SPEAK WHAT WE FEEL – REVIEW: KING LEAR – Shakespeare’s Globe, London

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Nancy Meckler’s take on King Lear sure ain’t perfect. Far from it. But it’s certainly inventive, and whilst it’s perhaps over-confident in parts, it offers an innovative (if inconsistent) glance at the ultimate dysfunctional family.

We see the stage, which all the world is. Only here, it’s covered with sheeting, and is to be gradually revealed throughout the performance. Dotted about the blank canvas are a number of pretenders to the throne that is The Globe: painted vagrants sitting off and having a doss as the real action is happening. Perhaps a nod to current conditions (or, indeed, our shocking attitudes towards them), I’m not convinced this device adds anything positive to the production. Lear is enough of a play on its own without adding extra layers or weaving contemporary subtleties into its fabric.

KING LEAR is getting on a bit, right, and is contemplating abdication or retirement or foot-putting-up or whatever you wanna call it.  Late-life crisis dude has a massive realm, and decides to split it between his kids, Cordelia, Regan, and Goneril. He’s gonna give the biggest slice of Kingdom Pie to whichever daughter has the arse-kissiest response:

….which of you shall we say doth love us most?

GONERIL comes along and kisses said fatherly arse, proclaiming that she’d rather go blind than live without this breathtakingly graceful and honourable man, beyond all manner of so much. He’s just like, SO AWESOME, goddammit, this king of everything. But, so two-faced is she that she declares her love the bringer of speechlessness, despite using wordy insincerity to get her point across (Shakey, mate: I see what you did there).

Her sis, REGAN, is made of the same crappy fabric. She declares her love superior to her sibling’s, and is, ergo, surely the ONLY one who loves him how he deserves to be loved, what with him basically being God ‘n’ all. Lying cow.

But then there’s my girl CORDELIA, who, despite her initial contemplation that she should keep schtum and just get on with loving the crap out of him, confesses:

I love your majesty according to my bond; no more, nor less.

Ouch. Very ouch. I mean – damn if she ain’t sincere, but Daddy, being so far up his own posterior ‘n’ all, simply hasn’t an igloo about true love. He gives her a chance (and then another…and another…) to speak again, because she’s his JOY, his blue-eye. But —damn it— she can’t lie, DAMN her damn honesty. So, Lear banishes her –very dramatically– from his kingdom, which he then divides between that arse-kissing pair.

Kevin R McNally ain’t half bad. Not half bad at all. Despite certain instances in which he and his character are let down by cheap laughs and even cheaper props, there are moments I swore I was looking at Lear himself; the madness worn on his face like a badge of dishonour. Fragile, commanding, and altogether bonkers, we see Mac delivering a right ol’ smorgasbord of demented torment, tainted only by the aforementioned playing for laughs thing. Yes, we get the irony of certain lines. Yes, the phrasing and timing and delivery is all-important, but for goodness’ sake, let’s not forget that this is a Shakespearean tragedy here. I could’ve done with the whole comedy aspect being taken down a notch or twenty; although it could be said that it was the audience themselves who didn’t understand that dementia and/or mental illness just isn’t funny.

[Consider inserting names of the sister-actors here, but move off the subject ever-so-gracefully because not a single one of ‘em floated my proverbial – we don’t wanna go giving scathing reviews, now, do we?]

Lear’s parallel-character, his Tyler Durden, the EARL OF GLOUCESTER, has two kids —Edmund The Bastard (really) who’s a bit of a bastard, really … and Edgar, who is pretty much a stand-up guy. Top bloke. To even up the ILLEGITIMACY 0 LEGITIMACY 1 score, Edmund plots to bump off his legitimately-sheeted brother. Burt Caesar is a strong Gloucester in parts, somewhat amateurish in others, although he was possibly let down by the naffness of metal trolleys and the insufficient eye-gouging that just wasn’t gougey enough [Dude-Wot-Played Edmund: totally forgettable. Soz].

