Mother Courage And Her Children.

On Thursday I went to the National Theatre to see Mother Courage and Her Children featuring music by Duke Special and his band.

The music, set, staging, special effects and acting were absolutely brilliant but I just felt the play as a whole was just that little bit too long. I've heard this is to be expected of a Brecht play.

Mother Courage is an anti-war play set in the 1600's Europe and tells the tale of a mother of 3 scrounging off the war. Slowly and surely the war kills her children and sends her to poverty.

Duke and his band were wonderful, but there just wasn't enough of their music in the show for my liking. At one point Duke was playing right of centre stage and his profile was projected in black and white onto two huge canvas's on either side of the stage (one inverted), which looked so cool. The closing song gave me goosebumps; picture Mr Special standing centre singing un-accompanied with the exception of a tenor drum that he beated to keep time.

It was great to share the evening with some lovely friends, some of which I hadn't seen in a very long time.

A thought.

I have a few too many obsessions of late. I'm having trouble keeping up.