Tricia Ninian

Blazing through July

My June ended with a BBPC Bimonthly Meetup and an hour of poetry performance at the Bangla Book Fair at the Brady Arts Centre in Hanbury Street on Sunday 28th. Our theme was Anti-War Poems and seven poets recited in Bengali, Spanish and English. It was a lively session and we received some positive feedback.

So while there’s some football happening in North and Central America which I am boycotting because I loathe Infantino and FIFA – don’t think I’ll be missing much – I have a feast of cricket to enjoy. And more specifically Womens’ Cricket. I’ve been a big fan of this aspect of cricket fuelled perhaps by the success of my home county Hampshire in various guises as Southern Vipers, Southern Brave and just Hampshire. I was lucky enough to be gifted a signed England Womens team shirt for my 80th birthday which hangs proudly on my office wall, thanks to a request from my son-in-law Chris to Charles Dagnall of the Sky and TMS teams.

So when England made it to the semi final of the ICC Womens’ T20 World Cup 2026, it was off to the Oval on 2 July to see England battle it out with South Africa for a place in Sunday’s Final. I was able to meet up with Chris and a producer friend of his Toby Welch who is exec producing on David Mitchell’s Ludwig. After a fine game of cricket we repaired to the Fentiman Arms to discuss cricket, TV and the world was a better place for our deliberations. England made it to the final and Jo had already booked final tickets many months ago so the whole Addison family set off for Lord’s where England were duly demolished by Australia who are still in a different league despite the odd blip, Sadly no blip today.

Then on Monday it was off to the Royal Court Theatre for The Archduke. Yes that one – “the shot that rang out around the world”. The assassination in Sarajevo that is reputed to have started World War I. Except this fascinating take on the story had a chilling resonance with the exploitation of the young and poor that drives the county lines today. Having previously seen Rajiv Joseph’s Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, I wasn’t expecting straight history. With many moments of hilarity it also posed serious questions about recruiting vulnerable people to carry out heinous tasks on your behalf – kamikaze pilots, jihadi martyrs spring to mind – history repeats itself with no regard for morality. The acting was superb through comedy and tragedy but Es Devlin’s set was the theatrical coup of the evening.

More politics on Tuesday with Springwood at Hampstead. This featured the 1939 meeting between King George VI and President Roosevelt to attempt to get the USA to support Britain in the looming Second World War. Robert Lindsay and Gemma Redgrave were POTUS and First Lady with Andrew Havill and Rebecca Knight as Bertie and Elizabeth.

Photograph: Tristram Kenton/The Guardian

It was again very resonant with modern times with Charles III having had to deal with tyrant Trump in the country’s interests. It was Richard Nelson’s third outing with the same material following a 2009 BBC radio play, the 2012 film Hyde Park on Hudson and now Springwood. It’s pretty static in action terms but very lively in mental gymnastics as the two country representatives try to exert pressure – Roosevelt with all the strength, George VI in a weak position of still owing the USA millions from the previous conflict. Robert Lindsay was excellent and Gemma Redgrave matched him but was perhaps a little underwritten.

A gap on Wednesday when a pub lunch trip to the Surrey Hills was cancelled when my oldest schoolfriend called to say he’d tripped awkwardly, broken his ankle and didn’t feel like socialising in a massive ankle boot.

Thursday saw me join Frances at the Donmar Warehouse for certainly the play of the week if not the play of the year. The Guilty by Chloë Moss is based on a Danish film from 2018. It’s getting to be a signature of the Donmar with recent productions Mass, Force Majeure and The Fear of 13 all stage adaptations of films. The Guilty stars Russell Tovey as Joe, a nightime police despatcher, suspended from active duties for reasons that are unclear at the outset. Tovey’s perfomance is outstanding as he struggles to cope with frequent ’emergency’ nuisance callers, real emergencies and his unravelling domestic life. It’s incredibly intense with some relief with humorous moments but the pace of the multiple calls and the several different storylines revealed in just over an hour is astonishing. There’s also a further staggering piece of theatre that I can’t reveal as the show is still running and we were handed a card on exit from the auditorium. It’s sold out but if you can beg or steal a ticket do so. It’s a masterpiece!

