I don't like to see a Kirkcaldy man fail and feel the injury even more when he's also a Kitwe man.  However in the case of Dave Dempsey who came third in the race to represent Cowdenbeath at Holyrood my sadness is tempered by the fact that he was running in the Tory interest.

The brave chap is undeterred and I expect he'll be back in the saddle as soon as another opportunity presents itself, perhaps on the back of one of those wonderful warhorses that are strutting their stuff at the Festival Theatre.

Warhorse is a terrific spectacle: the horses are incredibly well manipulated by the teams of puppeteers and reproduce the characteristic actions of real horses to an unnerving degree.  The rest of the presentation lives up to that high standard with excellent use of projection, with spot on lighting and sound and faultless stage business. I was less admiring of the vocal presentation but maybe all this wind band stuff  I'm involved in nowadays has taken the edge off my hearing.

The story is as simple and as sentimental as all get out but even the most hardbitten audience member could hardly avoid a tiny touch of trembling in the tear ducts when boy and horse are reunited.

An excellent weekend at Dundee Rep taking part in a number of workshops in the RSC Open Stages project.

Remember the 2012 Olympics?  It was felt necessary to add a bit of culture to all the running about (and I don't mean the opening ceremony).  As part of the cultural hoohaa the RSC organised The World Shakespeare Festival and as part of that set up a collaboration with amateur theatre groups called Open Stages.

That finished in the summer of 2012 but a new edition, a true Olympic legacy, stretching from 2013 to 2016 is under way and Grads are taking part in it.  We are presenting a Gulf War informed production of Titus Andronicus in April 2015.

There's a lot of water to flow under the bridge before then but a number of us interested in that production were in Dundee to profit from RSC expert knowledge in movement, stage combat, text and acting.  Apart from learning and the great pleasure of working at Dundee Rep, especially in their beautiful main house, we were well fed and watered and had great fun.

To find out what we did, get to EGTG on Facebook and read Dan Sutton's excellent descriptions of the workshops.

It's not often that I buy clothes on the internet but having failed to find an overcoat that I liked in the shops I had a wee trawl.

What with 2014 commemorations of the First World War I rather fancied something like the one in the middle and tracked down a shop that sells military gear.

This is what I bought.

It's just dandy and not too far from the image above if not quite so dashing.  It came from Bulgaria and has brought me a benefit.  What would Mr Cameron say about that.

It is of course second hand but I'm pleased to report that it has been thoroughly cleaned.  However that's been done with chemicals that are possibly even now still toxic judging by the smell.  It's currently in the corridor outside my door and I'll be whipping it out onto the balcony for blasts of fresh air whenever it's not raining over the next few weeks.  

My saxophone teacher today suggested that I expand my Christmas glitter from one nail to ten and make them all different colours.  I'll bear that in mind if I make it to the X Factor.

My entertainment tips this week.

If two hours alone with Robert Redford's blue eyes and craggy beauty floats your boat then head for All Is Lost.

If that idea gives you a sinking feeling then enjoy sailing on the crest of the wave at Hansel and Gretel.

It turned out that there were participative events over the festive season after all.  I had been misled by assuming that the Christmas in Edinburgh brochure covered everything.  So apologies to whom it may concern.

Friends who were staying with me over New Year and I hastened off to the museum on New Year's Day to take part in this:

On the first day of 2014, set your compass and join us on a journey through Edinburgh’s Old Town, in the new, mystical and magical world of SCOT:LANDS - Discover nine incredible, new worlds, presenting the very best in music, art and theatre. Created and curated by Scotland’s most innovative artists and musicians.

The event was a bit overwhelmed by the number of participants.  When we arrived we had to join the longest queue in the world to:

Start your journey at HOME:LAND, the National Museum of Scotland, where you’ll receive a postcard with information about the first destination of your journey.
Pick up your own SCOT:LANDS map and Landing Card and travel with us on an amazing, cultural journey through the old Town – re-invented for just one day as our magical new world.

We only managed to visit two of these nine wonderlands but both were excellent.  They were:

HIGH:LAND Presented by The Ceilidh Place
Here in Edinburgh for the first time, experience the inimitable atmosphere and hospitality of one of Scotland’s most famously convivial venues, The Ceilidh Place. With music, songs and stories, bite into a rich and hearty slice of the North West Highlands, and enjoy a taste of local food and artisan beer. At the end of the A835 you’ll find the centre of the Highland Universe and one of the most dramatic landscapes in Britain.

