LA MER TRIO

LA MER TRIO

Norwich and Norfolk Festival lunchtime concert, Assembly House, Norwich

25.05.2012

for The Public Reviews

The last of the 2012 Festival's popular lunchtime concert series in the Assembly House was given by the La Mer Trio, formed in 2010.

In a varied, enjoyable programme, which featured Takemitsu as well as a new commission, they proved adventurous, imaginative musicians.

The new piece was Triptyque de la Lande, by Thomas Oehler, who was with us in the Assembly House for the performance. It was inspired by a moorland in Brittany, the three movements each evoking an image from that landscape. The first, Triskele, began with the harp softly strumming, then, after broken rhythms and truncated phrases, it developed urgent motifs which eventually sank back in repose. Dolmen had the viola's lower register in soliloquy, with commentaries from flute and harp gradually asserting themselves, before the lively closing Korrigan dance.

The Takemitsu – "And Then I Knew 'Twas Wind" - inhabits a different, dreamlike landscape, enhanced today by birdsong from outside the open windows. A homage to Claude Debussy, it also includes unusual effects on all three instruments, as well as many of Takemitsu's trademark devices. Phrases were echoed and deformed, before flute and viola moved towards unison and the unanswered question at the end.

My favourite landscape, though, was Bax's Edwardian watercolour world, his Elegiac Trio meandering through a post-romantic pastoral, beautifully evoked in a polished performance.

The Baroque was represented by a Leclair Trio Sonata, with its deliciously lazy largo Sarabande and energetic finale.

They ended their programme with a soundscape closer to their Debussy origins: Ravel's familiar Tombeau de Couperin, crystal clear in this chamber version, with especially eloquent phrasing from the flute in the Rigaudon.

The La Mer Trio, all award-winning graduates from the Academy and Guildhall, are Renate Sokolovska, flute, Maja Wegrzynowska, viola and Hannah Stone, harp.

this piece first appeared on The Public Reviews

I, MALVOLIO

I, MALVOLIO

Norwich and Norfolk Festival at the Playhouse, Norwich

22.05.2012

for The Public Reviews

Irving and Olivier, Sinden and Sher, Nigel Hawthorne, Simon Russell Beale – so many memorable Malvolios. But none, I'm sure, got under the skin of the steward as successfully as Tim Crouch, in a wonderful one-man-show of his own devising.

It's actually the fourth of his Shakespeare solos, with Cinna [the poet] to come later this year.

The houselights are never completely dimmed; we, the audience, are Sir Toby Belch, we represent the forces of disorder and misrule, with Malvolio the lone, sane voice of reason. And there's no shortage of latter-day cakes and ale for him to rail against – slouching, binge-drinking, inappropriate dress – the way he says "DVD" makes it sound like the distasteful work of the devil.

In the best tradition of stand-up, the innocent are singled out: reading the programme, blowing one's nose, laughing, all ruthlessly pounced upon.

"Find that funny, do you ? Is that the sort of thing you find funny ?" is his refrain, for all the world like an old-time schoolmaster. At other times he's Basil Fawlty, or the nutter on the bus – "I am not mad ..." - with Olivia's discarded letter the catalyst for a priceless rant about litter – "a godless mass of filth".

"Somewhere between comedy and pain," he advises, encouraging a lad in the second row [still wearing his school uniform] to come up on stage and kick his proffered arse. And that's the melancholy magic of this unsettling monologue: we laugh at this wretched "funny, funny man", but shift uncomfortably in our seats, knowing that laughter can easily turn to bullying and bear-baiting, as our hero is "hideously abused". Some moments are very bleak, but even the hangman's noose is testing tragi-comedy, with two more 'volunteers' up on stage, Joe to hold the rope, Lizzie poised to pull away the bentwood chair.

Crouch starts off in his grimy, fantastical, prison garb, with a red wattle under his chin and "Turkey Cock" pinned to his back. By the end he is his Puritan self again, and is cleverly "revenged on the whole pack of you".

Along the way he unpacks the mad "improbable fiction" of the plot of Twelfth Night, and explores the dark despair of lost love, the struggle between order and anarchy, and the cruel comedy of Illyria and the playhouse.

this piece first appeared on The Public Reviews