The Guardian - 15.08.2019

Section:GDN 12 PaGe:13 Edition Date:190815 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 14/8/2019 15:50 cYanmaGentaYellowbl

• The Guardian
  Thursday 15 August 2019 13
  Live reviews

PHOTOGRAPHS: CHRIS CHRISTODOULOU/BBC; MANUEL HARLAN; MURDO MACLEOD/GUARDIAN

end of every sentence. But plays

are not only built on psychological

perception and one longs to see

more stirring physical action than an

occasional trip to the drinks table.

Director Christopher Luscombe

and designer Simon Higlett do all

they can to keep the play moving

and the cast is good. Felicity Kendal

gets star billing and captures well

the waspishness of Meredith’s

mum, but she is only part of the

ensemble. Alice Orr-Ewing as

Meredith has a more prominent role

and neatly suggests the character’s

intellectual condescension towards

her straying spouse whom Simon

Harrison invests with the right

insecurity. I especially liked Rupert

Vansittart who, as Pip’s orthopaedic

surgeon father-in-law, exudes

the complacent snobbery of the

golfi ng classes. While Boyd’s play

is perfectly pleasant, it left me, like

Oliver Twist, wanting more.

Michael Billington

★★★★☆

Summerhall, Edinburgh

Until 25 August

Theatre

The Argument

Comedy

Jack Rooke:

Love Letters

T

his is only the second

play by the admired

novelist William

Boyd and it suggests

he still has much

to learn about the

robust demands of theatre. His

play is shrewdly observant and

intermittently funny but it lacks

any striking image and, at 75

minutes, seems far more suited

to an intimate space such as

Hampstead’s Downstairs theatre,

where it started, than to a main-

house stage.

Boyd’s point is that a whole set of

relationships can unravel because

of a simple argument. It all begins

with a dispute between the married

Meredith and Pip over a trashy

movie (I longed to know which one)

they have just seen. The row reveals

the gulf between museum curator

Meredith and her PR husband who,

it transpires, is having an aff air.

We then see the ripple-eff ect of

the initial argument in a series of

duologues involving Meredith and

her mum, Pip and his father-in-law

and even the respective best friends

of the warring twosome.

“I argue, therefore I am,” says

one character and Boyd shows how

any social encounter can quickly

degenerate into fractious hostility:

the best scene shows Pip’s male

buddy expressing his irritation at

the persistent rising infl exions used

by Meredith’s female chum at the

A

t one end of London’s

St Pancras train

station is a pink neon

sign by Tracey Emin

that reads: “I want

my time with you.”

Jack Rooke mentions the artwork

when he tells us about his brother’s

engagement, and its message lingers

throughout his new show. Set to

a live harp, Love Letters places

platonic love up high alongside

the romantic kind. Rooke is an

epically intimate storyteller; even

if we don’t have long, it is a pleasure

to be in his company.

Rooke is best known for Happy

Man, his documentary and play

about male depression and suicide.

When he realised he was being paid

to be sad, a friend suggested he

“make a show about cock”. Plenty of

that pops up here – and one blow job

stor y will put you off Lush for life –

but the focus is on friendship.

With dangling fairy lights and

falling roses, friendships and sibling

relationships get the romantic

treatment usually reserved for

sexual ones. Alexander Thomas

accompanies on harp, delicately

underscoring the stories with Ariana

Grande and Debussy, and raising

the occasional cynical eyebrow at

Rooke’s jokes. The music makes the

casual chat feel like a grand gesture,

though it doesn’t always feel

necessary. Rooke is so shambolically

charming, he needs no backing.

Having grown up with his

brothers making the occasional

homophobic slur, talking openly

with them about his sexuality is

fresh ground. So this is how he

frames the show, by imagining we

are his brother and we have sat down

to talk about relationships. With

his rollicking tales, Rooke kneads

the knots of gay shame, with one

particularly aff ecting hookup tale

fi lled with regret about trading

kindness for thinness in the search

for validation. He has such a warm

personality that when the show

is over, I want the conversation to

continue. Love Letters makes me

want more time with him.

