Of Canterbury, choristers and cowboys

Posted on November 4, 2007 by admin

By Ray Bennett

Roy Rogers cost me both a singing career and belief in the church. I am reminded of this because the BBC Young Chorister of the Year competition final airs on Radio 2 this evening at 8 o’clock and I once sang in a choir at Canterbury Cathedral.

The competition actually took place last weekend so the results have been announced. Far be it from me to ruin the suspense for those who tune in without knowing the outcome but listen for the perfect voice of a young man named Joel Whitewood. I am related to Joel, 12, through marriage, but that’s not why I mention it. The boy can sing.

He is one of 18 choristers who sing every day in Canterbury Cathedral where he is a side leader in the choir. Like the others, he is a student at Canterbury’s St. Edmund’s School. Dr. David Flood, the cathedral’s organist and master of choristers, is holding voice trials in Canterbury on Nov. 10 seeking five candidates for scholarships.

When I was a kid and thought I believed in a god, I was a soprano in the Ashford Parish Church choir in Kent. I was never in Joel’s league, but not terrible. It didn’t hurt that kids who sang in the choir were paid a handy amount of pocket money. I didn’t care for the incense burning at Sunday morning mass but I loved going out carol singing at Christmas and the mince pies and custard afterwards.

My choral life ended abruptly. Ours was among several choirs chosen to sing in a celebration of massed voices in Canterbury Cathedral under the direction, as I recall, of Sir Malcolm Sargent. It involved a full day’s rehearsal on a Saturday with the concert the next day. It was a huge honour.

The following year, we were invited again. In those days, all I wanted to do was play football and go to Hollywood to meet Roy Rogers (who was born, incidentally, on Nov. 5). The King of the Cowboys’ wretched television show never made it to England so he remained a hero. He’d long stopped making movies by then and they were rarely on TV and seldom came to Ashford.

But then came news of a matinee screening of “Pals of the Golden West” or something like that. Trouble was, it was on the day of rehearsal at Canterbury Cathedral. I went to the movie. I was promptly dismissed from the choir in ignominy. It was my first crisis of conscience. Roy Rogers versus Jesus Christ; Hollywood versus the Church. No contest. Oh, and I did go to Hollywood and I did meet Roy Rogers.

Read more about Canterbury Cathedral choristers.

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TV REVIEW: ‘A Room With a View’ by Andrew Davies

Posted on November 3, 2007 by admin

A Room with a View

By Ray Bennett

LONDON – The best thing about the new television adaptation of E.M. Forster’s novel “A Room with a View” is the music by Gabriel Yared. It’s not clear why the Beirut-born, Paris-based composer chose to do a TV film but viewers reap the reward.

Yared (pictured below) is on the A-list of film composers, having won the Academy Award, Golden Globe, BAFTA and Grammy for Anthony Minghella’s best picture Oscar winner “The English Patient” in 1997.

gabriel-yared-x325His great Oscar-nominated score for “Cold Mountain” won him another BAFTA (with T-Bone Burnett) and best original soundtrack and composer of the year honours at the World Soundtrack Awards in 2004. Other scores range from Robert Altman’s “Vincent & Theo” (1990) to Minghella’s “The Talented Mr. Ripley” (1999) and “Breaking and Entering” (2006), and Mikael Håfström’s 2007 thriller “1408.”

A concert performer who also gives his time to master class sessions at many events including the Flanders International Film Festival, Yared is a warm and approachable individual whose film music ranks with the best.

British writer Andrew Davies, who usually can be relied upon to bring a fresh, new approach to familiar material (“Vanity Fair,” “Dr. Zhivago,” “Bleak House”) is strangely off form in the new version of E.M. Forster’s “A Room With a View.

Elaine Cassidy and Rafe Spall (pictured) star with Laurence Fox, Sophie Thompson and Timothy Spall. It airs at 9 p.m. Sunday on ITV1 and is destined for PBS but it pales in comparison to the highly regarded Merchant-Ivory film from 1985 even though Davies has added bookends that place the love affair of Lucy Honeychurch in historical perspective.

Mischievously, Film4 will show James Ivory’s splendid film Sunday at 4:35 p.m. Helena Bonham Carter, Maggie Smith, Daniel Day-Lewis, Judi Dench, Julian Sands and Denholm Elliott are all terrific, and Richard Robbins’s music also is fine.

