The Drowned Man: a Hollywood Fable

The Drowned Man

By: a Browned Off Man

Please, please, please don’t waste your time and money on this dreadful ‘con’.  If you’re interested in dance then it might have something for you – stay in the Tavern on the top floor and watch the show repeat at least a couple of times.  Then just before the end make your way to ‘Studio 2’ for the dance finale.

This show is put on by ‘Punchdrunk’ productions in association with the National Theatre.  By the end of the show you may be punchdrunk too.  They have hired out an ex-post office sorting warehouse just round the corner from St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington.  There is a portentous story line that there are two different versions of the Woyzeck (Georg Buchner) story going on.  As one enters it feels a little bit like the Tower of Terror in Disney World, but unfortunately the excitement pretty well ends there in the lift (elevator).  The story is happening in simultaneous vignettes in a number of rooms in this four storey warehouse.  It’s mostly rather dark and one is compelled to wear a mask.  Hints are to follow a cast member from scene to scene, but since there seem to be about 15 principal cast members and at a rough guess some 600 to 900 admittees, you can immediately work out that there is likely to be a minimum of 40 people trying to rush along behind the actor up the narrow stairs and along the passages in the dark to the next scenario.  We paid extra to be ‘premium’ guests which gained us entry to a control room which was supposed to add light to the proceedings but didn’t.  A pretty girl in the control room thrust a note into my hand which suggested I make my way two floors up to the tavern, and that I ‘come back and see me very soon’.  The tavern is the scene of the best set-piece dance in the show, and fortunately we saw it twice.

Don’t expect any dialogue – there isn’t any.  Another reviewer has questioned why this wasn’t billed as a dance event.

In fairness, there have been a number of reviews posted on sites such as Trip Advisor, and writers seem to be polarized one way or another, but my view concurs with several others which use the phrase ‘Emperor’s New Clothes’ to describe this event.  If this is Immersive Theatre, I’ve been fully immersed and I’ve had it up to here.

At Christmas 2013

At Christmas 2013

Swan Creek Road by Fern Isabel Coppedge, US Impressionist School

With some hesitation I venture a few words at Christmas.  The newspapers at this time of year are full of columnists giving magnificent ‘send-up’ examples of the Christmas ‘Round Robin’, the trumpet of triumph we might call it.  Those impossibly bright children, the exotic holidays, the unexpected £100,000 bonus, the purchase of the idyllic holiday hideaway cottage, the list is endless.  As a Times columnist once wrote, emphasizing that these achievements are also matched by a never ending stream of banalities, ‘it is a matter of polite indifference that a dog you never knew has died’.

But technology moves on.  The Christmas industry means that however well meaning the purchase of cards to support a charity, that other self-aggrandizing institution, the Royal Mail, will attract a substantial portion of your Christmas card spending, and an electronic blog with a few photographs will allow us to donate the money that we might have spent on cards, printed pictures, and postage to charity.

So, mostly I will let our pictures tell the story...

The Anglo-Swiss Trekkers reach Petra

In the spirit of carpe diem, we have tried to achieve some things which, with the passage of a few years more, we may not be able to do.  Our ‘awfully big adventure’ this year was a trek through the Sharah mountains in Jordan to reach the Nabatean city of Petra.  This is a very remote area.  Although thousands visit Petra every day, the Ma’an Governate of Jordan which includes the Sharah, has a population density of less than four people per sq km.  In the first four days of walking we saw only one goatherd and a small Bedouin family sitting by their tent.  The picture captures the moment that our group of eight (seven from Dorset and Marina Bergamin from Switzerland) reached the ‘Monastery’, the largest rock cut building in Petra.  Our guide was the amazing Yamaan Safady, who pioneered this trek, now voted one of the National Geographic’s 15 Great Hikes of the World.  See www.adventurejordan.com.  Yamaan was deeply touched to receive our picture taken in Moreton churchyard, Dorset, of T.E. Lawrence’s grave.  Despite revisionist history, it seems the memory of Lawrence is still respected in Jordan.

Moreton Churchyard, Dorset

As another attempt to turn back time, Marina, Lindsay and I, together with our guide Yan, spent Hallowe’en night climbing in the dark up the volcanic cone of Mount Agung, Bali’s highest mountain, to see the dawn rise over the sea towards Lombok.  Our ‘Night on Bald Mountain’ was ended by a spectacular sunrise, and wraiths of mist rising over the paddy fields below.  Does anyone remember the ‘Night on Bald Mountain’ sequence in Disney’s Fantasia?  No procession of novitiates singing Schubert’s Ave Maria on the way down the mountain.

Early light at the summit of Mount Agung, Bali

Lindsay, Andrew, Wayan, Marina on Mount Agung

After the last picture, I attach my (failed) entry to the Telegraph’s Just Back competition, the 500 word review of a travel experience, which will give you a more detailed flavour of the climb.

In the early part of the year, we spent a wonderful sunny day in Lenzerheide, with our friends, Richard and Rita.  I think Rita took the picture. Congratulations to her on recently completing a very arduous trek around Dhaulagiri in the Nepal Himalaya, during the course of which she was frequently at 5000 metres plus, and spent three or four days entirely on crampons.

Richard Horden, Lindsay, Andrew in Lenzerheide

At the conclusion of our Jordan trip, we returned just in time for a small party organised by Natalie for Lindsay's 60th birthday.  I attach a photo of the birthday cake and the main protagonists.  We had at least had time for a night's sleep and a bath, but as Yamaan says, you can never get rid of Jordanian sand, so there are probably a few grains in there, not visible on camera...

