Reviews

Irish Times writers review Warren Vaché & The Louis Stewart Trio at the Bank of Ireland, Dublin, The Love-Hungry Farmer at the Pavilion, Du Laoghaire, Radiohead at the Point, Campbell and Hurley and at Bank of Ireland, Dublin and The Snowman at the SFX City Theatre, Dublin.

Warren Vaché & The Louis Stewart Trio

Bank of Ireland, Dublin

By Ray Comiskey

Dublin Jazz Society's final concert of the year, presenting the cornetist Warren Vaché with the Louis Stewart Trio on Wednesday, was, as the cliché has it, a game of two halves. For most of a generally dull and underwhelming opening set the quartet struggled to find the kind of buoyancy and cohesiveness that brings the music to life. This was despite the presence of two world-class talents, in Vaché and guitarist Stewart, and a reliance on familiar standards.

Vaché, especially on the faster pieces, dug into his bag of licks - a bag of personal clichés, it must be said, that many a lesser mainstreamer would envy. Stewart, who seems incapable of playing poorly, seemed to need to lift the musical environment. Vaché must have sensed this; he told jokes, delivered an amusing blues vocal and generally lightened the atmosphere.

The second set was totally different. Although the group still failed to convince, it played better; both Blue Bossa and Comes Love had their moments. But a decision to enliven the set with some duets turned out to be inspired, and the music took wing. Stewart and Vaché were sublime on It Could Happen To You and Old Folks, two great mainstream players finding inspiration in each other and the material. When Vaché invited drummer Miles Drennan to switch to piano for a duo exploration of Polka Dots And Moonbeams, the result was equally lyrical and engrossing - a taste of what these musicians can do when the setting is more conducive to creativity.

**********

The Love-Hungry Farmer

Pavilion, Dún Laoghaire

By Gerry Colgan

It was often said, about John B. Keane's early writings, that he was like a robust local wine, amusing in its presumption but unlikely to travel well.

Des Keogh has been to New York with a one-man show mined from Keane's fiction and plays, and he has put a large nail in that particular coffin. His off-Broadway production earned enthusiastic reviews from critics and packed houses from the public. Now we are seeing his opus for the first time, it is easy to understand that success. It is uproariously funny and altogether human, as was the creator of the material. It combines a Rabelaisian wit with Chekhovian sadness, and it has found the perfect interpreter.

John Bosco McLane is the elderly farmer who has, all his life, sought in vain for sexual experience. He is totally honest about his desire and would prefer a wife, but he'll take anything that's going. In a dance hall one night, he asks a young woman to partner him in a dance, to receive the reply: "Go way outta that, ya dirty oul ting." The humiliation sends him to a local matchmaker, Dicky Mick Dicky O'Connor.

He gets three introductions to women who would make any red-blooded man embrace celibacy, so he makes another solo run. His first lady friend, a nurse, rejects him for slowness; shag you for a statue, she offers as parting words. That lesson learnt, he lunges at the next - and is roundly berated and dumped. So it goes, interspersing comedy with the sadness of his growing loneliness. We leave him in his kitchen with a whiskey bottle for company.

Keogh is superb in all of this, a consummate actor wedded to a skilled raconteur. The wine he offers is vintage.

Ends tomorrow

**********

Radiohead

Point, Dublin

By Tony Clayton-Lea

There's been much talk of Radiohead shooting themselves in the foot by following their crossover albums The Bends and OK Computer with the virtually impenetrable Kid A and the abstract Amnesiac and Hail To The Thief. Yet the irony is that if they'd stuck to trotting out retreads of OK Computer the band would have been branded as bland sell-outs.

Instead they are both lauded for following their hearts (and their cerebral heads) and berated for lacking a commercial beat. They're trapped between a rock and a hard place, then? Actually, no. Equipping themselves with a set that now spreads itself across their frequently elegant, sweet tunes and their occasionally warped sense of melody, Radiohead shoehorn the word pop into apoplectic and come away smelling of roses. With the thorns still attached.

The focus is everything: from Thom Yorke's fighting-with- himself dancing to Jonny Greenwood's tending of his guitar and keyboards; from the Matrix-like parallel-lines backdrop to the computer- assisted/scratch video side screens; from the flashy stage lights to the partisan audience.

The biggest surprise is how the "awkward" songs fit: Everything In Its Right Place, Myxomatosis and others dovetail in a way that would hardly be apparent on record. Add expertly paced sweeteners such as Fake Plastic Trees, No Surprises and Lucky and you've got a balance that is unbeatable. So this is what it's like to be impressed.

**********

Campbell, Hurley

Bank of Ireland, Dublin

By Martin Adams

This concert showed that Sinéad Campbell is not just a young soprano with a pleasing voice and a reliable technique. It revealed the type of musical intelligence that will almost certainly mature.

She is studying in London, but on this occasion the pianist was a former teacher, Mairéad Hurley. They made a strong partnership, each well aware of her relationship to the other. Campbell's singing did not try to convince. It just did. The music came first. She was relaxed about her relationship to it and showed no interest in making us think she was a great gal.

Two arias by Handel, Il Primo Ardor from Ariodante and V'adoro, Pupille from Giulio Cesare, did not attain the effortless style that lies at the heart of baroque opera. They were secure, however, and there is little doubt that Campbell has potential in this specialist area.

Two technical issues surfaced intermittently. One was a coarsening of tone when high and loud; the other was a tendency to drop pitch, sometimes to well below the note, when producing a quiet, dark tone. These were minor debits, though, against a profound account of Schumann's Frauenliebe Und Leben. Few song cycles show a more detailed relationship between text and music, and here they were inseparable. The free parlando style of the opening song was perfect. So was the sustained, lingering lyricism of Du Ring.

The judgment shown in putting an apt bend into a word or note revealed a singer who understands what makes this subtle music tick.

**********

The Snowman

SFX City Theatre, Dublin

By Sylvia Thompson

The stage version of Raymond Briggs's beautiful children's story has got to be the gentlest piece of theatre going up this Christmas. Told through mime, live music and dance, Michael Scott's production has a slow, measured mood rarely seen in children's theatre nowadays.

The story begins during Christmas preparations in James's home, fantasy taking hold when his snowman comes alive. After James (Niall Bruton) shows his new companion around his home, encountering a playful mop, a wind-up toy and a dancing teddy along the way, they begin their journey to the North Pole, beautifully costumed woodland animals hinting at the mood to follow in the far more magical second half.

Magnificent snowman and penguin costumes (from Scottish Ballet) are central to this new mood as a Chinese snowman, an English tea-lady snow-woman and a Highland dancer introduce themselves before Santa arrives. Then the Ice Princess (Nicola Murphy) appears, shimmeringly displaying some delicate ballet steps. The Snowman (Neil Watkins) is besotted, but he is quickly overshadowed by Jack Frost (Leo Tone). Adding the only baddy element, he claims the Ice Princess and freezes the snowmen in position.

In one of the few moments when too little time is left for dramatic effect, Santa quickly brings them to back to life, allowing the Ice Princess to reign supreme and Jack Frost to be thrown off stage. The next morning, at home again, James awakes to find his snowman melted - although poignancy is swept aside by a dancing finale.

This 90-minute show will appeal most to the under-sevens who willingly enter James's magical world.

Runs until January 11th