Oh. (Russ L going to and fro in the Earth)

This month is clearly all about fighting, and orchestral & choral music. Maybe all at the same time.

Standard disclaimers: I can’t ensure that these events will go ahead, that they’ll be good, or that I will be going to them. This is just a list of things I found that looked like they might be interesting, so please do not contact me to ask for your event to be included. That’s not the way it works.

Saturday the 29th of March till Sunday the 6th of April – ‘Dance Steps’ (Stan’s Café) @ The MAC, Edgbaston, Birmingham - You, yes that’s you, can perform this play by means of choosing and following different sets of instructions and directions scattered around the MAC. From the people that brought you the (I’ll say it yet again) magnificent The Cleansing Of Constance Brown.

Tuesday the 1st – Beethoven’s 5th (CBSO) @ Symphony Hall, The ICC, Birmingham - Dur-dur-dur DUUUURRRRR! Dur-dur-dur DUUUURRRRR!

Wednesday the 2nd and Wednesday the 9th – ‘Midland Journey: Archive Film Of Wolverhampton And The Black Country’ @ The Light House, Wolverhampton - Showing various films of how it was in The Good Old Days. It promises chainmaking and groaty pudding.

Thursday the 3rd until Saturday the 5th – ‘Days Of Hope’ (MAC Productions) @ The MAC, Edgbaston, Birmingham - A Howard Goodall musical translating the events in The Balkans in the late 80s into a Spanish civil war setting. It’s had some very good reviews.

Thursday the 3rd till Sunday the 6th – British Open Show Jumping Championships @ The NEC, Marston Green, Birmingham - Neigh, neigh and thrice neigh.

Friday the 4th till Sunday the 6th – MAC closing weekend @ The MAC, Edgbaston, Birmingham - The final hurrah of the Midland Arts Centre before it closes until Autumn 2009 to be refurbished and rebuilt. As well as the abovementioned ‘Dance Steps’ and ‘Days Of Hope’, Friday is the storytelling day for families, then there are a couple of days of puppetry events and the grand finale of the MAC On Screen film showing.

Saturday the 5th – Handel’s ‘Messiah’ (Ex Cathedra/Orchestra Of The Age Of Enlightenment) @ Symphony Hall, The ICC, Birmingham - Oh hey they’re playing my song.

Saturday the 5th and various dates up until till Saturday the 19th – ‘Top Girls’ (Crescent Theatre Presents) @ The Crescent Theatre, Birmingham - The excellent Caryl Churchill play. The people putting it all together have set up a blog. This is a very good thing. They’ve neglected to put the dates and times and so forth on it, but still. Baby steps.

Tuesday the 8th – John Barrowman @ Symphony Hall, The ICC, Birmingham - Captain Jack sings.

Friday the 11th – ‘The Masque Of Red Death’ (The Happiness Patrol theatre company) @ The Old Joint Stock Theatre, Birmingham - Poe. And I ain’t talking about La-La’s mate.

Saturday the 12th – AMMA @ The Holte Suite, Aston Villa Football Club, Aston, Birmingham - Amateur and B-class pro MMA, and they’re always good shows. This version of the card is fairly up-to-date, I believe.

Sunday the 13th – Portishead @ The Civic Hall, Wolverhampton - Of course it’s already sold out, you silly moo.

Sunday the 13th – Pugilist Promotions’ “Old School/New Blood” (Boxing) @ The Tower Ballroom, Edgbaston, Birmingham - Fighting sports return to the reservoir-side venue for the first time in aaages. You have amateurs early in the afternoon, then (after a break) professionals in the evening.

Monday the 14th – ‘The Terrible Tudors/The Vile Victorians’ (Horrible Histories) @ The Grand Theatre, Wolverhampton - For kiddies, though, so I doubt it will stoop to the genuine horrible and vile depths.

