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What’s On This Week: July 20th – July 26th 2009

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Followers of Greenwich.co.uk will have seen Rob’s shots of the Gullivers Travels filming in the Park and Old Royal Naval College a few weeks ago.  However Jack Black et al were only the latest in a long line of actors to have graced the streets of our fair town and the Greenwich Film Festival this weekend celebrates a few of the best movies to have given Greenwich a starring role. 

The highlight will no doubt be the Heritage Centre’s guided tour of film locations on Sunday afternoon, taking you to some of the most famous Greenwich spots immortalised on celluloid.  Children are catered for by the family day on Saturday at the Heritage Centre, with a showing of the Golden Compass (starring the Old Royal Naval College) followed by an arts and crafts afternoon.  The best of the adult pickings looks like the free screening of G:MT Greenwich Mean Time at the Picture House on Sunday at 4pm.  The film follows the eponymous local band’s quest for stardom and in keeping with the rock n roll theme, there’s a beer tasting session from the omnipresent Meantime Brewing Company beforehand. The Picture House is also continuing it’s ‘Out at the Movies’ series with a screening of Breakfast With Scot on Monday evening. 

Moving onto the more still variety of pictures, the Viewfinder Photography Gallery is holding a Sit-in Exhibition on Sunday, where you can bring your own pictures along, choose an object to sit on and hold the picture up for the public to see. Photographic exhibitions are ten a penny but this promises to be genuinely original and interactive, so should be an interesting afternoon for both photographers and spectators alike. 

The Create 09 Festival also has a strong presence in Greenwich this week, with a lunchtime concert by New Zealanders the Waitomo Caves Choir at St Alfege Church on Thursday, a free music workshop for 14-19 year olds at Modern House in Eltham on Thursday and a celebration of the Apollo 11 moon landing at the Royal Observatory all week. Let’s hope the Great Moon Hoax lecture at the Observatory on Tuesday evening disproves the conspiracy theories then, if we’re celebrating.

Did we miss any events? Post details of anything else happening in Greenwich this week in the comments section below this post.

Pub Review: Oliver’s Music Bar

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Oliver’s Music Bar
9 Nevada Street

You get the feeling that anything could happen in Oliver’s – and quite frequently does. This blink-and-you’ll-miss-it underground watering hole opposite Greenwich Theatre is best known amongst locals as a live music venue but it’s also an inviting, familiar bar with a lot of charisma and in my book, definitely worth a visit.

Descending the stairs into the cellar you arrive straight into the bar – you’ve already passed the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it ‘beer garden’ cunningly masquerading as a smoker’s lone picnic bench on the pavement outside. Snazzy this place is not, it’s pretty worn (but clean) and the walls painted a dull red that makes it seem smaller than it is. It’s also decidedly anti open-plan, preferring to remain as separate rooms that all have a distinct cubby feel. In fact it’s much like being in someone’s home – not in the fake quaint way that many pubs do by having frilly armchairs and painted plates, like some overgrown recreation of ‘The Borrowers’ – but more like someone just had a spare cellar that they had no use for, so they stuck a piano in it, got a few bottles of Newcastle Brown in, and called it a music bar.

Olivier the friendly proprietor mans the makeshift bar in keeping with the at-home feel. There’s nothing on tap but a fairly wide selection of bottles nonetheless, all under a somewhat questionable pricing arrangement: our two identical rounds cost different amounts, but then both amounts were reasonable so it was easy enough to laugh off.

There was a comedy night in progress in the main sitting area so we tentatively crept into the back row to check it out, trying to be inconspicuous – we failed, of course and were promptly named and shamed by the comedian who made us move to the front row. But we weren’t alone – over the course of the evening the spectators all became part of the weird comedy family, a no doubt unexpected turn for all concerned, but everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves anyway. In a further twist some mildly annoying heckling looked set to cause a mass riot at one point, but it all got settled very quickly by Olivier and a prudently placed piece of duct tape.

It’s hard to compare Oliver’s to anywhere else in Greenwich because it is completely unique, but therein lies its charm. We went expecting a quiet Monday night drink and we ended up gaining a few comedian friends and a few heckling mortal enemies, which you sense is all par for the course here. My advice is to go along and see where the evening takes you – from what I’ve seen it’s likely to be somewhere good.

