This month the London based singer–songwriter, Delilah, begins her first headline tour, heralding what one might consider to be the official start of her solo career. Now 21, Delilah, real name Paloma Stoecker, signed with Atlantic Records when she was just 17 and has been writing and recording her debut album, From the Roots Up, ever since as well as touring, writing and recording with the likes of Maverick Sabre and Chase and Status. It would be fair to say that it has taken a long time for her to get to the stage of completion and her relief is evident. ‘Yes it’s done, it’s absolutely done. It’s been tricky because I’ve got songs that I’d written from years ago when I was about 13 or 14 so the hardest part was finding the sound [of the album]. We had tonnes and tonnes and tonnes of songs to choose from, more than 200, but finding the sound of  the music industry right now and what I’m about and my heritage, that was the trickiest part and it took some time.’

From the two EPs and 2–4am mix-tape that Delilah has so far released it would seem as though this time has been necessary and well spent. She is a purveyor of, as she terms them, ‘dark, melodic, soulful pop’ songs and seems to have forged herself a sound that is likely to become familiar to many households in the not too distant future.‘Nowadays it’s really easy for artists to be created, to stumble in as Bob or Jane and then leave with a manufactured persona. With me it hasn’t been like that. There’s been no big marketing plan. Everything that I write about comes from my upbringing and from how I am as a person and things I’ve seen in my life; it’s real.’

This sense of authenticity is integral to Delilah’s perception of herself as an artist and there is a firm underlying belief that this approach of taking one’s time and doing things the ‘old-fashioned way’ is essential to achieving this authenticity. Rather than a rapid rise to fame and millions of instant record sales, longevity is her goal. ‘I’m making music that my fans will hopefully be able to pick up in ten years’ time, like I do with the music that influenced me, and go ‘Yeh. Do you remember this album? This was a great album’ and enjoy it. It’s not all about how many hits you have on YouTube. I wanted it to sound like a first album, not like a big budget, multi-million pound record. As much as it’s about Delilah the artist it’s also about Paloma and the songs that I’ve written to get me through the things that have gone on in my life.’

This outlook is refreshing in an industry that has become plagued by talent shows offering hopefuls fifteen minutes of extremely fleeting fame. ‘Ultimately my dream is to make music and sing and perform so I want to do whatever is possible to make sure I’m still doing that in ten years’ time.’ The name of the album is suggestive and, despite the years she has already spent in the music industry, Delilah gives the impression of somebody who only now about to leave her family home and embark upon a road to follow her dreams. ‘I haven’t even begun to start doing what I have planned. Music is my first love and that’s all I can really see right now. Hopefully, from the roots up, I’ll start to show some real growth.’ 

Of all epics, Spenser’s The Faerie Queene seems the most difficult to dramatise: it is long, intricate, philosophical and allegorical. Aristotle considered epic and drama essentially the same: indeed, Milton’s Paradise Lost was originally conceived as a play. Epic poetry and theatre are linked, and yet we rarely think of the two in relation to each other, and even less often do we witness a stage production of an epic poem.

The audience at the Burton Taylor were lucky, then, to witness a performance of Simon Palfrey’s adaptation of The Faerie Queene, titled Demons’ Land. Palfrey’s response to the task of dramatising this epic is to re-imagine it, placing Fairy Land in a Tasmania populated by characters both familiar and harrowingly unfamiliar. The play draws on Spenser in an extraordinary fashion, while also creating its own, new theatrical world.

Two heroes of the poem star in the play, the Redcrosse Knight, also known as St George, here rechristened Red, and Britomart, the female knight of Britain, here, British Palfrey prefaced the performance, which hovered between a full staging and a reading, by noting that one need not know the poem to enjoy the play- indeed, that it might be better if one did not. This is certainly true. It is as if the entirety of The Faerie Queene has been placed in a blender at a very high speed, with a number of other things thrown in. I thought sometimes of Caryl Churchill’s The Skriker, which similarly dashes from one extreme of abject poetising to dramatic heights and back.

The play was nearly two and a half hours long, and could use some cuts or an interval. Nevertheless, its length reflects the challenge of getting epic bigness onto the stage, and intensifies the feeling it leaves us with. In the beginning, the language was so dense I felt alienated and disorientated in this new world, but eventually I slipped into its flow. The cast was wonderful through and through, especially Cupid. There is some great pathos in watching a sad old character such as the Collector rail on about youth, but these very human or emotional moments punctuate the darkness. It is a very funny play, and also a very sexy play. But nevertheless, I think Palfrey wants to ask the same sort of big questions that make us still want to read The Faerie Queene today: what is providence? How does it touch us? How do we realise ourselves, maybe change ourselves, find virtue? These are still open for debate.

Adam Gethin-Jones and his cast are waiting for the brutes in St. Hilda’s Dramatic Society’s newest production, In The Penal Colony, a schizophrenic adaptation from the short story by Franz Kafka.

Now, I must admit to having been slightly sceptical before going to see the play: as a huge fan of Kafka’s work, I was afraid a poor production could ruin one of his gems for me. What I saw of the play was, however, a pleasant surprise, even if not a staggering cathartic masterpiece. The plot revolves around the execution of the Prisoner, observed by the Explorer, a mysterious traveller visiting the Penal Colony and the mysterious device used to carry out the execution, an object of almost erotic fascination for the Officer, who has a peculiar nostalgia for the bygone times of the former commandante of the Penal Colony.

