Barry Gray concert, 8 November

[hazel]

I had a lovely afternoon on Saturday! Needing to go in to London fairly early anyway, I arranged to meet a few Anderson/Cult TV friends for lunch and a drink on the RV Tattershall Castle, a floating pub opposite the London Eye. Disappointingly, the weather was horrible, so it wasn’t possible to sit out on deck. However, we all met up as arranged, and had a nice, boozy afternoon in the pub.

Shortly before 6pm, we crossed the river to the Royal Festival Hall. A number of Fanderson and Cult TV members were already there: it was good to see Glo Thorogood and her Virgil puppet (resplendent in a tux), David Nightingale, Lynn Simpson, Alex and Sarah Geairns, Tony Bailey, Steve and his guide dog Luke, Eddie Cory, Stephen la Rivière, Jeff Smart, Martin Townley, Kevin Davies, Anthony and Brig Morton, and David (Doc Brown) and Jan Rose. Apologies if I’ve missed anyone out!
Image: Doc Brown with Virgil:


The souvenir programmes were pricey at £10, but a must-buy. It was nice to see contributions from our own Keryn, and from noted Fanderson names such as Doug Pelton and Katie Bleathman. I intend to add scans of the rest of the programme to the Archive very soon, but in the meantime, here’s the important bit – the running order!



The orchestra performed very well, but suffered from some rather odd sound balance, which often gave the backing more prominence than the melody. For instance, the harmonica in the Four Feather Falls section was largely inaudible, which was a shame, considering that the performer, Christos Parlapas, had flown in from Greece especially for the concert.

Voces8, a choral ensemble, were terrific, especially in their rendition of the Secret Service theme. For anyone who doesn’t know this admittedly somewhat obscure part of the Anderson canon, it’s a wordless vocal piece, based on a Bach chorale, and performed in the 'doo-be-doo' style of the Swingle Singers. Notoriously difficult to get right, but Voces8’s performance got a deserved ovation.
Image: Voces8


Pascale Rousse-Lacordaire performed on the Ondes Martenot, an early synthesiser which provides the weird, ‘spacy’ tones in music from Captain Scarlet, Doppelganger and UFO. Having once heard a rather inadequate performance on an Ondes Martenot which kept going out of tune, I was looking forward to hearing one played to concert standard. I wasn’t disappointed, and the UFO Suite was one of the highlights of the evening.

Crispin Merrell, who as you will all probably know wrote the music for New Captain Scarlet, as well as for Space Precinct and Lavender Castle, took the piano solo for International Concerto, in the Joe 90 section. I seem to remember International Concerto being a longer, complete piece, but it was interspersed with pieces of what was obviously incidental music – perhaps I’m remembering it wrong.

The concert concluded with what, in my biased opinion, is possibly one of the finest television themes ever written – the full-length Thunderbirds March. This piece never fails to bring a lump to my throat, and I have to say that the Philharmonia Orchestra performed magnificently. At the conclusion, we gave the performers a standing ovation – one that they well deserved. And the ovation was also for the man we were honouring that night – Barry Gray. Sadly, sadly missed.

There were a few aspects of the concert which didn’t work too well. I’ve mentioned the dodgy sound balance (as an ex-radio sound operator, I find I really notice these things!) – the lighting was also a bit strange. Flickering lights and projections travelled across the orchestra for the entire concert, and from time to time illuminated the largely unused projection screen, which I found very distracting. The feature-spot didn’t illuminate the soloists until AFTER they’d made their entrance and bowed to the audience, and came up frequently on compère Brian Blessed when he wasn’t supposed to speak. And, oh dear, Brian Blessed… He was woefully under-rehearsed, and paid insufficient attention to his running order. I’m afraid that being a Beloved National Institution is not a substitute for being an Adequate Performer.
Image: Orchestra and Brian Blessed (in the light-coloured jacket, left of picture)

(the photos of the auditorium give a misleading impression of the size of the audience. I was in the top tier, which was about 3/4 full. The other tiers were pretty well occupied too.)

However, these are small nitpicks in what was a fabulously enjoyable evening. Together, Barry Gray and Gerry Anderson made the television that we are all still celebrating decades later. Organisers Ralph Titterton and Cathy Ford can be justifiably proud of themselves.

[Colin]

You were right about International Concerto being a stand-alone piece. what we heard last night bas the Episode score, which only featured snippets of the concerto proper.

I was a lot further back, respelndent in my commemmorative T-Shirt that I'd made up. Better use could have been made of the screen foir example, instead of trying to synchronise the live music with the episode , it might well have been better to have stills from the episode or even more of the montage of Barry at the end.

I was disappointed at the lack of advertising of the event. I specifically signed up with the RFH website and received precisely ZERO information from them concering the event Stockhausen? yep, Gray? not a sausage

[Carrie]

Excellent review Hazel, that picture of Virgil is splendid! It sounds like it was a fabulous evening, minor details aside.

[Skybase Girl]

Sounds like a wonderful evening, Hazel, wish I could have been there. The Thunderbirds theme always sends shivers up my spine.

The photos are excellent, and I'm impressed, as always, at your techno-savvy in getting them on the forum.

[DartBrat701]

Excellent review Hazel, that picture of Virgil is splendid! It sounds like it was a fabulous evening, minor details aside.

I second that!!

Virgil (in the pic w/Doc Brown) has got that same "come hither" look he gave to Penelope! *SWOON!*

[CA242008]

I too second that for the Barry Gray Concert, Fantasic Photo's.

I too took some of the evening & there on my Facebook Profile page, Please click here:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=4 ... =845322371

And here's my Facebook Profile:

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id= ... 1&ref=name

Regards

CA242008