Virtual Methodist

It's been a long while since Sally and I have been to a West End Show, for various obvious reasons. Its also been a long while since I've "reviewed" a show, because who cares what I think. But last night we went with friends to the Gielgud Theare for Aaron Sorkin's adaptation of "To Kill a Mockingbird" with Matthew Modine only recently having taken over the part of Atticus Finch. Given that, to filch one of Finch's favourite sayings, Modine hasn't yet walked around in his character's skin long enough... He looks and sounds the part (more than some of the other recent additions to the cast whose accents were walking around all over the USA), but he stumbled over some lines a bit and looked relieved at the final curtain rather than triumphant. So why review this, and indeed why go at all given that I seem to be one of the few who does not "love" the original novel (more of that anon)? Well, the latter is largely because I ...

“If we shadows have offended...” The introduction to Puck's closing speech in "A Midsummer Night's Dream", and I am sure they did. Any Shakespeare purists, extreme prudes or those wedded to a patriarchal view of society, must have been hugely offended by Nicholas Hytner’s production at the Bridge Theatre in London, which I saw at the QFT last night as part of the National Theatre Live Screening programme (although this one was recorded)... He messed with the text, with the romantic relationships and with people’s heads... And I loved it. It was one of the best Shakespeare productions I have ever seen... It was a head on collision of punk burlesque and contemporary patriarchal puritanism... unapologetically blending Peter Brook’s iconic 1970’s Dream, with Margaret Atwood’s “Handmaid’s Tale” and a little bit of Dizzy Rascal... This Dream came to be in a series of beds flying in and out of a wonderfully designed, in the round/promenade/immersive performance. ...

Yesterday on facebook, my friend Ali White, who is one of the actors in Prime Cut's production of "The God of Carnage", plugged the last few shows by posting: "Four more chances to see God of Carnage in the MAC in Belfast if you fancy it. It even made David Campton laugh and if that's not a recommendation of hilarity I don't know what is." As I commented, I'm not sure whether that is a compliment or an insult... but to be tagged by Ali is flattering enough, and given that she is basing her comment on my carefully cultivated image as a grumpy old man (indeed Ali first knew me when I was a grumpy young man), I suppose it is a fair comment... Because I did laugh... loudly (loudly enough for Ali to identify my laugh)... But I was genuinely disturbed that I had found it funny, because in many ways there is nothing funny about it. Indeed as the play began I felt slightly ill-at ease given that it begins with the repercussions of a violent encounter be...

I've been having a bit of a black dog day today, exacerbated by a long day yesterday (that crept into today) and a few little "challenges" today (let me just say the words "car", "heap of scrap" "insurance" and "daylight robbery" featured in my conversation too much for my own good). But I am feeling extraordinarily blessed and thankful this evening, having been at a fundraiser for Re:Play Theatre Company, in the Skainos Centre, where my wife's choir was singing... Not only were the ladies in particularly good voice tonight, but the company we were there to support is a totally unique and inspiring venture... The artistic director of both the choir and theatre company is Anna Newell. I've always enjoyed what she has drawn out of the (unauditioned) choir, but the work that she and her collaborators do with Re:Play is of a different order altogether... Watch the following video... and if you don't weep go to the cardia...

Whilst the great and the good were round the corner in the Waterfront Hall rattling their jewellery in appreciation of Van the East Belfast Free Man, I was in the cosier surroundings of the MAC Theatre watching an uncomfortable play based in East Belfast... or at least the outer reaches of East Belfast, my former "parish" of Dundonald/Ballybeen. This isn't a review as such, since there is only one matinee and one evening performance left, although if you can get a ticket I would recommend that you should... it is an excellent production, with four very good performances. I would particularly recommend it if you aren or are considering becoming, a minister... Earlier in the run the blogger Alan Meban posted a perceptive review , and in conversation with his wife, fellow cleric Cheryl, the suggestion arose that perhaps theological training colleges should have taken out a block booking. I doubt that happened, but there were a small coterie of clerics in the audience last ...

