Review – Julie Anderson

World War Two set books – three cracking reads

Given the recent 80^th anniversary of VE Day, I have chosen three books with a World War Two setting. They are all standalone mysteries but are also part of a series. Settle into an armchair and immerse yourselves in a world made dangerous by bombs and Nazis, as well as criminals.

My first book is Banquet of Beggars by Chris Lloyd (Orion, £9.99). This is the third in his Occupation series, the first of which, The Unwanted Dead, won the Historical Writers Association Gold Crown Award for the best historical fiction in 2021. The next two books are just as good. Lloyd’s hero is Inspector Eddie Giral, Parisian cop. Once a First World War veteran and family man, once a nightclub bouncer and cokehead, now a laconic and cynical flic who is dangerously close to self-destruction. In 1940, Eddie, all of Paris, is under the rule of the occupying German forces.

Lloyd conjures a bitterly cold and hungry city, where the streets are empty of all but bicycles and German transport. Parisians grow truculent and rebellious as their overlords begin to show the iron fist. While Paris starves, the Germans, and some French, enjoy the very best that the city can offer. The general population resorts to the thriving black market and it is that black market which Eddie investigates after a murder, determined to find a measure of justice, despite the criminal complicity of the occupiers – a complex and dangerous mission. The Parisian underworld is evocatively drawn, as are the minor transgressions forced upon ordinary citizens so as to survive. This is a city where there are few moral certainties.

Eddie is a multi-layered protagonist, trying to do the right thing in impossible circumstances. He is despised by both the Germans and the Parisians, who see him as a coward and collaborator. His sparring with the German who is the liaison officer with the French police, the urbane and menacing Major Hochstetter, is one of the most intriguing relationships in the book. Lloyd entangles the reader in the politics of the occupiers, their ambitions, loyalties and internecine quarrels, as the Gestapo and SS attempt to take over command of the city, but it is Eddie, imperfect but humane, who captures the reader.

My next two recommendations have British settings.

Death of an Officer by Mark Ellis (Headline, £10.99) is set in post-Blitz London in Spring 1943. His protagonist is Detective Chief Inspector Frank Merlin, incorruptible Scotland Yard policeman. Merlin doesn’t quite fit with the establishment, he’s the half Spanish son of an East End chandler and his cockney wife, yet he commands respect amongst the gangland underworld and his fellow coppers (many of whom are corrupt). There are two murders for him and his small team, depleted because of wartime conscription, to solve. First, that of a respected consultant surgeon of Indian extraction, killed in his Kensington flat and, later, the discovery of an unidentified corpse on a bombsite in Limehouse, an apparently well-to-do, young man dressed for a night out ‘up West’.

The investigations take in the high and the low, London clubland and London gangland. The latter is in the person of Jakey Solomon, a fictional rendering of the real-life gangster Jack Cohen (who also appears, incidentally, as Zack Caplan, in my own A Death in the Afternoon). The cases touch upon the intricacies of war-time relations with the Americans and MI5, especially when an international aspect is discovered. Soon, however, Merlin is inexorably led towards the upper echelons of British society, the Army and the Navy. Ellis is very strong on the British class system, its internal gradations and marital arrangements and how these dovetail with the services during wartime.

Very evocative of the times, Death is above all an intricate whodunnit, the plot strands weave though and around each other, drawing in a colourful, well-drawn cast of characters. Never short of revelations, the pacing is, nonetheless, gradual, as both investigations progress and become intertwined. The final resolution is very satisfying. A postscript reveals how justice is eventually served, sometimes in court, sometimes by the only way out.

Finally, The Cambridge Siren by Jim Kelly (Allison & Busby, £9.99). As the title suggests this is set in war-time Cambridge, a strange city when denuded of its student population, its colleges standing empty or used for war-time research. Kelly, like Lloyd with Paris, or Ellis with London, clearly knows this cityscape like the back of his hand. His ’tec is Detective Inspector Eden Brooke, as with Eddie Giral, a survivor of World War One, albeit with permanently damaged eyesight. So, he must wear heavily tinted spectacles and prefers the hours of darkness. This different way of seeing is a metaphor for Brooke’s investigative thinking as well as requiring him to be a ‘nighthawk’ and the series is called the Nighthawk series.

