READING ALOUD - David Whyte - Everything Is Waiting For You

 

Good poetry often misses its point with deliberate ease. Modern poets can tend to disguise their meaning behind an artifice of obscurity and erudition. It maybe clever, but its rarely wise. You often find, like the tombs of Muslim heroes of old, that there maybe an elaborately wrought coffin to view on the surface, but there is no body to be found within. It's symbolism is an empty one, an echo without a resonant chamber.

David Whyte's poetry, at its best, will never be found empty of meaning or potency. But neither is it weighed down in a clumsy, portentous or leaden way, nor by expressing itself within the easy understanding of a flowery sentiment. It is the embodiment of its depths that strikes you about Whyte's poetry. One that is never so obvious, that its understood in the moment, you grasp it and quickly move on. There is still an air of mystery in the elucidation to draw your return to it. Here poetry encapsulates, it strikes a vein of recognition like a vestigial bell.  

Gaston Bachlard once described poetry as being like throwing a pebble into a deep pond - that it touches the depths before the ripples of it break the surface.

MY OWN WALKING - Journal December 2024

Having passed the fifth month since the HA! I am still being very dutiful in taking my medications. But also notice that it is slipping my mind to take them at the allotted times more frequently. Also, those morning physical exercises, confession time - I hardly ever do them anymore, I've come to dislike them so much. I can sense my inner sub conscious world is in a mild mannered rebellion, not sweary or cussing, but it is seeping into the conscious world outside.

I've become so accustomed to the medications. I no longer have a lived sense of whether they are meeting my needs or not. However much I might want to beg to differ, all these chemical additives are still contributing to keeping me alive. I feel immensely grateful for what they are doing, however silently in the background. 

I ceased doing the physical exercises because I had no felt sense of them being of much benefit. I was not aware of feeling better, fitter or looser for doing them. But in the world of the HA! who am I to judge? After all, left to my own judgement about what to eat I ended up with a blocked heart artery.  So you know, life lessons.

Whilst on holiday in Derbyshire, I bought myself a notebook, with the intention of writing a daily gratitude journal. So far this is going well. I'm being deliberately loose around how or what I write about within it. If I am not careful, it can end up being all about clocking up an impressive list of things I claim to say I feel gratitude for. So I also write about gratitude, what it is and isn't. How appreciation is near to, but not quite it. Plus the odd poem by David Whyte, quotes from Brother David Steindl Rast the guru of gratefulness as a spiritual practice. The journal within my first week of using it, is  taking on its own life and direction, which I'm enjoying seeing unfold.

I'm realising I often need to do a bit more excavating. That underneath most things there is something to be grateful for, you just need to discover the strata on which it lies. That it cannot be just about being grateful for those virtuous, obviously nice things. It's worth noting the things you think are beyond the pale of feeling gratitude for. It's a bit like the Buddhist practice of Metta Bhavana, where you cultivate, loving kindness towards oneself, a good friend, a person you don't know, a person you dislike and then all four subjects combined spreading outwards in an interconnected net to hold the whole world and universe within it. Gratitude, ultimately at least, should aim to be as all encompassing as that.

But then I still allow myself to have my doubts and reservations, these keep me on my toes. I've become particularly aware of the different gradations that gratitude has. There is awareness of gratitude, the noticing that there is something you could be grateful for, there is writing down that you are grateful for something or someone, there is the direct expression of your gratitude to someone, there is the feeling of being grateful, and being grateful. 

All of these, whatever the attributed level, are better than not being grateful at all. It is, however, always worth noting to what depth these things go. Whilst also being wary of not giving yourself a hard time when inevitably you feel a bit shallow and skim the surface for a while. It's a cultivation thing, you are dragging gratitude into the fore ground of your attention, and this can all feel a bit too contrived. Until it's not anymore.

I imagine the more gratitude is actively outwardly expressed the more trans-formative it can potentially be. To not permit it to remain something entirely theoretical or abstracted from real life. If something is really touching you at great depth, then how could this not spill out into your everyday interactions and encounters?

FEATURE - David Whyte - The Conversational Nature of Reality

I found this You Tube conversation between David Whyte and Tim Feriss. It's over two hours long, but it does go deep and broad into Whyte's writing and philosophy. I found it it an invigorating and frequently inspiring listen. Give it some time, if you will.

SHERINGHAM DIARY No 121- Life Lessons For Infants

As we were travelling home from a recent visit to Norwich I spotted a van ahead of us. It was for a painting and decorating company based in North Walsham. Further investigation found, as I suspected, that it is owned and run by a female director.  The company is called - Hard As Males.

I've taken to frequently doing a circular walk around Sheringham Park. On this day it was freezing with a cold raw wind blowing across it down coast. Encouraging me to keep up my pace, more than the usual 'moderate pace', as the fitness app dubs it. Fortunately there is the reward halfway of coffee and tea cake in the park cafe. A place where one lone female blackbird can be seen working the tables. Hopping under them the moment  humans vacate the area to scavenge crumbs.

On the way back I encountered a walk organised by the park rangers for families with young infants. Where the kids had to find toy animals hidden in the bushes. The children screamed with delight as they spotted yet another fluffy being, placed conveniently at kid height. Stuffed rabbits, foxes, bats, giraffes were tossed with great enthusiasm into a collective wheelbarrow. Though no doubt a great way to get children to interact and observe nature closer. I couldn't help but ponder on how mortified they're going to be when they discover not every wood has a fluffy pink elephant in it. Ah, there's a life lesson in everything.

1

Having reached emotional states of feeling more than a bit overwhelmed and stressed, we took ourselves off for a short break in Derbyshire. Just to get away from the familiar demands of the usual stuff and surroundings. It was a relatively relaxed holiday. The worst thing in modern life is to replace one hyper busy working lifestyle with a holiday planned down to the last minute of each waking day.

We stayed in a small farm cottage near Matlock. Taking in the delights of Matlock Bath, Buxton, Bakewell and one evening we went up to the Heights of Abraham to see the light illuminations. The illuminations were really good and we thoroughly enjoyed them. I took so many photos my hands became bitterly cold and this somewhat shocked my post HA! medicated body. 

You get to the Heights via cable cars, travelling upwards slowly for ten minutes. During the day the views from these are spectacular. At night all you can see are spots of lights from houses and the A6 snaking underneath, cloaked in a 360 degree all encompassing darkness. Your sensations being so limited, as the cable cars creep upwards you are palpable aware of how much they swing and lurch like a bell. Going up and coming down was quite the most unnerving experience of not feeling entirely safe. Something I'm unlikely to want to encounter again any time soon.