What’s On This Week: July 13th – July 19th 2009

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‘Community spirit’ isn’t a term many people associate with London but Greenwich is proving itself to be something of an exception, with our most neighbourly out in force this week.

Blackheath Halls Community Programme, which has over 300 members and includes kids from six schools in Greenwich & Lewisham, is this week staging its community opera, Orpheus and Eurydice, at the Halls.  As well as the local pupils, young people and community musicians, Trinity Laban have lent some of their own talented folk to the project, so it promises both quality and a warm fuzzy feeling. (7.30pm Tue-Fri, 3pm Sat)

If Something Wicked this Way Comes whet your appetite for Shakespeare, then you might wish to pay a visit to The Albany in Deptford, which is staging The Timon of Athens inspired Feeble Minds this week.  This philosophical play about the journey to madness is a collaboration between two theatre companies, HotPots, exclusively for over 60s and inc.Theatre Ensemble, which is made up of artists with learning disabilities.  There’s also a post-show discussion on Thursday evening: all very good for the soul.

As part of the Young London Into Music festival, participants of Greenwich Council’s local residency programme are staging The Missing Link at Greenwich Heritage Centre on Friday, as part of a weeklong specially commissioned audio instillation. Friday’s free show will feature the installation’s headline talent MC Bashy performing live.

Another community favourite, the Greenwich Concert Band, will be lighting up Greenwich Park next Sunday afternoon – traditional Big Band repertoire in a traditional Bandstand setting, so take a blanket, a hamper and some sunscreen (ok, an umbrella) and get yourself down there.

Theatre Review: Something Wicked This Way Comes

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Something Wicked This Way Comes
Act Now! Theatre Company @ Greenwich Playhouse
8-12 July

Tragedy, monologues and cackling: welcome to Something Wicked This Way Comes. This new play, ‘written’ and directed by David Hunt, cuts and pastes about a dozen of Shakespeare’s best/worst villains into one play, examining what really drives them to evil and who’s in control. Macbeth’s three witches hold everything together, the malevolent puppet masters to the villains who tread their different paths to wickedness.

The plot is wafer thin and actually reminded me of those musicals like Mamma Mia!, where someone thought that the pre-existing music (or in this case characters) was so good that hanging them together by a loose story thread would be a recipe for success. Well, David Hunt’s certainly picked the ‘Dancing Queen’ and ‘Voulez Vouz’ equivalents of Shakespeare’s evil creations for Something Wicked – Lady Macbeth, Iago, Goneril & Regan, Edmund, are all there and all just as heinous as Shakespeare intended. The language retains all its staggering beauty and complexity in transition and Hunt weaves his original lines in admirably seamlessly. The actors’ performances are straight from the Royal Shakespeare Company text book – manic, hysterical and tormented – with special mention going to young Jess Leavins (Witch 2, Regan), who plays her evil a little more subtly and is quite the most charismatic presence.

For Shakespeare fans like me it’s an interesting premise but my companion, who isn’t as intimately familiar with the plays, found it a little inaccessible – it switches between plays very quickly and focuses on self analyzing soliloquies rather than the acts of murder, rape and madness themselves. The plot follows a cyclical structure that is allegorically effective in stressing the circle-of-hell theme, but sacrifices momentum in the process. It’s more of a study than a story and at two-and-a-half hours it’s a very long psychology lesson just to teach us that lust, revenge and megalomania are generally the main drivers for acts of evil, if we didn’t know that already.

Perhaps I am a purist but I do wonder whether Something Wicked rather misses Shakespeare’s point in only exploring one end of the morality scale that so fascinated the Bard. Shakespeare’s plays work by having light and shade as equal partners: there are both good and bad characters (and good and bad within characters), funny moments as well as serious and periods of action to counteract the soliloquising. Something Wicked, in its quest for the deepest depths of human despair, does away with many of these counterpoints and consequently the evil loses some of its power. It’s also utterly exhausting watching such an intricate and unrelenting tirade of wickedness and I think I’ve had my lifetime’s quota of cackling. Much like Abba’s songs do for Mamma Mia!, it’s the Bard’s words that rescue this play, with everything else merely secondary and ultimately rather forgettable.

