"An August Bank Holiday Lark"

A line from a Larkin poem is taken as the title for Northern Broadsides' Great War centenary tribute. The production reached us here in Cheltenham this evening, where the Everyman hosts it all week - well worth catching a performance, as it's excellent.

For the Tobacco Factory's Shakespeare a fortnight ago, there was acres of empty seats: tonight was different - down to the imaginative pricing, I guess (all tickets £10). We certainly had money's worth. The storyline was predictable - an idyllic pre-War world shattered by the arrival of War Office telegrams - but treated in a way that moved me far more than War Horse. The company's Director, Barrie Rutter led the cast of 12 multi-talented performers - actors, singers, dancers and musicians all.

Sitting up in the Balcony, with - I thought - nobody to annoy alongside or behind me, I took some photographs during the big scene just before the interval. "Not allowed!" I was quickly told by the usher. "Please delete." Oh dear! They were rather good ones. I have inserted instead a picture of a university friend: I heard from our companions at the play that he had died recently.

Even back in the early 'Sixties, Roger Taylor, a tall man, affected the image of someone older, with Meerschaum pipe, deer-stalker and silver-topped cane. I last saw him in September 2012 at our College reunion. He was living in a caravan: once, his home was Lowndes Square, Belgravia. Now, I gather, he is dead. "Never such innocence again."

The Windrush

Four of us, having parked under the vast Sycamore tree at Cold Aston this morning, walked to Aston Farm and then up the South bank of the Windrush, from where I photographed this peaceful scene. Another idyllic Spring day!

It follows two evenings out with Shakespeare. As You Like It performed by the Tobacco Factory at Cheltenham's Everyman Theatre last night, and Henry IV Part 1 relayed from Stratford to our Cineworld on Wednesday. In his magnum opus, Harold Bloom writes, "Shakespeare's invention of the human, already triumphant through his creation of Falstaff, acquired a new dimension with Rosalind... the most admirable personage in the whole of Shakespeare,... the most remarkable and persuasive representation of a woman in all of Western literature." What a privilege to see two excellent productions of these masterpieces on consecutive days!

"Charley's Aunt"

I should be enjoying the final scenes of this famous farce, which is on all week at our local theatre. Act 1, however, was enough: the interval came none too soon, and I made for the exit and a bus home. Someone said that farce was tragedy speeded up; but when the timing is out, farce becomes tragic whatever its speed.

At least we didn't miss a beautiful evening outside: this photograph was taken lateish last evening, when we sat for the first time on our newly established bit of lawn - sown in the spot where we catch the sun before it finally goes off the garden. When there is sun, that is.

"Dick Whittington"

We were down on numbers for our panto outing at our local theatre: Ida has had a nasty cough all over Christmas, and was a non-starter. The boys enjoyed themselves though.

But even they found the noise level excessive. Was the volume turned up so high simply to disguise the weakness of the script, the score and most of the acting? The redeeming feature was Tweedy the Clown, not that he traditionally has much of a part in the Dick Whittington storyline.

Not only was this year's Everyman effort a weak rendition of a lovely fable, but it was overlong: how the actors manage two performances a day I can't imagine: soul-destroying!

The Montpellier wasteland

Nine days after the end of our ten-day Festival of Literature, this is what Montpellier Gardens looked like at lunchtime. Still, there were people at work from the marquee hire firm - but who's going to restore the messed up park, and how soon?

I'm all in favour of the Festival, but would propose that it concentrates its tents upon Imperial Square, and uses other venues such as the Everyman, the Parabola and the Playhouse - instead of ruining both of our major gardens for what is surely a disproportionate part of the year. I may be repeating myself (as well as the view of others), but it seems to me to be a no-brainer. At present the tail is wagging the dog.

Nor is our gargantuan event pleasing to all the publishers who come. I was chatting with a representative of one well-known international firm on Saturday last: "How does Cheltenham rate amongst all the literary festivals you must go to?" I asked. "It's too commercial, too impersonal," she replied, without missing a beat.

"Duet for one"

Too rarely do we support our local theatre, as I have confessed before. But last night, we went along to see Tom Kempinski's two-hander - and came away raving about it! Was this because we were part of such a small audience, and determined to compensate for all those empty seats? No, I believe this was genuinely an outstanding evening of theatre, something to mark it out as worthwhile in spite of the rival attractions of the multi-screen Cineworld, or just staying at home with the TV or the iPlayer.

The play is clearly based upon the gradual decline into ill-health of Jacqueline du Pré, rather poignantly still alive at the time it was written. The musician (played by Haydn Gwynne) at one point accuses Alfred Feldman, her psychiatrist (the very English William Gaunt) of putting on his German accent. Acting that was other than excellent might have provoked a smile from the audience at this irony: as it was, it only occurred to me subsequently.

