Month: July 2015

Anthony Marwood, James Crabb & Graham Mitchell, followed by Patricia Hammond and The Versatility Serenaders, Wigmore Hall, 10 July 2015

After the chaos of the Alexander McQueen at the V&A – click here, the Wigmore Hall felt like a sanctuary.

We had arranged a cold plate supper in advance, which worked fine, then enjoyed this excellent late night concert of violin, accordion and double bass music.

Click here for Wigmore Hall stub that explains it all.

The  main concert was excellent – we particularly liked the Piazzolla but it all worked well, even the Bach. Very relaxing and enjoyable.

I liked the Patricia Hammond & The Versatility Serenaders more than Janie; she finds early and pre-jazz not quite to her taste. Still, we stuck around for a while before heading home.

Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty, V&A, 10 July 2015

Janie was really looking forward to this exhibition. I thought I’d find it interesting too.

The V&A explains the exhibition and provides some video elements that show you quite a lot about it – click here.

In truth, neither of us much liked it. I really didn’t like it at all. Some of the rooms were so noisy and had so many different stimulae at the same time, I couldn’t really get my head around the art of it all. Perhaps it really was replicating the heaving nature of fashion shows. It didn’t help that, for this show, that Friday evening slot seemed very popular and therefore very crowded. Not for me.

We knew that we’d find several examples of our fashion photographer friend Anthea Simms’s work and sought those out; several to be found amongst the iconic postcards and posters for sale in the exhibition shop. We liked that bit best.

Here’s an e.g. for those Anthea Simms works – click here or on the picture above while the link is still live.

I for one was grateful that we’d arranged to go on to the Wigmore Hall for some grub and a late night concert afterwards; it felt like an escape from chaos into tranquility – what a huge cultural shift just down the road.

The Invisible by Rebecca Lenkiewicz, Bush Theatre, 4 July 2015

This was an interesting play about a legal aid lawyer and her cases. It raised a great many issues about that corner of our society.

Click here for the Bush Theatre stub, which explains the play/production well.

I have a playtext for this one; which is a good read.

It worked better as agitprop than as drama, in truth, although there were also some good dramatic moments.

Well written, well acted, well produced.

It got me and Janie talking about the issues anyway. Well worthwhile evening.

 

O/MODƏRNT: Monteverdi to Tango & Monteverdi in Historical Counterpoint, Wigmore Hall, 3 July 2015

Two related concerts in one evening, both of which looked right up our street:

On the first stub, as indeed it read in the Wigmore Hall brochure, it says:

The Wigmore Hall Restaurant will serve dinner after the concert. Please contact the Box Office on 020 7935 2141 to make your table reservations.

This absolutely clinched it for us. The food at The Wig is pretty good these days and we know that they can deal with the sort of meal they can serve between concerts.

But what a palaver we had booking the meal.

“We’re not sure that we’ll be open still at that hour on that evening…”

“…but it says in the brochure that you will be open…”

“…ah, well if it says it in the brochure then we will be open…

“…great, we’d like to book please…”

“…I can’t take bookings yet, because I can’t be sure we’re going to be open…”

It all came right on the night (indeed before the night) of course.

The whole thing was part of a festival project named O/MODƏRNT, which is explained on its website – click here.

The first concert, mostly blending Monteverdi and Piazolla, was an exceptional classical ensemble concert with several ensembles and soloists involved.

Then the relatively simple meal that Wigmore Hall can serve in these circumstances, all done with speed, efficiency and smiles in the end. We know many of the staff there; indeed any who stick around for a while.

The second concert was jazz with the Svante Henryson Quartet. We weren’t quite sure what Monteverdi had to do with it; perhaps some links in the musical themes being extrapolated. Still, it was very good jazz, although Janie, as usual in such circumstances, felt that it fell short of Tord Gustavsen, which is a tough, indeed perhaps unreasonable benchmark to set. But Janie has set that benchmark for all visiting jazz ensembles since Tord graced the Wigmore Hall with his presence some years ago – an event which I shall Ogblog in the fullness of time.

In short, our O/MODƏRNT evening was a great success and well worth the effort.

 

Essex v Australians at Chelmsford, Day 2, 2 July 2015

A day out in Chelmsford, reported upon at length on the King Cricket website.

This season my possessions are taking an increasing role in proceedings, writing many of my King Cricket match reports for me.  Dumbo, the Suzuki Jimny started this trend while we were in Ireland – click here.  Dumbo continued this trend on a half-day out to Uxbridge, linked through this posting here.  There will be more to come from Dumbo, once King Cricket gets around to publishing it.

Ivan The Smart Phone Reporting
Ivan The Smart Phone Reporting

But the report on the Chelmsford day was a first airing for Ivan the Smart Phone, my iPhone 5.  He tells you almost everything you might want to know about that day out, in a rather logical style – here. Indeed there will also be plenty more to come from Ivan.

To understand my King Cricket match reports you need to know that:

  • Ged and Daisy are nicknames/noms de plume for me and Janie. Friends are all referred to pseudonymously;
  • King Cricket match reports have strict rules: “If it’s a professional match, on no account mention the cricket itself. If it’s an amateur match, feel free to go into excruciating detail.”

If you do want to know about the cricket itself, you might want to have a look at the on-line scorecard – here.  Essex did rather well the day we went, perhaps foreshadowing problems to come for the Aussies that year, but we really didn’t spot the weakness at the time, that delightful day in Chelmsford.

A Day At Wimbledon, Primarily On No. 2 Court, 1 July 2015

Janie has a terrific track record of getting tickets in the Wimbledon ballot in recent years.

This year, we didn’t get, but then quite late in the day she was offered two returns for the first Wednesday on No.2 Court which were not together but were relatively cheap. I thought it would be a good way to get a day at Wimbledon, see some tennis on that court and spend some time doing that thing we’ve never done – just wander around and take in the atmosphere on the outer courts.

To all intents and purposes it worked.

At first we couldn’t sit together on No.2 court as everyone was set in their seats. We therefore watched a very good match between Grigor Dimitrov and Steve Johnson from separate seats.

Here’s a link to the canonical on the men’s singles.

Here’s a link to the canonical on the women’s singles.

It was a very hot day – perhaps the hottest of the year.

Once Maria Sharapova started to demolish qualifer Richel Hogenkamp, we decided to take a wander.

I had marked up some interesting looking stuff on outer courts and we soon found a doubles on Court 10 between Garbine Muguruza / Carla Suarez Navarro and Alexandra Dulgheru / Silvia Soler-Espinos. We’d never seen Muguruza before but she was absolutely the stand-out player in that game, not least in the matter of court presence.

As we wilted in the heat, we sought some shade and some refreshment, as indeed many people were doing that day.

As the day started to cool a little, we returned to No.2 Court, by which time we were able to sit together in excellent seats. We caught the end of an excellent match between Marsel Ilhan and Kevin Anderson. Finally, we saw a spunky little Kazak named Yulia Putintseva almost pull off an upset against Venus Williams.

We won’t do that again if we are offered two separate seats; we’ve done the outer court wander bit now and much prefer to know that we’re all set in our prearranged seats for our picnic and tennis.

But we had a lovely day and were especially pleased for the early glimpse at Garbine Muguruza, who so nearly went on to win the Women’s Singles that year against all odds.