6 FINANCIAL TIMES Friday13 March 2020

ARTS

Engaging:

Bryan Ferry

at the Palace

Theatre,

Manchester,

earlier this

week Avalon.red—

Ludovic Hunter-Tilney

Bryan Ferry’s latest release is a live

album of a 1974 show at the Royal Albert

Hall. It captures him at the peak of his

powers, a debonair figure at the centre

of an intense burst of activity, having

released two solo covers albums and two

Roxy Music albums in just over a year.

Back then, the ink-stained hacks of

the music press bowed down before the

new king, although not without subal-

tern muttering. The suavely appointed

singer was nicknamed “Byron Ferrari”

and mocked for an LP cover showing

him wearing a white tuxedo n front of ai

blue swimming pool, like an arriviste in

a Hockney painting. “Anyway,” an una-

bashed Ferry murmured in an interview

at the time, “peacock feathers and

sequins are last year’s thing.”

Acolytes in white tuxes thronged the

Albert Hall in 1974. But in 2020, there

were none. Even Ferry had dialled down

the sartorial formality a notch. The

singer, 74, took to the stage in a suit and

impeccable leather shoes — dapper, but

not the jet-set clobber of a Byron Ferrari.

After a cheery wave, he sidled into the

first song, Roxy Music’s “The Thrill of It

All”. It was originally released the

month before the 1974 album was

recorded. “The time has come/It’s get-

ting late/It’s now or never,” Ferry sang,

accompanied by an eight-piece band

and three backing vocalists. Where once

his voice quavered and trembled with

the brassy mannerisms of an art-school

Roy Orbison, over time he has grown

hoarser and less forthright, a stylish

shadow of his former self.

“The Thrill of It All” was followed by a

cluster of other Roxy Music songs from

the same era, played smoothly rather

than with 1970s exuberance. Drummer

Luke Bullen, encased by Plexiglas, pro-

vided a sinuous but restrained back-

drop. Veteran session guitarist Chris

Spedding icked out solos like elementsp

of a collage. Jorja Chalmers on saxo-

phone and clarinet gave songs the jazzy

blare of asophisticated city at night.

A trio of covers marked a shift in

tempo. Neil Young’s “Like a Hurricane”

blew fitfully between calmer and more

Ferry having fun with his past

P O P

Bryan Ferry

Royal Albert Hall, London

aaaae

Richard Fairman

When it has its period instrument

ensemble in tow, English Touring Opera

usually goes on the road with Baroque

music. For its 40th anniversary tour this

spring, the company will indeed be tak-

ing Handel’sGiulio Cesare nd Bach’sa St

John Passion o 17 towns and citiest

around England, but it has also light-

ened the load with Mozart’s comedy

Cosìfantutte.

ETO has tailored the opera for wide

appeal, but without condescension.

This new production must be the best-

looking show the company has pro-

duced in its 40 years. It is also decently

sung and played, but too bland, mining

neither much of the humour nor the

heartbreak that enables this opera to

touch the funnybone and the heart at

the same time.

The two people most responsible for

its success do not appear on the stage.

Designer Oliver Townsend has devised a

set that seduces the senses with the

exotic allure of 1930s Alexandria, to

where ETO’s production (for reasons

never satisfactorily explained) trans-

ports the action. The translator, Jeremy

Sams, has pepped up the text wittily in

everyday English. Almost every line hits

its target; if only the performers were

more awake to its liveliness.

The director, Laura Attridge, has

delivered a gentle sitcom about nice,

buttoned-up English people visiting

Alexandria, while the smouldering

Egyptian heat and locals remain firmly

shut outside. The comedy is equally

lukewarm until the first act finale, when

Despina suddenly produces a vibrator

(a wicked updating of Mesmer’s medical

magnet) and has cast and audience

alike reduced to shuddering hilarity.

The story, though, is well told for first-

time audiences.

Whenever Jenny Stafford’s Despina is

on hand, the performance gets a lift.

