Adler & Gibb by Tim Crouch, Royal Court Theatre, 21 June 2014

Strange play, this one. I recall us both really liking the idea of it and the style of it…

…I even recall that we enjoyed the evening…

…yet afterwards we sensed that there was less substance to the piece than we had imagined…

…a bit like the modern/conceptual art world in many ways, so perhaps the play depicts its subject cunningly well.

Here is a link to the Royal Court’s resource on this production.

Below I have embedded an interview with Tim Crouch and Karl James, who explain the play rather well.

Here is a link to a search term that should find most if not all of the reviews – which were rather mixed.

England v Sri Lanka Day 3 Lord’s Test Match, King Cricket Match Report, 14 June 2014

Janie and I (or should I say Ged and Daisy) went to the Saturday of the Lord’s test against Sri Lanka in 2014.

My King Cricket match report linked here, describing our day, was published on King Cricket in October 2014.

This piece is, in a way, the first part of a trilogy.  It is linked to a couple of other pieces about Ged and Daisy encountering Mr Johnny Friendly, an MCC member, friend of the family and real tennis enthusiast. In reverse order:

This piece inadvertently became the first part of a trilogy because I misspelt Jane Austen as Jane Austin in this piece. King Cricket missed the error when he subbed; both of us metaphorically ate our own livers for the error in private, but I decided to milk the pun when we ran into Mr Johnny Friendly again.

The irony that I myself have subsequently taken up real tennis with gusto is not wasted on me.

To understand my King Cricket match reports you need to know that:

  • Ged and Daisy are nicknames/noms de plume for me and Janie. Friends are all referred to pseudonymously;
  • King Cricket match reports have strict rules: “If it’s a professional match, on no account mention the cricket itself. If it’s an amateur match, feel free to go into excruciating detail.”

If you do want to know about the cricket itself, you might want to have a look at the on-line scorecard – here.

It was not the most exciting day’s cricket we’ve ever seen. Daisy said the match was destined for a draw and of course she was right. Except that a nail-biter of a nine-down squeaky-bum draw is not the sort of draw Daisy probably had in mind. Of course the King Cricket report is silent on such details.

England v Sri Lanka Day 2 Lord’s Test Match, King Cricket Match Report, 13 June 2014

A day at the test match with three friends.

I went for an unusual and foodie menu for this match, partly because Alastair “Big Al DeLarge” Little was originally supposed to be part of our group, partly because I was also catering for the next day, when Daisy attended – click here for that report.

I wrote up this day 2 in a King Cricket stylee, which was published later that year on the King Cricket site – a report which tells you pretty much all you need to know about the day – click here...

…except that that report does not include details about the The Lord’s Throdkin, which was launched that day and which I wrote up separately for King Cricket – published here...

…and also of course King Cricket reports don’t talk about the cricket itself. So unless I insert a few points here you wouldn’t know that:

  • We saw Joe Root take his score from just over 100 to 200 – you don’t get to witness live many double-hundreds in your life. Charley and I were still shaking from the thought of having witnessed Ian Bell’s 199 at the same ground six years earlier;
  • Nigel “Jim Hawkins” Thorpe teased me when I suggested that Liam Plunkett could bat – I think Charley joined in the teasing, so I was very pleased when Plunkett demonstrated his batting skills with a nice cameo;
  • There were two players named Jayawardene playing for Sri Lanka that match. We tried to get a chant of “two Jayawardenes, there are only two Jayawardenes” going, but strangely that idea didn’t take off at Lord’s. Pity, really.

Here’s the scorecard if you are that interested.

I think the King Cricket report is more interesting – certainly more fun – here’s the link again.

Mr Burns by Anne Washburn, Almeida Theatre, 7 June 2014

We really didn’t like this play. I can see from the reviews that it was a “marmite” show.

The problems we had with it were many and varied.