Robbins, who hails from Massachusetts, scored Merchant and Ivory films from “The Europeans” in 1979 through classics such as “Heat and Dust” (1983), “Howards End” (1992), and “The Remains of the Day” (1993) to “City of Your Final Destination,” which is due for release in 2008.

Here’s more on Gabriel Yared

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Malcolm McDowell’s Lindsay Anderson film at bfi

Posted on November 2, 2007 by admin

Paramount Pictures' "Aeon Flux" Los Angeles Premiere - ArrivalsBy Ray Bennett

Mike Kaplan’s film of Malcolm McDowell’s splendid one-man show “Never Apologize: A Personal Visit with Lindsay Anderson” opens at bfi Southbank today and will run through Nov. 18.

McDowell will be at bfi on Saturday Nov. 10 and Screen on the Hill Sunday Nov. 11 to talk about the late director with whom he made the classics “If …” and “O Lucky Man.”

See my review

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THEATRE REVIEW: Candida Cave’s ‘Lotte’s Journey’

Posted on November 2, 2007 by admin

Lottes-Journey

By Ray Bennett

LONDON — Charlotte Salomon was a young German Jewish woman who perished at Auschwitz in 1943 but who left hundreds of paintings that describe a short life lived in the shadow of the Nazi terror.

Candida Cave’s riveting new play, “Lotte’s Journey,” in its world premiere at London’s New End Theatre, portrays the sparking of her talent and the harrowing passage towards death in the Holocaust.

Set in a crowded cattle car ostensibly on its way from the French Riviera to a Jewish “settlement” in Poland, the play flashes back to Charlotte’s childhood in Berlin and adolescence with her grandparents on the Cote d’Azur.

Salomon made hundreds of gouaches – notebook-sized paintings with heavier pigmentation than water colours – to which she added descriptive words and musical clues to provide a narrative. She called her collection “Life? or Theater?” It was discovered in Amsterdam in the 1970s by history professor Mary Lowenthal Felstiner, whose subsequent book made the works famous. A 1981 film title “Charlotte” by Dutch director Frans Weisz, starred Birgit Doll as the title character and Derek Jacobi as her lover.

In the new play, Cave traces the development of Charlotte’s striving for creative freedom as an escape from the perilous times. Selina Chilton (pictured) is outstanding as the young painter, capturing her youthful innocence as well as the growing steel that sees her through to adulthood as an exceptional artist.

The rest of the cast, in multiple roles, do well too. James Pearse and Elizabeth Elvin makemuch of quite different characters; Dominic Power (pictured) is strong as a journalist and Charlotte’s lover; and Ben Elliot is downright scary as a pitiless Nazi guard.

On the small New End Theatre stage, efficiently cleverly by designer Lotte Collette with the cramped cattle car on the left and an open space for flashbacks on the right, the story plays out to increasing horror. David W. Kidd’s shrewd lighting design helps enormously to establish credibility.

As the story unfolds, the setting moves back and forth to Berlin with Charlotte as a child as the Nazi menace grows. Scenes depict her doctor father suffering from the new regime, her deeply troubled mother struggling for mental balance, and a new stepmother, an opera star, who encourages the girl’s artistic endeavors.

Charlotte falls in love with her stepmother’s vocal coach, Amadeus Daberlohn, but they are wrenched apart as she is returned to the south of France. There, the truth of her mother’s death is revealed, not from influenza but suicide. Her demanding grandfather relates the entire grisly family history in which every woman has died by her own hand.

That frightening legacy is the impulse that drives Charlotte as she begins to paint, evidently choosing life over death, although as the cattle car continues on its inexorable track, the play raises even more haunting questions.

Venue: New End Theatre, runs through Nov. 25; Cast: Selina Chilton; Ben Elliot; James Pearse; Elizabeth Elvin; Valerie Colgan; Max Digby; Dominic Power; Playwright: Candida Cave; Director: Ninon Jerome; Designer: Lotte Collett; Lighting designer: David W. Kidd; Sound designer: Paul Gavin; Music: Jeremy Haneman; Presented by New End Theatre and Pleasure for Pleasure in association with Beth Shalom Holocaust Centre.

