The Observer from London, Greater London, England • 57

57 OBSERVER SUNDAY 17 FEBRUARY 1991 Shades of long ago He will stay steady and become a writer and, in a sense, the fez will survive. More hazardous than autobiographical drama is the attempt to put literary biography on stage. Claire Tomalin has wisely turned her back on most of the material in her excellent life of Katherine Mansfield. She is content, in her marvellous first play, The Winter Wife (Nuffield Theatre), to spend a single summer in Men-ton and explore the friendship between Mansfield and Ida Baker, the companion she sometimes called her wife. The beginning is exciting.

The stage is dark save for one lit corner a couchette compartment making its way through the French night. Ida can't do anything right; she dangles one leg over the edge of the top bunk and tries to descend. This clumsy but innocent gesture is typical of what is to follow. Katherine unreasonably describes Ida's leg as 'grey' and fumes against its owner. The house in Menton, designed by Tanya McCallin, is like topsy-turvy Matisse; the sky's a skewed turquoise canvas; there's a lovely painted screen by Katherine's bed and flowers are everywhere summer in jars.

Ida is the bindweed. Gabrielle Lloyd superbly conveys her maladroit effusiveness. She flaps like a sightless insect dazzled by Katherine's light. She can't even make K. bed without caressing the sheets dotingly.

She's generous and mean, trying to make the French housekeeper (Pamela Ruddock) economise, but meanwhile popping clandestine chocolates into her mouth. and there is a wonderful sense that both are being lifted simultaneously. White Chameleon uncovers Christopher's relationship with Egypt, with his parents and with their servant, Ibrahim. Egypt just before Suez is seen with the uninformed clarity of childhood. Christopher's love for Egypt is sure but he is focused on East of Eden, not Anthony Eden.

His mother (played with glazed correctness by Suzanne Burden) is barely characterised, suggesting that she was scarcely known. His father (robustly played by Tom Wilkinson, who doubles as the adult Christopher) is more fully remembered, although there is mystery there too, embodied in the sepia photograph of a diver who is 'to all intents and purposes in flight'. He says: 'I keep it to remind me of our differences' his precise meaning is not explained. The strongest relationship is Christopher's with Ibrahim. Saeed Jaffrey's performance is, on its own, worth the price of a ticket.

He describes himself, with muddling diplomacy, as 'neutral pro-British. He's funny, touching and fierce a part-time conjurer. His tricks can't cure his wonky heart, but he has magic enough for Christopher. He gives him the story for his first play and when he leaves Egypt, Ibrahim presents him with his fez as a keepsake. The fez is burnt, in a compelling, stark scene, by a Surrey prep-school headmaster Christopher is told his pro-Egyptian attitude is unacceptable.

But he, like the white chameleon he once admired, will only appear to change colour. David Birkin is young Christopher, mesmerised by Saeed Jaffiey in 'White Chameleon3, which tifts the dustsheets fiom memories ofAkxandria.Photograph by NeilHbbert. conveys to Doctor Boucharge (Michael Irving) that she's a nnmiatM rr foollO 1 i lint- cf death of Alfred Schill who did her wrong in her youth. In return for his despatch she will give her ailing home town a billion pounds. Energy, wit and theatrical imagination Complicite's hallmarks are all in evidence.

The mimed reactions of the villagers to the non-stop: trains are tremendous; Clara (Kathryn Hunter), a jewelled toad of a woman, is unforgettable. But for all its accomplish- ent, The Visit seemed too long Complicite's excesses need pitiless editing. Deceptions (The King's Head) by Paul Wheeler is, by contrast, a slight entertainment, but it's well-oiled and deft. When Adrian Wainwright goes to see a psychiatrist, his aim is to make her shrink. He lies for reasons that only become clear at the end of the evening.

Deceptions doesn't look deeply at deception; it dances over serious ground, throwing out aphorisms like graceful arms. They seem good for the second in which they are spoken, but don't survive ripiplene proof that there is life BSS a writer who can diagnose him as surely as he does her. The end comes as a surprising contrivance after the graceful naturalism of the rest. Katherine's suitcase is packed for heaven leaving Ida in charge of her epitaph. But the last words are a stroke of inspiration, and belong, appropriately, to Katherine.

