Shakespeare at the ballet

Mum and I were back at our favourite ballet venue, The Royal Opera House. We had gone primarily to see Carlos Acosta dance in Kenneth Macmillan's The Song of the Earth. But the evening started with Frederick Ashton's The Dream, a ballet of Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream. It was lovely to see this old favourite as a ballet and after a while I even managed to tune out the whispering child sat behind us.

The changeling Indian boy was adorable and I was impressed at how long he 'slept' at the back of the stage. It was a shame that Marcelo Gomes in the role of Oberon seemed a little unsure at times, however the dancer covering for Puck was incredible. Unfortunately it was a last minute change I can't remember who was dancing, he had all the spring you would expect from Puck, even from the Amphitheatre you could see the mischievous glint in his eyes.

It was Johnathan Howells in the role of Bottom who really stole the show. He was amusing and made a convincing enchanted donkey. I am eternally impressed by men dancing en pointe and Howells managed to skip and jump while wearing hooves on his hands and a great big donkey head. Even in human form Howells was exactly like I imagined Bottom to be, although perhaps the hair was a bit too wild for me...

We had an obligatory ice cream in the interval and then it was back for Song of the Earth. I have not seen a ballet with singers before and this was the place to start. The music by Mahler was enchanting and the singers standing on alternate sides of the stage blended in and became a seamless part of the piece. Carlos Acosta was as captivating as usual, but a pleasant surprise for the evening was Marianela Nunez who was unbelievable in songs two and six.

I would definitely take the opportunity to see this pair of ballets again but would request that children are kept quiet by their families and that the Royal Opera House bans paper and plastic bags from the auditorium.

The cold days...

The temperatures have dropped down and I've found more time for my books. So here's what I've read curled up under the duvet.

Vigilante by Kerry Wilkinson

This is the second Jessica Daniel book and having enjoyed the first one I quickly got the second. I was pleased to see Jessica get a boyfriend, but then as she got more and more caught up in the case I became increasingly frustrated at the assumptions she was making. This book was where I started to draw likenesses to Rebus my original favourite detective and by the end it felt like Jessica could be Rebus' daughter as they share so many character traits. I wasn't as bought in to this story as I was to that of Locked In but it was still a good read.

The Woman in Black by Kerry Wilkinson

At the end of Vigilante I wanted to see what happened next and really I wanted to see whether the last text Jessica received in Vigilante was the glimmer of hope I was waiting for. This story really puzzled me as I tried to work it all out but the likeness to Rebus came out even more strongly and I didn't think the book stood up to Rankin's writing. However I will still be buying the next book to see what Jessica gets up to next and the Jessica Daniel novels are an all round easy read.

The Island by Victoria Hislop

One of the girls at work read this and recommended it and after it sat on my Kindle for a while I opened it up. This book was definitely worth the wait, another book where the daughter unravels the secrets of her family. A leper colony off the coast of Crete took centre stage and all the misconceptions about the disease took centre stage as families had their lives destroyed by this terrible disease. I realised that I held misconceptions about leprosy and now I know that you don't catch leprosy form casual contact, that for some people it can stay stable for years. The biologist in me enjoyed the knocked back sub-lot about the first treatments and the risks people took to try new treatments with potential horrendous side effects. But what I really loved about this book was that none of the characters seemed to be too self-obsessed. They all made mistakes and no-one was too good to be true and at the end I stayed up until 1am to finish this book in just two days as I was so desperate to find out what happened.

The Skeleton in the Closet by MC Beaton

This was a strange book all of Fell's life he has stayed home and worked to support his parents. When both his parents die Fell is left a small fortune and then the questions start, where did it come from? Fell moves Maggie in and predictably Maggie falls in love with Fell while fell simply sees Maggie as a frump. Throughout the book the mystery becomes clearer but as Fell and Maggie are just a little naive the story seems to be poorly constructed with limited intrigue. I found all the mishaps, a burglary and a car bomb a step too far and  I wasn't invested in Fell or Maggie but I read through to the end and despite one last fright the story concluded as expected with a suitably happy ending.

Last up I'm ashamed to admit that for the first time since Far From the Madding Crowd was my GCSE book I have failed to finish a book...

Bad Science by Ben Goldacre

I used to enjoy reading popular science and this book sounded like my kind of reading. Although there were some interesting points about the placebo effect which I'm always fascinated by this book was full of vitriol and after a quarter of the book I felt like I was simply reading a self-absorbed rant and decided that the content did not outweigh the lack of style. Safe to say I will not be finishing this book and I was sorry that a science book broke my usually good reading record.