Joanna Marie Skillett improved after a

shaky start to give her rendering of

Fiordiligi youthful dignity, matched by

Thomas Elwin as a strong-voiced,

sometimes stiff Ferrando. Martha Jones

and Frederick Long are a more relaxed

couple with good voices as Dorabella

and Guglielmo, while Stephan Loges,

looking like a soft-shoed, expat

Lawrence Durrell, spouts Don Alfonso’s

sexist maxims with almost no bite. The

opera has been heavily trimmed (a

shame to miss the bubbling trio that

concludes Guglielmo’s first act aria)

and conductor Holly Mathieson brings

the performance home in well under

three hours.

Tourdetailsatenglishtouringopera.org.uk

O P E R A

Così fan tutte

Hackney Empire, London

aaaee

Haunted: from

left, Emma

Naomi, Geoffrey

Streatfeild,

Lisa Dillon and

Jennifer

Saunders in

‘Blithe Spirit’.

Left, from left:

Tom Kanji,

Kayla Meikle

and Katherine

Parkinson in

‘Shoe Lady’

Nobby Clark; Manuel Harlan

succeeded in raising a spirit is unexpect-

edly touching; her hurt when she learns

that she was summoned under false pre-

tences is palpable. Her Arcati is one of

those remarkable, resilient wartime

women, who battled stoically on, sus-

tained by Ovaltine and fresh air.

Elsewhere, the cocktail of bitter and

sweet is more hit and miss. Coward

wrote the play in just a week but it still

has that sharp tension between high

comedy and darker truth that charac-

terises so much of his drama. Behind all

the effervescent flippancy lies a murky

psychological hinterland.When Mad-

ame Arcati conjures Elvira, she only

makes manifest the jealousy and guilt

that have been lurking in the room all

along, with Ruth, Charles’ second wife,

clearly sensing that she can’t replace the

beautiful, sensual Elvira (an eerily lit,

languorous Emma Naomi).

There’s a possibility, too, that the

whole scenario expresses some deep-

rooted sexual frustration within

Charles, not to mention his own anxiety

about ageing (in Geoffrey Streatfeild’s

performance, he combines superficial

charm with an ugly streak of selfish-

ness). Meanwhile Cowardtouches on

deep wounds. How many households

were haunted by loss at this time? What

would it mean to bring someone back?

There are all sorts of longing, resent-

ment and insecurity ere.h

The Old Vic’s recent revival ofPresent

Laughter aught that ambiguity andc

dark undertow so well; here the mix is

less secure. The comedy often feels too

effortful, the lines pushed for laughs, the

slapstick dialled up to the max. There

are some very droll moments: Lisa Dil-

lon, as an increasingly embittered Ruth,

brings a world of withering scorn to the

line “My husband has driven her into

Folkestone”, and Rose Wardlaw finds

endearing sincerity in the role of the

clumsy maid. But too often the charac-

ters seem to know that they are in a

Coward play and behave accordingly.

Still, Anthony Ward’s handsome living

room set becomes a character in itself,

imploding impressively as the unquiet

spirits settle in.AAAEE

I

t’s a week for unruly household fit-

tings on the London stage. There’s a

talking curtain at the Royal Court

Theatre; at the Duke of York’s,

there are bookcases that spontane-

ously hurl volumes on to the floor and

paintings that fling themselves from the

walls. All call for some natty work from

the shows’ designers and all are

symbolic, dramatically, of domestic dis-

order and emotional disarray.

At the Duke of York’s, the rebellious

residence belongs to one Charles Con-

domine, urbane novelist and central

protagonist of Noël Coward’s wartime

comedyBlithe Spirit. To flush out his

writer’s block and kick-start his new

thriller, Charles has invited local

medium Madame Arcati to hold a

seance at his home. But when she acci-

dentally flushes out his dead first

wife, Elvira, he gets far more than he

bargained for.

