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Rent, The Musical At HMT – Duncan Harley Reviews.

Aberdeen City, Featured, Opinion No Responses »

Nov 172016

Duncan Harley reviews ‘Rent, the Musical’ at His Majesty’s Theatre, Aberdeen.

It is Christmas Eve 1896. A painter, a philosopher, a musician and a writer are planning a bender.
The writer needs a bit more time to work on his play, and as his pals set off for the pub, he receives a visit from a neighbour Mimi, a poor seamstress, who chaps on his door in search of a light for her candle.

Mimi and the writer fall madly in love then they too head off to the pub.

Eventually it all goes pear shaped. Mimi contracts tuberculosis and dies of exposure. The writer is left bereft. Well, that at least was Puccini’s La Boheme operatic take on the cruel realities of inner-city poverty in Bohemian Paris.

Substitute Bohemian 1990s New York for 1890s Paris. In Rent the Musical, writer Jonathan Larson takes La Boheme, turns the opera on its head and gives the tale a garishly glorious modern twist.

The poverty and the ill health are still around, but instead of the scourge of tuberculosis, Larson has substituted the scourge of HIV. Instead of a lack of fuel for the fire we have a bad-ass landlord, in the shape of Javar La’Trail Parker’s Benjamin Coffin the Third, who cuts off the power on a whim. And in lieu of Mimi the Parisian tuberculous seamstress, we have a 20th century Mimi nicely portrayed, by Philippa Stefani, as an HIV-stricken East Village sex worker stroke exotic dancer overburdened by a major smack habit.

Puccini’s poverty-stricken painter is portrayed as an independent Jewish-American wannabe filmmaker by the name of Mark Cohen who, Super-8 in hand, is single-handedly tasked with recording for posterity the tribulations of the East Village community.

On first night at HMT the role of Mark fell to understudy Joshua Dever, since lead Billy Cullum had a chest infection.

A veteran of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Grease and Jesus Christ Superstar, Joshua’s performance was seamless and came with the welcome bonus of a clearly enunciated commentary on what at times can be a convoluted and maybe even over-complicated tale.

There are rock arias galore, multiple phone messages from friends and even a little bit of tango. But perhaps the star turn was Layton Williams as the controversially clad Angel Schunard, a high-heeled power-dressed drag queen and committed partner to gay philosophy professor and sometime anarchist Tom Collins.

Caring, giving and kind, but with a penchant for murdering canines for cash, she/he, or is it he/she, executed an absolutely astonishing gravity-defying triple entendre somersault plus twist whilst clad in pink fluffy five inch heels!

Fast-paced, rock-solid, mega-loud and at points furiously intensive, Rent the Musical presents a heady mix of anti-establishment sentiment combined with perhaps an overload of doom-laden prophesy. The spectre of HIV and AIDS perches Damoclean over the entire production, and multisexuality is the order of the day.

Songs include the classics ‘Seasons of Love’, ‘Goodbye Love’, ‘Over the Moon’ and ‘Light My Candle’. In all there are around thirty musical numbers in this revival.

Both the established Rent Heads amongst us and the newbies to the genre will be in rock heaven throughout this entire performance. And of course, Angel gets to heaven and Mimi’s tiny hand is frozen.

Directed by Bruce Guthrie. Lighting design Rick Fisher. Rent the Musical plays at HMT Aberdeen until Saturday 19th November

Tickets from Aberdeen Performing Arts Tel: 01224- 641122

Words © Duncan Harley and Images © APA

Jazz Piano Goes Pop At The Blue Lamp

Aberdeen City, Featured, Opinion No Responses »

Nov 172016

With thanks to Rob Adams.

Louis Durra had a ready-made response when Bob Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature last month. The Berlin-based Californian pianist, who brings his trio to the Blue Lamp on Thursday, November 24, has a very cool, groovy take on Tangled Up in Blue, one of the stand-out songs from Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks album.

So he was able to slot it into his live set instantly as a dedication to the new Nobel laureate.

The opening track on Durra’s 2012 release, The Best of All Possible Worlds, Tangled Up in Blue contributed to the pianist’s unlikely elevation to American college radio sensation. In a way reminiscent of Ramsey Lewis in the 1960s, Durra’s jazz piano trio versions of Dylan, Bob Marley, Alanis Morisette and Radiohead songs took a trick with deejays and became part of the soundtrack to student life across the U.S..

A follow-up, Rocket Science, released later the same year, made similar waves with its explorations of the Beatles, White Stripes, KT Tunstall and traditional Mexican and French Canadian material.

Durra is by no means the first jazz musician to explore Radiohead’s repertoire, for example, or the first to cover pop hits of the day. That’s an idea as old as jazz itself. Durra, however, takes it further than most, even finding jazz piano trio repertoire and inspiration in Scottish electronica band Boards of Canada.

“I’m not on a ‘say no to the mainstream jazz repertoire’ soapbox,” says Durra.

“I’m just as likely to play music by Cedar Walton, Hank Jones, Joe Henderson, Annie Ross or Brad Mehldau as, say, Snoop Dog. Jazz was once described as the sound of surprise and it’s my aim to make each piece have something unexpected about it, in the nicest possible way.”

