Music to calm savage beasts

Clair de Lune by Harold Squire

MFL playlist

MFL playlist

Yes, yes, I did make an MFL playlist.

However, it does need adding to.

Chopchop, off you go.

Marcus Foster

Yay for yummy, exciting new music.Yay, for a warm, bluesy voice with a heavy dose of melancholy. I like melancholy.Just heard Marcus Foster on radio 1 and it's a little bit epic.Marcus Foster - Shadows Of The City by Stayloose

Shadowcatchers

Today, Tall Man and I went to the V+A.
It was rather wonderful, with strange and beautiful images made in strange and inspiring ways.

While I don't have the chemicals necessary for the Chemigrams by Pierre Cordier, I have taken inspiration from Adam Fuss and Garry Fabian Miller, and have created my own cameraless photographs.

Frankenstein

I followed nature into her lair, and stripped her of her secrets! I brought torrents of light to a darkening world! Is that wrong?

I spent Valentine's in the presence of a ghoulish Creature and his genius maker. Oh yes.

It is hard to put into words how excited I'd been since December, when I got my tickets for the Nick Dear adaptation of Mary Shelley's novel - especially as for the preview performances, the castlist hadn't yet been announced. Would Benedict Cumberbatch play the god-like scientist? Or his Creature? Would Jonny Lee Miller be hounded by torch-wielding peasants, or would he become be followed to the ends of the earth by his own creation?

So, some of my expectations were proved wrong. There were no torch-wielding peasants (in the traditional sense), no 'MWAHAHAHAHA' as lightning raged outside a wind-lashed castle. I think Tall Man was rather disappointed. I, however, was delighted.

I got to spend 2 hours watching Jonny Lee Miller as the Creature transform before my eyes from an ignorant child-man (a very, very naked one at that) to an eloquent but hideous man-child, begging for the answers to his existential questions from Benedict Cumberbatch, his creator-father.

Yes, the all-singing, all-transforming stage was a couple of notches over the top, and yes, elements of the soundtrack were jarring rather than complementary. But the swagger was glorious, and the face-offs between Miller and Cumberbatch were touching, at times tender. Dr Frankenstein wildly grasping for control over a creature he hadn't known he could create, contrasted with the Creature, naively believing that his creator could save him, was terrifying without any need for gore, blood, cackling or bolts through necks.

There was no lumbering fiend, rather something infinitely more interesting: a sentient human-not-quite-human Creature howling into the void with no guarantee of an answer.

Many reasons to go see and enjoy (if you can!): the gothic-fantasy aesthetic with a healthy dose of horror (and an interesting nod to steampunk), the mostly fabulous set design showing off the post-enlightenment obsession with electricity, two fabulous actors locked in a terrifying battle of wills, and having every one of your hysteria-inducing philosophical question writ large before your eyes. Nick Dear's play explores what it means to be human, and how badly we can fail at it.

Soooo much sexier than chocolate and flowers.

See also: If you can't get tickets to the NT, Frankenstein will be screened live with both castings at Picturehouse Cinemas, book here.
Find out more about The Beauty and Terror of Science (Amazon)
Meet Frankenstein's Monster's mates: Man-Made Creatures (National Theatre)
Meet the team: Playwright Q+A

Tehillim

So, last night I scored a v cheap ticket to see the London Sinfonietta at the Southbank Centre. I love cheap tickets for things, and I was very proud to admit that this is the first time I've bought a ticket to a purely classical gig. I did lots of music at school, and though I'm mostly a fan of non-classical music, I've recently challenged myself to learn more about classical stuff, given that I've been playing it since I was 5 and remain terminally ignorant.

First on the bill was Steve Reich's Tehillim - a piece for a small ensemble, lots of percussion and 4 female vocalists. Sung in Hebrew - Tehillim is from the Hebrew word for Psalms - this is the first of Reich's pieces I've heard with vocalists. Though he's one of the biggies of the 20th Century, Reich is really listenable. His signature is hypnotic, interweaving lines which draw you in, and subtly morph and weave around until the listener is utterly lost.

Having listened to some of his other pieces on spotify, live was a totally different experience - the physicality of the 4 percussionists, watching the singers pass seemingly unconnected notes back and forth to build a tight harmony, the almost mechanical unison of the strings.

So while it's almost impossible to pinpoint an individual highlight of the piece, the sheer experience of being lost, that way that the music carries off one part of your mind whilst the rest wanders off... I may be going back for Reich's Drumming in a few weeks.

See also: Chichester Psalms - crazy Hebrew joy by Bernstein

15 step - hypnotica from Radiohead

Number one

So... I'm actually doing it. Opening a blog. No, I'm not a student journalist, but I do miss getting my thoughts out in a logical order and yes, I'll admit it, having people read them.

When I'm not working 9 to 5 (I defy you not to hum the tune now), I'm reading, listening, exploring, munching, and drinking in and around London.

I sometimes think about the things I have seen and done.

I shall endeavour to write things down about the things I have seen and done.

If you feel moved to comment, please do - I love to find out new things!