Captivating version of The Magic Flute at Normansfield Theatre

I like the Normansfield Theatre in Teddington. The building is pretty, going there supports the Down's Syndrome Association, every show that I have been to there has been very good and I can walk there in around half an hour.

I was also looking forward to seeing The Magic Flute, amazingly that was a first! I had seen a concert performance at the Proms many years ago and another opera based on the writing of this one last year, and I had even read a graphic novel adaptation by P Craig Russell, but I had never seen this opera performed as an opera before.

It was a dry day and so I walked there and found a park in Teddington that I did not know about before. That's why walking is the best way to explore.

I got there just about in time for a drink but this was a Sunday matinee service and so was unlicensed. I gave the tea a miss.

The theatre was pretty full when I got there but as most people had timidly avoided the front-row I decided to sit there.  As is the tradition with the theatre these days, some of the cast came on stage before the performance started and so my usual picture of the stage-from-my-seat also captured a monk.

The music was recorded and the conductor sat to the right of the stage waiving to the singers and pressing buttons.

There was a large cast with a good range of voices all but one of which I could follow easily, obviously there were no surtitles here.

Despite my good previous experiences at the Normansfield I was pleasantly surprised by both the singing and the acting.

I was not expecting the show to be amateurish (in any sense of the word) but this was not Glyndebourne and I had reduced my expectations accordingly. That was a mistake as it was an excellent production that told the story very well and did the music justice with some fine singing.

Papageno led the way, as he should. He may be the light relief to the hero Tamino but it is songs that most people know. The light relief is also an important part of the opera and this production made me laugh in all the right places.

The other role that caught my eye was the baddie Monostatos who just oozed malevolence. There is also a worthy mention for the three ladies who, in a period production, wore fetching black outfits, one complete with guns in leg holsters.

The Magic Flute enthralled me throughout. This was an excellent production that showed how opera can be dramatic, comic and, above all, lyrical.

Così Fan Tutte at the Normansfield Theatre

I like it when I have easy decisions to make, and this was as easy as they come - a Mozart opera in a quaint local theatre in aid of charity.

The opera was the easy comedy Cosi Fan Tutte (a.k.a. Women are Like That), the theatre was the Normansfield, part of the Langdon Down Centre in Teddington, and the charity was the Down's Syndrome Association.

In case you missed the connection, Down's Syndrome is named after Dr John Langdon Down whose house has become the Langdon Down Centre.

This was a semi-concert performance in that the set did not change but the singers did move around the stage a little and acted out the scenes as well as sing them.

I like this halfway-house approach and, to be honest, often think that the elaborate sets, fancy costumes and abundant extras add little to the experience.

The music was provided by a solitary piano, that's the black blob at the bottom of the screen. I was in the front row and found the piano a little loud at times but the people at the back had to be able to hear too. I was still able to follow the singing easily and, through that, the story.

It felt a little odd watching an opera without surtitles even though they were not needed.

Cosi Fan Tutte tells the tale of two pairs of lovers. A friend of the men says that all women are fickle in love and says that he can prove it. A large bet is made. The men then say that they have to go to war only to reappear in disguise. They then try to seduce each other's girlfriend with some degree of success, though it all ends very happily.

The performance was marvellous.

The small cast of six all sang and acted well. I particularly liked the women's chambermaid, who was part of the plot to trick them, as the mischief shone through he face. She won the acting prize (or would have done if there had been one) while the older of the two ladies won the singing prize (ditto).

It was all rather nicely done, a humorous story played to make the most of the comedy while also letting the music show off its beauty.

Carmen at Normansfield Theatre

If ever an event had "go to me" written all over it then it was this one.

Carmen is a great opera full of audience-friendly tunes, I had not been to the recently restored Victorian delight that is Normansfield Theatre before, and all the proceeds were for the charity that is based there, the Down’s Syndrome Association (Down's Syndrome takes its name from Dr John Langdon Down who established Normansfield Hospital).

So it came to pass that I went to my second opera of the year the day after the first one.

