Review – Scenes from an Execution, National Theatre

Scene: Sixteenth-century Venice. A glowing white cube descends from a vertiginous height containing a narrator type chappie (Gerrard McArthur) pretentiously called The Sketchbook (no, us neither). Or should white cube be White Cube? Scenes from an Execution is about art. Ah! Penny just dropped!

Obscene?: Artist Galactia (Fiona Shaw on fine form) is semi-naked sketching her naked younger lover and duplicitously compromising fellow-artist Carpeta (Jamie Ballard – also good). She’s a supremely talented artist (he’s not) and sensualist with a bit of a gobby mouth (Battleaxe Galactia?). They thrash about on a rock together. We’re later told she’s pretty nifty with her tongue. Carpeta seems to confirm this.

Review – Antigone, National Theatre

“Did you enjoy the coup de théâtre?” Andrew asked at the Whingers’ post-show post mortem.

“The sandwiches wrapped in foil?” Phil wondered, brain slightly addled by emerging from an evening performance of Antigone to discover it was still daylight outside.

“No the haunted Newton’s Cradle.”