*************************************

Whilst on this six day break away, there is always the gift that keeps on giving of the overheard conversation. We were leaving a fine little cafe called Butterfingers. Two middle aged women were cackling uproariously at a table by the door. As we left one of them guffawed and said :- ' what I need is a handyman' after which another round of screeching laughter ensued, with more than a hint of innuendo to it.

As we were walking through the park in Matlock one frosty morning. A young woman probably in her thirties, dressed in a fake fur pink coat, in a terrible hurry. She was having a conversation on her matchy-matchy pink phone as she scurried along. It went something like this. ( Imagine a Derbyshire accent )

" well, it's not having a dog that I object too, it's the name. She has to change the name. I mean who wants to shout 'heel Mr Juicy' in the middle of the street?"

FINISHED READING - Monsters by Claire Dederer.

There are numerous instances referenced in this book to people who infringed contemporary values, or broke semi sacred shibboleths. And we all will be aware of our own, often very mixed responses to these instances where one disapproves of or are appalled by a celebrities behaviour, whom we once loved. Falling out of rapturous love straight into despising hate.

One of the fascinating aspects of this book is that Claire Dederer doesn't just reflect and reinforce any justified rightness in the opprobrium. There is a huge amount of exploration of the nuances surrounding it, and her own very conflicted responses to any so called 'bad behaviour.' And lets be honest it is largely bad boy behaviour. Male morality and psyche, is frequently what they can or cannot get away with. With terms like 'genius' tending to give errant males a free pass to overlook gross misdemeanors.

In many ways it can seem more straightforwardly simple, not to say less emotionally fraught, to abandon ones liking for the art of a once lauded individual. But what if you really still like the paintings, music, books or films by them? She delves deep into the whole idea of 'a stain' seeping into an entire lifetime of creative work. Not even to be able to compartmentalise their work, as before or after the reprehensible event.

In our age of the online puritan, it is extraordinarily easy to just close down or cut someone out of your life, or culture. Is this response proportionate ? Can you not separate the work from the individual? Can someone make wonderful beautiful art and yet be an immoral person? Nick Cave suggests you could view artistic work as coming from a side of the individual that strives to be the best of them. The bad behaviour often representing a separate, damaged shadow in their personality.  Could we not continue to love the best of them, but not see this as endorsing the worst? 

She goes into fandom, our obsessive love of particular individuals, and what that might entail emotionally. As an extension of who we see ourselves to be, a much lauded person cannot sit easily in our catalogue of those we appreciate, if they indulged in sex with a minor. Is this self censorship needed if say the films the person makes do not reflect or promulgate their predilection? By watching their movies we are not endorsing the bad behaviour. She explores Woody Allen's output with differing conclusions, depending on what films you are looking at.

She explores later in the book, the severe way 'bad mothers' are treated, and how the artistic impulse in a woman can be thwarted or judged unfavourably on all fronts, simply by having or not having children. The moral disapproval towards women inevitably takes on a distinct character all its own. Disapproval though this may be, its rarely quite the outright wiping them off the face of history, that happens to men. Because to be honest, women are still in the mode of struggling to be even noticed artistically.There is, however, something about the fall from grace of 'great men' that is entirely do with the abuse of their position of power. It's an historically gendered power given only to men, so when this is misused public perdition descends weightily upon them.

The book tends to lose focus and edge about two thirds of the way through. But nonetheless it is a thought provoking book. It's a major dilemma of our present age, so confused and lost morally, but also in meaning. How can you hold two contradictory views, of loving the work, whilst disliking the individual?  It seriously unsettles our moral compass. But in the end is the response to expunge or 'cancel' them anything other than our attitude toward our own internal shadow side, reflected in an external cultural mirror. Where we project infamy onto famous individuals and give them a hard time about their failings. Thus morally distancing us from any behaviour we would never ever do ourselves - would we?

CARROT REVIEW  - 6/8

WATCHED - Buy Now - The Shopping Conspiracy

If any documentary could be a wake up call to us all, then this ought to be one. Explaining with stark simplicity how online marketing keeps us spending. Hiding the true environmental cost of our conspicuous consumption from us. Making us believe that these companys are leaders of environmental change, when they really are not. These false gods and charlatans infecting both our economy and politics.

We are increasingly witness to the 'greenwashing' going on. I certainly wasn't that aware quite how literally poisonous to our perceptions of what an online business it is. We have a knee jerk distrust of politics, the media and religions, but apparently not online business. These companies are the gift that keeps on benevolently giving, without ever falling into abberant sinfulness. I spend therefore I am.

As a business model they looked to the fast fashion industry to find an operational set up they could apply more widely. When once fashion used to have two design seasons a year, it now turns over pretty much monthly. Thousands upon thousands of clothes get worn but a few times and then thoughtfully recycled. But no one quite realised that recycling just meant dumping them on the coastline of a country like Ghana. Ditto the majority of things we very dutifully recycle. Recycling is being reduced to as a means of cleansing our guilt over buying so much useless stuff.

Apple employs this production model to all its electronic gadgetry. Every year your present ground breaking phone model being made obsolete by the latest one. Have you ever thought about what happens to the left over old models? Well, they are literally dumped in Thailand, where the toxicity of their internal contents can be blithely ignored.

The only true solution to our over consumption and addiction, to the planned obsolescence, would be to stop buying things we don't truly need. Perpetuating this endless desire to shop and have new things. Even if we believe we're are being conscientious consumers, we are still contributing to a whole mountain of unrecyclable rubbish that pollutes our own and other people's lands and seas.

But faced with the sly pernicious nature of these business models, I think the moment of peak consumer disillusionment feels like its still a long way off. Its still 'keep shopping for tomorrow we die.' There is something built into us that needs this 'consumerist' self view. It's like an addiction, a drug that is literally self consuming. What would people be if they were not a consumer? Would an existential void opening up, into which we might all psychologically collapse?  That and civilisation with it.

CARROT REVIEW  - 7/8

Available to stream on Netflix

WATCHED - On Awe Of Beauty - A Reflection on Life Video.

This is such a moving video, of a woman who has such a tender sense of both the beauty and the fragility of her life. Born in part out of the loss of her young son. She talks about starting a gratitude journal in order to appreciate her life more, and the need in later life to prioritise what you focus your attention and love upon. So, needless to say, it spoke to me.