We struggled to suspend belief for the notion that a disaster of the kind described could lead the USA into an autarkic breakdown of society. (Mind you, writing three-and-a-half-years later…)

We struggled to engage with the characters, who were a little too “everyman/no man” for us.

We struggled with the length of the play.

We (or certainly I) found every twist and change predictable and obvious…so much so, that, during the second interval, although we had not looked at a synopsis or review before our visit, I told Janie what the third part was bound to be about…and (by all accounts, we gave it a miss) got it pretty much spot on.

Here is a link to the Almeida’s ever-excellent on-line resource.

The following is the Almeida’s audience response vid:

…and here is a link to a search term that will find the reviews, good and bad.

No Wu Man No Cry, The Journey Of The Chinese Pipa, Wigmore Lates, 6 June 2014

OK, the concert wasn’t really entitled No Wu Man No Cry, perhaps it should have been.

Wu Man is a fine exponent of the pipa…

…aka “that Chinese theorbo thing” to Janie, as she learnt to describe it after accosting a William Carter the theorbist at The Wig a few years earlier:

William Carter, Theorbist Extraordinaire’s Mystery Punter Outed, 24 September 2010

This concert was a fascinating mixture of Chinese early music and modern pieces in a traditional style.

It was one of those Wigmore late jobs, so we struggled to find the energy to go to the hall and then had a terrific time.

Here is a link to the Wigmore Hall resource on that Wu Man concert.

Below is a super vid which shows Wu Man’s virtuosity playing a piece much like some of those we heard that evening:

We retired to the bar afterwards and enjoyed the Tom Green Septet…described here through this link.

Another very pleasurable late evening of music at The Wig.

The Day Charley the Gent & I Didn’t Go To Radlett To Watch Cricket, But Chas & Dot Did Come To Noddyland For Dinner

Most of what needs to be said about this day is summarised in the King Cricket piece about it – click here or below:

Middlesex Second XI v Essex Second XI at Radlett

If by any chance anything ever goes awry with that link, it is scraped to here.

In case you can’t be bothered to click but can be bothered to read my scribblings, the plan was for me and Chas to go to Radlett to watch some cricket, after which we would retire to Noddyland where Dot, Chas’s wife would join Chas, me and Janie for dinner.

In the end it rained such that cricket made no sense but a very pleasant dinner still made sense.

I’ll leave the final word to Chas:

…we had a great time yesterday, the house and garden are both very beautiful, the area is gorgeous, you both have made a very good decision to live there.

I felt a little embarrassed as the food was everything thing I adore, and lovely wine too!

To my amazement Dot enjoyed the Salmon and really enjoyed the hospitality, even the singing and ‘metal’ playing!

Don’t forget the option for you to see cricket at Essex is still very much open – just let me know some possible dates and I will organise.

I took Chas up on that offer – the following season – reported here and below:

Essex v Australians at Chelmsford, Day 2, 2 July 2015

But before that, indeed fewer than 10 days later, Chas and I were together again at Lord’s for Day Two of the Sri Lanka Test:

England v Sri Lanka Day 2 Lord’s Test Match, King Cricket Match Report, 13 June 2014

Those are both events reported more comprehensively on King Cricket than on Ogblog!

Essex v Australians at Chelmsford – match report
England v Sri Lanka at Lord’s, day two match report

Incognito by Nick Payne, Bush Theatre, 31 May 2014

We really liked this play/production.

We had been blown away by Nick Payne’s Constellations, so our expectations were high…

…this piece met those expectations.

It is all well explained on the Bush’s excellent on-line resource – click here.

This search term link will find you independent reviews and resources, although you shouldn’t much need them because the piece was very well received so the above Bush resource covers most of the bases.

Here is a very interesting interview/explanation from Nick Payne:

Below is a tantalising trailer which says little but looks spectacular:

A super evening of theatre. This one really deserves a revival and/or a major theatre run.

The Golden Age Of French Sacred Music, Le Concert Spirituel, Wigmore Hall, 30 May 2014

Another weekend, another early music concert that May. Perhaps I got over-excited with the booking forms or perhaps I had indeed spotted a glut of really superb visiting acts doing interesting concerts.

