No doubt about it – Bobbie joined me for this one. She was keen to see the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic under the auspices of the great Czech conductor Libor Pešek. I was keen to see how he would deal with one of my favourite works, Smetana’s Má Vlast.
Strangely, although the national papers promoted this concert widely in advance, none chose to review it by the looks of it. Typical.
Here’s one of the sea interludes performed by the very outfit we saw:
Here’s Stephen Hough with the BBC Symphony from the first night of the Proms 2013 with the Rachmaninov Paganini:
Here’s Libor Pesek and The Royal Liverpool mob playing their four movements of Ma Vlast in Libor Prom order:
Alternatively, if you want to hear that recording in full in Smetana sequence, I have made it available on this playlist – click here. Do not be put off if you see a seemingly erased link – you can hear it whether or not you have a YouTube Music account – you just get adverts of you don’t.
In truth I couldn’t bring to mind Skocná – Dance of the Comedians, but James Levine & the Vienna lot brought it all back to me:
I’m really not at all sure that Entry of the Gladiators belonged with this concert, but that’s what they did. The piece was originally written as a serious piece of military marching music, although how anyone with that moustache composing that piece expected to be taken seriously, even back then, I cannot imagine.
On reflection, I think the use of that piece as a second encore was a mistake. When Libor Pesek suggested that they play a second encore, one of the scouse musicians loudly expressed his discontent with the traditional local expletive, but unfortunately Pesek thought the fellow said:
…but for sure I got back to London in time to see this preview at the Cottesloe.
Bobbie might say, “more’s the pity”, as my log notes that Bobbie absolutely hated it. I merely found it long and hard to follow. That’s how I remember it and that is exactly what I wrote in my log.
Super cast – Tilda Swinton is always very watchable but does often do weird stuff. Also Aidan Gillen, latterly very well known indeed. David Bamber was in it too – thirty years on I tend to watch his son, Ethan, bowling for Middlesex instead.
The play is described as a dramatic poem in the English language text and/but it was basically a family drama.
I wrote the above piece on 14 February 2019, basically because it had been on my mind after writing up Music At Oxford a few days earlier. By strange coincidence, Bobbie Scully turned up at the Gresham Society Dinner that evening, as Iain Sutherland’s guest.
I mentioned the coincidence. Bobbie started to quiver with indignation:
I’d forgotten the name of that darned thing, but it was surely the very worst thing I have ever seen at the theatre…I think we walked out at half time…
…she said. Actually I don’t think we did walk out at half time. I’m sure I would have recorded that fact in my log whereas instead I recorded that the play was long and impenetrable.
I think we stuck it out tho the bitter end…
…I said. I also volunteered to dig deeper into the programme to see if there were in fact two halves.
Yes, there were two halves and they added up to a whopping three hours of hurt for Bobbie.
I’m not sure why we did stick it out. Perhaps I was still wet enough behind the ears to imagine t hat such a piece might yield in the second half all the answers it withheld in the first. I know not to do that now. Perhaps I was so tired and hungover from the joys of Oxford the night before I was reluctant to move on yet.
More likely, we had booked a late night eatery and jointly thought we might as well see the thing through rather than kick our heels somewhere.
Anyway, the whole experience clearly had a profound effect on Bobbie who was shaking with the trauma of recalling that evening and remembered it so well she even said…
…I seem to recall it was only on for a short run…
…which indeed it was.
Nearly 30 years on, Bobbie might wish to read the short essay from the programme too. The least I can do, upload the material, after all I put poor Bobbie through with regard to this play/production.
Postscript Two: Bobbie Chimes In With A Recovered Memory
An e-mail from Bobbie 24 hours after our encounter at the Gresham Society:
I was casting my mind back to that dreadful so-called play (it wasn’t, it was a string of tedious monologues) and had a recollection of being there after the interval in a (suddenly) half empty theatre. So I reckon that, although we did not leave at half time, about half the audience did.
And, indeed, I think that is why we stayed. We came out at the interval, intending to leave, but had pre-booked interval drinks to consume. As we did so, we watched more than half the audience exit the building. I think we went back out of sympathy/solidarity/courtesy towards the cast.
Does this ring any bells with you? Did we really watch the second half because we felt sorry for the actors? Personally, I can think of no other reason …
My response to Bobbie’s considered recollection was as follows:
Yes, we were young and foolish back then. We might well have stayed on for compassionate reasons. There’d be no such snowflake nonsense from this quarter these days. I do recall the second half seeming to drag to an even greater extent than the first half. I also remember an incredible sense of relief when the ordeal ended.
