Category: BR Content

Words by Althea Patterson – follow @TheFoxHuntress / Pics by Chris Webb Photography

______

Director: by James Oldham / Conductor: Thomas Payne / Producer: Ed Denham

Bastien: Matthew Durkan / Bastienne: Sophie Pullen / Colas: Luke Deane

Bearing in mind Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was 12 years of age when he wrote Bastien und Bastienne, it makes one wonder what he bore witness to as a child.  And I don’t think he’d imagined it performed in a draughty nightclub with a 16 piece orchestra, hyper sparse set decoration and even less seating –  as greeted those who ventured to see Waste Paper Opera’s interpretation.

With the audience still ordering drinks, possibly to warm them up, and inspecting the deconstructed pastoral field (sheep looked akin to a gift a proud child would bring home to their mother at Easter) the show started, the the choir singing a round of “Mozart!”, as if to wake the performers from their slumber.

Sitting in a battered Chesterfield and with KISS style face-paint and knitted jumper, Bastienne opened the show crying her heart out like many single woman in a confusing relationship. “I can’t trust you!”  Yes, you and a million other women on a wet Wednesday night my love. I was mildly surprised as the libretto was sung in English, and had to suspend my disbelief at the surroundings and absorb the sounds and arias.

The introduction of Colas, the quack magician, was great; he was vile. Imagine post puberty Harry Potter on an acid trip and you’re half way there. His bizarre Joker-with-ADD antics were amusing, but his choice line? – “He sounds like a bit of a dick massively” – irritating in equal measure.

And his declarations of being The Greatest Magician would have made Muhammad Ali blush. OK. You’re the greatest, we get it. 

Bastienne’s ongoing complaints and wailing to Colas were then halted by his stomping off stage and through the exit. Was this part of the act? Was this a grand revolt by the actor? Had he had enough?

Afraid not, he was now consoling Bastien, a wonderful baritone who’s rich timbre was rather irritatingly drowned by the mechanics of the club’s air conditioning and the flashing lights.

Colas and Bastien sat bitching at life’s woes, like the annoying drunk guys at end of a night out who will solve all your problems, Colas’ soliloquy was akin to said drunk dude reciting a dream. This was beginning to feel like an opera based on ‘The Curious Incident of The Dog in Night Time’.

Eventually, after much anguished pulling of their knitted grey jumpers, the two lovers were reunited. And it was all thanks to Colas’ Mysterious art, which he reminded us of ad nauseam.

Musically and vocally, Waste Paper Opera Company were on point; their production was beautiful, melodic and whimsically Mozart. The baritone and soprano were excellent, with the open environment lending itself well to Bastien’s low and Bastienne’s high notes, her solo aria being particularly lovely.

Conductor Thomas Payne kept his orchestra tidy and disciplined, and sat in black being inconspicuously elegant amongst the crazed goings on.

But I’m too much of a lover of the grandee to have enjoyed the sparse set design. Although I can appreciate deconstruction, it just wasn’t my cup of tea.

And as for the nightclub setting; I couldn’t help feel it wasn’t for this particular knackered post-work adult, one whose days of running after top hated men in strobe lit clubs are certainly over.

I wonder what Wolfgang would have made of it all?

**Birmingham Review issues it’s apologies to Matthew Durkan, who was referenced as a ‘tenor’ in the original review. For more on Matthew Durkan, visit www.matthewdurkan.co.uk**

______

For more on Waste Paper Opera Company, visit http://www.wpoc.co.uk

For more on the Frontiers Festival, visit http://www.frontiersmusic.org

For further listings from The Rainbow, visit http://www.therainbowvenues.co.uk

Words by Althea Patterson  – follow @TheFoxHuntress / Pics from www.electricswingcircus.com

It rained, it poured, we waited, we supped. The Chicken Brothers kicked some awesome beats as the Hare & Hounds filled up with those sharply suited and deeply rooted in the era.

Feather boas, head dresses, braces on tailored shirts; mixing with jeans, PVC cat suits and waterproof plus fours – Electric Swing Circus must be around here somewhere, waiting in the wings for another eclectic show.

