Skip to content

Getting Out More

Saturday 17th May, a cool blue morning.


Getting Out More

& now here I am back at my desk after a packed few days in Manchester.The old home town never changes, although it changes all the time. In normal life I struggle to recognise a single glimpse of the streets where I grew up, in endless cop shows, (it is the bedraggled and threatening bits, often shot at night): but as I step down from the train, the spirit of Manc comes shining through, somehow. Outings included Albert Square for MCFC's victory parade, The Last Days of Troy at The Royal Exchange. A tramp around the ridge walk above the Edale Valley, which was really, really wonderful except for the torrential rain part, and that only lasted an hour and a half. A morning alone among flowers and birds and butterflies, reading in the sunshine in a vine arbour, on the roof terrace in Hulme Community Garden, where I also bought some seeds, wildflowers for dry shade, yellow rattle and bugle. Mary-Elly, the friend I was visiting, who is a volunteer, thought I might join her in some weeding, but I felt my job was to enjoy this brilliant place, and had to be prised out of the arbour to come down and eat my butties and talk about Barton Moss; a visit to the Mickle Ditch at Platt Fields (it's a black water ditch here, it's Anglo Saxon, it looks rather spooky, definitely less boring than the lump of Roman Wall at Castlefield. They're very science fictional, these lost fragments of the distant past in a city like Manc, and very Alan Garner too of course. And La Boheme at the Lowry; including admiring the Open Swimmers in a specially aerated bit of the Ship Canal (for the benefit of those mediafolk, you know. You just can't expect them to do without their civilised comforts). Good grief. There they were, in the Manchester Ship Canal in May, happily ploughing the shining stream, whatever next?

Reviews

Cheek by Jowl's 'Tis Pity She's a Whore was rubbish. They cut out the sub-plot, leaving some odd holes in the main plot, if anyone had been paying attention. Excised Ford's serious accusation of a morally bankrupt State and Church, and replaced with much frenzied synchronised dancing by young fat cats in suits. And all of that fair enough, except that nobody on stage, not for one moment, acted as if they believed what they were saying, ever. Unforgivable. If all you want is a young lady pretending to have sex in her underwear, there's plenty of Miley Cyrus on Youtube. Don't bother.

Simon Armitage's The Last Days Of Troy. Looks really good. The framing story (Zeus as a worn-out souvenir seller at the modern site of Troy) seemed hackneyed to me: the action thrilling, as long as Armitage is sticking dead close to Homer, for language, plot and narrative. Loses focus after the interval, when relying more or less on Book II of the Aeneid. Very shabby treatment of Helen. I know Lily Cole is a supermodel, not an actress, but she's got a brain in her head, and I am sure she has stage presence. No excuse whatsoever for mutilating the only, and really remarkable, good female part in the Iliad. Wouldn't you think, in this day and age, a dramatist would know better? But definitely do bother.

Opera North’s La Bohème at the Lowry revival was lovely. Young cast, believing every word of their story, looking like real young examples of the bohemian life, and very sweet. Hurry along there. Recommended.

Trackbacks

No Trackbacks

Comments

Display comments as Linear | Threaded

No comments

Add Comment

Enclosing asterisks marks text as bold (*word*), underscore are made via _word_.
Standard emoticons like :-) and ;-) are converted to images.

To prevent automated Bots from commentspamming, please enter the string you see in the image below in the appropriate input box. Your comment will only be submitted if the strings match. Please ensure that your browser supports and accepts cookies, or your comment cannot be verified correctly.
CAPTCHA 1CAPTCHA 2CAPTCHA 3CAPTCHA 4CAPTCHA 5


Form options

Submitted comments will be subject to moderation before being displayed.