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Maidstone Symphony Orchestra 16 May 2026 (Susan Elkin reviews)

Americana!

Maidstone Symphony Orchestra

Conductor Brian Wright

Mote Hall, Maidstone

16 May 2026

 

Well, a generous, all-American programme (six 20th century works) was certainly an inspired way of finishing the 2025/6 season with a bang – lots of literal ones, actually, because in many ways this was an evening which belonged to the percussion section.

Five nimble percussionists were led by Lewis Blackwood alongside Keith Price on timpani in, for example, John Adams’s Short Ride in a Fast Machine (1986) with which the concert opened. The rhythmic complexity requires lots of concentration and counting but it pounded along in this performance, in which I particularly noticed some strong work from lower strings which often gets lost in the excitable texture.

Then came the glory of Leonard Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances from West Side Story (1961) which, among many other unusual effects, requires the hard working percussionists to click fingers and shout “mambo”. MSO did it pretty proud with very few infelicitous moments. The quiet string quartet moment was a treat and the flute cadenza followed by muted strings was nicely controlled after a slightly shaky start. The music tells a story and Shakespeare’s star-crossed lovers were clearly in the room.

Erich Korngold’s haunting violin concerto (1947) has joined mainstream repertoire and become very familiar in recent years. Benjamin Baker, who has appeared with MSO several times before, played it from music on a pedal-controlled tablet – always a brave choice in my view.  He and Wright found luscious lyricism in the first movement especially in the horn and harp duet and the spectacular cadenza. Baker has a way of landing on a high note and waiting a nanosecond before adding vibrato and it’s very effective because it makes for incisively crisp playing which also manages to be lushly romantic – and filmic because this is Korngold after all. The folksy energy in the finale was fun too.

Baker played Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson’s  Louisiana Blues Strutt for his encore to make sure we stayed in America. It has become a popular encore choice and I’ve heard it several times before. It’s quite a party piece although, of course Baker made it look effortless.

The second half began with the Aaron Copland’s famous Fanfare for the Common Man (1942). It’s a showcase for brass, obviously, but this performance ensured that we also heard the horns in harmony beneath which was a pleasant change. The trouble with a work as well-known as this with so many sustained notes is that the tiniest imperfection shows but, in general, it was well played and suitably rousing,

It was a good idea to let the percussion and brass have a rest at this point and give the audience a complete change of mood. Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings (this version 1938) is a lovely piece which requires much attention to detail which Wright, and MSO leader Andrew Laing made sure it got in abundance here. Passion, tenderness and accuracy were the order of the day.

And finally came Gershwin’s ever-cheerful An American in Paris (1928) complete with pitched taxi horns played with a grin by Emily Eno. Thoroughly warmed up (and probably exhausted although it didn’t show or sound) MSO played it with gleeful energy.  I particularly liked the way Wright managed the colourful mood changes. And the moment when solo violin duets with the tuba (Andy Bridges) was a high spot.

All in all, a full and enjoyable concert which triggered dancing ear worms in my head all the way back to London.

 

Derrière on a G-string

Some Smith and Moore

Director/Choreographer: Alfred Taylor-Gaunt

King’s Head Theatre

12 May 2026

 

Star rating: 4

 

A delightfully original blend of dance, mime and physical theatre this show pulses with energy and fun.

In a nutshell it consists of a series of comedy sketches depicting everyday life performed by six talented performers to classical music from Vivaldi to Eric Coates. Thus we get a swimming pool scene to the Radetzky March, two hard-hatted men falling in love on a building site to the big pas-de-deux from The Nutcracker, a hilarious airport scene frantically hunting for a passport to The Flight of the Bumblebee and a lot more – for an enjoyable 80 minutes.

Of course it’s risqué. The word derrière isn’t just there for decoration so there’s a lot of cheeky (get it?) flirting with the audience and scanty flesh coloured thongs and tops to stand for nudity. These are dancers – four men and two women –  so, of course, gleeful homo-eroticism permeates but doesn’t always dominate. There is, for example, a very funny escalating group sex scene choreographed to Grieg’s Morning Wood. The titular “g-string” is a clever play on words – although JS Bach is one composer who doesn’t get an outing here. Incidentally I had fun identifying and noting each piece of music as if I were taking part in Steve Race’s still missed radio show, My Music (1967-94), only to find afterwards that each was listed in the programme with full performance credits. Hurrah.