The Winter Wife transfers to the Lyric, Hammersmith on 5 March. know what we want to achieve in the next three years then we'll see'. y. Bourne is working on his longest piece to date, the two-act Town and Country. Country is to be a subversive evocation of English country living, including the middle classes in hot pursuit of sports and animals.

It is set to Percy Grainger arrangements of folk music, for which Bourne has developed a wholehearted enthusiasm. Town takes a Boy's Own, Glen Baxter perspective on stiff-upper-lip life during the 1940s. The composer Bourne wanted was Iloria Sekacz, whose commission woulii have been paid' by The Place Theatre and a Barclays New Stages Award (won by the company-last year). The, Musicians' Union, however, refused to let Sekacz go ahead because the music could not always be played live. 'So there goes a potential 10,000 that could have been invested in attirGI new British Dore says bitterly.

The MU tends to overlook small, penniless dance companies which can only afford taped music; the moment one raises its head above the parapet by using live music, the big guns come out AMP had intended to have Sekacz's score played live except in smaller venues, but the MU refused to compromise. Town and Country will tour in a programme with Bourne's revamped Spitfire from 1988, which is billed as an 'advertisement-divertissement, a ballet blanc for four men in bright, white underwear'. In performance three years its dead-' pan humour worked equally well on non-dance audiences and on ballet buffs, who spotted the references to Perrot's Pas de Quatre for four famous queens of the Romantic ballet. If only Bourne's choreography for the disastrous Children of Eden had been half as witty and inventive. SID I Kate Kellaway on White Chameleon and The Winter Wife.

THE TEMPTATION in writing autobiography is to over-promote the past. One of the many delights of Christopher Hampton's new play, White Chameleon (Cottesloe), about his childhood in Alexandria is that he does not depend on the exotic and allows his ordinary memories to remain ordinary. It takes confidence to do this, and charm to get away with it. The form of the play is potentially dicey. The narrator is a bespectacled, middle-aged witness to his young self and his reminiscences are seldom intrinsically dramatic.

But the narration is never overdone nor is the emotion. White Chameleon is not about the desire to return but the interest of remembering. The opening is as diverting a scene as you could 'devise: three Egyptians in striped bathing suits, all sporting handlebar moustaches, are learning to sing their national anthem. Their incongruous tutor is young Christopher (played with poise by David Birkui) on a ship bound for England. Richard Eyre's immaculate production advances with restful assurance arid Bob Crowley contributes an elegant, calico-coloured set, framed by a tropical proscenium arch, as if to suggest the past is an old film.

The house is opened1 up: the furniture is in dustsheets, like memory itself, Ample 'DON'T miss this opportunity to catch up with the company everybne is talking So readsftMP's advertisement in the programme for the West End musical, Children of Eden. AMP's1 artistic director, Matthew Bourne, was the choreographer' for the musical and his company- hopes bravely to profit from the association. AMP stands for Adventures in Motion Pictures a title that does not immediately suggest a contemporary dance company. But young groups tend these days to adopt enigmatic names, like DV8, The Kosh or The ChoJmbndeleys, in order to attrabt. brbader a'udienCes'rtian those 'already dedicated to dance.

'The policy has worked for Adventures in Motion Pictures which has become a popular cult in the four years of its existence. Its performances have always been entertaining, although the unpredictable hits of its early seasons only just outweighed the misses. It started out as an ambitious repertory company of eight ex-students from the Laban Centre, who wanted to perform new and varied choreography (much of it their own). They had an instant success Robert Yates on 3 Massive leap from tie dance floor to the big wide, world outside. THE first casualty of war for Massive Attack was their name.

With radio programmers banning the innocuous likes of the Bangles' 'Walk Like An Egyptian', Massive Attack, would have invited trouble. The hip-hopDJ trio had to become simply Massive. Massive's history reariV like the rise of British underground dance music in miniature. They grouped in the early Eighties as a loose collective club performers (known as The Wild Bunch), with interests in DJ-ing 'and graffiti art, passing through early recordings and cult appeal to arrive today with I the dance' underground now become pop's overground enjoying major label money and shooting promotional films in Los Angeles. Massive agree that they have followed a typical club career path, but insist, too, on the importance of their particulars, especially their home town, Bristol, which, claims Robert 3-D Del is 'like Macondo, the town in Gabriel Garcia Mar-quez's 100 fyarsof Solitude'.

