Plum Viewing

Maggie Fairs
4 min readJun 4, 2021

Welcome to the latest edition of Plum Viewing, my weekly roundup of arts and culture to view online.

Well, lovely readers, welcome to June. We did it. Mr. Fairs and I are heading out for lunch tomorrow and am beyond giddy. Someone will actually bring me food and then take it away. And, we can order different things. Oh, the excitement. I shall report back!

So with that, here are this week’s picks!

I meant to include this in last week’s picks but missed it (I was too focused on Dolly — on that note, have you started to listen?? It is SO good…) Anyway, this is an entirely different experience: Touching the Void.

Following its sold-out world premiere at Bristol’s Old Vic and its critically acclaimed West End run, this stunning show is now available to watch on demand. Here’s the description: “Be transported from the comfort of your living room to the freezing peaks of the Peruvian Andes, as Joe Simpson and Simon Yates’ perilous descent of Siula Grande becomes a breathtaking struggle for survival.

Perched on an unstable snow-cliff and battered by freezing winds, Simon is desperate to rescue his injured climbing partner who hangs from a rope below him. Meanwhile, Joe teeters on the brink of death and despair in a crevasse from which he can’t possibly climb to safety.” Using intimate camera angles, a unique multi-camera set-up and an engrossing 3D soundscape, we get to feel as though we are there with Joe and Simon. Mr. Fairs and I will definitely be watching this.

The running time is two hours and 20 minutes (with an intermission) and it’s available until June 13. Tickets start at 10 GBP and you can reserve yours here.

Ok. Who doesn’t like a good retelling of Macbeth, our favourite deranged Scottish couple?! Well, in this version, brought to us by director Dominic Hill, the story is distilled into one hour and told entirely from the couple’s bed. Described as “brutal and intense”, it was first performed in 2017 to critical acclaim. It is now available for us to enjoy (although ‘enjoy’ is likely the wrong word to use here!) for free until June 30. You can start watching it here.

As a sidenote, I may be totally biased but my favourite Macbeth is once again my boyfriend, Alan Cumming, who told the tale as a patient in a psychiatric institution. Here’s a clip to enjoy because honestly, you can never have too much Alan Cumming in your life.

And, as chance would have it, my boyfriend is currently in Australia rehearsing Cabaret (oh, you lucky Aussies!), so let’s go visit him there and check out a few plays along the way.

Melbourne Theatre Company is offering a fabulous streaming service and first up is our Canadian rock star playwright Ms. Hannah Moscovitch’s The Sexual Misconduct of the Middle Classes, her #MeToo-era interpretation of the familiar student–teacher narrative. This play was also performed at Toronto’s Tarragon Theatre and it is exactly what you’d expect from Hannah: brutally honest, powerful and utterly compelling to watch. It is streaming until Sunday, June 6 and once purchased, the tickets are available for 48 hours.

Up next, we have Berlin, the story about two strangers (Grace Cummings and Michael Wahr) meeting in a Berlin bar, which is available until Sunday, July 4. Timeout gave it 4.5 stars and called our two performers ‘terrific and charming.’

Tickets for each of these performances is $25 and can be purchased here.

The Stratford Festival has just announced its 2021 season; an outdoor festival of six plays and five cabarets reflecting on the theme of Metamorphosis, with performances held under beautiful canopies reminiscent of the Festival’s tents in 1953. Joyous!!

For those of us not able to attend these performances in person, we have Stratfest@Home, an online subscription service which allows you to access the Festival’s rich archive of past performances. There are so many treasures to discover. For example, I have just found this delightful series, Up Close and Musical, performances by known and emerging singers and performers across so many genres. Here are a few of my favorites: Alexis Gordon in Unexpected Dream (oh, I do have a soft spot for gospel music) and the great Chilina Kennedy, who played the very great Carol King on Broadway in Beautiful. It’s $10 per month to unlock these gems. Learn more here.

While Joe’s Pub is temporarily closed, thankfully, they are still entertaining us through Joe’s Pub Live! — a free series of streamed performances. On Thursday, June 10 Trumpeter Riley Mulherkar is performing. A founder of the acclaimed brass quartet The Westerlies and a regular collaborator with such luminaries as Wynton Marsalis, Anna Deavere Smith, Mulherkar will perform, And Now, his debut solo album as well as new arrangements of works by George Gershwin and Hoagy Carmichael. He will be joined onstage by pianist Chris Pattishall, drummer Kyle Poole, and guest vocalist Vuyo Sotashe. This video will be available through Sunday, June 13. Check it out here.

See you next week my lovely readers!

And, and ask: While we’re enjoying these wonderful performances, let’s remember that for the arts organizations producing this incredible content, this is their livelihood; not a hobby. If we can, now is our time to continue to support our incredible arts community!

And, if you’d like to receive Plum Viewing weekly, send me a note at maggiefairs@gmail.com and I will add you to my mailing list.

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