Bring up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel

Despite its runaway success, I didn't get round to reading Wolf Hall for a while, mainly because my most reliable friends weren't too sure about it. They (independently) found the narrative confusing, frequently referring to 'he' without it being clear who 'he' was. Eventually I thought I'd decide for myself and took the hardback on holiday, lugging it like a brick in a sandstorm around the beaches of Cornwall.

The reason I kept carrying it was because I was hooked - by Hilary Mantel's use of language, her detailed depictions of the fabric of Tudor domesticity and her envisioning of the much reworked courtly rise of Anne Boleyn from the fresh perspective of that previously underwritten commoner-made-good, Thomas Cromwell. to me, it was clear that when 'he' is unnamed, despite the proliferation of Thomases, it's always Cromwell that's being referred to, because the novel is written from his point of view. To be fair, I did have the advantage of tackling large chunks of story in one go and would most likely have found the odd page or two before dropping off to sleep much more challenging.

In Bring up the Bodies, the second of Mantel's trilogy which has already won her a second Booker Prize, she addresses my friends' criticism by frequently writing 'he, Cromwell'. This may succeed in clearing up any confusion, but does reduce the immediacy between Cromwell and the reader, the feeling of standing in his increasingly expensive shoes. Despite this, the moment I opened the book I was basking once more in glorious prose, feasting on Mantel's opulent re-imagining of events

His children are falling from the sky. He watches from horse-back, acres of England stretching behind him; they drop, gilt-winged, each with a blood-filled gaze.

Thus the scene of hawks in flight is set. Cromwell is Master of the Rolls now, sleek and powerful as the enforcer who has rid the King of his first wife at the cost of disestablishing the church, only to find Henry quickly wanting rid of the second, the one he risked everything for. The bones of this story are all too familiar, but Cromwell's viewpoint is as intriguing as ever. The sense remains that he (as written by Mantel) is an unparalleled reader of motive, one pace ahead of his compatriots; the cleverest man in any Tudor room.

In Wolf Hall, I loved Cromwell's evaluation of a person by the provenance and quality of their cloth and was a little disappointed that this diminished in the second volume. It would also have been illuminating to find out more about his close personal relationships; those with women are tantalisingly slight. But Mantel makes up for this with Cromwell's reflections on his life

I never lay awake a night for love, though poets tell me that is the procedure. Now I lay awake for its opposite.

After the long build up to power through marriage in Wolf Hall, the speed of Queen Anne's demise is shocking, as is Cromwell's pivotal role in it. The facts of her conviction are as slippery as the blood spilled by a beheading, but Cromwell's view, once his mind is made up, is unwavering.

Still, he is filled with foreboding by the die-hard English Catholic establishment with whom he reluctantly allies himself, not least the Seymours who see one of their own married to the King within nine days of Anne's death. The niggle I had in Wolf Hall that Cromwell might be too sympathetically portrayed is eradicated by the number of executions he sanctions, all the while calculating that the sands of his time at the King's right hand are running out.

Whatever my criticisms they are minor, because this is another masterpiece from Mantel. Perhaps the judges of the Women's Prize for Fiction were unwilling to vote for the obvious when they didn't choose this book or perhaps they were ready for a change. Whatever the reason, at the moment I find it hard to believe that Bring up the Bodies could be bettered, apart from perhaps by the final instalment of this trilogy.

Bluebeard at Bristol Old Vic

There's a particular excitement about watching something new and untested, the frisson of being in at the very beginning so you haven't been told what to think. Not only is Bluebeard a new production to Bristol Old Vic, developed as part of their Ferment programme, it also introduces theatre company Gallivant, although scratching their surface reveals a wealth of experience, not least from their writer Hattie Naylor and director Lee Lyford.

Bluebeard takes its inspiration from the French folk tale of that name, a dark and bloody fable of a nobleman who has murdered many wives and his latest spouse, who seeks to escape the same fate. Our protagonist Jim is acted by Paul Mundell, establishing his menace early by watching the audience from the stage before we can settle to watch him. As Jim builds the story of his first murderous relationship with Susan from Burnley in chilling and explicit detail, his manipulative and deviant character is laid bare for all to see. With his twisted smile and calculated delivery, Mundell embodies Jim's sense of ill-suppressed violence, one which apparently never fails to attract women in their droves. Without giving the subsequent story away, suffice to say this is a gruesomely compelling and deeply unsettling performance, in which I frequently found myself holding my breath.

