Another Look at Larkin - from December 2009's Hullfire

This December marks twenty-four years since the death of internationally-renowned poet and Hull Uni librarian Philip Larkin. Which means that 2010 is the important twenty-fifth anniversary, and the University is teaming up with the Philip Larkin Society, Visit Hull and East Yorkshire and Hull City Council to celebrate.

Professor James Booth, Head of the English Department and Literary Advisor to the Philip Larkin Society, told me that Larkin “is the purest of lyric poets, he always writes about Life, Death, Love [...] That gives him his universal quality.” Larkin's string of awards from 1972-84 confirmed his international reputation, and he has recently been declared both the nation's favourite poet and the greatest post-war British writer. “He manages, and there's a certain magic to this, to choose the words of each of his poems in such a way that he copyrights ordinary words [...] when anybody now says 'they fuck you up, your mum and dad', everyone recognises it as a quote from Larkin!”

The celebrations – under the title Larkin 25: Another Look at Larkin – will run for twenty-five weeks, starting in June 2010 and ending at that twenty-fifth anniversary in December with the unveiling of a Larkin statue at the Paragon station. It's also worth looking out for the Plague of Toads that will strike Hull during Larkin 25 – dozens of huge, decorated fibreglass toads, popping up across the city – inspired by Larkin's Toads. Just imagine. Other events of interest include a series of University lectures from distinguished guests, including former Poet Laureate Andrew Motion. Elsewhere, there are plans for drama workshops at Hull Truck, jazz events (Larkin was a jazz critic for the Telegraph) and maybe a bus named after Larkin. More long-lasting will be the Larkin Trail, a tour of East Yorkshire's Larkin-related cultural spots, supported by a new History Centre which is going to house the University's archives on Larkin and Hull's history.

But what about the reputation Larkin seems to have gained as a racist, or a middle-class snob who looked down on Hull's locals? A quick trawl through the comments left on a Hull Daily Mail article about the proposed statue reveals a variety of opinion and some of it's quite hostile. But, like it or not, Larkin is an important cultural figure – for Britain, not just Hull – and he chose to spend thirty years of his life here. Midlander though he was, his is a name strongly linked with Hull and the University, and his later work is embedded firmly in the East Riding.

Quoting Larkin's poetic description of Hullians, Booth comments that “ I don't think it's accurate to say that it has any kind of middle-class condescension about it; there's a common humanity about it”. As for being racist, the Professor tells me “ If you look at his life, his actions, you realise actually he was a lifelong liberal humanist – not the right-wing bigot that he occasionally parodied himself as being”, and compares Larkin to the Roman orator Cicero, who also “ got into terrible trouble because he couldn't avoid a good joke [...] Larkin does this; when he sees the pithiest, most extreme version of putting something, he'll do it”. He was politically incorrect, but not a racist.

What's exciting about Larkin 25 (apart from those toads) is that the Steering Group, chaired by Hull Emeritus Professor Graham Chesters (g.chesters@hull.ac.uk), is keen to have new ideas suggested. Already there are various student projects (in drama, photography, art and music) across the city. As Chesters says, the list of commemorative events is 'far from closed!'.


http://twitter.com/philiplarkin25


http://www.larkin25.com/

Ruddigore (Hull University G&S Society) Interview

Cowering in a corner whilst being tormented by the ghosts of my ancestors was hardly the way I'd expected to begin an interview with the director of Hull's Gilbert & Sullivan Society (HUGSS). It must just be what happens when you sit in on a rehearsal of this year's G&S show: Ruddigore; or, The Witch's Curse.

It was an experience – being surrounded by men jabbing fingers at me and generally tormenting me – that gave extra weight to what the show's director, Lucy Thomson-Smith, later told me about how keen the Society is on including in their activities anybody who's interested. 'I feel like it's always been quite a welcoming group. You know, if you can't sing, you can't dance, you can't act – we don't care, come and join us! We'll just have fun with it.'

