Hall for Cornwall

In the last couple of months, Maria, Annette and I have been out to see two shows at the Hall for Cornwall. The first was to see "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat", starring Craig Chalmers who was one of the finalists in the BBC show, "Any Dream Will Do", that chose Lee Mead to star in the West End version of the show. We had booked some time ago and managed to get seats in the second row on Wednesday but, as the due date came closer, I remembered that we had also managed to book a holiday in Madeira, of which more later, and we were due to fly from Bristol on the same Wednesday. Oh bother!! Now, the only date that we could actually get to the show was on the Tuesday, which happened to be opening night. Well we did manage to get seats on the second row, but this time they were second row from the back! Never mind, the show was excellent and we had a splendid evening.
The second show was to see the Central Band of the Royal Air Force in concert in aid of the Royal Air Force Association (RAFA) "Wings Week". This time we were fourth row from the front so a very good view and once again we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Service Bands are not to everyone's taste but they do play a wide range of music including film scores, marches and some popular classical. In this concert there were two pieces composed by one of the band members based on Cornish legends, which were very well received. There were also a couple of pieces for violin although more like traditional Irish Music than classical violin. The finale included bagpipes and, all in all, it was very enjoyable evening.

Jane McDonald

Maria, Annette and I recently went to see Jane McDonald at the Hall for Cornwall. The show was excellent with plenty of songs, mixed up with some comedic stories including plenty of references to "Loose Women". As backing, there were a musical director/keyboard player, a brass section of three, two guitarists, a drummer and three backing singers so plenty of noise. The theatre was almost full with the only two empty seats that we could see being right next to us. Speaking of seats, I must remember not to buy seats less than 10 feet from the speakers! I know that I am old, but I still like to guard my hearing.
As asides, I have two little stories associated with the audience members. When we were passing through the ticket checks, an elderly woman, using a wheeled walking aid, arrived very slowly and asked the ticket check lady for assistance to reach her seat; this happened to be almost immediately in front of us. The front of house manager duly arrived and she was helped to her seat. Very good of the theatre to be so concerned you might think! The trouble was that towards the end of the performance, this same woman suddenly got out of her seat unaided and got down to the stage rail and promptly jigged around quite happily.
The second story is about the woman immediately in front of me. She was very noisy and was obviously a great fan of Jane. I am not sure what was in her water bottle but, by the time the second half came around, she was, to put it politely rather sozzled. So much so that, at one stage, she slumped in her seat, leaned her head back onto my knee and fell asleep briefly! Sorry, I cannot understand the wish to pay good money to see a live concert and then not know what is going on. As Sir Terry would say "Is it me?"
Never mind, we all enjoyed ourselves, would recommend the show and would go again if we had the chance.

Hot Flush

Maria, Annette and I had a recent trip out to the Hall for Cornwall to see Hot Flush starring a cast of four women and one man in a very naughty, but extremely funny, musical about women and the problems of the menopause. Lesley Joseph stars along with Sam Kane, who plays about 20 different male characters brilliantly. All the cast however contributed something different to the overall performance.
The theatre has a capacity of 969, if my addition is correct, and I suppose that there were about 850 in the audience, of which I was probably one of less than 50 men, so suitably outnumbered, however even from a man's point of view, it was an extremely entertaining show and well worth seeing.

