Blossoms Galore

My week in blossoms .......

 

Completely enchanted this week, as I resume some walking in the Abbey Gardens as the energy begins to return, by the multiplicity of blossoms to be seen. And not just numerous but so many different varieties. The Great Graveyard is totally submerged beneath the green billowing cow parsley rampant, now as tall as I! It is all just delightful and reminds me of how lucky I am to be here. After the sadness in leaving Brugge when I didn't want to though could  see that I should, I do count my blessings to have landed in Bury St Edmunds with so many facets of life, perfect for my age and stage. 

The Theatre Royal auditorium showing the Dress Circle

William Wilkins 1778-1839

This last week I have been twice to the historic and charming Theatre Royal. Built in 1819 by William Wilkins [1778-1839] architect of the National Gallery in London and Downing College in Cambridge. With many of its period features still intact it is the last remaining Regency playhouse still open in the country and one of the most beautiful, intimate and historic theatres in the world. I love to sit in the first floor Dress Circle  which comprises a large curved section divided into boxes, each containing eight seats, maximum, and requiring some friendly co-operation between theatre-goers to facilitate the availability of the eight seats. Once the necessary manoeuvres have been accomplished, the view of the stage is perfect for all eight people, ready for the music or the drama to begin. 

My first lunchtime visit was to listen to the talented Champagne Quartet, all leading members of the Music in Felixstowe group of professional musicians, formed over 40 years ago. They performed an hour of light classical and enduring pop classics ranging from Mozart, through Vivaldi and Elgar to Borodin and Bernstein and finishing, unexpectedly, with Rod Stewart's lilting 'We are sailing, ..' In addition to the high standard of performance, a given, the whole atmosphere was one of Fun and Enjoyment in the musical moment as the audience almost managed to dance their way out of the concert as directed by Harriet Bennett, the cellist and group leader.  

The second visit was to see a musical version of Noel Coward's Brief Encounter; each  actor, nine in all, played a musical instrument, and most sang too. It was a completely unexpected version and so charming to witness, as it re-told the familiar story of the woman on her weekly shopping trip to town who has grit in her eye at the railway station and is helped by a passing doctor just off duty in the local hospital. Their unexpected romance which blossoms, cannot endure but the relationship was beautifully sketched in this production from Ipswich.

Sir Peter  Hall 1930-2017

Akenfield 
Garrow Shand as Tom

And today, Bank Holiday Sunday, has completed my cultural week with a visit to the nearby cinema to see Akenfield on a rare outing. Made by Peter Hall, the then Artistic Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, and titan of British theatre, in 1974 from a 1969 acclaimed oral history book by Ronald Blythe, it is like an overheard familial chat over three generations of a rural Suffolk family. The film was also celebrated at the time for the way that Peter Hall used, almost exclusively, ordinary local people being themselves rather than professional actors. The result was stunning though the raw rural Suffolk accents in voluble groups often proved incomprehensible to this cinema-goer! But the feelings of Suffolkian rural poverty and otherness; of lives utterly centred on family, farm and village over generations, was strongly portrayed, demonstrating this classic film's place in the international table of acclaim.

                                                                                

                                                                     Late  postscript

Basset Hound, Blossom.
The only floral dog in Bury!