Alternative Olivier Awards 2009! - a preview

I had the incomparable fortune to sit on the Olivier Awards panel in 2008, which made the whole year of theatre-going experience all the more special. Because they wouldn't take on the same people as lay panellists (which was what I was) in consecutive years, 2009 was a judging-duty-free year in the theatre. However, as I was astounded to have the total number of productions we'll have been to see by the year-end counted by my dutiful partner (sixty-one - including all plays and musicals; eighty-one if you include opera and dance), I thought that perhaps I was adequately qualified to put together an awards list after all. Alas this one will have to depend entirely on my personal taste (eclectic enough, I believe) and judgement (wise enough, I hope). Here we go:-

Best new play

When the Rain Stops Falling, Andrew Bovell
We've had a good year of Bovell plays in London: Toby Frow's new production of Speaking in Tongues shed new light on this earlier work, albeit with an uneven cast; and the European premiere of this stunning new piece, a characteristically multi-layered entangled plot spanning four generations and across two far-apart continents, was a resounding confirmation. Of how a dramatist at the height of his power can judge the narrative and psychological tensions with rare precision, distilling the word 'thriller' with a new, deeper meaning. Also, of the scale of accomplishment by Michael Attenborough in his Artistic Director role at Almeida, one of the independent powerhouses of London theatre. The ensemble cast boast no mega stars yet were uniformly outstanding. The night I was there, Keira Knightley and Rupert Friend were sitting a few rows behind us – now that we know they're both appearing in the West End, it would seem that they were wisely learning from the real pros. It was also one of the very few occasions this year that I was moved to uncontrollable sobs, at any arts event.

Honourable mention: Enron, Lucy Prebble (Royal Court Downstairs); Cock, Mike Bartlett (Royal Court Upstairs)
So much has been said about Enron, all I'd like to add is GO to see it in the West End, if you missed the Royal Court run. It will probably fit the bigger stage a bit better too. I was so pleased we booked for Cock very early on, as it became one of the highlights of the entire year, and because the bare, cock-pit set design (maximum seating: about 60) befit the text so perfectly, it'd be hard to imagine it being transferred to any West-End venue (or anywhere else, for that matter). Here's my 150-word review of it for the Olivier Award panel application:

Mike Barlett's provocatively titled, ninety-minute-long 'Cock', is a compelling piece of work. The series of tableaux portray an emotionally (and sexually – but that's the lesser concern here) confused young urbanite (John, the only named character) oscillating between his long-term male lover (M) and a loving, quietly tenacious female encounter (W), driving everyone involved – including the spectators – into sheer agony with his indecision along the way. If this equivocation sounds like the behaviour of a modern, metrosexual Hamlet, the denouement, a scene of 'the ultimate bitch fight' (as M puts it bitterly) with the threesome plus M's father around dinner table, evokes Ayckbourn at his best. Yet Bartlett shows great promise as an acute observer of contemporary conundrums of the heart, and demonstrates a distinctive style with his spit-fire dialogue in all the two-hander scenes, often delivering piercing poignancy and a great joke in one stroke. Ben Wishaw, as John, leads the superlative cast.


Best musical production
A Little Night Music, Menier Chocolate Factory
It was a shame that the subsequent WE transfer of this superbly elegant revival by Trevor Nunn wasn't much of a hit. Without a superstar billing it really struggled in competing with the likes of Jude Law in Hamlet and Helen Mirren in Phedre, both big summer audience draws. I didn't see it again (at Garrick), nor was I surprised to read about the mostly lukewarm reviews of Catherine Zeta-Jones's return to stage as Desiree in the Broadway transfer a few days ago. The original cast, on the living-room-sized MCF stage, conveyed much more emotional nuance than is usually expected from a musical, even one by Sondheim. The singing was exemplary, the simple design imbued with charm.


Best director
James MacDonald, for Judgement Day (Almeida) and Cock (Royal Court Upstairs)
We've had an exceptional year of London theatre, and yet these two stood out as the most perfect productions of the year for me. The fact that they came from the same director speaks volumes, and yet they couldn't have been more different in idiom and execution. The Horvath revival featured a hugely imaginative and effective use of the Almeida space with its design, which befits the 1930s play about moral responsibilities in its historic details, while also distilling it with a compelling, poetic modernity. Cock, on the other hand, would probably seem on paper like a real headache for many a less able director, with its writer specifying the lack of any set or props. Yet MacDonald achieves that most important task missed (or dismissed, in some cases?) by many directors – he makes us care about the characters, through their primal human behaviours and reactions. The rest is built by our imagination, easily.

Honourable mention: Rupert Goold, for Time and the Conways (Lyttleton, National) and Enron (Royal Court Downstairs)

Enron was the big theatrical event of the year in publicity terms (deservingly so, I hasten to add), but Goold's JB Priestley revival was a revelation of how powerful this 'time play'can still be. With its narrative structure, daringly ahead of its time, and the perpetually familiar setting of a dysfunctional family, the work also features themes of class, mortality, the impact of war, the power of money and the futility of kindness. Phew, quite a heavy-going recipe, you say. Yet above all, what Goold gives us is a poignantly human story, and to me the opinion-splitting multi-media choreography sequences lift the text to a powerfully charged emotional height.

Best actor
Kevin Spacey, Inherit the Wind (Old Vic)
Most pundits have hailed Mark Rylance's turn in Jez Butterworth's Jerusalem as the performance of the year. I beg to differ. Spacey's artistic direction at the Old Vic finally got onto the right track last year, and seems, for the moment, to be going from strength to strength. He's a Big Performer on stage in the same sense as Rylance – powerful deliveries of lines, big physical gestures, sweeping emotions running the whole human gamut. If some of the dramatic movements appear to manoeuvre our emotions, they're there for a reason. Spacey's compelling Darwinian lawyer edges out for me over Rylance's West-country misanthrope, perhaps because so often do powerful plays impress with cool intellectuality stirred and shaken with cynicism, that when a good old fashioned debate (courtroom scene, no less!) fills you with warmth and hopefulness for mankind, it stays in the memory just a little bit longer.

Honourable mention: Ben Whishaw, Cock (Royal Court Upstairs)
I've added it to my Santa's wish list for this year that we see more of Whishaw on London stage before his schedule becomes inevitably monopolised by Hollywood blockbusters and the occasional arthouse films (New Yorkers who're reading this: get a ticket to his turn in 'The Pride' before it sells out NOW – another new play courtesy of Royal Court, this was the winner of the 2008 Olivier Award for an Affiliate Theatre that my fellow panellists and I voted for). It's not everyday that you have a truly dashing leading man who effortlessly exudes indelible charisma as well as piercing intelligence, and when the performer in question is not yet thirty, you know there's a wonderful career ahead waiting to unfold spectacularly.

Best actress
Rachel Weisz, A Streetcar Named Desire (Donmar Warehouse)
I wrote in my pre-review of Streetcar, back in July, that Weisz was excellent in this role but was far too beautiful and youthful for what we expect Blanche Dubois to be. This was echoed by a number of broadsheet critics, and Weisz herself pointed out – rightly – that Williams's text had specified Blanche as being a woman of thirty, a full eight years short of her own actual age. This, if nothing else, is illuminating on how Western society’s perception of youth has changed in the last century. And when I look back on the leading ladies of the year, Weisz's performance still stands out for the integrity and conviction with which she inhabited this well-known character.

Honourable mention: Juliet Stevenson, Duet for One (Almeida)
A superbly understated study of the helplessness of a superb mind, gradually and irreversibly being deprived of the body attached to it. We're accustomed to having such eternally fighting characters on stage now as well as surrounding us in real life. But once in a while an exceptional thespian shows us that the familiar story can be seen through different angles, with a kind of immobile viscerality we hitherto didn't know existed, and that's the case in point here.

Best performance in a supporting role
Bertie Carvel, Rope (Almeida)
Carvel impressed me in the aforementioned Royal Court production of The Pride last year (and as leading man in the new musical 'Parade' before that!), so I'd been looking forward to his latest role, in this Hitchcock adaptation. So much so that I nearly missed his entrance, because the handsome young man I remembered was unrecognisable as the cynical war veteran, so convincingly does he embody the role completely. Now that he's proved himself to be a real chameleon, I think he could become one of the great character actors of his generation. Surely being blessed with good looks doesn't hurt.

Honourable mention: Katherine Parkinson, Cock (Royal Court Upstairs; Rebecca Hall, Winter's Tale and The Cherry Orchard (Old Vic)
Parkinson, along with Ben Whishaw, talks us through a highly charged and deeply confused sex scene (her partner here being a gay man discovering the female species for the first time, literally) with no more physical movement than slowly circling the tiny stage in centrifugal steps. And it's one of the most sensual moments I've ever experienced on any stage. Her diffident, gentle yet steely character is no less complex than others in the play, but is the one who wins our heart. She can do the understated comical too, which is a rare gift.
Hall was memorable in both plays that constituted the inaugural Bridge Project in the summer. It takes a real actress to tackle both Chekov and Shakespeare – her characters effectively divided by twenty years in age – concurrently, with aplomb. As with Wishaw, I sincerely hope her commitment to the stage shall remain for a while, and I can see her maturing into Arkadinda one day already, via Nora and many more Shakespearean heroines along the way.