After what felt like an interminably restless build up, BANG, they were onstage. Lights dipped, tension built, Electric Swing Circus launched into a wonderfully expressive ‘Bella Belle’.

My, how months of gigging had refined their set since seeing them in December, they looked and sounded grown up, tight and instinctive. Singers, Laura Louise and Bridget Walsh, channeling Femme Fatale chic with matching suits, pouts and stylish moves; what verve and saucy pop.

Electric Swing Circus were having fun and it showed. On ‘Swingamajig’ and ‘Big Ol Bite’ their sexier attitude came to the fore – the former mixed up and changed into a dub, making the room heave and shake. Infectious doesn’t do that bassline justice.

But they were all on their game tonight, as Rashad, Chandra, Tom and Patrick read each other’s shrugs, raised eyebrows and tapped feet beautifully. A delight to see. As was singer Laura Louise’s one off scatting solo, which reminded me of Jill Scott at her freestyling best and I bloody loved it. It takes faith in your own style to do that and many fall down on it, but not she.

After throwing in some well received new material, Electric Swing Circus performed what can only be described as a devilish take on ‘Everybody Wants to Be a Cat’ – from Disney’s The Aristocats. As the whole circus launched into a James Brown style stage sliding dance, my mate piped up “these dudes need to be at Glastonbury.”

The rest of Electric Swing Circus’ set was an hour of lights, candour and action; although the words don’t do it justice. The zing, the rawness, the fact I went from doing the Charleston one minute to twerking the next, it was just insane.

But Electric Swing Circus’ extensive musical tutelage also showed, with Brazilian Jazz tings, ludicrous drum and bass lines, foundation crunching dub plates and (most importantly) their energy holding it all together and throwing it out to us to catch. You have to see this band live.

And as their oh-so-slightly rehearsed encore, the rhythm riding ‘Minnie’, sent us bopping onto the mean streets of Kings Heath – we couldn’t help but think we’d just found the best kept secret speakeasy in town. Roll on Swingamajig.

(And thank you Chris. No pen = no review)

For more on Electric Swing Circus, visit http://www.electricswingcircus.com/

For more on Swingamajg, visit http://swingamajig.co.uk/

For further listings from the Hare & Hounds (Kings Heath), visit http://hareandhoundskingsheath.co.uk

Waste Paper Opera Company (WPOC) brings Mozart’s comic opera, Bastien und Bastienne, to The Rainbow on Tues 25^th & Weds 26^th March.

As part of the Frontiers Festival, James Oldham directs a ‘brutal reworking’ of the 1764 singspiel – first delivered by WPOC in 2013. Bastien will be played by Matthew Durkan, Bastienne by Sophie Pullen, with Luke Deane talking the role of the frivolous magician, Colas.

Waste Paper Opera Company’s Bastien und Bastienne will run from 7:30-8:30pm, with tickets priced at £8 and £5 concessions.

Bastien und Bastienne was written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in 1768, when the composer was only 12 years old.

Bastien und Bastienne’s original libretto tells the story of a love struggle between its eponymous characters, the later becoming jealous of the former’s infatuation with the ‘lady of the manor’. Enter Colas, a questionable magician, who plays one lover off against the other with purported spells and the ‘treat them mean, keep them keen’ adage. Finally Bastien and Bastienne reconcile their love and praise the arguably divisive help of their mutual magician friend, Colas. Bastien und Bastienne has always been performed as a comedy, and stands as a parody to Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s one act opera, La devin du village.

Waste Paper Opera Company was formed in 2012 and ‘specialises in humour and the clichés of opera’.

Run by James Oldham (Artistic Director), Ed Denham (Producer) and Thomas Payne (Conductor), WPOC have also produced and performed an original opera alongside their reworking of Bastien und Bastienne – Oldham’s ‘metaphorical warped fiction’ debut, Off the Beaten Track.

Ed Denham also currently produces for the London Arts Orchestra, Gestalt Arts, the Orchestra of Moving Pictures and Southampton Youth Opera. Thomas Payne is also Musical Director of The Ludlow Orchestra, Leamington Sinfonia and Shrewsbury Cantata Choir, alongside his role as Principal conductor with The Film Orchestra and Co-conductor of Hereford String Orchestra.

