MalVern

The jolly quintet in Lilas Pastia's Tavern was by far and away the highlight of Co-Opera Co.'s Carmen in the Forum at Malvern this evening. You could see from this where Gilbert & Sullivan went for their inspiration. We were sitting in the second row, quite a gap between us and the orchestra, which was on the level in front of a fairly narrow rostrum stage, with the permanent backdrop of some Moorish-looking arches. The cast of nine singers had its work cut out to convey the flavour of Seville and its mountainous hinterland - Act 3 ("A wild and deserted rocky place at night") looked more like an apology for the Occupy movement, with its trio of wigwams; but the drama somehow won through. Certainly Adriana Festeu looks the part of Carmen, and I was impressed too by the band of 15, James Holmes conducting. This young company is one to encourage.

"Earthquakes in London"

The joint National Theatre/Headlong production of Mike Bartlett’s 2010 South Bank success is now on tour: we drove to Malvern this evening to catch it, suckers for anything to do with climate change. Rupert Goold’s energetic direction does wonders for what is ultimately not a very profound play. But it is rich entertainment, and may I suppose end up by preaching to others than the converted. At the interval, I found myself thinking of the dysfunctional family and its hangers on in terms of Chekhov somewhat speeded up. The ending however disappoints, resolving itself into sci fi fantasy. A guess at what might be the truth, Cormac McCarthy-like, would of course be far too painful for the punters. Bumping into friends there, we somehow sought to avoid any discussion of the substance of the play.

"The Syndicate"

Of the dozens of plays Eduardo de Filippo wrote, set in his native Naples, The Syndicate can surely not be the best; but with Ian McKellen playing the principal character (an illiterate murderer-made-good, who plays God), it makes for great entertainment. With friends, we went to see it last evening.

I'm normally not too fond of either plays in translation or black comedy, but despite the irredeemably English setting of the Malvern Theatre, there was something splendid about this production. McKellen and the rest of the cast wisely avoid any attempt at Italian accents or even many gestures, but the mood is well created by both the elaborate set and an unusually large cast - which perhaps explains the high ticket prices. Our plans for a picnic on the theatre lawn were scuppered by some very non-Neapolitan rain.

"Seeing by doing"

This - Seeing by doing - was the catchphrase of Robert Lyon, in the 1930s a Master of Painting connected with Durham University. He it was who was instrumental in the formation of the Ashington Group, made up mostly of miners intent on improving their education through evening classes. One of them survives, and paints every day still: he has a current exhibition on in Newcastle.

Meeting the group's frustration at having to sit and gaze at Lyon's black and white slides of the Madonna with cherubs and its ilk, he challenged each of them at the outset to make their own attempt to create an art work. "The Pitmen Painters" tells the story in dramatic form, and a very good play it is (by Lee Hall, who also wrote the screenplay for Billy Elliot): we saw it last night at Malvern.

This photograph of the Malvern Hills was taken from Farmcote earlier in the Summer.

Relayed cherry-picking

In Portugal, the informal economy was at its most visible in the stalls of cherries for sale by the roadsides. Yet we didn't see a single tree with them growing.

Within the past six days I have been to Glyndebourne and the South Bank, but travelled a mere sixty miles to get there and back. The peerless Glyndebourne Die Meistersinger came to Malvern on Sunday afternoon, and last night we had The Cherry Orchard at our local Cineworld direct from the National Theatre in its sublime production by Howard Davies.

The durability of both is that they have something timeless to tell us, and yet so much more than that: in the Wagner, we see the possibility of romantic happiness with a beautiful girl flitter across the consciousness of an eligible widower, before he concludes that a liaison would be in the long-term interests of neither. In the Chekhov, there are similar dalliances, but chiefly the conflict is between the unconstrainable romantic imagination of Mme. Ranyevskaya and her situation's grim financial reality. Andrew Upton's brilliant translation makes us very aware of the parallels with our recent banking crisis.

"The Age of Stupid"

Last weekend, Caroline and I went to Malvern, to see Waiting for Godot, a marvellous production with a set to echo some of the scenes described in Cormac McCarthy's The Road. A dazzling performance by Ian McKellen too. His character, Estragon, has the line: "People are bloody ignorant apes." And on my visit to the cinema this evening (the first time I've been to a film premiere), I came out thinking: who can disagree?

"We live in the age of ignorance, the age of stupid," concludes one of those portrayed in the film (a former oil man from New Orleans), and indeed "The Age of Stupid" is its title. Having driven down to Bristol for this event, I became acutely uncomfortable during the film that I was going to have to drive an otherwise empty car all the way back again. Did I need to travel all that distance for another lecture on climate change? Don't I have all the information already?

Well, there was an aura of gesture about Vivienne Westwood cycling - rather uncertainly - along the green carpet, as relayed to us direct from Leicester Square before the showing; but the film itself is quite nicely nuanced in some ways. The character I mentioned - despite seeing the light after losing all in the Katrina disaster - seemed to go on living a lifestyle many of us here would now not wish to emulate. A Nigerian aiming to qualify as a doctor aspires to an American way of living, "and then you would never want to die." The Indian launching a new low-cost airline seeks to take his people out of poverty. Who shall throw the first stone?

So, yes do go and see it for yourself if you can do so easily, and take others with you. It's on from Friday this week (20th) in Glasgow, Inverness, Edinburgh, Cardiff, Bristol, Belfast, Sheffield and various London cinemas - and at others you can find via its website. If the film is not shown in cinemas near you, you can rent the DVD and arrange a screening for yourself and friends, from 1st May: not expensive.

Its subject is after all the single most pressing issue of our age.