Best new choreography
Russell Maliphant, AfterLight
One quarter of an evening of world premieres created to the brief 'In the Spirit of Diaghilev', Maliphant's short, mesmerising male solo is deceptively simple by description: a theme and variations of the dancer (Daniel Proietto, ethereally beautiful) spiralling in semi-light. It succeeds, in breathtaking fashion, in what the choreographer set out to do: to capture the essence of Nijinsky the dancer.

Hail, the Civilised Commute

Well I'd never envisaged these two words appearing in the same sentence - until our blisfully stress-free journey home tonight, after the two-hour-long first half of Mother Courage. (I may be a theatre fanatic but I never waver in deciding to walk out of things, which actually happens a few times a year.) Walking across Hungerford Bridge in anticipation of our usual District/Circle line - DLR journey home, shivering a bit in the newly plummeted temperature, we catch sight of a Thames Clipper drawing near Embankment Pier. I have used the service a couple of times before but always for touristy purposes - specifically, taking visiting friends on a boatride from the Savoy Pier (an easy walk from work) to Canary Wharf, followed by dinner at home. M reminds me that Oyster cards are now valid for discounted journeys on the boat. An unspoken collective decision is made in half a second, as we accelerate our steps descending the bridge. The smiling, laid-back pier staff confirm that the boat is indeed about to depart for the East, and within seconds we are seated in the warm, cavernous cabin, watching the pier recede.

There's really nothing more civilised than taking a boat trip down the Thames at ten o'clock on a winter evening. The early Christmas lights already seem a bit more plentiful on the Southbank than usual, offsetting the slightly more distant, yet no less imposing sight of the Parliament nicely. The water is calm, and the brief stops at each pier along the way - only if there's anyone alighting or waiting to board - so smooth, that the harsh chill and wind that we enountered a few minutes ago already seem like a strange urban myth. The National that we just stepped out of, Oxo Tower, Design Museum, HMS Belfast, Tower Bridge - all the familiar landmarks that we choose to sweep under the 'sights for tourists' category on overground journeys anytime of the day, now seem to disclose themselves in a tantalising new dimension. I'm sure the gently irregular, undulating rhythm in which we're travelling has something to do with it. All around us, the dozen or so fellow passengers are either solo commuters (some people caught this boat a lot earlier than we did - metaphorically of course) buried in their books or Blackberries (for you can actually do all the virtual business here if you want, unlike on the Tube), or couples exchanging muted conversations. This naturally serene, almost poetic setting discourages high volume of any sort by default.

Before we know it, the glowing Canary Wharf towers are upon us. We disembark the boat with a cheery wave to the boat staff (even the people working on the river are so much nicer than their underground colleagues), commencing the short walk home. At just over a pound more than the regular Tube journey would have cost, this was worth every penny. We resolve to ascertain the timetable of the Thame Clipper service in the post-theatre hours, and I suspect we'll soon become regulars on the boat. Post-culture journey home had never felt so perfectly civilised.

10 Unforgettable Travel Moments (so far) - Part I

As you'll see, some of these are longer journeys rather than moments per se, but let's not get too academic here with the definition. All of the experiences made the list for a variety of wildly different reasons...

#10: The Moment of Disbelief
national highway, Eastern Syria (near Iraqi border)
April 2009
We've been exploring nearly half of the country by this point, both the more touristy route between Damascus and Palmyra, and the areas beyond, which distinctly less so. We've got used to the reckless locals suddenly appearing out of nowhere in the rear mirror, in their battered vehicles, overtaking us in a flash, and disappearing in the distance in similar Formula-One fashion. The Roman blood apparently still runs deep in many Syrian veins, a whole Millenium later, when it comes to driving. However, this relatively wound-less Kia (most new-ish cars gracing the roads in this country are Korean makers, including our rental car) has just done something very odd indeed: having overtaken us with no hesitation at all and already in a lead of about 500 meters, it suddenly slows down in the neighbouring lane - or something that's supposed to be such - as if waiting for us to reciprocate the triumphant gesture. We keep to our speed and catch up with it in a few seconds, and realise that we've become the object of this bizarre scrutiny-in-motion: the three local youths in the Kia have evidently never before seen two Asian tourists venturing into this part of the country in their own vehicle, and want to make sure that we're not some weird mirage that they dreamed up at high speed. Once they've ascertained that we really resemble normal human beings, albeit scoring even higher on the scale of recklessness perhaps, they step down on the gas once again and disappear into the horizon. You'll never believe how fast a ten-year-old Kia can possibly go until you've taken a trip along the Eupherates.

#9: The Moment of Natural Power
Prof Leider's house, near Miami, Florida
January 2006
Prof Leider was one of my PhD colleagues at Princeton, and the last time we saw each other was in early 2002. We're therefore doubly thrilled to be invited to this roast-pig party on New Year's Day at his new family abode, just under an hour's drive from Miami. The neighbourhood is your typical suburban Florida (or so as I perceive it): sprawling one-storey family homes, thus hurricane-proof, each with surrounding lawns and/or woodlands roughly the size of two or three postcodes in London. As we pull up the Leiders' driveway, the first sight that greets us is, um, a free-standing, seemingly fully-functioning, fully-loaded Pepsi machine. Our dear friend comes out the front door. 'Welcome you guys, so great to see you!' 'Yes wonderful to see you too but, listen, what on earth is this doing in your front lawn?!?!'
He grins and recounts the story for the five hundredth time. They had the annual hurricane season a couple of months ago, which in this part of the world is taken for granted as just a slightly more inconvenient part of your life. One of the more severe ones lasted about two days this time, and after it ended the Man of the House pulled up all the customary window boards and went out to inspect the damages. The first thing he sees, lying right outside their doorstep, is the Pepsi machine. He puts it up against the wall, finds a power socket and plug it in - for this is what you do when you see a Pepsi machine, right? - and lo and behold, the whole thing pops back into life instantly, complete with backlights. They now have a fully-loaded, fully-functioning Pepsi machine to entertain the two little children with. Of course, being the conscentious and intelligent people they are, they manage to track down the provenance of the machine, which in fact belonged to a school two towns away, pre-hurricane. Professor rings the school up informing them of this latest chapter in the adventure of the machine, but it would seem to be the final chapter, as the cheerful lady at the other end of the line asks him to keep it, for their brand-new replacement has already arrived courtesy of the super-efficient hurricant insurance company. This is the brief but bizzare tale of how two visitors from London end up spending part of their New Year's Day celebration inserting pairs of quarter coins into the Pepsi machine proudly guarding Prof Leider's front door, and receiving the can in the slot below with a loud Thud!, in amazement.

#8: The Moment of Pain
Midnight in Business Hotel Room, Stockholm
October 2006
I'm in my favourite city for a three-day business trip to attend multiple concerts featuring music by one of our most important composers as well as numerous meetings, and have happily settled down at the central hotel that I'm already familiar with from previous stays. Three in the morning, I suddenly wake up with the semi-conscious awareness that something is wrong. It takes another two seconds to realise that what's wrong is that I'm in excruciating pain, and yet another two and a half to locate the precise source of this pain - in my lower gums, where I had a filling done two years previously by a young dentist who I thought looked a bit haphazard at the time, and whom I now just want to strangle with what little strength there is left in me. The rest of the night is sheer agony - it doens't just hurt when you try to chew something on that side, but all the time, when you talk, when you think, when you try to think, every waking and sleeping minute. I stick to the original meeting schedule for the next two days while managing the minimum intake of food and drink that keeps me alive. I go to the dentist's (not the same one!) the moment I get back to London and a root canal is scheduled for the next day. Two lessons learned:
- Don't ever take anything for granted when it comes to the dental department. Nothing's ever wrong until something goes horribly wrong.
- The threshold of physical pain endurance is as high or as low as you can let it be.

Old friend, New friend, Non-friend

I can't help thinking how Sex-and-The-City-like this blog title is, which would be appropriate, as I made a mental note to write about it after being greeted - for about the two hundredth time - shrilly, earnestly, a little too worryingly fervently -

'How're ya doing' today???!!!!'

Yes, I was in New York City a few weeks ago. And no, I had no personal or professional connection with the person who'd just flashed an ear-to-ear smile at me with the question, in fact I didn't know him/her whatsoever. I had, as you've probably guessed, just walked into a shop for a spot of aimless window-shopping, but my new-found oldest friend was determined not to let even the slightest impression of neglect take hold.

Many frequent travellers, myself included, would acknowledge the commendable enthusiasm of the service-industry employees in the US on the whole , compared with their European counterparts. They like to make you feel they really care, their actual knowledge or competence being an entirely different matter. The big smiles and fully-loaded attentiveness are supposed to be the norm. And even an awful cynic like me can be left impressed often. But after all these years - including two living in the US - the intimacy of the Big Greeting by a total stranger can still make me jump sometimes. Or just simply wonder: do they actually ever expect a truthful reply to the question (for that's what it is, however rhetotic)? What would happen if anyone actually looked into their eyes and replied with equal fervour: 'Well, I'm feeling really crappy. I had a horrible day at work and things aren't going so well at home either. And now a total stranger has just pretended that they genuinely care about how I feel. I mean, I've given you the honest answer and now what can you do for me?!'

