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Culture

Washing the Dust – 2

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Photo by Andy Dawson ReidA suggested in my last post, our dalliance with the arts over the winter months here on Vancouver Island has not been confined to the theatre alone. This follow-up missive takes us into the wonderful world of music in Victoria… and a surprisingly varied world that is. Herewith a few of the highlights from a wide spectrum of celebratory events.  As chance would have it these all feature predominantly the human voice

First up – an event for which we had purchased tickets way back in the summer of 2025 – the extraordinary Ladysmith Black Mambazo at The Royal Theatre.

Now – just in case any gentle reader should be unaware of this legendary ensemble, herewith a brief extract from their extensive entry in Wikipedia:

“Ladysmith Black Mambazo is a South African male choral group singing in the local vocal styles of isicathamiya and mbube. They became known internationally after singing with Paul Simon on his 1986 album “Graceland”. They have since won many awards, including five Grammy Awards.

Formed by Joseph Shabalala in 1960, they became one of South Africa’s most prolific musical groups. Their releases received gold and platinum disc honours in both South Africa and abroad. The group became a mobile academy of South African through their isicathamiya music”.

At The Royal – on a virtually unadorned stage and behind a simple row of microphones – the nine members of the current choir quickly captivated the sell-out crowd with their infectious call-and-response routines, their silky harmonisation and their soulful melodies – the which were energetically underscored by their exuberant choreography. Our faces were wreathed with delighted smiles throughout.

(Sadly, we hear that Albert Mazibuko – one of the founders of Ladysmith Black Mambazo – recently passed away. Rest in peace).

At the opposite end of the spectrum from The Royal Theatre may be found the ‘Brentwood Bay Village Empourium’. This delightful meeting place bills itself thus:

“Welcome to Greater Victoria’s Favourite place to meet up with friends, enjoy great food and drink and browse our selection of merchandise – much of it locally and regionally procured. From apparel to dishware, greeting cards, candles, decor, jewellery and gifts – we’re your friendly neighbourhood general store and more”!

In addition to decent coffee and rather good snacks this hospitable cafe is also a live music venue. On Friday nights the display cabinets in the centre of the shop are pushed back to create an intimate 35 seat cabaret-style venue at which local musicians just love to play.

I am slightly embarrassed to admit that – in the decade since we came to Canada – we had not until recently attended any of these shows. This omission was corrected a few weeks back for the visit of Victoria legend, Louise Rose. This from the BC Entertainment Hall of Fame website:

“Musical from a very early age, Louise’s capabilities and interests haven’t exactly been restricted to making music. A native of the United States, she has, among other things, been a police officer, a Baptist missionary and a sociology teacher. But all that changed after she arrived in Victoria in the early 1970’s and fell in love with British Columbia’s capital city. A pianist, vocalist, and actress, she was formally trained in piano, organ, voice, conducting and arranging. Her teachers included Oscar Peterson, Duke Ellington and Leonard Bernstein. She is host of ‘Let’s Sing Again’ – and leader of the Louise Rose Trio. Louise is also conductor of the highly successful Victoria Good News Choir, which specializes in blues, gospel, semi-classical and jazz”.

We have seen Louise before and can attest to the fact that she truly lives up to her legend. She improvises on the piano with an extraordinary harmonic sense and is a character very much larger than life. At the Empourium she declared that she did not hold with breaks between sets – and that she would simply play until she had run out of requests.

Finally in this eclectic smorgasbord of musical treats is one that I had not expected to experience. The Victoria Symphony Orchestra (VSO) were closing out their season with a performance of Mozart’s Requiem at the Royal – the which event was sold out long before we heard about it. In part this was because the VSO was to be joined for the performance by the choir of King’s College, Cambridge.

When I did finally hear the news it came in the form of a flyer advertising the availability of a very limited number of seats at one of the final rehearsals for the concert. This would take place at the Farquhar auditorium at the University of Victoria and only one hundred and seventy five tickets would be issued. The choir and the VSO would be led through the Requiem by the King’s College Director of Music, Daniel Hyde, with his instructions amplified for the edification of the fascinated attendees.

I have long had a tangential interest in the King’s College Choir – and not just because I was a boy soprano back in the day before my voice broke. I grew up listening to the recordings of the King’s College Choir (in particular those of their Christmas choral music, the which I still reach for come the season). Also, my penultimate employment in the UK was at a very well known school that not only had its own excellent choir but was also blessed with strong links to Cambridge. For a number of years I sang in impromptu Christmas Eve choirs in the chapel there and can attest to some of the magic involved.

 

 

 

A good idea

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“Paris is always a good idea.”