Monday the 14th – Mil Millington @ Hall Green Library, Hall Green, Birmingham - Go here (and laugh fulsomely) if you don’t know who Mil Millington is. This reading thingy is only for ages 16-25, though.

Wednesday the 16th – Merzbow and The Dirty Noise Ensemble @ The Hare & Hounds, Kings Heath, Birmingham - Noizez. Not, I would suggest, for the faint of heart or the delicate of eardrum.

Thursday the 17th – Lethal Bizzle @ The Academy, Birmingham - If you’re going to this, don’t take any beef with you. You’ll risk losing some teef. And you don’t want that.

Saturday the 19th – The Presidents Of The USA – The Academy, Birmingham - This is one of those instances where I used to adore this band, but (without ever at any point consciously going off them) they’ve declined in importance to me to the point where I’m not really all that fussed. Still: “Peaches come from a can/They were put there by a man”. I can’t argue with that.

Saturday the 19th – Thai Boxing (Firewalker) @ The Light Bar, Wolverhampton - I have no details at all, but if you want to see some Muay Thai then this may be the place to go.

Sunday the 20th – ‘As Seen On TV’ (Notorious Choir) @ The Electric Cinema, Birmingham - ‘The choir with a difference’ a-singing television themes.

Sunday the 20th – Mahler’s 2nd (Birmingham Philharmonic/City Of Birmingham Choir) @ The Town Hall, Birmingham - Surely the greatest symphony to hear live. (And if you like a bit of Gustav, there’s also his Fifth at Symphony Hall on the 22nd).

Tuesday the 22nd – Gogol Bordello @ The Academy, Birmingham - Take up thy caravan and travel.

Tuesday the 22nd – Boris @ The Medicine bar, The Custard Factory, Digbeth, Birmingham - This gig in collaboration with one Michio Kurihara, which may well mean more to you than it does to me.

Thursday the 24th and Friday the 25th – “Packers” (Zip Theatre) @ The Old Joint Stock Theatre, Birmingham - A comedy set in The Land Of The Righteous (The Black Country, to the likes of you). Apparently “a story of pain, pathos, severed digits, mad boyfriends, hypochondriacs, attempted murder, sex and parcel-tape.” Also at Newhampton Arts Centre in Wolves on the 18th and 19th.

Thursday the 24th and Friday the 25th – ‘Blue Planet’ (Manchester Camerata) @ Symphony Hall, The ICC, Birmingham - A documentary from off of the telly about fishies and such (remember: keep friends close, anemones closer), with the Manchester Camerata a-playing a score specifically composed by George Fenton.

Friday the 25th – Wayne Elcock vs Darren McDermott for the British middleweight title (Hennessy Sports) @ The Aston Villa Leisure Centre, Aston, Birmingham - Birmingham vs Black Country, and it’s the big one – the British title. Come On Macca! (Although: guh! at the ticket prices. Almost glad I won’t be going, with that sort of piss-taking).

Friday the 25th – Bjork @ The Civic Hall, Wolverhampton - Well it’s Bjork. Obviously.

Friday the 25th to Sunday the 27th – English Originals @ The Town Hall & Symphony Hall, Birmingham - An English folk festival, just after St George’s Day. This really does look fantastic: the main gigs are Billy Bragg at The Town Hall on the Friday, Tunng and Seth Lakeman at The Town Hall on Saturday, and The Daughters Of Albion (Kathryn Williams, Norma Waterson, and others) at Symphony hall on he Sunday. You’ve also got free sets (Rush Hour Blues stylee) from The Old Dance School (Friday) and Little Sister (Sunday) at the Symphony Hall foyer in the ICC, and a free showing (if you have a ticket for any of the gigs) of the Folk Britannia documentary at 2pm in The Town Hall on Sunday.

Monday the 28th until Sunday the 25th of May – International Dance Festival @ all over Birmingham - Loads and loads and loads of dance and dance-related events from all over the world are taking place over the course of a month, at various venues in town.

