In the Vale Of Health: Missing Dates by Simon Gray, Hampstead Theatre Downstairs, 16 May 2014

Janie and I both really like Simon Gray’s plays and we really like the Hampstead Downstairs.

So this project; taking all four of Simon Gray’s attempts to write about a quirky pair of brothers in The Vale of Health, seemed like something we should do in full.

We saw them in this sequence/timing:

  • 21 March 2014 – Japes;
  • 18 April 2014 – Japes Too;
  • 2 May 2014 – Michael;
  • 16 May 2014 – Missing Dates.

We’d often see the same faces in the audience again. One gentleman who sat next to us on the last night, we’d seen at least once before. I said to him that it would be like saying goodbye to close friends when this little season ended and he said, “that’s exactly what I was thinking”.

Very intimate plays, beautifully written (it’s Simon Gray after all) and very well acted/directed.

I’m cutting and pasting this same piece for all four evenings; the above and the links below basically apply to all four.

Here is a link to a search term that will find you Hampstead resources and (unusually for downstairs) reviews, as they transferred this little season upstairs afterwards, because it had done so well downstairs.

Here is a YouTube interview and stuff:

Treasures Of The Renaissance – Masterpieces From The Golden Age Of Choral Music, Stile Antico, 11 May 2014

Just gorgeous, this concert was.

Here is a link to the helpful Wigmore Hall calendar note that tells you exactly what we saw.

This was Renaissance choral music at its best.

Barry Millington in the Evening Standard gave the gig this rave review – click here.

Below is a vid of Stile Antico, singing Ego flos campi by Jacobus Clemens non papa, which was the second piece they sang to us and which gives a very good sense of their glorious sound:

Coincidentally, the above recording was made at the Old Royal Naval College which I shall be visiting in a few day’s time (as I write in January 2018), although not for music purposes.

For those who are not blessed with Latin scholarship, “Ego flos campi” means, “I maintain my oral hygiene when I go camping”…

…although those words are occasionally mistranslated by so-called experts as, “I am the flower of the field”.

Anyway, enough of scholarship. Janie and I had enjoyed an early music oriented weekend from start (Joanna MacGregor tinkling the Goldberg on the Friday) to finish – we had no complaints about that.

Play that vid again, go on…gorgeous it is.

Searching For Sugar Man, Riverside Studios, 10 May 2014

I’m not sure quite what put us on to this superb movie, but we booked an all-too-rare showing of it weeks in advance at the Riverside Studios, Hammersmith. I suspect this was our last visit there before the closure for major redevelopment of the site.

It is a most unusual, true story. The American singer-songwriter, Rodriguez, was for some time billed as “the next Dylan” (the kiss of death for many a career) but vanished into obscurity.

Unbeknown to him, he was a cult, underground figure in South Africa where his music was extremely well-known and where he was believed to have died. After South Africa emerged from the apartheid era, some fans tried to track down Rodriguez’s story, discovered that he was still alive and the rest is history.

Here is a link to plenty of resources on the film and Rodriguez’s story.

Here is the IMDb item on this movie.

And below is the official YouTube trailer for the movie:

I also bought the soundtrack album, which Janie and I have enjoyed listening too quite a lot.

It isn’t often that a movie sticks in our thoughts for a long while after we saw the movie, but this one really did. Highly recommended.

Goldberg Variations, Joanna MacGregor, Followed By Jazz, Wigmore Lates, 9 May 2014

We rather like these Wigmore Lates concerts, although we do sometimes find it hard to drag ourselves from the comfort of my lovingly prepared dinner at the flat to the concert hall, albeit a mere couple of miles up the road.

We’d been very keen on the idea of this one when we booked it, but I do recall that fatigue factor coming into play as we set off for the Wigmore Hall.

But by gosh this one was worth it.

Here is a link to the Wigmore Hall diary page for this concert.

We’d enjoyed Joanna MacGregor playing interesting fusion music some years earlier, at the Roundhouse – click here or below… 

Joanna MacGregor and Britten Sinfonia, Reverb: Roundhouse, 23 January 2010

…but had never seen her perform solo before.

Her interpretation of the Goldberg Variations was a fine one. Not overly flash or unusual; perhaps the odd flourish that nodded to her breadth of influences. Very relaxing.

Did either Janie or I nod off during the performance, I hear you ask? That is between us and our consciences, but in any case, with the Goldberg, it almost feels compulsory to do so, at least for a short while, in honour of the great composer’s original purpose.

We certainly didn’t nod off in the bar afterwards where we heard the Julian Bliss Quintet play some swinging jazz. We both like that style, as does Joanna MacGregor, it seems, as she joined a fairly sizeable late night swing contingent in the bar for quite a while.

