Come From Away

Birthday Season

For my birthday last year, I chose a retro activity: the widescreen Sound of Music on the big screen at the National Media Museum in Bradford. The cinema treat followed a delicious meal at the Alhambra Theatre overlooking the stunning City Hall with its bell tower based on the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, Italy. And, as usual, in the week before my birthday I went with Sally and a picnic up to the Haworth Moors to visit the Brontë falls and Top Withins.

Restaurant 1914 at Bradford Alhambra, treat breakfast and buffet lunch and widescreen Sound of Music

From Bradford to London....

Big Smoke

As part of my birthday treats, we’d booked a November trip to London to treat ourselves to some “date time” in local pubs and at fancy restaurants including the Francophile Brasserie Zédel.

Infinity in the palm of your hand

One of our stops was to see an exhibition focused on one of my heroes: poet, painter, engraver, visionary, environmentalist and prophet – William Blake (1757 – 1827.) Many of his poems are in my top 100 poems of all time and his life was an inspiring mix of graft, grief, creativity and mysticism. I’ve written plays about his life and staged concerts containing his words, so it was a huge privilege and pleasure to see many of his artistic works represented so sympathetically at The Tate. “The imagination is not a state; it is the human existence itself.”

We’ve all had the spooky hell dream, people

What surprised me me about the first of our two London theatre treats, The Book of Mormon, was how essentially good-natured it is (despite some fruity language.) I came away admiring Mormons for more than their shiny, white teeth. The fun to be had at the expense of (all) manufactured religion is loving and reverent and the slickness of the production was at times breathtaking. The score is a wonder – switching between ballads, peppy narratives, swing, jive, faux-African, disco and tap; and I couldn’t for the life of me tell you the plot, but the time passed by in a white-shirted flash

Suddenly there’s something in between me and the sky

More profound was a musical that was more than the sum of its parts. Did you know there was a musical about 9/11, the attack on the twin towers? Neither did I, until word of mouth from London friends suggested this “chamber musical” was well worth watching. Come from away was created using interviews and transcripts from the people of the Canadian town of Gander and the crew and passengers of the 38 planes that descended into their lives when planes were diverted to Gander on that fateful morning in 2001. Luggage was stuck in holds so, apart from beds, the citizens of Gander rallied to provide toiletries, medicines, sustenance and shelter to all kinds of people from all parts of the world. If this sounds to be an improbable subject for a musical, believe it! And yet, from the small to the huge, from the quirky detail to the epic tragedy, from the minor irritation to the life-changing encounter, the writers manage to concoct a whole society in a Greek-chorus style celebration of Every Human Emotion. A life-affirming experience, and a good way to end this “birthday season.” (As Mr Rogers said: “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, "Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.”)

Loving Vincent

What is done in love

It is good to love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is well done. (Vincent Van Gogh)

York St Mary’s

The life, letters and artworks of Vincent Van Gogh were the subject of an “Immersive Experience” at York St Mary’s Church not far from the Jorkvik Centre. The exhibition arrived in York on its world tour from Naples and Brussels and will next touch down in Leicester. As well as digital projections, animations, lights, displays and audio components, there was a Virtual Reality experience which gave an impression of walking through the streets of Arles seeing inspirations for paintings: the wheat fields, the meadow, the forest, the village, Vincent’s room and a starry night over the Rhône River.

Seeing the stars

I don't know anything with certainty, but seeing the stars makes me dream. (Vincent Van Gogh)

Life in brief

Van Gogh was born in March 1853 in the Dutch village of Groot-Zundert and worked as an art dealer before taking up painting in his twenties. He produced over 2,000 artworks including around 850 oil paintings. He died in the French village of Auvers-sur-Oise in July 1890, two days after receiving a gunshot wound to the abdomen.

Death may not be the most difficult thing

In the life of the painter, death may perhaps not be the most difficult thing. For myself, I declare I don't know anything about it. But the sight of the stars always makes me dream. Why I say to myself should those spots of light in the firmament be inaccessible to us? (Vincent Van Gogh)

Letter writer and artistic philosopher

An exploration of Van Gogh is enriched by reading the letters he wrote, many to his younger brother, Theo. In the letters he often commented on his own work, his ideas about colour and materials, art in general, his personal situation and his own life.