That's not to say that the cast can't sing, dance or act – just that it isn't necessarily a priority of HUGSS. As Thomson-Smith says, 'it's always nice within the chorus that we have this interesting mix of people who are different ages and doing different courses and who have different abilities' and one of the challenges of HUGSS is working with a cast that doesn't necessarily have vast theatrical or musical experience.

The same is true of the show's principal roles. One of the more experienced principals is Rory Oliver, the leader of those men doing the tormenting earlier on. Near the beginning of the second half, he belts out the song that Thomson-Smith regards as the script's 'high point' – he certainly did it justice in the tiny rehearsal space in the Larkin building. 'The Night's High Noon is this fantastic song about the ghosts coming to life and enjoying themselves at night' which is crucial to the plot of Ruddigore.

Oliver plays the leader of the ancestors of the new Baronet of Ruddigore, Ruthven Murgatroyd, whose family line is cursed in such a way that means he has to commit a crime every day or be subject to more of the torments I endured in rehearsal. Understandably, Murgatroyd isn't happy about this family curse and does his best to get around it. This being a Gilbert & Sullivan show, there are several couples running around trying to get married to each other, before changing their minds and wanting to marry someone else. As Thomson-Smith explains the plot to me, I can see what she means when she says that this is 'a parody of Victorian melodrama, and it's Gilbert and Sullivan's opportunity to poke fun at that'.

Unlike previous HUGSS shows Ruddigore is far from the most well-known of G&S works. In a way, that's why Thomson-Smith has chosen to do it. 'A lot of G&S societies' she tells me, 'tend to revolve around the same productions. That's because everybody loves Pirates [HUGSS 2009 and 2005], Iolanthe [HUGSS 2008], HMS Pinafore [HUGSS 2007 and 2003] and The Mikado [HUGSS 2006].' HUGSS last performed Ruddigore in 1997. Far from being daunted, Thomson-Smith is excited because, 'it's got two fantastic songs in it already, and the more I looked into it, I thought 'this has got some really good songs in, it's got some really good creative opportunities to run with''.

Among those opportunities is the style she's chosen for Ruddigore. Following on from the last two HUGSS shows ('very successful, innovative productions [that] decided to do something different and non-traditional'), Thomson-Smith has put her own mark on the show. Believing that 'doing G&S as G&S doesn't work any more; it doesn't pull in an audience', she has exploited the fact that Ruddigore is 'quite gothic, it's got a scary edge but it's a dark comedy' and has taken an appropriate inspiration: Tim Burton.

Burton's work ties in especially well with the show's professional bridesmaids ('corpse bride figures...decaying and falling apart.') and a 'nervous and unassuming' male lead. 'Using a Tim Burton inspiration really, really works well with this and lends a modern edge to a traditional production'.

But above all, for Thomson-Smith 'HUGSS has always been about enthusiasm and the passion; people always want to turn up and want to have fun and they enjoy doing it – and I think that really comes across in the production'.


Ruddigore; or, The Witch's Curse runs in Middleton Hall on the 3rd, 5th and 6th of March at 7:30pm. Tickets are £6 for an adult, with £4 concessions.
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These Things Take Time for Cunning Linguists - from October 2009's Hullfire (who said I had to upload in chronological order?)

Hull's Drama Department is definitely not playing it safe this month.

There is a wealth of plays that the Drama Department could choose to perform, classics that have been tried and tested (and done to death) or well-known, safe favourites that are hard to get wrong onstage. But University is a place to learn, to develop, to be brave and daring, to innovate. Rather than take an easy option with an established writer, the Department is giving its stage to two new, young student writers who will also direct their work.

