The Daily Telegraph - 26.08.2019

A heroic crop of new recruits,

but the originals will always win

‘H

ow much has to be explored or

discarded before reaching the

naked flesh of feeling?” asks

Jarvis Cocker gravely from the stage

of Leith Theatre, the recently revived

auditorium in Edinburgh’s port

district, which was commandeered

here for one of the Edinburgh

International Festival’s flagship

contemporary music shows of 2019.

He’s quoting Debussy, although

there could be a contextual

relationship with Cocker’s own muse

over the years – this show is by his

new live project JARV IS, and has

been pitched as an excavation of

the sometime Pulp singer’s lengthy

back catalogue. How much has been

explored or discarded by Cocker

himself in preparation for this

show? As usual, there is a tangible

interplay between the evocative rock

magnificence that he conceives for

his music and the down-to-earth,

kitchen-sink humour that his fans love.

It turns out the quote isn’t to be

taken too literally. Cocker has a

sheet of them from various icons

and celebrities to which he refers

throughout the show, in true radio

broadcaster – his other job, for BBC

6 Music – style. “Here’s another one,

Dorothy Parker, born 1893,” he chimes

in later in the show. “‘I’d rather have

a bottle in front of me than a frontal

lobotomy.’ That’s a good one.”

Rock grandeur and

kitchen-sink humour

from Jarvis Cocker

N

ews reports last week

that a generation of

viewers has taken refuge

in watching endless

reruns of Friends and

the US version of The

Office (according to data on Netflix’s

most-watched shows) have mostly

ignored one salient fact: the

generation before has been doing that

for years in Britain. They just endlessly

watch repeats of Dad’s Army.

The show, depicting the

misadventures of the Home Guard

platoon of the fictional town of

Walmington-on-Sea during the

Second World War, began in 1968 and

ran for nine series. The mostly

superannuated fighting force

that would provide the last

line of defence in the event

of invasion – men who were

ineligible for active service

but expected to halt the

German advance for a

few hours to allow the

regular troops to

regroup – became so

loved that Dad’s

Army was

watched by an

audience of

18 million at

the show’s

peak, and it

has continued to hold a special place

in the nation’s affections for more

than half a century.

Eighty episodes were made in total,

including three Christmas specials

but, until now, three – all from the

1969 second series – were missing.

The 2016 film that attempted to revive

the show wasn’t very good, but then

again the 1971 film wasn’t very good

either. Fans were happy with what

they had... until now. Gold has reshot

the three missing episodes from the

original scripts by the late Jimmy

Perry and David Croft (with a new cast,

of course). Dad’s Army – The Lost

Episodes was certain to either delight

or disappoint, but it was at the very

least a noble undertaking.

The first missing show (originally

episode three of six), The Loneliness

of the Long Distance Walker, faced

the tricky task of getting viewers to

adjust to the idea that Captain

Mainwaring wasn’t Captain

Mainwaring any more, or

rather he wasn’t played

by Arthur Lowe, whose

tone and comic

timing remain a

thing of wonder.

Kevin McNally

was handed the

impossible task

and did his

very best with it. All of the

replacements were essentially doing

impressions of the originals, while

trying to bring the script to life. Robert

Bathurst, for instance, made an

amazing, almost like-for-like John Le

Mesurier, while Mathew Horne was a

creditable spiv as black marketeer

Private Walker, whose call-up to active

duty was the subject of the episode.

The sudden loss of illicit bottles of

booze, fudge and nylons was judged to

be a disaster for the platoon, who

joined forces to try to make the

authorities rethink.

The original would have been in

black and white, but it was now in

lustrous colour; other elements were

less easy to update. Most would have

got the punning title in 1969 – Tony

Richardson’s film The Loneliness of the

Long Distance Runner was made in the

early Sixties and would have still been

in most memories, less so now. But

that really didn’t matter. Everything

here was lovingly recreated, from the

church hall to the uniforms. It was a

good episode, too, with a crisp script

that had all the hallmarks of Perry and

Croft’s best writing.

The originals are irreplaceable, but

Gold deserves a lot of credit for this

labour of love. Perhaps one day it will

even fit happily among the set without

us seeing the joins too much.

Labour of love:

Timothy West as

Private Godfrey,

Kevin Eldon as

Lance Corporal

Jones, Tom

Rosenthal as

Private Pike,

Mathew Horne as

Private Walker and

David Hayman as

Private Frazer.

