August brought three excellent musical events all with a hint of mystery. The first was a rehearsal at Acland Burghley School in Camden for the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment’s project Breaking Bach. Bach suites and concertos played on period instuments by musicians for whom I have the greatest respect, fine – but with street, hiphop and break dance accompanying it! Really? Not much of what the OAE does fails miserably so my frequent dance companion Rosa and I made it to Tufnell Park on a Sunday afternoon for the final rehearsal before the group took Breaking Bach to the Edinburgh Festival for its world premiere in the Usher Hall three days hence. We were asked not to photograph the performance so I don’t have any pictures but you can get a feel for it from the OAE’s website in a mo. Meanwhile our tickets included some branded merchandise – Rosa accepted my gift of a tote bag – “you can never have too many tote bags” while I have two pencils with seed capsules which I hope next spring will be planted out and become sunflowers.
To say we were blown away by the performance would be to put it mildly. Did I say the dancers accompanied the players? I was wrong – the dancers added a whole new dimension through their elegant, energy-filled moves and fantastic sense of rythym. They truly interpreted the music not just performed alongside it. Choreographer Kim Brandstrup had wanted to meld street dance with Bach for some time and now was afforded the perfect solution. Some of the dancers were newly professional, several were still students at Acland Burghley School and you really couldn’t tell the difference most of the time. There were solos, pas de deux and ensemble pieces caringly matched to the emotions and rythyms of the various selections from the repertoire. At the end of the afternoon my only regret was that I hadn’t booked to go to Edinburgh to see the full performance – although whether I’d have managed to get up from a bean bag is debatable. It went down a storm with the critics as I was delighted to read the following Sunday in my Observer and everybody else who attended. There’s lots more about the project on the OAE’s YouTube channel too with interviews with the choreographer, dancers and students . We can’t wait for a full production in the UK – no wait there has been one I guess – parochialist! – I mean in London. Staggeringly risky, stunningly successful!
The next stop on the mystery tour was a trip into a different musical culture. Rumy Haque is a friend who I’ve worked with at the British Bilingual Poetry Collective on many occasions, on translations and in workshops. She’s recently concentrated her attention on forming a musical group and invited me to its launch event at the Brady Arts Centre in Tower Hamlets.
I’ve heard a fair bit of Bengali inspired- music, have co-curated workshops on the poetry of Rabindranath Tagore and – while unable to read the poster – Rumy explained that the concert was celebrating the anniversary of Tagore’s death and would feature his songs. The ensemble is called GitaBina and has Rumy, Mitali Bonowari and Sunita Chowhury on vocals with harmonium, tabla and keyboards accompaniment. As often with these events it took a while to get started – the Spanish are accused of a manaña attitude – but my Bengali friends run them close.
GitaBina gathered round a portrait of Tagore painted by Rumy HaqueSunita, Mitali and Rumy
However it was worth the wait. The three voices have contrasting tones but combine brilliantly in conveying both the introspective, lyrical elements and the more rousing and passionate passages in the Tagore songs they performed. The harmonium underscore, strongly accented beat from the tabla and improvised frills from he keyboards added to the atmosphere of respect for and celebration of Tagore. Interpolated between the songs were readings of poems some in Bangla, one I’m glad to say in English – thanks Rumy. It was interesting and thoroughly enjoyable. Whatever the genre or style, music speaks to the soul and mine went home refreshed.
I’m fairly familiar with song cycles from both Robert and Clara Schumann and Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn with both male and female singers and piano accompaniment. So it’s off to Acland Burghley School again with my friend Frances, who lives nearby, for another new experience.
Tonight it’s the lovely Helen Charlston singing with a string quartet! That’s new. Helen has a long association with the OAE as one of the first in its Rising Stars programme and the star of the memorable Coldplay tribute video of Dido’s Lament.
Helen writes in her programme notes that there’s no precedent for this kind of arrangement. But she thinks similar things might have happened at the soirées where these songs would have been first heard. The conversion of the accompaniment from piano to scoring for string quartet by Bill Thorp brought a whole new level of expression to the songs for me.
It was fascinating to hear how the piano sounds were expertly shared around the four instruments. The Consone (Latin for harmonious) Quartet use period instruments – they were the first such to be chosen as BBC New Generation Artists – and those familiar warm gut string sounds added new sonorities and their playing a new sense of fluency to familiar tunes. I felt a much stronger emotional reaction to the fuller sound surrounding the lyrics and maybe the intimate surroundings of the elegant hexagonal school hall at the centre of Brutalist Acland Burghley helped as well.
Three very different experiences with unexpectedly (shame on me) pleasing results. And there’s another adventure to come with a trip to the Royal Albert Hall to hear the Irish Baroque Orchestra play Alexander’s Feast by Handel which I’ve never heard so the mysteries continue to unfold.
After the madness of May the new month starts at a somewhat gentler pace. First up on 2 June is a trip to Glyndebourne to see the Festival’s first ever production of Wagner’s last opera Parsifal. Having just driven to Stratford and back, I decided to do this one by train and the excellent £10 return Glyndebourne bus service from Lewes Station. It worked really well and I arrived on the most beautiful sunny day, took a walk around the lake, had a glass of wine and watched all the lovely people. I decided on a dark suit rather than the full DJ and it’s becoming clear that the dress code is much more relaxed than it used to be – there were even men in shorts! Oh and had a preview of dinner!
So, into the auditorium and during the wonderfully atmospheric overture a caption appears on the curtain referencing Cain and Abel. Now Wagner had already mashed up Arthurian legend with strict Roman Catholic Good Friday rituals. Could the story take another level of myth? Well in my opinion, no. The main charaters’ alter egos or older doppelgänger mooching around at the back of the set didn’t do it for me and the construct that Klingsor and Amfortas had been quarreling brothers also didn’t wash. All that said it was magnificently sung and the orchestra under Robin Ticciati was just sublime. And there were some great moments of theatre in Jetske Mijnssen’s production too. I loved the gang of Kundry clones whooshing down on poor Parsifal and I liked the procession of Titurel’s coffin round and round the altar before laying him to rest. On the coach back to Lewes one visitor complained that this went on a bit too long to which I replied “Well, there is a lot of music to get through before the next aria and at least there was some action.” Despite some reservations about the over-concepty production it was a great evening and I’m very glad I saw, but especially, heard it.
The Kundry clones take a bowParsifal takes his applause
The next evening (Tuesday) saw me join a friend from 50 years ago, Alison Dunn, at her retirement party in the splendid Humble Grape wine bar off Fleet Street – a great choice as that’s where we first knew each other when she worked on Education and Training magazine with Barry Turner a long-standing writer and editor friend who did some consultancy work for me in my guise as an educational publisher back in the 70s. Tasked with speaking to everyone in the room – I only knew Ali – I did about 70% and what some fine famaily, friends and former colleagues she has.
Each year in November the British Bilingual Poetry Collective, of which I’m a trustee, runs an interactive poetry event as part of Tower Hamlets’ Season of Bangla Drama. So on Wednesday Shamim Azad, the founder, and I head off to see the coordinator of the festival Kazi Ruksana Begum to discuss plans schedules and the broad outline of this year’s event. The theme for 2025 is ‘Kindness’ and we’ll be switching our focus from Rabindranath Tagore to the national poet of Bangladesh Kazi Nazrul Islam in a session with the title Kindness with Kazi.
