Lilting – Dir. Hong Khaou – Seen at FACT Liverpool – 12/08/2014

Hong Khaou has written and directed what has to be quite simply the most astonishingly beautiful piece of filmmaking I have seen in years.

Lilting is a meticulously studied, meditative piece of cinema that examines the relationship between two very different characters, divided by culture and language but united in a shared grief.

Cheng Pei-pei plays Junn, a Cambodian-Chinese woman who came to England with her husband to build a better life for her family. Now widowed and aging, her only son Kai has placed her temporarily in a well-meaning but suffocatingly old fashioned sheltered home, only to have his own life tragically cut short before his long term plans come to fruition.

But Junn is not the only one mourning Kai’s death. Richard is Kai’s lover who has shared a home with him for four years, and his loss and devastation are deepened by the resentment that Junn holds for him. He is determined to make the peace with her but he speaks no Chinese and Junn no English, and besides, how can he make her understand when she never knew her son was gay?

A strange and sometimes amusing new relationship between Junn and Alan, another resident at the home (a dapper Peter Bowles) serves as a plot device enabling Richard to employ Vann (Naomi Christie) as a translator, on the basis that she can help them get to know each other. Vann also builds tentative communication between Richard and Junn too, but with each pairing she occasionally slips out of direct translation and interjects with her own conversation, causing friction but ultimately helping to steer both relationships toward their logical conclusions.

Throughout the film we keep encountering Kai (Andrew Leung) in scenes with his mother and with his partner - sometimes seeming as if memories, sometimes as imagined encounters - and some superb camera work and editing has him appear as illusory as the ghost that he has become.

The two central performances of Junn and Richard are quite magnificent. Cheng Pei-pei has tremendous poise and dignity and her ability to have us understand every nuance of her character without a word of English is magical. Ben Whishaw (who I last saw on stage in Mojo last December) is outstanding in his characterisation. There is no other word but mesmerising for his presence on the screen, and his portrayal of a young man trying to hold everything together through a grief he can’t explain is absolutely heartbreaking.

Key supporting performances from Andrew Leung and Naomi Christie are balanced well to the timeless quality of the story, while Peter Bowles is charmingly funny and a sometimes melancholy as the hapless love interest for Junn.

Looking at this picture it is almost impossible to believe it was made on a budget of just £120,000. Cinematography by Urzula Pontikos is stunningly beautiful in understated low-key colour, complemented by Mark Towns masterful editing and a hypnotic score from Stuart Earl.

There are not enough superlatives to express the heartfelt poignancy of this film and I cannot recommend it more highly. It has to be some sort of crime that Lilting is on only limited cinema release, as although it is also available on demand online it has to be seen on the big screen to make the most of it's finely crafted photography.

Please try to see this at a cinema near you while you can.

http://liltingfilm.com

Perseverance Drive – Bush Theatre – 02/08/2014

Goodness is not a competition.

Robin Soanes had a plan for a play in the back of his mind and it coalesced after he met a young man whose family had been divided by its religious convictions. He was disturbed by the way in which pride and prejudice can turn something that ought to be a force for reconciliation into something divisive, and can fracture families almost beyond repair.

Eli Gillard is preparing himself for the funeral of his wife Grace. He lives in Leytonstone, but he and his family are gathering together at their other home in Perseverance Drive, Barbados. The whole family are steeped in the traditions of the Pentecostal Church and you’d expect this to bring them together, especially at a time like this, but we soon learn that things are not as simple as all that.

Eli’s eldest son Nathan is a minister in the Church and is dictating the arrangements, with the help of his wife Ruth. When the youngest son Zek arrives with his wife Joylene we begin to feel the first signs of unease. They have started their own Church and there is clearly some enmity in the air. Next on the scene are Bishop Marvin Clarke and his pastor son Errol (a former art student of Ruth’s), at whose church the service will take place. Last to arrive is the middle son Joshua, but what is it that Josh has done that raises everyone’s eyebrows just to see him here?

Zek and Joylene should be grateful just to attend the funeral, because they’re living in sin. Josh is a backslider too, because although he’s no longer living with “that man” his lifestyle still doesn’t meet the criteria for acceptance.