Audrey Hepburn

Though it seems a long time ago now our trip to Europe back in July culminated in a few busy days in Paris, soaking up the culture and – as it turns out – catching COVID! These last few travel related posts will showcase some photos of the “City of Light” – starting with a miscellany of odd images…

Enjoy!

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson Reid
We celebrated our anniversary a few days early (it is on the last day of July) so that we had an excuse to sample another Michelin-starred Parisian restaurant; in this case the very wonderful Maison Rostang – billed on their website as “a mythical place”. Who are we to argue?!

Photo by Andy Dawson Reid

The Lost Chord

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On the first day of October last year – nearly nine months ago now – I posted to this journal a celebratory piece concerning the long-overdue uploading to the InterWebNet of some of the music of Anam Danu – the collaboration between the Chanteuse and I that had started roughly a year earlier.

We had chosen the excellent musicians’ site – Bandcamp – for this initial foray and made available a collection of seven tracks on which we had been working since the 2019 new year and which we had had professionally mastered by the estimable CPS Mastering of Vancouver. If you have not thus far been fortunate enough to have heard the Chanteuse in action I commend to you this offering – the which is entitled “Winds of Change” and which may be located here:

https://anamdanu.bandcamp.com

The October 1st post noted that to the seven tracks already uploaded were to have been added a further three songs – to complete the collection. Visitors to the site will, however, not have missed the fact that – nine months down the line – there are still only seven pieces there.

Unfortunately, scarcely had we uploaded the material – and certainly before we were able to make a serious attempt at publicising the fact – the first of a sequence of harrowing events overtook the Chanteuse. I am certainly not going into any of the details of the months that followed but I will just say that had some budding TV script-writer come up with such a far-fetched narrative they would have been drummed out of Hollywood. All I can do is to offer heartfelt sympathies for all that occurred.

As dictated by Sod’s Law we had no sooner held our first recording session subsequent to these events than the pandemic struck – along with the accompanying lock-down. That pretty much put a stop to any thoughts of further work and the powers that be have made it quite clear that singing is going to be one of the last things that we will all be allowed to do again in ‘public’.

What the rest of the musical world is doing at this point is finding ways to work and to record remotely – thus avoiding the problems of isolation. Because of the sequence and timing of the events that lead to this point we were not able to make any provision for such a course as the lock-down was imposed. I am now struggling to put in place a suitable mechanism for working in this manner – but much new learning is required and these things take time. I will – of course – offer updates on this journal as to how we get on.

The thing is – though we have been unable to record, I have also been unable to stop writing songs. Since we last worked together I have written and recorded the tracks for a further nine compositions!

It would be good to be able to finish some of them…

Synchronicity?

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Wednesday mornings (for another week at least) find me up at crack of dawn (literally!) getting ready to wend my way in to the College for an early lecture.

Even at the height of summer my thought processes do not run very rapidly such an antisocial time of day. In the winter – when it is still dark as I stumble into the shower and fumble with the controls to turn the hot water on full – I barely register as a life form.

It follows – ergo – that nothing much of any import passes through my mind at this point. Thus is was this morning that my usual befuddled musings on the state of the world were unexpectedly leavened somewhat by the sudden thought that – unlike other recent years – at least in this one we have not suffered a relentless tide of deaths amongst the great and the good (or celebrities at the very least).

On arrival at the college and having a few minutes before my lecture I checked the BBC news headlines. Amongst the top stories were announcements of the following deaths:

  • Gary Rhodes – one of the first of the TV celebrity chefs, who influenced many that followed. Gary was the cousin (I think) of a friend of a friend and I met him once at a party. He seemed pleasant enough and he was very tall…
  • Clive James – Australian who made the UK his home – writer, program maker and TV critic for The Observer newspaper in the UK. We loved Clive’s dry wit and brilliant way with words and he was a fixture in our younger days.
  • Jonathan Miller – satirist, writer, opera director, medical consultant and polymath. He was one of the four great names that came out of the Footlights review – ‘Beyond the Fringe’ – back in the 60s, along with Peter Cook, Dudley Moore and Alan Bennett (who is now the only survivor). Jonathan was alumnus of the final school at which I worked and the new theatre there is named for him. Back in the 80s at some point he came to the college of the University of London at which I then worked to give a talk on a book that he had recently published on re-interpreting Shakespeare. It was called ‘Subsequent Performances’ and I still have my copy. He spoke brilliantly without notes for forty five minutes and then did as long again answering questions – also without notes and also quite brilliantly!

These souls will all be sadly missed and yet more figures from our younger and formative days are now no more.

So – that thought of mine in the shower… Synchronicity or what? – (probably ‘or what’!).