Brooke is a family man and it is his son-in-law, a serving submariner, who first identifies a crime, when he’s asked to fix an apparently faulty periscope. It has been deliberately sabotaged and the factory it was made in is in Cambridge. There is also a mysterious death to deal with, the apparent suicide of a man found in an air-raid shelter. A man with a tropical suntan and Brooke’s telephone number written upon his hand.

The crimes in Siren are distinctly war-time crimes, when greedy, venal and ambitious people seek to exploit the wartime situation to their advantage. It features a ‘funk hole’, where those who are not fighting retire to the countryside and avoid the war in relative luxury, various war-time scams and some deadly crimes, including a, real, Cambridge science project. Brooke and his trusty, if depleted band of coppers at the Borough handle them all and this gives the book a much more ‘small town’, feel when compared to my other two, capital city based, recommendations.

Three wartime books set in three, very different, locations: all gripping and immersive. Put your feet up in front of the fire while the rain pours down and enjoy.

This review first appeared in Time and Leisure Magazine. Since it was written Death of an Officer by Mark Ellis has won the inaugural Cob and Pen Award at Bloody Barnes Book Festival.

Flamenco you say?

Art, Music, Review

Jerez20231 I have just returned to a cold and sleety Clapham after the sunnier skies of southern Spain, where the scent of orange blossom was already in the air and the 27th edition of the Festival de Jerez filled the town with music.

My body still feels the compras, the rhythm, while my head is full of the sound of the guitar and, when I close my eyes, I see exquisite and dramatic stage pictures. Sara Calero dancing, joyously and spikily, to a jaunty Day of the Dead number, while Gema Caballero’s smoky voice sang words which prompted smiles in the audience. Flamenco with humour and wit. The intensity and athleticism of Eduardo Guerrero, in a pose beneath the spotlights with was both Christ-like and evocative of Japan. Maria Jose Franco amid a swirl of motion and fringed silk, a more traditional show, but marked out by the stunning skill of the dancer. Then, the final night, fabulous guitarist Manuel Valencia with long time collaborator, singer David Carpio, two of our favourites so obviously having as wonderful a time on stage as we were in the audience.

Sitting in Plateros we described what we had seen to friends who didn’t go to flamenco. It wasn’t ladies in polka dot dresses with Jerez20233 castanets dancing to black clad male guitarists, although you could see that if that was what you wanted. No, something fascinating has been happening for a number of years at this festival and this edition was no exception. Younger practitioners are examining the boundaries of what flamenco means, exploring and expanding their art.

Some of our other favourites weren’t there this year, or our timing meant that we missed them. There was no Manuel Lignan, the man who often dances in a dress and explores gender roles, nor was there Santiago Lara, the Jerezano flamenco guitarist who plays jazz a la Pat Methany and is currently writing a concerto for guitar and orchestra. We missed Rafaella Carrasco and Antonio Rey because of dates, but would have loved to have seen them.

Jerez20232 We did see an amazing reflection on life and death in Finitud, the aforementioned Calero Caballero collaboration. We saw the pair ten years ago when their skill and artistry was expressed beautifully through the traditional forms and we’ve looked out for them ever since. Boy, have they developed. The show included an electric base guitar as well as flamenco guitar and, astonishingly, Mozart’s Requiem. A singer, a dancer and two musicians conjured up the vibrancy of the south American Day of the Dead, the solitude of graveyard contemplation and a lot in between. We had a fun 1930s cartoon of skeletons dancing to make us laugh and ended with an auto de fe. Stunning! This show was hugely emotionally engaging and created some stupendous images which will fill my mind for quite some time. It encapsulates what a new generation of flamenco artists are doing, developing themselves and their art.