NEW:FOUND:LAND Presented by The FOUND Collective
Edinburgh-based art collective FOUND will tap into the contemplative resonance and exquisite acoustics of Old St Paul’s Church. Experience a candle-lit musical performance which treats sound and silence as equals. Get lost in a languorous and dreamlike place in the company of some of our most enigmatic musicians.

We didn’t manage to win a free holiday when we got back to the museum at the end of the afternoon either but we did get a coffee and were entertained by the Portobello Ceilidh Band.

A good time was had by all.

I heard recently that when Christmas trees were first introduced into Britain they were crowned with flags of the Empire rather than with angels.  Not having any Empire flags handy I've had to improvise.

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE

 

Although I was at the Cameo to see Falstaff at the weekend it had been a while since I'd been there to see a film.  The end of my Tuesday class for the term opened up the possibility of enjoying their silver screen session this week when for £2.80 I could see a film with coffee and biscuits thrown in.

I daresay that was what drew me to Saving Mr Banks since although I knew it had something to do with Mary Poppins I've never read any of the books nor seen the film and only recognize vaguely a couple of the better known songs.  I had no idea who Mr Banks was or why anyone would wish to save him, let alone make a film about it.

But what a lucky choice.  It's a super film. The story of the tussle between Walt Disney and the author of Mary Poppins, P L Travers, over making a film from her book is a fascinating one to start with.  Then Saving Mr Banks is beautifully shot in period, two periods actually since scenes from Travers' childhood in pre first war Australia are intercut with the progress of the 1961 Los Angeles script discussions.  Then it's superbly acted with Tom Hanks as avuncular Disney, Emma Thompson as frosty buttoned up Travers, Colin Farrell as Travers' wastrel father and an excellent supporting cast. Then it's moving, heart-warming, redemptive - you name it.  A great movie.

My only slight reservation has nothing to do with the film but with the Cameo's restored screen 2.  It used to be a long thin room with a not very big screen at one end.  It's still a long thin room but the seating has been swung round through 90 degrees and a substantial screen installed.  The result is that even in the backmost row the picture loomed pretty large and pretty bright.  My eyes were not very comfortable. 

But then I am used to what is thought of nowadays as pretty much a miniature TV screen.

Edinburgh's Christmas and New Year celebrations have changed this year.  The town looks lovely but some old favourites like the torchlight procession have gone and pretty well all that made it an individual and interesting place to visit in the way of street theatre and participative games has been replaced by commercial entertainment and augmented opportunities to eat, drink and spend money on more of the same tired old cheap jewellery, funny hats, wooden grotesques and healing Christmas candles.

A haiku  lamenting their failure of imagination should be carved into the skulls of those responsible.

There was no failure of imagination in how the conductor used his whole body to sweep the whole orchestra along in Lutoslawski's Concerto for Orchestra.  He waved his arms, bounced his head back and forth, threw his body from side to side and actually leapt in the air with arms stretched above his head as he brought the work to a conclusion.  He wasn't a young man either. 

I'd never heard this music before but I loved it and can see Lutoslawski rivaling Shostakovitch in my desert island selection.  One of the gems glittering in the silver lining that lies under my not having been recycled into August: Osage County is that I won't have to forgo the Shostakovitch concert I've a ticket for in May.

There was another musical treat for me last night when I saw the transmission of Verdi's Falstaff from the Metropolitan Opera.  This larger than life character was played by the very large Ambrogio Maestri who was wonderful.  The show is a riot of comedy and in this production the scene that culminates in Falstaff being toppled into the Thames from a laundry basket was simply stupendously staged and performed.

Maestri is obviously a keen eater but he's also a keen cook and his risotto was wheeled on during the interval entertainment.  Even more entertainingly he misunderstood the interviewer's request to try some and picked up a spoon ready to dig in himself.

I enjoyed a performance of Bach's Mass in B Minor last night with the added benefit afterwards, thanks to a group of fellow concertgoers on the 49 bus, of hearing about the imperfections that my cloth ears hadn't picked up.

One of their number was vigorously in favour of original instrument performance of such baroque masterpieces and if you are of the same mind you can catch one here.  Youtube tells you it's from the 2012 Proms but fails to credit the band.  The BBC archives reveal all. 

The Tommy Smith Youth Jazz Orchestra gave big band favourites a lusty outing at Summerhall at the weekend.  You might think that music is not old enough for more modern instruments to have crept in but they did have a keyboard instead of an acoustic piano. The bus man would surely have forgiven that.