Tuesday the 29th – Alabama 3 @ The Wulfrun Hall, Wolverhampton - Woke up this morning. Obviously. I wouldn’t be typing this otherwise.

Wednesday the 30th – Cursed @ The Medicine Bar, The Custard Factory, Digbeth, Birmingham - Sometimes sludgy and sometimes crusty hardcore, but (and this is the best bit) they’re actually really good unlike most of the bands that most of the people who’ll tell you Cursed are good will tell you are good. Good. Tell. Good.

Wednesday the 30th – Boxing (First Team) @ The Civic Hall, Wolverhampton - The New And Radical Dean Harrison Matchmaking Philosophy continues to bare fruit – he’s fighting Gary Reid here, which is a genuinely risky fight. Good luck to him, ‘cos it’s great to see.

After The Cleansing Of Constance Brown (I’ll say it again: magnificent) had finished, it was only a matter of walking around the corner a bit to get to The Barfly. This was a good thing, since the rain was absolutely persisting it down. It also meant that I was able to get there without missing more than about five minutes of opening local doomsters I Am Colossus. They didn’t grab me musically, but I loved the slow-motion rockstar poses.

Paul Catten’s The Sontaran Experiment were the aliens-in-the-middle at this particular gig, and they were bloody ace to boot. They played electronic-y and guitar-y and bass-y drum-y and vocal-y and feedback-y noise, with a structure to it but enough of a nod to free-form to keep you guessing. Destructive, but fun and possessed of an obvious sense of the absurd (and/or of humour). The ticking clock bit (“Tick… tock… tick… tock… tick… tock… BLEEEEUUURRRGH… tick… tock…”) made me laugh out loud in a non-abbreviated way. Ace stuff.

Gallhammer, apparently, are very heavily hyped. This is easy to imagine (between being ‘young girls’ and ‘Japanese’, they’d appeal to a lot of people with odd but common fetishes), but I’ve never seen any of it myself. Given that it’s been a long, long time since I last read a music magazine this is hardly surprising, and I’m certainly not trying to disingenuously suggest that all of this media attention doesn’t exist, but all I’d ever come across before the gig was a squintillion people bringing the “Hype! Boo sucks to them!” schtick and it was far more irritating than a press push would likely have been. Worst were the people who would proclaim themselves to be “fans of sludge” or “fans of doom” who proclaimed them to be mediocre at best (a common meme); they’d like a mediocre sludge band (that’s what they do. “I am a fan of ‘x’ style of music” means “I like the average ‘x’ bands as well as the good ones”, doesn’t it?), but not when said mediocre band is the subject of media attention. Confused am I.

I wanted to like Gallhammer, therefore. They had potential to elevate themselves by being a bit different, too: their really incongruous new wave bits and fairly bizarre vocals. Sadly, neither came through. The difference in vocals was lost in the live sound (which wasn’t particularly bad or anything, just the usual less-than-crystal-clear); the new-wave-y pop-punk-y bits didn’t really materialise much at all. Other than that we had ordinary sludge with a few crusty bits. They did have a few parts to a few songs that I got into and some vaguely catchy moments here and there, but on the whole my shoulders shrugged. I wouldn’t be averse to seeing them again, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to do so either.

The Cleansing Of Constance Brown, though. The night was all about that.

Jez sent me a link to The Birmingham Mail’s report about the usual sort of huff and puff surrounding Cage Rage coming to Birmingham. It’s the typical “I don’t really have a clear idea of what I’m protesting against, but I’ve nevertheless decided that it must be barbaric” business (See also: “We’ve got to protect our phoney-baloney jobs, gentlemen. Hurrumph! Hurrumph! I didn’t get a hurrumph outta that guy…”), but I note with interest that it contains a quote from none other than Deirdre ‘LolDeirdre’ Alden.

Forgive me, but I couldn’t help myself.