Durra’s investigation of the wider popular music canon – his most recent album, Chromakey, has a typically understated exploration of country-noir singer Gillian Welch’s Orphan Girl – stemmed from his accepting a three-nights-a-week residency in a Los Angeles restaurant.

After years of playing an accompanying role, mostly in theatre, and having made a couple of jazz albums that sold disappointingly, Durra was in danger of losing interest. His residency, which presently expanded to four nights a week, allowed him to rediscover the hunger that had led to him turning onto jazz in his teens.

With four to five hours a night to fill he determined that he, his rhythm section and the bar staff and clientele alike wouldn’t get bored with the same tunes being played on rotation. So he worked up a repertoire of some two hundred items, ranging from jazz standards to songs by the Ting Tings, Radiohead and songwriter-rapper Ke$ha.

The restaurant’s customers liked what Durra calls his oddball pop covers. So he recorded a selection of them, gave the album to a publicist and found himself with a hit on his hands. When he then decided to investigate another market, he booked himself onto the Edinburgh Fringe and promptly won an award, a Herald Angel, one of the much coveted statuettes that Glasgow-based newspaper The Herald awards for performing excellence during Edinburgh’s festival season.

On his way back to California after his second Edinburgh Fringe run Durra stopped off in Berlin, loved the feel of the city and decided to move there. Wanderlust and the lure of the Parisian jazz scene will see him relocate to the French capital in the not too distant future but his raison d’etre as a musician remains as it was during his restaurant residency

“I want to connect with the public,” he says.

“And the best way to do that, the best way to draw them into my way of playing is to give them something they recognise every now and then. Just because you’re playing pop tunes doesn’t mean that you can’t make them artistic and expressive. Besides, there’s poetry in Bob Dylan’s music – it’s official.”

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Shine On You Crazy Diamond

Aberdeen City, Opinion No Responses »

Nov 102016

floydplay2 By Chris Ramsay, Forviemedia.

‘One thinks of it all as a dream’ is a play written by Alan Bissett and directed by Sacha Kyle. It charts the 1967 release of Pink Floyd’s début album, ‘The Piper at the Gates of Dawn’ and the erratic behaviour of frontman Syd Barrett. Is he having a drug-induced breakdown, or is he playing an elaborate joke on the band and the music industry?

The play takes the form of dreamlike sequences and vignettes; occasionally it verges on pantomime.

I took loads of LSD and it was nothing like what the play shows, but that’s how acid and theatrical interpretation should be.

I saw the Floyd live a couple of times at festivals back then – that and the fact I once spent a weekend in Roger Waters’ Mum’s house made aficionados of the band jealous. These fanatics carried Floyd albums around with them. I told them that I thought Floyd was a great singles band, that I was totally wasted during my late teens and beyond. It confirmed what they suspected – I was the one with a problem, the wayward idiot winding them up.

In ‘One thinks of it all as a dream’, acid guru and Scottish psychiatrist RD Laing puts in a couple of surprise appearances.

“How do you know it’s Syd who has the problem?” he asks Roger Waters.

This poignant play was specially commissioned by the Mental Health Foundation for the Scottish Mental Health Arts & Film Festival. It was co-produced with A Play, A Pie and A Pint, Traverse Theatre, Òran Mór and Aberdeen Performing Arts. The hour-long play manages to paint a vivid portrait of a revolutionary period in pop music and to sketch a character study of one of its most influential, enigmatic and complex figures. It stars Euan Cuthbertson as Syd Barrett.

Syd was the principal songwriter behind ‘The Piper at the Gates of Dawn’, a masterpiece, and he wrote a handful of strong early singles that helped define the psychedelic age. Syd however was happiest when he was painting. Unlike many of his contemporaries – Jimi Hendrix, Brian Jones, Janis Joplin – Roger ‘Syd’ Barrett survived that era; he died in July 2006 aged 60.

‘One thinks of it all as a dream’ was performed at the excellent Lemon Tree. A Play, A Pie and a Pint is great value for £11, and the format has whetted the appetite of Aberdeen’s culture vultures – the venue was packed for the matinee performance on November 4th. The audience was principally of a certain vintage: I didn’t spot anyone having acid flashbacks.

Alan Bissett is a playwright, novelist and performer who grew up in Falkirk, where he has a street named after him. He won the Glenfiddich Scottish Writer of the Year award in 2011. Alan and Sacha Kyle are one of Scotland’s most acclaimed writer-director teams, creators of Edinburgh Festival Fringe hits such as The Moira Monologues, The Pure, The Dead and the Brilliant and Ban this Filth! Sacha’s recent credits include Turbo Folk and What the F**kirk?

Related reading:

http://www.sachakyle.com Sacha’s website

https://www.opendemocracy.net/uk/alan-bissett/david-maclennan-portrait-of-life-in-theatre Alan Bissett article – ‘Portrait of a life in theatre’

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Sunny Afternoon, The Musical At HMT: Duncan Harley Reviews

Aberdeen City, Featured, Opinion No Responses »

Nov 102016

Duncan Harley reviews ‘Sunny Afternoon, the Musical’ at HMT Aberdeen.

