Eltham's General Election 2019 Hustings

Brexit and the NHS dominated the debate at the election hustings which took place last night with all five candidates for the Eltham constituency in the 12 December General Election. 

One of Greater London's 73 constituencies, Eltham has been tipped as one to watch because Labour's Clive Efford has managed to survive various challenges since first being elected in 1997 despite often tipping into marginal territory. This time he's defending a 6,296 majority but in a 'full-fat' constituency - ie. all variables are present: we have a Labour Remain-supporter in a just-about-Leave-voting constituency with all five top English parties standing.

(The Chair pointed out the few typos in candidate names...)

It was a packed audience for the 7.30pm start at St Mary’s Community Centre, Eltham High Street where the temperature rose - both literally and metaphorically - as the evening wore on. The event was organised and chaired by volunteers at Keep our NHS Public Greenwich (KONP).

Each candidate was firstly invited to make a short opening statement. Then three questions at a time were invited from the audience which each candidate addressed, before we heard the next three questions, and so on. It was a good structure for the evening despite the occasional audience member wanting to butt into the structure. However, despite the feisty and engaged audience and thanks to the chairing and candidates, it was a generally even-tempered event.

Left to right: 

Panel Chair from KONP (standing). 

Seated Candidates: Conservative - Louie French;  Brexit Party - Steve Kelleher; Greens - Matt Stratford; Lib Dem - Charley Hasted; Labour - Clive Efford

Here’s my take-aways from the opening statements, in the order delivered – I’ve also included mine and my daughter’s ‘Clapometer’ rating ‘out of 5’ for each statement (of course totally subjective), though this may more accurately be a measure of whose supporters had the largest/loudest/clappiest hands:

Lib Dem - Charley Hasted: An ambulance worker and carer (who hot-footed off to a shift towards the evening’s end). Spoke about policies to improve the NHS e.g. extending prescriptions for chronic conditions and also the Lib Dem policy of 1p on income tax ring-fenced for the NHS.

Clapometer: 2/5 (to be fair, I think the audience were still deciding whether they were going to clap everyone…)

Greens - Matt Stratford: Works in publishing. Spoke about improving pay and retention in the NHS, repealing the 2012 Health and Social Care Act and the need to improve society holistically.
Clapometer: 4/5  (yes, let’s clap everyone)

Brexit Party - Steve Kelleher: A headhunter in recruitment. Opened with leaving the EU and then on to the NHS – supported no more privatisation, having a vocational route into nursing and keeping politics out of the NHS.

Clapometer: 5/5  (oh, we’re really going to clap now) 

Conservative- Louie French: Works in finance in the City. Spoke about transport and commuting out of Eltham, keeping Eltham police station and stopping crime. He wanted to “get Brexit done” of course and wanted to “dethrone Clive” (the incumbent MP) addressing him directly about the Labour party leadership.

Clapometer: 4.5/5 (well, compared to the previous enthusiastic clapping)

Labour - Clive Efford:  Unless there is fundamental change we cannot address cuts in public services, social care, police and improve the environment. Understand the anger and inequality which led to the Brexit result, need fundamental change to address this. Years of austerity need to be reversed e.g. in health, infrastructure etc. to catch up with other countries.

Clapometer: 5/5  (evenly spread, and strong)

Question/topics from the audience included:

-        - Addressing hardship arising from the 2017 Loan Charge Act.

-        - How can the EU Ref result can be valid when voters didn’t have enough/the right info?

-        - Should MPs vote according to their party, their constituents or their own conscience?

-        - Proportional Representation was needed for ‘real democracy’

-        - Priorities for the Eltham constituency?

-        - How to address the NHS funding crisis

-        - Lamented the NHS and Community Care Act 1990 which introduced an internal market to the NHS and pitted providers against purchasers.

-        - Which parts of your party manifesto are you willing to oppose?

