Many years ago in my last year at university I was down in London for an interview and had to stay overnight.  Looking for something to do in the evening I wandered over to the Festival Hall and heard Beethoven's 4th Piano Concerto for the first time.  It's been one of my desert island discs ever since and I was delighted to have another chance to hear it played live at the Queen's Hall last week.  There was some nice stuff by Mozart and by CPE Bach on the programme as well but the piano concerto was the tops.

My nephew Max's funeral, like many, was an odd mixture of sadness and conviviality.  I didn't know him at all well and learnt much of interest from those who spoke.  He shared many of his opinions with his dad but was a bit more active in trying to implement them.  His dying had the merit if one can call it that of being pretty much organised by Max himself.  He’d written a lot about dying during the course of his illness and was active with others in developing ideas about controlling and planning end of life  You can read some of his stuff here http://peoplethinkingaction.blogspot.co.uk/.

Death by hanging is the lot of dozens of people caught up in the witchcraft paranoia of Arthur Miller's play The Crucible.  Although based on 17th century events that occurred in Salem, Massachusetts he wrote it in response to the communist paranoia stoked up by Senator McCarthy and his Un-American Activities Committee in the 50s.  I like the play very much partly because I found the part of Revd Hale a very satisfying role to play but also because of the work's richness of character and dialogue, its emotional charge and its forensic examination of intolerance.  The Lyceum's current production appealed to me very much.  The central matter that sparks off the whole dreadful tale is Abigail's rejection by John Proctor.  Her continuing desire for him, her jealousy and her anger lead her to concoct a tale of witchcraft on the basis of some youthful high jinks in the woods.  She's normally thought of as a wholly bad egg.  This is the first production I've seen that made me feel some sympathy for her.  It's also a splendid example of truly ensemble acting with around twenty actors taking part.

A rather smaller ensemble of two plus a little extra at the end took the stage in Blackbird at the Citizens.  This is a play about child abuse that was very well received in the EIF ten years ago.  I was spending a sunny summer in France at the time so had not seen it.  This revival delighted The Telegraph but struck me as no more than a thoroughly competent production of a perfectly well crafted play.  My companions were less generously opinioned.

In the great theatre that is sport Andy Murray did another sterling job at the weekend defeating almost single handedly (Jamie joined him in the doubles) the Japanese team in the first round of this year's Davis Cup competition.  His Sunday afternoon match was draining to watch so what it must have been to play in goodness knows.  He looked absolutely knackered as he dragged victory out of the fifth set.