I am midway on my journey to
London from Newcastle on the 10.26 Virgin train Friday 14th October
2016 and it has not been an auspicious start. I had planned today well getting
everything read yesterday with washing and drying closes and having everything
ready to pack in the case and shoulder pack and the alarm set of 7. However,
although to be bed at 11.30pm I could not get off and rose twice to go to the
toilet instead of my now usual once. I felt OK waking with the alarm and after
getting myself ready, dressing and packing I brought the car to the back for
loading before any of the workmen arrived with vehicles for the major work
going on in an adjacent property and one immediately across the back lane
It was not raining, no wind
with a reasonable temperature, I left the heating and lights off and there is
much sign of autumn along the route with brown to orange leave but not great
reds which rarely occur or at least I have opportunity to observe. Traffic was
having but I had a good run from reaching the Tyne Bridge and there was a
parking place close to the entrance of the carpark at the station and no queue
in purchasing the weekend ticket for £23 making the cost of travel £100. The
assistant confirmed that the weekly parking ticket is only available to those holding
season tickets so in December for my week in London if I travel by train I will
take a taxi.
The cost of the travel is
offset by food and drink available travelling first class and in the lounges.
This was the first of two disappointments, the first is that the former 10.30
train, now 10.26 stars at Edinburgh and.
Virgin staff member in the First class lounge explained that the
previous five starts from the city are now to two at 12.30 and 16.30. However,
all was well because of having been allocated a seat in the quiet coach there
were two single facing seats free at the centre of the coach enabling my case
to fit in the space behind a four seat table and also the shoulder pack
alongside. However, there were no menus and the food was pathetic in that there
was no breakfast option, however this as made up for in other ways as follows.
At the station a coffee and a large fruit juice and to packets of biscuits,
still water and an important edition of the Times Newspaper £4.50 value and on
the train two Bells whiskies with ginger and ice, a large glass of red, an odd
hot dish a sort of veg curry and a sort of couscous, two packets of crisps, one
piece of cake and two coffees which at
£16 is conservative value at £20.50 overall and given that Wi-Fi id now free
through the train with free films to views precious would have brought the
value to the cost of the first class single fare. Just seen some really deep
reds as we approach Huntingdon and more on the Thames link train from St
Pancras to East Croydon There was a quick connection and one of the new 12
carriage trains almost empty. The fare £4.05 was offset by the need to visit
the first class Lounge at Kings Cross for the loo where I came across Brendan
Foster catching a train North. The second time in thirty years previously on a
flight from Newcastle to Heathrow me in standard and he at the front in the
days when he was an Olympic runner and Director of Culture and Leisure at
Gateshead Council. I enjoyed another coffee, bring with me water, biscuits,
banana and crisps and the free for everyone Evening Standard.
The lift to the street at East
Croydon station was not working but a young man stepped as I was tackling the
second and third flights downward. I prefer the Premier Inn superior
accommodation and ambience. This reminds time to turn the heating on to 24
degrees I think should be fine. I have a disability room which means they have
removed the sofa/bed but the double bed is huge with appropriate linen whereas
the visit to the Travel Lodge there were two single beds together and separate
linen which was pointless but good training if I need to go into hospital but
even then the linen is more practical.
Next revised plans for the
next two days followed some interesting news re what is now the Jay statutory
Inquiry. Found out at the desk that the
adjacent multi storey car park is only being refurbished, was planned for
December but likely to take longer so that in the interim there is half price
at the Bridges.
It 2pm on Saturday. I have
been to central London and back om an unsuccessful attempt to sort out my
Cineworld subscription for use in London and more that in a moment. Yesterday
evening I successful completed a review of King Lear, although made the mistake
of putting the Relay visit as Thursday when it was Wednesday and correct this
morning and head one version as Patrick Troughton when it was his son David. I
also cannot reference Twitter on here but OK on the travel laptop which I did
this morning before setting up. Change the appearance of the Artman general
Blog which enable uploading again but oddly the Theatre site was now OK in the
black background edition. Will start the Thursday evening lecture when I finish
this and have tried a nap. I manage to get to sleep open mouth using the breathing
machine getting up at least once possibly twice and going through to 7. Went for Wetherspoons breakfast at 10ish
which I enjoyed with two coffees £4.35 and decided not to go up to London as
planned for the Cineworld Leicester Square as there was a slight drizzle.
However, on return the room was not done and then mini panic as I went out of
the room forgetting to bring with me the pass key card and domestic who could
not speak English did not help. So went up to London after finding bank closed
re Virgin cheque taking with me the Season ticket which I have started to read
and where with amendments to the story line the stage play appears to
faithfully reproduced so far. Purchased a travel card for £8 which is cheaper
than the two singles to a London station at £4.05 each with the rail card. Must
check what the Oyster card charge is for the single journey. Purchased a pack
of tissues for £1 as went through what I brought with almost continuously
having to blow my nose.