Kate Wyver

Proms

BBCSSO/

Brabbins

E

dinburgh’s

Summerhall has a

rowdy late-night

festival hit with Square

Go , which imagines

a school fi ght with all

the excess of professional wrestling.

The mood is more subdued for its

breakfast show Bout, an exploration

of brotherhood through the motif of

boxing. It’s performed – literally toe-

to-toe at times – by three barefoot

siblings from Taiwan’s Chang Dance

Theatre and has the same grace

and depth as last year’s Bon 4 Bon ,

in which they similarly drew upon

their memories of childhood.

Bout opens with one of the

brothers pacing the stage alone.

Another soon follows him. A third

falls into step. When one of them

hits the fl oor, he lies motionless

while the others share a duet whose

intermittent freeze-frames are

suggestive of sports photography, all

the intent and reaction captured in

stillness. Has the prone brother been

KO -ed? Or is he merely dreaming in

the corner of a shared bedroom?

The choreography, by dancer

Chien-Hao Chang, has more

unsettling layers than Bon 4 Bon, the

mood set by David Lang’s haunting

Stick Figure for chamber ensemble.

The dancers repeatedly lean on each

other with a tangible ease, yet more

than once the show captures the

moment where play-fi ghting betrays

genuine grudges.

The brothers spiral between

stances and their handstands and

other childhood poses become

more literal boxing bouts, with

one of them taking the role of

referee: familiar to any sibling

who has ever played peacekeeper.

The trio are dressed alike in

understated suits but their age

range and the cut of their clothes

means they don’t all look exactly

like adults. A suit can just as easily

exaggerate boyishness.

Only the solo choreography lacks

punch. Perhaps these brothers need

each other’s bodies to spar with and

support? When they do, Bout fl oats

like a butterfl y and stings like a bee.

Chris Wiegand

★★★☆☆

Theatre Royal Bath

Until 24 August

★★★★☆

Assembly George Square Gardens,

Edinburgh

Until 24 August

★★★☆☆

Royal Albert Hall, London

S

ixty is no great age for a

conductor and Martyn

Brabbins celebrated his

own at the Proms doing

what he does so well:

conducting brand new

music. Not just any premiere , but a

work commissioned for the occasion

from no less than 14 composers.

Brabbins himself apparently came up

with the idea to ask for contributions

to a birthday work mirroring the

shape of Elgar ’s Enigma Variations,

giving one variation to each

composer for Pictured Within:

Birthday Variations for MCB, which

began his programme with the BBC

Scottish Symphony Orchestra.

Such collaborative ideas can fall

fl at, but this one didn’t. The theme

• restrained, even enigmatic – had
  been written anonymously and
  Brabbins had allotted the variations
  very cannily so that the sequence
  was full of contrasts. Brett Dean ,
  who is an outstanding viola player ,
  was given variation six, which
  prominently features violas in Elgar’s
  original; Judith Weir , a former oboist,
  got the 10th, Dorabella, remembering
  Elgar’s chattering woodwind in the
  equivalent number. David Sawer
  contributed a neat and characterful
  equivalent to variation two; Harrison
  Birtwistle a typically dark, growling
  interlude in the Nimrod slot; and
  Kalevi Ah o responded to the cello
  solos of variation 12 with a fi ercely
  concentrated miniature. Two
  composers known for their work
  on Elgar rounded off the sequence:
  Anthony Payne provided variation 13
  and John Pickard a fi nale, which he
  turned into a curtain raiser.
  The Elgar original ended the concert
  with a typically muscular Brabbins
  performance with the orchestra with
  which he was closely associated for
  more than a decade. Between the two
  sets of variations his current role as
  music director of ENO was in the
  spotlight. Four singers from the
  company’s Harewood Young Artists
  scheme were the soloists with the
  ENO Chorus in Vaughan Williams’s
  Serenade to Music, and the chorus
  from Brahms’s Song of Destiny too.
  Andrew Clements

Dance

Bout

Tangible ease ...

Taiwan’s Chang

brothers

Birthday boy ...

Martyn Brabbins

‘I argue therefore

I am’ ... Simon Harrison

and Alice Orr-Ewing

Rollicking tales ...

Jack Rooke

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