Wednesday 21 July
(10am - 4pm)

Calligraphy Workshop with Viva Lloyd




On Wednesday 21st July the Calligraphy Workshop was run by Viva Lloyd an extremely experienced calligraphy teacher. The participants were all beginners, so we learned how to write the Uncial Alphabet – practising the rounded letters first and then progressing on to the diagonal, two-tier and straight letter forms. We practised writing words and, by the end, could all write well enough to produce name cards and write names on certificates – but, of course, further practise will help us all!

Wednesday 21 July (8pm) at St Nicholas Church, Shepperton

The Ashford Baroque Ensemble

Philip Buckmaster the founder/director of the Ashford Baroque  Ensemble is a busy man being also Conductor for the Feltham Choral Society and organist/ choirmaster at ST Matthew’s Church Ashford.. His sixteen strong group gave an impressive account of themselves in Shepperton’s  lovely little Parish Church of St Nicholas as part of the Festival, performing early music of the 17th and early 18th centuries by little known composers such as Thomas Linley and Robert Woodcock . The latter’s third concerto for recorder and strings with Richard Austen as soloist was a delight with its florid ornamentation . and bounding rhythms The balanced phrases and diatonic harmony of this charming music sounded particularly well in St Nicholas’ friendly acoustic with Celia Wand’s violin solo in Haydn’s early symphony No 8 “Le Soir”showing sweetness of tone and admirable technical control. The young cellist Tatsuya Shirai gave a moving account of Bach’s third Suite in C and despite having fallen from her bicycle earlier that week and appearing on crutches, Rachel Major sang her Linley Cantata with assurance and style. Altogether a most enjoyable evening. Congratulations to Philip Buckmaster and all concerned.

On the Wednesday evening the Ashford Baroque Orchestra, directed by Philip Buckmaster, gave us a superlative concert in St Nicholas Church. In the first half they played pieces by Arne, Woodcock, Corelli and Bach and Boyce including a piece for solo cello, Suite No 3, given by Tatsuya Shirai playing with perfect intonation and grace. In the second half we learned about Thomas Linley (the younger) who lived at the same time as Mozart and met him while he was growing up. We could have had our own Mozart in England but, very sadly, Thomas Linley was drowned at age 22 so he did not reach his full musical potential. The Baroque Ensemble played his Overture to The Duenna and Rachel Major, accompanied by the ensemble, sang his charming cantata Ye Nymphs of Albion’s Beauty-Blooming Isle.  The concert finished with Haydn’s Symphony No 8.

Friday 23 July (8pm)

Manor Players in Comedy Shorts




On Friday 23rd, during the Manor Players evening Geoff Buckingham, an award winning play writer wrote five plays for performance under the title ‘Comedy Shorts’. We were pleased to welcome The Mayor, Cllr John O’Hara to this comedy evening. Janna Bond sang Summers Songs to welcome us prior to the performance.

The Human Button, performed by Geoff Buckingham (Captain Pickles), Robert Hardy (Commander Allcock) and Dominic Marx (Seaman Cackett) shows what happens when commanders gain too much power! In the monologue On the Couch Nigel Smith held our total attention acting Kelvin who visits a psychiatrist who, it turns out, is having an affair with Kelvin’s wife. The outcome was ‘rather unusual’! More Tea, Vicar? (directed by Carmen Souchet) had many of the Manor Players regulars showing how to raise the necessary fund to save their church, albeit the outcome is again ‘rather unusual’. After the interval, The Candidate showed us how blackmail is really not the way to have to recruit a new employee, and God Bless America which won the Spelthorne & Runnymede Drama Festival’s Best New Play award, was set in the future, with a lottery to decide who will become the next president of America! An excellent evening and many congratulations to Geoff Buckingham for keeping us so amusingly entertained

Saturday 24 July (10.30am)

Children’s Show: Pinocchio




I personally have a high regard for my granddaughter’s three and a half year old critical skills. Her face said it all throughout the entire Pinocchio performance – she was spellbound.  And, when I asked if she liked it as much as ‘Cat in the Hat’ which we saw at the National a few months ago she said “Yes… and I think this was best.”
Neil Leach’s ‘story teller’ was highly professional and totally entrancing. Capturing and maintaining the attention of such a young audience is a difficult feat which he accomplished admirably.  Sadly the show was not a sell out – a real shame since the committee made sterling efforts to get news of the performance into infant schools and nurseries well in advance.  

Friday 16 July (8pm)

Hey-Diddle-Dee-Dee: An Actor’s Life For Me with Simon Williams

Saturday 17 July
(10.30am - 12.30pm)

Salsa Workshop with Maduro Salsa

1,2,3,..5,6,7,.. was the rhythm to follow as we started our exploration of this dance style. Expertly taught by  Yvonne and Tony Rudge of Maduro Salsa we were soon stepping out to the salsa music, learning that it isn’t only the feet that matter in this compact dance but also the hands and brain. By the end of the session  we had mastered some of the basic sequences but, sadly , as the music began to speed up it was time to go home.

Saturday 17 July (8pm)

Celebrate Good Times with Dance Band ‘Hooky’



Well, to say Hooky specialise in disco, funk and party classics falls  well below what they are really good at: making people dance to  
numbers they recognise, enjoy and want to return to time and time  again. In fact, if I wasn't getting married in Italy next year I'd  
hire them in an instant. Also, having spoken to members of the audience in brief, I believe  some of the (spoken) feedback from some members of the audience was  "lovely" and "lovely", and more "lovely"; what else is there to say..?

