The beautiful tragic story of actress Dora Jordan.

Wednesday, 26 March 2014

NOAH



So what’s the latest news? The next ‘celeb’ suicide because the world is just not the quid pro quo you/ we were all promised? Hmmm.! Nobody even speaks Greek anymore let alone…no wonder the bi-focal-cameral dilemma led us all to …!

Meanwhile Russell Crowe is Noah! He will save us all. Though he couldn’t save Tony Scott from speaking to the waters below a bridge too far…but

Sometimes the world is REALLY only a degree of separation: I mean- Andrew’s voice coach was Russell’s ah/hmmm same Sydney teacher. I even framed/stole his DNA Shakespeare ‘spit’ to inspire me in my bathroom. You see Jonah Hill great orifices speak alike. Right? I mean Marty’s…..Oh I suddenly see angles…

Now seriously Mr Crowe: why didn’t you like my screenplay for Timothy Findlay’s Not Wanted on the Voyage? Too many alcoholic animals? Too many normal Jews? Too many normal woman telling you the truth? Oh well. Such is history.  You are there and I am HERE. There lies the …so you win in Aronofsky’s parallel world. But we all know the tangent so…

Oh- where are my erudite critical colleagues to shoot you down while never ‘rocking the boat’. THEY never tell what fascinated them when they were 13 years old….maybe that’s a good thing as Andrew might say. But hey. It’s Paramount. It’s Chinatown. Oh- LUV Liam Neeson as the Irish Leopard (so much Film Society Lincoln Center Visconti thing going on;!) – or was that Anthony Hopkins. Anyway. Enjoy. Bless. Na zdorovie.