The Most Incredible Thing

March 31st, 2011

The sound was unmistakenly Pet Shop Boys, the visuals less so. We were at the ballet once more, although there were no sugar plum fairies or leaping nutcrackers last Thursday night. At Sadler’s Wells for a limited 10-day run, The Most Incredible Thing is based on a three-page Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale of the same name, is scored by Pet Shop Boys and choreographed by Javier de Frutos. The fable is based around a contest to produce ‘the most incredible thing’, with half the kingdom and marriage to the princess to be won.

What made The Most Incredible Thing that little bit more incredible, though, was in part the music – which was at times very modern electronic, and at others, very orchestral – and the film projection interludes, which helped the story along. Graphically styled to be very communist and Eastern European in flavour, the clips punctuated parts of the story where needed and helped break the performance into three acts. The score itself, was, like the ballet, quite dark and sinister in places, and very similar in flavour to the Battleship Potemkin soundtrack the award-winning pop duo made a few years ago.

Like other live show and soundtrack performances we’ve been to, at times you were wondering if the music was in fact being played live – especially the chugging, dramatic and sweeping electronic pieces – but live it was, booming into the undoubtedly modern Sadler’s Wells auditorium. You wouldn’t necessarily have believed there was a cast of only 16 performers, either, as costume changes were very swiftly done, while the 26-piece orchestra played Tennant and Lowe’s score in the pit below. Last night there was even a 20-minute on-stage informal chat with Tennant, Lowe and de Frutos, which comical at times, explained how the three-year creative process had come to fruition.

With a sumptuous dinner at Brown’s Islington beforehand (fish, chips and all the dressings for Nik, and calves’ liver with Sage and Rosemary mash for me), all in all, our Valentine’s Day night out was everything we could have wished for. And today, while the soundtrack plays out of my iMac’s speakers, thoughts turn once again to the ballet. Undoubtedly the most contemporary and modern one we’ve yet been to, The Most Incredible Thing was arguably the best one yet.

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Hall Place and Gardens

March 24th, 2011

All of a sudden the weekends have gotten very busy. Sociable but very busy. Since Ross and John visited in mid-February, we almost haven’t stopped. And we thought last Saturday would be much of the same, but our journey to London threw up some very pleasant surprises. There to celebrate Sheila’s birthday, we drove down with Andrew, too, and met Sal, Dan and William in Sidcup before going on to lunch at Miller and Carter, in a Jacobean barn just behind the picturesque Hall Place and Gardens.

I don’t know why, but we really weren’t expecting a 16th-century Grade 1 listed small mansion house just behind the A2 on the outskirts of the big smoke. (Yes, I know, it’s technically Kent, but even so…) But, Hall Place is pretty and has small formal gardens with beautifully laid-out flowers and topiary bushes sculpted into dogs, dragons, horses and unicorns, ideal for little ones to run in and out of and hide behind. All very tranquil, I’m sure the sunny, bright and almost warm weather helped us appreciate the countryside-like (and very green) surroundings.

Sat on the banks of the river Cray, Bexley, Hall Place was built in 1537 for wealthy merchant Sir John Champneys, Lord Mayor of the City of London from stone recycled from a former monastery, Lesnes Abbey, closeby. A manor house was recorded some 300 years earlier on the site. Now there is also 65 hectares of parkland (where we fed the ducks and geese their lunch) and a tea shop, which overlooks the river, as well as traditional glass houses, which house and sell a bewildering array of colourful plants.

It was something of a green-fingered afternoon. After Hall Place, we stopped off at Ruxley Manor Garden Centre, where we wandered along the aisles festooned with all manner of plant life, books, patio furniture and pet paraphernalia (how did we miss the chickens for sale, though?). One orchid, one succulent, two pots and a bit of minor celebrity-spotting later, we were back at Sal’s enjoying tea and handmade birthday cake. An enjoyable day all round, not in the least bit rushed busy, and it even showed that south east London has something to offer on a day that isn’t a work one.