What’s On This Week: July 6th – July 12th 2009

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The heat wave may be over but the joy of jazz is still worth getting out of doors for, with the Greenwich Beer & Jazz Festival at the Old Royal Naval College from Wednesday.  There are three live acts every day with a good mix of renowned jazz and blues experts, such as saxophonist Courteney Pine, with some emerging talent like the Hammond funk band Jezebel Sextet. This energetic troupe will no doubt have you dancing round the lawns in no time, especially if you’ve taken the challenge of sampling the 70 beers on offer seriously.  The ale is as much the star of the show as the music, with a focus on smaller brewing companies -local Meantime is heavily featured – and every variety of ale known to man. 

If you like your al fresco music a little less crowded The Wantage Brass Band are playing a mix of favourites and new arrangements at the bandstand in Greenwich Park on Sunday afternoon. 

Said the witches in Macbeth: “When shall we three meet again?” Well, this Tuesday onwards at Greenwich Playhouse, apparently, in Something Wicked This Way Comes.  I admire anyone who tries to do something new with the ubiquitous Shakespeare and writer/director David Hunt has risen to the challenge by making an entire play out of the bard’s best villains.  Check back to read my take on it later in the week on Greenwich.co.uk.  Along those literary lines there’s also a discussion of The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis at St Alfege’s on Tuesday. 

A little further afield the Plumstead Harmonies are performing Music for a Midsummer Evening at St Mark and St Margaret Church on Saturday in Woolwich.  There’s instrumental music and singing with a programme covering baroque to present day and there’s also some poetry and light refreshments, so it should be a very pleasant affair.

Anything else happening in Greenwich this week? If so, post it below in the comments section…

Pub Review: The Vanbrugh

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The Vanbrugh
91, Colomb Street
SE10 9EZ

If ever there was an evening to go to the Vanbrugh, it’s a July evening in the middle of a Greenwich heat wave. As the weather makes a setting and the setting is what really makes The Vanbrugh, so regardless of some pretty significant shortfalls I enjoyed my time there.

Don’t be fooled by the poncey Flash website (show me a good Flash website and I’ll show you a flying beer barrel), the Vanbrugh has a decidedly laid-back atmosphere. It’s been sectioned off into a few distinct areas: there’s the rather forgettable small and dark bar area, outdone in size and style by both the large traditional garden and the permanent marquee that leads to it. Yep, marquee, and it’s bizarrely furnished with huge red Chesterfield sofas and matching lighting. It works though, as you feel more part of the garden than the pub, yet it’s cosy at the same time.

I am not without my gripes about The Vanbrugh, though. When I say it’s laid-back, I mean laid-back. The barmen look and act as though someone’s just shaken them out of a coma – not unfriendly, but somehow not all there. No real effort’s gone into the drinks or food selections either, which are indistinguishable from every other pub in the area. I rarely eat in pubs but I chanced it here and it didn’t stack up. It wasn’t dreadful, but the nachos were so stingily dressed that I may as well have turned up with my own bag of cheese Doritos, and the broccoli & cheese bake was strangely watery, with stodgy chips not tasting of much. Kudos for managing to go beyond soggy lettuce and onion in the side salad, but really if you have to rely on your side salad for a good review, it’s not a great sign.

Back to the plus side, The Vanbrugh is one of the busiest places I’d been to. Not wonderfully located next to the train tracks near Maze Hill station, one can only assume folks seek it out and it’s been recommended to me on many occasions, both of which speak volumes. Food and zombie barmen aside, it is certainly worth a visit for a nice place to just have a drink and be still for a while. Just make sure you don’t sink too far into those sofas, you might slip into a coma and be forced to join the staff there on a permanent basis…

What’s On This Week: June 29th – July 5th 2009

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To mark this week’s monumental event in Greenwich – a whole week of good weather – I wanted to go in search of a soundtrack to the sunshine and with a raft of musical events happening in and around the town this week, there’s hopefully something to please everyone: get your dancing (or toe-tapping) shoes on.