After that thrilling night of theatre it’s off to Lord’s again for a unique experience. The first womens’ Test Match is being held at the ground between England and India. Jo and Chris and I were soon joined by BBC Test Match Special statistician Andy Salzman who was enjoying a day off – just watching cricket for his own enjoyment. We saw a good day of proper white-clad cricket with India all out for 285 and England 21 for 1 at the close of play.

*50 England women cricketers gather at Lord’s for the first ever womens test match here*.

The day started with a historic parade of some 50 former England women cricketers among them the 85 year-old Enid Bakewell who, with help, rang the five-minute bell to get this long-overdue moment underway.

We then had to dash back to the Blackheath Halls where as last year’s winners, Soulstice, the band my grandaughter plays in, had to play a set while the judges deliberated on this year’s contestants. It was a rather sad occasion, possibly their last gig as they are all leaving school and going to different places for uni. They were still brilliant – even better actually – and I said I was going to book the O2 for their 20th reunion in 2046 – I might not be there to supervise. You can hear them on SoundCloud here.

On the Saturday, I’m due to pick up Jadwiga in Putney and take us to Garsington Opera to see Gerald Barry’s The Importance of Being Earnest. But in my new car-free state, I first have to go and pick up a hire car. Fortunately there’s a branch of Switch Car Hire in Mottingham – one train stop down the line and a five minute walk from the station. It’s all very efficient and I set off in a manual (how long has that been!) Citroen Captur. with a little time to spare I did a shop for heavy items before returning home getting into my dinner trousers and shirt – too hot for jackets and set off for Stokenchurch via the south circular and Putney. The car went well the trip out of London was dire but the M40 pretty clear and we arrived in good time to catch the vintage Aldershot and District coach (the compoany that used to take me to school all those years ago) down to the walled garden where in a delightful bonus, our friend Susie Stranders was the accompanist for a recital by two of Garsington’s emerging artists. Miro Treharne is a fine mezzo and Matthew Sotillo-Cooke a lyrical tenor. They encompassed classical repertoire and concluded with a dramatised ‘On the street where you live’. The half hour in the garden was a delightful curtain raiser and we had a chance to spend time with Susie which we all enjoyed.

*Miro Treharne, Susie Stranders and Matthew Sotillo-Cooke on the Garsington garden stage.*

Then back up to the opera pavilion for the main event. An opera I didn’t know at all but based on a play I knew very well. Would it desecrate Oscar’s work or celebrate it? Well the core was there – false identity, harridan Lady Bracknell (played by a baritone to good effect!), deception and delusion but not necessarily in the same order as in the Wilde play. There was some fine singing of very demanding parts, some stunning visual effects and a set that was out of its mind. I found the score a little disjointed in the first part but grew into something much more engaging in the second with some fabulous moment of drama, humour and joy. And hats off to conductor Douglas Boyd being mugged across the stage to get to the podium. Really entering into the production! Both Jadwiga and I really enjoyed it with a caveat on her part that it shouldn’t be called ‘opera’ there ought to be another category for this kind of event. I disagreed and told her that she was too much of a traditionalist, despite agreeing to come and see it and having a good time.

*Earnest stage at Garsington Photo: Richard Hubert Smith Garsington Opera*

Music of a very different kind on my actual birthday. With no knowledge of the coming event. I joined Shamim at the Brady Arts Centre for a performance of Nakshi Kanthar Math a dance drama which translates as The Field of the Embroidered Quilt. With projected video, dramatic acting and fine traditional dancing it told the story of a couple separated by a family feud. He, Rupai, travels widely for work, she Saju embroiders the quilt Nakshi Kantha until he returns. Except she dies before he returns and all he finds is the quilt covering her burial site. Echoes of Penelope and Odysseus, Romeo and Juliet were there showing that some stories are universal whatever the language. Shamim and I then went for a lovely birthday dinner, during which admittedly a little work was done preparing for a BBPC project funding bid to the British Council. It entailed quite a few Zoom meetings during the next week. We’ll know in October but it might entail a trip to Dhaka.