As the preparations continue we can see that this is not going to be the funeral that any of them want and the tension build to a breathtaking climax during the funeral itself, which brings the first act to a dramatic close and leaves the audience stunned in our seats.

Four years pass during the 15 minutes of the interval and the location is now Eli’s flat in Leytonstone. Eli’s health is failing and he is mentally preparing himself to join his wife. He is here to be nearer to his family but Nathan, Ruth, Zek and Joylene are all so busy doing good work in their respective churches that they have little time spare to provide the support he needs. Only Josh troubles himself to come round and help his dad with his bandages and ointments and make sure he is eating properly. The trouble is that the rest of the family, especially the self-righteous, bible-quoting Joylene, find it inappropriate for the “pervert” of the family to be caring for their father. They would prefer a sister of mercy to visit and care for him, and at any rate they think he should really be concentrating his mind on thoughts of his ascension.

Further accusations, and a game of one-upmanship, lead to Eli declaring that it is Josh who has taught him that goodness is not a competition. Eli’s life ebbs away as the play reaches its close, leaving us with a sense of sadness tinged with optimism and an uncertainty as to whether the family will ever find the reconciliation that Grace had hoped for. Robin Soanes tells us that he is fascinated by situations where everyone has a different point of view and none of them can be thought of as actually wrong – sometimes each individual’s rightness clashes against the others and what transpires is one big mess.

Soanes’s writing is spectacular and Bush artistic director Madani Younis has choreographed the performances from his tremendous cast to every last detail. Eli is played by Leo Wringer, with Derek Ezenagu as Nathan, Frances Ashman as Ruth, Clint Dyer (Josh), Kolade Agboke (Zek), Akiya Henry (Joylene), Ray Shell (Bishop Marvin) and Lloyd Everitt (Erroll). I refuse to single out any of them as they are all outstanding.

Jaimie Todd’s nicely distressed set sits traverse-style on the Bush stage, with the audience feeling almost as voyeurs, spying into each side of a room that serves as both Barbados and London homes and effecting a striking transformation into the chapel at the end of act one.

Perseverance Drive is a powerful, painful and sometimes hilarious study of a family broken apart by conflicting loyalties and standards, and it is hard to imagine a more effective or inventive staging than this premiere production which is another hit for the Bush. It plays until Saturday 16th August.

Epstein: The Man Who Made The Beatles – Leicester Square Theatre –01/08/2014

From the Epstein Theatre to the Cavern in the Town.

Andrew Sherlock’s play charting a fictional account of an evening in August 1967 premiered in Liverpool in November 2012 in the theatre that had just been renamed in honour of Brian Epstein, the local legend who propelled the Beatles to stardom and then sank under the weight of his own success. Highly appropriate that this revival, starring its original cast of Andrew Lancel and Will Finlason, makes its London premiere at a venue formerly named the Cavern in the Town - the Leicester Square Theatre.

The play is set in Epstein’s fashionable Belgravia flat, stylishly represented by Amanda Stoodley and Katie Scott’s minimlist set, all white walls and shagpile and sparingly dressed with authentic 1960s furnishings.

Epstein returns home with a young man visiting from Liverpool who he’s picked up in a bar. This Boy (who has no other name) has other intentions to those clearly on Brian’s mind. He has ambitions as a journalist and wants to find the real story of Brian Epstein. He’s tired of everything he hears being about the Fab Four and he wants to understand what makes their mentor tick. As the play progresses we get a feel for the predicament that Epstein finds himself in, as he struggles to reach the end of a sentence without making reference to “The Boys”. It’s clear that here is a man who is a genius promoter but whose own light is outshone at every turn by the acts that he has promoted and there is a profound sadness as his story unfolds.

Once he lets the barriers down Brian gives us glimpses into a troubled past. A bullied schoolboy who’s a slave to family expectations and who has to lead a double existence, as openness about his homosexuality would tarnish the success of the empire he has built. By turns he is both loved and derided by his protégés and he relies on alcohol and sleeping pills to get him through.

Andrew Lancel has studied Epstein in fine detail and has every vocal and physical nuance at his fingertips, but this is no mere impersonation. There is a brittle fragility in this portrayal and we find ourselves both being drawn towards and recoiling from the character.