< Last years’ poster
The evening brings the last concert I’ll see in the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment’s Southbank season. It’s an old favourite but like you’ve never heard it before. Elgar’s Enigma Variations must be one of the most played pieces in the repertoire with ‘Nimrod’ known in many different forms. However, the OAE presents ‘ historically informed’ performances so to hear the music played on gut strings, wooden not metal flutes, French not German bassoons made it sound completely fresh. Quite possibly how Elgar himself would have heard it. The variations formed the second half of the concert. Before the interval we heard his lively concert overture In the South written while he was in southern Italy and reflecting the sounds and landscape of the country. The mezzo Frances Gregory then performed five of Elgar’s Sea Pictures with great sensitivity and bursts of power to soar above the rich orchestral tones. the Portuguese conducter Dinis Sousa made his debut with the OAE and clearly developed a great rapport with them. He’s the principal conducter of the Royal Northern Sinfonia based a the Glasshouse in Gateshead and looks a fine prospect.
I remember a lot of excitement around Patrick Marber’s Dealer’s Choice back in 1997 in the confines of the Cottesloe theatre at the National and I enjoyed it very much at the time. I was looking forward to this revival in the similarly contrained arena of the Donmar and it didn’t disappoint, mainly thanks to a brilliant performance from Hammed Animashaun as Mugsy. The banter between the boys, the knowledge that he’s going to lose and his dream of opening a restaurant in a disused toilet in Bow infuse the whole play which has a spectacular set transformation that’s worth the ticket alone. As with House of Games, I’m more than ever convinced I’m not cut out to be a gambler.
I should have gone to Garsington to see Tchaikovsky’s Queen of Spades on Friday. However my frequent opera comapnion Jadwiga was unwell and I couldn’t find a replacement at short notice. The brilliant box office have moved my booking to 21 June and we’ll be seeing Handel’s Rodelinda instead.
My next musical outing was on Sunday 8 June when I went to a new venue for me – Charterhouse. It was a concert organised by the Barbican as part of the European Concert Hall Organisation’s (ECHO) rising stars programme. It was a recital for trumpet and piano and featured a premiere piece Continuum by my friend Dani Howard. Dani had worked with the trumpet player Matilda Lloyd to create the piece. As Matilda said in her intro “It started with an icecream on the beach”. Knowing Dani’s large orchestral works, her opera and hearing her percussion composition for Colin Currie last month, it confirmed – if it needed it – her versatility and gift for melody and creating atmospheres. Matilda and her pianist Jonathan Ware had played this piece 18 times as they toured the European concert halls who form the ECHO with this one being the last. They all kindly invited me to join them for tea and cake or a beer after the concert so it was altogether a super Sunday afternoon.
CharterhouseThe composer takes a bowDani, Matilda and Jonathan
As a special offer if you’d booked a Barbican ticket you could see the Encounters exhibition for a fiver, so I did. This was in a small gallery on floor 2 and featured the contrasting works of Giacometti, with whom I was familiar, and Huma Bhabha who I didn’t know at all. Huma was born in Pakaistan but is now based in upstate New York. Her monumental works which incorporate found materials contrast with the elegant skinny figures of Giacometti. I know which ones i’d like to own but it was an interesting hour contemplating differeing approaches to making sculptures.
The Encounters exhibition at the Barbican
Continuing with our catholic cultural chase, my next visit was to Sadler’s Wells with my daughter Jo to see Mathew Bourne’s The Midnight Bell . This was a belated birthday outing for Jo and we had a fine early supper in Moro before making our way through the heaving Exmouth Market up Rosebery Avenue. What are all these people doing out on a Tuesday? The ballet is set in sleazy Soho in the 30 where the eponymus pub is host to prostitutes, closeted illegal gays, a lovestruck barman and various other denizens of nighttime London. There were duets, larger ensemble pieces, the most amazing and fluent set changes and original music blended with ballads from the era sung with original vinyl hiss and crackle, endless style and commitment by booming baritones. We both enjoyed it a lot and chatted about it as we made our way back to Farringdon for trains back home. It’s good to enjoy your daughter’s birthday treat too!
Yoshitomo Nara is an artist I’d seen a little of and so off I went to the Hayward Gallery to see what must be one of his biggest ever shows outside Japan with over 150 works displayed. He’s the epitome of Japanese kawaii kitsch but with a twist – those sweet faced Hello Kitty style children’s faces contain messages of disquiet, protest and fear. Nara is very political in his work and repeats themes throughout his long career which the exhibition spans. There are installation – a ramshackle shed, a teacup fountain, paintings, drawings and sculptures spread over the whole expanse of the Hayward. It was fascinating to start with but there’s just too much to see and too much repetition of the themes that are dear to him. I’m glad I went however and got to have a chat with a film crew shooting it for The Sunday Times.
There was a double challenge getting from the gallery to my dinner with friends in Soho. First I had to navigate the waterfall and fountains on the walkway. They were fun – a cascade from the level above, water pouring from a waist and a green figure with a fountain for a head. Then I had to make my way across the Hungerford footbridge the scene of my disastrous fall last May. I managed both and had a great evening. I’ve been a fan of Nubya Garcia the young British saxophonist for a long time and managed to pop into the Queen Elizabeth Hall to get one of the last few tickets for her gig there next Thursday. It’s part of Little Simz’ Meltdown Festival which sounded a bit youth for me but I do like Nubya’s music so I bought one
The warm up band, Oreglo were a quartet of keyboard, drums, guitar and tuba – the latter becoming an instrument of choice it seems since Theon Cross in Sons of Kemet and other of the new groups that have arisen from Tomorrow’s Warriors – also a training ground for Nubya which she graciously acknowledged in her concert introductions. Oreglo were full of life and energy in a field that spanned jazz and prog rock and were an adequate preparation for the main event.
I was very surprised to see the band walk on stage Sam Jones headed for the drum kit but that doesn’t look like Daniel Casimir and that is certainly not Joe Armon jones at the keyboards. Nubya then followed in a huge-skirted off the shoulder gown and later introduced Lyle Barton at the keys and Max Luthert on bass. It’s a tribute to the quality of musicianship that you didn’t notice the personnel changes – yes the solos might have been a bit different but they fitted the music, mostly from the latest album Odyssey. She proudly announced that she had done all the arrangements for the strings that are on the album herself – taking her out of her comfort zone to make the sounds she wanted to hear. She also apologized for the lack of a string section tonight but had rearranged the songs for this concert. I am so glad I bought that ticket. The album is great and different but her live performances and those of these superb players were electrifying. She even did a walkabout through the audience with the final song from the album ‘Triumphance’ with its spoken word lyrics of life enhancing advice about resilience, tolerance and collective power. Nubya is true talent at the height of her own powers who received a standing ovation from the packed QEH audience which did include a few other people of my generation as well as all the meltdown youth.
After another visit to the Union Club, this time for lunch with a friend, we set off in the evening to enjoy The Taming of the Shrew in Tredegar Square in Mile End performed by a group called Shakespeare in the Squares. They perform an adapted version of one of the bard’s plays – different each year – in squares across London. I think it was 18 this year. The production includes songs for the audience to sing along with, some high quality acting and projection against traffic and aircraft and other ambient noise. And not only do they speak Shakespeare’s words eloquently they also play instruments and sing. We were lucky that it was a beautiful sunny pre-solstice evening and it was hugely enjoyable. I’ll try another venue next year.