The Children

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To the Belfry last weekend for the first production in the new season – English playwright, Lucy Kirkwood’s, 2016 piece – ‘The Children‘.

The original production’s website contains this teaser:

“In a remote cottage on the lonely British coast, a couple of retired nuclear engineers are living a very quiet life. Outside, the world is in utter chaos following a devastating series of events. When an old friend turns up at their door, they’re shocked to discover the real reason for her visit.”

I think that it is fair to say the heart of the play turns out to be about something other than that which seems obvious from the get-go. Whilst not being perfect (what is?) The Girl and I both found the production engaging, rewarding and thought provoking and I strongly recommend it should you yet be able to get a ticket.

It seems a little harsh to say that it was good to see a ‘proper’ play again, though regulars of these musings will doubtless have heard my plaintive little cries on the subject before. Nonetheless we greatly enjoyed watching believably three-dimensional characters engaging with each other in a work which is strongly about ideas.

One of Kirkwood’s previous plays – ‘Chimerica‘ – was in the news quite a bit in London in 2014, before – of course – we moved across the pond, but I had rather lost track of what she was doing since and that turns out to be a little embarrassing. ‘The Children‘ is a three-hander – with two good female parts and one male. In the Belfry’s production we felt that the latter was the weaker of the performances.

Reading up on the play beforehand – however – we realised that in the original Royal Court production this part had been played by a friend of ours – to very good reviews. Furthermore he subsequently transferred with the piece for a successful run in New York. The embarrassment arises because whilst in London earlier this year I had lunch with him and we talked about all the various things that he had been doing over the last few years. He probably mentioned ‘The Children‘ but I clearly did not later make the connection. The trouble is that – though he is a fair bit older than I am – he is still working furiously and successfully on stage and on the screen. It is hard work keeping up!

Now – of course – I wish that I had seen him in the production. Apart from anything else I know that he would have been splendid in the role.

Anam Danu

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At the start of September I posted a missive to these humble jottings, the subject of which was just what a busy time of year it was.

That was no word of a lie and proceedings have indeed involved a fair degree of frenzy since then.

That posting contained a list of promises – or threats, depending on your point of view – of further screeds on a whole range of topics… the Fringe… the new academic year… the re-decorations in our basement… Brexit!… etc, etc

As a man eager to be thought of as someone who keeps his word I have indeed since posted on all of these subjects…

…bar one!

I have been dropping hints for a while now that I consider it high time that the music that the Chanteuse (with whom I am working and to whom I have previously referred in these pages) and I are creating should cease merely to be written about but to become reality in the form of being available for download from the InterWebNet.

I am now happy and excited to announce that this has indeed come to pass.

We work under the name ‘Anam Danu‘. To save the inevitable puzzlement let me offer this elucidation:

“Anam Danu is Irish Gaelic for Soul Goddess of Life. In Irish mythology, she is mother of the earth, the gods, fertility, wisdom, wind and of all the Celtic people.”

The Chanteuse and I both have Celtic origins – she Irish and I a Scot – and the music that we write mixes Celtic influences with those obtained by living in Cascadia.

We have recorded seven (out of an eventual ten) tracks for a collection entitled “Winds of Change“. We have had them professionally mastered by the estimable Brock MacFarlane at CPS Mastering in Vancouver and we have made them available for streaming and download on Bandcamp at the following address:

https://anamdanu.bandcamp.com

Do please have a listen. If you like what you hear do please also pass the word on to anyone that you think might be interested.

Sláinte!

 

The magic circle

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“The stage is a magic circle where only the most real things happen, a neutral territory outside the jurisdiction of Fate where stars may be crossed with impunity. A truer and more real place does not exist in all the universe.”

P.S. Baber – ‘Cassie Draws the Universe’

Our relief at discovering – subsequent to our arrival four years ago from London (arguably the theatre capital of the world) – that Victoria is consistently able to offer a rich bill of fare in thespian terms… was palpable! As I have written before in these pages, we routinely hold season tickets for The Belfry and one of the reasons that I was keen to sit on the Board of Intrepid Theatre was my admiration for the work that they do in bringing adventurous theatre to the provincial capital.

I have waxed lyrical before within these musings on the subject of the Victoria Fringe Festival (for those seeking proof posts may be found here, here and here). Of the three festivals operated by Intrepid Theatre the Fringe is perhaps closest to my heart, my healthy love of fringe theatre having been nurtured over many years at the Edinburgh Fringe.

The posts referenced above extol the delights of the shows from the past three fringe festivals with which we were particularly impressed and this post will do likewise for 2019 – but I do wish first to make a brief observation concerning the changing nature of fringe theatre.

