Cherrydial

Through the dark of night they crept with memories of glamour from days gone by. Their expectations high – it’s a chance for these people to drift back into a stylised past. It’s probably a mystery to many who know them that a few years ago they loved the affected vowels sounds, hip twisting and microphone swinging of Brett Anderson. Now once again they had the chance to witness and listen to him and descended on North Greenwich in force for a chance to relive these moments.

A temporarily reformed Suede played the O2 in London this week. All dressed in black, the band entered the stage as they used to do at the height of their popularity to Introducing the Band. Their die-hard fans cheered and waited with bated breath for their favourite songs. They came thick and fast – The Drowners, The Beautiful Ones, Metal Mickey, So Young, We Are the Pigs. The list goes on and on. It’s funny now how you notice the sometimes simplistic rhyming but it makes it easy to sing along.

We marvelled at how well Brett looked given his self-proclaimed previous ummm unhealthy lifestyle. He’s turned himself around to a poster-boy for fitness itself. He hammered that stage to the full. Only the middle few songs lowered his energy, and frankly ours, a little – turning the mood sombre, not always in the most pleasant way. I often found their softer moments a bit hit or miss. Brett even strummed on guitar and gave us an acoustic performance.

The stage backdrop was beautiful – switching between the vibrant artwork of each single and their creative album covers. The covers of the 1996 album Coming Up and the single Beautiful Ones were two of my favourites.

We had fun but sadly it all had to slide away in the end to one of their most haunting tracks, the comforting lilting sound of Saturday Night. We die-hard fans disappeared to our homes quietly to maybe seek out the old videos on  until Suede next treat us to a little chutzpah.

On this sensitive day for English football, just after the bid to host the 2018 World Cup failed, I dare to mention a film about this year’s 2012 tournament. I urge you, if you can, to catch the film Africa United before it disappears from the big screens. Directed by Deb Gardner-Paterson, this roadtrip film follows a small group of African children a they desperately cross the continent to reach South Africa so that talented young football player Fabrice, played by Roger Nsengiyumva, can take part in the opening ceremony for the games. They have a rollercoaster adventure where they are pursued by thugs, rescue an underage girl from the hotel sex industry and encounter the devastating impact of AIDS.

You are swept easily into their journey. Appealing animation scenes are mixed in with the live action and the young leads have you rooting for their success. At first I thought it would be too twee for me, a film with no adults in the lead roles but it certainly shattered those doubts and seized my attention.

The musical Fela! at the National Theatre in London celebrates the life of the fantastic Nigerian musician and performer Kela Kuti. His life was inescapably entwined with politics while he created the unique sound of afrobeat.

The production has already had a successful run on broadway. Director Bill T Jones brings it across to these shores with Sahr Ngaujah as the lead. We gain an insight to Fela’s history in the sixties and seventies – a life of passion and tragedy. We are encouraged to dance, sample his charisma and share in his grief for his mother pushed to her death from a window. It is impossible not to be moved in any way when you are invited to experience his world.

The night is a celebration of impressive dance, singing and music. The many stage performers are around you at every angle. As well as watching them and getting involved yourself, you are invited to watch video footage. It is simply not possible to be still and distant.  I advise you to go along and join the party.

I was excited when I heard that the Sebastian Faulks bestseller Birdsong was to be turned into a play and jumped at the chance to go when a friend asked me if I wanted to see it at the Comedy Theatre in London.

In the story, young Englishman Stephen Wraysford travels to France on business and falls in love with his host’s young wife Isabelle Azaire. She is being ill-treated by her husband and Stephen, sensing her pain, falls in love with her. To leave her with no doubt, he tells her of his passion for her and they embark on a secret torrid affair.

As a man in love, Stephen takes desperate and frequent chances to communicate and be with Isabelle, planning times when they can be alone together. But events overtake them and all does not bode well.

The First World War starts and Stephen is thrown into the grim experiences of battle. In the book, this is conveyed so realistically. He still maintains his love for Isabelle though she isn’t with him, thinking about her at every chance.

Ben Barnes, star of the movie adaptation, Dorian Gray, takes the lead but he is somehow a little too textbook in his stage presence. You don’t quite believe him as this impassioned being. The same could be said for Genevieve O’Reilly as Isabelle. It’s the cast of soldiers who make the production more effervescent and engaging. They show a greater complexity of personalities and draw out more of the pain of conflict. The stage sets were well thought out, never overpowering or taking away from the actors and sound was used creditably to create the war zone. The most moving aspect was the list of names of soldiers who were killed in battle.

