Culture

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’.

The Duchess 12A, Nationwide The Duchess is probably no more than a most handsomely mounted costume drama which is no bad thing if you happen to like handsomely mounted costume dramas, and I do, I do, I do! Lavishly directed by Saul Dibb, whose previous work (the gritty London film Bullet Boy; the TV drama series The Line of Beauty) I liked a great deal, it has stupendous frocks, ravishing hats and more stately homes than you could shake a stick at, not that I’d advise shaking a stick at a stately home. These days, security will have you off the property before you can even buy a tea-towel in the shop, and then what will you have to show for your day out? It also has its Colin Firth moment — is this now obligatory?

Weddings! You couldn’t avoid them on Radio Four this week. As if Usha plighting her troth with Alan not just once, but twice, on The Archers Omnibus was not enough, those who were up early on Sunday might have been surprised to find themselves like flies on the wall listening in to the real-life wedding of Steve and Zoe. Instead of the usual hymn sandwich, Sunday Worship proudly presented us with a slice of real-life drama. Actually, it was a recording of a ceremony that took place on 8 August, rather than a piece of radio-verité, so even this bit of ‘reality’ was not quite kosher. We were not really being witnesses to the solemnisation of Steve and Zoe’s marriage, but were rather hangers-on to a bit of radio history.

Before I get on to TV, can I tell you about my horrible health-scare thing, oh, can I, can I? Right, well I’ve been having this horrible health-scare thing and I’ve been out of my mind with worry — to the point where I’ve been saying, ‘Oh, please, God, let it just be cancer...’ Very likely it will prove in the end to be all purely psychosomatic — I am the most dreadful hypochondriac: not that that stops it feeling any less real — and what I’ve vowed to do if I come out the other side is to stop whingeing about my life so much.