The Taming of the Shrew in Tredegar SquareOur close up viewThe cast take a bow
More music on Sunday when my son was singing with the choir Pegasus and the Outcry Ensemble at St John’s Smith Square. Two fanfares opened the evening the familiar Copland’s Common Man and Joan Tower’s Uncommon Woman which I didn’t know and then a Britten choral work which I’d never heard ‘Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam’ which was, I’m told, very hard to sing but was a great listen with six differently styled sections setting the words of Gerard Manley Hopkins for unaccompanied voices. I had a good catch up with Tom in the interval and then enjoyed Britten’s Variations on a theme of Frank Bridge and Leonard Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms where the countertenor soloist was none other than Hugh Cutting who had been at Garsington the night before. I was able to tell him how much we’d enjoyed Rodelinda and his performance tonight. He too enjoyed the production at Garsington and thought it worked well, especially the dancers.
The Outcry Ensemble and Pegasus Choir at St John’s Smith Square
Three plays this week featured real life events dramatised by outstanding writers. At the Royal Court Manhunt written and directed by Robert Icke recreated the events of 2010 which saw the nation’s longest search for the fugitive murderer Roaul Moat. The play examined Moat’s mental state, childhood, failed relationship and his conviction that Northumberland Police had it in for him. The dramatic opening with an overhead camera projecting Moat’s pacing in his prison cell set the tone for a psychological and emotional thriller. In the lead role Samuel Edward-Cook was all muscle, repressed violence and angst in an outstanding piece of acting. Multiple-character supporting roles made for a fascinating examination of the factors contributing to his undoubted guilt. I remember the events clearly as I was held up on the way to a shoot by closed roads around Rothbury where he was finally caught. There was a post show talk in which an interesting aspect discussed was whether there was at the time a north south divide where, in the south, he was regarded as something of a hero for evading arrest for so long – seven days, in contrast to the north where he posed a real threat. Lots of food for thought.
Manhunt at the Royal CourtThe Punch at the Young Vic
Another favourite playwright, James Graham, featured an event from his native Nottingham. His The Punch at the Young Vic dramatised the cause and effects of a notorious one-punch death in 2011. Convicted of manslaughter and having served his sentence, Jacob Dunne was one of the first to experience restorative justice on his release from prison and it was the series of meetings between him and the victim’s parents that formed the core of this moving and enlightening evening. Directed by Adam Penfold the play was originally seen in Nottingham and transferred to the Young Vic with the same outstanding cast with once again a truly memorable central performance from David Shields as Jacob supported by a fine group of multi-character actors among whom I would single out the wonderful Julie Hesmondhalgh as, among others, the victim’s mother and campaigner for restorative justice. Her dancing is worth the modest ticket price.
I went to a completely new venue on Saturday – the Morocco Bound Bookshop and Café in Bermondsey – it’s name alone took me back to my early career in publishing where I knew about, but sadly never had the opportunity, to lavish a Morocco Binding on any of the books I produced. It looks to be a lively place with poetry open mic nights, jazz gigs, a book club and more. My visit was for the launch of a poetry anthology which contained a poem by my friend and British Bilingual Poetry Collective founder Shamim Azad. Published by a magazine ‘The Other Side of Hope‘ Other Tongue Mother Tongue contains twenty poems on themes of immigration in eighteen languages. Given BBPC’s experience with Translation Circles, this was obviously an event not to be missed. Shamim read her poem to open the event and then closed it with a rhythmical Bengali poem that had the audience all clapping along.
Monday morning had a musical start with a trip to the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment’s base in Acland Burghley School in Tufnell Park. This was a Friends’ opportunity to observe 100 teenagers from ABS and Swiss Cottage School rehearsing for a performance at the Albert Hall on Wednesday as part of Camden Schools Music Festival. The OAE’s education director Cherry Forbes was at the heart of proceedings with music director James Redwood. It was fun, engaging and again encouraging to see so many young people enjoying the opportunity to sing and make music together. And it’s always a delight to be in the fabulous hexagonal Brutalist hall.
Tuesday saw me set off to the Romanian Cultural Institute in Belgravia for an evening of music performed by Romanian soprano Madalena Stan and pianist Lidia Butnariu. It’s in one of those magnificent houses in Belgrave Square. I went with my friend Daniela Tifui, who is of course Romanian, and she enjoyed her first visit to the Cultural Institute, the music and the chance to meet new people and speak in her first language. The concert had a number of popular opera arias, some Gershwin and a world premiere of a song specially compsed by Calin Huma who has been an envoy to the UK but is now about to transfer to Italy, combing music composition with his consular responsibilities to very good effect. There was a glass of wine afterwards and an opportunity to chat with Madalena and Lidia and other interesting people who regularly attend these events. And if Saturday gave me a throwback to my publishing days, today was back to my early days of filming as the piano was lit by a redhead – a rarity these days when most lighting is done with LED panels.
Madalena with a rose for Gershwin’s The Man i love (and the redhead)Celan the composer and LidiaDaniela and me after the concertLidia and Madalena taking a bow
A third play based on real life completes my week. Ben and Imo by Mark Ravenhill was first seen at the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford but is now relocated and adapted to the intimate space of the Orange Tree in Richmond. Directed by Erica Whyman, It covers the fiery, feisty, often fraught relationship between Imogen Holst and Benjamin Britten in the period before his opera Gloriana was to be staged in a gala performance to celebrate the coronation of Elizabeth II in 1953. The powerful two-hander with Samuel Barnett and Victoria Yeates covers immense issues like the creative process, ownership of ideas, state funding of the arts and personal relationships during a period of intense work in which Imo’s role and remuneration were never adequately discussed, so trust, credit, job description and accountability were always tiptoeing or slipping on the shifting pebbles of the beach at Aldeburgh.
Imo’s dance demonstrations were a highlight as indeed were the musical elements woven into the script – Britten, Dowland, Wagner et al – all played by Connor Fogel. The evening was enhanced by a Q&A with Mark Ravenhill and Orange Tree’s Creative Director Tom Littler. Mark was delighted to have approval of his version of events from two singers in the audience who had worked with both Ben and Imo on his operas and her community projects.
One key element for me was how the very talented Imogen Holst subjugated her own creativity to serve first her father Gustav, and then Britten. I was impressed by the archive of her papers at the Red House where Britten lived with Peter Pears which is well worth a visit. Dee and I went in 2016. Writer Leah Broad who has pioneered the restoration of female composers in her book Quartet commented elsewhere on Imo: ‘few musicians have had such a wide-ranging impact on music in the UK as Imogen Holst, having turned her hand to everything from composition to conducting, teaching, public speaking, musicology, concert organising and musical administration. The full legacy of her work has yet to fully be understood – but as a composer, at least, new recordings and publications are paving the way for her to emerge from the combined shadows of Britten and Gustav Holst, and to receive the acclaim that her own modesty never allowed her to pursue.’
On Monday I went with Frances to see Eugene Ionesco’s Rhinoceros at the Almeida Theatre. I’d read this in French as part of my studies at UCL back in the 60s, when we’d complained that the reading list was too classical and old-French oriented. The Theatre of the Absurd struck a chord with the young and foolish me and I even directed a production of fellow-absurdist Alfred Jarry’s Ubu sur la Butte in the Lycee Francais annual drama compettiton for London college French departments. We got the best actor award. The core of Rhinoceros was still there with its warning about totalitarianism embodied in the metaphor of the residents of a small town in France turning into rhinoceroses. But the adaptation with audience participation conducted by Paul Hunter though elaborate hand gestures and claps and rhinoceros roars with kazoos made it a very different spectacle. Translated and directed by Omar Elerian – he also did a great version of Ionesco’s The Chairs here a couple of years back – it incorporated humour, menace, slapstick and some cod metaphysical discussions and an interpolated song sequence in Italian by love-object Daisy sung brilliantly by Anoushka Lucas with back projected slogan “What do you want meaning for?” The playing for laughs may have detracted a little from Ionesco’s warnings of extremism but it was a fun night in the theatre.
