‘One to One’

28 January 2021

Rosie Millard’s BBC Radio 4 series ‘One to One’ consists of 15-minute interviews with a range of people who are trying to break into the big-time of the creative arts – their dream of success and what it means to them. This week’s episode featured Ben Hopwood who has found fulfilment as an amateur actor with Leeds Arts Centre and talks about the advantages of pursuing your ambitions in amateur rather than professional theatre. It was particularly good to hear about Ben’s experience of acting with the Royal Shakespeare Company in 2016 in 'A Midsummer Night's Dream: A Play for the Nation' (reviewed here in May 2016). This was the RSC’s touring production of Shakespeare’s most popular comedy which visited 14 theatres across the UK as a co-production with 14 amateur theatre companies who provided local actors in each location to play the rude mechanicals – and marked the culmination of the Open Stages programme originally developed by Voluntary Arts and the RSC in 2009. You can listen to Ben Hopwood’s story (and the other episodes in the ‘One to One’ series) at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000rn4x

‘The Clockmaker’s Daughter’ by Kate Morton

22 January 2021

I’ve really enjoyed reading ‘The Clockmaker’s Daughter’ by Kate Morton – a compelling and beautifully written novel which feels like a family saga. It actually tells the story of several families with connections to Birchwood Manor – a grand country house next to a bend in the River Thames in Wiltshire. A non-linear narrative gradually fills in the details of what happens to an epic cast of characters who are mysteriously drawn to the house between 1862 and 2017. At times the book feels like a collection of linked short stories as we focus on the events of particular moments in the history of the house in turn. But it is the links between these stories, their protagonists and their descendants that are fascinating. The novel is part romance, part murder mystery, part ghost story. It’s entertaining, moving and clever and I sailed through its nearly 600 pages.

FolkBaroque

15 January 2021

Baroque at the Edge is a festival, founded by my friend Lindsay Kemp, which invites leading musicians from all genres to take the music of the Baroque and see where it leads them. This year, unsurprisingly, the festival has moved online, presenting a series of streamed concerts, talks and interactive Zoom discussions, which are running throughout January: you can still buy tickets to watch the recordings until 31 March 2021. I really enjoyed FolkBaroque – a concert recorded at LSO St Luke’s in London, featuring the ensemble La Nuova Musica, directed by David Bates, joined by the soprano Lucy Crowe and the folk fiddler Tom Moore, which explored the links between folk and baroque music. The programme contrasted and combined classical and folk music, from a similar historical era. It was particularly interesting to compare the different violin techniques demonstrated by Tom Moore and the ensemble’s violinist Thomas Gould. It was a delicate, clean, precise  performance, beautifully filmed without an audience in the cavernous space of St Luke’s. Alongside well-known traditional tunes including ‘Danny Boy’ and ‘If I were a black bird’ it was great to discover some unfamiliar repertoire. I really liked the ‘Ciaccona’ by Antonio Bertali – a piece for virtuoso violin which predates JS Bach’s famous ‘Chaconne’ by 50 years. But I thought the standout performance was the singer Lucy Crowe whose amazing voice and clarity of diction were brilliantly displayed in this online performance. See: http://www.baroqueattheedge.co.uk/

‘Troubled Blood’ by Robert Galbraith

8 January 2021

‘Troubled Blood’ is the fifth Cormoran Strike novel by J K Rowling (writing as Robert Galbraith). It’s the longest novel in the series (I read it as an unabridged audio book, narrated by Robert Glenister, which was almost 32 hours long) but nevertheless felt less rambling and more focussed than its predecessors. This may be because, for the first time, Strike and his partner Robin Ellacott are investigating a cold case – the unexplained disappearance of a doctor who left her surgery more than 40 years ago and was never seen again. Piecing together what happened so long ago, interviewing witnesses, suspects and the original investigators, or their descendants, creates a clearer narrative structure, less diverted by emerging events. And the solution to this crime is clever, hard-to-spot but satisfyingly believable and, when revealed, explains a myriad of small clues imperceptibly laced through the novel. J K Rowling still manages to demonstrate a strange lack of understanding of budget hotel chains (why choose to be specific about it being a Premier Inn if you are not going to get the details right? - is no-one editing these novels?). But I still enjoyed the murder mystery – the best puzzle of the series so far.

