Music
Slipknot/Korn
SSE Hydro, Glasgow
Four Stars
Stuart Morrison
Picture the scene, if you will. Your correspondent, not long past the first flush of youth, but certainly past it, was perched fifty feet above the whirling, flailing, mass of young humanity that had erupted as main support band, Korn, roared into set opener, Here to Stay. Rarely had he been more grateful to be thus safely perched.
Korn's set covered as much of their catalogue as was possible in the fifty minutes available to them and as it was singer Jonathan Davis' birthday, members of Slipknot even presented him with a cake, which was a nice touch.
Slipknot have been through the mill of late, with the death of founder member and bassist, Paul Gray and the departure of drummer, Joey Jordison. However, as singer Corey Taylor pointed out, they were back and, in his considered opinion, better than ever. They rampaged through a brain-crushingly loud set, which encompassed much of their twenty year career but focussed on their last album, The Gray Chapter, released last year and the first since the death of their friend. New drummer, Jay Weinberg, son of E Street drummer, Max, was absolutely superb, expertly matching power, speed and precision. This being the 'Prepare for Hell' tour, the stage was a depiction of the entrance to that realm, being surmounted by a huge devil's head, belching flames from all areas at regular intervals and constantly levitating and rotating the two oil drum playing percussionists and their DJ colleagues. The crowd sang every word of every song and despite appearing to be engaged in a mass riot, had a great time. Which is what Slipknot, despite the masks and the imagery, were all about.
Performance
Into The New four/five stars
Arches, Glasgow
Mary Brennan
There are times when this showcase of new work reads like a reassuring promissory note to audiences. When the performances - all by final year students from the Contemporary Performance Practice (CPP) course at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland - is ripe and ready to go before a wider public. In Maria Giergiel's case, that public will be very small - aged 3 to 5, in fact. Her piece, But, what if...? (FOUR STARS), took that bed-time moment when a sudden noise makes the darkness scary and turned it into an interactive adventure where the opening of little black boxes invited tots (and us) to identify the sounds lurking inside. On paper it seems simplicity itself. But Giergiel's research, workshops and try-outs - along with her astute instincts - honed games-play into a subtle, fun way for little 'uns to confront big fears.
Jak Saroka's Acts of Self Love (FIVE STARS) was definitely adults only. Across a four-hour stretch she strutted along a catwalk, initially naked but then in a variety of guises - showgirly high heels and fish-nets for one, a strap-on dildo for another - where she made her body a prism for facets of her sexual identity and creative curiosity. For a debut performance this was astoundingly composed in every way: from Saroka's unfazed presence on the catwalk to the meticulously ordered objects - make-up, prosthetics, shoes - on her props tables, and the similarly worked-through structure that underpinned her precisely-timed durational ritual of self-discovery and exposure. The honesty involved was unswerving. Brutal, even - the recurring film footage of her on the toilet was explicit. But ultimately this was a celebration, of Saroka as a person and as a talented performer with intellectual, as well as physical stamina.
Theatre
Faith Healer
Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh
Neil Cooper
Four stars
"Spend your life in show-business and you become a philosopher," says Teddy, the spiv-like manager and touring partner of The Fantastic Francis Hardy in the third of four monologues that make up Brian Friel's haunting dramatic meditation on the the unreliable powers of an inconsistent muse, and how those powers can trap their carrier in their own self-destructive mythology.
Before Teddy met Frank, his world was occupied by bagpipe-playing whippets and other end-of-the-pier acts. Once their paths crossed, it was an endless itinerary of one-night stands in isolated towns and villages in Scotland and Wales where miracles sometimes happened. Like an ageing rock band, Frank, Teddy and Frank's wife Grace embark on a never-ending tour of backwoods venues struggling to recapture the alchemical spark that once made Frank great in-between burying himself in booze and antagonising strangers and intimates.
It is Frank who frames the play with the first and last of the play's quartet of conflicting confessionals. A dynamic Sean O'Callaghan invests Frank with shabby vulnerability by in John Dove's poignant and powerful production. Possessed by a mercurial restlessness, O'Callaghan is never still for a second as he whirls about Michael Taylor's church hall set, declaiming Frank's version of his peaceful downfall during his return to Ireland.
Once Niamh McCann's Grace tells all from her London bedsit, the contradictions of Frank's account become plain as she unravels her own tragedy. After the interval, Patrick Driver's Teddy is almost light relief in his bluff description of events. It's significant that the manager is the only survivor in this mighty metaphor for art, and the life and death that fuel it.
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