Can The Can?
May 01, 2008
 A quick, extra post before the weekend... I've tons more I need to put up here but won't have the time until Monday but the Cans Festival will be pretty much over by then.
The Cans Festival is on at an as yet unknown location, in London, this weekend. I'm not sure I'm going to squeeze in a visit or not yet, in fact I doubt I will but...
Still to come at the Tate, there is Street & Studio: An Urban History of Photography and Street Art. Both of which I believe are free and both run from the third week of May until the end of August.
LOCATION UPDATE - Leake Street SE1
10am -10pm - Sat-Mon
Categories: Art, London, Photography,
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Film, Music And Cheese
April 28, 2008
 It's been an eventful couple of weeks what with Jake's three consecutive weekends of Birthday partying. Well, you're only 18 once!
Went to the Rob Carter private view, Travelling Still, at The Gallery a couple of weeks back. My those pictures were shifting well. I was mentally totting up the sales on the way round and stopped around the £250,000 mark.
Then there was Chris' visit. During which we met up with Neil [who I haven't seen in donkeys years] and Emma and a couple of late nights ensued... with Kev and Karol popping round for jerk chicken, rice and peas and flambed bananas on Saturday. Good stuff, even if I do say so myself! Better still was Tuesday's meal at the lovely Lindsay House [still not sure how I found room for the blue cheese mousse] followed by Friday, when we went along to the Real Food Festival at Earls Court, hence the picture of Alex James above. He was there talking about his cheeses, Little Wallop and Farleigh Wallop.
Last weekend was the final third of the Jake birthday trilogy upstairs in the Railway, before heading back to Kev and Karol's and partying through till Sunday. Been paying for it today mind... but headed off to the Ritzy for a preview of Grant Gee's Joy Division tonight. Good film. I haven't seen Control yet but I'd imagine they are a million miles apart. I wasn't sure the old footage and the interviews would be enough to hold it together but with a bit of judicious editing and the odd effect Grant has put an engaging documentary together. Some of the sound is obviously ropey, coming from very old video footage and it's a bit of a roll call of the deceased... Apart from Curtis, it features Martin Hannett, Rob Gretton, Tony Wilson and bit of John Peel, all sadly no longer with us. But it justifies its existence.
Categories: Music, Art, London, Photography, Food & Drink, Film
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The Hour We Knew Nothing Of Each Other
April 10, 2008
The Hour We Knew Nothing Of Each Other, at the Lyttelton Theatre, is a play without words. It's by no means silent but there is no dialogue. It's People Watching as an allegory of innocence and loss, space and time, love and death, wisdom and experience, war and peace; with a bleak grey set after De Chirico and lighting suggesting the passing of time.
I wasn't previously familiar with the work of Peter Handke or the history of this play but apart from the annoyingly untidy fact that it is 45 minutes longer than an hour it is surprisingly engaging. I was only once tempted to try to count how many of the cast of 27 were on stage at any given time. Maybe several times I wondered how many costume changes there were. There are apparently 450 characters, but some of them appear more than once. For something that sounds like it is being overly pretentious for the sake of it it is actually pretty funny in parts. An old lady cuts up another with her shopping trolley at one point and another couple of old folk have an impromptu "sword fight" with their sticks.
There is a lot more here about Handke's work and lectures but the site isn't very user friendly but it may explain some of the odd characters that appear amongst the everyday residents, workers and tourists in this fictional square [or is it more than one square?]. Charlie Chaplin, Tarzan and Moses spring to mind. The biblical references I can understand, characters from different era's I can understand [assumingly passing through the square at a different time?] but the fictional characters and the buffoon in the yellow tank top that mimics many other members of the cast were lost on me!. I'm not sure if this is James MacDonald's interpretation or whether they were there all along.
Any road up! It finishes on the 12th if you want to give it a try. I liked it. I can't say I fully understood it but it beats going home and watching Eastenders! Try the mezze in the Lyttelton Terrace Cafe as well. Very good! Spotted Brian Murphy on the tube on the way home too!
Really want to get to Sheffield to see Stefanie Posavec's On The Map series of works. On until mid June and top marks to the BBC for the trail for the new Medieval Mind Trip series on BBC 4. Looking forward to the Gutenberg Press and How To Build A Cathedral programmes.
Categories: Art, London, Food & Drink, Theatre
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