Arriving promptly (the internet and open data make catching buses so easy these days) I went downstairs to the temporary bar for a bottle of (sadly American) Budweiser. Even in the basement the building impressed with its period structure such as the decorated yet simple metal pillars, the sort that adorn railway stations across the country.

To add further interest there were a couple of large wooden models of ships and any boy, or any age, would be impressed by their level of detail and their scale.

Also impressive is the theatre itself.

The basic construction is like a school stage with a high platform and a flat hall filled with ordinary chairs.

The decoration is anything but ordinary and the hall is a richness of colour and detail. This tells you that something special is going to happen.

And it does.

The opening of Carmen reminds you just how tuneful the opera is as the overture plants tempting snippets of music that you know will be brought to fruition later.

The opera lives or dies on the person playing Carmen and to be a success she must both sing beautifully and convince you that she is a wild temptress who drives men crazy with desire for her. This Carmen comfortably accomplished both.

There were strengths and weaknesses elsewhere but the average performance was a high average and Carmen raised the overall score even higher.

I went expecting to enjoy the building and the music while putting up with the performance but that was just me being pessimistic and I delighted in all three. This was a jolly night out (despite all the on-stage drama) and one that I'll cherish.

Walking to Teddington

The best bit about living in Ham is the easy access to nice places to go for a walk. Nice places like Teddington Lock.

A wide path built for pedestrians and cyclists passes my house and winds gently down to the river where it joins the tow-path that links Kingston to Richmond far more scenically than the main road does.

Turning right at the river leads to Richmond and the first stop along the way is Teddington.

The first thing that you notice is the weir.

You hear the water tumbling down the man-made steps and see the devices that attempt to control the river by creating a smooth passage to the lock that skirts past the violent route taken by most of the water.

The barriers and machinery have been built with only functional thoughts in mind and absolutely no attempt has been made to disguise or beautify them. This industry in the water mirrors that of the ramshackle boats moored at the edge of it. I like them both.

Just beyond the weir is the lock.

Teddington Lock is big, as it needs to be to cater for the large pleasure boats that fill this stretch of the river in warmer times.

Walking to the far end of the lock you can appreciate its size. For a start you can hardly see the brick office where the lock-keepers do their work and you certainly cannot see beyond that to the other end of the lock.

You can see the two houses at the side of the lock that give further evidence of its size and the number of staff that were once required to work it.

The water slips past the lock either side of the orange paths that ring the grass in the middle of the artificial island.

The main lock is on the left here and there are three other passageways over to the right. This lock caters for boats of all sizes right down to the canoeists who have rollers to ease their path as they walk across.

The footbridge that takes you across to Teddington also provides excellent views both upstream and downstream and this causes most people to pause as they cross.

These are views that I never tire of.

Looking upstream gives another view of the weir complex where sturdy barriers keep foolhardy boats away from the turbulent waters.

Oblivious of this, two ducks skip lightly away from the artificial island that supports the bridge over the broad river.

There may be danger here but there is calm and beauty too.

The second span of the bridge takes you from the island to Teddington where the Anglers awaits.

If you can resist that temptation then the Tide End is almost next door.

I went to the Anglers. This is a nice enough pub but the locals and dart board have been usurped by children and gastro food.

I have fond memories of this pub as it was literally on my route home when I worked out by Heathrow for IBM. I would catch the bus from Feltham to Teddington Lock and walk home from their, passing through the pub for a swift one as I did so.

The bridge has not changed, however, except for the occasional lick of new paint.

Somehow its construction seems far more solid than necessary to support just a few pedestrians and (dismounted) cyclists.

Looking downstream gives another view of the lock, this time trying to hide beyond the island, and also of a few small boats moored in the shelter of the island.

This is a river of two halves.

On this side (Middlesex) the weir has been tamed to create a space that is quiet and residential and on the other side (Surrey) there is the bustle of commerce through the lock.

