The Times - UK (2022-03-18)

14 Friday March 18 2022 | the times

first night

KEN ADLARD/COURTESY OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY

W

e have all heard a lot

about Hokusai here

in Britain. But I bet

you barely know

anything about

Kawanabe Kyosai. And yet this late

19th-century artist is not only seen as

Hokusai’s closest successor, but he is

also hailed as the progenitor of the

manga comic strip.

Now comes your chance to catch up.

As the Royal Academy plays host to

the Israel Goldman collection, this is

the first opportunity in almost 30

years to experience Kyosai’s work in

the UK.

And what an experience. Kyosai, a

child prodigy who revelled in the

nickname the “demon of painting”, is

best known for his images of bizarre

impish hoards. It’s probably hardly

surprising, given that he is rumoured

to have downed at least three bottles

of saké every day before noon. The

six-panel screen that unfolds across

the width of one gallery certainly does

not seem to have been painted by

anyone sober. Domestic utensils — a

saké bowl and bottle among them —

are brought to strange, monstrous life.

Put it this way: that nursery rhyme

dish that ran away with a spoon looks

positively conventional in comparison

to this pandemonium.

But then convention was not

the metier of this snaggle-toothed

eccentric. Ignoring the strict

hierarchies of his day, he flitted

between disciplines and styles. At one

moment he’s showing his superlative

draughtsmanship, conjuring images

at an elegant pen stroke, the next

he’s running riot. You may not be

surprised to learn that even in his

native Japan he was for a long while

greatly overlooked.

Yet even as Kyosai revels in the rude

and the funny and the completely

fantastical, his references are rooted in

real-life political and cultural

happenings. Japan, during some of the

bumpiest decades in its history, is the

target of his satire.

A picture of a “fart battle”, for

instance, might sound nothing short of

absurd — not least given the

elaborately fabulous array of wind-

producing techniques that Kyosai

dreams up. But however overtly silly

or crude the caricature, he is satirising

the human drive to compete.

And what’s more, given that at least

one of his several versions of this

subject was produced at the time of a

rebellious samurai uprising,

there is also huge bravery

in risking so outspoken

a commentary.

Nothing, it would seem, is

sacred to this rebellious

artist — and certainly not

the Christian cross, as one

particularly bizarre image of

a fan-wielding Christ

suggests. Government

officials with their drooping

moustaches are turned into

catfish, raging battles are

waged between massed

ranks of frogs. Kyosai

remains irrepressible. And

perhaps it is precisely this

ebullience that makes his

pictures work for us.

You might know very little

about his country, his times

or his culture. But that

laughter that unites us across

nations and centuries still

bursts out.

From Saturday to Jun 19,

royalacademy.org.uk

L

es Arts Florissants ended their

March European tour with

this joyous and healing

London performance of

Handel’s L’Allegro, il Penseroso

ed il Moderato (the cheerful, the

thoughtful and the moderate man).

Part philosophical debate, part musical

variety show, this unclassifiable

creation of 1740 built around poems by

Milton was designed to tickle ears,

hearts and minds, and certainly did so

with William Christie’s lively singers

and instrumentalists.

None was livelier than the tenor

James Way. He put his bright mark on

every note and syllable, even when the

syllables formed phrases such as

“Stygian”, “Cerberus”, or “Jonson’s

learned sock”. The English text, mostly

high-flown, sometimes silly, didn’t sit

quite so well with the Serbian bass-

baritone Sreten Manojlovic, but his

force was undeniable. Power of a

different sort radiated from the sweet-

toned and remarkably self-assured boy

treble, Leo Jemison. Completing the

vocal quartet, the soprano Rachel

Redmond could have benefited from

extra vocal heft, although this didn’t

stop her pearly voice gracing the air

with a smile.