Postscript Three: Here’s a professional view…I don’t think Nicholas de Jongh in the Guardian exactly liked it either:
“Everyone drives on the pavement in Rio de Janeiro” – picture produced in collaboration with DALL-E
We headed up to Oxford late afternoon Friday for an unforgettable 24 hours or so, centred around a superb concert of Handel performed by The Sixteen Choir and Orchestra under Harry Christophers.
When I say “we”, I mean “me and my workmates. This was my first of several Music At Oxford experiences with BDO Binder Hamlyn Management Consultants (as it was called at that time). In fact, I think this concert was the first that Binders sponsored and that Music At Oxford thereafter became a bit of a Binders fixture for several years.
I was thrilled and impressed when I discovered that my firm was sponsoring this concert. I had discovered The Sixteen a couple of years earlier by hearing their recordings broadcast on Radio 3 and had found their sound mighty impressive.
Even now, writing in February 2019, nearly 30 years after the event, Janie and I still consider The Sixteen to be one of the very best early music choir/orchestras we have ever heard – indeed we have booked to see them again at The Wigmore Hall quite soon. It’s been a while – can hardly wait.
Harry Christophers in 2012, from Wikimedia Commons
But back in 1989 I had not yet seen The Sixteen live and/but it transpired that pretty much nobody at work had heard of them at all, so I was designated to be the in-house expert to whom inquisitive clients attending the concert might be sent for more information…
…in true management consultancy style, my having heard the performers a couple of times on the radio became, shamelessly, “recent, relevant experience”, enabling me to advise the clients about all matters Sixteen, Handel and indeed Early Music generally. I should have charged fees.
I remember the Friday afternoon, especially the journey to Oxford, very clearly. I spent the day at the office. As I still hadn’t passed my driving test, William Casey, the managing partner of the consultancy, offered to take me with him from the office to Oxford. I suspect that part of his purpose was to suck what little I knew about the music and the performers from my brain, so he could say something vaguely meaningful to clients.
Of course, we ended up leaving Faringdon Within later than intended and of course the Friday afternoon traffic between London and Oxford in early July was pretty heavy.
I discovered that the seemingly unflappable William Casey was as flappable as the rest of us when under time pressure, as we really did need to get to the Randolph Hotel, get changed into our fancy-pants clobber and be at the Sheldonian Theatre in good time to meet and greet guests.
Once we got away from the main London traffic it seemed we still had plenty of time. William and I chatted about various things, including life aspirations (mostly his) and William’s prior experience living and working in Brazil.
But I don’t think William had accounted for the dreadful traffic into Oxford on a Friday. 1989 was pre-M40 beyond Oxford, of course, so a fair bit more local traffic needed to use the narrow roads around and through Oxford in those days. So the stress levels started to rise again once the A40 into Oxford became a traffic jam.
At one point, William cut off a rather jammed up corner by driving up onto the pavement and jumping the traffic queue at the turning. Probably spotting my disquiet at that manoeuvre (which had not come up in any of my driving lessons) William exclaimed…
…everyone drives on the pavement in Rio de Janeiro!…
…which is the most memorable single thing that William ever said to me.
Of course, it was all a bit of a rush once we got to Oxford. Of course, we weren’t really late – just a little later than intended – so we were able to do the meet and greet thing before the concert…
…which is just as well, because we really were the sponsors – look at this page from the festival brochure:
Within a few months, we had changed our name to BDO Consulting; the first of several subtle name changes in the five-and-a-half years I was at the firm.
The concert was lovely and the Sheldonian Theatre is a superb setting for baroque music.
First up, the small scale but very beautiful Nisi Dominus, a recording of which, by The Sixteen, recorded just a few months after our concert, is (at the time of writing) available for all to hear:
Next up was the Lord Is My Light – Chandos Anthem No 10. Currently a recording of this one by The Sixteen is also available for you to hear:
Then the interval, which we spent hoity-toitying with our client guests in the Bodleian Library:
Well Posh
The invite doesn’t use the term hoity-toitying but you can take my word for it, that’s what we did.