The ensemble work in this show is so strong that it’s almost invidious to pick anyone out. However, Sammy Moore leads the company and his work from pathos (being prepared to perform in the opening scene to Figaro’s first big number from The Barber of Seville) to ebullient “naughtiness” is richly varied and like everyone else in this cast he has a dancer’s rubber body.  Ryan Upton – powerful movement  and wonderful range of facial expressions – is a joy to watch. And I loved the response to the exaggerated swoops in Brahm’s Hungarian Dance no 5. And the bus stop scene (Henry Wood’s accelerating take on the Sailor’s Hornpipe) – and the puns in the titles of each scene. It’s a good idea to link scenes with variations on the most grandiose tune Elgar ever wrote and the cast has recurring tableau fun with Oh Fortuna from Carmina Burana. I could go on.

Derrière on a G String is one of the freshest and most entertaining fringe shows I’ve seen in a while. It’s well worth catching.  But it might not be a good idea to take your staunchly “proper” great aunt Jemina or, if you’re prissy, your children.

 

Of course there have been many biographies of Bess of Harwick. Eventually the Dowager Countess of Shrewsbury, she was probably the richest woman in England after Queen Elizabeth when she died in 1608 at the remarkable age of 80.  Mary S Lovell’s take on the life of this strong, capable woman, which was published in 2005, debunks a great deal of what has been written in the past.

First the facts: Bess married four times and bore eight children all of them with her third husband Sir William Cavendish to whom she was married from 1547 until his death in 1557 when she was still only 30. During her long life she owned many properties and estates, most famously establishing three great Derbyshire houses at Hardwick (now National Trust), Oldcotes (demolished) and Chatsworth which was rebuilt a century after Bess’s death and is now Derbyshire’s most famous tourist attraction.  Bess’s great-great-grandson became the First Duke of Devonshire and Chatsworth is still controlled by her Cavendish heirs today.

Bess was a shrewd businesswoman who experienced shortage of money and debt when she was a young widow but thereafter (who could blame her?) looked after her own interests with a talent which went against the grain for women of her time and class. She enjoyed planning buildings and overseeing their construction.

Lovell finds a great deal of mutual affection in all Bess’s marriages thereby refuting accusations that she was simply a materialistic serial bride. There are many letters which mention love, missing each other, presents and other signs that argue against marriage of convenience. Her final marriage soured although there is plenty of evidence that it began lovingly. Lovell believes that George Talbot, 6th Earl of Shrewsbury, became mentally ill perhaps with some form of dementia. They lived apart in the final years of his life when his behaviour and letters became increasingly irrational and unreasonable, often castigating Bess and accusing her of terrible things. Her calm letters, on the other hand, repeatedly indicate her wish for reconciliation. He spent many years being the official custodian of the imprisoned Mary Queen of Scots which seems to have cost him a lot of money and put a strain on his marriage

Partly because of her four marriages Bess, a lady-in waiting to Queen Elizabeth to whom she became a friend, there were many step-children. In some cases marriages took place amongst her own children and her step-children. Eventually she had a huge network of grandchildren and great grandchildren along with other closely connected families. The family names which resound through history – Leicester, Zouche, Norfolk, Grey, and Tewkesbury for example – are all here in Bess’s life.  She was instrumental in arranging many advantageous dynastic marriages.

Her favourite grandchild Arbella was born to Bess’s daughter Elizabeth Cavendish) whose husband was Matthew Stewart, 4th Earl of Lennox. Because Arbella was orphaned young, Bess, always fond of children, brought her up and tried to capitalise on the child’s (spurious?) claim to be heir to Queen Elizabeth. Arbella was kept so close to Bess that it was almost imprisonment from which inevitably, she eventually broke away, thereby estranging herself from her grandmother.

Bess’s life is intriguing because she was such a complex character. She didn’t suffer fools and made most of her own decisions independent of male influence as far as the law allowed in the 16th century. She should be an icon for modern feminism.

She inspired trust too. Sir William Cavendish left her a lifetime controlling interest in all his properties. The conventional thing would have been to appoint a male nephew or friend.  Moreover, she was, as Lovell tells us “intelligent, affectionate, diligent and loyal.”

