Oh dear. Am so busy. Have just developed evil cold and have WI Jumble Sale tomorrow, which is massive amount of hard manual labour. Tonight and tomorrow we have the Hastings Piano Concerto competition finals. Have umpteen things next week and then we are off to Cornwall on Friday morning for just over two weeks. Don’t know where to start really. Oh yes, last Sunday we had a very strange outing to St Mary in the Castle for the Barefoot Opera ‘ballet’.
I put ballet in inverted commas because it was barely that. It was a recreation of ‘The Loves of Mars and Venus’ the first ever modern ballet production, created by Mr John Weaver for performance in the Drury Lane theatre in 1717. The score, and much of the detail of the performance has been lost. We enjoy Barefoot Opera productions, but this did somewhat stretch our goodwill to the limit. The actual dance bit was very good, but over in a trice, padded out by long explanations from the head music person, and a dance historian. Now, how can it be so hard for two successful, sophisticated grown women to speak loud enough to carry their voices to a not-very-big-audience? The excellent Jenny Miller, head woman of Barefoot Opera, scarcely had to raise her voice to be audible.
Oh goodness, have just looked up the Barefoot Opera site to post a link here, and find a Hastings Battleaxe review of an earlier production… Sorry, I don’t suppose they will be publishing this one… Anyway, much of the material that I think the two women talked about was then repeated all over again as part of the actual production as a sort of dramatic monologue, which meant that the actual dance bit took – what – fifteen minutes at most.
I know this was the first production of this particular show – it is off to Cambridge next, and I’m sure they will iron out the glitches.
Still, it was interesting, and Battleaxe always enjoys events at St Mary in the Castle – it is such a wonderful old building. All le great et le good de Hastings were there…… Photos from Le Internet.
The building dates from 1824, well after the ballet, but it did feel like an appropriate venue.
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| St Mary in the Castle – outside and in. |
Yuch, I feel that poorly am going to have a sleep. Let’s finish with something positive and cheerful. What? Oh, I know.
If I had to choose a last meal in the condemned cell, I’d choose a jam doughnut from Jempsons, with a nice glass of champagne. I just love those doughnuts. They are so jammy… Here they are, waiting to be eaten, in Jempsons in Battle. I had one earlier in the week. Not with champagne though, but actually, seem to have had rather a lot of Aldi champers on other occasions this week…..
What would you choose as your final meal?
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