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Brasserie Blanc, Trinity Square, London
The view from this member of Raymond Blanc’s brasseries is spectacular, from your table you overlook the crenellations of the Tower of London, with Tower Bridge in the background.
We ate from the Fixe Price menu and found the fare a little more average. The beetroot salad was nice and the soup good, but only lukewarm, we considered asking for it to be reheated, but in the end did not.
The mains were ok. My steak was good but small, the Beef Lyonnais were a little less tender than amazing and the cod was reportedly delicious after we had sent it back to be reheated.
The apple crumble was the highlight of the meal. the apple retained its consistency beautifully and the crumble was perfectly crisp and short. The chocolate pudding was also nice but once again had to be sent for reheating, as it was cold in the centre.
The waitress was excellent; very helpful and quite attentive, she brought us small glasses of the rose wines to try when we enquired about their flavours. The wine list looked very good, by the way, and not outrageously priced for central London.
Overall, this restaurant is decent, but go primarily for the view and you will not be disappointed.
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An American in Paris, Dominion Theatre, London, 2017
Everything about this production is spectacular.
The 1950 film, on which it is based, won 7 Academy awards. George Gershwin won one for the best score, the stage show takes this and adds some of the best of his back catalogue; “The Man I Love”, “But not for me” and “They can’t take that away from me”. They are beautifully sung by Haydn Oakley and Zoe Rainey.
Alan Jay Lerner won the Oscar for best story. This has been kept with just a little more detail added. It also won the awards for best costume and best sets. The costumes here are beautiful, postwar in style and Paris elegant. The sets are wonderfully inventive, they could be Jerry Mulligans drawings brought to life. They are outlines of the Paris skyline being sketched on blank backdrops as they are moved into place, a beautiful concordance of the 1950s and the 21st century.
Wonderful as all of the above is, the real stars of this show are the choreography and the principal dancers. Robert Fairchild and Leanne Cope are both classically trained ballet dancers, he in New York and she in London. The dance routines are dazzling. The show opens with a 7 minute number where Fairchild arrives on the scene as Jerry Mulligan, full of vitality. Cope’s part as Lise builds more slowly and she comes fully into her own in the second act.
The director and choreographer is Christopher Wheeldon. The final numbers of the show are nothing short of inspirational. “I’ll build a stairway to Paradise” is a classic 50’s, exhibitionist, camp show stopper. This is followed by the beautiful ballet inspired “An American in Paris” equally good, yet completely different.
This is a joyous reimagining of a classic Hollywood musical and, as you can probably tell, it stole my heart.
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Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, The Old Vic, London 2017
“Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead” is funny, thought provoking and enjoyable, all in a single package.
The 3 main actors are remarkably good. I was surprised at what a major part the Main Player is, and David Haig is perfect, giving the impression that he knows the meaning or the outcome, unlike anyone else, but is unconcerned about it. Joshua McGuire and Daniel Radcliffe are a wonderful double act, McGuire having a great verbal delivery and Radcliffe conveying so much with looks, gestures and shrugs. They complement each other very well here.
The play itself is also a star. It really does not feel like a revival, it does not matter at all that it is over 50 years old, it is timeless. The light touch direction was just what the piece deserves, to let the writing itself shine through.
This is a very good production of an excellent play with simple direction in a beautiful theatre. What more could anyone want?
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Cementerio de la Recoleta, Buenos Aires, Argentina
La Recoleta Cemetery is one of most amazing things to see, in one of the largest and most beautiful cities on the world. This cemetery occupies 14 acres of the most desirable real estate in a very fashionable area of downtown Buenos Aires. This cemetery is packed with streets of mausoleums honouring the great, the good and the dead of this fine city.
There are over 6000 monuments here, in the shape of chapels, pyramids, Greek temples. There are hundreds of statues, pillars, columns all commemorating in death, the achievements during the life of its inhabitants.
These shrines vary hugely in design, in shape and in beauty but the combined effect of seeing them all together is contemplative; mementos of a life now past.