Globalisation and technology have, hand in hand, changed our perspectives on relationship and intimacy in so many ways. But really there's no point in deluding ourselves. In the world of Facebook, you become 'friends' with people who you've met once or twice. Didn't it use to take a little more effort, serendipity, common interest - and, simply, time - for true friendship to take hold? Whatever happened to the category of 'acquaintances'? What's wrong with just being acquainted with someone? Well nothing, except that if A is an Acquaintance to B as opposed to a Friend like C is, there's something horrifyingly wrong with A, especially if all this Profile is viewed by three hundred other people on a daly basis.

I am indeed aware that the meaningless enquiry of our state of wellbeing is not specifically confined to the American retail sector. Doctors, helpline workers, telemarketers, total strangers in any other number of guises, all want to know just how you're feeling right this moment. And of course no answer other than the positive affirmative can possibly be comtemplated. This is the basic rule of manners of our social existence. But because we already live in a world of excessive spam - materialistic, virtual, emotional - it's quite refreshing, once in a while, to be greeted by something that's merely functional but really a lot more useful than an empty smile. The shop assistants also automatically pump out their chorus of a one-liner in Japan and China, and they tend to be:

'Please feel free to look around!'

A Superb Korean Trio

By design rather than coincidence, we've had a bit of a Blitz of Korean cinematic outings in the capital lately. First there were the strong selections at London Film Festival, then the Bong Joon Ho retrospective (at NFT) and the annual Korean Film Festival at Barbican ran almost concurrently. We managed to catch quite a few recent releases amidst it all, and these three really stood out.

Mother - Bong Joon Ho's latest, it's the best of both worlds of his two previous films: the who-dun-it Memories of Murder with a skilfully woven plot that would satisfy the most hard-core detective story nerds; and The Host, with the disguise of a monster disaster movie but really is about the complexity and frailty of human relations, especially those between family members. At the opening of the film, we see the mother of the title chopping up dry herbs on a machinery terrifying in its simplicity. We can already foresee the consequence of her action because she is wholly distracted by the movements of her son, cursed with mental disability (the source of which is itself revealed in a particularly chilling moment later in the film), across the street. Yet she's oblivious of it, because what happens and what will happen to the boy is all that matters to her. This single-minded determination accompanies her on her dark journey throughout the film to discover the truth behind the terrible murder that her son has been implicated in. Yet the revelation of every piece of new information, the peeling away of every layer of the onion skin, involves the inevitable, and sometimes fatal, baring of the soul. By the end we're just as much in need of an artifical injetion as the mother herself, to ease us from the pain brought on by the acceptance of our innate, helpless callousness. I can imagine scores of Hollywood directors looking at the script over and over again before giving up on a potential adaptation, because there's no way of making a new version of this one without preserving the poignant ending. The mother has already shown us how her own, and the son's, destinies are sealed with those semi-automatic fallings of the dry-herb gullotin. There can be no nother way.

Scandal Makers - written by the debut director Kang Hyeon-Cheol himself, this is a superb comedy that achieves the almost impossible - making a roomful of Western and Asian audiences roar with laughter for the same reasons. The protagonist of the film is the host of a hugely popular phone-in radio show, a sleek confirmed bachelor in his mid-thirties. The opening sequence is almost a parodied version of the famous 'daily morning ritual' scene from American Psycho, with the eligible single male in his designer bachelor's pad, going through the motions of muscle-building exercise, skincare journey in the power shower, outfit deliberation in the walk-in wardrobe, and nutrition-specific breakfast. His show has been doing particularly well of late, with millions tuning in to follow the gripping story, serialised by emails, of a young single mum in the quest of her own father, who lost his virginity at the age of fifteen to an older woman, and is not aware of the existenc of his offsprings at all. The host charmingly urges her to seek out her destiny, except little does he know this will lead to a knock on his own door at a most inopportune moment... The basics of the story may be far-fetched but are never contrived, and the human reactions by each characters, to the unlikely situations they find themselves in, are hilarious yet touching. Stereotypes and cliches pop up from time to time, but all in good will, and you never feel for a moment that the writer/director is deploying a gag just to create gratuitous laughter. The totally dedicated cast rise up to the challenge, and I defy even the most unflappable cinemagoer not to swoon each time the five-year-old Wang Seok-Hyun (playing the grandson) appears on screen. Highly recommended. Catch it before the inevitable Hollywod remake hits the screen (reportedly already in the works).

A Frozen Flower - you would be forgiven for thinking that it's nigh-on impossible for any other film-maker to try treading the water again with a tangled story of homosexual love involving royalties in the court of ancient Korea, after the sumptuous The King and The Clown from 2005. Well, the director Yu Ha pulls it off with admirable panache, complete with - gulp - even more stunning lead actors. One of the key differences in the plot device from the earlier film is in the female character. The Queen here, instead of being just a jealous, passive aggressor, is one third of the male-female love triangle. The King is also not a tempestuous, ignorant tyranny, but someone who's intelligent and righteous, whose priority in a life-threatening moment is to ensure the safety of his queen, even though he has not spared a sparkle of love for her, either emotionally or physically. Such graciousness is only maintained, alas, until the moment he realises that the Queen has supplanted him in the heart of his true love, the dashing Captain of the Royal Guards who has been groomed by the King since childhood. And who sowed the seeds of the discovery of heterosexual carnal thrill but the King himself, in a desperate attempt to produce a royal heir under the covers ('You're the only one I can trust', he says to the Captain, an ominous key of a sentence, to the Pandora's box for all concerned). All three lead actors imbue their characters with both striking nobility and touching vulnerability even in the most delicate situations, of which there are numerous, running the whole emotional gamut from the farcical to the heartrending. Against the epic backdrop of sovereign battles, royal assassinations and other age-old political games, the director presents us with the simple question of Where the Heart Lies. And even after all the blood is shed, the hearts broken, the skulls brandished (literally), the answer is still appropriately ambiguous. The court scenes at banquets, army inspections and assassinations serve up a visual feast while never losing the meticulous emotional details, which is something that films such as Zhang Yimou's Curse of the Yellow Flowers utterly failed to achieve in contrast.

Michael Haneke, The White Ribbon

The ancient Chinese adage goes: 'The beginnings of all human beings consist of nothing but kindness.' Well do they really? Haneke's latest masterpiece confronts us, head on, with both sides of the argument. All the adults in the film, including the narrator, the school teacher (an atypically uncomplicated Haneke character), merely provide background layers - albeit crucial ones - to the story. Whereas the group of children, aged four to fourteen, are the focal points of the stark blank-and-white (literally) canvas.

Haneke is well known for pushing his actors beyond the usual limits of performative capacies, yet what superman techniques he deployed here to extract such chillingly heartfelt (for one's heart is over-chilled throughout most of the scenes) performances from these little ones, only the devil knows. For the devil hides himself in every unseen corner, and eventually manages to creep into some of the veins of the underaged beings. Or was he there all along? Every adult playing a noble (in social terms at least) role in life has an appallingly dark side here, and the way they attempt to preserve the 'purity' of their offsprings is via emotional humiliation, physical abuse, religious shock tactics, or all of the above. The oppressed include not just these children, but when their adult company make an attempt at retaliation, the outcome is clumsy and futile, only to bring more severe punishment onto themselves. The children, in contrast, are much more instinctive and ruthless with their acts of evil, and what initial fear there might be it quickly subsides - once the fascination with death is brushed aside, there is nothing left to fear. Respectable adults busy themselves with adultery, incest, religious hypocrisy, deceipt, class resentment, familial despotism (a rather short list for a Haneke film, really). How pathetically banal. The invisible ones - for they are purposefully overlooked, until our ardent school teacher decides to really look around - carry out the horrific acts as if saying, Look what you can really do if you go straight to the core. And we're all alike. We were all born like this, not consisting of an ounce of kindness. The so-called child-like innocence was always a facade after all. We're just waiting to become adults so that we will have proper excuses to web schemes and layers for our brutalities, and then we can instill all that into our own children too, all in good time.

The fact that these children would grow up to be the Nazi generation has been pointed out by every film critic worthy of his job, but to me it's almost an afterthought. The abrupt ending to the village horrors, as everyone, adult and child alike, is distracted by the onset of WWI, could almost be replaced by the onslaught of any arbitrary war, without the specific historic reference. The really vital context of the story is not that particular annus horibilis of human history, but the human nature itself. For our children's innocence had been tainted not just by these parents, but by generations of forbears already. When did it all start, and where will it end? In an even more atypical Hakane scene, l'auteur depicts an almost completely care-free, happy moment between prim, shy, ingenuous young lovers. Not a message of hope amidst despair exactly, but a provocatively tender masterstroke nevertheless.

What I Believe In

Because we're destined to be ordinary people
We owe it to ourselves
to live extra-ordinary lives

Ten Days in October

[optional subtitle: 'Finally we've realised why we never manage to do all the laundry...']


