STAGE
A Chorus Of Disapproval
Harold Pinter Theatre
★★★✩✩
IN A NUTSHELL
More tautness and and vigour is needed, but this Trevor Nunn production is still a clever study of provincial lifes, loves and obsessions.
REVIEW
If Rob Brydon were to bring his immense but particular talents to a dramatic role in the West End then the part of put-upon am-dram director Dafydd Ap Llewellyn would be the velvet slippers of his dreams.
The hangdog Welshman of TV fame plays the hangdog Welshman of Alan Ayckbourn's clever-clever suburban farce with brio and eagerness.
Dressed in baggy cords, droopy cardigan and dismayed jowls, Brydon is outstanding in what is, generally, an underpowered version of the revival by the normally meticulous Trevor Nunn.
The scene is set - the light operatic society under the jackboot of the Welsh dragon - is bringing to life The Beggar's Opera, which, amid its tarts and rogues, is centred on a love triangle.
In the twee provincial society, straight from a Mike Leigh 1980s playbook, one love triangle is already in place and another is about to emerge with the arrival of Nigel Harman, who goes from flat-haired dweeb to cock of the walk as he hoovers up the desperate housewives.
The stage is crammed with stereotypes - emotional teens, vampish mares, dodgy dealers - but the set pieces are frequently lost in the fussiness of conveyor belt stage management.
Sometimes - such as in the pub scene - it's difficult to hear (the man behind me repeated the punchlines to his partner) which doesn't play to the strengths of a charming but pallid Ashley Jensen, who, in Extras, did nuanced pragmatism beautifully.
Essentially this is as silly as Noises Off but here the frivolity appears laboured and freighted with needless significance.
A missed opportunity for a starry cast straining at the comic leash.
Until January 5, agttickets.com
Sunday, 7 October 2012
TV: Mental torture porn
Who watches this stuff? Seriously. I was about 10 minutes into Homefront - nothing else on is the excuse - and what have we got? A young wife with a bawling bairn and a hubbie in Helmand gets a visit from a beret-clad doom merchant.
Next thing, just after she tried to push him and the bad news from the room - they're marching a flag-draped coffin out the back of a Hercules at Brize Norton.
She's a melting wreck and I'm thinking - why put us through the wringer? We could flip over and watch the news. We have to do that, it's an obligation, it's the least we can do considering. But this...
It's like children's hospital dramas. Little Lucy Dawson hovers between life and death as nature's cruel hand slaps her frequently around her bloodless face for a laugh. Why would anyone... I mean, why...
And if that's not enough - get the real thing straight from the bedside. Watch authentic pain. Weep real tears as the genuine Lucy Dawson is watched over by parents too despairing to care that they've got their own Facebook fan page.
Give me anodyne. Give me vanilla TV. Give me Terry And June over Terry And June: Conjoined And Condemned any day of the week and a repeat on Sunday.
giles.broadbent@wharf.co.uk
Next thing, just after she tried to push him and the bad news from the room - they're marching a flag-draped coffin out the back of a Hercules at Brize Norton.
She's a melting wreck and I'm thinking - why put us through the wringer? We could flip over and watch the news. We have to do that, it's an obligation, it's the least we can do considering. But this...
It's like children's hospital dramas. Little Lucy Dawson hovers between life and death as nature's cruel hand slaps her frequently around her bloodless face for a laugh. Why would anyone... I mean, why...
And if that's not enough - get the real thing straight from the bedside. Watch authentic pain. Weep real tears as the genuine Lucy Dawson is watched over by parents too despairing to care that they've got their own Facebook fan page.
Give me anodyne. Give me vanilla TV. Give me Terry And June over Terry And June: Conjoined And Condemned any day of the week and a repeat on Sunday.
giles.broadbent@wharf.co.uk
Film review: Looper (15)
FILM
Looper
(15) 118ms
★★★★✩
IN A NUTSHELL
Confident writer-director Rian Johnson delivers some mind-bending twists in an ambitious tale of time-travelling gun slingers.
REVIEW
Looper doesn't just deliver one mind-bending action movie - it delivers about four. The fact that two of that number are Back To The Future and Terminator shouldn't irretrievably damage the IQ - for the other two are far more ambitious, complex and intelligent.
Like Inception (which also starred Joseph Gordon-Levitt), the premise is simple but the implications are extraordinary and require a switched-on, forward-facing audience.
The story - along with the stripped down, lo-fi 2044 that is the film's drab setting - come from the fernickety mind of writer-director Rian Johnson, who made a stylish impact with 2005's Brick, also starring Gordon-Levitt for whom he wrote the part of hitman Joe.
Gordon-Levitt's appearance jars at first - like Ed Miliband post-op - but the reason for the brutish physog becomes apparent when the older version of himself is dumped back in his time - it's Bruce Willis.
