Sex, Success and Sadness
Diana Dors, Her Story
Tarts on Tour Productions and Blue Fire Theatre at Hampton Hill Theatre, until 8th September
Review by Mark Aspen
To the teenage schoolboy of the early 1960’s, Diana Dors was the snigger behind the bicycle sheds, the stuff of dreams, the sort of dreams that you didn’t tell mum about. The epithet blonde bombshell could have been hand-made for Diana Dors, but the effect of the bombshell was largely incendiary, firing up not only the school boys’ testosterone, but the printing presses of Fleet Street’s more inquisitive popular red-tops, and the indignation of multitudinous moral makers.
Step forward half a century, and we can warmly smile at all the fuss. What was it all about? The world then, still recovering from a World War, held different insecurities from now, the positions that men and women played in society were certainly very different, aspirations were modest. The London that attracted Dors, as LAMDA’s youngest ever student (at 14, she had lied about her age) was a city of excitement, full of opportunity, but with a hint of danger. The excitement was to propel her into taking on major (and sometimes risqué) film roles whist still in her mid-teens. The opportunity beckoned to a girl with an ambition, although her early ambitions were modest, such as to own a cream telephone. The danger led her to meeting some of London’s most notorious characters and to become involved in liaisons that were to bring her much pain and financial loss.
Diana Dors, Her Story is told by Mandy Winters in her feisty one-woman show that tells of the wit, the openness and the real talent of a woman fighting her way in a world of tough, and often unscrupulous men. As Dors, Mandy Winters simply becomes the Diana Dors, candidly revealing the story of the life of a woman morally compromised by her circumstances, but resilient, and above all one with a true and generous warmth of character.
Presented as a cabaret revue, Winter’s sparkling musical show at the Noel Coward Studio in the Hampton Hill theatre, was a great fun evening. The audience, some seated café-theatre style, were immediately drawn into the mood, and my how she could work that audience!
Having been introduced by her warm-up man (and “minder”) Ken Shagwell (yes, the scene is set!) the agenda was firmly on our candle-lit tables, with Diana’s frank admission that “I based my career on sex: on men, sex and money, in that order”. The story of that career was told through Diana’s songs, and here Winter really hit the button, her rich mezzo is so creamy, you could pour it out.
The music rides on the strong foundation of the The Collection Trio, led by Music Director Adrian Brown, a group clearly comfortably as one with itself, Jimmy Tamley on Drums and Jonathan Burrows on the keyboards, while Brown plays the guitar. The quicksilver repartee between the trio and Winters was one of the joys of the performance, and formed the springboard for the comedy.
The many songs, sung with vibrancy and verve (the Cole Porter standard Just One of Those Things was one of many that stood out for me), were the milestones in the story of Diana’s life, told with intimacy. The story emerged in little nuggets. At her early start in main-stream films, “They asked me to change my name. I suppose they were afraid that if my real name Diana Fluck was in lights and one of the lights blew … ”.
We learnt of her marriages, often very bumpy; to Dennis Hamilton in 1948, Richard Dawson in 1959 and finally in 1968 to Alan Lake; of her frequent affairs, including with Rod Steiger and with Tommy Yeardye, the stuntman to Victor Mature, which caused transatlantic furores with her contracted big-name film and recording companies. We learnt of parties with the Kray brothers and with Ruth Ellis, the last woman in Britain to be hanged. Dors courted notoriety, but, as Winter accurately portrayed, was tragically vulnerable. Dawson exploited her sexuality, Yeardye stole thousands of pounds from her safe deposit, and Lake allegedly hid away her fortune before he committed suicide.
Nevertheless, Winter’s biography was decidedly up-beat and it was the good times that shone through . . . and Dors’ humanity. As she said, “It’s nice to be important, but it’s more important to be nice”.
This was a show that concentrated on the sex, not the men or the money, but in a very light-hearted way that the enthusiastic audience thoroughly enjoyed, being brought into tiny hints of the infamous Dors’ orgies, thorough audience involvement! Yes, the Hokey Pokey Polka, which all joined in singing and dancing, has the memorable words, “if you want to know what bliss is, go on and try it on the Missus”.