1 October, Thursday.

Philharmonia Orchestra concert, Royal Festival Hall
It's always a treat to hear Janacek's mindblowing Sinfonietta, and the RFH is probably the only London venue fit for the piece. I shouldn't be lavishing Magnus Lindberg's chorus-and-orchestra piece Graffiti with praise due to conflict of interest, but for me, it really revealed itself as a substantial addition to the repertoire, especially with the splendid choir (Philharmonia Voices) in this performance. I had heard the piece at its world premiere back in May, in Helsinki, and this second hearing eally helped to confirm my faith in it. If only more contemporary orchestral works could be blessed with repeat performances similarly in quick succession, by different but equally devoted interpreters - can't wait to hear the third commissioner (Oslo Philharmonic) tackle the piece, alas it's going to be 18 months away.


2 October, Friday

Judgement Day, Almeida Theatre
A five-star production in all aspects for me. Christopher Hampton's beautifful translation of the Horvath play keeps that most crucial element - the ambivalence of morality - exquisitely poignant throughout. The ensemble cast is uniformally powerful yet subtle, with Joseph Millson the devastatingly effective leading man. Why isn't this guy more famous? I sure hope every casting director who knows their business came to see this and that he lands a big starry role on stage somewhere soon, before we lose him to the screen. Special praise also goes to the set and lighting designers - this was probably the most daring transformation to the Almeida set-up I had seen for as long as I can remember, and it packs a punch.


3 October, Saturday

Le Grand Macabre, English National Opera
I knew from the curtain rise that I was going to like this production immensely. ENO's director-led programming strategy has has its hits and misfires, but this one firmly belongs to the first category. Everthing that happens to the naked giantess that dominates the stage, literally, dramaturgically, musically, anatomically - made me shudder. Ligeti's score, as a whole, actually convinced me less than I'd expected, despite the wonderful playing from the pit. But all in all this was an outstanding achievement by everyone involved. A lot of the straight-faced operagoers manifestly hated it, some politely baffled by it, but sure enough no one was going to forget it in a hurry.


4 October, Sunday

District 9
So this is what a mock-documentary, quasi-arthouse, humanitarian/existential/Sci-Fi/racial morality tale in the shape of a sleeper hit looks like. The only thing that displeased me about it was the rendition of the ending, which was an undisguised act of paving the way for sequel(s) to come.Those Big Blockbusters offering simpler versions of the plot usually try their mightiest to restore your faith in humankind, this one shatters it ruthlessly - or does it? See it and decide for yourself.


Another, more notable event of the day: our first-ever attempt at making seafood risotto, a joint operation, ended up a resounding success. The whole thing was gone in a matter of minutes.

5 October, Monday

Enron, Royal Court
Everything those five-star reviews say about this is true. No wonder there was already a queue of about 20 people waiting for returns when I collected my tickets 2 hours before the show started (such irrational tenacity never fail to amaze me - why would you join a returns queue at a sold-out show if there're already more than 15 people in front of you?!). Rupert Goold and his team clearly knew from the beginning that their show was destined for West End and Broadway, for this was conceived as a blockbuster show of the smartest kind, multi-media theatre par excellence. The changes he made to the script (which is still in pre-rehearsal form in the published version) all make perfect sense, tightening up the dramaturgy considerably. Sam West's central performance as Jeff Skilling deserves at least a nominatin for every acting award going this year, and the young, energetic ensemble tackle their many fantastically choreographed scenes (never will you think of the trading floor in the same way again) with total panache.

6 October, Tuesday

Cloudgate Dance Company, Barbican Theatre
If you turned up expecting dazzling contemporary dance, you'd leave disappointed. If you changed your mindset and decided to take it all in as an 80-minute piece of performance art as devised by one of China's most interesting visual artists working today (Cai 'Olympics Firework Architect' Guoqiang), you could end up reasonably gratified. I say 'reasonably' because with this length the poetry is diffused (as is our attention), and although there were undeniably breathtaking moments, in the end the piece as a whole seriously lacked coherence. Still, the final moment, which really delivers the impossible and sucks you in relentlessly (yes, I mean it), was worth spending the evening with this troupe.



7 October, Wednesday

Alas, a night in (early train tomorrow morning to Brussels)! Repeated the same risotto recipe with the same satifying result. Now firmly a new addition to the repertoire.



8 October, Thursday

Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra concert, Palais de Beaux-arts, Brussels
This was the opening concert of the Europalia-China festival hosted by the capital of the EU. If you happen to be in town, or have the chance to go, anytime in the next two months, it's well worth checking out the festival programme, which features an impressive line-up of artists for what is essentially a government-led diplomatic event. I was also pleasantly surprised to discover that the Margrittte Museum next to the Palais had just opened its shining doors, after being shrouded in a giant Margritte-esque building facade for the last couple of years. Even though I didn't get a chance to go in on this trip, it's certainly been added to my long list of reasons for returning to this (still highly underrated) city for a personal visit as soon as possible.



9 October, Friday

Life is a Dream, Donmar Warehouse
How rare it is these days to see a major institution (for that is what the Donmar is, for me) taking the Spanish Golden Age really seriously, and it probably would have faulted in a production any less dazzling than this one (literally - the bare back wall of the stage is gilded with golden splashes which later metaphorphoses into a vertical pool of blood). Legions of The Wire fans can drool about Dominic West for all they like, for me this performance - utterly frightening with uncontrolable rage one minute, vulnerable with nuanced confusion the next - showcases a very fine stage talent indeed. For once, the big TV-name casting for the sake of box office allure is justified. Some would say the material is merely second-rate Shakespeare from a lower latitude, and in places the long monologues do drag a bit, but the fine actors here (Kate Fleetwood, aka Mrs Rupert Goold, is the worthy equal of West with her dramatic arias as well as her depth and gravitas) give us a consistently gripping evening, and even the ludicrous all's-well-that-ends-well finale can be forgvien with a smile. Additional marks to the haunting music provided by Dominic Haslam (complete with muscles, in the 'cage').


10 October, Saturday

Inherit the Wind, The Old Vic
There are two things you need to know about this: one, when someone like Trevor Nunn who applies the broad-stroke brilliance he's known for (this is the man who brought Les Mis to life, after all - he really hasn't needed any work for the last 30 years on account of this royalty bill alone) to something that might otherwise looks a bit on the dull side on paper, it works. And two, Kevin Spacey gives his most memorable Old Vic outing yet (I don't want to think of this as 'the culmination' - more to come, please!), and his is a tornado of a performance, eclipsing a remarkable David Troughton and various supporting acts. We've all seen the American courtroom face-off scene in films that we can all rattle off for a good few minutes, but this is infinitey more gripping, intelligent, funny, complex and humane - all these things in turn.



"And on the morning of the eleventh day, we decided -"

- that we really needed a nice, big dose of visual arts. Turning up at Tate Britain 20 minutes after opening time on a Sunday morning to find the Turner and the Masters exhibition already crowded was uplifting (we aren't the only freaks!) and dispiriting (I'd hoped to see this in a much emptier setting!) in almost equal measure. Some of the aesthetic parallels theorised, between Turner and the sources of his inspirations seemed a little too academic/arbitrary, whereas the comparisons of his later works with his contemporaries were more fascinating to this viewer. While we usually conjure up those mesmerising seascapes as the main association with Turner's name ('Atmosphere is my style', apparently the man declared), it was particularly interesting to discover his forays into portraiture, and to conclude that some of those attempts were a bit clumsy. Later, in the courtyard of the Royal Academy, we couldn't help wearing the smug smile of the RA member while walking past the substantial queue (limited timed entries, no doubt) for the Anish Kapoor show. The word 'retrospective' is utterly inappropriate and irrelevant here, for the centrepieces are tailor-made for the space, and even pieces that weren't, such as Yellow, looks like it was always destined to be on that side of the wall. Breathtaking, thought-provoking, dizzying (literally, in one of the rooms).

Thoughts on Flights II - What is Haute Cuisine?

23 May 2009. VS 238. LHR-HKG

I've just started my first in-flight meal on this thirteen-hour flight. If only plane food actually is presented as it sounds – alas, not in the twenty-first century. The 'menus' could look and sound terribly fancy, and yet each and every item on the tray just manages to contain that bit of awkwardness that you do wish they'd given you something quite plain but more pleasing than, say, yellow-brown green beans boiled two days ago and now 'dressed up'. As if the prospect of being bound to the half-foot space for the next half-day isn't depressing enough already, I suddenly realise that I've made one of the worst mistakes you can make when having an economy-class in-flight meal - I've chosen a programme called 'Yi-Pin Ryoyi' on the V! Japan channel on the entertainment system (sure, the food sucks but I still stick to Mr Branson's airline where I can, mostly for their entertainment programmes).

Yi-pin ryoyi means, literally, 'first-class cooking'. Any producer of the equivalent of such programme in the English-speaking world would have named it 'Haute Cuisine' (with just enough English accent in the pronunciation to ensure the snootiness of it). And what would this be in the heart of Tokyo, which is consistently featured in the global chart of cities with the highest living costs? Since Japanese food (I mean the real deal – perish any thoughts of Wagamama!) worldwide is already synonymous with freshness, exquisiteness, tastiness as well as nutritional values, you'd be excused for thinking, as I did, that it would be the Tokyo version of Gordon Ramsay/The Ivy/Nobu. But that couldn't be further from what's presented next.