The head-scratching conceit is this: In the future, the Mob use illegal time-travelling technology to send their marks into the past.
There, hitmen, called loopers, take their lives and the silver strapped to their backs - and dispose of bodies that don't technically exist.
But the loopers are not forward-thinkers. In exchange for loot now, they will have to kill off their future selves at some point.
When Bruce Willis comes back for dispatch, the younger Joe loses his nerve and Willis flees, heading off on a cold-blooded killing spree of his own in order to save his future family.
In some kind of Oedipal nightmare, Young Jo has to destroy his older self because Mob boss Abe (Jeff Daniels), sent back in time to oversee this end of the operation, will ensure both incarnations are bumped off.
But Future Joe, in Terminator style, is on the trail of the kid who will grow up to be the Rainmaker, the fearsome uber-boss who triggers his death 30 years' hence.
Present Joe has sufficient clues to predict his targets and finds himself in the remote homestead of tough-but-vulnerable Emily Blunt where she tends to the needs of odd toddler Cid.
While the blank (indeed unpleasant) duo of Present and Future Joe lack any kind of sympathy or charisma, Blunt's Sara is the damaged soul who, finally, brings a welcome human dimension to the movie.
But Blunt doesn't take top acting honours. They go to wee Pierce Gagnon who manages to convey menace and enigma despite being cute as an psycho button.
This hard-but-brittle flick is a slow-starter (all that infernal exposition) and the downtime is too easily spent ticking off the derivative time-travelling tropes.
However, the spectacular (and genuinely shocking) final sequences make up for the shortage of early charm and tie up the cleverly twisting plotlines with panache.
The film is not always likeable but it is a solid two hours of truly mind-bending entertainment.
Looper
(15) 118ms
★★★★✩
IN A NUTSHELL
Confident writer-director Rian Johnson delivers some mind-bending twists in an ambitious tale of time-travelling gun slingers.
REVIEW
Looper doesn't just deliver one mind-bending action movie - it delivers about four. The fact that two of that number are Back To The Future and Terminator shouldn't irretrievably damage the IQ - for the other two are far more ambitious, complex and intelligent.
Like Inception (which also starred Joseph Gordon-Levitt), the premise is simple but the implications are extraordinary and require a switched-on, forward-facing audience.
The story - along with the stripped down, lo-fi 2044 that is the film's drab setting - come from the fernickety mind of writer-director Rian Johnson, who made a stylish impact with 2005's Brick, also starring Gordon-Levitt for whom he wrote the part of hitman Joe.
Gordon-Levitt's appearance jars at first - like Ed Miliband post-op - but the reason for the brutish physog becomes apparent when the older version of himself is dumped back in his time - it's Bruce Willis.
The head-scratching conceit is this: In the future, the Mob use illegal time-travelling technology to send their marks into the past.
There, hitmen, called loopers, take their lives and the silver strapped to their backs - and dispose of bodies that don't technically exist.
But the loopers are not forward-thinkers. In exchange for loot now, they will have to kill off their future selves at some point.
When Bruce Willis comes back for dispatch, the younger Joe loses his nerve and Willis flees, heading off on a cold-blooded killing spree of his own in order to save his future family.
In some kind of Oedipal nightmare, Young Jo has to destroy his older self because Mob boss Abe (Jeff Daniels), sent back in time to oversee this end of the operation, will ensure both incarnations are bumped off.
But Future Joe, in Terminator style, is on the trail of the kid who will grow up to be the Rainmaker, the fearsome uber-boss who triggers his death 30 years' hence.
Present Joe has sufficient clues to predict his targets and finds himself in the remote homestead of tough-but-vulnerable Emily Blunt where she tends to the needs of odd toddler Cid.
While the blank (indeed unpleasant) duo of Present and Future Joe lack any kind of sympathy or charisma, Blunt's Sara is the damaged soul who, finally, brings a welcome human dimension to the movie.
But Blunt doesn't take top acting honours. They go to wee Pierce Gagnon who manages to convey menace and enigma despite being cute as an psycho button.
This hard-but-brittle flick is a slow-starter (all that infernal exposition) and the downtime is too easily spent ticking off the derivative time-travelling tropes.
However, the spectacular (and genuinely shocking) final sequences make up for the shortage of early charm and tie up the cleverly twisting plotlines with panache.
The film is not always likeable but it is a solid two hours of truly mind-bending entertainment.
Purpose of the cable car is crystal clear
An advert now labels the cable car a legacy item. "Thanks to the Games," it reads, "you can now fly across the Thames and see London in a whole new light." This is part of a series of adverts branded "Gift of the Games."
Now, one could quibble, if one were so minded, over the direct correlation of the Emirates Air Line and the Olympic Games.
Obviously, traffic escalated over those summer weeks, although I suspect this was due to people killing time between events at Excel and The O2 rather than travelling between the two.