Despite the busy week I did find time for a very pleasant lunch at the Union Club with Mike and Joan Addison, Chris’s parents. We hadn’t caught up for a while so grandchildren, opera and cricket were discussed along with worries about us sometimes feeling young amongst audiences at musical events. Where will the future audiences come from?

Well there was no chance of feeling young at my last cultural trip of July. Another of Garsington’s emerging artists this summer was my friend Kristina Ammattil. She was appearing at the Arcola Theatre in Dalston in a double bill called Murder Games. The first half was Cupboard Love a 1950s comic opera by British composer Madeleine Dring with a libretto by D.F. Aitken – well a farce really involving some superb ‘dead body’ acting from Ellie Westbrook. After the interval we were treated to Three Sisters who are not Sisters another short comic opera by American composer Ned Roram with a text by Gertrude Stein. Lots of dashing about and lying dead surrounded by chalk body outlines. Both were written for chamber performance with piano accompaniment which was provided by the music director of the producers Opera Makers Panaretos Kyriatzidis. I found the music in Ned Roram’s piece more interesting and the performances of all the singers was remarkable. Annoyingly they didn’t do a curtain call bow towards my seat so Kristina is distant second from left in red stripey stockings. However the programme had a fine photo of the three sisters Salome Siu, Kristina and Ellie. And we did a selfie to send to my friend and her boyfriend Luka.

We were able to share a drink in the bar – with the benefit of performers’ discount coupons! As well as the cast I was able to talk to Tricia Ninian who I met at St Paul’s Opera gala back in March and engage in a – probably boring for him – lengthy discussion about directing for stage and screen and the differences between them, with the director of this show Jonny Danciger. It was another outing where I didn’t really know what to expect when I set off but ended up having a great night out and meeting some talented and lovely people.

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Marching on …

Finally after all the gloom of the year to date we had a few days of sun and I was able to plant some vegetables – broad beans and parsnips so far – check on the onions and garlic planted last autumn and do the annual hack and slash of all the dead brush from last year’s flowers. Then as I turned to go indoors the sunset showed me my next big task. The tree in the left foreground is my quince which has given us so much membrillo and jelly over the years but has lots of overlapping branches and needs a really good prune. A start has been made.

My rather aching limbs picked up some energy on Monday evening as I set off fot the Wigmore Hall to hear the Irish Baroque Orchestra play The Trials of Tenducci as the first part of a tour to Dublin, Limerick, New York and Virginia. I’m a great admirer of Peter Whelan who leads the IBO and the energy and clarity the band brings to the repertoire.

Tonight’s was an interesting programme based around the exploits of one Giusto Fernando Tenducci, a famous eighteenth century castrato singer. Born in Siena he came to London in 1758 and later moved to Dublin where he met and married Dorothea who later bore two children but later sued him for divorce for non-consummation. He became something of a celebrity – he was painted by Gainsborough, was friends with J C Bach and a singing teacher to Mozart. He was also to spend eight months in a debtors’ prison in London and later in Ireland. One admirer wrote of his voice: ‘neither man’s nor woman’s but it is more melodious then either’. Tenducci by Gainsborough in the Barber Art Gallery in Birmingham.

Having heard last week Mozart’s last three symphonies, each half of the evening began with two of his earliest ones, numbers 1 and 4. Short, sharp and lively, they set the sense of fun for the evening which involved works which Tenducci had sung or were by his friends and contemporaries. Tenducci’s role was taken by the excellent countertenor Hugh Cutting who expressed his delight that high range male soprano voices were no longer the result of mutilation. He sang arias by Gluck, Thomas Arne, J C Bach and Mozart and as an opera singer he filled them with expressiveness and drama. The orchestral playing in an oboe concerto by Johann Christian Fischer and the symphonies and a rollicking version of Tommaso Giordani’s Overture and Irish Medley which contained well-known Irish folk tunes was brilliant with a small orchestra filling the hall with an eclectic and delightful programme. And afterwards I was able to catch up with violinist Jenna Raggett as she and fellow violin players were taking a selfie. And the IBO conveniently posted photos of the rehearsal and the final bow.