Yu Café, located in the beautiful, historic neighbourhood of Ueno, is famed for its 'bi-hu shituro'. That's beef stew to you and me. And actually, that's the only dish they offer, day after day after day, all year long, . 'They' consist of a total staff number of two, a mother-and-son team. The mother, who must be in her fifties but has such impeccably beautiful skin common among Japanese women, looks like she could be in her late thirties. She brought up the son (now in his late twenties/early thirties?) all by herself, remarkably while remaining a career woman, working in publishing. A few years ago they opened up the café together in the front room of their own 75-year-old house, and since then it's become, if the crowd of lunchtime customers captured on screen is anything to go by, a real hit. They take us through their daily routine – the son takes their two dogs walking, picking up all the cooking ingredients (fresh beef, miscellaneous vegetables) he needs en route from local shops. Meanwhile mum cleans up the space and gets ready for cooking. The secret of the beef stew is in the stock apparently, and even though I didn't understand a thing being said, they clearly didn't give out the secret here. Each order of the stew is beautifully presented in a little stone pot, topped with freshly steamed vegetables, and served with bread and salad. It may sound utterly un-Japanese, yet the visual aspect of it – how you can tell the beef would be tender and juicy and delicious just by looking at it – already beats a lot of dishes that sound much more pretentious and are much less tempting. The customers, who include local businessmen as well as tourists, can't get enough of it. One of them is a heavily-accented, middle-aged man-in-suit from Osaka, who could have come all the way on the bullet train for a bowl of the stew for all I know. And there's just something intrinsically satisfying about the fact that everyone's eating exactly the same thing and in agreement with each other on their high opinion of the food. If only real socialism could be achieved thus! Oh, and the cost of the set? A total of 1000 yen (approximately US$10). No wonder the cute female presenter keeps widening her big eyes, with non-stop exclamations of 'Soo nan desu-ka!' (Is that so!)

Next up is a Ten-don place, in the heart of Ginza, where real estate prices rank among the highest in the world. Ten-don is short for 'tempura-don', don being the generic dish of bowl-of-rice with topping, which is just tempura in this establishment. And yes, you've guessed it – they serve nothing else but this signature dish, and if your tempura encounters so far have mainly/only involved greasy batters with a barely recognisable soggy centre, just watching this would make you a complete tempura convert (well, as well as making you feel so awful, about not being able to actually have it right here and now, that it hurts – trust me). Again – one can only accept that the Japanese haute cuisine is routinely borne out of such circumstances – it's a family business through-and-through, in this case a husband-and-wife team in their fifties. The words 'forty-one years' appears in the subtitle when he describes the history of the restaurant, and I guess it's been a family business for at least a couple of generations. The whole process of tempura being created here is captivating to watch from start to finish. First he selects three huge, plump shrimps whose freshness manifests itself abundantly. They're dipped in a special batter before being fried in sesame oil at 180C – the chef here does a hand gesture to stress the importance of the precision of this temperature. There's some magic working here, for when they're lifted from the fryer a couple of minutes later there's no residue oil dripping at all, almost a physical impossibility. Next up is assorted vegetables – again, unlike the bog-standard line-up of carrots and sweet potatoes we tend to get, they use carefully selected asparagus, aubergine and other indigenous Japanese varieties. In the meantime, the other half of the don – the rice base – is being made by the Madame of the house. Whereas usually this would be just plain steamed rice, not so at an Yipin-ryori restaurant! She lightly fries sliced onion with beaten eggs, using a minimal dollop of oil, which acts as a sub-topping, the scrumptious, soft layer between rice and the crown jewels of tempura. The whole appetising bowl is then served with miso soup and pickles. At this point the lovely presenter reveals yet another house secret – the chef conjures up a whole line of miso pastes from under the counter, each originating from a Japanese prefecture, from which he chooses and serves each customer depending on their accent – 'so that they can have a taste of home' (or at least that's what I think he said). And the pretty lady – if she weren't obviously so nice I'd have really, really hated her by now for the privilege of devouring all this – now lightly sprinkles green tea salt – I couldn't have made this up if I tried – all over the tempura, then everything is devoured, in a matter of seconds, with a lot of 'umms' and 'ahhhs' (well, their Japanese equivalent). Again, local workers and visitors alike don't seem able to get enough of this place, and the sight of impeccably-besuited bankers patiently waiting in line in this little side alleyway amidst all the surrounding Ginza grandeur is something to behold. Yet the most memorable frame is the humble smile of the proprietor/chef and his simple motto: 'Beautiful food makes you want to smile, I guess that's why I've enjoyed doing this for so long.' Oh, and the most important piece of information – the heft costly of all this 'ji-pin' (the ultimate food) as pronounced by our presenter? 1200 yen for the set, that's US$12. Those shrewd bankers sure know how to get the best value out of their hard-earned money.

If you think my enthusiasm about all this is completely disproportionate, and probably due to exceptionally bad accompanying meal thanks to Virgin Atlantic, think again. I didn't even understand what was being said on the programme 98% of the time, and just about managed to piece together all the practical information with the aid of the Japanese subtitles, some of which were in Chinese characters (as with all written Japanese). I'm simply struck – as I have in the past, time and again – by how differently the Japanese define 'high quality' as Westerners mostly do nowadays. Even in Tokyo, the most expensive city in the world, haute cuisine needn't cost the earth, quite the opposite in fact. The things they believe in, and celebrate as a people, are what make their food so unique. Sure, there are places all over the country where you can find thousand-pound-bottles of champagne, Phillip Starck interiors, set menus that can take a lengthy ritual to finish and cost a small mortgage to consume, and establishments where 'tipping' (although in the discreet Japanese manner) is a euphemism for 'be prepared to leave half of your savings account here'. But they choose not to show any of those exclusive and elusive options as their places of joy and pride, instead giving us a perfect and illuminating lesson of what haute cuisine means to them with these two little gems of examples. And for me, there is an upside to having this on the in-flight system after all: by the time I've watched this for the fourth time, Hong Kong is not that far away.

A Streetcar Named Desire - a (p)review

Walking into the intimate space that is the auditorium of Donmar Warehouse, you're immediately struck by the sense that something quite familiar has been subtly changed. Upon closer inspection, all three sides of the balcony seating area have been transformed into decorative balustrades that echo the spiral staircase in one corner on stage, and the railings that seem to constitute 'floating ceilings' high up in the air. Welcome to Tennese Williams's New Orleans. Even before the play starts, you're captivated by this elegantly constructed world (designed by the Donmar veteran, Chris Oram, in his signature grey hues) where there's a sense of mad decay lurking just underneath the plain surface, in every corner, of the Kowalski household. It captures the stage direction by Williams perfectly, juxtaposing the exterior and the interior in one setting.

Any production of Streetcar, though, ultimately depends upon the central quartet of the cast, and in particular to whoever portrays Blanche Dubois, the faded Southern beauty whose own decay in this household forms the emotional core of the play. Vivienne Leigh's Oscar-winning performance on silver screen was such a definitive interpretation, made all the more poignant by her real-life descent into madness, it's almost the inevitable yardstick to which every actress taking up the role would be compared. I suspect Rob Ashford (who choreographed Donmar's celebrated 'Guys and Dolls', and also directed the excellent yet underrated 'Parade' here) thought long and hard about choosing Rachel Weisz as his Blanche. Despite a slightly faulty start, she quickly takes total command of the role, showing us Blanche's deceptive dreaminess, innate passion and vulnerability, jealousy (fundamentally, of everyone else whose life seems simple and straightforward compared with her own) and eventual derangement, layer by layer, an onion of a human tragedy, to devastating effect. Her long, breathless monologue to Mitch, the eager and clumsy suitor, revealing her unfortunate past (or at least part of it) at the end of Scene Six, was the highlight of the whole evening, an acting tour-de-force, and the perfect spot for an interval filled with a much-needed stiff drink (for the audience, not her).

Yet there's one fatal problem to this otherwise commendable casting choice: Weisz is decidedly not a faded beauty, but a beauty in full bloom. When Blanche, pondering the possibility of bagging Mitch (an Barnaby Kay, also impressive) as her last chance at settling down with someone, nervously suggests to Stella that 'Men lost interest [in women] quickly, especially when the girl is over – thirty', the intended comic effect cannot possibly be achieved, because she truly and honestly looks like, well, thirty one. And later, when a drunken, heart-broken Mitch confronts her about her less-than-honourable recent past, tearing down the lampshade which she's used to create the eternal haze in the room in order to hide her own decay, what's startlingly obvious to anyone in the room is the fact that this is a stunning young woman, not the memorable, deeply-lined, heavily made-up face of Vivienne Leigh from the same scene in the film. One may argue that this should be overlooked in lieu of the strong performance from Weisz, but impressed as I was, I couldn't help thinking this was a perfect example of dramatic incongruity.