To see samples of Waste Paper Opera Company’s 2013 production of Bastien und Bastienne, click here or on the image below:

Waste Paper Opera Company brings Bastien und Bastienne to The Rainbow on Tues 25^th & Weds 26^th March – as part of the Frontiers Festival. Althea Patterson will be there for a Birmingham Review.

For further event info & tickets, visit http://www.birmingham-box.co.uk/event/waste-paper-opera-presents-james-oldhams-bastien-a/

For more on Waste Paper Opera Company, visit http://www.wpoc.co.uk

For more on the Frontiers Festival, visit http://www.frontiersmusic.org

For further listings from The Rainbow, visit http://www.therainbowvenues.co.uk

Hot Club de Swing returns to the Hare & Hounds (Kings Heath) on Friday 21st March. Doors open at 9pm, with tickets priced at £7  advance + more on the door.

Billed as the ‘Swingamajig warm up show’, the event welcomes Liverpool’s The Chicken Brothers back to Birmingham – a ‘feathered duo’ who DJed the final set at last year’s festival.

With their self professed ‘unique brand of party hip hop, glitchy breaks, drums, bass and plenty of fun’ The Chicken Brothers have also appeared at the Glade, Beatherder, Festival Number 6, Secret Garden Party, Boomtown and Shambala festivals. For more on The Chicken Brothers, visit http://www.thechickenbrothers.co.uk

Hot Club’s resident DJ, The C@ in the H@, will also be playing – with Electric Swing Circus performing the headline set. For more on The C@ in the H@, visit https://soundcloud.com/c-in-the-h

Electric Swing Circus (ESC) have been chiseling Birmingham’s edifice to the genre over the past few years. Both pioneers and purveyors, ESC started Hot Club de Swing as a platform for their own music and the modern Swing scene.

Embracing a seemingly constant tour schedule, with more festivals to play at than the meanest of fiddlers, ESC built their homegrown audience into a festival crowd – debuting Swingamajig over 2013’s first May bank holiday weekend to a fervently supportive (and sold out capacity) audience. If you didn’t go you most likely heard about it.

Swingamajig returns to Digbeth in Birmingham, this year held at Boxxed on Floodgate St, on Sunday May 4^th 2014. For a small teaser, click on the image below:

Hot Club de Swing host their Swingamajig Warm Up Show at the Hare & Hounds (Kings Heath) on Friday 21^st March. For more info & tickets, visit http://hareandhoundskingsheath.co.uk/event-listings/event/?eventID=10030593

For more on Electric Swing Circus, visit http://www.electricswingcircus.com/

For more on Swingamajg, visit http://swingamajig.co.uk/

Words by Ed King / Below pics courtesy of Spence Cater – www.spencecaterphotography.com

“…and they’re not depressing. I promise you.”

My friend agrees to meet me at Ort Cafe, where Rhiannon Mair and Louise Petit are playing tonight. He’s just come back from a romantic break in New York and my “…two female singer songwriters” description didn’t fill him with confidence, an evening of Tori Amos not being the best cure for love sickness or jet lag.

I reassure him, “honestly, I listen to cheery music too,” but I know he’s hedging his bets. “I’ll drive over and we can walk up,”  he replies. I agree and hang up. I want to prove him wrong, to show I don’t need severed heart strings to feel alive or validated; but a quick scan of my iTunes account and you’d probably not believe me either.

Luckily Rhiannon Mair is in full swing as we arrive, her one woman ensemble punching out the album track ‘Why Can’t I Be Your Girlfriend?’ to a reassuringly packed Ort Café and attentive front row. Well Ms Mair, the big loves in my life have either got married, come out or moved to Berlin – so there’s a couple of options, but the teenage accusation of this chorus turns me off a little too; detracing from an otherwise potent melody. But I am often blind to other’s subtext, so could be missing an intention. And the front row doesn’t seem to mind.

I pick my way to the bar and order a bottle of ale for my friend and a mug of house red for me. I love Ort Café. The room erupts as Rhiannon Mair finishes her song and beams out at the crowd; there is something so endearing you just want to clone or hug her. As Mair’s concentrated metronome stare and loop pedal introduce ‘Something Special’, one of my favourite tracks from her debut album – It Goes Like This, I nudge my friend in the ribs. No white horses, cornflake girl, or pesters and lesters and jesters to be seen.

