One of the – very very few – good side effects of Covid has been to encourage events to go online, to make people realise that there are other ways of seeing shows besides going out and getting cold.
Fans of the Brighton Early Music Festival, don’t despair. The Festival has finished, but there’s now going to be an additional seven events you can enjoy from the comfort of your own home.
Between Friday November 19 and Sunday November 28, you can enjoy A Midsummer Night’s Dream (November 20) or maybe The Madrigal Reimagined with the Monteverdi Strings (November 26) or Brahma – Vishnu – Shiva (November 27), a night of classical Indian music and poetry.
A few years ago, jazz drummer Dylan Howe “re-imagined” David Bowie’s “Low” and created a deft, inventive, respectful jazz take on Bowie’s extraordinary album. It was very good – as were the gigs – but it wasn’t “Low” and listening to it just made you want to listen to the real thing.
Taking on a classic album can take you into dangerous territory. Will it be that respectful re-imagination or will you just be the biggest covers band in the world? The applause at the end of The Nu Civilisation Orchestra’s 50th anniversary glorious celebration of Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On” left no one in any doubt that they’d fallen on the right side.
Was “What’s Going On” Gaye’s classic album / social document, the protest record to end all protest records, really released 50 years ago? What an indictment that, just as much as in 1971, if we ever needed a “What’s Going On” it’s now because what was going on is still going on.
The song “What’s Going On” was conceived by Obi Benson of The Four Tops after he’d witnessed police dealing with anti-war protesters in what became known as “Bloody Thursday”, Gaye took on the song after The Other Tops turned it down, and ran with it, turning it into not so much a song as a suite, a song cycle. A gentle yet forceful protest, about the Vietnam war, the environment, the state we’re in. About what’s going on.
For Gaye, this wasn’t out of the blue. ““In 1969 or 1970, I began to re-evaluate my whole concept of what I wanted my music to say … I was very much affected by letters my brother was sending me from Vietnam, as well as the social situation here at home. I realised that I had to put my own fantasies behind me if I wanted to write songs that would reach the souls of people. I wanted them to take a look at what was happening in the world. With the world exploding around me, how am I supposed to keep singing love songs?”
In 1969 he released “Abraham, Martin and John” about assassinated US icons Lincoln, King and Kennedy. Add to that a personal life in turmoil, cocaine, a failed marriage, the death (to cancer) of his singing partner Tammi Terrell…
Makes you wanna holler…
That was 50 years ago. Change the detail of where the war is and… the question remains. What’s going on?
On Saturday night what was going on was The Nu Civilisation Orchestra bringing this classic album to life in a tribute that was at once respectful and fitting and joyous.
Featuring Nathaniel Facey (alto sax), Romarna Campbell (drums), Sarah Tandy (piano), backing vocalists Kianja Harvey Elliot and Cara Crosby Irons, and conducted by Peter Edwards, the 23 piece orchestra were lush, rich and deep, hitting that fine line between imaginative and respectful.
It’s never going to be Marvin Gaye doing What’s Going On, so let’s do something different. A really cool idea was that each night of the tour featured a guest slot from a local artist, and here we got Aflo (pictured below), a young poet/activist, who received a rousing reception for her pointed political rap.
Taking on the role of Marvin might seem a thankless task, but British soul singer Noel McKoy did a fine job of it, sensibly not trying to ape Gaye’s rich, soulful jazzy voice, but being more show, more live.
He put everything into it. You could see he loved it and he meant it. “Every time I’ve heard it or sung it, I think to myself that mothers are actually still crying and young brothers are still dying. The tracks from this album were and still are the benchmark of soulful commentary, its spirit and honesty remain potent to this very day.”
Aflo is playing a charity fundraiser at Presuming Ed’s on Nov 13 in support of the Survivors Trust, an umbrella charity consisting of 120 specialist member agencies around the UK and Ireland providing direct services to survivors of sexual violence.
Nick Cave and Warren Ellis at The Dome on the last night of the tour. Do we need to write anything else? Already you know it was one of those “I was there” nights.
Watching Cave in Brighton is a lovely mix of celebratory and melancholy. It’s a hometown gig, We’re with him. We know his story, we know his journey. It’s fine – this is his place now. The sadness and torment that undercuts so much of his work tempered by warmth band joy.
Tonight was very much a Nick Cave and Warren Ellis gig, not a Bad Seeds gig, largely focusing on their last two albums. Coming as it did so soon after the death of Cave’s son Arthur, 2016’s Skeleton Tree was seen to be the response, but that album was largely written before. The following album, Ghosteen, was more the response. A double album, you can’t escape the feeling that the clue is in the title. Ghost teen.
They’re more meditations than songs, mood pieces that create a feeling, an emotional landscape for Cave’s words. The album was never toured because of Covid and, locked down, Cave and Ellis recorded the visceral Carnage, an album Cave described on his website as “a brutal but very beautiful record nested in a communal catastrophe”.