‘Time and Time Again’ by Ben Elton

8 January 2021

I haven’t read a Ben Elton novel for many years: his transition from stand-up comedian to author began (in 1989) with a series of enjoyable but unsurprising comic novels, after which I lost touch with his work. It was great to discover a more recent book, ‘Time and Time Again’ (published in 2014) which shows Ben Elton maturing into a more sophisticated novelist. This is a gripping time-travel thriller about trying to right the wrongs of the 20th century by going back to 1914 to prevent the outbreak of the Great War. It’s a cleverly plotted and compellingly paced story, carefully researched and genuinely exciting – and all the better for not trying to be funny.

Bellowhead - live online concert

11 December 2020

Regular readers will know I have been a fan of the English folk big band Bellowhead since I first saw them at the WOMAD Festival in July 2006. When the duo John Spiers and Jon Boden, themselves already established folk music stars, invented a folk big band which brought together musicians from folk, classical and jazz backgrounds they created a unique sound. For twelve glorious years Bellowhead performed stunning new arrangements of traditional folk tunes that got toes tapping and faces smiling across the world. I last saw them on their farewell tour in 2015 at the Riverside Theatre in Aylesbury (reviewed here in November 2015). So it was an unexpected pleasure to have the opportunity to enjoy another live performance by Bellowhead last Saturday as they played a one-off online reunion concert to celebrate the tenth anniversary of their album ‘Hedonism’ (reviewed here in October 2010). It was a typically slick, exuberant, joyful show, excellently filmed by Stabal – a platform for live performance on-demand content – at a mid-18th-century mansion nestled deep in the English countryside. Rapid cutting between a host of handheld cameras made you feel like you were in the room with the band. I love a band that dances to its own music and there was some manic morris dancing on display here. This is a band that demonstrates musical delicacy, the ability to turn on a sixpence rhythmically and knows how to rock out. It was lovely to revisit some old favourite tunes, with a few new twists, and quiet emotional to see Bellowhead back together again. For a flavour see Bellowhead’s July 2020 lockdown video of ‘New York Girls (Live From Home): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M764hJDFvjM

‘Once Upon a River’ by Diane Setterfield

3 December 2020

I’m really enjoying ‘Once Upon a River’ – a beautiful and intriguing novel by Diane Setterfield. Set around the River Thames in Oxfordshire in the late 19th century, the carefully crafted prose made me wonder whether the book had been written in that era, before I discovered that Diane Setterfield is a contemporary writer and this novel was published in 2018. The book starts on a dark winter’s night in a riverside pub where the locals are interrupted by the arrival of a wounded stranger carrying the lifeless body of a small child. From there the story winds backwards, forwards and sideways like the ever-present river, allowing the tale to emerge gradually as the various pieces take their places in the jigsaw puzzle narrative. The Oxfordshire riverside setting made me think of 'La Belle Sauvage' – Philip Pullman’s ‘His Dark Materials’ prequel (reviewed here in December 2017). And the descriptions of the river reminded me of Charles Dickens’ omniscient third person narrator 'floating' over the landscape in ‘Bleak House’ (reviewed here in October 2007).  The book’s gradual colouring-in of the local community and the various families who have a stake in the story also had a lot in common with ‘Reservoir 13’ – Jon McGregor’s amazing prose portrait of a small Derbyshire village (reviewed here in January 2018). I particularly enjoyed having no idea where ‘Once Upon a River’ was going but total confidence in the author who was taking me there. I look forward to reading more by Diane Setterfield.