It was not for nothing that Marilyn Monroe was described as America’s Diana Dors (or was it the other way round?)
If Dors based her career on sex: men, sex and money, in that order, it was men, sex and money, in that order, that led to her downfall … but she did get her cream telephone.
Mark Aspen
September 2018
Photography courtesy of Tarts on Tour.
Obituary
Bernard Wigginton : A Remarkable Gentleman
Bernard Wigginton (May 1945 – August 2018) was well-known throughout the arts scene in Richmond upon Thames, as a bedrock supporter to the full gamut of performing and visual arts, a cause to which his whole life was dedicated. He is particularly remembered in Mark Aspen Reviews as the occasional classical music and opera reviewer, William Vine.
Sadly, Bernard died on 21st August, aged 73, following a battle with spinal cancer, which was borne bravely and with great fortitude. His funeral on 3rd September filled the chapel at the South West Middlesex Crematorium, a “capacity audience” as Bernard as a theatre buff would have said.
Separate eulogies all independently touched on three aspects of Bernard’s character, his erudition, his modesty and his stoicism. These tributes extolled his wide knowledge of the arts. Theatre, music and opera, art and photography, architecture and local history were all mentioned.
Bernard had been a Judge for the Swan Awards (the local Oscars) for many years. He was Secretary of OHADS, a dramatic society in which he had been active for more than six decades, as an Old Hamptonian and from the his time at Hampton Grammar School. An Old Hamptonians’ journal of 1965 mentions two previous stalwarts of the school’s own dramatic society, Bernard, who was then completing with modern languages degree at Oriel College, Oxford, and Brian May, then reading physics at Imperial College*. He was also an active member of Teddington Theatre Club. In 2015, Bernard was awarded the prestigious Swan Accolade, the lifetime achievement award for services to drama in Richmond.
Bernard was involved with many local arts organisations including Arts Richmond, the Richmond Concert Society, Richmond Heritage Guides (where he was a local “Blue Badge” guide) and the Richmond Talking Newspaper (for which he was the Honorary Secretary for many years).
Bernard was a great linguist and intrepid traveller. He would often take off on ad-hoc journeys in an old car, which led not only to numerous adventures, but to beautiful portfolios of photographic insights into the places he visited.
However, the greatest love of Bernard’s live was horticulture, which is lastingly manifest in his garden at Cranmer Road, which has been the centrepiece of the National Garden Scheme’s noted Hampton gardens. Here he transformed a Second World War air-raid shelter into rockery and water cascade, which is surrounded with a superabundance of herbaceous and exotic borders. At his funeral, a letter from Lynda Benson, his co-designer and assistant in the continuous creation of the garden, was read out. It is a touching memorial to Bernard love of beauty.
Bernard Wigginton will stay in the memory of Richmond’s lovers of the arts as a truly remarkable gentleman.
Read Keith Wait’s funeral eulogy
*The journal’s editor remarks rather snottily on the latter: In spite of all the emphasis on [his university physics course], May still finds time to play with a semi-professional “Group”.
Photography by Jo Grinbergs
Winter is Here!
A Winter’s Tale
by Howard Goodall, based on the play by William Shakespeare
Youth Music Theatre UK at The Rose Theatre, Kingston until 2nd September
Review by Viola Selby
When watching previous adaptations of Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, I often notice how the director has focused fully either on the lighter and more romantic side or the darker more tyrannical side of the story. However, in this fantastic production, Bronagh Lagan, the director, and Nick Stimson, the playwright, have effortlessly managed to create a dramatic contrast between the two genres; emphasising the feeling of conflict throughout. This, in turn, has made a four hundred year old play extremely relatable and entertaining to today’s audience.
In addition, this same tremendous level of talent is also brought in by the whole cast, through their brilliantly timed responses, use of body language and sensational singing abilities. Will Hopkins and Will Mckee are flawless in their depiction of two tyrannical rulers, Leon and Ozan, who were once best friends, but soon become arch-enemies. They create characters of such substance and realism far beyond their years, which have the audience gripping the edge of their seats.