WATCHED - Watcher

In our Upper Sheringham household we are having a spontaneous Miaka Munroe film season. Having seen her in the films Longlegs, then Tau, and this bleakly filmed wonder Watcher all within a week of each other.

Munroe plays a woman Julia who comes to Bucharest because her husband Francis (Karl Glusman) has a new job taking him home to Romania. She feels like a spare part. With little to do but wander the streets and lounge around the flat, she stares out of its wide picture windows. Opposite is a grey rain stained apartment block, where she notices a figure always standing seemingly looking at her. Her husband treats her fear of being watched, as if this were an entirely female neurosis best not given much credence. But there is a serial killer out there, who is decapitating their victims. So is it not unreasonable for her to be fearful?

There is not a huge amount of dialogue in this film. You are frequently shown only Munroe's face and it's growing unease and distress. This imagery is surrounded by a soundtrack acoustic that amplifies any trace of ambient sound around her, with a consequent heightening effect of something ill defined and sinister broaching. The most static of camera shots will be panning in or zooming out, ever so slowly. Building tension into apparently the most innocent of scenes. The director, Chloe Okuno, skilfully composes these taught frightening senario out of such very simple elements. Sparseness in this movie is it's most effectively utilised quality.

Munroe's ability to dial down her acting, as was most evident in Longlegs, means when she does break into a fury, when her husband admits he can no longer indulge in believing her, it is all the more alarming. Burn Gorman as the killer, finally gets to play a full on twisted murderer, rather than the nerdy or neurotic genius scientist. 

The Watcher is a masterclass in how to subtly create unease and suspense. It also beautifully exploits that classic wavering uncertainty of - is she mad, deluded or really being persued by a mass murderer? Compelling stuff. I highly recommend this. It's a cut above some of the so called 'smart' horror movies around.

CARROT REVIEW  - 7/8

Available to stream on Netflix

MY OWN WALKING - 2nd Journal November 2024

Along with better health and mobility, comes a more changeable mood. I have recently had moments of despondency, and the unhelpful dwelling on thereof. This has reoccurred in the last few weeks since the information about being pre-diabetic. On the surface a relatively minor thing, but it's somehow got to me in a way the HA! never did. Is there anything else where my body is out of whack I need to know about? I'm tired with cossetting my body into behaving better, like its this petulant self destructive child.

Though I can, and do, respond in positive ways, making lifestyle and dietary changes, these do not alter the fact that this body of mine's health and functioning has deteriorated. And that deterioration, in the longer term, I can can do very very little about. It goes with the territory of being mortal. So am I just indulging in feeling helplessly morose about all this? Is this self pitying worth the time that I give it? Or is it that the whole subject of our own demise is something we must allow ourselves to be in touch with and allow ourselves to grieve for.

A deeper recognition of the finite nature of life, has made time and what I do with it, feel increasingly a valuable priceless thing. One not to be squandered, wasted on fripperies, or focused on things that seem neither important nor life enhancing. What to make of my retirement, of the time I have left before I no longer have the capacity to care one way or another? It appears the more anxious and tightly I hold on to counting the beats of time, the more life itself slips through these expectant fingers of mine. 

When another day passes without achieving much, with little but the practicalities of my health dealt with. I question myself whether I'm making the most of my days. My mood becomes bleaker and more overshadowed. Indeed, there ought to be more time for artistic endeavours, but that seems to either fritter itself away in my hands or find I'm never in the mood for it. Despite the best laid plans. I have to acknowledge, it has forever been thus. I've often been found running scared of my own artistic self expression.

It may be beneficial to reflect on how things are, or have been. Though if you are looking positively forward, however provisionally, at some point you need to act, to make changes, or life will only serve up more of the same. Things feel worse because of all the perceived dilly dallying. As soon as I actually put ideas to paper, any mood or trough of despond immediately lifts.

Looking back at life, I catch the drift of its achievements, it's joys, its best bits, its mistakes, its missed opportunities, the significant ommissions. Why did I do that and not this? I inherited through my upbringing a primarily practical focus to life. To deal with these before anything else, be self motivated, keep yourself afloat. If I have any regrets it's that I often let practical considerations continually overrule the more spontaneous artistic desires for self expression I had. I repeatedly let that part of my character down. Quite often because I felt the risk, I felt scared of failure, of the bottom being knocked out of my misplaced confidence.

Not providing creative urges with sufficient time or expression, is a type of self betrayal. In those moment of despondency I'm put in touch with the rubbed raw emotional cost of that. Though it bears the bruises, self betrayal will always hit back. After all, it's been kept isolated in a locked room for months on end, its in a stroppy mood. How else could it respond? Wouldn't you be depressed?

Without an artistic project on the go of some sort I do overtime become like a dried out leaf, curled up and brittle. My soul shriveling up inside. That I am only partially retired, has its benefits and it's demerits with regard to keeping busy and engaged. There is theoretically more time for artistic pursuits, but it is just as easy to let my days be consumed by the practical day to day concerns as it was when I worked full time. The demands of the intray that never quite gets empty enough for artistic self expression to find space.

I used to think when I retired then there would be all time in the world. Then I could devote time to all the things I love doing but rarely found the time for. Say not so sir. Retirement is not a time to reinvent yourself in, but to be more generously kind towards what has become hardwired in you, there are always limits, there are still external constraints. The range of what is possible, may no longer have the breadth and scope of ones youth. But, nonetheless, you work with whatever you find there is. And there is also the need to pare back what you expect yourself to do. Without the constraints of daily work there really should be time for being more fully soulful.

I find the need to step back, to hold even creativity lightly. If I want it to be always stunningly successful then I have not understand the territory I am in. You have to be open to it failing to launch, to create an absolute mess. Sometimes the creative ideas you have will be rubbish ones, and this will be revealed only at the precise moment you put paint to paper. One's artistic imagination is a beautifully pure thing only when its left unsullied by contact with the reality of expression. Creativity at its best, is to enjoy the encounters with the unexpected surprises and modes of expression. To take all the delight you can in giving them an earthly form. Withholding from engaging with this, has never been a choice that has ever been consequence free. You just have to do it and find out if it will float or sink this time. Its a rare artist who doesn't have a phase where everything turns out crap. And if they say they don't, then check their dustbins or fire grates..

Whilst I say this to myself, and oh how drearily familiar it all is, I often wonder whether I'm really listening. In the past, these difficult conflicted turbulence's in my responses to being creative, led to a view that maybe it would be better for all concerned if I left them entirely alone. Not touch them with a barge pole. That perhaps I'd be more content with myself and life, if I never allowed my imagination to go anywhere near being expressed. It was as though by refraining from touching an old sore, it all would heal up. Such are the sort of delusions I've sometimes chosen to live by.

