Eternal love

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Eternal Love The tempestuous tale of Abelard and Heloise

The Strypes • Lonely the Brave • Punt and Dennis • Russell Kane

26 | February 6, 2014 | cambridge-news.co.uk | Cambridge News

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Theatre

Eternal Love ɀ QUICK to admit a preoccupation with death, psych-folkster Cate le Bon is on her third album, Mug Museum, and playing Cambridge Junction on Monday (February 10). Rock edged folk with a 1970s vibe, her career owes a lot to Super Furry Animals founder Gruff Rhys who helped nurture her, and now, aside from touring solo, she’s even supported the Manic Street Preachers. The gig starts at 8pm and tickets are £10 from (01223) 511511. ɀ ST Vigor’s Church in Fulbourn is hosting a Sunday afternoon of tea and choral music on February 9. Fulbourn Manor Ground will open at 2pm for guests to take a wander, followed by tea (and hopefully cake) at the church from 2.45pm. The concert will kick off at 3.30pm featuring the Amici Vigoris Singers with Ralph Woodward on organ, conducted by David Sheppard. Tickets are £10 per person and can be bought on the door. For more information, please call (01223) 723115.

All proceeds will go to the Arthur Rank Hospice. ɀ IF you’re in need of a good d old laugh, head to this month’s Jesterlarf comedy night at Cambridge Junction on Friday (February 7).

Compered by cheeky chatty chappy Dave Twentyman, cockney comic Rich Wilson headlines with “hilarious tales of misadventure and riotous shenanigans”, supported by suitcase toting music hall funny guy George Egg. You’ll also get to see rising star Sean McLoughlin chatting about living life on a shoestring. Tickets are £12 and the show starts at 8.30pm. Visit jesterlarf.co.uk for more details.

ELLA WALKER takes a tour of The Globe and chats to the director, writer and cast of Eternal Love: The Story of Abelard and Heloise ahead of a run at Cambridge Arts Theatre ᔡ Eternal Love: The Story of Abelard and Heloise, Cambridge Arts Theatre, Thursday, February 6 – Saturday, February 8 at 7.45pm. Tickets £15-£30 from (01223) 503333 / cambridgeartstheatre.purchase-tickets-online.co.uk

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TANDING on The Globe stage, rain pouring through the open roof and puddling where punters would have drunkenly hollered, prostitutes plied their trade and market stall holders clamoured over their livestock (and the actors), strangely I didn’t feel the urge to start a soliloquising.

That might be due to my severe lack of acting talent (and the fact there’s no blood on my hands), or it being really quite a masterpiece of a space. I think I’ll go with both.

I was in London to find out about the latest incarnation of playwright Howard Brenton’s p Eternal Love, opening at E Cambridge Arts Theatre tonight.

C First staged in 2006 as IIn Extremis, it was written sspecifically for The Globe, and, after scoring some rather healthy a

ɀ SADLY no, the humble Cambridge Corn Exchange cannot bring you the real Fleetwood Mac (sob), but they can bring you Rumours of Fleetwood Mac, the Fleetwood Mac Forever – World Tour 2014.

And hell, the Mail on Sunday said: “They do Fleetwood Mac better than Fleetwood Mac.” On Tuesday, February 11 the tribute act will be playing old favourites so slickly it could be the real deal and not a knock-off. Tickets are £22.50 from (01223) 357851. ɀ LITTLE Eagles (originally performed by the RSC), charts the life and largely untold story of Sergei Pavlovich Korolyov, who “in spearheading the Soviet space programme, set humanity on a course to the stars.” Discover how and why he did it, and the pressures he faced – because, although Yuri Gagarin was the first man to look back at Earth, Sergei Pavlovich Korolyov put him there. On from Tuesday, February 11 until Saturday, February 15 at 7.45pm, tickets are £6-£8 from (01223) 300085.

COUPLE: Jo Herbert and David Sturzaker

acclaim with its initial run, is now back and going on tour for the first time with the English Touring Theatre.

The plot, doused in scandal, passion and contention, revolves around the true story of Abelard, a theologian and teacher, who falls madly and catastrophically in love with his rather brilliant student Heloise. When she gets pregnant out of wedlock, Abelard’s enemies in the church, who are already ill amused by his controversial views, use it as an excuse to destroy him.

The 12th century romance is

the second in a triptych of plays former Cambridge student Brenton has devised for The Globe, following in the steps of 2012’s Anne Boleyn and the upcoming Doctor Scroggy’s War. Original director John Dove has returned, as has a large chunk of the cast and crew that worked on Anne Boleyn (also directed

by Dove), and it’s a big deal, hence me lucking out on a trip to Shakespeare’s Globe.

We even got a sneak peak of the new indoor Globe which is lit entirely by candlelight. Gemma Arterton is currently starring in The Duchess of Malfi but has only almost set herself on fire once or twice apparently. . . But enough bragging about my escape from the office.

It must have been a challenge to write for such an infamous space.

