Six Nations thoughts and Cyrano De Bergerac adaptation.

Three games in and we’ve crossed the halfway point. There are three teams still in with a shout: France, England and Ireland. With only France still on course for a grand slam – their first since 2010 – the pressure may be highest on them?  They also, arguably, have the hardest finish: Scotland at Murrayfield and Ireland at home. England, with Wales at home and then Italy will be happy with that and with where they are, finally. Losing to France and then scraping past - albeit deservedly - Scotland in hurricane conditions, they haven’t been particularly impressive but their first half showing, in particular, against Ireland on Saturday, was ominous. A juggernaut of power and pace and strong, confrontational defence that the men in green couldn’t withstand. Ireland looked out of sorts for much of the game, though very few teams, if any, would have fared better, particularly in that first half. Ireland though still in with a chance in the championship have played well in just one game: against the Welsh. Only obdurate defence and Stuart Hogg’s unfortunate dropping the ball over the line - when a try was certain - helped them beat Scotland and based on Saturday, England are in a far better place. Ireland like Wales, with a new coach, are in transition and it may take a season for them to get back on track. They’re clearly not the power they were a year or two ago. The Welsh have played some decent attacking rugby and have great spirit and some class players, but they’re missing two British Lions, Jonathon Davies and Liam Williams, and they won’t be too cocky about their chances at Twickenham, I suspect. They will as always, however, make England work for it.

France have certainly been the most exciting and most impressive overall. Arguably riding their luck against the Welsh on Saturday, they nevertheless look very dangerous with an added determination which has been missing for much of the last ten years. When I first started watching rugby in the eighties, ‘French flair’ was a byword. Swashbuckling and dynamic, they played the game like no-one else. In more recent decades, that has been replaced by one dimensional, dullsville rugby and mental fragility. The press, of course, are hyping up this new French team, the English press that is. We'll see in two games time. Certainly, if they do win the slam it would be a welcome change and they’ve played some great rugby. It’s hard to see Scotland beating them based on the matches so far, but if Scotland manage to harness their obvious talent and stop making multiple errors that would embarrass a ten-year-old, it won’t be a walkover at Murrayfield. Scotland have stalled in the last year, with the Finn Russell saga the icing in the cake. Having him back against the French would be exceptional but it seems politics and principle are more important to the SRU than having their best team on the field. In any case, we still don’t know how good the French are. We’ll know in a couple of weeks, I suspect. Ireland, after that, won’t be easy either, but the French must secretly fancy their chances. For all teams, arguably Italy most of all, still winless after twenty-five games in the six nations, there’s still all to play for.

A few words for Cyrano De Bergerac starring James McAvoy at the London Playhouse that I saw last week on a film screen at the Everyman cinema. This is becoming a popular and fine way of seeing live theatre, not quite in the flesh, but close enough and in comfort. Cyrano, written by Edmond Rostand in 1897, was made most famous, for us non-French at least, by Steve Martin in the late eighties in ‘Roxanne’. Prior to that, the name Bergerac, for me, at least, conjured up images of that programme with the boring detective guy from Jersey and the iconic if cheesy theme tune. Although, I don't know, if may be classic TV? Anyway, Cyrano De Bergerac is a romantic tragicomedy. Essentially a story of unrequited love; of three men all of whom are in love with one woman, Roxanne. Cyrano of course, who worships her in secret and happens to be her cousin, Christian a young, pretty boy soldier and De Guiche, a powerful and influential army-man, too. She falls for Christian - the handsome nincompoop - and in one of literature's most enticing scenes of 'dramatic irony', makes love to him after being seduced by the words of none other than Cyrano himself. She marries Christian only to be ultimately widowed soon after and perhaps not even sure that she ever loved him. Realizing to her – and our – great regret, a little too late, that Cyrano loved her all along, these themes are, of course, timeless. A play written, however, entirely in French verse, is a less easy sell to a modern audience, especially a non-French one. The writer and director are therefore to be commended in this brave and imaginative adaptation. James McAvoy, playing the renowned poet and fighter – within the play that is, he’s still a character from literature that should be better known I believe, to the public - with a confrontational Glaswegian intensity interspersed with tenderness and humour, dominates proceedings. He also manages to incorporate the need to be an outsider that characterises the part. A refusal to compromise, no matter the price to his own happiness. Having dispensed with the famously monstrous nose that haunts Cyrano, it is, at times, is a little far-fetched to believe that this guy who is after all, a charismatic movie star, is so insecure, but his performance is honest and powerful. And such is the style of this version - minimalist and quite dark in tone, much of the time - a huge false hooter would perhaps have been too much? How about a tiny..? Well, anyway…

