Tag: Pauline Wormleighton

The Wild Duck by Henrik Ibsen, Questors Theatre, 15 October 1999

A successful night at The Questors with the Duchess (Janie’s mum). I wrote,

very good,

in my log, which will be a comment on the play/production rather than The Duchess’s conduct.

Janie and I subsequently saw a superb production of this play at The Donmar.

I recall having some reservations about seeing an amateur production of this great play, but actually The Questors had actors and creatives of sufficient quality to carry this work well.

Janie’s diary suggests that we went to eat at a place named Rastificia afterwards, on Ealing Broadway, at 10:30. Sounds like Jamaican food from the name.

Just what Janie and I will have needed on a Friday evening after a long week’s work. No doubt the waiters made a fuss of The Duchess and no doubt she wanted to stay for one more cigarette at the end of the meal, so we’ll have got home very late indeed.

Also, no doubt, the deal was that The Duchess did the theatre tickets, Janie did the interval drinks and I did the meal. [Note to historians – The Duchess got several pairs of guest tickets free each year with her membership of The Questors – I’m pretty sure we didn’t go any more often than the using up of the freebies allowed].

“Parsimony is the best policy” – The Duchess of Castlebar

A Night At The Proms With The Duchess & The Hallé Orchestra, 5 August 1999

In those days we used to take Janie’s mum, Pauline, aka The Duchess, to the Proms at least a couple of times a season.

She was partial to a bit of Mahler, and a bit of Ludwig van…

…and a bit of verbal ultraviolence, now I come think of it.

Anyway, this is what we heard:

  • Symphony No 7 in A major by Ludwig van Beethoven
  • Violin Concerto by Alban Berg
  • Adagio from Symphony No 10  by Gustav Mahler
  • Henry V: A Shakespeare Scenario – Touch Her Soft Lips and Part by William Walton, arr. C. Palmer (encore)

The Hallé Orchestra, leader Lyn Fletcher, conductor Kent Nagano, violinist Kyung-Wha Chung.

All that information and more is on the excellent BBC Proms stub for this concert, which also enables you to hear and read about the stuff we heard – click here.

Janie’s diary suggests that we ate at Golden Chopsticks afterwards, with the helpful name “Mr Chow” jotted beside the phone number. (Harrington Road…long since gone.)

Dinner With The Family: A 70th Birthday Do For The Duchess, 3 July 1999

Pie depicted – Alpha from Melbourne, Australia, CC BY-SA 2.0

Judging by all the scribbles in Janie’s diary, she put a heck of a lot of effort into arranging a family do at Sandall Close for her mum, Pauline (Duchess of Castlebar)’s 70th birthday.

The out of town bits of the family will have stayed at local hotels.

The menu and arrangements look to me as though she got Murray Tollemache aka The Pie Man to cater this one. He was certainly one of our favourite dudes for Z/Yen functions at that time and the order list of pies is a bit of a giveaway.

Strangely, 25 years after the event (and many more years after Murray started The Pie Man business, he’s still going strong under the name TPM Catering.

Most of the family probably appreciated the effort that Janie had gone to. The Duchess almost certainly didn’t.

Coincidentally, Janie and I went to see Dinner With The Family with the Duchess the following week.

Dinner With The Family by Jean Anouilh, The Questors Student Group, 10 July 1999

Summer by Edward Bond, Questors Playhouse, 29 January 1999

I logged that this play/production was:

One of the best things I have seen at The Questors.

Praise indeed.

Here is a link to The Questors archive page for this play/production.

We went with The Duchess, as was always the case at The Questors. She was a member and got a certain number of guest passes “thrown in” with her membership. She was determined to take advantage of those.

Janie’s diary informs me that she collected oxtail that earlier day and that we all went to Mama Amalfi for dinner after the show.

The Rose Tattoo by Tennessee Williams, Questors Studio, 17 January 1998

We went to the Questor’s with The Duchess (Janie’s mum) that night. Unusually, there is no mention of a meal in a restaurant afterwards, but Janie’s diary has lots of notes about her mum going off to Tunisia on holiday the next day, so my guess is that we agreed to just go to the theatre and separately had light suppers at the respective homes afterwards.

As for the play/production, I noted that this was a:

…very good Questor’s production

Janie and I are especially partial to Tennessee Williams – it is a credit to this production that we liked it, as we sense that Williams is not easy to produce well. The Rose Tattoo is not Williams best/easiest play either.

The Questor’s has a super archive for all its productions – here is a link to the archive for this one.

I have downloaded the inside of the programme which includes a handwritten note that tells us this was the first night of the production.

A decade later, Janie and I saw a top notch professional production of this play…

The Rose Tattoo by Tennessee Williams, Olivier Theatre, 9 April 2007

It is inappropriate to compare the two – Zoe Wannamaker played the lead at The National. Suffice it to say that I remember both productions well and fondly.

Carmen by Georges Bizet, English National Opera At London Coliseum, 26 June 1997

I think I have the programme somewhere but this was on my mystery list until I found it in both our diaries while doing one of my “25 years on” trawls.

This was a “birthday treat” for Janie in which I expect i picked up the tab and Pauline, Duchess of Castlebar, graced us with her presence.

Janie’s not much one for opera but we all agreed that Carmen was a good place to really test that hypothesis. I had “done” Carmen as a small child of course – type cast as an urchin boy – another story for another Ogblog.