Saskia Reeves – what can I say about Saskia Reeves? That woman was on fire. And I mean FI-YUH. The very definition of ACTOR, the lass was so skilfully versatile and sob-inducingly restrained, that she controlled her gift and kept the audience up in the air with it. It would’ve been pretty easy – and obvious – to play Kent-in-a-Dress. But, thankfully, Reeves didn’t go there —instead opting for the refinements only a true artist can display.

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Saskia Reeves as Kent / Photo: Marc Brenner

Joshua James is a stand-out Edgar/Poor Tom, giving his very self to the role whether slathering himself with mud or delivering one of the finest lines ever written, as he summarises everything we’ve just witnessed.

Lear is dead. And we know this, thanks to Eddie baby:

The weight of this sad time we must obey;
Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.

In line with this guidance, I feel that this production, whilst a worthy effort offering some powerful performances, was let down by a dash of over-ambitious imagery and a peppering of Trying Too Hard. That said, seeing Lear come to life on ANY stage —particularly this one— is always a plus, particularly when he is realised by and reanimated through such an accomplished and perhaps under-rated performer as Kevin R McNally.

CM Franklyn

Kevin R McNally as Lear_credit Marc Brenner_

Kevin R. McNally as Lear / Photo: Marc Brenner

 

 

 

Lifeblood

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They sent me off to Syria to document the war; I thought I’d have a painful job, too bloody to ignore.
But once inside the outside of the coldest, newest hell, I found a limitation on the things that I would tell.
I didn’t see what they did, like the rubble and the blood, or hear the screams of sorrow through the broken neighbourhood.
Behind bombed doors I didn’t hear the terror they were dealt; in front of hell I stood with them, not feeling what they felt.
I didn’t see or hear the dead, the dying, the bereaved; I didn’t know their tears were red, for mine were so congealed.
I didn’t see the babies hidden under bricks of clay; I didn’t know their names or where they’d liked to go to play.
I didn’t feel the pain they felt; the struggle to survive. I didn’t know the suffering of tiny little lives.
The things I saw in Syria were from another place; I looked upon the broken and I saw my daughter’s face.
I held a crying mother as she mourned her children three; and all I thought right then and there was Thank Fuck It’s Not Me.
From Syria I made a call with matters to report; my words were what I felt – not right to say the things I ought.
I spoke of how my children had enjoyed their Christmas Day, and how they’d been excited for the contents of a sleigh.
‘My kids are all so wonderful,’ I said with love and hope, not hearing any problem with the happy words I spoke.
I left the hell of Syria, and took a flight right home, and as I flew I knew I’d have to cry into a poem.
The children there weren’t Syrian, their blood belonged to me; the faces of the dying plucked straight from my family tree.
The falling bombs were merely seeds too late to be un-sown; and with the death of Syria, I looked and saw my own.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/06/deadly-car-bombing-kills-syrian-civilians-idlib-170625053812771.html

POETRY REVIEW: You Took the Last Bus Home – by Brian Bilston

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I’m not one to compare writers. I hate that. Yuk. Sure, it’s great for marketing, I suppose – if you must market. “Fans of such-and-such will love this novel by so-and-so…” YAWWWN. That sort of crap is lazy and unclever, and has never once given me that I JUST GOTTA HAVE IT vibe.

It’s somewhat pissing on the author’s skills, too: when the blurbage tells me that Writey McScribe is the next Clive Barker, all I hear is “this guy is wholly unoriginal, having re-hashed some dying old trope or other.” Talk about damning by faintstuff.

What I will do, though, is tell you who my own particular boat-floaters are, just so you know where I’m at; this *chick is notoriously hard to impress, particularly when it comes to those who poe. If you’re gonna rhyme your way straight to my heart, buddy, your wordplay is going to have to contend with the likes of Thackray and Lehrer, and you need to be eatin’ Shakespeare and Gilbert for breakfast – and you have to be able to think all four of ‘em under the table.

*Old bird.

Disclaimer: If you believe that poetry is simply defined as ANY OL’ PROSE WITH ARBITRARY LINE BREAKS arbitrarily shoved in ARBITRARY PLACES, then:

I

will

not

be

read

ing

your

stuff.

