Let the Right One In

When you think about it - and it's difficult to stop thinking about it, such is its subtle, indelible tinting of your world - one of the most astounding things about Let the Right One In is that it is a horror film. It doesn't subvert the genre, it doesn't twist its well-worn rules; it embraces all of that fully, punctuating the two-ish hours with acts of shuddering violence, albeit that we're shielded from full view of most of those acts. It is a horror film, pure and simple.

And yet, the words that it requires of you are from a different world entirely. The one that won't let go is "exquisite", for there is so much here that is the very antithesis of crass, dumb shock-value cinema of any genre. There is so much here that's so delicate and tightly-coiled that you barely dare breathe; it's that tension, the tension of the awkward, difficult, desperate friendship at the heart of the story, which leaves you drained by the end.

The film circles silently around that twelve-year-old friendship as it evolves. An astonishing use of depth-of-field echoes our and their nervousness, the camera feeling its way through each scene by bringing different elements sharply into focus and then letting them slip, never daring to linger for too long. As a work of art, even at its most bloody, it feels every bit as fragile as those held inside it.

Horror has never been this intimate, has rarely been as concerned with the tragedy of its characters' lives. And cinema has rarely been used to capture a chilling, icy loneliness so perfectly.

Exquisite.

"Two Davids in a world of Goliaths"

As you'll know if you've been reading this blog, the plays and readings at the tiny Bookshop Theatre in the back room of John Calder's bookshop have been varied, surprising and, more than occasionally, very fine indeed.

As the bookshop and the theatre face a battle to stay open in the face of rising costs, the Godot Company is putting on a series of performances throughout March, comprising, among other things, some of the best bits of last year's Beckett programme. You should go.

For more information, see the Godot Company website.

Samuel Beckett: Footfalls / Rockaby / Enough

It's entirely possible - and this is still sinking in, some three weeks after the event - that this might've been the last Beckett of the year. Heavens. It had to end somewhere, and the failure to secure tickets for Harold Pinter's performance of Krapp's Last Tape in October means that it probably ends here. In many ways, that's perfect: it seems absolutely inconceivable that Pinter could find any way to improve upon John Hurt's Krapp, perhaps the most monumental of all the centenary's peaks. And it'd be such a shame to end this journey with a sense of anticlimax.

Besides, this is just right. Back at the bookshop, a triple bill of female roles offers both conclusions and fresh beginnings. In a way, it feels as if we've finished, as if there's a firm underlining and a solid full stop on the end of the sentence. All done. It feels like that watching Footfalls, a piece that - and this is rare, contrary to perception - is just a bit obscure, a bit inaccessible. A bit difficult. Somehow, it doesn't have the clarity and purity of Beckett's finest writing, and there's visible effort in Virginia Byron's performance as a consequence.

It isn't helped, perhaps, by the context. Some of these plays have taken on a wonderfully intimate warmth in this little backroom...but this is a ghostly world that seems to require a bigger, emptier space. It needs distance, for things to hang in the air, for footfalls to echo, for breath to become mist. As if to emphasise the point, Rockaby immediately shows us that intimacy, that warmth...and it suddenly all works beautifully again. The most musical of Beckett's plays, it's nudged gently along by a reserved, conservative reading from Tamara Hinchco...and that's a genuine compliment, for these are lovely, familiar, cherished words that require nothing more than to be let out of the box from time to time. We briefly wonder whether the addition of an echo on the key phrase - "Time she stopped..." - falls into the category of unnecessary fiddling; we decide that it does, and yet that it just about works. Just about. But, really, when it comes to Rockaby, you will never be wrong if you play it safe. It ain't broke.

Which, after a short interval, leaves us with Enough, and one last revelation for the road, the dot-dot-dot to open up that sentence once more. Because this is why it seems impossible to tire of Samuel Beckett, why there's always something to revive your interest. Why it's never really finished. A quiet, understated performance of an unfamiliar prose piece in the back room of a bookshop...and it simply takes your breath away.

Alison Stillbeck perches on the edge of the stage, almost within touching distance, and politely implores us to understand her relationship with a mumbling, crippled, belligerent other. She does so with captivating energy, eyes shining with love, face beaming with the desire to communicate; it's more than an expressive reading, it's a striking and brilliant piece of characterisation. Apart from a brief stumble, writing and performance are in complete harmony: one, deft and subtle, with shades of humour, love and, somewhere in the background, the darkness of cruelty and abuse; the other, letting the words cascade and flutter around the room, as if re-living the most contented times. Wherever you choose to spend your evenings, you could not possibly wish to see anything finer.