 This update makes no bones about what it is; A contemporary, in-your-face and sharp - with lots of diversity boxes ticked, shall we say - exploration of language, love, sexual and identity politics. At times, for me, that polemical and politicized approach got in the way of the story, but nevertheless it was thought-provoking and challenging and that is perhaps the best thing an update of a classic can do? As someone who studied the play at university and who loves the film with Gerald Depardieu from 1990 - I watch it literally about once a month - I was bound to be a little stuck in my ways, but hopefully for people who are less familiar it may encourage them to read the original or at least check out the aforesaid film. If seeing it for the first time, I definitely would and that’s the greatest compliment I can perhaps pay it. 

Calcutta Cup, Scoland versus England. Just a game? Yes and no...

     

       The Calcutta Cup, Scotland versus England in the rugby six nations for those of you who
don’t know, is here again. Why the name? Well, it was, as logic would have it, created in Calcutta, in
the 1870’s when the local rugby club - which featured matches between Scotland and England –
realizing the climate wasn’t conducive to rugby and with interest in the sport waning locally, decided
to melt down their rupees and created this extraordinary trophy. Over one hundred and thirty years
later, Scotland and England are still battling for it on an annual basis. Thirty years on from the
infamous victory by Scotland, in 1990, taking the Grand slam at Murrayfield, against all odds, the
press is clearly clutching at straws. Their attempts to build up the excitement with quotations of war and hatred from players on both sides is all a bit pathetic really. In 1990, Jim Telfer, the Scottish coach, banned his players from talking to the press at all. A wise move I’d say. I watched the game this week, in its entirety. It’s brilliant. Maybe less so if you’re English, but as a spectacle it is brilliant. So fast and hectic. Less polished than nowadays but brilliant, nevertheless. They didn’t even go into the dressing room at half time. So many images and memories remain: The Scottish captain, David Sole’s slow march out onto the pitch. Bill Mclaren's iconic voice, John Jeffrey AKA, the White Shark, singing the Scottish anthem with gusto. The monstrous English pack. Two amazing tries, one by Jeremy Guscott for England and that try from Tony Stanger for Scotland, reaching up to the heavens to ground Gavin Hastings’ high bouncing kick. Rumours persist that he didn’t even ground it correctly. Modern TMO cameras if they existed then, scrutinizing everything, would have perhaps changed history? The try itself from a scrum on halfway had originally been England’s. A schoolboy error by the English number 8, Mike Teague knocking forward on the English scrum serendipitously handed Scotland possession. How history is made by the smallest of margins. They didn’t forgive us for that shock victory, but Scotland deserved it on the day. We didn’t beat England again for ten years. I’ll never forget watching that game in 2000, in The Rock pub in the West End of Glasgow with a friend from school whose name I won’t mention, but he did briefly become a rock star. The joy of victory after ten long years was palpable. We’ve done pretty well against England in recent years, but they’ll always be favourites.
       1990, was also the first time ‘Flower of Scotland’ was sung at a Scotland rugby international. Prior to that, astonishing as it is, ‘God Save The Queen’ had been played at times for Scotland matches. Can you imagine? Anyway, that game was momentous for so many reasons, even beyond sport. There was hatred off the pitch, almost certainly stirred up by the press, as being part of the match, but it was there. Hatred in Scotland for a tory government that had imposed Thatcherism upon it, culminating in the poll tax. To what degree that was true, however, in a rugby context, is less sure. Murrayfield, in the western suburbs of Edinburgh, is hardly an obvious spot for being anti-tory, well in those days at least and three or four of the Scottish team were English born and many of the rest were private schooled. Furthermore, many of them knew each other from the British Lions tour, the year before. Thirty years on the political landscape in Scotland is dramatically different. The SNP are the dominant party these days, the union is at threat and the tory government are still deeply unpopular. That hasn't changed. Presumably the hatred is still there but it’s not so much of an issue in rugby as it was claimed to be in 1990. Personally, I try to avoid the hating the English cliché, much as I enjoy beating them at rugby. The reports of some of the abuse they get when they come to Murrayfield, if accurate are pretty disgusting and embarrassing. That said, for those eighty minutes I’ll be a rabid, undignified beast and if we lose, I’ll be distraught, but afterwards, I’ll remember that I live in England and some of my favourite people in the whole world are English. It is just a game after all, but at 4.45pm tomorrow afternoon, I’ll probably forget that for a couple of hours. That it’s just a game I mean. Probably? No, definitely. And for at least a couple of days, if we lose.