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16 Dec 2020

Advent Trail Lights Up Berwick’s Windows

This year windows around Berwick are lighting up with the timeless themes of Christmas: love, joy, fun, thankfulness and celebration.

Christmas 2020 is set to be different and probably quite challenging for many. The creation of Berwick’s very own real-time Advent calendar in windows around the town offers residents and visitors the opportunity to mark the days to Christmas in an entertaining and safe way.

Twenty-three shops, businesses, private houses – and even the Police Station – will host an Advent window. Each window will be ‘opened’ during December – one a day from Tuesday 1st December through to Wednesday 23rd. And there will be a touch of extra drama on Christmas Eve when the final window is opened.

Schools, churches, businesses, community groups and property owners will all be involved in the decoration and creation of the windows. The themes for the windows are inspired by Christmas songs and carols. Each window will have a visual link to Berwick in the design.

‘Away in a Manger’ by Holy Trinity School in the window of Foxton’s Wine Bar on Hide Hill

Window dressers have agreed to keep their displays in situ until the New Year – so there will be plenty of time to enjoy the full Advent Trail.

Children’s Competition

As well as enjoying the fun and spectacle of the windows, children can enter a competition to spot the Berwick link in each window. There’ll be prizes for winners in the age groups 3 to 7 years and 8 to 12 years. You can pick up an entry form from many of the participating retailers around town.

‘Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer’ by Tweedmouth West School in the window of Robertson’s on West Street

The Maltings’ Christmas Light Show

It’s been a tough year for the arts across the country and Berwick’s own wonderful arts centre The Maltings is no exception. The Maltings is presenting its own Christmas light projection on the Theatre buildings as part of the Advent Trail. The Maltings is also streaming last year’s sell-out Panto ‘Aladdin’ on youtube here and ‘Christmas with the Hobs’ (details here)

The Unveiling of the Advent Windows

DateVenueThemeArtists
December 1stJennie’s Wool Studio, Bridge St.  ‘Winter Wonderland’Host
December 2ndFoxton’s Wine Bar, Hyde Hill‘Away in a Manger’Holy Trinity School
December 3rdRobertson’s, West St.  ‘Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer’Tweedmouth West School
December 4thLongbones, Walkergate       ‘God Rest ye Merry Gentlemen’Host
December 5thThistle do Nicely, Walkergate‘Mary’s Boy Child’:St Mary’s School
December 6thBerwick Community Trust, William Elder, Castlegate‘Good King Wenceslas’Methodist Church
December 7thBerwick Visitor Centre, Walkergate‘We Three Kings’Host
December 8thCastlegate Pharmacy    ‘I Saw Three Ships’Host
December 9thWoolmarket Antiques‘I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas’Host
December 10thGeek Hut, Guildhall Alley‘Let it Snow’Spittal First School
December 11thLime Shoe Company, Marygate   ‘Little Donkey’Host
December 12thUnder the Clock Cafe, Guildhall Alley‘It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas’Host
December 13th1  Castlegate‘Once in Royal David’s City’Host
December 14thPictorial Photography, Quayside ‘Ding, Dong Merrily on High’Host
December 15thGreaves West & Ayre, Walkergate  ‘Jingle Bells’Host
December 16thGemini Jewellers, Marygate  ‘It Came Upon a Midnight Clear’Host
December 17th1 Greenside AveHost
December 18thPolice Station, Church St. ‘Silent Night’Holy Trinity School
December 19thEdwin Thompson, Hyde Hill‘The Holly and the Ivy’The Camera Club
December 20thPlaytime, Marygate‘Santa Clause is coming to Town’Host
December 21stNewcastle Building Society, Hyde Hill  ‘Little Drummer Boy’Host
December 22ndSpecSavers, Marygate  ‘We wish you a Merry Christmas!’Host
December 23rdBaptist Church, Golden Square.   ‘O Little Town of Bethlehem’Host
December 24thParade Car Park‘In the Bleak Midwinter’Host

The organisers and supporters – thank yous!

