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It’s amazing to learn they did any research at all — unless it was into farting and foreskins
Year One
Theatre
This will appeal to those who grew up with the book as well as to anyone seeking family-friendly entertainment
Carrie's War
Music
With a smile that splits her face, the frizzy-haired singer fills her songs with playfulness and wide-eyed wonder
Regina Spektor
If you are feeling totally fed up with your lot at the moment with the economic squeeze - go see this film
I thought this was an excellent, powerful production. The staging and acting were superb, it is well worth going to see
Absolutely AMAZING show that went like a train for three hours solid and didn't waiver once!
London,
Barry Millington's rating
Reader rating
Two years ago, under the subtly provocative title This Isn’t For You, Matt Fretton launched a new concept at Shoreditch Town Hall. A new series, relocated to Hall Two of Kings Place, was initiated last night under the joint curatorship of Fretton and Huw Watkins. People sat on chairs or lounged on bean-bags and were free to wander around or collect drinks from the bar. Happily, we were discouraged from chatting over the music, as happened at Shoreditch.
Finding a seat near enough the piano to act as page-turner had Watkins needed such a thing, one was swept up into the action. The hour-and-a-half-long programme, with no interval, ran the gamut from Schubert and Purcell (Oliver Knussen’s own fantasy on the celebrated Fantasia on One Note) to the Second Viennese School, Bartok, Kurtag, Stravinsky and Ravel.
Watkins brought his consummate pianism to solo items by Schoenberg (the Six Little Piano Pieces, Op 19), Kurtag (a selection from Jatekok) and a short piece of his own, Chorale for Matt, dedicated to his co-curator. Ensemble items were impressively dispatched with the remarkably talented clarinettist Timothy Orpen, violinist Thomas Gould and cellist Oliver Coates. Noteworthy were Webern’s Four Pieces, Op 7, and Berg’s Four Pieces, Op 5, Watkins’s own haunting, evanescent Dream, and an invigorating performance of Bartok’s Contrasts to end.
There might be a case for short spoken introductions and an even stronger one for dropping distracting background film (Sussie Ahlburg’s King’s Cross Through a Kaleidoscope). In principle it’s a terrific idea and once performers and audience alike have found their feet, it deserves to pull in a good crowd.
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