"The Real Thing"

I haven't seen a Tom Stoppard play for a while, so when it was announced that his 1980s comedy "The Real Thing" was coming on tour to our local theatre, I felt the urge to go and see it. It's not one that I knew, and of course it's a bit dated in different ways, some of which matter, and some not. It was interesting, sitting there with Agnes alongside me, as the play was written in the year she was born. She enjoyed it, and I too, though I couldn't suppress a feeling at the end that there is less to it than meets the eye. English Touring Theatre and West Yorkshire Playhouse have done a good job on the production, in which Marianne Oldham as Annie stands out. What a pity the audience wasn't a bigger one! Come on, Cheltenham! (Though I can hardly talk, the little we do to support our Everyman.)

"The Winter's Tale"

The all-male company, Propeller are in Cheltenham with two Shakespeare plays: we saw The Winter's Tale yesterday evening, last seen by me in 1993 (Adrian Noble's magical production at Stratford). This was only the second night of Edward Hall's production, and perhaps it will improve; but I wonder. The verse speaking left a lot to be desired: so much of the text is gabbled. (We were near the front, and I don't think I'm getting that deaf!)

In the first three Acts, men playing ladies' roles are fine. But then a major problem arose, with the entry of the 16-year-old Perdita. In Shakespeare's day, I imagine it wasn't as difficult a part as many others in the canon for a teenage boy, who could look much like a beautiful princess in shepherd's guise; but Ben Allen? No.

The best bit of the evening by far was the chorus of sheep - The Bleatles. A pity the bear wasn't equally evident. And a great shame there were so many empty seats! For, whatever one's reservations about the production, it's a joy to have live Shakespeare in our beautiful Everyman Theatre. Is this the recession?

"Jack and the beanstalk"

Last year, Edmund and I took William to Cinderella at our Everyman Theatre: this afternoon, we felt it was the turn of the full trio of Davis grandchildren to come along. I'm not sure I can recall ever seeing Jack and the beanstalk before, but certainly not done to death as in this too lengthy, jazzed-up production: the stars of an over-blown show were undoubtedly the cow and the giant.

"The Wild Bride"

Last evening I paid my first visit to the recently-reopened Cheltenham Everyman Theatre. In the auditorium, things look great: the original Frank Matcham decoration sparkles from loving refurbishment. The foyer by contrast looks dire, with its new 50s-style carpet. Whoever did they get to advise on this?

The Cornish-based (but internationally-constituted) touring company, Kneehigh took away all painful thoughts, however, with a brilliant new fairy-tale show, "The Wild Bride": I enjoyed it even more than their famous "Brief Encounter". The synopsis promised not nearly so much as the performance delivered, which was epic theatre, but on a boutique scale. A sextet of performers conjured up images which played upon all the emotions: at times, you couldn't believe how things could happily be resolved for this latter day Mother Courage; and all the while, she - there were three of them - and her trio of male accomplices animated, sang, danced, somersaulted and played a variety of instruments (Patrycja Kujawska's violin standing out). A tour de force, and how criminal that there were empty seats!

Cheltenham Festival of Literature

The Festival - it starts today - has taken a giant leap forward: not only Imperial Gardens, but Montpellier Gardens too has this year become a tented city for the duration. Indeed, the construction process began weeks ago, causing noise and traffic sufficient to upset everyone within a wide radius no doubt. Pity those who have hired the Gardens Gallery during those weeks! Indeed, the Gallery isn't even marked on the Festival map!

My lack of sympathy for the scale of this hyper-festival has been made plain in previous years: expansion into Montpellier runs parallel with withdrawal from the Everyman Theatre and the Parabola Arts Centre. What will hostelries and shops near those two sites make of the non-passing trade? This morning, I toured the campuses on my bike: the only people I saw around were yellow-coated security guards and minions from sponsors such as The Times and Sky. Coming away, I saw an elderly gentleman emerge from a car and fiddle with his pipe: Tony Benn it was, taller than I expected. (Though he didn't refuse to have his photograph taken, he seemed a little taken aback with the speed at which I produced my camera.)

Brendel in tandem

Richard Stokes, Alfred Brendel's interlocutor on the stage of Cheltenham's Everyman Theatre last evening, and the celebrated, recently-retired pianist gave us full value for money. The Everyman is used during the Music Festival, of course, but Brendel, a frequent July visitor to Cheltenham during the greater part of his playing career, will probably never have graced its stage before last night's Festival of Literature event.

We were as surprised as the audience at the first performance of Beethoven's G Major piano concerto must have been, by Brendel starting by introducing his interviewer: a very civilised idea, I thought, and one which could well be replicated for other events.

The two were obviously good friends, Professor Stokes being able to bring out twin aspects of his subject, his high seriousness and his impish, almost schoolboy humour. As Brendel said, wit and profundity are not mutually exclusive. In some works, Beethoven Op 31 no 1 was an example he gave, when a pianist hasn't made an audience laugh, he should become an organist.