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THEATRE REVIEW: Michael Ball in ‘Hairspray’

Posted on November 1, 2007 by admin

hairspray2

By Ray Bennett

“Hairspray” is still running in New York, and there has been a movie version starring John Travolta, but the 2003 Tony winner for best musical has finally made it to London’s West End in all its frenetic, infectious glory.

Staged by the same crew responsible for its Broadway run, the show features an all-British cast starring veteran leading man Michael Ball as Edna Turnblad and actor-director Mel Smith as her husband, Wilbur. Newcomer Leanne Jones rocks the house as Tracy, the rotund and redoubtable 1962 dancing queen who wants to win a spot on Baltimore’s top TV pop show.

The slick production has rounded the hard edges of John Waters’ original 1988 movie, but Mark O’Donnell’s book and song lyrics by Scott Witman and Marc Shaiman still carry plenty of punch. Tracy not only makes the case for the substantially circumferenced but also for integration, making the show a no-brainer where sentiment is concerned.

Shaiman’s rollicking musical numbers are the kind that makes sitting down impossible, and the high-adrenaline cast takes Jerry Mitchell’s lively choreography to the limit. Director Jack O’Brien maintains a good pace, though the first act, with its very simple plot, seems to take a while.

Not so for Act 2, however, which contains a fine showpiece for Ball and Smith titled “Timeless to Me.” Ball plays Edna broadly but with respect, and his fine voice doesn’t suffer at all from his being in drag. Smith (director of such films as “The Tall Guy” and “Bean: The Movie” and star of the long-running TV comedy series “Smith & Jones”) does Wilbur as Jimmy Durante, and no worse for that.

As Motormouth Maybelle, Johnnie Fiori delivers the soulful number “I Know Where I’ve Been” with such emotional power and clarity that she almost stops the show. But the fast-moving “Hairspray” and “You Can’t Stop the Beat” follow quickly to end the show at a furious tempo.

Tracie Bennett has a fine time as the racist former beauty queen Velma Von Tussle, Elinor Collett goes from ugly duckling to swan as Penny Pingleton and Ben James-Ellis makes the most of his Elvis impression as Link Larkin, and the entire cast give it all they’ve got.

Colorful, breezy and impossible to resist, “Hairspray” should provide London’s Shaftesbury Theatre, which is known for a long list of flops, a hit at last.

HAIRSPRAY

Venue: Shaftesbury Theatre, runs through March 15; Cast: Michael Ball; Mel Smith; Leanne Jones; Ben James-Ellis; Tracie Bennett; Natalie Best; Elinor Collett; Johnnie Fiori; Adrian Hansel; Paul Manuel; Wendy Somerville; Rachael Wooding; Book: Mark O’Donnell; Music: Marc Shaiman; Lyrics: Scott Witman, Marc Shaiman; Based on the New Line film written and directed by: John Waters; Director: Jack O’Brien; Choreographer: Jerry Mitchell; Set designer: David Rockwell; Costume designer: William Ivey Long; Lighting designer: Kenneth Posner; Sound designer: Steve C. Kennedy; Presented by Stage Entertainment U.K., Margo Lion, New Line, the Baruch-Vietel-Routh-Frankel Group, Elizabeth Williams, James D. Stern/Douglas L. Meyer, Cynthia Stroum.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

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MUSIC REVIEW: Patrick Doyle: Music From the Movies

Posted on October 31, 2007 by admin

By Ray Bennett

“Wherever there is Pat, there is laughter, and his laugh can be heard across several counties,” said Imelda Staunton on Sunday at the Royal Albert Hall concert of film music by the great Scottish composer Patrick Doyle.

The BAFTA-winning actress (“Vera Drake”) was one of several performers and filmmakers there to celebrate Doyle’s Music From the Movies and raise money for leukemia research.

rtuk_feature_patrick_doyle_01They all spoke as much about his spirit as his music. Robbie Coltrane said: “Pat Doyle is probably the funniest man I’ve ever met in my life.” Director Mike Newell (“Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire”) called him a “phenomenal little wizard.”

Judi Dench said that his score for Kenneth Branagh’s “Henry V” spoke to “all those who fear the loss of hope.”

Doyle thanked his family and friends for seeing him through his own illness: “I have been blessed by inheriting the gift for music from my father and mother. I am the luckiest man alive.”

