Evening Standard from London, Greater London, England • 48

EVENING STANDARD 48 FRIDAY 22 AUGUST 1997 Reviews ood care aura 0 0 HE London Philharmonic first chord at last Prom spread out round the hall settled comfortably into the velvet and latched onto the lingering atmosphere from the night before just as I do each evening Continuity is the essence The Proms are not 73 individual events but one very long one with no inter--vaL The nightly performers are temporary custodians of a unique musical aura which they are honouibound to try to hand on safely if not actually improved to the next So proceeds music history Schubert picked up the baton of the 18th century and ran with it Sir Charles Mackerras conducted juvenile Symphony No 3 with Mozartian grace The elegant allegretto melody resembles the tune in The Magic Flute Antiphonal first and second violins tossed it to and fro across the stage A pair of valveless trumpets blazed away at the sprinting minuet while Mackerras made a gay courtly dance of the Finale which with others might have sounded clumsy with its one-two-three-kick rhythm Brahms and Berlioz but mainly Brahms assumed themes The baritone Thomas Allen sang five Schubert Lieder in orchestral arrangements by Brahms and No 3 (1815) earlier The trumpets now had Berlioz It was a performance that was under- valves and were joined by a trio of nodding Here they were naked on stage and should have deferred more to the soloist Allen avoided the tyranny of the four-bar Shrases in An Schwager Kronos He melted i Geheimes and faintly glimpsed eternity in Gruppe aus dem Tartarus In version of tragic ballad Erlkonig the gruff bassoon doubles the racing anxious thoughts as he rushes his dying son to hospital Trumpets wail the delirious utterances but alas! (silence) he is dead on arrival grief is believable and never melodramatic The LPO grew with the century and the concert The orchestra which played Symphony No 4 (1885) was twice the size of the one which had played Fine ensemble: talerie LHley Mary Macleod and Jason Watkins in Bhw Heart The art of talking nonsense Blue Heart Traverse Theatre Edinburgh NICK CURTIS ELDOM has theatrical experimentation seemed so playful or enjoyable This brace of new plays from Caryl Churchilli accessibly directed by Max Stafford-Clark for Out of Joint and coming soon to the Royal Court toys with traditional notions of narrative and dia- In the first play Desire the same scene featuring two bickering sitcom- style parents waiting for a ogaa- Such explorations are daughter recently returned done by the singer and overdone by the orchestra whose summers are otherwise spent in the smothering pit at Glyndeboume trombones with occasionally suspect tuning Strings and woodwind were almost Mahlersized The timpanist beat pedalled drums and brought a colleague to play the triangle in the thumping exuberant scherzo The ensemble was good but not perfect They pass on the aura as they found it Over to you signore GattL Box office: 0171 589 8212 usually arid navel-gazing affairs but in Blue Heart Churchill has the wisdom to be witty Although her dramatic innovations do little more than prove an intellectual point they are fim to watch Jbttvsr No adequate good very good outstanding poor although arguably no more profound Derek (Jason Watkins) presents himself to five women as the son they gave up for adoption a weird hobby which soon mutates into a cynical con and a sadistic psychological game Throughout Churchill introduces the words and in place of expected words stepping up the frequency until towards the end lines like: bl ket are common Thus she demonstrates that the emotional consistency of a story need not be affected by dialogue which becomes steadily nonsensicaL Thanks to fine wry ensemble we are coaxed away from our complacent expectations with good humour I doubt that Churchill wrote these plays for any other reason than to prove that she could Well proved that and even if her experiment is just an intellectual one she has also proved that testing theatrical conventions can be a pleasure for audiences and not just an indulgence of performers Traverse Theatre box office: 0131 228 1404 Royal Court: 01715655000 EDINBURGH 1 Name: (MrMrsMs) Address: from Australia is halted and replayed with bizarre alterations The arguments between Valerie Lilley and Bernard Gallagher vary in intensity and content In one version they speak only the beginnings of their lines in another just the ends A couple of times the daughter actually arrives but on other occasions the visitors turn out to be a gang of rampaging children an ostrich a Nazi demanding papers and a pair of SAS men who gun down everybody in the living room The acting is arch as befits a play which suggests the multifarious directions a story may take and the ease with which theatrical normality can be turned on its head The second play Blue Kettle is more sophisticated i Postcode: THIS gold draw provides two tickets to see Beauty and the Beast at the Dominion Theatre with a bottle of champagne for the Interval The winning number ls 100286 The second draw provides two tickets to see The Wood Demon otthe Playhouse Theatre The winning number ls 19792 To dalm the tickets ring Kim Smith on 0171 938 7429 before Tuesday To loin Theatre Club return the coupon For Gold Card membership enclose a cheque for £10 payable to Evening Standard Existing Theatre Club members pay £750 for first Gold Card Please enrol me in the Theatre (Nocharge) Please enrol me in the Theatre Music Club Gold Card (£10 annual membership charge) Make cheques payable to: Evening Standard Send this application together with a AE to: The Secretary of the Evening Standard Theatre Music Club Northdiffe House 2 Derry Street W8 SEE "I- ENTERTAINMENT GUIDE AITS VQ 0171 130 3444 -A 1 lUDOnlnWTljCIUCPRKK TwtBdSiMt8ltefart THE ODD COUPLE (fculi rim) A HLOXllUIESAug30-Sep20 CAMBRDGE0I71 49450804166060 344 4444 420 0000(4-Mriiee)Gro(n494 5454 4I00075413332I43656M GREASE NOV MmSA FANTASTIC YEAH Starrh LUKE GOSS 'AMmtarHifDJGnor APOLLO LAIATTS 10 ctdakkf Em) 01714166083 a no bl fee 344 4444420 0000 Gn4l66075 freephone 0800614903 SUMMER HOLIDAY TkUUuttFMJCMRSAMr' ClfRidwdlteSu Stanhc DARREN DAT I iMkalftaanafCaMM UBMOwllIHRfXMl Mae4at730VfdftSitMakU0 VfdHtutaAntiAOAPUJI GAUKK 0171 4945085312 19904945388 0UiK)Gnnn017l494S454 ViHtrafllMajMr Award! 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