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The Green, Green Grass of Home: Mr Jones An Aberfan Story - Finborough Theatre

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A life of hope and promise, interrupted, lies at the heart of Mr Jones: an Aberfan Story. The play follows two young people in Aberfan before and after the disaster that killed 144 people, including 116 children. It’s an emotional coming-of-age tale of intersecting lives, family, love, and the shock of tragedy. With two vivid performances and strong characterisations, you feel immersed in 1960s Welsh small-town life. It’s now running at the Finborough Theatre , after performances at the Edinburgh Festival and across Wales.  The Aberfan disaster is well known in the UK but perhaps less so elsewhere. The facts of the tragedy are confined to the programme notes rather than in the piece. On 21 October 1966, the catastrophic collapse of a colliery spoil tip on a mountain above Aberfan engulfed a local school, killing many. The play avoids the causes and negligence, instead focusing on those working and building lives in the town.  Writer-performer Liam Holmes plays Stephen Jones, a...
Art isn't easy: Caravaggio

I had pre-booked tickets to see at the National Gallery Caravaggio: The Final Years, which everyone has been raving about, and it was worth it. Some amazing pieces of the artists work made in his final years together in the same location was quite impressive. Those that recommended the exhibition to me I suspect were devotees of the Derek Jarman film from the eighties which certainly focused on the homoerotic nature of his works (and the artists impulses in that direction)... The exhibition suggests his life was a little more complex than a raving queen who got into fights and killed a man, but it all made for interesting context when looking at the art.

Actually amongst the hoards of people at the exhibition there were quite a few friends of Dorothy lurking amongst the darkened rooms and I thought it was if the curators were trying to add some of the seediness of the life the artist led to the exhibition. In fact the darkness was to bring out the artwork - which in some cases was damaged or in poor condition - but that didn't stop that strange feeling that one was being followed from room to room. Just as well there were only six rooms.

Afterwards I quickly ducked into the main gallery to look at Seurat's Bathers at Asnières. The Van Gough collection on the opposite wall is always more popular, but I just like this one. And unlike Caravaggio, there is all that colour and light...

Overheard at the Caravaggio Exhibit

Foreign tourist #1:Zha zzzha zhaa zha Caravaggio.... gay.
Foreign tourist #2:Ahh nozha zha zha zha Caravaggio... bisexual!

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