Tag: Brighton Dome

  • Stewart Lee: Snowflake/Tornado – Brighton 25/02/22

    Stewart Lee: Snowflake/Tornado – Brighton 25/02/22

    By-line: Leaf mould agitates as Stewart Lee trends on woodlanddecay.com

    It is the 18th of February 2020 and I am sitting in Row B of the Circle at the Brighton Dome (Dome) for the Snowflake/Tornado tour. After two years of pandemic and confusion, we reach the 25th of February 2022 and I now sit in Row A of the Circle at the Dome for the Snowflake/Tornado tour.  This isn’t a forgetful senior moment.  I am not a stalker and as it transpires, I am not the only returning audience member.  In 2020, I laughed a lot and felt a range of different (largely positive) emotions, however, my overall experience was one of benign brainwashing.

    The first show was just before the initial pandemic lockdown, how had the pandemic impacted the show? Could I remember the first show and would my memories inform/misinform my experience of the second show?  I had a unique opportunity to see the same show at the same venue two years later, the closest I am probably going to get to time travel.   

    I watched the Comedy Vehicle shows on the BBC too many times. I don’t think initially the first series was loaded onto the BBC player.  However, once it was loaded up, I enthusiastically watched the series, erroneously believing it to be the latest instalment of the Comedy Vehicle.   I thought how much younger and healthier Stewart Lee looked. His material had become less jaded and world-weary, the comical procession he had now introduced at the beginning of the Comedy Vehicle was a masterstroke, signposting his new comical direction. However, I came to realize that my version of reality wasn’t accurate. It was constructed through a BBC quirk of scheduling.  I wasn’t watching them in the order the artist had created them.  My experience of the Comedy Vehicle prefaces many of the themes of the Snowflake/Tornado tour.

    Firstly, the first tornado and shark set of the show is organized around another television scheduling quirk. Secondly, when the show opens, we appreciate that Stewart Lee isn’t looking younger and healthier. The opening routine evolves around people commenting he has let himself go. Thirdly, similar to the Comedy Vehicle, the live shows play with different accounts of reality.   I used to facilitate intense, but also enjoyable residential workshops. In the evenings, I’d watch a couple of episodes of the Comedy Vehicle as a small retreat from reality.  It was such a retreat from reality which I was looking for and experienced at both the Dome shows, as boundaries between fact and fiction were blurred.

    My talk of retreating from reality might sound like the ramblings of an addict, but for myself blurring fact and fiction is closer to the work of the hospital anaesthetist (but without the unconscious bit). Fact and fiction blurred when politicians implored us to stay at home and stay apart, shortly afterwards moving a few yards into their garden to enjoy cheese, wine and companionship.  Stewart Lee shining a spotlight on the tenuous nature of our reality constructions will always get my vote, or in this instance my £26.

    I have seen GY!BE perform twice at the Dome.  Their music transitions between loud passages and quiet passages, between melancholy and moments of intense joy.  I was lucky enough to see their second ever UK performance at a small theatre attached to the Dome. They played beneath the flickering words HOPE projected onto a screen.  There are parallels with Stewart Lee with both acts seeming cynical and depressing to non-believers, yet there are always shafts of sunlight. In challenging the status quo there is always HOPE. There are also parallels with GY!BE and their oscillations between loud and quiet passages. He sometimes shifts the gears between quite manic and rapid monologues and slower dramatic moments, when he appears to hold the audience in his hand.   One such quiet moment was in the second Snowflake set when he acknowledges and locates all of us between the end of a pandemic and the beginning of a war.

    Stewart Lee is unequivocal that he doesn’t want photographs/videos taken of him during the show.  At the 2020 show in the second set, he started ‘outing’ a red light that he believed emanated from the camera of an audience member. It bordered on vicious as he believed that the audience member was refusing to put their camera away.  The camera situation deescalated when Stewart Lee concedes that the red light might be emanating from one of the supporting pillars of the venue structure.  The de-escalation is poetic, but was this all staged as part of the routine or was this moment of annoyance unique to Brighton? I guess that back in 2020 his argument with one of the supporting pillars at the Dome, to him was real rather than contrived.  In 2022, he is still clear no filming/photographs. In 2022, he takes the time to explain that a 30-second clip without context could be highly problematic amongst other reasons. Also, the place confiscated phones go to isn’t a pleasant place. 

    Much of the material is very similar between 2020 and 2022, but the mood is very different. I guess it always will be with a live show, contingent on both performer and audience input.  My fading memory of 2020 was more laughter and more applause than 2022.  However, some of the laughter and applause in 2020 appeared to be driven by our nervous anxiety as the audience responded to a performer on the offensive.  I certainly enjoyed the 2020 show enough to come back for more.  But I found 2022, a more entertaining and warmer experience, through being less confrontational and more participative.  He references the book War and Peace at one point, and 2020 felt like the war and 2022 felt like the peace. In 2020, the one big prop in his first set failed. He then used this failure as a springboard into the second set. I guessed that the prop failed every evening, but having seen the prop work in 2022 again this might not have been the case. Nothing was as it seems in either show.