FINISHED READING - Dead End Memories by Banana Yoshimoto

Dead End Memories is a group of short stories which on the surface appear to have no linking theme. But once you are engrossed in the world Yoshimoto conjures, there are clearly repeated tones of regret, lost love, betrayal and relationships that literally do come to a dead end.

There is the ongoing search for a compatible love. Unresolved or unfound love that can have no closure. Love of a person who once seemed ideal, who's now proved themselves clumsily, cruelly fallable. Some times love reaches a dead end, and yet though dead, the relationship lingers on in an emotionally tricky inability to disentangle the good from the bad memories.

The opening story has a man who lives in the house of his grandparents, though they continue to exist there as mute ghosts. The dead couple are the spectral embodiment of a Japanese romantic ideal. One the young lovers initially react against. Each feels the obligation to continue with the family business. Do they break away or go with the momentum of that legacy?

There is a simple beauty in all these stories. Sometimes wistful, sometimes more aggrieved. The titular story Dead End Memories finds a woman talking about her relationship with Takanashi. A relationship that slowly evaporates without her ever realising it was finished. There's a lot of unresolved business that she tries to process through her conversations with Nishiyama, who she works with. There is admiration between these two, and the hint of more should they both wish to persue it.

Yoshimoto's signature themes of the difficulty of finding and keeping love, of things left unsaid, all are here given poignant focus in her uniquely sparse yet touchingly effective writing style.

CARROT REVIEW  - 6/8

SCREEN SHOT - Rebel Moon Parts 1 & 2

It begins in a simple homestead village on the moon Veldt. Looking like somewhere between 1930's Kansas and Tolkien's Shire. Nasty men in tyrannically tight boots turn up in a spaceship, demanding a percentage of the villages corn. Kora, who has lived in the village for two years, unbeknownst to the villagers can kick ass with the best of them. Along with Gunner from the village she sets off to put together an elite team. One that can defend the village from the authoritarian space gents in neat uniforms.

This is a not an unfamiliar story line, essentially a direct steal from Kurosawa's epic Seven Samurai. Throw in the gothic steam punk styling of David Lynch's Dune, the throbbing blazing swords of Star Wars via Chinese martial arts and there you have it. A veritable smorgasbord of references to chew on. and find hard to digest.

Zack Snyder never knowingly under cooks his films. So Part One clocks in at two hours, with a three hour Directors Cut if you could bare it. Part Two is two hours, or two and a half when uncut. The thing is longer is not what you really needed here. Snyder appears to not understand less can be more. Because in his book, more requires MORE but with huge roaring exclamation marks MORE!!!!  What happens in the directors cuts? There is just grotesque amounts of bloody violence, and if there is a suggestion of a sexual encounter in the cut version, in the uncut it gets explicitly raunchy, apparently. So he didn't edit out the subtle more nuanced bits after all.

As it stands Part One just about holds its own as a film. It's quite a passable, if very derivative, science fiction romp. Part Two could realistically be over in an hour and a half. But it decides to luxuriate in its first hour with scenes of folksy tweeness and soul searching. Followed by an hours worth of the battle for the village which just goes on and on and on and on. The thing is, that the battle is directed at only one pace, which is intensely furious, so after half an hour you are utterly exhausted with it. You remove your active emotional engagement and endure its constant overreaching for meaning with a stoical heart. Light and shade here is a basic description of a lamp stand. 

CARROT REVIEW - 4/8

WATCHED - Grounded In Realness - A Reflections on Life Video

I recent came across this, I think South African based film makers Justine and Micheal. They run a video company called Reflections on Life. They edit fifteen to twenty minute vignettes, that each presents an insight into an alternative lifestyle or the thoughts of a person who has a particularly unique or notably thoughtful outlook on life. I have found many of them have spoken to me deeply, which I've really appreciated. I'm going to repost a short selection of them here. But you can find a whole lot more on their You Tube site.

This one, Grounded In Realness, features a guy who found during Covid lockdown that he loved the simpler life it brought him, that he has made a huge effort to continue its more contemplative slower paced nature afterwards.

WATCHED - Then I Will Kill You

We binge watched the four episodes of Then I Will Kill You on ITVX in one evening. I don't necessarily recommend that, as it is a tough watch. But this is the sort of drama where once you're launched into it you really do have to see it through. So be prepared. That this is based on a true story is deeply shocking. What one woman is put through first by her psycopathic partner and then by the insensitivity and inept handling of the criminal justice system. Well, that beggars belief.

Delia Barmer is a self confessed ' free spirit'. Independently minded, who loves travelling. She lives her life how she wants, she speaks her mind plainly. She comes across as a bit of an odd ball, that others tend to ridicule or snigger at. But underneath it all she has kind caring instincts.

In a pub, after work one evening, she meets John Sweeney for the first time. For a while their relationship progresses well. She asks him to move in with her. Over the four years they are together, it becomes clear Sweeney is not entirely right in the head. And this only gets worse when, out of sheer exasperation, she asks him repeatedly to move out. I won't detail how he responds, just watch the first two episodes it's all there.

Delia Barmer, as played by Anna Maxwell Martin is a complex individual, not always likeable, but always relatable. It's a powerhouse of a performance, for which I would not be at all surprised if awards come her way. Ably supported by Shaun Evans as John Sweeney, the initially charming rogue, with a dark side. With few hints where his twisted pathology comes from. Something previously has fucked him up mentally, we know not what.

The second half of Then I Will Kill You takes you into the criminal justice system. One that Delia is forced to comply with, but repeatedly fails her. She does not want to play the victim, she just wants justice and then to be allowed to move on. Her endurance of how the system then treats her and catastrophically fails her, is if anything more painful to watch. A compelling gutsy piece of drama, that leaves you dwelling on it afterwards.

CARROT REVIEW  -8/8

SCREEN SHOT - Shadow in the Cloud

Shadow in the Cloud is a late World War 2 drama set around the Japanese conflict. It crow bars into it the idea of real gremlins sabotaging the airforce. It is clearly conceived as a vehicle for Chloe Grace Moretz, who ably holds the thing together emotionally and in its action sequences.

It's another example of contemporary film making that attempts to turn the tables on your expectations of what a female led drama can be. Whereas war films would once have beeen well written with heroically competent male characters with the female parts, if there are any at all, grossly underwritten clichés, mere ciphers of femininity. This film lazily swaps those gender tropes around, with a heroically competent central female character surrounded by a group of thinly written masculine caricatures. Male bimbos all, who are hopelessly inadequate.This makes it just as insulting and untruthful as it's misogynistic predecessors.