The monologue is powerfully written by Hattie Naylor, so many words yet none of them superfluous. There are satisfying touches of repetition as Jim commands his way, an iron fist in a velvet glove, to the inevitable ending of his various one-sided relationships when the gloves most definitely are off. I particularly liked Jim's impersonation of his new wife's aunt, which brought some welcome albeit short-lived light relief, and felt she could have had a greater role to play before the shockingly satisfying denouement. The use of exuberant northern soul music provides the opportunity for some tormented dancing while, at other times, sound combines effectively with the starkly illuminated set to create a series of searing images not easily erased. Having recently seen Hamlet at the RSC I thought I'd had my fill of fluorescent tubes for a while, but they are used to great effect, particularly in the latter stages of the production.

I came away feeling I would have liked a few more comedic moments, a genuine belly laugh or two, to lighten the tone of our encounter with this evil man. On reflection, though, those moments are there and perhaps just need to be enhanced. If one measure of good theatre is how long it stays with you, then the provocative and intelligent Bluebeard is very good indeed, a disturbing emotional assault, indigestion for the intellect. A highly promising start for Gallivant, catch it while you can at Bristol Old Vic, especially if you like to be made to think about the essential nature of attraction and eroticism, the roles we accept within relationships, the why and how in the creation of a monster. You'll need to steel yourself though, it's not for the faint-hearted and the 16+ warning is definitely there for a reason.


Pictures courtesy of Bristol Old Vic

Complicite's Lionboy

The combination of epic children's adventure trilogy Lionboy and Complicite's extravagantly magical storytelling holds the promise of a sumptuous treat for the senses, so it was with great anticipation that my daughter and I headed for Bristol Old Vic to watch this new production, Complicite's first ever aimed at a family audience.

Lionboy by Zizou Corder (the pen name of Louisa Young and her daughter Isabel) is the tale of Charlie Ashanti, the son of two famous scientists working on a cure for asthma who mysteriously go missing. The story is set in the near future when most of the world's oil has been used up, travel by car is the preserve of the wealthy and planes have given way to boats. Large corporations are immensely powerful and the Corporacy, a pharmaceuticals giant, is the largest and most powerful of them all. Charlie is a normal 11 year old Londoner in all aspects apart from one; he can talk to cats and it's the neighbourhood moggies who set him on his continent-crossing quest to find his parents.

The play opens with the characters introducing themselves and their story, something I found endearing. The actors narrate with great energy and charisma; Adetomiwa Edun is a likeable and resourceful Charlie, transforming himself through effortless physicality into the cats and lions he converses with, while Femi Elufowoju is mesmerising as the lion-trainer Maccumo. Robert Gilbert portrays just the right level of menace as Charlie's pursuer Rafi and great moments of comic support are provided by the rest of the cast. The intriguing set is based around a large hanging disc which tilts to suggest moonscapes or the African sun, as well as transforming into the backcloth for shadow-puppetry or the sewers of the Corporacy headquarters.

There's an awful lot to like about this production; the showmanship of the circus and all its characters is a triumph, as is the flight of Charlie and the lions in a hot air balloon to Africa. The percussive sound is evocative throughout and there's enough technical wizardry to keep all the family happy, not to mention the inventive use of commonplace objects such as aluminium ladders to suggest the towering strength of the Corporacy or wet rubber tubing as slippery eels. The occasional splattering of the front row is amusing for those of us not sitting there (and for the actors too, one suspects). But there's a lot of story to squeeze in and some moments inevitably feel compacted. The portrayal of quite complex arguments as a boxing match in the Corporacy headquarters in the second half works less well and left us confused as to the sort of audience participation we were being asked for. And while Complicite's style is very much one of narration, I occasionally felt there could have been a little less of it and a little more dialogue and direct interaction between the characters.

As with many of Complicite's productions, this show has had a long gestation, being over three years in the devising, so the sense of a rushed ending is not likely to be through lack of consideration but because of the need for simplification. If I'd lived and loved the Lionboy trilogy as a child, I might not be entirely happy with what was left out in this adaptation. As a piece of theatre, however, this was every bit as engaging and inventive as I'd hoped.

PS The programme is lovely too!