Calendar Girls

Yesterday we decided to combine some shopping in Plymouth with a visit to the theatre. We set off early-ish and called in at Trago Mills on the way, where we wanted to buy a new "runner" for the kitchen and some spare bulbs for the Christmas Lights. The runner cost £14 and they didn't have spare bulbs so how come we came out of there with a bill for nearly £80?
I had booked on-line for Calendar Girls, starring Linda Bellingham, Patricia Hodge, Sian Phillips, Gaynor Faye, Brigit Forsyth, Julia Hills and Elaine C Smith, but could only get seats in the Upper Circle. Once we had parked, we went to the theatre and asked whether we could get better seats and were pleasantly surprised to get a couple of seats in the middle of Row H in the stalls.
We went off and did some more shopping and had some lunch before getting back to the theatre in time for a cup of tea before the show started. I guess that most people will know the story of the Women's Institute Calendar Girls who have so far raised nearly £2,000,000 for Leukaemia Research so I won't bother with the story. Suffice to say that it was a tremendous afternoon's entertainment, alternatively very very funny and then touching. It was mostly funny and lest anyone thinks the show is for voyeurs of naked middle aged women, then think again. Yes they did take their clothes off, especially Linda Bellingham, but nobody could possibly take offence, as the scenes with the nakedness were very tastefully and cleverly done. Thoroughly recommended, even for an afternoon performance.

Mary Poppins

As part of Annette's 40th birthday celebrations we went to Plymouth yesterday to see 'Mary Poppins'. As we had booked the matinée, we combined the trip with some shopping and, despite my general hate of shopping, it turned out to be a very good day out. Fortunately for me, Annette did the driving and I was left in the back of the car to snooze!

The show was excellent; it has a number of differences to the film with some new songs but still included the big show numbers i.e. "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" and "Step in Time". There was also some impressive "flying" with Mary flying up over the audience and ending up disappearing over the top of us as a finale; we were in the Upper Circle so a real treat for the many schoolchildren in the audience. Bert, with a better cockney accent than Dick van Dyke (who hasn't?), walked up the side of the stage, across the top upside down and still singing, and down the other side - very impressive. For those who were watching closely, Mary did slide up the bannisters on one occasion. All in all it was a very entertaining show with a splendid cast, including two very engaging children playing Jane and Michael, and I would recommend it to anyone, except very young children.

We drove home afterwards and then we all ended up at Annette's for tea/supper. We hope that today, which is Annette's birthday, will be equally good. As I write this, the weather looks beautiful so here's hoping for the best.

SHOUT

Last night, Maria & Me, together with friends Dot & John, went to the Hall for Cornwall to see "SHOUT", a musical featuring some of the songs of the 60s and starring Claire Sweeney and Su Pollard. The consensus of opinion in our group was that the best singer was a young girl who played the part of Betty. I am afraid that I don't know her name but she was very good indeed. The most surprising was Su Pollard; although, for the most part, she sounded exactly the same as Peggy in Hi-De-Hi, she has a tremendous singing voice and also the ability to act out the words as written in the song. The outstanding performance featured Su and "Betty" singing a duet including "You're My World". It made the hairs on my arms stand on end. The total cast was six women and one man; he played a variety of parts in many guises, which largely consisted of speaking the TV adverts that were in vogue during the sixties; not PC these days; "You're never alone with a Strand" comes to mind. Anyway, there wasn't much of a story line but the music carried the show through and all the performances were good. In between the songs there were plenty of comic moments and I would say that the whole audience thoroughly enjoyed themselves, not that we could see many of them since we were in Row B and right in the middle.

New Year Update - Part 1

Having failed miserably to keep this Blog updated, this post is an attempt to briefly tell of our “doings” since the Queen Mary trip.

01 Dec 2006 - Plymouth.
Maria, Annette, Clive and I travelled to Plymouth on Friday to go to the Theatre Royal to see Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas” starring Craig McLaghlan (ex Neighbours) and Ken Kercheval (ex Dallas) among others. We thoroughly enjoyed the show and, as we had booked a night at the Holiday Inn on the Hoe, it meant that we didn’t have the 55 mile drive home late at night. The ‘down’ side was that we woke up in Plymouth on Saturday morning and that meant - shopping. Never mind, Maria chose her Christmas present and we did manage to get home in the afternoon.

08 Dec 2006 - St Ives
It was time for the Annual Serco Christmas Party, held once again at the Tregenna Castle Hotel at St Ives. Once again it was a great evening and we didn’t manage to spend a penny thanks to Serco’s generosity. We did have to pay for the accommodation, which, for us, was an outside cabin with loads of room and a shower each. On Saturday, we left after breakfast, did some shopping and then came home for a rest.