Anoushka Lucas as Daisy and Sope Dirisu as Berenger in Rhinoceros.
Imagine my shock on Tuesday morning when The Guardian had the following headline. I had to send it to warn Frances in case they’d escaped from the theatre and were invading Islington and Tufnell Park.
Life really does imitate art
I’d been meaning to go to the Dulwich Picture Gallery to see the Tirzah Garwood exhibition for some time and now I had a chance. As with so many women artists I knew of her mainly as the wife of Eric Ravilious whose work I had always liked. Their artist enclave at Great Bardfield in Essex with Edward and Charlotte Bawden is well documented but I was delighted to find out more about Tirzah who admitted that managing the family and the household had interfered with her own artistic development.
And what an artist she was in so many media and despite all the household wrangling! She started out as a talented maker of woodcuts – and many know of my love of a print – and with Charlotte Bawden she established a reputation for marbling paper – all the rage for lampshades and book endpapers in the pre-war years. The exhibition features embrodery, a quilt, wood engravings and some model village collages in box frames which were inventive and charming. Finally she was able to turn to oil painting at which she adopted a somewhat naive style with surprising elements like the trees in the Photo Shoot below made with prints from gathered leaves. It’s well worth a visit and is on till 26 May. It’s also very funny – she obviously had a great sense of humour. That’s her in the train compartment.
Huge variety of textures in a woodblock printBaker’s shop box collageThe photo shoot with leaf prints
Thursday evening sees me join Frances again, this time at the Kiln Theatre in Kilburn to see Shanghai Dolls a new play by Amy Ng. The dolls of the title are two influential characters in Chinese history: Jiang Qing who as Mme Mao is generally regarded as the architect of the disastrous Cultural Revolution; and Sun Weishi who was the adopted daughter of Mao’s arch rival Chou En Lai and became China’s first female theatre director. Before the play we were able to introduce a friend who has recently moved to the area and her daughters to the Kiln which we hope will become a useful cultural hub for them – teenage eyes widened at the thought of £5 cinema tickets! I enjoyed the play very much despite some slightly melodramatic delivery from time to time., But it brought back some distant memories. I was in China in 1981 as part of a lecture and workshop visit when I worked for the Inner London Education Authority. This was five years after the end of the Cultural Revolution but we saw the effect it had had on artists with hands wrecked by rural toil, writers’ spirits broken through lack of books. Several people – including our interpreter Sho-jian asking if I could marry her so she could get out of China – were adamant that the movement had been an utter failure, but were still not willing to talk about it openly, only when we found quiet unmonitored corners.
People were keen to practice their English with us in Beijing in 1981
I had tickets for a Wigmore Hall concert on Saturday but thanks to a recommendation from Frances I went first of all to the Royal Academy of Arts to see the Brasil! Brasil! The Birth of Modernism exhibition. Good call Fran! The last time a major exhibition of Brazilian art was held in London was at the RA in 1944 – I didn’t go as I was one. The show featured ten different artists who had had an influence on mid twentieth century art movements in Brazil. Sadly it closes on 21 April but you can get a flavour here. Many of the artists had studied in Europe but most had a very distinctive local feel featuring indigenous characters and local traditions. Given that some of our friends are members of Morris sides, I liked the Brazilian equivalent.
Lasar Segal Boy with geckoCândido Portinari Coffee Plantation worker Flavio de Carvalho Portrait of Murilo Mendes Djanira da Motta e Silva Marrapaia Dance, Pariti
With time in hand I sauntered up Bond Street towards the Wigmore Hall and with sunny skies, warm weather I looked up and saw something i’d never noticed before. On the Time-Life Building half way up is a screen by Henry Moore from 1952. It’s appaerntly a very rare example of work of this kind in that he could sculpt both sides. I’ve walked along Bond Street many times but to my shame had never noticed it before.
And when I turned round from snapping one surprise, I got another. The Halcyon Gallery where I recently reported my surprise at Bob Dylan’s paintings, there’s a superb array of Hockney works on paper. These range from the early lithographs of Celia Birtwell and Californian pools to recent iPad drawings in Yorkshire and Normandy. I need to win the lottery before I can go back as a customer but the staff are most obliging and informative if you just want to look. Then it was time to make for the original target of today’s outing after some unexpected delights along the way.
I met a young music composition student Zyggy de Somogyi a couple of years ago at a weekend in Oborne in Dorset and we’ve remained in touch. Indeed I asked Zyggy to write the music tracks for the series of videos we made to celebrate 100 Years at Vicarage Road for Watford Football Club in 2022. Basing his work on some fan chants I sent he matched the predominant sounds of the decades – ragtime, swing etc to drive the narratives along. I’m here today to listen to the world premieres of two of his works commissioned by the Royal Philharmonic Society Composers Programme which gives young musiciians space to develop. Ten years ago Dani Howard was on the same programme and I met her at the same weekend in Dorset – small world.
Zyggy introducing the first work Music for the quarter life crisis Etude for synth. This was a solo work for Xiaowen Shang. It opened with dramatic synthesiser notes and segued into lyrical passages. Then recurring motifs transferred from the synth to an almost orchestral piano sequence. The playing was emotionally powerful and was rapturously received by a fair sized audience for Easter Saturday at lunch time for an all contemporary music gig.
Other pieces were a new work by Ashkan Layegh, a trio by Lowell Lieberman that showed off the skills of the group Temporal Harmonies Inc – Xiaowen on piano, Lydia Walquist on flute and Mikolaj Piszczorowicz on the cello, followed by Caroline Shaw’s wonderful In manus tuas is based on a motet by Thomas Tallis arranged for solo cello and Kaija Saariaho’s Mirrors for flute and cello. The concluding work was Zyggy’s second premiere IN THE EVENT THAT YOU STAY, This was written with the trio in mind and indeed with their collaboration. It’s in four movements which included drama, bombast, a peaceful second movement, a sense of progression and a finale which featured soft vocalising chanting of the title and eventually all members singing. It brought a lump to the throat. I was a very impressive work and I hope it enters the repertoire of contemporary chamber music.
Lydia, Xiaowen, Mikolaj, Zyggy and Ashkan taking a bow
I had a chance to meet with all the musicians in, and outside the Cock and Lion pub as well as several members of Zyggy’s family. His mum said she was pleasantly surprised with his compositions because there were tunes in his pieces which she thought he’d had knocked out of him at uni. “He used to write tunes,” she said “and then he didn’t.” There certainly were tunes and they were very professionally played. It was a real pleasure to listen to andf then spend time with these talented young musicians. Cuts notwithstanding, there’s great stuff going on out there.
Monday sees me off to the Hampstead Theatre to join Frances for the press night of John Donelly’s new play Apex Predator. It’s directed by Blanche McIntyre who did Tom Stoppard’s The Invention of Love so brilliantly earlier this year so expectation was high. First sight of the auditorium was of a domestic kitchen-diner surrounded by towering scaffolding – well most of London is still work in progress – and rice paper screens that rise and fall to signal scene changes.