I’m not sure whether “economic biography” is a genre or whether I’m coining a term here, but it’s how I would describe this work. Lovell is very good indeed at using money – account books, wills and so on – as a source from which she can draw inferences. Bess’s household accounts, for example, demonstrate her generosity. Again and again she details gifts not just to her own family but to servants, villagers and estate workers who were, presumably in need. And the amounts to family members, of course, tell a story of their own – which Lovell ably unravels.

It’s a rich and accessible read. It took me a while though because, even in paperback this book is too big to carry around conveniently and I do most of my reading on the hoof.

Next week on Susan’s Bookshelves:  The Iron Man by Ted Hughes

Dvořák Overture (Vanda)
R. Schumann Cello Concerto
Brahms Symphony no. 1
Kian Soltani (Cello)
Leonidas Kavakos (Conductor)

07 May 2026, Royal Festival Hall. Southbank Centre

The latest instalment of the Philharmonia’s 80th birthday season was a celebration of the romantic
era.

Antonín Dvořák spent his career aspiring to be a successful opera composer; with the
exception of Rusalka, they are barely performed. Based on the performance of the overture
to Vanda, this seems a great pity. An opening in rhythmic unison gives way to an expansive,
lyrical theme shared by pairs of winds in thirds. Like all opera overtures, it condenses
suggestions of the whole piece into a 10-minute appetiser. This evening’s stirring account
left me ready to seek out the main course.

Robert Schumann wrote his cello concerto towards the end his career and it combines some
lively, jaunty passages with dark and anguished sections that perhaps presage Schumann’s
mental collapse which followed four years later. The particularly expressive playing of Kian
Soltani heightened the contrasts. I particularly enjoyed his treatment of the duplets against
triplets in the second movement, along with the duet section with orchestra’s principal cellist.
The third movement, marked Sehr lebhalt (very lively) fizzed along with tremendous energy
from the soloist, leaping from end to end of the cello’s range with sensational virtuosity.
For an encore Soltani (an Austrian of Persian descent) selected the folk song Girl from
Shiraz by the Iranian composer Reza Vali – a haunting, wistful piece played over a
continuous pedal Bb in the cello section providing a reflective moment for these difficult
times.

Johanes Brahms’s first symphony was over 25 years in the making and has two sombre outer
movements bookending much lighter second and third movements. Here the light and shade
of the opening movement was particularly well rendered, the punctuation of the timps and
basses driving the energy forward without forcing their way through – a tricky balance to get
right.

The lush string tones of the second movement underpinned beautiful wind solos, especially
from principal oboe Steven Hudson, whilst the Arcadian feel of the third movement,
morphing through to its more agitated passages were excellently presented.
The fourth movement, with its strong nod to Beethoven’s 9 th symphony and with the timps
bringing a cyclical finish to the piece brought the concert to its triumphant conclusion.
Conductor Leonadis Kavakos has an unusual technique. Baton-free, he moulds and sculpts
the sound rather than directing it, with at times what seems to be an almost casual
approach. This gives the orchestra more freedom to just – play. And it works, a bright, joyous
sound was achieved throughout. I look forward to the next collaboration.

The Horrors of Hell House

Tim Connery

Directed by Andrew Hobbs

British Touring Theatre, Stage D’Or and Bridge House Theatre

Bridge House Theatre

 

Star rating 2.5

 

Tim Connery is very good at dialogue and rueful wittiness. Masterclass was, for example, taut and persuasive. Unfortunately this new play meanders and loses its way after the interval although there’s still plenty of trademark Connery bite.

It’s the 1970s. A company of actors are rehearsing a stereotypical horror film in the “baronial” house once owned by the late author Kingsley Tudor. Projections by Luke Adamson and Liam Connery neatly evoke various rooms in Hellenic House.

It’s a piece which requires the actors to develop their own individual characters as well as acting in the fictional film – effectively a play within a play like Pyramus and Thisbe or Hamlet’s Mousetrap. It’s a well worn device. In this instance though the film itself is not what it seems because there really are strange things going on in the house although the unwinding of this is tortuous and takes far too long.

Jay Joel is strong as Cliff, the veteran actor in the group who has a long history as a Shakespearean actor. Joel finds a whole range of modes and moods from over-acting his sinister role in the film, to losing himself in drink between takes and, rather movingly telling the others about his humble origins in Rotherhithe. Modelled on Derek Jacobi, perhaps?