Garmon Rhys (Pete Quaife) Ryan O’Donnell (Ray Davies) Andrew Gallo (Mick Avory) Mark Newnham (Dave Davies)

Picture in your mind’s eye a musical about a 1960s band who, in their day, released around 28 albums, were ranked 65th on Rolling Stone magazine’s ‘100 Greatest Artists of All Time’ list and occasionally, just occasionally, swung from chandeliers.
The Kinks popped pills, used girls and fell out with America. If it wasn’t broke they took an axe to it. If it was broke they swung the axe again just to make sure.

Hotel rooms, promoters and, on occasion, fans bore the brunt of the angst of the tempestuous four.

And then, just to let off steam, they turned inwards and beat the hell out of each other both on – and offstage. Fuelled by a heady concoction of wild music and wild parties, they seesawed repeatedly from giddy success to rock-bottom oblivion and then back up again.

Headed by brothers Ray and Dave Davies, The Kinks did eventually make the Hollywood Bowl, but only after a very rocky ride.

Sunny Afternoon the Musical tracks the band’s career through a finely balanced combination of tribute numbers and snapshots of the band’s progress from the blandness of the Muswell Hill club scene through to the electrifying days on the international music circuit.

On opening night at His Majesty’s Aberdeen, word came that Ryan O’Donnell was unwell and that James Hudson would be playing the part of Ray Davies. He played it well and few in the audience would have even been aware of the substitution.

It was clear from the very start that this is no mere tribute show. Yes, there are musical numbers and yes there are stage strutting scenes, but there are also acres and acres of good solid bio to link the songs with the background stories which inspired them.

As the songs emerge, a tale of sibling rivalry and misunderstanding unfolds. The madly challenged Dave, sensibly dressed in a bright chintzy frock, swung from a chandelier while elder brother and leader of the band Ray tries to keep it together with wife Rasa. ‘A Dedicated Follower of Fashion’ led to the Pepsi cola’d ‘Lola’, and with Dave starting to resemble Ava Gardner on a massive bender, there were brotherly fights and band fallouts galore.

There are minor niggles. That drum solo in act two might be completely superfluous; and the colourfully Union-Jacked 1966 England World Cup Winners’ parade might not go too down too well in front of some Scottish audiences.

The transatlantic duet involving Rasa and Ray was particularly poignant, but it has to be said that although everyone on stage sparkled, Mark Newnham’s portrayal of Dave Davies sparkled most brightly.

His portrayal of the Mick Avory-hating guitarist left little to the imagination. Despite bad behaviour verging at times on the offensive, and a sometimes questionable dress sense, he emerged as a well-cast musical villain.

There’s humour galore. Harold McMillan takes it on the chin and long-dead Who drummer Keith Moon is revered as an eccentric Roller-owning rocker with a penchant for swimming pools.

Virtually all of the classic Kinks hits including ‘You Really Got Me’ and of course ‘Sunny Afternoon’ are up for grabs, and by the finale folk were rocking in the aisles to ‘Waterloo Sunset’ and ‘Lola’.
By the end of the night there was hardly a grey hair in the house.

Directed by Edward Hall with Barney Ashworth as Musical Director, Sunny Afternoon plays at HMT Aberdeen until Saturday 12th November

Tickets from Aberdeen Performing Arts Tel: 01224- 641122

Words © Duncan Harley and Images © APA

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Theatre Of Hate Launch New Album To Krakatoa’s Delight

Aberdeen City, Featured, Opinion No Responses »

Nov 082016

Aberdeen Voice’s Fred Wilkinson and Suzanne Kelly spend a night at the Theatre; Krakatoa erupted (glad to get that bad pun out of the way) with possibly its most high voltage show and hyper audience ever. Photographed beautifully by Dod Morrison.

Feel sorry for yourself if you didn’t get into Theatre of Hate’s sold-out show if you love music, because it was one of those nights that will go down as legendary in Aberdeen’s live music history.
Theatre of Hate returned to The Granite City after a 30-something year absence touring new album, Kinshi, and we all went mad for it.

Theatre of Hate is Kirk Brandon (lead vocals, guitar, otherworldly stage moves); Adrian Portas (guitars; tonight, looming on a platform over the others on stage); Stan Stammers (bass guitarist whose playing flows like fine wine); John Lennard (saxophone – the most expressive you’d hope to hear) and percussionist Chris Bellcafe giving it his all.

The band formed in the early 80s, eventually morphing into Spear of Destiny. In 2014 they appeared for the first time in decades with a new EP of four diverse and powerful tracks which eventually led to…

The new album, Kinshi

Kinshi is Japanese for prohibited. The album artwork shows samurai warriors whose world and way of life was soon to be outlawed. While the samurai ways passed into legend, their warrior tradition persists – read into that what you will. The four songs from the EP included ‘Venice’ – a haunting/haunted ballroom love/break-up waltz.

The pre-apocalypse, politically volatile ‘Day of the Dog’s’ lyrics ask questions of East and West in terms of dogma and suffering:

“Breaking point / The Gateway to the West / Unhinged, broken / Flood makes the journey / Meanwhile warmongers / 7th century / Thirst for blood / All in the name of” (with ‘God’ being the unspoken name I conclude).

