The Manic Street Preachers played in the Olympia, Dublin, while Charlotte's Web was in the Lyric Theatre, Belfast.
Manic Street Preachers
Olympia Theatre, Dublin
By Kevin Courtney
The Manics are on the campaign trail again, and this time the message is . . . there is no message. The Welsh trio have put aside the politics for now, and are trying their hand at being - gasp - just another rock 'n' roll band. Their new album, Lifeblood, didn't arrive in a flurry of ticker-tape and sloganeering, and the band didn't play a gig in Cuba or have tea with Fidel Castro. Apart from the lead-off single, The Love Of Richard Nixon, there doesn't seem to be much room for polemic in the sleek, straight-shooting 2004-model Manics.
Not that the sell-out crowd at the Olympia is particularly concerned. With Bush back in the White House and Bertie embracing his inner socialist, we're all going to hell in a handcart, so there doesn't seem much point in protest. Might as well have a jolly good time instead, and damn the torpedoes. With the political stuff out of the way, there's plenty of room to enjoy the rather excellent tunes, and marvel at James Dean Bradfield's incredible voice and killer guitarmanship.
They may have gone into neutral territory, but the Manics haven't become Oasis-like lumpen proletariats, and still spit out such lines as "so God is dead/like Nietzsche said". Some might say. Empty Souls, also from the new album, is ghostly and evocative, but The Love Of Richard Nixon is too subdued to really stand out. The trio sidesteps their last, underwhelming album, Know Your Enemy, but they do deliver a twisted and shouty reading of The Masses Against The Classes, getting the masses in the Olympia to sing the Beatlesque refrain.
There's a clean, pristine sheen off If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next, No Surface All Feeling, Australia and La Tristesse Durera; the core trio is augmented by keyboards and second guitar, but the focus is on the stocky figure of Bradfield and the lanky, beskirted frame of bassist Nicky Wire. The second guitarist lurks in the shadows, as though unwilling to occupy the empty space to Bradfield's right where missing member Richey Edwards would have stood. Calls for Revol are met with: "I can't even play Revol", but the hardcore fans are appeased by You Love Us, Motorcycle Emptiness and Yes, from the recently re-released 1994 album The Holy Bible, the last album made with Richey.
And so, with nothing left to rail against, we all cheerfully join in with the final tune, A Design For Life, and the irony is washed away in a whirlpool of raised glasses and voices. Didn't know being depoliticised could be so much fun.
Charlotte's Web
Lyric Theatre, Belfast
By Jane Coyle
As children's stories go, it would be difficult to imagine a more appealing one than E.B. White's Charlotte's Web. Its streetwise farmyard society, where an innocent young pig develops an instinctive understanding with a sympathetic human, clearly provided much of the inspiration for the movie Babe. It is a tall order to set out to improve on the original, but, through Joseph Robinette's sympathetic adaptation, director Richard Croxford and his excellent cast of six have done just that. This team clearly knows exactly how to draw in an audience of all ages. The adventure begins in the Lyric foyer, where the characters mingle with the customers, before stepping out on stage in the persons of a local family, who will transport us through this wholesome tale of friendship, survival and the laws of nature.
Stuart Marshall's idyllic picture-book set of rolling green hills and sunny skies smoothly converts into a mellow wood-slatted barn, where Martin McCann's adorable piglet Wilbur is confined for fattening up.
Inside the barn, he finds himself on the bottom rung of a hierarchical society, composed of Claire Cogan's bossy Goose, Kieran Lagan's wise old ram Boss, Niki Doherty's cheeky Lamb, Michael Condron's wheeler-dealer Rat and Charlotte, the gentle spider, whose ingenuity saves Wilbur's bacon.
McCann's sweet-faced, scampering Wilbur is the star of the show, winning the affection of a young girl Fern (Doherty), the respect of hard-bitten farmer Homer Zuckerman (Lagan) and the enduring friendship of Mary McNally's beautifully realised Charlotte. Conor Mitchell's music emerges as a dramatic strand in its own right, touchingly bringing this delightful evening to a charming, thoughtful close.
At the Lyric until January 8th.
