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CHOPIN In response to requests from a few members of the audience last night, here is the text of my introduction to Warren Mailley-Smith’s cycle of the complete works of Chopin at St John’s Smith Square – Friday 4th September 2015 I am privileged to have been asked by Warren to say a few words…
CHOPIN – The Two Photographs This evening sees the first in a series of 11 concerts spread over 12 months in which the British pianist Warren Mailley-Smith will play the entire solo works of Frédéric Chopin in St John’s Smith Square. It’s a mammoth undertaking for any pianist and Warren has asked me to give a…
WHEN HE WHO ADORES THEE – MARGARET BURKE SHERIDAN There are some recordings you hear for the first time which stop you in your tracks. Something about the music and / or the performance just hits you in the emotional solar plexus – and you find your eyes burning. It takes you by surprise. Your…
This is my favourite time of the year. The countryside round where I live in deepest rural Essex is vibrant with greens and yellows and whites, and for once the farmers have not given the verges the severe haircut they usually do, so there is plenty of cow parsley and buttercups on show. I wish…
KIRILL GERSTEIN Wigmore Hall recital Thursday 14 May 2015 I’ve not been going to many piano recitals recently. Too often in the past year or so I’ve traipsed into London full of eager anticipation, an interesting programme promised, an exciting talent on offer – and I’ve come away underwhelmed, undernourished and generally disappointed. This is…
THREE MEN IN A BOAT adapted by Craig Gilbert from Jerome K Jerome Arts Theatre, Cambridge – matinée 22 January 2015 Cast: J – David Partridge George – Michael Rouse Harris – Tom Hackney Nelly – Anna Westlake Director – Craig Gilbert A co-production by The Original Theatre and The Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds…
JUST ONE OF THOSE THINGS Cole Porter The song is best known from its appearance in the 1960 film Can-Can when it was sung by Maurice Chevalier, but it was originally written by Cole Porter for the 1935 musical Jubilee. The title, however, goes back further: Porter wrote a song with this title for the 1930…
IVO THE DIVO I did something last night that I have only ever done once before: I walked out of a piano recital at the interval. If I hadn’t been sitting in the middle of Row K at the Royal Festival Hall I’d have walked out sooner. This was the much-heralded return to the venue…
Thomas Trotter rehearsing my Toccata Festiva on the organ of Birmingham Town Hall in March 2012 (with me as page turner). He gave the world premiere later that day. https://youtu.be/GRSZQiuPhTs A masterclass in comic timing – Jimeoin’s debut on Live at the Apollo. The forgotten Peggy Cochrane (1902-88), a big star in her day, equally at…
Michelle Rocher died yesterday, Valentine’s Day. I never met him but I wish I had. I would have liked to thank him for giving me, in a roundabout way, some of the best paid jobs I ever had as an actor. In January 1982 I was just completing my four months run of Three Men…