Director Anthony Cordier’s The Happy Few was the French film I watched in the London Film Festival this year. Two newly acquainted middle class couples, one partnership played by Marina Fois and Roschdy Zem and the other by Nicolas Duvauchelle and Elodie Bouchez, decide to exchange partners after they acknowledge their attractions. The problems come from the lack of rules which inevitably take their dalliances away from simple fun to stirring jealousies. To be honest, it had to happen.

The memorable scene involves flour – it sticks in your mind because you wonder how they manage not to sneeze and consider how annoying it might be to remove. It’s a quiet understated film. However you wish it simmered and stormed a little more to give you something to hold onto. Maybe it’s a little too light – like sifted flour.

The more you look forward to something, the chances of a disappointment increase. The word was out that David Fincher’s movie The Social Network, charting the birth of Facebook, was great – excellent in fact. Not a bad word seemed to pass anyone’s lips for this film.

However, this brings us onto dangerous territory. This year has been a curious one for movies. I have expected much and received very little in return as I have munched anxiously on my popcorn. Even the popcorn hasn’t delivered and has tasted pretty much like cardboard. What’s going on?

I entered the walls of the Harvard elite and watched as Jesse Eisenberg as Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg annoyed his girlfriend and riled the other female students on his way to his good idea. I witnessed as he tussled with the Winklevoss twins (Armie Hammer and Josh Pence) and their friend Narendra (Max Minghella) over whose innovation it was. I felt sympathy for Andrew Garfield’s Eduardo Saverin who was seemingly left out in the cold and was suitably impressed by Justin Timberlake’s turn as a thespian.

But did I enjoy myself? No, not really. Great acting and sharp dialogue but I was left with that feeling that it’s a dog eat dog world out there.

As the leaves start to turn to striking hues of yellow, orange and red and the nights engulf us earlier, we turn away from the daytime delights of huge music festivals to the intimate gig. We let ourselves be challenged by new sounds on a autumnal quest for discovery.

My chance to hear something new was at the Musical Connection night at the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan Centre in Kensington. Under the direction of Shri Sanjay Guha, a disciple of Ravi Shankar, we had an unusual collaboration between Guha’s London Sitar Ensemble, the lute player Jamie Akers, the harpsichord player Katie Delamatter, tabla stars Nand and Puish. The theme was Early Music – European music written before 1750, big during the Renaissance and Baroque periods.

The collaboration was mesmerising and simultaneously curious in songs where all the 20 or so musicians onstage played at the same time. The tablas particularly transfixed me with the strong base and intricate rhythms woven throughout. At times the lute and harpsichord in the solo sections, seemed to emphasise the difference of the instruments a little too much . Still I was bewitched – I’ve never heard anything like it before.

Mention MGMT to anyone who loved their album Oracular Spectacular and talk immediately moves to how their latest album Congratulations is less instant – the attention-grabbing melodies aren’t there.

Well I ventured out to their Brixton Academy show preparing just to enjoy the songs from Oracular like Time to Pretend or Electric Feel. To be honest I had just managed to listen to Congratulations once. But guess what… I left appreciating the dedication to slightly more complicated song structures and harmonies in their most recent music – at the more accomplished side of alternative music. Their songs soared, etching their own space in my memory and made me feel slightly ashamed for not taking the time to get to know them well enough before attending.

At times they looked a little like shoe-gazers if it wasn’t for the pace picking up on songs such as Kids. I’ll be humming Someone’s Missing and I’m Working from the latest collection. The band touched us with their gentle appreciation of us and their obvious musicianship. Long may they continue!

The nights are drawing in. There’s a little ice in the air. Your spirit and body aren’t as energised as they were back in July. In the summer months you had a certain expectation of sun to power your muscles and joints. But now?

You need a taste of Odemba OK Jazz Allstars, an exuberant African band of instrumentalists and singers to kick start you this Autumn. A little taster of them, in the same way that they boosted my limbs at the Albany venue in London’s New Cross and you’ll soon be picking up your pace while sharing exhausted but enriched smiles with your companion.

It happened to me folks! I was politely watching from a stool one moment and then dancing frenetically the next. Seek the Allstars out before the dark, damp mornings and evenings drag you down completely.