When I first visited the Edinburgh Fringe in 1976 I am very sure that there was on offer more drama than there is now and certainly less comedy. Now, I have nothing against comedy – whether as stand-up or as comedy plays – but it is good to have a balance. Likewise in the field of drama the trend over recent decades has been towards small cast shows – presumably as much as anything on grounds of cost – with the emphasis often on solo shows based on personal experience. Again – nothing wrong with that as a form, but I do find myself longing for a ‘proper’ script, preferably containing subtle and thoughtful dialogue and (please god!) subtext!

Is that too much to ask?

So – the production that I enjoyed most this year was “Tuesdays with Morrie” by Theatre Alive Productions. Mitch Alborn’s play dates from 2002 and is a sensitive and profound text that was beautifully and movingly performed by the company. I love to see new work but I also greatly enjoy a piece that has been properly honed over a number of years and through numerous rewrites.

Elsewhere Englishman Charles Adrian’s “Dear Samantha” was as funny and delightful as when we first encountered him/her two years ago and the frankly bizarre – but also very funny – “Ballad of Frank Allen” by the Australian company Weeping Spoon Productions rounded off our fringe viewing on a high. The premise of this latter – featuring a janitor who has been been accidentally shrunk to microscopic proportions and who is living in the beard of another man – pretty much embodies the sense of the unexpected that one hopes to find in fringe theatre.

 

 

Griffin & Sabine

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Photo by Andy Dawson ReidWay back in the early 1990s (long before, of course, I had the slightest notion of even knowing anyone from the west coast of Canada, let alone of emigrating to this blessed spot) I came across a newly published and really quite extraordinary book – in the form of what I later came to know to be an epistolary novel – by artist, illustrator and writer, Nick Bantock.

Griffin & Sabine was the first in what evolved into a set of seven books which document the extraordinary correspondence between Griffin Moss – a London-based designer of postcards – and Sabine Strohem – a mysterious woman who resides on an island in the South Pacific. This communication commences with an exotic card from the southern seas.

Griffin

It’s good to get in touch with you at last. Could I have one of your fish postcards? I think you were right – the wine glass has more impact than the cup.

Sabine

But Griffin had never met a woman named Sabine. How did she know him? How did she know his artwork? Who is she?

The novels are exclusively in the form of exquisite and exotically illustrated postcards and of letters which are tucked into their envelopes affixed to the pages.

I think I was drawn to the original book not only by the sheer beauty of its design and artwork, but also by the magical and mysterious quality of its premise. I purchased a copy shortly after its publication, appreciated its allure and then tucked it away in one of my bookcases where it has languished ever since.

What I did not know then – or indeed discover until recently – was that though Nick Bantock grew up around London and in Kent, in the late 1980s he moved to Saltspring Island, British Columbia (scarcely a stone’s throw from our home on the Saanich peninsula) where he has lived ever since. I might not have discovered this fact even now had not Mr Bantock teamed up with Michael Shamata – the Artistic Director of The Belfry Theatre here in Victoria – to adapt the series of novels for the stage. On receiving The Belfry’s programme for the year and observing upon it notice of this premiere we naturally purchased tickets forthwith for the last show of the run, two days before Christmas.

With some difficulty (in the finding) I dug my copy of the book from our library. I was intrigued to know how this highly unusual graphical novel could possibly be adapted successfully for the stage. It is a challenge that I, frankly, would not myself have dared attempt (even had I the talent so to do!). I am therefore delighted to report that The Girl and I both found the production to be magical and moving and that it somehow managed to avoid all of the most obvious pitfalls that usually befall attempts at the marriage of two such wildly different forms. Let us hope that the production now travels further.

Bravo to Mr Bantock and to all concerned – say we!

 

Fringe benefits

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The Victoria Fringe Festival has already made several appearances in these postings (here and here – should the gentle reader feel inclined to backtrack) as the Girl and I have become regular supporters in the couple of years a that we have lived on the outskirts of the city.

This year there is – of course – a significant difference in that I am now a member of the board of Intrepid Theatre – the splendid organisation that runs the fringe (and other theatrical festivals) in Victoria.

The practical difference for me is that the period during which the fringe takes place – twelve days at the end of August and the start of September – is now considerably busier than it has been in previous years. When compared to the sterling efforts put in by the company’s staff those of the members of the board pale into relative insignificance, but there are duties incumbent upon them (us!) during fringe season which require time and effort.

For a start – there is an ambassadorial role to play. It is our job to meet and greet members of the fringe-going public, to make them feel valued and cherished, to listen to their views and criticisms and to build – where possible – the sort of ongoing relationship without which an organisation which relies so heavily on the support of the local audience could not survive.