Here’s how my review of the concert Patrick Doyle: Music from the Movies begins in The Hollywood Reporter:

LONDON — Scottish film composer Patrick Doyle’s charity fundraiser had more than average resonance as the man who scored most of Kenneth Branagh’s films and such others as “Sense and Sensibility,” “Indochine,” and “Carlito’s Way” has successfully battled leukemia.

The concert was directed by Branagh and featured many of the actors and filmmakers associated with films featuring Doyle’s music including Emma Thompson, Alan Rickman, Robbie Coltrane, Richard E. Grant, Judi Dench, Mike Newell and Regis Wargnier.

Belgium’s Dirk Brosse led the London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus in almost three hours of sumptuous themes that play as well in the concert hall as they do in the motion pictures.

The first score Doyle wrote after his treatment was for Regis Wargnier’s “East/West”, a tale of sacrifice and loss in Stalin’s Soviet Union. Baritone Anatolij Fokanov sang Doyle’s evocative “The Land” from that score, raising the hair on the back of everyone’s neck.

The composer’s daughter Abigail Doyle performed “The Way It’s Meant to Be” from Robert Altman’s “Gosford Park” with great flair, and Beth Nielsen Chapman contributed the lovely “I Find Your Love”, which she co-wrote with Doyle for “Calendar Girls” though it didn’t make the finished film.

Thompson led “Sigh No More, Ladies” from “Much Ado About Nothing” playfully while pianist John Alley did justice to “My Father’s Favorite” and soprano Janis Kelly did likewise on “Weep No More, My Sad Fountains”, both from “Sense and Sensibility”. Soloist Carmine Lauri’s performance in the world premiere of the “Rosalind Violin Concerto”, inspired by “As You Like It”, resonated with passion.

Highlights of the evening were dramatic presentations by Derek Jacobi doing the “My thoughts be bloody” soliloquy from “Hamlet” and Branagh declaiming the “St. Crispin’s Day” speech from “Henry V”.

All of the guests were old pals of Doyle and their stories from the past 30 years added greatly to the entertainment. Not all of the stories were about Doyle, however. Rickman told of a note he received from Taiwanese director Ang Lee while filming “Sense and Sensibility”. His note read: “Be more subtle. Do more.” Patrick Doyle’s music is both subtle and marvellously rousing. There’s no doubt he will do more.

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THEATRE REVIEW: Ringwood players’ ‘Allo, ‘Allo

Posted on October 31, 2007 by admin

By Ray Bennett

On any given weekend, enthusiastic players from more than 2,500 amateur theatre companies around Britain get together to put on a show and last weekend, I went down to Hampshire by the New Forest to see the Ringwood Musical and Dramatic Society production of “‘Allo, ‘Allo.”

It’s a perennial wartime farce written by Jeremy Lloyd and David Croft based on their popular 1982 television sitcom, which is still in reruns on the BBC.

I was there because my brother Richard Bennett was starring as René, the long-suffering owner of a small café in France during World War Two. Rich is gifted with a fine stage presence and great comic timing but he wasn’t alone in making the show hugely entertaining.

Veterans Poppy Garvey and Peter Ansell and younger performers such as Andy Steeds and Julie Lax shone among the fine cast under the polished direction of Sheryle Daniels. The set itself received applause because it was such a perfect replica of the TV show.

It’s fun to be reminded of how much talent is to be found far from the commercial theatrical rat race and how enjoyable it is to be among theatergoers who, like the performers, simply want to have a good time.

Next up for the Ringwood players is their annual Christmas show, “A Ceremony of Carols” and an April production of Stephen Sondheim’s “Follies.” Here’s more about the RMDS and the national amdram association NODA

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VENICE FILM REVIEW: Jimmy Carter doc ‘The Man From Plains’

Posted on October 29, 2007 by admin

'Man from Plains' x600

By Ray Bennett

VENICE, Italy — Winning the Nobel Peace Prize does not automatically visit sainthood upon the recipient as Tom Lehrer observed while noting that satire died the day Henry Kissinger became laureate, but it looks pretty good on Jimmy Carter.

That’s the problem, however, with Jonathan Demme’s blandly interesting new documentary on the former president from Georgia titled “Man From Plains.”