-        - Improvements to services for young people

There was some touching on local issues e.g. on improving transports links, but Brexit and the NHS dominated.  There was vocal audience support for major improvements needed in the NHS but also for each side of the argument in the big debates – e.g. for Brexit vs. for another referendum, reflecting the split in the constituency.  On party attacks, the Tory candidate goaded Labour over its leader, while the Brexit Party candidate pointed to neither major party really wanting to getting Brexit done.

I’m not sure anyone changed their mind as a result of the evening but they got a good measure of the candidates.  

A Doll's House: triumphant journey from Denmark to Calcutta

What could a 19th century Norwegian man have to say about the life of a married Bengali woman during the British Raj?

It turns out that playwright Henrik Ibsen's universal themes questioning the traditional roles of men and women provide the opportunity for examining not only gender politics but British colonialism too.

Modern day British-Asian playwright Tanika Gupta's adaptation of Ibsen's 'A Doll's House' is a triumph. Together with the Lyric Theatre's new Artistic Director, Rachel O'Riordan, they re-locate Ibsen's play from a 1879 Norwegian town to Calcutta in the same year, then the capital of the British India.

Ibsen's Nora (wife of Torvald, mother of three, living out the ideal of the 19th-century wife) becomes Niru, a chirpy, husband-pleasing young Bengali wife married to English bureaucrat Tom. The play sees the unravelling of their lives leading Niru to question her situation and her own identity.

The whole cast shines - with Niru played by the dazzling actor Anjana Vasan who has many theatre, television and film credits (from Brexit: The Uncivil War (Channel 4) to Black Mirror (Netflix) and Disney's Cinderella too) and the towering Elliot Cowan as Tom also has a long list of previews credits including the current top BBC hit Peaky Blinders.

The stunning single-scene new setting is the internal courtyard of an Indian town house, complete with tree sprouting up through it's centre. It gave the sense of Niru's claustrophobic and enveloping world, trapped in her own doll's house. It was beautifully lit with the various doors off the courtyard providing useful entry and exit points.

The award-winning multi-instrumentalist composer was Arun Ghosh, who himself hovered above the action on a mezzanine verandah surrounded by the instruments which he delicately played, creating a tense backdrop at apt moments in the psychodrama.

Gupta chose to stick mostly to Ibsen's original script, making only a few alterations for the adaption. It's seems astonishing that in 1879 Ibsen portrayed such scandalous-for-the-time feminist sentiments.

In 2006, the centenary of Ibsen's death, A Doll's House held the distinction of being the world's most performed play that year showing - perhaps sadly, and inevitably - the enduring nature of the play's themes.

The Lyric provide a very useful 'education pack' (pdf) about the play and its adaptation.

A Doll's House, a new adaptation by Tanika Gupta, at the Lyric Theatre, London W6 0QL.

Muse at O2 London

Lots of ear-throbbing fun watching Muse this month. The alt-rock trio from Devon are on a world tour following the release of their latest album, 'Simulation Theory' (2018). Dedicated 'Musers' at the sold out North Greenwich gig enjoyed every minute of the music and trademark excessive style of the band who have been going since the nineties.

Unashamed of seeking mega success – perhaps unlike some of their post-Brit pop contemporaries Radiohead (who reject it) and Coldplay (who affect a modesty about it) – Muse manage to sing about conspiracies, resistance and the second law of thermodynamics complete with balloon drops and ribbon showers.  My short film of some concert concert highlights can be seen here.

Read my review at Greenwich Visitor of Muse's 15 September 2019 gig:

Jealousy, separation and reunion - The Winter's Tale, Changeling Theatre, Woolwich

"On a glorious summer’s evening Changeling Theatre used a stunning outdoor setting in Woolwich  for a production of The Winter’s Tale, Shakespeare’s tale of jealously, grace, reunion and reconciliation.