The small group which has organised the project would like to say a big ‘Thank you!’ to all who have helped and supported this project: to those who have lent their windows; to those who have agreed to help decorate windows; to Stephen Scott and The Chamber of Trade; to all in the Tourist Information Centre; and to those involved in the Welcome Visitor Project. Without all this support the Advent Windows Trail would not have been possible.

Enjoy, celebrate and stay safe

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04 Mar 2018

‘Rita’: A joyous bar-room romp

Berwick Festival Opera (BFO) charged into its 2018 season at full-tilt this weekend with a truly joyous bar-romp of a show: Donizetti’s ‘Rita’. It is a marvel that Maltings’ CEO Matthew Rooke manages to attract such quality musicians and performers to Berwick, let alone co-create tailormade opera to drop into the nooks and crannies of our historic town – in this case, slap-bang in the Maltings’ Bar – but we’re blooming lucky he does.

The fact that ‘Rita’ (written in 1841) has the plotline of a slapstick soap on amphetamines doesn’t matter a jot. What had the audience pinned to their seats and laughing out loud was the way the orchestra – led by conductor Peter Ford, and the performers – soprano Natasha Day, baritone Job Tomé and tenor Austin Gunn (Rocket Opera co-founder) pay such courteous attention to each other and take such joy in co-creating great music and entertainment.

The trick, Peter Ford told me, in adapting a score for a smaller orchestration is to select instruments that deliver the tone and colour to echo the original. Rooke certainly achieved this and the musicians delivered. Cath Cormie (violin) and Nigel Chandler (cello) and the keys of Julie Aherne provided the cohesion and impetus, and Simon McGann (flute, piccolo) and Sam Lord (clarinet) the light and depth.

The BFO/Rocket Opera partnership has produced consistently high-quality tailored opera entertainment in Berwick, including ‘The Mikado’ and ‘Don Giovanni’ (both conducted by Ford). As Rooke pointed out in his introduction, ‘Rita’ is from the same stable as ‘The Silken Ladder’ (another BFO/Rocket coproduction) – high octane, high jinks, super fun.  In short, Rita runs a bar with her bullied and downtrodden second husband Peppe. Her first husband, wife-beater Gasparo, is believed to be dead. However, Gasparo turns up wanting Rita’s death certificate (he thinks she died in a fire) so he can marry his new paramour. Both husbands want shot of Rita and compete to off-load her on each other.

Austin Gunn and Job Tomé

From the moment Natasha Day chased Austin Gunn into the bar, beating him as they went, there was no let-up in performance energy and commitment. What a privilege to be up-close-and-personal with top-class singers who allow their voices to soar around the tight confines of a bar, whilst achieving wink-nod interactions with the audience. London-based Natasha Day’s Rita cut more of a 20s movie-star dash than a barmaid – and, despite her sharp tongue (to Peppe: ‘you’re a wimp and a snowflake’) and psychotic edge, you could kind of see why the men fell for her. Gunn inhabited Peppe’s transformation from shrunken snivelling husk to effervescent free man with a glee encapsulated in his manic opera laugh and triumphant resonant note held for what felt like several joyful minutes. And Job Tomé’s snake-hipped, satin-shirt wearing, double-dealing Gasparo owned the bar with his knowing duplicity and voice shoot-outs with both Gunn and Day.

I love Gunn’s eye for slapstick rhyme and ridiculous verbal contortions in his libretto translations. High spots were Pepe and Gasparo’s masterful duet – where they serenaded the straws they’d drawn in their bid to off-load Rita on each other. Pepe celebrates his ‘lovely sweet straw’, whilst Gasparo berates his ‘reprehensible straw’ (a masterful piece of scanning!). And the gullible Rita muses ‘with just the one arm/he can’t do much harm’ after Gasparo claims to have lost the use of his limb and Peppe relishes the idea that Rita will ‘dominate, frustrate and castrate’ Gasparo!