The industry likes musical scenes to be geographically centred. For several months it has been Bristol's turn, with critics finding in the city's clubland links from The Wild Bunch pping with a bizarrely funny piece by Jacob Marley, called Does Your Crimplene Go All Crusty When You Rub? Its taste was dubious: the Crimplene-wearers Were a group of social inadequates assembled in some dreary dance hall, where they surprised themselves by dancing out their fantasies. Audience responses ranged from cruel laughter to compassion, and AMP's reputation was made. Crimplene's success took some time to live down, while the company's experiments with more solemn choreography went largely startedTtp crjine up with pieces" as quirky as Mar ley's, though in a drily ironic style distinctively his own. AMP's image changed as the original members dispersed until it became very much Bourne's company, reflecting his taste and interests.

The Arts Council, learning (at last) from past mistakes with; other, over-extended touring companies, is committed to funding it properly, with 100,000 guaranteed for the next two years. And AMP, while retaining its London base, has set up a solid alliance with South West. Arts in Bristol, of a great album here; by, the. same token, 'Momma Was A Dancer', which sounds wonderful until it becomes apparent that the chorus goes nowhere, sums up Oslin's dilemma being half of a great song. RALPH TRESVANT.

Ralph Tresvant MCA MCG 6120 Following Bobby Brown, Johnny Gill and Bell Biv Devoe, Tresvant becomes the- latest; New Edition alumnus to launch a solo career. This debut features the catchy hit Sensitive ity' and a gaggle of top producers, but unfortunately Tresvant himself sounds like a shadow of Bobby Brown. JOHN WESLEY HARDING The Name Above The Title Sire 7599265321 Despite the name and the graphics; Harding is not a New Dylan' from the US but a New CosteUo from Hastings. NeVetr- UlclCSSj IIC 19 1113 UWll liuui, ouu his pointed lyrics-'and punchy countryish rock sustain the VIDEO GUIDE "ASOURCEOFENJOYMENT r'i FOR YOU AND TOUR A i hy- I FOR V-' MAGNUS MAGNUSSON CLASSICAL MUSIC LTD' PRESENT 'THE CLASSIC COLLECTION' THE FINEST RECORDINGS OF THE WORLD'S Anna Carteret as the pyschia-trist has perfected a voice of clinical enquiry but should in the first half vary the staccato intonation occasionally to let her off-duty self through Jamie Glover's Adrian is buoyant; so is Mark Rayment's production. Theatre de Complicite's The Visit is revisiting.

It was first performed at the Almeida two years ago and is back at the Lyttelton with a vengeance. Vengeance is the subject of Friedrich Durrenmatt's play: billionairess Clara demands the Charles Shaar Murray JESUS JONES Doubt Food LP 5 Sizzling, samplerdelic madness from the makers of the recent -hit 'International Bright Young Things', fusing late-Sixties guitar sounds with contemporary dance grooves under the asthmatic vocals of songwriter Mike Edwards. Their dense; idiosyncratic hippie-hop is not for the faint-hearted (let alone those with fragile speakers), but it's a fair indication of why British rock is getting interesting again. K.T.OSLIN Love In A Small Town RCA PD 90545 Oslin's variety of New Country is witty, sensual and sophisticated, but beneath the gloss of the production there are clear traces of the bouffant stoicism of previous generations of Nashville divas. Songs like 'Come Next Monday', and 'Cornell Crawford' indicate that there's at least half FREE rn 0 0 I would like to know more a Mm IHIIIW Will THE THE As a we have book appreciate GREATEST MUSICAL WORKS JFrrtCI3TV ur irjMJBristol fashion What Tomalin does so well is to convey the contradictions within each woman and to consider the strange love that grew out of Katherine's furious need and Ida's compulsion to serve.