Their interactions and character growth made even better by the brilliantly emotional acting of Izzy Mackie, as Leon’s wrongfully accused wife, Ekatarina. Whilst Rory MacNeilage ensures that there could be no one more perfect to play the sly and evil Naryshkin, right-hand-man to Leon and perpetrator of Ekatarina’s demise. MacNeilage brings such an effortless aura of class and evilness to the play that he strongly reminds me of a young Dr No.
However, although based around a play, Howard Goodall has managed to create a musical masterpiece, with songs and music that truly depict the inner monologue and feeling within each character and help create the atmosphere of each scene. From the dark and emotional songs such as Treachery of Love and Tyranny of a Lie, played in the first half, to the more uplifting and often quite comical songs such as Found on a Beach and the Sheep Song sung by the “Hey Judes” in the second part, there was not a single song that did not have your heart racing or you wanting to sing along. It was especially during Treachery of Love, beautifully sung by Will Hopkins, and Precious Child, that I also noticed the clever choreography, directed by Phyllida Crowley-Smith. During the former, Leon is convinced that his wife, Ekatarina and his best friend, Ozan, are having an affair. Therefore everything he sees them do, he sees as some sort of sign of their feelings for one another. Crowley-Smith has creatively highlighted this distortion between reality and what Leon ‘sees’, by having a duplicate of Ekatarina and Ozan on stage. This duplicate couple copy everything the real characters do, however in a more lustful and suspicious manner. Whilst during Precious Child, fantastically performed by the whole cast, Ekatarina reveals to Leon during the celebrations that she is pregnant with his child. Leon is still consumed by his jealousy and orders her arrest, stating that the baby is Ozan’s. It is here that all the female characters get behind Ekatarina and the men behind Leon, again showing another great conflict between power and love, as depicted through the genders.
In addition to the paranoia and power of this story, this play is also filled with magic that allows its audience to feel part of the events as they unfold. In this particular production, the audience are transported by the use of the creative genius of Libby Todd, as set and costume designer, and Alan Valentine, as lighting designer. Individually, their talents are excellently exhibited. From the fantastic costumes, that truly depict first the control and tyranny of the first act and then the hippie flower power of the second, to the use of an effective minimalistic set that somehow creates the illusion of this whole world on one stage. Whilst, when put all together, a variety of atmospheres are created, both making each scene more realistic and highlighting the play’s overall conflict between power and love. Even at the end, when the statue of Ekatarina is revealed and the family are once again brought together, the audience are left in awe by the use of lighting that fixes their focus on this one heart-warming scene. This simple technique is extremely effective and really depicts the conclusion of this tale and overall artistic talent this play has to offer.
A West End worthy Winter’s Tale that will warm your heart!
Viola Selby
August 2018
Photography by YMT
The Swans Are Flying!
The Swan Awards are Arts Richmond’s local “Oscars” for the best in the non-commercial theatre within Richmond upon Thames. The Nominations for these Awards have been announced and the “Swans” will be presented to the final winners on 30th September at the Landmark Arts Centre in Teddington. Guest Presenters will be The Mayor of Richmond upon Thames, Cllr. Ben Khosa, Lynn Faulds Wood and John Stapleton.
The Nominations include:
Best Production of a Play
Richmond Shakespeare Society’s The 39 Steps
Youth Action Theatre’s Blue Stockings
Richmond Shakespeare Society’s Richard II
Teddington Theatre Club’s Stones in His Pockets
Best Musical Theatre Production
Twickenham Operatic Society’s 9 to 5, The Musical
BROS Theatre Company’s Made In Dagenham
The Cygnet Award
(The Cygnet Award is for a production in a non-dedicated theatrical environment.)
Edmundian Players’ Out Of Order
Wild Duck Theatre Picnic at Hanging Rock
Edmundian Players’ Sleeping Beauty
See full details at the Arts Richmond website
Fringe Cut Straight
Edinburgh Fringe Week 1
It is the first full week of the Edinburgh Fringe this week, and the Mark Aspen reviewers will be there to see some companies known in the Richmond – Twickenham – Kingston area.
