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Little Women at the Lyric Theatre, Belfast

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  LITTLE WOMEN by Louis May Alcott directed by Emily Foran at the Lyric Theatre, Belfast on the 7 th February 2024 Marty Breen, Maura Campbell, Maura Bird and Tara Cush in Little Women The main theme of Little Women is stated at the beginning of this adapted version of Louisa May Alcott’s 1868 novel, “men have to work and women have to marry for money.”   It seems that Little Women will be a story in the Jane Austen mould, but this is not to be.   The narrative is overshadowed by the events of the American Civil War.   The head of the family, Mr March, has gone to the front to serve as a chaplain in the Union army.   Details of tumultuous battles like Bull Run, fought in Virginia, emerge, but the war hardly impinges on the lives of the four March sisters, Amy, Jo, Beth and Meg and their mother Abigail.   The story concerns the upbringing and development of young women, their quest for individuality, fulfilment, and independence. Marty Breen in Little Women at the Lyric Theatre, B
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SOUTHERN GOTHIC

  SOUTHERN GOTHIC American Gothic Gothic literature eventually began to cross the Atlantic, especially in the stories, poems, and novellas of Edgar Allen Poe (1809-1849).   Poe is best known for poems like The Raven and short stories like The Fall of the House of Usher .   The raven appears as a kind of revenant with a message from the beyond for whomever wishes to hear it.   In Poe’s story The Fall of the House of Usher themes of incest and madness inform the story of brother & sister Roderick & Madeline Usher.   Eventually Roderick’s house falls into a swamp and disappears forever.   In The Pit and the Pendulum Poe places his tale in the past, at the time of the Spanish Inquisition, fashioning an unmistakable horror from material gleaned from his interest in the horrors of the Old World.   Other stories like The Tell Tale Heart , The Cask of Amontillado , and The Black Cat concern revenge, murder, retribution, and, sometimes, justice.   Poe was also the inventor of dete
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DRACULA AND THE PORTRAIT OF DORIAN GRAY

  DRACULA There is no doubt that the first four chapters of Bram Stoker's Dracula are an account of a dark and terrible dream.   Stoker never pretended to be an artist but in Jonathan Harker's journal he created great and powerful art.   Harker writes his journal, we are told, in shorthand, to keep it away from the Count who has taken to snooping and spying when he isn't crawling lizard-like down the walls of his castle.   Is Castle Dracula a figment of Harker's imagination?   This is suggested in Werner Herzog's film Nosferatu .   We glimpse Castle Dracula in long shot, but it is only a series of ruins.   Inside the castle everything is cosy and well arranged.   The Count is an amusing eccentric whose personality grows darker, angrier, and more deadly by the day.   Everything becomes plain when Harker encounters Dracula's wives who view him as a good meal.   Count Dracula appears and drives them away, intent on keeping Harker for himself.   Harker guesses hi
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SUDDENLY, LAST SUMMER (directed by Joseph L Mankiewicz)

  SUDDENLY, LAST SUMMER (directed by Joseph L Mankiewicz) In Freud The Secret Passion , John Huston’s direction is sometimes overly respectful, shying away from overt criticism of psychoanalysis, depicting Freud as a martyr, but there is enough engagement with its subject to make it consistently engaging. The black and white cinematography is crisp and decisively focussed.   Montgomery Clift’s Freud is his most incisive performance.   He had inhabited the role of psychiatrist before, in Tennessee William’s Suddenly, Last Summer , for instance.   In this film he is Dr Cuprowicz, a psychiatrist and a surgeon performing lobotomies in a state hospital which also happens to be cash strapped.   He is urged to perform a lobotomy on Catherine Holly, niece of wealthy widow Mrs Venables, performed by Katherine Hepburn.      Mrs Venables has her own private reasons for wanting Catherine silenced, primarily because she had witnessed the death of her son Sebastian.    Visual icons like the Martyr
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Notes on the films of Sam Peckinpah

Last evening I watched Pat Garret and Billy the Kid by Sam Peckinpah.   I haven't seen such a film for a very long time, dull melancholic edge tainted with sadness and elegiac to the core.   I noticed that there were many production problems, as many as 6 editors, and Peckinpah disowned the film eventually.   I think the problem with the film, however, is Bob Dylan, not the editing.   He clearly can't act, his presence is irritating and, apart from the well-known song, hardly quoted in the film, the soundtrack is underwhelming.   There were so many laudable cameos otherwise, Slim Pickens, Jason Robards, Harry Dean Stanton, and Kris Kristoffersen who pulls it off somehow as Billy but who knows what his acting is really like.   I really wished someone would shoot Dylan just to get him out of the film, instead Pickens is shot and various other worthwhile character actors. The still centre of the film is James Coburn in this, his second film for Peckinpah.   After he shoots Billy
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BURNT OUT at the LYRIC THEATRE, BELFAST on the 11th, October 2023 written by Gary Mitchell, directed by Jimmy Fay

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  BURNT OUT at the LYRIC THEATRE, BELFAST on the 11 th, October 2023 written by Gary Mitchell, directed by Jimmy Fay Caolan Byrne, Kerri Quinn and Terence Keeley in Burnt Out at the Lyric Theatre   Michael and Cheryl are a couple living somewhere in Belfast.   They are clearly aspirational, Michael is aiming to be Vice Principal of the primary school he works at, Cheryl has built up a hair dressing salon.   They live right across the road from the local 12 th night bonfire which has become a source of conflict.   Someone has complained to the police about the bonfire, but no one wants to admit to it because of the likelihood of retaliation.   The police, in the person of P.C. McGoldrick (played by Caroline Curran), have called to see Michael and Cheryl because they have been complained about.   It appears that their large German shepherd dog has been defecating on the area near the bonfire.   The police are depicted as an intrusive power possessed of some largely undisclosed yet
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Herzog & De Meuron at the Royal Academy, August 15th 2023

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  Herzog & De Meuron at the Royal Academy on the 15 th of August 2023 Tate Modern, London, 1995-2000, 2005-16, Photo c Iwan Baan   Who are Herzog and de Meuron?   Turns out they are the architects that built the Tate Modern and many other buildings besides.   Their business HQ is in Basel, Switzerland, a small yet vital city which possesses the 11 th most valuable art collection in the world.   How does Switzerland manage to punch so far above its weight since its one of the smallest European nations in terms of population and land mass? Herzog and de Meuron at the Royal Academy The countries liberal ethos and championing of progressive values is reflected in Herzog’s and de Meuron’s work.  Swiss neutrality has been adapted after WW2, making Switzerland a vital, influential nation.    Extension of the Stadtcasino Basel, 2012-2020, Photo c Ruedi Walti The exhibition begins with their models for buildings as diverse as the Serpentine Gallery, Chelsea’s Stamford Bridge footba
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