At the end of October, Samuel Lannacombe Oliver's These Things Take Time will play alongside Thomas E. Peel's Cunning Linguists [later changed to The Various Voices of a Cunning Linguist] as a double-bill. Both shows will run each night, one after the other, which presents its own set of challenges to the casts and crew. Most challenging for Oliver is condensing his full-length play down to an hour: “I'd already finished the script before I was given the slot, and it was over an hour long. so I've had to do a lot of cutting. I've got rid of bits I quite liked, but the constant re-reading does mean I've cut bits that were rubbish and put in better bits.” Sharing the performance space each night means that both shows are low on set and have a split budget – two challenges Peel highlights along with saying that “the pressure is on due to the fact that we have written the scripts - the buck stops with us as writers and directors.”

Oliver sums up his play as being about “struggling to write, girls and weird friends”. It centres on Lloyd Karamazov, a TV writer hired to spice up a show's failing second series, and earned Oliver a First in the Scriptwriting Module – so it must be good! He quotes as inspiration things like Jeffrey Brown's 'Girlfriend' trilogy, Mary Chase's Harvey, Fear of Projection, The Goon Show, High Fidelity, Brief Encounter, The Philadelphia Story, Kind Hearts and Coronets, All About Eve and Buster Keaton films. Style-wise, it's an “amalgamation of all the things that inspired me when writing the play. So I hope that the final performance will be a mix of all the styles I've enjoyed, in an exciting and accessible way. Oh, and there's some creative swearing.”

Peel's play is harder to pin down, “I think my play's called Cunning Linguists, I say 'think', as it hasn't named itself yet. My friend suggested Cunning Linguists which seemed witty enough, but perhaps one day it will stop its tantrum and tell me what it wants to be called.” As the plot revolves around not a love triangle but a 'love scribble' and manipulation of language – using language as an “art form that very few people take the trouble to master” - with healthy doses of sex and lust, that seems a very appropriate title. Say it quickly and spot the innuendo in a phrase that's about wordplay – like a pun within a pun. It's inspired by things like “ Wilde, G.B Shaw, pre-Raphealites, aestheticism, Terry Pratchett, Johnny Cooper Clarke, Morrissey, Simon Armitage and films like Rebel Without a Cause, West Side Story, Johnny Got His Gun, The Great Escape, Pygmalion/My Fair Lady.”

Both writers have drawn on a little autobiographical material for their plays – Peel describing his as “basically the two voices in my head put into a story.” One is “driven, knows not what he wants but that he wants something different from everybody else” while the other is “ racked by insecurities, he is repressed but only by himself, and feels like he is an echo inside his own skin.” Alongside such characters, it's easy to see why Peel claims his script “shits on the liberal types in the same sentence as the conservative types.” Oliver's gentler, lightly self-deprecating approach means that his play avoids being “boring and full of awkward misunderstandings and tentative accidents (like my own life)” by being “exciting and full of awkward misunderstandings and tentative accidents (unlike my own life) with amusing characters and the like.”

I asked both men why we should go and see their double bill. Peel says that one of his characters can “bring societal conventions and norms and throw them on their head - he has some odd views which are bound to cause controversy, especially with you ladies.” Then there's “seeing a monkey-hanger (a Hartlepoolian) in a thong, the best chat-up line in the world, the worst puns in the world, being able to tell me exactly what you thought about it after over a pint, and if all goes to plan the longest beer-funnel you will probably ever see” not to mention the after-show party.

Oliver answered: “a theatrical double bill is quite a unique experience. One ticket: two plays. Isn't that nice? These Things Take Time should be seen because it's good fun. a quick-paced romp through all the little trials and tribulations we face from friendly colleagues, aggravating co-workers, pretty strangers and wishful fantasies. Also, I have a very good-looking cast and there may be partial nudity...which is always a seller.”

Both shows have already been learning curves for their writers, which means they've achieved part of their purpose. The final part is for them to entertain the masses, you lot. So, an opportunity to take in some culture, to support not only the learning of fellow students but also their future careers, and some possible nudity (which always perks an evening up). Add in an after-show party on the Saturday, and this could be a perfect student night out.

