The Eden Court Theatre in Inverness.  This was the only Scottish venue visited by Mathew Bourne's new ballet The Midnight Bell on its UK tour.  A few of us decided to make the trip.  Illness cut the group down to two so Claire and I took the bus north one Saturday morning, got there early afternoon, checked in to a hotel, visited the museum (small but full of good stuff and with a pleasant cafe to boot), had a tasty early dinner and saw the show.  Very good it was too.  Beautifully staged,lit, costumed and danced. Athough I disagree with their opinion of the lip synced thirties numbers this review is well worth reading and has excellent pictures of the action.  

After a substantial and delicious breakfast, (I was tempted to stray beyond my usual limited regime and am glad I gave in), we pottered about the town wondering at the number of churches flanking the river till it was time to take the bus home.  A most enjoyable trip and I came away with a new bunnet as a souvenir.

I've never considered myself a G&S fan although I've enjoyed those of their shows that I've seen and had a thoroughly enjoyable evening as a reviewer's plus one at Scottish Opera's production of The Gondoliers.  It's a very funny feel good show and some of its 19th century satirical references were replaced to good effect by digs at our current public figures.

In the world of straight theatre there was a super production of Jo Clifford's version of Calderon de la Barca's Life is a Dream at The Lyceum.  The stage had been extended to cover the entire stalls area and give a space for the play to be done in the round, although there was a little upstage directional emphasis to allow for the fact that a proportion of the audience were in the circle rather than on stage where I was. It's a story of honour besmirched and revenge sought and what we might now call preventive detention whereby Segismundo, crown prince of Poland, is imprisoned at birth because of astrological forecasts that he will grow to be a tyranical king.  Temporarily freed to test the waters he does indeed behave badly and is put back in his box.  Meanwhile Rosaura is looking for the man who knocked her up then left.  She has revenge in mind and knife in hand.  There's lots of Shakespearean cross dressing, coincidence and cunning plotting.  Finally, again as is common in Shakespeare all is revealed and the the appropriate matches are made.    

The performances were first class.  In particular Lorn Macdonald as Segismundo turns in a tour de force.

I saw a much smaller scale but very interesting and accomplished production at The Kings.  This was The Signalman, a one man play by Peter Arnott. It's a reminiscence in later life by the man who staffed the last signalbox before the Tay Bridge on the night of the disaster and who in fact waved the train on to its fatal rails.  A very fine performance and staging.

I've heard a lot of music this month, some old tuneful favourites like Sheherazade and The New World symphony, new to me Brahm's Piano Concerto Number 1, and two more profound pieces.  Both of those were at SCO concerts. 

Shostakovich is a composer whose work I regard highly and his 14th Symphony is a dark and thought provoking piece.  Consisting of 11 songs about death linked together it could hardly be otherwise but it's a wonderful listen.

A more difficult listen was Berg's Chamber Concerto for Violin and Piano with 13 Wind Instruments.  This was the second and strongly contrasting half of a concert in which sweet romantic music from Mahler's happy days had pleased but not stirred. I couldn't call it insipid but it didn't move me that much.  Whereas I actually jumped at one point in the Berg as the pianist pounded the left hand end of the instrument. Friends said to me later that they hadn't rushed to stream it on Spotify when they got home.  Neither did I but I would like to hear it again.

Some friends are great fans of the food and wines of Turkey, the Caucasas and Iran and such like places.  They organised a meal at a tiny place in Tollcross run by an Iranian lady.  It's really a little cafe that closes its doors about 5pm and serves a party of up to eight people a selection of dishes from the region. It was lovely food and I particularly loved the way she did the rice.  I could have eaten that alone and left well satisfied.

I happened to eat alone at Rollo in Broughton Street one day because my lunch companion couldn't make it at the last minute. Lovely lunch and great service. 

The Zambia Society Trust held their AGM on Zoom again this year.  After the business of minutes, financial report etc there were two most interesting presentations.  One about the development of the Medical Licentiate programme bringing trained personnel to a large number of rural district hospitals.  We had a talk on the way ML training is being done as well as a report on a study into the lessons being learnt from the programme.  Then a presentation about Flyspec which is a flying doctor service active in the country.  Both of these as well as the Zambia Scciety itself are good organisations to help you use up your spare cash.  Just click on the links above.

I occasionally watch foreign TV channels (as much as one can given regional restrictions) and one of the best is TV5Monde.  They've been showing some films recently starring Yves Montand, either because of the centenary of his birth or the thirtieth anniversary of his death. I've watched a couple and after one I lingered on to watch a fascinating documentary.

This was about Dominique Strauss-Kahn, known to his friends (and I imagine to his enemies) as DSK.  Head honcho of the IMF until he fell from grace over some sexual shenanigans the programme sought to answer the question "what's he being doing since?".  The answer is making lots of money and paying very few taxes.  All within the law, as befits a former socialist finance minister.