We saw Lionboy courtesy of those lovely folk at the Bristol Old Vic, it continues its run at the Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse, Oxford Playhouse, Wales Millenium Centre and Warwick Arts Centre - check Complicite's website for dates.

I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith

Rereading I Capture the Castle means treading very carefully, because I'm treading on my dreams. When I first read this book in my teens, I longed to step into the shoes of its clever heroine, living in the ruins of a castle with a handsome young swain hopelessly in love with me. My heart was beating to the rhythm of the prose, but could my devotion survive the passing of the years?

I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith (she of 101 Dalmatians fame) is set in 1930s rural Suffolk where seventeen-year-old Cassandra Mortmain and her family are living in genteel yet fascinating poverty. Her father is a famous author who once wrote a very good book but has since been unable to pen another, her stepmother is an artist's model who enjoys communing with nature and her sister Rose is beautiful but bored. Then there's live-in hunk Stephen, who is devoted to Cassandra and keeps dropping lines of poetry into her hands.

The family is surviving by selling their furniture, but everything changes as the local manor house Scoatney Hall is inherited by Simon, a dashing young American who takes up residence, along with his brother Neil. Life is definitely about to get more interesting for the Mortmains...

The novel is written in the form of Cassandra's journal and her voice is as clear and engaging as I'd remembered. Half-child half-woman, she is a narrator who instantly takes you into her confidence, appealingly honest, funny and perceptive about herself and those around her. Her life's ambition is to be a writer and she practices by 'capturing' her characters with vivid and unsparing descriptions. As the story unfolds, it appears the family's poverty can only be alleviated by Rose making a good marriage, unless their father can be coaxed into writing again.

This is a wildly romantic tale and I suppose I was never going to recapture the youthful imagination with which I first read it. One or two things did jar; I began to think the Mortmain family's poverty could not be quite as decorative as it appeared; they were usually hungry and cold and there's nothing much less decorative than that. I was cross that the only way out of their poverty seemed to be through a good marriage - this is the 1930s I know, but weren't Rose and Cassandra capable of doing anything more practical? And I questioned that they seemed to exist in isolation of world events - hadn't Mr Mortmain been caught up in the First World War at all? Wasn't there at least the odd wisp of a storm cloud to foretell the advent of the Second?

But then I'm applying too much realism to a story set in the 1930s and written in 1949, in the aftermath of World War II when escapism was just what was needed. A rather well-written, superior form of escapism is just what is provided by I Capture the Castle, a book you don't so much read as live within.I still enjoyed it second time around - not quite as unequivocally as the first, but the fabric of my dreams is very much intact.

Have you read I Capture the Castle? What did you think of it?


(pictures from film courtesy of inkcrush.blogspot.co.uk)

Four Letters of Love by Niall Williams (and a touch of Bridget Jones)

There's no doubt that certain books resonate with particular times of your life. Think about travelling in North America accompanied by beaten up copies of Steinbeck and Kerouac, or devouring I Capture the Castle as a romantic and wistful teenager.

But others are as mismatched as dry fingers on a fret board, with every sentence grating so much you feel a violent impulse to expunge this book from your life. At least, that's how I reacted to reading Bridget Jones's Diary just after I'd had my first baby - there was Bridget spending hours deciding which pants to wear, obsessing over whether she'd gained a pound or two and flirting with that cad Daniel Cleaver, while I was leaking breast milk and trying unsuccessfully to insert cabbage leaves down my bra. Given half a chance, I would've battered singleton Bridget with her diary.

Yet at another time, I would probably have enjoyed the book as much as I did the film a few years later. Wrong book, wrong time. And that's how I felt when reading Niall Williams' Four Letters of Love for our book club recently.

Williams was born in Dublin but now lives in the west of Ireland, and Four Letters of Love, written in 1997, was his first book. It's the story of Nicholas and Isabel who are, so we're told, made for each other, if ever they are able to meet. So far so good, we begin with Nicholas whose father has been told by God that he should give up his civil servant's career to become a painter, while his mother's reaction to this news is to take to her bed; something she does with increasing frequency as the households assets drain away. Nicholas' story is told in the first person, Isabel's meanwhile is told in the third. I had the sneaky suspicion this might be to distinguish their otherwise similar voices.

Isabel goes to school on the mainland of Ireland, but her home is a rain-lashed island off the coast. Returning to Galway after Christmas in her final school year, apparently she doesn't know she's about to fall in love. This doesn't seem unreasonable, problem is, it's not her soul mate Nicholas that she's about to fall for but the much more prosaic Peader, owner of Galway's least successful haberdashery.