Valencia and Carpio were less unusual in their set, although I recall a tremendous concert some years ago in which Carpio and the dancer, Lignan, performed a duet, the one singing, a cappella, the other responding in dance and with rhythm (Valencia was the guitarist that day too). But their set lastr3orillas (The Three Shores) on Tuesday was wonderful and the thirteenth century church rang to the sound of shouts and applause. We’ll be back to listen to them again.

All this gave me lots of food for thought. How do artists use the creativity of other artists in developing their own work? In music, Lizy&Me in art or, as a writer, on the page? What is creativity? I, for one, will be reflecting on this, with friend and fellow writer, Sunday Times best-selling novelist, Elizabeth Buchan in a talk for The Clapham Society at Omnibus Theatre on 20th March at 8 pm. Come and join us if you’re free.

Flamenco in north London

Art, Review, Uncategorized

So to Sadlers Wells Theatre for the annual Flamenco Festival in north London. This time I had only returned from Jerez de la Frontera the day before and I went to see Santiago Lara and Mercedes Ruiz who hail from that city. I have written about this married couple before ( see Lamento and The Guitar in Time ) and I listen regularly to Lara’s guitar playing.

On Saturday they were performing with dancers Maria Moreno, from nearby Cadiz, and Eduardo Guerrero, who I have tried to see several times at the Jerez Festival, only to be stymied by the schedule. Accompanied by rising singing star Maria Fernandez Benitez, known as Maria ‘Terremoto’, and male singers, Emilio Florido and Ismael ‘el Bola’. They were billed as the Gala Flamenca and it was excellent.

Lara was the musical coordinator and he led the musicians on stage, a second guitarist, Javier Ibanez and percussionist, Paco Vega. The artistic director was Miguel Linan, renown dancer and regular performer at the Jerez Festival ( see Reversible ). Linan’s choreography is distinctive, although the three dancers were undoubtedly also contributors ( and listed as such ).

The programme began with Morena dancing an alegria. As is always the case with British theatre audiences, while the dancing was well received, there was little feedback between performer and audience until the end of each piece. This contrasts with watching flamenco in Jerez, when the audience is supposed, even obliged, to clap, shout encouragement and cheer during the performance. I was very pleased therefore when a particularly spectacular series of steps ended with a sweeping flourish and a spontaneous cheer from the audience. I noticed Lara, who was nearest the edge of the stage, start to smile. The performance had ‘taken’ and the audience were bound in.

The show continued with a remarkable pas de deux between the young singer, and Mercedes Ruiz. Ruiz, dressed in black, male garb performed accompanied only by the singing and her own castanets and stamping feet. She was outstanding. The audience was well and truly captured by now, so much so that Ruiz could be playful, making us laugh as well as astounding us with her artistry. How could anyone top that?

Well, then came Eduardo Guerrero, long black hair flying, in a stunning Cana. Guerrero’s arabesques were straight out of the Miguel Linan playbook, athletic, fluid and captivating. What was not was the truly amazing footwork which followed, which had the audience, by now half way to behaving like Jerezanos, applauding and cheering with every flourish. As a female member of our group said afterwards, he was gorgeous and absolutely commanding ( and the dancing was pretty good too ).

There followed another pas de deux, this time with Moreno and Guerrrero in perfect synchronicity and a final Solea from Ruiz. All three dancers returned to the stage for a rousing finale and, by the time the stage lights went down, everyone was on their feet and applauding. At the curtain calls I was pleased to see the recognition of Lara’s stunning guitar playing and Miguel Linan was also invited on stage to take the applause. He brought with him a birthday cake with lighted candles, it was the birthday of one of the company and he was persuaded to dance along with the mini-encore.

We left the theatre buzzing, but exhausted, that’s what watching flamenco does!

For more articles about flamenco, in London and Jerez, try 2018 Festival Round-up Flamenco Fix Paco Pena

Portrait of an artist…

Art, Review

as a young man, not the James Joyce novel but Tate Britain’s summer exhibition, on Vincent Van Gogh and his time in in south London. Van Gogh arrived at the age of twenty in 1873 and lodged in Brixton ( though it’s described here as Stockwell ) where he fell in love with his landlady’s daughter. He worked for two years at the offices of Covent Garden art dealers Goupil, before turning to both teaching and preaching, when he was dismissed from his job.