We are helped along in this by the mixed feelings that Will Finlason’s This Boy has towards the man he’s made it his business to get to know. There are times when he is ready to walk away and others when he simply has to offer both emotional and physical support. In an opening prologue, he tells us that he is nobody in particular - just this boy, that boy, the fool on the hill - and he does act as a sounding board for the exploration of Epstein’s character.

Finlason however draws much more out of what could in other hands be an unrewarding role. This Boy was his professional debut role in 2012 and then he demonstrated tremendous stage presence. Whilst he’s done a good deal more stage work in between (including a lengthy nationwide tour in Dreamboats and Petticoats) he has lost none of his charm, and he not only provides a foil to Lancel’s Epstein but fleshes out the mysterious character beautifully, as well as offering brief cameos as others from Epstein’s past as we visit them in occasional flashback sequences.

The prologue and closing epilogue (both delivered by This Boy) are integral parts of the illusory nature of the tale – framing it as a fictionalised account – as are the frequent references to songs from the Beatles and their contemporaries, which reinforce the tide of idolatry for his stars that constantly overwhelms Brian’s own identity and leads to his final, tragic demise.

Jen Hayes’s direction is detailed but uncluttered and she has allowed her two players to inject great humanity into their roles. The staging is simply done and some projection sequences, including both archive and specially filmed material, help to anchor the context of the piece.

While the market is flooded with plays and musicals about four boys from Liverpool who rocked the world, Andrew Sherlock has set out to paint a portrait of the complex and troubled individual who made not only their careers but those of numerous others before his tragic and untimely accidental death. When you’re in town to see this play, as I highly recommend you do, pop along to Argyll Street. There you’ll see the blue plaque recently erected on the former London office of NEMS enterprises, from which so many artists were managed by the legend who was Brian Epstein.

Epstein: The Man Who Made The Beatles plays at the Leicester Square Theatre until 6^th September and tickets are available from the theatre box office at www.leicestersquaretheatre.com

Photograph, copyright David Munn

Royal Liverpool Philharmonic - BBC Prom 19, Strauss & Elgar - 31/07/2014

"Rarely, rarely comest thou, spirit of delight" Elgar quoted on the score of his 2nd Symphony.

Well it certainly came to the Royal Albert Hall last night as Vasily Petrenko held a capacity audience in the palm of his hand.

Whilst the Phil's own hall is undergoing major refurbishment ahead of their 175th birthday season, it is a great opportunity for some touring.

In an otherwise reflective programme, the RLPO began with Richard Strauss's rarely heard Festival Prelude, a work very well suited to the venue and a suitably grandiose opener. Ian Tracey joined the orchestra at the RAH organ and the whole ensemble made a fine sound. It looked splendid too, with double timpani and a large brass section on their feet in the closing pages.

What followed could hardly have been a greater contrast, with the orchestra leaving the stage to be replaced by the BBC Singers and four soloists for Strauss's Deutsche Motet. This is sombre and thoughtful music and notoriously difficult to sing.

The choir and soloists gave a fine reading with great clarity, while from my seat I did lose the solo lines at times. Great for a prom audience to see another facet of Vasily Petrenko, as he returned to the unaccompanied choral conducting that he began his musical training with.

The first part of the concert closed with the Strauss Four Last Songs, Inger Dam-Jensen joining the orchestra for a beautifully understated and balanced performance. Special note to Timothy Jackson, principal horn, who gave some exceptional playing, as did leader James Clark, and Inger Dam-Jensen's singing floated elegantly over the rich orchestration.

To close was Elgar's second symphony, another work that has great introspection. This is music that Vasily has very much taken to his heart. I recall hearing it under his baton early in his tenure with the Phil, and was astounded then. Last night's performance shows how finely he has honed his reading with the RLPO. Really giving the music time to breathe, he drew beautiful playing from the orchestra, a song of longing and reflection that ended with the audience in complete stillness as the conductor's hands fell slowly.

This silence, that we also heard after the Strauss songs, is telling of a performance that created a very special atmosphere. As Peter Bazalgette commented last night: "...great music from a great city".