I think we must have been experimenting a bit at The Wigmore Hall for this one, as I don’t think of this music as being Janie’s taste. Perhaps I was especially keen to encourage her to hear the Richard Strauss songs…or at least i was keen to hear them performed live. Olaf Bär certainly gave them some baritone oomph.
We heard:
Ludwig van Beethoven – Trio in B Flat Op 11 for Clarinet, Cello and Piano
Gustav Mahler – Kindertotenlieder for Voice and Ensemble
Richard Strauss – Five Songs
Arnold Schoenberg – Verklarte Nacht Op 4 for String Sextet.
I sense that I enjoyed this concert more than Janie did.
My log is silent on this one. I think we quite liked it but clearly didn’t rave about it. Our diaries add nothing. Not even the fact that, almost certainly, we went to Don Fernando afterwards for a Spanish meal.
The local gazette papers had a rave review for this piece:
By gosh there was a fuss in the UK press about this one, with theatre journalists falling over themselves to heap praise, in particular on Nicole Kidman, essentially for looking the part and being able to act.
We had tickets for the first Saturday, because back then, as members of the Donmar, that was the sort of thing we did, especially if someone as grand as David Hare was credited with writing a whole new version of a play.
The play, originally known as La Ronde by Arthur Schnitzler, was highly controversial when it was written at the turn of the 20th century. There are 10 characters. David Hare’s version at Sam Mendes’s request at The Donmar (subsequently transferred to the Cort Theatre in New York) was not the first time the play was staged as a two-hander. It starred Iain Glen and Nicole Kidman.
Janie and I thoroughly enjoyed our evening, but probably for all the wrong reasons. My log comment speaks volumes:
Nice bodies, shame about the play.
Having been wowed by David Hare’s wonderful solo performance piece Via Dolorosa the week before…
…Janie and I found The Blue Room to be comparatively thin dramatic gruel.
Still, nice bodies as I (and the fawning journalists) said, plus a bizarre moment for me personally. Janie and I were sitting right at the front at one of the sides of the stage, as oft we did at the Donmar. As the stars took their final bow and departed the stage, Nicole Kidman seemed to look straight at me and wave at me with her fingers. One of Janie’s patients was in the audience that night and came up to us as we were leaving the theatre in a state of great excitement, because she had seen Nicole Kidman waving at me. The patient wondered whether I knew Nicole Kidman personally, to which my answer was, “not until this evening”.
25 years later, all I can say is that me and Nicole, we go back a long way.
Here are some of the fawning newspaper pieces. The Standard, seemingly without irony, devoted its Page 3 to the news & review. Frankly some of the language used in this Standard page would not be acceptable 25 years later:
In the Guardian, there is a gushing piece in The Arts Diary which, like the other papers, probably would get heavily edited or spiked today, while our friend Michael Billington did the worthy thing and reviewed Our Country’s Good at The Young Vic instead. (Janie and I went to see that the following spring when it came back from its tour.)
…the evening that Nicole Kidman and I had our magic moment ‘n’ all…
…I came across the above headlined diary entry the day before.
Delving into Janie’s diary for more clues, I discover that Janie “collected wild boar” on the Thursday when in town (that would have been from Harvey Nicholls in those days) after collecting red cabbage and marinade from Waitrose first thing.
Strangely, just the other day (25 years after the above wild boar evening), Janie and I were discussing our inability to get wild boar any more . [Insert here your own joke about me having progressed from wild boar to wild bore in the space of 25 years.]
Less strangely, we’re still very much in touch with John and Mandy 25 years later…
I think this wild boar dinner visit might have been the first time that Janie and I met Lydia.
In the coincidence department, the Cambridge Theatre (where Lydia now resides) is within spitting distance of The Donmar Warehouse in Earlham Street, where 25 years earlier, Nicole and I…
Another Sunday evening concert at the Wigmore Hall, this time to explore the church music of Haydn and his contemporaries with Peter Holman, Psalmody and The Parley of Instruments.