It makes me question our volatile world situation (God – if you’re reading feel free to weigh in).

It also makes me wonder why, when there is so much that needs to be said today, mainstream music shies away from reality and goes with safe, bankable lyrics and anodyne acts, or pointlessly salacious and pointlessly high-budget tracks (‘Bitch better have my money’ – thank you Rihanna). But I digress.

My favourite song from the EP and the album is ‘Slave’ – hypnotic rhythm leads to a great crescendo of guitar/bass/drum/sax with Brandon’s vocals riding the curl of this rich wave of sound.

Theatre of Hate have this amazing sax and guitar layering over bass/drum no outfit I know can approach. The song is a surprisingly accurate insight into the pressures on women to conform to the media’s Barbie-doll beauty ideal – physically impossible of course. ToH’s ‘Slave’ offers further keen observations on the thoughts an ageing starlet or model might have; am astonished by these insights into women’s issues.

Slave’s lyrics start off suggesting a portrait of a self-absorbed ageing beauty

“She woke this morning / put on slave paint / living the life of glamour / the Hollywood land ideal… Self love and pity from a bottle / the media play the woman game.”

Then Brandon’s lyrics widen out to perhaps the moral of the song (well, for me anyway), as he invokes the famous Rubaiyat of Omar Kayyam:

“The moving finger writes; and, having writ, moves on: nor all thy piety nor wit shall lure it back to cancel half a line, nor all thy tears wash out a word of it.”

Brandon writes:

“No one can stop the clock that ticks / Or halt the calendar page / Fear itself, has made her slave / She’s the fashion, of her age – SLAVE.”

Ten points for including a beautifully illustrated booklet with lyrics with this album, and another ten points for Theatre of Hate for showing such understanding of the pressures the media and society put on women, particularly physically beautiful women to remain beautiful while time makes the feat impossible – it makes some of them slaves to vanity. ‘Slave’ is hypnotic; the way it builds is gorgeous – the album version is beautifully worked – and I can’t stop listening to it.

Back to the rest of the album. ‘Mr Mendacity’ is illustrated with an image of everyone’s least-favourite POTUS candidate, Mr Drumpf.

This timely piece of protest music is going down very well with anti-Trump factions (I wish it were on Youtube or somewhere I could share it more – hint hint) and reminds us what a good protest song can and should do.

“He’s got an ego, the size of his house / He’s got the money and he’s got a mouth / Flannels everyone he’s talking so loud / Suitably self impressed, working his muppet crowd” – and there in a few lines is a summary of a man no one should be taken in by.

There is a dub version of the album as well; I can’t wait to hear it. The project was crowdfunded, and contributors chose from a range of rewards and enjoyed periodic updates and tracks. Too late to be a crowd funder, but it’s not too late to order Kinshi, and from the look of how they were flying off the merchandise stall last night, looks like some of you are way ahead of me on the point.

The Krakatoa Show

There is a faithful core of people in Aberdeen who follow Spear of Destiny and Theatre of Hate; this first appearance in Aberdeen (last was apparently 30 years ago in Fusion) was highly anticipated, and there was an energy and enthusiasm in the crowded bar that night before the show started.
‘Black Irony’ was the first song of this set which balanced old and iconic ToH pieces perfectly.

The set was long and must have been gruelling, not least for Brandon whose operatic range and preternatural ability to sustain notes is well known – but it also all seemed to end far too soon. Twenty songs – or was it twenty-two? – filled the venue, and the crowd were ecstatic.

‘Black Irony’ is a dark, sinister indictment of western values :

“I believe in Micky Mouse, Snow White and the 7 dwarves / Snowden & Assange / I believe in Dr Strange”

Brandon menacingly intones; the sax is sultry, more than a bit sordid. Splendid work, and the crowd is responding to the new material, with many people already aware of the lyrics.

Towards the start of the set are ‘Americanos’ and ‘The Hop’ – clearly favourite songs of many people here. After ‘Ukraine Girl’ from the new album with its 1960s feel beat, things are calmed down with another haunting number this time classic ‘Love is as Ghost’. Loss, love, suicide, and pain in the lyrics are beautifully matched by the music, and the sax is mournful. Sticking to the dark side of romance is the classic (but angrier) Incinerator. The audience is very much there with them.

‘Conquistador’ then brings the set to ‘Mr Mendacity’ – and for a while I’m lost from my attempts to make notes on the night to just enjoying it. Floating along one moment, jolted then by ‘Legion’ and the chanting crowd, I’m enjoying the ride; we all are. Someone’s said to me at the end of ‘Legion’,

“That was a life-changing experience.”

The next thing I know Kirk’s getting everyone to sing ‘Original Sin’ with him. The fever pitch in Krakatoa is like no other night I’ve spent there and everyone’s shouting ‘Do you Believe in the Westworld’ at the top of their lungs before the final encore, ‘Propaganda’.

Perhaps people think first of Kirk, Stan and Lennard – the original ToH members.

This night would not have hit the heights without Adrian Portas’ talents and Farrant’s percussion. Watching and hearing Portas is a pleasure; wish I could have seen more of Farrant behind the crowd and the guitars – but we all felt and heard his work (must be exhausting mentally as well as physically).