Tommy's senior band, the SNJO, in their search for authenticity in their tribute to Duke Ellington go so far as to reproduce the microphone placings of the era as well as using an acoustic piano. It wasn't the one man, one mic democracy of today.

Grappling with self-assembly furniture has left me with this nice little pile to dispose off.  The half dozen bin bags full of polystyrene padding and other wrappings have already found their way to landfill.  This lot will need a special journey to the dump.  There is no way it will fit into our recycling bins.

I'm hoping to be recycled myself after this evening.  No sooner is one production over than the next gets on the road and tonight I'm auditioning for May's show.  It's an American play that won the Pulitzer prize in 2008 and was very well received when it crossed the Atlantic.

A film version of August: Osage County starring Meryl Streep opens in the States on Christmas Day and should arrive in the UK some time in January.  I've watched the trailer and it looks fun, although naturally our stage version will be even more fun, at least for the people taking part. 

Despite Julius Caesar taking up a lot of time I've managed to get to a few concerts in the last couple of weeks.  The RSNO did Britten's War Requiem which was a pretty impressive undertaking, needing a chamber orchestra, a full symphony orchestra, the organ, two choirs and three soloists.  You can imagine the amount of sound they were able to produce.

Another RSNO concert that I enjoyed very much featured the alto saxophone in a lovely melody played early in Rachmaninov's Symphonic Dances, after which the player had nothing to do except listen to the music.  Much better that way round than waiting for half an hour before blowing your first note.

On St Cecilia's Day there was a lunchtime concert in her very own hall in the Cowgate.  An eclectic selection of pieces played on acoustic guitar by Edinburgh born Adam Brown.

It was a small crowd at the first night of Julius Caesar but a good few more were in last night and both audiences seemed to enjoy the show.  There's a review here which I think is quite a fair one.  From my own point of view it was nice to have a complimentary comment on my performance especially since I haven't been so much as mentioned in a review since 2007, even though I've appeared in more than half a dozen since then.

Road to Perdition is a film I remember for two reasons.  One is that it looked superb.  Indeed it won an Oscar for cinematography.  The other is less complimentary.  I couldn't believe how much money, effort and talent had been applied to not very much at all.

Although most critics liked Feral on the Fringe its revival at The Traverse evoked much the same reaction in me as RtoP.  Planning and executing the show called for a great deal of thought, inventiveness, ingenuity and dedication.  But to what end?  To illustrate in a toytown fashion the dubious thesis that shopping centres lead to the destruction of civilization?

Running alongside Feral was Ciphers.  It wasn't Shakespeare but it was cleverly constructed, well written, well staged and well acted entertainment set in the world of spying. The actors did a great job, having in some cases to converse in Russian and Japanese.  I don't speak either of those languages but it sounded pretty kosher.  It would be straining credulity to say that an hour or two in GCHQ and a brush with a strange Foreign Office department gives me any insight into espionage but the story didn't appear too far-fetched.  Entertainment aside there was food for thought in how pressure might be exerted by "the authorities" on the man in the street in furtherance of so-called national security.

The second tranche of my salsa course is now over and I still can't dance it with any degree of confidence or skill but that's never stopped me enjoying the Gay Gordons so look out you Latin ladies. 
    

I've jigged around from time to time to salsa music and Claire managed to get me more or less doing some proper steps in this wonderful place, but I'm now launched on an intensive salsa beginners course.

The first tranche of three hours was on Saturday morning in Broughton High School.  It was a brand new building when I was last in it to play badminton circa 1973 and it's been rebuilt since.  So it's doing better than my alma mater of KHS whose "new school" dates from the 50s and looked pretty seedy the last time I passed it.

Like Drummond where I do another adult education class Broughton was a hive of activity and I'm sure presented a much livelier and friendlier atmosphere than prevailed in the schools of my time.

That corner of Edinburgh shelters Fettes College and the playing fields of various schools.  They were all in action and it was jolly hard to find a place to park.  When I go back for the second tranche, for there is more, I'll take the bus.

In the meantime I have a wee CD with a man shouting out instructions to practice with.

I also enjoyed a quite different musical experience over the weekend, two actually, or even two and bit if we count the little radio play about Philip Glass and Steve Reich's two men and a van post Julliard experience.  I don't know just how true that was but it was an interesting insight into their different characters.

The RSNO did one of their Naked Classics concerts in which before hearing a piece time is spend telling you something about the composer and the work, illustrating points by playing extracts and so on.  I actually enjoyed that more than I did listening to the performance of Vaughan Williams' 5th Symphony that followed.

