In the tiny Jerwood theatre in the loft of the Royal Court, and at an appropriate 90 minutes long, this was an entertaining evening spent with 16th century football. Set in the reign of Edward VI we have Percy and Rowan, joined by a stranger as they are marking the outer boundary of the annual football match between villages, and it's probably going to go on for hours if not days. They are far away from the action, barely pawns in the game but still heavily invested. I had to think a bit to get my head in the right bit of history but of course this was the middle of the religious purges after the death of Henry VIII where to be on the wrong side or in the wrong group could mean being subjected to attack or even death. The play takes all of the metaphors you have probably ever heard of applied to football and squeezes them in together, looking at the cultural, religious, territorial. gender divides, and pretty much every boundary you can think of. The battle lines that are drawn by ourselves, and by our friends and neighbours, but particularly focusing on the way that the people at the bottom of the pile are the foot soldiers in wars they really don’t understand, whether that is a football match or a cultural or real war. I liked the fact that these are Geordies in the firing line, or possibly the red or blue wall, giving us lots of modern parallels. A bit too obvious really but still a very enjoyable hour and a half and, from an outsiders perspective, getting the bizarre loyalties and language of football fans just right.
Earlier in the day we had popped over to the Saatchi Gallery to see the RHS botanical art and photography show. Lots of lovely work to enjoy in all sorts of styles. I loved the intricate ink work of this one by Hyunjin Cho. It gets more intricate the closer you look so by the end I had my nose pressed against this one because each stroke and dot was so tiny. And somehow it looks more like a creature than a plant.
This study of a dying tulip by Juliette Scott was lovely, and I like the colour palette provided too, which was of course, subtly different for each painting in the series
And the close up photography of these tiny living things by Barry Webb was gorgeous, looking for all the world like a sweetshop, every one of them bright and jewel-like and between 1-4mm making us spend some time musing about the worlds within worlds that we never see, both smaller and bigger than us.
Finally the Metamorphosis exhibition of the work of four eco-conscious photographers was fascinating. Who knew you could make film from soil? And I loved the attempt to create closed recycling loops. Well worth a visit!
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