Buenos Aires is a busy vibrant city and Cementerio de la Recoleta is a lovely step away from that bustle into a more introspective place, a welcome contrast and a place to gather your thoughts and fortify you, before continuing your adventures in the city.
The stained glass windows in the tombs, vaults and burial chambers are particularly striking and I loved the way it was possible to collect their reflection in the windows, looking in.
Pictures courtesy of Michael Jolly.
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Sense and Sensibility (dir. Ang Lee) 1995
Sense and Sensibility is a good film, but I believe that it is almost false advertising to call it by that name. The story is so changed from the book that, although the characters have the same names and the final result is the same, it is totally unrecognisable in places as the same story. Some quite major characters have been killed off. John Middleton is now a widower and their young child no longer in the story. Lucy Steele’s sister, who blabs the whole story if the illicit engagement, is not in the film. Hugh Grant is far too affable in character for the grumpy Edward Ferrars in the book. Alan Rickman too easily wins Marianne over after her disappointment in Willoughby. In fact, in this film, almost the least charming character is Willoughby, who in the book wins over Marianne, and her mother, by his easy false charm.
The acting is good, Hugh Grant and Alan Rickman are very good playing the romantic leads in a costume drama set in the 18th century. Emma Thompson is full of repressed emotion and Kate Winslett is fine as an impulsive teenager falling in love easily and recovering easily. Imelda Staunton and Hugh Laurie are wonderfully funny as Mr and Mrs Palmer.
There are some great moments of humour, the script has some wonderful lines. It is visually very attractive and there is much to admire in the period detail. A great deal of care and attention went into the making of this film and it shows throughout the movie.
It was nominated for seven Oscars. It won the one for best adapted screenplay. It was hugely popular and led to a revival of sales of Jane Austen’s novels and for these reasons it must be celebrated. I would probably have liked it more had I not read the novel itself so recently.
The film itself is most enjoyable but do go to see it as a Hollywood representation of upper class England in the late 1790s and not as a faithful adaptation of Sense and Sensibility, the book.
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Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Harold Pinter Theatre, 2017
Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf perfectly illustrates the difference between the questions “Was it good?” and “Did you enjoy it?”
This is a fantastic play, and a wonderful production of it. The acting was immense from all four characters. Imelda Staunton was as brilliant as you would expect, there is nobody better at making you understand the frailty of a dark, flawed individual, and she can change from a vicious harridan to a seductive, provocative vamp in the blink of an eye. Conleth Hill was a revelation, he lives that part – how he can keep up that intensity for three hours per performance is incredible.
The direction is sparse, keeping you focussed on the people and the set is simple but effective. Three hours is long for such heightened emotions but the time flew by because of the compelling nature of the character interaction. However, it is comparable to watching a car crash in slow motion because, the farther you move into the play, the stronger the realisation becomes – that there can be no happy conclusion here. The only option is to sit and watch in morbid fascination, to see just how bad the casualties will be.
So, I did not enjoy it very much, it wasn’t written for enjoyment, but this does not prevent it being one of the best plays on in London at the moment.
The audience really appreciated their effort, it is a rare thing these days to see the whole audience stand in ovation from curtain down, but they did here, and this was truly deserved.
If you get the opportunity to see this production, I recommend that you gird your loins, prepare yourself mentally, but definitely go.
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Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen, 1813
“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife” is probably the most famous opening line to a novel in the whole of the English language.
Pride and Prejudice is one of the most loved books as well, it recently came second in a BBC poll of Britain’s best loved books and first in a major Australian poll of theirs. It was the second of Jane Austen’s novels to be completed and it is even wittier than Sense and Sensibility, her first.
Jane Austen gives a great idea of what it was like to be middle class in England in the late 18th century. She manages to portray the hopes and aspirations of the time, while gently poking fun at them. She has a fantastic talent for writing characters and, even though every one of them is slightly caricatured, we care about them despite their faults. She has a wonderful art of showing how people fool themselves into believing what they wish to believe, and this has a timeless quality, just as true today as it was over 300 years ago.