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Performance Polos spotlighted with new series of mini-magazines at PoloDriver.com

March 13th, 2011

To celebrate the launch of the 2011 Volkswagen Polo GTI, online Volkswagen Polo resource PoloDriver.com delves into the archives to trace the history of the performance Polo. In the first issue of a special series of digital mini-magazines, the site focuses on the Series 1 Polo GT of 1979-1981. Each issue will focus on the history of the sports variants of each Polo model generation, culminating in the introduction of the current Polo GTI. Read the first of PoloDriver.com’s performance Polo special issues by clicking on the magazine graphic above, or if you can’t see the preview, visit this link.

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Chess – The Musical

February 20th, 2011

It’s true to say that ABBA can sometimes play a big part in our house, and although I consider myself a fairly comprehensive fan, there was still one musical part of the fab four’s story that was missing – the ‘80s musical Chess. With music by Benny and Björn, and lyrics by Tim Rice, it’s often lauded with praise as much as the group’s classic happy and tragic songs. So, on Thursday night, we experienced the missing piece of our ABBA jigsaw at the Cliffs Pavillion, perched high above the sea at Westcliff.

Craig Revel-Horwood of Strictly Come Dancing fame has staged the latest version, and we enjoyed his spin on US and Russian relations, set against a backdrop of two chess matches, entwined with strands of love stories, tales of deception, and of course, those unmistakable and ABBA-like songs. Containing classic numbers such as One Night in Bangkok and I Know Him So Well, the stage was cleverly minimal, with just 25 LED squares which made up a small chess board, along with a projection backdrop.

Almost all of the 30 actors played an instrument or sung, too, and it was refreshing to see the musicians actually play incidental characters and become part of the show, rather than being hidden away in either the wings or pit. The songs and music were performed well, the story well-acted, but the volume was too high at certain intervals, bending and merging the music and voices of the principal actors into one not altogether harmonious whole. All in all, very good though, and a good night out at a fraction of London West End prices.

That didn’t mean it was a cheap night, though. Risky, but the Polo provided transport down to the Essex coast, and probably to be expected, let us down on the way home at Rayleigh. The first signs were a whining fan belt and stuttering lights, and we got as far as the Southend Arterial Road, before the interior lights dimmed proper, the car jumped forward and we rolled to a stop in, thankfully, a layby. One call to the RAC and a 45-minute wait later, we were talking technical matters with the orange-vested repair man, who was convinced he could get us going again.

An hour later we were on our way, though not before Nik had bought a more comprehensive RAC membership (mine only covered me for 10 miles away from home). Turned out that the car’s new alternator that had been fitted the week before was faulty, and so we had to be jump-started by the RAC chap every five miles or so. We came to rest twice more; once in a layby on a roundabout, and again at home, an unceremonious push getting the car on the drive. It took us two hours from the repair man arriving to getting home, and we were exhausted. I don’t know about One Night in Bangkok, we almost had one very tiring night in Southend.

[Image: chess-the-musical.co.uk]

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Davy Down

January 31st, 2011

Our first walk of the year, and it wasn’t an entirely successful one, but at least it got us out of the blocks. Combining a trip to Lakeside shopping centre at Thurrock with a countryside walk might sound like a tall order, but it can be done if you stop off at Davy Down. Opened in 1993, the 32-acre Davy Down Riverside Park (to give it its full name) has riverside paths that wind through water meadows, woodland and along the side of the River Mardyke. It sounds the ideal place for a wildlife-rich and quiet open air escape, but it left us a little… well, underwhelmed.

Our regular walking route book didn’t help. Making the route much longer than it actually is, thanks to numerous double backs, we found that we’d covered the guided path much faster than we’d anticipated, and aside from looking at the 1928 historic Stifford Pumping Station, there’s not much else to do. The Stifford Viaduct is an impressive Victorian feature that adds to the park, too, but I’m not sure it’s worth a trip for that alone. All in all, though, a fresh morning stroll set us up for an afternoon of shopping, although I think our legs were more tired from the aisles rather than from our outdoor diversion.

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