We heard:
Joseph Haydn – Three Psalms from Improved Psalmody (Ps 31, Ps 41, Ps 69)
Charles Burney – The Dialogue Hymn: Tell Us, O Women
John Stafford Smith – Horrible is the End of th’Unrighteous Generation
Joseph Haydn – The Emperor’s Hymn: Poco Adagio from the String Quartet in C Major, Op 76/3
Joseph Haydn -Give to God Our Thankful Songs
William Gardiner of Leicester – Give to God Our Thankful Songs
John Foster of High Green, Yorkshire – The God of Gods the Lord Hath Call’d
Johan Arnold Dahmen – Three Songs from Eleven Sacred Songs
Johan Arnold Dahmen – Two Psalms from Improved Psalmody
Samuel Webbe Senior – Where, Lord, Shall My Refuge See
William Shield – My God, My King with Joyful View
Thomas Greatorex – This is the Day the Lord Hath Made
Samuel Webbe Junior – Variations in A Major on “”Adeste Fideles”
Joseph Haydn – Three Psalms from Improved Psalmody (Ps 61, Ps 26, Ps 50)
Jolly good it was too, in the hands of these experts.
Janie and I thought this piece and performance was simply superb. In fact, I wrote:
Superb!!
…in my log and I am not normally the double-exclamation-mark type.
This was David Hare’s brave dive into performing a one-man-show on one of the thorniest topics he might possibly choose – the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Talk about high risk, but we thought Hare pulled off a blinder with this piece/performance.
Janie and I thought that Dumfries and Galloway was a very long way to go for just a couple of nights for Annalisa’s wedding, so we decided to extend our trip a little, ambling back via Sharrow Bay, a place Janie had long since wanted to try, taking an additional day off work.
Looking at both of our diaries now, 25 years later, that made the rest of the week ludicrously stuffed with work for both of us, but it was worth it, as we thoroughly enjoyed the whole trip and took lots of pictures.
12 & 13 September 1998: Annalisa’s Wedding, Annan & Clarencefield
Looks like we were among the first arrivals that weekend
We stayed at the Warmanbie Hotel, which I learn closed in 2005. It was just outside Annan, quite near to the wedding venue and set in beautiful countryside – Janie and I got there early enough on the Saturday to enjoy some walks and relax around the area before the wedding.
I even took a camera with a close-up lens, primarily expecting to use it at Sharrow Bay but actually the gardens at Warmanbie were photogenic too.
Me, Bobbie & Janie standing, ? seated left, Charlotte de Mercur seated right
Annalisa reminds me that the formal wedding took place a couple of days earlier – the above picture taken just before the “traditional” ceremonial wedding outside the castle – see pictures below.
“Dad-style dancing” is compulsory at weddings, even for those of us who are not dads
14 & 15 September: Sharrow Bay Hotel
Sharrow Bay, PenrithBeautiful gardens at Sharrow Bay Hotel
Sharrow Bay Hotel was lovely, although a little twee for our taste. We wanted to relax and certainly felt able to do so on arrival and looking around for a while, but soon it became clear that the hotel was run on a “strict house timings” basis. For example, our request for a slightly later meal time was met with, “but we serve dinner at…” response. Our request simply to miss out on “pre dinner drinks, which are served at sundown o’clock” was met with, “but everyone comes down for drinks at sundown o’clock, that’s how we like it here.”
“Do I have to get up and go down for pre-dinner drinks?”“I suppose so”Yummy grub – we were happy
Once all the other dinners had retired early, we could relax in our own way.
“Cosy in ‘ere, ain’t it?”“Don’t like rules”
When we got back to London the next day, we had dinner at The Chiswick, an offshoot of The Brackenbury. The former didn’t last as long as the latter, which, 25 years later, is still there. The site of the Chiswick is now a Gourmet Burger place. We remember The Chiswick as being quite good. It was certainly a pleasant way to round off a most memorable long weekend.
All the pictures from that long weekend can be found through the Flickr link below or click here.
We took The Duchess (Janie’s mum) with us to this one – the only Prom we did with The Duchess that year. She was partial to youth orchestras, so this Saturday evening concert was the obvious pick for The Duchess that year.