'Voodoo Sonic' by Parov Stelar

27 November 2020

I’ve been a big fan of electro swing for years – though without knowing there was a name for this emerging music genre. In 2009 I came across Imam Baildi – two Greek brothers who take old Greek tunes from the 40's, 50's and 60's and add modern instruments and beats to create music which is cool, mysterious and incredibly catchy (reviewed here in May 2009). I then saw the French band Caravan Palace at the 2009 WOMAD Festival (reviewed here in July 2009), playing the gypsy jazz swing of Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli to pounding high-tempo electronic beats. At WOMAD in 2012 I saw The Correspondents mix swing-era big band records with contemporary electronic beats (reviewed here in August 2012). In 2013 I discovered the Dutch singer Caro Emerald and her old-fashioned big band swing, updated by a modern four-to-the-floor dance beat (reviewed here in April 2017). The Latvian band Dziļi Violets (reviewed here in February 2019) have a similar modern take on old-fashioned swing. But my new favourite electro swing is Parov Stelar – Austrian musician Marcus Fuereder – who has just completed an epic album ‘Voodoo Sonic’, released gradually over the past year as three EPs. ‘Voodoo Sonic’ is a more varied collection than Parov Stelar’s earlier albums (I would particularly recommend 2013’s ‘The Art of Sampling’) with more purely instrumental tracks. It’s great fun: this is playful and inventive dance music – cool quirky and infectious.

'What a Carve Up!' by Jonathan Coe, adapted by Henry Filloux-Bennett

17 November 2020

I’ve written here before about our chance discovery, around 1996, of Jonathan Coe's novel 'What a Carve Up' in a second-hand bookshop in Cambridge. Coe quickly became one of my favourite contemporary novelists so I was thrilled to discover a new online theatre adaptation of ‘What a Carve Up’ by Barn Theatre, Lawrence Batley Theatre & New Wolsey Theatre. Written by Henry Filloux-Bennett and directed by Tamara Harvey, this is an interesting example of the emerging genre of webcam drama. It frames Jonathan Coe’s tale of 1980s Thatcher’s Britain with original protagonist Michael Owen’s son Raymond investigating, in 2020, the 1991 multiple murders of members of the Winshaw family that his father is assumed to have committed. Raymond (Alfred Enoch) is recording his findings straight to camera while playing-in archive audio recordings of the testimony of some of the people who knew his father and the Winshaws. This cleverly allows the production to involve some very well known actors (including Celia Imrie, Stephen Fry, Derek Jacobi, Gryff Rhys Jones, Rebecca Front and Robert Bathurst) who have literally phoned in their performances. (Incidentally Robert Bathurst – here playing Thomas Winshaw – played Michael Owen in the 2005 BBC Radio 4 adaptation of ‘What a Carve Up’.) Raymond also uses the video recording of a 2020 interview with the one remaining member of the Winshaw family, Josephine Winshaw-Eaves (played by Fiona Button) who is interviewed by Tamzin Outhwaite. Raymond’s tendency to obsessively pause and rewind the various YouTube clips he is showing us is a nice nod to his father’s fascination with pausing and rewinding his VHS tape of the 1960’s film ‘What a Carve Up’ in the novel. Indeed the whole online production feels like more of a homage to the book than a coherent drama in its own right. Fans of the novel will love the many knowing references but, by cutting up the content of a lengthy and complicated narrative and revealing it to us in iterative bite-sized morsels, I suspect Henry Filloux-Bennett may have made it nearly impossible to follow if you are not already familiar with the story. I also felt the 2020 parallels (such as Josephine Winshaw-Eaves campaigning for a second Trump term) were a bit clunky, and ignored some elements of what happened next to the Winshaw clan from ‘Number 11’ – Jonathan Coe’s own sequel to ‘What a Carve Up’ (reviewed here in January 2016). Nevertheless it was fun to revisit the original story. And the innovative online format was intriguing, feeling like something that could have been delivered as a one-person Edinburgh Fringe show, now transferred online. ‘What a Carve Up!’ runs from 31 October – 29 November 2020. Tickets can be purchased at www.whatacarveup.com. A portion of the proceeds raised will be donated to a freelance fund to support the creative workforce that the theatres would not be able to survive without.