Any number of Impressionists and post-impressionists fetched up south of the Thames at some point in their lives ( usually during the Franco-Prussian War and the time of the Paris Commune ). So his was a path well-trodden, by his almost contemporary Pissaro in Norwood, Sisley at Molesley, Monet at the Savoy or Tissot in St John’s Wood (okay, that’s north of the river).

The exhibition is a large one, with nine rooms, containing Van Gogh paintings, drawings and washes, but also many works of contemporary, or near contemporary, artists who were living in London at that time or which Van Gogh would have seen while he was here. It includes works and prints which Van Gogh owned and there is cross-over here with the Tate’s winter exhibition of 2017/18 The Impressionists in London.

The Van Gogh also includes later, British artists clearly influenced by him. So, for example, his Sunflowers, in Room 7, is juxtaposed with paintings of sunflowers by William Nicholson, Frank Brangwen and Jacob Epstein, among others. I very much enjoyed these – the whole is joyous and up-lifting. I enjoyed too the paintings of later artists, like those of the Camden Town School and David Bomberg and Francis Bacon, who acknowledged their debt to Van Gogh ( see study, by Bacon, left, of his painting of Van Gogh in the sun-bleached landscape of the south of France ).

I am insufficiently knowledgeable to be able to draw any but the most obvious of parallels between Van Gogh and the artists who influenced him while he was here. That the river-scapes of Whistler, with their floating fogs and twinkling lights, had an influence, especially in the depiction of lights in the Rhone, doesn’t surprise me and there are obvious links to be made with Pre-Raphealite paintings like those of Edward Millais. Some of the other connections are less obvious, indeed they may seem tenuous to the untrained eye, though I have no doubt that the scholarship behind this exhibition is excellent.

That Van Gogh adored Dickens and his works was new to me, though it fits, some of his portraits have the gnarly yet fluid quality that one perceives in some of Dickens’ descriptions of his characters. That he collected British prints and reproductions – the ‘black and whites’ – over 2,000 of them, often of modern subjects, like the workhouse, the prison or the deprivations of the poor, also feels fitting. As he said ‘I often felt low in England… but the Black and White and Dickens, are things which make up for it all.’

The exhibition is at Tate Britain and runs until 11th August. It is very popular, we visited at 4 o’clock on a Friday, when we thought it would be quiet, yet it was anything but. Afterwards a steward told me that, in relative terms this was quiet! So beware the crowds. Entry costs £22, with concessions for students, seniors etc. and if you are not a member you will have to book. It’s well worth a visit.

For more on art and exhibitions see Soane and Kapoor Art on the Underground John Ruskin, The Power of Seeing

Zurbaran: The Impossible Light…

Art, Review

…is the name of an excellent, fascinating exhibition in Jerez de la Frontera (until 10th March) and Cadiz, from 21st March until 28th April 2019. I saw it at the Claustros de Santo Domingo, the 13th century monastery which is now an exhibition and performance space in Jerez. It is, in Jerez, FREE to enter and I recommend, if you are in the vicinity, that you go and see it.

Presented by Tercero efe, a quartet of photographers from Cadiz – Rafael Sanchez, Paco Rocha, Rafa Perez and Juan Martin Beardo – the exhibition is of life-size photographs which recreate the paintings of the seventeenth century Spanish master Francisco de Zurbaran using modern people and digital photographic techniques. The Zurbaran originals can be seen in the Museum of Cadiz ( see Falling Off a Ladder and Cadiz in the Rain ) which is worth a visit for all sorts of reasons, but the collections of Zurbarans and Murillos found therein are two of the best.