Victoria station was jam packed as was the
entrance to the Victoria line. I made my way to end of the platform which meant
on departing the train at Green Park I was at the exit to the Piccadilly line
which involves a good walk. Alighting at Leicester Square I went I search of
the location of the Cineworld. There are two Cineworld’s within short distance,
a large one within the Trocedero which closed when the building became a hotel
with a different entrance, nearly 600 rooms allegedly budget at £100 to £150 a
night! There is a cinema, a new chain called picture House again with an
entrance at the junction with Great Windmill Street and Shaftestbury which for
a time accepted Cineworld Cards. There is a small Cineworld with three screens
in the Haymarket, here are two Vue’s and two Odeon’s and the Famous Empire.
There was another cinema demolished on a site where there is going to be a new
Edwardian Hotel. Fortunately, I turned around and looked back and saw the sign
the Empire has become Cineworld just so they are yet to sort out the Unlimited
card and I was given a customer service number to change the subscription so
out of curiosity I went the one in the Haymarket and they explained that unless
I am going to visit more than once a more it is possible to pay an additional
fee of £2 but one cannot do this on line one must go to the Box office. This
was said to be the position for the Imax where an additional premium has also
to be paid but this can be done on line outside of London.
I returned to East Croydon and
my room debating whether I should give the play at National Theatre a miss,
changed mind and went back up to London taking the non-stop train to London
Bridge where platforms at one end have been update as well as the main entrance
to the station but still there are parts where work is continuing through to
2018. It was two stops back to Waterloo where it commenced to rain harder than
previously. Because I was attempting to gain a credit within 24 hours and there
were seats to be sold it was unlikely mine would be resold and I attempted to
stay for the two and half hours but after half an hour I gave up a returned to
Victoria on the 507 bus and a train to Southampton via East Croydon.
I was early and took an aisle
seat in the second carriage. A group of young men arrived and filed four seats
at a table next row. At least one moved further along the train. One who
appeared to be the leader of the group made a phone call talking loudly so
whole carriage could heard what he saying. He was arranging a lift for the
group at Cosham some 90 mins away and which I checked is on the outskirts of
Portsmouth and said he would give another score if the person took them to
where they wanted to go. A member of the group appeared to asking when they
have some ffing drugs and appeared placated with the beer that had been brought
on board. The batter continued and looks of the faces of those in adjacent sets
revealed the anxiety about what was to come. Fortunately, our rescue came from
an unexpected source.
One of the rest of the group
returned to advise that there were seats available in the first four carriages
of the train. This suggested the real group leader. In the mean time we learned
that the reason for one person being included in the outing is that they
brought in an average of £7000 a month in the business, by they left before we
could gain some insight into the business in question. The seats were quickly
occupied by three young women with the fourth by a male a little later before
train the departed. It is not clear what he said which provoked outbursts of
hysterical laughter. It was something to do which his recent visit to LA and
the discussion also appeared to relate
to the fashion industry but the cause of hysteric remains a puzzle. As
anticipated the lift was repaired and I called in at the local co-op for a meal
deal and some more strong mints and tissues
On returning to my room and a
change of clothing and time to view the last part of Strictly Come Dancing with
some very good performances with one meriting 39 from 40 points, and the first
hour of the X Factor before one off Danish Film Department Q. The Keeper of Lost Causes based on a book and which
been followed by two other films although these are not to be shown. Watching
the Saturday evening series in a language other than English has become an important regular event in my life with
Inspector Montalbano my favourite because of the intertwining of the love of
Mediterranean food with his detective skill and the Young Montalbano series has
also been exceptional, similarly to the
recreation of Moorse following the death of leading and irreplaceable action
John Thaw, followed by the series from the books of Henning Mankell, the
Detective Wallander, where Kenneth Branagh has also made brilliant English
versions of the Detective and the Danish political series Borgen on Coalition
government which ranks alongside the West Wing for the White House reality and
the Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister series here in the UK. Romanzo Criminale
and Corleone focussed on the Mafia and separate Roman criminal gangsterism with
the Tunnel also being notable and meriting some writing to remind me of their
experience
On Saturday evening 15th
October 2016 hoping to be engaged and taking away the disappointment of not
being able to go and see a play at the National Theatre where I had bought an
expensive ticket and the theatre was unable to give me a credit towards a
future production. I watched Department Q in anticipation but conclude that
there was something nasty about this work, perhaps because it came too close to
the reality of the terror of what being imprisoned is like. Over the past year
there has been a series of films about the taking of young women and keeping
them for the sexual pleasure of one man with currently on BBC TV Missing and
13.
The one off of three films
begins with interest when one of a team of three detectives is murdered, a
second finds himself paralysed, the third who was also shot but survives to
physically recover is relegated to permanently close the accumulation of cold
cases and is appointed an enthusiastically Muslim with a taste for loud
contemporary music. The sense of guilt and failure of the one who survives and
the despair and frustration of second is immediately real, with the urge to get
back to work understandable and the anger and frustration at being given a desk
job and having to work with someone new and cannot possibly understand how one
is feeling
The assistant selects the first
batch of cases with a parade of photographs and which includes one, Carl, the
reluctant boss knows something about the case of a young woman politician who
is believed to have committed suicide disappearing from a ferry leaving her
brother with what first appears to be severe learning difficulties from head
injuries in a car accident which killed their parents.
