Tony Fitzpatrick, UK. blog@tonyfitz.uk

Shakespeare's wonderful play with the cleverly intertwined plots (the lovers of Athens and the dispute about marriage, the escape to the Forest, the row between Oberon and Titania over the changeling boy, and the mechanicals and their play for the Duke) is a regular for schools, and so the RST on a Thursday afternoon in term time was quite well filled with (rather well behaved) school children. I hope they enjoyed it. For my part, it was OK. Having admired Bally Gill as Romeo a few years ago, I found his depiction of the two roles of Theseus and Oberon a little unconvincing - maybe a little young to show the different sets of chemistry between him and Titania/Hippolyta. Equally the decision not to stage the fairies (Peaseblossom, Cobweb, Moth and Mustardseed) but to use their voices off stage was disappointing, as was deciding to "rap" Peter Quince's prologue before the "play within a play" - you lost the comic cleverness of the words. However it was all very funny, of course, and the special effects worked well. A few gender swaps of course - Peter Quince and Snout were played by girls, as was Puck. It worked ok but with unchanged text I find it distracting. The music, composed by Will Gregory, was excellent, and the staging, although simple, was effective. Enjoyable afternoon in the midst of horrible February weather.

Part of the commemoration of BBC Radio's centenary in 2023. Annie is writing a radio play about the history of drama on the BBC, and uses in effect the history of her family as the skeleton on which to hang it. Her grandfather Farley Sullivan, and mother Connie, were part of the radio repertory company in 1924. Connie was killed in a road accident soon after, but their daughter Jane, and her daughter Annie, were "all involved in the business". They worked for BBC radio drama through the war and into the post war era, up to the present day. We get interwoven plots of Farley's domestic abuse, the grief Jane felt after her mother's death, a teenage pregnancy hushed up, and in background how drama on the radio has evolved over the century. The play ends with Annie's son, Joe, listening to a dystopian drama on his phone whilst taking a turn by his grandmothers bedside in hospital. The way in which people listen to radio drama has changed dramatically. We no longer all "come closer" to the wireless in the front room, but we still listen. As a big fan of radio drama I enjoyed this very much.

Cast included Rebekah Staton, Joseph Kloska, Rhiannon Neads, Jessica Turner, Maisie Avis, Don Gilet, Tyler Cameron, Josh Bryant-Jones, Kitty O’Sullivan and Milton Dighton. Written by Katie Hims. Directed by Anne Isger. Sound by Ali Craig and Andy Garrett. Production Co-ordination by Jenny Mendez. A BBC Audio Production for BBC Radio 3. First broadcast 23 September 2023.

A different sort of love letter to William Shakespeare. Michael Williams, Dame Judi Dench's late husband always referred to the Bard as "The Man Who Pays the Rent" whilst the two of them worked extensively at the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford and London. In conversation with actor and director Brendan O'Hea, Dame Judi talks through many of the key parts she has played over the years. We get wonderful insight about the motivations of the characters, the contexts of each play, and a lot of fascinating background as to what it was like working in a major repertory theatre company in the 1960s-90s. I hugely enjoyed the way in which many of these characters were "humanised" - for example the divided emotions felt by characters such as the Nurse in Romeo and Juliet. Should be highly recommended reading for any A level English students studying one of the plays.

Published November 2023. Read in hardback.

Piazzolla's tango opera from 1968 isn't really an opera, more a musical, and maybe even more a "tango ballet". Piazzolla and his lyricist Horacio Ferrer called it an ‘operita’, a pun on ‘operetta’ and the Spanish ‘obrita’ or ‘little work’. Conceived as a multimedia piece, film was included in the 1968 premiere, which took place against a background of increased censorship on the part of Argentina’s military government.

In summary, the piece tells the story of Maria, a prostitute born in the slums "one day when God was drunk … with a curse in her voice." Maria is seduced by the rhythms of the tango and soon becomes "the most sorcerous singer and lover" in Buenos Aires. Her "fatal passion" arouses the wrath of robbers and brothel madams who shoot her to death, and bury her in an unmarked grave. In death, Maria is pulled into a dreamlike Hell where she encounters the choral circus of psychoanalysts who dissect her to the core. She makes a resurrection of sorts when she returns as a Shadow, gives birth to a new Maria, and haunts the sordid streets of Buenos Aires which she once walked.

The music is wonderful, and the singing (although clearly amplified) was glorious. The dancing - a mix of balletic movement and tango dancing was very impressive, and the Director used acrobats to heighten the action and illustrate the dreamlike movements. Amazingly the production included an ice rink on stage, where the "new Maria" is initially seen and skates to the delight of the people of Buenos Aires.

For it's time, the libretto was probably flying close to the limits of 1968 Argentinian censorship. Maria is a sensual and erotic creature, arguably a metaphor for the history of tango itself. She (and it) are debased, idolised and renewed. The score, which makes extensive use of the bandoneón, combines tangos and milongas, with other influences such as jazz and piano-bar music. I enjoyed it very much, despite the absence of English subtitles, and the rather bizarre and complex plot.

Francesco Scarlatti (1666-1741) was the "unknown" Scarlatti - much less famous than his brother Alessandro or his nephew Domenico. He left few works, all of them liturgical settings. Christopher Monks and Dr Geoffrey Webber have unearthed a lost Scarlatti score, 300 years old. A piece based on the biblical story of Daniel in the Lions Den. Interesting, but not actually very exciting. The chorus has little to do, and there is a lot of recitative telling the rather embellished story in Italian. No idea why written, or if ever performed previously, so this might be a world premiere! However things are often left to obscurity for a reason! Excellent performance of the Handel Dixit Dominus, the setting of Psalm 100 composed when Handel was just 22 and living in Rome, possibly for a coronation of some sort. The concert got a 4 star review in The Times.

