The Art of Germany

For the poet Friedrich Schiller, Germany wasn’t a country. it was a question mark.

Germany ?  He asked.

Where is it ? where ?  I don’t know where to find it.

The truth is for most of its history, Germany was not a unified state but an assemblage of disparate parts. Not a nation, but so much as a process.

For centuries Germany was a construct of the mind. The creation of writers, painters, visionaries. That’s why art has always been at its core.

Reflecting its diverse origins, German culture is itself a blend of passion and precision. Exact craftsmanship and the impulsive gesture.  A love of nature and a love of the machine. A need for escape and a desire for control and, I believe, one of the most revealing ways to explore the complexities of the German character is through the story of German art.

With these words, Andrew Graham-Dixon, strolling around the iconic BMW car plant outside Munich, introduced his new 3 part series on the Art of Germany.

What a treat.  Loved every minute of it.

Deathtrap

Saw Deathtrap at the Noel Coward Theatre last night as a birthday treat.

Utterly brilliant !

Ira Levin’s classic stage thriller stars Simon Russell-Beale as Sidney Bruhl, a fading Broadway writer desperate to restart his career.

The entire play takes place in the converted Connecticut stable he shares with his wife Myra. 

The set is their vaulted sitting room, hung with pistols, axes and other exotic armaments, all having been the murder weapon in one of his plays.

Bruhl is struggling with his next work when a brilliant script arrives from one of his students.

On reading the masterpiece, he muses to his wife whether he should invite the young writer to dinner, murder him and steal the script to resuscitate his failing career.

The drama unfolds as Clifford Anderson, the young writer, played by Jonathan Groff of Glee fame, arrives clutching the only two copies of  ‘Deathtrap’, his new stage thriller.

Intrigue, stage fights and double murder ensue, interrupted only by a visit from an all-knowing clairvoyant and the family attorney.  The plot is tight, tense and witty with the audience hoodwinked into thinking one thing when the opposite is about to happen.

It’s elegantly constructed with clever dialogue and dramatic twists and turns to keep you guessing right to the end. Levin skilfully weaves suspense and humour into the plot, peppering the play with jump-in-your-seat surprises, literary in-jokes and plenty of dry, laugh-out-loud humour.

We loved it.

Russell-Beale was brilliant as the manic, conniving Bruhl. He’s a great stage actor,  filling the theatre and bringing the character to life with skill and superb comic timing.  

Jonathan Groff gave an energetic performance as the eager young student. Gorgeous, and surprisingly tall, he was the perfect foil for Russell-Beale’s jaded old writer.

It reminded me of two of my favourite stage thrillers, Rope and Sleuth. The film versions, starring Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine in Slueth, and James Stewart in Rope, are among my all time favourites.

Royally entertained and still smiling at the play’s hilarious ending, we went for tea and cake at the St Martin-in-the-Field Crypt before a stroll along the river.

We ended the evening at Souk Bazaar for a Moroccan experience complete with cushion covered couches, Bedouin wall hangings and a belly dancer. We  feasted on stuffed vine leaves, tagines of lamb and spiced chicken and light, fluffy couscous finished off with sweet mint tea and sticky Baklavia.

Too, too good.