In truth I remember little about this one. Terrific cast: Justin Salinger, Samantha Edmonds, Lisa Palfrey, Jonathan Cullen, Stanley Townsend and Sheila Hancock, directed by Rufus Norris.
It got neither plaudits nor roasting in my log, which probably means that we didn’t feel strongly about it either way.
Actually Julian Bream had to drop out of this concert at the last minute, so we got everyone else, but not him. We also got all the other pieces, but not the Bach Cello suite on the guitar.
I made no note about a replacement piece, so I suspect we had a shortened concert. This is what we heard:
Thomas Tallis – Loquebantur
John Taverner – Quemadmodum
William Byrd – Tribue, Domine
Fryderyk Chopin – Ballade No 1 in G minor, op 23
Johannes Brahms – Intermezzo in A major, op 118 no 2 –
Franz Liszt, Richard Wagner – Isoldens Liebestod
Leos Janacek – String Quartet no 2
My only other log note is that we bumped into James Davidson, who was (or probably by then, had been) the Director of Finance at Cancer Research Campaign, one of my earliest Z/Yen clients in the mid 1990s. He lived nearby in Notting Hill Gate and used to address me (in the street or at CRC) as “Lord Harris”, because he said my fee rates were so high. When we asked him for a testimonial to put on our spanking new Z/Yen website, he said:
expensive, but worth it…
…which we thought at the time was as good as it gets.
I suspect that this Tuesday night charity concert was expensive but worth it too.
Sadly, Julian Bream never recorded his live party piece of playing the BWV1012 Cello Suite on the guitar, but here’s a recording of a fine guitarist, Paulo Martelli, who has recorded his playing of part of it live:
So there’s the stuff we didn’t see or hear.
Here’s a recording of the Tallis Scholars singing Loquebantur, which is wonderful:
Here’s the Gesualdo Six singing Taverner’s Quemadmodum
Back to The Tallis Scholars, as there is a vid of them singing The Byrd:
PHILLIPS: Hey, are you looking at my Byrd?
There’s not a lot of Martin Roscoe to be found on-line – but here is Krystian Zimerman playing the Chopin:
I don’t suppose the Janáček string quartet much pleased us. Here’s the Amphion String Quartet doing their level best with it:
Well if you thought that Reza’s work was Chekhovian, Michael, just wait until you see The Cherry Orchard.
Another Saturday night at the theatre which didn’t raise a comment in my log at the time. Perhaps we were overdoing at bit at that time.
Amazing cast: Maxine Peake, Roger Allam, Michael Bryant, Vanessa Redgrave, Eve Best, Corin Redgrave (yes, that was two Redgraves for the price of one), and many other fine acting folk, directed by Trevor Nunn.
…we ventured to the Almeida for Yazmina Reza’s much anticipated follow up to Art…except it turned out to be an earlier play, not a subsequent one.
I wrote nothing in the log about this one, and sense that we weren’t overly impressed, but nor were we especially disappointed. I remember little about it other than it being a very high-end Almeida cast and production.
Paul Higgins, Amanda Root, Clare Holman, Claire Bloom, Matthew Marsh & David Calder were the cast. Howard Davies directed it. Here is a link to the Theatricalia entry.
Let’s see what the pundits had to say.
Susannah Clapp was not impressed, other than with Claire Bloom:
We saw a preview of this play/production. My log note:
very good indeed.
What else could there possibly be to say?
Steven Mackintosh, Tom Wilkinson and Julia Ormond were the superb cast. I think David Hare directed it himself…the formal reviews will probably cover that point. Let’s tale a look at those.
I have documentary evidence to prove that I went to the Oval on the first day of the fifth test. Not much was arranged by e-mail in those days, but I wrote an e-mail to TMS. I was reminded of same, today (13 January 2017) as a result of some discussions about left and right-handedness on King Cricket – click here – which triggered a memory that I possess a great essay on the subject in The Boundary Book: Second Innings.
I found the book. Marking that very essay in my copy of The Boundary Book: Second Innings was a printout of the following e-mail, to TMS:
In the hope & expectation that Nagamootoo will be selected for the Oval, try this limerick for size.
