I’m pretty much a traditionalist when it comes to this time of year.

Church on Christmas morning. Even getting used to cooking Christmas dinner for extended family and enjoying it. This was my thirtieth year of cooking Christmas dinner but for the first 28, the invitation was limited to immediately family. I guess Isobel is changing me.

Reading the opening chapters of the gospels of Matthew and Luke and still finding some hope there. The good intention of helping the poor and homeless by using whatever natural gifts I was given to make a difference to someone’s situation.

Listening to Bob Dylan’s Christmas in the Heart; Jethro Tull’s Christmas album (and the recording of their carol concert, that I helped to cause happen a couple of years ago, at St Bride’s to raise money for the aforementioned homeless); Bob and Hilary James’ Christmas in the Heart; Alexander Zonjic’s Pipers’ Holiday.

And reading the short stories of Charles Dickens. This year it was the “Battle of Life” (very good but didn’t affect me nearly as much as reading “The Haunted Man” last December) and “The Christmas Carol”.

Reading “The Christmas Carol” again reminds that Ebenezer Scrooge wasn’t born a wicked, chiselling miser but he became one because of his decisions. And very often those decisions were brought about by the bad that was done to him.

Reading about Scrooge abandoned at boarding school and forbidden by his father even to come home at Christmastime reminded me of some of the wounds that were placed on me as a child. And when you are hurt your temptation is to hurt those around you. And that’s what I did.

But something jerked me out of that direction when I was about 19 – though even that came with a deal of pain.

The passage that touched me most in my reading of “Christmas Carol” was the section in Stave 2 where Scrooge is abandoned by his fiancé:

She sees in him “a changed nature, an altered spirit, another atmosphere of life, another Hope as its great end. In abandoning (everything) that made my love of any worth or value in your sight. If this (contract) had never been between us ….tell me, would you seek me out and try to win me now?”

I hope that as life is changing my nature (as it inevitably changes us all) that I am becoming a better person.

Where: The Swan Theatre, Stratford-Upon-Avon
When: 20th December 2011
What: Measure for Measure


“Measure for Measure” should, in theory of least, be one of the easiest of William Shakespeare’s films to adapt to address the current western world. Set in a Vienna beset by changing morals and “sexual sin”, the Bard asks whether our sexual mores are best guarded by individual responsibility or by legislation. Even in 2011 England where many of those battles have been seemingly fought and decided, we have had Mr Cameron speaking of a return to Christian values in a speech in recent days and a revival of this play should, therefore,  be timely and appropriate.

On the other hand, perhaps you could dress the play up like you have just discovered a warehouse full of disused S&M gear and thrown in the contents of Ann Summers Winter sale and add in a Duke Vincentio who seems to delight in performing perfunctory magic tricks for some less than obvious reason and help the audience miss any contemporary relevance it might have had. This is the hand that the RSC has dealt itself and it is difficult to know why.

The RSC has had a bad year. But it really has to work hard to make it as bad as it has been. It opened its new main theatre with excellent productions like the continuation of 2010s of King Lear (less an old fool) and launched the Swan Theatre with material like the excellent one woman performance of the Rape of Lucrece. But heavy-handed directors have seen all the new productions in the RST guided in a way that lost the heart of the Bard’s greatest plays in a heavy sugar coating of novelty and modish ideas which added nothing to the audiences understanding of the masterworks.

And so comes round Christmas 2011 and in the main theatre we have not Shakespeare but “The Heart of Robin Hood” whilst Mr Shakespeare’s play is found round the back entrance in The Swan. A decision which was guided surely by profit and budgetary considerations rather than the original goals of the Royal Shakespeare Company.

 

Jamie Ballard as Angelo

Back to “Measure for Measure” and when you have stripped away the leather and corsets, you find all that is lurking underneath  is some distinctly ordinary performances from a rather lightweight ensemble. Angelo, played by Jamie Ballard, manages to cope remarkably well with his arousal and the awakening of the profound human emotion of love and manages to make his declaration to Isabella (Jodie McNee) seem half-hearted and disinterested. Isabella, herself, does far better with expounding her calling to become a nun than she does making it believable that the male members of the cast keep fall in loving with her or something about her. Raymond Coulthard‘s Vincentio / Friar Lodowick is one of the best thing here once you have got passed the sleight of hand.



