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.
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.
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.
…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:
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:
It was Britten centenary day, so the centrepiece was Britten’s Dowland-inspired Nocturnal, although we did get some Peter Phillips to get a genuine Tudor feel and also some Bach and others to cruise us through the centuries.
Here is a YouTube of Zanon playing some Scarlatti…
…and here is a YouTube of someone else playing a Peter Philips pavan on the lute…
..and here is a Julian Bream masterclass on that Britten Nocturnal:
After lunch at The Wig, we went on to see an exhibition about Zoroastrianism at SOAS, but that’s a different story – click here or below:
I went to a private viewing of this exhibition, thanks to Tony Friend of College Hill (latterly Instinctif).
It was a very convivial corporate hospitality event in that grand foyer of the British Museum…
…so much so, that I felt very much in the minority when I took a good look around the exhibition. There was plenty of time to eat, drink, be merry and see the wonderful show.
This was a fun play with enough drama in it to keep us thoughtfully entertained.
Tracy-Ann Oberman (formerly of our NewsRevue parish – or at least the SportsRevue version is always superb value, as is Michael Attenborough, having a go in an even smaller house than the Almeida for once.
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