Sunday  18 July (3pm)

Violin & Piano Recital with Christine Townsend (violin) and Stephen Robbings (piano)




Christine Townsend (violin) and Stephen Robbings (piano), who make up the musical partnership Duo Dunamis, gave a scintillating recital on the afternoon of the first Sunday of the Festival. They began with Bach's E major sonata, the clean contrapuntal details of which received keen attention, and in which Christine Townsend demonstrated her ability to project long-range melodic lines over the sympathetic harmonic support provided by the keyboard. They proceeded to an Adagio by Kodály, which was performed with nuance and stylistic awareness. Written in 1905, the movement betrays a keen Brahmsian influence, and hence it was appropriate that Duo Dunamis then performed the first sonata for violin and piano by Brahms, his opus 78. Here, Stephen Robbings and Christine Townsend projected Brahms’s sumptuous lyricism with great success; the rather Schubertian opening had a compelling gentleness, which contrasted with the moments of unbridled exultation that constantly return in the work, most prominently at the very end of the sonata. The recital closed with Liszt’s virtuosic Grand duo concertant, which gave ample scope for both performers not only to display their technical mastery of their instruments but to capture the essence of Liszt’s quixotic musical language.

Monday 19 July  (3pm)

Illustrated Lecture on Calligraphy and Bookbinding by Viva Lloyd




On Monday evening Viva Lloyd gave a lecture on Calligraphy and Bookbinding. Viva had worked in banking but, on being made redundant, she embraced the world of Calligraphy and Bookbinding by enrolling on a course at the Roehampton Institute. Since that time she has produced wonderful work which has been exhibited widely and she has also taught Calligraphy and Bookbinding in a number of institutions in Surrey.  

Her lecture was well illustrated and very informative as she took us through the early commencement of writing from the Roman times through to the present day and how Calligraphy continues to develop in current times when beautiful lettering is still required, despite the regular use of modern technology. With many thanks to Viva for her very interesting lecture.

On Wednesday 21st July the Calligraphy Workshop was run by Viva Lloyd an extremely experienced calligraphy teacher. The participants were all beginners, so we learned how to write the Uncial Alphabet – practising the rounded letters first and then progressing on to the diagonal, two-tier and straight letter forms. We practised writing words and, by the end, could all write well enough to produce name cards and write names on certificates – but, of course, further practise will help us all!

Saturday 24 July (8pm)

A Night at the Opera with Ardente Opera



Julian Black, having read music at Cambridge, brought four talented friends from the Royal Academy of Music to sing arias at the Riverside Arts Centre on Saturday evening 24th July. Sara Lian Owen, soprano, and Lucy Goddard, mezzo, joined Sam Furness, tenor, and Gareth John, baritone, in an evening of delightful classical music which was covered 16 arias and scenes.
In the first part we heard extracts by Sara & Lucy from Mozart's Cosi fan tutte and Puccini’s La Bohème ‘Che gelida manina’ sung by Sam. Somehow, though, it was Gareth's heart-breaking song in the early morning before his execution in Britten's Billy Budd that made us all realise what a special group of singers we had on Sunbury that night.
In the second part Lucy's aria from Handel's Giulio Cesare , was a step back from Mozart, and which she sang beautifully.
Each part ended with all four of them acting together, first in an excerpt from Gianni Schicchi and then in a piece of The Marriage of Figaro done with the joyous abandon of youth learning how to enjoy the work of great composers.
Julian wittily introduced each piece and accompanied the singers on the piano, accompanying each of the sixteen pieces with perfect feeling for each singer's individual quality, playing with either dramatic or quiet intensity.

Sunday 25 July (2.30pm)

The Grand Tour : A Journey of Discovery with Intermezzo (Carole Boyd and Jennifer Partridge)



The well known local actress Carol  Boyd of The Archers fame and equally well known pianist Jennifer Partridge brought this year’s Festival to the most delightful close with their programme of Words and Music entitled The Grand Tour.There was a wonderful mix of  familiar and unfamiliar material from the Keats and T.S. Eliot which many of us learnt at school  to the less well known Spike Milligan and Lady Mary Wortley Montague perhaps only familiar to poetry buffs ! Carol Boyd’s impressive vocal versatility and brilliant characterisation charmed the audience particularly in the finale to the first half , Holiday Memory by Dylan Thomas and again in Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows. The music chosen to complement all this had been cleverly selected, ranging from poignant Schubert Impromptus to evocative Debussy preludes, from the Eton Boating Song to Bach Goes to Town. All effectively echoed the mood and atmosphere of the words being spoken and were played with exquisite tone control and imagination by Jennifer Partridge on RAC’s one year old Yamaha grand . Quite often words and music intertwined with a couple of phrases from each -  a technique which pleased the 100 strong audience hugely as was shown by  loud applause at the end. Not the least enjoyable part of the afternoon was the delicious tea provided by the hardworking SSAA  to follow the concert!

Had I been expecting a master class on making exists and entrances I would certainly not have been disappointed. Carole Boyd made a regal entrance; stunning black dress with red rose attachment, stunning red hair beautifully styled to suit her face – and – brilliant legs, black stockings in modern high heeled black sling-back shoes. All this from someone who is known for her voice. Carole was accompanied by Jennifer Partridge, whose head was all I saw from my side of the hall, but whose sensitive playing sent me into more than one reverie.
Any part of the chosen programme would have been used by Carole as an audition piece. The range of accents and dialects was, as people say nowadays, AWESOME. I am sure that many members of the audience would have had a favourite or two: mine was Ithaka by Cavafy, accompanied by Danseuses de Delphes by Debussy. My husband was delighted with the Spike Milligan extract.
Well done Carole Boyd and Jennifer Partridge and many thanks from a happy member of a happy audience. “And don’t let Lynda Snell know we didn’t mention her!”