And Alfredo Mudie’s Danny is fun – he’s young, innocent, brash, has Serious Hair and gets some of the best lines because he keeps debunking the mystery. Eventually he’s terrified and Mudie does that convincingly too.

It’s an interesting idea for a play but it would have worked far better as a tight 75-minute one act piece. As it is The Horrors of Hell House runs almost two and a half hours including a short interval. The plot is excessively complicated and there are too many narrative digressions – such as the running gag about Danny’s failure to identify certain pieces of classical music and the glories of Kingsley Tudor’s wine cellar. Given the size and intimacy of the Bridge House Theatre’s playing space a cast of eight feels unwieldy too.

Why, moreover, does there not seem to be an actor left in the country who knows how to smoke a cigarette convincingly?

Magic

David Haig

Directed by Lucy Bailey

Chichester Festival Theatre

 

Star rating: 3.5

 

It is terrific testament to David Haig’s theatrical status and charisma that he can almost fill a large theatre for the first post-preview matinee of a new play: “Now sits expectation in the air”. Even the staff in the café where I had lunch first were talking about it.

And it’s an interesting, and highly dramatic idea to explore the friendship and tension between Harry Houdini (Hadley Fraser) and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Haig, himself). Houdini was a highly skilled, world famous illusionist but totally rational.  Conan-Doyle, equally famous as a novelist, was totally and irrationally convinced by spiritualism which surged exploitatively in the aftermath of the First World War. Initially each was impressed by the other but later there were stand-offs because the two men were never going to agree. The whole point is that Houdini understood misdirection and trickery so he could recognise it instantly. And, off-stage he was committed to scientific truth.  Conan Doyle on the other hand refused to believe that Houdini wasn’t really walking through walls and escaping from multiply-locked chains. It was conflict between a realist and a fantasist.

Fraser nails the onstage brashness and confidence of Houdini revealing a very different, thoughtful man in private with his wife Bess (Jenna Augen – good) and socially with the Conan Doyles. He does a brave hoisted up (upside down!)  escapology trick to set the scene at the beginning and it makes arresting theatre, complete with exciting lighting and lots of frantic pianola, before he meets Sir Arthur and his wife in his dressing room afterwards. Later as the tension mounts Fraser communicates scepticism with every inch of his body but it’s subtle – sometimes he simply inclines his head and we know what he’s thinking.

David Haig’s Conan Doyle is decent, impassioned and good at friendship. But he is also totally blinkered about the practical truth of seances (some good scenes with Jade Williams as the famous medium, “Margery”) and the nature of the “afterlife”. Of course it’s a strong performance but, talented actor as he is, there is something slightly mannered and whiney about Haig’s voice which penetrates every character he plays and once you’ve noticed it, it begins to grate.

Claire Price puts in pleasing work as Conan Doyle’s (second) wife Jean who also claims to be a medium of sorts. Beyond the two central couples are six actors who form a troupe to support the magic and play all the minor roles and, on the whole, they do a fine job.

At its heart this is a thoughtful, sometimes moving, play about grief and how you deal with it. Millions turned to mediums in the 1920s because they were desperately trying to process the loss of their sons, brothers, husbands and sweethearts a decade earlier. Conan Doyle’s son, Kinglsey was killed in the war, for example. At the same time the happily married Houdinis grieve for the children they would have liked but never had – but they do it with rueful honesty.

Magic also presents an interesting exploration of the nature of belief. If someone is determined to believe something supernatural. quasi -religious or conventionally religious then no scientific argument will ever shake them. And that is an unexpectedly topical message for 2026 as we try, across the globe, to understand beliefs we can’t share.

It’s strong theatre but not quite in the league of Haig’s earlier play, Pressure which also began life at Chichester and which is due to be released as a film this year.

 

Jerusalem

Jez Butterworth

Directed by Jonathan Reed

Tower Theatre, Stoke Newington

 

Star rating: 4

 

Arguably one of the most haunting and powerful plays written so far this century, Jerusalem opened at the Royal Court in 2009. Mark Ryance starred as Johnny “Rooster” Byron and it wowed critics both then and when it transferred to the West End where it was also later revived in 2022. A very hard act to follow, then? I’m happy to report that Tower Theatre company carries it off in spades and Giles Fouhy’s central performance as Johnny is rivetingly good because he makes the part his own.