The one-term White House occupant, former peanut farmer and nuclear physicist, sincere Christian, and full-time humanitarian is such a reasonable individual that the film has trouble drumming up controversy.

Screened in the Horizons sidebar at the Venice International Film Festival, theatrical boxoffice is unlikely to be sparkling but it could do well on television and provide a lasting portrait on DVD.

The film follows Carter on a promotional tour in support of his book “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid,” which argues that Israel will not find peace until it withdraws from the occupied territories.

It’s a point of view rejected by many supporters of Israel but such is Carter’s standing as a result of the Camp David accord he negotiated between Egypt and Israel all those years ago that even his angriest opponents temper their response.

Demme goes on the road with the Carter team to places such as Chicago, Washington and Los Angeles and he’s seen being questioned by an assortment of television presenters including Jay Leno, Charlie Rose and Larry King. There are encounters with sycophantic interviewers and challenging ones but it seldom gets heated.

He goes to picnics and book signings, attends meetings at the Carter Center, and preaches the gospel. He says he and wife Rosalynn read aloud from the Bible every night even when he’s on the road by phone. The film has no narrator and there are no direct interviews. Carter is free to say what he wants and while he states there’s no conflict in belief in Jesus Christ and being a scientist, he doesn’t elaborate.

There are many small but interesting observational moments in the documentary and Demme covers the major issues of Carter’s presidency, his current work as a world statesman, and his work building homes with Habitat in New Orleans and around the world.

Demme also reveals that whatever else he may be Carter is a consummate professional in dealing with people from all walks of life. He may not have been the most dynamic or effective president in recent history but in Demme’s snapshot he certainly appears to be the most decent.

Venue: Venice International Film Festival; Director: Jonathan Demme; Director of photography: Declan Quinn; Music: Djamel Ben Yelles, Alejandro Escovedo, Gillian Welch & David Rawlings; Editor: Kate Amend; Producers: Jonathan Demme, Neda Armian; Executive producers: Ron Bozman, Jeff Skoll, Diane Weyermann; A Clinica Estetico Production; No MPAA rating; Running time, 120 minutes.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter. Read about the Jimmy Carter Library and the Carter Center

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THEATRE REVIEW: Nick Stafford’s ‘War Horse’

Posted on October 26, 2007 by admin

'War Horse' 2 x650

By Ray Bennett

LONDON – It’s an imposing puppet made of bamboo, nylon, bicycle chain and leather, and its three human operators are clearly visible, but not long into the National Theatre’s captivating production of “War Horse,” the steed in the title is a living, breathing force onstage.

Playwright Nick Stafford has adapted the popular novel by Michael Morpurgo about a half-thoroughbred hunter named Joey that goes from a Devon farm into the heat of battle in World War I.

The horse relates his adventures in the first person in the book, but Stafford wisely abandons that conceit for the play, letting the story unfold through dialogue. First seen as an awkward foal, Joey is bought at auction by a farmer whose son, Albert (Luke Treadaway), becomes his devoted master.

Sold to the army when war breaks out, Joey ends up in the midst of some of the worst carnage in history as cavalry charges are mown down by machine gun fire. Eight million horses were killed in the First World War, and at every step Joey threatens to become one of them.

Albert enlists at 16 in order to join the yeomanry but instead spends his time trying to survive in the infantry while Joey lands on the other side of the front line. There, he has the great fortune to come under the care of a German officer who loves horses, and his chances of survival become brighter.

The production is a triumph of design, with the marvelous puppets — including several horses, a goose, vultures and even a little girl — rendered not only credible but touching. Created by South Africa’s Handspring Puppet Company, each creature is manipulated by three people who make the sounds and provide the subtlest movements to make them all seem real.

Directors Marianne Elliott and Tom Morris combine realistic drama with sublime surrealism to convey the rustic warmth of the Devon countryside and the stark clamor of the battlefield. Designer Rae Smith keeps the stage bare using a black backdrop with a vast white slash on which animated images show ships at sea and troops advancing.

Paule Constable’s lighting design and Christopher Shutt’s sound design are essential elements in the power of the production, helped greatly by Adrian Sutton’s evocative music and John Tams’ appropriate folk songs.