The evocative bombed-out ruin of St George's Garrison Church and an introductory soundtrack of German electronica set the militaristic tone of the first half of the play as Leontes (Scott Ellis), the jealous king of Sicilia, accuses his loyal pregnant wife Hermione (Jess Nesling) of infidelity with his best friend Polixenes (Nicholas Masters-Waage), king of Bohemia. ..."

Read the rest of my review at The Greenwich Visitor of this 2 July 2019 performance:

A Winter’s Tale by the Changeling Theatre Company went on to be performed at various venues throughout the summer.

See my review of the 2018 outdoor staging of Hamlet at nearby Severndroog Castle in Oxleas Wood, London SE18.

Age Exchange: Blackheath’s community space for a coffee, a read and an activity

Where can you find a library, a café, a bijou shabby-chic garden, enjoy arts and fitness classes and take part in supporting older carers and people with dementia?  The answer is the Age Exchange in Blackheath.

Invited to have a look around, I visited on the last of this February’s ‘mini-Spring’ days, with my long-time friend, Maureen (yes, I’ve known her since I was 19 – she knows things…)

Entering Age Exchange, in Blackheath village’s high street opposite the train station, is like going into a tardis. The outside of the small shop front belies the range of varied well-arranged spaces and activities which open out inside, making the most of the space.

You can browse the community-run library in the basement, jump on the internet, have a coffee and a bite in the not-for-profit café (from a lovely choice – where else on Blackheath can you get a green tea for £1.50?), join one of the many activities on offer from yoga, to stitching to creative caring.

Age Exchange’s mission is to change lives through reminiscence, improving health and wellbeing. The patrons of this community-run charity include Roy Hudd OBE, Glenda Jackson MP, Rt. Hon. Nick Raynsford, Sir Sigmund Sternberg KCSG and JP Baroness Greengross OBE. The Exchange aims to reduce isolation and loneliness, promote intergenerational understanding, improve the quality of life and care for older people and those with dementia and to support carers to maintain their own health and wellbeing.

 

The inspirational Gemma, volunteer and Community Hub Manager, showed us around some of the centre’s other spaces including The Bakehouse Theatre (beyond the café garden) which is available to hire for meetings, training events, presentations, talks, rehearsals, and small-scale performances.

Clearly enthused by their work, Gemma also told us about the wonderful art displayed which produced by people with dementia.

‘Tree of Love’ created by Wednesday Artful Caring participants.
 

Age Exchange is a real gem of a place; it’s heartfelt and real - a great find in high streets too often dominated by sterile chains– I think we’ll be back soon.

The Play’s the Thing: Changeling Theatre’s Hamlet at Severndroog Castle

"...The play's the thing
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the King."

(Act II, Scene 2)

A lot of things happened in 1997: Blair brought Labour back from the wilderness, the death of Princess Di unleashed mass hysteria, UK band Radiohead unveiled their iconic OK Computer album and …erm, I started working at Goldsmiths.

But something else happened too. A small Kentish theatre company put on its first ever production, Moliere’s Tartuffe, at Boughton Monchelsea Place, near Maidstone. Now, twenty years later, The Changeling Theatre have begun touring their latest outdoor-theatre production, that most challenging of Shakespeare’s plays, Hamlet, directed by Rob Forknall who has directed every Changeling show.

In last Wednesday's (19 July) evening open-air staging of Hamlet, Shakespeare’s longest and most quoted of plays, the backdrop of the towering Severndroog Castle, deep in South-East London’s Oxleas Wood, provided a fitting substitute for Elsinore, the Danish royal castle which quietly broods over the tragic play.

Setting the scene: Oxleas Wood, Severndroog Castle

The woodland setting’s intimacy immersed and enveloped audience members in the play’s action. Similarly, the evening breeze rustled the leaves of the surrounding ancient trees in eerily-timed accompaniment to the wandering Ghost of the late King Hamlet.

