Drumbeat January 2009 - the first issue of a newsletter which aims to keep our audiences up to date
CHAPLIN IS COMING VERY SHORTLY
Readers of this week’s Exmouth Journal will have seen an article about our next presentation: Pip Utton in his acclaimed one-man show CHAPLIN, in the Village Hall next Thursday, 5th February. So if you haven’t already bought your tickets (£7 from the Post Office, or ring Harland Walshaw on 263928) you’d be well advised to hurry.
The Bath-based actor/playwright has attracted rave reviews for his many productions, often seen at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe as well as touring in this country and overseas. The Daily Telegraph named him among its leading Edinburgh performers of 2007, calling him “the doyen of the Fringe” while British Theatre Guide said “Pip Utton’s performances are always masterclasses in acting.” His visit promises to be a rare treat for the Lympstone audience.
FLEA CIRCUS
Earlier this week over a dozen hardy souls braved a really dirty night to sign on as Friends of Lympstone Entertainments.* Harland, John W and JET were glad to have this opportunity to tell our Friends something of the background to Lympstone Entertainments, why it came into being, what its aims are, how we hope to see it develop. Apart from what might loosely be called the 'business side' of the meeting, we showed extracts from Brian Mather's excellent DVD of the recent Village Concert (a review of that event follows). Copies are available to buy at £2 each from Brian on 278594; the proceeds will be going towards funding the next Flea Circus; all of us felt we should do it again! New Friends, ready to join the list of helpers, will always be welcome.
*If you want to know what the A in FLEAS stands for, it can now be revealed as ‘Ahoy’ - thanks to Margaret Dean-Spencer, who took the prize offered for the best suggestion.
THIS IS OUR SPRING PROGRAMME
We are delighted to say that on Saturday 7th March we are bringing an evergreen international entertainer, NOEL HARRISON, to the Village Hall. He promises ‘acoustic music; songs from here and there (surely including his classic The Windmills of Your Mind); a little swing; a little folk; a hint of jazz, quelques chansons françaises; some good ol’ country tunes and stories from this former Hollywood TV star, recording artist and back-to-the-land hippy.’ It should be a great evening.
Tickets will soon be on sale at the Post Office or ring Harland Walshaw on 263928.
On Sunday 5th April we are presenting KOSMOS. This attractive trio of string virtuosi have been a great hit wherever they’ve performed, with their exciting programme of original melodies influenced by the rhythms of the Balkans and Kletzmer music.
Then at 6pm on Friday 8th May our old friends the Clarion Clarinet Quartet will give a special FAMILY CONCERT in the Parish Church, with a range of music chosen to appeal across the generations.
We look forward to seeing you, and your friends, often this spring.
THE VILLAGE CONCERT REVIEWED
by Xenophanes
The fourth concert staged by Lympstone Entertainments was, like the earlier ones, a sell-out and again the ambiance in the village hall was relaxed with the audience in the mood to have some fun. And so they did, from the opening moments when the very accomplished Lympstone Training Band, under the baton of Roger Riggs, played a vibrant medley from the main stage by way of overture. Thereafter, the action switched to the open stage we have become used to seeing, ‘thrusting’ out from the side of the hall. With the audience on its three sides their sense of participation is enhanced, as long as the performers remember to play to all parts of the house, as most did on the night. More music followed, from the fledgling choir La La Lympstone. Sam Abrahams is to be warmly congratulated on the exciting sounds she is already drawing from voices often with little or no previous singing experience or training; and such enthusiasm too; a joy to see and hear! Then a change of mood and genre as Jenny Moon told one of her popular folk tales, this time about an old Norwegian squire in a frustrating search for a bride, and his deserved come-uppance.
With another change of gear came the Doomstruck Players with their spoof recording of a radio ‘thriller’ featuring Jenny Gray daringly cast as the Man in Black, her father Tony, Sybil Bextor and John Eaton-Terry. Your critic sensed in the hilarious proceedings an unmistakeable echo of the 1960s favourite, Round the Horne; but if Tony was convincing as the eponymous hero, it must be said that John’s gruntfuttocking filled Kenneth Williams’s role to overflowing, while Sybil vamped up a storm. We all loved the sound effects too!