The second (but closely related) role is to raise funds. Intrepid receives considerable and most welcome grants from government bodies without which it simply would not survive. Given that the ethos of the fringe is that all of the proceeds of the venue box offices go directly to the performers, the central costs of running the fringe must be covered by other means. Some of this shortfall comes from the sale of fringe buttons – a badge without which one may not enter a venue – but the rest must be raised by generous donations and other fundraising efforts led by the board. This year these included a fifty/fifty raffle draw that ran throughout the festival.

My direct involvement in the fringe was restricted to the first week only (for reasons that will become clear in a subsequent post) but in that brief period I worked at the Fringe Preview evening, at Fringe Kids (an event for children in Victoria’s Market Square) and – selling fifty/fifty tickets – on the queues of fourteen shows. In addition the Girl and I managed to see a total of seven shows.

The standard this year has been as high as any. Herewith our personal picks of the fringe:

  • Local comedian Morgan Cranny as ‘Vasily Djokavitch‘ (get the pun?) – billed as ‘Russia’s #1 State Approved Comedian‘. Highly amusing and directed by none other than Mike Delamont!
  • ‘Gigantic Lying Mouth‘. Glaswegian spoken word artist Kevin P. Gilday in a dazzling blend of poetry, imagined conversation and multimedia – blending humour with much that was thought-provoking on the subjects of life, art and death.

…but perhaps best of all:

  • Englishman Charles Adrian as Ms Samantha Mann in ‘Stories About Love, Death and a Rabbit‘. Adrian has won awards for this show – a gentle confection of storytelling about love, loss and bad poetry – and it is easy to see why. It is a joy to see an actor so completely in control of timing, rhythm and inflection. Perfect!

On the fringe

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Fringe-badge-16-mint-background-2008-1The 2016 Victoria Fringe Festival – the thirtieth such since the festival’s inauguration – has just reached its conclusion.

Looking back to last year’s event – which clearly took place in a period during which we had rather more time on our hands – I observe that we were able to get to a fair number of shows. This post – from September last – provides the details of those that the Girl and I deemed to be our pick of the 2015 fringe.

Having been occupied this year with our most welcome visitors from the UK we found – upon their departure – that we had missed the first week of the festival entirely. With the Girl now gainfully employed and thus not available for entertainment purposes during the working day our opportunities to attend fringe events were further restricted.

As a result we perhaps spent a little more time this year than we did last perusing the fringe programme, in an effort to ensure that those performances that we could attend were, after all, worth seeing. Our efforts seem to have paid off.  We saw three shows; we greatly enjoyed each of them.

‘Half the Battle‘ – written and created by Edmonton based Owen Bishop – is a one-man two-character piece with a twist… Bishop plays both parts simultaneously! Inspired by the burial beneath conjoined tombstones of a Canadian second world war pilot and co-pilot, ‘Half the Battle‘ imagines the men inextricably joined in the afterlife as two halves of the same character. It perhaps hardly need be said that the performance was funny and affecting in equal measure and was quite brilliantly played without the slightest waver by the talented Bishop. The use of the hackneyed phrase “tour de force” is normally rightly deprecated. In this instance it would be entirely justified.

British comedian, Gerald Harris, is that staple of fringe festivals the world over – a storyteller! Lest you infer that I regard the form as being in any way inferior to other performance arts let me at once set you right. The oral tradition is one the most fertile and immediate of all the forms – but only if the storyteller is a good one! Harris not only has the requisite performance skills – his manic energy clearly keeping some in the audience guessing as to his intent – but he is also quite obviously a writer. As a result ‘A Tension to Detail‘ – Harris’s meditation on his mostly solitary life as an onanistic British Jew – was splendidly constructed and paced, and delivered with panache.

Finally, ‘Bushel and Peck‘ – a surreal physical comedy of (relatively) few words by multiple award winning Canadian comic actor Alastair Knowles (‘James and Jamesy‘) and choreographer Stephanie Morin-Robert – is that most wonderful of things, a performance that delights whilst completely defying easy categorisation. It must be my ‘poor theatre‘ leanings I suppose, but I do derive great pleasure from watching accomplished performers create a rich and beautiful visual spectacle with no set, everyday costume and the bare minimum of props – in this case a table lamp, a plywood board, a pair of hair-dryers and a packet of white balloons! (My liking for the surreal can probably be traced back even further to my early affection for the Goon Show).

As ever, should you happen upon any of these performers at fringe events around the world, I would heartily recommend giving them a look.

 

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