Later in the week my favourite orchestra the OAE held a session to launch its Southbank Programme for 2026-27, Held in the elegant hall of Acland Burghley School in Tufnell Park and hosted by Radio 3 and Proms star Katie Derham, the evening had music from a string quartet with vocals from tenor Hugo Hymas who was one of the OAE’s ‘Rising Stars’ in the 2019 cohort. While discussing each of the concerts with long standing players Annette Isserlis (viola), Cecelia Bruggemeyer (bass) and Martin Lawrence (horn), we also heard the fascinating story of the band’s formation back in 1986 when a number of players decided they were doing all the work and others were getting all the plaudits so they formed an orchestra that was run by its players not by a single celebrated conductor. It’s proved a great success for forty years and has allowed for concerts with a wide variety of conductors and several directed from within the orchestra itself. Another very pleasant evening in the company of friends and with some excellent music from Vivaldi, Bach, Handel and Mozart.

Friday brought a real surprise. Ace pianist and dear friend Susie Stranders invited me to a gala evening with St Paul’s Opera in Clapham. Well if Susie’s involved it will be good so off I set in a convoluted cross Sarf Lunnun jaunt with a bus, two trains and a walk to a wonderfully simple church, St Paul’s Clapham, to meet my friend Jadwiga who was coming from Putney. I’ve been previously to similar evenings in Fulham Palace and the Blackheath Halls and it appears that there are many occasional opera group and societies all over London and indeed the country. It’s great that there are so many opportunities for talented young singers to engage with diverse audiences in different locations. St Paul’s Opera has a dynamo at its heart in Tricia Ninian and the evening was billed as David Butt Philip and Friends. David has been associated with St Paul’s Opera since 2017 and gathered some great friends to perform arias and songs from Handel and Mozart through Wagner and Bizet to Britten and Bernstein. David was joined by soprano Ellie Laugharne, mezzo Marta Fontanals-Simmons and bass Liam James Karai. As accompanists for the four singers Susie was reunited with Eric Melear with whom she had been on the young artists programme at the Grand Opera Studio in Houston back in 2000. Both experienced repetiteurs, they managed to make the piano sound like a full orchestra in the fine acoustic of the church. I can’t make St Paul’s production of La Traviata this summer as I’m out of town at a wedding but I’m sure it will be worth a trip.

A business bagged up for shredding! 30 years of my various company documents all on their way to be shredded. Because many of the call sheets and contact lists, invoices and (remember them?) cheque stubs contain the names and details of several rather well-known names I’ve been lucky enough to work with over the years, they can’t just go into my Lewisham Council recycling bin. So off they go to Restore Data Shred for secure and certified destruction.

After that it was a visit to Langley Park Boys School for an ‘Evening of Jazz’ in which my granddaughter was playing flute in the big band numbers. The evening opened with a quintet featuring Sam on tenor sax who had guested with Soulstice last week at Off the Cuff. They were very good as were the big band that played a few standards. Then to my surprise after Soulstice lead singer Bea had sung Round Midnight, Trixi (Daisy) stepped up to the mic to sing Dream a Little Dream for Me. Her parents had failed to inform proud grandad that she was a featured soloist as well and she gave an emotional rendition of a fine thirties song imbuing Gus Kahn’s lyric with a real sense of longing. The whole evening was a further confirmation of the immense depth of talent that is produced when the arts in schools are properly respected and resourced. Soap box suspended for now!

Next to the Donmar for Anna Ziegler’s Evening all Afternoon – a tense two-hander with Anastasia Hille as Jennifer, a suspect new stepmother and Erin Kellyman, making her stage debut, as Delilah, the suspicious and resentful daughter. Both actors are superb – Hille is all internalised emotion, with staunch British values, stiff upper lip and sense of decorum, responding stoically to the taunts thrown at her. I really can’t believe that this was Kellyman’s stage debut – apparently she’s well-known on screen but not in shows I’ve seen. (I also note now that Erin will be in the TV show 2026 – the successor to the 2012 and W1A satires that lit up our screens with [presentation of wondrous, pretentious incompetence.)