I have never been a great fan of the writings of John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, the author of many of the commanding heights of fantasy fiction, including The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings and much more. No matter, I very much enjoyed this film. An entertaining bio-pic that describes Tolkien's life from boyhood, through the death of his parents, his education in Birmingham, chequered Oxford University career, service in the First World War, and marriage to his sweetheart Edit Bratt, met whilst both were staying in the same boarding house for orphans in Birmingham. We get a great deal about the friendships forged at King Edward's School around 1911. Tolkien and three friends, Rob Gilson, Geoffrey Bache Smith, and Christopher Wiseman, formed a semi-secret society named for a Birmingham Tea Room they frequented called the T.C.B.S. (Tea Club and Barrovian Society). Sadly only Tolkien and Wiseman survived the war. Throughout, Tolkien's interest in languages, folklore and fantasy shine through. The film ends in the mid 1930s with Tolkien, now a Professor at Oxford, writing the opening lines to "The Hobbit". Tolkien died in 1973, aged 81.

In her foreword PD James notes that this work is fiction, the forensic laboratory in which it is set near Ely is completely fictional, and that no such place with such a unpleasant collection of people could possibly exist. Well I am sure such places can be found, but it makes a superb backdrop for an excellent police procedural novel. Adam Dalgleish is literally helicoptered in from the Met to deal with the murder of an forensic scientist who has been done to death with a mallet in his own lab. The story that follows is skillfully crafted, and involves the sort of complex inter-personal relationships that could only exist between a small group of clever people working closely together in the middle of nowhere. We also get a terrific pen portrait of the local village community, with their petty worries and long held grudges. In a positive sign, James was obviously quite unconcerned to bring in a lesbian relationship into the plot, although in the 1970s that might have been an issue for some publishers. My favourite PD James novel so far.

Originally published 1977. Read on Kindle.

Mary Jane ("Mae") West (1893-1980) was an American entertainment superstar, whose earnings apparently rivalled those of William Randolph Hearst in the 1930s. This BBC radio play tells West's life through the device of focusing on her ten days in prison in 1926. Her stage play, "Sex", was raided and she was convicted on moral charges. Whilst in prison she apparently refused to wear the regulation underwear, and even had private meals with the Prison Governor. In flashback we are told of West's early career, her deals with Hollywood Studios, her championing of the career of Cary Grant, and even in "flash-forward" her run-in's with Hearst and other "guardians of the nation's moral flame". The idea that she became a confident to the Prison Governor over his marriage problems, and even started to teach other inmates of the women's prison how to read, was a little far fetched, but the whole thing was very entertaining. I enjoyed it, and Tracy-Ann Oberman's impression of West's voice was to die for! A woman rather ahead of her time in her attitudes to female emancipation, she was a very astute businesswoman and cleverly understood how to appeal to the public's desire for risque entertainment after prohibition and before the war. Written by Tracy-Ann Oberman with David Spicer. With Tracy-Ann Oberman, Stuart Milligan, Alistair McGowan, Lorelei King, Matt Addis, Pepter Lunkuse, Jessica Dennis and Anoushka Cowan. Produced by Liz Anstee. First broadcast December 2023.

The legend of Cassandra tells of a prophet given the ability to see the future by the god Apollo. Refusing to succumb to his seduction however, Apollo spits in her mouth, condemning her never to be believed, even though her prophesies all remain true. This new opera from the former Director of La Monnaie and the Aix-en-Provence Festival, Bernard Foccroulle, contrasts the story of Cassandra with that of a modern climate change scientist, Sandra. The libretto is by Canadian writer and director Matthew Jocelyn. Sandra tries to persuade people of the climate emergency though humour, using a stand-up comedy performance. She is criticised initially by a new boyfriend, Blake, for making light of the crisis, and then by her parents for overstating the risks and ignoring the business potential for mining that thinner ice might bring. Eventually Blake is killed protesting on an ice ship, and Sandra's younger sister, Naomi, gives birth to a child, for whom no doubt the future of the planet is uncertain. Sandra meets (in her dreams) Cassandra and they both mourn their fate as prophets of doom that none believes.

The opera was intelligently done, and in it's way entertaining. As a way of drawing attention to it's subject matter it was clever, although to be honest Sandra's parents were a cliche of climate change deniers. The opera switches between scenes of ancient Greece involving Cassandra, Apollo, Cassandra's father, King Priam, and the destruction of Troy, to the modern day with Sandra and Blake's flat, her parents dining room, and public stages on which Sandra is giving speeches. The set includes scenes depicting the heart of a glacier, and a beehive, with interspersions of swarming bees. Musically not hugely interesting, but it held your attention. The opera has been criticised in some reviews for being overly complex and a little confused, but I enjoyed it.

Having enjoyed Death on the Nile, with Kenneth Branagh embracing his inner Belgium Detective, I thought I would try his original outing as the master of the heavily manicured moustache. It was good fun, and although from the previous 1974 film (the one with the gorgeous Richard Rodney Bennett soundtrack) I was well aware of the plot, I enjoyed it very much (spoiler - they all did it). Apparently Christie's original (and not actually very good) novel was inspired by a westbound Orient Express train that was stuck in snow for five days in 1929 at Çerkezköy, eighty-one miles from Istanbul. The cinematography and the setting of the opulence of luxury train travel in 1934 was excellent, and the film, stuffed with both American stars and British National Treasures, was good fun.