The entertainment for the night of Saturday the 15th began with a walk down a Digbeth side-road, only vaguely sure of where I was going. The venue for Stan’s Café’s The Cleansing Of Constance Brown was a warehouse on Floodgate Street. They themselves don’t like having to use spaces like this and are desperate to find suitable premises that they can call their own (give ‘em a shout if you have any serious ideas), but I didn’t mind. Bit different, ayit?

Inside, one found walls of big black curtains creating a theatre of sorts in the middle of the warehouse. The back wall of the stage at one end shot back to form a corridor, where everything happened. Everything that happened, of course, was magnificent.

A series of scenes were portrayed in the corridor, each of them showing people exhibiting power over others – from the major (a Jewish family hounded out of their subsequently torched home) to the minor (a man forced to put his cigarette out), and quite often off to one side with the unexpected (the titular Constance Brown – or one thereof, at least – shoots herself in an over-stressed office and forces everyone else into abject panic). It was moving at times and funny at others, always thought-provoking and all acted perfectly: there wasn’t any dialogue as such (people did speak, but they were generally intentionally inaudible over the music), but the body language of the cast was without exception perfectly observed and relayed. The only moments where there was even the slightest hint of uncertainty were when it was entirely deliberate. Some of those moments were damn clever. You probably won’t believe me when I tell you that they elided so smoothly between a drunken office party and an Abu Ghraib scene that you didn’t quite realise when the latter began, but they did.

At the end we were led from our seats, down the corridor and around the outside of it to the exit, enabling us all to see the massive expanse of warehouse behind the curtains and the sheer amount of it taken up by the squintillions (I wasn’t there long but that’s my honest numerical estimation) of costumes used. This was a shock in itself.

Amazing, amazing stuff. I know I recommend a lot of things on here, but this is one I really reeeeally recommend (and for that matter I’m not alone). This run in Birmingham has finished and performances are few and far between, but if it’s ever staged again then make sure you go.

1) RSS Feeds - This continues on from this post, I suppose. RSS feeds have indeed now found a place in my life. It’s mostly of use when it comes to blogs that I don’t look at all that often, and that use is mainly the fact that I can see straight away when they’ve been updated. When it comes to ones I look at regularly, I haven’t really changed my behaviour. Maybe I will over time. What I’m a-wondering about now is whether or not this will affect my Blogroll down the side there. That’s long needed a bit of thinking about (it doesn’t list all of the blogs I read, and isn’t necessarily even my favourite ones) and a subsequent re-organisation when I’ve decided on a philosophy for it, though.

It’s slight annoying that they don’t display as the original webpages would (is that feed-readers in general, or just Bloglines?), but even that’s not all bad – it’s a positive blessing if the original site has music or videos or whatever-have-you that start to play automatically (I hate all that malarkey). There seem to be a few blogs that just won’t update in the feed-reader (irrespective of which of their feeds I add to it), but I suppose I can live with that.

Ultimately – yes, I like RSS. I haven’t yet found it to be the revolution in internet useage that it’s often described as, but it’s quite handy.

2) Twitter - “if I’m not careful I’ll find myself on effing Twitter or something next” I remarked in that abovelinked post. Turns out I was already signed up to it. I was looking at Jez’ Twitter page and realised that he was following one RussL. After one of those lovely edge-of-desk-gripping knuckles-whitening whattheforksgoingonhere justaminutenowholdup bursts of paranoia that I do so well, I remembered (I genuinely had forgotten) that I’d previously signed up to Twitter for Live Birmingham updates (something that never really took off, sadly).

I decided to have a bit of play with it. For me, Twitter has become the place for ‘little bits that don’t justify a blog post’. I have a vague compulsion to document most of my life (in my saner moments I realize that I probably shouldn’t be encouraged. World At Large: please don’t invent anything else along these lines), but I’m usually sensible enough not to actually make a post on the blog for something like “Just ordered my chicken, lamb & prawn Madras (+ sundries) from The Rowley Village. I’ve been looking forward to this so much”. I can now stick it on Twitter. Other than that, it’s just been replying to other people’s Tweets.