The story of the troubled prince struggling to deal with grief and revenge in the Danish court, the Changeling Theatre's production triumphantly succeeds in that most difficult of conundrums – just how do you solve a problem like staging a long philosophical tragedy, with few laughs, in a summer outdoor setting? The answer is… brilliantly.

The plot thickens, audience rapt. (Spot the 10th Royal Eltham Scout Explorers along the railings, who were volunteer helpers.)  [Photo courtesy of @GuyBenJonesSM, Company Stage Manager]

The production features an excellent cast, creative use of music and scene transitions, and a clever combination of period and modern costume. The modern world is also referenced in other witty anachronistic touches – e.g. two characters pausing for a photo ‘selfie’ on their way out of a scene; and the ‘mad’ Hamlet expressing his mock-demented state by gleefully sticking stickers on another character’s back, enlisting the help of a nearby cross-legged child audience member.

Another interesting interpretation was borrowing from cinematic visual techniques (only sparingly though - relax!) in which we had the characters on stage suddenly moving in dramatic slow-motion before casually coming back to ‘normal speed’ again.

The talented young Manchester School of Theatre-trained actor, Alex Phelps, convincingly carried off the famously dense rhetoric and discourse of Hamlet’s many soliloquies including the Bard’s most famous lines:

“To be or not to be – that is the question:

Where 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,”

(Act III, Scene 1)

However the audience, and Hamlet, were enjoyably teased when it came to another set of well-known lines. The supporting characters persisted in throwing around the skull, interrupting Hamlet several times from completing his lines:

“Let me see, Alas…”(*)

and then only later allowing him:

“…poor Yorick! I knew him Horatio. A fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy.”

(Act V, Scene 1)

(*sorry, I may have mis-remembered the exact break-point here…)

Despite the play’s serious content, the cast created a charmed and relaxed atmosphere with one of the characters even camply chivvying people back from the interval with, “Come on, come on, hurry up, it’s my big solo!”

And was it my modern feminist imagination or were there some ironic snorts and gasps at the lines?:

“Frailty, thy name is woman!

……

… a beast that wants discourse of reason

Would have mourn’d longer”

(Act I, Scene 2)

when Hamlet is berating his not-long-widowed mother for re-marrying so soon after her husband’s death. Hamlet’s mother Gertrude is played very engagingly by multi-talented LAMDA-trained Sarah Naughton (in action, photo below) who also excellently doubles-up later as a comic bawdy character.

The professional cast also contributed to the excellent ‘soundtrack’ to the production, arranged by Alex Scott, with many of them taking up various stringed instruments and a clarinet too.

It may well have been “madness”, sitting there in a darkened wood at 10pm on an English evening, “yet there is a method in’t” especially for such an engaging, witty and intelligent production.

(Act II, Scene 2)

This highly-recommended production continues at various venues around London and Kent ending in the grand setting of Pembroke Castle, Wales, on 30 August. Tickets obtainable from the Changeling Theatre website.

Cast

Hamlet - Alex Phelps

Gertrude - Sarah Naughton

Claudius/Ghost - Michael Palmer

Polonius/Gravedigger - Bryan Torfeh

Ophelia/Priest - Niamh Finlay

Horatio - Bryan Moriarty

Laertes/Player King - Tim Bowie

Rosencrantz/Bernardo - Brandon Plummer

Guildenstern/Francisco/Osric - Khalid Daley

Marcellus/Player Queen - Cary Ryan

Company

Director - Robert Forknall

Design - Clare Southern

Music - Alex Scott

Assistant Director - Charlotte Quinney

Casting Director - Suzy Catliff CDG

Company Stage Manager - Guy Benedict Jones

Assistant Stage Manager - Leonie Jai Hamilton

Administrator - Dawn Archer

Marketing Director - Jill Hogan

Graphic Design- Dan Bull

Photography - Nic Dawkes

Video - Lukasz Jasiukowicz

Movement - Jessica Rose Boyd

Fight Director - Edward Linard