Christmas is almost here again, so it is time to look back on the many achievements of Arts organisations in and around Petersfield during the past year.   Surely no other town of similar size is as well endowed with cultural activities, or so centrally placed,  and it is quite impossible for one person to cover them all, so I am most grateful to my colleague, Kate Steaggles, for her reports on the many gigs at   the Studio@TPS which fall outside my remit.

It seems to me that drama, in all its forms, has dominated during the past year, and I still think back with the greatest admiration on the Winton Players’ production of Ronald Harwood’s The Handyman, featuring Philip Humphries’ outstanding performance as Romka, the Ukranian immigrant accused of war crimes.   Equally successful was the Lion and Unicorn Players’ hilarious performance of Alan Ayckbourn’s Family Circles, a triumph of teamwork in the ideally intimate surroundings of the TPS Studio. 

Both companies’ Autumn productions seemed a little disappointing in comparison, the humour of Ayckbourn’s A Chorus of Disapproval appearing somewhat predictable, whilst Thornton Wilder’s Our Town was a strange play, the last act not easy to fully understand as the dead begin to speak to one another, and even to the living.

 There was no performance from the Petersfield Operatic Society this year, due it its merger with the Hi-Lights, whose final production, Calamity Jane, was cruelly cut short by the disastrous fire at the Festival Hall, but not before Jayne Elsey, bounding about with enthusiasm and cutting a diminutive figure in her buckskins, had enchanted the audience.   We are all looking forward to the new Company’s first production in May.   An honourable mention, too, for Denmead Operatic Society’s economical, yet inventive performance of Anything Goes at the Havant Arts centre.

 Of course Petersfield Youth Theatre delighted large audiences, as it always does.   They put on three very different shows during September, Honk, a rather slight musical version of The Ugly Duckling, and The Silver Sword, a magnificent adaptation of Ian Serraillier’s story by Nik Ashton and Richard Taylor.   No elaborate song and dance routines for once, but a moving story of four children’s escape from Poland during the Nazi occupation of World War Two in which Jessica Pardoe led a cast of eighty.   We also had Alice in Wonderland, starring the remarkable Jodie Russell, surrounded by the younger members of the company.   On top of all this, they also gave a Christmas production of Peter Pan.

 From the Youth Theatre it is not a huge step to the professional stage.   What riches here, too, among them  Bryn Terfel as Falstaff for Welsh National Opera at the Mayflower, the Carl Rosa Company in The Mikado at Chichester Festival Theatre and a welcome revival of Balfe’s Bohemian Girl by Opera South at Haslemere.   No-one who was present will ever forget the South African take on The Magic Flute either.   And there was more  Ronald Harwood at the Minerva with a revival of Taking Sides and a new play, Collaboration, based on Richard Strauss’s relationship with the fledgling Nazi Party in the early 1930s.

 But what of concerts?   If 2008 was a vintage year for drama, the world of classical music did not appear to fare as well, despite a huge number of events.   The Musical Festival was not a vintage one, with only the revival of Dyson’s Agincourt really memorable from the choral evenings.   The Southern Orchestral Concert Society’s concerts produced some fine individual performances - Bruch’s Violin Concerto (Antje Weithass), Jonathan Dove’s Magic Flute Dances (Emily Beynon)  and Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto (Daniel de Borah) spring to mind,  but I cannot recall one entire concert that really imprinted itself on the mind..

The splendour of Holy Trinity Church at Privett was the scene for Froxlield Choir’s fine performance of Haydn’s Creation, and similarly proved an ideal setting for Petersfield Chamber Choir’s choice of Vaughan Williams’ Mass in G minor, a performance they repeated with even greater success at their Vaughan Williams Anniversary Concert at St. Peter’s recently, a concert which found them in particularly splendid form.   And, of course, there was Maddy Prior and the Carnival Band at Portsmouth’s New Theatre Royal the following night, which duplicated some of the Vaughan Williams in a very different style.

 And my Christmas turkey?   The Luard Trio.   Enough said!

Tom Muckley, December 2008

This article was originally published by the Petersfield Post

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