TOP TEN OF 2017

TOP TEN OF 2017

31.12.2017

Lots of retrospectives, with critics picking their favourite treats of the year gone by.

I’ve not done too well in 2017, to judge by the Guardian’s choices – several lists, including this democratic selection. Just Emma Rice’s lovely Romantics Anonymous, and the National’s superb Follies. And of course I was not invited to either.

But this, my last year in the reviewer’s seat, has provided many delights, from the obscure and unlooked-for to old favourites.

Musically, an outstanding year for the Waltham Singers. With Music for Lent and Gerontius in the Cathedral. Of many other concerts, the inspired Devil’s Violin lingers in the memory, and on the Civic stage, Chelmsford Ballet Company’s Alice proved a remarkable achievement, followed by another stunning Ballet Central show.

Many marvellous musicals, I’m pleased to say: Forbidden Planet at Witham, Hot Mikado at Brentwood, Miss Saigon at school. The most inventive Shakespeare ? The fairground Dream at the Rose Playhouse.

Strong showings from Colchester Mercury, with a “definitive” Spamalot as well as the Peter Pan summer show, and from our own CTW, who staged a superb Casa Valentina and a “near faultless” One Day When We WereYoung.

A NEW YEAR CHARITY CONCERT

A NEW YEAR CHARITY CONCERT

Essex Youth Orchestra with Essex Youth Chamber Choir

Rotary Club of Chelmer Bridge 

at Chelmsford Cathedral

30.12.17

The EYO has been celebrating its 60^th anniversary, and this great concert enabled us to share in the festivities.

Rotary have been promoting these New Year concerts for some years – not always seasonal Strauss, though I recall one memorable evening with John Georgiadis. This year they were joined by the Essex Youth Chamber Choir, another branch of Essex Music.
Simon Warne’s excellently disciplined choir gave us Howard Goodall’s 23^rd Psalm – aka The Vicar of Dibley – Bob Chilcott’s Give Me The Strength, from his Life Cycle cantata, and an arrangement of a traditional spiritual, Standing in the Need of Prayer.
They combined with the orchestra for Vivaldi’s Gloria: a very impressive performance, conducted by Robin Browning. He managed to achieve an excellent balance, despite having a small choir, of largely untrained, sometimes immature voices, behind sizeable instrumental forces. A spirited interpretation, too – lively strings in the opening Gloria – with fine solo work from the players, oboe and cello, for example, and from the singers: three sopranos for the Domine Deus, and Kerensa Newcombe for the later movements, returning after the Qui Sedes to pick up her trumpet for the triumphant ending.
A pity we were not given a little more help in the programme – not necessarily text and translations, but at least a list of the movements.
No such problem with everyone’s favourite Christmas ballet, The Nutcracker. Robin Browning talked us through the extracts, from the Christmas Eve party to the Waltz of the Snowflakes, from the Land of Sweets and its colourful divertissements to the heart-on-sleeve Pas de Deux. A real treat to hear the music at such close quarters, with the wordless chorus behind the violins, Tchaikovsky given a welcome freshness by these young players. As Browning pointed out, what is a bread-and-butter warhorse to the ROH pit band is a new discovery for these youngsters, playing it for the first time.

It was preceded by Witches, a curtain raiser written by Caroline Penn, the EYO’s leader. Her very own hexentanz, with exciting brass and thrilling percussion.

MUSIC FOR CHRISTMAS 2017

MUSIC FOR CHRISTMAS 2017

Hutton & Shenfield Choral Society at the Brentwood Centre

23.12.17

Steeped in tradition and Christmas spirit, this musical treat heralds the start of the festivities for many.

Accompanied by the excellent Aurelian Symphony Orchestra, the choir gave us Rutter, of course: his Angels’ Carol, with Lynne Creasey’s harp, and the Shepherd’s Pipe Carol, with Ann Miller’s piccolo. Plus a toe-tapping I Saw Three Ships, and a splendid choral Jingle Bells. Carols for the audience, too, beginning, as custom dictates, with Once in Royal, and ending with Hark the Herald. They were conducted with infectious enthusiasm by Tim Hooper.

Guests included Santa Claus, descending through the audience to reward the children who’d just sung Away in a Manger. The choir from St Thomas of Canterbury, directed by Anna Dunn, with Tim Smith at the keyboard, singing some lovely, less familiar, Christmas songs, including Gonna Catch That Santa, complete with harmonies and hand movements. The children joined the adults for an arrangement of Calypso Carol, commissioned last year for the Society’s 50^th anniversary.