London's South Bank in the Evening - from November 2009's Hullfire

[My first foray into travel writing]:

The Houses of Parliament look splendid in the sunset. There's a metaphor in there somewhere. The politically-minded cynic might say something about the sun setting on the splendour of an institution of British democracy. By contrast, St. Paul's glows a faint, rosy pink.

Nearby on the steps of a bridge over the Thames, a tour guide has managed to attract to her tour a whole one person. To give her credit, she's going for it 100%, putting her all in as though there were a small crowd at her feet, rather than one slightly bemused Spanish man. Unfortunately, she's just coming across as his slightly patronising, know-it-all friend.

There's something especially beautiful about London in the light of the setting sun after a long Summer's day. The streets – pierced with shards of orange light and shafts of shadow – are filled with smiling people, their shoulders still a little slack after shedding the stress accumulated during the day. Couples stroll at ease, pleased with each other's company. Friends chat about the pubs they're going to and have been to on other evenings. Mothers laugh at their scampering children, or coo over the younger ones that have tired themselves out – more worryingly, a dad is seen rescuing his young daughter from dangerously close to the edge of a bridge, where her curiosity has brought her.

See how no one rushes now like they did during the day – even the trains trundle across the bridges with less urgency. Over there, by the Tube station, an immigrant languidly hands out free London newspapers. Every now and then, a white man in a suit takes one. For some reason, that always seems to be how it works: in stilted English, the vendor chants his simple sales pitch he learned parrot-fashion, and once in a while his hook catches a fish that wants to feel (and look) ever so slightly more informed about events in London and the world. This particular suit has a young blonde on his arm, and says, as he takes a paper, “No, the reason I haven't divorced her yet is -” But the rest is snatched away on the wind, carried off to some other person's ears, one more part of one more story lost in the great melting-pot of humanity that is this great, sprawling city. We'll never know.

It's certainly been a melting-pot today, the air close and the sun bright. Clothes have been light and bright, if they were there at all. Summer, in all its glory – not typical British rained-out glory, but proper sunshine-pumping, Pimm's and lemonade glory. Look, all along the South Bank, under the London Eye and between the half dozen bridges, people enjoying themselves as only young people can. Strapping lads zip past on bikes, their shirts around their waists. Women lie sunbathing while the option's still there, ready to hit the town later on. Some watch as a bunch of lads muck about in a speedboat on the Thames. One of them's fallen in and is splashing about up to his waist – he and everyone else have a laugh – naturally he gets heckled mercilessly by his mates when they pick him up and pull away. In the distance a woman starts to sing an Italian operatic aria, her voice carrying beautifully through the streets and across the tiny waves of the river. It's all good, clean fun (except for the chap who fell into the Thames, that wasn't very clean).

It's easy to see why so many poets and arty-types love and have loved this city.

A History of Opposition - from November 2009's Hullfire

Art has a long history of undermining the more assertive aspects of state control. Partly, that's because the artist is often in an ideal position to observe the workings of a state system and is the sort of person most able and likely to articulate their opinions. An artist is often on the fringes of society, while members of the government support the status quo because it places them in prominent positions. Naturally, if the state's leaders benefit from the way things work, they won't be keen on supporting external reformers. Partly, art that disagrees has much more to say than art that complies with the status quo.

Partly though, that undermining attitude springs from the fact that art and state authority are fundamentally opposed, even in fairly liberal societies. A state system, by its very nature, likes conformity – it prefers all its subjects to be just that: subjects. If everybody does as they're told, a state's job is made much easier. So state systems tend to encourage rigidity and fixed ways of working. Art, on the other hand, likes individuality – it prefers flair and originality. Art aims to liberate people, freeing their minds and encouraging new ideas and new thoughts. It inspires a level of personal freedom that not all state systems are comfortable with. Notoriously 'difficult' playwright Howard Barker described this in 1986 when he wrote in The Guardian that 'Art is a problem. The man or woman who exposes himself to art exposes himself to another problem.' - and state systems try to avoid and/or suppress problems when they can.