Verdict – virtuoso (yeah an overused word) performances from all, with every member of ToH having moments when they particularly shone as individuals, and a night of wholly original music performed with conviction and spirit of a kind we rarely enjoy. There was one passage where Stan Stammers was remarkable, but as my notes were eventually covered in beer, I can’t quite tell you which bit I’d been particularly struck by.

During one moment of Zeppelin’s film ‘The Song Remains The Same’ Plant is backstage at Madison Square Garden and comes out with an odd statement:

“This is a song that sometimes takes a building in a manner which our forefathers were very used to. Did you hear that? It’s right though, isn’t it? That feeling that’s left everybody, the cosmic energy! Everybody goes yeah! Bash!”

I never knew what he was on about until this show.

Don’t take my word for it:

“They’ve disposed of traditional structures – chorus, middle 8. When you get it, you get it. I can’t predict what they’re going to do next. What an excellent night.” – Fred Wilkinson (Toxik Ephex, Aberdeen Voice editor, said while clutching his copy of Kinshi. Fred also wanted to mention how spot on he found the sound engineer’s work tonight)

“It was triumphant return to Aberdeen for TOH after 34 years and good to see the Aberdeen people come out and support a local venue that is keeping music alive” – Dod Morrison, photographer

“Aberdeen was brilliant” – Jayne Pirie

On A personal note:

I wish I’d made it to more of these dates; it’s a genuine regret as I’ve read such glowing reports about the shows. Fred Wilkinson wasn’t going to stay at first (he was there for a meeting earlier in the evening, but he was persuaded, and wound up very happy he remained, although when I pointed out the Trump artwork in the Kinshi lyrics, he had a funny turn.

Admission – I was a miserable, useless failed bass student; no matter how hard I practiced scales and lines, whatever I played sounded mechanical and stilted. So it was absolute thrill listening to Stan Stammers make such fluid, melodious, emotive music.

Another admission – I usually don’t like saxophone in rock such as Springsteen – Clements was a huge talent I admit – but there was always something so wholesome, American, clean-cut about most sax in rock that it just left me cold. Lennard’s playing is as far removed from the kind of sax I find cloying as is possible to get, and I loved it. Lastly I hope Hen is recovering well, and Craig Adams – thanks for yet another great night.

Let’s not leave it so long next time please. Encore.

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Emeli Sandé: The face Of The Music Hall Transformation

Aberdeen City, History 1 Response »

Oct 272016

By Duncan Harley, and with thanks to Erica Banks, Communications Officer, Aberdeen Performing Arts.

Emeli Sandé has pledged her support to the multi-million pound scheme to launch the historic venue into the 21st century and beyond

Built to a design by Archibald Simpson and opened in 1822, performers as diverse as Charles Dickens, Elton John and comedy puppet duo Pinky and Perky have trodden the boards to entertain and amaze Aberdeen audiences. Politicians such as Tony Benn, Winston Churchill, and Lloyd George also put in appearances, and throughout its history the building has played host to everything from concerts and bazaars to theatre and sporting events.

Indeed many Aberdonians can still recall their shock introduction to Glam Rock when in far off 1972 a hopeful David Bowie accompanied by legendary guitarist Mick Ronson brought Spiders from Mars to a Music Hall audience.

As the “A Listed” venue begins an £8m restoration and regeneration uplift, Aberdeen Performing Arts (APA) has announced that Alford-born singer-songwriter Emeli Sandé has pledged her support to the multi-million pound scheme to launch the historic venue into the 21st century and beyond.

“The Music Hall holds so many fond memories for me” said former Alford Academy pupil Emeli,

“From the music festivals in primary school to my first tour, the beautiful atmosphere and stunning acoustics really make this a special place to perform.”

The project is spearheaded by APA, the charitable trust which runs the Music Hall, His Majesty’s Theatre and The Lemon Tree.

To date, fundraising efforts have raised a massive £6.5m towards the transformation, including major contributions from Aberdeen City Council, Creative Scotland, The Heritage Lottery Fund, Historic Environment Scotland, The Robertson Trust, The Foyle Foundation, Garfield Weston, The Wolfson Foundation and The Hugh Fraser Foundation.

This week a £150,000 sponsorship deal has been agreed between APA and Aberdeen Solicitors’ Property Centre. Aberdeen Inspired has also gifted £50,000, bringing the total funds raised to just over 80 percent of the final total, £7.9m, ahead of re-opening in Autumn/Winter 2018.

Jane Spiers, APA Chief Executive commented:

“We are so thrilled to have begun the next chapter in the life of the Music Hall. This is a huge campaign that has been years in the making – it has taken many months of planning and fundraising. However, this project is about much more than bricks and mortar. The Music Hall is a national treasure with decades of wonderful history behind it.

The range and calibre of artists, musicians and events the Hall has hosted over nearly 200 years is truly astonishing and its place at the heart of community and civic life is unassailable. You’d be hard pressed to find anyone who has a connection with Aberdeen who doesn’t have a story to tell about the Music Hall – a prize giving, graduation, great concert, school orchestra, a romantic encounter.