Life’s treasures

Close friends are truly life's treasures. Sometimes they know us better than we know ourselves. With gentle honesty, they are there to guide and support us, to share our laughter and our tears. Their presence reminds us that we are never really alone. (Vincent Van Gogh)

Nature’s resistance

Nature always begins by resisting the artist, but he who takes it seriously will not be put off by that opposition. (Vincent Van Gogh)

The language of colour

Colour itself speaks its own language, you cannot live without it. (Vincent Van Gogh)

Pure harmony and music

What am I in the eyes of most people — a nonentity, an eccentric, or an unpleasant person — somebody who has no position in society and will never have; in short, the lowest of the low. All right, then — even if that were absolutely true, then I should one day like to show by my work what such an eccentric, such a nobody, has in his heart. That is my ambition, based less on resentment than on love in spite of everything, based more on a feeling of serenity than on passion. Though I am often in the depths of misery, there is still calmness, pure harmony and music inside me. I see paintings or drawings in the poorest cottages, in the dirtiest corners. And my mind is driven towards these things with an irresistible momentum. (Vincent Van Gogh)

Loving Vincent

In 2017, the world’s first fully painted animated feature, Loving Vincent, gave a fictionalised account of a conflicting story about the death of Van Gogh in July 1890. He certainly died of a gunshot wound but why the wound was not treated in a hospital and whether or not it was self-inflicted, or a grotesque accident, are mysteries that are unlikely to ever be solved and which the film explores using words of all the main protagonists. 

Courage

What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything? (Vincent Van Gogh)

Painting dreams

I dream of painting and then I paint my dream. (Vincent Van Gogh)

Saltaire, England - Rydal, Sweden

2018 windows

Traditions New, Traditions Old
Saltaire Living Advent Calendar has been running since 2006. Villagers are invited to “release” their windows gradually between 1st and 24th December each year. I have posted pictures before of this experience and it has become a tradition to take friends and meander round the twilight streets, admiring the creativity and wit of the residents’ designs.

2018 windows

In another town far, far away
Other towns in the UK have developed their own tradition but in 2019, a direct link was made with another place in Europe. At Rydals Museum, on the banks of the river Viskan near the town of Kinna, in southern Sweden, museum staff met with the Saltaire Inspired Living Advent Calendar team to discuss expertise and arrangements for a window “swap.”

The Mark Council
Local dignitaries decided the local council (The Mark) wanted to include some decorative windows in their Town Hall and so some jolly competitiveness began!

2019 Swedish windows

Similarities
A theme of recent years is that we all have “More In Common” than we might think. Certainly the regeneration of Salt’s Mill from Titus Salt’s original vision into Jonathan Silver’s commercial and artistic community hub is also reflected in what has happened at Rydal Museum in Sweden. Originally Rydal’s was a spinning mill and now houses a museum, a meeting place, private businesses and craft boutiques.

Recovering from man flu
Much of December saw me laid low with a persistent cough, high temperature and feeble levels of energy so come the New Year it was a delight to take our customary stroll with the Thompsons round the 2019 Saltaire Advent Windows. Carrie Fisher and the Star Wars saga featured poignantly, as did the message “Keep Well” which I took to heart after my recent illness. Let’s hope 2020 proves to be less divisive year than 2019.

Did I have a 2019 favourite?
Of course the Swedish window (below top right) is a special favourite this year, as was the one quoting Shelley in the third picture from the top (If winter comes, can Spring be far behind?) (which, if I'm honest, was from 2018) but I am a sucker for dark silhouettes and I do like the one in the centre of the collage immediately above which shows a cat prowling across rooftops beneath a lurid moon. Flying off out of the top right of the design is one Father Christmas. No doubt he and the windows will be back next year.

Around the World at Christmas

Around the World

The world is a big place – and in some ways a small place – and a marvellously diverse place. As I’ve said before, home is where the heart is. By the end of 2020 the UK will have “Brexited” whatever that might mean, deal or no deal, with full sovereignty or, more likely, the illusion of sovereignty. The rich of England will continue to get rich, whoever pulls the invisible purse strings. In the meantime, one pair who I usually spend time with in the Festive season went off to Europe on a train (see central image above – Amy and Maggie on a sledge not a train at that point.)  This past Christmas season, home was Badby, home was Saltaire and home was Around the World in Christmas-themed displays at Chatsworth House….