A night at the ballet...

This week was the week that ballet was in all the papers and I rounded it off with a night at Sadler's Wells. It was a snap decision on Friday to book the ticket to see Ivan Putrov's Men in Motion when I saw it was on in the morning paper. It was my first time to Sadler's Wells a place which I had read about as a child growing up reading Lorna Hill. The theatre was a simple space and I was sat a the back of the upper circle which was incredibly steep but very reasonably priced. The real reason I booked the ticket was to see Sergei Polunin dance and I wasn't disappointed.

I'm often frustrated that male dancers seem to be restricted to simply lifting and supporting the women. So although I had gone to see one dancer in particular I was delighted to watch the talented cast of men dance and leap their way through the pieces. The evening started with Le Spectre de la Rose, a hundred years after it was first performed, Igor Kolb captured the imagination from the moment he leapt through the window onto the stage. Then it was the piece I was there for as Sergei Polunin bewitched with his solo Narcisse, Full of spectacular leaps Polunin seemed to hang in the air and I would be sorry if I never see him dance again.

The last piece before the interval was Ashton's Dance of the Blessed Spirits danced by the man behind the evening, Ivan Putrov. I'm sorry to say I don't really remember a lot about this piece and perhaps it was because the piece was calmer and didn't have the vitality of the other pieces. The next piece was the AfterLight, danced by Argentinian Daniel Proietto. The rest of the audience seemed to love this piece out of all of the pieces, however I really wasn't sure, the swirling lighting made me feel slightly sick and perhaps it was the desired effect but Proietto merged with the lighting and I didn't feel like I had seen a performance but more a piece of installation art.

I loved the final piece, Ithaka choreographed by Ivan Putrov and the simplicity of the costumes and set combined with fabulous performances meant the audience were drawn in and the evening finished on a high. All the dancers received great appreciation from the audience with flowers thrown from the stalls and multiple bows. I was glad I bought the ticket and saw this performance even if it was incomplete as some of the dancers were unable to get visas to be in London for the performance.

Let's go to the movies...

First up, a big thank you to P who redesigned my blog today. I like it and hope you do too...

Today we went to the cinema for the first time in a long while. We saw The Artist... and took a trip back to the time of the silent movies. The story was similar to that of Singing in the Rain as the era of the talkies began and the old silent actors fell off the headlines. As the music swelled it covered the lack of words and although there are very few subtitle screens it doesn't really matter. Sometimes you can read their lips and when you can't well then there are subtitle screens and sometimes they are what cause the laughs. 

A little bit of hamming it up fitted right in with the silent movie. The supporting dog really carried the show, he walked on his hind legs and played dead, all with expert comic timing. I definitely recommend this picture for a peaceful watch with plenty of laughs and maybe a few tears too.

So who did it?

I've just finished reading another two crime books very different...

Rattle His Bones by Carola Dunn

Another Daisy mystery, this one I enjoyed as it was set in the Natural History museum and being set in the '50s didn't mean I couldn't picture the different galleries clearly. I was also relieved that this time Daisy wasn't (indirectly) killing off her friends / hosts but managed to have stumbled across a death on a dinosaur with just a little help from Belinda and Derek. I'm surprised that Alec hasn't had second thoughts about marrying Daisy yet, considering she seems to be solely responsible for doubling his workload. This book also had the added bonus that there was not just a murder but a huge theft too, with the story starting when all the gems in the Natural History Museum were stolen and replaced with fakes. I will definitely be looking more closely at the dinosaurs and gems next time I'm in the museum. But should you read it? Well if you didn't enjoy the others then no, but if you did then it's worth a read although Daisy and Alec still don't get married.

Locked In by Kerry Wilkinson

I might have found a new detective to follow... Jessica Daniels, DS. Right from the start this book drew me in as a fan of CSI I smiled as Jessica commented that being a detective in Manchester is not really as glamorous as being a CSI. Here the question was how did a killer get in to a locked house and back out again without leaving a trace? Then Jessica finds out who probably did but he seems to have disappeared without trace will Jessica find him before another person dies? Oh and if you want to know how you break into a locked house try the locksmiths... I've bought some more Jessica Daniels books and I'm looking forward to trying to solve some more of Jess' cases, maybe this time before she does.