We’re delighted that Emeli Sandé is lending her support to the transformation and we are proud to be developing a venue which will be international in outlook and also operate at the heart of the ever-growing arts community in the North-east.”

Plans for the revamped Music Hall include upgrades to the historic auditorium with new seating, flooring and more flexible staging, new performance, rehearsal and education spaces, upgraded artist facilities, a new foyer, box office and café bar and new ramps and lifts to improve access to all areas.

Jane added:

“It really is an ingenious re-imagining of the space. We’re restoring and retaining the Music Hall’s historic fabric and its wonderful acoustic and at the same time we’re adding new features in keeping with the expectations of a 21st century audience … our venues are a vital part of cultural life in the city”

Aberdeen City Council leader Jenny Laing backed up Jane’s comments

“The Music Hall redevelopment is a wonderful example of projects taking place in the city centre which will deliver a positive impact”

and Sean O’Callaghan of main contractor Kier Construction commented that

“It’s a privilege to restore this historic and much loved building. Our expertise and experience in delivering a diverse range of iconic heritage projects across Scotland stands us in good stead as we renovate Aberdeen Music Hall for future generations to enjoy.”

If you would like to support the project via donations, by lending the support of your business or by becoming a Music Hall ambassador contact Aberdeen Performing Arts .

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Wiszniewski And Stevenson: Jazz At The Lampie – Nov 3

Aberdeen City, Featured, Information No Responses »

Oct 272016

wiszniewski-and-stevenson-feat With thanks to Rob Adams.

It’s a varied life on the road for saxophonist Konrad Wiszniewski and pianist Euan Stevenson who bring their acclaimed New Focus Quartet to the Blue Lamp on Thursday, November 3.

Already this autumn Wiszniewski and Stevenson’s touring schedule has taken them to a blues club in Cupar and churches in Edinburgh and Falkirk as well as the former seamen’s mission down by Eyemouth harbour.

“Blues and church music are two of the main ingredients in jazz,” says Wiszniewski, who is also one of the stars of the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra’s saxophone section.

“Jazz musicians improvise on blues scales and a lot of jazz, especially the soul-jazz style that came out of the 1950s and 1960s, draws on gospel music, so we felt at home in both types of venue and particularly enjoyed the acoustics in Craiglockhart church in Edinburgh.

“We thought it made an ideal jazz venue – and the minister agreed!”

Wiszniewski and Stevenson have been touring to promote their new album, New Focus on Song, the second release by a group that grew out of an Edinburgh Jazz Festival tribute they paid to the great saxophonist Stan Getz. In 1961, Getz recorded a trailblazing orchestral album, Focus, and in 2011 Wiszniewski and Stevenson were commissioned by the festival to recreate the music on the album to mark its fiftieth anniversary.

They so enjoyed working with the ensemble that performed Focus, a nine-piece featuring jazz quartet, string quartet and concert harp, that they turned it into their main outlet, although for economic reasons gigs with the string quartet and harp tend to be quite rare at the moment.

“Although we don’t actually sing, the music on the new album is really songlike in style,” says Wiszniewski.

“The idea was that the compositions would be roughly the same length as a pop single because people’s time is so precious these days and we wanted to try and capture their attention quickly with strong melodies, although we stretch out a bit more in live performances than we did on the album.”

Atmosphere plays a strong role in the music, too, and there’s also quite a prominent Scottish element.

“The Scottish folk influence is something that came quite naturally, just through living and working here,” says the Glasgow-based Wiszniewski, who in addition to various jazz projects has toured with award-winning folk fusion band the Peatbog Faeries and with fiddle player Aidan O’Rourke, from Lau.

“We toured with the American saxophonist Ravi Coltrane’s group last year and his musicians were very complimentary about how we were playing jazz that reflected our own culture rather than theirs, so we feel we must be doing something right.”

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The Broons at HMT: Duncan Harley Reviews

Aberdeen City, Featured, Opinion No Responses »

Oct 212016

Duncan Harley reviews ‘The Broons’ at His Majesty’s Theatre, Aberdeen.

broons_1c Long ago, childhood Sundays were punctuated by an obligatory visit to Sunday School, and then on to Grandma and Grandpa’s for the Sunday roast. The day of course began with a breakfast of tea and groats, followed by a wee read of the Sunday Post pull-out Fun Section which, then as now, sported a full page sitcom monochrome comic strip featuring Maw, Paw and the entire Broon family.

Although nowadays relegated to page 50 or thereabouts, the Fun Section is still going strong.

Other DC Thomson titles may have gone digital, but the likes of the Broons and Oor Wullie keep truckin’ along in good old-fashioned print.

That is of course until now; for in a bold step for Mankind, the tenement-dwelling Broons of No 10 Glebe Street, Auchenshoogle have taken to the tartan stage to celebrate their Oaken Anniversary in glorious 3D.

Penned by Glasgow-based playwright Rob Drummond, The Broons stage-show takes 80 years of comic-strip familial ultra-conventionality and introduces alien concepts such as personal ambition and – gasp – character development into the endearingly familiar Groundhog Day mix. Alongside the obligatory bonnets and whiskers, the Scottish Waltons are brought bang up-to-date with the addition of laptops and tablets.

