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St Paul’s by William Wordsworth

I have to thank Tim Miller and his podcast “Human voices wake us” for bringing this great London poem to my attention.

St Paul’s from Tate Modern

Pressed with conflicting thoughts of love and fear
I parted from thee, Friend, and took my way
Through the great City, pacing with an eye
Downcast, ear sleeping, and feet masterless
That were sufficient guide unto themselves,
And step by step went pensively. Now, mark!
Not how my trouble was entirely hushed,
(That might not be) but how, by sudden gift,
Gift of Imagination’s holy power,
My Soul in her uneasiness received
An anchor of stability. — It chanced
That while I thus was pacing, I raised up
My heavy eyes and instantly beheld,
Saw at a glance in that familiar spot
A visionary scene—a length of street
Laid open in its morning quietness,
Deep, hollow, unobstructed, vacant, smooth,
And white with winter’s purest white, as fair,
As fresh and spotless as he ever sheds
On field or mountain. Moving Form was none
Save here and there a shadowy Passenger
Slow, shadowy, silent, dusky, and beyond
And high above this winding length of street,
This moveless and unpeopled avenue,
Pure, silent, solemn, beautiful, was seen
The huge, majestic Temple of St Paul
In awful sequestration, through a veil,
Through its own sacred veil of falling snow.

St Paul’s from Millennium bridge
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Great London Songs

5 Baker Street – Gerry Rafferty

Baker Street is really a song about wishing to get out of London, but it still evokes the feel of the city in the late 1970’s. The sax break gives the intro a lonely, big city vibe and then the lyrics are a longing to escape to a nostalgic countryside that only exists in songs or people’s dreams. It was apparently written when he had already moved out of London and only visited to see lawyers, while he was negotiating his way out of Stealers Wheel contract, so you can understand why he didn’t see London is the happiest of lights. However, despite this, the final verse is positive “The sun is shining, it’s a new morning” and it sounds like he makes it out.

Released in 1978, it was a huge hit around the world. No. 1 in Australia, Canada, South Africa. No. 2 for 6 weeks in the US and No. 3 here in the UK. There have been many cover versions – in fact Undercover in arguably had a bigger hit in the UK with the song, reaching No. 2 in 1992, although to be fair it not a version that you hear often now, unlike the original.

Gerry Rafferty had hits in Stealers Wheel – “Stuck in the middle with you” is a great ’70s song. He was also in a duo with Billy Connolly called The Humblebums, very folky. The Foo Fighters used to do a cover of Baker Street at their live gigs and, of course, it is the song Lisa from The Simpsons used to learn the saxophone

It is remarkable how similar the sax solo sounds on this 1968 song by Steve Marcus, I suspect it would have ended in a courtroom had we been in these more litigious days. For all that, Half a Heart is a good song in its own right, very different in tone and I would probably never have heard it, if not for Baker Street.

All in all, a worthy addition to The London Playlist, if you have any suggestions for songs that you believe should be added please let me know in the comments.

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The Capital Ring, Section 2

Station to Station 9k

Falconwood to Grove Park is one of the shorter walks on the ring, I’m not sure how come it measured 9k on my app, when the ramblers site says they did it in 7.1k. I think they followed the direct route from the station to the footbridge whereas I followed the signposted path, which I have to admit looks a little more circuitous on the map. Start by walking in Eltham Park North, which changes to Eltham Park South once you cross the brutalist footbridge over the busy A2.

Falconwood Footbridge
Crocus in February in 2020

Next, we have a section of suburban streets. A typical London mixed income area, some posh houses and schools, with some modern new build, low rise blocks of flats, Eltham would be considered a reasonably well-off part of South London. Its big claim to fame is that it is the birthplace of Bob Hope. Conduit Meadow here. held the spring that fed the river Shuttle, although it is not visible here, and it provided the water for the nearby palace.

Conduit Head diverted the water from the spring to the palace

As the houses become older, the street names become more interesting, and we enter Tilt Yard Approach. This is a hint that we are arriving at a place of historical significance and sure enough as we go down the hill we see the walls and moat of Eltham Palace.

Eltham Palace moat
Art Deco door from inside the palace

This is a fantastic historical building. Now cared for by English Heritage, both the house and gardens are a treat to visit. It has great architectural items from two very distinct historical periods. It was the country residence of the Kings and queens of England from the 14th to 16th century and then in the early 20th Century it was bought by the Courtauld Family and is one of the beautifully preserved Art Deco buildings in the country.