At the start, with exhausted new mum Mia rocking her young baby girl Isla who won’t sleep, I thought we were in for an update on Look Back in Anger or other kitchen sink dramas. Sophie Melville plays Mia very intelligently veering from utterly broken, unable-to-cope mother to a raging harridan when castigating her often absent on secretive IT-based police work husband Joe (Bryan Dick). Their elder son Alfie is being bullied at school and Mia’s encounter with teacher Ana, played by Laura Whitmore – a splendid mix of smooth confidante, encourager of excess and vengeful destroyer – is all friendly deviousness. The cast is completed by Leander Deeny who plays Aggressive Commuter, Park Flasher, Oopulent Womaniser and Vampire Victim. Because yes, into the domestic scenario comes vampirism in a fabulous coup de theatre at the end of act one. Blanche later confided that victim Leander had arrived at the first read through announcing himself: “I’m lunch”!
Under Blanche McIntyre’s direction, aided by dramatic sound, set and lighting design there are plenty of moments of high drama but also some very funny lines and situation comedy that kept the audience gripped. There are perhaps too many elements covered in the play but as a metaphor for greed and exploitation and increasing levels of unchecked violence the vampirism works well. It also expresses our fears for the future of the world we are just about clinging on to – an aspect highlighted in Alfie’s (played very subtly throughout by Callum Knowelden) school presentation. My immediate post show WhatsApp to a friend still stands: On train on way home – exhilarating, scary, brilliantly directed (as I was able to tell Blanche), full of familiar anxieties and I will be very careful shaving tomorrow.
The OAE choir and the RFH organ in all its splendour.
Thursday evening is spent at the Royal Festival Hall for a performance of Bach’s St Matthew Passion by the Orchestra and Choir of the Age of Enlightenment. It was preceded by a talk with CEO Crispin Woodhead, leader Kati Debretzeni and singer Amy Wood. The discussion was enlightening (sorry) in showing how performers find something new in a very familiar work, how conductor-led and self directed performances differ and the panel pointed out various elements to listen out for. Not least the fact that the opening sung word of Part Twp lasts for a full fourteen beats. The word? Ach. (Ah).
The mass is a piece I’ve heard in several guises over the years and the story is familiar. After all I spent a long while in Israel back in 1992 producing a photographic The Bible Alive for Harper Collins publishers with photographer Tony May. Budget and logistics meant we could only use twelve extras so while the cruxifixion wasn’t too challenging we had fun with the wedding at Canaan and the feeding the five thousand spreads. And only affording to hire three camels made the Magi caravan cover spread a logistical nightmare with multiple walkie talkies across the hills. All this in the early days of image manipluation – years before Photoshop was developed, we used mostly the Quantel Paintbox.
The balanced forces of the OAE in two orchestras, the excellent soloists and a dynamic approach from Jonathan Cohen gave the mass a wonderful clarity and strong narrative sense. There were many highlights but for me probably ‘Erbarme dich’ (Have mercy) with the outstanding countertenor/alto Iestyn Davies interacting with Huw Daniel’s violin with muted string underscore was the pinnacle – suffering, compassion and humility all in a few bars of exquisite music.
It was altogether a wonderful evening in a hall with consummate musicians enjoying what they do best. At the end there was a stunned and respectful silence before an outbreak of rapturous applause and many recalls for bows from the soloists and Jonathan Cohen.
Theatre, music and now literature. Saturday saw me head off to Ramsgate for the launch of my friends Anna Błasiak and Lisa Kalloo’s latest book of poems and photographs – largely about growing up gay in Poland in the latter decades of the last century. But I was also able to take in some new areas of this fascinating town after having to be rescued by Anna after not reading the poster properly and going to the wrong (derelict) venue.
Liverpool Lawn terrace, end house and a seafront bus shelter and Spencer Square where Van Gogh lodged in 1876, some of the interesting architecture of Ramsgate
There are a number of ‘Lawns’ around Ramsgate – Anna and Lisa live in one too – and very elegant they are with their Georgian frontages and curved construction to enhance sea views. But now to the real purpose – the launch of Deliverance/Rozpetanie Anna and Lisa’s second collaboration in a volume of poems and photographs. It’s bilingual in Polish and English, often as you can see in the poems featured below in alternate phrases and sentences which produces a wholly different reading experience from the more conventional parallel text treatment. You can buy it here and it’s an emotional roller coaster with horrific stories of prejudice but lots of humour too and it is complemented by Lisa’s haunting photographs. Anna was interviewed about her work and read several of the poems to a thoroughly engaged audience.
Many of the photographs from the book were displayed in the gallery too and some of the concrete poems. I met a lot of new and interesting people and was able to pay for my overnight hospitality by assuming the duties of ‘wine pourer’ – well some things just come naturally.
On Sunday I had the great privilege of attending the rehearsal for the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment’s Das Jahr concert at the Queen Elizabeth Hall. Friends were invited to take coffee and cake in the Artist’s Bar at 13:00. So it was with great excitement that I entered as instructed through the Artists’ Entrance – this feels special already. Familiar faces were around, coffee was fine but the promised cake did not materialise. One of the familiar faces was composer Electra Perivolaris who I’d met a couple of weeks before at the OAE Season Launch. We had a chat about the piece of her’s that was being rehearsed and played today and it was soon time to enter the hall for the rehearsal to begin. I knew one of the other composers Roxanna Panufnik who I remembered from a previous occasion gives up chocolate for Lent. When I reminded her of this: “Ah,” she said, “but I’m a Catholic and today’s Sunday so we don’t have to fast!” She then introduced me to the other two composers Errolyn Wallen, appointed Master of the King’s Music in August last year, and Freya Waley-Cohen. I sat behind the four as they discussed each other’s work, prepared comments for the conductor and orchestra members. Seeing a cheeky thumbs up between Electra and tympanist Adrian Bending when a suggestion came good was fun to see. Watching them enhance the playing of their compositions was (sorry) enlightening. I’ve given lots of notes to actors and seen performances change for the better but in this new context it was exciting – literally in one instance when a segment of Freya’s piece was played for a third time with different intensity and I got goosebumps. I’m now a total women composer groupie!
Freya Waley-Cohen giving notes to the orchestra.The four composers having a laugh (l-r Errolyn, Freya with her back to me, Roxanna, Electra).
After the rehearsal concluded to everyone’s satisfaction, there was a break and then the composers joined Max Mandel (principal viola and artistic co-ordinator of the project) for a talk about Fanny Mendelssohn’s piano cycle and how it had inspired the four composers to write their own compositions. They also spoke of the challenges of writing for historically accurate period instruments.