Besides, the Emirates Air Line was never touted as a piece of Games infrastructure and, through pricing and ticketing (and very nearly through its late launch) was excluded from routine travel plans.
However, my quibbling is muted. If someone wants to give the cable car an Olympic sheen I'm not going to get too vexed.
But, the truth is, the cable car never really made sense as an adjunct to the Olympics. However, it makes perfect sense as an adjunct to the Crystal.
Shamefully late for a resident of the area, I took my debut flight last week. Mostly because I got free tickets as part of the hoopla that surrounded the opening of the greenest building in the world, dedicated to innovative thinking about urbanisation.
Taking to the air, after a short walk from that squat, pointy building (the East Angular?), the Air Line made sense in a way it never did before.
From around the world, city mayors, digital thinkers and futurologists will convene at Siemens campus. The cable car (although disappointingly analogue) is a perfect mood music for their deliberations - dramatic, innovative, sexy, leftfield and a tiny bit bonkers. (Plus it opens up the lunching options for delegates.)
I should add that the journey over the Thames is London's latest must-do experience.
From a certain vantage point, with perspective foreshortened, when the loop of the river turns the Greenwich peninsula into an island and when the Royal Docks and river make a drowned archipelago of Silvertown, the notion of a Water City is as obvious as it is breathtaking.
PS The Crystal is reminiscent of the Millennium Dome - snazzy exterior but a purpose that is not entirely clear to the average passer-by. Fortunately, we're not picking up the bill for this one.
giles.broadbent@wharf.co.uk
Now, one could quibble, if one were so minded, over the direct correlation of the Emirates Air Line and the Olympic Games.
Obviously, traffic escalated over those summer weeks, although I suspect this was due to people killing time between events at Excel and The O2 rather than travelling between the two.
Besides, the Emirates Air Line was never touted as a piece of Games infrastructure and, through pricing and ticketing (and very nearly through its late launch) was excluded from routine travel plans.
However, my quibbling is muted. If someone wants to give the cable car an Olympic sheen I'm not going to get too vexed.
But, the truth is, the cable car never really made sense as an adjunct to the Olympics. However, it makes perfect sense as an adjunct to the Crystal.
Shamefully late for a resident of the area, I took my debut flight last week. Mostly because I got free tickets as part of the hoopla that surrounded the opening of the greenest building in the world, dedicated to innovative thinking about urbanisation.
Taking to the air, after a short walk from that squat, pointy building (the East Angular?), the Air Line made sense in a way it never did before.
From around the world, city mayors, digital thinkers and futurologists will convene at Siemens campus. The cable car (although disappointingly analogue) is a perfect mood music for their deliberations - dramatic, innovative, sexy, leftfield and a tiny bit bonkers. (Plus it opens up the lunching options for delegates.)
I should add that the journey over the Thames is London's latest must-do experience.
From a certain vantage point, with perspective foreshortened, when the loop of the river turns the Greenwich peninsula into an island and when the Royal Docks and river make a drowned archipelago of Silvertown, the notion of a Water City is as obvious as it is breathtaking.
PS The Crystal is reminiscent of the Millennium Dome - snazzy exterior but a purpose that is not entirely clear to the average passer-by. Fortunately, we're not picking up the bill for this one.
giles.broadbent@wharf.co.uk
Sunday, 23 September 2012
Let's see this through to the end
"Hour forty five straight through." There it is again, the glorious prospect of a theatre production without interval.
Conventionally, there's an artistic reason - such as a compelling narrative - that persuades management to pass up a plump drinks tab.
But Love And Information by Caryl Churchill is perfect for multiple divisions. The production is all bite-sized chunks, one-set mini-fragments that could be stopped any time for a pinot and a puff.
Maybe it's Churchill - she has the clout to call crunch time on the Pringles. Either way, to the rest of us it's a blessing.
The cursed faff of disassembling the quantum packing of the seat set-up, the stand-up-sit-down bob-o-rama, the buffeting queues at bars and the tyranny of the toilet question.
We do it in the cinema, two hours without the need for a stretch, so why in theatres? Especially in the Royal Court which has the plushest seats in theatre-land.
The biggest challenge for theatres is the suspension of disbelief - why hobble the fantasy with an obtuse anachronism from the era of The Potter's Wheel.
giles.broadbent@wharf.co.uk
Conventionally, there's an artistic reason - such as a compelling narrative - that persuades management to pass up a plump drinks tab.
But Love And Information by Caryl Churchill is perfect for multiple divisions. The production is all bite-sized chunks, one-set mini-fragments that could be stopped any time for a pinot and a puff.
Maybe it's Churchill - she has the clout to call crunch time on the Pringles. Either way, to the rest of us it's a blessing.
