Le nozze di Figaro at Glyndebourne Festival 2025

My final visit to Glyndebourne Festival 2025 was to see Le nozze di Figaro. I had seen it at Glyndebourne four times since 2016 and so it was not an automatic choice to see it again but it is a lovely opera and this was a new production so that was enough to tempt me.

I went for the usual price band and got seat Blue Upper Circle A8 for £145. Happy with that.

Again travel did not quite work to Plan A but Plan B was fine, too late in Lewes to visit The Depository for lunch so I tried the coffee shop by the station entrance and that did the job. Several other Glyndebourne goers had the same idea.

The rest of the new routine worked and the first coach was early enough to claim a seat in the Veg Patch Stretch Tent. The weather was good so many people had opted for the grass leaving space in the marquees.

Any doubts about seeing Le nozze di Figaro were lifted as soon as the overture started, the music really is lovely.

The set made an immediate good impression too. Superficially simple with little decoration it rotated along several arcs creating multiple spaces with nonchalance.

The production made great use of the set and its movement creating busy but not fussy scenes.

The actors built on this by playing the comedy to the full with exaggerated, but not false, gestures and movements.

The combination of the set and performers and, yes, the sur titles, made this complex story easy to follow.

If this was a play then it would have been excellent but, of course it is an opera so there is the singing to consider too and this was excellent too. This was the most that I have ever enjoyed  Le nozze di Figaro and in the likely event that Glyndebourne revives it in a few years then I will eagerly see it again.

Falstaff at Glyndebourne Festival 2025

Falstaff is a jolly easy to approach opera so it was no surprise that friends wanted to see it with us.

Booking went well, as it had all season and we got seats Red Upper Circle B42-45 for £130 each.

Travel went almost to plan but we were too late into Lewes to visit The Depository for lunch so we settled for the cafe in the station instead and that actually worked well. It also meant that we were in prime position to get a good seat in the first coach.

And being in the first coach meant that we were able to secure a table in the Veg Patch Stretch Tent which is our current first-choice location.

Somehow we spent the almost two hours before the opera chatting over cake and bubbles and failed to go for the traditional walk around the lake. Not that it mattered, going to Glyndebourne with friends is as much about the friends than it is about the gardens.

Falstaff the opera is based on Shakespeare's  comic play The Merry Wives of Windsor which, in turn, reuses his character Sir John Falstaff from Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2.

Falstaff has propositioned more than one lady and when they find out they scheme together to get their playful revenge.

This leads to a Brian Rix style farce where people hide from their pursuers behind screens and in laundry baskets. Falstaff gets a comeuppance of sorts and we all head outside for the long dining interval.

In the final act Falstaff needs a further lesson and this time it all has a Midsummer's Night Dream feel to it with the village children dressed as fairies. When the second bout of playful revenge is over Falstaff good humouredly takes the lesson and all ends well.

The music and singing matched the fun and tempo of the plot and the evening was terrifically entertaining.

BCSA "Get to Know You" Social (August 2025)

I have not been good at documenting my visits to the monthly BCSA "Get to Know You" Social but they have remained an important part of my calendar.

The process around them has changed a little over the years with me preferring to walk all the way there since retiring and more recently meeting a few people in The Railway pub beforehand to do a few Pokemon Go raids (Wednesday 6-7pm is always Raid Hour).

And for the last two months I have dramatically changed my standard food choice of many years, smazak/smazeny syr, to a half portion of the same. Obviously I am still drinking pints of Pilsner Urquell.

Unchanged were the good company and the conversations, the reasons for going every month.

The Peter Ackroyd Thames Pub Crawl 2025

I had done the monumental, in so many ways, Peter Ackroyd Thames Pub Crawl several times in the past (2013, 2015 and 2017) and loved it every time but was a little hesitant this year as age has caught up with me a little and my walking and drinking were both reduced. But it is such a great walk and talk that when invited I just had to do it again.

Our starting point, as usual, was St. Stephen's Tavern on Parliament Square. A good central location to meet but plagued by tourists which makes the service a little slow. Also on the plus side it is a Hall & Woodhouse pub which means Badger Beers and I could start the day with a pint of Fursty Ferret.

From there we made our way towards Sherlock Holmes by Charring Cross pausing along the way to here tales of the early Thames and how it came to be the river we know today. Not sure what I drank and my limited notes from the day just say "Pale Ale.

Our next stop was for lunch at Mulberry Bush on South Bank. They were expecting us, most of us had preordered our food yet we were still there for well over an hour. The exceptionally slow service was a shame as everything else about the pub was rather nice.

Our next stop was a pleasant surprise.

Our eloquent guide, Robert Kingham, took us on a small diversion into the place where he works which just happens to have panoramic views like this. We lingered for a while over a few glasses of bubbly to enjoy all of the views.

We all took many photographs, because we are all curious tourists too, and while I personally liked the less familiar views looking south I chose this one full of landmarks to help anyone less familiar with London.

 

Our next stop was The Rake South Bank, on the edge of Borough Market. It has an extravagant range of beers from which I selected Verdant This House IPA. A good choice. 

The walking and talking continued as we sauntered towards Tower Bridge and our rendezvous at Dean Swift for dinner. I went for some pretty good ravioli and a decent pint of Bermondsey Pale Ale.

For me the most interesting part of this walk is the section east of Tower Bridge, a path less trodden by tourists but they are spreading! The light was fading when I took this picture looking back towards the City.

Approaching 10pm we hit The Angel which was the one unexpected low point of the evening, it took absolutely ages to get served not being a local and having to try and work out their complicated indoors/outdoors bars and the pint of Sam Smith's Old Brewery was definitely not worth the wait. That was a real disappointment for me as I had lived off that beer when I first started work in London.

The next and final pub, The Mayflower, was much more like it! The pub was lively and offered up a jolly good pint of Juicy Golden Ale, which I drank on a bench by the river with my fellow travellers. It was the perfect end to a perfect day.

And for the record, we walked about 18km.