I don’t have other people’s messages sent to my mobile telephone; I find receiving a text message that wasn’t directed specifically to me a strangely invasive experience. Plus there’s the fact that my mobile often sits unchecked in my coat pocket for long lengths of time (and I never turn the sound on) – I’d fish it out to find about 381 out-of-date tweets to have to delete. I have set it up so that I can post messages by text (it took me a few attempts but I got there), but that’ll only happen in a month where I have free ones (every second or third, generally). I can’t imagine spending credit on this, even if it is quite fun.

There you are, then – I’m either a twit or a tweetie-bird. My Twitter page is here, or you can see the last however-many down there in the sidebar.

I can’t believe you get spam ‘followers’ on the bloody thing, though. I mean… what?

The backlog continues. This is because I’m a lazy git. Time for another quick/crap post, I think.

On Monday the 3rd it was Autechre at The Med Bar in The Custard Factory, as arranged by Capsule. I don’t want to go too mad on this theme, but there always feels like there’s a slight degree of silliness (beyond standard background-level popular music absurdity) involved in going to see acts that stand behind piles of sequencers and press buttons. Why is that different to seeing acts that stand holding and playing instruments, though? I can’t really come up with anything specific. This is interesting, I feel. (EDIT: P’Ashton particularly felt the disconnect).

I arrived to the sound of a fractured breakbeat fading away alongside static-y bits. This may have been Rob Hall and/or SND (I could only see 1 person on stage, but the support was billed as “Rob Hall & SND”). Or someone or something else. I don’t know.

Autechre got their (note ‘their’ – I always thought Autechre was a singular a singular ‘he’, but it seems there are two of them. Confusion about band staffing levels was obviously the theme of this gig for me) groove on, and by that I mean groooooove. They didn’t really freak out like they tend to do on most of the recorded stuff of theirs that I’ve experienced, which was a surprise – there was barely any glitch to be heard. I’m sure that left some people happy and some less so, but since it was very good groovification I fell into the former. Plenty of folks danced (even me a tiny little bit), and the bass sounded aaaaaaaaawesome near the speakers.

So, er, there you go. I did warn you that it’d be quick/crap.

”As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a giant insect.” - Franz Kafka, Metamorphosis, 1915.

Ladies and gentlemen, I beg applause for the greatest first line in the entire history of literature. Even if the translation is disputed.

I love myself a bit of Kafka, so I do. I’m a civil servant, after all – I quite often feel like I’m living through The Castle and The Trial in an average working day. When I found out that The Rep was due to entertain Vesturport/Lyric Hammersmith’s Anglo-Icelandic stage version of Metamorphosis I was almost ecstatic. Music from Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, too! I would say that someone up there liked me, but Cave would tell me off for believing in an interventionist God.

It was off to The Rep with me on Friday the 29th of Feb, therefore. A two-level set (with the family’s dining room downstairs and Gregor’s bedroom – appearing to be turned on its side for no obvious reason – upstairs) with handholds on the walls allowed Björn Thors to portray the transformed young Samsa without a costume. He appears human to us, but scales the walls and leaps from one piece of furniture to the next in a convincingly animalistic way (I can’t help but note that he showed an impressive degree of stamina, too).

There are obviously 381 entirely different ways to interpret Metamorphosis, but the one laid on thick here was the idea of social groups ostracising elements of themselves for immediate benefit to the rest, and the loss of humanity that is thus engendered. The play finishes with the rest of the family in a vignette of sterile idyll; they relax and throw petals in the dusk, despite the fact that their son is gone, their ideal lodger has walked out leaving ominous threats, and they presumably are still in great financial difficulty. This was (sadly) about the only point where the Cave/Ellis score actually did much beyond melt into the background for me – Cave’s sonorous voice rang out in a plaintive song, and the hollowness of their supposed happiness was emphasised. The Nazi angle (events later to happen in Germany were something this story was so very prescient of when read this way, and of course half of Kafka’s family fell victim to the camps) was emphasised, in the military air of Gregor’s boss, the dark statements of the prospective lodger, and the elder Herr Samsa’s new black-shirted porter’s uniform that he won’t take off (and why not? Work, as the fellow said, makes free).