Jennifer is a young, bolshie, opinionated half Brit, half Brooklyn tornado who rages at her mother’s early death and her father’s gall in replacing her. The play revealed many ideas of grief, loneliness, age differences, relationships and an eventual uneasy and tentative rapprochement. With some scenes of dialogue between the two characters and others where they address us the audience directly the revolve stage worked really well against a dark blue brooding set. Lots of food for thought in a dramatic short play.

The next night at Hampstead downstairs we saw R.O.I. (Return on Investment) another short new play by Aaron Loeb which examined the releationship between creator and investor in the context of big pharma. Paul, Lloyd Owen, runs a venture capital fund with which he intends to change the world. His colleague May Lee, played by Millicent Wong, is on the hunt for a unicorn – a start up company with a $1billion valuation which will gain her a partnership and personal wealth. Along comes Willa, Letty Thomas, with a cure that will eradicate cancer from the entire world. I wondered if she was the real deal or another Elizabeth Holmes of Theranos ignominy – who did get a mention in the script. We were left to wonder throughout as the wonderdrug trials progress through successful initial stages into really murky territory to avoid scrutiny by the FDA. Add an affair between Paul and Willa, gaslighting May Lee, questionable views about ethnic types and a Congressional tribunal – there’s a whole lot going on in there, including a late appearance of The Woman (Sarah Lam) perhaps showing where May might be heading. It’s very sharp and witty in its dialogue and there are many moments of humour among the sad implication that power and money will always corrupt even the most well-meaning of souls.

Willa, (Letty Thomas) Paul (Lloyd Owen) and May (Millicent Wong) at the tribunal.

Next was a trip to Richmond for Vincent in Brixton which I missed at the NT in 2002 but this seems to be a time of revivals what with Teeth and Smiles and Copenhagen on the horizon. Nick Wright’s imagined revelations of van Gogh’s year in lodgings in Brixton, while working as an art dealer in Covent Garden, was a delight. The amazing Niamh Cusack led a cast in which three of the four were making their stage debuts – quite a week for debuts! It’s a quiet domestic piece in which we are treated to the kitchen odours of cooking on a working stove and later shared Niamh’s pride at her separation of egg yolk and white done in real time. It’s like a mystery story where you know the outcome but the characters don’t. Vincent was scathing about the work of fellow lodger Sam but we didn’t see any of his own work or sense his promise. He was a confused young man in a foreign country experiencing strong emotions and desire for the first time. Initially attracted to the daughter Eugenie, it was to landlady Ursula that we are led to believe he lost his virginity. It’s a play about grief, Ursula still in widow’s black, restless relationships and passion and everyday life gently unfolding in the Orange Tree’s intimate space.

Niamh Cusack as Ursula with Jeroen Frank Kales as Van Gogh.
Photograph: Johan Persson/Orange Tree

The next day Fran invited me to join her for a technical rehearsal of Copenhagen at Hampstead Theatre. This time I had seen the original production of Michael Frayn’s play back in 1998. The staging was very similar with a sparse set with three chairs. At Hampstead there is the addition of a spectacular set back wall which I won’t describe so as not to spoil your gasps when you see it. It’s fascinating to see how lighting, sound and movement blocking subtly affect your understanding of what is taking place. Can’t wait to see the whole thing in a couple of weeks’ time. It’s a real festival of Michaels – Frayn, Blakemore the original director and Longhurst this revival.

Thursday was the Watford Community Sports & Education Trust’s Annual Gala Dinner and so the usual suspects assemble at Vicarage Road for an evening celebrating what the charity has achieved against the gloom of the economy, through the dedication of staff and volunteers. It came as a pleasant surprise to me to discover that Frances’ sister Rose (second from right) has been asked to succeed Simon Macqueen as chair of the trustees. Well deserved for her energy and enthusiasm for the work it does. We all had a great time chatting to former and current players and meeting young people the Trust has helped over the years.