Small Ornamental Garden, Eltham Palace

Past the Palace we go along King John’s walk, which is now a lane of stables and riding schools. It has a lovely juxtaposition of old and new with horses grazing before a classic London skyline. There are also some nice ornate wrought iron gates along this walkway. It also passes a large house, named Fairmont, that was once the home of the cricketer W.G. Grace.

Mottingham Farm
Donkeys in St John’s walk
Sad balloon in the Quaggy river

A brief walk College meadow, past football and cricket training pitches brings you to the nicely named, but less interesting to look at, Quaggy River. This is the end of section 2, and on to Grove Park station which brings you Back to London Bridge. Grove Park has a nice mural to Edith Nesbit, who wrote “The Railway Children”

Quaggy River
There is a Railway Children literary walk here.
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Great London Songs

As I intend this blog to be a celebration of all things London. This is the first in a series of songs that I associate with London. There are many, if you have suggestions for ones that you would like included, leave a comment and I will give them a listen and look up their links to London!

1 The Lambeth Walk – originally Lupino Lane

The Lambeth Walk is a song from the 1937 musical “Me and My Girl”, a musical about a working class London boy discovering that he is in line to inherit an earldom in Hampshire. Originally sung by Lupino Lane, a popular pre-war comedian, the song became a dance craze and was popular around the world, leading to covers by many of the big bands popular at the time, including Duke Ellington’s and Russ Mogan.

In 1940 The Ministry of Information made a short film of Nazi goose-stepping set to the tune of the Lambeth walk. This was shown in many cinemas, before the main feature, in Allied countries and was hugely popular at the time.

The stage musical was made into a film called The Lambeth Walk in 1939 and this was big hit too. The song was a genuine dance craze in Europe and America, through the Second World War. I recently found a YouTube video demonstrating how to do it. Lambeth Walk is an actual street just south of the Thames, in Lambeth near Vauxhall. It used to host a street market during the week and there used to be a pub on the corner of the street called The Lambeth Walk, but this is now closed. There are still council houses around the area and a small park called Doorstep Green, although it would be regarded as a very posh place to live now. It is where Charlie Chaplin lived as a child. Ian Dury also mentions this street in one of his songs “This is what we find”.

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Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (dir. Tomas Alfredson) 2011

TTSS

In 2008 Tomas Alfredson made “Let the right one in” an excellent vampire movie that was totally unlike any other film in that genre. Here, three years later in his first English language movie, he makes a spy thriller that is as different from a James Bond film as it is possible to be. Set in London and Budapest in 1973, it is a simple story with a very complicated plot. Basically, it has been discovered that there is a double agent in the London office of MI5 and George Smiley, nicely played by Gary Oldman, has been brought in to unearth his identity.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is set in a world where spying is anything but glamorous, dull offices full of middle aged men, who drink too much to disguise the fact that their lives consist of paperwork and petty office politics. The cast reads like a who’s who of British and Irish actors, Gary Oldman was nominated for both an Academy Award and a BAFTA for his role. Ciaran Hinds, Colin Firth, Toby Jones, Mark Strong, John Hurt, Benedict Cumberbatch and Tom Hardy all feature. Cathy Burke has a lovely cameo as Connie Sachs, a sacked secretary who misses mothering “her boys”.

The script is well written, in that the dialogue is terse and tight, this was also nominated for an Oscar. I suspect there is not enough exposition, I already knew the story and had to put some pieces together from memory, so for an audience coming to it completely fresh it might be quite difficult to follow in places. The costumes and setting direction was definitely approached as a 1970s period drama and attention to detail was maintained in the interior scenes and fashions. It was nice to see a few tantalising shots of London, I guess Hampstead’s Swimming Ponds haven’t changed much in the intervening years.

The movie won Best British Film at the BAFTAs for 2011 and was in many top 10 of the year lists. It is a very good London film and I recommend it if you like spy stories and would be interested in seeing a rendition that concentrates on the intricacies of the storylines and highlights the more prosaic work of a secret agent.

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The 10 Best Shows to book in London this December.