The cursed faff of disassembling the quantum packing of the seat set-up, the stand-up-sit-down bob-o-rama, the buffeting queues at bars and the tyranny of the toilet question.
We do it in the cinema, two hours without the need for a stretch, so why in theatres? Especially in the Royal Court which has the plushest seats in theatre-land.
The biggest challenge for theatres is the suspension of disbelief - why hobble the fantasy with an obtuse anachronism from the era of The Potter's Wheel.
giles.broadbent@wharf.co.uk
Film review: Killing Them Softly (18)
FILM
Killing Them Softly
(18) 97mins
★★★★✩
IN A NUTSHELL
Andrew Dominik's impressively slow-burn tale of Mob retribution gives room and rope for the sleazeball characters to go hang themselves.
REVIEW
It's 2008. US election time. Barack Obama is preaching hope and George Bush is throwing money at the banks to keep the economy, and the American dream, alive.
Far from this slick, high falutin' phrase making, a pair of scuzzy, bumbling Keystone crooks figure they're on to a sure thing, taking down a Mob game because they know Markie (Ray Liotta), who did the same thing a while back, will take the heat.
This is capitalism, red in tooth and claw, says director Andrew Dominik. You have a buck, I take a buck off you.
Where's the honest deal, he asks. In a credit default swap, or down in Louisiana where the truth is brutal and comes with a beatin'. Who are the real crooks? Greedy Goldman Sachs or Russell (Ben Mendelsohn) and Frankie (Scoot McNairy), the artless, sweaty hoodlums poking the hornet's nest for an easy dime.
Chief hornet is Jackie Cogan (Brad Pitt playing sleazy chic) who has to sort out this mess and restore order.
He calls on Mickey (James Gandolfini) to give him a hand. But Mickey is a sozzled mess, facing jail, a divorce and a glass that empties too quickly and fills too slow.
We know this because Mickey tells us. This is a talkie. There is violence, slayings - uncompromising, poetically shot grubby headshots - but the director (who took us into deadbeat minds in The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford) is more interested in the hopes and fears of pitiable sleazeballs trying to make a dishonest day's living so they can get the hell out.
Jackie doesn't like the touchy-feely stuff. He prefers "killing them softly, from a distance" but he still gets dragged in, taking Mickey's miserable, martini-sodden confession and giving Frankie some options.
Elmore Leonard's in there, in spirit, with the rhythmic street slang and the code of machismo. Tarantino too, but if you put two crims in a car tossing dialogue to and fro ahead of a job, Tarantino is inevitable.
And don't forget Guy Ritchie for the arch, stylised direction although Lock, Stock is gloss and varnish compared to this rain-beaten, noirish dinge-fest. Says 2008 on the pack, yes, but the browns and oranges and rusty GTOs suggest the '70s, home of the source material - George V Higgins' pulpy Cogan's Trade.
Dominik does a great job for a film with little plot. He builds character, tension and is happy to let the screen shift to slow-burn to give the druggies time to find their high.
The script is crackling: brimful of one-liners and mordant, slapstick wit, and the cast show they know how to give their blunt-toothed schmucks heart, or at least, purpose.
But, in the end, this is just business pal. Nothin' personal.
Killing Them Softly
(18) 97mins
★★★★✩
IN A NUTSHELL
Andrew Dominik's impressively slow-burn tale of Mob retribution gives room and rope for the sleazeball characters to go hang themselves.
REVIEW
It's 2008. US election time. Barack Obama is preaching hope and George Bush is throwing money at the banks to keep the economy, and the American dream, alive.
Far from this slick, high falutin' phrase making, a pair of scuzzy, bumbling Keystone crooks figure they're on to a sure thing, taking down a Mob game because they know Markie (Ray Liotta), who did the same thing a while back, will take the heat.
This is capitalism, red in tooth and claw, says director Andrew Dominik. You have a buck, I take a buck off you.
Where's the honest deal, he asks. In a credit default swap, or down in Louisiana where the truth is brutal and comes with a beatin'. Who are the real crooks? Greedy Goldman Sachs or Russell (Ben Mendelsohn) and Frankie (Scoot McNairy), the artless, sweaty hoodlums poking the hornet's nest for an easy dime.
Chief hornet is Jackie Cogan (Brad Pitt playing sleazy chic) who has to sort out this mess and restore order.
He calls on Mickey (James Gandolfini) to give him a hand. But Mickey is a sozzled mess, facing jail, a divorce and a glass that empties too quickly and fills too slow.
We know this because Mickey tells us. This is a talkie. There is violence, slayings - uncompromising, poetically shot grubby headshots - but the director (who took us into deadbeat minds in The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford) is more interested in the hopes and fears of pitiable sleazeballs trying to make a dishonest day's living so they can get the hell out.
Jackie doesn't like the touchy-feely stuff. He prefers "killing them softly, from a distance" but he still gets dragged in, taking Mickey's miserable, martini-sodden confession and giving Frankie some options.
