An interesting looking production in the Bush Attic; we thought we’d give it a go despite it starting quite early (19:00) on a Friday. Janie made it to mine with bags of time to spare.
This short piece was really a few sketches presented together, overlapping more in their subject-matter (female and second generation identity) than the stories themselves.
We enjoyed it and were glad we invested the time to see this production.
I hope the Bush use that attic space more after the refurb (I am writing in December 2016). We thought it had great potential for this sort of studio work, much like the Royal Court Upstairs and Hampstead Downstairs.
I’m pretty sure we went on that Tuesday (14th July) although I have no diary note, so it might have been a different midweek evening that week.
It was something Janie really wanted to see, but we knew we’d only go midweek if we both felt, at the time, that we could fit it in.
Janie’s patients must have run to time. I had more time that week than expected, as I had planned to go to Merchant Taylor’s to watch Middlesex play but (as usual when I plan to do that) it had rained solidly on my planned day.
It is basically about the photographer Sebastião Salgado and his stunning photography of cultures and landscapes of the world. The film was made by his son, Juliano Ribeiro Salgado, together with Wim Wenders of Buena Vista Social Club fame.
We saw a preview and picked up a leaflet there from a preview Q&A session with Sebastião Salgado himself, but we weren’t there on the evening he appeared for questions afterwards.
The film was very moving and beautifully made. Worth seeing on a big screen, as we guessed, although small screen would be better than no screen at all.
Another of those winners at the Hampstead Downstairs. A really excellent one man performance in which you witness a chap’s life unfurl through a few dozen phone calls conducted on his several different phones.
It reminded me a little of The Human Voice by Jean Cocteau, except the one person in 36 phone calls is a man rather than a woman and there are more calls and more devices in this new play – welcome to 21st century communications.
Lee Ross was exceptionally good as the unravelling man, Martin.
I think we might have taken away some food from Harry Morgans after the show that time; the diary silent on the matter. But I do recall this play giving us plenty to chat about afterwards.
We had arranged a cold plate supper in advance, which worked fine, then enjoyed this excellent late night concert of violin, accordion and double bass music.
The main concert was excellent – we particularly liked the Piazzolla but it all worked well, even the Bach. Very relaxing and enjoyable.
I liked the Patricia Hammond & The Versatility Serenaders more than Janie; she finds early and pre-jazz not quite to her taste. Still, we stuck around for a while before heading home.
In truth, neither of us much liked it. I really didn’t like it at all. Some of the rooms were so noisy and had so many different stimulae at the same time, I couldn’t really get my head around the art of it all. Perhaps it really was replicating the heaving nature of fashion shows. It didn’t help that, for this show, that Friday evening slot seemed very popular and therefore very crowded. Not for me.
We knew that we’d find several examples of our fashion photographer friend Anthea Simms’s work and sought those out; several to be found amongst the iconic postcards and posters for sale in the exhibition shop. We liked that bit best.
I for one was grateful that we’d arranged to go on to the Wigmore Hall for some grub and a late night concert afterwards; it felt like an escape from chaos into tranquility – what a huge cultural shift just down the road.
On the first stub, as indeed it read in the Wigmore Hall brochure, it says:
The Wigmore Hall Restaurant will serve dinner after the concert. Please contact the Box Office on 020 7935 2141 to make your table reservations.
This absolutely clinched it for us. The food at The Wig is pretty good these days and we know that they can deal with the sort of meal they can serve between concerts.
But what a palaver we had booking the meal.
“We’re not sure that we’ll be open still at that hour on that evening…”
“…but it says in the brochure that you will be open…”
“…ah, well if it says it in the brochure then we will be open…
“…great, we’d like to book please…”
“…I can’t take bookings yet, because I can’t be sure we’re going to be open…”
It all came right on the night (indeed before the night) of course.
The first concert, mostly blending Monteverdi and Piazolla, was an exceptional classical ensemble concert with several ensembles and soloists involved.
Then the relatively simple meal that Wigmore Hall can serve in these circumstances, all done with speed, efficiency and smiles in the end. We know many of the staff there; indeed any who stick around for a while.