Or was it a sanatorium? The original plot has been heavily adapted, with new elements added and the whole story transposed onto the realities of a decaying sanatorium. The Prisoner becomes a patient, new levels of alienation are created, and the plot conventionalised by the cultural context of the mental institution, a theme so overexploited in recent years that it has become a staple of modern popular culture. But quite apart from my (probably obvious) distaste for the concept of this adaptation the problem lies primarily with the lack of clarity. The actors still refer to each other as ‘Officer’, ‘Prisoner’ and so forth, despite their costumes and the set design. The sanatorium setting certainly adds to the schizophrenic qualities of the play, but unfortunately, probably not in the way the director would have liked.

What the play lacks in clarity and cohesion it definitely makes up for in acting talent. Jonathan Griffiths as the Prisoner deserves special attention, his brilliant portray of his character’s madness is the high point of the play and it’s worth the trek to St. Hilda’s merely to see this talented actor in what is a perfectly cast role. Also, the casting of two women in the roles of Explorer and Officer creates a fascinating new level to the script and the exposed sexual undertones of the Officer’s relationship with the former Commandante and her fascination with the machine add an intriguing twist to the basic plot. The other actors don’t disappoint, even if they sometimes seem to be ever so slightly overplaying their roles.

All in all then, a good play, well acted and directed, if perhaps sometimes overambitious in its attempts to produce a more modern reading of Kafka’s great story. Definitely worth recommending if you have a free evening and want to see a few talented young actors enact a masterful story by one of the literary geniuses of the previous century.

Three and a half stars

Perhaps fittingly for an early Shakespearean comedy, Kate O’Connor’s production of The Two Gentlemen of Verona was at its best at its silliest and most amateur. The set channelled village pantomime, the band of outlaws looked like they’d stumbled in from a school production of Bugsy Malone and, should the weather permit outside performance during the rest of their run, the Christ Church gardens setting should only add to the hilarity.

Audience engagement was high, especially when the play was at its most overtly comic. Barney Iley’s Speed stole the show, slightly upstaging Stephen Hyde, who, as Launce, had to contend with difficult sight lines while seated with his dog in the play’s most well-loved scenes. The lovers had more of an uphill battle to climb. Alice Fraser worked hard to give Julia the depth of later comedic heroines and really came into her own in the second half of the production, but even the unorthodox ending couldn’t counter the awkwardness of the play’s denouement for a modern audience. Tim Gibson’s Valentine was largely competent and Amelia Sparling’s Silvia charming, but Ed Seabright’s Proteus less well-realised and his transition from loyal friend to Machiavellian villain made all the more bizarre by somewhat blunt characterisation.

The production was weakest when it attempted to be something more than a light-hearted romp. The Big Band era/Manhattan setting was laboured and unenlightening, the singing between acts slightly cringe-worthy and the final full-cast rendition of ‘New York’ tear-inducing for all the wrong reasons. Gestures were overblown and blocking could be awkward – directorial decisions which proved to the expense of the better actors among the cast. The decision to convert the Duke into a Duchess (Katie Ebner-Landy) also seemed to have little motivation beyond casting considerations and hampered the sense of the lines on a couple of occasions – a shame in a production which could provide a good introduction to Shakespearean language.

Overall, while the production may be a little rough around the edges, enthusiasm was abundant onstage and off and, as such, The Two Gentlemen of Verona should prove a fun night out for even the most uninitiated of Shakespearean theatregoers.

Two and a half stars

Though Josh Booth’s production of Blithe Spirit may fall flat in some areas, it cannot be denied that it does succeed in capturing the farcical humour which distinguishes Coward’s plays. It is always hard to fully appreciate a play from its press preview, but the two scenes shown were ripe with sarcastic one liners and simple slapstick humour. Comedy is harder to perform than people often realise, and the cast of Blithe Spirit handle Coward’s script well and seem to enjoy doing so. Levy and Piplin were a particular delight to watch, as Charles and Ruth, the couple caught in the midst of a séance, watching their marriage disintegrate. There was a nice juxtaposition between Charles’ ‘roguish flippancy’ and the brutal realism of his wife’s disbelief. Charles’ bouncing around the room works well against his wife’s static position in the centre of the room, impassive and unmoving, illustrating the differences between the couple.

However, the performance was not without its problems. One issue with farce is that the humour detracts from the less overstated emotions within the play and can result in unnecessary melodrama. Whilst there are no tragic elements to Blithe Spirit, every line of the play does not have to be humorous and occasionally the performance suffered from actors desperately attempting to wring comedy out of lines which did not need it. This led to some shallow performances from some of the leads and, whilst they could carry the comedy, the rest of their acting had a tendency to descend into grating melodrama. Thus, on the odd occasion, it seemed as if the audience was laughing at, not with, the actors. Another potential pitfall is the venue for the production. Blithe Spirit is a garden performance, and I have some doubts as to how well the staging will translate to the outdoors. Garden productions require scripts that suit the surroundings and Coward’s farce (written to be performed indoors) will appear rather incongruous outside. I fear the set may look somewhat lost in a garden setting and I doubt whether the quality of the production will be able to conceal that. Nonetheless Blithe Spirit was enjoyable to watch – even if on occasion performances slipped into ridiculous melodrama. 

Two and a half stars