The History of the Troubles (Accordin' To My Da) in the Grand Opera House in Belfast is reviewed by Jane Coyle, the Maritana Bord Gáis Opera Gala in the NCH, Dublin is reviewed by John Allen and John Squire at The Ambassador is reviewed by Peter Crawley
The History of the Troubles (Accordin' To My Da)
Grand Opera House, Belfast
The uncontested theatrical highlight of Belfast's 2002 Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival - where it found perfect pitch within the specially-created black-box space of the old Northern Bank Building - has made an uncharacteristically polite first-night transfer onto the big stage of the Grand Opera House.
This extended piece of political slapstick carries all the complementary and contrasting stylistic hallmarks of its three writers - the broad, salty Belfast humour of community drama champion Martin Lynch, combined with the edgy, surreal satire of the Conor Grimes/Alan McKee double act.
The punchy narrative scampers helter-skelter across the past 32 years of life in Belfast, skimming over major events like the Ulster Workers' Strike, the Hillsborough Executive, the Hunger Strikes, Bloody Sunday and the Anglo-Irish Agreement.
For in the memory of ordinary, decent Gerry Courtney, those landmarks of the Troubles pale beside the birth of his children, his nights out with his wife, his addiction to the Rolling Stones, his vigilante patrols, his internment for drinking in the wrong place at the wrong time and his suffering with haemorrhoids.
Ivan Little plays Courtney, a gentle giant, who gave up his driving job when he felt the first storm clouds of sectarianism gathering and has since seen his unremarkable life pitched and tossed by events beyond his control.
Around him caper Grimes and McKee as practically the entire community of his tight-knit neighbourhood, holding out a little on their usual head-on confrontational style.
In Grimes's lisping philosopher-fool, Fireball the hospital porter, we are presented with a potentially great comic creation, but on opening night too much of his gentle, barmy humour was lost in the laughter and applause in that vast, unforgiving space.
Director Karl Wallace has made an accomplished job of adapting and scaling up the show, but he might yet make better use of David Craig's multi-faceted set to expand on the notion of small people walking through history.
The History of the Troubles is at the Belfast Grand Opera House until February 8th, then tours to Liberty Hall, Dublin; Ardhowen Theatre, Enniskillen; Millennium Forum, Derry; Newry Town Hall; Market Place, Armagh; Palace Everyman, Cork; Burnavon Theatre, Cookstown; Down Arts Centre, Downpatrick; Riverside Theatre, Coleraine and Magilligan Prison, Maghaberry Prison and Hydebank Young Offenders Centre.
Jane Coyle
Maritana Bord Gáis Opera Gala
NCH, Dublin
The Barra Ó Tuama organisation overcame the loss of two of its intended performers by bringing in worthy substitutes from the UK and Poland to sing at the NCH.
Bonaventura Bottoni, a regular and popular visitor here, is a polished performer whose vibrant tenor encompasses a broad and resonant range. He delighted with his assured singing of Neapolitan songs and excerpts from operas by Verdi, Donizetti, Ponchielli and Puccini.
Polish baritone Marcin Bronikowsky is another familiar voice. He is an impressive singer blessed with a fine sense of line and solid tone throughout a wide range. But he still tends to disrupt his lines through over-emphasis and occasional bluster.
Not enough, though, to mar respectable accounts of arias and duets from popular Italian and French works.
Soprano Alison Roddy, returning to her native city from a busy career abroad, started disappointingly. In Manon's Gavotte, Rusalka's Moon Song and Violetta's part of the Traviata duet with Bronikowsky, her approach was diffident and her tone constricted. It wasn't until later in the concert that she reached good form, with assured performances of Caro nome from Rigoletto and Adina's aria about Isolde's elixir of love . And she was truly sparkling in Arditti's kissing song.
As ever, Philip Thomas was an exemplary accompanist; and, as ever, he played a piano transcription, this time The Force of Destiny overture. The Glasnevin Choral Society backed the soloists crisply. But the sound in other choral items lacked body and was dominated by thin soprano tone.
John Allen
John Squire
The Ambassador
Tonight, fists are raised and fingers are pointed at John Squire. But before you get the wrong idea, this is not a scene of recrimination against the guitarist who abandoned The Stone Roses, effectively pulling the plug on one of the most revered British rock bands since The Beatles.