Jodie McNee as Isabella

Ultimately, the play is not a disaster, it just never gets better than alright. It’s ability to maintain our interest though does not come from the bizarre wardrobe decisions but from solid performances from the more senior members of the cast. In this category we have Bruce Alexander (best known in recent times for his role as David Jason’s senior officer in “A Touch of Frost”) as a solid Provost and Geoffrey Beevers as Escalus. Joseph Kloskey does well as the bawd Pompey but no-one else is able to add much to this alternately silly and leaden production.



Lodowick and Isabella

2012 brings many challenges for the Royal Shakespeare Company. The greatest will be to restore their heritage and respect for the text until it stands in equal measure to its desire for innovation.

Where: Xoyo Club, London
When: 25th October 2011
Who: John Foxx and the Maths, Gazelle Twin, Tara Busch

30 years after the beginning of his solo career John Foxx is at the peak of his powers – and for the first time since Ultravox!, he is in a regular band context.

The current UK tour of John Foxx and the Maths has been a big success, playing to full houses but as I talked to Foxx before his first London show, it is clear that he expects a big future for the Maths – with or without their current lead singer.

The Maths having made their live debut a year or so ago, have recorded two albums – “Interplay” which made its bow to great reviews earlier in the year and “The Shape of Things” which is released in a limited tour edition to coincide with the shows.

John makes it clear that he sees his current co-writer Benge as being the heart of the Maths and the one who will be the centre of the band’s activities in the future. However, it is obvious that Foxx is the central attraction for those coming out to catch the shows whilst Benge is an obscure presence on electronic percussion at the back of the stage. The band’s future direction is a conundrum for another day but what is clear is that this current extension to John Foxx’s solo output is allowing him his finest live performances to date.


John Foxx during the soundcheck

Augmented by Serafina Steer on bass and keyboards, and Hannah Peel on keyboards and electric violin, Foxx is given a clear way to display a growing confidence as a lead figure for the band which had somewhat disappeared since his days with Ultravox!. Freed from the responsibility having to worry about every aspect of the music and having more of a genuine live band-feel seems to have allowed Mr Foxx the space to impose more of his personality on the performance and this is recognised by an enthusiastic audience.


Hannah Peel

The set is made up of music from three distinct eras of Foxx’s career. Firstly and primarily there are 9 tracks from the first Maths album and 1 from the new platter. Secondly, there is material from the Metamatic album and era, Foxx’s solo debut back in the halcyon days of 1980. Finally, there are songs from the time of the original Ultravox! band. On many of the songs, the mere presence of Peel’s violin evokes a certain memory of Billy Currie’s role in that earlier band and adds a distinctly eerie presence to tracks like “Plaza” which enriches everything we have heard on previous outings for those early songs. Noticeably, Foxx bypasses the period of his songwriting which covers his work with Louis Gordon completely.


Serefina Steer

It is difficult to find anything here that doesn’t shine. The title track of the first Maths album is very, very minimalist on the recording and I was unsure how “Interplay” would work in live performance. It is the very barrenness of the sound with Foxx’s steely, commanding vocal pushed right to the fore which makes this for me the highlight of the night -  not least because of the way it both contrasts and resonates with “Evergreen” and “Summerland” both also to be found on that first Maths album. The sense of loss (or miscalculation or confusion) that is at the heart of “Interplay” is lyrically the opposite of these other two, which speak of a good time which cannot be lost or misplaced but which is always there for us.

That sense of being able to return to wonderful times in our past, is captured too in the older songs which are interweaved amongst the new tracks. “Just For A Moment”, “Hiroshima Mon Amour”, “No-One Driving” sound just like they always did but with a vigour and human heartbeat which is the opposite of some perceptions of Foxx’s music but which has always been there but is drawn out moreso by the relaxed way Foxx is able to think about the familiar words and play with the phrasing and also by the vigour and energy of the live band.

Benge’s wide sweeps at the drum pads are solid and rhythmic and allow us a visual understanding of the beat which is lost in so many electronic bands who have never been able to visually replace the physical full drum kit.