Opening with three tracks from Ghosteen – Spinning Song, Bright Horses and Night Raid – the rapturous welcome is cut dead as Cave prowls the stage, his dark sonorous baritone somewhere between singing and talking these songs of faith and devotion. Ellis sits stage right, a small keyboard on his lap creating wave upon wave of rumbling drone, oppressive layers of swirling, angry harmonium.
Aside from a grand piano the size of a small country, the stage is simple, just Cave, Ellis, three backing singers and, at the back, French multi-instrumentalist Johnny Hostile who, despite sounding like he should be in a 1977 punk band, fills the gaps unobtrusively alternating between guitar, bass and drums.
The whole, particularly singers Wendy Rose, Janet Rasmus and T Jae Cole creates a mood redolent of the gospel churches he’s so in thrall to, taking him nearer to that spirit of gospel than he’s ever been. At one point, during the ecstatic rapture of Hand Of God, the extraordinary opening track from Carnage, Cave dropped to his knees, the song teetering on the edge of collapse as Ellis dropped his keyboard and threw his arms in the air.
Ellis is the perfect foil. Where Cave is all razor sharp elegance in trademark skinny black suit and white shirt, Ellis is wild, dishevelled. Cave is controlled, letting the emotion flow through the songs and the words. Ellis flails and bounces, waves, flows. Andrew Dominik, who worked on Ghosteen, said “Nick is more into structure and whether or not a piece of music sounds good. Warren doesn’t give a fuck about anything except how a piece of music feels” and that sounds about right.
On a night where the night was the highlight, it seems churlish to pick out particular moments, particular songs, but let’s be churlish… A cover of T.Rex’s Cosmic Dancer, seen last year on his “In Conversation” tour, featured Ellis almost but not quite losing a battle with his violin, I Need You from Skeleton Tree, crowd-pleasing encores of Henry Lee and Hollywood, the momentous climax to Ghosteen, and inevitably but beautifully, Into My Arms and into the night.
Menopause. It’s not a dirty word or an embarrassing part of growing old. We often face it alone and with little understanding of what is happening to us. We need to change the way we deal with the menopause on so many levels.
On Thursday 21st October, key voices in the debate come together to discuss why menopause should matter. Joining us to discuss how we make this change are Carolyn Harris MP and leader of the all party group on menopause.
Carolyn says: “The menopause revolution will bring an end to women’s suffering” – an ambitious statement. Also on our panel are Diane Danzebrink, founder of Menopause Support and the national #MakeMenopauseMatter campaign, Kate Muir, journalist and producer of Channel 4’s Davina McCall documentary.
Joining them are Jo Ilott and Sarah Leroux, nurses working in primary care with a specialist interest in the menopause, Dr Jill Kirby, academic historian at University of Sussex currently engaged in research into the cultural history of menopause in 20th century Britain and Dr Heather Brown, consultant obstetrician & gynaecologist.
If you’ve never done it, it sounds like the most terrifying thing you can ever do. Get up, stand up, just you and a microphone. Go on, make people laugh. Go on. They’re sitting there waiting. Go on. It’s a bit different to cracking a few gags in front of your half-pissed mates in the pub. Just sounds terrifying. But it’s fun watching other people do it.
If you like your comedy, there’s a bit of a treat coming up with this year’s Brighton Grin Comedy Awards at The Electric Arcade down on the beachfront. A award for new comic on the block, the hopefuls have been whittled down to 40 – and now they’re going to stand up and do their thing.
The lambs to the slau… I mean contestants will compete in one of four heats throughout October (6th, 13th, 20th, 21st), before the Grand Final on the 27th.
Panel show regular & award-winning comedian Zoe Lyons (Live at the Apollo, Mock the Week) heads the judging panel for the first heat, alongside Brighton Gin and BBC Radio Sussex’s Kathy Caton. David James, a comedy coach and stand-up known for his dry, deadpan wit, will also judge, as well as Otherplace Artistic Director Nicola Haydn. Other judges include comedian Esther Manito, super-vet and national treasure Marc Abraham, comedian Masie Adam and Lulu Baker, Assistant to the Head of Comedy at the BBC.
“Over the last sixteen years, we’ve had countless up-and-coming comics come through our doors, with many going on to become panel show regulars, launch sell- out tours and become household names,” says Nicola Haydn of organisers Otherplace. “We thought a new act competition would be a good way to encourage and discover some more future stars. We’re thrilled that some of our top-tier comedians we met along the way will be joining us to judge various heats, as well as the final”.
All four heats and the final will be held at The Electric Arcade.