I think Janie and I slipped away just before midnight – we normally do – don’t want anyone to see our carriage turning into a pumpkin or anything like that.

A very enjoyable late evening at the Wig.

In the Vale Of Health: Michael by Simon Gray, Hampstead Theatre Downstairs, 2 May 2014

Janie and I both really like Simon Gray’s plays and we really like the Hampstead Downstairs.

So this project; taking all four of Simon Gray’s attempts to write about a quirky pair of brothers in The Vale of Health, seemed like something we should do in full.

We saw them in this sequence/timing:

  • 21 March 2014 – Japes;
  • 18 April 2014 – Japes Too;
  • 2 May 2014 – Michael;
  • 16 May 2014 – Missing Dates.

We’d often see the same faces in the audience again. One gentleman who sat next to us on the last night, we’d seen at least once before. I said to him that it would be like saying goodbye to close friends when this little season ended and he said, “that’s exactly what I was thinking”.

Very intimate plays, beautifully written (it’s Simon Gray after all) and very well acted/directed.

I’m cutting and pasting this same piece for all four evenings; the above and the links below basically apply to all four.

Here is a link to a search term that will find you Hampstead resources and (unusually for downstairs) reviews, as they transferred this little season upstairs afterwards, because it had done so well downstairs.

Here is a YouTube interview and stuff:

Middlesex v Yorkshire Day 4 at Lord’s, 30 April 2014

A working day, but I did have a pile of reading to do and a hope for good weather and an opportunity to go to Lord’s.

The match started inauspiciously for a gentleman in search of Day Four cricket at Lord’s, but Mick Hunt’s ability to produce tracks that end up lifeless knows no bounds sometimes.

At the time of writing (December 2016), there is much chat about Joe Root being lined up for the England captaincy – here is a very early example of him leading an almost unbeatable side to heroic defeat.

Click here for the almost infeasible scorecard.

Click here for a link to my King Cricket match report for this day – some good bants in the comments section – the bants are better than my article on this occasion.

If by chance anything ever happens to King Cricket, click here instead.

The other thing worth saying, absent from my King Cricket report as mentioning the cricket itself is prohibited there, is that I got to Lord’s just in time to witness Chris Rogers get to the 200 mark soon after lunch; I witnessed that from the Warner Stand before moving on to the sunshine elsewhere.

After Morning After by Simon David, Drayton Arms, 27 April 2014

We know Simon from the Royal Court bookshop. For many years he would chat with us when we got to the theatre about the show we were going to see and stuff.

Then he started to mention that he writes plays…

…then he invited us along…

…this might have been the second or third of his we saw; I think the second.

Simon’s plays are always quite short, steeped in word play, about somewhat edgy people and populated with good looking theatrical folk, with whom Simon seems more than capable of surrounding himself.

This one was on a Sunday evening which is hardly a schlep for us at the Drayton and Simon, as always, was very welcoming and seemed very grateful to us for supporting.

We liked this play/production.

Sunny Afternoon by Joe Penhall & Ray Davies, Hampstead Theatre, 25 April 2014

We loved this show.

Not the sort of thing we’d normally go for; we don’t really do musicals and certainly not juke box musicals.

But we’re both very fond of the Kinks, and of the Hampstead Theatre. We also trust Joe Penhall as a playwright.

Good call – this show was so enjoyable and we sensed that the Hampstead had a hit on its hands…

…which it did.

Well written, well acted & directed, superb musical performances…

…great fun too. By the end, it was more or less like being at an exciting gig. We ate at Harry Morgan before the show.

Here is a link to the Hampstead resource on this production.

Here is a YouTube “behind the scenes”/trailer:

Here is a link to a search term which should find you plenty of reviews. They were mostly rave reviews; deservedly.

 

 

Aspects Of Darkness And Light, Joshua Redman And Friends, Wigmore Hall, 24 April 2014

We were excited about Joshua Redman taking up residency at the Wigmore hall and thought this concert might be right up our street.

In truth, I don’t think the Patrick Zimmerli music on show that night was quite to our taste.

It was an interesting idea blending a string quartet with a jazz trio, but it didn’t quite work for us with this music.

We liked bits of it and were glad we’d been to the concert.

Here is a link to the Wigmore hall stub for this concert.

Passiontide, Academia Musica Choir, St John’s Smith Square, 19 April 2014

Janie is not quite as keen on St John’s Smith Square as she is on the Wigmore Hall. It’s not quite the same sort of warm, intimate space.

But whenever we go there she realises that she likes the bar in the crypt and that we often hear music that sounds great in a church, which is of course exactly what this venue used to be.

Easter weekend and some baroque music suited to that time of year:

Very high quality singing for a semi-professional choir.

It all sounded beautiful.