I cannot remember in detail who was there that evening. All of the consultancy partners and a great many of my immediate colleagues for sure. Possibly some of the accountancy partners too, although I have a feeling that this first sponsorship was very much a consultancy affair and that it was in future years that the sponsorship widened out to Binder Hamlyn more generally. Michael Mainelli might well remember and fill in some juicy details.
I don’t think I needed to attend to my own main clients that year – I don’t think they attended. But I had been involved to some small extent with several of the firms clients by then, so had a fair smattering of people I knew as well as the general entreaty to “walk the room”, be the designated in-house early music expert and pretend to look intelligent…or whatever.
The second half of the concert was the wonderful Handel Dixit Dominus. I cannot find The Sixteen recording on line, but there is a fine live performance under John Elliot Gardiner which you might enjoy enormously:
My log reminds me how I felt about the evening and what happened next:
Superb evening. Ended up back at the Randolph Hotel sing-songing with the clients etc.
I am trying to remember who the main ringleaders of the sing-songing were; my memory fixes on Jim Arnott, Dom Henry and Richard Sealey in particular, but I might be mixing up this event with another event or two. Again, Michael might remember these informal details more specifically than me. I’m pretty sure Michael also partook of the sing-songing.
I don’t think we were sing-songing Handel at all – I suspect our singing was more of the Hotel California/American Pie/Streets Of London variety.
I do remember that we went on singing and partying into the early hours of the morning.
I don’t remember how I got home – I think I took the train from Oxford to Paddington for the return journey.
For sure I was back in London for an evening of Theatre at the National – that’s another story for another Ogblog…
But for sure this first Binders/Music At Oxford event, in 1989, especially the thrill of seeing The Sixteen at the Sheldonian, was one of my most memorable and enjoyable work-related cultural experiences.
I noted that this was a very good production and I’m sure that was true. Richard Eyre in charge of an infeasibly good cast in that intimate little Cottesloe Theatre.
…David Burke, Michael Bryant, Jeremy Northam, Graham Crowden, Sarah Winman, Stella Gonet, Selina Cadell, Suzanne Burden, Wendy Nottingham… it was difficult to work out which names from the cast list to leave out from this highlights version of the list.
In truth I don’t think Granville-Barker is really for me. I find his plays stylised and very Edwardian – which is, after all, what they are.
This one is at least replete with interesting moral dilemmas but in truth it’s not Ibsen.
But I do recall really enjoying this particular evening in the theatre and I suspect that this is the best Granville-Barker experience I have ever had and ever will.
I don’t recall exactly what Bobbie thought of it but I think she, like me, was much taken with the production. I also don’t recall what we did (i.e. where we ate) afterwards. Bobbie might just remember.
I don’t have great memories of seeing this opera, but I think my memories of it are more closely linked to my general mood that weekend than to any intrinsic issue with the opera/production…
…other than to say that this experience probably helped to kick off the view, which has become a prevailing one, that opera ain’t me.
Bobbie was there for this one, as was Ashley Fletcher – yes, my memory definitely serves me correctly for this one, as the diary makes clear that Ashley was down for the weekend and stayed in the tower – i.e. the annex to my flat in Clanricarde Gardens – so named, by Ashley, as he felt that the place would be suitable for the detention of a mad and/or elderly relative. That annex now serves as my office – renamed the ivory tower – a more liberal purpose and name.
…a few days before I wrote up this piece, about Don Giovanni.
Postscript after seeing Ashley in April 2019: Ashley has no recollection of that weekend. So we must rely on Bobbie’s memory that I was tripping out on tiredness and rather freaked at the thought of going out to get some additional soap, as there was none for Ashley in the shower of the tower. If I really did say words to the effect:
I did not envisage this weekend as a soap buying weekend…
…that would have to be up there amongst my most autistic utterances ever. I have a dreadful feeling that Bobbie’e memory is going to be bang on regarding that point.
I don’t remember all that much about this one, which probably means that I found it somewhat impenetrable, as is sometimes the case with Caryl Churchill plays.
I have the play text, so perhaps I should have a read to refresh my memory about this play/production. Or perhaps Bobbie can help.
Postscript
I have now reverted to the text and it sort-of comes back to me. The diary also tells me that we sat in seats D9 & D10 and that they were £10 tickets that Saturday. Good value, I suppose.
My log suggests that we thought this production was good. I’m not a huge fan of Wesker’s plays; in fact this one sticks in my memory as probably the most interesting of all those I have seen and read.
