It was always fashionable to ridicule Prince Charles. Even as a child I remember laughing at his sticky-out ears and at the comedians and impressionists who imitated and got us giggling at Charles’ thoughtful but faltering style of speech. I never stopped to think of...
There’s a musician’s joke that if you want your onstage performance to be as good as it was when practicing at home then you must practise 200% because you’re only half as good when you play in front of people. The truth is that statistically our performances...
I joined the Village Male Voice Choir last May. As someone who’s life is already full of music it may seem an unusual hobby to take up. But I love it. Choir singing is an abstract art, in the sense that you cannot experience the result of your work any more than a cog...
We’ve booked a young trio of lads in their twenties to open for McShane & Shaw at the town’s Arts Week on March 23. They play fiddle, accordion, vocals, drums and do traditional and original folk songs with a bias towards rural material. One of them even...
If you’re a regular reader you may have been wondering where I’ve been. Thank you for your patience by the way. What can I say? It’s been an unusually busy November and December. After the strangeness of the covid lockdowns things have gone back to the weirdest kind...
While listening to an old BBC interview I heard Muhammed Ali tell David Frost how he started with his boastful, trash talking poetry. Ali’s words led me down a rabbit hole of memories and investigation on the subject of showmanship. Here it is: When I was a...