The unravelling of what
actually happened is thorough and clever and early on we learn that the young
woman was in fact kidnapped and is being kept in a decompression chamber which
limits the confined area and also enables the perpetrator to changing levels of
physical unpleasantness. There is a credible method for of food and water
dealing with sanitation and the provision of food and water but it stretches
credulity that the woman is able to survive this limited environment for year
upon year. The juxtaposition of being a witness to the horror and the brutality
the young women experience and the difficulties the detectives face adds to the
tension which the film creates and where it is clear that the motive for the
imprisonment is not sexual but with the perpetrator insisting on having
voyeuristic pleasures in her increasing discomfort making it plain he is
seeking a prolonged painful death as the outcome but not why.
We learn that the perpetrator as
boy was in a car travelling in the same direction as his prisoner who exchange looks
as one of the cars overtakes the other, and he girl for some reason places her
hand of the face of the person in front thus it is suggested causing the accident
which kills parents, his sister and leads to physical and emotional condition
of the girl’s brother who she now cares for. The boy is placed in a children’s
home and portrayed as disruptive and violent, befriending another, who as an
adult appears to have been a conference with the girl who has become a
politician attends. At least this is the impression first gained as the
detectives identify the friend as the likely suspect as he is identified as
being on the ferry from which the woman disappeared, believed committed to
suicide.
That the detectives commenced
to find out what happened by going out of the basement into the field was never
intended and opposed, particularly by the detective originally in charge of the
investigation into the death. When it is established that the perpetrator has
committed suicide over the side of a small boat, a fishing enthusiast, on a
lake, the two are ordered to close the case and return to the others which the
disobey and are suspended. Fortunately, they quickly discover that the dead man
is not the perpetrator. Because they learn that the brother is more traumatised
than physically damaged, the assistant who is a practicing Muslim, to provide
the obligatory representative diversity now required has the temperament to sit
with the young man until he is able to obtain responses to a collection of
photographs taken at the political event and which include photos of the
perpetrator. The breakthrough occurs when a witness does not identify the
perpetrator as the man at the conference which the brother has identified from the
photographs taken at the political event. It is at this point we understand
that the perpetrator has killed his friend in order to switch identities to get
to the conference after seeing a TV report of the girl as a budding politician.
It is at this point we are
asked to accept another coincidence which challenges rationality, although
nothing like the challenges posed by the film Inferno which I was to see the Sunday lunchtime. The perpetrator
now lives in an isolated ramshackle farm assortment of buildings with his
disabled mother who survived the crash but was unable to care for him as a
child and where his father had work involving diving and a decompression
chamber within the home. The detectives arrive do not accept the story that he
is away from the mother and leave when Carl realises that the pile of petrol
cans means that there is a generator which has been petrol power in order that
the increase in energy use cannot be recorded but why would the authorities
take an interest anyway for which there could be a number of legitimate
reasons.
They return meet up with the
perpetrator who at first denies and then puts up a desperate fight to complete
the murder of his victim, wounding the assistant with a gunshot and almost
killing Carl with a ligature. It is the assistant using extreme violence who
stops and kills the assailant. The woman
survives maintained in a pressure container in an attempt to undo the
adjustments to her body caused by the years of captivity in which despite the
limitations of her confinement she has concentrated on remaining physically fit
and sane. The two detectives are rewarded with medals and Carl told he can
re-join his former team. He declines wanting to continue Department Q with the
assistant and an assistant to administrative and secretarial help and no doubt
to provide the female interest. For whatever unknown reason this did not become
the ongoing TV series similar to Cold Case here in the UK, but there have been
two other ones off films in successive years.
I can only assume this is because of the gratuitous violence used and
the protracted voyeuristic scene making it more a film for the cinema than the
TV.
Despite the head cold which
continued to stream I had some good sleep and was eager for a traditional
breakfast again at the George Wetherspoons where I arrived around 10 am and was
able to secure a bench seat to one side paying some attention to the young
couple with what appeared to be three girls under the age of five or six. I
then made my way passed the new Box Park
food and drink project at the corner of Dingwall Road where the former Theatre
used to be and was said to being replaced and the area approaching the large
area approach the station which appears
to consists of two levels of restaurants
and wine bars with a large vaulted
transparent ceiling space
accommodating seats to eat and
drink as well as be entertained and with a scheduled opening at the end of the
month with two days of local south land bands but where there was every
evidence of several weeks if not months of work still to be undertaken. I look
forward to taking a good look when I next visit.
I took the first available
train to Victoria which meant crossing over platforms and entering the train as
it was almost ready to depart with an additional stop at Selhurst before
Clapham Junction, then taking District line train to Westminster for the Jubilee
line and to Canary Wharf where I hoped I would remember how to get to the West
India Dock Cineworld. I had look up on the Mini London AZ. Unfortunately, the
route did not come back and I had to ask the way until the otherwise finding excellent
street signings and the last part became familiar.
