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Somewhere that's green: Potty the Plant at Wiltons Music Hall

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"I'm Potty the Plant," sings a potted plant in this odd little fringe concept of a show. It's hard not to get the tune out of your head, even if the show is brief. It's an earworm for a show that features a worm-like plant as a puppet. And given the show's brevity, running at only an hour, it's hard to get too annoyed by a lack of a coherent story, even if it still seems like the show could use a bit more development (which is underway). It has made its London debut at Wilton's Music Hall. The premise is that Potty, the plant, lives in the hospital office of Dr Acula (geddit?) and dreams of a life with the cleaning lady Miss Lacey (Lucy Appleton). But Dr Acula might be responsible for why all these children are disappearing while trying to romance Miss Lacey for her family's money that she doesn't have. Three nurses are on the case, trying to solve the mystery.  If the show settled on a convincing plot, location and set of characters, it could ...

Music: Gergiev's grunting Shostakovich

Last night I caught part of the Shostakovich Symphony cycle, Symphony 1 and 14, that the LSO is performing with conductor Valery Gergiev. Gergiev becomes the LSO's chief conductor next year (when Sir Colin Davis becomes the President)

Anyway, Symphony No 1 is quite accessible and full of loud explosions and power and vigour so it is easy to like. The orchestra obviously had loads of fun playing it.

Given my location in the cheap seats (front row to the side) as the performance was a sellout, I not only had a curious view of the backs of the string section, but also I heard what sounded like strange grunting sounds. At first I thought it was the conductor but then surely not. But throughout the four movements of the First Symphony I could hear it. Was it the bowing of the strings? Well the acoustic from my seat was giving me an interesting flavour of the performance so that was a distinct possibility.

When it came to the second half with the much more subdued Symphony No 14 again I could hear the grunting. Combined with Soprano soloist Olga Sergeeva's dire dress that should have stayed in the alien costume collection from BBC's Dr Who series it was hard to appreciate the music.

The grunting was coming from Gergiev, and so there is a lesson there for seeing future performances with the LSO's next chief conductor: don't sit in the cheap seats unless you like a grunt with your classical music. Further back you might not hear it.  

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