Next up is a new track, with the working tile ‘Inspire Me’ although Mair is “…open to suggestions.” I keep my ego on alert for an opportunity to be clever; mercifully giving up by the second verse. A slow finger pluck and half strum introduce the new song, before opening up a thumped string rhythm and increased tempo. This is great. It’s better than great. And its making the front row do weird little shoulder twitches. I’m not a song writer, and certainly not a guitarist, but there’s something ‘firmer’ about this track – as I scribble in my note book.

A cover of Depeche Mode’s ‘Strangelove’ comes next, offering the perfect platform for Mair’s husky to high vocals (Gahan would be proud) before an enthusiastic audience quite literally demand an encore. Mair bashfully looks up for timekeeping approval, possibly noticing she is penned in against the far wall (the front row now resembling a rugby scrum) before delivering ‘Love & Hate’, her “angry break up song”, with eyes closed and a wry smile.

To close her set we get another new song, ‘Dig a Little Deeper’, and another introduction to the Rhiannon Mair of Album’s Future; a looped confluence of scraped and thumped strings, behind a strong melody, with vocals that skip between a footstep and stamp. It’s genuinely exciting, and I regret this only her second time performing in Birmingham. Rhiannon Mair is someone you should certainly see live.

Another mug of house red and its Louise Petit’s turn on stage, joined by a double bass and clandestine percussion. I miss the name of Petit’s opening track, but the soft vocal led melody and slow ache of the double bass are a good enough distraction.

‘Home’ continues the vocal led approach, this time with some beautifully subtle harmonies, before the irritatingly catchy ‘Love Is Pure’ makes the front row break into a seemly synchronised two shoulder shuffle. The title of this track would normally be enough to send me hurtling to my ball of bile, that tight little dark place where I keep my wit and my enemies, but it doesn’t.

Maybe I’m maturing, or perhaps giving up, but Louise Petit stands as testament to my recently learnt ability to listen to Folk singer songwriters without suicidal tendencies. I feel strangely proud of myself for knowing some of the words; although the front row appears to know considerably more.

Again I miss the title to the next song, although I catch enough lyrics to know it’s something to do with a tree. Or love. Or the love of a tree, I’m not certain. But lines such as “do you want the life raft or the sharks” and “my lungs want to scream” are delivered by beautifully sustained vocals in a song with not many hiding places. A soft-yet-subtle-yet-angry lament, and a powerful trick.

Louise Petit is also proffering a canopy of new morsels tonight, and takes us through some tracks from her soon to be released new album. Following the vocal led approach of their predecessors, songs such as ‘Lights’, ‘Happy Man’ and ‘Lost to the Weight of the World’ bring a bit more fire in the belly (and at one point a tiny yellow xylophone) but all continue Petit’s delicious storytelling and imagery; like Suzanne Vega singing Christmas carols with Moomintroll.

Petit’s recent other half joins her for some perfectly placed piano (ALLETERATION’S ALWAYS ACE) on ‘Plastic & Glue’, a track not suitable for a jaded 36 year old on his second mug of wine, before closing her set with ‘Demons’ – one of Louise Petit’s most well known and addictive songs. There is something about the way she sings “…show their teeth”  that I can’t quite let go, despite every cynical bone in my body telling me to run for the door.

As the dust settles, and the front row recover from their frenetic rock, clap, shoulder shuffle finale, I turn to my friend – who is Cheshire Cat grinning in either appreciation or confirmation.

“Yeah, I really enjoyed that,” he admits, “to be honest, I was expecting something a bit more miserable and self indulgent.” He smiles. I say nothing but smirk with inward vindication. “Let’s head back so I can pick up my car… you must be growing up.”

It’s amazing how short some feelings last.

For more on Rhiannon Mair, visit http://www.rhiannonmair.com

For more on Louise Petit, visit http://louisepetit.com 

For more on Ort Café, including full listings of music, exhibitions and events, visit http://ortcafe.co.uk