Reviewed: Gagarin Way, Maxïmo Parkand ICO/Crabb
Gagarin WayAndrew's Lane Studio
Of all the acrid witticisms in Gregory Burke's verbose debut play, one line lingers longest in the memory. When Eddie, a low-level drone in a Scottish electronics factory, outlines his plan to kill a visiting manager, as a dubious form of anti-globalisation protest, he hits a note of psychotic optimism: "We might even make political violence fashionable again."
How this line sounded in the Traverse Theatre, when the play premiered in August 2001, is difficult to contemplate, particularly when the following month made political violence the defining narrative of our new century. If anything, though, Burke's play is a caustic survey of the 20th century; its history, its battles, its victors and its casualties, all recited with the relentless whack of profane East Scots dialect - if yay dinnay already ken.
"We wait for him to come round," Ronan Leahy's Eddie explains to Domhnall O'Donoghue's hapless Tom, a student on a summer job who stumbles upon the plot: "We have a chat about our objections tay multinational capitalism, then we shoot the c**t." Eddie has a partner, the equally frustrated but more ideologically inclined Gary (Jimmy Watson) and together they perform a sort of good crook/bad crook routine: Gary supplying the politics, Eddie handling the violence. Burke, who revels in cynical, incongruous humour, even has these communist throwbacks employ Tom as a "focus group" to test the reach of their message. All they need now is a franchise.
The comment of Burke's play, however, is inextricable from its problem - it's all talk. Eddie and Gary might preach a doctrine of drastic action, but it's the preaching rather than the action that remains Burke's focus. This serves up plenty of great lines and a few unnecessary gags, and the overall feeling is of a first-time playwright revelling in the verve of comic dialogue. As the director of Island Theatre Company's production, Karl Shiels seems to get increasingly restless, which may be why each stage punch comes with an almighty wallop, as though it offered some relief, or why the casting seems so uneven.
O'Donoghue, essentially the production's punching bag, often looks lost, his eyes locked on Leahy as though he has tunnel vision, or perhaps concussion.
For his part, Leahy carries off the most charismatic, articulate role of the play, but it isn't until his face is framed in a window, unnervingly still, that we get the shiver of genuine menace Eddie requires. That Watson, a Glaswegian, walks away with the play owes something to his comfort with the accent, but more to his understanding of dignity and defeat, as a minimum-wage slave with outmoded politics railing against a new world order. This fitful production might accentuate the flaws of Burke's drama rather than highlight its strengths, but it offers a striking coda to the 20th century nonetheless. It is a mordant history lesson, a disillusioned punch line, a vicious comedy of despair. Until Sat - Peter Crawley
Maxïmo ParkTemple Bar Music Centre, Dublin
This concert by Maxïmo Park, with support by Noisettes, was one of those free promotional gigs by a lager company, with fans obtaining tickets by text message. So ubiquitous is the branding that it's not hard to suspect it is an attempt at Scientology- style brainwashing. London post-punk merchants Noisettes play a furious opening set, thrashing and squalling around the stage to little effect. Shingai Shoniwa cuts quite the dash upfront, but the obvious and lazy comparison would be to Skunk Anansie (extrovert black female singer overshadowing the rest of the band, no tunes to speak of). That said, lazy people can be just as perceptive as anybody else, so Skunk Anansie Mark Two The Noisettes are destined to be.
The crowd, however, are obviously here for Maxïmo Park. When frontman Paul Smith takes to the stage, the whooping and hollering is deafening. Smith has covered the most famous combover in rock with a bowler hat, creating an oddly convincing Clockwork Orange effect. His manic energy is certainly better directed than Malcolm McDowell's in that film, his neck veins bulging and vocal chords searing, proving he is an effective, old-school lead singer. Keyboardist Lukas Wooller, on the other hand, appears to be the most redundant band member since Bez danced with the Happy Mondays. Despite throwing himself at the keys with all the wild abandon of a Mozart, his principal role is to wave his arms in the air.
Smith's T-shirt reads "Education, Not Missiles" - either a piece of budgetary advice for Gordon Brown before he takes up residence in Number 10, or an unorthodox military tactic hitherto ignored by the Pentagon. He makes a well-judged joke about the beer branding, but it's not as funny as when someone in the crowd shouts out for the Kaiser Chiefs' I Predict a Riot. And this, ultimately, illustrates the real problem with Maxïmo Park: even the laziest of comparison-mongers can see that Maxïmo Park might sound like a lot of other bands, but they don't sound as good as a lot of other bands. - Davin O'Dwyer
ICO/CrabbNCH, Dublin
James Crabb, who made his debut with the Irish Chamber Orchestra here, is not only a virtuoso accordionist, but also a zealous missionary for his instrument. His spoken introductions offered a potted history of the accordion, and he even dared to reach back in time to show how well he could handle a Bach harpsichord concerto.
The accordion was invented in the 1820s. This gives it a history that goes back rather further than those of the saxophone, the celesta or the vibraphone. Yet its impact on the world of classical music in general, let alone the orchestra in particular, has been low.
Crabb may unwittingly have put his finger on part of the reason why, as he justified his repertoire raid on Bach. The composer's love of wind instruments and keyboard instruments, he seemed to suggest, should find a natural union in the accordion. Duh? Bach's own solution was the organ, by whose mighty side the accordion is in most respects a mere pygmy.
The sound of the accordion, of course, has long since acquired associations of mood and atmosphere that are worlds away from those of the organ, and nowhere more successfully or currently fashionably so than in the work of the nuevo-tango king, Astor Piazzolla. Crabb's Piazzolla arrangements are both clever and svelte, but they still had the effect of gentrifying and stiffening an energy that thrives in the dynamic of a small group and is hard to replicate even with a chamber orchestra as skilled as the ICO.
Tres Movimentos Concertantes, a new concerto by the Paris-based Argentinian composer Gustavo Beytelmann, sounded very much like a polished presentation of ideas that have already been well explored. The effect was of a refined re-run. Crabb's Bach arrangement, for which he assured us he didn't have to change a note, was technically impressive, but musically wide of the mark. Perhaps in a recording studio, the combination could be made to gel.
The pieces that stood out were not actually for orchestra. The second half began with two traditional Scottish tunes, arranged for violin and accordion. Here both Crabb and the orchestra's leader Katherine Hunka played a blinder that brought yelps of approval from the audience. - Michael Dervan