RSC_FEB18_BarbicanSeason_R_J_1900x584

  1. Romeo & Juliet. Royal Shakespeare Company at The Barbican. A contemporary version of the Shakespeare classic.
  2. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. The Palace Theatre. A really good story and brilliant special effects.
  3. Les Miserables. Queen’s Theatre, Shaftsbury Avenue. This predates The London Lark, but it has been running so long because it is very good!don-quixote-lt
  4. Don Quixote. The Garrick Theatre. The Christmas show for people who don’t do panto!
  5. School of Rock. Gillian Lynne Theatre, Drury Lane. Very enjoyable musical, a bit corny but great fun.
  6. Summer and Smoke. Duke of York’s Theatre, St Martin’s Lane. Worth seeing for Patsy Ferran’s performance alone. Wonderful use of music at dramatic moments.
  7. Macbeth. Royal Shakespeare Company at The Barbican. Niamh Cusack and Christopher Ecclestone are fantastic in this.
  8. Follies. The National Theatre. Won the Olivier award for best musical revival last year, returning early next year and booking now. Sondheim in his prime, beautifully done.the-play-that-goes-wrong-5249
  9. The Play that goes Wrong. The Duchess Theatre, Covent Garden. This does exactly what it says on the tin. Very, very fanny! (Ha,Ha!)
  10. Everybody’s Talking About Jamie. The Apollo, Shaftsbury Avenue. Great Songs and a lovely uplifting story.

I have restricted the list to those shows that I have seen myself. There are a number of shows that I am sure will be wonderful but that I have not yet seen. Hamilton, which is on at the Victoria Palace appears to be universally loved. I am really looking forward to seeing Company at The Geilgud Theatre. The Inheritance at The Noel Coward Theatre looks like it will be fantastic too.

This list is obviously based on personal taste too. People who love Bat Out Of Hell, seem to really adore it and return regularly, although I have to say that I found the new songs less good than the originals and the story is poor. I do have to admit, though that some of the special effects are spectacular.

A Very, Very, Very Dark Matter might appeal, if you like your theatre to be a bit more off kilter. It is brim full of weird and unusual ideas, but it is not an easy watch and the realisation is not as polished as Martin McDonagh’s usual fare. You also need to be quick, as it is due to finish in early January.

So, if you are thinking of booking theatre tickets for London anytime this month, there is a show for you somewhere in this list. Enjoy!

 

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Murder for Two, The Other Palace, London SW1

murder for two

The Studio at The Other Palace is an intimate theatre with a small stage and seating for about a hundred people. This is the perfect setting for this show, which is an affectionate homage to black and white murder mystery movies and to camp musical theatre. It is written by an American pair, Joe Kinosian and Kellen Blair, who clearly have a love for both of the genres that they are sending up.

This is a two handed play, with Ed MacArthur playing the investigating officer and Jeremy Legat playing everybody else, apart from the moment when an audience member is brought onstage to play the death throes of a poisoned murder victim. It takes a few minutes to adjust to the quick changes between all the different characters, but soon with only a single prop and a shift in demeanour, Jeremy Legat has us following his transitions through the roles at breakneck speed.

Murder for Two is a madcap musical. It has eleven songs. Usually one of the pair plays the piano while the other sings and dances but there are duets or songs with multiple parts. The songs that have the officer interviewing three members of a boys choir, and an arguing married couple are particularly inventive. The lyrics in the songs are clever. “A Friend Like You” which opens the second act is particularly good.

The familiar elements of the story arc are magnified and made into a virtue, so that we can derive pleasure from knowing what is about to happen and laugh when it does. There are very funny lines in the dialogue, but the main comedy comes from the character portrayal. The intimacy of the theatre adds to the warmth of the performances, Ed MacArthur and Jeremy Legat have charisma and there was a personal connection with the audience.

Murder For Two is pure light entertainment, every trope from film noir and musical theatre has been thrown in the mix. The only thing that could have made it camper would have been the addition of a butler in a feather boa. It is on at The Studio of The Other Palace until 18 January. It is a witty and likeable presentation, a warm hearted murder mystery musical.

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Summer and Smoke, Duke of York’s Theatre, St Martin’s Lane, London WC2

Summer and Smoke

Summer and Smoke had a successful run at the Almeida theatre earlier in the year. The reviews at the time were ecstatic but tickets were impossible to get, so it was great news to hear that it had been given a West End transfer. When it was first produced, in 1948, it was the follow up to “A Streetcar Named Desire” but it did not match that play’s success. There have been revivals in the intervening years, but the only successful one has been the off Broadway version, with Geraldine Page as Alma, that was eventually made into the film with Laurence Harvey as John. Geraldine Page received an Oscar nomination for that part.