Elmore Leonard's in there, in spirit, with the rhythmic street slang and the code of machismo. Tarantino too, but if you put two crims in a car tossing dialogue to and fro ahead of a job, Tarantino is inevitable.
And don't forget Guy Ritchie for the arch, stylised direction although Lock, Stock is gloss and varnish compared to this rain-beaten, noirish dinge-fest. Says 2008 on the pack, yes, but the browns and oranges and rusty GTOs suggest the '70s, home of the source material - George V Higgins' pulpy Cogan's Trade.
Dominik does a great job for a film with little plot. He builds character, tension and is happy to let the screen shift to slow-burn to give the druggies time to find their high.
The script is crackling: brimful of one-liners and mordant, slapstick wit, and the cast show they know how to give their blunt-toothed schmucks heart, or at least, purpose.
But, in the end, this is just business pal. Nothin' personal.
Stage review: Top Hat, Aldwych
STAGE
Top Hat
Aldwych Theatre
★★★★✩
IN A NUTSHELL
Sumptuous settings and silky dancing ensure Irving Berlin's classics are serenaded in style.
REVIEW
There's so much corn at the Aldwych a small heatwave could start a tasty explosion, or a cinema concession.
Sweet or salted? Sweet, of course, as this effortlessly classy musical turns a slight boy-meets-girl-boy-loses-girl hiccup into two-and-a-half hours of delightful hoofing, non-stop action and money-on-show costumes.
Here's the plot precis: "Jerry Travers (Tom Chambers), the famous American tap dancer, arrives in London to appear in his first West End show. Travers meets the irresistible Dale Tremont (Summer Strallen), the girl of his dreams, and follows her across Europe in an attempt to win her heart."
That makes it sound like complex psycho-drama compared to the slender reality. But that's not the point. The point is the succession of sumptuous Irving Berlin numbers (Puttin' On The Ritz, Top Hat, Lets Face The Music), the clackety-clack chorus line, the screwball romance and the top hat and tails.
The whole lot is played as farce ably assisted by the 'Allo 'Allo Italian manglings of Ricardo Afonso's dress designer Alberto Beddini and the hen-pecked shenanighans of Martin Ball's impresario Horace Hardwick - not forgetting the hen herself, Vivien Parry.
To emphasise the sheer silliness of the story, the script is a succession of groaners. To wit:
"What's this power you have over horses?"
"Horse power?"
Strictly winner Tom Chambers plays Fred Astaire playing Jerry Travers and Summer Strallen plays Ginger Rogers playing Dale Tremont without entirely recapturing the chemistry of the 1935 RKO classic.
The former is ostentatious and charming, the latter, feisty and game and between them manage to convince that a small case of mistaken identity is worth the fuss that ensues.
In fact, by the close, you would only cheer more if it were Bradley Wiggins and Jessica Ennis who had donned the taps and were dancing Cheek To Cheek.
Now booking to 2013. Go to aldwych.official-theatre.co.uk
© Images: Brinkhoff and Mogenburg
Top Hat
Aldwych Theatre
★★★★✩
IN A NUTSHELL
Sumptuous settings and silky dancing ensure Irving Berlin's classics are serenaded in style.
REVIEW
There's so much corn at the Aldwych a small heatwave could start a tasty explosion, or a cinema concession.
Sweet or salted? Sweet, of course, as this effortlessly classy musical turns a slight boy-meets-girl-boy-loses-girl hiccup into two-and-a-half hours of delightful hoofing, non-stop action and money-on-show costumes.
Here's the plot precis: "Jerry Travers (Tom Chambers), the famous American tap dancer, arrives in London to appear in his first West End show. Travers meets the irresistible Dale Tremont (Summer Strallen), the girl of his dreams, and follows her across Europe in an attempt to win her heart."
That makes it sound like complex psycho-drama compared to the slender reality. But that's not the point. The point is the succession of sumptuous Irving Berlin numbers (Puttin' On The Ritz, Top Hat, Lets Face The Music), the clackety-clack chorus line, the screwball romance and the top hat and tails.
The whole lot is played as farce ably assisted by the 'Allo 'Allo Italian manglings of Ricardo Afonso's dress designer Alberto Beddini and the hen-pecked shenanighans of Martin Ball's impresario Horace Hardwick - not forgetting the hen herself, Vivien Parry.
To emphasise the sheer silliness of the story, the script is a succession of groaners. To wit:
"What's this power you have over horses?"
"Horse power?"
Strictly winner Tom Chambers plays Fred Astaire playing Jerry Travers and Summer Strallen plays Ginger Rogers playing Dale Tremont without entirely recapturing the chemistry of the 1935 RKO classic.
The former is ostentatious and charming, the latter, feisty and game and between them manage to convince that a small case of mistaken identity is worth the fuss that ensues.