Given Handel’s delight in painting

pictures — of sun, moon, birds,

hunting parties, country merry-

making, court pageantry — Christie’s

instrumental forces were always busy,

from the twinkling celesta and heroic

French horn to the brisk inflections of

the strings. As for the Arts Florissants

choir, whatever mood Handel asked

for, they duly supplied with incisive

clarity and finesse. Staccato laughter

in Haste thee, nymph? No problem at

all. Solemn musings rising in fervour?

Welcome to the gripping counterpoint

of These pleasures, Melancholy, part

two’s climax.

Christie’s energy throughout was

infectious, almost enough to hide the

fact that the work occasionally

dawdles. It was impossible not to be

greatly moved by the final tightening

of focus with the undulating calm of

the last duet, As steals the morn, and

the choral epilogue gravely saluting

the quality now so unfashionable in

life: moderation.

Geoff Brown

Kyosai’s A Beauty in Front of King Enma’s Mirror and, below, his Famous from India: Elephants at Play

Catfish and fart battles

Kawanabe Kyosai, the so-called demon of painting, satirised Japan

with ebullient, cheeky energy, writes Rachel Campbell-Johnston

Kyosai: The

Israel Goldman

Collection

Royal Academy

{{{((

Les Arts Florissants

Barbican

{{{{(

visual art

classical

Pravesh Kumar’s production takes a

while to offer an answer. Yes, it does

a decent job of making lively these

amusingly deathly conversations

about marriage, work and property

prices (new neighbours Angela and

Tony paid £21,000 for their house;

should this play come with a trigger

warning for the under-60s?). And

Rebecca Brower’s set backs the action

with gorgeous wall-to-wall shelves

bearing fibre lights, art prints, plants

and lamps and the leather-bound

Shakespeare that Orlando Wells’s

determinedly dull estate agent

Laurence shows off (“You can’t

actually read it, of course”).

All this social discomfort casts a

different spell when you are in the

room with it. And the move to disaster

at the end is a gear change the show

responds to well. It certainly brings

out the best from an otherwise

tentative central performance by

Goldy Notay, left, as Beverly. Beverly

should be a force of nature but (on

final preview anyway) Notay wedges

herself into a wheedling upper register

that carries too many echoes of

Steadman, and struggles to make the

part her own as, say, Jill Halfpenny did

in the West End in 2012.

Still, Max Gell is a treat as the

taciturn Tony, nursing light ales in his

brown suit and turtleneck, while

Victoria Brazier is the ideal Angela,

boring but well meaning as she shares

the ingredients of her pilchard curry.

Tina Chiang could find more variety

in her softly smiling unease as genteel

Susan, whose 15-year-old Abigail is

throwing a wild party down the road,

but her need to be anywhere else still

transmits. The evening needs more

momentum, but by the time this

Abigail’s Party goes from purgatorial to

properly hellish it’s something for

which you’re glad you left the house.

Dominic Maxwell

To Apr 2, watfordpalacetheatre.co.uk

I

t’s one of the few plays of the past

50 years to burn its way into the

public imagination. Thanks to the

television version that appeared

months after the stage debut of

Abigail’s Party in 1977, millions of us

feel as if we have suffered through the

soirée at Beverly and Laurence’s

house that involves too

many drinks, too many

cheesy pineapple snacks,

awkward chat, awkward

dancing and a

health-scare finale.

So the question any

revival of Mike Leigh’s

queasy tragicomedy of

manners must answer

is, what can you do

that trumps what

Alison Steadman

and company did in a TV

recording that, never mind

its technical limitations,

still astounds?

Abigail’s Party

Watford Palace

{{{((

Maria Friedman and Friends

Menier, London SE1

To Apr 17, menierchocolatefactory.com

This musical theatre night is like a

raucous gathering of pals around a

dinner table

Hockney’s Eye

Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

To Aug 29, fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk

An exhibition as much about ideas as

the images that present them, this is

the first to embed Hockney’s work in

a museum collection

The Merchant of Venice

Shakespeare’s Globe, London SE1

To Apr 9, Shakespeare’s Globe

A memorably troubling and

movingly mournful production

Three to see

theatre