I had first got to know the
Cineworld at the former West India Docks when my eldest daughter lived in Stratford
and from where the Docklands Light Railway goes direct with the alternative Jubilee
line goes to Canary Wharf and central London in the opposite direction and the walk
from there. The car park adjacent to the new build multiplex which is also part
of a large fitness centre was also used and where the new purpose modern lots
of glass building runs parallel to the former dock storage buildings with
restaurants on the ground floor and loft apartments on the upper.
Canary Wharf the subject of
IRA terrorist major bombing because the former Thames river dockland had become
London’s second financial centre with a number of tower office blocks including
the tallest in the UK before the building of the Shard and proving work for
over 100000 people who mostly commute, hence being a transport hub and
providing a huge area of basement level retail shopping with a combined area of
one and half million square metres. The bombing took place in 1996 just before
Tony Blair became Prime Minister, did £150 million of damage and where although
a 90-minute warning was given two people died and a number were injured, some
permanently.
Canary Wharf is located on the
Isle of Dogs, a peninsular connected to the land at the top with a busy
motorway separating West India docklands with the Millwall inner and outer
docks in the south and the Thames Limehouse, Greenwich Reach and Blackwell
Reach parts of the Thames surrounding. There are no bridges with the Blackwall
Tunnel separating South London at North Greenwich from East London to one side
and the Rotherhithe Tunnel and Tower Bridge to the other. In terms of security
it is a good location and where the area is now constantly monitored and
patrolled 24/7. Canary Wharf Jubilee station is huge and cavernous and with
direct entry into the basement level shipping precincts. Not remembering This I
exited from the station into the large plaza and attempted to make way to the connecting
bridge which connects the Canary Wharf South Dock over the Middle Dock to still
name West India Northern dock and where ocean going ships can still be moored
as happened during the 2012 Olympic
games in particular and also visiting naval vessels. Having crossed the Bridge
and making my way passed the Brown’s Restaurant where I have sat out once for
Sunday lunch, registered and received a constant flow of emails and offers ever
since. Before crossing the bridge there is a pub in the corner of an office
block which provides less expensive food and large screenings of Premiership
Football.
The Cineworld has 11 screens
with entrances on the second and fourth floors and within area of comfortable
seating at ground level and additional seating at other levels where there are
other concessions. I was going first to see the film Inferno at 12.40 arriving
at 12.35 and then at 18.30 for the 25 Anniversary film of a live production of
Miss Saigon which was to end with encores by the original cast.
It is just as well I had not
heard Dr Mark Kermode’s reaction to The Inferno before deciding that I could
combine a 2D version of the film with the Miss Saigon anniversary after the afternoon
showings were cancelled at Wandsworth and where I originally booked and was not
being relayed at all to the Cineworld within the 02 arena at the Millennium
Dome. I was able to book an aisle seat
which was not possible at Wandsworth which used a smaller theatre.
I have noted that despite the
advertising of some films in 3D there has been an overall reduction in those
available and where in this the film was also available in Imax. The main enjoyment from this films comes from
its locations in Florence, Italy and Istanbul, particularly the last scene on the
Basilica Cistern. However, the story is pants from start to finish although Tom
Hanks does his best. The film is based on the 2013 Dan Brown novel who wrote
the successful book which led to the De Vinci Code film which I found
interesting, entertaining and plausible.
I make no apology for the plot spoilers as national showings of the film
are at their end.
I will also avoid the irritating
mixture of present action and flashbacks. The film is about a billionaire
geneticist with his own international security service who is concerned that
the world will not be able to feed itself because of the exponential growth in
population and with a reduction in major world wars and major losses of
population because of pandemics, starvation, unclear water and other natural disasters
which has been a feature of the past couple of hundred years the population
will quickly become unmanageable. His
solution is to create a plague which will decimate at last half the population
through an airborne virus and which will leave hundreds of thousand badly disfigured
and disabled and in fact a Dante Inferno hell on earth.
The first point to be made is that
if such a virus can be created and this is possible despite the world ban, and
it comes into the hands of someone with the worldwide financial power and doing
anything for a price security team, Spectre and Smersh immediately come to mind
as originators of the possibility, they are unlikely to be found out in time
and caught. However, it is likely that various intelligence services are on the
lookout but also have knowledge of the whereabouts of the communication HQs
from which the various independent security and intelligence organisations
operate and which enable democracies with laws prevent assassination, torture
and other lawless activities to place contracts to undertake off the books
projects.
In the instance of this film
the body which gets wind of the plot and set out to prevent activation of the
virus is the World Health organisation with its team led by a former love
relationship of Tom Hanks, a Harvard professor with the ability to decipher
codes and an in depth knowledge of the works of Dante. He wakes up in a hospital in Florence with a
vague memory of having a syringe in his neck area which has left a rash and
removed his immediate memory of who he is and, why he is in Florence. He is
told and believes by the English speaking attractive doctor, aptly named Sienna
who knows who he is from having attended one of his lectures as a girl that he
is suffering from a bullet wound which narrowly affects his scalp and therefore
raises the issue of how come such a limited injury has the effect it is claimed
to have. Moreover when it is agreed to contact the US embassy for help a hired
female assassin arrives dressed as a
local police motors cyclist who starts shooting people and
attempts to get through the various doors which are shut as Sienna opts
to try and get Hanks out of the hospital to the safety of her apartment and
where in the hospital and in the
apartment Hanks starts to have hallucinations of the end of world according to the terror the virus is destined to unleash and it is
only towards the end of the film that it
is disclosed that Sienna is in fact the partner of the billionaire who has
committed suicide rather than reveal how the virus is to be activated and when
after he has sent the world an ultimatum for change in a video. To add to the
plot someone purports to also be a member of the WHO organisation has knowledge
and wants to get hold of the virus to sell on the international market.
