II – Golf, Gigs and Gin

1. Tell your audience to shut up if they’re not listening.

Gig at a golf club dinner this evening with my parents’ choir – Otto Voce – who are, as one member put it:

“…four couples who have fun singing, and sometimes have fun with each other”.

Stuck at the end of a long room with 140 hungry golfers getting started on the gin, it wasn’t a surprise that the ‘audience’ started chatting during the first set, thinking we were background music. We all felt very disheartened.

For the second set, (which involved solos from myself, the wonderful soprano Els Janes and the classy piano/sax duo Chris Roe and Tom Griffiths), we moved the keyboard and mic to the centre of the room. With a lot of support from the parents, I stood up to the mic, no plan for words, but with the determination to make them listen. I demanded their attention because “I’m going to sing now” and proceeded to say myself and the other three ‘younsters’ were “offspring of the choir… so they weren’t joking when they said they had fun with each other… Although hopefully that was a long time ago and only once…” Looking Mum and Dad in the eye after that one wasn’t easy….

Next thing I knew, I had asked who had got a hole-in-one that weekend. Of course, it was the jolly middle-aged Social Captain, and I told him to meet me at the bar after the singing. He took my joke to heart and at the end of the set, grabbed me for a hug in front of the whole crowd (including my old primary school teacher and dentist), took me to the bar and ordered the bar man to make me whatever I wanted…!

Still, the audience were attentive for the rest of the evening and although some dignity lost, Otto Voce sounded beautiful and a gin and tonic was gained!

2. Keep your balls together.

This was the conclusion from our epic family game of croquet (Uncle Julian and I were victorious). For more information on the advanced rules of croquet, please see me.

3. Lonyo – Summer of Love.

Rediscovered this track on Radio 1 this weekend; there’s some sort of scrunchy chord in there that I can’t get enough of. 

I – National Treasures

1. Good things (including nudity) come to those who wait.           

Having queued from 7.20am (behind sixty other hardy theatre-goers including one who had arrived the previous night at 11!) for Frankenstein day tickets, I was worried I might drop off during the performance. How wrong was I. A loud strike from the huge church bell suspended over the auditorium brought everyone to the edge of their seats from ‘lights down’. And the completely starkers Jonny Lee Miller squirming to find his feet as The Creature kept me right there for the first ten minutes of the production...!

2. Use your imagination.
The National's Olivier has got to be my favourite theatre space in London. It encourages the wildest imaginings of a director to be realised: a person shot underwater in Coram Boy, a full blown battle on horse-back in War Horse and now the 'birth' of The Creature in Frankenstein. Truly awesome. 

3. Theatre is business. Exploit play’s ideas and talent to bring audience back again.

The lovely Benedict Cumberbatch played Victor Frankenstein and I am tempted to go again to see him swap roles with Miller. Through demanding but superb physical acting from both actors, Danny Boyle (director) neatly presented the power struggle between the two characters.

4. British Sun + early evening = Pimms o’clock.

Having collected my tickets I found myself in a deck chair on the sand by the river Thames, surrounded by twenty photographers attending the press launch of The Southbank Centre’s Festival of Britain. Here I am in one of the photos! The beautiful sun also meant Pimms O’Clock came early this year. Doggetts pub by Blackfriars Bridge provided the perfect jug for myself and my great friend Katie, possibly the fondest Pimms-drinker outside of the Howies that I know.

5. Listen to lots of music.

Feels like summer so here's my summer mix!