Benge

Tonight has been a full evening of music. Support acts were Tara Bush and Gazelle Twin. The two, both exponents of electronic music, created opposite effects. Busch hidden behind a much older synthesiser than anything else on the crowded stage tonight, didn’t rely on visual effects but delivered the bizarre array of her songs and a Carpenters cover with a biting conviction that kept me locked into her music.


Tara Busch

By contrast, Gazelle Twin (a 3-piece) allowed their attempts to be visually different to smother their music and didn’t maintain the interest of the bulk of the audience. Their songs lacked melodies and the vocals were lost somewhere in the mix.
But for those who were gathered, tonight was about John Foxx and the Maths in the first of  two performances in the capital city. Family illness prevented me from being present at the second and I hear that Mr Foxx took a head injury from that one which necessitated a little attention from the local accident department. I hope it is not serious because whilst the question of whether the Maths can do the sums without him remains an open one what is not in question is that with the Maths in the equation Foxx is finding a whole new dimension in his live performance.



John Foxx

So we have surveyed the batters, now onto the pitchers…..

Good

David Robertson. Five pitchers came out of the post-season with a 0.00 ERA for the Yankees. Robertson gets first mention because even compared to Mariano Rivera, he was the most consistent reliever on the Yankees staff. He and Rivera were tied during the playoffs, neither allowing a hit or giving up a walk. Robertson pitched 2 innings across 2 appearances……

Mariano Rivera. …….whilst Mariano pitched 1.1 innings across 2 appearances with the same outcome.

Boone Logan. Logan was the next hardest reliever to get on base against. He allowed a hit but no walks and that hit didn’t develop into a run. Logan deserves special mention. First, because he appeared in 3 games but mostly because he has overcome more difficulties, personal doubts, media and fan doubts than anyone else who performed at this level.

Phil Hughes. Hughes also deserves a significant mention. He spent the regular season mostly as a starter or on the disabled list (though nobody quite seemed to know quite why). In late September, he was added to the bullpen and produced two quality performances. Two more such quality performances from the bullpen followed in the ALDS. Two appearances, 2.1 innings, 1 hit, no walks, no runs. Looks like we might have got ourselves a decent reliever then…… will they try to make a starter out of him still?

Cory Wade. Wade pitched two innings in his one post-season appearance. He allowed 2 hits and a walk but no runs. Not bad for a mid-season pickup that nobody wanted. We’ll wait to see if he’s squeezed out in 2012…… Has to be said that for the second half of the season he was part of the best bullpen in baseball. Now how the dickens did that happen?

Bad.

C.C. Sabathia. If all the real quality was in the bullpen then most of the sub-standard pitching must have come from the starters. And we start where we needed to find our greatest strength with the curiously lacklustre Sabathia. To some degree circumstances conspired against him, a rainout and his first ever relief appearance were part of the mix but even that doesn’t fully account for a 6.23 ERA and 8 walks.

Freddy Garcia. With Colon falling at the final hurdles, a lot was being asked of Freddy Garcia and he didn’t quite deliver. 3 earned runs in 5.1 innings in his only appearance wasn’t bad but it wasn’t good enough.

Luis Ayala. Ayala was the weak link in an otherwise gold standard bullpen. Girardi stood by him despite struggles in his first appearance and it didn’t get any better second time around. The fans got on his back and these playoff appearances will stick longer in the memory than the solid stuff from the regular season making him less likely to return to what will be a crowded bullpen in 2012.

Surprises.

A.J. Burnett. Burnett starting in game 4 wasn’t what the bleacher creatures wanted to see. They like to see Burnett with a cream pie in his hand but they have had little use for him otherwise in 2011. He didn’t go particularly deep in the game but he kept his nerve and kept us in the series. A most unlikely hero.

Rafael Soriano. Soriano wasn’t brilliant but he was better than he’s been most of the season. His 3 relief appearances included only one clunker – his second and third outings were spotless. He looks like he’ll be back in 2012 and perhaps there is an encouragement here that he can deliver what he promises.

So the baseball season is over. The St Louis Cardinals who performed very well in the Series are the champions and probably deservedly so. It still sticks in my gut a little that the eventual winners only made the playoffs as the wild card but with the wildcard system likely to expand in 2013, me complaining about that is about as meaningful as a National League fan complaining about the Designated Hitter rule – so I shall make no more noise in that regard. The system allows for that possibility and it has happened. C’est la vie. It remains only for me to summarise the way that the Yankees performed in their small part in that playoff system – which they entered as the American League team with the best winning record but exited in the first round (careful, Darren, careful) and then to go through the usual nonsense of awarding my Yankees of the year awards.