Treadaway as Albert, Thusitha Jayasundera as Albert’s mother and Angus Wright as the caring German officer stand out among the humans, but it is the spectacular horses that make this show a surefire hit.

Venue: National Theatre, runs through Jan. 12; Cast: Luke Treadaway; Jamie Ballard; Thusitha Jayasundera; Angus Wright; Playwright: Nick Stafford; Based on the novel by: Michael Morpurgo; Directors: Marianne Elliott and Tom Morris; Set designer: Rae Smith; Puppets: Basil Jones and Adrian Kohler; Lighting designer: Paule Constable; Music: Adrian Sutton; Video designers: Leo Warner and Mark Grimmer; Sound designer: Christopher Shutt; Presented by the National Theatre in association with Handspring Puppet Company.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

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FILM REVIEW: Robert Redford’s ‘Lions for Lambs’

Posted on October 23, 2007 by admin

'Lambs for Lions' x650

By Ray Bennett

LONDON – The title of Robert Redford’s “Lions for Lambs” comes from a comment made by a German officer in World War I about the bravery of British soldiers compared to the criminal stupidity of their commanders.

The film, which had its world premiere Monday at the London Film Festival, makes clear that Redford feels the same way about the current political leadership of the U.S. and the men and women now fighting and dying in the name of their country.

In sober and unemotional fashion, Redford and writer Matthew Michael Carnahan set out the arguments for and against America’s military incursions in Iraq and Afghanistan, leaving it for the audience to ponder a response. They leave no doubt, however, where they stand.

Box office response to films that deal with the U.S. government’s strategies in the Middle East so far suggests that the public is not eager to grapple with the topic onscreen. Redford’s film will appeal to those who feel that today’s military sacrifices are being made on false premises, but its responsible tone could draw a more widely appreciative audience.

Clocking in at about 90 minutes, the film has three settings, two of which involve discussions on the merits of commitment to activism and politics far removed from the field of battle. The third shows two Special Forces volunteers trapped on a snowy mountain in Afghanistan and surrounded by the enemy.

Redford plays Dr. Stephen Malley, a lecturer at an unnamed California university, who is attempting to persuade a bright but undisciplined student named Todd (Andrew Garfield) that he should apply his talents to help solving the problems of the day.

Meryl Streep is Janine Roth, a veteran television reporter whose skills include taking shorthand and the ability to land an exclusive interview with hotshot Sen. Jasper Irving (Tom Cruise). Irving has his eye on the White House, and what he has to reveal is a new strategy that involves sending small Special Forces teams deep into mountainous territory to prevent Sunni and Shia insurgents from uniting.

In fact, that strategy has already been launched. When a Chinook helicopter attempts a landing in a dangerous area, it comes under fire and two soldiers are pitched out into harm’s way. Arian Finch (Derek Luke) and Ernest Rodriguez (Michael Pena), both from deprived communities but believers in the American Dream, are exactly the kind of youngsters that Malley lionizes.

The film cuts back and forth among the three scenarios as the senator tries to convince the reporter that his way is right, the professor does the same with the student and the two grunts try to stay alive.

The debate between the politician and the journalist comes off best as both actors get under the skin of their characters, with Cruise snapping out details with charming efficiency and Streep showing the reporter’s increasing skepticism with typical subtlety.

Pena and Luke are fine in a classroom sequence that reveals their selfless idealism, and they do what’s required in combat scenes made uglier by also being viewed via satellite.

Redford wears his heart on his sleeve in the scenes between the professor and the effortlessly smart kid. Garfield is also fine, but the encounter suffers from being polemical and as a result lacks drama.

Politicians, the media, educators, military commanders and a docile public all come under fire in a well-made movie that offers no answers but raises many important questions.

Cast: Robert Redford; Meryl Streep; Tom Cruise; Peter Berg; Michael Pena; Derek Luke; Andrew Garfield; Director: Robert Redford; Screenwriter: Matthew Michael Carnahan; Director of photography: Philippe Rousselot; Production designer: Jan Roelfs; Music: Mark Isham; Costume designer: Mary Zophres; Editor: Joe Hutshing; Producers: Robert Redford, Matthew Michael Carnahan, Andrew Hauptman, Tracy Falco; Executive producers: Tom Cruise, Daniel Lupi, Paula Wagner. Running time, 92 minutes.

 

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