Despite it being tautly filmed and well acted, the essential incongruity of its essential premises drags it down. It's also unable to really get behind the many things it appears to want to be. Is it a World War 2 drama, a feminist subversion of role expectations or a comic book war fantasy?  Never entirely succeeding in being any of them.

All of which feels a bit of a shame, as Moretz does more than demonstrate she has the acting chops to hold this patently ludicrous film scenario together. Let's hope no one thinks this worthy of a sequel. But as it was produced by the Fast & Furious franchise, that maybe a faint hope.

CARROT REVIEW  - 3/8

FINISHED READING - Space Crone by Ursula K Le Guin

As much as you might greatly admire a writer and their work, this doesn't mean everything they've ever written is brilliant, nor essential reading. This is particularly so when the book you are reading is a publisher's edited compilation of essays, short stories, articles, public talks and incomplete ruminations. The sense that they are mopping up the tad ends of their stash of Le Guin's output cannot be avoided.

Much of what is contained within Space Crone tells you little that appears fresh or enlightening, in the sense of blowing the dust of a topic. The short stories are largely insubstantial ones. The essays, articles and talks are mostly explorations of the differing constraints, biases and prejudices at play in science fiction, in the assessment of women writers. That a lot of these issues still feel prescient is a statement in itself. Though I could not escape the feeing that some were quite dated in content or style. Mainly because the arguements, though true, are now well trodden ones and have not been that effective.. Though these do chronicle Le Guin's own contribution and exploration of the pressures and prejudices applied to, or felt by, female writers. Cutting edge feminism these no longer are.

Another thing these post death assembled books cannot escape is the lack of a clear overarching theme to link them together. Due entirely to them never being never thought of as likely bedmates. So the subject matter and accompanying tonal shifts here can be jarring. Even though they have the mind and imagination of Le Guin in common, they were conceived to be read or heard in widely different contexts. How you speak upon any subject matter can vary depending who you are speaking too. Talks are delivered to specific gatherings of people, for whom the talk was formed to be heard by, and hence with a distinct purpose in mind.

 

So, this book was a disappointment. I became particularly vexed by my desire to skip things, which gathered in intensity and pace as I progressed.

CARROT REVIEW  - 2/8

SHERINGHAM DIARY No 120 - Circular Confections

I had been writing a review of a rather superb production of Hedda Gabler streamed on National Theatre At Home. I spent many a tricky minute correcting and recorrecting the auto correct. Schooling it until it got the message that when I typed Hedda I didn't  mean to say Headache.

It's a sign of how my health is generally improving since the HA! that, one fine weekend recently, we did the Wells to Holkham circular walk. All seven and a half miles of it, without my feeling strained or out of breath. It took around four hours. But it was helped by being broken down into four stages, with three places to stop, rest and replenish with food or drink. Walking on country paths is good for my hips. Mobility improved afterwards, even if they were a bit tender by completion.

Now I'm fully within the active interest of my local medical practice, I get requests to get this or that checked out. Blood tests to keep an eye on the condition my liver, deterioration of which is one possible side effect of a medication I take. But also to keep tabs on my health more generally. The most recent blood test threw me yet another health curve ball. I have now to consider myself to be prediabetic. Another dietery constraint to be deployed. Which is all a bit of a pisser. Diet, getting fitter and losing weight are the main ways of reversing out of a PD diagnosis. I hold out no hope on this, but we will play along with it. Until the death wish to 'let's just get it all over quicker shall we' kicks in.

Just before the HA! I finished making a wooden screen/windbreak for our back garden patio. It's a hulking great thing, too heavy to be moved solo for a man with my heart condition. So its laid there taking up all the bench space in my workshop. Whilst around it detritus accumulated and as a space its just got cluttered, then a mess. But this weekend Hubby and I finally moved it, and its I fixed it into position. It looks rather fine too. So that's one Spring project completed by late Autumn. Now I can start the tidying up and rearranging I'd planned.

The latest advert for porridge oats has the slightly odd tag line of :

'Not all oats taste like childhood'

Mmmmm the disgusting associations that brings to mind.

I appear to be having a medical check up of some sort nearly every week of late. This coming week its been the two yearly visit to the Optician. They have a short questionnaire to fill in beforehand. They wanted to know what medications I"m on, so I dutifully answered. However, when I typed in the name of the blood thinner - Rampiril - the auto correct immediately changed it into - Vampirism.

POEM - Seed

SEED

The returning seed of sycamore

twirls to the ground

a soul arriving via helicopter

fresh from the highest blue 

the conclave of heaven.

Written by Stephen Lumb
November 2024

WATCHED - Heddar Gabler

Hedda Gabler by Ibsen by the late 20th century had become one of theatres standard plays. Unlike many of its contemporaries, it centres around the life of a female character in fin de siecle Norway. A woman trapped in a world devised and maintained for the benefit of men. In the midst of which Hedda trys amd fails to obtain agency over her life. 

Hedda Gabler (Ruth Wilson) has a past, of being a much pursued 'catch'. She cleverly plays the field, with a succession of flawed or devious men, whilst avoiding committing to any of them. Hedda, comes from aristocratic stock, and would be high maintenance for anyone who finally marries her. For if she must eventually marry, she knows exactly what she materially wants out of it, to make life bearable. She naively thinks she will be able to play the game and make it work for her.

At the beginning of the play Hedda and her new husband Jurgen Tesman have just returned from their honeymoon. Terminally bored with him already, but he serves an ulterior purpose in keeping her more persistent old suitors amours at bay. What happens during the play is that this marriage reveals itself to be as much, if not more, of a prison. No deterrent for the advances of Judge Brack (a serpent like Rafe Spall) a man for whom coercive control is a primary mode of operation.

This adaption is written and updated with great skill by Patrick Marber, and directed with modernist starkness by Ivo van Hove. The staging is this huge space of a sparsely furnished modern apartment, with bare plastered walls. The sense of unfinished business permeates the stage. Central to it is of course Ruth Wilson as Hedda, who is simply compelling to watch how she flips from forced bonhomie to, strident independence of spirit, to a lost melancholy, usually accompanied by Joni Mitchell's Blue. You know this is not going to end well for her, but still you hope even as the odds become increasingly stacked against her, that maybe this situation could turn around. A totally phenomenal production.