Then it was off to the bar and a chance to catch up with more OAE regulars and to be joined by Frances for the concert itself. This consisted of several of Fanny’s original months from the cycle played brilliantly by Olga Pashchenko on an 1831 Erard piano similar to an instrument Fanny would have used. We also heard the only full orchestral composition she completed – it was an era when it wasn’t seemly for women to write for orchestras – the Overture in C major. It’s a shame she didn’t do more. Conducted enthusiastically by Natalia Ponomarchuk, the overture moved from haunting horn figures through strings and wind sections with strong melodies and frequent lively arpeggios that showed a mastery of composing for an orchestra. The three pieces by Electra (March), Errolyn (April) – as it happens their own birth months too – and Freya (After June) followed. The subtleties and reflexions of Fanny’s work became more apparent on this second hearing and I hope they’ll get many more outings which all three fully deserve. The second half of the programme started with Olga playing the summer months and then four principals from the OAE played a romanze from Fanny’s String Quartet in E flat major which again showed what an underrated, supressed compser she was. The word is that she was a far superior pianist than her younger brother Felix but wasn’t allowed to perform. The finale was Roxanna Panufnik’s piece Postlude inspired by the thirteenth section which Fanny had added to the year. It had witty echoes of Fanny’s own work and a rhythmic pulse which drove it along. There were minimalist passages and areas that fully exploited the orchestra’s capabilities – I really enjoyed it. Natalia Ponomarchuk brought both enthusiasm and precision to the whole concert.
Olga Paschenko and Natalia Ponomarchuk take a bow with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment.
After a feast of music old and new it was time on to theatre new and slightly older. Monday was The Habits at Hampstead Theatre downstairs. It’s a first play by award-winning director Max Bradfield. It is set in a boardgame café in Bromley – very close to home! The action unfolds through a (to me) baffling game of Dungeons and Dragons (my son and grandson both play) and through the moments out of D&D character we learn of the participants’ real lives encompassing ambition, grief, addiction, fecklessness and perhaps love. It’s brilliantly acted with switches in and out of role done most skilfully and there are lots of laughs and some fabulous dressing up for the finale.
Ruby Stokes as Jess with her dragon in The Habits at Hampstead.
Across town to the Orange Tree in Richmond on Tuesday to revel in April de Angelis’s Playhouse Creatures. Written in 1993 and set in the 1660s when theatres were just opening up again after the Cromwell interregnum had closed down all forms of pleasure. It’s a period I was familiar with having done lots of research for a series of blogs and a script I wrote for Clive Myrie to present at the OAE’s concert of Restoration Music in 2021 when theatres and concert halls here were just opening again after the Covid lockdowns. In London theatre in 1660 there was a real sensation – women were allowed to appear on stage and took to it with gusto if Ms de Angelis is to be believed.
Some of the girl power here could have benefitted poor Fanny Mendelssohn a couple of centuries later. Funny, informative about acting craft in the Restoration period and with insights into the struggle for fair pay, the roles of women in those times both on and off stage, the play gives us plenty to think about that resonate in these uncertain times for actors and musicians as theatres try to recover from the lockdowns. It’s bawdy and brash and gives you plenty of belly laughs with a few winces of agonised reality thrown in.
The cast led by Anna Chancellor as Mrs Betterton – wife of theatre owner Thomas – are all excellent bringing depth to the on and off-stage characters they portray: Katherine Kingsley as sweary men-baiting Mrs Marshall; Dona Croll as Doll Common the drudge with attitude; Nicole Sawyerr pained at being supplanted as the King’s mistress by the younger version in the form of Nell Gwyn played with increasing assurance by Zoe Brough (that’s the character not Zoe’s performance).
Wednesday evening saw me again as a music groupie but also a grandad. Grandson Jake was playing his cello in the Royal Holloway Symphony Orchestra in a programme that included Felix Mendelssohn’s Hebrides Overture, Holst’s Planets Suite and the Trombone Concerto by Dani Howard who I’ve been honoured to call a friend and whose music in the Casa Battló in Barcelona I wrote about a few years back. I also attended the London premiere of the Trombone Concerto at the Barbican so was interested to hear how it sounded here. I had picked up my son-in-law (daughter at work sadly) and driven into a full, low, thoroughly disconcerting, huge red setting sun through Surrey lanes towards the M25 which was relatively free-flowing and we arrived at the magnificent Royal Holloway in time to grab a sandwich in the well-appointed campus shop. I remembered making a promotional recruitment video for RHU back in the 80s when I did a whole slew of such videos for KIng’s College London, Guy’s and St Thomas’s Medical and Dental Schools, Imperial College, Felsted and Harrow Schools. The Royal Holloway shoot was special as we had access to a helicopter to fly over the campus for the money shots – and also for the estates director to see close up footage of any necessary roof repairs!
Royal Holloway University Founder’s Building from the airThe Windsor Building where the concert was held
Who ever designed the auditorium clearly never expected 100 performers to be occupyingo the stage. People in the front row seats were in danger of injury during the longer slide extensions of the solo trombone. What was wonderful was to see so many young people being encouraged with whoops and whistles from their mates to entertain us with a programme of classical music. The players responded well. The Mendelssohn was a bit shaky to start but soon found its stride. Dani Howard’s trombone concerto was given an excellent reading under orchestral music director of the university Rebecca Miller with Amelia Lewis in fine command of the complex trombone parts.
Amelia Lewis, Rebecca Miller and about half the orchestra at Royal Holloway Windsor Auditorium.
After the interval the orchestra played Gustav Holst’s The Planets Suite and Chris and I – as well as being impressed by the massive forces deployed – reckoned that we very rarely heard all seven planets played together. The line-up included lesser-spotted bass versions of flute, oboe, clarinet and trombone and impressive percussion arrays. There was enthusiasm, energy and considerable musicality in the performance and it gladdens the heart to hear music of such quality from a youthful university orchestra at a time when university finances are so threatened.
After a debrief with Jake and some of the other players we managed to negotiate the insane Junction 13 from the A30 onto the M25 and the never-ending roadworks at Junction 10 and made it back home in reasonable time despite several overheads warning us of “Workforce in the Carriageway”. We saw few.
The week started with a couple of weird happenstances – two very good friends of mine from way back in the seventies got in touch and we’ve arranged to meet and catch up. With five decades of life, love, marriages and deaths to discuss – it should be fun. A triumph for the connected world.
The sun came out and I got to do some much-needed gardening clearance, pruning and even some planting. I also had an evening at home during which I was able to watch the amazing Adolescence the Jack Thorne/Stephen Graham four part series on Netflix.
It’s a shame that British tv is in the state where to make a show of this brilliance and significance it has to be on a streamer. The message it conveys about incel inculcation seemingly by osmosis in teenage boys needs the widest possible audience to have the societal impact that Mr Bates had. As television it is magnificent with stand out performances from Stephen Graham (expected), Ashley Walters (playing totally against type) and Owen Cooper (staggering newcomer’s first role) with superb support from a fine cast. It follows the proven meme of ‘show don’t tell’ with director Philip Barrantini employing the fluid single-take camerawork that allows you to observe how this tragedy has come to pass. It’s not an easy watch because of the content and the fact that you are emotionally – almost physically – invested in every nuance. A triumph for filmaking and communicating essential information – would have been even greater had it been on the BBC or Channel 4.
Tuesday’s triumph was for honesty over spin. I was setting off on a train for a meeting at Watford Museum having judged the connections to help me get there on time. However the train from Lee to Charing Cross kept stopping and then running extremely slowly. Rather than the usual tannoy guff the driver came on and said: “I apologise for the extremely long time it has taken us to get into Charing Cross this morning . I’d like to explain why it has been so slow but I haven’t a clue”. I was late but we still had a good meeting helping sort out Watford FC and its charity, the Community Sports & Education Trust’s, presence in the new museum when it moves later this year.