Below left:

Kevin McNally as

Captain Mainwaring

Looking back:

Cocker’s new

project, JARV IS,

is billed as an

excavation of his

lengthy back

catalogue

Likewise, the sense of drama

conjured by his appearance onstage

suggests a divine experience, which is

later countered by a secular disregard

for the conventions of the classic rock

canon. The first song is a new one,

Sometimes I Am Pharaoh, in which

Cocker – backlit in red, astride his

own podium at the front of the stage,

backed by rumbling, thunderous

guitar – imagines himself attempting

to find spiritual connection in the

great religious buildings of the world.

Later, he’s revisiting his short-

lived Relaxed Muscle project with

the dark Mary, about the terror of

having children and raising them

wrong; revisiting a youthful sense of

sonic nostalgia with You’re in My Eyes

(Discosong), the ambience enhanced

by a tinny club backing track and

glowing discoball above us; updating

the keyboard-based pop of Pulp into

middle age with House Music, about

the nostalgia of a man staying home

and wishing he was out dancing

to the club genre of the title; and

deploying his signature solo track,

the self-explanatory C---- Are Still

Running the World.

The exploration of Cocker’s past

promised here means essentially

an exploration of his solo work.

Only one Pulp song is played,

His’n’Hers, and it is broken down into

a loose groove and serrated guitar

atmospherics. Yet his band – which

features the singer/songwriter

Serafina Steer and musicians whose

credits include the James Taylor

Quartet – are impressive, and add a

depth and richness to the sound of

contemporary Cocker that seems to

come close to the sonic grandeur he

presumably imagines for his songs

as he writes them.

Arts

Television

Dad’s Army –

The Lost Episodes

Gold

★★★★★

Chris Harvey

Edinburgh International Festival

JA RV IS

Leith Theatre

★★★★★

By David Pollock

Bravissima all round for this

night of passion with Puccini

L

ucky Berlin, having three

generously subsidised and full-

time, full-scale opera companies;

and lucky Edinburgh to be lent two

of them. Earlier this month, the

Komische Oper presented the festival

with its superb Eugene Onegin; last

week it was the turn of the Deutsche

Oper, based in what was West Berlin,

which gave this wonderful concert

performance of Puccini’s bodice-

ripper Manon Lescaut. Is it too

much to hope that next year might

see Daniel Barenboim returning to

Scotland at the helm of the third of

these marvels, the Staatsoper?

Meanwhile, the conductor was

Donald Runnicles, a local hero born

in Auld Reekie. He has been music

director of the Deutsche Oper for

10 years now and from the first bars of

the prelude, thrillingly attacked and

sparkling, his bond with the orchestra

was palpable. Tautly shaped but

throbbing with emotion, his approach

pushed the singers without bullying

them and they rose to his challenge.

This may be a score of variable quality,

but Runnicles made it cohere.

His Manon was Sondra

Radvanovsky, the American soprano

who had a huge success with the

role at Covent Garden in 2016. Here,

unencumbered by Jonathan Kent’s

atrocious staging, I felt she was even

better – at the height of her vocal

powers and totally confident with the

music. Perhaps she is too mature and

knowing for the sly ingénue of the first

act, but her characterisation is all of a

piece in its impassioned impulsiveness

and the sheer expansive generosity of

her phrasing, embracing exquisitely

floated pianissimi and golden-throated

climaxes, silences any carping.

Another hope: can Covent Garden

bag her for Minnie in La Fanciulla del

West, a part she was born to sing?

Her Des Grieux in 2016 had been

unsatisfactory; at the Usher Hall she

was more fortunate in having Jorge

de León, a tenor with a distinctively

Hispanic timbre short of the ideal

“melt” in the voice, but readily

producing a steady flow of vibrant

tone in the big love duet and the

heroics of the third act.

First-rate support came from

Thomas Lehman as Manon’s devious

brother, alongside some nicely

characterful cameos, notably that

of Ya-Chung Huang as the perky

lamplighter who sets the plot rolling.

The chorus, trained by Jeremy Bines,

Glyndebourne’s former chorus master,

was excellent too.

“Bravissima!” came an

incontinent shout from the gods

after Radvanovsky’s searingly

intense account of “Sola, perduta,

abbandonata”.

Bravissima! all round, more like it.

Edinburgh International Festival

Manon Lescaut

Deutsche Oper/Usher Hall

★★★★★

By Rupert Christiansen

Intense: Sondra Radvanovsky at the height of her powers, alongside Jorge de León

RYAN BUCHANAN PHOTOGRAPHY

The Edinburgh International Festival

ends today

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24 ***^ Monday 26 August 2019 The Daily Telegraph

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