If you don’t put your very self into your art, please refrain from bothering my eyeballs. I ain’t interested in reading writing; I want – NEED – to read WRITERS.

So, what DOES make a poet? Or, rather, what makes my kinda poet?

It’s simple. It’s not about what the words mean to the reader – but what they mean to the person doing the poeing. Can they twist and bend words like Twisty McBenderson at his finest? Do they leave you salivating, dangling that end rhyme in the air, postponing it until you can cope no more, before landing it safely on the runway? A true (to himself and the reader) poet relishes how words feel, smell, and sound, how they taste in your mouth as you speak ‘em, and he knows exactly how to make ‘em DANCE.

I can count on one finger those I hold sacred amongst my contemporaries. Ladies and gents (and every gender in between), I give you Brian Bilston. This dude knows how to word.

THE LAST BUS HOME is Bilston’s debut … oh, bollocks to all that. I’m not going to tell you the stuff you can read anywhere else. That’s just padding. If you want to know when and where it was published, and by whom, then check the BUY IT NOW OR FOREVER HOLD THY WORDS link here:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Brian-Bilston/e/B01I8GPLFG/ref=dp_byline_cont_pop_book_1

This is the sort of book you should forget to feed your cat for. This is the sort of book for which you should drop everything, RIGHT NOW, and just reaaaaad. (Speaking of dropping, do not even THINK of taking said volume into the bath with you. I speak from soggy experience. Actually, strike that. DO bathe with it, because then you shall have to take purchase of a second copy.)

Unputdownable is a term that should be reserved wholly and exclusively for the work of BB; his very mind is on them thar poetic pages, I tellzya. From simple silliness to moments of sheer genius, there’s something for everyone. And if you have a brain of the more literary persuasion, then this stuff is nothing short of grey-matter-fodder.

To say there is wordplay in store for you is the underest statement since Tiny Isaac, my local skint midget, said he was coming up short. Who else would do poetry by mathlight to make words be all Fibonacci sequency? Who else could offer lip-reading lightbulb moments of broken hearts and fixed words? Who _ls_ would omit a l_tt_r from an _ntire po_m to mak_ a point?

I have many favourites. But Read My Lips is the one – THE ONE – that seeps right into the very core of me (I won’t spoil the ending for you):

“To be clear, I’m not talking

Fifty Shades of Grey here,

but someone who knows their way around

the complete works of Shakespeare.

 

“I would rip out my heart

and write her name upon it

if she might recite to me

his eighteenth sonnet.”

THIS – right here – is how he rips my wordy l’il heart out. I was using that, damn you, Bilston.

So yes – buy this book. NOW. Eat this poetry. Salivate, devour, and relish it, and savour every last drop of Brianness as you decide whether to envy or idolise the man. Me?  I’ll be right here, waiting for the next bus.

Linda Angel

CLICK

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A pawn in an incomplete game of static insanity
Your blood-letting, tongue-tied grimace has you blind
While humanity’s serpents serp and singers sing
Of all the reaping things.
Madness’ descent pauses on this: it had no reason to exist
Until now, when it persists.
After spending too long in the half-life, you reach out and Geiger-count your blessings
Tick-by-tick-by-tick-by-tick

Click
By
Click.

So you reach the total sum of zero
A clickless life, a tickless existence
Bricked up in the wall of political persistence
There’s to be no saving of your soul – it’s only morose code for you
This is a remorseless dry, brown experiment
White helmet knights would save you from the rubble
But trouble is, they’re under it too.

Missing

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Take me back in time a year,
before we lost our stars
The place was very different and
We still had Alan Rickman
And gods they fell to earth, perhaps from Mars.

Let me be back there again, when Richard Adams wrote
A planet with Dave Brubek meant
we still had time-out music
And Charon still had spaces on his boat.

Would that I could travel there, back to the past so rich
When Wilder’s Genes lit up the screen
And Garry Marshall was still here
And Ali fought his fight out of the ring.

We would share the air with them; their artistry we’d keep
Then Harper Lee’d write number three
There’d be two more in ELP;
Guitars would sing – they wouldn’t need to weep.