Anyway, let’s begin with the October batters:

Jorge Posada. Posada drifted out of September and I, for one, was surprised when Girardi announced that Jorge would be the everyday DH in the ALDS. I was also a little (but not much) surprised when Posada didn’t make an announcement that he would retire when the Yankees were eliminated – thereby allowing the Yanks fans to give him a rousing farewell in the manner that they saw Paul O’Neill off a few years ago. Anyway, whether Posada will now retire or whether he will seek a DH role at another club remains to be explored but what is of no question is how well he did in these last 5 games of the season. He led the team in batting average and  on-base average and came in second in slugging. Hitting a triple at this point of his career is no mean feat and if these games are his final ones in the Majors, he has gone out in a worthy way after a fine career.

Brett Gardner. Gardner was another who ended the regular looking jaded and gave little sign that we should expect much of him in the playoffs. Like Posada, he came up trumps in the important moments and kept us in it right down to the wire. Surprisingly, he had no stolen bases to contribute but the .412 BA was very presentable.

Curtis Granderson. Granderson was some distance behind the three above-named in offensive performances but his defensive work nudges him into this category one more time. He also contributed a double, a triple and a homer in a series when we were a little light on extra-base hits.

Bad

Alex Rodriguez. The 2010 playoffs ended (for the Yankees) with A-Rod striking out, it was no surprise that the 2011 season drew to  a close in a similar manner. Quite simply Rodriguez was atrocious at the plate and only has some half-decent work in the field to commend him. It’s interesting to wonder what the Yankees might be considering if he didn’t have that unmovable contract attached to him. His .111 batting average with no power is simply proof that unless there is some major moments from him in Spring Training next year, he should be removed from that clean-up slot and hid much further down the lineup card.

Mark Teixeira. Mark was not a lot different in the playoffs than he had been all season long. His defensive work was great but his offensive work left something to be desired. Where there was a change was the lack of home runs in the play offs and a further slight decline in batting average.

Nick Swisher. Swisher added one of the four homeruns that the Yankees hit in the playoffs but otherwise there was not much to report. The Yankees are rumoured to be likely to pick up his $10 million plus option which is not surprising either.

Russell Martin. Russell Martin is another that is very likely to be back in the Bronx in 2012 and I am the only one who seems to wonder why. We can’t put it down to Cervelli’s latest struggles with concussion because the decision seemed to have been made before that became an issue. We can’t put it down to his ability with the bat. In the playoffs as in the bulk of the regular season, there were few signs of life. He is a great battery partner and strong defensively but being a major league catcher on the Yankees usually requires more than that if we are going to win. Ask Bill Dickey, Yogi Berra, Thurman Munson and Jorge Posada………..

Surprises

Derek Jeter. Jeter was very quiet at the plate in the playoffs. Not bad, not great, just quiet. He needed a big finish to finally silence all those doubters who shouted so loud before the All-Star break. It didn’t come and we must wait and see which version of the Captain turns up in 2012.

Andruw Jones. Jones performances in August and early-September meant that he deserved a chance to add some oomph when the bats weren’t delivering the runs in the playoffs. In the end, he was given the chance to deliver one sacrifice fly (which he took) but no other bats. That might be a missed opportunity.

Jesus Montero. When Girardi notified Posada that he would be DH in all 5 games, there seemed to be little left to offer Montero. Jesus doesn’t look Major League ready behind the plate and short of Martin getting injured, he wasn’t going to be majorly used with the tools of ignorance. Somehow or other, he got two at-bats, and delivered up two hits and one RBI. There’s a lot to like about this young man whatever the downside.

What to say about the Yankees in September? Well, the month was going well until they clinched the title, at which point – as he has done in previous seasons – Joe Girardi decided to avoid injuries by using the length and breadth of his extended roster. This produced a different line up every day and more defeats than wins. The team’s batting average hit a skid which it never pulled out of when the regular line-up was restored for the first round of the playoffs against Detroit in October. Whether this was due to Joe’s excessive tinkering we’ll never know……. but here’s how things looked by the end of September