There's certainly some beautiful writing but this wasn't really the book for me. Lots of tortured souls mooning around, accepting their fate and enduring the chronic misery of their lives without doing anything much to help themselves. Mixed up in all this is the conundrum of whether Nicholas and Isabel are ever going to get together, as well as those letters, which I eventually stopped caring about.

Four Letters of Love is poetically written in the Irish tradition and there are some lovely, rambling phrases:

the clouds sat down, the light left the day, and the pastoral greenness of all the stone-walled fields surrendered to a grey and desolate emptiness. For miles it was raining. At the edges of the sky you could see the fraying of clouds and the water spilling, like so many downstrokes of a sable brush'.

But some of it made me cross:

Wives create their husbands. They begin with that rough raw material, that blundering, well-meaning and handsome youthfulness they have fallen in love with, and then commence the forty years of unstinting labour it takes to make the man with whom they can live.

This novel has had some great reviews, so very likely it's just me, but I couldn't feel my way into getting swept along by it.

Brunelleschi's Dome by Ross King

I first came across Ross King at the Bath Literature Festival back in February, talking about his latest book Leonardo and the Last Supper. I'd say he's one of that rare species - an author who wears his extensive knowledge lightly and is able to convey it without his audience losing the thread. So I vowed to read more of his books, and, what with a trip planned to Florence this summer (I hope, I hope, I hope!), Brunelleschi's Dome was just what was needed.

This is a factual story of ingenuity and intrigue, of bitter divisions and close collaborations and above all of how one man, born and brought up in the shadow of the building site of Florence's great cathedral Santa Maria del Fiori, overcame enormous obstacles to raise the highest and widest dome in the world.

The foundation stone of Florence's new cathedral had been laid back in 1296, but the original architect, a master mason by the name of Arnolfo di Cambio, died soon after construction began and his model for the design was either lost or demolished. So in 1367 the office of works in charge of the cathedral selected the plans of one Neri di Fioravanti, who believed his ambitious design for an octagonal dome could be supported by the use of a series of stone or wooden chains encircling it as an iron hoop does a barrel. Problem was, his theory was largely untested and many considered it impossible, while others simply had faith that God would at some stage send a man who could provide the solution.

It was against this background that Filippo Brunelleschi, not an architect but a master goldsmith by profession, entered a competition in 1418 to design the dome. Competitions for such projects were common but tended to cement existing rivalries, like the one between Filippo and Lorenzo Ghiberti who had already beaten him in the competition to design the magnificent bronze doors of the baptistery.

The Baptistery and Ghiberti's bronze doors

This time Filippo's plan was audacious and revolutionary, proposing to construct the dome entirely without the use of 'centring' or scaffolding, and it was initially greeted with scepticism and even hostility. But eventually, his design was accepted ahead of his rivals', and by 1420 Filippo was able to begin his work.

The ox-hoist (here drawn by horse)

At every stage of this story, Filippo had to overcome seemingly insurmountable difficulties, which he achieved through combining studies of recently rediscovered Greek and Roman techniques with his own ingenuity. He invented sophisticated winches powered by oxen to haul huge sandstone blocks into place and exacting methodology to ensure the angle of the dome's inner and outer walls were ascending as they should. Not everything went according to plan, though, and alongside his triumphs he suffered significant failures, such as the loss of a whole cargo of marble being transported along the Arno. These were failures which his enemies were waiting to exploit, even when the cupola was being consecrated in 1436.

This is a compact but engaging tale of one man's perseverance and remarkable inventiveness and King tells it well, catching the flavour of the times in his description of ordinary working men's lives as well as the divisions which beset the project. The problems Fillipo had to overcome and his solutions are well illustrated, although with my very limited scientific knowledge I must admit to losing track from time to time. My husband was well impressed though (not to mention a little shocked!) by my explanations of hoop stress and tramelling (building a circular wall), so much so that he's about to embark on the book. I'd certainly recommend reading it before visiting Florence, as besides the astounding achievement of the dome, King's writing breathes vitality into the wider life and development of this fascinating city.

Have you visited Brunelleschi's Dome? If I make it up those 463 steps to the summit this summer, I'll be reflecting on the daily ascent of those early renaissance workmen who ate their lunches and drank their wine up there at 140 feet and of how, despite modern technological advances, the height and span of the cupola of Santa Maria del Fiori has still not been surpassed.