The other side also has the trees and fields of Ham Lands so having dallied briefly in Teddington, and enjoyed my pint, it is with pleasure that I return back over the bridge to Ham and the footpath home.

Midsummer Art Fair

It was not my idea to go to the Midsummer Art Fair in Teddington but it was a good one.

I was tempted to go by friends, the possibility of a beer in the Tide End beforehand and the chance to go to the Landmark Arts Centre that makes good use of a Victorian Gothic church that was never actually completed.

Inside the exhibitors' stalls were crammed in to a few narrow aisles with each artist having a space about 2m long.

I guess this is what they are used to as they do the tour of art fairs and they all made good use of the space allocated to them.

As the brochure shows, there was a wide range of styles and techniques on show and this mix is part of the attraction as it allows you to experience the unexpected.

I only went to have a casual look around but still managed to pick up a few business cards along the way.

Claire West describes her work as Art to make you Smile, and that works for me. The themes are simple, often flowers, and are presented with large dollops of shocking colour and wild exuberance. I also like the simple style and the bold colours, there's a thirties art deco feel here, and that's a good thing.
	Jennie Ing's work "mainly features the urban environment and the places she knows best: London and its nearby area." I like the urban landscape of London too so the attraction was immediate. I also like the simple style and the bold colours, there's a thirties art deco feel here, and that's a good thing.
Shyama Ruffell also likes flowers and draws lots of them individually and in busy meadows. The colours and compositions are sedate and evoke the stillness and beauty of flower in their natural state. There is something very girlie about these pictures but I wear flowery shirts so I live with that.
	Lara Bowen is another fan of flowers and also of bright colours. She also does fruit and landscapes etc. but it is the jolly pictures of flowers stuffed casually in to watering cans that really caught my eye.
Jan Levy is another artist who draws on London for her inspiration and uses bright colours to express it. The effective result is a collage of colour that could almost be abstract art but which, on a longer inspection, reveals itself to be the City skyline.

There were several other artists' work that I liked, and I would have shown you one of Jennifer Jokhoo's stylistic pictures of London buildings and cranes if her website worked, but I think that you get the idea of what was on offer.

The prices were well within temptation range too, typically just a few tens or low hundreds of pounds depending on the size and complexity of the work, and all that stopped me from adding to my limited art collection was my complete lack of preparation.

Next time maybe.

Spanish story. French music. Slovak dancing. Great drama.

I love dance and am trying to find ways to see more of it. Mostly this means getting myself more organised!

The latest opportunity came via my Czech/Slovak connections through whom I learned that the Slovak Dance Theatre were performing their version of Carmen for two nights only at Jacksons Lane in Highbury.

I did not know anybody else who was going but I was free that evening and Highbury is not that hard to get to (when the Northern Line is working) so I thought that I would give it a go. And I'm glad that I did.

The first good news was that the tube strike had no impact on my travel and the second was that some people that I knew were also there. One of them, Ruzena, is Vice Chair of the British Czech and Slovak Association (BCSA) and she had done some publicity for the event and had been rewarded with a ticket. A quick word with the organisers from here and I had a reserved seat too.

Jacksons Lane, a former church, looks to be an excellent community venue. The theatre seats around 120 people, there is a nice cafe that boasts a good selection of vegetarian food, a small bar and a mix of community spaces some of which were also in use that evening.

I had a little idea of what to expect from a short video but that's never a fair way to judge anything so I sat in my seat in the middle of the second-back row with an open mind.

The first thing you notice is that it's a small group so each of the dancers has several roles, sometimes crossing genders to do so.

The dancing is energetic and expansive making full use of the depth, width and height of the stage. The set remains constant and largely anonymous as a series of scenes are played out before it, smoothly flowing from one to the other as the story unfolds.

The tension of the drama is maintained throughout (there is no break) as we watch the various couples come together, argue, split, flirt, reconcile and, eventually, kill.

The standing ovation at the end was well deserved.

This is only the second time that I've gone to see dancing by myself at short notice and it's worked better than expected both times. Must do it again.