Reviews

A look at what is happening in the world of the arts.

Little Britain Live at The Point, Dublin

We are all Little Britons now. Such is the power and reach of television, and the merciless grip of a simple catchphrase endlessly reiterated, that it's hard to find anyone who isn't fluent in the language of this sketch show turned cultural phenomenon.

"Computer says no", "Write the feem tune, sing the feem tune", even the less inherently hilarious "Eh eh ehhhh" each meet with a whooping rapture in The Point as Matt Lucas and David Walliams shuttle through the costume changes, gay jokes and gross-out humour of Little Britain's stage version - the biggest-selling comedy event ever staged in Ireland.

Now that their third TV series for the BBC has concluded, Little Britain Live feels more like a victory lap than an attempt to extend the borders of Lucas and Walliams's comic dominion. With Christmas specials in the pipeline and Beeb contracts renewed, Little Britain's creators insist that there's life left in these characters yet. In that respect, the live show is less encouraging.

By the time Vicky Pollard charges onstage to wild applause, parking her six-seater baby buggy in the corner and twisting her "yeah but no but yeah but no but" mantra into a calypso song, you feel that Lucas may be wringing the last laughs out of her shell suit.

Recognition and repetition are, of course, Little Britain's stock in trade (and the spluttering finish to several scenes suggest that they never sweat over their punchlines), but the real pleasure of the live show comes when they stray from the regular TV format. Freed from polite broadcasting restrictions, Lucas and Walliams deliver deliciously nasty, gossipy jibes at the private lives of various celebrities - including, when an otherwise forgettable sketch falters, their own.

In such frequent, freewheeling moments, the warmth of the Lucas/Walliams double act seeps out, highlighting the best of Little Britain's national character. Returns to The Point on Thursday September 28th Peter Crawley

ICO/Kennedy at Mahony Hall, The Helix, Dublin

Mozart - Violin Concerto No 4. Beethoven - Violin Concerto.

Nigel Kennedy was back in town at the weekend for a bit of an adventure. At the start of his programme with the Irish Chamber Orchestra at The Helix on Saturday he announced that he was "fairly nervous about this Mozart scenario". He had, it seems, a musical falling out with Salzburg's greatest musical son 28 years ago, and hasn't performed his music since.

What Saturday revealed is that, whatever the gap, whatever the relationship, Kennedy will do as Kennedy does.

At times he seemed to want to whip the teenage Mozart's Violin Concerto in D, K218, with all the urgency of a jockey on the home straight. Sometimes he exaggerated the composer's specified dynamic contrasts, sometimes he virtually ignored them. And, in typically provocative style, he introduced cadenzas that ventured into mind-boggling, new-age, doodling inanity, harnessing the orchestral players as a kind of pseudo synthesizer.

In between the special effects there was another Kennedy to be discerned, a probing musician with a freshness in his phrasing and an alertness to alternative approaches who always commanded attention.

The pity of it was that Kennedy seemed unwilling or unable to discriminate between ideas and explorations that were musically rewarding and those that were merely far-fetched. Perhaps he's reluctant to interfere with a formula that's been working so well for him with an adoring public. He has a reputation for musical eccentricity, and, on the principle of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it," he may be concerned to keep offering more of the same.

After the interval he showed himself a lot more respectful of the letter and spirit of Beethoven's sole violin concerto. To be sure, there were times in the first movement when he seemed reluctant to commit to a single tempo. But he's surely right to resist the feeling that the piece actually opens with an extended slow movement, and then follows with another one. But the shifts of mode on Saturday were not integrated well enough to be fully successful.

Kennedy's passionate commitment, however, was never in doubt. He kept the orchestral players on their toes, played along in most of the tutti sections so that he was often effectively leading by example. And the sheer vitality of his playing when he is in full flight remained, as ever, irresistible. Michael Dervan

The Official Version at the Rock Theatre, Belfast

The sub-title of Laurence McKeown's new play for DubbelJoint - "Reminiscences of the H-Block Prison System" - is an indication of two things: that it is not a conventionally-structured stage drama and that we are in for some serious talking.

Coming 25 years after the hunger strike, on which McKeown himself spent 70 days, the sincerity and authenticity of content and context are indisputable; but, particularly after the interval, the alternating dialogues between unchanging pairs of characters become repetitive and predictable, a seemingly endless stream of words and more words. However, director Pam Brighton has produced some fine performances from her cast and, against Danny Devenny and the Feile Artists' bleak concrete set, they carve out an absorbing reflection on themes whose reception will be determined by the background and political inclinations of the audience.

The setting is the hated place known to republicans as Long Kesh, the former internment centre turned prison-within-prison, a terrible environment, entirely removed from the outside world, to the physical and psychological detriment of all who dwelt there. Part of it is now being turned into a museum, where guided tours include the hospital where the hunger-strikers died.

Maria Connolly adds welcome light and shade to the role of the researcher Julie, an earnest young Protestant woman from whose eyes the scales are falling at a rate of knots. Gerry Doherty does well as a stereotypical former prison governor, superficially jovial but bigoted and bitter underneath - a two-dimensional, cardboard cut-out character. Sorcha Meehan is Theresa, who spent her teenage years visiting her brother in the Kesh, while acting as a courier for prisoners' notes, and is now a Sinn Féin election candidate. Rosena Brown is a natural as Annie McArdle, the most rounded character on stage. As the warm-hearted mother of a young dead son, she is the symbol of all those ordinary Northern women, on both sides of the community, whose existences were rendered extraordinary by the twists and turns of surreal, life-changing events which are now the stuff of history books.