Opening this week are Space Doctor (StraightUp Productions at the Gilded Balloon Teviot, Venue No. 14, until 27th August); Red Peppers (Blue Fire Theatre Company at theSpace on the Mile, Venue No. 39 until 18th August; and Cream Tea and Incest (Benjamin Alborough Productions at theSpace @ Surgeons Hall, Venue No. 53) until 25th August.
Also opening this week is
The Squirrel Plays
Part of the Main at C venues – C cubed (Venue No. 50), 2nd to 27th August
Newlyweds Tom and Sarah are definitely not squirrel people. So when they discover one in their attic, they’re faced with a marriage-testing decision: to exterminate, or not to exterminate? However, the squirrels have also infested the whole neighbourhood. The issue doesn’t only tear Sarah and Tom apart. It threatens the peace of an entire community.
Spice on the Red Peppers
Palace of Varieties
Blue Fire Theatre and full supporting company at Mary Wallace Theatre, Twickenham, 28th July.
Review by Mark Aspen
Oh, the roar of the greasepaint, the smell of the crowd! You are in a music hall variety show, ready for your act to wow the waiting audience. George and Lily Pepper bicker in the dressing room, but here we are watching from the wings as the adrenaline mounts. And so it is was for Saturday’s audience at the Mary Wallace Theatre waiting for Noel Coward’s Red Peppers in Blue Fire’s preview of its forthcoming Edinburgh Fringe offering.
The surprise first course before the spicy dish of Red Peppers, was a visit to the Palace of Varieties at that gritty mill town where George and Lily’s show is on tour. Our Compere was Daniel Wain, introducing the turns with his wonted style of punchy panache, mainly musical entertainment from a wide range of gifted performers.
The pace was set by the full throated jazz singing of Hannah-May Lucas, “The Mistress of Song” with Kander and Eb’s All that Jazz from Chicago the Musical. The description of 1920’s Chicago, “where the gin is cold, but the piano’s hot!”, could have applied equally to the Mary Wallace, where musical director Carole Smith’s electric piano accompanied all the singers. Then a more lyrical Thelonious Monk standard, ‘Round Midnight before returning to Kander and Eb’s edgy musical Cabaret.
Further down the programme was our second lady singer, Heather Stockwell, “The Sophisticated Songstress of Shepperton”, in a beautifully contrasting songs-from-the-shows style, and wearing a cool flowing dress that tumbled like a multi-coloured waterfall. The approach now was soft and honeyed, numbers from The King and I, back to 1951 and the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical: the lyrical Hello Young Lovers, the warm tone crisp and firm; the uplifting Shall We Dance and the reflective piece, Something Wonderful, which at the lower end of the singer’s register showed the wide range of Heather Stockwell’s voice.
But the girls did not hog all the limelight, for the last item on the Palace of Varieties bill was Andrew Truluck, from oop North – North London that is – disputing that London exists South of the River. (He was on safe ground, the Mary Wallace Theatre is north of the Thames.) Introduced as the “Virtuoso of the Vocal Chords”, we were treated to yet another approach to the songs of the musicals … and of the music halls. Genial and gentle voiced, he guided the audience, and indeed invited them to join the choruses in Second World War standards such as the soft crooning, How About You, and (somewhat challenging for the audience) A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square. Then back to the First World War with This Heart of Mine, Let this Great Big World Keep on Turning and Peg o’ My Heart. (For musical buffs, there is an interesting link between Peg o’ My Heart, which featured in the 1913 musical Ziegfeld Follies and This Heart of Mine from the 1941 film of Ziegfeld Follies.)
The singers parenthesised an entirely different musical genre, classical guitar, played with remarkable dexterity by Luke Taylor. In a complex piece and with concentrated precision, he evoked a vision of sparkling water on hot summer’s day that was the reality outside of the theatre. Although by the 18th Century Italian composer, Domenico Cimarosa, it was very reminiscent of the well-known Spanish guitar composers of a century later such as Albéniz or Granados. It was amazing to watch Taylor play, and clearly not for nothing did the compere introduce him as “Donald and his Dancing Digits”.