If you’ve been watching Glastonbury on BBC Three with a tinge of jealousy then most notable is the brilliantly named ‘Nestival’ at the Bird’s Nest in Deptford next Friday and Saturday. Here’s your chance to dance away in the sunshine with a BBQ burger and a beer and in fact, it’s better than Glasto on two counts. 1: you don’t have to sleep in a tent or wear wellies and 2: it’s all absolutely free.  Friday night is the club night featuring what my Mum calls ‘doof doof’ music, so it’s best to venture down on Saturday if you’re looking for something more relaxed as that’s when the live bands are on.  (Fri 8pm-2am & Sat 4pm-2am, Free)

If that all sounds a bit loud and energetic for you, you might prefer to head to Mycenae House in Blackheath this evening for some laid-back Jazz with trumpeter Leigh Henson.  A regular on the Jazznights scene, Leigh’s vibrant style should see off the Monday blues nicely and if you’re a player yourself it’s worth taking your instrument along as you may get to join in for a jam session. (7.30pm; £5/4)  The Birds Nest is also rounding off the Nestival activities with some Jazz and Bossa Nova from Antonion Marzinotto on Sunday evening (Free).

Along the more classical lines the Old Royal Naval College continues its homage to Handel in his 250th anniversary year by teaming its choir up with the Greenwich Baroque Orchestra for a celebratory concert on Wednesday, in the college chapel. The spectacular setting of the chapel, worth a visit in its own right, fits this style of music perfectly and these two very proficient groups will no doubt put on a great show. (7.30pm, £15). For those of you with budding young musicians Trinity are also holding a Junior Composition Workshop on Saturday and admission is free for spectators.

Is there anything else happening in Greenwich this week? Use the comments box below to share any info.

What’s On This Week: June 22nd – June 28th 2009

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Now that summer’s in full swing there’s plenty happening for kids young and old this week in and around the town.

The main attraction for most will be the Greenwich & Docklands International Festival, in which various performers will adopt the park and river as their stages in short modern dance and musical pieces using spectacular scenery and lighting.  There are events on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, culminating in Pi Leau at the Royal Arsenal in Woolwich on Saturday evening.  Think Cirque de Soleil meets Greenpeace – harnesses, raised platforms and acrobatics, with a serious message about Climate Change thrown in.  The whole event is free, but its best to arrive early for some of the peak time shows as there is limited seating. (Jun 25-28, free)

After the nationwide success of the Hogwarts spoof Potted Potter, the connoisseurs of all things silly (aka Dan & Jeff) are back with the aptly named Potted Pirates at Greenwich Theatre on Saturday.  Expect plenty of ‘ooh-arrs’, ‘me hearties’ and slightly inappropriate jokes about parrots that your kids will probably love, and Johnny Depp would probably hate. (Jun 27, 3pm & 7pm, £10/£7.50)

If you like your humour a little more high-brow, you might prefer to check out the new comedy night at the Blackheath Halls on Saturday instead.  I always find comedy nights can be a little hit and miss but these three are apparently ‘top’ and come from the successful Barnstormers Comedy outfit, so it’s definitely worth a look. (Jun 27, 8pm, £12 on the door)

Talking of successful comedians, the legend that is Michael Palin will be gracing the IndigO2 this Friday to regale Greenwich folk with tales of Monty Python and his extensive travels.  If you’re feeling flush you can get tickets in the VIP section for the bargain price of £140  – what credit crunch? – but there are still a few normal tickets available, a snip at £38.  I hope there’s free wine! (Jun 26, 7pm).

Other noteworthy events include The Big Smoke, a showing of Blitz-themed silent films at the Picturehouse on Tuesday and Wednesday, and if English Choral music is your thing you might like to check out “Heavenly Music and all that Jazz” at St Alfege on Saturday evening.  There’s also a free Wildlife Drop-in at Greenwich Park on Wednesday, and a chance to dress your kid up like Henry VIII at Tudor Day at the Royal Artillery Museum –  don’t worry, there will apparently be plenty of adult costumes too, in case you were worried about missing out.

Is there anything else happening in Greenwich this week? Use the comments box below to share any info.