The last Beckett of the year, then. Which ought to be the occasion for grand conclusions and so on and so forth...and sod it, there's no conclusion, for there's no end. This is writing that lives...sparkles and fades and always lives. Maybe that won't be so forever; maybe there'll come a time when it's not possible to find something new and surprising in Samuel Beckett's work. Then, it'll be time for conclusions. For now....

Howard Hodgkin at Tate Britain

You're already too late. Sorry. Howard Hodgkin's life-spanning exhibition at Tate Britain finishes this very day; come the morning, the moment will have passed. One imagines that it won't be the last time that a significant body of his work is exhibited in this space; one hopes, at the same time, that it won't happen again for a while.

Because he hasn't finished yet, quite clearly. One of the most striking aspects of a genuinely joyous experience is that Hodgkin's most recent paintings, gathered together towards the end of this chronological collection, have the same vitality as those from what would generally be considered to be the peak of his career. Indeed, they offer a couple of mighty highlights to send you on your way: "Come Into The Garden, Maud", clusters and swirls of petal-like colours on a bare wooden frame, is particularly breathtaking.

But it is not alone. There is almost too much here, certainly too much to describe in detail. There are too many paintings that ask politely for your time and reward it many times over; from the very first room, in which Hodgkin enthusiastically starts to evolve his distinctive style, this is a wonderfully conversational exhibition. Some paintings shout and scream, others hang silently and indifferently. But Howard Hodgkin's paintings talk to you: they're intelligent and literate, sure, but they're also funny, kind, dramatic, and occasionally a bit rude. In short, they're great company...and I still haven't tired of them after two loops around the exhibition.

Of course, his colours dazzle most. They're bold and yet subtle, full of thought and feeling...and, just once, they're removed altogether to leave something black-and-white-and-grey, a bolt from the blue. Tellingly, the catalogue cannot capture any of this: it tells us what the paintings look like, but it doesn't tell us how they feel...and how they feel is what they are.

Above all, it's the range of which Hodgkin is capable that really astonishes. His style evolves gradually over time, but it's a means to an end...or to a number of ends, more accurately. Few painters can reach so far: this is a body of work that covers all manner of subjects, moods, thoughts, and yet never feels in any way compromised. Each painting is something different: a tranquil garden, perhaps, or a passionate love affair. A heartfelt tribute to a close friend, or the memory of a quarrelsome dinner. A room, a city, a landscape. Each time, the title gives a gentle hint to help you get along, and then you're left in the company of the work itself.

In the end, it comes down to this: it made me smile and laugh and gasp and frown and raise an eyebrow and mutter to myself in a slightly deranged way ("My God, that's fantastic!"), and I went around on my own. It filled me with innocent, teenage enthusiasm. It made me want to share it with anyone who'd listen, immediately.

My New Favourite Painter.

Samuel Beckett: Ohio Impromptu / The Old Tune

Back to the bookshop, mercifully rather less stifling than last time. And back to the start, for Ohio Impromptu was one of the pieces that kicked off this Beckett marathon at the Barbican back in March.

The first of many highlights, in fact: Harry Towb and Peter Cadden's rendering of an old, firm favourite was genuinely sublime, reaching deep into the heart of the writing to find something mournful and musical. To expect similar things of a small-scale production in the back room of a shop would be unreasonable, I suppose. And yet. And yet....

It is patently absurd that a very simple, very sparse play which, including stage directions, barely covers four pages of its creator's collected works should continue to reveal itself on, from memory, the fifth viewing. Absurd, and true. Even more absurd is that Ohio Impromptu doesn't feel especially elusive: it is an enigmatic piece of work, certainly, but it's also one of Beckett's most visually striking stage paintings, and it leaves a strong impression after just one viewing.

In many ways, this returns us to one of those old, tired clichés: that by being so specific in his instructions, Samuel Beckett left no room for anyone to interpet his work. That's utter nonsense: he just didn't let them interpret his work by messing about on the margins, rearranging the furniture and changing the costumes. Instead, there is enormous scope for any actor who concentrates on the language, finds how it works with their own voice, discovers where the music can take them. These are subtle variations, of course...but great writing means that such variations can be deeply significant, deeply felt.

Here, Michael Howarth, whose tones are rich and peaty, takes the role of reader and Peter Marinker is the silent listener. The whole thing is so familiar that I could pretty much recite it along with them...and yet. And yet, they've found something distinctive, another layer down. The variation is typified by what we refer to as "the joke", a little piece of gently twinkling humour amid the general sobriety. Here, though, it appears to be something quite different: a moment of genuine intimacy and shared kindness as the listener stays the hand of the reader as if to spare them both the pain of remembrance. Such a tiny detail, yet it reverberates through the performance. A sombre, sad performance, full of pauses that seem to allow the air to thicken and gather closer in the gloom. A truly memorable performance.