The rest of the cast also did a good job, although easily eclipsed by Weisz's central performance. Elliot Cowan's Stanley is muscular, ruthless and viciously attractive in the Brando mode, who also handled the comic element in some of the early scenes (especially when he scavenges through Blanche's suitcase) well. Ruth Wilson is a competent Stella, though one would have wished for a bit more emotional depth. A very nice touch from Ashford is the ghostly appearances of Blanche's ex-husband and his old lover, in her reminiscence/monologue scenes. It would be churlish to dismiss such a remarkable effort just on the grounds of miscasting, so I would really recommend that you do go to see it. Just use your imagination and try to accept Ms Weisz as really being fifteen years older than she appears. You may need to try very, very hard but this Streetcar's worth it.

Thoughts on Flights I - On Cities Big and Small

20 May 2009. BA 799, HEL-LHR.

The most reassuring public announcement? Whatever comes from a BA cockpit, in a magnetic male voice in Her Majesty's English (I do sometimes wonder if they're filtered by quality of speaking voice as well as aviary skills) must rank among the top. 'Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. I'm pleased to let you know that we're making good progress towards our destination, London Heathrow. Weather report is very good indeed, a cloudless day, making it a nice descent...'

Since truly cloudless days are actually something of a real rarity in London's skies, when it turns out to be true, you notice every single window-seat passenger - and some further from the windows attempting a neck-crankling exercise - being completely absorbed by the birds-eye view of the metropolis, noses stuck to the windows. All the more remarkable considering the vast majority of the passengers on this flight appear to be frequent business travelers who may have the tendency to count their daily/weekly commutes in airmiles. The reason is that the view is indeed mesmerising on a day like this. To start with, you can't help being startled by the realisation (or confirmation really) that London is MASSIVE. Even the area within the Circular (the 'inner circle' as opposed to the monstrous M25), which looks like a reasonable size on your road atlas, contains a fascinatingly diverse landscape, viewed from this height. Landmarks along the Thames - there's a reason why every major city in the world has to have a river in the middle of, or circling, it - are easily spotted. But you also take in the green patches everywhere, among the concrete sprawls: parks, heaths, commons, with the undulating trees and boat-dotted ponds. The Millennium Dome (aka 'The O2'), the arch at Wembley Stadium, and the 2012 Olympic site echo each other as 21st-century London's answer to the Colosseum. We spend far too big a part of our daily lives getting from A to B in a sealed tube carriage or on a standing-room only bus, we tend to forget to look up and look around everywhere in between. On this enormous canvas, even the clusters of ugly big council blocks suddenly take on an intriguing character of their own, a striking cubist shade perhaps.

Which, inevitably, brings up the nagging thought I've always had at the back of my mind: how can so much of the London surface that we do encounter everyday seem so helplessly dull? How can so big and great a city have so little character on its streets?

To be specific: London, like every other sizeable city in the UK, is now full of 'cloned streets'. You know the one: a Next next to a Boots next to an Oasis next to a Starbucks next to a Zara next to a Tesco Metro next to a Coffee Republic next to a Waterstones next to... etc etc. And the more upmarket version of this, available to the yummy mummies of the more expensive postcodes (Upper Street in Islington, King's Road in Chelsea, High Street Kensington, shopping centres in Westfield and Canary Wharf), would be something like: a Whistles next to a TM Lewin next to a Café Nero next to a Waitrose next to a Karen Millen next to a Zara (big winners are those who appeal to all classes)... and so on. Even the mighty designer brands, having been so mercilessly bombarded in our faces in every media outlet in the last couple of decades,have lost their previously haughty air of exclusivity, and even Bond Street and the northern end of Sloane Street now merely feel like clones of all the other shops in other world capitals offering identical goods, give or take the currency discrepancies.

I do realise that these are all inevitable and bountiful fruits of market economy/capitalist consumerism/globalisation. And it's produced at least one immortally funny line on screen - in Woody Allen's last good film, Small Time Crooks, the cop who caught the hapless, cookie-shop fronting bank-robbers red-handed offers his priceless one-word advice on how to really make it big without breaking the law: 'FRANCHISE!' But I suspect that I'm not the only one suffering from clone-street fatigue, longing for something different, something that stands out from all this predictable drab (predictability being the evil twin of the omnipresent convenience that modern technologies bestow on us).

This collective frustration has, presumably, played no small part in the increasingly wild popularity of the markets of Portobello, Spitalfields and Borough. That trusty barometer of middle-class Londoners' opinions, Evening Standard, launched its 'save our small shops' campaign last year as a firm rebuttal to the clonisation of high streets everywhere, and had overwhelming responses. Being a realist, though, I think we'll have to accept the demise of independent retailers as an eventuality, a price to pay for having an iconic city without microscopic iconic components on the street level. Yet how does London compare with other capital cities in this respect? My first reaction, on pondering this question, is that the bigger they are, the fewer interesting, non-chain shops they seem to allow. If we take the distinctive architectural backdrops out of the picture (an easy task these days, thanks to technology), the shopping streets of London, New York, Hong Kong and Beijing can all blur into one. Globalisation flaunts itself in the flesh, loud and proud. In comparison, the smaller European capitals and other major cities that often captivate me, rarely fail to come up with unfamiliar brands and logos in their spades (and this is a shopaholic writing): Stockholm, Copenhagen, Antwerp, Berlin, Bologna, Tallinn, Vilnius. But wait a minute, there are exceptions to this theory too. Paris and Tokyo are both bona fide metropolises, yet still have plenty of shop-keepers who run their hundred-square-feet spaces with phenomenal success, and who would run a mile from the smiling corporate boss contemplating a merger/acquisition deal. Is this the great socio-cultural divide again, the one between the English-speaking world –yes, the likes of Hong Kong and Beijing can almost be comfortably categorised as such - and the rest of the (real) world? I don't have an answer, but I know I'd be happy to see London, for one, de-cloned considerably. But I have to stop thinking about it, because in the meantime, ladies and gentlemen, we have arrived at London Heathrow Terminal Five. The local time is seven p.m., the ground temperature, eighteen degrees. It's been a real pleasure to have you on board.

'This is a journey...'

My month-long 'retreat' (only in the loosest sense of the word - hence the emphatic inverted comma) drawing to a close, I'm pleased at the progress I've been able to make on certain projects that I set for myself. A lot of boxes remain unticked though, and I (only half ingenuously) attribute this to an even busier evening schedule over the past few weeks than usual. Perhaps I should have blocked out the whole month as some kind of culture Ramadan, but when the enticing alternative was to see Helen Mirren, Jude Law, Simon Russell Beale and Rebecca Hall - and some more - all in the space of one week, for a total sum of what a return train journey to Manchester would usually cost, I made my choice in a flash. And now, of course, the Proms are beyond us. My terrifying annual reminder of yet another year that's passed. Before diving into the thick of it though, I'm relishing the memory of a trio of concerts that we enjoyed earlier this month, within 5 days of each other at Barbican (why of course, where else?), which ended our 08-09 season on a high note - or should it be a string of high notes? A high chord?! All the more special because only one of them belonged to the category that we usually attended.

There was Pablo Milanes, the venerable Cuban singer/songwriter who belted out one ballad after another to the accompaniment of his understated three-piece band. The concert, which also featured two jazz acts in the first half, was the main event of the 'Cuba 50 weekend', marking the 50th anniversary of the Revolution (also the beginning of their mutually-sworn enemity with the Western world). We were sitting in our 'usual' seats in the Hall, but were very much the aliens amongst a sea of Cubans and other Latin Americans of all ages. Latin Spanish was the official languge of the evening, and the crowd went wild when it was announced that none other than the daughter of Che Guavara was in the audience, and she was invited onto the stage for a speech. A plain, middle-aged woman, she reminded the audience of the origins of the Latino revolutoinary spirit, the many struggles that they (or she, at least) had undergone over the years, and the inevitable call for a closure to the Cuban people's plights that have now lasted half a century. When Milanes took stage, all eyes were glued, with an almost religious fervour, on this slightly frail old man looking like a retired school-master. Who'd have thought that the Cuban equivalent of Cliff Richards (minus the nip & tuck jobs) could elicit a 2000-strong sing-along like this, with virtually every single tune he belts out? We're the only members of the audience who don't know the repertoire, and we try hard not to be too embarrassed by this fact. Our friends leave early, later emailing to say they found the music too monotonous. But I think they're missing the point - this was a socio-cultural experience as much as anything. And it was thrilling to be part of the crowd.


There was the ever-reliable LSO, under the charismatic Michael Tilson Thomas, presenting an evening of Ives, Prokoefieff and Stravinsky - just my kind of programme. The Chinese pianist Yuja Wang finally arrived this side of the Atlantic, having already taken the US by storm, as another wunderkind barely in her twenties and already poised to take at least a sizeable share of Lang Lang's hitherto undisputed crown of Chinese classical superstar, and the global market that comes with it. Does she have what it takes? Why make our judgement now, she's got a lifetime to prove it, either way. Besides, Lang Lang is not yet thirty himself. The top management agencies and record companies will keenly keep their eyes on the next budding Chinese wizzkid for quite a while yet, that much is for sure.