Because of the possibility of
being stopped the billionaire has provided
a second option in the form of an elaborate series of clues provided in
the death mask and paintings of Dante and his view of Hell which has been
depicted in Sandro’s Botticelli’s Map of Hell and which is contained in what appears to be a
secured vial, first thought to be the virus container but is in fact a kind of pen projector
(Faraday) which reveals a changed version of the map and only Hanks appears
able to interpret with the practical assistance of Sienna.
The search leads them from
Florence to Venice where Hanks in wanted by the police locally because he and
the Museum Director are seen stealing the death mask Tom and Sienna work out
has been taken back to Florence, is retrieved and on the base of it is a
further clue which leads them to Istanbul.
We also learn that after the death of the
billionaire the head of his intelligence operation attempts to follow previous
instructions and ensure that Hanks get the information and with the help the
staged female assassin using blanks is part of the plot get Hanks to help
Sienna doctor ensure release of the virus. However, as the action develops the
orders are to kill Sienna and capture Hanks. The doctor kills the assassin
through making her fall through the priceless decorated ceiling of the Museum
as the two attempt to escape crossing the rafters. They also manage to kill the
arms dealers when in Venice and at this point the double dealing of Sienna is
revealed. Hanks is reunited with his
former love at the WHO and they are also assisted by the former head of the
Billionaires private security service.
This takes them to Istanbul
and the Cistern where a gala evening party is being held with orchestral music
among the columns and red floodlit waters which is very specular and
beautiful. The virus is in already in a
container in the waters which is housed by the authorities in a secured way
before Sienna can set off explosion to cause the its release and dies along
with some of her local pre-arranged helpers.
Hanks and the head of the WHO rue their passed missed opportunity and
that the present requirements of their work means they are kept apart, but are
they? The world is saved to continue on its path of self-destruction as before
but the audience leave the theatre entertained by the spectacle.
However, those with knowledge
of the book, appreciate a very different outcome. The virus has already been
released into the water with Sienna attempting to stop and destroy fearing that
the authorities would retain and that it would fall into the hands of those
seeking to convert into weapons. The impact is that about a third of population
will become sterile thus having a positive effect on future population. Sienna
does not die and is given amnesty because she is a doctor and knows of the work
is given a job with the WHO. She and the female head of WHO work together but
decide not attempt to reverse the sterilization accept that the billionaire had
a point. A message which understandably
Hollywood and the USA government would not want to have shown and where I
suggest some of the more recent plague outbreaks may not be as natural as might
be supposed. I also suspect on terms of
rational thinking that other ways to control human behaviour have been decided,
including the use of addictive substances as well as digital communications.
At the Cineworld I noted a 20% concessions at a Wetherspoons with
instructions to turn right on leaving the cinema complex and going past the
fitness centre at the end of which there was the entrance to the car park and
across the roadway an older closed building. I decided to cross over the road
to the back of the wharf warehouse building and had to take great care because
of a lot of surface water after a downpour and where it was still raining l
used the hood on the coat rather than attempt to open the small umbrella I keep in its
left side pocket. The Wetherspoons occupies what in in fact a separate restored
Category 1 building which especially from the rear appears a fully integrated
part of the former warehouses of the
19th century
engineer-architects, George Gillks and John Rennie. The building has been the
offices of the West India Docks Building and also housed the Docklands Development
Corporation when the development was being created. The Ledger has a fabulous
inside with the main bar a high clear ceiling reminding of a pub in the center of
Nottingham owned by a rival chain which has been closing some of its
establishments. I sat in the raised area at the back overlooking the rest of this
area. There are three large areas to the side of the dividing corridor to the
front portico seating nearly 700 inside and couple of hundred outside which is
a feature of all the restaurants and bars which make the ground level of the
warehouse.
I still had a ticklish dry
cough and although it was after four did not feel immediately like a full meal
so treated myself to a cold pint of Fosters, enjoying noting the diners around
and continued to read The Season Ticket by Jonathan Tulloch studying the written
Geordie. I still needed lots of tissues but congratulated myself for having
commenced this venture. Around five I
felt hungry enough and ordered a basic beef burger, chips and with a diet Pepsi
for £5.50 less the 20% discount. Fortunately,
a little while later I noted a staff member taking back to the kitchen what looked
like my dish and I remembered I had said the table number for breakfast 70 and
not the present table 24 or was it 26? I found a staff member who quickly
brought me the meal, I already had the drink, and discovered that I had ordered
the chicken burger or a mistake had been made. The chicken was dry and
tasteless so I wished it had been the beef I had order a curry which I had
fancied. There was a real ale festival underway and also at the George in
Croydon and I knew that I would return even though the Wandsworth Cinema is
closer to hand and I plan to take out the London subscription extra to attend
the Imax at the Empire in Leicester Square, when the e ticketing is
available. The Museum of London Dockland
is nearby together with workshops and the area remains a very interesting part
of London which the casual tourist does not tend to explore.