'Albion' by Mike Bartlett

13 November 2020

Last weekend we finally got around to watching the live recording of Mike Bartlett’s play ‘Albion’, which was broadcast in the summer as part of the BBC’s Culture in Quarantine season. Mike Bartlett is a really interesting writer who explores a wide variety of dramatic formats and styles. He is perhaps best known for his TV dramas ‘Doctor Foster’ (written in the form of a Jacobean revenge tragedy) and its recent companion series ‘Life’, starring Victoria Hamilton. But I have also enjoyed his writing for the stage, including: ‘Charles III’– a modern Shakespearean history play, written entirely in blank verse (reviewed here in January 2015); ‘An Intervention’ – an unconventional two-hander looking at what happens when you hate your best friend (reviewed here in April 2014); and his contemporary version of ‘Medea’ by Euripides, starring Rachael Stirling (reviewed here in November 2012). ‘Albion’ is, as the title suggests, a state-of-the-nation play which uses the allegory of a very traditional English country garden to address issues raised by Brexit. In the Almeida Theatre production, directed by Rupert Goold, Victoria Hamilton plays a woman who has purchased her childhood home and plans to restore the garden to its original Victorian design. It can be enjoyed as a darkly comic family drama about personal grief, but you can also see the relationship between the family and the local community – now excluded from what had previously been a communal garden – as a commentary on the UK’s departure from the European Union. The action is all set in the garden and has the feel of an Alan Ayckbourn play but with underlying connections more reminiscent of Tom Stoppard. It takes on some unsettling themes but is also very funny, and brilliantly acted with a stunning central performance by Victoria Hamilton.

‘What’s Funny About …’

 6 November 2020

I’ve been catching up with ‘What’s Funny About …’ - a fascinating series on BBC Radio 4 Extra in which TV veterans Peter Fincham and Jon Plowman talk to the writers, producers, and performers behind some of Britain’s biggest TV comedy hits, and hear the inside story of how they brought their programmes to the screen. To date they have addressed ‘The Vicar of Dibley’, ‘The Thick of It’, ‘Absolutely Fabulous’, ‘Blackadder’, ‘Goodness Gracious Me’ and ‘W1A’, with guests including Dawn French, Armando Iannucci and Meera Syal. Each episode gives an interesting glimpse behind-the-scenes into the making of some of our favourite recent TV comedies. Fincham and Plowman add an interesting perspective as they were personally involved in commissioning or producing many of these series. And there are intriguing insights into the rivalries between some of the writers and performers (explaining why most of those involved in making ‘Blackadder’ don’t seem to be talking to each other any more). You can listen to all six episodes of ‘What’s Funny About …’ on BBC Sounds at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000j35x/episodes/player

NSO horns rehearsal

 30 October 2020

On 14 March I played Beethoven’s ‘Symphony No 5’ with the Milton Keynes Sinfonia at the Chrysalis Theatre in Milton Keynes (reviewed here in March 2020). As I wrote here at the time, it was an inspirational evening that felt like a bright moment of hope in dark times, but there was a strong expectation that this might be the last live music any of us experiences for quite a while. Since March I have practised playing my French horn at home, I have taken part in several multi-part lockdown recordings and I have pioneered experimental online orchestra rehearsals using the Jamulus software – but I have really missed making music together with other people in the same room. Last night, 229 days after that Milton Keynes Sinfonia concert, I finally got the chance to take part in a real live face-to-face rehearsal. Four of the horn players from the Northampton Symphony Orchestra met at St Mary’s Church in Wollaston, Northamptonshire, to play through some horn quartets. This recently refurbished church provided comfortable surroundings, plenty of room for us to be significantly socially distanced from each other and a pleasantly flattering acoustic. It was really exciting to see each other again after such a long break, and to play music together in which we could make eye contact and co-ordinate timing. We played some simple tunes before attempting a few more ambitious arrangements, including the two pieces we had recorded as multi-part lockdown videos earlier this year (the Scherzo from Shostakovitch ‘Symphony No 10’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHqPuxWZ3p4 and ‘It Don't Mean a Thing if It Ain't Got That Swing’ by Duke Ellington & Irvin Mills: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ceYfHAHI9Y). Playing these live revealed quite how much editing we had each done to our recordings! As a thank you to the church, we also recorded a live performance of ‘Silent Night’ which will be used in the St Mary’s virtual Christmas carol concert. With rising infection rates across the country and severe local restrictions already in place in many areas, we were very lucky to be able to get together yesterday evening. I hope we can meet again soon but I’m incredibly thankful we managed to play music together this week.