Then, finally, there was Ute Lemper. With her seductive smile, magnetic voice, impeccably choreographed stage moves and mischievous yet intelligent narration between songs, two hours passed very quickly. She announced at the beginning of the evening that this was to be a journey, chronicling her influences as well as her own career, both historically and geographically. This immensely versatile, endlessly entertaining polyglot even did an astonishingly vivid impersonation of Helmut Kohl flirting with Margaret Thatcher with the aid of a scarlett boa (don't ask). True, the intimacy of both her musical reditions and her spontaneous, witty exchanges with the front-row audience members would have suited the pit of a cabaret - her natural milieu - rather better than the vast Barbican Hall, but when treated to an evening of thoughtfully-programmed numbers sung with this kind of pedigree, this would be a minor quibble. But the most memorable items, given the most empassioned performances, were naturally the Weills. Even with the silky New York accent, you kow that home is Germany, and she looks back at the Germany that she left behind with more than a little wistfulness. 'There was a wall, and it just seemed, to two, three generations, like part of the furniture - that it would be there forever. But then the wall came down. And the rest is history...'

History, of course, continues to be re-written every minute, by the biggest decisions made as well as the trivial ones. As we walked down Silk Street, for the third time that week, I couldn't help looking back as well, to the Latino crowd that we briefly belonged to several days before. Who knows what the future holds for Cuba? And will a new icon, a younger Milanes, archive it all, the history-yet-to-be-written with a different kind of ballad, perhaps? I imagine a svelt figure, a dark face, deep brown eyes, at the 'Cuban 70' weekend (for sure there will be one at the Barbican):

'This is a journey...'

Children of Syria

Like the best of adventures, it all started with a complete chance encounter.

[Day Two, Damascus]
It is our second afternoon in Damascus, and we have decided, on an all-too-full stomach from yet another scrumptious lunch, to launch into our favourite Damascene activity for the third time since arrival: letting yourself lost in the maze-like narrow streets in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City, south of The Straight Street. While seeking out the Beits and Pashas with the aid of the trustworthy guidebook, we already realised that with the best maps available, it is still a major challange to navigate through the streets of the Old City even for those armed with a better-than-average sense of direction. Forgoing the book and not worrying about whether Sight No. 46 really is indeed in the surreptitious-looking lane on the third right, therefore, at once becomes an attractive alternative, especially after you've ticked off most of the 'must see' items on the list already. The myriad of narrow streets with unexpected turns and ends in various quarters, lined with deceptively crumbly-looking, centuries-old houses, reveal and conceal at the same time the palimpsests of histories that Damascus has witnessed as the Oldest City in the World. And, best of all, here in the warm afternoon sun in the Jewish quarter, there are no other tourists in sight.

We turn another corner and suddenly run into four school children. As I raise my camera tentatively the older two (siblings of the two younger ones respectively, we think) shirek with laughter and run away, but the little girl in the pink woolen dress (the April sun, while a sub-tropical relief for us, is evidently just signalling the end of winter for the locals) greets the shutter with the most captivating smile, and as I brave a second attempt, moves to the narrow stairway leading up to a house in the corner (her house?) and properly poses, like a happy little debutante at Royal Ballet School.

Her handsome companion, not to be outdone, effortlessly strikes the movie-star pose, with what we have already recognised as the typical Damascene look in so many of their elders' eyes: an innate combination of charm, friendliness and confidence. He's going be a heartbreaker one day, I say to myself.

[Day Three, Palmyra]

Once again, serendipity plays kind God to our itinerary. We originally planned to spend most of the afternoon visiting the ancient sites just outside of Palmyra town, thinking we would arrive by noon. Glitches with the car rental company in Damascus (almost compulsory in the Middle East, it seems) meant we didn't get to set off until almost noon, and by the time we arrive it's later afternoon. Would it not make more sense to take it easy for the rest of the day, and visit the sites tomorrow morning instead? This is of course what normal, sensible people would have done, but then we're far from sensible. We take the car out to the temple after the briefest snack that acted as lunch, and tour the entire site extensively yet efficiently, just before an ominous sandstorm approaches. Tomorrow morning, all the monuments would still be blurred in vision and we would have had to part Palmyra in regret. This is just perfect.

On the two-kilometre drive back to town centre, we're caught in a traffic jam. It's not stationary, just that everyone is moving considerably more slowly than we have come to expect Syrian drivers to be. We realise it's the combination of the bumpy road surface, and the number of families who have been out picnicing (it's Friday, the Islamic holiday) at various corners in the sites now heading home en mass. All of a sudden this truck overtakes us and stays in the queue, and this platoon of exctied children - mostly girls, but also a few boys - seem perfect in the camera viewer. The road remains bumpy though, and even my lovely new high-tech camera finds it difficult when both vehicles are in wave motion all the time. The children keep waving, smiling and shouting Hellos throughout my minute-long attempts, and finally, a split second before the truck swerves onto a side road and leaves our front view, I have it.

[Day Four, the road from Palmyra to Deir Er-Sur, near Iraqi border]

Petrol station attendants in Syria, even in this more remote corner of the country, turn out to be a lot more blase about foreign tourists who drive rental cars around the country than we expected them to be (our fellow travellers from the West, in comparison, usually think we're barking mad when they hear our planned itinerary). Here on the early morning of our fourth day, we have left a Palmyra that's still recovering from previous evening's sandstorm, and are heading off east. The first thing we need, though, is a thorough wash of the car before we can really get anywhere, as the sandstorm has graced all surfaces of the vehicle with its indelible mark. The bearded guy squatting on the ground smoking next to the pump - the manager?! - waves to the boys, looking about 10 years old, whom we have presumed was just a neighbour hanging about, signalling for him to take the job. He handles the big power-faucet dexterously enough to convince me that this is indeed his day job, and goes through the whole job with such ease and skill, that I start to think that he's doing it not out of financial necessity, but really because he's a lot better than any of the half-dozen older guys squatting idly. When he's done, I ask if I could take a photo of him with his 'territory'. He looks at the camera uncertainly, looks at the other guys and shrugs, then, looking in yet another direction, gives me the perfect smile.

[Day Four, later, near Halabiyya]

Syrians really are incredibly beautiful. It's a bountiful beauty with many origins, thanks to their diverse ancestral lineages. It's effectively the genetic melting pot of Middle-East - their version of New York, as M puts it. We've seen people in Damascus whose racial resemblance to ourselves was striking, and their best friends from down the street would have the angular central Asian face topped with a waterfall of blond hair. This young sheperdess has the deepest dark brown eyes as she turns to gaze at us, and I can swear the stunning redhead has nothing to do with any commerical colouring brand whatsoever.

[Day Five, Mari, down the Euphrates]

'The ruins of Mari, an important Mesopotamian city dating back some 500 years, are about 10km north of Abu Kamal (on the Syrian/Iraqi border).' Lonely Planet thus tells us. Unless you're a specialist archaeologist, it probably holds less interest than the nearby ruins of Doura Europos, which are at once more sprawling and imposing, with the perfect backdrop of the ancient river. We are glad we did come to Mari though, not least because the caretaker's family, a gaggle of female spanning several generations (no wonder the man had a deeply furrowed face, despite having young children), constitute a group-sitting portrait in their tent - effectively the living room - connect to the ticket office/souvenir shop that would surely have captured many a painter. Darting away from this silently inqiusitive group, almost as the perfect counterpoint, is the caretaker's youngest daughter, bouncing around the place and happily posing for/with a group of French tourists in her striking kaftan. After they're gone, she's ever so slightly withdrawn, and smiles shily for us. Is it simply because she's much more accustomed to the hordes of Caucasians who arrive in big buses than two badly-tanned Orientals who drive to this remote corner in their own car?

[Day Seven, Aleppo]

Of all our unusual encounters throughout years of travelling, this will go down the memory lane a long way. We're in Aleppo, the second largest city in Syria, home to the most enchanting souq in the entire Middle East (and therefore probably the world), some truly amazing cuisine, and hand-made aged olive oil soap. It is in the pursuit of a famed soap factory - which turns out to be closed - that we run into an army of schoolboys, all rushing home for their lunch hour. This lot, unlike all the others we've met so far, aren't just willing to have their photos taken by you. They want you to take photos of them, they actually follow you around and hound you until they've seen an image in the viewing screen on your camera that they relish. And as with all human groups, you immediately discern the various types, even with these little ones: the philosophical, the fraternal, the mischievous, the audacious.

And, in the midst of all this clamour, emerges the surreally beautiful trio of angels, perpetually smiling:


[Day Ten, Krak des Chevaliers]

This was the briefest of encounters - we've just come out of the awe-inspiring Krak after wandering around for a couple of hours, and are ready to head down towards Damascus to complete this memorable road trip. In the midst of the car park, there he is - while all his fellow hawkers are busy trying to allure some potential customers for a ride around the castle, this one is simply enjoying the two thousand features on his new phone to bother. I raise the camera, press the shutter, get into the car, and we drive away. I look back, and he's probably just started yet another text message...

