A lean month once you take out 10 days in Scotland and 6 days at the Olympics or Paralympics as either volunteer or spectator!
There was a pair of Proms – Bernstien’s Mass and Elgar’s The Apostles. The former is a favourite rarely performed so much-anticipated (particularly as almost all of the vocal and orchestral inputs were Welsh!), but I’m afraid it didn’t quite live up to the anticipation. The weak link for me was Morten Frank Larsen in the key role of ‘The Celebrant’ . There were no weak links in The Apostles where Mark Elder, The Halle and all six soloists shone in this underrated oratorio.
At Sadler’s Wells Theatre, I caught the last performance of the revival of Matthew Bourne’s 9-year-old Play Without Words, a dance piece based on the film The Servant, with a terrific jazz score. It was as good as I remembered, sexy slick and truly unique.
British Design 1948-2012 (so good, I wanted to steal a lot of the 50’s-70’s stuff!) and Heatherwick Studio (which by the time I got there included the prototype for his extraordinary Olympic cauldron). The post-war years really did produce iconic designs and the exhibition captured the best of it in almost every form. Thomas Heatherwick works across a lot of forms and his exhibition was simply enthralling. Has there ever been a more inventive designer?
Portrait of London at the Wandsworth Museum showcased photos of London in general and the borough of Wandsworth in particular and it was fascinating. I took in their permanent collection for the first time and was particularly delighted to see them covering the late 19th century tradition in Earlsfield of electing a ‘fool’s mayor’; somehow that feels so up-to-date!
A trip to a multi-story car park in Shoreditch was an unusual experience, specifically to see the 16 BMW Art Cars over six floors, painted by the likes of Andy Warhol, David Hockney, Roy Liechtenstein et al. A quirky, interesting diversion rather than spectacular art, unlike the Bauhaus – Art as Life show at the Barbican Art Gallery which was an extraordinary review of the impact of this short-lived design ‘movement’. Covering everything from architecture, fashion, painting, sculpture, graphics, toys, furniture and performance, their influence was so much more than you’d ever imagine could be achieved in just 14 years.
RGS Travel Photography Exhibition looks like becoming as much of a tradition as the International Photography Exhibition in Edinburgh – and has exactly the same impact of making me feel inadequate as a photographer. I love the way that here they exhibit many of them in the open air and the fact it specialises on travel makes it even more up my street.
Gareth's Culture and Travel Blog 