'The Kershaw Tapes'

23 October 2020

Regular readers may remember I was a big fan of Andy Kershaw’s much missed BBC Radio 3 show. I last encountered him at The Stables in Milton Keynes on a tour of talks to promote his autobiography (reviewed here in December 2018). So it was a real treat to hear Andy back on Radio 3 for a two-part Sunday Feature ‘The Kershaw Tapes’ in which he introduces recordings made on his trusty Sony Walkman Pro cassette recorder during his travels in Africa and the Americas in the 1980s. These two programmes are a great introduction to what makes Andy Kershaw such a compelling broadcaster – his raw enthusiasm for music, his bemused reflections on the eccentricities of the world, his journalistic framing of a good story and his Zelig-like ability to have been present at key moments in history. The short description of his first trip to Equatorial Guinea in the first episode of ‘The Kershaw Tapes’ is a beautiful miniature Kershaw story – fascinating, incredible, absurd, terrifying and life-affirming. And there’s some great music – exclusive live recordings of some of the world’s greatest musicians performing in their own homes, or in the kitchen of Andy Kershaw’s small flat in Crouch End. You can listen to both episodes of ‘The Kershaw Tapes’ at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000mrgj

'Hold Fast' by Stick in the Wheel

 16 October 2020

Amongst the plethora of excellent new English folk music recordings that seem to come out almost every week, ‘Hold Fast’ – the new album from London-based duo Stick in the Wheel – caught my attention because of its unpredictability. Nicola Kearey (vocals) and Ian Carter (guitar/producer) have produced an eclectic collection of songs with some fairly conventional acoustic guitar folk sitting alongside tracks with more of a rock feel plus some electronica and pop. The lyrics include poetry from 10th century Saxon Britain, 17th century London slang and a Yiddish lament. By its nature the album is a bit of a mixed bag (the Guardian’s review suggested Stick in the Wheel were maybe trying too hard) but the best tracks have a swagger reminiscent of Bellowhead. See, for example ‘Budg & Snudg’ featuring the accordion of John Kirkpatrick (whose son Benji Kirkpatrick was a member of Bellowhead and who I reviewed here in April 2009): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpTfg1LVS0w

'Pure' by Andrew Miller

 9 October 2020

The best book I’ve read so far this year was Andrew Miller’s 2018 historical thriller ‘Now We Shall Be Entirely Free’, set during the Napoleonic Wars (reviewed here in April 2020). I was keen to read something else by him and have just finished ‘Pure’ – a novel he published in 2011 which is set in pre-revolutionary France of the 1780s (which I read as an unabridged audio book, narrated by Jonathan Aris). Andrew Miller’s writing is wonderful – beautifully crafted and constantly amusing. He conjures up the reality of living in Paris in 1785, through the quirky tale of the demolition and clearing of an old church and cemetery. He creates an extensive cast of believable, sympathetic characters and his protagonist, the engineer charged with overseeing the demolition project (“a man, neither young nor old”), floats through the story with an innocent naivety. But ‘Pure’ lacks the thriller plot of ‘Now We Shall Be Entirely Free’: it’s a much more gentle tale which feels more interested in the period (and the early stirrings of revolution). Despite three dramatic and violent incidents that punctuate the narrative, you are left with the feeling that not much has really happened. Nevertheless, it’s an enjoyable and entertaining read and I look forward to reading more Andrew Miller.