We’re in a wood at Flintock where Johnny has been anarchically camped for decades. Kennet and Avon council is determined to evict him. So it’s a play about conflict and humanity which celebrates nature, and individuality even when it’s in contravention of “petty” modern law: there’s a lot of drug dealing, underage drinking, casual sex and riotous behaviour amongst the group which congregates around Johnny.

Fouhy nails Johhny’s wisdom, wit, hedonism and vulnerability. He looks the part – with tattoos, jewellery and multicoloured string vest  (costumes by Kate Els) – and finds a wide range of moods. He’s very funny when he’s telling outrageous fibs, calm and thoughtful when he’s not showing off and movingly dignified when, at the end, the thugs get to him. And he sustains a rural Wiltshire accent throughout. This Johnny is a man of the earth in every sense.

Rob Hebblethwaite and Sophie Clark have created a magnificent set with Johnny’s dilapidated caravan at 45 degrees across the back of Tower Theatre’s triangular playing space. In front of it is the complicated detritus of a drop-out life against which the action unfolds. And behind it we get Vahan Salorian’s folk-inspired music and Laurence Tuerk’s atmospheric sound design with birds and rustling leaves so that we never forget that we’re in a wood near a village consumed by St George’s Day celebrations.

Fouhy is supported by a cast of ten most of whom are strong. I was especially impressed by Lulu Freeman as Tanya – a young girl full of sexuality and sassiness but actually unsure of herself and terrified of rejection. It’s a finely nuanced performance.

At its heart this unashamedly long (3 hours 15 mins including two short intervals) and ambitious play examines the way we adjust, or not, to a rapidly changing world so it couldn’t really be more topical. Tower Theatre’s production brings that message out with aplomb.

I recently spent a few days with a dear old friend who lives in Cornwall. Horse was lying on her coffee table because she was enthusiastically preparing it for presentation to her book club. I picked it up, read three pages and was instantly drawn in. On the way home I bought a download while waiting on Truro station and had devoured almost a quarter of it before I reached Paddington. This was my first encounter with Geraldine Brooks. It won’t be the last.

An astonishingly accomplished blend of fact and fiction, this historical novel uses time shifts to explore the world of nineteenth century horse racing in the southern American states where, of course, it was usually slaves who did the training and stable management. It also takes us to present day Washington DC where Theo, a cultured, beautifully mannered, black art historian chances on a scruffy old paining of a race horse and starts a relationship with a white woman, Jess, whose field is animal bones and their display.  We also visit the early 1950s where a female art dealer finds – guess what? – an intriguing painting of a horse. But this is much more than clever, linked-up story ranging over 170 years. It is almost epic in scope as it highlights racism then and now. And I learned a huge amount about horses, how they’re built and how they function.

Lexington was (in real life) one of the most famous race horses in the nineteenth century and  has acquired almost legendary status. Brooks’s character Jarett is present at Lexington’s birth because his father is trainer for his white owner. Later, Jarret is sold “down the river” with Lexington. The bond between boy/man and horse is beautifully done. They are sometimes cruelly separated but reunited and Lexngton excels until disaster strikes but there is still a future for him as a stud. And of course we meet the artist who paints him. Most of the characters here were real people richly brought to life by Brooks whose writing is as accessible as it is profound and heart-breaking. She’s very good at capturing the way Jarret would have addressed the slave owning men and their families – always wary but gradually finding confidence.

The civil war is graphically evoked in this novel. It’s hard to imagine the animosity of factions whose lives and livelihoods depended on the outcome of the war and of course there were gangs of thugs who simply plundered, stole and took advantage of everyone else. And horses, including Lexington, were often at the centre of these atrocities.

And I loved the way that this connects with the 2020s when because Lexington’s skeleton turns up in some dusty back room at the Smithsonian.

Theo, is a delightfully drawn character – as is his dog, Clancy – and I fell in love with him almost as much as Jess does. I really don’t want to include spoilers here. Suffice it to say it doesn’t go as the two of them would like and the reasons are hideously, plausibly topical. Jarret, a century and a half earlier is, eventually rather luckier despite his humble orgins.

It’s a meatily moving read and one of the best modern novels I’ve read in a while.

Next week on Susan’s Bookshelves: Bess of Hardwick by Mary S Lovell