    As I am more into peace than war, I am dancing around offering any critique.  This is partially cowardice, but this also relates to reviews being integral to both sets and unifying the show. He jokes about his ranking as a comedian in contrast to other comedians. He dwells on every review he can find about his work and weaves these into the show.  He does a wonderfully warm and affectionate impression of Alan Bennett. He revisits a positive Alan Bennett review of his work which used the work of Erving Goffman as a reference point.  Stewart Lee, theatrically I suspect objects to this sociological reference point, but I am with Alan Bennett. Last night, and two years ago we were in the realms of ‘impression management’.  Stewart Lee checking his reviews resonates with all of us, in an age where products, services and people are constantly and publicly reviewed. It has spawned the social media industry which is driven by impression management.  When Stewart Lee opens his show with ‘Stewart Lee has let himself go’ he knowingly swims against the tide of impression management.  Incidentally, he looked and seemed a lot healthier and happier in 2022. There is even a moment in the Snowflake set in 2022 when he concedes to enjoying his performance.  He goes on to suggest that this is problematic for him performing, which I can understand from the reference point of the 2020 show.

    Erving Goffman (1959) usefully distinguished in the drama of our everyday lives between front stage, backstage and off stage. In this review, I have been reflecting on the front stage, but the backstage is integral to understanding the show last night.  The many references Stewart Lee makes to being reviewed build bridges between front stage and backstage. He even ironically recites the lines the local newspaper could include in their review of him. You can’t help imagining his backstage self then reading the review he has recited about his front stage self. 

    Enough dancing around and hiding behind sociologists, I didn’t enjoy the Ricky Gervais mime on the theme of what is unsayable in 2020 or 2022. The joke was funny but stretched far too much. There is even a rare heckle at this point, causing him to pause and then continue with his mime.  He acknowledges the heckler and also somebody on Mumsnet Guestbook (whatever that is) claiming that the mime goes on for too long.  How can we determine how long is too long? He seems to concede a little at this point, but you get the impression it will stay there in the set as a critical touchstone. 

    In interviews between 2020 and 2022, he had intimated that the second Snowflake set was going to be rewritten to include his reflections on the pandemic.  I would have welcomed this. There are references throughout both sets to the experiences we have all lived through with a recurring reference to ‘it is good to get out.’ I think this is both a joke and a shared truth. He talks about the voices in his head and his voices seem at times to have been ugly voices, but he broadens this to the wider mental health of everyone.  It does resonate and it seems prescient and definitely in the realms of HOPE. It wouldn’t fit a Snowflake critical routine around Woke and cesspits and the demise of comedy. So I suspect, Basic Lee will take forward the mental health reflections he tantalisingly hinted at last night (please see his website for further details).

    I thought that I was being clever attending the same show at the same venue two years later. However, there was a twist that I couldn’t have scripted. I have deliberately avoided the detail of the show, but in the first set, he oddly meditates on why the customer floor space of a shop is smaller than staff floor space.  Fear not, in context this is part of a funnier routine about meeting your heroes.  He asks the audience why the floor space anomaly exists and Harry in the front row shouts out the correct answer.  Stewart Lee is surprised by the speed and accuracy of the answer and gently quizzes Harry.  It transpires Harry was here two years ago like myself and Harry had also been to see the show in London. This allows some Harry based improvisation throughout the first set which had particular meaning for me.  I suspect Harry and I were not the only ones to choose to watch Snowflake/Tornado more than once, what better review than to come back for more.

    Fire Exit Sign
    We leave via the Fire Exit

    I entered the wonderful Brighton Dome with its otherworldly elegance and impressive foyer.  In line with an eminently sensible Covid health and safety protocol, we were required to depart the Circle at the end of the show via the fire exit. The fire exit completely bypasses the foyer leading us out into the wonderful Pavilion Gardens, which I know well.  If I was unfamiliar with the venue, I would be a little lost and disorientated at this point. Tonight, I am not lost, but my grip on reality has been loosened for a few hours providing a little happiness in an increasingly mad and sad world, but HOPE still flickers. However, I cannot help imagining Stewart Lee sitting in the foyer at his merchandise table doing what Goffman called ‘off stage’ work. Consoling himself that he had played the room as it was dealt.  If he was ruminating on literally losing all of the audience sitting in the Circle, rest assured you didn’t lose us, just political correctness gone mad!