It was all effective in spite of occasional spots of what definitely felt like over-acting (was it deliberate? It sort-of felt like it might have been). I’m inclined to just put it down to the fact that some plays don’t really lend themselves well to big theatres, and the big booming voices that are thus necessary. I can’t emphasise enough how minor a quibble this is, though, and how nothing was spoilt as a result of it. The tour continues aroundabout the country until the fifth of April I believe, and I’d recommend a look if you get chance.

Dizzle Kenizzle writes about this here.

To the Civic Hall in Wolves on the 28th of Feb, for the boxing card headlined by Matty Hough fighting Max Maxwell for the vacant Midlands Area middleweight title. I was looking forward to that no end - a competitive match with something real at stake. Prior to this, I hadn’t been to see any boxing live since September (Elcock vs Eastman), and hadn’t been to a smaller local card since last June. This is mostly because the majority of the First Team (as PJ ‘n’ Errol Promotions seems to be known as these days) cards around here seem to happen on Thursdays and that’s a pain in the arse for me most weeks, but partly due to the fact that one eventually begins to grow weary of “Home Boxer vs Journeyman Who Isn’t Even Trying: oh look, the local won”. I usually enjoy the fights as I watch them, but there are limits.

As such, I was made a happy bunny the day before when I read of Dean Harrison’s avowal to only fight live opposition from now on. Yes! Actual fights rather than foregone conclusions. That’s what we like.

Even given those proclamations, Deano ended up having to walk through more fire than I anticipated against Ghanaian Alex Brew. The majority of Brew’s game seemed to consist of wild swingy punches, but he actually landed more of them than I would have expected. Harrison stayed firmly ahead more-or-less all the way (I recall only giving the African one round prior to the end), but did seem forced to think a bit more at times. He remained calm throughout, though, hurt Brew at a few different points (the response was generally a bit of playing up and showboating), and put him down in the fifth. The end came in round seven following a knockdown from a left hook. Entertaining stuff, and the fight of the night – a real testament to the different style of matchmaking that led to it happening.

So: the big derby. There was talk of Shard End’s Wayne Elcock not being interested in defending his British middleweight title against Dudley’s Darren McDermott (in spite of the latter having won an eliminator), but since other parties have signed with other entities it appears that the fight is on like neckbone. A two-stage Black Country vs Birmingham derby was thus created: Macca is set to fight Elcka (I just made that nickname up) for the British title in April; the Midlands title was therebye vacated and became open for a decision match between Walsall’s Matty Hough and Jamaica-via-Chelmsley Wood’s Max Maxwell. Matty had long since been one of my local favourites, and had fought his way back from a bit of a fallow period at super-middleweight (where he generally seemed outsized). I hadn’t seen former light-middleweight Max box since his second professional fight (in which he appeared a touch ‘unrefined’, as I believe they say), but I had read plenty about how he’d improved. A good clash seemed likely.

In spite of the size difference not looking as dramatic as it might have done once they were in the ring, Matty started well and used his reach to keep Max(well) at a distance. For a bit, anyway. That phase of the fight came to a halt when he appeared to just walk straight into a left hand. Down he went, and although Hough didn’t seem particularly hurt and even briefly took the advantage again, Maxwell definitely finished the round on top.

Hough employed more grab alongside his jab in the second, and again looked decent in the early stages, but a series of biiiig flinging-a-cricket-ball styled overhand rights (boxing purists will hate this, but it was ‘The Chuck Liddell Punch’) from Maxwell put him down again. The bell went during the count.

Round three? Nothing doing. More of the same right hands, and the ref was forced to step in. I heard a few jeers and boos as I made my sharp crowd-beating exit, but there was nothing unreasonable about the stoppage.