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Natasha Day engages with the audience at the Maltings’ Bar

After the show, I said to Rocket’s Austin Gunn that it would be great to tour this show in pubs round the county. He said he’d love to. If this entertaining, delightful and riotously good fun show ever comes to a bar near you, go see!

A version of this review was first published in The Berwick Advertiser on Thursday 1st March

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26 Feb 2018

Damp Knights warm cockles

Damp Knights

Damp Knights from left to right: Mark Vevers, Oliver Payn, Ross Graham and David ‘Dimples’ Simpson.

I have a soft spot for improv. Responding to all that’s said or thrown at you and creating engaging entertainment takes a certain mad chutzpah. On the 80s show ‘Whose Line is it Anyway’, Josie Lawrence (pretty much the only female improv performer back then) was mesmerising with her left-field interpretations, ability to burst into song at any audience prompt, and her super-malleable face which folded into an array of characters and scenarios. Improv was vicious then and still is – fail to please your audience and you won’t be let off because it’s hard, you’ll be mocked for being crap.

Damp Knight Comedy first performed at the Maltings, Berwick in 2015. I was anxious for them – and myself – would I have to pretend they weren’t rubbish? In fact, they weren’t bad. Not bad at all. I’d even say they warmed my cockles (Berwick’s a seaside town, after all). Since then, I’ve kept an eye on the Knights – in the way that middle-aged women like to keep an eye on six or seven strapping young men.  Members have come and gone, but the core group – David Simpson (aka Dimples), Mark Vevers, Neil Watson, Oliver Payn, Ross Graham and Paul Summers (keyboards) – remains the same.

fine undiluted improv which only skilled players can pull off

The guys spark off each other in that knowing yet unpredictable way that only comedians who trust each other can. Improv is raw and brutal – one small quirk of fate and a comedic moment will slip into an offensive disaster. This nearly happened at the recent Da Vinci Toad show at the Maltings. Oliver Payn was trapped into saying something truly awful – think your 80-year-old granny reading out the Cards Against Humanity card about oral sex. Only 100 times worse. There was a stunned moment as the Knights and audience metaphorically facepalmed. No one-liner could get past this monumental awkwardness. Then, as if spontaneously propelled by his own shock, Mark Vever’s rocketed backwards and over the sofa. This was what we all wanted to do! Hide behind the sofa until the awkwardness was over. And, hence, in that visceral physical response, Mark released performers and audience from the nightmare. Yes, it was edgy – it was also fine undiluted improv which only skilled players can pull off.

One audience member commented on Facebook: ‘Have always really enjoyed Damp Knights’ shows – but last week seemed to be at a whole new Pythonesque level.’  The group has honed its craft since the early days. There have been more shows on home turf and, importantly, in the wide world: The Stand in Edinburgh and Newcastle, Alnwick Playhouse and The Record Factory in Glasgow. They work the audience well and largely avoid that group improv tendency to entertain each other instead of the spectators. They’ve developed a strong and pleasingly broad group of prompts – from the ludicrous Dead Bodies where one Knight is the only man standing in a sea of dead people and has to voice and manipulate them all, to the impressive Forward/Reverse – where the Knights act out a scenario and are periodically instructed to play the whole thing in reverse and then forward again. It hits the funny-bone – how they manage to remember actions and words to keep replaying them is a mystery to those of us who can barely recall how to get to the shops and back.

a good adult night out served with an ample portion of laugh-out-louds, seasoned with guffaws and finished with a liberal dollop of titters – particularly if Dimples keeps wearing those jeans with the dodgy fly.

Yes, there were a few glitches – some energy dippage in continuity between sketches. Maybe a new Knight might be the host? A couple of slightly lame sketches (I wasn’t a huge fan of ‘We’re not doing the cheese shop sketch sketch’ – but that’s subjective). And why the punning name for the show if there’s no linking sketch? But these are miserly gripes. I heard mumbles of too much swearing and, yes, there’s a fair reliance on knob gags. But, hey, this is improv, what do you expect? It’s not for children. The Damp Knights deliver a good adult night out served with an ample portion of laugh-out-louds, seasoned with guffaws and finished with a liberal dollop of titters – particularly if Dimples keeps wearing those jeans with the dodgy fly.

