Season Start
29 September

Well, here we are at the beginning of another arts season.

Ross and I have taken a definite view this year that we are going to try for quality rather than quality. So, instead of having something like 20 pairs of tickets pinned to our kitchen wall, this year there are only eight. Mind you, there are three extra for the winter break in Llandudno which we will only see when we arrive there.

There are also a few things that I'm going to see on my own. Thus it was with Rigoletto as performed by the Ukranian National Opera of Odesssa.

I'm going to keep this short. I left after the first interval. I've seen enough average, good and excellent performances of this work not to feel that I have sit through one that is less than mediocre.

I could have coped with the naff 50s style sets. I could have coped with Gilda looking like the Duke's great-aunt. I could have coped with a blonde Gilda who looked more like Elsa von Brabant than a convent girl. I could have coped with the hunting dogs, falcons and naked ladies paraded for our attention to tell us we were seeing a real show. I could have coped with the thin orchestral sound. I could have coped with all of this if the performance had had any sense of energy about it. It felt like a tired, stale walk through and, for £22.50, I expect better.

And, frankly, there was no excuse for wrinkled tights among the male chorus. One star is generous.

Much better was the film of Nicholas Nickleby at the Phil which Ross and I both went to. It was a hall of fame of British character actors and belted along at a fair old pace. Most impressive were Juliet Stephenson's Mrs Squeers and Christopher Plummer's Ralph Nickleby. A quick three stars.