The SCO's concert on the other hand was super.  A brand new piece by Peter Maxwell Davis (who was present) was followed by an exhilarating piano concerto by Bartok.

I've been a Bartok fan ever since as a teenager I lay in bed and heard his weird and wonderful  Music for strings, percussion and celesta coming out of a radio just like this powered by batteries just like these.  I'd no idea what a celesta was then and am not much clearer now but the music doesn't sound nearly so weird and it's still a favourite.

Stravinsky is always associated for me with the jagged, even dissonant tones of The Rite of Spring but his Symphony in C which closed the concert was sweet and tuneful, in fact a bit bland for my taste.

There was a degree of upheaval in our production of Julius Caesar when it became clear that Mr Caesar was not going to be able to learn the lines in time.  So he got the bum's rush; Lepidus had his lines wiped out and became Cicero; Cicero (that was me) became Decius (that's now me); and Decius became Caesar.

Opening night two weeks tomorrow will see us word perfect - no sweat.

And finally here's Connor in the Scottish Amateur Poker Championship in which he came a thoroughly respectable 14th out of 140.

I am indebted to Classic FM for the reminder that today is World Saxophone Day, being the anniversary of the birth of its inventor, but their schedule is unforthcoming about how they intend to celebrate.

I imagine they'll choose a tune that's a little more cheery than this melancholy étude.

This is a cause close to my heart and sometimes it seems that all that litter is close to my house. Go to Clean Up Britain and help the country save money and look better.

I slept through most of Monkey Bars and given what little I did see have no regrets.

A glimpse of a smashing weekend in Spain

The Colombians, whether innocently or duplicitously, didn't put a best before date on this sachet so I don't know how old it was.  It must be some time since Ewan was last in Colombia though.

I used it anyway and it wasn't too bad.  However, on the whole I prefer non instant coffee.

The way the Richard Alston Dance Company swing themselves joyously around to Scott Joplin in the final piece of their current show, having already expended lots of energy in the almost obligatory nod to Britten in this his centenary year, they must have refuelled on coffee as the show progressed. 

Lots of energy went into Crime and Punishment but it was pretend vodka (I assume pretend) fuelling that one.  This is an excellent production that brings to vibrant life Dostoyevsky's novel about the destitute student who posits the idea that any crime is justified if it is for the greater good.  Not a few dictators have thought along those lines.

I like Quentin Lett's review in the Mail and am pleased to see that my reaction to the Brechtian presentation makes me less of an old fogey than him.  Rush to see it at The Lyceum.  Judging by the attendance the day I went you'll have no trouble getting a seat.  Shameful.

I may not be an old fogey but I fear I am more the gullible old fool than the wordly-wise sceptic if my reaction to Paul Bright's Confessions of a Justified Sinner is any guide.  This is another absolutely excellent piece of theatre but when you get the programme at the end of the show you realise all is not what it seemed. How could I have been so blind?  I'll be helping Nigerian bankers free up their millions next.  Get to Summerhall by the end of the week and see how you get on.

It could have been better attended too, as could last night's SCO concert.

There was some Britten and a wee bit of his teacher Frank Bridge but it was probably the brand new Sally Beamish piece for soprano and chamber orchestra, Flodden, that kept the crowds away.  I find that I rather like contemporary music and Sally Beamish for one keeps turning out stuff that I enjoy.  Both her Saxophone Concerto that I heard at the Sax Congress last year and her Percussion Concerto played at The Queen's Hall last season were great.  I think if more people came to hear work like hers they would find that they can enjoy it.

Flodden was of course commemorating the great battle of 500 years ago and started off with a gut wrenching wave of sound from the singer interspersed with the ringing tones of a bell or a triangle.  This was described as a wordless lament in my neighbour's programme notes at which I cast a cheeky eye.  When words did come for the most part I couldn't make them out.  Whether the band were too loud or the singer not loud enough or the music too heavily scored I don't know.

Nonetheless I enjoyed the music but it would have been nice to know what was being sung.

The conductor abandoned his baton in favour of a violin to lead the orchestra in the final piece.  Metamorphosen by Richard Strauss.  It's powerful and tragic tones fitted like a glove the concert's billing as The Pity of War.   

I was sent a survey the other day, about what is not important, and was intrigued by the very first question.

It was "Do you identify as A) male or B) female?"

This I assume is the politically correct way to ask who wears the trousers.  It would make more sense to me grammatically if it said "Do others identify you as A) male or B) female?"