As it was a late finish, Rose had kindly invited Fran and me to stay with her and husband Mark in Bovingdon. This proved a great boon for me as I planned to catch my friend Kristina Ammatil giving a lecture/recital in Henley-on-Thames the next morning. So I set off for a pleasant drive through the Chilterns and made it in good time to hear Kristina discuss allegory in opera with the title: Love, Gods and Mortals. It was a well argued essay supported with slides and illustrated with excerpts from operas old and modern in Kristina’s powerful, melodic soprano accompanied by Jack Redman at the piano. She is particulary keen to perform contemporary repertory and introduced us to several pieces I didn’t know. I was very pleased to have the serendipitous chance to attend from nearby rather than making the trip from London.

Christ Church Henley – wonderful woodwork

I had a chance to chat with Kristina and her boyfriend Luka after the event for a catch up before dashing (I wish! Thanks M25.) back home to park and unpack the car and catch a train and bus to Shoreditch for a performance of Handel’s Tamerlano from which I’d heard excepts but never seen the whole of this great opera. Part of the annual London Handel Festival this was taking place in a completely new venue for me – the splendid Shoreditch Town Hall.

The orchestra under Laurence Cummings were superb and the production was delivered in a witty English language update of the original Italian. The design and concept led one to rename the opera Trumperlano since a blue suited, red tie wearing golfer Tamerlano, a Tartar emperor, tries to impose his will on the traditionally-costumed Turkish sultan Bajazet and grab his daughter Asteria who is in love with a Greek prince Andronico. It’s convoluted but hey it’s opera from 1724 and the London crowds loved it.

The year 1724 was a good one for Handel as he wrote Rodelinda and Giulio Cesare in the same year. I’ve now seen all three in the space of the last two years. They are all full of great tunes and high drama mixed in with a sense of humour which makes them very appealing. Certainly the Shoreditch audience loved the whole thing given the ovation the singers and players received at the end. A very varied musical day!

My last cultural outing of March also celebrated, by a weird coincidence, the year 1724 which just happened to be the date of Bach’s St John Passion which the OAE were performing in the Queen Elizabeth Hall. As a ‘friend’ I was also invited to attend the rehearsal with German conductor Johanna Soller making her debut appearance with the orchestra. She knows how to get asked back – she cut Sunday’s rehearsal by an hour – always goes down well with musicians! This rehearsal may have been brief but it was also fascinating. Ms Soller is clearly a producer as well as conductor, keyboard star and singer. She started by having the QEH staff move the rostra about so that the chorus formed a shallow horeshoe rather than a straight line; she moved soloists’ seats to better catch the hall’s lighting and during the course of the rehearsal frequently skipped off the stage, ran up the aisle to listen from the cheap seats and make sure we’d all get the best possible experience in the evening. She gave a number of notes and we could hear their immediate effect on volume, phrasing, pronunciation and diction. All very impressive but did it work?

Emphatically, yes! Her energy and dramatic timing made this one of the most operatic readings of the mass and that includes Peter Sellars’ staged version with Simon Rattle and the OAE in 2019. The orchestra have played both Bach passions many times but sounded fresh and engaged last night. The score is so melodic and dramatic – the build up to scene 33 “And behold, the curtain in the temple was torn in two pieces from top to bottom. And the earth shook, and the cliffs were rent, and the graves opened up, and many bodies of saints arose.” shook the entire hall. This is in contrast to the beautiful alto aria “Es ist vollbracht – It is finished” sung by the wonderful Helen Charlston continuing her long assoctaion with the OAE having been one of its early Rising Stars. All soloists were excellent James Way as the evangelist, Peter Edge – one of the current cohort of Rising Stars – as Christus, Hillary Cronin, Jonathan Hanley and then Tristan Hambelton as Pilate was outstanding in his empathetic reading as the representative of Roman law. Johanna Soller congratulated all areas of the orchestra in turn and selflessly stood to one side as the band and soloists took their bow, A fine debut and let’s see much more of her in the UK.