In fact, by the close, you would only cheer more if it were Bradley Wiggins and Jessica Ennis who had donned the taps and were dancing Cheek To Cheek.
Now booking to 2013. Go to aldwych.official-theatre.co.uk
© Images: Brinkhoff and Mogenburg
Sunday, 19 August 2012
Hark! The people have mumbled
US President Bill Clinton once said: "The people have spoken, but it will take a while to determine exactly what they said."
He was either referring to the disputed 2000 election that appointed his successor or to the strategic development committee of Tower Hamlets Borough Council.
No hefty political point here. There are plenty of commentators ready to cast the council as the place where democracy goes to die. They overstate the case but there is a sense of disenfranchisement in a more immediate and practical sense.
In the public gallery, no-one can hear a thing.
In fact, can it be said that the council chamber the worst ever?
Let's examine two facets of the structure that perhaps cannot be changed before we look at two that can.
A broad column sits in the middle of the floor as if the technology of distributing weight had never occurred and we're back to tent poles beneath saggy ceilings. The column sits like a white line of dead pixels on a faulty TV. Worse still, witnesses give evidence from behind the column as though they're sharing playground secrets.
Then there's the the ramp walkway between the members' section and the public gallery which is lined by two waist high partitions of glass. Two layers of glass acting in concert is often known as, er, double glazing and particularly noted for its sound-proofing properties.
Here are a couple of tips to re-enfranchise the tax-payer.
Officers and members should sit up straight, enunciate their words and speak as if explaining Sky Plus to a deaf aunt and not as if confessing a shameful incident to their tie clips.
Microphones should be turned up. Officers and members should then address themselves to the microphone as opposed to working on the assumption that the presence of a microphone within the confines of the M25 coupled with the magnificence of their oratory is sufficient to reach the yearning masses.
On Tuesday, those in the public gallery whose lifestyles and property prices were being determined by a white noise over yonder leaned forward, straining to pick up clues to their fate.
In doing so, their chairs squeaked and the squeak of a chair was like the symphonic crescendo of the Onedin Line against the mumbling mouse squeak of far-off officialdom. From such farces, frustrations grow and disillusionment and paranoia take root.
If you hear them talk of the democratic deficit in Tower Hamlets, they're referring to a shortage of WD40.
Legacy: Just take one street…
If there needs to be a hangover cure following the headrush of acclaim that will follow the Olympic Games one of the ingredients may be Lord Mawson of Bromley-by-Bow.
The man from Bradford who has made east London his domain and his cause has a remarkable ability to cajole people from the doldrums. For him, nothing is impossible and it is unsurprising that a decade ago he co-authored one of the earliest papers suggesting the Olympic Games could be staged in east London.
But the message from the serial social entrepreneur is still daunting. We are half way there. Not in this Games phase (let's not forget the Paralympics are yet to come) but in far grander marathon - the multi-generational, 50-year project to put this part of London back on track.
The 58-year-old sees a grand link between the drive of the early scientist-entrepreneurs who made this part of the capital a global economic driving force, and those that will cluster here in the near future in the digital, green, cutting edge sci-tech businesses.
The years in between, marked by the closure of the docks, the ruination of communities, the haemorrhaging of enterprise and the loss of talent, were a tragic break in that long chain.
Talking to The Wharf at St Paul's Way Trust School in Tower Hamlets, Lord Mawson said: "The past present and future is connected and in the Lower Lea Valley - there is a new city emerging, a Water City - if you look at what's happening in Greenwich, the airport expanding, £3.7billion development in Canning Town, Canary Wharf expanding, a billion pound programme in Poplar and, of course, the Olympic Park and Westfield.
"I led a debate in the House of Lords and [Lord] Tom King said when he and Michael Heseltine flew over this area 27 years ago they saw two living things - two foxes on empty docks. This is not true today.
"What's happening is that green technology is beginning to emerge here, UCL is looking to possibly come to Stratford, the whole link with science and technology is beginning to occur even down in Canary Wharf and here is a school leading the way to answer the question: how does Britain become the best place to do science in the world."
The new school, with its lavishly furnished Faraday centre and patronage of Professor Brian Cox, is a microcosm, a test bed, a practical example of Lord Mawson's great belief in collaboration and getting government out the way.
The St Paul's Way area was in crisis when Lord Mawson took on the transformation project five years ago.
He said: "The question was: How do we create a more joined up community between a school that was failing, a health centre that was in difficulty and 500 homes that needed to be built but nothing was happening.
"So bringing people together developed into the St Paul's Way Transformation Project which I was asked to direct.
"One of the things we had to do was bring £30million of investment together for a brand new school, bring in £1million science complex then, with the housing company Poplar Harca, bring in a health centre across the road.
