Gants Hill underground station

Gants Hill tube station is at the eastern end of the Central Line; located beneath a very busy roundabout it is the easternmost station to be completely underground on the London Underground network. During the Second World War the station was used as an air raid shelter and the tunnels as a munitions factory for the nearby Plessey electronics firm. The interesting part of the station though is the lower concourse which is rather beautiful and brings to mind the stations on the Moscow underground system, probably because the LU architect Charles Holden advised on the construction of the Moscow Metro.

The Lucky Strikes - Whats Cookin', Birkbeck Taven, E11

The Lucky Strikes play country rock with some blues thrown in for good measure. Featuring, at various times, fiddle, banjo, piano, acordian as well as the usual guitar/bass/drums they whipped up a storm in the intimate music room upstairs at the Birkbeck Tavern. A great live band.

The Rum Diary: dir. Bruce Robinson

Based on a book by Hunter S Thompson the film is directed by, and screenplay written by, Bruce Robinson of Withnail and I fame - how could it go wrong? Adapted by Robinson as a tribute to Thompson I had read a review that said it was a bit muddled but personally I loved it. More conventional than you might expect given the subject but it shows the chaotic lifestyle lived by Thompson and his fellow journalists in Puerto Rico. Johnny Depp is great as Thompson's alter ego, Paul Kemp, of course but Depp's is just one of many good performances. When Thompson/Kemp drops acid for the first time his eyes are opened and his journalism becomes focused on exposing the 'bastards'.

I'm generally of the opinion that films don't need to be more than 90 mins long but this one is 2 hours and the time raced by which I think is the bottom line indicator of how good a film is (an entirely subjective measure of course).

Palestine (Bradt travel guide) - Sarah Irving

Below is a link to a piece from The Guardian website travel section which features Sarah Irving's 10 Highlights of Palestine. She has written a travel guide to Palestine, published by Bradt (bradtguides.com).

I thought I would share it as I enjoyed reading it so much - beautiful & informative.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2011/nov/18/10-highlights-palestine-ramallah-nablus

Mozart Unwrapped at King’s Place, London, N1

Vesperae solennes de confessore in C major, K339

Mozart’s Mass in C minor, K427 (Great Mass). 

Louise Wayman – soprano

Hannah Davey – soprano

Christine Sjölander – mezzo-soprano

Phillip Sheffield – tenor

David John Pike - baritone

Orchestra of St John’s – John Lubbock - conductor

OSJ Voices – Jeremy Jackman – choirmaster

King’s Place is a wonderful new venue in King’s Cross, London which is purpose built to enable musicians to show off their talents in acoustically perfect conditions.  I thoroughly enjoyed the experience of both the performance and the venue. 

Although the choir sang with a good full sound in the Vesperae solennes, they were note watching a bit too much and not reacting to the conductor’s instructions well enough.  The Soprano (Louise Wayman) was especially impressive and sang with great enthusiasm and feeling throughout.

The choir was more watchful of the conductor in the Mass in C but due to their small number did seem a bit weak and thin in places where they had to split into eight parts.  The two sopranos however were absolutely magnificent and quite frankly they stole the show!  They were spirited in their singing and were clearly relishing every minute of the piece. Their voices complemented each other beautifully whenever they sang together.

RB

Frank Stella: Connections - Haunch of Venison

Frank Stella is one of the most influential American abstract artists of the last fifty years.This exhibition covers his long and diverse career from 1958 to the present day, from his early minimalist works, through the more well known polygon's from the 1960's and 70's and on to the three dimensional work made using various media such as felt, cardboard and stainless steel. A most enjoyable exhibition.

Shalom Baby - Theatre Royal, Stratford, E15

Jumping between two Jewish families in 1930's Berlin & present day New York I felt that, especially in the first half, the play was a bit predictable in the 1930's bits, the usual predictable nasty Nazi's, yes it was terrible what happened but it's been done so often before that it'd be good to see the occasional positive thing about Germany. After all at the end of the second world war Germany was in ruins and split in two and they built the more prosperous liberal democracy in Europe, a remarkable achievement. Unfortunately the success of a society built on humane values is boring so all we get is the Nazi's. I found that when the play jumpede to the present day it became more innovative and interesting.

In the second half the family is sent to a concentration camp where they all subsequently die and is without doubt moving and also more interesting with more exploration of racial issues. The modern day family however has become a bit of a cliché, a brother with crack habit, tick; gay, tick; inter-racial marriage, tick but the issues are explored in an amusing way which grabbed and kept the attention.

At times it felt as if there too much in the play but it moved along at a good tempo, it was inventive and funny. The acting was good with everyone giving good performances; all in all an enjoyable evening.

The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists Exhibition - Idea Store Whitechapel

12-19 November 2011

An exhibition of letters and posters from the Robert Tressell family archives forming part of The Writeidea Festival 2011, a literary festival in taking place in Tower Hamlets library's (or Idea Store's as they are called nowadays) in East London, more info at http://www.ideastore.co.uk/.