As the Palace of Varieties was intended as lead in to Blue Fire’s Red Peppers, Noël Coward was never far away, and the musical offers were interspersed with excerpts from another of Coward’s cycle of the short plays from the Tonight at 8:30 series, Ways and Means. The main protagonists, heiress Stella Cartwright and her gambling-addicted husband Toby, were played by Mia Skytte-Jensen and Daniel Wain, described modestly by Wain (in his compere role) as the Olivier and Leigh of Twickenham, tongue firmly in cheek.
The Cartwrights are irresponsible social parasites, living in a borrowed villa on the Côte d’Azur by their wits and their witticisms. Wain and Skytte-Jensen delivered the brittle quick-fire dialogue of the self-indulgent couple with the coolly detached insouciance that Coward demands of the stereotypical socialites.
Ways and Means forms a nice scene-setter for Red Peppers, for both concern a bickering couple in a jaded marriage, although I felt a bit less sympathy for Toby and Stella Cartwright than I was about to for George and Lily Pepper. (The Peppers actually work hard for their living.)
As an appetiser for the course of Red Peppers, about to be served after the interval, Palace of Varieties whetted the appetite in a satisfying manner. It was the gin and tonic freshener accompaniment before the full-bodied red wine was opened to go with the Red Peppers.
Mark Aspen
July 2018
Photography by Wolstenholme Images
Real Bite into the Spice
Red Peppers
by Noel Coward
Blue Fire Theatre Company at Mary Wallace Theatre, Twickenham, 28th July, then touring until 18th August.
Review by Louis Mazzini
First performed in Manchester over eighty years ago, the comedy Red Peppers remains one of Noel Coward’s most popular plays. Though among his shortest – as one of the ten plays that make up the Tonight at 8.30 sequence – it has an enduring appeal and the central couple of fading vaudevillians has been played by the likes of Anthony Newley and Joan Collins as well as, of course, by Coward himself with his muse Gertrude Lawrence.
In Blue Fire Theatre Company’s lively production, seen here in an Edinburgh preview, Coward’s role is taken by a blisteringly funny Steve Taylor and Lawrence’s by an acid-dropping Lottie Walker. Both are experienced revue artistes and bring real bite to their performances, skilfully recreating the rhythms and slips of Coward’s song and dance routines and, as he takes us backstage, exposing the backbiting venom of a couple in terminal decline and not just on stage.
© Alison Jee
The duo are well supported. Edz Barrett plays the manager of a theatre so run down that even the clothes rail is falling apart. Charles Halford is a bibulous conductor and Joanna Taylor makes a memorably star-struck callboy, while Mandy Stenhouse adds a distinctive cameo playing a theatrical dame who has definitely seen better days.
This is a strong production of a theatrical gem, a glimpse at the long lost world of vaudeville, played by two actors at the top of their game. Highly recommended.
Louis Mazzini
July 2018
Photography by Alison Jee
See also Palace of Varieties
Gowned Academics
Blue Stockings
by Jessica Swale
Youth Action Theatre at the Michael Frayn Theatre, Kingston until 27th July
Review by John O’Brien
Books or looks? That is the dilemma facing a pioneering group of young women in Cambridge in 1896. Considering the popularity of Love Island has much changed? The title refers to a dismissive epithet for an educated woman. Like Jane Eyre these women risked social oblivion. Neither marriage material nor real graduates, they occupied a precarious no-woman’s land betwixt and between. Jessica Swale’s accomplished debut play, acted with brio and verve by The Youth Action Theatre, brings vividly to life the struggle of these remarkable heroines. It’s a story that deserves to be known and this play is a fitting homage to that struggle.
The set is minimal but apt. Three bookcases give just the right feel of a Cambridge College – Girton, the first college in the university to admit women – and each scene is signposted via PowerPoint projection. The direction is pacey, short scenes move briskly to hold our attention, and keeps us wanting to know more.
We follow four young undergraduates over the course of one academic year as they try to study and be taken seriously. Jennie Hilliard is superb as Tess Moffat. She gets the balance between determined scholar and vulnerable young woman spot on. She deftly navigates the often absurd double binds the bluestockings find themselves in. For example she wants to ride a bicycle to demonstrate Newton’s Laws of Motion but feels that girls don’t sling their leg over to get on the saddle. She agrees to do so but only after asking her lecturer Mr Banks (Josh Clark) to look away. This dilemma – how to be independent within a patriarchal world – forms the heart of the dramatic drive of the play.