Although early I made my way to
outside theatre 5 at the Cineworld and proved identical to theatre ten at lunch
time. I sit on the first row to one side of the tired seating with the metal
support frame on which one can rest a foot on place the coffee or ice cream on
the lower strut. Usually I have the small row of three or four seats row to
myself apart from the young woman who sat next to me for a recent Opera relay
at Bolden. In the morning a solitary male occupied the seat against the walk
and later that evening two women, the seats nearest the wall with others
sitting behind in both instances. I was early and able to get seat and because
the previous show did not end until 6 and cleaning theatre took time it was
like 6.20 when the large waiting audience were allowed to take our seats.
Along with the film Casablanca Miss Saigon is the one work which I can experience time and time again. When it opened in 1989 I had on impulse gone to see if I could get a ticket for a matinee performance after a morning meeting of a national committee. As the start approached and there was still a number of others waiting a young woman jumped out of a taxi and said she had spare ticket for the stalls for which I willing paid the full price arriving at our good seats just as the curtain was rising. At the interval she complained it was Madam Butterfly, true but only at the level of the basic story and where I believe she failed to appreciate the great tunes and the political aspects of USA imperialism in Asia. My family had been to see Les Miserables on a family visit to London and I had gone to see Les Miss on my own, not appreciating its length and having to leave early to meet up with the family for the evening performance of Miss Saigon. Of course this meant going to see Les Miserables again as well as seeing Miss Saigon at least once or even twice after that. I remain convinced that I have written about the work before but cannot presently locate the evidence and could not find wo tape recording of the show among the 200 tapes in my collection which is odd.
You
Tube has come to rescue with the full sound track while I write. The musical retains
its hold because of the music, the song, the story and its topicality with the
Syrian boat people replacing those from Vietnam as they made their way to
Bangkok and onwards to the USA and to here in the UK. Most of all the musical
remains important to me and others who because of parental and subsequent
circumstances feel ourselves to belong to the Bui Doi, the dust of life
children without a meaningful identity and without a meaningful home. On Sunday 16th of October the relay
was in fact a film of the actual anniversary production which took place the
previous month.
The
latest production makes the use of back screen projection but all the element
of the original production is included where in the after show it was admitted that
over the year’s emphasis of the acting has become stronger and I felt there is
now an even greater edge to the production than the original.
I
saw Lee Solanga in the title role of Kim, Miss Saigon as a 17-year-old and she
returned to the stage as a mature middle aged person with all the ability to
project the emotion of experience she will not have had in the first
production. Lee vied as the star of show
with Jonathan Pryce who played the Vietnamese bar owner, brothel keeper, pimp
and fixer, the Engineer, for which he won awards, and I found that in some
respects the new Kim is outshone by the latest ethnic correct actor who is brilliant
as Engineer and praised by Jonathan Pryce who made some great jokes introducing
the dancing girls for the showing stopping number towards the end, The American
Dream as his careers. Humour there was but despite the glitz of the spectacle
this is a very serious work of timeless significance.
The
show open with an overture and the sound of a helicopter as we are introduced
to the Engineer and his bar brothel as the Americans are about to cut and run.
Kim aged 17 years is the latest recruit from the country, as her parent died
under the bombing and she fled to the city in search of means of survival with
prostitution the only source available. The creators of the show avoided the
problem of Madam Butterfly who is underage as 17 years’ old’s remain in a
number of USA States but the reality is that children have been forced into the
bar brothels sometimes sold by their parents as the only means of their
survival or to get sufficiently ahead to break from their cycle of survival
poverty. In every town where there is some form of military, or naval base, and
from the last century the airbase, or
places sympathetic to the need for fighting men to have relax and recreation
breaks when they are at war or far from home, the problem has existed and early
on in my work in child care, I was allocated a mother with three children, all
by different USA service men, from an airbase in the recent constituency of
former Prime Minister David Cameron and where the first was the product of a
visit to the base dance when she was only 15.
Every
night at the bar run by the Engineer, he appoints one of the girls Miss Saigon
the premium lady of the night, and when one become available, he auctions a
young virgin, the fresh meat to quote the words of the lyricist by Alain Boubil
who also created the original French Lyrics, along with Claude-Michael
Schonberg who created the music and the story. They created their first work
together in 1973, Les Revolution Francaise and it was in 1978 that they
commenced work on what has become their more famous creation, Les Miserables
which opened in Paris in 1980. but it
was when the decision was taken to translate the Lyrics into English and for
productions to commence in London and New York that through Cameron Mackintosh
their work received international recognition. Cameron Mackintosh started
theatre life as a stagehand and he is also responsible for to other worldwide
ongoing shows, The Phantom of the Opera and Cats. It is also notable that
Cameron has donated part of the proceeds of Miss Saigon to a Foundation in
support of refugees. One of the
highlights of the anniversary after show was the arrival of Alain, Claude and
Cameron in the American Dream Car as the number was performed by Jonathan Pryce
with Jon Jon Briones.