Hands up who started Lockdown and said something like “Right, I’m going to use this time to be productive. I’m going to learn a language”. Come on, be honest. I’ve still got a bass guitar propped up against a bedroom wall which is performing a valuable function as a dust storage unit.
Graham Cameron was a little more productive. He took the time to produce a series of illustrations that looked at his lockdown and the impact of Covid-19 on the arts. He took inspiration from his surrounds and created illustrations of the famous landmarks, including the Palace Pier, the Royal Pavilion and the Dome. “I’ve worked at Brighton Dome & Brighton Festival for 21 years, and during furlough I re-connected to the other version of me – the artist. I found myself drawing everyday as a way to express how the pandemic was personally affecting me but also how I saw the outside world unfolding from the safety of my lockdown caravan.”
As part of the exhibition, Cameron’s original artwork and digital prints will be for sale via an online auction, with a 10% donation from each purchase made to Brighton Dome & Brighton Festival’s charity.
The Art of G
Brighton Dome Founders Room, Church Street, Brighton BN1 1UE
11am – 3pm, 26 – 31 October 2021
Free admission
Details of the online auction will be released on Brighton Dome website: brightondome.org
What JOY to get back to the Dome last night to have a good old laugh with the brilliant Fi Glover and Jane Garvey. And thanks to the millennial media star Pandora Sykes as host for inadvertently proving just how much funnier, wittier, sharper women get with a little life behind them. As Fi and Jane regaled us with tales from their book “Did I Say That Out Loud” and reminded us of the best bits of their hilarious podcast, “Fortunately”, it was what good theatre is all about. Sharing a giggle about the menopause, a campaigning fist pump about equal pay and a tear about the realities of divorce is just so much better in the flesh.
It’s part of Fane Productions’ fabulous series of author talks – Stanley Tucci, Eileen Atkins, Grayson Perry, Nigella Lawson to name just a few are coming up this autumn – and although they’ve done a wonderful live streaming job through the Pandemic, it’s so good to be back.
I ’m sitting outside a café in south west France, taking a break from exploring the beautiful 13th century market town of Revel. I’m sipping a café au lait, and trying to avoid being completely consumed by the fug of cigarette smoke billowing at me from all directions.
Seven Dials has its problems – traffic, mainly – but industrial scale fag smoking is a rare hazard.
The elderly chap sitting next to me, puffing furiously on a hand-rolled cigarette, attempts to engage me in conversation. My French is not brilliant, his English marginally better. He asks what I’m doing in this part of France. I’m on a kind of road trip I say, punctuated by lots of cycling and going off road into the unknown. I gesture peddling and he nods, and then I fear he’s about to expire on me as he launches into yet another huge coughing fit.
After a suitable longuer while he recovers his breath, the old fella asks me if I’ve ever read Jean-Paul Sartre. I nod and say yes I have read most of his fiction, but it was a long time ago. Quarante ans, I say, thinking, gosh, was it really so long ago. But then I think, wow, things are looking up. You don’t really get this class of conversation outside Small Batch.
He was, said the old boy, gazing steadily at me, un “existentialist, oui?”
Yes, I said, he was one of the first I suppose. More nodding, more coughing. Yes, he concurred, one of the first. More silence, possibly existential.
I’m thinking, how do I follow that one? Should I say I’ve also read Camus? La Peste, appropriately… I think better of it.
We’re sitting underneath a beautiful 13th century archway, looking out into the Market Square. It’s around midday and approaching 28° or thereabouts. It’s a clear blue sky, and the French are getting ready for their favourite past time… eating. They are pioneers in many areas – cinema, philosophy… art, of course. But I’d say when it comes to chowing down the French have few peers.
Reverential silence descends on the tables of fellow diners, while mountains of frites and various local fish stew type concoctions are devoured. I wonder how they manage to eat so much in the middle of the day. It’s quite extraordinary.
And then go back to work? But being as this is late August, most of the people wolfing down their midday meals are I daresay on holiday. Hence the copious volumes of local vin rouge and rose perched on rickety table tops. Most agreeable, I think. A very, very French scenario.
What’s also noticeable is the absence of any Brits. On the long drive down from Dieppe via Le Mans and Bordeaux, I barely saw a GB registration plate. When I shared this with my elderly companion at the table, he nodded and shrugged…pas d’Anglais. No Brits down here for at least a year. It’s regrettable, he said. We rather liked having you around. His deeply creased countenance cracked into a broad, toothless grin. It’s kind of weird this lack of Brits.
I have to say, to misquote Robert Heinlein in Stranger in a Strange Land ‘the only familiar is the unfamiliar.’ It feels really weird, having spent several weeks of the year in France for many years now, this is the first time I can ever recall feeling like something of an alien. Of course, the pandemic is largely responsible, but I know that many people who would normally be spending a few months of the year down here are now no longer able to do so, thanks to the restrictions of Brexit. And I find myself once again becoming irritated at the very thought of the millions of people who voted us out of Europe. Selfish, myopic, looking out for number one, you name it… They have conspired to deprive many of our citizens of our previous rights to roam freely in this great continent.