"We realised that the 11,000 patients of the health service and the education and science programmes at the school are connected. We thought: if that's going to be health centre and that's going to be school why don't we join it together as a campus.
"New ideas don't come out of the clouds, they don't come out of policy papers in Downing Street either. They come out of these collaborations between artists, scientists, engineers and somewhere where people get to know each other, like this street.
"We've got doctors, educationalists, scientists, working together - every week there are new ideas because it's an integrated street it's not a set of silos.
"How do we understand how to do that on a larger scale? Start on one street and understand the devil in the detail.
"If we understand what's going on in one street we can begin to develop it right across a Water City area and suddenly the Olympics becomes a catalyst over the next 25 years for east London to become, once again, become an interface with the world."
So what's his in tray when the cauldron flame is finally doused?
"What I am trying to get together is half a dozen serious businesses who have a long-term stake in this community, in people who live here, and who want to finish the job.
"And finishing the job is driving a vision developing investment opportunities here and making these linkages from education, science and making this a better place to live."
WATER CITY
Lord Mawson's all-encompassing vision for an invigorated and re-focussed east London can be summed up with his Water City initiative.
The name comes from another Docklands champion, Reg Ward, first chief executive of the London Development Corporation.
Lord Mawson said the project was not just a geographical observation- "just fly over it into City Airport and look down and all you will see is islands and water" - but something more urgent.
He said: "Water City is a vision for the future of the Lower Lea Valley. The legacy of the Olympic Park has to have integrity, it has to be built upon the real story of this area. What is the real story? Water has driven the economy of this area for nearly 2,000 years."
The Water City includes the Royal Docks, Canary Wharf, waterside Greenwich and the Lower Lea Valley through to the Olympic Park.
"We need a vision in east London that I can share with entrepreneurs in India and China that they can get in 10 seconds and buy into, not a 50-page strategy document from Government. It has to have integrity based on the real experience of people who have lived here.
"If you get to know East End families as I have, all their parents used to work on the docks. Then something got lost; we need to reinvent ourselves for our own time.
"We need to focus on the next 25 years and science and technology is going to be a fundamental. The Games is a catalyst for the redevelopment of the Lower Lea Valley as one of the most significant investment zones in Europe."
Go to amawsonpartnerships.com.
Water Chariots slip past any problems
The voice of Boris - rapidly becoming the voice of doom - gave plentiful warning - the trip to the Olympic Park would be no cake walk.
Instead, expect jams, delays, armpits, fluster and confusion, he said. It might not have worked out quite like that (thus far) and the alarm, apparently, had its proper effect.
Water Chariots is riding the wave of congestion phobia with its unhurried, 40-minute, VIP jaunt up from Limehouse (or down from Tottenham Hale) to a private entrance direct to the park. Pre-bookings were healthy when I visited pre-Games.
For a ticket, £95 offers the VIP package, £45 for a slimmed down version and many thousands to hire out one of the smaller boats, aimed at corporate customers looking for a bespoke service.
A bit steep was the first reaction - "ridiculous" was the verdict of MP Jim Fitzpatrick - but the operator says this is not a water bus, it is an experience.
Founder Peter Coleman said: "Every day we hear about the potential for delays, disruption and unprecedented congestion. If you have paid for a once-in-a-lifetime experience why not take a stress-free, reliable and uncongested journey straight to the park."
Speaking before the Games and referring to the high end packages, CEO Bill Doughty, pictured, said: "Imagine you're in charge of corporate hospitality. Your worst fear is that you've taken two tables of 10 in a prestige suite.
"These are your nine best clients and you're looking at the two empty spaces at the table and you're thinking 'where are they' and someone rings up and says 'I'm stuck in Stratford in a queue at the station' or 'the DLR has broken and it's all gone wrong'. The stress is incredible.
"You just want the security of getting there and arriving."
Besides, this is no fly-by-night, here-today-gone-tomorrow operation, he said.
Water Chariots is part of the legacy with a contract to run the service for 15 years and with a self-imposed commitment to train up injured ex-servicemen. This was the dream of Mr Coleman whose son had done tours in Afghanistan and who is now working with veteran charities to make it a reality.
I took a preview trip to the Park in rare sunshine, up to the park on one of 17 smaller boats, which cater for 10, and back down on one of the 13 large boats, which take 70. It cost £3million to bring the fleet together.
The water is only three feet deep in most places so no cumbersome lifejackets are required ("stand up" would be the advice to the man overboard) and the sights of east London from the water are invigorating and informative.
From the delightfully named Bow Locks, the cottage where Zig and Zag ruled The Big Breakfast, the first glimpse of the Orbit, the old evocative warehouses with broken windows and fluorescent graffiti, the new converted warehouses, their balconies filled with pot plants.