CARROT REVIEW - 7/8. 

Currently available to stream on National Theatre at Home.

LISTENING TO - As Fast As I Can Go by One True Pairing

Its a rare release that captures your imagination as much as this one has done mine. Tom Fleming aka One True Pairing has, it must be said had a bit of a personal struggle going on in recent years. That he has filtered and processed through his music. Still in possession of that beautiful silky husk of a deep toned voice that made him so compelling to listen to when he was in the Wild Beasts.

As soon as I heard this track As Fast As I Can Go, I was won over. Produced by John'Spud'Murphy who has garnered many accolades, producing in recent years Lankum, Oxn and Black Midi. So he has a pedigree amongst cutting edge folk and indie, and its a brilliant one. Plus Tom Fleming has a talented range of musicians working with him such as members of Lankum.and Percolator. The opening of the song is all banging sticks and struck bits of metal and bells, that then builds to a propulsive drum rhythm, which I for one find completely intoxicating and a thrill to listen to. Who would have guessed so near to the end of 2024 I'd find one of my favouite tracks of the year. 

ARTICLE - Cultivating A Moral Culture

In the West, we have inherited a moral culture, drawn from our civilisations long and intimate association with Christianity, over millennia. We cannot, even in our present decidedly secular age, avoid its consequences or influence. And indeed, why would we want to?  We remain a country which benefited from partaking in that Christian infused history, even though the collective practice of the Christian faith itself, may no longer be widely adhered to.

Most religions have two facets; the theoretical, theological ideals and the ethical consequences of those ideals, put into daily practice. Many faiths make hardly any distinction between the two, one flowing directly out of the other. Faiths can have their own divinely ordained laws, which the practitioner has to rigidly adhere to in order to be considered a 'good person'. Christianity has successfully secularised much of its general ethical and moral imperatives, that in a sense they can and do stand alone, semi - independent of it.

Some people today who may refer to themselves as Christian, are often cultural rather than active Christians. They feel an affinity towards Christianity, but this is disconnected from Christianity as a fully engaged, church attending, daily practiced faith. Cultural affinity and religious belief are quite different beasts, not interchangeable terms. To what extent we are a Christian country, cannot be claimed purely on the basis of cultural legacy alone. This burgeoned from what we once were, not necessarily from what we are now. Even though it's influence may persist centuries later.

As a society, we generally hold a belief say in fairness, founded on a desire that we all be treated equally. But we are perhaps unaware of why equality is felt to be so fundamental. It's perceived as an inherent expectation and a right, to be treated equally and fairly. But this has not always been so. Christianity's study and interpretation of Neo Platonism in particular, had a huge effect on the shaping of Western civilisations moral structure. Ideas of a democracy, an equal and fair society, emerge from the Christian infused reinterpretation of Greek philosophical ideas.

Today, if the idea of fairness came under attack, the very need for it questioned, and we were called upon to defend or explain why everyone should be treated fairly, would we know where to start?  Most of us do not have an actively engaged with Christian faith to draw upon, nor sufficient knowledge of the history and development of philosophy or Christian moral thought, to even begin answering that one. I certainly don't.

You could say, that we know what the flower  looks like, but no longer understand its roots, the seed and the soil from which it grew and sustained it. Nonetheless, we value fairness as a guiding principle, without fully grasping all that lies beneath it. And you might say that that is perfectly fine. Most of us are not going to be asked to intellectually defend the idea of fairness, probably ever. Though in these days of fascistic tech oligarchs and burgeoning authoritarian politics, we can no longer passively ride on that assumption.

With the increasing secularisation of morality in the 20th Century, has come a simultaneous emphasis on morals as an individual personal preference, rather than a collectively held or top down imposed belief. This has resulted in our society's grasp on morality feeling in a fragile state, openly attacked or disregarded, particularly from the extreme wings of politics. Whilst we have progressed in knowledge and material wealth, we are regressing morally in wisdom and compassion.

Denuded of the scaffolding of the Christian belief system that originally structured them, social morality begins to look more 'optional'. This doesn't mean we all have to become Christians again, so meaning and stability will instantly be restored. Being an active Christian practitioner requires an entirely different level of faith and commitment. That I for one would find hard to accept in all its particularities.

Christianity hugely transformed Western Civilisation, but its reach evolved slowly and over many millenia. By comparison its decline has been relatively rapid. Once the genie of individualism was let out of the bottle, its not proved possible, or desirable, to force it back in. I for one, cannot see how we could reverse engineer our way out of this one. It may be impossible, without resorting to something resembling dictatorial enforcement. Which would seem entirely counter productive. However, it maybe feasible, if we were to become critically disillusioned with individualism itself, then the situation could radically alter.

In terms of exploring a way forward I want to propose three headings - convergence, education and exemplification.

CONVERGENCE

The UK is a country of many faiths and no faith, and yet, we still largely respect, adhere and conform to customs that are primarily Christian in origin. Even on a secular level, the moral compass still has to work, be useful and valuable, or we would have throw them away or abandoned them all by now. Human beings recognise there is a need for boundaries. On the level of morals there is often a higher degree of convergence between us, and between different faith teachings on morals, than we might imagine. To fully appreciate this, we'd have to loosen any notion that everything morally good and true, has arisen exclusively from a Christian fountainhead. Moral themes are shared across a wide range of faiths and no faith, even if the degree of emphasis and purpose differ.

I am a Buddhist, though I was not brought up as one. Due to my Methodist upbringing, which encouraged tolerance and moderation in all things, this is somewhat inbuilt into my psyche. I don't think that will change, even if I wanted it to. That I don't want to, is because tolerance and moderation are not incompatible with my Buddhist practice - of cultivating loving kindness towards all beings, the inter-connectedness of all life, and the mistrust of intoxication in all its multifarious forms. To make convergence work, connections have needed to be actively drawn by me. Convergence forms out of an awakening awareness of a degree of reciprocity. A recognition that we do share values in common. If you only look for the differences, that is all you will find.

EDUCATION

Here I'd say is near the crux of why we may be morally going awry. You do have to actively draw moral or ethical connections. To inculcate them in us all from childhood. Once, these ideals would have come to us from multiple directions via the state, church, school and your parents. But in an individualistic secularising society you cannot assume that this continues to be so.  Traditional channels such as the family may fail to form those links. Nonetheless education remains key, whether that be in the form of learning about citizenship, ethics, or cultivating a wider spread understanding of what our shared values and morals are, where they came from, why we have them, what there social purpose is.

