Friday, October 3, 2008

the black watch


Myself and the missus took ourselves off to the RDS last night. It wasn't for Kanye West or the Ideal Homes exhibition or anything like that. It was to check out one of the feted plays in this years Dublin Theatre Festival. The show in question is called Black Watch. I saw the festival director on the TV last week saying it was the best piece of theatre produced anywhere in the world in the last few years. As soon as I heard that I lowered my expectations. I hate it when fuckers tell you something is going to be brilliant only for it to turn out to be shite. I need not have been so cynical or disbelieving. The show was great. It's produced by the National Theatre of Scotland and directed by some bloke called John Tiffany. Its apparently based on interviews with former soldiers who served in Iraq and it examines what it means to be part of the legendary Black Watch Regiment, what it means to be part of the war on terror, and what it means to make the long journey home. It was a gripping hour and forty five minutes or so and for a large part of it there was definite sensory assault. I'll not bother reviewing it because that's not my thing but you can read the review in todays Irish Times. I'd recommend that you check it out if it comes around again. I've more freaky theatre lined up for tomorrow evening when I go and see Metamorphosis . Written by Kafka, with music by Nick Cave and half of it staged on the ceiling, you just know its going to be mental.

I made peace with a little part of myself the other day when I finally got my hands on a 12 inch copy of the Foul Play remix of 'Renegade Snares' by Omni Trio. I've been wanting a copy of this old drum and bass tune for years. It's in my top three favourite jungle tunes ever and now it stands on the shelf gathering dust alongside a couple of hundred other jungle classics. Big up to Gerry in Beatfinder Records for not selling it to anyone else (despite his best efforts).

A seven inch of note that's found a new home in Chez Vinyl is the second release in the Powerful Beacon series. It sees hip-hop producer Samon Kawamura remix a classic hip-hop tune by OC called Times Up. The Powerful Beacon project aims to reintroduce hip hop classics to the modern listener by having them remixed by contemporary producers. It's nowhere near as good as the original but its still pretty great. It was released on Takeshi Records some time earlier this year.

4 comments:

Ross said...

You only got the 12" re-release? Not the 10" original? Not even the 10" repress? You loser.

Matt Vinyl said...

go fuck yourself. i'm gonna rob yours next time i'm in your gaff.

Anonymous said...

black watch is beautiful stuff alright. we saw it at the Edinburgh Festival when it first came out.

I do feel there is a slightly syrupy romantic gloss on the regiments history in the play but it's really well staged and the central story is fantastic.

The use of the pool table was really inventive and there's some cracking physical theatre & choreography. This seems to be one of NTS' strong points, their most recent production "365" featured some stunning set pieces too.

Matt Vinyl said...

the pool table stuff was great. The 'letters from home' bit went over my head a bit. I thought it was a bit out of place with the rest of the stuff. The singing also took me by surprise, i liked it but one scene sounded a bit like The Proclaimers.