Personally, I’m fortunate, in that I have dual nationality. My mother was Irish, and I have an Irish passport. I am a European citizen, thank God. I also give thanks to the fact that my children will be able to eventually secure their own Irish passport. Currently, I’m in no rush to get back to the UK. The irony of hearing the last night of the Proms, the ‘land of hope and glory’, cannot be lost on many of those who helped to edge us out. What hope? What glory? As my coffee companion says with another Gallic shrug…Je ne sais pas. Je ne sais pas du tout.
I first met Omar Alibhoy back in 2018 at Westfield in Shepherds Bush where his first Tapas Revolution spread itself confidently across the heart of the shopping centre, its stools at the long bar treating casual shoppers to its signature dry-aged ham and other classic Iberian tapas. Omar told me that he’d brought his brand to Britain because while Spain may be a home from home to millions, who even knows how to make calamares? Not that that’s what most visitors to Tapas Revolution are interested in as they tuck into a small pate of Fritura Mista, but Omar is, and that’s what makes this Revolution different to most.
His book Spanish Made Simple is just that, and according to friends who love to cook Spanish food, it’s one of the best on the market. But whether or not you’re a home cook who loves to play with different cultures on the plate, it’s this that flavours the eating experience at Brighton’s North Street restaurant which opened earlier this summer.
Now, full disclosure here; I know just how much Omar cares about detail because my daughter was part of the opening team (and is now a supervisor), and spent two weeks learning exactly what a Spanish welcome should be, the story behind the food and how to mix a mean Margerita. That bonding with the largely Spanish crew created a family feel which anyone who knows anything about Spain will know is the real meat on the table.
And so to the food. Dining with the legendary Brighton food critic, Andrew Kay (below) was always going to be a treat, but I was wary about the torreznos con mojos, the slow cooked pork belly drizzled with a herb mojo verde and sweet spicy sauce and the chorizo a la sidra, a spicy Asturian sausage roasted with red onion and vintage cider reduction. Spanish food culture has had the pig at its centre for generations, yet as in Italy, the slow creep of the factory farm has already begun to erode its roots. Would Omar care enough about bringing his Spanish food culture to Britain to pay for high welfare, locally sourced pig? I didn’t dare ask.
It was delicious, a melt in the mouth, knife through butter dish which I left Andrew to finish, just in case, while I devoured the guisantes con jamon, a delightful plate of garden peas with mint, confit onion, slow roasted garlic and jamon. I might have left the jamon on the side… The garbanzos y espinacas, the vegan braised chickpeas with baby spinach, garlic and spices was a safer bet, and a tasty and moreish option to the usual runners and riders of patatas bravas and calamares A couple of glasses of white Rioja, a table on the terrace in the sunshine, and that was a Friday lunchtime I shall do again.
The million-pound Seven Dials Roundabout which was re-designed in 2013 and has been repeatably closed for costly repairs and further re-design since is breaking up yet again. The initial budget was exceeded by more than 50% and now confidence in the so-called experts from the highways department is crumbling as fast as the roundabout itself. The initial 2013 design was claimed to improve road safety until a picture was published of an articulated truck driving over the pavement in front the Small Batch Coffee shop.
The highways engineers had omitted to include bell bollards in their design! Several of these bell bollards were then hastily positioned on the pavements and now, at least, offer some protection to both pedestrians and buildings. When the 2013 design started breaking up, the height of the cobbled “outer island” was reduced and the kerbstones re-laid. It then became obvious that this levelling of the cobbled outer island with the tarmac lane surrounding it undermined (in more ways than one) the rationale of the roundabout itself which was to keep all traffic except HGVs and buses (which needed more space for turning) on the single lane of tarmac!
Now that the original raised kerb has been removed cars and motor bikes routinely cut cross the cobbled surface, increasing the likelihood of collisions and threatening the safety of pedestrians who, incidentally, were encouraged by the highway engineers in 2013 to practise “informal crossing” (i.e., not to use the zebra crossings). The same highways engineers had also wanted to chop down the 130-year-old elm tree, claiming that this was essential for the implementation of the design.
This crazy destruction of a perfectly healthy elm tree (part of the national collection) was fortunately prevented after thousands signed a petition and two daring residents camped in the branches of the tree to stop tree cutters in their tracks whilst the Council reconsidered its decision. The irony of the present design is that it is closer to that built in the 1960s (which had a large central island) than the one built after that which was essentially a mini roundabout surrounded by two lanes of traffic. A striking difference, however, is that the 1960s island was grassed whereas the 21st century one is paved!
News and views from West Hill and Seven Dials in Brighton
