Don Giovanni at Glyndebourne

It has been a few years since I last saw a production of Don Giovanni at Glyndebourne, more years than this blog can remember anyway, but it's a great opera so there was no harm in going to see the new production this year.

I don't generally read reviews but I had picked up that there was something special about the set and the way it changes.

This is a recent trend at Glyndebourne, e.g. The Fairy Queen last year, and it's one I am unsure about. I fell in love of the simplicity of Glyndebourne that lets the singing and the music weave their magic without unnecessary distraction and I am not yet convinced that the new rich complex sets do more than distract.


The set makes an immediate bold statement as we see Don Giovanni climb out of the window of the bedroom of his latest conquest.

Following that it rotates a lot and slides a little to become various streets, rooms, gardens and, of course, a graveyard.

These transitions were slow and subtle which meant that they were less of a distraction than I feared but, on balance, I still prefer the simpler static sets like those used in Macbeth.

But let's get back to the music as that is what opera is all about and Mozart operas are rich with it, especially Don Giovanni.


Mozart's style is to have the characters singing to the audience as much as they do to each other as they enlighten us with their thoughts.

This means that the arias often have several people singing at the same time and all facing the audience. Magic.

All the singing was as good as you would expect from Glyndebourne and the opera is a joy throughout. The only slight disappointment for me was the character of Don Giovanni who while he sang very well was not that convincing as a Lothario and even less so as the unrepentant sinner bound for hell.

Perhaps the criticism is a little unfair but the previous time that I saw Don Giovanni he descended in to hell with a real swagger and bravado, bringing the opera to a truly dramatic ending, and I guess that few performances will match that level of emotion.

So, more a four star performance than a five but they are four very good stars and it would not take too much to tempt me to go to see that production again.

Armstrong & Miller trying things out for fun

A chance tweet from Ben Miller (@bennylicious) led me to Little Venice to see Armstrong & Miller try a few things out for their forthcoming tour.

The venue was the extremely cosy Canal Cafe Theatre, conveniently situated above the Bridge House pub where I was able to start the evening well with a Kolsch and two types of humus.

The "try out" nature of the evening soon became apparent as we were fortunate witnesses to an hour of new material, a reasonable proportion of which seemed to have been written that day.

At one point Armstrong apologised to Miller and their pianist for making changes to a song that they did not yet know about!

The set list shows some of the characters that they are working with.

We had four skits with the familiar pilots (still very funny and very well received) and new scenarios based on World of Warcraft (that's Avatar 1 - 5) and a 70s couple at the theatre (Theatre Safety 1 - 4).

Some of the sketches were a little rough but none were ropey and there were genuine laughs throughout. Armstrong & Miller, and their female colleague, played to the audience well and the intimate setting helped build the atmosphere too, I was about 2m away from the action.

We also got some material presumably not intended for the tour. Ben opening by saying that it was 17 years to the day since they first met and he then played the first song they wrote together. And they ended with a song about their relationship which included the line, "Let's all have sex, but in a non sexual way". We were encourage, not that that was hard, to sing along and thus what was sold as an opportunity to see two artists practising metamorphosed into a real show with two BAFTA winning professionals on top form.

Another exceptional night out that demonstrates some of what London has to offer if you look hard enough.

A fish out of water

Let's be clear here, the fish out of water was me, not Fish the legendary singer who was clearly in his element in a small pub venue packed to the gunnels with Fish fans.

Fish himself made a comment about everybody being fans and knowing the words to all the songs as well as he did but he failed to spot me in the middle of the crowd clearly clueless.

But cluelessness was not a problem. Fish was absorbing for two and a half hours (including two encores) spinning together a series of songs and stories accompanied by two long-standing friends and colleagues on guitar and piano.

The small venue, the small band and the interaction with the crowd made it more like an evening with Fish than a rock concert. I think many/most people were expecting the later but Fish's good humour and stagecraft soon won everybody over.

I was not expecting to recognise anything, other than Kayleigh (Marillion's big hit from 1985) but the Fish fans were less familiar with his slow solo stuff too and it was the more raucous Marillion songs that closed the show that really got the crowd hopping.

I took bit of a gamble going to see Fish knowing so little of his music, and even less about his life that his stories were about, but it paid off and the long evening never dropped below interesting. That and a couple of beers were more than enough to brighten a dull August (!) evening.

Kew Gardens in bloom

Making the most of my annual season ticket and the convenience of the 65 bus I headed back to Kew Gardens in early August.


The plan, such as it was, was to go on the tree top walkway again, this time to with the trees in full leaf.

I am (justifiably) uneasy with heights but for the third time this year I managed to steel myself to walk all the way round thus putting all my previous failures to do so far behind me.

This was despite the fact that in a few places the thin metal floor gives way noisily and there were hordes of small children toddling around carefree and oblivious to possibility that they could push somebody over the edge due to the very low rail (it's only at chest height).

After the courageous amble through the trees a coffee (and cake!) was required so I strolled to the Orangery. There I had the pleasant surprise of bumping in to a Czech lady that I know through the BCSA who was also taking advantage of a season ticket.


The next stage of the plan was then hatched and I headed towards the Palm House by Victoria Gate.

I took the main route which had unexpectedly been colonised by several flower beds that had clearly been planted with both visitors and wildlife in mind.

The planting was stunning with a glorious profusion of colours and shapes that proved irresistible to hordes of bees, flies and several other species of pollinators.

The Palm House did what the Palm House does and I took the usual dozens of pictures of dark green jungle stuff set off by the decorative (well, I love it) white metal of the greenhouse.


But, lovely though the Palm House was, it was the flowers that grabbed attention on this visit and there were more to come.

The final splash of colour was just by Victoria Gate where another large flower bed has been created to the obvious delight of even more bees and their friends.

I loved it too, particularly as the colour was such a contrast to the rest of the garden where the greens and browns rule all but unopposed.

It was bit of a risk getting an annual ticket to Kew Gardens as I had no real idea of how often I would want to, or be able to, go but it has already been a great success and there are still around six months to go.

My new Cyberoptix bow tie is uniquely cool

I used to buy shed-loads of Liberty ties before they became too expensive even in the sales and I used to wear bow ties to work regularly too, but it has been quite a while since I've done either. That changed this week thanks to Warren Ellis.

His blog post pointed me to the Cyberoptix site where after some drooling I settled on the Crash tie. There were other contenders but the tiebreaker (sic) was the reference to JG Ballard's novel of the same name.

The tie has been ordered and is now being made for me. All being well it will arrive in time to make its début at Glyndebourne at the end of this month.