At The Lowry

As a Mother's Day treat for S we trekked off on a wet night to Manchester and the Lowry for Peaky Blinders: the ballet! I thought she was joking at first, but straight up, the Rambert Company are currently performing 'The Redemption of Thomas Shelby'. I said I'd get the tickets if I didn't need to think about anything else. Roam drove.

I didn't do any research and therefore had no idea what to expect. The music from a live band was fantastic. The staging was inventive. The dancing was, of course, amazing. I enjoyed it ... until I struggled to keep my eyes open. Although spectacular, it didn't engage me. It was all too abstract, far too focussed on Shelby's traumatised and drug-soaked inner mind. There simply wasn't enough story.

It played to a packed house and the mostly young audience seemed to thoroughly enjoy themselves, which is great. But I couldn't help but feel that this didn't really work as a whole. It was more of a marketing exercise than an artistic endeavour, feeding off the Peaky Blinders cult. I said at the end that it was all style and no substance, and that's how I felt about the TV show in the last couple of series. Style had taken over so thoroughly that there was little substance left. 

S loved it and that was all that mattered. I do feel obliged to show my gratitude to her for bringing our children into the world. She put a lot more work into that than I did!