As an illustration that a musician needs to sing and speak in tandem, we were treated to a story passed down by the late Sándor Végh: as a young violinist, he was playing for Chaliapin. "You can sing well on the violin, but you don't speak enough," the Russian bass advised. Later, Végh said he learnt the "speaking" from Casals.

Last night, the pair were introduced by current Festival Director, Meurig Bowen (seen here at the outset - I wasn't allowed to take photographs later on). I was proud to see my 1976 photograph of Alfred and Adrian Brendel, with Imogen Cooper plus Greenway cat, flashed up on the big screen.

Love of wisdom

It's rare to hear two quite different lectures in the same day, each so full of wise words, and so well delivered. I would have been glad to read either "The Choice of Hercules" by A.C. Grayling, or "Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet" by Jeffrey Sachs, but knew realisticaly that it was unlikely. The appearance of their authors - both renowned speakers - therefore made them easy choices out of the 26 events on offer at our Literature Festival yesterday.

The philosopher Grayling had virtually a full house at 10 a.m. in the Everyman Theatre. Though he spoke from the lectern on stage, such is his fluency that it represented no sort of barrier. The success of a lecture can often be judged by the quality of questions posed to the lecturer at the end: all were good, and Grayling answered with skill and humour. But he was flummoxed when asked, "Were you assuming we had come along as a duty or for pleasure?"

Hercules chose duty above pleasure, but, Grayling asks, where is the conflict between them today? What do we think about reading novels in the morning? Conventionally, the answer is "guilty", but insofar as they are an excellent way of our learning much-needed toleration - allowing other people to do things you don't like - maybe we should look upon a couple of hours with our novel as our morning duty.

From Jeffrey Sachs' viewpoint as a development economist, working for the Earth Institute, our car is careering towards the cliff edge. Even if the road turns out to bend a little away from the precipice, our alarm increases when we realises that Dick Cheney is at the wheel. (A McCain victory next month is too grim for Sachs to begin to contemplate.)

The three horsemen of Jeffrey Sachs' apocalypse are environment, poverty and population. Each can be reined in, but not by a self-regulating market. Global, co-operative, science-based mechanisms are needed. They don't at present exist, but they could be established - at a cost of about three per cent of world income. Trillions have been made available to save the banks, so in principle the money is there. Can we sit back and allow the aggregate of a year's Wall Street Christmas bonuses to continue to exceed the entire world's annual aid to Africa? "I'm a PhD beggar," proclaims Jeffrey Sachs.

Sachs spoke for 50 minutes without any notes from the Town Hall stage, an astonishing tour de force.

Everyman Shakespeare

Our literary festival has forged good links with the Royal Shakespeare Company over the years, though there have inevitably been last-minute cancellations. Yesterday, however, three Cleopatras lined up according to schedule on the stage of Cheltenham's Everyman Theatre, for a discussion that never quite took flight. Mainly, Janet Suzman, Harriet Walter and (pictured here) Noma Dumezweni were too polite to each other. You longed for a touch of the asp to enter their conversation. And above all you ached to hear one of them launch into "His legs bestrid the ocean". They lacked a prompter.

Later in the day, Michael Pennington made an altogether more memorable appearance on the same stage. Pennington described catching the Shakespeare bug at the age of 11, and never having shaken it off: his resulting one-man Shakespeare show "Sweet William" is a tour de force.

"Sweet William" runs through what we know of Shakespeare's life in chronological sequence, with the actor morphing into both major and minor characters to illustrate the developing achievement of the playwright and in particular its historical and political context. Apart from audience coughing all round me, which would never have been tolerated during the performance of a play, I have seldom enjoyed a LitFest evening more.

Fit to print - 2

Two months ago, I posted an update on Davis family news: perhaps it's time for another one.

We took the house off the market a couple of weeks ago, as of course nobody is buying houses given the economic crisis.

Meanwhile Edmund and Claire (who sold last year) and their boys have been enjoying the huge garden of their rented property, particularly during this Indian Summer: at present their plan is to go on renting where they are in Hampshire.

Leo is off to Japan for a fortnight in four weeks' time, to stay with Mini and her family. Mini has a part-time job in Winchcombe: her visa has been extended till next May.

Agnes, apart from looking after Ida, is busy drawing children's book illustrations. She has been looking at possible places to live, and just missed getting a cottage in Kington (near the Welsh border), which would have suited well.

Thomas has settled on a flat in Lisbon, has started learning Portuguese and enjoys the warmth of the place (in her various manifestations). We shall visit him in November, when we plan to be InterRailing, initially with the Russells: Paris, Barcelona, Valencia and Madrid are our first stops. The dining-room is full of guide books and maps.

And last night, at our Everyman Theatre, the local MP, Martin Horwood, presented Caroline with her Cheltenham Arts Council award, for the contribution she has made to the arts in Cheltenham over many years. A proud moment!