The Ragged Trousered Philamthropists is one of my favourite books, one of the great working class, socialist novels (to be fair there aren't many). I'm old enough to remember when many Labour MP's named it as the most influential book on their political beliefs. I'd like to be able to tell you that the exhibition is worth travelling great distances for, but to be honest it's very small, just a few posters and some letters from leftie celebs (Tony Benn, Tony Blair) explaining why the book is important to them. Unless you're desperate to see the exhibition your time would probably be better spent reading (or re-reading) the book.

Igor Mitoraj - Centurione I; Canary Wharf

There are three of Igor Mitoraj's works at Canary Wharf, one, Cantauro, was featured on this site on 16 August 2011. This one, like the others, combines the surreal with the antiquity of Ancient Greece and Rome.

Richard Wentworth: Globe; London, E14

Located in Westferry Road near Canary Wharf, Globe is a series of clocks each showing the time in a different world city. 

The work celebrates local industry past and present. Artist Richard Wentworth, who used to work for Henry Moore, states: 'Geographical good fortune is the source of London's success, and in their previous form the West India Docks were central to that success. 200 years later it is international time zones that dictate the ebb and flow of business life at Canary Wharf' which reminds us that globalisation is nothing new and also of the closeness of the Meridian line to Canary Wharf. I do like this but then I would as I do like a public clock.

                                    

Newbury Park tube station

The second in the exciting new (occasional) series 'my favourite underground stations' is Newbury Park which is situated at the eastern end of the Central Line. To be entirely accurate it's not the underground station which is the interesting part of Newbury Park station, it's the adjacent bus station. It was designed by Oliver Hill, and opened on 6 July 1949. Distinguished by the copper covered barrel-vaulted roof, the structure, now 'listed' as being of architectural merit, also won a Festival of Britain architectural award in 1951.  The rest of the station's proposed reconstruction was not completed due to lack of money - plus ca change!

Weekend: dir Andrew Haigh

A master achievement by Anndrew Haigh – The portrayal of Gay Life very true with all the ingredients, promiscuity, drugs and alcohol making a mighty fine blend of entertainment. The scenes were well cut to ensure maximum impact without being pornography and the dialogue tinged with some funny one liners kept you focused without the need for campery. All in all a real life advert, and a very good film to watch.

RL

Gerhard Richter:Panorama - Tate Modern

Gerhard Richter was born in 1932 in Dresden, a city that was suffered terribly from allied bombing near the end of Second World War and became part of Communist East Germany. He crossed over to West Germany in 1961, settling in Dusseldorf before moving to Cologne in 1983 where he still lives and works.

This major exhibition (13 rooms) features a wide range of work from the whole of Richter's career including realist paintings based on photographs, abstracts, portraits, landscapes and history paintings ranging from paintings he did in the 1960's of bombers that looked back to the aerial bombardments of WW2 to a painting he did in 2005 based on a photograph of the attack on the World Trade Center which at first sight looks to be an abstract but after a short while the twin towers can be discerned along with the earie beauty of the picture.

I can't recommend this exhibition highly enough, do yourself a favour and go and see it if you possibly can.

I’m a Cyborg, But That’s Ok - Leytonstone Pop-Up Cinema

Dir: Chan-wook Park. (2006) South Korea

A young woman who believes she's a cyborg hears voices and harms herself while at work making radios. She's hospitalised in a mental institution where she eats nothing and talks to inanimate objects. She's Young-goon, granddaughter of a woman who thought she was a mouse (and whose dentures Young-goon wears) and a mother who's a butcher without much social grace. Young-goon comes to the attention of Il-sun, a ping-pong playing patient at the institution who makes it his goal to get her to eat.

The above is the synopsis we were given as we went into the cinema. It hints that this is an unusual film but it doesn't, and possibly can't, capture the full bizarre crazyness of it. It is set in a memtal institution I suppose but at times it does feel like you're laughing at mental illness and you ask yourself if that is right. But this is a moving film exploring human frailty as well as being, at times, very funny.

Tacita Dean: Film - The Unilever Series

Turbine Hall, Tate Modern

Film by Tacita Dean is 11 minutes long playing on a continuous loop beamed onto the wall of the darkened Turbine Hall. It is soundless and filmed in black and white and colour in a portrait format rather than in the wide screen format that we are more used to. The images flicker from one to the next, they held my attention and have a strange beauty.

Film is not my favourite Turbine Hall commission in The Unilever Series, it doesn't move you in the way The Weather Project by Olafur Eliasson did but what does? Maybe the Rothko room at Tate. I enjoyed it as much as most others though such as Doris Salcedo's Shibboleth (the crack) and Carsten Holler's Slides, and more than others, Weiwei's Sunflower Seeds for instance didn't really grab me, possibly because I didn't get to see it until they the Tate had roped it off on health grounds (mind you locking him up was a bit harsh).

Ian Davenport - Poured Lines

Underneath a railway bridge on Southwark Street, near to Tate Modern is a huge drip painting by Ian Davenport. Apparently it contains over 300 colours and certainly brightens up the area, up close the subtlities of the painting really become apparent. I would guess he is influenced by Jackson Pollock and Bridget Riley.