Find the Damp Knights on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.

Damp Knights logo

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14 Jun 2016
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Berwick Festival Opera: putting the high into Iolanthe

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I have a soft spot for Gilbert & Sullivan’s ‘Iolanthe’. My Mum had the album and, although I was never sure how you pronounced it, I knew that when it went on the deck there would be plenty of ‘tripping hither and tripping thither’ with the opening fairy chorus. The real joy, though, was to get to ‘Loudly let the trumpet bray’ so that we could march round the furniture shrieking ‘Tarantara!’ and waggling brooms at each other.

On Saturday evening at the opening night of 2016’s Berwick Festival Opera’s (BFO) season at the Maltings, there was no impatience to skip through Matthew Rooke’s delightfully reorchestrated version of the operetta. From the first tinkling breaths of the clarinet and flute, you knew you were in safe hands. Indeed, the effervescent Monica Buckland has now conducted ‘Iolanthe’ three times – although I suspect this was her most bijou orchestra to date.

It’s a mad hoot of a story that, as so often with G&S, delivers a political satirical punch and a generally high old time. Two worlds collide: the domain of the female fairy dell – where fun, frolics and dancing predominate; and that of the House of Lords – where hunting, shooting, fishing and hereditary patriarchy rule. Iolanthe is a fairy who has been banished from the fairy dell for marrying a mortal. The son from that marriage (Strephon) wants to wed a shepherdess (Phyllis) who is a ward of court. However, since the whole aged troupe of the House of Lords including her guardian the Lord Chancellor seem to want to marry the young Phyllis too, Strephon’s in for a tricky ride. Cue much fairy intervention and plenty of comic riffs – including some up-to-the-moment referendum references stitched into Gilbert’s exceptional libretto.

Regular Festival collaborators Rocket Opera combine a light touch and a heady energy with perky, inclusive performances. The young cast stepped up to the plate with Lottie Greenhow (Phyllis) and Euan Williamson (Strephon) settling quickly and delivering a couple of tingling duets – Greenhow’s voice seemed to grow and grow with each song: beautiful. The fairy chorus provided pert and impertinent support and were masterfully stewarded by the stern but ultimately soft-hearted Queen of the Fairies (Kath Ireland). The confidence that the audience gains from the seamless interactions and interplay between characters would have been even sharper with a few more rehearsals – but bearing in mind the budget constraints these guys work under, the quality of production and performance is remarkable. Tamsin Davidson shone as Iolanthe, combining understatement and constant engagement. Someone commented on Facebook that when Davidson sang ‘My Lord, a suppliant at your feet’ he had a tear in his eye –  me too! Always an audience favourite, Fred Broom (The Lord Chancellor), reprised his role as Pooh-Bah in last year’s ‘The Mikado’, delivering a good dose of slapstick and Panto Dame – to grand effect. Austin Gunn (Earl Tolloller) and Neil Turnbull (Earl of Mountararat) are founder members of Rocket and along with Sam Morrison (Private Willis) injected plenty of frenetic energy and high-drinking jinks to the stage. Hats off to the tech crew: the lighting was excellent.

All in all, BFO continues to bring high-quality, accessible opera to Berwick, presenting great opportunities for young performers to work alongside seasoned professionals and delivering excellent entertainment to audiences. We still have Britten’s ‘The Turn of the Screw’, Marschner’s ‘The Vampyre’, Poulenc’s ‘La Voix Humaine’ and a Summer Recital featuring Peter Selwyn to look forward to. Excited? You should be!

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30 Oct 2015
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My journey into Cancer Care starts with an Ed Byrne joke

Yesterday I stood on a threshold.