As various family members announce radical career plans involving moving away to far and distant places, Torry-born Joyce Falconer’s formidable Maw Broon is faced with the task of trying to keep the whole family together for yet another 80 years, or else face a lonely old age stuck in front of the telly with just Paw for company. The familiar hijinks of life in a Scotch sitting room come under threat and Maw’s deviousness in the face of adversity knows no bounds!

Maggie, admirably played by Kim Allan, starts the ball rolling when she announces her plans to get hitched. Joe then decides to move to London to pursue his love of boxing. The lanky Hen, played by Alaskan born Tyler Collins, is about to take off hiking round Australia to find himself. Euan Bennet’s Horace decides on a career in confectionery, and even Daphne gets a man at long last. What could possibly go wrong?

Sing-along and clap-along are never far away in this Sell A Door production, and the musical numbers cover every tartan-clad genre from White Heather Club ballad to Bay City Rollers brash ultra-pop.

Alongside the music there are frequent bursts of slapstick and lots and lots of one-liners. Some are painfully familiar such as when the desperate Daphne tells Paw that she has met up with a braw new guy while surfing. Predictably perhaps, Paw retorts “An did you fa’ aff your board?” But all in all, this is a skilfully researched production and the familiarity of the dialogue and humour simply adds to the appeal of the performance.

broons_2 A good measure of the audience laughed in all the right places, and that surely must indicate success.

Very much a family variety show and with an element of traditional Panto showing through at the seams, The Broons does push the boundaries a wee bit on occasion. The long suffering Auchenshoogle vicar, a grandfather of four, is the willing recipient of a gay snog or three; and in a scene worthy of a Waltons bedtime routine, Paw Broon very nearly gets his oats.

But, so help ma boab, it’s all in the best possible taste and if The Bairn can take it then weans of all ages will simply love this show. Plus of course Oor Wullie makes a cameo appearance as himself, and that can’t be bad.

The Broons plays at His Majesty’s Theatre Aberdeen until Saturday 22nd October.

Tickets from Aberdeen Performing Arts Tel: 01224- 641122

New Album And City Date For Theatre Of Hate

Aberdeen City, Opinion No Responses »

Oct 062016

With thanks to Suzanne Kelly.

Legendary 1980s band Theatre of Hate will release its first album in some 30 years on 14 October.
Theatre of Hate were formed in the 1980s, but only recently reformed to tour. Original members Stan Stammers (bass) and John Leonard (saxophone) will join Brandon in the current line-up which will be at Krakatoa on 4 November.

The album ‘Kinshi’ (from the Japanese meaning roughy ‘forbidden’) is being crowd funded and offers a wide range of incentives to those who donate to the project and preorder the album which will be available on several formats including vinyl.

Details can be found here: http://www.pledgemusic.com/projects/theatre-of-hate

Vive Le Rock has awarded the album 9/10 in a full page review with a headline that reads:

“Mighty return from post-punk legends”

and goes on to conclude

“Kinshi is the sound of a band who have grown and developed, but never lost sight of what brought them together. It’s intensity and sense of purpose is relentless and it demands attention, but then Theatre of Hate was never meant to be back-ground noise and that’s why so many years on, it’s so good to have them back”

There are a whole host of Pre-Order goodies to be had when getting your hands on a copy of ‘Kinshi’, from Gold Dinner Packages to Double Vinyl versions to

Download only editions. And remember ALL Pre-Orderer’s will receive a download of ‘Kinshi’ direct into their inbox on the release day morning FRIDAY 14TH OCTOBER 2016.

We have not One but Two Pre-Order sites for you to peruse:

To Pre-Order direct from the band, go to http://theatreofhatekinshi.bigcartel.com
To Pre-Order from PledgeMusic, go to http://www.pledgemusic.com/projects/theatre-of-hate

The full ‘Kinshi’ Tour is selling well. Advance tickets can be found here:

THEATRE of HATE – ‘Kinshi’ UK Tour 2016

OCTOBER

Wed 26th LONDON Exclusive Pledge Show
http://tinyurl.com/hh4z2oy
Thu 27th BRISTOL Fleece
http://tinyurl.com/jc522hq
Fri 28th BEDFORD Esquires
http://tinyurl.com/hsczw44
Sat 29th BUCKLEY Tivoli (Dark Wave Alldayer)
http://tinyurl.com/p7y34mg
Sun 30th BIRMINGHAM o2 Academy
http://tinyurl.com/hhfv89q

NOVEMBER

Tue 1st LEEDS Brudenell Social Club
http://tinyurl.com/zdsxxvp
Wed 2nd NEWCASTLE The Cluny
http://tinyurl.com/hu884wg
Thu 3rd GLASGOW King Tuts Wah Wah Hut
http://tinyurl.com/h5bb73t
Fri 4th ABERDEEN Krakatoa
http://tinyurl.com/zsw29ce
Sat 5th DUNFERMLINE PJ Malloys
http://tinyurl.com/zpgjoa3
Sun 6th MANCHESTER Academy
http://tinyurl.com/hlhgfr2

Tickets & Info

http://www.kirkbrandon.com/shows

Those who have pre-ordered are receiving updates, videos and mp3s.