So here I am, 2nd day in and I'm already 4 days late... But I did say this would be a bit sporadic... Anyway, today it is supposed to be 9 loves. OK... (I really can't wait to get to the simpler ones like books)... Let's clear the decks and take it as read that I love my family, God and pet cat... So in many ways I'm giving you 12 loves for the price of 9... But there is no way on this virtual planet that you are getting me bearing my heart on those three... The first 2 because this is entirely the wrong forum to do them justice, and the third because there is already too much cat-related wackiness on the web, and I don't want to be associated with that... So here goes on a variety of things that I love in no particular rank order: 1) FOOD - Now there is an entire day given over to foods... but this is food in general. I have a serious psychological problem with food. It is my primary response to any emotional state; I'm happy - I eat,  I'm sad- I ea...

Arrrggggh!!!! I have been reduced to my most incoherent, working class roots by a combination of patronising elitism and thorough-going Philistinism... So much so, here is my second post in a day! A few weeks ago I had a discussion with a colleague who was trying to argue that we should eschew being "too arty" and using poetry in a particular context for fear that it might alienate people from working class (and especially working class protestant) areas... I think we got our disagreement sorted out, but there is definitely a sense there that "the arts" are for the middle and upper classes and not for those in working class estates. Then you have William Humphrey's ill-informed comments on the Lyric and Mac Theatres saying that they offer little "tangible benefit to the people in Ballygomartin, Ballymurphy or Ballymacarrett," and that "The concept of 'the arts' is not something which the Protestant working-class community in this city b...

Last night  my wife and I went to the f*****g Lyric Theatre, and it wasn't to see Pride and Prejudice the f*****g Musical on the main stage, but something much more f*****g earthy in the Naughton Studio space: Re-Energize by Gary f*****g Mitchell, directed by my mate Conall f*****g Morrison with music by John and Damian O'Neill from the f*****g Undertones. It picks up the story of the members of a f*****g wannabe punk band 30 years after Mitchell's earlier play "Energy" was set. I didn't see that production back in 1999 in the Playhouse in Derry, where this production also originated. But the previous year I first came across Gary Mitchell's work in another collaboration with Conall Morrison when I took a night out from Methodist Conference to take a ministerial colleague to see their play "As the Beast Sleeps" in the bowels of the Abbey Theatre in Dublin... The play was still in a fluid state at that time and one of the discussions betwe...

No Saturday supplement this week... not because there isn't much out there of interest in the virtual world... if anything there is too much to swiftly sift it... but because there has also been too much on in the "real" world with the beginning of September and trying to find a new rhythm to life in a new setting... But despite my busyness I did manage to carve out a whole day last Saturday to enjoy my birthday present from my wife... a triple bill of Henry VI parts 1, 2 & 3 performed by the Globe Theatre company... So at the same time as 400 people were gathering in the Lyric theatre to mark the passing of the bard from Bellaghy, I and about 400 others were staggering punch drunk into the Grand Opera House for the final furlong of nearly 8 hours of Shakespeare. I don't recollect ever having seen any of these three history plays before so I have nothing to compare them with from my own experience... all I can say is that I enjoyed the whole day. There were ...

This is a veritable landfill site of linkdumps this morning... Read them all and you could be still sitting here tomorrow. So I'll just group them under appropriate (?) headings and keep my comments to the minimum: HOMOSEXUALITY & SAME SEX-MARRIAGE In the week that has seen England and Wales make the first legislative steps towards the recognition of same-sex marriage there have been a number of stories that have caught my eye... An article by Alice Arnold on her relationship with TV sports presenter Clare Balding, and why the term "marriage" is important to them... A piece by Michael Bird , prompted by an "ex-gay" conversion story and the response to it, asking how those who advocate "Queer Theology" (an unhelpful term I believe), relate to those who call themselves "ex-gays"... In response to the same story Scot McKnight points to some research that suggests that such conversions are not only real but produce statistically...