The originals are displayed in the Museum as if in a Church (see right and below), some of them having once hung in the Charterhouse at Cartuja, just outside Jerez. The photographers take each painting and pose modern individuals in the attitude of the subject, adding backgrounds and, sometimes, suitable clothing using digital photography techniques far removed from the simple photoshop. In particular the works attempt to recreate the stunning light and shade of the originals, the chiaroscuro which earned Zurbaran the nickname ‘the Spanish Caravaggio’. The paintings are astonishingly clear and precise, with knife sharp edges to the drapery and the photographs capture this amazingly well. They also recreate the human portraits, often to great effect ( the modern faces taking on a timeless quality ). As the accompanying leaflet says, however, Zurbaran had only the ‘trickeries’ of paint and light to help him with his creations.

I particularly liked the wonderful version of the Angel with Incense, one of only four which feature women as their subjects (this isn’t a criticism, there aren’t that many female subjects among the Cadiz Zurbarans and the two Angels are very fine). Saint Hugh With Swan was another favourite – Saint Hugh was the Bishop of Lincoln. But all of the photographs were astonishing. They make one consider the nature of art, authenticity and verisimilitude, especially given a series of additional works, which are inspired by but not recreations of the original paintings. These photographs of individuals as clerics or saints, posed in suitable attitudes and in the style of Zurbaran are created from the imaginations of the photographers.

There is an interesting video showing how the photographs were created and modern people were transformed into seventeenth century masterpieces. I include a link below to a Youtube video (in Spanish) in which the arts presenter talks about the exhibition and there are interviews with two of the photographers.

If you would like to read more about past exhibitions in the Claustros de Santo Domingo and/or at this or previous Festivals de Jerez, see Indomitable Women White Villages and Desert Festival Art 2018 Street Art

Festival de Jerez 2019

Art, Review

For us another fabulous Festival de Jerez is over. We have all gone our separate ways, though performances at the 2019 Festival continue until next weekend. Yet again we have been astounded and amazed by the quality, as well as the variety, on offer.

Festival de Jerez 2019 was also the Festival Feminista, a full-throated riposte to recent regional elections in which, for the first time since Franco, representatives of the far right, via the new party called Vox, won seats in the Andalucian Parliament. Vox stands on a specific anti-feminist platform, as well as being anti-immigration and advocating what sounds like a return to the 1950s. So there was a full supporting programme of events for feminists of both genders. The Festival also had plenty of female headliners – Ana Morales, Eva Yerbabeuna, Maria Pages and, on Saturday, Mercedes Ruiz.

We saw Ruiz at the Teatro Villamarta, where she was joined by some famous fellow performers, including some old favourites. The performance, entitled Tauromagia featured original music and composition from flamenco great Manolo Sanlucar, re-interpreted by Santiago Lara as music director ( see The Guitar in Time and Jazz Guitar ) and singer and setter of text, David Lagos. This reunited three of the four protagonists of Lamento a phenomenal performance which we saw at the 2016 Festival. Ruiz was in fine form throughout, dancing with second soloist, Ana Agraz and a fine cuerpo de baile, Beatriz Santiago, Aurora Carabello and Vanesa Reyes. We, like the rest of a very full theatre, were enthralled and entranced. The ovation at the end of the performance lasted a long time, and justifiably so.

It was probably just co-incidence, but we saw more dancing this time than usual. Not just the established stars but some newer, up and comers. So, at Sala Paul, Bodegon, an intriguing set by Jose Maldonado, Javier Latorre and Carmen Coy. This had first been performed at a Festival in France in 2016 but had been developing since. We had seen Maldonado as a member of Miguel Linan’s company in 2016 ( see Reversible ), representing the masculine. Here he had a more fluid style although still exhibiting classical training and remarkable athleticism in a set originally directed by Linan. A modern dance piece with flamenco at its heart it was about creativity and art and involved the principal painting pictures with both paint and light, a remarkable Coy acting as muse, creative idea and, possibly creation. I do not pretend to have understood it all, but I enjoyed it a lot and look forward to see what this talented dancer does next.