Natalie, Trudi, Cake, & Lindsay

Sadly, on April 5^th, Lindsay’s mother, Marjorie, known to everyone as Marnie, died peacefully in Bird’s Hill Nursing Home, Poole.  We would sincerely like to thank the kind and caring staff at Bird’s Hill.  The picture shows Lindsay and her dad Norman, with some of the flowers from the funeral.

On a happier note, we attended Lindsay’s cousin’s son Jeremy's wedding in Lancaster, Pennsylvania on the 1^st of June.  The picture shows the Stump family group at the reception.

Annie, Chris, Jeremy & his sister Isabella

Andrew, Lindsay, Alex, Howie.  Franklin Marshall College chapel, June 1st 2013.  A kilt perhaps not ideal when the temperature is in the high 90s

Also a happy occasion, Katie graduated in Business with Economics with a 2:1 degree from Leeds University.  Lovely weather in Yorkshire, so the graduands were extremely hot in their heavy gowns and hoods.  She is currently cleaning chalet toilets in Val d’Isère, working for a ski company, but hoping to spend her free time on the slopes.

Talking of proud parents - Andrew & Katie, Leeds University Graduation Day

Another happy week, this time in Marsascala, Malta.  We were able to host Lindsay’s cousin and her son Dermot, Ben and Natalie, Nicholas and Joelle.

Natalie, Nicholas and Joelle, Marsascala, Malta

Lindsay, Joelle, Nick, Dermot, Natalie, Ben, Andrew, Caroline

Anna has been working for the charity Sported, based in central London.  She loves her work, and is doing some higher level qualifications in marketing.  She is shown in her favourite habitat, London’s South Bank.  She currently lives in Brixton, but likes adventure, and has recently been to Nicaragua.

Anna, South Bank, London

On September 4^th, memorable for being probably the last day of a hot and enjoyable summer here in Dorset, we were reunited with ‘The Horsewomen of the Mendips’, the girls who trekked on horseback over the Salkantay trail in Peru in 2012.  We rode on Shanks’s pony...  The picture is in Philippa and Xerxes’ garden.

Lizzie, Philippa, Karen, Julie, Xerxes, Andrew

For the record, Natalie has gained promotion within Barclays.  She is working in Canary Wharf, and lives in Maida Vale.  Nicholas continues to be very ‘hands on’ as manager at Salterns Marina.

Finally a few oddities:

Andrew gets in touch with clan members in Dunkeld...

Dunkeld, Perthshire

On the beach at Lyme Regis.  No sign of Meryl Streep, but with 2,275 other guitarists participating in the UK’s largest guitar ensemble playing Buddy Holly’s ‘Rave On’ on what would have been Buddy’s 77^th birthday.

The beach and Cobb, Lyme Regis, September 7th 2013

Two happy trekkers on the Globi-Wanderweg, Lenzerheide.

September in Lenzerheide

American Impressionist Art:  a painting by Edward Redfield in the Philadelphia Museum of Art

A lotus flower, Bali.  A symbol of purity and a suitable motif to wish you all a very peaceful and happy Christmas and a healthy and fulfilling New Year.

Mount Agung in 500 words:

How to spend Hallowe’en in Bali

A thin line of exquisite pink appears in the Eastern sky, towards Lombok.  A strip of turquoise lies above it.  Above this again, the implacable blackness of night weakens.  The Milky Way, a mass of tiny pearls, so luminous an hour ago, begins to fade.  As we climb, the rock at our hands changes from an inky black in the light of the head torch to... inky black, for this is volcanic basalt.  A gossamer veil of mist below becomes visible, hiding the green of the rice paddies behind it.  Silhouetted against the now golden glow over the sea, the rocks of Mount Agung, Bali’s highest and holiest mountain look sharp and unwelcoming.  It’s perhaps just as well that our climb has taken place in the dark, concentrating only on the next metre or two of rock ahead.  Approaching the rim of the volcanic crater, a pungent aroma of sulphur lifts over the edge to greet us.  Little wonder that this peak is revered, but the early populations of these islands could not have known that it is the very pre-eminence of their mountains that guarantees the rain that fills the rice fields.  As we savour the dawn at nearly 3000 metres, the gradually lifting mists remind me of the cessation of the satanic activities in the film Fantasia, at the end of the Night on Bald Mountain sequence, as the wraiths disappear.  Now that it is November 1^st it would be entirely appropriate to hear Schubert’s Ave Maria, but there is only the soughing of the wind.  Our memorable Hallowe’en begins not with pumpkins but papaya, jack fruit and mango; then vampire-like a sleep during the afternoon and evening before rising at midnight.  We leave Bali’s Eastern coast to drive to the temple, Pura Pasar Agung, from which most climbers start.  The lanes are deserted except for a hundred sleeping dogs, but the small towns are alive with midnight markets in preparation for the religious feast of Kuningan which is to commence next day.  We reach the temple at 1.30am.  Before the climb there are Gods to propitiate, which takes another twenty minutes, and fills the night air with incense.  There are only four personal names in Bali, so it’s not hard to remember our guide’s name – Wayan (the first child).  To be distinctive he calls himself Yan.  Even at 1500 metres the temperature is about 25°C, but Yan has a beanie and an enormous padded jacket.  The climb is not difficult, but the steps and hands of thousands have clutched at these rocks, which in places is worn to a shiny black mirror.  In consequence, our ascent takes four hours, and the descent almost as long.  In the morning heat and broad daylight the peak seems distant and remote.  Were we really there a few hours ago?  Returning through villages bedecked with palm frond gewgaws, the temples swathed with cloths in the holy colours of yellow and white, the population is ready to celebrate, and so are we.