    Reference

    Goffman, E. (1959). The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Doubleday.

    Stewart Lee Official Site

    https://www.stewartlee.co.uk

    Stewart Lee: Snowflake Tornado Brighton 25 02 2022
  • Eliza and Martin Carthy- Brighton Review 29.05.21

    Eliza and Martin Carthy- Brighton Review 29.05.21

    I had my ticket booked for this Brighton Festival event last year and then everything seemed to stop. Thankfully, my voucher enabled me to obtain a ticket for the rescheduled Eliza and Martin Carthy concert. I felt some apprehension going to this concert, my first since last year.  It wasn’t anxiety around safety concerns, more around navigating regulations of the new normal. The Brighton Dome staff were great as usual.  I had to be in my seat 45 minutes before the start, but I do normally arrive early to orientate myself, so that worked well. The rows in front of me and behind me (in the rear stalls) were intentionally empty, as well as, two seats on either side of me. I have attended many sold-out concerts at the Brighton Dome and couldn’t help feeling sad that on this occasion, regulations required the venue to only use a fraction of its capacity. I am always intrigued by the choice of pre-concert warm-up music.  They appeared to have chosen one of Robert Wyatt’s quieter albums. I enjoyed their choice, but that sense of melancholy in his voice was to reverberate throughout the concert. Apologies, there are likely to be errors of fact and omission in what follows, but this is my best effort.

    The band came onto the stage, followed shortly afterwards by Eliza Carthy. She sang The Snow it melts the soonest solo and standing away from the microphones. It was testimony to the strength of her voice and the wonderful Brighton Dome acoustics that her singing was able to reach my weary old ears. This powerful solo introduction was followed by The Poacher, which broadened the spotlight. The band included a Sitar (?) and Cello player, and both musicians were seated, it took me back to the Velvet Underground and Godspeed You! Black Emperor who played the Dome a few times. Eliza then addressed the audience, acknowledging that she had last been at the Dome in February 2020 for the launch of the Brighton Festival. She shared her relief at being back on stage. Martin Carthy then sang Scarborough Fayre, without his glasses as he acknowledged he knew the words. The timbre of time in his voice was very poignant.

    Kenneth Branagh read the poem, Tommy, by Rudyard Kipling. It powerfully questioned the folly of ridiculing those who risk their lives serving others and the poem still seemed very topical in 2021. I think there was another Kipling connection with Poor Little Lamb, sung solo by Eliza. One of the band, then did a sword dance and whilst the two somersaults at the end were impressive, I was more impressed by how he played his harmonica throughout.

    Wilko Johnson then joined the proceedings for a couple of songs.  The last time I saw him playing was at another Brighton venue the Komedia. What was memorable that evening was the way he moved horizontally along the stage throughout the evening. On this occasion, he had been tethered to his amp with a long red chord, but it was a joy to behold his footwork.  I cannot tell you the names of the tunes, he played, the first one might be Keep on loving you.  What stood out for me was the interplay between his guitar and the sitar, really magical. I am not sure if the inclusion of the sitar was an allusion to the East further than East Anglia, but it was a treat.

    Martin Carthy then spoke to the question – How do you get young people into folk music? A good question, but given this was the matinee performance, he was probably addressing the wrong audience. I am not sure what it was like for him and the other musicians looking out at a masked audience. He talked about Ewan MacColl, which made for an interesting prelude to singing Henry Martin/The Long Tall Ship. I saw Ralph McTell a few years ago in London and some of the folklore reminisces reminded me of that evening, This was followed by some jigs, tap dancing and Roger the Miller.

    I enjoyed watching the warmth and mutual respect between father and daughter, with Eliza dedicating a song to Dr McMbe, celebrating his 80th a week earlier.  We then had talk of black dogs in folklore and wolf mythology which was a prelude to Miranda Richardson and the poem Drowned at Sea, to Dead on Land.  Marry Waterson graphics provided the backdrop for the concert and these were enchanting at times (Scarborough Fayre) and troubling at others (Tommy).

    The concert ended with an encore of Napoleon’s Dream and then a question from Eliza for the Dome management – Are they allowed to sing? I am sure when she last visited in February 2020, she could never have envisaged having to ask that question. All the musicians and performers came together for the Finale – The Bad Times are just Around the Corner, by Noel Coward. The song ends And wait until we drop down dead. I have checked the lyrics, but I might be missing the irony.  Overall, impressive work by Brighton Dome to stage this concert and the musicians and performers for performing this entertaining and thought-provoking concert. The sense of melancholy Robert Wyatt used to channel, hasn’t left me, but perhaps that is a folk thing.

    Links

    https://brightonfestival.org/

    https://eliza-carthy.com/

    Eliza and Martin Carthy Brighton Review 29 05 2021