Festive weekend

We have had a lovely, festive time this weekend.

On Saturday, we all (us, our children and their grandparents) met at the National Theatre to see Pinocchio. There had been some concern when the tickets were first booked that the show might be too young for our teenagers, but as it turned out, not a bit of it. The acting was superb, the set ingenious, and there was plenty tucked in for older viewers -- morality, darkness, sophisticated jokes, etc. We enjoyed the whole show, but we thought that the actress who played the cricket (Pinocchio's conscience) was particularly outstanding.

Prior to watching the play, we ate dinner together in House, the National Theatre's restaurant. We were a little concerned that there were few vegetarian dishes available and that the menu wasn't very teenager-friendly. However, I had a pasta dish with mushrooms and spinach, which really was very tasty, Even though the restaurant was very busy, the service was friendly and responsive.

On Sunday, we focused on Christmas at home. We bought our tree from Peachcroft Farm, as we always do, and then spent the rest of the morning decorating the house. In the afternoon, we celebrated the third Sunday of Advent enjoying German Christmas biscuits in front of our advent circle.

Lovely! We are now all feeling a lot more Christmassy!

Things I Know to Be True

We went to see an excellent play at the Oxford Playhouse on Saturday night -- Things I Know to Be True by the theatre company Frantic Assembly.

This outing was at the instigation of our eldest, who is studying the play for GCSE Drama, and has in fact now seen it twice -- once with school and once with us.

The play tells the story of a family -- mother and father and their four grown-up children. It explores the dynamics of family relationships and examines how those relationships are affected when really significant events happen to members of the family.

The play is funny, moving and intensely sad, all at the same time. The style of delivery -- plenty of monologues and narration coupled with Frantic's physical style -- means that the watcher is drawn right it; it is as if you are there, a part of the action.

I loved this play and would recommend it highly. It deals with some very difficult issues, and the ending is shocking, but it really makes you think and provides excellent conversational material long after the curtain has fallen.

An Inspector Calls

We visited London at the weekend. Our main reason for doing so was that we had tickets for An Inspector Calls at the Playhouse. Our eldest is studying this play for GCSE, so we thought this would be a good excuse for a trip to the theatre -- one of our favourite things.

The play, of course, is superb -- and its message is so relevant in today's climate of nationalism and individualism. The performance was excellent too. This is a revival of the National Theatre's 1992 production using the original 1992 set, the centre of which is a house which closes up and opens out, a metaphor for the family's ignorance of, and lack of care for, the lives of those far less fortunate than themselves. As the family is forced by the inspector to pay attention to its fellow citizens, the house opens up to the elements, eventually collapsing as the family's self-satisfied world is torn apart.

Before the theatre, we had lunch at Zizzi in Bow Street, which was a good experience -- tasty food and very friendly staff.

And we made use of our favourite tube station, North Ealing, on our way into and out of London. We love this station -- it has a fast, direct line into the centre, is very well managed, and has lovely, clean loos. What more could you ask for?!

"The Importance of Being Earnest" with the Pantaloons

We enjoyed a great, laugh-a-minute evening yesterday, watching The Pantaloons' production of "The Importance of Being Earnest" at the Cornerstone Theatre in Didcot.

We first came across the Pantaloons last summer doing an open-air production of "Pride and Prejudice". We enjoyed that show so much that we decided to book to see them again as soon as they were performing something in our neck of the woods.

For those of you who don't know, the Pantaloons are a young, touring theatre company who put on productions that are high quality and incredibly funny. They are masters of improvisation, engineering inspired audience participation, and physical comedic theatre.

"The Importance of Being Earnest" is a funny play in its own right, but the Pantaloons' magic made it simply hilarious. We particularly loved the crass relationship between Miss Prism and Dr Chasuble, the deliberate set up and downplaying of the "A handbag..." line, and the American-style recap scene (with multiple movie references) after the interval.

If you enjoy clever, funny theatre with an irreverent twist, then I would recommend booking up for the Pantaloons now!

The Hard Problem

Last weekend, I had a wonderful treat. My husband and I went to see Tom Stoppard's new play, 'The Hard Problem', at the National Theatre on London's South Bank.

Tom Stoppard is my all-time favourite playwright, simply because his plays are so intelligent and make you think in a way that no other plays do. So I was very excited when I found out that Stoppard had written a new play, and I was lucky enough to be given tickets for my birthday.

'The Hard Problem' didn't disappoint. Essentially, the play is about the problem of consciousness--how, given the materialist nature of science, it is possible to adequately explain the phenomenon of consciousness in purely scientific (i.e. physical) terms (via neurobiology, for example). The vast majority of scientists, psychologists and philosophers today believe that the mind (or consciousness) in some way reduces to brain activity, hence can be explained in physical or scientific terms. However, they all agree that no-one to date has come close to doing so -- simply because, they argue, the brain (and mind) is simply too complex for us to understand at this stage. Hence, the problem of consciousness is the Hard Problem for scientists.