Rachel Joyce's Katherine (beautifully dressed in pistachio and cream linen) has exactly the right quality, a faintly oriental mystery combined with the viciousness of a thwarted child. The theatre fills with the smell of her herbal cigarettes, the sound of her snaky words and her consumptive cough. She. after an erratic start. dance company, she says, tends to be an immediate 'No, thank you'.

She was looking for a regional arts association with a coherent strategy for promoting dance, and in Mary Ann de Vlieg, South West Arts' dance officer, she found an enthusiastic supporter. South West Arts is committed to paying 10,000 a year towards the costs of AMP's residency, covering travel, accommodation and rehearsal space. A vital element in the deal is that no strings are attached. The company will not be expected to do extra 'community' work in return for its money work that can easily encroach on performances. What happens, though, if circumstances (and personnel) change, so that AMP finds itself, like other beleaguered regional companies, progressively starved of funds? 'Then we'll close Dore says firmly.

Bourne agrees. 'We'll only continue as long as we're growing. We don't1 want AMP to exist for the sake of filling touring dates. We catalyst of Eighties club culture, Massive have now been thrown off the dance floor. 3-D is unconcerned.

'The dance floor has been left to the mediocre. After all, it's such a limiting environment all you need is a beat. I'd like to think our music works in other, more demanding 'Miles away from a interrupts Daddy who still makes pocket-money from DJ work, 'preferably on a beach in the Far East, the listener enclosed in his According to third and youngest member, Mushroom, signed up straight from school, Massive make 'mood music' which tends to be governed by a 'slow groove'. It's an expansive sound which draws on a variety of rhythms from hip hop, reggae and soul to the pulse of a didgeridoo, carried on a wash of 'found' ambient sounds. Their lyrics are often delivered in a West Country burr and in an overlapping, witty stream of consciousness, as one rapper passes the mike to another.

Parallels with Sixties psychedelia have been noted, but Massive's working methods are wholly informed by their club roots and the DJ mix-and-match appVoach. 'For says 3-D, 'It's the music by any means In composing, they are, he says, not restricted by musicians' notions of 'purity and respect for the instrument. We have ideas, then we find the instrumentation to fit, be it a synth or a 40-piece orchestra. There seems this need in pop to hold onto 'real' instruments, and people sometimes appear troubled by our lack of fixed roles. We read of the threat to creativity of new techniques, like sampling.

But the real danger comes from musicians lacking the imagination to use Massive's imaginative leaps are large, jumping out of punk into Fiddler On The. Roof, but it's their cool fusion which suggests a richness of popular music previously untouched by British 'dance'. 'Unfinished Sympathy' is released on Circa Records. BOOK TO ACCOMPANY CLASSIC COLLECTION companion to these great works commissioned a very special: to help you understand and AMP strides ahead thereby pre-empting the Council's devolution plans. Since the end of January, the company of six has taken up a 'creative residency' in the region, proudly promoting itself as the national dance company of the South-West.

The premiere of Bourne's latest work, Town and Country, will be at the Arnolfini in Bristol on 14 March, before coming to The Place Theatre in London, 26-30 March. -Katharine Dore, AMP's executive director, is determined the company should hang on to its national status. 'We tour nationally and we don't want our funding to tie us to just one she says. 'The advantage South West Arts offers is a safe core of touring weeks to places which really want our work and which can provide the technical facilities we Dore had previously found bookings hard to fix with unsympathetic theatre managers around the country, whose reaction to a contemporary 'By comparing it to the Garcia Marquez town, I was thinking of people's unawareness of time at least this applies among the musical, artistic community. Unlike many musicians in London, we've never been rushed; we have had time to make music and, more importantly, simply think about it.

Bristol is friendly, slow-paced and Many DJs who were sent white label copies of 'Unfinished Sympathy', the single Massive release this week as a taster of next month's debut album, found it so relaxed they could not play it. Massive now move too slow, without the requisite number of beats per minute. Pop's dance novelties have quickly turned into restrictive norms and the irony is not lost on the trio oft-cited as a this wonderful collection. II II IWMsrssssS. Kim esBSHMrsnaau" ti an.

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A MUSICAL LEGACY TO.