The second concert was jazz with the Svante Henryson Quartet. We weren’t quite sure what Monteverdi had to do with it; perhaps some links in the musical themes being extrapolated. Still, it was very good jazz, although Janie, as usual in such circumstances, felt that it fell short of Tord Gustavsen, which is a tough, indeed perhaps unreasonable benchmark to set. But Janie has set that benchmark for all visiting jazz ensembles since Tord graced the Wigmore Hall with his presence some years ago – an event which I shall Ogblog in the fullness of time.
In short, our O/MODƏRNT evening was a great success and well worth the effort.
A day out in Chelmsford, reported upon at length on the King Cricket website.
This season my possessions are taking an increasing role in proceedings, writing many of my King Cricket match reports for me. Dumbo, the Suzuki Jimny started this trend while we were in Ireland – click here. Dumbo continued this trend on a half-day out to Uxbridge, linked through this posting here. There will be more to come from Dumbo, once King Cricket gets around to publishing it.
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.”
Janie has a terrific track record of getting tickets in the Wimbledon ballot in recent years.
This year, we didn’t get, but then quite late in the day she was offered two returns for the first Wednesday on No.2 Court which were not together but were relatively cheap. I thought it would be a good way to get a day at Wimbledon, see some tennis on that court and spend some time doing that thing we’ve never done – just wander around and take in the atmosphere on the outer courts.
To all intents and purposes it worked.
At first we couldn’t sit together on No.2 court as everyone was set in their seats. We therefore watched a very good match between Grigor Dimitrov and Steve Johnson from separate seats.
It was a very hot day – perhaps the hottest of the year.
Once Maria Sharapova started to demolish qualifer Richel Hogenkamp, we decided to take a wander.
I had marked up some interesting looking stuff on outer courts and we soon found a doubles on Court 10 between Garbine Muguruza / Carla Suarez Navarro and Alexandra Dulgheru / Silvia Soler-Espinos. We’d never seen Muguruza before but she was absolutely the stand-out player in that game, not least in the matter of court presence.
As we wilted in the heat, we sought some shade and some refreshment, as indeed many people were doing that day.
As the day started to cool a little, we returned to No.2 Court, by which time we were able to sit together in excellent seats. We caught the end of an excellent match between Marsel Ilhan and Kevin Anderson. Finally, we saw a spunky little Kazak named Yulia Putintseva almost pull off an upset against Venus Williams.
We won’t do that again if we are offered two separate seats; we’ve done the outer court wander bit now and much prefer to know that we’re all set in our prearranged seats for our picnic and tennis.
But we had a lovely day and were especially pleased for the early glimpse at Garbine Muguruza, who so nearly went on to win the Women’s Singles that year against all odds.
Actually taken in 2014, but the blustery moment looks more like 2015 – thanks to Kim for the picture
After the great success of our lunch at Gravetye Manor last year, DJ asked us again for 2015.
We arranged to stay over on the Sunday night, driving down on the Sunday morning. I’m not sure whether we played tennis – I have a feeling we did play, early.
Once again it was a lovely lunch. The food is very good there. Such a relaxing place.
Somehow it didn’t quite have the magical atmosphere of the previous year, perhaps because we were doing the same thing for a second time, perhaps it was just the vibe of the place this time around.
One highlight of the afternoon was a package of photograph prints and a memory stick from Kim as a gift to Janie. The above picture is one of the hundreds of pictures from that stick; many of which will surely find their way onto the retrospective sections of Ogblog.
The weather wasn’t quite so special, the sun and the showers came and went with regularity. So rather than hanging around digesting our food in that large outhouse/arbour thing and the smaller, more outdoorsy chairs and arbours from the previous year, we relocated inside to a snug spot within the Manor itself for most of the afternoon, although the showers became less regular and passed through as the afternoon went on.
Before too long, DJ, Kima nd Micky all decided to go, so Janie and I sorted ourselves out in our room and then went outside to enjoy the now rather glorious early evening, playing some croquet and badminton on the lawn.
Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately, the King Cricket crowd were much to clever for me and rumbled the set up photograph – as you can see from the comments on this link – I cannot imagine how or why they did that.
We drove back on the Monday in our tennis (lawners, not realers) gear, stopping off at Boston Manor for a hit. We also enjoyed the rest of our Monday off. Indeed, we did little work and had lots of fun that week, as you will see if you read on in sequence, not least the first couple of days in July.