The Cheviot, The Stag And The Black, Black Oil – At HMT

Aberdeen City, Featured, Opinion No Responses »

Oct 052016

The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil – at His Majesty’s Theatre Aberdeen. Duncan Harley reviews.

the-cheviot-production-image-9-photo-credit-tommy-ga-ken-wan-1

Performed by the Dundee Rep Ensemble as a Highland Ceilidh, Cheviot has been brought bang up to date.

Written by the late John McGrath, The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil tells the story of forced economic change in the Highlands.
First performed by 7:84 Theatre Company in 1973, the Ceilidh play pointedly compares the sheer brutality of the landowning capitalists of the Clearances to the often callous exploitation of Scotland by the predatory capitalists behind the oil boom.

As an unconventional piece of popular theatre combining radical politics with drama, plus music and song, Cheviot predictably attracts mixed reaction.

The Establishment was seemingly not much impressed with the original production, and sheafs of appalled letters were written to The Scotsman. The general reaction ranged from deep hostility from supporters of global capitalism, to a feeling of empowerment amongst nationalists who, despite the extreme Socialist views expressed in the play, sensed that an unlikely ally had emerged to challenge the mores of the day.

Cheviot played to audiences as small as twelve, in Fraserburgh of all places, on that first tour; but persevered and went on to tour the Highlands and beyond, gathering larger audiences along the way. Village halls which had never seen a live play performed were the venues. Folk in far-flung places whose own grandparents had witnessed the Clearances first hand became both spectators and willing participants in this new theatre.

I first saw Cheviot in the 1970s: yes, I am that old, and for free. Strathclyde Regional Council, God rest its cotton socks, had hired a Glasgow performance space so that John McGrath’s take on Scotland’s turbulent economic history could be played out to a wider audience.

What did I make of it then? I can recall the surprise at getting the afternoon off from work, and I can still remember wondering what on earth the city fathers hoped to achieve by exposing both me and my fellow workers to cutting edge agitprop theatre, since we were on the verge of revolution most of the time already. Perhaps they thought that Cheviot might just calm us all down a wee bit.

The show’s pedigree is unquestionably anti-establishment. Estate Factor Patrick Seller burns down a croft house with poor old granny still inside; the loathful Duke of Sutherland evicts 15k of his tenants to make way for 200,000 sheep; Highland regiments are sacrificed on a colonial whim, and Highland culture comes under sustained attack from the capitalised aristocracy.

The Astors, David Cameron’s family and a toupee-topped golf course magnate with Lewis connections all take it firmly on the chin; all in the best possible taste of course, and with unforgettable sing-along ditties, including:

“we’ve cleared the straths, we’ve cleared the paths, we’ve cleared the bens, we’ve cleared the glens, we’ll show them we’re the ruling class.”

Performed by the Dundee Rep Ensemble as a Highland Ceilidh, Cheviot has been brought bang up to date. The timeline of the original production concluded with the discovery of North Sea oil, but now concludes with the oil exploration downturn which Mark Carney has described as:

“a challenging environment which, given global prices, may persist for some time.”

The cast of ten play multiple roles and generally this works really well. A coat rail of costumes stands to hand, stage left, and fast changes are the order of the day.

As Irene Macdougall slips effortlessly into the gown of Sutherland’s infamous estate clearance manager James Loch, Billy Mack is swapping Queen Victoria’s crown for factor Patrick Seller’s top-hat.

Stephen Bangs moves fluidly between his role as the plaid-clad Sturdy Highlander and that of the totalitarian bible thumping preacher, while Barrie Hunter’s Duke of Sutherland alternates with both an old man and an old woman.

The audience have a big part to play too. This is Ceilidh after all. It’s safe enough to sit in the front row, so long as you don’t stick your hand up too high; but be warned that this production takes audience participation to entirely new levels.

Early on, during a warm-up Canadian Barn Dance, half the audience appeared to be heading off out to Union Terrace as Musical Director Alasdair Macrae called out the steps.

A hilarious sing-along parody of the Alexander Brothers stalwart “For these are my mountains and this is my glen” follows, before the more serious business of lampooning the men who own your glen begins in earnest.

Irvine Welsh‘s Trainspotting Renton, AKA Rent Boy, infamously cried out that:

“It’s SHITE being Scottish! We’re the lowest of the low. We’re ruled by effete assholes. It’s a SHITE state of affairs to be in … and ALL the fresh air in the world won’t make any fucking difference!”

He may have had a point, although McGrath might have disagreed on the finer detail of Renton’s argument. Cheviot, for all the humour – and some of it is very black indeed – takes the stance that the people don’t own the land under their feet; but perhaps they should!

Today’s Cheviot continues to hit the zeitgeist. The message of this play is as relevant today as it was when first performed in the early days of the oil boom. Nothing quite like it had seen before and if you are a newcomer to McGrath’s work, Cheviot will be nothing like you have ever seen before.

Make up your own mind, go see the play. I guarantee that you won’t be disappointed.

As John McGrath once said:

“Cheviot is the music of what is happening.”

The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil performs at HMT Aberdeen until Thursday 6th October

Tickets from Aberdeen Performing Arts Tel: 01224- 641122

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