Following on from yesterday and  Peterson's   comments on the subversive power of parable, his comments on subversion itself are worth noting: "Three things are implicit in subversion. One, the status quo is wrong and must be overthrown if the world is going to be livable. It is so deeply wrong that repair work is futile. The world is, in the word insurance agents use to designate our wrecked cars, totaled.  Two, there is another world aborning that is livable. Its reality is no chimera. It is in existence, though not visible. Its character is known. The subversive does not operate out of a utopian dream but out of a conviction of the nature of the real world. Three, the usual means by which one kingdom is thrown out and another put in its place — military force or democratic elections — are not available. If we have neither a preponderance of power nor a majority of votes, we begin searching for other ways to effect change. We discover the methods of subversion...

After my trawl through my 2012 bookshelves yesterday, here's my awards for a hotchpotch of other categories: BEST FILM In terms of ratings that I gave to films this year on the Flixster site, there would be a four way tie this year, between " The Dark Knight Rises ", the final (?) part of Christopher's intelligent Batman trilogy, " Avengers Assemble " the first outing of Marvel's finest, and " Pirates: An Adventure with Scientists ", which saw Aardman at its anarchic best, and the slow-burning " Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy ". If I were to include those films I saw on video, then perhaps " Best Exotic Marigold Hotel" might be in with a shout, or even "Moneyball" , which must have been good to allow me to overcome my antipathy to Brad Pitt. But I'm going to stick to cinema releases, and if pushed I would probably say that "The Dark Knight Rises" gets my vote, as the most complete and complex f...

OK, I've slept on it and let my annoyance subside slightly... but for the little it is worth, here's my opinion on the Lyric's current (until the 24th November) production of Macbeth ... It's dull but not dreadful. I suppose I was feeling a bit more vitriolic last night after because it is one of my favourite Shakespeare plays and it is one of the most accessible and adaptable, yet the sheer lack of energy in last night's production was palpable. About 25% of the audience left at the interval... I watched as taxi after taxi pulled up at the door, and by that stage I felt like getting in my car and following them, but wanting my value for money I stayed. And I'm glad I did, because the best scenes and speeches were in the second half, but even they were not enough to stir me. The pre-production publicity promised much, with its plastic-mac clad witches, and sub-way backdrop, and talk of the Northern Irish resonances, with bloody politics and dynastic...

I said in a post at the turn of the year that we needed more pieces of theatre to make us think being performed in venues that are not sterile black boxes... And last night I saw the very epitome of that: 1912, A Hundred Years On - a dramatic exploration of the year that saw the signing of the Ulster Covenant, written by Philip Orr and Alan McGuckian, produced by Contemporary Christianity and performed by Ciaran Nolan and Neil Wilson in Knock Presbyterian Church as part of a whistlestop 2 week tour of Northern Ireland. Knock was NOT one of the Presbyterian Churches which acted as venues for signing the covenant, despite it's relative proximity to Craigavon House which was James Craig's base of operations... Some of my own family signed it, some simply marking it with an X because they were illiterate, and some signing it with their own blood, and they did so in the porches of two different Presbyterian Churches in Co Tyrone. It would be interesting to see this performed i...

Ok… It’s the last day of 2011 and before I head out to perform my last clerical duties of the year, as per the tradition (ie. I did it last year…) I offer you an eclectic set of VM’s Awards of the Year… as if anyone cares… Anyway, last year kicked off with what was to be my (and many people’s) favourite film of the year – The King’s Speech , in which Colin Firth stammered his way to a p-p-plethora of awards… Still think Helena Bonham Carter was the best thing in it however… It took until the end of the year however for me to come across my favourite album of the year… it was a Christmas present to my eldest son from some discerning giver… What do you give a jazz trumpet playing teenager with pretensions at being a guitar playing rock god (when not studying for medicine or strutting the stage that is)? – why obviously Wynton Marsalis and Eric Clapton Play the Blues Live at the Lincoln Centre … Two genuine musical genii sharing the same stage… And as I am eventually carried out of...