On Christmas Day George turned a different corner at the end
Choose Life he said, but died in bed
So musically thoroughbred
A loss so hard for us to comprehend

Postcards were sent from the edge
A life so unrestrained
A daughter died, a mother cried
And due to all the pain inside
She left to join her girl, to sing in rain.

I wish that I could write us there
Let Cohen’s days return
Erasing all the loss this year
So Doves won’t cry their purple tears
But me, I am no Caroline Aherne. image

Santa, Maybe.

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I’d really love that Santa Claus
To do my shopping and my chores
Perhaps he’d even make a brew
And fill the car with petrol, too
Or maybe he could bake the pies
To keep me fat with sweet supplies
And while he’s at it he could bring
An end to human suffering
Perhaps he’ll stop the greed and hate
And start the love, for goodness’ sake
But something small would do for now:
My quiet hopes are just as loud
So now I have a single wish
I’ll whisper it, and it is this:
Oh, please bring homeless folk indoors
I’d really love that, Santa Claus.

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Where the Heart Is

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So what will all those children do?
~Don’t worry child, they’re not like you.

And what will Syrian children wear?
~Forget it, son, they’re over there.

But what will those poor children say?
~You cannot hear, they’re miles away.

It’s Christmas soon, what will they get?
~I’ve told you, kid, you must forget.

But why, and how, what can I do?
~You can’t, it isn’t up to you.

But maybe I can teach my friends
~Oh here we go, you’re off again…

Perhaps I should just start with you
~What do you mean? What did I do?

You turned away, you shut it out
~But we can’t help – we don’t know how.

And you gave up without a fuss
~But son, we need to care for US.

Oh, Father, won’t you ever learn?
~It isn’t us – it’s not our turn.

It is! They’re us – and we are they
~You don’t know half the things you say.

I know I’ll never learn from you
The things you let this planet do
You make it hard to love and trust
With all the lies you spin to us
You say we’re different, us and them
But what if it occurred again?
If we don’t help them, save them soon
Humanity will go to ruin
We need to stand up, take them in
As refugees washed clean of sin
For if we don’t, then when it’s us
Then who’ll be here to make a fuss?
If we don’t help the folk oppressed
What happens if it’s our turn next?

~Just calm yourself, child, take a pew. This will not happen, not to you. We’re fine right here, in Blighty’s arms; our King and country won’t be harmed. Now settle down and go to bed, and sleep away what’s in your head.

What’s in my head is in my heart
And when I wake, I’ll make a start.

~Not everything is black and white, you can’t win every single fight. I’m sure you see in monochrome.

Tomorrow, Dad, I’m leaving home.

The Fallen

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They took, as they tend to take.
Staking another, blood flutters another monster killed by guilty remorse
doors closing all the time opening
Hoping hearts beat as nothing and static arrives
Rhymes for our times and beds for our sorrow
Tomorrow, as they say, is another day
Way back in the future, way back when
Then all will be revealed
Concealed in masquerade
Lemonade for sale
Ale for the drunken
Thunken thoughts escaped
Placed upon life and the rest
The best is to come
Dumb it down for the truth
Rooftop-shouting
Louting and looting
Rooting and thrilling
Spilling on pages
Wages forgotten and spent
Bent out of shape for today
Shaving skin is permitted
Knitted scarves are made of veins
Games aren’t enough
Rough or smooth
Through it all:
The fallen, they fall.

Sonnet 2,152 or; The Verse that Wrote Itself

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The verse that wrote itself spilled from my pen;
No conscious thoughts of mine gave any hints;
I did not know the muse was there but then
A sudden flow of ink came; unstopped since.
The poetry that followed would reveal
All secrets which were hitherto unspoke;
For reason could no longer be concealed
In rhyme, for meter’s beats not jest nor joke.
The prose that now be published be all me;
No edits nor critique has it been through
The muse has spoken clear and wild and free;
And through this art I offer words to you.

For this new love, a poet did I choose;
And therein found my soul, my heart, my muse.