Northampton Symphony Orchestra online rehearsals

2 October 2020

All our lives have been turned upside down this year by the Coronavirus pandemic. And while it doesn’t compare with the trauma suffered by those who have lost loved ones or those who have lost their livelihoods, living in lockdown has been deeply unsettling and stressful in itself. The restrictions to our social lives, our ability to travel and our opportunities to take part in the activities we enjoy have made us think more carefully than ever about our quality of life. What have you missed most? What do you most yearn to be able to do again? I have been an amateur musician almost all my life. In the early days of lockdown playing music provided great comfort, distraction, challenge and emotional release amongst the worry and uncertainty. I have been playing my French horn almost every day since March: I may even have improved slightly! But playing music on your own, or with recordings, is just not the same as playing music with other people. Like many other amateur arts groups, the Northampton Symphony Orchestra (with whom I have been playing now for 20 years) quickly replaced its regular weekly rehearsals with online social chats on Zoom. It has been great to keep in touch with other members of the orchestra but you can’t play music together via Zoom or any of the other video-conferencing platforms: the audio delay (latency) is just too big. (Try singing ‘Happy Birthday’ with each other the next time you are on a Zoom call – maybe while also washing your hands! – and you will quickly see how impossible it is.) I have collaborated with some NSO members on 2020’s emerging new artform – the multi-part lockdown recording. Recording a video of yourself playing along with a click-track so your contribution can be merged with others to form a virtual performance is surprisingly difficult but it felt good to have a creative project to work on with friends, albeit remotely. It’s definitely not the same, however, as actually playing music together live. So when I read an article about a choir in the USA that had been experimenting with low-latency audio software that enabled them to sing together online, I got very excited. I have spent the last two months exploring software originally designed for rock bands who wanted to jam together online, and looking at whether any of these programs might work for an orchestral rehearsal. The best option seemed to be a free, open source program called Jamulus. It’s a little fiddly to set up, and it only works if you have the right hardware (you need to be able to plug your computer directly into your router with an ethernet cable – wifi is just too slow) and a fast internet connection, plus a lot of patience! On 19 August we held our first online orchestra rehearsal: it was technically challenging, frustrating, at times hilariously bad, but exciting and ultimately actually quite inspiring. Eight of us managed to connect through Jamulus, and with NSO conductor John Gibbons holding us together on piano we eventually managed to play through the entire first movement of Beethoven's 'Symphony No 3 (Eroica)'. It was a far from perfect experience but after a break of more than five months this first opportunity to actually play live music with a group of other people again was incredibly enjoyable. And the best evidence of this is that everyone involved was keen to do it again soon. This Wednesday, our fifth NSO online rehearsal, was the best yet. We had ten people taking part, including violins, viola, cello, flute, oboe, clarinet, horns and piano, and worked on the ‘Symphonie in D minor’ by César Franck and Mendelssohn’s ‘Hebrides Overture’. Each week we have managed to tweak the software settings, address hardware issues and improve the small remaining audio delays. The sound quality is not wonderful and there are always a few technical problems but it’s getting better every week. This Wednesday actually felt like a proper rehearsal as we went back over certain passages of the music and managed to improve them. It’s still no substitute for making music together in the same room but, given the prospect of ongoing restrictions for many months to come, our online rehearsals have been really enjoyable. And working through the technical challenges and solving them together as a group has been a rewarding experience in itself.

'Utopia Avenue' by David Mitchell

 25 September 2020

Regular readers may remember that I am a David Mitchell completist, having read all his novels. I was looking forward to his new book ‘Utopia Avenue’ (which I read as an unabridged audio book narrated by Andrew Wincott) – the tale of a fictional English rock band in the late 1960s. But I am sorry to say I found this David Mitchell novel a bit disappointing. I think one of the reasons I have always liked his books is that we are almost the same age (he was born just over six months after me) and we therefore seem to share many of the same cultural references. So it was a surprise to find that he had set ‘Utopia Avenue’ just before we were born, making it more of a researched period piece. It was wonderful to return to Mitchell’s beautifully written prose – deceptively simple with hidden depths. And, for David Mitchell fans, as always there are lots of very satisfyingly oblique references to his earlier novels. Indeed, the high point of ‘Utopia Avenue’ for me was a chapter which connects the universe, and some of the characters, from his fantastical epic ‘The Bone Clocks’ (reviewed here in October 2014) both with ‘Utopia Avenue’ and with the plot of his 18th century historical saga 'The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet’ (reviewed here in August 2011). Sadly the rest of the new novel is a fairly straightforward tale of the formation, rapid rise and decline of the eponymous band – focussing in turn on each of its four members and their manager. It’s full of period detail and slightly too full of cameo appearances by a host of real 1960s celebrities. You get the impression that David Mitchell is enjoying weaving these actual personalities into his fictional plot a little too much. And some of the cameo appearances are really quite clunky (with people saying “are you Humphrey Lyttleton the jazz trumpeter?”, “Francis Bacon the painter?” etc). I enjoyed following the lives of the five main characters as a kind a soap-opera but the plot didn’t pull the rug from under your feet in the way some of Mitchell’s earlier novels did.

Surrey

 25 September 2020

We were very lucky to have picked last week for our cottage holiday in the Surrey hills: we had glorious weather all week and did lots of great walks in some stunning countryside. We were staying near to the Hampshire border and visited the amazing natural amphitheatre of the Devil’s Punch Bowl – Europe's largest spring-eroded valley, as well as Alice Holt Forest and Frensham Ponds. We also did lovely walks from the home of the naturalist Gilbert White at Selborne, and from Jane Austen’s house at Chawton.

'Twelfth Night' by William Shakespeare, adapted by Stephen Purcell

 10 September 2020

It was wonderful, last Sunday afternoon, to be back at The Place in Bedford (or, more accurately, the car park of The Place) for an open air production of ‘Twelfth Night’ by The Pantaloons. As we arrived the actors were on hand, in face masks and bearing 2 metre long oars from a rowing boat which they used to make sure we positioned our folding chairs sufficiently far apart from our neighbours – so we literally couldn’t have touched other audience members with a bargepole. The show started with the audience being asked to give a cheer and a wave – but when one of the actors suggested we should give another wave, his colleagues quickly jumped in to say “No! No-one wants a second wave!”. We have seen the Pantaloons many times before, most recently their hilarious production of 'The Odyssey' at The Place (reviewed here in April 2019). They are always charmingly silly and very inventive but this production of ‘Twelfth Night’, adapted and directed by Stephen Purcell,  showed them at their most innovative. Delivering Shakespeare’s play with only four actors would be a challenge at the best of times but in this case the actors were two real-life couples and the action was intricately choreographed to avoid any of the multiple characters being played by each actor to come within 2m of someone from the other of the two households. It was very slickly done, didn’t detract from the story and only served to add to the comedy. I have seen ‘Twelfth Night’ more times than any other Shakespeare play (I’ve previously reviewed ‘Twelfth Night’ here six times over the past 15 years). It’s a play that always seems to work and it was great to revisit the familiarity of this classic text, albeit in the austere surroundings of a car park, and to enjoy live theatre again after so many months without it.

'The Merry Wives of Windsor' by William Shakespeare, adapted by Adam Nichols

4 September 2020

Last Sunday we were at the Roman Theatre of Verulamium in St Albans for our first experience of live theatre since the start of the lockdown, watching Adam Nichols’ adaptation of ‘The Merry Wives of Windsor’ performed by OVO Theatre as part of the Maltings Open Air Theatre Festival. This was Shakespeare as 1980s jukebox musical, with the actors forming an on-stage rock band, tenuously squeezing a huge number of iconic 80s hits into the story of Sir John Falstaff getting his comeuppance. It was very silly and lots of fun with some great singing and wonderful choreography. The production make good use of the unusual outdoor space, with the audience on pairs of seats (each 2m apart from the next pair) in the middle of the ruins of the Roman Theatre. The mixture of a very specific 1980s setting with numerous references to Coronavirus felt slightly odd, but nobody really minded. This was feelgood slapstick, impressively delivered. And the experience of being part of a live audience again was surprisingly emotional.