One-nil to Brummyland, then. Macca will obviously be considered the underdog against Elcock, but (even though it’ll be the away leg) I don’t think that’s a foregone conclusion and I do hope he can restore the balance of righteousness. Apparently there’s also a chance that Sam ‘The Man’ Horton will be Maxwell’s first defence, so maybe there’ll be a chance for retribution from Errol Johnson’s stable in particular and the Black Country in general there as well. Matty, meanwhile, is considering packing it all in. That would be a shame, but obviously he has to do what’s best for himself.

Elsewhere on the card things pretty much went as you’d expect. Lyndsey Scragg (who stopped previous victim Yarkor Chavez Annan in the last session of a 6×2. Yarkor was rocking a genuinely amazing ‘do, though, and as such they’re both winners in my eyes) and Rob Hunt (who knocked down Senol Dervis three times over a 4×3, leading to the absolutely mad final score of 40-33) did both look very good, but we knew that about them already; Matt Ceawright made me laugh with a bit of the old ‘hands at his waste, head and body movement only’ taunting in what was otherwise an absolute mess of a fight against Martin Gordon; the fans of the big ticketsellers (in particular Deano, Hunt and Scott Evans) were exceedingly vocal and kept the atmosphere buzzing. Routine fare beyond that.

Things ran late, so I had to get a taxi home. I made the mistake of thinking about how much money the evening had cost me. Gulp.

Tom Podmore’s much more thorough and much less Yam-centric account of this card can be read here.

I’ve always found Samuel Beckett very, very difficult. I recognise that’s my failing rather than his, but it remains the case. I was intrigued, however, by the possibilities offered by Paul Bamborough’s Waitress For Godot, a play inspired by “Waiting For Godot” (unsurprisingly) and featuring the girlfriends of Vladimir and Estragon, waiting for them while they wait for Godot.

Off we went to The Old Joint Stock Theatre on Friday the 22nd, then. The set-up was interesting – the (low) stage was put up at the side of the room (convincingly made up to look like an ill-treated hotel room, including abandoned Pizza Express boxes with altered logos, and a specially created newspaper abandoned under the bed), with the audience seats arranged on all three sides around it and the front rows right up against the stage. There weren’t enough punters to fill the side seats on this particular night, but the immediate proximity made one really feel right there and right in it (possibly too much so, in a minor way – I was having to do a tennis style back-and-forth neck-swivel to follow the actors’ back-and-forth lines at some points).

Our Valerie (Jo Widdowson) and Oestrogen (Elizabeth Arends) weren’t really direct equivalents of the characters from “Waiting…”. Valerie was not the astute/bright one, for example: although she was seemingly more well-read and literarily aware, Oessy was able to out-think her without too much trouble when responding to platitudes about living in hope. Lucky and Pozzo had no part in this, but The Boy was represented by a motorbike courier bringing messages from Vladimir and Estragon. An identity of sorts (I won’t spoil it) was even ascribed to Godot, which you would think would change things a lot but didn’t, really – it seemed to be added on a bit arbitrarily.

Unsurprisingly, the air of time passing but nothing changing still made up the bulk of the play (the line ‘Nothing to be done’ was less central but was used), and – unsettlingly - things end more-or-less as they start in spite of the discoveries that our protagonists make about Godot. The other main theme in the thing was abuse – Oessy sleeps in a ditch like Estragon, but is raped rather than being beaten and the second act commences with a harrowing shaky-hand-camera video of her finding her way back to the hotel room. Val, frighteningly, doesn’t show the slightest bit of sympathy. I’m really not sure whether this was all meant to stand on its own or it was supposed to be significant in the context of them waiting for the men. If there was a big idea linking the two then I couldn’t tease it out.

Thought-provoking on the whole, though, with excellent performances from the two principles. Worth a look, if it ends up being played again anywhere else.