Artistically credit crunching

Not exactly the best start of 2009 but it’s to be expected. Both Sharleen Spiteri and much-touted American ban The Airborne Toxic Event have cancelled dates in Plymouth and Cornwall. The Texas star admitting that it’s due to poor ticket sales – there was a time when that fact would have been shrouded in talk about a much–needed TV appearance clashing with the date or some such nonsense.

Because of the recession, artists and their people are now happy to admit that people can’t afford high ticket prices or simply choose to be a bit more picky about what they want to see.

This is undoubtedly going to happen more and more in the arts in 2009 – let’s hope that promoters, band management and venues look closely at the price they charge for tickets. Hopefully, these troubling times could spell the end of £30-40 ticket prices.

At least we can go and see Newton Faulkner at Carnglaze Caverns on January 31 to cheer ourselves up. Oh, no we can’t! He’s hurt his wrist. Diddums. You’ll have to wait until May for that one now.

It's not over yet...

It's been so long! It may have been a write-off weather-wise but this summer was packed with events - if you want a spot of culture then there really is nowhere better than Cornwall these days.
Hence I've been missing from the blogosphere - I've been out living and enjoying, from Nathan Outlaw's famed restaurant to Surfstock, Unleashed and some amazing Eden concerts.
It's not over yet though - the last weekend of September sees the Cornwall Food and Drink Festival on Lemon Quay, Truro. I'm slightly chuffed to have been invited to be fed by seven of Cornwall's top chefs including Outlaw, Kevin Viner and Ben Tunnicliffe. If you're not doing anything on Saturday, September 27, at 11.30am come along and gawp. I may even let you have a forkful.
If that wasn't enough there is also Hall for Cornwall's ambitious production of Barabas which starts on Friday 26th and, of course, Oasis on the Saturday. Did you get a ticket?
One unexpected highlight of the summer was being awarded for promoting Cornish music at the annual Gorseth. It may well have been like stepping on to the set of The Wicker Man, but it was a great honour.
But you would have thought a field full of Cornish Bards would be able to pronounce my surname. It's not Tre-weller, it's Tre-wheeler!! There's one 'l' of a difference...

"Lee Trewhela don't work"

You know you're doing something right when a Letter to the Editor starts with the words: "To quote The Verve, Lee Trewela don't work."

I reviewed the band's Eden concert last week and wasn't that complimentary, though I did point out that the crowd loved it.

Anyway Mr Alwyn Odgers of Camborne continues: "By rubbishing The Verve he rubbishes your paper. The fans really enjoyed it many singing along with band. Sugguestion sack him and send ur youngest reporter to future gigs."

Alwyn then goes on to attack me for "rambling on" about The Raconteurs. Apparently I'm not too old to have liked this far superior band. And anyone who was at both gigs (and at those prices I can understand if you weren't) will know that they blew Ashcroft, McCabe et al off the stage.

I love it when I get these madly scribbled hate letters and as anyone with any sense knows, this is just my opinion (and I always attempt to be balanced if my view is at odds with the majority) . You have your opinion, Alwyn, which I have now aired for you.

Modern life is rubbish

Apologies dear reader for being absent from the blogosphere for the last few weeks. It's just that it's all got too much.

Is it me or is there too much information to digest, too much technology to devour but too little time? I feel like I'm drowning in a morass of websites, TV channels, CDs, music festivals, streaming news announcements, emails, text messages - even my 5-year-old knows her way round the internet (don't worry it's only CBeebies) and a mobile.

Turn it all off, I hear you scream. Avoid it. Get out into the country. Be at one with nature. Live in a shack on a beach.

The thing is I kind of like it - it is my job after all to keep abreast with all these changes. Just expect irregular blogs.

Now down to business - It caught my eye while editing What's On last week that our food critic Clive Ades was taken aback while visiting Kingsand by the rudeness of a shop owner. "Can you show me the way to such and such restaurant?" asked Clives. "Yes" came the abrupt answer. And that was it. Clive took it to be the actions of a local annoyed at a perceived incomer.

I'm sure this sort of behaviour is rare but it reminds me of an episode when I nipped into a shop in Mawnan Smith. In a pleasant manner I asked the way to the Budock Vean Hotel. "A please would be nice" came the aggressive reply, cutting off my "thank you". When I asked why he was being rude, the man physically ejected me from the shop. It still leaves me aghast and amazed thinking back to it. From his attitude it was obvious he thought I was "an outsider".