Jennifer Saunders’s Madame Arcati is

clearly the draw in Richard Eyre’s pro-

duction (first shown in Bath last sum-

mer) and she doesn’t disappoint. A

doughty individual in sensible shoes,

she arrives ruddy-cheeked from her

invigorating seven-mile bike ride, wolfs

down cucumber sandwiches and exudes

the sort of hearty enthusiasm well

suited to organising a local flower show.

There’s a lot of physical comedy of

the sort familiar to fans ofAbsolutely

Fabulous: she flaps around the room like

an animated tent when in a trance and

ends up with legs akimbo and volumi-

nous bloomers on show when the

excitement gets too much.

But Saunders also combines eccen-

tricity with a sense of integrity. Her

character’s childlike astonishment

when she realises she has actually

Saunders

unleashes

unruly forces

Everyday objects also conspire to

thwart Viv inShoe Lady, E.V. Crowe’s

surreal new comedy at the Royal Court.

First it’s a curtain that droops annoy-

ingly and then proceeds to talk to her.

Next it’s a shoe that somehow vanishes

during her commute to work.

When Cinderella lost a shoe, it led to

marriage with a prince. For Viv, it’s an

accident that throws her completely off-

balance. Her initial response is stoic,

keeping up a breezy smile and cheerful

demeanour as she limps into her office

and hobbles around the city. But before

long both she and her world begin to

unravel. Soon she is reporting the errant

item to a (probably mystified) police

officer; later she’s back in the police

station, but this time under caution

having shoplifted an expensive pair of

shoes when her maxed-out credit card

didn’t work.

Footwear becomes symbolic of the

fracture line between coping and not

coping, between being part of society

and outside it. Viv, a stressed working

mum, begins to slither from one group

to the other. Shoes take on social signifi-

cance. At one point Viv slips her feet

into the shoes of a house-buying couple

(she is an estate agent) — his are manly

brogues; hers are pink satin stilettos. A

homeless woman, who also has one

shoe, recognises her plight and offers

advice. Viv’s swollen, bloodied bare foot

becomes an outer manifestation of her

inner distress and her heroic attempts

to carry on regardless.

It’s an unsettling exploration of the

precariousness of middle-class life —

behind Viv’s beaming exterior lies a

mounting terror of falling through

the net. Katherine Parkinson pitches

this beautifully, her chirpiness becom-

ing increasingly brittle and delirious,

her confidentiality drawing the audi-

ence with her as she spirals into

meltdown. Vicky Featherstone’s staging

on Chloe Lamford’s set externalises

this suffocating panic: household

objects loom weirdly large; characters

in Viv’s life barely register; for much of

the time she totters along a moving

travelator with a dark pit either side

of her.

It’sa little too whimsical really

to hit home and sometimes works too

hard for oddness, but it is still a disorien-

tating, feverish piece of work. AAEEA

‘BlitheSpirit’toApril11,atgtickets.com

‘ShoeLady’toMarch

royalcourttheatre.com

THEATRE

Sarah

Hemming

forceful passages. Two acoustic guitar-

led Bob Dylan numbers — “Don’t Think

Twice, It’s All Right” and “Make You

Feel My Love” — were better, each

crooned tenderly by Ferry without a

hint of irony. Then came a barnstorming

sequence ofold favourites (“Avalon”,

“Love Is the Drug”, “Virginia Plain”).

Two songs fromLiveattheRoyalAlbert

Hall, 1974were reprised. One was a

cover of Dylan’s“A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna

Fall”, reimagined as a Roxy Music-style

stomp. When Ferry released his version

on a 1973 solo covers album, there were

grumbles that it lacked sincerity. Here,

however, it sounded warm and relaxed.

Rock’s arch-stylist, a product of the

most meticulous self-tailoring, cuts an

engaging figure these days. He is having

fun with his past.

bryanferry.com

MARCH 13 2020 Section:Features Time: 12/3/2020- 17:27 User:david.cheal Page Name:ARTS LON, Part,Page,Edition:EUR, 6, 1