Month: December 2013

Drawing The Line by Howard Brenton, Hampstead Theatre, 27 December 2013

When we saw Jacquie and Hils Briegal for Christmas, we discovered that we were all going to see this play on the same night as couple of days later, along with Brother-in-law/Uncle Bernard Jacobs.

Typically, Jacquie said that Janie and I should join the family at her place for some supper after the show which we did.

Frankly, the play was rather dull. It’s funny how Howard Brenton tends to either get it very right or very wrong for me. this one missed the mark.

Fascinating subject, the partition of India, but what an old-fashioned “tell don’t show” history play it was.

Click here for a link to the Hampstead resource on this production.

Below is a video trailer with cast interviews:

Below is an interview with Howard Brenton about it:

The show got mostly good reviews – click here for a search term that finds them – so Janie and I form a minority view in that regard.

I think we were the least impressed among the family too.

What the family readily agreed, though, was that Jacquie’s supper spread and the family natter was the highlight of the evening. Bernard was in especially good form that night. Sadly, he passed away just before new year 2018 – more or less exactly four years after this splendid gathering, which I’m sure he enjoyed, as did we.

Emmanuel Pahud, Christian Rivet, Wigmore Hall, 22 December 2013

Something a little different just before Christmas that year. A real mixture of musical styles, played on flute and guitar.

Click here for a link to the Wigmore Hall page for this concert.

It wasn’t quite the programme we had subscribed for – the programme was changed between booking and the night – but I cannot for the life of me remember what they were originally proposing to do – some slightly different mixture of wonders I suspect.

Below is the only video footage I could find of the two of them playing together – a delightful little Bach piece – it wasn’t on the programme our night:

Below is Pahud playing a favourite Telemann concerto of mine – so why not embed it here?

Below is a sound YouTube of the two of them playing one of the charming  Bartok Romanian Folk Dances which was on the programme we heard:

I’m not usually wild about Bartok, but this flute and guitar combo makes the Romanian dances sound lovely.

Z/Yen Xmas Event – Beyond El Dorado: Power And Gold In Ancient Colombia, Shunga: Sex And Pleasure In Japanese Art, British Museum, Followed By Dinner At Sardo, 13 December 2013

Because I had been to see the Colombian Gold a few week’s earlier – click here or below…

Beyond El Dorado: Power And Gold In Ancient Colombia, British Museum, 21 November 2013

…and in any case because Janie was more interested in the Shunga exhibition – click here…

…Janie and I saw a different exhibition from the rest of the people on our pre-Christmas Dinner works outing.

Below is the trailer vid for the Shunga:

We really enjoyed this exhibition.

I sense that the Z/Yen team enjoyed El Dorado too.

Z/Yen Xmas Dinner At Sardo In Grafton Way

The whole event was themed as “Gold” in honour of the El Dorado aspect. Almost everyone wore something gold.

Sardo was a Sardinian restaurant, rather a good one, which itself had a somewhat gold look to it.

I crafted a seasonal song to go with the gold theme:

DRESSED UP IN GOLD
( Sung to the tune of “Silver and Gold” )

VERSE ONE – SILVER AND GOLD – ORIGINAL VERSION (by Johnny Marks)
Silver and gold, silver and gold
Ev’ryone wishes for silver and gold
How do you measure its worth?
Just by the pleasure it gives here on earth
Silver and gold, silver and gold
Mean so much more when we see
Silver and gold decorations
On ev’ry Christmas tree

VERSE TWO – BITCOINS AND LAND – LONG FINANCE VERSION
Bitcoins and land, bitcoins and land
Long Finance topics are bitcoins and land
How do you measure their worth?
Just by the value they gain and disburse
Hedge funds and bonds, hedge funds and bonds
Seem such a bore when you show
Bitcoins and land valuations
In each portfolio

VERSE THREE – DRESSED UP IN GOLD – Z/YEN VERSION
Dressed up in gold, dressed up in gold
Z/Yen folk this Christmas are dressed up in gold
How do you measure dress sense?
Not by this sartorial elegance
Shrouding in gold, shrouding in gold
Might cause some people offence
(If) Z/Yen folk wear such decorations
At normal Z/Yen events

Once people got their heads around it…

…the singing went rather well.

We have loads of pictures from this event, which I have uploaded to a Flickr album for ease of navigation – click here or below:

1

Mr Simpson’s Little Consort, St John’s Smith Square, 12 December 2013

I took my business partner Michael to this lunchtime concert after our December Board meeting.

It wasn’t very crowded, although there was a reasonable audience that lunchtime.

The image below shows the programme we heard.

Click here for a link to the Mr Simpson’s WordPress site:

Below is a recording of this troupe performing a Holborne Pavan and Galliard, which I believe we heard that day:

Below is a sample of Cate McKee singing, but she didn’t sing this beautiful Purcell song that day at SJSS:

We heard a fair bit of Orlando Gibbons that day – perhaps my first time or at least the first time I really noticed how much I like his sound. Here’s a vid of some other people doing another of Gibbons’s viol works:

Fault Lines by Ali Taylor, Hampstead Theatre Downstairs, 6 December 2013

This was not the most sophisticated or interesting play we have seen at the Hampstead Downstairs, but still it was good.

It was about a charity responding to a developing world emergency rather ineptly in the aftermath of a staff Christmas party.

We needed to suspend a fair bit of belief but there were some good fun elements and some juicy moral dilemmas thrown in.

Click here for a link to the Hampstead resource on this play/production.

Below is the trailer:

Click here for a search term that finds whatever else there might be out there – no formal reviews downstairs in those days.