“I think I might be different, I might not be the same.”

Michael cooked up a feast or two in Badby (and Janet and Alex turned their hands to a gingerbread house.) This year’s Royal Shakespeare Company Christmas show was only tenuously Christmassy, but it had a very witty set, enthusiastic performers and very jolly songs, though one (If I don’t cry) made my eyes moist…. David Walliams’s The Boy in the Dress has been adapted by Mark Ravenhill with songs by Robbie Williams, Guy Chambers and Chris Heath. The main character, Dennis, sings of being Ordinary but by the end he is anything but – he’s extraordinary – and the message, I thought, was all about the intrinsic value of individual differences – an apt reminder in this most divided of eras. 

Sparkle round the globe

The differences between Morocco, China, Japan, India, Portugal, Italy and America were celebrated in exuberant style at Chatsworth House in Derbyshire this year. Some of the differences were artistic and involved traditional (stereotyped?) imagery but some of the displays were harder to spot: Venetian masks, the Russian dolls on the huge Christmas tree in the Painted Hall, and the Nativity scene in the baroque Portuguese-inspired chapel.

“It’s really useful to travel, if you want to see new things.” (Jules Verne in Around the World in Eighty Days)

Quirky nods to fictional traveller Phileas Fogg and historical aviator Amelia Earhart guided you through imaginatively lit rooms containing hidden and not-so-hidden delights, like the Chinese lanterns and paper dragons. Floating candles hovered around the Nativity in the Chapel, warding away Damien Hirst’s Exquisite Pain statue of Saint Bartholomew.

Cherry Blossom

Probably my favourite display was in the Japanese-themed room, partly because it was a potent reminder of Spring in the dark days of Winter.

Hokusai’s Great Wave off Kanagawa

A calligraphy desk, paper fans and more blossoms framed 3d art work reminiscent of Hokusai’s Nineteenth Century woodblock print Kanagawa-oki Nami Ura.

Effortless glory

Staff at Chatsworth apparently unite from the middle of Summer onwards to prepare for the Christmas displays and it certainly impresses with thousands of baubles, wreaths, swags and greenery. I particularly like the charming homemade smaller items that appear when you have time to stop and stare.

Decking the Hall

It’s impossible to walk around grand Christmas decorations without Christmas carols ear-worming into your subconscious and I was amused to read about the two variations of Deck the Halls 

Deck the hall with boughs of holly,

Fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la!

'Tis the season to be jolly, (Fa….!)

Fill the meadcup, drain the barrel, (Fa….!)

Troll the ancient Christmas carol (Fa….!)

See the flowing bowl before us, (Fa….!)

Strike the harp and join the chorus. (Fa….!)

Follow me in merry measure, (Fa….!)

While I sing of beauty's treasure. (Fa….!)

Fast away the old year passes, (Fa….!)

Hail the new, ye lads and lasses! (Fa….!)

Laughing, quaffing all together, (Fa….!)

Heedless of the wind and weather. (Fa….!)

Censorship of meadcup, barrel, bowl and quaffing

The tune may well go back to medieval times and the original lyrics were in Welsh, with the variation above appearing in 1862, the lyrics being attributed to Scottish musician, Thomas Oliphant. In Chatsworth’s gift shop I learned that the Pennsylvania School Journal attempted to rewrite the lyrics changing all the references to getting drunk:

Deck the hall with boughs of holly,

'Tis the season to be jolly,

Don we now our gay apparel,

Troll the ancient Christmas carol,

See the blazing yule before us,

Strike the harp and join the chorus.

Follow me in merry measure,

While I tell of Christmas treasure.

Fast away the old year passes,

Hail the new, ye lads and lasses!

Sing we joyous all together,

Heedless of the wind and weather.

Soft bosoms

Even the quaffing version of Deck The Halls is a dilution of the Seventeenth Century version which celebrates bosoms and blisses and kisses – and why not? It’s Christmas, after all.

Oh! How soft my fair one’s bosom 

Fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la!

Oh! How sweet the grove in blossom (Fa….!)

Oh! How blessed are the blisses (Fa….!)

Words of love, and mutual kisses

Fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la!