Rather, this is a spectacle of macho idolatry, a raucous football-terrace pageant familiar to another solo artist, still not on speaking terms with Squire.
As acrimonious as the split between childhood friends Ian Brown and Squire was, the co-songwriters have joint custody of the Roses' material. In his first tour as a solo artist, Squire loses no time in asserting his creative parenthood. As the dirty riffs of Driving South growl from his signature Les Paul guitar, Squire acts every inch the rock-god, skulking in the shadows, leaning into the groove and retreating behind his fringe. And then he sings. Squire, a natural guitarist, is no vocalist.
Adopting a Dylanesque squawk to match the country-rock of his new material, Squire capably serves such Roses' favourites as Made of Stone, She Bangs the Drum and Waterfall, but his attention seems divided between instrument and microphone, safely exchanging lead guitar for rhythm duties on the verses.
Ample opportunity is provided for his more gratuitous fretwork, however, as several of the already lengthy numbers extend into prolonged jams. For the legendarily saturnine Squire, any reserves of grandiloquence pour into his Gibson.
Between wishful messages of atonement (I Miss You, 15 Days), his solo material lacks much auxiliary verve, while the unexpected Clash cover I'm So Bored with the USA stomps on any notions of international truce. The muted vocals of a glorious Fool's Gold, though, seem to innocently wonder if a reconciliation could ever be made closer to home.
Peter Crawley
Dmitri Alexeev (piano), NSO/Alexander Anissimov
NCH, Dublin
As its title indicates, Schnittke's piece in the NCH concert is or is not A Midsummer Night's Dream. Its collage of unrelated and antagonistic styles lurches from the solemn to the outrageous and the NSO played it with a straight face, which only enhanced its absurdity. The composer has said he did not steal but faked the antiquities in his Mozart-Schubert-related rondo; faked or not, they awake what Shakespeare called "the pert and nimble spirit of mirth" and the performance deserved laughter to be mingled with applause.
Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No 4 is written for the left hand, so there are limits to what the pianist can do; it does seem a pity that the composer never got round to recycling it for two hands, as despite Dmitri Alexeev's impressive power and acrobatic hand, the music seems always to be aiming at what it cannot deliver.
Thirteen brass instruments with percussion make a noble sound and Rautavaara's Requiem for those forces delighted in the rich sonorities, while varying the texture in quite a quirky fashion. Its four movements were brief but encompassed a great range of expression.
Music for strings percussion and celesta (the instrumentation includes piano, harp, xylophone and timpani) by Bartok is as profound as anything by Bach or Beethoven but needs very careful pacing if its interior tension is to be preserved. Anissimov initiated each movement with electrifying effect but what followed sometimes approached the pedestrian.
Douglas Sealy
Roger Doyle (piano) and Guests
Mermaid Arts Centre, Bray
The first part of Roger Doyle's recital consisted of extracts from the music he composed for Wilde's Salomé, for the film Budawanny, and for the Nightshow episode in his own acoustic project Babel. Lacking dramatic context, the incidental music, played with an almost obsessive relentlessness on an amplified piano, offered little variety and monotony soon set in. The Nightshow, with a DJ and background music added on tape, was at first mildly amusing but soon became as tedious as the genre of radio for insomniacs one had thought it was intended to guy.
The obsession and tedium were, perhaps, intended, for the second part of the recital was much more lively. Doyle was joined by Trevor Knight (keyboards) and Tim Redfern (interactive video). The music and the video (rapidly changing abstract patterns) were linked to an extract from a lecture by Kevin O'Connell on The Idea and its Shadow and gradually the three elements disintegrated into incoherence.
In a final set of pieces Knight and Doyle encouraged each other to greater wildness, backed by a video of alarmingly active linear patterns whose zigzags, in the end, coalesced into a flight of rooks moving backwards to their roosts. It was an occasion when sitting in reverent silence to listen to such irreverent music seemed an inadequate response; the audience, as well as the video, should have been inspired to interact, even if one would have been hard put to rival Doyle's fingerwork on the electronic drum.
Douglas Sealy