This was 10 years ago so I hope the man is no longer there. I certainly haven't been back (in my dreams I've returned to wreak my revenge though!). Unfortunately, it had a knock-on effect as it completely put me off using the Budock Vean as the venue for our wedding reception. I wonder how many other visitors to that hotel he was rude to?

Perhaps we should start an award for the rudest shopkeeper in Cornwall...

Is apathy ruining entertainment in Cornwall?

For promoters, venue owners and arts practitioners it's an age-old question: "Will Cornish audiences turn out for my production / concert / exhibition?"

Reviewing gigs or theatre shows for years now, it never fails to amaze me how fickle or uninterested people are down here. A drama at, say, the Hall for Cornwall that you would expect to sell-out is only a third full and yet a cult group in a small Penryn venue will cram more than 100 punters through the door. It really is a lottery.

There were opposing examples of this last week - SW1 Productions' monthly indie club night at L2, Truro, featured Palladium, a group who are being heralded nationally as the successors to The Feeling's "guilty pleasure" crown. Only 25 people turned out for it. An embarrassment. And now SW1 are seriously considering whether to stage any more of these events, which have already attracted big names like The Young Knives and The Courteeners.

Yet again Cornish music fans are going to miss out due to the inherent apathy in the county. Or maybe we just don't like cheesy 70s retreads?!

One event that was well attended was the superb Edinburgh Fringe hit Between The Devil and The Deep Blue Sea presented by the 1927 company. Playing at the Tolmen Centre in Constantine (I'm ashamed to say it was my first visit to the quirky converted chapel) this was an ingenious mix of film and live theatre.

Dark gothic tales merged with wicked humour - we were lucky to have them visit the county and thankfully the place was full. I only hope they return so more people can see this amazing show.

The Hall for Cornwall was lacking full houses for the recent run of Donmar Warehouse's The Man Who Had All The Luck - shame on you all. However, I can prophesy that one show that will sell out at the venue is a gig by the mighty Elbow pencilled in for October. Responsible for my favourite album of 2008 so far, I'm already counting down the days to see one of Britain's best bands. Please support it!!

At the risk of sounding like an old curmudgeon...

An otherwise superb performance of the Donmar Warehouse's The Man Who Had All The Luck at the Hall for Cornwall was spoiled by a selfish few last night.

Now I'm not too old to forget what it was like to go to a school outing to the theatre - usually it was to a production you've never heard of let alone want to see, you're with your mates, there's that sense of freedom and, depending how old you are, some surreptitious booze may have been downed. Hijinks ensue.


However, I don't remember behaving like a handful at this performance - making stupid noises and laughing at the most inopportune and gripping moments, setting off mobile phones, it continues.

You could tell that the actors were bothered at times and, frankly, this sort of behaviour is an embarrassment to our county, which very rarely gets theatre of this stature.

I know complaints were made by others during the interval, but the appalling behaviour continued unabated.

Where were the teachers?

Music fan? Get a bank loan

I'm a lucky sod as my job allows me to go to the majority of gigs in the South West free of charge but as a rabid music fan I would have to resort to sending my kids up chimneys if I had to pay.

The price of tickets these days is absolutely disgusting. I've touched on it in a previous blog but wages are appalling down here and charging £37 a ticket for last night's Bjork gig in Plymouth is disgraceful.

It was no wonder it struggled to sell out (and nothing to do with her Icelandic warbling, you naysayers!). Despite the price it was a fantastic if wilfully experimental show (you wanted hits, you went home disappointed) - maybe the lasers and the presence of a large all-female brass section warranted the price hike?

I bumped into a bloke I know who having forked out almost £100 for him and his partner to see Bjork was not sure he could now go and see his beloved Verve at Eden.

And indeed if you are a music fan you'd probably want to go and see all of the Eden shows announced so far (and KT Tunstall, arf arf!). If two of you were to attend all four it would set you back around £300.

How are students supposed to manage that? At the other end of the scale how are people like me with excessive mortgage payments and massive nursery bills expected to go as well? It's all many of us can do to scrape up the money for an annual holiday, so concerts are becoming a luxury many can ill afford.

I'm aware of the flipside - these events cost money to stage, the artists charge a bomb to perform, they have to travel that extra distance to get here, etc etc.

I certainly don't want to return to the times of my youth when no one came to Cornwall bar magic mushroom ingesting hippy bands and old time folkers. But with high prices shows are going to struggle to sell out, the artists and their management won't get the return on their costs and then they won't bother coming back.

What's the answer? You tell me.