After which, The Old Tune, Beckett's adaptation of a Pinget play, provides an interesting but probably unnecessary counterpoint. Beginning with, and punctuated by, the lunatic seesawing of a broken fairground organ, it offers occasionally amusing thoughts on the passing of time, and a particularly daft moon-based gag that, without knowing any better, one is tempted to attribute to the adapter rather than the adaptee.

That's the problem, in essence: without knowing the original work, it is impossible to see where Robert Pinget ends and Samuel Beckett begins. So, we're left with a fairly ordinary, generally unremarkable play, one whose essentially conservative style contrasts extraordinarily with the main attraction. Crucially, you discover this: that Pinget's play deals solely with externals, with dialogue and scene-setting and character. Its only memories are shared: old friends, family, remembered and misremembered names. And that's partly why Beckett is still so precious and still so powerful: for his capturing of internal spaces, of the bit between your ears and the bit behind your left breast. The bits that really matter, when it comes down to it. The essentials.

Elsewhere, round-about and suchlike

On The Deckchair - a new site for reading and writing about Brighton and Hove, built using the CommunitySites software - you can read my thoughts about the myriad eccentricities that clutter up the streets of the town. Elsewhere on the site, you can find out which books I'd save from the waves if the contents of my shelves were about to be swept out to sea.

Words are very much my thing (what, you noticed?), but I've also just bought myself a new camera, with inevitable consequences. Among them, the renewal of my long-standing graffiti obsession, although I've slightly lost touch with who's who since that obsession was at its peak. But I've been experimenting with other subjects too, and some of the results are really not that bad. Especially if you're a fan of bumble bees.

Samuel Beckett: A Piece of Monologue / The Expelled

There's no escaping it: it's bloody hot. Filthy hot. London is melting all around us, stinking and sweaty; the Underground appears to be disintegrating...and, frankly, it has my sympathies. Back when we booked all of this, another evening of Beckett shorts at the Calder Bookshop seemed like a splendid idea. Come the time, and come the oppressive heat, leaving behind the merciful sea breeze to get on a train to the capital is akin to pouring away a bottle of water in the desert.

Still, we're here, survival kits and all. If it's bad for us, it must be nigh on unbearable for the actors: Peter Marinker spends the twenty-ish minutes of A Piece of Monologue stock-still in his nightgown and socks, probably cursing Beckett's lack of foresight in failing to include any brow-mopping opportunities in the stage directions. Heroically, he appears to lose himself in the character entirely; the key is letting the writing do the work, something that, I imagine, appears very much easier than it is. Especially in these conditions.

But once you let the music play, it takes you to some wonderful and some terrible places. A Piece of Monologue is as I recall it from several years ago: longer than you'd like it to be by a few minutes. As back then, I suspect that it's not accidental. The drawn-out end is intensely sombre and bleak and not at all comfortable; Marinker delivers it beautifully, stirring up little eddies of emotion at key moments that contrast with the sedate pace elsewhere. The imagery is gloomy, thunderous. Torrential rain. My God, now that you mention it, some torrential rain would be really nice....

A short and welcome interval, and we have The Expelled, one of a cluster of very fine post-war short stories that form some of Beckett's most accessible and entertaining work. It's a terrific piece, enormous subtlety and profundity hidden behind some belting comedy; it rewards you richly for digging into its depths, finding its stumbling sense of displacement. It hides a lot of sadness, I think.

But it already has a voice in my head. And it's not Anthony Jackson's voice, frustratingly. There's a coarseness missing, somehow. We both feel it. Much as Jackson gives it plenty of gusto, his rather thespian tones never really suggest that he's actually been kicked out of his lodgings into the gutter, hat following behind. Or any of the rest. We saw John Hurt perform a few snatches of this a few weeks ago and you believed him. That's an unfair comparison, I know. But an unavoidable one.

We escape into the air. It isn't any cooler, really, but there's a hint of a breeze for the sake of form. This series of productions is already proving to be much more than a mere footnote to the Beckett centenary. More than just a product of laudable enthusiasm too. Small-scale, sure, but that fosters its own sense of intimacy, of being in the same place. As A Piece of Monologue proves, the magic is just at home here as anywhere else, lifting the evenings beyond curiosity and interest and other faint praise.

A venture that's worth supporting, then. Perhaps starting with a collection to fund some air conditioning....