The Mistress of Girton College, Elizabeth Welsh (Jojo Leppink) convinces as she steers the college and the girls through treacherous waters. They must study hard to match the men but they must not let the college down. They must at all times be respectable. And they must not jeopardise the reputation of Girton by any Suffragette nonsense. To enforce this code she employs the fearsome chaperone Miss Bott (brilliantly played by Emily Dixon) to accompany Tess everywhere. When Will Bennett (Ben Buckley) attempts to embrace Tess Miss Bott archly reminds him that he must keep a distance of 30 inches at all times. Will Bennett and Mr Banks are classic New Men. They too face moral dilemmas: to support the Girton Girls even if it means social pariah status?
Blue Stockings is a complex play because it shows the almost impossible double binds the College and the girls where trying to work around. Nowhere was this more poignantly dramatised than in the case of Maeve Sullivan (Meaghan Baxter), the poor scholarship girl from the East End. We watch entranced as she flourishes to become the best student in the year and then, in a devastating peripeteia, her brother Billy (Joseph Evans) comes demanding that she return home to look after her sisters as her mother has died. We see how poverty trumps gender. Miss Welsh agrees with Billy, she has to go home, child care comes before education. Such, such are the hard realities the girls are up against.
But the most implacable opposition comes from the men. In a scene of devastating explosive force, the leader of the Trinity men, Lloyd (Gwithian Evans) mocks the girls as being a joke. He contrast the 800 year history of male power and scholarship and invokes Newton, Marlowe, Milton, Pepys and Byron to ridicule the pretensions of the Bluestockings. It’s a monologue of stunningly grotesque vituperative force. As a coda the shop keeper who has witnessed this shocking abuse demands that he leave her shop. Lloyd reminds her that his father owns all the shop leases. She immediately backs down and agrees to sell him… a pair of blue stockings. It’s a brilliant metaphor.
Blue Stockings is a triumph. It pays homage to a remarkable generation of women who showed courage and resilience in the face of the most daunting hurdles. We owe a debt of gratitude to those Bluestockings. What better way to show our appreciation than by going along to see this truly inspirational show and at the same time encourage our future talent in Youth Action Theatre.
Photography by Jonathan Constant
Fringe on Top
The Edinburgh Fringe
Our reviewers are at the Edinburgh Fringe.
Among their reviews are some by companies known in the Richmond- Twickenham- Kingston area. Watch out for these:
Space Doctor
StraightUp Productions at the Gilded Balloon Teviot (Venue No. 14), 1st to 27th August
After forty years out in the wilderness, Britain’s favourite TV time traveller is back… Space Doctor is a riotous and playful sci-fi parody, set at a fan convention, celebrating the fictional 1970s programme Space Doctor. Amidst re-enactments of the show’s most “celebrated” moments, shocking truths are revealed.
Red Peppers
Blue Fire Theatre Company at theSpace on the Mile (Venue No. 39), 3rd to 18th August
Noel Coward gives a glimpse into a day in the life of a husband and wife vaudeville act who are tired of performing the same old song and dance routines and tired of each other. Onstage staggering through their act, offstage bickering and sniping, they come together only to blast the hapless theatre staff: all the un-glamour of showbiz.
Cream Tea and Incest
Benjamin Alborough Productions at theSpace @ Surgeons Hall (Venue No. 53), 5th to 25th August
Romance! Adventure! Murder! Learn the meaning of these words and more in this anarchic comedy set in Edwardian England. Delight in their capers, mix-ups and the dead bodies left in their wake. Go with the English aristocrat and his loyal valet, Jeffrey, as a simple matchmaking quest quickly deteriorates into a race against time when Machiavellian forces move to wreak their vengeance.
Fast
Digital Drama at theSpaceTriplex (Venue 38) and theSpace @ Niddry St (Venue 9), 13th to 25th August
A dark psychological drama based on true events in 1910 in Washington State, USA. “Doctor” Linda Hazzard opens her sanatorium to the public. The public do not always survive… Complex, beguiling and utterly driven, Hazzard advocated a fasting cure that gripped the press and divided a nation. How far would you go to find the perfect cure…?