Stoppard's play explores the flip side of the coin -- that perhaps the mind or consciousness cannot be reduced to physical brain activity. The key protagonist of this argument within the play is Hilary, a psychologist who feels extreme sorrow and guilt for having given her daughter up for adoption and who prays to God for forgiveness. These concepts -- sorrow, guilt, forgiveness and God -- are  not, she believes, rooted in the physical. Rather, they are something more than physical.

As is typical with Stoppard, the play is fast moving and covers a variety of topics. Areas that loom large are the nature of altruism, the behaviour of financial markets, whether or not machines can think, and what any of this has to do with how people behave in the real world (outside academia) day to day.

I loved this play. My academic background is in philosophy, which means that I was familiar with most of the concepts discussed. However, that kind of knowledge isn't necessary to enjoy the play -- I know of several non-specialists who loved it. All you need is an ability to listen carefully and to think outside the box.

My husband and I came out of the theatre discussing the issues raised in the play and we are still discussing them. Wonderful!

War Horse

We recently went to see an ‘as live’ showing of the play of Michael Morpurgo’s ‘War Horse’. For those of you who don’t know, the National Theatre Live is a scheme that broadcasts real-time performances of National Theatre productions to cinemas worldwide. The ‘as live’ extension is when those broadcasts (or films) are replayed at times after the live performance.

We very much enjoy going to the theatre, but when the show that we want to see is in London and we want to go en famille, it can be a very expensive pastime. For this reason we jumped at the chance of seeing an as live broadcast of ‘War Horse’ in our local cinema. We didn't know quite what to expect – would it be like being at the theatre or more like a standard cinema experience? Well, there was some attempt at making it seem like you were at the theatre – the cinema screen showed the audience and the speaker system played the sounds of the audience coming from the theatre auditorium before the performance started – but in fact, it really was just like being at the cinema. The view was not straight on to the stage, rather there were a number of different cameras and the view cut between these, much like watching a film. This worked well and must have been difficult to do technically, given the issue of having to work round the audience.

However, what I really enjoyed was the story. I haven’t read any of Michael Morpurgo’s novels before (although my kids have), assuming that they were aimed squarely at children only. ‘War Horse’ tells the story of (aspects of) the First World War through the experience of the horses who were put to work on the battlefield, and it resonates on many levels, highlighting the futility of war, the desperation of those caught up in it, and the effect that war can have on people’s sanity. All are issues very much worthy of adult attention. ‘War Horse’, rather to my surprise, is now on my to read pile.

Wendy and Peter Pan

On New Year's Eve, my family and I followed our time-honoured tradition of going out to the theatre.

This year we opted to go and see "Wendy and Peter Pan" at the RSC in Stratford. My husband and I used to go to the RSC regularly before the kids were born and we fancied a repeat visit, not least to see the newly-built theatre. We also fancied a change from the samey pantomimes that our home town has to offer.

The RSC didn't disappoint us. "Wendy and Peter Pan" was a truly fantastic experience. The acting was superb and the staging amazing. And the stage adaptation of J. M. Barrie's classic was given a really interesting feminist twist by writer Ella Hickson. Wendy and her mother were depicted as the ones taking responsibility for everyone and everything all the time, while Pan and 'the boys' constantly played and took no responsibility for anything whatsoever. The question of why the women never had time to have fun and relax with the boys arose throughout, and issues of women's suffrage and women in the workplace were touched upon.

The play comes highly recommended.

Of course, Stratford is not only about the theatre. The town itself is wonderful to wander round too. There are so many timber-framed buildings in such a small space and history abounds. We also managed to fit in lunch at a lovely independent cafe--No.37 Cafe on Sheep Street. The food was freshly made and delicious and the service personal and extremely friendly. A great find to augment our theatre trip!

A grand day out at the National

Last weekend we (my husband, myself and our kids) had a treat and were taken to see 'Emil and the Detectives' at the National Theatre by my parents in law.

The play was very good -- fairly low on plot complexity (which is what you'd expect from a children's story, I suppose), but extremely well directed. Lots of clever scenery, the inevitable chase through the audience, and a huge cast of children with excellent acting ability displayed by those in speaking parts.

After the play we were spoilt even further and taken to the Mezzanine Restaurant at the National. We had a lovely meal--the food there is always first class, especially the freshly baked bread--and the kids benefited from the new children's menu. They chose chicken and chips followed by ice cream, which suited them perfectly.

So, we all had rather a grand day out at the National!