The second evening of Corin Hayes’ Buzz, Buzz, Buzz season this year featured near folk legend, Wizz Jones. Wizz has been around for more than fifty years and was part of the Les Cousins, Bunjies and Scots Hoose circuit along with Bert Jansch, John Renbourne, Al Stewart and all the rest . . .
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This year, thanks to the support of the Spielman Trust, the BOVTS was able to present its Graduating Showcase in a proper theatre setting, and Principal Paul Rummer was delighted to see that St George’s was packed out for the occasion. The BOVTS is in its seventieth year, and in that time it has accumulated an enormously impressive list of past students . . .
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There’s nothing quite like the smell of freshly trodden grass mingling with pungent diesel fumes to embody a night out at a fun-fair or circus. I remember the good old days when there were three or four giant circuses doing the rounds in England. What I remember best, and what was almost the most exciting, were the roaring lions and tigers leaping through hoops and the troops of huge lumbering elephants trundling around the ring.
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Rhythms are sometimes dazzling in their intricacy and executed with wit and panache. ‘Instruments’ vary from matchboxes to oil drums: one of my favourites was a little number, performed in the dark using Zippo style lighters which created not only rhythms, but also clever patterns as the lighters lit . . . with such a highly polished and entertaining set of routines the audience can simply marvel at the immaculate conception and execution.
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Sir John Falstaff is probably the Bard’s greatest comic creation and after playing a supporting character in Henry IV Pt 1, followed by a guest appearance in Pt 2 he now gets his own show. His farewell appearance is off-stage in Henry V. Mr Rutter’s Sir John is a very coarse and vulgar fellow for whom it is difficult to have much sympathy. His quest to woo two married women backfires and he finds himself in the proverbial.
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The play draws intriguing parallels between Dostoyevsky’s life and that of Myshkin, the main character in his semi-autobiographical novel, The Idiot . . . To my mind, the most interesting parts of the play happened when the action wasn’t relying on gimmicks. The passages of dialogue or monologue were satisfyingly clever and often acerbic critiques of the audience, but I thought there were too many experimental elements to make this a truly enjoyable experience.
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