performingartsincornwall

English Channel If there is one show in the Festival that each village hall in Cornwall would probably embrace its this iconoclastic dance and burlesque show.  But would we dare ?  For adults over 16 (the audience I saw it with had belly laughing 20s, 30s)  and everything on the upper side of 60 cheered her to the rooftops.  Partly relief from trepidation about what she will do next! There is elegy...we have a rendition of Dido's lament....there is farce....great footage of Florence Foster Jenkins in full  "con belto" rendition of The Queen of the Night aria  ...there is head banging rock rage.....there is tribute to the early lady swimmers and glorious archive film of the great Edwardian yachts most of all there is the demonic headless-chicken shaped anarchic dancer Liz Aggiss. This piece is dangerous.  If you are easily shocked don't book it.   Be warned, there are some glorious F words (unapologetic) but nuanced and a dance with what looked to me like a large

Tap Dancing Mermaid Having seen an enjoyed Tessa Bide's two hander Arnold's Big Adventure at 2015 NRTF conference but struggled to think how we might present her interactive tent show perhaps better designed for festival context on Carn to Cove, I went to see this morning her one woman children's  show at Summerhall on the Edinburgh Fringe "The Tap Dancing Mermaid" Tessa is an appealing young performer focusing on new work for children- bright and refreshing  this show is a delight for parents and children.  We enter the world of Marina Skippett who has a passion for tap dancing and the show is told narrated by old father Moon.  The set is colourful and full of things that kept the attention of babies and a host of adoring 5 ear old Mermaid fans following the action, which includes tap dancing, clever puppetry, loads of sploshing sound effects,   singing a song together,  blowing on conch shells and (this recruiting Edinburgh's conch shell to show us how i

An unusual programme devoted to the chamber works of Robert Schumann provided the occasion of a return to the hallowed temple that is the Wigmore Hall, the soul of the concert-giving community in London. Here back in the eighties I took a  part in  the rise of the early music movement when I began  as cup bearer and subsequent  inheritor to  Jennifer Eastwood promoting  the London series of the Early Music Network and Centre Festival at the hall for several years.  And last evening it was more like a homecoming to see that doyen of the baroque revival, harpsichordist and musical dynamo Trevor Pinnock in the  audience - so I knew we were on to an evening of keyboard wizardry.  With me I had a group of young chamber music and Wigmore Hall novices 15-25 whose somewhat grungy and alternative hair styles and fashion sense provided a welcome colour note  and alternative hyperbolic critical response to the sedate, educated and intensely polite audience that thankfully supports this most cul