This was the famous (or perhaps infamous) National Theatre production of Hamlet which took Daniel Day-Lewis to the very edge of reason and from which he quit part way through the run.
I went very early in the run – in fact it might even have been a preview – with Annalisa. I suspect that I had booked the thing with Bobbie in mind, but so long before the appointed date that Bobbie could no longer make it.
Let’s just say that, back then, I thought of Shakespeare as more Bobbie’s thing than Annalisa’s thing. Annalisa has latterly assured me that theatre, including Shakespeare, was very much her thing.
Anyway, I recall that we sat right at the front of one of those side wedges in the Olivier – you are very close to the action there, especially when the action is on your side of the stage.
I also recall that Daniel Day Lewis was a very wet Hamlet – by which I mean sweating and spitting his lines. Annalisa remarked afterwards that we should have taken umbrellas with us had we known.
It was a superb production, with a great many big names and several names that weren’t big then but went on to be big. National productions were a bit like that in those days – some still are I suspect.
I was motivated to write up this theatre visit while sitting at Lord’s in September 2018 watching, for the first time, Ethan Bamber bowl live. His father, David, was Horatio in this Hamlet production, nearly 30 years earlier.
Other big names/fine performances included Judi Dench, John Castle, Michael Bryant, Oliver Ford Davies & Stella Gonet. A young Jeremy Northam had a small part in the version we saw but stepped up to the plate when Daniel Day-Lewis walked out. Later in the run, Ian Charleson took on the role to much acclaim, just before he died.
I think this was still quite early in Richard Eyre’s tenure at the National and he directed this one himself, extremely well.
My only other recollection is a quote that Annalisa picked up from an American visitor to the National, who told his wife that he didn’t think all that much of the play – “too many of the lines were clichés”. I guess you can’t please everybody.
Postscript: An Enthusiast From Across The Pond Sought Help…
…in March 2024 I received some unusual correspondence from a gentleman in the USA, wondering whether I still had the programme (or playbill in his terms) as he was keen to see Daniel Day-Lewis’s biography notes from that production.
I have mentioned before that Ogblog serves as a fifth emergency service on occasions and this felt like such an occasion. No sirens or speeding vehicles through the streets of London needed, but I fortuitously was able to lay my hands on this particular programme with relative ease, having not yet returned that batch to deep storage.
I went to see this production at the Almeida with Kate (previously and latterly Susan) Fricker. I rated it as very good and I’m pretty sure that Kate really enjoyed this production too.
It was an adaptation of a short Pushkin play about the interaction/rivalry between the two composers. This play inspired Peter Shaffer to write Amadeus on the same topic but the pieces are quite different other than the core topic. Here is the Wikipedia entry about the play.
The dates on these reviews imply that Kate and I attended a preview in March 1989.
The diary is silent about what Kate and I did before or after the show; I’m sure we will have eaten something or at least taken some refreshment and had a chat. Perhaps Kate remembers.
My memory isn’t brilliant on this one. I would have sworn that we saw Stella Gonet opposite Tilda Swinton in this, but all the evidence says we saw Lore Brunner. I can see no sign of ever having seen those two (Swinton and Gonet) on stage together, although both were prominent in the leading roles we were seeing at that time.
In any case, I believe this was only my second visit to the Almeida, the first having been some six months earlier, to see Hello And Goodbye. I do recall falling for the Almeida as a place itself on this second visit – whereas that first visit I was simply bowled over by the production and didn’t especially associate that visit with the Almeida. That was partly, I think, because Kate was especially taken with what they seemed to be doing at the Almeida in terms of restoring an old theatre for modern use.
I liked this play/production a lot. I don’t think I’d seen Alfred Molina before and was very taken with his acting. Colin Stinton was excellent too, as was Rebecca Pidgeon.
It’s a play about the movie business. As is often the case with Mamet plays about the world of work, Mamet captures the pressure-cooker atmosphere of the work place extremely well – an aspect that is often lacking in plays – perhaps because playwrights haven’t spent much of their lives in the actual hard-nosed world of work.
Theatricalia has an entry for this one – click here.
There are some #MeToo elements to this play that, obviously, weren’t perceived as #MeToo at the time because #MeToo hadn’t been invented – although movie business males belittling movie business females had been invented.
Pesek Prom Leece Echo 24 Jul 1989, Mon Liverpool Echo (Liverpool, Merseyside, England) Newspapers.com
