Thursday, August 25, 2011

Of football, webcasts, Britten and cake

Here's my review of The Turn of the Screw at Glyndebourne the other day. I think I once described the piece as dreary, weak and boring. Please scrub that. It's completely brilliant. Not as mad about this production as about David McVicar's for ENO, but it's striking, original and very clever. Chances are you've already seen the webcast via the Guardian site the other day. I had to treat that like the football results, when you're advised to 'look away now' if you don't want to know the outcome before you've watched the match ...

Toby Spence was singing Peter Quint. I once wrote a piece about him headed 'Toby Takes the Cake' - metaphorically speaking, of course. So on Tuesday I bumped into him on the train and this time he was taking a real cake. It was for Miles, who was turning 13 that day. A pleasing sequel.

Less pleasing was the return journey in which the train was diverted via Falmer and Brighton because of - yes, a football match. The London train from Lewes had to go off route to pick up the overcrowded footy fans, so we were late late late and arrived at to Clapham Junction aeons after my connection had departed. It was the Turn of the Screwed.