15 Dec 2006 - Bordon
On Friday afternoon, Maria and I set off to play Father Christmas to three of our four grandchildren who now live in Bordon, Hampshire. We got there safely and spent a hectic evening and Saturday with Nick, Karen, Charlotte, Curtis and Connor before driving home on Sunday ready for work on Monday. A visit to the local Forestry Commission Park and School Swimming Pool were fitted into Saturday and we did the baby-sitting whilst Nick and Karen went out to a ’70s’ Party.

Nick & Karen in 70s mode

That’s all for now; part 2 will be written sometime.

All Shook Up

As the result of a notice at the Podiatry (why do we have to go American) Clinic in Newquay, Maria, Annette and me, along with another three girls, went to the Lane Theatre in Newquay to see “All Shook Up”, which was a production put on by the Pyramid Theatre Company that dealt with the problem of Type 2 Diabetes. The cast of three played a total of eight characters who were involved in one way or another with diabetes. The play centered around Frank who was a 45 year old lorry driver by day and Elvis impersonator by night. It was incredibly well done and I think that everyone in the audience learned something about diabetes, including the two health professionals present. The shame of it was the size of the audience, which cannot have been more than 15. For a free evening’s educational entertainment, that was a great pity. I learned later from the cast that they had had audiences as low as 4 in number. I guess that a combination of indifference to a serious health problem and lack of advertising was to blame. It also occurs to me to wonder just how many people in this country have ever visited a theatre to see a “Live” production of anything. Perhaps TV should bear some of the blame. Now I’m rambling again so well done to Pyramid and I hope the tour to the Hebrides went well even if you won’t be reading this. If you get a chance, go and see this - it is very important and there is plenty of humour as well.

Oh Boy

Prior to our holiday, we had booked seats at the Hall for Cornwall to see “Buddy” once again. This is the third time if my memory serves me correctly. Saturday night, there we were, second row from the front, in the middle, having a great time. I think that this production was very good and the guy who played Buddy’s part was excellent. The Big Bopper was very good too and this was the best Richie Valens that I have seen; in fact the whole cast put on an excellent evening’s entertainment which makes me want to get out my collection of Buddy Holly songs again.

The King and I

Last night, Maria and I had a night out at the Hall for Cornwall where we thoroughly enjoyed the TAODS version of The King and I. I was slightly worried to start with because the basic story, although it has many light moments, is quite serious and the definitive King played on screen by Yul Brynner is a hard act to follow. As the story progressed however, it became obvious that this was a really good production with splendind singing from the lead characters. The children were wonderful and the fact that the younger ones had a habit of looking to the audience at odd times (presumably searching for their families) was very endearing. I thought it a shame that the younsters could not take the curtain call because it was too late for them to be on stage. I understand the reasoning but I am sure that they would have got an outstanding reception.
There were many young children in the audience and I would imagine that they struggled at times to make sense of it all but the support for friends and family is always important in Amateur productions and that support was certainly evident on the night - Well Done TAODS

Call Up The Groups

A belated post to say that last week Maria and I went, with some friends to see “Call up the Groups” at the Hall for Cornwall. The groups involved, with some of their original members, were “Marmalade”, “Fortunes”, “Barron Knights” and “Tremeloes”. It was a good night, perhaps a little loud for my taste especially considering that the four lead and some of the secondary vocalists had very good voices which I found somewhat spoiled by the excess volumes employed. I especially enjoyed the rendition of Duelling Banjos (nasty film - great tune) between the lead guitarist of the Tremeloes, on Banjo, and one of the two lead guitars from the Barron Knights. There was also a rendition of the William Tell Overture by the four lead guitarists which was extremely well received. We got about 2½ hours of music for our money and we thought it good value.