Stepping over it is the beginning of a journey. Not like the journey my family and I undertook five years ago when we relocated from North London to the northernmost town in England. Nevertheless I shall be joining a well-travelled path, trodden by mothers, sons, daughters, grandparents… and now me. It involves a word that is simultaneously revered and feared a bit like Voldemort in Harry Potter: Cancer.

It started with the comedian Ed Byrne’s visit to the Maltings Theatre in Berwick early in October. The Maltings is a venue our family has treasured since we moved to Berwick and, believe it or not, we did not even know it was here when we first moved! Great research, eh? The Maltings is a place I’ve imbibed (literally in the bar and restaurant as well as figuratively) original drama, art, musicals, comedy, pantos etc., and latterly performances streamed live from the National Theatre and Royal Shakespeare Company. It’s a place I love and that I suspect will come under increasing threat as the ripple effect of austerity bites and funding is whittled away.

Some may say that the arts should stand or fall on their own merits. Why should our taxes fund high-falutin’, weirdy beardy stuff – some of which we don’t even want to see? I say the arts give us a precious space to explore boundaries in ways that change and shape lives; and allow young and old to express themselves, explore who they want to be, and consider how they are going to engage in the world. At the Maltings, for example, a recent packed audience (which included many rows of school children) heard Zdenka Fantlova, one of the few remaining holocaust survivors, share her heartrending story. In the listening, we all became tear-stained witnesses to something that, for God’s sake, should never ever happen again. Back in today’s real world we see and hear vitriol randomly piled on ‘migrants’ and ‘refugees’, partly because they present a very challenging global phenomenon but also because they’re people ‘not like us’. Hopefully all of us will say: ‘No!’ to attitudes that are a cancer of our age.

The arts give us precious space to explore boundaries in ways that change and shape lives

It was a joke that Ed Byrne told about visiting the doctor for a severe case of the squits (Go Ed! that one will run and run…) that prompted me to visit Berwick Infirmary via my GP. One thing my husband hoped for when we decamped from London was a training hospital (the old people’s friend). The Infirmary may not be that, but it’s a damn good facility, peopled by some damn fine staff.  Looking at our area and seeing how far the nearest hospitals are, makes you wonder why Berwick Infirmary isn’t packed. I’d suggest that a decline in users directly correlates with a decline in provision. As funding and services are siphoned off to ‘centralised’ facilities, that’s inevitably where patients are referred to. People in and around Berwick need more than a building, we need ready access to a range of high-quality treatment equivalent to that afforded to city dwellers. That means facilities and trained staff deployed across the region.

True care is something we should all receive, whoever we are and wherever we are

My own trip to the Infirmary involved an intimate procedure (cameras, tubes, need I say more?) which could have been embarrassing and humiliating. However I was treated with understanding and compassion – a person not a case. I was even given a cup of tea and biscuit before I left. This is true care. And we should all receive it, whoever we are and wherever we are.

It’s been a great laugh and privilege sharing my tales of moving from south to north through this column for five years. Now I’m going to take a little time out to pause and concentrate on this new journey.

(A version of this article was first printed in the Berwick Advertiser on 29 October 2015)

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04 Sep 2015

From one jam to another – via some unlikely yarns

I have zig-zagged across the country over the summer months, barely taking time to wash everyone’s undies before haring off to grab a cuppa with the next lot of family/friends, and then to join another queue on the A1/M1/A7/M6/M5/A12 (delete as appropriate). Hammering endlessly from one end of the country to another is about as much fun as watching ‘Made In Chelsea’ (don’t do it – ever). If only a traffic-less desire line ran directly from north to south, life would be so much easier.

A peaceful desire line trims the corner off the walk to Tesco on Ord Drive, Berwick. If only such a line existed between north and south.

For a start I might have been able to miraculously zoom back for the many local events I longed to share – from the Spittal Seaside Festival, to the Summerland and Electric Penelope gigs at the Maltings. Plus I’ve neglected our galleries for too long – The Watchtower, Granary and Gymnasium have all had stonkingly good summer shows. Fortunately we managed to anchor in Berwick long enough to catch Chloë Smith’s visceral and evocative dance ‘Tidal’ on Spittal Pier – go see the film at the Maltings on 9th September if you missed the real thing.