EXEMPLIFICATION

Exemplification has a more significant role than one might at first think. Society, however imperfect it maybe, has to reflect and model its values and mores, if it wishes everyone to buy into and follow them. 

We need to feel included, to have any sense of investment in the society we live in. If people are alienated, hostile or feel bypassed, ignored, or vilified by society at large, then this will undermine anyone's willingness to conform to social norms. This highlights the need for exemplification on all levels. That everyone has to consciously feel the benefits of being part of society, or else moral cohesion will fracture and break down. That this is already happening is indicated by widespread apathy and cynicism.

Our leaders, political, social, cultural as well as religious, need to walk their talk. They cannot just play lip service, but demonstrate through their words and actions, moral rectitude. When our leaders openly lie, misrepresent, bullshit and dissemble with no apparent shame or consequence, create divisions in society, and pick on minorities Then we are being set an example, that puts us on a slippery slope to the disintegration of democratic civilisation itself.

Finally, it is down to us too not to fall prey to paying lipservice either. To exemplify the best in us. Not to wait for official backing or government initiatives. Be an admirable person, with no unearned airs or graces. Recognising that no one ever changes because you preach at, or berate them, but you might inspire them through your lived example. Aspire to be as open hearted, attentive and kind member of society as possible, because this is a rewarding thing to do in itself.

Transformational change comes usually from two directions, top down, or rising up in a ground swell. Both from a desire for things to change. I like to imagine these two things happening simultaneously, to meet in the middle in one unified beneficial benign upset.

SHORT STORY - Eaten Alive By Their Own Shadows

When the atrocity took place the world wept archaic tears. Acres of causal sympathy was shed. All the tribes across the Aegean peninsula made sure to express their anger  publicly. Disguising any strategic advantage they privately saw for themselves. Offering the Spartans their arms and armies, their money, their allegiance. They struck a deal and shook their hands upon the coming conflict.

Once again ministering angels were left to mop the brows and wipe away the tears of those left behind. The ones already encased in their shrouds and in their mourning. As vengeance was taken for them, becoming the foremost weapon shaken in the hands of men. And the oracles predicted doom into the emptiness of cavernous spaces.

 

That local delegation, those disingenuous Trojans, had appeared likable enough. Closely resembling the Spartans in their world view and mode of interaction. But then, they'd broken into the palace compound on the evening of their departure. Abducted Queen Helen, taking all her entourage hostage too. Further aggrieving their hosts by the slaughtering of slaves, sacred calves, children and killed King Menelaus's thoroughbred horses as they left. No one would be in quick pursuit of them as they made for a sea bourne getaway. As Sparta, so grievously betrayed, was plunged into mournful outrage.

Menelaus was so consumed by his emotional sophistry, that it never occurred to his imagination, that Helen might have left willingly. That he might have been neglectful and abusive towards his ravishing wife. That this 'abduction' might to some extent have been his fault. As he turned up on his older brother Agamemon's doorstep, to devise together a rescue mission. They compiled a list of those whose skills and fealty they should call upon.

He aught to have understood his siblings nefarious nature better. He'd seen the self serving cruelty of him many times. But now Menelaus was not just forgiving of it, but wished to co-opt his kin's less respectable instincts. The more lee way you gave Agamemnon, the more he greedily would make a grab for places, persons and power to service his own advantage. Menelaus, in the righteousness of his anger knowingly failed to restrain the bullish bear, that was his brother when unleashed. This ego inflated leader always on the make.

In Agamemnon's hands their joint mission, quickly turned from rescue into a campaign for annexing Trojan territory. The seeking of an ocean wide continental supremacy. To turn their quickly hewn confederation of warriors, into an undefeatable power across the vast Aegean Sea. No one foresaw then, that the fighting would go on and on for ten grueling years of increasingly futile conflict. During which, Helen and the hostages had become an entirely secondary consideration. The interminable nature of this war focused minds completely, to the point of blind obsession, on wiping the Trojans entirely off the map and out of existence. To put a final end to their darkly pernicious terrorism, with the Greeks own far from virtuous version of it.

And as these two malign military forces  exchanged ever deeper atrocities against one another, no one could be proud of any victory. For each battle won appeared ever more cyclical and pyrrhic in nature. No one could envisage the end to it. So as they grovelled ever closer to the ground they fought over, they were simultaneously being eaten alive by their own shadows. Whilst the oracles continued to predict doom, into the emptiness of cavernous spaces.

On the day the ignoble Greeks finally stepped onto the streets of Troy, all they could think of exacting was genocidal murder. To pillage and bring to ruin this once fine city. The revenge rapes and the immolation of women and children on pyres. Reducing everything, whether despicable or admirable that was Troy, into blackened glowing embers. To pound its walls into the dust of forgotten history. 

Menelaus, once the rightfully wronged man, had over a decade of blood fueled fighting corrupted his image from the god endorsed abused, into an egregious abuser himself. Any moral high ground he'd once occupied, now crushed under the feet of his own actions and utter debasement. 

Helen emerged imperious out of the bonfire of Illium's royal palace, and without a look of recognition walked straight passed Menelaus. No longer seeing him as even worthy of her respect, let alone affection. Any love had been extinguished under layers of grief, for all those fine men and women who'd died as a consequence of her decision to chose self determination, happiness and joy, over a cruel and dependent servitude.

FAVE RAVE - UtsuwagakU

You know, sometime in hopefully the longer distant future. I'll be in my last days on earth and someone will say ' Put a video of an obscure Japanese craft person skilfully making something, you know how Mr Lumb loves them' and the last thing I'll watch as I depart my mortal coil will be a ceramic tea pot being hand made. And I'll be winsomely happy as I pass over to the other side.

MY OWN WALKING - Journal November 2024

When I turned up at St Augustine's Primary School, Halifax in 1962 for my first day at school, I was five years old. Memories lingering from that period are frequently of devising strategies to avoid being bullied. Though I generally got on better with girls in infant school, my preference for the girls playground also had an ulterior motive. It removed me from the immediate sight and purview of the boys playground.

Boys, being boys, they loved sports and just generally throwing balls and smaller sensitive boys around. I had a recollection the other day of one incident my memory had suppressed. A gang of lads, sought me out in the girls playground, dragged me over to the playground wall and pinned me to it, whilst older boys kicked, or hit and threw balls in my general direction. Whilst I did what I could to avoid being hit in the face by them. They'd no doubt read of the martyrdom of St Stephen in the Bible and decided a little re-enactment was called for.