First and foremost, Pride and Prejudice is a romantic novel and there are 4 wonderfully different romances going on here, from the quite inappropriate, through the mildly shocking, to the wildly romantic and we have insight, as it also a comedy of formal manners, into how polite society looks upon them all.
The language is relatively concise, less of the longwinded descriptive prose that was fashionable at the time and more of the pithy epigram. It is easy to read, the story pulls you along, each chapter leaves you wanting to know what will happen next. The ending is wonderful and I’m sure this novel is at least partly responsible for the popularity of costume drama even today.
There are many good reasons why this is still one the most popular books written in English and, if you wish to become acquainted with classic English Literature, there is no better place to start.
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This was a real dream that I had last night.
I realise this post is off topic, but last night, I had an odd dream and I feel compelled to share.Tessa Jowell’s autobiography arrived in the post. I was surprised as I had no interest in her or her policies. The book had a very nice cover; it was bright yellow with embossed gold fleur-de-lis.I opened the book and inside the dust cover was a matching dress, the pattern was a bit more garish in a dress than on a book, but nevertheless, I decided to put it on – in order to understand her mindset better. The dress was restrictive, uncomfortable and made me unhappy. However, even worse, the zip was in the middle of the back and I could not get it off. I had to ask friends to help me remove it.Kerryjane, said “it’s just like the plot of a Disney move”. I asked which one, Catty said “Beauty and the Beast, of course, that’s Emma Watson playing Tessa Jowell. Justine told me that she was writing an aria for the soundtrack and said “It has to have a heavenly choir and Dick on harmonica” Jayne said that Black Radish was supplying the globe artichokes. Kelly said that she had brought me some underwear in case I wasn’t wearing anything underneath. She said “They belong to Olly, but I’m sure he won’t mind, if you really need them – you don’t have to give them back” I assured her that I was fine, I had put the dress on over my normal clothes.Just then, Fiona arrived carrying a gigantic pair of shiny blue scissors and cut the dress off, much to the relief of everybody involved.Apologies to anyone who made it to the end, I know how dull other peoples dreams are, but just writing it down was very cathartic! -
BFI Imax, Waterloo, London.
The building itself is quite cool. Its an eight storey, circular Perspex edifice with gigantic posters trailing the latest blockbuster alternating on the outside.
The sound is excellent, both in terms of volume and quality. You may want plugs if you have sensitive ears, they definitely have it turned up to 11, but the system is up to it and the quality is good even at that level.
The screen is vast, the largest is the UK, 540square metres of it. The 3D quality is fantastic for those films made for it, in fact, some specialist films can only be seen at their best in an IMAX cinema. However for normal 3D films the quality is only a little better than your normal multiplex. Actually to be accurate it is better in the centre of the screen but can seem a little blurred at the edges. However the experience is far more immersive because of the size of the screen.
It is not cheap, our tickets were over £20 each last time we went. The seats are not comfortable enough to sit through a full movie easily. There seem to be too few toilets for the size of the venue, each time we have gone the queues have been long before and after the film.
However having said this, it is a unique experience and it is worth going at least once to see either a made for IMAX film or a big 3D blockbuster.
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20th Century Women (dir. Mike Mills) 2016
20th Century Women is an interesting dissertation on motherhood – from the point of view of a son.
It is thoughtful and thought provoking. It has three strong female characters all of them well rounded and likeable. All three of them are excellently played and I am surprised that none of them were nominated for an Academy Award. The male characters on the other hand are less fully built and a little more caricatured.
I enjoyed the direction of the movie, Mike Mills made the narrative almost unimportant compared to the development of the characters, but completed their arc by giving a short profile of each character as they were introduced and a short synopsis of their life after the movie at the conclusion. I found this satisfying.
The Soundtrack is an odd, but not unpleasant, combination of new wave, punk and easy listening. It has been nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, and, you never know, it could win. The screenplay is funny. I liked this film, it passed two hours very pleasantly. I suspect though, that in 5 years time, it’s one of those movies that I will sit on front of, on Netflix, and say “Oh yes, I’ve seen this, and I think it was good!”
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The London Lark 