Wednesday took me to St George’s Hanover Square to hear Handel’s Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno an oratorio he wrote in Rome in 1707 when he was 22. Beauty (Bellezza), struggles to reject the short-termist sensual temptations offered by Pleasure (Piacere) but receives wise and benevolent counsel from Time (Tempo) and Enlightenment (Disinganno). The title tells you who wins. It’s a wonderful score with lyrical arias, instrumental sequences favouring different sections of the orchestra and it was performed brilliantly by the Irish Baroque Orchestra directed by Peter Whelan from the harpsichord as part of the annual London Handel Festival.
It was sung by four exceptional soloists seen above taking their bows with Peter Whelan far left. Rowan Pierce, soprano, was the naive Beauty, Helen Charlston’s powerful mezzo offered seductive temptations as Pleasure which were countered by Jess Dandy, a contrasting mellow mezzo representing Enlightenment while James Way’s tenor called Time. Rowan, Helen and James were in the first group of ‘Rising Stars’ of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment which anyone has read previous blogs will know is my favourite ensemble. Their two-year programme serves as an apprenticeship for young professionals giving them the opportunity to perform with the orchestra in a wide variety of repertoire. It clearly works as these alumni were in super form.
In a week that started with weird happenstances, this evening continued the pattern. On the programme sheet I noticed that one of the violinists was called Jenna Raggett. Now my surname is not that common so I asked the orchestra manager if she would pass my card to Jenna. We had a chat after the concert and we were both delighted to meet each other. Jenna said “I’ve never met another Raggett” and was going to share the news with her parents and we’ll hopefully keep in touch. I wasn’t aware of any Irish connection so research is needed into clan Raggett.
During the time I got home from the Trionfo concert and when I went out to my car mid morning on Thursday, it had been broken into and the battery had drained as the radio was left on with no volume so it looks like deliberate vandalism as there was nothing stolen just a horrid mess to sort out and an annoyingly repetitive police report to file online.
The AA came and charged up the battery and I was able to make my planned journey to Bovingdon.
I was kindly invited to stay the night there after accompanying Frances, her sister Rose and her niece Amelia to the Annual Gala Dinner of the Watford Community Sports & Education Trust. As we left for Watford I was surprised to have a phone call from the police asking if there was any CCTV footage available or other evidence. I had to confirm that there wasn’t – I don’t pay to have my Ring doorbell record video (cheapskate!) – and asked whether I wanted to be referred to Victim Support. I thanked Irena for the offer but thought there were others more urgently in need of the service.
The Gala is a great occasion celebrating the charity work of the excellent organisation which is in itself a triumph at a time of shrinking budgets and donations. 17, 796 individuals have used it services or facilities in the last year providing a huge social benefit to the community in Hertfordshire and the London Borough of Harrow. It was a chance to catch up with friends, former and current players and to chat to the head coach Tom Cleverly who we’ve known since he came to Watford on loan as a seventeen-year-old when he sat on a table with Dee and me at that year’s end of season dinner with a leg in plaster and needing crutches to collect his player of the season award. It’s a delight to see him doing so well with limited resources.
Having a laugh with Adrian Mariappa while Moussa Sissoko and Nigel Gibbs look onTom Cleverly obliges France, Farzana and me with a selfie and a chat about his 17- year-old self.
So after all those wonderful outings and stimulated by some excellent cultural offerings (see other recent blogs) it’s a week to slow down a bit. Sunday saw me take a train to Southend to attend a volunteers day at The Jazz Centre UK where I’d been invited because the management team thought I might be able to contribute something to their publicity, marketing and social media plans. I think this was based largely on the fact that I designed and maintain the website of legendary tenor saxophone player Alan Skidmore and posted about his recent gig at the Centre. It was a lively series of discussions with lots of ideas being put forward but, as with so many charities, their execution will depend on funding being sought and secured.
The midweek gave me the pleasure of welcoming my friend Anna Blasiak – a Polish writer and translator – to Raggett Towers. We worked together at one of the British Bilingual Poetry Collective’s Translation Circles a couple of years back and became firm friends. Here she is explaining a nuance to Eeshita while I’m looking for the right words to convey it in English. She is one of the twelve poets featured in our anthology Home and Belonging published by Palewell Press last year.
And as well as buying me an excellent thank you breakfast before she left on Thursday, I have an invitation to the launch in Ramsgate in April of the latest book she has written with photographs by her wife Lisa Kalloo. I’m looking forward to that trip and spending more time with this creative and lovely couple. I’ve stayed with them before and exploring this increasinly arty town on the Kent coast is a real delight.
Thursday evening saw me joining Rosa and Hattie, Paola and Harry from the OAE at a Friends’ Outing to see The Score at the Theatre Royal Haymarket. I also met Nuria, a friend of Rosa, who was visiting London from Barcelona. She professed to have little English but we got by and she laughed in all the right places in the play.
And there were plenty of laughs in the story of deeply Christian J S Bach going to the court of deeply militarist Frederick the Great where JS’s son CPE is among the coterie of composers the king had collected around him. Cue high levels of competitiveness and entrenched positions.
Brian Cox’s performance was outstanding – grumpy, serene and authoritarian by turns – and it was good to see him on the stage with his wife, Nicole Ansari Cox ,for the first time since they did Tom Stoppard’s Rock and Roll together in 2006. As well as providing lots of camp melodrama, Oliver Cotton’s play led you to think about patronage, compromise, theology and materialism in a lively production by Trevor Nunn. The scenes where the Mr and Mrs Cox-Bachs were together were very touching.
Friday lunchtime took me to the Arcola Theater in Dalston for a rehearsed reading of a famous modern Japanese play newly translated into English. Multiple award winning Ai Nagai is celebrated in Japan for her plays that focus on social issues and this one is no exception – menopause, relationship breakups, jealousy, ageing and memory all feature. Translated by one of the actors in this reading Meg Kubota, the English version had us all laughing out loud on numerous occasions an sucking our teeth in shock at others. It’s called Women Who Want to Tidy Up and features three schoolfriends who have kept loosely in touch through to their fifties where one of them, Tsunko, has broken up with her much younger boyfriend and is not answering her friends’ calls, So they arrive to find the apartment on which Tsunko had spent a lot of money in a complete hoarder’s mess. Although it was a reading, the stage in my mind’s eye was strewn with black bin bags, cardboard boxes, clothes, newspapers and magazines and half empty food containers. It’s a designer’s delight when it gets the full production which it richly deserves. I hope through the good work of the Japan Foundation it does secure a full London staging – it is very funny and very thought-provoking about stuff. Marie Kondo’s shadow looms over it.
A post-reading Q&A with Ai Nagai, her interpreter, translator/actor Meg Kubota and director Ria Parry.
The end of the short month didn’t bring any let up in activity as March started with me being out every night of the week. And what a week of contrasts. In brief: Monday Kyoto at Sohoplace after visiting the Goya to Impressionism exhibition at the Courtauld. Exhibition brilliant with paintings never seen outside Switzerland and collector parallels between Oskar Reinhart and Samuel Courtauld – good to have been a fly-on-the-wall at their meeting.
The play Kyoto was scarily excellent showing the lies and horse-trading of the climate change summit brilliantly performed by a large ensemble cast in which we the audience were very much involved with some actually sitting at the huge debating chamber table.
Tuesday couldn’t be more different but equally poignant and dramatic. At The Royal Court A Knock on the Roof was a nearly ninety-minute monologue by writer Khawla Ibraheem in which she portrayed the horror of a mother in Gaza with a young child and an ageing mother rehearsing how she would react when the ‘knock’ of a non-explosive or small bomb hit the apartment block as a five-minute warning before the real bombs drop.