Romeo and Juliet
The HandleBards at Assembly George Square Gardens (Venue No. 3), 15th to 19th August
Before the world’s first cycling theatre company toured its seriously silly production of Romeo and Juliet around the world, they pedalled it 1,500 miles around the UK by bicycle, with all the necessary set, props and costume in tow. Now, the all-female troupe is back with riotous amounts of energy, a fair old whack of chaos.
Say Something Happened
BCP at theSpace @ Surgeons Hall (Venue No. 53), 20th to 25th August
June, a well-meaning but very inexperienced social worker, visits Mam and Dad to offer the council’s help. It transpires that June is probably more in need of Mam and Dad’s help than they are of hers! Alan Bennett’s one act play showcases the humour and pathos of Britain’s best-loved playwright.
Pimms, Power and Piety
Summer Full Choral Evensong
Music by Felix Mendelsshöhn, Henry Purcell, Sir Charles Villiers Stanford and Jehan Alain
St Mary’s Extended Parish Choir, St Mary’s Church, Hampton, 15th July
Review by Mark Aspen
A Broad Church. Now, there is a term that we often hear applied to the Church of England. However, pop along to St Mary’s at Hampton and you will find that in this case it applies to just one parish church.
The church buildings, together with Garrick’s Temple to Shakespeare and Garrick’s Villa nearby, form part of a group of Grade 1 listed buildings. Particularly, with its association with Georgian royalty, St Mary’s Hampton is arguably the most historic of parish churches in the Area and certainly one of the most beautiful. Nevertheless, within all this tradition, St Mary’s late morning service each Sunday is an exuberant modern contemporary service of large and increasing popularity.
During this service, last Sunday morning, the 250-strong congregation processed from the church to the River Thames for the total-immersion baptisms of six adults and the christening of a baby. Back in the church, a service of joyful worship continued.
The measure of the breath of worship tradition at St Mary’s came later in the day, with a traditional Anglican evensong. Choir Director and Organist, David Pimm has gained a reputation amongst music lovers for his occasional series of sacred choral music, requiems and oratorios at St Mary’s. Last Sunday’s service was a traditional choral evensong, where “voices sounding together in harmony is heard at the ‘even’ point between the active day and restful night, allowing listeners time for restful contemplation”. It is a tradition that extends back to 1549 and, as the Vicar, Rev. Ben Lovell, reminded us, evensong has been described as “the jewel in the crown of Anglican worship”.
During the late afternoon, the music of worship had continued by ringing of the changes by an extended team from the Middlesex Bellringers on the St Mary’s Major of eight bells, cast by Thomas Mears in 1831. This formed a prelude to the St Mary’s Summer Evensong, the musical inspiration of which included choral works by Purcell, Stanford and Stainer, plus a number of powerful congregational hymns, parenthesised by remarkable organ solos.
The introductory organ piece was Felix Mendelsshöhn’s Sonata IV for Organ, the last of the six Organ Sonatas to be written in this Opus 65 series. Mendelsshöhn was greatly influenced in his church music by Bach, and the transcendental feel of his Sonata IV illustrates this well. The piece opens with a spritely allegro, which soon develops a more contemplative, pious mood, before returning to a quicker tempo and concluding with an impressively majestic crescendo. When playing the Sonatas, Mendelsshöhn himself demanded a well-pitched organ, with a good standard of touch from the pedalboard as well as the manuals. St Mary’s organ was a gift from King William IV to commemorate his coronation, and was built by J.C.Bishop in 1831. Not only is it a superb instrument, it underwent extensive restoration work in the summer of 2017. So Mendelsshöhn would have been very pleased to play at St Mary’s.
For the introit, the choir entered to the clear Baroque ringing tones of Henry Purcell’s Rejoice in the Lord Alway, singing an extract from this well-known Bell Anthem with its exhortation “in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God”, thereby setting the theme of the service.