Why isn’t basic first aid training mandatory?

It was also great to take in the training session for the spanking new Berwick defibrillator (located outside the Youth Project). Hats off to Simon Landels and the Rotary for linking with the Stephen Carey Fund. This charity was launched by the friends and family of the young Alnmouth footballer who, because of a heart defect, collapsed and died during a match in 2012. It is testament to what a small band of dedicated, focused volunteers can achieve – providing over 45 defibrillators around our north-eastern pocket in their first two years. And now we have one in Berwick. It’s a comfort to the Husband who likes to note the location of such things ‘just in case’. However, should he ever need one (God forbid), he’ll also require the services of an informed and trained passer-by. I have never truly got to grips with what you should actually do if you’re faced with someone who may be having a heart attack. It’s not rocket science but, if you’re on the spot, the likelihood of you managing to roll a 17-stone person into the recovery position without the right technique is slim. Why isn’t basic first aid training mandatory? As our Stephen Carey trainer said: ‘Anyone can use a defibrillator – it’s what you do before you get to that stage that’s going to save a life.’

After a long day narrowboating a bit of yarn bombing makes you smile.

After a long day narrowboating a bit of yarn bombing makes you smile.

Of course, had I not been away visiting I would not have encountered the wonderful art of yarn bombing – thereby enabling me to identify the phenomenon in the photo recently submitted to the Berwick Advertiser of a phone box wearing a woolly scarf. Along the Kennet & Avon Canal at Caen Hill Flight (an eye-pixelating stretch of 29 locks), sweaty narrowboaters can pause on the towpath and smile at jolly knitted neck warmers adorning the lamp posts. What a wonderful example of the unpredictable eccentricity of humankind.

Desire lines are, of course, people’s preferred route over an established pathway – for example, cutting off a pavement-created corner (check out the ones by Berwick Tesco on Ord Drive or at the top of the pier). Mind you, off-piste routes are as capricious as their creators. On a recent St Abbs walk, we succumbed to an enticing path which deposited us on a vertiginous gravelly bank.

A woman trims the corner at Berwick Pier. But not all such paths are quite so predictable.

A woman trims the corner at Berwick Pier. But not all such paths are quite so predictable.

I am a tad dizzy when I think of this year’s Berwick Food & Beer Festival (fab family event – Sept 4th (beer only), 5th, 6th, Barracks). I have often helped in the popular demonstration kitchen, but this year I’m doing a demo (3pm tomorrow, Saturday Sept 5th, thanks for asking!). In my mind I follow a path leading to pert Pavlovas and peachy pies. But I dread ending up in the abyss of deflated soufflés and split sauces. And suddenly the simplicity of sitting in an unending queue of traffic on an A-road somewhere far away is quite appealing.

All prepped for my timed practice run of Jane Lovett’s (from Make it Easy) Salmon en croute with lime and coriander sauce.

(A version of this article was first published on 3rd September 2015 in the Berwick Advertiser)

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17 Sep 2014

The trill of the opera – time to take the plunge

I took a plunger with me the first time I went to the opera in the early 1980s. My brother lived in Peckham, south London – his sink was blocked. I lived and worked near Shepherd’s Bush in west London. Covent Garden was a good halfway house. Our plan was to experience an alien music form (and hand over the plunger). Our chosen opera was in English – we figured that we’d never understand warbly voices and a foreign language. I’m pretty sure the work was called “Samson!” Nowadays I would immediately be wary of a gratuitous exclamation mark: then I was young and innocent in the ways of punctuation hyperbole!

It’s a plunger!!!

