October 2009 Archives

A somewhat alarming - quite literally as it happens - night out at the ballet last night.
All was well in the English National Ballet's super production of Giselle (professed by many to be their favourite ballet) until the start of the second act.

THE Rotary Club of Liverpool has launched its annual competition to find the best young vocalist in the region.
The first round of auditions for The Merseyside Young Singer 2010 competition - the eighth annual contest - take place next month.

I'm not advocating everyone do this, but I would love to have been in the Caretaker audience at the Everyman last Wednesday.
People have been showing their appreciation for the cast's efforts - particularly the bravura performance of Jonathan Pryce as the old tramp Davies - throughout the run.

Has anyone else seen the news that Kim Cattrall is on her way back to the London stage - this time in Noel Coward's Private Lives?
The Merseyside-born Sex and the City star will appear opposite Matthew "Mr Darcy" Macfadyen in the comedy next spring.

My week of classical music (Wagner's Siegfried at the Hamburg State Opera on Sunday, La Traviata at the Empire) came to a close last night in the company of one Welshman, a piano and a crowd of 1,600 at the Phil.
Bryn Terfel was back in Liverpool - and in effortlessly fine form as he entertained with a recital evening at Hope Street.

Verdi's celebrated La Traviata tells the tragic tale of the doomed love affair between the boyish Alfredo and the consumptive courtesan Violetta.
But who would have thought so many members of the audience at the Empire last night would have come out in sympathy with the 'dying' heroine?

We may no longer technically be Capital of Culture, but Liverpool is still a cultural powerhouse as is shown by today's news that Anthony McCall has won a commission for the 2012 Cultural Olympiad.
The Artists Taking the Lead project is part of the cultural run up to the 2012 games in London and 12 regional winners are each set to receive £500,000 to make their artistic visions a reality.

Good for Claire McColgan the head of Liverpool's culture department who went to Buckingham Palace yesterday to receive her MBE.
Claire, and co-artistic director Fiona Gasper who was also awarded the gong in the Queen's Birthday Honours, were rewarded for their work in pulling together the 2008 Capital of Culture programme.

With Hollywood legend Jane Russell providing the pre-dinner entertainment and The Temptations and Ben E King popping up to finish the evening in fine fashion, it was quite a night at Liverpool Cathedral last week.
I've been remiss - although I've got a good excuse as I only got back from Hamburg last night (more of that later) - in recouting the incredible evening organised by cathedral supporter Margaret Harry and by David Gest on Thursday evening.

Where and when did you do your first Time Warp? In the theatre? At a party? In the privacy of your own front room after a couple of glasses?
I remember (as the song goes) buying the Rocky Horror Picture Show LP when I was in Oxford on a snowy December day trying (unsuccessfully as it turned out) to win a place at university there.