Break Out Culture With Ed Vaizey by Country and Town House

Country & Town House
Break Out Culture With Ed Vaizey by Country and Town House

Country & Town House’s culture editor, Ed Vaizey, and associate editor, Charlotte Metcalf discuss the week’s cultural offerings with a brilliant edit of what you should be watching, reading, listening to, booking and visiting each week. Their roster of high profile guests adds illuminating insight to the current cultural landscape.

  1. 15/12/2023

    138. A Joyful Musical Christmas - with choir masters Ben England & Mark Strachan

    In this final edition, we’re talking to two of the Britain’s most passionate advocates for singing in a choir.  Ben England and Mark Strachan collaborated during the pandemic on the Self-Isolation Choir when thousands joined online from round the world to sing.  Both were awarded British Empire Medals as a result.  Today they tell us about Choir of the Earth, which grew out of the Self-Isolation Choir, and all the Christmas festive singing you can join in with. Looking ahead to next year, we hear about the 24-hour Handel’s Messiah in St. George’s Hanover Square and the 24-hour Mozart’s Requiem at St. Gabriel’s Church in Pimlico.  Anyone is welcome to drop in and sing for a small fee to raise money to help rebuild St. George’s crumbling portico and for the Pimlico Music Foundation which encourages children from all backgrounds to sing.  Mark and Ben have gathered a raft of exceptional musicians and conductors, including John Rutter and Laurence Cummings, to join them on these two marathon events. We also hear about Game Choir, set up my Mark to encourage gamers to sing and we’re treated to a snippet of Game Choir singing ‘Sweden’ from Minecraft, arranged by St. George’s brilliant organist Richard Gowers. This will raise money for Specialeffect to help people with physical disabilities continue to play video games.   Don’t fail to tune into this fascinating discussion about the cultural significance of gaming and the glories and benefits of singing and what Mark and Ben have planned to delight us all this Christmas.

    35 min
  2. 04/12/2023

    136. Gainsborough, Gillray & more - with Rebecca Salter and Tim Clayton

    This week we’re at Gainsborough's House in Sudbury, Suffolk. We’re always delighted to discover a true gem away from London and this most certainly is one. Housed in the home where the great 18th century portrait and landscape painter artist Thomas Gainsborough grew up, this is now Suffolk’s largest art gallery and a global study centre for Gainsborough’s work. The house has recently opened its new wing with three new superb and spacious exhibition spaces.  We’re talking to Rebecca Salter, the President of the Royal Academy (and the first ever woman to hold the role) about her exhibition of beautiful Japanese-inspired works on show there.   We’re also talking to Tim Clayton, the award-winning historian and broadcaster, who has curated a second exhibition on Gainsborough’s contemporary, James Gillray, ‘father of the political cartoon’. Tim is also Gillray’s biographer and has lots of fascinating insights into Gillray’s life and work. The historic house itself is beautifully restored to give an insight into how Gainsborough lived.    There’s a beautiful garden, complete with ancient mulberry tree (given Sudbury is the home of silk), a print workshop, a café and a very good shop.  Plus, there’s a top floor studio to the new wing with panoramic views over the garden and Sudbury. With this meticulously curated collection of Gillray’s prints and Rebecca’s beautiful,  meditative, calming paintings on show, it’s truly worth a visit. In View:  Rebecca Salter until 10th March James Gillray: Characters in Charicature until  10th March

    24 min
  3. 10/11/2023

    133. Beyond Theatre - with Robert Bathurst and Trish Wadley

    We’re at The Coach and Horses in Soho with actor Robert Bathurst, much loved for his roles as David Marsden in Cold Feet, and Mark Taylor in Joking Apart, and with theatre producer Trish Wadley.  Robert is reprising his title role in Keith Waterhouse’s Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell and tells us what fun it is to perform in the very venue where the late Jeffrey Bernard spent much of his later years propping up the bar. Trish Wadley has long championed immersive theatre, staging the Tennessee Williams hotel plays in three different rooms in a Holborn hotel before transferring them to the Langham Hilton.  She’s the first producer ever to stage a play inside London’s Natural History Museum and persuaded them to build a 350-seat venue for a play about Charles Darwin.  She also staged Insignificance, about an imaginary meeting between Marilyn Monroe and Albert Einstein in a Fifth Avenue hotel - in a Fifth Avenue hotel room.  Ever inventive, her company Trish Wadley Productions has just produced a lean, mean, fast and furious version of Othello with Iago’s complex and conniving character played by three actors on the stage at the same time. Trish and Robert enthuse about how liberating and interesting it is for audiences and performers alike to be outside the restrictions of conventional theatre.  And if Robert’s stories are anything to go by, playing Jeffrey Bernard in The Coach and Horses has its fair shares of excitements and hazards too. Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell plays at the Coach and Horses until 21st November http://www.defibrillatortheatre.com https://trishwadleyproductions.com

    25 min

Notes et avis

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À propos

Country & Town House’s culture editor, Ed Vaizey, and associate editor, Charlotte Metcalf discuss the week’s cultural offerings with a brilliant edit of what you should be watching, reading, listening to, booking and visiting each week. Their roster of high profile guests adds illuminating insight to the current cultural landscape.

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