Monday 27 June 2016

London Concert Halls and Theatres

My busy vignettes of London's high culture
Who doesn't like an evening out in Theatreland? Surrounded by plush velvet, tassels and gilt or in a forest of acoustically engineered shapes; flapping a glossy programme in the heat; suppressing a cough; fretting that the phone isn't turned off...

Here are the smartest and most prestigious of London's concert halls.  It's only this year that I've managed to visit them all*.  As for the theatres - well, there are scores of them and I got it down to a select ten, including the old and the new, dance and opera, west end, south bank and further afield.

These vignettes are fun to assemble and populate.  I dug deep into the oeuvre of obscure musical instruments for London Concert Halls.  For no reason other than my own initial, they all begin with C:
cittern, chitarrone, charango, clarinet, cor Anglais and crumhorn.  On Some London Theatres it's all scenery and the accessories of theatre-going.  The bust on the plinth is Garrick.

The list of venues in full:

London Concert Halls:
Barbican Centre, Royal Festival Hall, St. John's Smith Square, Cadogan Hall, Wigmore Hall, Royal Albert Hall.

Some London Theatres:
National Theatre, Almeida Theatre, Menier Chocolate Factory, Royal Opera House, Duke Of York's Theatre, Gielgud Theatre, Tricycle Theatre, Shakespeare's Globe, The Old Vic, Sadler's Wells.


* The Cadogan Hall for the Pasadena Roof Orchestra.  I became tearful when they played "A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square".

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