Tony Day sang next, a moving lament for the late Boney Stone, which he’d cleverly adapted from the well-known song about Napoleon, Boney Was a Warrior. The spirits were soon uplifted, and fell, and were uplifted again by Brian Mather’s beautifully modulated rendering of Gerard Hoffnung’s The Bricklayer’s Story. Then Tina McSeveny filled the hall with her powerful of delivery of The Wind Beneath My Wings; Bette Midler couldn’t have done it better!.
Julie Horwood took the stage next to read some delightful and amusing verses, to be followed by a musical treat from The Clarion Clarinet Quartet. The first half of the evening ended on a sporting note as Judy Spenser’s Maiden Over Dancers, convincingly kitted out from Toby Ingham’s extensive stock of cricketware, performed to the strains of, was it really the Sugar Plum Fairy? They brought the house down with their accurate impersonations of batsmen taking guard, bowlers putting a shine on the ball, fielders taking and missing catches and umpires gesturing for all they were worth, all in time with the music. They well deserved the calls of ‘encore’ and we all enjoyed the reprise!
The second half opened with a most welcome return of John Goss-Custard and his bagpipe band, The Intemperate Seven. They looked so impressive up on the main stage and sounded terrific; birthday boy Rabbie Burns would have been proud to hear them. And then the hall rocked to the hillbilly tunes delivered with huge panache by three young fellers, unrecognisable behind their face-fuzz but now known to be John Billingham, Tim Jupp and Jim Morris. Oh Brother where art thou was brought to life just then in Lympstone with the guitar and banjo backing for the three well-balanced voices; and the eccentric dance they did was a thing of wonder too – at least one of the trio must surely be double-jointed!
As those who were in attendance last year already know, we have a most accomplished poet in our midst; Dawn Chapman once again delivered a brief selection of her deeply-felt verses with great attack and sincerity; we should treasure her. No less deserving is Samantha (Sam) Abrahams who next returned for a solo spot, her fine voice and commanding stage presence, backed by the gorgeous Lallettes, thrilling us all.
Then came a cautionary tale, as two cowboy builders (Ben Redding and Clive Wilson) debated how to put together an estimate for Xanadu. The gullible audience, who from the programme had been hoping for a full delivery of Coleridge’s poem, were perhaps as disappointed as its reader when he was cut off in full flow, but they laughed long and loud at the builders’ dilemma (what makes a pleasure dome ‘stately’, how big is a cavern if it’s measureless to man and where to find a plumber who can guarantee that Alph the sacred river - not to be confused with Alf, one of the builders - reaches the ‘sunless sea’ as specified?). A palpable hit.
John Welton, who also deserves honourable mention for his relaxed and good-humoured hosting of proceedings, now played a jolly little number on his beloved bass clarinet, with accompaniment from his sister Rosemary Thomas. And then Heather Redding was with us again, not to tickle us with her lifelike impersonation of a well-endowed TV cook, but with a new-minted stand-up routine that pressed all kinds of contemporary buttons. What a gift she has, and how the audience loved her.
Now, at the (almost) last, the reason for the stage backcloth, Lympstone Station as professionally designed and painted by Debbie Mitchell, became clear when, in ones and twos, up stepped The Adopters. Led in song by Tony Day and Grace Packman they put into words and tableaux for us the tribulations and the satisfactions of those public spirited folk who work so hard to make the station an agreeable place to stand and wait; except when the hooded vandals appear, with their graffiti cans, as we were soon to see. Happily the village bobby (the flesh and blood PCSO Sarah Trayhurn) turned up in time to unmask the villains – one of whom bore a worrying likeness to the chairman of our parish council!
With a final chorus from the wonderful La La Lympstone the evening came to an end. Thanks were expressed to all who had contributed on and off stage, with a special mention for Brian Ridge who had, as usual, worked his socks off for the cause. The fourth Village Concert was produced and directed for Lympstone Entertainments by Harland Walshaw and John Welton, with publicity by John Eaton-Terry.
