My Museum of the Year:
The Vasa Museum in Stockholm, without question. Read my post here:
Exhibitions:
Stanley Kubrick – I’ll come back to this one with a dedicated post. First seen in Paris in 2011, at La Cinémathèque Française, I didn’t realise it was on an extended world tour. While it finished at The Design Museum in September 2019, there’s a chance you’ll be able to catch it somewhere in the world in coming years.
Other highlights:
Sargent at the National Museum of Sweden.
Sorolla, Master of Light, at The National Gallery, London.
Hockney and Van Gogh, The Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam. https://wp.me/p7AW4i-Ib
Film: The Two Popes
‘Two Welsh actors walk into a bar; they both start to pontificate’
I wasn’t expecting much of The Two Popes. It’s a fictionalised account of Pope Benedict’s decision to abdicate, and nominate his unwilling successor, Pope Francis. Both men have troubled pasts.
Anthony Hopkins plays the rigid German who adheres to Catholicism in its strictest form, but sees the need for the church to modernise. Jonathan Pryce plays the football-loving Argentinian who intends to resign as Cardinal, but is then summoned to Rome. Filmed in locations including the Sistine Chapel and Argentina, it’s a large scale film that centres on the relationship of the two men with great humanity.
The Traitor at The London Film Festival is also based on a true story, of a minor mafioso who is persuaded to return from anonymity in Brazil to become a central witness at the Sicilian Mafia Maxi-Trials of the 1980s. It’s a chilling insight into recent events in Italian history.
Blue Note Records: Beyond the Notes is a documentary charting the history of the record label from its foundation in 1939 by two white German immigrants, Alfred Lion and Max Magulis. Unconcerned by commercial considerations, they loved the music, treated the artists well, and nurtured their creativity. From around 1947 the label embraced modern jazz. Changes of ownership followed Lion and Magulis’s retirement in the 1960s. Since 2012 it has been under the stewardship of its current president Don Was, who has overseen its revival, attracting a new generation of musicians.
The Favourite was a major disappointment. I really expected to enjoy it. Visually striking but dull.
The Souvenir was my Turkey of the Year. I’ll never get those two hours of my life back.
Theatre: two Shakespeares, two Wiltons
The Sam Wanamaker Theatre at The Globe is an intimate space, a recreation of a Jacobean theatre, illuminated by candlelight. An eerie production of Macbeth in January opened in darkness; a single candle was lit, the Thane of Cawdor encountered the witches in near-darkness, and was propelled towards his blood-soaked destiny.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream at The Bridge was a mischievous delight. The central joke, that Titania should be bewitched to fall in love with Bottom, was playfully inverted; it was Oberon who fell for the ass.
Sinatra: Raw at Wilton’s Music Hall was an enjoyable suspension of disbelief, written and brilliantly performed by Richard Shelton.
‘You all know Somethin’ Stupid, yeah? Well if you’re thinking of singing it on your way home, I’ve got some advice for you’
‘Doobie Doobie, Don’t’
A Christmas Carol, also at Wilton’s, was rewritten as another gender inversion; Ebenezer Scrooge died young, and his sister Fan, played by Sally Dexter, reverts to her maiden name after she is widowed from Jacob Marley.
Miss Scrooge resolutely resists the blandishments of the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future, and in desperation the ghosts transport her to 2019, where she witnesses her female descendant running the family business, beset by all the pressures of 21st century technology.
Scrooge returns to her own time, committed to devoting her fortune to the empowerment of women, and to celebrate Christmas in a last act that owes a big debt to panto.
Music:
In February I anticipated that Booker T Jones might just be my gig of the year.
Van Morrison at The Roundhouse was a strong contender in July. People complain he doesn’t play all the hits, but with a back catalogue like his, who can blame him? They say he only plays for an hour and a quarter, he doesn’t do encores, choosing instead to wander offstage mid-song.
He performs on his own terms. The Roundhouse was a perfect venue, and he and his band were on fine form. As a bonus, Chris Farlowe guested for ‘They Call it Stormy Monday (and Tuesday’s just as bad)’, and he’s still in good voice.
But my pick of the year goes to Quentin Collins (trumpet, flugelhorn) and Andrew McCormack (piano) at The 606 Club, playing the music of Chick Corea and Woody Shaw.
They regularly perform with The Kyle Eastwood Band, one of my favourite acts, who we always catch at Ronnie Scott’s.
It was my first time at The 606 Club. It’s on Lot’s Road, in the wasteland of blocks of luxury flats beyond The World’s End in Chelsea. There’s an illuminated purple sign above the doorway – ring the bell and they buzz you in.
The club is in a basement, of course, with tables that seated perhaps 35 people on a Wednesday in November. Quentin Collins described it as ‘the most authentic jazz room in London’.
We couldn’t have been any closer to the musicians. Quentin came on stage after the break with a modest glass of red wine, and asked politely if he could put it on our table.
Steve Ruby, the proprietor of the club, joined the band on stage to play flute on ‘Bud Powell’.
Having a song named after you, wouldn’t that be cool?