When, as a family, we moved from Yorkshire to North Lincolnshire, I was eleven. I'd hoped my nickname and the bullying might be left behind and could start with a clean slate. Unfortunately a kid from my old Primary School was also there, so that didn't happen. The worst of the bullying here was being thrown over a wall. When not being pestered, shoved or name called. I was being called a 'puff' years before I realised for myself what that meant, and that they were right on the money. So let's just say I developed a quite finely attuned sensitivity to potentially threatening situations.

I've been thinking recently about what consequences this has had upon my psyche, my way of relating to the world, to other men? The first word I would say is wary. Wary, particularly heightened when I'm in all male company. If it all feels a bit too 'blokey". Which makes me want to define what I mean by that. On the surface at least- confident, over assertive masculinity, a rather loud, if not hysterical level of jokey bonhomie, drunk or at least self intoxicated, with an intimidating level of physicality, teetering on being wildly out of control, positively reeking of testosterone and easily provoked to anger. That just about covers the ball park.

And where have I encountered such places? Well, at a rugby club dinner and presentation evening we were invited to a few years ago. We both felt so uncomfortably fish out of water, neither of us could leave soon enough. And a lot of the time you just anticipate, read the signs and avoid. A men's group I went to for a while had brief moments that verged on being like that. When things can get a bit overly heterosexual. Such as with all those 'manly' practical virtues like in a Men's Shed I once visited. In short, not on the surface homosexual friendly situations. You encounter some men, and can feel the narrow specification within which the sense of their masculinity resides, and that you live outside of it.

I was a happy, yet not overly confident child. I am tempted to say by nature, but I think personal confidence is a lot to do with the circumstances and environment in which you are nurtured, as any inherited pre-disposition. Into which being bullied from a young age probably does not help. Humankind is bequeathed via their animal nature a fight or flight response. In modern life, if you are not gifted with physical strength or animal cunning, this means legging it, or becoming a punch bag. These seemed the only available options to my younger self.

Unsurprisingly being bullied lowers your self esteem, and creates a deeply rooted risk averse state of mind. I'd prevaricate over even apparently minor decisions, and bigger ones could floor me completely. Mistakes became harder to  forgive myself for, as these only confirmed the low self worth as true and deserving. Avoiding difficult situations became almost instinctive.

I attempted to cultivate a self sufficiency in order not to have to depend on anyone. My early adult life could be characterised as an discomforting state of aloneness. I could be actively participating in the middle of a group, but still feel outside of it. The mental world I existed in had metaphorical barbed wire placed around it, that cut me off. Like many gay men I cultivated a sharp and satirical banter.

In my first few years at art college I was struggling a lot with ideas of introvert and extrovert. Why was the latter thought better? Why wasn't I more like that? I read psychology magazines and tried to understand myself by reading RD Laing and Nietsche. (Not always to be recommended.)  Forming my own lifestyle, interests and like minded friends gradually built a degree of confidence. But in extremis this could still sink.

I was in my mid thirties before I really started to get a firmer handle on who I was, and managing my psychological hangups better. This was entirely due to becoming a Buddhist. Finding a situation I could comfortably belong to, including all male retreats, was a major step forward and I thrived in it. This was the first place I'd felt really accepted for who I was, where my sexual orientation was no big deal. It was also a place where I could unpack myself, examine the contents, and make beneficial changes. As a consequence Buddhist institutions were a  context I stayed in for over twenty five years.

It might seem strange then that I left being involved in this Buddhist movement six years ago. That sense of belonging was the hardest thing to walk away from. But I felt the need to. I had been uncomfortable living within this situation for a while. Staying put suited me, until something within me just wanted to be free of it all. My heart was not fully in it anymore. Belonging no longer fit the mood music.

Since then I've tried to find a substitute to fill the void, and then abandoned trying to find a substitute. Outside of Buddhism, and in the conservative trad realm of North Norfolk, there are not many options I'd want to take up. I don't play golf, football or any competitive sport, don't go to pubs, or to church, I'm not a Freemason, or a farmer, or a member of the Conservative club. My interests are largely undemonstrative introverted ones. How you encounter like-minded folk in this context is an open question, I have not found an answer too yet. Friendships are just harder to come by around here.

The poet David Whyte observed that our modern Western malaise essentially comes down to the conflicting pulls of being an individual and of belonging. We want to be able to do both, and it is difficult, if not impossible, to do both. Any group or institution requires a degree of individual compromise, to abide by the rules of the club or organisation in order to belong to it. And so, in my case, I tend to drop in and out of them. I want to belong and then I don't. 

I'm sensing that this oscillation is founded, in part, on being bullied as a child. I did and didn't want to be one of the boys, but found I couldn't be anyway. At the moment I'm a length of yearning away from belonging, with increased acuity. Any capacity for friendship is frustrated. Desire exaggerating a sense of dislocation.

This reflection happening now may be an outcome of the HA ! At least heightening the existential aspect of it. For when we die, ones experience of it will be alone. As all the ties and sense of belonging are one by one severed. Belonging, and being an individual, being ultimately as transitory a state as anything else we might treasure.

WATCHED - Vanja

As an idea, transforming Chekov's play Uncle Vanya into something to be performed by one man, appears utterly mad. On paper you would be right to ask - why? But then 'on paper' can so often give an entirely incorrect impression. As ever, you really have to experience it to discover what its imaginative worth is.

Chekov's play is about a family and their servants living on their country estate. A self centred writer and his young wife, live off the proceeds of it. They reside in the country even though they hate it, because financially they can't afford to live anywhere else. There are unspoken tensions and loves in the air too.

For this one man version, simply called Vanja, Andrew Scott carefully worked how to delineate all the characters. How to move from one to the other seamlessly to still make sense, so you know who he is at any one moment in time. That said this is not just a technical, but also a psychological tour de force. Retaining the mournful mood of the original, it is by turns witty, playful, intensely sad and moving, sometimes all within a few seconds.

As he slips from playing one character to another, you could easily interpret this as multiple personas split within the one person. The overall impression it left me with was how much Chekov's characters in this play exist in a similar suspended state. Disappointed with themselves, frustrated with their lives, perhaps at differing stages of despair or the desire for life to be something other than what it is. But each unable to take agency over what it is that they truly want out of their existence. 

It is a brilliant adaption by Simon Stephens , given a charismatic marvel of a performance by Andrew Scott at its centre, that is hugely well deserving of all the accolades that's been heaped upon it.

CARROT REVIEW  - 7/8

Currently available to view by subscription on National Theatre at Home.