Christmas has started......

Yes I know it started about two months ago in shop windows and adverts etc but I try so hard to ignore it until I'm ready, well this weekend I bought all my Christmas cards and wrote them all (I send a lot) but of course I'll not do anything with them until it's December.

Saturday O and I went to our first Christmas Fair and end of term show at Red Rose Chain Theatre Company. We started with a look around the stalls, O had a hot chocolate and cake and he also paid a visit to Santa in his grotto.

If you follow that link you can read that Red Rose do amazing community work by making theatre inclusive for everyone and run groups for disabled and educationally challenged too. All the groups were represented in this show with 60 performers on stage. 

Daughter has been helping out with her Tudor music and teaching a group Tudor dances to add to their version of the Princess and the Pea story.

Another group did a very lively version of The Tinderbox story, but unfortunately I haven't got a photo of them. 

And the Youth Theatre did a great job of showing us what happened to the characters after we saw them in their Dread Zeppelin play, with a few of them doing all the research and writing the scripts. R was part of the script team and that's her playing the accordion, proud Grandma moment☺

There was a preview song by the cast of Alice which is the theatre's Christmas show and then all performers got us singing along to Rudolf the Red Nose Reindeer. 

Brilliant!

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Daughter's Tudor Tavern.......

Emma Mordue and Melford Hys Companie present
A Night at The Red Rose Tavern

Join us for an immersive evening of music, plays, food and dancing from the alehouses of old. From bawdy songs to morality plays the event promises to bring hearty laughter and full bellies, and the true flavour of 16th Century Ipswiche.

Local early musician Emma Mordue performs at music and dance workshops and events up and down the country, and as part of The Kentwell Players, at the Great Tudor Re-creations at Kentwell Hall. Playing a range of historical instruments, she can often be seen at festivals and events portraying a variety of historical and mythical walkabout characters as well as hosting informal renaissance music evenings at both private parties and public events.

Melford Hys Companie have been performing together for 25 years, portraying  a company of travelling entertainers in the Tudor and Medieval periods. In historically accurate dress, with props, instruments and accessories of the time, they portray life on the road through well developed characters with authentic names, histories and speech. At a Melford Hys Companie event you will be entertained with music, dance and plays from the period. Some plays are funny, some more serious, but whilst there may be a moral to the tale you can be sure the actors will tell it with infectious enthusiasm and a good dose of healthy irreverence.

Both Emma and The Melfords have a common aim – to have fun and pass this on to audiences along with accurate historical insight. Participation is positively encouraged, though not obligatory.

We are pleased to have period caterer Gerry Rhodes providing dishes of the era.

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I'm so very proud of Daughter (= Emma Mordue) who undertook for the first time to organise a whole event in a theatre. It was a great success. Almost non-stop entertainment as they only allowed themselves a 15min interval in just over three hours. Musicianship was brilliant and the Mummers' plays were hilarious.

I'd taken friendKK as she's great for getting into the spirit of this sort of thing and it was just like old times when she would come with me when my very talented musician Daughter gave performances as a child/teen with school or consort or solo.

Both Granddaughters were also there, E as a Tudor came out to dance with Daughter and R as always was in her Red Rose Chain sweatshirt working front of house and waiting tables with the other Youth Theatre volunteers.

Yes I'm very proud indeed ☺
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Theatre: The Lovely Bones......

The stage premiere of the world-famous novel.

Susie Salmon is just like any other young girl. She wants to be beautiful, adores her charm bracelet and has a crush on a boy from school. There’s one big difference though – Susie is dead.
Now she can only observe while her family manage their grief in their different ways. Her father, Jack is obsessed with identifying the killer. Her mother, Abigail is desperate to create a brighter future. And her sister, Lindsay is discovering the opposite sex with experiences that Susie will never know. Susie is desperate to help them and there might be a way of reaching them…

Alice Sebold’s novel The Lovely Bones is a unique coming-of-age tale that captured the hearts of readers throughout the world. Award-winning playwright Bryony Lavery has adapted it for this uplifting play about life after loss.

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WOW this was amazing and had me laughing a little and crying too but mostly just wide eyed amazed!

I was totally drawn into the whole story powerfully told.

Some clever simple effects like the salt drawn boundaries, or climbing through a wooden frame to represent going down through the tap door. Not so simple was the set which was actually made up of a huge screen which together with the lighting was mirrors so some of the time we could see through them and some of the time the whole stage was reflected upside down, like heaven looking down on life.

They totally deserved our standing ovation!

Once again R used our spare ticket and she thoroughly enjoyed it too.
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Spain for an extra birthday........

What a lucky girl I am 😊

BFriendM has an apartment on the Riviera del Sol in Spain and for my August birthday present she bought my flights so we could go together for a five day trip this November.

We travelled out Friday with her picking me up at silly o'clock in the dark and we drove to Southend Airport. I've never used Southend before and so much smaller and calmer than all the other London airports it was a real pleasure.

Lovely and warm over there with very sunny almost hot Saturday and Sunday and cloudy and a bit chilly on Monday. Market in La Cala, local flee market in Mijas, all the shops in Torremolinos, drinks on the beach more than once, finding new bars in Cabo Pino lots of walking and lots and lots of good food.

But the highlight of this trip has to be the Elvis tribute act called Stelvis.
Saturday night at La Plaza and he was brilliant, fantastic effortless voice, all the dance moves but not over cheesy, including the whole audience by working the tables with handshakes and as soon as he saw M was taking photos he obliged while never missing a note. There were a couple of tables of celebrating women quite well hydrated and when the birthday girl was dancing very closely to him he let her have her moment without getting annoyed or discouraging, so very professional and a really nice guy.

We enjoyed the evening so much that when he announced he was playing one of the beach bars Sunday afternoon we followed him there. Hahaha does that make us groupies? 

He didn't disappoint. Again he made a young guy with Downs Syndrome feel special by dancing with him and giving him his silk scarf. Also an older man who had brought along his own little collection of percussion instruments, some of which looked like kids toys, was set up on the stage area and Stelvis happily performed with his extra rhythm section. Great entertainment and lots of laughing. 

Then all too soon it was Tuesday and time to head home.
Thank you so much BFriendM.
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Theatre: Trial by Laughter.........

Following critical acclaim for The Wipers Times, Ian Hislop and Nick Newman have once again taken inspiration from real life events for their new play Trial by Laughter. 

William Hone, the forgotten hero of free speech, was a bookseller, publisher and satirist. In 1817, he stood trial for ‘impious blasphemy and seditious libel’. The only crime he had committed was to be funny. Worse than that he was funny by parodying religious texts. And worst of all, he was funny about the despotic government and the libidinous monarchy.

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We had tickets for the matinee and one of our four couldn't come but a message to R got her out of bed and a quick shower and food and she came instead. Hubby drove me, R and T to the theatre as parking during the day is tricky and expensive.

First impression was I loved the set, solid and dark wood as I'd imagine a courtroom of the age. Later it revealed some of the panels cleverly pulled out to make various furniture formations, desks, dock etc.

Interesting that this is based on real life people and events. All the actors were great at quick changes into many larger than life characters. The script was fast and very wordy but our main criticism was it was all one level, no highs or lows which unfortunately made it so flat and boring that our other two friends left at the interval and never came back. R and I saw it through to the end. Not the best but plenty to talk about afterwards.

Then Hubby came to collect us and while we were waiting out in the cold and dark I met someone from our babysitting circle days of about 35 years ago! Then home dropping R at her drama group on the way, where they are having final rehearsals for the extra performances of their recent sell out run of Dread Zeppelin. Think this Youth Theatre could teach professionals a thing or two sometimes.
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