When the Royal College of Music was founded in 1882, Charles Villiers Stanford was not only one of its founding professors, but also one of the youngest. His pupils included Gustav Holst and Ralph Vaughan Williams. Sadly, Stanford’s many orchestral and operatic works are now neglected, but he still remains one of Britain’s foremost church composers. Certainly, the choral works of Sir Charles Villiers Stanford are not neglected by Pimm and the St Mary’s choir.
Stanford’s Magnificat and Nunc Dimittus settings in C major (Op. 115) were part of the liturgical backbone of St Mary’s Summer Evensong. In Magnificat, the canticle based on Mary’s praise to God following her visitation, Stanford points up the humility of Mary through subtle use of voice and volume. Phrase such as “the lowliness of His handmaiden” are taken pianissimo, whereas “He hath filled the hungry with good things”, as a soprano duet contrasts with the tenor and bass counter-concept of “and the rich He hath sent empty away”. The Nunc Dimittus, elderly Simeon’s touching reaction to seeing the infant Christ, in Stanford’s scoring is soft, peaceful and widely expressive. In the hands of St Mary’s choir, working largely as an ensemble, Stanford’s intentions were given clear emotional insight.
The richness of emotional expression in Stanford’s sacred choral works was amply demonstrated in the anthem, Glorious and Powerful God, one of the three motets of Opus 135 and the choral centre to Summer Evensong. The anthem is an acknowledgement of might of God and mankind’s relationship with God. The measured phrasing, “We understand Thy dwelling is on high, above the starry sky”, where sustained soprano notes almost paint a picture of the Milky Way, forms a vividly descriptive opening. Then God and mankind interact in the supplication to “show us Thy light”, a gentle and quiet episode, before the bold plea comes strongly in, “Arise, O Lord”. The conclusion is bold and decisive, “Thy name be blest, founder and foundation” of the world.
A brief mention must be made of the skill of the bible readers, Nigel Francis, who read from Job, and Didie Bucknall, whose reading from St Paul’s epistle to the Romans sounded just like she had taken Paul’s letter straight from the envelope and was letting us know what he had to say.
Pimm and the St Mary’s choir are exponents of the works of the Victorian composer, Sir John Stainer, and the choral part of the service concluded with Stainer’s Sevenfold Amen. The title speaks for itself, but the exploration of intonation and the complex interweaving of voices restates this time-immemorial single word as a certain conviction of truth and an affirmation of God’s promises.
Jehan Alain came from a family in Paris whose every member seemed to be associated with organs, as organists, organ composers, or organ builders. Jehan Alain was an organist and composer. He was killed in action, aged 29, in June 1940 and posthumously awarded the Croix de Guerre for his bravery. As a skilled motorcyclist in the French Army, he had been reconnoitring the enemy advance on Saumur, when he came across a platoon of German soldiers. He engaged them single-handed, armed only with his rifle, and killed sixteen of the enemy troops before being brought down himself.
Forming the final organ solo for Summer Evensong was Litanies. Composed three years before his death, it is probably one of the best-known of Alain’s works, but is recognised as being fiendishly difficult to play. The piece builds on an intricate melodic concept, which it repeatedly dismantles and reconstructs in a variety of moods, ranging from joyfully soft and reflective to apprehensively troubled and edgy. Alain explained his intent thus: “When the Christian soul in its distress finds no new words with which to implore God’s mercy, it repeats endlessly the same invocation with strong faith. Reason having attained its zenith, Faith alone reaches on high.” The motif itself goes through a remarkable progression, reappearing in overlapping forms. The work’s impressively complex conclusion is hugely powerful and finally resolves in a note-crammed cornucopia.
The Bishop organ, in all its restored glory, was put through its acrobatic paces with great dexterity of hands and pedals by the outstanding visiting organist, Nat Keiller, an award-winning Royal College of Organists graduate, no stranger to the St Mary’s organ. Keiller’s virtuosity, a highlight of the Summer Evensong, was amazing and quite exhausting even just watching and listening.
What better way, then, to round off the evening by decamping into the churchyard for a civilised glass or two of Pimm’s and a cream tea with delicious home-made scones and jam, where we all enjoyed the evening sunshine of the beautiful world this side of the starry sky.
Mark Aspen
July 2018
Photography courtesy of Jenny Winterburn and Thomas Forsythe.
Mark Aspen 