 Brunelleschi's Dome by Ross King, 192 pages, published by Vintage
Picture of ox-hoist courtesy of Newton Excel Bach

Two Gentlemen of Verona - Tobacco Factory and on tour

I've been making good progress with my bucket list lately, but started to worry about being able to see some of Shakespeare's less frequently performed plays. So when I spotted Two Gentlemen of Verona at the Tobacco Factory in Bristol, I leapt at the chance to see it before it sets off on tour. Post-booking, I'll admit to more than a quiver of anxiety though; lesser performed plays are often performed less for a reason.

Two Gentlemen of Verona is believed to be Shakespeare's earliest work for the stage, a comedy often best known for being the only play in which Shakespeare casts a dog. It introduces his oft-rehearsed themes of close friendships and star-crossed lovers, mixing them for good measure with a large dollop of inconstancy.

The play opens with Valentine discussing his imminent departure to Milan with his great friend Proteus - he'd like Proteus to accompany him, but Proteus is in love with Julia and wants to stay in Verona. But his father orders him to travel to Milan after all to complete his education, prompting a tearful farewell and exchanging of rings with his sworn love.

 In Milan, Proteus finds Valentine now in love with Silvia and, despite his recent declaration of undying affection for Julia, he too falls for her. Problem is, Silvia's father, the Duke of Milan, wishes her to marry Thurio and locks her nightly in a tower, from which Valentine intends to free her with a rope ladder. Proteus tells the Duke of this plan and Valentine finds himself banished from the city to the forest beyond. Julia meanwhile has decided to follow her lover to Milan disguised as a boy and is distraught to find Proteus' affections now directed elsewhere.

The story may sound far fetched, but then Shakespeare often asks us to accept what must ever have been unrealistic - think of two sets of twins being separated in a shipwreck and coincidentally reunited years later or statues being miraculously restored to life. Proteus' mind-changing, albeit on an industrial scale, doesn't seem all that outlandish by comparison and it's made all the more believable in this production by the evenly-matched excellence of the Tobacco Factory ensemble, breathing life into characters which could so easily be two-dimensional. Proteus (Piers Wehner) is as likeable as it's possible to be in the circumstances, and his betrayal of friendship and love is portrayed as the rash, misguided foolishness of youth rather than anything more sinister. Valentine (Jack Bannell) is easily deceived by his friend but heroic in his actions and Bannell's comic timing in his scene with the Duke of Milan and the revelation of a hidden rope ladder is immaculate.

Julia (Dorothea Myer-Bennett) and Silvia (Lisa Kay) are played with great energy and spirit and their linking of arms at the end is a feminist triumph. Much of the comedy is provided by the servants Launce (Chris Donnelly) and Speed (Mark Geoffrey) who are spell-binding, making the most of every line and taking the audience along with them.

This was my first visit to the Tobacco Factory, and I felt myself falling in love, too - with this intimate space in the round that could be walked across and chatted upon until the lights went down, when all at once it transformed into the focus of our undivided attention. Andrew Hilton's direction is superb and there was greater clarity in the performance line by line than I've ever felt in a Shakespeare play that I haven't seen or read before. The design by Harriet de Winton, setting this production in the Edwardian era of pale, crisp linen suits is stylish and effortless and the music by John Telfer brings considerable charm and and cohesion to the production. The only uncomfortable aspect of the evening was the seating (and this is about to be upgraded)!

And then there's the dog...the charismatic Crab (Lollio) with his instinctive obedience undermining Launce's richly embroidered tales of Crab's wide-ranging misdeeds.I could hardly believe from the programme that this is Lollio's theatrical debut - he has his own blog but surely needs an agent as well! I found myself envying those in the front row who got to hold his lead and diverting my attention in his direction, no matter what was going on around him.

This is an evening spent in the sure hands of a company completely at ease with a play which stands up to scrutiny in its own right, a play which should certainly be performed more often. Two Gentlemen of Verona is now on tour to Lancaster, Cheltenham, Scarborough, Exeter and Winchester, facing the challenge of adapting to new and different spaces. I hope they remember to bring Lollios's blanket, water bowl and treats, but if they do I can only imagine this production will continue to be a triumph.

Pictures courtesy of Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory