Northampton Symphony Orchestra concert
21 December 2012
With our regular conductor, Alexander Walker, away
conducting ‘The Nutcracker’ in Norway, this year’s Northampton Symphony
Orchestra Christmas Cracker Concert provided a first opportunity for guest
conductor Stephen Ellery to join us for a concert. Steve often takes NSO
rehearsals when Alex is away and is great fun to work with. This year the
Christmas Cracker Concert had a pantomime and fairy tale theme and featured Humperdink’s
wonderful ‘Hansel and Gretel Overture’, the ‘Mother Goose Suite’ by Ravel, the
overture to Rossini’s opera ‘La Cenerentola’ (‘Cinderella’ – reviewed here in
November 2010) and music from the Disney films ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’
(by Frank Churchill) and ‘Aladdin’ (by Alan Menkin and Tim Rice). Steve really
seemed to enjoy himself and the audience loved his enthusiasm and
eccentricities, especially when he ran in through the auditorium dressed in a
full bear costume, and roaring at various audience members, to conduct the ‘Three
Bears Phantasy’ by Eric Coates! The orchestra were also very taken with Steve’s
habit, at the end of each piece, of calling on particular players to take an
individual bow by miming the relevant instruments. There was also some lovely
comic interplay between the conductor and our excellent compere, Graham Padden.
And when Steve turned round to conduct the audience, in the Christmas carols
and to get them whistling along to ‘Whistle While You Work’, he seemed to
inspire them to enjoy themselves as much he was. I think we all left the
concert with smiles on our faces.
Labels: Concerts, Music
'Rapunzel' by Lea Pryer
21 December 2012
It was a delight to return to the TADS Theatre in Toddington
last Saturday to see this year’s TADS pantomime. ‘Rapunzel’ was written and
directed by Lea Pryer, who wrote the wonderful 2010 pantomime ‘The Pirate Princess’
(reviewed here in December 2010). ‘Rapunzel’ was another original script which
incorporated the conventional pantomime elements. I particularly loved Rapunzel’s
tower and the use of puppetry to show the prince climbing up on Rapunzel’s long
hair which was hilarious. Mike Collins, who stood out as a mercurcial Irish
Puck in the TADS production of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ (reviewed here in
May 2012) was very strong as Prince Edward. The wonderful youngster Harry
Rodgers (who was Flute in ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’) confirmed his graduation
from TADS Teens, taking his place next to regular Janet Bray as one of the two
gargoyle henchmen of the enchantress Griselda. As Griselda Rachel Birks stole
the show with a commanding performance, a fantastic sneer of contempt for the
audience and a nice line in heckle put-downs as she battled with a completely
sold-out, largely adult audience. Rachel Birks and Chloe Palmer, who played
Rapunzel, have particularly strong singing voices and the success of the musical
numbers bodes well for the forthcoming TADS production of ‘Little Shop of
Horrors’.
Labels: Drama, Theatre
'Sweet Danny Wilson' by Danny Wilson
14 December 2012
One of the joys of the instant availability of music online
is rediscovering half-remembered tunes from many years ago. Gone are the days
when you leapt to your feet when a particular song came on the radio in the
knowledge that it was your only opportunity to hear it. Now a memory can pop
into your head and within seconds you can have found the relevant track on
Spotify and started listening to it again. Last week, for some reason, I found
myself thinking about the opening line “I'm sorry for upsetting the apple cart”
and desperately trying to remember the song it comes from. After a little
detective work I had downloaded the greatest hits of Danny Wilson (‘Sweet Danny
Wilson’) and was reliving the late 1980s with the song ‘Never Gonna Be The Same’.
Danny Wilson was a Scottish pop group formed in 1984. Like Alice Cooper, Danny
Wilson was the name of the band rather than the singer – named not after the
much-loved Barnsley Football Club manager (“it’s just like watching Brazil”) but
in honour of the 1952 Frank Sinatra film, ‘Meet Danny Wilson’. Danny Wilson’s
biggest hit was ‘Mary’s Prayer’ which reached number 3 in the UK charts in 1988.