Miss
Saigon first opened in 1989 in London and then in 1991 in New York, revived in
London in 2014 and opens again in New York next year, It opened in Tokyo 1992
followed Toronto 1993, Germany Stuttgart, not Berlin and Hungary 1994, Holland and Austraila1996,
and then New Zealand and Sweden with Estonia in 2002, Denmark 2004/2005 and
Finland, then Korea 2004 and most interesting perhaps of all Bangkok in Thailand
in 2012, also Austria, Finland and the Philippines
and revivals in Japan in 2004 and again
2008-2009 and 2012, 1914 and 2016 in South Korea, in Canada and Holland. A
production has also toured in the UK. The number of productions is mentioned
because changes have been made over the years to take account of changing times,
the different countries and their varied audience.
The
storyline is established with the arrival of young single USA service men into
the bar with John now
played by a Black actor arranging to buy Kim ( paraded as a Virgin)
for his troubled friend Chris and where the presence of Kim is seen as a
threat by the experienced Gigi who portrays a young woman still dreaming of
finding an American who will sweep her off to the USA and where she and Kim
sing the first of the haunting songs in the show, “The Movie in my Mind” and
this is soon followed by “the Dance”
with its haunting saxophone and in which the Engineer arranges for the Kim
and Chris who are genuinely attracted to each other to go to her room away from the bar.
It
is then the number “Why, God” which elevates the work away from a simple sexual
exploitation story to the perspective of the USA servicemen in a strange
country with a challenging culture and which in my view makes it more
significant than Madam Butterfly where Pinkterton always comes across as
fitting in only for the purpose of having a young wife and without questioning
his role. The difference is reinforced
when Kim gives an account of what happened to her family and how she is in her
present situation “Sun and Moon” and Chris wants the relationship to become serious
entering into a marriage ceremony according to local tradition and custom,
having in effect purchased Kim from the Engineer who wants a Visa to get to the
USA as he realizes the USA’s role in the country is ending. This is reinforced
by John in a phone call who declares that the situation is falling apart and
the USA is abandoning the people as it did in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya
subsequently, along with the UK and other interventionist countries, unwilling
to devote the resources to establish effective and lasting governments before departure.
This
leads to another pivotal moment when the young man, Thuy, betrothed by their
parents when adolescents aged thirteen arrives and is stunned to find what has
happened. Kim’s rebuke that he changed sides leaving her during the week her
parents were killed justifies her new circumstances but those able to take a
more detached view of events will have sympathy for the young man brought up in
one tradition and coming to recognise that the insurgent army represented the
way forward for the majority of people after decades of colonial exploitation
by the French and then the USA Americans. His sense of betrayal is matched by
the lovers forced to separate in the haunting “Last Night of the World”.
There
is then the powerful statement of the success of Ho chi minh, the leader of the
revolution with “the Morning of the Dragon” in which we learn that the
Vietnamese young nan Thuy has become a commander with authority and demands
that the Engineer locates Kim if he wants to retain his freedom. The
juxtaposition between the realities of geo politics and the complex emotional
relationships between individuals of different cultures is then powerfully
portrayed by “I still believe” in which Kim and the present USA wife of Chris
unite in their respective love and appreciation of his and their situation.
The
intensity of the story is further heightened when Kim and the Engineer is
located and Thuy attempts to use his new power to force marriage or she to risk
death by his men. Kim defends her situation by introducing her son by Chris
which infuriates Thuy more and he issues the ultimatum of survival through
without the child, a symbol of his enemy. In desperation she kills Thuy using
the weapon Chris had given her for protection when he returned the base in the
attempt to secure passage for his bride. Kim pleads with the Engineer help her
go to America which he ridicules before realizing that that her son is that of
Chris and their entry ticket if he poses as her brother “Let me see his Western
nose.” In the new production it is possible to project film of the boatpeople
crossing between Vietnam and Thailand, not lost on the Cineworld audience now
familiar with the attempts of the Syrians and others to reach mainland Europe.
Before the final chorus of the Exodus at the closure of the first act Kim warns
of want is to come, “I’d give my life for you.”
Before
writing of the Second Act It Is a good point to mention the substantial subsequent
change in USA Vietnam relations which occurred with President Clinton came into
office and that within a couple of years of the opening of the show in the USA there
was official recognition followed by trade agreements in 2000 and 2007 and over one and half
million Vietnamese Americans and a large cultural exchange of Vietnam student
studying in the USA and making their subsequent homes in the country.
The choice of the number which
opens the second Act of the musical is therefore of significance in
understanding that the work was always intended to be more than entertainment
or to duplicate the tragic sexual exploitation story of Madam Butterfly but of
all children like me caught in a no man’s land of no identity and no homeland.
