Benedict Cumberbatch's turn as Hamlet has been the big ticket sensation of the year in London. There was no way in which I would have travelled for the show but, on a cinema screen near to home, it became an attractive proposition.
I have been indulging in more food for the soul and the body.
Benedict Cumberbatch's turn as Hamlet has been the big ticket sensation of the year in London. There was no way in which I would have travelled for the show but, on a cinema screen near to home, it became an attractive proposition.
In the event, it was neither wonderful nor awful. I was most perplexed because I was uncertain as to director Lyndsey Turner's stance towards the play. I felt that I was watching a rag bag of theatrical tricks rather than a thought through telling of the story.
Consequently, the combined talents of Benedict Cumberbatch, Siân Brooke, Anastasia Hille, Ciarán Hinds, Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, Karl Johnson and Jim Norton went by the wayside.
I was all prepared for a similar reaction to Pelléas et Mélisande. Over the years, I have never understood why Debussy's work has been so highly rated by people for whose opinion I have the highest regard. I hear it as a mist of sound - a very beautiful mist - but a mist nonetheless.
I was delighted then to be proven wrong by English Touring Opera. Between James Conway's unfussy production, Jonathan Berman's supportive conducting, the positioning of Surtitles at the side of the stage so that loss of eye contact with the drama was minimal and the compact size of Buxton Opera House, everything felt right.
Jonathan McGovern and Susanna Hurrell were a young and handsome couple of lovers and Stephan Loges made half-brother and husband Golaud an understandable prisoner of his self-inflicted fear and jealousy and rage.
For the first time, I actually enjoyed an encounter with the work.
The New York Met served up more marital distress in Verdi's Otello. Yannick Nézet-Séguin unleashed a storm of music and ratcheted up the claustrophobic tension scene by scene. Željko Lučić's Iago was a baleful presence and Sonya Yoncheva was a stunning presence. I was less happy with Aleksandrs Antonenko's Otello but it's a sod of a role.
Bartlett Sher went for a strange clash between looming sets which hemmed the artists in but which were made of perspex thus creating a sense of wide open space. It didn't work. I felt tired and the cinema seats in FACT are very comfortable. I fell asleep.
Vassily Petrenko served up another good concert with the Phil. The selection of Slavonic Dances by Dvořák were given some pep by the band and certainly treated as dance music rather than pure concert pieces.
Ingrid Jacoby was an excellent soloist in Chopin's Piano Concerto No2 but, honestly, it's not a work I need to hear as often as it is given exposure.
The real highlight though was Tchaikovsky's Symphony No3 Polish. Quite, quite invigorating!
My physical needs were taken care of by Damien over in Ashton-under-Lyne on my way to Buxton. He's still got a bit of a snarky Manchester shtick going on but the smooth skin and the ripe ass were still more than present
We chatted, caught up and I boffed him a couple of times in all of the usual positions. He was commendably open to receiving cock and cum inside him.
Justin Bieber has become so accustomed to setting his own pace about showing off his adult body to the world that the paparazzi have taken it as a challenge to capture the unintended moments of complete undress. Jumping in and out of the plunge pool at your secluded villa while there are telephoto lenses trained on you is just asking for publicity. I don't suppose that Tom Daley minds admiring the view one little bit.