“It puts the fear of god into you because it’s Shakespeare’s theatre and you feel haunted,” Brenton laughs. “You think there’s a ghost up in the top gallery looking down, disapproving, saying ‘cut that scene!’ You can almost sense it and it is challenging. You get 1600 people, under the flight paths to Heathrow; you have to grab their attention.

“But it’s a storytelling theatre which is beautiful and also it likes a mix of high and

low, it likes h humour and it wears seriousness easily. always felt very much at “I’ve alwa writing for the Globe, as home writin terrifying as it is.”

Fortunately Eternal Love knows Fortunate how to pack a punch. Pithy, vibrant and straight talking – being a historical piece despite bein – for Dove, tthe essence of the play captures a point in time is that it cap when ideas and individuality outstripping the status were far out quo.

“It was a ttremendous time suppressed it in order and we supp upon orthodoxy again to build upo ended,” he says with true after it ende adding: “It was anguish, feverishly fev happening at this time, with all happenin enormous ttalent.” agrees: “It’s about Brenton a a time when the world was breaking up and new possibilities pouring into Europe. They were pourin discovering Aristotle again were discov philosophical advances and huge ph made and it was also were being m incredible conflict, a time of inc because of tthe new ideas. and Heloise are right “Abelard a centre of this.” at the centr couple are The lovestruck love played by Cambridge born Jo Herbert and David Turzaker, who are together in real life (no tiffs on set so far we’re and also starred in Anne told) an Boleyn as Anne and Henry VIII. Both writer and director Bot quick to dispel any are q notion of the productions not being two sides of the be ssame coin though. ““There are echoes,”

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D Dove concedes. d “[B “[But]] the h heart h off each is different, and that’s what you’ve got to go for, otherwise you’re doing a comparison which doesn’t work.”

Then again, it’s lead by a strong, modern female character and is racy, sexy and violent at times (for a start there’s a sex scene on an alter and a brutal castration that will inevitably make you squirm).

“I think there are links,” ks,” says Jo (Heloise). “Both couples ples were extremely brave.

“The whole world is talking about them, they shouldn’t ldn’t really be doing this but they can’t help themselves and they do o it anyway.

They think less, maybe they’re a bit more heart driven [than than Anne and Henry].”

“They changed their time, if that doesn’t sound too grand,” adds David. “The freshness ness of their thought, the newness ness of their approach to philosophy sophy and religion, was really y quite extraordinary.”

When asked why people should come along, Jo says: “The way Howard writes it is so accessible and modern, short and sharp and sweet.

It’s really quick, it’s really funny, it’s really moving.”

But personally, it’s the love story at the play’s heart, not just

REHEARSAL: Everyone learning the steps

the revolutionary philosophising rev that drew dr her to the part, particularly after researching partic the original source material – letters Heloise and Abelard let sent each other over the s space of a decade. s “The letters they wrote to each other are w heartbreaking,” she says. h “I “ remember when I was w reading the letters, thinking, you just wouldn’t t get g this now. You get texts which are just ‘alright w babe?’ and these long b letters, she describes it as le

Music

Lonely the Brave CAMBRIDGE born five-piece Lonely the Brave are slowly but surely taking the rock scene by storm Influenced by the likes of The National, Pearl Jam and Deftones, they’re made up of Mark Trotter on guitar, Andrew Bushen on bass, unconventional shy singer David Jakes (he fronts the band from the back of the stage), Gavin “Mo” Edgeley on drums and second guitarist Joel Mason, they’ve got the support of Radio 1’s Zane Lowe (he invited them in for a Maida Vale session no less) and Daniel P. Carter, plus they have recently supported Don Broco on tour.

Classing themselves as “Five men trying to be something to someone,” on Twitter (@lonelythebrave), the band have already had success with their first EP Backgrounds, including single Black Saucers, and have just released their new single, Trick of the Light.

Now they’re headlining their own run

ᔡ Lonely the Brave, Cambridge Junction, Saturday, February 8 at 8pm. SOLD OUT. of dates, including a sold out, final night homecominggig at Cambridge Junction. Apologies if you missed out on tickets, but they’re local lads through and through, so here’s hoping they come back soon.

After all, Mark is a huge fan of the city’s music scene: “I love the music scene in Cambridge, but then I’ve grown up in it. It’s great because there is a real community, everyone knows everyone. I don’t know if there’s enough places for people to play anymore, if I’m honest. “[But the] scene is strong and the people involved are really lovely. I think there’s a lack of venues to support that scene at the moment, is my personal feeling on it, but the scene is alive and kicking.”

Hear, hear.

full of our love and pain and our hopes to live a better life, and it is all about that.”

“Abelard and Heloise just connected on a mental plane, very powerfully,” confirms Dove.

“It’s all in print.”

You may not leave the theatre believing love will conquer all but Dove would like it to: “Give us hope again that society can blaze in the way that it did, and it really did. It was very alive to movement, to invention, to newness: it was a revolution.”

Surely that’s better than a hearts and flowers happy ending.