Recent performances reviewed by Irish Timescritics
Magick Macabre
Olympia, Dublin
However you dress it up - in the large-scale theatrics of David Copperfield, the spoilsport exposés of Penn and Teller, or the psychological spookiness of Derren Brown - the fundamentals of magic are always the same. Dry-ice levels may vary, but the hand will always be quicker than the eye. Unable to reinvent the wheel, or even the hat trick, most magicians distinguish themselves not through their illusions but by dint of personality and the masterful building of audience rapport.
Magick Macabre, Riverdream's latest exercise in expensive-looking razzmatazz, takes a perfectly simple idea - the soldering together of magic and horror - and applies so much polish, elaborate set-dressing and lavish effects that it manages to smother the charm of illusion and sand the edges off shock value.
In a laboriously slow set-up, director Thomas de Mallet Burgess introduces us to Daemon Cordell (the evocatively named alter ego of illusionist Joe Daly). The sole inmate of a mental asylum-cum-mortuary (Ferdia Murphy's extravagantly realised set nods happily to Psycho'sBates Motel for good measure), Cordell whiles away his time between card tricks and dismemberment, execution and rising from the dead, and, in the show's first truly impressive set piece, reanimating an assistant.
What follows, though, is a string of familiar stock illusions (the always engaging dancing-cane trick, the restored newspaper, the levitating bubble), gussied up in a Vegas Gothic style and punctuated by considerably more grisly set pieces (women don't just disappear, they are knocked unconscious and burned alive, while men are sawed vertically in half and split open for your viewing pleasure). All of which might have been gruesome fun were the show not so drowned in sound and mercilessly choreographed. Slick into schlock won't go.
You can forgive opening-night technical difficulties (boxes failing to ignite, whips losing their cracks, jugglers dropping their knives), but not a show so inflexible that it leaves its performers no room to improvise around them (the unburning box was duly extinguished) or engage in genuine audience interaction. When even onstage screams and laughter are part of the soundtrack, you can't buy into the illusion. Little is scary or astonishing because everything looks weirdly out of sync.
The best feat, which unites violent spectacle and the sexual anxiety of horror, involves the illusion of Daemon's body being penetrated by various sharp implements or people. Not content with such Freudian hokum, somebody somewhere saw fit to introduce - and I'm not making this up - a chorus of Oompa-Loompas, presumably to restore some much-needed camp to the project.
That it doesn't work comes down to the same problem: the show is too lacquered to engage, as though personality and charm are the tricks it never thought to master. - PETER CRAWLEY
Until Nov 15
Glen Campbell
Vicar Street, Dublin
When he found himself in the middle of the road, Neil Young said, famously, that he headed for the ditch. For the most part, Glen Campbell has been content to steer a middle course, but, at 72, there are signs that the veteran crooner has a gift for reinvention.
His new album - the deliciously titled Meet Glen Campbell- finds him doing a Johnny Cash, taking some left-field favourites and giving them an alt-country flavour. There is nothing on the album to match Cash's American Recordings, but there are some magical reworkings of songs from the likes of Foo Fighters, Jackson Browne and Tom Petty.
In concert, Campbell is both middle-of-the-road cabaret act and cutting-edge alt-country artist. It is not always a comfortable mix. During Rhinestone Cowboy, this concert lurched towards karaoke as the crowd sang along and Campbell took a back seat. But when he rolled out Green Day's Good Riddance- the standout track from the new album - there was a twinkle in his eye.
Looking remarkably fit, Campbell - dressed in cowboy shirt and jeans - looked like a weathered but still active town sheriff. He has a genial, unaffected stage persona, happy to sign autographs even while performing on stage. The old professional, a veteran of 50 years in the business, really wants to deliver the goods. And, for the most part, he succeeded. His rendition of Jimmy Webb's Wichita Lineman- recently voted one of the great songs of the 20th century - will linger long in the memory and his version of U2's All I Want is Youwas magical.
Campbell's velvety voice is still in fine fettle. There was something for everyone in the audience: Everly Brothers duets with his "darlin' daughta", Debby; a rich flow of anecdotes as Campbell, among other memories, recalled working with John Wayne on True Grit; and a reminder of Campbell's stirring guitar work on Classical Gas. This is a man, of course, who played on the Pet Soundsalbum with the Beach Boys and on tracks such as Sinatra's Strangers in the Nightand the Righteous Brothers' You've Lost that Lovin' Feeling.
But this was a night for looking forward, not back. Campbell delivered Southern Nights, Gentle on My Mindand the rest, but he opted to encore with his new material.