This was another good’un, that’s for sure.

Friday night, so no doubt the golden era sacred music will have induced each of us at some stage to nod off a little…but not a lot.

Here is a link to the Wigmore Hall resource for this concert, which helpfully shows you the programme they played. Trust me, it was sacred music and not, as advertised, scared music.

I seem to recall Janie finding Hervé Niquet a bit showy in style – Janie can be very unforgiving on that point, but we both really enjoyed the gig.

Below is a vid of Le Concert Spirituel singing something else, somewhere else, but it is a lovely short piece and you’ll soon get the idea:

Lovely sound.

Privacy by James Graham, Donmar Warehouse, 24 May 2014

This was a fascinating piece.

It is an uber-modern play about privacy, data and all that. Some members of the audience, perhaps foolishly, left their mobile phones on and acquiesced to a request to submit a selfie – only to discover that geeks can find out a heck of a lot about you just from the simple combination of that submission and other stuff we readily transmit and is there to be found.

To some extent the piece was born of the Edward Snowden/Wikileaks saga, but in truth this play is an entertainment about the issues for ordinary people more than the geopolitical aspects or the Snowden case itself. We did subsequently see a super play that really was about a Snowden-type case, Mike Bartlett’s Wild at the Hampstead, which was cracking:

Wild by Mike Bartlett, Hampstead Theatre, 17 June 2016

If this now sounds like a geeks night out without drama, I’m giving you the wrong idea. It was a powerful story and piece of drama to boot – a strong cast and superb production qualities as we might expect from the Donmar.

Click here for the excellent Donmar “Behind The Scenes” material for this play/production.

Here is a link to a search term that finds reviews and other useful resources about the play/production.

The first time we came across James Graham – This House, we weren’t so keen. But this one was sufficiently different and engaging to convert us to Graham’s writing…

…just as well, because Ink really was smashing:

Ink by James Graham, Almeida Theatre, 17 June 2017

Two Fabulous Baroque Concerts And A Dinner At St John’s Smith Square, 23 May 2014

Both of these concerts, part of the Lufthansa Festival Of Baroque Music that year, looked superb.

For reasons of my own (work related) I had tried the more formal dining option at SJSS a couple of times by then and thought Janie would enjoy such a meal too. Turned out (as I suspected) the restaurant was all geared up for people who wanted to see the two concerts and dine in-between.

Here’s the splurge on first concert;

We hadn’t seen La Risonanza before, although we had, I think, seen Fabio Bonizzoni – at least I have his wonderful recording of the last Domenico Scarlatti sonatas.

It was a good concert, although I recall we liked the sonatas more than the duets. Not a comment on the skills of the singers, they were excellent, but the style of those baroque duets don’t tend to please us, we discovered.

We both enjoyed our dinner; very attentively and well fed we were. In many ways the SJSS dining-crypt has more atmosphere than the SJSS concert hall itself, which can seem rather large and cold at times.

But the highlight of the evening was this last chance to see The Hilliard Ensemble perform Morimur live. I had owned and enjoyed the magnificent recording of Morimur for some years by then and was delighted to have a chance to see that composite work performed live:

William Cole, on the Interlude blog, describes the Morimur concert that evening thus:

…the Hilliard Ensemble with violinist Kati Debretzeni gave quite simply one of the most extraordinary concerts I have ever attended.

Here is a link to the whole William Cole review.

Talk about going out on a high. By that December, the Hilliard Ensemble was done saying its goodbyes to the world and that (un-Sinatra-like) was that.

Of course it is still possible to get the recording of Morimur – click here for a link to general resources on it or the image below for one specific link – I would highly commend the recording.

We still listen to Morimur quite a lot – its haunting quality is just so moving. The alternating of chorale and violin music just works..at least it does for us.

As for that Baroque evening at SJSS – very memorable indeed.