From September 25th to October 15th touring to: Castlebar, Galway, Virginia, Toomebridge, Inniskeen, Mullaghbawn, Belfast, Derry, Drimarone, Coalisland, Lisnaskea, Ballybofey, Gweedore, Gulladuff. Jane Coyle

Jurassic 5 at Vicar Street, Dublin

The summer might be over, but J5 came to bring some sunshine back into our lives. The LA hip-hop outfit's live show is a reminder that get-your-ass-on-the-dancefloor rap is alive and kicking.

Audience apathy was not an option. The group's time-tested approach of hook and melody, blended with thick beats and funky samples, saw to that. The vocal precision and harmonising of the four emcees was irresistible, while DJ Nu Mark scratched it up at regular interludes.

Refreshingly outspoken against fake gangsta rap - "I refuse to bust gats and water down my raps" - the boys came to deliver their distinct brand of feel-good music.

Some say that J5 have never been able to capture on wax the energy that infuses their live shows and that that's why none of their albums has ever reached disproportionate commercial heights. In response, the group say "we some old school kids in the new school" who make underground music that doesn't cater to the masses. The crowd bounced to Chali 2na's deep baritone voice, while Akil, Zaakir and Mark 7 wove even higher-toned patterns.

On the scene since 1997, they churned out an array of classic hits, including Concrete and Clay, Thin Line and What's Golden, which spurred the appropriate sing-back repertoire. Touring to promote their newest album, Feedback, they played a blend of old and new.

Criticised in the past for being a bit too breezy, J5's video for their current single, Work It Out, shows that they can get political when they want to.

The video depicts George Bush taking a presidential jog through downtown LA and encountering various urban scenarios, all of which meet disaster when he gets involved.

The video's light-hearted treatment of racial divisions, wartime unrest and declining faith in the presidential leadership of the United States is typically subtle.

But, when they are onstage, J5 aren't so ambiguous about their feelings towards their president - "Muthaf**k George Bush" - spat Akil, much to the approval of the crowd. Ali Bracken

O'Conor, RTÉ NSO/Delfs at the NCH, Dublin

Beethoven - Symphony No 1. Bartók - Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta. Beethoven - Emperor Concerto.

The German conductor Andreas Delfs, who has been music director of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra since 1997, made a favourable impression in concerts with the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra in 1993 and 1995. His return, at the National Concert Hall on Friday, was every bit as fine.

There's nothing unusually spectacular in his musical approach. He's one of those conductors who seems to allow the music to speak for itself in a way that's both solidly grounded and musically characterful.

Beethoven's First Symphony moved with a natural lightness and warmth, though Delfs, perhaps with an eye on the length of the programme, was here a bit mean with repeats.

The uniquely wonderful colouring of Bartók's Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta was nicely caught, and the light-on-its-toes performance was as faithful in rendering the stillness and tension in the slow movements as in conveying the sprung energy of the fast ones.

John O'Conor was the soloist in Beethoven's EmperorConcerto, which he is shortly to record with Delfs and the London Symphony Orchestra for Telarc - the duo are having a dry-run of the coupling for the recording, Beethoven's Second Concerto, in Milwaukee later this week.

O'Conor is a centralist when it comes to the Beethoven concertos, avoiding the wayward and ensuring that listeners get what they expect from the music.

The Emperor in all its moods, from imperious to introverted, responds well to this approach, even, as on Friday, in the face of some sour-sounding notes in the piano's upper range.

With conductor and soloist in constant agreement, this performance was satisfying in all its shades of nobility and tenderness. Michael Dervan

John McCormack tribute at the NCH, Dublin

The John McCormack tribute at the NCH on Saturday was a hybrid event that included projected stills, silent and sound film footage, and the tenor's 1924 recording of Come my beloved. We also had a gentle anecdotal commentary, deftly delivered by Gordon Ledbetter, and 15 minutes of speeches. During these we were told about a proposed Elizabeth O'Kane statue and a €100,000 vocal bursary to be donated by the IAWS Group.

There were three vocal soloists, tenor Anthony Kearns, soprano Elizabeth Woods and baritone Giuseppe Deligia. Woods and Kearns sang two nicely-balanced duets, Parigi, o cara from La traviata and Franck's Panis angelicus, and Deligia joined the tenor for a truncated and rather perfunctory version of the popular duet from Bizet's Les pecheurs de perles.

In her own right, the soprano offered an impassioned rendering of Wally's Ebben n'andro lontano and the baritone an underpowered Avant de quitter ces lieux from Faust.

Kearns, who had the lion's share of the programme, began with flowing accounts of Faust's cavatina and Nemorino's Una furtiva lagrima.

Here, and elsewhere in the programme, his subtle tonal shading and judicious use of well-supported head voice complemented an exciting top register.

But these artistic good manners were undermined by conductor Robert Houlihan, who paid scant attention to matters of vocal nuance and frequently allowed the Irish Film Orchestra to drown the singers.

Worse still, in the section devoted to songs, he used pretentious and overloud orchestral arrangements that not only drew attention to themselves, but short-changed the vocalists in matters of rhythmic and tonal support.

In the event, the most satisfactory offerings were Rachmaninov's To the children and Handel's Where e're you walk, in which Kearns was partnered on piano by Patrick Healy, and a ravishing She moved through the fair, performed by Woods and harpist Andreja Maljia. John Allen