Culture

Robin Holloway on the unique orchestra layout that produces the Festspielhaus’s unique acoustic There was no space in my report last month, on a first visit to the Bayreuth Festival, for what was in retrospect its most exciting quart d’heure, a privileged informal investigation of the unique orchestra layout that produces the Festspielhaus’s unique acoustic. This, I was kindly permitted to explore one afternoon.

There was a sad moment in The Family (Channel 4, Wednesday) this week when Dad, the very long-suffering Simon Hughes, is inspecting his daughters’ bedroom, and doesn’t like what he sees. He has been assured that the room is neat and clean, so he responds with a blast of sarcasm. ‘Oh, look at this tidy, tidy, tidy room, oh crumbs, how tidy it is, all this stuff doesn’t exist, it’s a figment of my imagination...’ I felt a blast of pity for him. Most dads, like me, would have given up long ago but he goes onward, ever onward, in the quest for orderly bedrooms. Sisyphus had it easier with his rock. Of course, the kids don’t see it that way.

The first Rolls-Royce I drove was a 1960s Shadow, across the Cairngorms on the glorious A939 to Tomintoul. It was a memorable drive, clear skies, snow-capped mountains, little traffic. When we returned to his Speyside house the owner suggested I try his Jaguar XJ6, which he thought a better drive than the Shadow. It was: even by XJ6 standards, the Shadow’s steering and suspension, geared for the American market, were too light and soft. But there was still something special about effortless stately progress behind that wonderful Spirit of Ecstasy. Shadows got better as they got younger and I suspect the subsequent Spirit was better still. But my next truly memorable RR drive was a 1954 Silver Dawn which I bought in London on behalf of a friend and delivered to Versailles.

The best enterprises look to the future but honour their past, which is why it was encouraging that the Royal Horticultural Society should last week have returned to the Inner Temple gardens to hold a show, almost a century after the last time it did so. The Great Spring Show was staged there from 1888 to 1911, until it outgrew the site and moved to the Chelsea Hospital grounds where it has remained ever since. This year’s show, a ‘Floral Celebration’, was appropriately enough, supported by the City firm of solicitors, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and it attracted 16,000 people over three days. Its staging should have cheered all those who think the Society has become a little careless of its two-day London Flower Shows in recent times.

Turandot Hampstead Theatre Do You Know Where Your Daughter Is? Hackney Empire Eurobeat Novello Why the long wait? Brecht completed his last play, Turandot, in 1953 but only now does it receive its British premiere. This spirited, finely acted production provides the answer. The script is all wonky. Taken from the commedia dell’arte fable that inspired Puccini’s opera, this is a laborious political allegory about an impotent Chinese emperor, his spoiled eldest daughter and a rambling public conference that pitches two symbolic groups against one another, ‘the clothesmakers’, (standing for the Social Democrats), and ‘the clothesless’ (the Communists). The issues Brecht is examining are lost in the past and located two continents away.

Although I spend my time working with counterpoint, and know jazz is as capable as any other sort of music at yielding the greatest delight in it, how jazz musicians organise their ‘compositions’ remains a complete mystery to me. I could more easily write a symphony than join in with a jam session. Are they improvising or aren’t they? If they are, how is it they all seem to agree on what the next chord should be? If they are not — and copies of notated music are regularly in use — how is it that the soloist of the moment is always applauded as if he or she has just invented the most amazing break ever heard?

Pineapple Express 15, Nationwide  Pineapple Express is a ‘stoner’ comedy from the seemingly inexhaustible, super-producer Judd Apatow and, in its defence, probably wasn’t made with a middle-aged housewife such as myself in mind. As it is, I’ve only ever done pot once and did not like it (my knees went). Apatow was, of course, also behind the huge hits Superbad and Knocked Up, neither of which I have seen — too busy lining drawers with lavender paper; that sort of thing — although I did recently rent Knocked Up on DVD for my teenage son when my ten-year-old niece happened to be staying. Alas, I’m afraid I had no idea how unsuitable it was until, midway through the film, my niece sought me out to ask: ‘Deb, what’s an orgasm?

Saint François d’Assise Royal Albert Hall As the climax of the Proms centenary of Messiaen, The Netherlands Opera brought his vast opera Saint François d’Assise to a sadly uncrowded Royal Albert Hall. And by Act III there was room for the prommers to lie in the arena as if they were fellow recipients of the stigmata. Given the contemporary taste for the gigantic in music, I find that odd, though Saint François does make exceptional demands on its audience, not to mention its performers. The performance was musically, for the most part, on an exalted level. But I think it was a grave mistake to demi-semi-stage it: three small benches, a mingy cross in Act I — that was the ‘scenery’.