Chelmsford Ballet Company revived some favourite moments from this year’s Civic production, Alice's Adventures – flocks of flamingos, packs of playing cards, Tweedles Dum and Dee, all dancing to Carl Davis’s score played live – and, as a foretaste of next year’s Snow Queen perhaps, Ice Maidens.

Graham Padden was the narrator for Philip Lane’s setting of The Night Before Christmas, and also for the highlight of the evening, a witty setting by Edward Watson of John Julius Norwich’s hilarious Twelve Days of Christmas. Hissing geese from the choir, swans from Paul Lockyer’s cello, drummers of course, but, thankfully no bagpipes, the chanter melody provided by the violin of Aurelian’s leader, Philippa Barton.

CHRISTMAS AT BLACKMORE

CHRISTMAS AT BLACKMORE

Stondon Singers at the Priory Church of St Laurence

19.12.17

This year’s concert of carols – a cherished advent tradition for many – was a fine blend of familiar favourites and fresh discoveries.

A score of offerings, including four congregational carols. Beginning with the much-loved We Will Rock You, and ending with a setting of Tennyson by the Finnish composer Jussi Chydenius.

The central work was Cecilia McDowall’s Christmas Cantata, A Winter’s Night, a sequence of five contrasting seasonal pieces, with plenty of work for the organ, played by Michael Frith. The instrument also featured in an assertive modern arrangement of We Three Kings.

The choir produced a precise, balanced sound, with good support from the lower voices. Amongst many other festive pleasures, we enjoyed the Song of the Nuns of Chester, of which the manuscript survives from the fifteenth century – an excellent choice for this medieval church. A rare performance of Imogen Holst’s Out of Your Sleep, two charming, melodic pieces by Alan Bullard and Pierre Villette [an excellent performance of his Hymne a la Vierge] and The Truth Sent from Above for divided choir by the Singers’ conductor, Christopher Tinker. A setting moving in its simplicity, redolent of the ancient world of plainchant and the folk tradition from which the words spring.

Voices In The Mist

by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

The time draws near the birth of Christ:

The moon is hid; the night is still;

The Christmas bells from hill to hill

Answer each other in the mist.

Four voices of four hamlets round,

From far and near, on mead and moor,

Swell out and fail, as if a door

Were shut between me and the sound:

Each voice four changes on the wind,

That now dilate, and now decrease,

Peace and goodwill, goodwill and peace,

Peace and goodwill, to all mankind.

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

Chichester Youth Theatre at Chichester Festival Theatre

16.12.2017

No compromises in this year’s Youth Theatre offering. The deeper themes and complex emotions are fearlessly explored. And all the professional support – music, design, choreography and more – that makes Chichester musicals so special is devoted to the service of these talented young performers.

This is a poignant re-imagining of the fairy tale – scripted by Anna Ledwich, with songs by Richard Taylor. As the lyrics say in the final scene, “not at all at all what we expected”.

The core story is framed, and shaped, by evacuees, leaving London for the Sussex countryside, and billeted in a creepy old country house. Sinister rumblings, an off-limits South Wing, a strict housekeeper all make the displaced youngsters nervous – they devise a scenario, which they share with newcomers, and with us, the audience. And a game of hide and seek leads us in to some dark places and the fairytale proper.

The two title characters are superbly imagined, and confidently portrayed. Beauty [Mia Cunningham-Stockdale] is named less for her looks than for her virtue; she’s a feisty horticulturalist, the Cordelia who rejects a ball-gown for a gold lamé trouser suit. And eventually saves the Beast with a wonderful love duet.

He’s played by Hal Darling, inside an amazing exoskeleton puppet, magnifying his every move as his voice is manipulated. He’s genuinely scary but believably human, powerful but vulnerable.

There are many other memorable characters – Mr Villeneuve [George Bailey], tea merchant and Beauty’s father, his ugly-sister daughters and his dim twittish sons, Winston the pack-horse puppet, Dot D’Otter the messenger, Kiki the outrageously camp stylist [Crispin Glancy], Reg the Racoon. Not forgetting the refugee children themselves, who carry much of the narrative.

The show is packed with magic and marvellous stagecraft – big production numbers like the feast and the London sequence, and a wonderful library with avian volumes flapping overhead. Exemplary ensemble work, with every performer given a distinct character.

Beauty and the Beast is directed by Dale Rooks, with designer Simon Higlett, costume designer Ryan Dawson Laight, movement director Lizzi Gee and puppetry specialist Nick Barnes. How fortunate these youngsters are to gain experience in this professional environment, and how lucky Chichester is to have such a fantastic Christmas show … pantos, after all, are two-a-penny …

many of the roles are double-cast – the names here are those appearing on Press Night

production photograph: Pete Jones