Few states provide a better example of this than the old USSR, which cracked down on any form of dissent. Artists came under especially heavy fire, many facing long prison stretches for criticising the government. Those that collaborated had to conform to Stalin's brand of social realism, those that didn't could expect severe treatment.

It's only a few months since the theatre world mourned the passing of one of its most active political campaigners, Augusto Boal. He became famous for developing a type of theatre called the Theatre of the Oppressed, which aimed to involve the ordinary people far more than anything that had gone before. Boal disliked the term 'spectator', and didn't want anyone to passively watch his theatre – instead, he wanted the audience to get up and be involved, taking the part of the actors and making decisions for themselves about the course of the show. These so-called 'spectactors' were allowed great freedom of thought and expression.

Another politically-active theatre practitioner who aimed to challenge authoritarian systems was the Marxist Bertolt Brecht. Like Boal, he formulated a new style of theatre to fire up the minds of his audience and to liberate his art from the standards imposed by the past. His 'epic theatre' stripped away all the conventions of traditional acting and encouraged an intellectual rather than emotional connection between audience and performer. Meanwhile the stories of his plays criticised and satirised the state of politics in his native Germany (especially the rise of Nazism) and promoted much more socialist ideals. Interestingly, both men were politically left-wing and did their most famous work in exile – more evidence of states favouring the status quo over reformers.

Art also performs an important public service in providing a chance for us, the people, to laugh at our leaders (a service performed by playwrights from ancient Greece through to the modern day), even (especially) in legitimate, non-authoritarian states. Recently, someone told me it was scary that people laughed so much at George W. Bush, considering that he was the leader of the free world and so on. But actually, it would be scarier if we weren't allowed to laugh at him. Under Elizabeth I satirical poetry was made illegal, and many playwrights sailed very close to the wind with their writing – some even facing execution. When we're no longer allowed to laugh at our leaders, they have too much power – and leaders who ban mockery can easily extend that ban to criticism and all forms of opposition; Barker's Guardian article goes on to say that 'Nothing can be satirised in the authoritarian state'. As such, satire like Bremner, Bird & Fortune and Spitting Image function as barometers of public opinion and a means of holding politicians to account, venting the anger of the satirist (and the public) in non-violent ways.

The USSR was right to worry about oppositional writers; one oft-imprisoned Czech writer, Vaclav Havel, became a leading light in the 'Velvet Revolution', which eventually brought about an independent Czechoslovakia with Havel as its first democratically-elected President. Art isn't merely a voice for freedom, but a force of liberation.

'Journey's End' at Hull Uni

Review scheduled to appear in October's Hullfire - our University Drama Society again (a review of their show is not the place to go into the things that put me off the Society, but there are several):

The First World War was a pretty long slog, let's be honest. WWI famously should have been 'over by Christmas'. Shame then, that trench warfare forced troops into long periods of waiting with not very much to do, before sudden action.

R. C. Sheriff's play – Journey's End – demonstrates this perfectly, showing five British officers waiting for Germany's final all-or-nothing 1918 offensive. What destroyed men's nerves in the trenches was the fear in the waiting – the dread that struck while doing nothing – and a life characterised by peaks and troughs, long periods of idleness followed by brief spurts of violence. The troughs – the long, seemingly endless hours of time-wasting and hanging about, drinking or smoking or eating low-quality rations – are what the Drama Society bring to Asylum's stage.

That accuracy is both the strength and the fatal flaw of any production of this script; the long periods of apparent nothingness are unavoidable. What's pleasantly surprising is that this cast mine as much humour and lightness as possible from the script, so the desperately slow, long sections aren't as bad as they might be.

This particular production relies on the central duo of Stanhope and Osborne (no program, so actors' names are a mystery), who between them dominate the stage – Stanhope like a boiling kettle, ready to blow at a moment's notice (rather like the war itself), Osborne as a kindly uncle figure, smooth and calm. Trotter – as a common man in the officers' world – is a breath of fresh air in more ways than one.