The other dancer new to us was Adrian Santana, who we saw deliver Simbiosis, a more traditional set in Sala Compania on Monday night. Traditional, but still with new ideas. Two male singers sang separately and together of love and loss as Santana and Agueda Saavedra formed a wonderful partnership, dancing solo and together. Stunning. Afterwards we kept bumping into the performers, now in civvies, but still on a high from the tremendous reception given to their performance and out on the town. A terrific end to our sojourn at the 2019 Festival.

And guess what, it didn’t rain. Not a drop. Unlike last year ( see 2018 Round Up ). Now London awaits the arrival of a clutch of starry flamenco talent at Sadlers Wells Flamenco Festival 2019. This has finally moved from February/March when it repeatedly clashed with the Festival de Jerez to July. Hooray – two flamenco festivals a year!

For more flamenco try Camerata Flamenco Project Lola Dancing to Different Tunes

Some of these photographs are by Javier Fergo for the Festival de Jerez, others by Helen Hughes.

The Wider Earth

Review

In this case that part of it found in SW7. Specifically, the Flett Theatre (formerly the Jerwood Gallery) in the Darwin Centre at the Natural History Museum, to see David Morton’s new play about the young Charles Darwin, The Wider Earth.

It is a charming piece, showing a Darwin in his early twenties, concentrating on beetles not lectures at Cambridge before a Summer hunting fossils in Wales and thence, with a little help from Uncle Josiah, the social reformer and abolitionist, Josiah Wedgewood, to the Beagle. This is where the play really takes flight, quite literally with the puppet butterflies, birds and fishes.

The staging is ingenious, a single set on the central revolve stands in for Cambridge, Shrewsbury, Wales, various Pacific Islands, including the Galapagos, Australia and large chunks of south America. It becomes the deck and cabins of the ship – not boat, as Captain Fitzroy corrects the young naturalist, who, at first sight, he rejects as unsuitable, only to relent later.

The mainly young cast double as puppeteers, bringing to life the exotic creatures Darwin is entranced by. Working with Handspring, the South African puppetry company which brought War Horse to such vivid life, the company has created some excellent animals. I loved the armadillo and iguana and the giant tortoises are wonderful. Even an adult audience gasped at the near perfect rendition of animal behaviour, so I imagine children would be utterly beguiled – there are a lot of matinee performances.

This Darwin too is somewhat child-like, Emma Wedgewood, later Emma Darwin, tells him the voyage might help him grow up and the central performance has something of the young Micheal Crawford about it, lots of wide-eyed innocence and worthiness. There is little hint of the tough scientist beneath. The character more subtly explored is Fitzroy, an interesting scientist in his own right, though that isn’t really mentioned here – evolution is the main event, not meteorology (though Herschel and photography feature briefly). Fitzroy suffered from near suicidal depression and that is touched on, as is his volatile character.

The drama catches the intellectual climate of the time, with Lyell’s geological theories already challenging Christian orthodoxy. Debate rages aboard the Beagle, stimulated by the presence of a clergyman, travelling to Tierra del Fuego to take God to the natives, as well as a native Fuegan, Jeremy Button, taken by Fitzroy from the south Atlantic to be ‘educated’ in Britain. It shows the experiences – of volcanic eruption, of earthquakes and mountain making, of the differences in species from the various Galapagos islands – which inform Darwin’s thinking.

The play is educative in nature and it tackles its complex subject well, capturing Darwin’s youthful curiosity and exuberance. Emma, the solitary female, is given a mind, and a cause, of her own, in abolitionism and there is no suggestion that, within societal norms of the time, their alliance will be anything other than equal. I must own up here – the character of Emma was played by an Anderson relative, Melissa Vaughn.

The Wider Earth runs until 24th February and tickets cost between £19.50 and £79. It’s worth a visit, but don’t go next Tuesday, when royalty is visiting. The photographs accompanying this post are my own and by Mark Douet. For a first rate novel about the voyage of the Beagle I recommend This Thing of Darkness, by Harry Thompson (Tinder Press, 2006)