Three Mills, where Danny Boyle was masterminding the celebrated Opening and Closing ceremonies and the eclectic gathering of riverside buildings. Tanks and armoured vehicles, we were assured, are just props from the studios but the soldiers pedalling the towpaths or under camouflage are unnervingly real.
On the tour, Mr Doughty told me the story. He said: "Originally, it was born out of an idea by Peter Coleman who is a passionate boaty type but has never been involved in any commercial boat operations.
"Two years after the Olympics were announced, he said to the ODA 'you've done nothing with the canals' and it said 'that's a good idea'. British Waterways said it would do a public tender to run a canal service exclusively down to the Olympic Park using the River Lea.
"He tendered. His was a whole romantic notion and he won. He played around with it for a bit - a nice idea, maybe a few boats, all very interesting.
"He didn't realise how interested people were, particularly event companies thinking 'we've got a completely unique experience now'.
"My background is in private equity and I have a philanthropic investment boutique that I run as well. I said if it's a partnership with British Waterways and if you can make 15 year legacy deal then I'm interested - I'll raise the money for you, I'll get you the boats, I'll do all of that, build you a team and bring the operation to life."
Expect it to be a hit. Especially in the second week once the horror stories of the first have filtered through and panic measures are deployed.
Go to water-chariots.co.uk
Instead, expect jams, delays, armpits, fluster and confusion, he said. It might not have worked out quite like that (thus far) and the alarm, apparently, had its proper effect.
Water Chariots is riding the wave of congestion phobia with its unhurried, 40-minute, VIP jaunt up from Limehouse (or down from Tottenham Hale) to a private entrance direct to the park. Pre-bookings were healthy when I visited pre-Games.
For a ticket, £95 offers the VIP package, £45 for a slimmed down version and many thousands to hire out one of the smaller boats, aimed at corporate customers looking for a bespoke service.
A bit steep was the first reaction - "ridiculous" was the verdict of MP Jim Fitzpatrick - but the operator says this is not a water bus, it is an experience.
Founder Peter Coleman said: "Every day we hear about the potential for delays, disruption and unprecedented congestion. If you have paid for a once-in-a-lifetime experience why not take a stress-free, reliable and uncongested journey straight to the park."
Speaking before the Games and referring to the high end packages, CEO Bill Doughty, pictured, said: "Imagine you're in charge of corporate hospitality. Your worst fear is that you've taken two tables of 10 in a prestige suite.
"These are your nine best clients and you're looking at the two empty spaces at the table and you're thinking 'where are they' and someone rings up and says 'I'm stuck in Stratford in a queue at the station' or 'the DLR has broken and it's all gone wrong'. The stress is incredible.
"You just want the security of getting there and arriving."
Besides, this is no fly-by-night, here-today-gone-tomorrow operation, he said.
Water Chariots is part of the legacy with a contract to run the service for 15 years and with a self-imposed commitment to train up injured ex-servicemen. This was the dream of Mr Coleman whose son had done tours in Afghanistan and who is now working with veteran charities to make it a reality.
I took a preview trip to the Park in rare sunshine, up to the park on one of 17 smaller boats, which cater for 10, and back down on one of the 13 large boats, which take 70. It cost £3million to bring the fleet together.
The water is only three feet deep in most places so no cumbersome lifejackets are required ("stand up" would be the advice to the man overboard) and the sights of east London from the water are invigorating and informative.
From the delightfully named Bow Locks, the cottage where Zig and Zag ruled The Big Breakfast, the first glimpse of the Orbit, the old evocative warehouses with broken windows and fluorescent graffiti, the new converted warehouses, their balconies filled with pot plants.
Three Mills, where Danny Boyle was masterminding the celebrated Opening and Closing ceremonies and the eclectic gathering of riverside buildings. Tanks and armoured vehicles, we were assured, are just props from the studios but the soldiers pedalling the towpaths or under camouflage are unnervingly real.
On the tour, Mr Doughty told me the story. He said: "Originally, it was born out of an idea by Peter Coleman who is a passionate boaty type but has never been involved in any commercial boat operations.
"Two years after the Olympics were announced, he said to the ODA 'you've done nothing with the canals' and it said 'that's a good idea'. British Waterways said it would do a public tender to run a canal service exclusively down to the Olympic Park using the River Lea.
"He tendered. His was a whole romantic notion and he won. He played around with it for a bit - a nice idea, maybe a few boats, all very interesting.
"He didn't realise how interested people were, particularly event companies thinking 'we've got a completely unique experience now'.
"My background is in private equity and I have a philanthropic investment boutique that I run as well. I said if it's a partnership with British Waterways and if you can make 15 year legacy deal then I'm interested - I'll raise the money for you, I'll get you the boats, I'll do all of that, build you a team and bring the operation to life."
Expect it to be a hit. Especially in the second week once the horror stories of the first have filtered through and panic measures are deployed.
Go to water-chariots.co.uk
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