In our childhood, my Dear Old Ma had a few Gilbert & Sullivan LPs – Iolanthe and HMS Pinafore spring to mind – I was aware that these romping tunes and catchy songs were not ‘real opera’. Real opera was difficult and hard to listen to. “Samson!” confirmed this. We folded ourselves into the stifling gods of the Coliseum. Below, tiny figures aboard huge turrets – half in black, the other white – skittered about colliding and separating, emoting and trilling. The good/evil metaphor was obvious even to us but we came away bemused and sure that this was not an art form to pursue. My brother, however, did unblock his sink.

We’ve all heard of operas such as Carmen. Here’s the reason: they’re the good ones.

Years later I was lucky enough to be reintroduced to opera through the Husband’s work. Many of us have only heard of a handful of operas: Carmen, The Magic Flute, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, La Traviata to name a few.  There’s a reason: the operas we’ve heard of are the best ones. If only I’d realised that 20 years earlier! Other winning aspects of opera that passed me by for many years were the spectacular sets, opulent costumes and huge casts. Opera, I now know, is glitz and bling – the Dubai of theatre, if you will.

“Opera is glitz and bling – the Dubai of theatre, if you will”

Matthew Rooke (Artistic Director of The Maltings, Berwick) has a beguiling vision to take well-known operas and produce vibrant new productions to fit smaller venues in smaller towns. He tested the water last year with a new orchestration of Gilbert & Sullivan’s Trial by Jury (performed by the ebullient Newcastle-based Rocket Opera at the Guildhall, Berwick). It was fab –and despite what the cognoscenti may say, I think G&S is real opera. The trial led to a mini opera season this year. Would punters miss the pizazz and panache of large scale productions?

Rocket Opera’s rumbustious performance of The Pirates of Penzance had the audience giggling and guffawing. One man in front of me silently sang along to the whole show. The orchestra navigated the pared down score seamlessly under the helmsmanship of Nick Butters.

Not at all. Each of Berwick Festival Opera’s offerings was extraordinary in its own right. This was opera up close and personal – conductors, singers, musicians and audience bound together in the experience. Who’d have imagined orchestrating Purcell’s Dido & Aeneas with four Saxes (the super Sax Ecosse) and an electric bass guitar? Rooke would. Or conjuring the seaside (G&S’s, Pirates of Penzance/Rocket Opera) with Doddington’s ice cream, some deck chair fun, and a sea-shanty riff or two? Watching Opera dei Lumi’s music director Peter Keenan rally some fine young regional musical talent in their electrifying inaugural performance of Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte gave me goose bumps of delight – yes, the young male singers flagged slightly towards the end, but their female counterparts managed to buoy them up and sustain the energy and characterisation essential in a show without costumes, lights or sets and with the conductor tucked behind them. Hats off to them. Conductor Peter Selwyn dextrously steered the sublime Hebrides Ensemble and NYOS Camerata through the surges and splurges of Wagner’s Die Walkϋre with singers Gweneth-Ann Jeffers (first seen in Berwick last year in Rooke’s Flyting), Ronald Samm and Stuart Pendred making the most of the acoustically brilliant Guildhall. Pared down operas? Yes. Tailored to fit? Perfectly.

Another plus of local opera for local people is the opportunity to showcase local talent which was abundantly represented during the Berwick Festival Opera. Including well-known local singer Tamsin Davidson as the Sorceress in Dido and Aeneas.

Berwick-based singer, Tamsin Davidson.

Here in Berwick festival season is now in full swing – we’ve just smacked our lips over the final lobsters and locally sourced organic sausages of the family friendly Food Festival (13th & 14th Sept), and it’s eyes-down-look-in for the internationally acclaimed Film Festival (17th-21st Sept) with its blissful mix of free installations around our historic town, well-priced and accessible workshops, and cutting edge films. Plus there’s the all-new Literary Festival (17th-18th October). So, here’s to the delights still to come and, if you’re an opera sceptic, I urge you to take the plunge next year with the Berwick Festival Opera – but perhaps not the plunger.

Conductor Peter Selwyn conducted Jonathan Dove’s arrangement seemingly effortlessly.

(A version of this article was first printed in The Berwick Advertiser on 4th September 2014)

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