His final song, Velvet Underground's edgy Jesusreminded us of Campbell's peerless ability as an interpreter and his determination to push the boundaries. Campbell is moving (gently) from the middle of the road, but will his audience go with him? - SEÁN FLYNN
Aimee Mann
Tripod, Dublin
Aimee Mann would not be the likeliest choice to brighten up a bitterly cold late October night, but the often taciturn American singer-songwriter was in positively playful mood at a well-attended Tripod. Supported as ever by an excellent four-piece band, led by bassist Paul Bryan (producer of her current album, @#%* Smilers), she breezed through a 90-minute set that leaned heavily on the riches of her back catalogue while also highlighting some of her new songs such as the excellent current single, Freeway.
Mann's literate and observant power pop has deviated little over the course of her six solo albums, including the inspired soundtrack for the film, Magnolia, which, incredibly, did not win an Oscar (though it was shortlisted). The songs remain consistently good, at times even great, in their ability to map the terrain of inner doubt and angst with remarkable lightness of touch.
However, her guitar-driven style has become a little predictable. And so, for the seventh album, she and Bryan resolved to shake things up a little.
"We tried not to echo any previous albums," she has said. "For this one we wanted to use a different palate, thus replacing electric guitars with distorted Wurlitzers, Clavinets and analog synthesizers. We wanted the rhythm section to sound full and organic with detailed, interwoven keyboards on top."
And that's exactly what we got at the Tripod, topped with a relaxed and invigorated Mann on acoustic guitar, relishing the new settings for her songs. She sang with confidence, her cool, distinctive voice right on the money in its phrasing and reach. She even allowed herself the odd mistake as she tried to recall audience requests. As it was, there were more than enough gems on the night to satisfy most, not least notable versions of Red Vines, How Am I Different?, Little Bombs, Save Me, It's Notand the closing Deathly, which left us humming that beautiful melody into the night. - JOE BREEN
Elbow
Ambassador, Dublin
The thing that sets Elbow apart is their comfort with silence. Space is befriended, not avoided; lyrics are for grown-ups and the only thing constraining charismatic front man, Guy Garvey, is the length of the mic lead.
Garvey's voice has the soothing reassurance and evasive promise of a fairytale narrator. Think Rob Reiner's The Princess Bridewith just the right tincture of dark undercurrent. You could hardly call the band an overnight success, as their first of four albums saw the light of day seven years ago, and maybe that's why they so clearly relish their three minutes of fame now.
They opened with the anxiety-laden Starlings, all skeletal piano chords, forbidding backing vocals and a one-note trumpet call to arms from Garvey, bassist Pete Turner and guitarist Mark Potter. It's as if they've eviscerated their innards in the name of pristine pop. And Garvey's plodding, workmanlike demeanour is a magnificent alternative to the egocentric showmanship of most other frontmen.
Their latest, breathtaking collection, The Seldom Seen Kid, is the backbone to a set that strides confidently through the undergrowth of life's more interesting moments. Grounds for Divorce(from wherein they plucked their album title) sacrifices just a touch of the Waitsean recorded version to the demands of the live show, but gains so much bare-knuckle immediacy in the retelling. Weather to Flyis a lesson in muted - and mutant - anthemic songwriting, building slowly without ever succumbing to the crass overkill that tempts most of Elbow's peers past the precipice.
Ultimately, Garvey's genius lies in his ability to reach effortlessly right up to the rafters, gathering each and every punter into his homely, welcoming gabháil, aided in no small part by his spiky Northern humour and razor-sharp responses to his audience's adoring entreaties. And meanwhile, keyboardist/producer Craig Potter ebbs and flows with tsunami-like intent throughout.
Elbow: an underrated joint - and a damnably adept band with time on their hands and delicious space between their notes. - SIOBHÁN LONG
Itoseng
Everyman Palace, Cork
A suggestion of Wordsworth's revolutionary bliss haunts and sours the South African township evoked by Omphile Molusi in his one-man play, Itoseng. Haunts because he presents a young man who grew up in that dawn when oppression gave way to liberation and all its promises of opportunity and wellbeing; sours because this is in fact a story of pledges made and pledges broken, a national disillusionment distilled into a single experience.
Perhaps that hint of national disappointment takes this short play a little further than intended, but Molusi writes from the individual to the general, and presents many more characters than the solitary presence on stage.
In the small community of Itoseng, life has its hardships but it has its certainties also, among them the love between Mawilla and Dolly. Uprising, arson and inflamed expectations (especially when looting is declared official) close off the known sources of subsistence before any alternatives have been put in place, and the ironies of this greater impoverishment, all the more bitter because it stems from the community's own aspirations, make up the story Mawilla has to tell.
The telling is energetic, using highly enunciated English embellished with outbursts of song and interwoven with snatches of the language of the township (itoseng itself meaning "wake yourselves up!").
From its origins in apartheid, this homeland village still awaits the benefits of democracy, and although Molusi insists he does not like discussing politics, his interpretation of the recent history of South Africa carries a significant political charge. His physical as well as intellectual confidence brings excitement to the choreographic formality imposed by director Tina Johnson.
Considerably assisted by the lighting design, this small team presents a poignant but challenging reminder to beware of false prophets. - MARY LELAND
Until Sat