What do you take, how far can you run, what if you’re on the loo or in the shower? It depicted the horror so much more effectively than all the photographs of the rubble by giving this intensely personal version of life as a Palestinian. A phenomenal piece of work all round.
Wednesday saw my second visit to Sadler’s Wells East, this time to see Jasmin Vardimon’s Now a 25-year retrospective of her contemporary choreography. I had planned to go with friends Rosa and Hattie and was pleasantly surprised to be joined in the bar by Pete and Julie, friends from the Watford FC family.
The auditorium proved a wonderful venue, the dance was superb mixing humour, drama and sophistication in the most brilliant amalgam of on stage and projected performances. Stunningly brilliant – a great first show at the new venue followed by a fascinating and insightful Q&A. And we made it back to the station without getting lost or having to go through the horror that is Westfield.
Thursday saw me head for the Almeida in Islington to see Otherland a play about transitions – one gender, one pregnancy by Chris Bush. While there were moments that moved me, I found the songs intrusive and not musically interesting and the whole structure a bit of a mess but then maybe that was the point – trans life is not easy or straightforward.
The highest quality artistic experience was restored on Friday with a lunch time recital of their album Battle Cry – She Speaks by Helen Charlston – what a treat twice in a week – and Toby Carr with his lute. The ease with which they jump from seventeenth century Strozzi and Purcell to the new song cycle written for them by Owain Park was mesmeric. The concert was given to a full one o’clock Wigmore Hall audience and was ecstatically recieved as was the Barbara Strozzi encore.
I then went for a light Spanish lunch with my friend Jadwiga and then strolled down Bond Street to the Halcyon Gallery which was showing stunning photorealistic oils by Mitch Griffiths, highly stylised photographs by David LaChapelle and across the street a surprisingly impressive (God you’re a snob Raggett!) exhibition of paintings and drawings by Bob Dylan – Grammys. Nobel, Turner next? Then I went for a fine dinner at the Union Club with our niece Kate to round off a fortnight of conversations, culture and fun.
After my slightly odd Valentine’s weekend I plunged into a fortnight of amazing cultural activity. Keeping on keeping on will, I hope, hold dementia at bay. Another life motto has always been ‘Do it while you can’. I don’t usually write about this stuff but the blog is partly for me to reminisce with when I can get out anymore. So ignore if you just like my travels not my opinions.
So here’s how it all kept coming. Monday 17 February East is South at Hampstead Theatre courtesy of Frances’ patronage. Company, canapes, networking first class play not so much. It was a semi sci-fi thriller/Line of Duty style interrogation about data leaks from a world changing computer programme Logos. Written by Beau Willimon the creator of the US version of House of Cards, its subject matter was highly apposite with the march of AI. However it sometimes felt as if the script had been written by AI with strange diatribes, a virtually unused character and rather cliched and confusing flashbacks.
The next night made up for any disappointment. Following my previous exploration of Sadler’s Wells East Tuesday saw me heading for the Rosebery Avenue Sadler’s for Pina Bausch’s Vollmond. Need Es to lift your spirits? Well they were here aplenty! Entertaining, exquisite, energetic, enthralling. It was one of the last things Bausch choreographed and it a lot lighter in mood than some of her work.
We had dancers flirting, arguing, courting and conversing often soaked in torrential water flowing from the flies. I got talking in the interval to a couple of professional classical musicians – she harpist, he oboe – which was an interesting precursor to Wednesday. We all absolutely loved the performance and my only regret was that two friends who would have loved it couldn’t be with me.
Wednesday evening saw me accompanied by local resident Frances to the launch of the 2025-26 season of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment of which I’ve been a long-time supporter and occasional contributor of blogs, scripts and articles. It was help in the wonderful brutalist hexagonal hall of their home Acland Burghley School in Tufnell Park. Alongside the exciting reveal of Fantastic Symphonies to be played between October and March at the Southbank Centre and on tour, we were treated to a recital by the mezzo-soprano Helen Charlston accompanied on the harpsichord by Satako Doi-Luck. Helen benefitted from the OAE’s rising stars scheme and now has a stellar recital career covering baroque, classical and contemporary repertoire. However she will find it hard to stop being asked about singing Dido’s Lament backwards in an OAE video. Satako is part of Ensemble Moliere that specialises in exploring the world of Baroque music. I’ve been to a couple of their concerts too. But the plans for celebrating OAE’s 40th anniversary are exciting with the return of early supporter Sir Simon Rattle who contributed a splendid video interview to the evening, alongside many other familiar figures in OAE history. Check out the programme here and let me know if you fancy joining me to hear this fantastic group of players and lovely people.
I stayed home on Thursday and on Friday joined my friend Opu Islam at the launch of an exciting heritage project in the Bengali community in the East End. It’s an initiative from the Season of Bangla Drama to which the British Bilingual Poetry Collective (of which I am a gtrustee) contributes each year. There were discussions with producers and poetry recitals as well. It’ll be interesting to see the outcome in the 2026 festival.
What a treat on Saturday with Celia Imrie and Tamsin Greig both on stage at the Donmar Warehouse in Backstroke! Two superb actors trading mother daughter love and insults in equal measure in a fascinating if slightly baggy play. It made me wonder if writers are always the best people to direct their own work. Still a hugely enjoyable evening.
I woke on Sunday at 10:15 after finally falling asleep at six after a horrendous night with acute toothache. This was too late for me to get to Watford to see our arch rivals Luton beaten 2-0 some revenge for our defeat in the reverse fixture. It was on the telly and the house was filled with shouting best left on the terraces.
I’d arranged to visit a friend Nuala O’Sullivan on Monday afternoon before going to join Frances at the Orange Tree in Richmond. Nuala was a BBC World Service colleague back in 2009 and then co-wrote on of my ELT series with me in 2014-15, She has subsequently founded and runs the highly successful Women Over Fifty Film Festival so it was great to talk film, literature and life with her. Walthamstow to Richmond is not the most straightforward journey but I’m glad I made it. Frances had been invited to a special staging of the play in the hope (successful) of luring her back as a patron. At a reception we had an opportunity to talk with Tom Littler the artistic director of the Orange and also the director of the play we were about to see. Both very impressive.
I’ve long been a fan of Howard Brenton from the controversy over TheRomans in Britain back in 1980, through plays like Pravda at the National, The Arrest of Ai Wei Wei and Drawing the Line at Hampstead. This new work Churchill in Moscow in which two would-be world leaders slugged it out in negotiations could not be more timely. Dramatically it was frightening, funny and fascinating with wonderful supporting roles for the two interpreters who put their own palliative gloss on what Churchill and Stalin were saying to each other. In the compact space of the Orange Tree you really felt part of the action.
The rest of the week was calmer just on Thursday a pre-concert talk about and an electrifying performance of the Beethoven Violin Concerto with Vilde Frang and the Eroica Symphony in which Maxim Emelyanychev conducted the OAE in a rousing performance with no residual hint of Napoleon.
Then there was a trip to Watford as part of a consulting group helping plan the move of the Watford Museum from the old site in what was Benskin’s Brewery into the Town Hall later this year. Lots of interesting ideas with fellow supporters and friends. I also foolishly decided to have an occasional away-day trip to our game at Stoke on Saturday which proved beyond all doubt that we go for the people not the football – excruciatingly dull match – adjudged a bore draw by colleague Frances in her blog, but great beer and conversation.
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