A season of spirits, mists, bonfires and fireworks, with a ghost of a new Christmas shimmering on the horizon. As part of the Bloomsbury Festival this week I gave a reading from Charles Dickens’s ‘A Christmas Carol’ at the Conway Hall – here’s me in a top hat, trying out the acoustic.
.
Photo: Patricia Hammond
Christmas 2025 made its presence felt early. Back in August I was invited to run a ‘panto’ workshop in France – for the estimable amdram troupe The Tarn Players who are planning an English-language production of ‘Robin Hood’ in December at Le Theâtre Colombier, Cordes. We had a lot of fun – I reckon the show will be well worth the price of a ticket come Yuletide, should you happen to be in south-west France…..
Here the Tarn Players flex panto muscles in the late summer, as evening light faded over fields beside the rather fabulous Bonbousquet Yoga Studio. (Links below) Photos: Jennifer Cundy
September saw the second coming of the King!
No doubt by now all of you will have clocked the 1100th anniversary of the union of (almost) all England. It was then called Albion, and the first ruler to be installed with a crown instead of a victor’s helmet was called Athelstan. Whose coronation happened just along the road from where I live, and in July was boldly and imaginatively re-created by an impressive team of ‘Enactors ” called Regia Anglorum.
This is an earlier image of the event, featuring Archbishop Anthelm – depicted above by Regia Anglorum’s Classical Officer, Wilfred Somogyi – exhorting the king to be “an hindrance to his enemies”and to bring amongst other benefits “reproof to the exalted, comfort to the needy” and “teaching to the rich…” These latter two might be employed today as the current monarch tackles his feckless brother….
Picture source: tamworthcastle.co.uk
September brought the return of King Athelstan this time by water, with a flotilla of some seventy boats celebrating Kingston’s River Cultures Festival, aboard the” Sae Wylfing”, a half-length reproduction of a famous boat found at the Sutton Hoo Saxon burial site in Suffolk.
Photo: Woodbridge Riverside Trust
As part of a ‘Thames Alive’ event (link below) I was hired by the Borough of Kingston to provide live commentary for this impressive water-borne event, attended by no fewer than TWO royals! The flotilla’s arrival was witnessed by the current Duke of Edinburgh – whose presence was, well, rather low key – while King Athelstan on his Saxon boat raised a mighty cheer! There were terrific craft in the flotilla, many crewed by bands and dancers supporting excellent charities, plus two surviving from the Second World War – one which had ferried allied agents at night-time into France, another a support vessel from the D-Day invasion.
Others reflected our real or imagined past – marauding Vikings, also an ‘invaders’ landing craft’ built at Richmond as a ‘prop’ for the Russell Crowe movie about Robin Hood – a hero celebrated this year by the waters of the Thames and of the Tarn in southwest France!
Come October the time-line focus moved along the tow-path to Hampton and to Black History Month. At the tiny Garrick’s Shakespeare Temple museum the excellent Bloomsbury Baroque music ensemble – with whom last year I worked on musical settings for letters by the 18th century writer/composer Ignatius Sancho – on the 11th played music linked to works by the extraordinary Aphra Benn, arguably Britain’s first professional female writer. There were two stories – ‘Oroonoko’, about a south American slave colony, and one with echoes of ‘Othello’ called ‘Abdelazer – the Moor’s Revenge’.
Back in the 18th century David Garrick staged ‘Oroonoko’ twice , and in each production would have ‘blacked up’ to perform African characters. This time two young British actors read – with arresting verve, honesty and clarity – scenes from both plays. They are Aminata Kanneh-Mason and O’Shea Lamar.
Their work was complemented with elegant dances performed by Helen Davidge
Pictures: Sara Butterfield
Dance was a core element in Georgian theatre – David Garrick’s wife Eva Maria Weigel was a celebrated solo dancer. Here Helen danced choreography devised for the original staging of ‘Oroonoko’. She herself has a remarkable range of talents – outside the theatre and her dance troupe The Georgettes of Oxford she exists in quite another universe – as Dr Helen Davidge, researcher in astronomy. A star on two planes…
Dance was at the core of the event at the Conway Hall last weekend. This elegant building – the home of the Ethical Society – is close by Red Lion Square in Holborn where as part of the Festival it hosted a ‘Dickensian Song and Dance Club’. This offered music by the Capability Consort, Dickens’s words from me, rousing songs by the distinguished mezzo-soprano Patricia Hammond – and a chance for the audience to take part in a range of Victorian party dances – quadrilles, polkas and such. This under guidance by my remarkable former RADA colleague, Dance Master Darren Royston.
This was a great and improbable treat, since much of Darren’s time these days is taken up with events nearer his home in Thailand, where he is engaged in, amongst many other projects researching a PhD!
Picture: Darren at work with his friend Mrs Fezziwig (a.k.a link below)
As the year turns and leaves fall these weeks have been enriched by creativity amongst friends and colleagues – old pal Terence Wilton on tour as an elderly classical thespian in Agatha Christie’s ‘Death on the Nile’ (dates and venues below); a delightful gathering of RADA grads at Shakespeare’s Globe led by Lily Bevan to honour a Special Birthday for former Principal Nicholas Barter;
plus excursions into the musical universe of the Kanneh-Masons. To the Barbican, for the launch of the family album (with Michael Mopurgo) of The Carnival of the Animals; to the Peckham ‘Bold Tendencies’ venue to hear pianist Jeneba, whose new Jane Austen-inspired album is due out shortly; and this weekend to hear violinist Braimah and a lark ascending above the pews at St John’s Smith Square.
A bonus joy for me in these autumnal times is spotting former students from Gower St days turning in superb work – currently in all kinds of settings, from Stephen Mangan as both actor and stylishly witty host on arts shows, Indira Varma and Andrew Lincoln in ‘Coldwater’ under the direction of proud Welsh Radagrad Lee Haven Jones, and also Mr Lincoln in Ibsen at the Bridge Theatre – to the present BBC Monday night ‘must-watch’ drama ‘Blue Lights’.
We’re so proud to claim Siân Brooke as a graduate – an artist whose work is truly thought full (two words) and full of listening. In ‘Blue Lights’ Siân plays an English policewoman working in Northern Ireland, last week on a case involving teenage ‘drug mules’. When coaching I bang on about playing emotional scenes – i.e. just speak the facts. Don’t start with the emotions, start with the facts that the words are reporting. I was very pleased this morning to see that the BBC has issued this scene as a ‘trailer’. If you didn’t see it, and have a spare five minutes, take a look to see what I’m trying to say, and how it should be done….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIry7Avv5NI
(For those in the UK, all episodes are currently on the BBC iPlayer)
Look out for:
Autumn dusk at Garrick’s Temple to Shakespeare
Death on the Nile tour dates: https://deathonthenileplay.com
Bridge Theatre: https://bridgetheatre.co.uk/whats-on/the-lady-from-the-sea/
Mrs Fezziwig’s alter ego: Rosie at http://history-living.co.uk
OTHER LINKS:
Medieval special events: https://www.regia.org/about.php
Special musical events: https://www.continuoconnect.com/artists/bloomsbury-baroque
Other river events: http://thamesalive.org.uk/photos.asp
Yoga courses and classes in France: https://www.bonbousquet.com
And if you’re taking a Christmas break down that way, be sure not to miss:
