Summertime Britain is a food lovers’ paradise, with dozens of festivals, fairs and other tasty offerings where food and cooking take centre stage.
That’s certainly true at the Port Eliot Festival in Cornwall. Enjoying a magnificent setting on the grounds, woodlands and riverside of an historic house and former medieval monastery, Port Eliot has grown a reputation for words, music, fashion, flowers and extremely good food.
Over its four packed days and nights, festival goers can savour a delicious blend of chefs, cooks, bakers, brewers and growers as they share skills, kitchen secrets and top quality eats. Caught by the River and other stages welcome writers, musicians, conversationalists and comedians, Sipsmith Gin Palace hosts jazz parties, martini masterclasses and plenty of opportunities for G&T by the river, and the Fashion Foundation takes fashion to imaginative new heights.
Wellbeing and wildlife have a big part to play at Port Eliot. There are activities like astronomy walks, wild cookery, fire building, flamenco dancing, herbal first aid and wild swimming. You can stop by Larks Haven for wellness workshops, disco yoga, hot tubs and mindful masculinity sessions. We recommend signing up early for the wilderness survival masterclass with award-winning actress Teri Hatcher (aka Susan from Desperate Housewives). This year sees the debut of Wildlings Wood, a magical forest glade where children can dance, sing, frolic and forage all day long.
As nowhere is considered off limits, the Festival also wends its way into Port Eliot House itself for tours, talks and films.
If, like the Hungry Caterpillar, you are still hungry, there’s plenty more on this summer’s culinary menu. You might even say there’s a festival for every food fetish. You can gorge on local oysters, crabs and whelks washed down with champagne at Pommery Dorset Seafood Festival or turn up the heat at the Northeast Chilli Festival. Experience all things sausage at Lincoln’s Sausage Festival or hone the art of keeping vampires away at Isle of Wight’s Garlic Food Festival. And Corfe Castle Food and Drink Festival looks perfect for lovers of romantic castle ruins and spectacular country views.
For classical music lovers it doesn’t get much better than the BBC Promenade Concerts, affectionately known as the Proms. A British national treasure since Victorian times, this world’s greatest festival of classical music roars into London’s Royal Albert Hall mid July, setting off 90 concerts and two months of non- stop musical feasting.
The original Proms’ promise, to create a joyous celebration of music and reach the widest possible audience, means there are plenty of affordable options, including half- price for under 18s and 1300 ‘promming’ (standing) tickets for every Prom at £6.
Each Prom Season gets bigger and more imaginative. This year welcomes a gobsmacking choice of orchestras, choirs and premier musicians from around the globe. There are 90 artist debuts and 42 world premieres, intimate late night Proms, lunchtime Proms, Prom ‘Extras’ and loads of free concerts and events for families.
As well as the usual generous helpings of Beethoven, Bach and Mozart, amongst this year’s delights are a Tango Prom, Havana meets Kingston Prom, Folk Music Prom and a jazzy evening with multi-instrumentalist sensation Jacob Collier. Reach-outs to other venues include Proms at Lincoln’s Drill Hall and Gilbert and Sullivan staged in the beautifully restored Victorian Theatre at Alexandra Palace in north London.
The Proms love anniversaries and 2018 is no exception. This year’s Proms feature works by 24 women composers to honour the 100th anniversary of Women’s Right to Vote. Debussy and Lili Boulanger will be honoured on the centenary of their deaths.
The Proms offer a massive grand salute to American composer, conductor and musical personality, Leonard Bernstein, who would have been 100 this year, including celebratory performances of West Side Story and On the Town. As a child growing up in 1960s America, this writer vividly recalls the joy of watching Bernstein’s groundbreaking Young People’s Concerts on national television. Several Proms will introduce new audiences to music as a tribute to Bernstein, the inspirational educationalist.
As ever, the season culminates in that beloved ritual known as the Last Night of the Proms. Last Night festivities, complete with traditional fancy dress, party poppers, balloons and flag-waving sing-a-longs to ‘Rule, Britannia!’ and ‘Land of Hope and Glory,’ are always sold out. That’s where Proms in the Park come in, created in 1996 so that the overwhelming numbers of Last Night fans won’t miss out on the fun. In addition to the Royal Albert Hall finale, audiences can choose from four open air spectacles nationwide. Park Proms in Belfast, Glasgow, Swansea and London’s Hyde Park bring the four UK nations together in song and spirit with the help of tirelessly enthusiastic compere Michael Ball and live big screen linkups.
Hyde Park’s stellar headliners will be Gladys Knight, Josh Groban, Matt Goss and Joseph Calleja. For the grand finale, Prom audiences join celebrities, choirs and fireworks as Prommers across the land sing, wave Union Jacks, pop poppers and let go of all that British reserve for another year.
Never mind if you can’t make it to the Last Night in person— you can join the party via giant video screens around the country or sing along by telly, tablet, smartphone, laptop or radio, thanks to the BBC.
Further information:
BBC Henry Wood Promenade Concerts, 13 July-8 September 2018
Tina Turner’s life has been well documented first in her autobiography I, Tina and then in the film What’s Love Got To Do With It with Angela Bassett and Laurence Fishburne. Therefore, it should come as no surprise to audiences that this fiercely talented singer endured years of brutal beatings from her husband Ike Turner. This violence is central yet again to Tina Turner’s story in this production, turning what could be a rags to riches, typical jukebox musical into a study of domestic abuse. Of course, we know that she will triumph and go on to record her Private Dancer album, become even more successful without Ike and will eventually find happiness, but the journey that takes her there is a difficult one to watch.
Katori Hall’s script has a lot of ground to cover, so doesn’t have much time to delve into any depth or ask too many questions of its protagonist. We first see Tina waiting to go on stage in Brazil in 1988, calmly chanting Buddhist prayers while a huge audience screams in anticipation. We then jump to the beginning of the story, an outdoor prayer meeting in Nutbush, Tennessee, where little Anna Mae Bullock is told off by her mother, Zelma, for singing too boisterously and showing off. Zelma is reprimanded for her criticism by her husband, Richard, the preacher, who hits her in front of the children, a foreshadowing of Tina’s life to come. Zelma soon takes off with younger daughter Alline to St Louis and Anna Mae is left in the care of her grandmother, a kind woman who encourages her. At sixteen, she joins her mother and sister in St Louis and almost immediately meets Ike Turner at a club, who insists that she join his band and charms her mother into letting her, promising that Anna Mae will be well paid and will send money home. He also promises to take care of her, but the early signs are not good. He loses his temper with everyone around him, showing a narcissistic, bullying personality, threatening fellow band members as well as the singers. Nevertheless, Tina joins him and is soon made the lead singer. Although she falls in love with saxophonist Ray, and has a child by him, Ike renames her Tina Turner and pretends that they are married for the sake of their band, the Ike and Tina Turner Revue. Two years later they do marry, despite Ike beating up both her and Ray, and what follows is years of abuse as well as many hit records.
What is glossed over is why Tina stayed all those years with Ike, who was a drug addict and philanderer. We see plenty of scenes of violence but never any love so it makes her look like an unquestioning victim, perhaps because she considered it normal for a man to beat his wife, as she saw in her childhood. Only after her suicide attempt does she eventually decide to stand up to Ike, fighting back and then escaping from him on the spur of the moment, while they are on tour.
Act Two sees Tina now left with no money, a single mum struggling to support two sons by doing Las Vegas shows, and follows her slow rise back to the top of the charts with the help of a new manager and a fortuitous collaboration in London. Along the way, she also finds love with Erwin Bach, a German music producer who is seventeen years younger than her. The rest is history.
Although Tina Turner’s life story is bleak, it is clear that what kept her going was the music and there is plenty of it in this production. The songs
are cleverly interwoven into the story, starting with Nutbush City Limits sung as a hymn by the outdoor church to Gran Georgeanna singing Don’t Turn Around as she sends young Anna Mae off to St Louis, to Let’s Stay Together sung by Ray in one of the rare tender moments.
The music really takes off though when performed by the astounding Adrienne Warren who perfectly embodies Tina Turner; despite not sounding or looking like her, she has Turner’s unbounded energy, strength and size. Her magnificent voice soars in every number. The scene where Phil Spectre is recording the iconic River Deep, Mountain High with Turner, making her do it repeatedly until she gives it her all, is particularly memorable. American actress Warren also captures Turner’s mesmerising stage persona, from the highly energetic, verging on manic dance moves of Proud Mary to the smiling powerhouse of Simply the Best. In addition, she has to age from sixteen to forty- nine, which is no mean feat, even though Tina Turner has always looked remarkably young.
Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, a fine actor who has worked frequently in theatre, including playing Laertes to Benedict Cumberbatch’s Hamlet, has the unenviable task of playing the unrelenting villain of the piece, Ike Turner. He plays it absolutely straight in an unyielding performance that doesn’t ask for sympathy, but unfortunately the script gives him little opportunity to show what first attracted Tina to Ike and what kept her with him for sixteen long years of abuse. He is, without a doubt, a powerful presence, however, and we do sense his resentment at never being recognised as the rock and roll renegade he was. He shapes and forms young Anna Mae into the iconic Tina Turner but cannot control his anger and brutal temper, lashing out at all around him.
Madeleine Appiah as Zelma Bullock, Lorna Gayle as Gran Georgeanna and Francesca Jackson as Rhonda Graam, Ike’s road manager and later Tina’s close friend and personal assistant, all turn in excellent performances. Mention must also be made of the actresses playing the Ikettes, the original back-up singers, who perform with as much gusto as Tina.
This is a musical with heart, showing the bravery, fearlessness and extraordinary talent of Tina Turner, faced with not only an abusive husband but with racism, ageism and sexism from white executives in the music industry. However, it never takes a closer look into the mind of a woman who would endure such abuse for sixteen years, while still asking the audience to witness repeatedly such scenes of violence. It is an uncomfortable story to watch, alleviated by full throttle performances of Tina Turner’s greatest hits by the incredible Adrianne Warren. Although the musical is hard-hitting, it didn’t seem to bother most audience members who happily stood up and danced and sang along to the obligatory end of show numbers including Proud Mary. As Tina Turner had a hand in presenting this version of her life, we have to assume this is what she wants the world to see, that she will not be beaten into submission by anyone and in the end, we just have to keep singing.
Are there any crusty readers out there who, like the author, recalls Roger Miller’s hit song ‘England Swings’? That was the 1965 US pop chartbuster with vivid, stereotyped lyrics, telling of bobbies on bicycles, rosy red-cheeked children and dapper gents with derby hats.
Britain’s groovy reputation in the Swinging Sixties was a magnet for American musicians and artists, as well as young tourists by the charter plane load. They came to play, sway and in many cases, stay. American celebrities who have spent significant time living here include musical icons Tina Turner, Susie Quatro and Madonna, actors Gwyneth Paltrow, Kevin
Spacey and Gillian Anderson, and writers Bill Bryson and Francesca Simon.
Jimi Hendrix, born in Seattle, was one of the greatest rock legends to live, love, write and perform in Sixties London. He also infamously died here in 1970, from an accidental drugs overdose. You can visit his Mayfair flat at 23 Brook Street, which shares Georgian walls with the former home of composer George Frideric Handel. Together these make up the fascinating Handel & Hendrix in London museum. Jimi’s carefully restored bedroom is on the top floor, complete with hippy-style decor and his favourite black hat, feather boas and acoustic guitar.
If you’re in the mood for more swinging, there are plenty of Sixties themed tours out there, like the Ultimate Swinging 60’s Experience Tour on a Routemaster Bus or Free- Tours-by-Foot’s acclaimed Rock‘n Roll London. Those with deeper pockets may prefer the luxury Rock N Rolls Tour of Swinging London, in a Rolls Royce of course.
Since the tragedy of 9/11, when two planes crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Centre in New York City, there have been many literary, visual and performing arts responses to the day. What did the people trapped inside do and think when they became aware of the unfathomable threat that could end their lives? One such response to 9/11 is the opera Between Worlds, which was performed at the Barbican two years ago. Tansy Davies composed the music; Nick Drake wrote the libretto. The opera takes place for the most part inside the north tower on September 11, covering the time before dawn until the end of the day, by which time both towers had collapsed. Music, song and design are interwoven to create imagined scenes with people expressing their gnawing, desperate need to make contact with their loved ones. They want to be sure that if they die, a loving, enduring spirit will follow in their wake, rather than angst. Looking up, people on the ground, the ‘chorus’, share the captives’ sense of helplessness. Horror is eating them up, too.
Most people think opera is stuffy, elitist, for pompous connoisseurs, obsessed with ego-centric characters and their silly dalliances, adorned in expensive costumery, singing in front of sumptuous sets. Why do people spend so much on flummery? Between Worlds shows how relevant opera can be to our inner and exterior lives; each of us can relate, personally, to the sorrow, grief, fear, love and life experiences of the people in the towers. The tales of the doomed and the grievers could be our stories.
Indeed, there are many historical and contemporary operas that will resonate with all of us; and if, as a scathing critic, you visit the exhibition, Opera: Passion, Power and Politics at the Victoria & Albert Museum (until 28 February 2017), curated in collaboration with the Royal Opera House (ROH), you could find yourself thereafter a frequent member of the audience, listening to opera on Spotify while you are at the computer, or singing arias to yourself as the bath water turns cold. Opera could very well become part of your life.
The exhibition encompasses a collage of visual and performing art (more than 300 operatic objects are on view); it is not just a series of galleries with pretty pictures and explanatory, jargon filled panels. We see – and hear - how music, singing, lighting, set design, graphics, fashion, painting, drawing, printing, sculpture, jewellery making and carpentry work together to bring opera into being. Operatic excerpts and commentary on the audio guide (more a soundtrack than just a guide) enrapture us as we travel through the galleries learning about 400 years of operatic history. Each gallery focuses on a city and an opera that premiered in the city. When the exhibition was in the making, the then director of the ROH, Kasper Holten, determined that the “exhibition will show us opera as the soundtrack to the history of Europe. We hope to show audiences, both those in love with opera already and those who are still missing out, that the art form is alive and kicking and has as much to say to the society around today as it did 400 years ago”.
First we visit Venice in 1642 and explore the premiere of Monteverdi’s The Coronation of Poppea. This tells the story, set in the first century AD, of the Emperor Nero’s infatuation with the beautiful Poppea who tries to make him divorce his wife and make her the Empress of Rome. The challenges of love, lust, greed, immorality, morality and betrayal vie with each other in an intriguing tale, which could be transposed to the pages of the tabloid press of 2017. We then venture in 1711 to London where we learn about Handel’s Rinaldo, the first Italian opera created for the English stage. It was set during the Crusades. This gallery displays somewhat hostile reviews in The Spectator magazine at the time of the opera’s premiere, yet the public loved the opera, in spite of the journal’s derisiveness, for its pageantry. In Vienna, we encounter Mozart’s comic opera, The Marriage of Figaro, premiered in 1786. The opera pokes fun at the arrogance of the aristocracy at the time and their presumption that they had the right to take advantage of the ‘lower orders’; the droit du seigneur is quite an issue here. Are there parallels with parliamentary behaviour today? In 1842, Milan welcomes Verdi’s Nabucco, a biblical story about the plight of the Jews as they are exiled from their homeland by the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar II. The narrative stirs reflection upon the plight of endangered exiles and conflicts in the Middle East in our times. Visiting Paris, we greet Wagner’s Tannhauser in 1861, a tale of lust culminating in damnation. Audiences did not appreciate the opera to say the least; maybe it made them feel uncomfortable. Wagner withdrew the work and despised Paris ever after. The once-scandalous Richard Strauss’ Salome, a setting of an Oscar Wilde play, premiered in Dresden in 1905. In St Petersburg, Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk made its debut. It tells the story of a lonely woman in 19th-century Russia who falls in love with one of her husband's workers and is driven to murder. Stalin suppressed the opera two years after it premiered in 1934. In a newspaper, Stalin attacked Shostakovich for “trifling with difficult matters”…The opera, he wrote, was an “ugly flood of confusing sound”. Its themes of oppressive social surroundings and conventional mores and depiction of the Gulag challenged the righteousness of Stalin the omnipotent.
As we move from city to city we see pass opera related exhibits such as the amended and re-amended notes on Handel’s original score for Rinaldo, costume armour for the opera’s Crusaders, and a working, mechanised, colourful replica of a Baroque theatre, where mermaids in Rinaldo sing as we watch a ship pitching through a stormy sea before the clouds part and it reaches safety. Mozart’s own piano is displayed. The material from the opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsenck includes Shostakovich’s autograph score, costume and set designs, posters and programmes. Archive footage reveals Shostakovich playing the music for Act III feverishly on the piano. We see Salvador Dali’s costume designs for Salome and opera related paintings by Manet and Degas. In a closing section we watch excerpts from 20th century operas, such as Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess and Einstein on the Beach, composed by Philip Glass, screened on the walls.
Would the exhibition be too ‘grown up’ for young children, those perhaps under 11? The music and artistic artefacts would undoubtedly appeal to anyone of any age. Would the large screen extract from George Benjamin’s Written on Skin, revealing domestic brutality, disturb? Given what children are exposed to by social media and television, and the prettified violence of fairy tales and children’s novels, it is debatable how affecting it would be. Think deeply! On a more benign note, young people studying music would be fascinated by the exhibition, mesmerised, appreciating how the power and vigour of both the libretto and the music relate to each other.
There are operas written especially for children, which are enjoyed by so-called adults, too. Recently, the company OperaUpClose commissioned and staged an enchanting opera, Ulla’s Odyssey. Homer’s Odyssey inspired Ulla’s, which grapples judiciously with contemporary issues such as climate change and female leadership. The audience, toddlers included, hailed the work with a standing ovation. Indeed, OperaUpClose Close is dedicated to increasing awareness and appreciation on of opera among the population at large. It presents contemporary and historic operas, in English, which are transposed to modern settings. The artistic director, Robin Norton-Hale, notes that 82% of the audience attending Ulla’s Odyssey at Kings Place were seeing their first opera, and “a staggering 92% of that group told us that they will now definitely see another opera in the future”. Britten’s Noye’s Fludde, for three adults and ninety children, The Firemaker’s Daughter, composed by David Bruce, which is based on the same named children’s novel by Philip Pullman, Jonathan Dove’s The Adventures of Pinocchio, Hansel and Gretel by Humperdinck and Janáček’s Cunning Little Vixen are several of the most highly acclaimed and endearing operas for children.
Enlivening and enriching, the exhibition is living proof that opera is for each and every one of us, not just for ‘them’. Take deep breaths before you start singing about its wonders so that your voice will be all the more potent.
Summertime Britain is a food lovers’ paradise, with dozens of festivals, fairs and other tasty offerings where food and cooking take centre stage.
For classical music lovers it doesn’t get much better than the BBC Promenade Concerts, affectionately known as the Proms. A British national treasure since Victorian times, this world’s greatest festival of classical music roars into London’s Royal Albert Hall mid July, setting off 90 concerts and two months of non- stop musical feasting.
Tina Turner’s life has been well documented first in her autobiography I, Tina and then in the film What’s Love Got To Do With It with Angela Bassett and Laurence Fishburne. Therefore, it should come as no surprise to audiences that this fiercely talented singer endured years of brutal beatings from her husband Ike Turner. This violence is central yet again to Tina Turner’s story in this production, turning what could be a rags to riches, typical jukebox musical into a study of domestic abuse. Of course, we know that she will triumph and go on to record her Private Dancer album, become even more successful without Ike and will eventually find happiness, but the journey that takes her there is a difficult one to watch.
The music really takes off though when performed by the astounding Adrienne Warren who perfectly embodies Tina Turner; despite not sounding or looking like her, she has Turner’s unbounded energy, strength and size. Her magnificent voice soars in every number. The scene where Phil Spectre is recording the iconic River Deep, Mountain High with Turner, making her do it repeatedly until she gives it her all, is particularly memorable. American actress Warren also captures Turner’s mesmerising stage persona, from the highly energetic, verging on manic dance moves of Proud Mary to the smiling powerhouse of Simply the Best. In addition, she has to age from sixteen to forty- nine, which is no mean feat, even though Tina Turner has always looked remarkably young.
Are there any crusty readers out there who, like the author, recalls Roger Miller’s hit song ‘England Swings’? That was the 1965 US pop chartbuster with vivid, stereotyped lyrics, telling of bobbies on bicycles, rosy red-cheeked children and dapper gents with derby hats.
As we move from city to city we see pass opera related exhibits such as the amended and re-amended notes on Handel’s original score for Rinaldo, costume armour for the opera’s Crusaders, and a working, mechanised, colourful replica of a Baroque theatre, where mermaids in Rinaldo sing as we watch a ship pitching through a stormy sea before the clouds part and it reaches safety. Mozart’s own piano is displayed. The material from the opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsenck includes Shostakovich’s autograph score, costume and set designs, posters and programmes. Archive footage reveals Shostakovich playing the music for Act III feverishly on the piano. We see Salvador Dali’s costume designs for Salome and opera related paintings by Manet and Degas. In a closing section we watch excerpts from 20th century operas, such as Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess and Einstein on the Beach, composed by Philip Glass, screened on the walls.
Designtec Web Design