Pub Review: Greenwich Park Bar & Kitchen

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The Greenwich Park Bar & Kitchen
1 King William Walk SE10 9JY

I wasn’t expecting a lot from this place. I was expecting a bland, chain-style tourist trap. Humble pie time I’m afraid: someone’s clearly put a lot of thought into the (new) new look Bar & Kitchen and has carved out a well-defined and satisfying niche.

The Bar & Kitchen wouldn’t be too out of place with an ‘EC’ postcode and a few Friday night suits, which is actually a refreshing change amongst the town’s raft of ‘local’ pubs with a posh edge (read Gastropubs). The décor is quite dark but stylish: some well-spaced wicker sofas and fairy lights at one end, and a formal dining area at the other.

Where the Union does Ales, the Bar & Kitchen does cocktails, with a list more extensive than the food menu. There’s also happy hour from Monday to Friday between 5pm and 7pm, where the cocktails are £3.95 rather than the usual £6 or £7 (cue happy suits and stilettos). The menu focuses on a few select dishes that presumably change regularly and I was intrigued to see Macaroni cheese on there; very random in June but it beats veggie lasagne any day.

The barman was friendly and took an interest in my unusual choice of vodka and apple juice with lime juice. Actually, what happened was he misheard me when I asked for cranberry juice but he made such an effort with the banter about me inventing a new cocktail, that I didn’t have the heart to tell him he’d made a mistake (plus I was secretly hoping “the Rosie” would make it onto the cocktail menu!). Other than that there was a wide selection of lagers and a few wines to choose from.

I don’t imagine anyone’s socks will be knocked off by a visit to the Bar & Kitchen, but it is a pretty little place with a clear agenda and that makes it a success as far as I’m concerned. Amidst a sea of local, country-ish pubs with real ale and pies, you need a few fairy lights and cocktails every so often, so if mojitos are your thing I’d say give this place a(nother) go.

Theatre Review: The Maids

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The Maids at Greenwich Playhouse
“The Maids” at Greenwich Playhouse

Jean Genet’s troubling story of two servant sisters with murderous intentions towards their employer is re-designed for the 21st Century in The Maids by fresh-from-drama-school theatre company Nomads of Bazaar.

The action centres on sisters Solange and Claire, maids to the flamboyant Madame, who express their frustration and resentment at their situation by acting out their fantasies about killing their boss. Loosely on France’s famous Papin sisters, who murdered their mistress and her daughter in 1933, The Maids is a 90 minute real-time glimpse into the true misery of inevitable and interminable servitude.

The dialogue is quick, angry and often hysterical, and the play-within-a-play setting certainly keeps you on your toes as it blurs the borders between fantasy, theatre and reality. It’s all well put-together, with the sisters’ clever use of a camcorder to film their role-plays giving The Maids a dimension that I’m sure Genet never intended, but that really adds pace and structure.

Camcorder aside the 21st century setting is perhaps a little awkward, as presumably there aren’t many maids left in Paris in 2009 and I think the stilettos and cordless phones somewhat lessen the shock intended. Don’t get me wrong, semi-incestuous homicidal sisters will still evoke considerable discomfort no matter what their footwear, it’s just that the modern styling makes the premise a little shaky.

The two leads have a difficult job but as Simon Cowell would say, they give it 110%, particularly Emilja Ellen as the dominant sister, whose monologues are a one-woman emotional rollercoaster. Irena Grgona’s hysterical Claire could have used a little more subtlety, but she looks fantastic as the submissive (if equally unstable) younger sibling. But it’s Claire Spence’s preposterous yet credible performance as Madame that steals the show as a fantastic caricature of the rich and pointless. Granted her 15-minute, 1-dimensional role is perhaps a little easier than the others’, but full marks for execution and for managing to glean at least two humorous moments from a very dark script.

The colourful but troubled life of Jean Genet weeps out of every word of this play, and it’s not the thing to go and see if your established theatre comfort zone is a few chuckles and a happy ending. The Maids is all about feeling a uncomfortable, shocked and sad, so in that respect I’m sure Genet, whose raison d’etre was to ‘stick it to the man’ long before stilettos came along, would be very pleased with the Nomads of Bazaar’s efforts.

The Maids by Jean Genet
Greenwich Playhouse until 5 July Tues-Sat 8pm, Sun 4pm
Ticket Price: £12 (£10 conc.)