The Coronet Theatre Archives - Page 8 of 10

Sweet Little Mystery – The Songs Of John Martyn

The Coronet Theatre

Reviewed – 29th October 2019

★★★★★

“If a voice was perceived in colour, Sarah’s would be red. Red velvet. Red wine. The colour of fire, passion, anger, danger. And love.”

John Martyn was just sixty years old when his life tragically came to an end ten years ago. A key figure, not just in the world of folk, his musical style crossed boundaries crossing over into jazz and experimental rock, even becoming one of the forerunners of ‘trip hop’ that emerged in the 1990s. A friend and collaborator with the likes of Eric Clapton, Phil Collins and Nick Drake his influences were widespread and can still be heard today. Peerless and passionate, he bucked trends and fearlessly followed his own path, and heart. “It’s no battle to get up there and sing whatever’s in your head at the time, but it’s a whole other scene to lay your heart on people” he said back in 1973. But his heart ultimately couldn’t keep up. His life-long abuse of drugs and alcohol took its toll, yet his searing soul still continues to haunt us through his music.

“Sweet Little Mystery” is Sarah Jane Morris’ homage to Martyn. Morris is at pains to emphasise that her show is not a tribute, but her own take on the songs. “John Martyn would have enjoyed the fact that we celebrate the songs but change them – that’s the point of covering songs” she says introducing her set. Centre stage at Notting Hill’s Coronet Theatre, her only prop is a microphone through which she layers her own personality on a hand picked collection of Martyn classics. Accompanied by two virtuoso guitarists: to her left is her ‘partner in crime’ on the project, guitarist Tony Rémy and on the right Tim Cansfield. Directed by comedian and activist Mark Thomas, the show – a labour of love – began as a CD recording resulting from touring and interviewing friends, family and fellow musicians of John Martyn. Footage of these conversations are projected onto the back wall between numbers. More interesting though are Morris’ own anecdotes about what the songs mean to her.

If a voice was perceived in colour, Sarah’s would be red. Red velvet. Red wine. The colour of fire, passion, anger, danger. And love. A rich, dramatic contralto that betrays her journey into music via theatre. Yet theatricality is absent here as she lets the songs speak for themselves. Included in the evening, among several other numbers, are ‘Solid Air’, which Martyn wrote for Nick Drake shortly before Drake’s suicide, ‘May You Never’ (famously also covered by Eric Clapton), ‘I Don’t Wanna Know’ – co-written with his first wife, Beverley Kutner. In a dark moment Martyn professed that he wanted to write a song about evil, but his wife replied “I don’t wanna know about evil – I only wanna know about love”. ‘Sweet Little Mystery’, which gives the show it’s title, comes from Martyn’s album ‘Grace and Danger’, a record that his producer refused to release for over a year as he found it too raw and disturbing. Morris adds warmth to the desolation, knowing when to add light to the shade, and with a wry nod to Martyn’s taste for the grain she urges us at interval to raise a toast to his spirit with a large whisky at the bar.

The toast, however, is surely to Sarah Jane Morris and the exceptional musicality of Tony Rémy and Tim Cansfield. Morris has said that she will only cover a song if she feels she can take it, change it, claim it and make it her own. At the Coronet, she not only achieves that with the songs, but she takes the audience, changes us, claims us and makes us her own. A remarkable feat for a performer. A remarkable show.

Reviewed by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Sarah Leigh Lewis

Sweet Little Mystery – The Songs Of John Martyn

The Coronet Theatre until 31st October

Last ten shows reviewed at this venue:

Love Lies Bleeding | ★★★★ | November 2018

A Christmas Carol | ★★★★ | December 2018

The Dead | ★★★ | December 2018

The Lady From The Sea | ★★ | February 2019

The Glass Piano | ★★★★ | April 2019

Remember Me: Homage to Hamlet | ★★ | June 2019

The Decorative Potential Of Blazing Factories (Film) | ★★★ | June 2019

Three Italian Short Stories | ★★★★ | June 2019

Winston Vs Churchill | ★★★★★ | June 2019

Youth Without God | ★★★ | September 2019

Click here to see our most recent reviews

★★★

“an absurdist satire on pretty much everything that the media focuses on in modern society”

Last month saw the relaunch of the Coronet Theatre in Notting Hill, with the unique aim to use the whole building for multi-disciplinary programming; spanning theatre, film, dance and visual art. And true to its intention, a short schedule of film, dance and even poetry is lined up before the main auditorium houses its next theatre production in September. Currently running is the first film the Coronet Theatre has commissioned; “The Decorative Potential of Blazing Factories” by film director Gary Chitty and sculptor Bruce McLean. It is delightfully obvious that the theatre is not shying away from the decorative potential of this colourful collaboration. From the start of his career McLean has refused to be told what to do, renouncing convention and rebelling against tradition. He began making sculpture from rubbish before becoming one of Britain’s most influential conceptual artists, pioneering performance art. He met Chitty in the early 1970s when they cofounded ‘Nice Style’ – a rock band. Only this band didn’t play any instruments; they just posed (they even supported The Kinks).

So, it is intriguing to wonder what their brief was for this commission. McLean himself has described the film as a ‘cardboard catastrophe’, and they both use the term ‘expanded cinema’. But basically, it seems that anything goes. The film is at heart an absurdist satire on pretty much everything that the media focuses on in modern society; from politics to art, environmentalism to fashion, industrialism to individualism, ambition and infamy. It tries to paint the world picture with a fine-tooth comb. Which is probably where it stumbles into a self-indulgent swamp in which the inherent humour gets bogged down.

A young woman, an artist, wants to create the greatest landscape painting of all time. To capture the red skyscape, she burns down her father’s factory, much to the dismay of the displaced factory workers. The media focuses more on the artist’s dresses than the art, and on the workers’ breakfast than their plight. Meanwhile a politician wants to create the greatest world summit but concentrates more on getting his handshake right for the cameras than the melting icebergs that herald Armageddon.

Throughout the film, Chitty and Bruce occasionally parade in front of the screen holding blank placards. The symbolism is obvious, but the aesthetic is more interesting, as the placards catch the projection giving the effect of a magnifying glass focusing on certain points of the screen. It is unclear whether this is intentional or whether it is an accidental offshoot of the surrounding chaos. Probably a mix of both. The frenzy of ideas is just about held together by threads of cleverness, not least the animation itself. Again, eschewing convention and modern digital trends, McLean uses puppetry, foam board, oil paints, cardboard, smoke and ingenuity. Pictures and models from the film are on display in an exhibition running alongside in the ‘Print Room’.

This is not to everybody’s taste and despite the short running time it does flirt with tedium. But it is fun, and it pokes fun at modern clichés. And at us. And at themselves too which is its saving grace. It closes with the rhetorical caption “can art change our view of the world?” The glint in their eye as Chitty and McLean take their bow betrays the irony and implores us not to take this all too seriously.

Reviewed by Jonathan Evans

The Coronet Theatre

Reviewed – 29th October 2019

★★★★★

“If a voice was perceived in colour, Sarah’s would be red. Red velvet. Red wine. The colour of fire, passion, anger, danger. And love.”

Reviewed by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Sarah Leigh Lewis

Sweet Little Mystery – The Songs Of John Martyn

The Coronet Theatre until 31st October

Last ten shows reviewed at this venue:

The Coronet Theatre

Reviewed – 18th June 2019

★★★

“an absurdist satire on pretty much everything that the media focuses on in modern society”

Reviewed by Jonathan Evans

The Decorative Potential of Blazing Factories

The Coronet Theatre until 22nd June

Previously reviewed at this venue: