Wednesday, December 21, 2016

CHRISTMAS AT BLACKMORE

CHRISTMAS AT BLACKMORE

The Stondon Singers at the Priory Church, Blackmore
20.12.16


The passing of another year is marked by this annual Christmas treat; as so often, the last of the carol concerts in the calendar.
The Singers, conducted by Christopher Tinker, began with the fifteenth century simplicity of Busnois' Noel, Noel, Noel, written when the Augustinian priory here was at its most prosperous, and ended with an equally simple, equally moving My Lord Has Come, written in 2010 by Durham composer Will Todd.
Loyset Pieton, of whom little is known, worked in Dijon at the start of his sixteenth century career; his O Beata Infantia was a wonderful discovery. Other highlights of a varied programme were Alan Bullard's Shepherds, Guarding Your Flocks, premièred here a year ago, Malcolm Archer's A Little Child There Is Yborn, with its haunting Alleluias, a nimble arrangement by Mark Wilberg of Ding Dong Merrily, and the sweet harmonies of Gabriel Jackson's lilting Christ-child. Michael Frith was the accompanist at the organ.
The capacity crowd got a chance to sing, too, and after a rousing O Come All Ye Faithful, the Stondon's traditional Christmas encore, an a cappella Silent Night from the west end of the nave.
As Nick Alston pointed out in his introduction, a choir is not just for Christmas, and the Stondon Singers' busy diary for 2017 includes a Marian anthology in Queen of Heaven, Evensong in St Paul's Cathedral, and the eagerly awaited William Byrd Anniversary in Stondon Massey.

William Todd - My Lord has come  from , A Christmas Eucharist from Bath Abbey, 25th December 2015. directed by Peter King

A CHRISTMAS CAROL

A CHRISTMAS CAROL

European Arts Company at the Cramphorn Theatre, Chelmsford
18.12.16


Read by Mr Charles Dickens. The Author”. Well, we can only speculate on what those hugely popular readings were like, and how close Mr John O'Connor comes to the original. Personally I have always imagined a bold, melodramatic rendition, but this is largely a question of personal taste.
A single chair, the famous reading desk, put to many and varied uses, and some vaguely Victorian screens are the simple setting; unlike Dickens, director Peter Craze is able to call on sound, and to a lesser extent lighting, to conjure up Scrooge's world.
There have been cuts [Dickens sometimes took three hours to tell the tale] – the school room and Joe's rag-and-bone shop two of the casualties – but the key scenes are all in place: The Cratchits' festive meal and Fezziwig's dance both excellently brought to life.

An enjoyable reminder of the original behind so many adaptations and parodies. And, which would have delighted the Charitable Gentlemen, a performance that emulated the original in its charitable purpose, in this case raising funds for Dr Barnado's.

THE WINTER'S TALE

THE WINTER'S TALE
The Hermes Experiment at the Cockpit Theatre, Marylebone
13.12.2016


for The Reviews Hub



This 60 minute musical re-imagining of Shakespeare's problem play is a boldly ingenious experiment with the drama.

This year has seen many Shakespeare-inspired performances. Song recitals, of course, but also Mendelssohn, Walton, Korngold et al in concert with extracts from the canon. And it's not long since The Winter's Tale was successfully re-shaped as a full-length ballet.

This offering from The Hermes Experiment, though, stands on its own. Devised and developed during workshops at an Aldeburgh Music Residency, it seeks to re-interpret the play using musicians as an organic part of the performance. The text is ruthlessly pruned – out goes almost all of the comedy, the shepherds and the sheep, the beach and the bear. So the focus is on jealousy, joy and redemption.

As if aware that to absorb music and poetry together, but separately, is already a demand on the audience's concentration, the design is simple and subdued. The performers are all in black; their feet are bare. There are banks of flowers, and ribbons hung from the Cockpit roof suggesting a maypole or a circus tent.

The musicians begin at the back, but the harp, the bass and the clarinet move to a more prominent, integrated position for the staging of “Give me the boy” at the start of Act Two. There is movement, too, in addition to the music and the text, in a kind of chorus.

How well does all this work ?  The music and the words are subtly layered; sometimes one strand seems to move to the fore, to be supplanted by another as scene follows scene. Some of Kim Ashton's music is improvised, reacting to the verse and the events on stage. Some of it sounds more like under-score, of the kind which has been prominent at Shakespeare's Globe this season. Occasionally the actors struggle to make the text heard over the instruments. Leontes' first jealous rages, for example, which are wonderfully supported by movement and non-verbal vocalization, have to be shouted when a subtler variation in tone might be more powerful.
But the best sequences manage to be moving in a way that transcends technique. Perdita's wordless song as the snowflake petals fall and the swaddling scarf is passed to the grown girl, for example, and the whole of the closing scene, with its ethereal music and fine work between Perdita and Hermione.
The verse speaking is, for the most part, clear and intelligent. William McGeough's Sicily is strong, especially in his despair; Robert Willoughby is the object of his jealousy, and also gets some of the few laughs as one of the Gentlemen who share the news in the last act. Christopher Adams is the other Gentleman and everyone else bar Autolycus, a victim of the comedy cull.
Excellent presence from Sadie Parsons as a noble Hermione, with Louisa Hollway as a feisty, impassioned Paulina.
Héloïse Werner, co-director of The Hermes Experiment, is the soprano Perdita, her songs without words one of the chief glories of the scoring.
The music is constantly inventive – the prominent bass (Marianne Schofield) for the birth, the breast-beating, the pastoral harp (Anne Denholm). The musicians move in and out of the action, but only Florizel (clarinettist Stephen Williams) is both actor and instrumentalist.
The quartet's line-up – harp, clarinet, voice and bass – is itself very unusual, and Hermes have been assiduous in exploring repertoire and commissioning new work. This fascinating Shakespeare collaboration between Director (Nina Brazier) and Composer (Kim Ashton) is a ground-breaking, and often inspirational, blend of music, movement and text.

production photograph: Cathy Pyle

Saturday, December 17, 2016

STOAT HALL

STOAT HALL

Eastern Angles at the Sir John Mills Theatre, Ipswich

10.12.2016

for The Reviews Hub


Toad Hall? Wolf Hall? The inspiration behind this bit of harmless fun is mostly Mantel – a Tudor rose projected onto the boards, Thomas Crudwell given a brief mention - but the Bard is in the mix too, together with Adele and Geoffrey Chaucer.
Fans of Eastern Angles' alternative Christmas entertainment will rejoice at the return of Mrs Giblets the dog, and thrice rejoice at the return of writing team Julian Harries and Pat Whymark. Pat also directs and acts as Musical Director.
The prologue owes a good deal to Shakespeare. The audience is divided into Suffolk and Norfolk – the traverse staging one of many challenges in this friendly but cramped auditorium.
“You there! Explain the plot!” The gauntlet thrown in jest to one of the cleverer, cheekier members of the audience. She can't, and there are no spoilers here, but the action begins with Sir Roger de Polfrey (excellently done by Ipswich Christmas veteran Richard Mainwaring) bemoaning the state of his stately pile – he's got damp in his front elevation, and even the king has heard word of his enormous crack. The jolly opening number has the various cowboy contractors sporting hammer, awl and ball-cock. A reluctant pretender to the throne, Roger has two daughters and a fool called Perch. There are but five actors, but the list of characters is long and eclectic: Gerald the Happy Herald, Sir John Dum-di-Dee, alchemist of choice, Agnes, ancient granny and Chaucerian, Tom Foolery,  Ant and Dec, body snatchers, Mr Softee, a further fool. A fine bestiary too, including a fox, a bluebird, a rabbit, and legendary devil dog Black Shuck. The audience stands in for the stoats, although there are stuffed stoats on the headgear of the secret society meeting in the crypt. No cuddly stoats on sale in the foyer, either, surely a merchandise opportunity missed.
Mrs Giblets, who plays Goblet the dog, surviving the vivisection table and bringing a wonderfully surreal touch to the final pages, did appear in the foyer at the end, a fond farewell to her fans and a fundraiser for Eastern Angles' Once Upon a Lifetime project.
Matt Jopling is a likeable Perch (and his rival Mr Softee), who is besotted with Sir Roger's fair daughter Rosamund (Geri Allen). The less alluring daughter, Hedwig, is played with enthusiasm, a beard, and a fine sense of the ridiculous by Patrick Neyman, who's also the Alchemist and a superb hooray Henry VIII. Violet Patton-Ryder mangles the Middle English with aplomb as Agnes, and is also the feisty Cook.
The choreography is lively and inventive on the tiny stage, and there are some splendid songs: The Fox is in the Thicket, for example, or the Unsuited duet for Rosamund and Perch, or the hilarious No Taste for Entertaining, in which Goblet shouts out foodstuffs to fit the lyrics … “there's an offal lot at steak”.
There's plenty of cod-piece humour (“What's that sticking out of your arras?”), some much-loved gags that were old when Will Somers was a boy - “Have you got quoits?” and variants, “Walk this way!” - but nothing is overplayed, the audience is involved but not humiliated, and there's an educational element, too. The collective noun for stoats is a caravan, apparently. 
As the man says - “excellent fooling, i'faith” - “just the Tudor ticket!”.

production photograph: Mike Kwasniak

Sunday, December 11, 2016

THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS

THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS

Brentwood Theatre

11.12.16


Bill Francoeur was a prolific writer of musicals for the youth and amateur market in the U.S.
His free and easy adaptation, with James DeVita, of Lewis Carroll might raise a purist eyebrow or two, but the children in the audience, who probably know the ball park better than the chess board, were royally entertained for the full 90 minutes.
The transatlantic twist seemed to work best when it was most radical: the Wonderland Gamesters, or a country star Humpty Dumpty [an excellent Elliot Burton, who also gave us the White Rabbit and a talking flower]. Tweedledum and Tweedledee, tiny propellers on their schoolboy caps, also captured the wacky style well [Libby Grant and Laura Hawkyard].
Sophie Farquhar was a sweetly bemused Alice, pert and assertive with her rival Queens [Katie Lawrence and Lydia Shaw]. Olivia Sewell and Scott Westoby were pawns, and between them played eight other roles, from Tiger-Lily to a Dixie Chicken – one of Dumpty's backing dancers.
Technically the production – directed by Ray Howes with set design by David Zelly – was a triumph. A chandelier, red and white chessmen, and centre stage, a superb under-lit chess board on which Alice moves towards the eighth square. Some impressive production numbers too [choreographer James Sinclair] – the aforementioned Dixie Chickens, the baseball game, the ultra-violet ballet [always a panto favourite] and the gospel choir for “You Got Responsibility” using the whole space and the mirror ball !

production photograph: Carmel Jane

GASLIGHT

GASLIGHT

CTW at the Old Court Theatre, Chelmsford


09.12.16






Patrick Hamilton's classic thriller relies heavily on atmosphere, both physical and psychological.
For some reason, perhaps to do with the raised stage, atmosphere seems hard to achieve at the Old Court.
But this polished production combines design, acting and directorial skills to produce a very impressive piece of theatre.
The oppressive Victorian parlour – designer Mark Tree – sets the mood, helped by sympathetic lighting, though I was not convinced by the gas lamps themselves.
The five principal roles were well cast; even the policeman looked Victorian.
Compelling performances from Sarah Bell as the young wife who's the victim of her sinister husband's mind games – a woman on the edge, tearful, desperate but strong at last as she gives the knife a final twist in the powerful dénouement. Her Manningham, all sneers and sideways glances, is chillingly done by Colin Smith; controlling and vindictive, he nonetheless eschews histrionics, rarely needing to raise his voice. The servants are nicely contrasted – Rachel Curran's kindly Elizabeth and Corinne Woodgate's flirtatious minx Nancy.
Andy Perrin is memorably compelling as “the celebrated Sergeant Rough” - a cheery soul, with a fondness for Scotch and sweet tea. We can suspect, with Bella, that he might be a dream, an angel, and yet he is reassuringly human, untangling the plot with an assured efficiency and a reassuring smile.

Like the set, the play is beautifully constructed, and Christine Davidson's production [Barry Taylor her assistant director] has many effective moments: the hurtful “theatre ticket” volte-face done at the swag curtains, the hard-hearted husband turning his back as he deftly changes the mood from fond consideration to cruel spite.

rehearsal photograph: Leanne Young

Saturday, December 10, 2016

CINDERELLA

CINDERELLA 
at the Queen's Theatre, Hornchurch
05.12.2016
for The Reviews Hub


“Well it's good, but it's not what I'd call traditional ...”
Soundbite from the little old lady just along the row. She has a point.
Andrew Pollard's script has more than a few novel touches. Baron Hardup has expired, leaving his wicked widow free to bully poor Cinders unchecked. Cinders herself is feisty and forceful (and in this company plays a mean trombone). Hard to imagine her knuckling under for long, and indeed she does turn on her tormentors before the happy-ever-after ending. The ugly duckling turns into a bevy of swans to pull the pumpkin coach. No riches to rags transformation, very few pyrotechnics, some witty cultural asides, and the jokes a mixture of the amusingly original and the junior school playground. And, surely a first, the panto song is that old Pat Boone favourite Quando Quando Quando.
But there's a proper staircase for the walk-down, a traditional ghost routine (done to the Ghostbusters theme), and an opening number in the village square featuring the Young Company, one of three teams of ten local children.
Martin Berry's production, a little coarse and raucous for some tastes perhaps, keeps up an energetic pace from the off, only some of the longer songs slowing the action. Most of the numbers, though, were apposite and excellently delivered by the talented company of actor-musicians, with Joshua Goodman the MD. Christina Aguilera's Words Can't Bring Me Down, for example, Dreamgirls' One Night Only or Adele's To Make You Feel My Love, with a great fiddle obbligato from Dandini.
Jonathan Charles is superb in this often thankless role – a poor Italian immigrant, reeling off a stream of Italian names, playing his violin and teaching his master the art of love before changing identities, in a very thin disguise, with Sebastian, aka Prince Charming of Chelmsford (Jamie Noar). His Cinders is played with gutsy charm by Natasha Lewis, with some outstanding vocals, too.
Buttons, the Justin Bieber of Romford, is Alex Tomkins, playing on the sympathy of the audience, and rewarded by an invitation to join the happy couple in their new life together. The Fairy Godmother, her wand a silver flute, is beautifully spoken by Etisyai Philip.
The trio of baddies – all firmly rooted in Essex – are Kylie amd Miley, ugly sisters (Carl Patrick and Simon Pontin) and the Baroness, Hornchurch regular Georgina Field squeezing every last drop of evil from her role, and proving a fine saxophonist to boot. The trombone/sax face-off one of many inspired moments in this innovative production.
Mark Walters' design is sparkly and pretty as a picture-book. His costumes range from the cygnets' feathery drawers through the elegant gowns for Cinders and the Good Fairy to the OTT creations for the Sisters: designer handbags, Christmas gift-wrap, and, cleverest of all, the cocktail dresses.
Shouting out advice, encouraging bashful Buttons, screaming out that Behind-You “meta-theatrical rubbish”, the opening night audience of “children and coffin-dodgers” loved it all, from the “sniffle-stopper” - an ingenious tissue dispenser projecting loo-rolls over the front stalls – to the giant beach balls for the megamix party finale.

production photograph: Mark Sepple

Rave reviews for Cinderella at the Queen's Theatre Hornchurch from Queen's Theatre Hornchurch on Vimeo.

DICK WHITTINGTON

DICK WHITTINGTON
Made in Colchester at the Mercury Theatre, Colchester
03.12.2016
for The Reviews Hub

Beneath the impressive 21st century gloss, and despite the Trump gags, this is a warmly traditional panto, its appeal effortlessly spanning the generations.
Director and co-writer Daniel Buckroyd has wisely re-hired many of last year's Aladdin company; they seem very much at home in the Mercury, and their banter with each other and rapport with the audience are a delight.
Dale Superville makes a perfect Idle Jack – Roger the cabin boy on the Saucy Sally, getting the kids on his side instantly; he's the ideal foil for Antony Stuart-Hicks' glamorous Merseyside Mrs Suet, alias Sarah the Cook. Tall, glamorous with ever-higher heels and coiffure, George Robey eyebrows and a tasty line in crudities, this is a classic Dame. Ignatius Anthony relishes every moment of Ratty King (“a child crying, music to my ears”), a role cleverly re-imagined as a raffish villain out to seize political power in the City of London.
Gracie Lai is an agile Thomasina the Cat – wordless, as tradition demands, but very expressive nonetheless, and superb in a mewed rendition of Memory (from Cats, in case you'd forgotten) as she hypnotises the rats in the Sultan's palace.
The fruity-toned Fitzwarren is done with some style by Richard Earl, and Barbara Hockaday pulls off an unlikely double as Fairy Bow Bells and Captain Barnacle.
Love interest in the youthful shape of “Poundland Poldark” Whittington (Glenn Adamson) and his charming Alice (Grace Eccle).
The gloss includes David Shields' wonderful set, a centre circle, the face of Big Ben projected onto it, with clockwork designs, or the houses of old London, curving around it. The Epicurean Emporium, and the pitching ship's galley are beautifully realised.
The costumes too – not only Ratty's Dickensian outfit and the Dame's eye-catching creations (bathing drawers, Essex girl beehive, and she's the only one to get a change for the actual walk-down), but the attention to detail throughout, the sparkly shoes and fezzes for the Moroccan rats, for instance.
And the timeless tradition extends to some very venerable jokes (“Avast behind!” and “All hands on deck!”, shared with the equally saucy ship at the Wolsey this year), a UV underwater ballet, a ghost routine with a rather unconvincing camel, an old-fashioned Friendship medley for Dick and his Cat, that good old campfire classic Bobbing Up and Down Like This, and a wicked Twelve Days parody featuring a huge inflatable gin bottle and celebrity chefs - “Mary Berry's cherry”.
Charlie Morgan's choreography is snappy and inventive: the talented Junior Chorus excellently employed on board ship and in the Madness rats number. Richard Reeday, who's contributed lyrics and arrangements, is the Musical Director.
One of my three wishes after last year's Aladdin was for more of the same. The Made In Colchester genies have certainly delivered, - an object lesson in how to bring fun and freshness to a winning formula.

production photograph: Pamela Raith

Thursday, December 01, 2016

SINBAD THE SAILOR

SINBAD THE SAILOR
at the New Wolsey Theatre, Ipswich

29.11.2016

All the traditional ingredients of the Wolsey's wonderful rock'n'roll offerings are there: the actor/musicians, the chorus of cute critters, the visual puns [“pulled pork”] and the sound effects.
And after last Christmas's Sword in the Stone, this year we're treated to another fresh new storyline, and some unexpected characters. Our story-teller, and good fairy, is Scheherazade [Elizabeth Rowe], who brings the three couples to her love shack for the wedding finale. Our hero is Sinbad, of course, a likeable Steve Rushton, who woos the Princess Pearl [Daniella Piper]. His rival for her hand is the evil Sinistro, played by Wolsey favourite Dan de Cruz. He gets to quote Lear for his storm scene, which also has one of the best numbers, Deep Purple's Smoke on the Water. Much of the music is from the 70s and 80s: one of the most successful is the hilariously subverted Living on a Prayer, complete with smoke machine and fan supplied by a nimble stage-hand. Possibly a thinly disguised Graham Kent, who gives us a brawny Dame Donna. His stooge, Tinbad the Tailor, was very amusing done by Rob Falconer.
Half the fun for the grown-ups in the audience is seeing everyone slickly swapping instruments: the Dame on trumpet, the three girls a great saxophone trio, and almost everyone behind the drum kit at some point. The direction – Peter Rowe, who penned the witty, naughty script – is lively and energetic. The ten-strong company seem genuinely to be having a good time – though come the end of January that might be hard to sustain – Sinbad's Saucy Sausage sails on at the Wolsey until the 28th.
production photograph: Robert Day

Sunday, November 27, 2016

ESSEX SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

ESSEX SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

at Christ Church, Chelmsford
26.11.16





Back to back piano concertos, with Chelmsford-born Alisdair Hogarth as soloist with the ESO under Tom Hammond.
Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue top of the bill. Not really jazz, according to Hogarth before the concert, though the players did manage a convincing jazz sound, as well as the big orchestral palette, with a muscular soloist to match.
Shostakovich's Second Piano Concerto – a repertoire favourite, and recorded by three generations of the Shostakovich clan – was given a similarly bold reading; the outer movements sometimes sounded more deliberate, less delightfully delicate, than usual, but the sublime slow movement, with its rich string tone and eloquent piano phrasing, was superbly done.
Ten years now since Malcolm Arnold left us. And this enterprising programme opened with A Flourish For Orchestra, commissioned in 1973 by the City of Bristol. Then the Third Symphony of 1957 – the same year as the Shostakovich. A much darker piece, a memorial to the composer's mother, impressively played by the ESO, led by Philippa Barton, with sweeping, brooding strings, ominous tympani rhythms, and fleeting solos from oboe, clarinet, piccolo and of course Arnold's own instrument, the trumpet.

VERONICA'S ROOM

VERONICA'S ROOM

Stock Drama Group at the Village Hall
25.11.16

The room – the “shrine” - is shrouded in dust sheets, the cast list in the programme is deliberately unhelpful.
This melodramatic thriller by Ira [Deathtrap] Levin has some clever, chilling twists, even if it lacks practical or psychological credibility. Like the later, better, piece, it has plays within plays … Not to mention timeslips and philosophical questions about the nature of reality.
Stock, directed by Peter Baker, give it a stylish outing, with a nicely furnished 1930s room and some believable 70s costumes. The lighting is atmospheric, although more dark corners would have helped the mysterious mood.
Sarah Kettlewell is the unfortunate young heroine at the heart of the increasingly nasty plot – a Cordelia at school, she is left alone to create the tension before the twist at the end of Act One, which she does very effectively; her litany of 1973 is another fine moment.
Greg Morgan – is he really a lawyer, is that toothbrush moustache really a fake ? - is her unlikely boyfriend, and a more sinister professional after the interval.
The resident staff – at the start at least – are excellently characterized throughout by Sylvia Lanz and Ian Stratford.

Maybe a little less shouting, a little more underplayed menace, would have strengthened the dramatic impact. And if the action is to be shifted from Boston MA to Oxfordshire, then more work needs to be done on the text: summer camp, goosebumps, the Depression all betray its true origins.

Friday, November 25, 2016

SAND IN THE SANDWICHES

SAND IN THE SANDWICHES
at the Playhouse, Salisbury
23.11.2016


Alan Bennett looks increasingly like Betjeman's natural heir. And Hugh Whitemore's elegiac entertainment has more than one resonance: Edward Fox's rich voice – no more like Sir John's than his dapper linen-suited persona – is very like the patrician, academic tones that Bennett favours in pastiche. His “north of the Trent” town clerk, too, with “Bournemouth's looking up”. Not to mention the “grapefruit drying on the after-dinner speaking circuit. Both writers confess to a love of church-crawling, life on the film set, with its camaraderie and arcane jargon - “hair in the gate” …
Set in what could be a summer house, this 90 minute monologue is a shared delight; Fox's eyes are often screwed up in mirth, laughing, as Sir John did, immoderately at his own bons mots. And there are plenty of those, some new to me [the du Maurier limerick], some very familiar [Churchill on Tom Driberg's bride, a naughty Max Miller rhyme].
Names are casually dropped – pale green intellectuals and fin-de-siecle pederasts – Eliot, Auden, Blunt and Waugh, C S Lewis, Osbert Lancaster, Elizabeth Jane Howard. And of course there are the poems – Joan Hunter Dunn, Summoned by Bells, Dorset, Devonshire Street W1.
A disappointment to his father, Moth to Oscar's Bosie, delighting in old books - “through leaves” and London's Music Halls, [all but Wilton's, which he helped save from the wreckers, now vanished] – a “fascinating study to the world”.
Fox got a round on his entrance – life-time achievement applause, perhaps. But his affable, engaging performance certainly merited an ovation; this has been a long tour, but he appeared to be enjoying each anecdote and reminiscence afresh – a generous touch of genius on the Salisbury stage.

We used to picnic where the thrift
Grew deep and tufted to the edge;
We saw the yellow foam flakes drift
In trembling sponges on the ledge
Below us, till the wind would lift
Them up the cliff and o’er the hedge.
Sand in the sandwiches, wasps in the tea,
Sun on our bathing dresses heavy with the wet,
Squelch of the bladder-wrack waiting for the sea,
Fleas around the tamarisk, an early cigarette.


There was a young lady named Gloria

Who was had by Sir Gerald Du Maurier,
        And then by six men,
        Sir Gerald again,
And the band at the Waldorf-Astoria.

Monday, November 21, 2016

TO THE FIELD OF STARS

TO THE FIELD OF STARS

Writtle Singers at All Saints' Church
20.11.16

The programming for this enterprising chamber choir has invariably been interesting and rewarding.
This concert, taking us from a damp Essex November to the heart of Spain, was affecting too, reminding us of a time when the church's rites alone held the keys to heaven, and pilgrimage was an obligation to which all aspired.
Luis de Victoria's Officium Defunctorum, based on the plainchant of the requiem mass, was given an atmospheric performance in the consecrated darkness of the church, the polyphony subtly underpinned by the cello of Alastair Morgan. The central Sanctus was especially moving.
The Singers, directed by Christine Gwynn, were joined by the cellist, and by Chris Brice and Nathan Gregory on a variety of bells, for Gabriel Jackson's To The Field Of Stars, commissioned to mark the 400th anniversary of Victoria's death in 2011. Challenging for the choir, it blends ancient pilgrim hymns with settings of Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson – Miracles and Our Journey Has Advanced – as well as a prayer for travelling, a history lesson [spoken by bass Andrew Taylor] a murmured evocation of the stars, and at the last a glimpse of the glorious Basilica of Santiago, using an elaboration of the motet O Quam Gloriosum which opened the concert. 

An intriguing poetic reflection on pilgrimage and life's journeys, its elusive melodies and rich harmonies beautifully handled by the choir. Especially magical, suspending time for a moment, was the whispered litany of star names, decorated with tinkling bells and high cello melodies in a luminous evocation of Compostela, the Field of Stars.


Our journey had advanced —
Our feet were almost come
To that odd Fork in Being's Road —
Eternity — by Term —

Our pace took sudden awe —
Our feet — reluctant — led —
Before — were Cities — but Between —
The Forest of the Dead —

Retreat — was out of Hope —
Behind — a Sealed Route —
Eternity's White Flag — Before —
And God — at every Gate —

Emily Dickinson

pilgrim path photograph by Bishop Stephen Cotterell, who recently completed the Camino - his blog here

MOZART AND HAYDN

MOZART AND HAYDN

Waltham Singers at Chelmsford Cathedral
19.11.16

Impressive music-making in the Cathedral. The massed ranks of the Waltham Singers, directed by Andrew Fardell, joined by the St Paul's Sinfonia and two outstanding string players.
Mostly Mozart, but Haydn to begin: the dramatic motet Insanae et Vanae Curae, one of his most popular choral works. A piece of two halves, with the urgent string passages setting the mood of fear and dread, underlined by brass and drums, before the calmer, more lyrical Quid prodest section. The voices conveyed the trepidation and the meditation in a beautifully controlled performance.

Mozart's C Minor Mass had its monumental moments, too – the closing pages of the Gloria, for instance – but precisely delivered pianissimo passages were equally powerful, from the opening Kyrie on. The soloist here was soprano Laurie Ashworth, whose contributions, notably the wonderful Et Incarnatus Est, were magnificently musical. The choir too were generally on excellent form, the diminuendo in the Sins of the World typical of their disciplined attention to detail.
Between these pillars of the sacred choral repertoire, the orchestra was joined by Julian Leaper and Martin Outram [both of the Maggini Quartet] for Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante. A constant delight, with lyrical phrasing and impassioned dialogue between violin and viola. The emotional Andante was taken at a tempo which allowed the music to breathe, without losing its impetus, before the energetic Contradanza brought the work to a sunny conclusion.

THE FULL MONTY

THE FULL MONTY

Springers at the Cramphorn Theatre

19.11.16


Could have been another Billy Elliott, or Stepping Out. But Broadway got there first, and smelted Sheffield into Buffalo [in the Danish version they're brewery workers from Copenhagen!].
This is Springers' second Full Monty, and it features some of the same members we saw seven years ago.
The Cramphorn stage is simply dressed with tall white screens – the suicide motor the only projection, I think – with piano to the left, restroom to the right, and Ian Myers' band firmly out of sight.
Confident, compelling performances from Peter Spilling and Simon Brett as Jerry and Dave, the odd couple at the centre of the sentimental tale. Joining them as Hot Metal in the pitiless spotlight at Toni Giordano's are Dominic Light's sensitively played mother's boy Malcolm, Jason Norton's amusingly uptight Harold, Julian Harris's mischievous Horse and Bradley Cole's quietly determined Ethan.
Strong support from Sara Mortimer as Harold's materialistic other half, Sophie Lines as Dave's loyal wife, and Helen Arber as Jerry's acid-tongued ex. The seen-it-all piano player – hip flask and Marlboros – is nicely suggested by Natalie Schultz.
Nathan, Jerry's tug-of-love son, is given a relaxed, realistic performance by Mattie Scott.
The score is far from memorable – Let It Go the one exception – but the numbers are engagingly staged [choreography by Kieran Young]and all unplugged: the a cappella Scrap, the witty Man duet, and the touching You Rule My World.
A sell-out success for Springers, directed, as in 2009, by Andrew Shepherd. So, despite not being “young, pretty or any good” will they bare their tattoos again in 2023 ? Book now …