That strength makes weakness elsewhere stand out, and this production suffers from being too slow and – therefore – long. It also has cringe-worthy speeches from a director who can be confident enough in his cast to not set the scene himself.

Celebrities and Star Power

An article on the use of celebrity casting, written for May edition of Hull University's Student Magazine, Hullfire. I thank a friend of mine for the idea of writing said article, which he mentioned to me at the West Yorkshire Playhouse while we were watching Lenny Henry in Othello.


In 1996 a young Scottish actor joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon to play Touchstone in As You Like It. He already had a modest string of stage roles to his name, having performed with Scottish theatre company 7:84 – he'd even had a role in a BBC serial. He stayed with the world of theatre until 2006 (at London's Royal Court and National Theatre as well as the RSC), when he landed a larger TV role.


But when David Tennant returned to the RSC in 2008 to play Hamlet, some observers criticised his casting as merely an RSC headline-grabbing stunt. The criticism was that theatreland was becoming obsessed with stardom, and producers were no longer willing to take risks on shows that had no star power.


Respected director Sir Jonathan Miller found that interest in his Sheffield production of Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard faded when it was revealed that star Joanna Lumley couldn't perform in the West End run – without her, the run was cancelled. Miller – in a Times article of June 2008 – complained that producers (especially those in London) were attracted by 'the merely famous' of a show, and not the quality. For this reason, he believed, London audiences were missing some high-quality theatre which lacked star power. Certainly, as the West End becomes filled with screen stars wanting to have a go on a stage, and musicals that thrive on being stuffed with well-known hits, it's getting increasingly difficult for more traditional plays with lesser-known casts to get on in London.


The trouble is that theatre is increasingly costly, and no producer wants to risk an experimental project with a bunch of kids who've had a bit of success in a regional theatre when they could invest in a sure fire hit with one instantly recognisable face from TV. It takes massive audience numbers to justify West End runs these days, and theatres desperately need the pulling power offered by names like Tennant's.



But Tennant is an interesting case; he started out as a stage actor, and returned from the world of TV. This is what makes Miller's dismissal of his Hamlet so unfair. Miller doesn't give any credit to the fact that Tennant isn't just a famous face; he's a very talented and engaging actor, whose Hamlet may not have been ground-breaking but was exactly what the RSC needed to boost ticket sales and energise the Company after their gruelling Complete Works Season.
Tennant's sometime screen partner John Barrowman is another star name who is used to reinvigorate theatre sales; his star turns have been the been the main draw in the pantos at the Birmingham Hippodrome for a couple of years now.


Lately, celebrity casting has been on the increase, with comedian Lenny Henry's pleasantly surprising turn as Othello for the Northern Broadsides covered in March's Hullfire, and Marc Warren starring in The Pillowman in Leicester. In March, Sir Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart started touring Beckett's revolutionary Waiting for Godot.


Most notably – though at the risk of over-emphasising London's place at the centre of the theatre world – there is a current season at London's Donmar Warehouse that features big names at affordable prices. Kenneth Branagh and Derek Jacobi have already won Critics' Circle Awards (Jacobi's Shakespearean Performance Award being held jointly with Tennant's Hamlet) for their roles in Ivanov and Twelfth Night, while Jude Law's Hamlet opens on May 29th. Judi Dench currently leads the cast of Madame de Sade, tickets for which can be bought for just £10. That's right: a West End show – with Dame Judi Dench – for as little as £10!



This is where celebrity casting can be invaluable, and more theatres should take note of what the Donmar is doing. This season is an excellent way of drawing in both younger audiences and older ones used to recognisable screen actors – by getting them to good, cheap theatre, the Donmar whets their appetite for similar work. If using quality star names is what it takes to keep theatres afloat, then people like Miller should have on objection – assuming they want to still have an industry to work in five years from now.