There is a young man Nagamootoo,
Who the girls find it hard to stay true to;
He’s a little too shy,
Like the song by that guy,
Named Limahl from the group Kajagoogoo.
Do look out for us today, near the front of the Peter May North Stand. A monkey, a green rabbit, four chaps (including two American rookies trying test cricket for the first time) and a yellow duck named Henry. Henry bears more than a passing resemblance to Henry Blofeld.
Ian
Earlier that same summer at the first test with the Heavy Rollers, plus Hippity the Green Bunny, Henry the Duck but no monkey. The monkey joined our household later.
We met Bananarama Monkey-Face in Pickering in early July 2000. This photo from 2014, after he’d established his own small-time writing career.
FALSE MEMORY PARAGRAPH
I have a feeling that the first day of the fifth test must be the occasion that Jeremy, Michael and I went together, with the additional American Rookie being a client or prospective client of Michael’s who turned out to have the attention span of a flea. He watched for about 5 or 10 minutes, got bored, wandered off and made us feel thoroughly irritated, as we knew loads of people who would have loved that hot ticket. As Michael said afterwards, “I’m not making that mistake again”.
CORRECTED MEMORY PARAGRAPH
Following an e-mail trawl for other summer 2000 matters, I realise that the above memory is false, or rather a memory from a later year/test match day. On 31 August 2000 the attendees were:
me
Michael “Timothy Tiberelli” Mainelli
Charles “Charley The Gent Malloy” Bartlett
Bob “Big Mac” Reitemeier (this pseudonym previously unused, but in the grand tradition of On The Waterfront characters as pseudonyms).
Both Michael and Bob were suitably interested in the cricket and indeed both have attended first class cricket and/or played several times since their initiation that day. Perhaps Charles also has some memories of that day. Big Mac e-mailed to say:
I just wanted to say how much I enjoyed the day. I must admit that I did follow the events on Friday, Saturday and Sunday with some interest following my induction on Thursday. Great stuff. The hook has been planted…
What about Monday?
But far more importantly, Aggers clearly liked my limerick a lot, because I heard him read it out at one point and learned that he broadcast it more than once during the day on that first day of the match.
I got very excited on the Friday, as Clean Business Cuisine (still available at all good bookshops, both on-line and real world) had just come out and we were promoting it heavily, so I got our book PR lass, Tanya, to bike a copy of the book to the TMS team at the Oval with a note of thanks re the limerick. I am now sure that such effort and expense is utterly futile. We live and learn.
That evening (the Friday) Janie and I saw Anthea and Mitchell. My diary says so. On the Saturday evening we saw Maz – my diary says so. I think it was her goodbye party ahead of going off to Malawi. A trawl of Janie’s diaries (and other people’s memories) at some stage in the future might well retrieve more stuff about those two evenings.
Monday 4 September 2000
Somehow, England, a shocking test match side at the time, had got itself ahead in a series against the (once) mighty West Indies (heck, they still had Walsh and Ambrose in those days, ageing though they might have been).
Going into the final test, England were 2-1 up. And now England were poised, in a great position to win the historic match and series on Day 5.
Several of us recovered our memories for that piece and commented. Here’s my comment about 4 September 2000:
I remember taking an early call from Big “Papa Zambezi” Jeff on the final day of the series, wondering whether I wanted to join him on a walk-up expedition south of the river (Thames, not Zambezi) to the Oval. He reckoned we’d still get good seats walking up Day 5 and it turned out he was right. But I had unmovable client commitments that day (long since forgotten by me and probably the clients), so he walked up and got splendid seats for an historic day without me. I made amends by buying Day 5 seats for the Oval in 2005 as a precautionary measure; Big “Papa Zambezi” Jeff was one of the beneficiaries of that forethought.
Well I have now looked up my diary and can see exactly what I did that day. I was sort-of on a deadline with an important report. Plus lots of calls. But I did have some slack that week.
Could I have burned some midnight oil and caught up? Of course I could.
Should I have gone with Jeff that day? Of course I should.
Under Billington Guardian 21 Sept 2000 The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com
Under de Jongh Standard 20 Sept 2000 Evening Standard (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com
Under Taylor Indy 30 Sept 2000 The Independent (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com
