What is in Kelvin's Head?

Culture Catch Up

01/03/2013

I’ve been on annual leave for the last week. It was my (rather late) post-Christmas break. Just after Christmas, I didn’t want to be away from either home or St Mary’s, probably due to having just come back from my three-month sabbatical. Hence, I put off taking time off until now.

This year I threw myself into a culture catch-up with a wee trip to London.

Here are the scores on the doors:

Takin’ Over the Asylum at the Citz in Glasgow – solid reworking of a good TV series for the stage Rating:

La Traviata at the Coliseum – all done with curtains. The curtains open to reveal a set of curtains, which in turn are pushed apart to reveal a set of curtains, which in turn…. All in all a rather good postmodern interpretation. Then end worked well. You need a good seat for this one. Some of the action happened amongst the audience. Rating:

Cocktail Sticks – a new piece by Alan Bennett about his parents. Made me laugh. Made me cry. Rating:

This House – an enormous new play by James Graham about the politics of the 1970s and 1980s. In other words, a play about the politics that I first remember. Rating:

Merrily We Roll Along – The Play. This was a mistake. Booked it at the last-minute thinking I was booking Merrily We Roll Along the Musical. The play is incomprehensible, particularly so in a rehearsed reading. This was a rehearsed reading. Lasted until half time. Rating:

People – another new play by Alan Bennett. This one had the wonderful Frances de la Tour being an imperious old aristocrat. It also had an actress, a bishop and enough trouser-dropping to prove that farce has not died just because Brian Rix is no longer in charge. It is not Alan Bennett’s greatest work but greater than so many other people’s greatest work nonetheless. Rating:

Ice Age Art – the Arrival of the Modern Mind at the British Museum. This one is selling out every day – you need a timed ticket to get in. Fascinating, beguiling show of bits and bobs from Europe made by people we know so little else about. Enigmatic “venus” figurines and a ghostly puppet were my favourites. Rating:

Light Show at the Hayward Gallery. From prehistoric art to the art that depends on the technology of today. (I think we can be pretty sure that none of this will be around in 27000 years). An interesting show. Would perhaps have felt spiritual and holy if one had had the chance to go around it alone. As it was, there were too many other people. (Which was the theme of one of the Bennett plays above, oddly). Rating:

Oh, and I met one or two people I know and one or two I know now.

There we go – not a bad week all told. Four and a half plays and two big art shows. Oh, and I also worshipped last Sunday in a small congregation in the West End (just 19 of us gathered right where London’s heart beats strongest) and at Westminster Abbey on Tuesday evening for a gorgeous Evensong with dozens in the cast and hundreds in the congregation.

God was present in both these services.

And in the rest, I’d say.

Quite a lot of dashing about, not least as I was only in London for three nights.

And that’s what I did on my holidays. Rating:

11 responses to “The Pink List”

Ryan

23/10/2011

Ooh, you’re in some illustrious company – there are worse places to be than beneath John Barrowman!

Congratulations 🙂

Reply
1. kelvin
  
  23/10/2011
  
  He and I are almost the same age, Ryan. It is why we look so alike.
  
  Reply
  1. Ryan
    
    23/10/2011
    
    Made more impressive by the fact that the praepostorial look is presumably, unlike Mr Barrowman’s, all-natural 😉
    
    Reply
    1. kelvin
      
      23/10/2011
      
      Mostly natural.
      
      Reply
Rosemary Hannah

23/10/2011

Yes, I’d quite like to be under … sorry, got lost in thought there. Well done, Kelvin, and yes, more church people, please. As long as they spell your name right, that is all that maters ….

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Revd Ross Kennedy

23/10/2011

I don’t think the paper got it wrong at all. St Mary’s is Glasgow’s Cathedral (that is if we ignore the chapel by the Clyde). The C of S place was a cathedral but not any more – it hasn’t had a cathedra for hundreds of years and so is merely a parish church now (nothing wrong with that). The C of E has done away with provosts (they were the head of the cathedrals which also functioned as parish churches). The boss priest in all the
C of E cathedrals is now called the Dean. And so it should be in SEC because the title ‘provost’ is the designation accorded to the head of toon cooncils.
Yes I know we have deans in the SEC dioceses but they could be retitled as archdeacons which is what (I think) is their function.

As to the pink list…how times have changed….. years ago it would have been called the black list! (sorry!)

Reply
1. kelvin
  
  23/10/2011
  
  Times have indeed changed, Ross. Something which is to be celebrated.
  
  I’ve no desire to be a Dean. Deans in Scotland do something quite different to what I do, and Provost described me nicely. The title of Dean is also used in secular life now too, in education, as is the term Rector.
  
  There are four cathedrals in Glasgow. St Mungo’s, St Luke’s, St Andrew’s and St Mary’s, each no doubt dearly loved by their people.
  
  Reply
Ryan

24/10/2011

Archdeacon is a great title tho, suggesting to the layperson that it involves deacons raising one eyebrow and making drily witty comments.

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chris

24/10/2011

I’d’a thunk you might have been a ‘national treasure’ by now…maybe next year. 🙂

Reply
1. kelvin
  
  24/10/2011
  
  I’m a National Treasure round about this blog. That’ll do for now.
  
  Reply
Uncle Al

25/10/2011

I seem to recall that at Coates Hall back in the very early 1970s the student charged with providing services at the Mission Church in Dean Village was known [tongue very firmly in cheek] as the Archdeacon of the Water of Leith. A resounding title but no gaiters came with it.

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