Peter Viney's Blog

New article PINTER & ME (follow link) added in the influence of Harold Pinter on my ELT writing, with links to the Pinter reviews I’ve done.

From my 2024 review of The Caretaker:
In 2016, I thought the acting was superb, but the play itself creaked. It creaked far less this time. Times have changed. We’re now familiar with homeless people in shop doorways all over the town centre. Boarded up shops in crumbling malls. The times have caught up with the play again.

Newly added at AROUND & AROUND. It’s been building for ages. Music For Pleasure / Classics for Pleasure EMI claimed that their budget MFP division was the UK’s Best Selling LP label. They should have known, and judging by the number in cardboard boxes in charity shops, I expect they’re right. Eclectic isn’t the word. It was a huge label. My guess is that this was one of their best sellers. It swas in print for years.

The second NT Live At Home. This is the 2024 National Theatre production of DEAR OCTOPUS by Dodie Smith (follow link to the review). We chose it because it was directed by Emily Burns. It was a major success in 1938 and is a timely revival. For us it was the perfect play for the day. We had our Covid and flu jabs late morning, rested for an hour, then had a gentle walk on the beach, and home to spend the afternoon engrossed in this relaxing and pleasant play. It’s highly recommended. Reviews mention lack of plot, but it has three very different sisters, a sister-in-law, a bachelor brother, a 29 year old woman yearning for romance, a domineering mother, a benign but ineffectual father. Does that remind you of Jane Austen?

This is the first review of our NT At Home subscription. I fear I may have to limit reviews of these otherwise I’ll be at it too much of my time. This is the highly-rated THE OTHER PLACE which is billed as “After Antigone” and written and directed by Alexander Zeldin. It features Prince Philip / Captain Jack Randall, i.e. Tobias Menzies. FOLLOW LINK TO REVIEW.

It’s a change to review something everyone can see (or will be able to soon). This is the NT Live Streaming of INTER ALIA by Suzie Miller. (Follow link to the review). Suzie Miller’s legal plays sellout immediately, and Poole had to keep adding showings of this one. Rosamund Pike is the judge who deals with rape cases. Everything in the play is channeled through her, though we also have her son and her barrister husband. This is a highly-acclaimed production, and rightly so.

This has been a particularly good year for the Royal Shakespeare Company, but we rate this as the best so far. MEASURE FOR MEASURE (follow link to the review). This is a radical version, focussing on the main theme of men in power exploiting women, and it takes place in a modern political setting. Directed by Emily Burns. L to R: Isabella, Angelo, Claudio.

Vogue: Good Time Jazz, Contemporary These are two linked American labels, distributed by Decca (via the Vogue connection). Good Time Jazz had Jesse Fuller and some traditional material. Contemporary have a number of classic jazz albums recently reissued on premium quality vinyl. Worth investigating.

The latest AROUND AND AROUND article: Tempo (follow link to the page) was Decca’s jazz label between 1954 and 1960, releasing seminal British jazz. It had started as an independent. Though the basic trad material at the start is of declining interest, the collectability of artists like Tubby Hayes, Victor Feldman and Ronnie Scott is staggering (as are the prices), one of these is worth £1500.

At AROUND & AROUND. Impulse! (follow link to article) was the jazz part of the ABC group, but I’ve started that section with Impulse! because it’s simply the most interesting. The label can boast two of the three critics poll ‘Greatest Jazz Albums of all time,” A Love Supreme by John Coltrane and The Black Saint & The Sinner Lady by Charles Mingus. For most of its classic period, it was EMI distributed. It thrives on high quality reissues nowadays.

Follow the link to my review if HAMLET at Chichester Festival Theatre (LINK), directed by Justin Audibert and starring Giles Terera as Hamlet. This is Chichester’s first ever Hamlet, and the fourth version this year for us. This is highly unusual in eschewing the heavy cutting in recent versions. This one restores many speeches, and ones that are so often cut nowadays that they arrived fresh-minted.
L to R: Hamlet, Claudius, Gertrude