The set is a bare brick wall with seven pianos set in a semi circle facing it. These are played at the start, finish and at dramatic moments through the play. The rest of the stage is basically empty, save a few chairs brought on and removed as they are needed. The setting is the American deep south in the early 20th Century, classic Tennessee Williams territory. The story is too, a tale of unrequited love struggling against unbridled lust, set in a small American town in the sweltering heat of summer’s sultry climate.

Director, Rebecca Frecknall, has taken the decision to make this production revolve totally around Alma Winemiller. She is almost always on stage and on the rare occasions when she is not central, we are thinking about how this will affect her state of mind. This is a bold directing decision, but perfectly vindicated by Patsy Ferran’s performance as Alma. She is phenomenal, it is a career defining role and she drags us through every high and low. One of the toughest things for an actor to do is bring the audience with them when they have a life changing epiphany which totally reverses their world view, Patsy Ferran does this remarkably well, and if she does not win awards for her acting in this play, then I cannot wait to see the performance that beats it.

The rest of the cast are excellent too and provide brilliant support. There are a couple of moments where music is used to heighten the drama. Both of these are chillingly good. Anjana Vasan has a beautiful blues voice, when she sings in the casino. The slow motion sequence during the shooting, which I think used a Portishead track, has an ethereal, poetic quality that raises the production to a more abstract, surreal vision than we are used to seeing in a Tennessee Williams play, and this worked very well.

I enjoyed this production, it was brave enough to approach Tennessee Williams in a more lyrical manner than usual, the added musical dimension, although lightly used was very effective and it will endure in the memory for the amazing performance of Patsy Ferran in the leading role.

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A Very Very Very Dark Matter, Bridge Theatre, London SE1

very-dark-matter

Once upon a there was a very talented author. His name was Martin McDonagh. Everybody loved his work and he wrote some wonderfully funny plays and some wonderfully clever scripts for films. However, Mr McDonagh had a terrible secret!

Do you remember Shakespeare’s infinite monkeys at infinite typewriters? Well, Martin had stolen the most talented of Shakespeare’s monkeys. He kept it chained to the typewriter and in reality, it was this monkey, who ghost wrote all of his stuff. It was really the most clever monkey, that had the brightest and funniest ideas, and all that Martin McDonagh had to do was to make sure that he edited them carefully.

Well, one day Mr Shakespeare realised that one of his monkeys was missing. He wasn’t sure which one, because he did have an awful lot of them, but he counted them up and, sure enough, he had infinity minus one! Impossible? Impossible but true! He could not let this happen so he determined to spend eternity looking for his monkey, and sure enough, after 300 years, he found that the missing monkey was living in the office of Martin McDonagh’s house.

Shakespeare decided that he would expose Mr McDonagh’s secret by putting a spell on him, which would impair his editing abilities. This would allow, just one time, the monkey’s writing to be issued straight to the world exactly as it was written, with no oversight at all. Shakespeare turned out to be a very clever magician, the spell worked perfectly and Hey Presto! in 2018 “A Very, Very, Very, Dark Matter” was issued upon the world!

As it happens, this show is not all bad. Granted, you will leave the theatre thinking, “What have I just witnessed?”, but the show is full to the brim with ideas. Some of these are funny and clever, some of them less so. It is a touch of genius using the voice of Tom Waits as narrator, his resonant, off beat tone suits the storyline perfectly.

Phil Daniels is wonderful as a foul mouthed Charles Dickens, but it is shocking to hear his young children using the same words, an interesting juxtaposition, I suppose.  Jim Broadbent plays Hans Christian Anderson as an amiable buffoon with deep psychological scars and sadistic overtones. This would be an impossible task for a less talented actor.

Johnetta Eula’Mae Ackles makes her debut here in a starring role as Marjory. This is the most troubling part in the play and she carries it off very well, you would never know that it is her first major role. Martin McDonagh is always able to attract the highest quality actors and the depth of talent throughout the cast is the strength of the show.

This play has so much going on that it is impossible to make sense of it all. At points, it seems like a random jumble of weird toys thrown together by a wayward child. It has  many different ideas running around, some of which will make you uncomfortable, but one thing you can say about Martin McDonagh is that he never plays it safe. This is probably not going to be the most coherent show you will see this year, but I can guarantee that you will not be bored.