(To see all the photos with better quality, run the slideshow here:

http://gotravel.smugmug.com/gallery/8008363_ecwD6#521128091_8v8J6)

My stories of Michael

I knew this had to be the subject for my comeback post after the 3-month absence (I won't pretend that the two lines post Syrian trip was a proper post). Those of you who would, for a moment, expect shockingly salacious/banal/revealing stories about my married life (no, actually I don't think there's anyone out there who would) should drop those shoulders now - for, of course, this is to be the gazillionth personal tribute to the King of Pop, albeit 10 days too late. But I'll do my damned best to try to make my perspective unique enough to hold your interest for a moment longer.

It's indeed a bit bizarre to remind ourselves that MJ stopped breathing only 10 days ago. The press coverage of the man and the music has seemed to multiply every day both in its abundance and weirdness. For once, with the death of a major celebrity ('controversial' is such a weak word to be applied here), the world agrees on at least one thing: the man was mind-blowingly, ground-breakingly unique. Oh, make that two actually - he was a true genius too. You really can't think of that many others still breathing who tick both boxes, in pop or any other art form. And for how long have I been thinking so?

When Thriller was released in 1982, I was four years old. Even though I was probably precocious already , all-singing and dacing werewolves were not exactly part of my consciousness. Nor was anything too overtly Western, for that matter - China had only opened its doors three years previously after years of near-total isolation from the rest of the world, and the influx of information was conveyed with a little caution and absorbed with a lot of overwhelm. The most frequently- and fervently- used adjective in those years, at least in big cities, was 'imported'. It was enough of an all-encompassing category, a universal code for originality/novelty, the ultimate endorsement for quality. People queued up for foreign-made cameras, stereos, kitchen utensils, dolls, stationery, stereos - anything and everything with a provenance outside of the Chinese borders that they could get their hands on. No one could possibly forsee that a mere couple of decades later, the hippest New Yorkers and Londoners would keenly seek out the latest trendy bars in Beijing and Shanghai. More significantly for my generation (now officially christianed as 'The 70'ers') - although we didn't know it then - some of us were growing up to be the first cliche-defying first-generation immigrants to The West. And one day we would look back at the astonishing phenomenon that was Thriller, taken for granted as an integral part of our own past as it is to our fellow New Yorkers/Londoners walking down the street.

Then came Bad, explosively. If it's hard for you to understand the monumental scale of shock factor the music and the video (in particular) sent through Chinese youths at the time, just imagine sending MJ back to post-war USA. For in the intervening years, the Pop/Rock genre had not been experienced in the Middle Kingdom with the same narrative. English-learning, trend-following (these two things were often synonymous) twentysomethings - and a very precocious nine-year-old - were happily humming to the ballads of The Carpenters, Phil Collins and Whitney Houston, and selective early Madonna (we liked 'Holiday'. We didn't really get 'Material Girl'.) while being oblivious to the Stones. There was one radio station in Shanghai with an hour-long weekly programme devoted to English pop songs. We all saved up to buy blank 'Hi-Fi' cassette tapes to record it. There was one shop in the entire city that stocked 'imported recordings', mostly cassettes and also - still a total novelty at the time - some CDs. My father would buy me one of them at the end of each term as reward for my exam results, which would inevitably become the envy of many friends (the cassette, not the good marks). Piracy was yet to be adopted and proliferated by the Chinese, although it wasn't far off the horizon. And in the midst of all this, the sound of 'Bad! Bad! Cos you're Bad!!' came out of nowhere, and came crashing down on all of us.

To start with, there were frenetic debates in newspapers and semi-academic columns in English-studies journals about what 'Bad' actually meant. Bad could now mean something else?! Something not really bad? That alone sufficed to engage a whole generation of youngsters for quite a while. Then there was the image - did he really use to be a black man? What happened to him? Is this what all American pop stars do to themselves? Those now-and-then photos of MJ that appeared in mainstream media might have heralded the dawn of proper entertainment news in China, for all I know. But above all, the dance. I could recall, almost to the day, when suddenly all the under-45 Chinese males worked day and night so that they could do 'the dance from Bad'. For quite a while, at any semi-significant social gatherings - weddings, New Year celebrations, Chinese New Year celebrations, National Day celebrations - you could bet someone would serve up an attempt at 'doing the Bad dance'. It's a shame we didn't have early enough imported video cameras to capture this craze. Set against the social/cultural/political backdrop of everything else that was happening in the country at the time, this uncanny syncronicity of MJ fans with their worldwide accomplices would surely have made fascinating study for some modern historians. 'Man in the Mirror', 'I Just Can't Stop Lovin' You' and 'The Way You Make Me Feel' also became popular, though nothing was as ubiquitous as Bad itself. In due course, the Thriller album was retrospectively discovered and similarly revered. MJ became an object of worship just as much as he was anywhere else. We couldn't wait for the next album (having just properly grasped the concepts of 'albums' and 'singles').

And boy, was it worth the wait. I can actually say with some confidence that I was one of the first owners of a copy of 'Dangerous' in mainland China, for that was exactly what it was: a pirate copy. Probably one of the first too, which I bought in a street market in Guangzhou (Guangdong province being, to this day, the manufacturing epicentre of Chinese pirate CDs). But unlike what you can get for 10p nowadays, back then the pirate recordings were Properly Made - they had real jewel cases! And proper lookalike booklets! And they were actually being passed off as bootlegged authentic copies, for a not-too-shabby price!! Alright, I was in the wrong AND also conned. But I was 14. I had just entered one of the most prestigious music conservatories in the country and discovered that what a lot of my classmates actually wanted to do was to be MJ. We collectively gaped at the video of 'Black and White' over and over again, and declared that nothing that would ever top this. 'Heal the World' became our love anthem. 'Will You Be There' made us regard Free Willy as the cinematic masterpiece of the decade. MJ remained the King, but in the meantime we had moved on much further - even as teenagers! - than we realised at the time. Or is evolution always like this, that we take progress and development for granted, even (or especially) when they come fast and furiously as they did in turn-of-the-century China? The pirate recording I bought was a CD. Several TV stations regularly featured music videos as special programmes, with an increasing amount of works by Chinese singers. We were already absolutely in-synch with Hong Kong pop (to this day an important well of Chinese talents). And I was spending a lot of time listening to The Police, Billy Joel, Prince, Sinead O'Connor, Tori Amos, and was soon to be gripped by Boyz II Men. The great thing about not growing up with the pop/rock narrative chronologically is that you don't have any pre-conception at all. Whatever I reacted to, whether intellectually or emotionally, was by intuition. I did also have the advantage of language skills superior to most of my fellow 70-ers, and was frequently begged/requested/hired to write down lyrics from songs in English by dictation, which in turn helped me to improve it further. I started to read in English. Short stories first, then the classics, then newspapers and journals.

When HIStory was released, I could afford to buy a legitimate copy of the CD, but I didn't. I didn't buy a pirate copy either. I listened to the new singles on the radio and decided that they were not worth the dough, and I preferred to hold on to my past favourite MJ hits. There were rumours that he would come to do some live shows in China but nothing ever materialised. I, and all my friends, were seventeen going on eighteen, ambitious, restless, hopeful for the future of ourselves and our country. But as every day went by, going abroad to study became a more urgent primary goal. Everyone was buying pirate CDs (and VCDs!) now, and I couldn't quite believe that this wasn't also the case in the West. I started listening to a lot of movie soundtrack albums, and was obsessed with Annie Lennox. And U2. And Take That - the perfect overture to my move to England, I have to say.

Year 1997. United Kingdom handed Hong Kong back to China in exchange for me. I remember buying quite a few pop/rock CDs from HMV during my first week in Newcastle, but none of the MJ albums. And I never did. I don't think I can hum a single song from 'Invincible'. I followed the child-abuse trials and the ever weirder news stories, watched the tearful public testimonials and the Martin Bashir documentary with much the same kind of mild, passive curiosity as the rest of the country. When talent could still shock and shock all the more because of its increasing scarcity, MJ became Just Another Boring Weird Celebrity.

Of all the incongruous and/or unsual things he said on the Bashir documentary, though, one thing stuck with me. 'No, I don't think of dying at all. Because I want to live forever', he said - I've completely forgotten what the precise context or what Bashir's question had been, but I remember the reply clearly. And this is how I had come to regard this being whose physcial looks appeared to be on the verge of falling apart at any moment. I wouldn't have been at all surprised to hear a BBC headline announce one day that MJ really was immortal. It would have only been the perfectly sensible conclusion to all that had gone on with him. All the creations, mysteries, glory, notoriety, adoration, hatred - only immortality could have sealed it all. Now we mourn him, but as I look back I also want to mourn that pure state of shockability that millions of Chinese were in when we first got 'Bad', an innocence lost twice over. Would any future pop artist, Chinese or Western, suddenly break on to the scene to deliver something mind-blowingly original to the Chinese youths of now, who're as dexterous at Googling, downloading or Facebooking as any of their Western counterparts, and who have had everything made ready and easy for them? I'm not holding my breath. Me and my generation, we didn't have it easy, but we had it good. Or Bad. Really, really deliriously BAD.