The Bui Doi, the Dust of life
is our song and we stretch throughout human history to the children at Calais and
the children, the products of Isis and the woman and girls they are using. John
on returning home has achieved maturity as a human being and sanity as a former
soldier by representing an organization seeking to trace the fathers of the
children abandoned in Vietnam and across Asia and receives a report that Kim is
alive with a child, a bar girl in Bangkok and he contacts Chris with the news.
This throws Chris into turmoil
because he has not told his wife of the relationship and is someone who he
genuinely loves as she attempts to cope with the distance between them and his
nightmares, the consequence of his experience and relationship in Vietnam.
We learn that in Bangkok the
Engineer has become an employee, an on commission hustler with Kim the experienced
bar girl both surviving on dreams of getting to the USA, “What a waste” girls
available for the sexual tourist for only10 cents an hour, the offer of boys,
first girl free and himself for extra fee. Chris has arrived with his wife and
John goes in search of Kim and meets up with the Engineer “Chris is here”, but
John cannot bear to tell Kim the truth after witnessing her continuing devotion
and belief he has come for her and for his child. The bar owner arrives and
warns them both because of the child on the premises. John goes off to bring
Chris but the Engineer does not trust the situation fearing he will excluded
and persuades Kim to go to the hotel after finding out the address.
Thuy reappears as a ghost
cursing Kim that she will not fulfill her dream and next there is a return in
time to the fall of Saigon with Kim and Chris desperate to get to each other are
separated by the compound, just as the German people were by the Berlin Wall,
the Syrian and others by the European Wall, and Trump and the Republicans and their
proposed wall with Mexico and the last helicopter arrives to take the remaining
solders and Vietnamese away communicating the panic and despair of those left
behind as those more recently experienced
in Iraq, in Afghanistan and Libya and no
doubt in Syria once the threat to Europe and the USA has been contained.
Kim prepares to go to the
hotel, dressing as Chris knew her while singing a reprise of “the Sun and the
Moon.” At the hotel she encounters Kim’s wife quickly recognizes who Kim is
while Chris makes his way to the bar. Kim is shocked by the news that Chris has
married and feels betrayed because of the vows he made and demands that Chris
comes and tells her the truth. When Chris returns to the hotel there is another
number which again raises the work above others, including the Opera Madam
Butterfly, a she tells the reality of young men out of college being sent to
war in lands with different cultures for reasons they do not understand.
What is now to happen is
inevitable and the couple debate staying in Thailand to ensure the future of Kim
and his son, as at first his second wife cannot accept the possibility of
returning to the USA with the son. Before the end there is a spectacular
reminder of the American Dream with a chorus line of Marilyn Monroe blondes as the
dream car, and yes there is now an internet site selling the Cadillacs and the
Chevrolets called Dream Cars, comes on the stage which the Engineer humps at
one point, and ends with a lit Statue of Liberty young woman emerging from the
back seat.
To ensure she keeps the vow to
her son she dresses him as an American and kills herself thus ensuring Chris
and his wife takes her son but we the audience know this is likely to doom the
marriage and create lifelong problems for the child.
At the Cineworld West India
Dock there was a brief five-minute interval between the two Acts and then ten
before he 25th anniversary celebration when all the original London
cast comes on stage and with the principal singers giving encores with the
artists from the present production. It was a memorable and where it was
evident the audience had a similar reaction. I have ordered the official video
of the evening with copies for family members.
The performance ended about 9.30pm
and as it was not raining I was able to make my way back across the bridge
towards the Canary Wharf centre following others who seemed to know what they
were doing. I was able to ask and
establish that it was possible to get to the Canary Wharf station by
walkthrough the basement level shopping centre which was well looked after by
security staff. I arrived at the fast
train to East Croydon notice board around 10.20 if not before and where no
train was listed and then two trains just before 10.50 and 10 50 which seemed a
very long time to wait. Also on the board was the 10.32 to Brighton via
Worthing but with no platform listed, at least not until just before 10.30 so I
made my way having considered other trains and got a good seat as the train set
off sharply at 10.32. I could only assume there had been a question about the driver
given that the train had been in for some time and there was an only a few for
everyone to get on board. Because it
went Brighton the long way around it was not crowded. I arrived in Croydon just as the Coop was closing
at 11 and was able to get water, tissues and mints.
I then stayed up later although
I cannot remember what I did and this had the outcome of not waking until 9 a
good hour later I that I wanted. Fortunately, I had prepared well the night
before and although I did not rush I was making my way to the station going to the
front entrance just before 10. There was a lot of activity at what is Box Park
and it is still not clear what is to be built between the apartment block
bordering the side entrance to the station and box Park. The site blurb explains
the choice of Croydon for the second former shipping container retail centre after
Shoreditch, Croydon has been the
emerging face of south London for some time now, establishing itself as the new
home of the capital’s street art movement and the ‘Silicon Valley’ of the
south. Because of this, Croydon’s formerly unforgiving reputation is beginning
to subside and big things are on the horizon. While Croydon is often the on the
receiving end of a fair amount of abuse for its brutal post-war architecture
and its part in the 2011 riots, it’s often easy to forgot Croydon’s cultural
impact. Croydon is the home of Peep Show, Dubstep and the BRIT School – where
former alumni include Amy Winehouse, Adele and Katy B.
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