Anyway…

…this was the Jonathan Miller production at the ENO.

Edward Seckerson in The Independent sort-of liked it:

Carmen Edward Seckerson IndyCarmen Edward Seckerson Indy 15 Sep 1995, Fri The Independent (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Geroge Norris in The Telegraph loved it:

Carmen Geoffrey Norris TelegraphCarmen Geoffrey Norris Telegraph 16 Sep 1995, Sat The Daily Telegraph (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

While Kate Kellaway in The Observer didn’t like it:

Carmen Kate Kellaway ObserverCarmen Kate Kellaway Observer 17 Sep 1995, Sun The Observer (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

I think we were fairly indifferent to the production. It certainly wasn’t as good as the Putney Operatic Society’s version 25 years earlier…I wasn’t in it for a start.

The Journalists by Arnold Wesker, The Questors Theatre, 7 December 1996

My log for this one reads:

Programme (and hence all details) missing.

Production OK but cluttered – much like the play.

But all is not lost – it turns out that The Questors Theatre has one of the best theatrical archives of their own productions on the planet (who knew?), so everything you ever wanted to know about this production (or indeed any Questors production) and more besides, is preserved. Click here for The Journalists.

Just in case anything ever goes awry there, I have uploaded the scan of the programme to here.

I was reminded of this play and production many years later when Janie and I saw Ink at the Almeida.

Ink by James Graham, Almeida Theatre, 17 June 2017

Ink was not cluttered, although I did get spluttered…

…but that’s another story.

We no doubt took Pauline on to Noughts & Crosses, or possibly Lisa’s, or possibly Wine & Moussaka afterwards.

Pauline will have done the Questors tickets, which was very generous of her (she didn’t have to pay anything for two guest tickets), Janie will have done the interval drinks and I will have sported the dinner. Fair dinkum.

Just This One Visit To The Concert Hall That Year: Proms, Royal Albert Hall, 7 September 1996

I’m not sure why we went so very little in 1996 – I’m guessing we might have been preoccupied with other things when the Proms programme came out.

I don’t think this concert would have been our first choice, but Pauline liked Debussy and was convinced that Janie simply needed to work at it to find a place in her heart for Prokofiev. We tried a few times over the years and it didn’t ever work.

Valery Gergiev, conducting the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, would certainly have been a draw.

Here is a link to the BBC stub for this Prom.

We heard:

  • Sergey Prokofiev – Symphony No 6 in E flat minor
  • Modest Mussorgsky – The Nursery (arr. Edison Denisov)
  • Claude Debussy – La Mer

Here’s what Nicholas Williams thought about it in the Indy:

Gergiev Proms Williams Indy 1 of 2Gergiev Proms Williams Indy 1 of 2 11 Sep 1996, Wed The Independent (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com Gergiev Prom Williams Indy 2 of 2Gergiev Prom Williams Indy 2 of 2 11 Sep 1996, Wed The Independent (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Two Weekends In Bristol, Hilary’s 40th, 4 to 5 March, Then A Seasonal Visit 9 to 10 December 1995

Judging by the copious notes in Janie’s diary about the March visit, we took The Duchess (Pauline) with us on that occasion and there were lengthy negotiations about the choice of hotel.

My guess is that swimming pool was a must but the price would have had to be right for Pauline (eliminating the grander Swallow), so we ended up at The Marriot City Centre.

It can’t have been too bad because Janie and I stayed there again when we went in December. Only problem is parking in the City Centre and being the wrong side of Bristol really for Stoke Bishop.

Anyway, the first visit must have been for Hilary’s (the twins’ big sister’s) 40th, which I think was a family affair. I’m pretty sure Tony & Phillie didn’t come – we wouldn’t have gone to see them in Germany just a few weeks earlier if we had been due to see them in March.

I’m pretty sure the Duchess didn’t join us when we visited again in December; I think even by then the “routine” was that we would collect Pauline’s Christmas present and deliver it to her.

Again the diary is light on detail, other than the clear “note to self” in Janie’s diary to remember Hil’s foot stool. It probably didn’t look like the public domain image below.

A Visit To The Proms By Some Big Norwegians, Royal Albert Hall, 12 August 1995

Of course Pauline (The Duchess of Castlebar & Janie’s mum) knew all about the big Norwegians. She’d have done all of that before, but, as we were suggesting it, yes, she would join us at this Prom.

Here is a link to the BBC stub for this Prom.

Latvian maestro Mariss Jansons conducting The Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra in the following programme:

  • Magnar Åm – Study on a Norwegian Hymn
  • Richard Strauss – Also Sprach Zarathustra
  • Jean Sibelius – Symphony No. 2 in D major

Were we excited? Were we excited!

I loved a bit of Also Sprach back then. Here is a video of Mariss conducting the Concertgebouworkest in that very piece:

Even more, I loved that Sibelius Symphony No 2. Still do. Here is Mariss conducting the Big Norwegians from Oslo in the first movement of that amazing symphony:

Bliss.

Adrian Jack in the Independent also thought the Sibelius was bliss.

Jansons Prom Jack IndyJansons Prom Jack Indy 14 Aug 1995, Mon The Independent (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Even The Duchess seemed moved, but perhaps that was an auditory illusion.