The other song of theirs I remember is ‘The Second Summer Of Love’. Their music
is catchy, tuneful 80s pop with a Scottish tinge – not unlike Hue and Cry,
Orange Juice and Hipsway – well worth revisiting. It’s strange how every song
you listen to in December sounds like it was intended to be a Christmas song –
those are sleigh bells in ‘Never Gonna Be The Same’ aren't they?
Labels: Albums, Music
‘Standing in Another Man’s Grave’ by Ian Rankin
7 December 2012
There was a degree of inevitability that, like Arthur
Conan-Doyle with Sherlock Holmes, having retired his famous fictional
detective, Ian Rankin would be persuaded to resurrect John Rebus. In ‘Standing
in Another Man’s Grave’ Rebus doesn’t have to return from death like Holmes.
This is a more prosaic return from retirement which finds Rebus working, as a
civilian, in a police cold case unit and, unsurprisingly, getting drawn into a
current murder investigation. ‘Standing in Another Man’s Grave’, which I read
as an unabridged audio book, narrated by James Macpherson, was an engrossing serial
killer mystery with all the tropes that made Ian Rankin’s Rebus novels so
successful. I felt a little disappointed with the denouement, which seemed a
bit corny after the clever puzzle that was gradually unravelled through the
rest of the book. But I enjoyed the return of Rebus and hope we haven’t seen
the last of him.
Labels: Books
'One of Our Thursdays is Missing' by Jasper Fforde
7 December 2012
Halfway through reading Jasper Fforde’s latest Thursday Next
novel, 'The Woman Who Died a Lot' (reviewed here in April 2012), I realised I
had missed the previous book in the series. Regular readers may remember that I
started reading the series in reverse order so reading the latest two books
backwards seemed an appropriate continuation, in keeping with the surreal
complexities of the books themselves. I have now finished reading ‘One of Our
Thursdays in Missing’. Thursday Next is largely absent from this novel which is
set in the ‘bookworld’ and features the ‘written Thursday’ – the fictional
version of the literary detective – who is called into action to investigate
the real Thursday’s disappearance. This is a very silly, and incredibly confusing,
exercise in surreal meta-fiction, which owes a debt to ‘Don Quixote’ (reviewed
here in January 2012) but takes the conceit much further. Fforde’s development
of the bookworld into a geographical form, with the possibilities of journeys
across genres, demonstrates the thinking which led him to create the
post-apocalyptic world of ‘Shades of Grey’ (reviewed here in April 2011). I
suspect you either love or hate this kind of thing but I’m really looking
forward to the next adventures of Thursday Next.
Labels: Books
The Blockheads
7 December 2012
When we visited Kent in March, you may remember I was struck
by the fact that that the village next to Sandwich is called Ham. We returned
to the area last week for a lovely long weekend in Ham. On Friday evening we
made the short trip to the Astor Community Theatre in Deal to see a concert by
The Blockheads. We last saw The Blockheads in Milton Keynes 5 years ago
(reviewed here in July 2007) when they were celebrating their thirtieth
anniversary, with Phil Jupitus standing in for the late Ian Dury. The Deal
concert was part of their thirty-fifth anniversary tour – particularly impressive
as the drummer is only 26 years old! This time there were no guest stars, just
a very slick band that have clearly been playing together for a long time. The
original members of the band must all be in their 60s: Mickey Gallagher
lamented the passing years, saying “we used to turn up to gigs and ask where
are the women – now we ask where are the toilets!”. But the Blockheads are
still a great band. Last time we saw them they were joined by the great jazz
saxophone player Gilad Atzmon, but this time the quite different style of excellent
regular saxophonist Dave Lewis, combined with Ian Dury’s witty lyrics and the
cockney accent of singer Derek the Draw made The Blockheads sound, at times,
remarkably like Madness. It was a great gig – I look forward to the fortieth
anniversary!
Labels: Concerts, Music
