Jack Hutton and Friends - Always Charmers

                    Bob Livingston, Jack Hutton, Ric Giorgi, Brian Bauer, Will Wilson

Resplendent and timeless in their signature concert garb, five of the finest in the fields of ragtime, jazz, swing and beyond returned to the Gravenhurst Opera House on Friday 20 July 2012. Jack Hutton at the piano, Will Wilson on banjo and guitar, Ric Giorgi on bass, Bob Livingston on trombone and Brian Bauer, the clarinetist with the largest collection of saxophones known to Muskoka, or anywhere else, charmed an appreciative audience with mostly familiar tunes, and one that was nearly unknown.

Just as Brian Bauer collects clarinets, saxophones, weird sounds and terrible jokes, Jack Hutton gathers around him authentic players, multi-talented in all directions, and able to swing, literally and figuratively, from instrument to instrument to voice, and from style to style. Wag Bauer, an incurable punster, wants us to know that he is “cymbal-minded”. I want him and you to know just how effective are those well-timed, brassy, foot-activated clashes. Perfect punctuation.

As I relaxed and enjoyed this concert the word that came to me out of nowhere was, “Groovy”. Just what did that term from the twenties, revived in the sixties and seventies actually imply? I guess it means any number of experiences for musicians and audience.

For me, it meant: comfortable and refreshing for us refugees from a gruelling heatwave. Mellow, but a kind of mellow that keeps the listener entertained and alert for the unexpected.

Rounded tones from Bob Livingston’s masterly trombone underpinned a sparkling blend of sound. The sparkles sprang from all and any of the instruments, as the rhythms changed, with turns of a melody and travel in time. Flying fingers on piano or banjo painted with fresh colours time-honoured tunes like “Honeysuckle Rose”, “Just One Of Those Things“ and “If They Asked Me I Could Write A Book”. The clarinet in itself is a multi-lingual instrument. The bass abounds in tonalities.

Their final selection sounded rich and symphonic - as the five rounded out a delightful evening with a glorious burst of melody. Jack writes of “Tickletoe” by Lester Young:

“Only Will Wilson and Brian had ever heard this before. It was the very first time we had ever played it as a group, which is one of the things that makes this group special – constantly re-discovering gems from the past.”

The day after the concert, as this review took shape, I happened on an internet article that went on and on about “the groove”. All fascinating, but I sat up and took notice at this comment, lightly edited by me for comfortable reading:

“When a groove is established among players, the musical whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts, enabling them to experience something beyond themselves which no one of them can create alone.”

That neatly describes what happens when Jack Hutton and friends get together.

Links:

Will Wilson’s new CD: inquire at: guitarbanjoman@gmail.com 

Article on the groove:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groove_(music)

http://www.bala.net/museum/

http://www.gravenhurstoperahouse.com/

Amy Dodington's "Touch of Old"

What better way to round off “A Perfect Day” than with a recital by Amy Dodington, accompanied by Doreen Uren at the piano? The Gravenhurst Opera House, dating from 1901, is a perfect venue for a merry mixture of Elizabethan, baroque, folk songs, Broadway musicals and Edwardian parlour music.

Right at the beginning of this review, I have to admit a certain partiality for Amy’s voice and finely crafted programs. My first draft clearly registered an overall 15 on my usual scale of 10 when reporting a performance. I decided to take a deep breath, set the gush-o-meter down several notches and make a new start in the morning, for the sake of coherence and objectivity.

The next day, instead of grabbing the pen right away, I stopped to analyze the effect on me of seeing, first on the program, a song from Purcell’s Fairy Queen that I have sung myself, at a Grade Ten Conservatory exam. It is not a cherished memory. While my accompanist struggled as if tackling a Himalayan mountain top without enough sherpas or equipment, my clenched teeth ensured that my intonation would get sharper and sharper. How I got a passing mark, I have no idea. Perhaps it was Mozart’s hymn to the Blessed Virgin that saved me.

A happier memory intervenes - a strawberry tea on the lawn of the Michelham Priory in Sussex, England, after a full performance of The Fairy Queen. I remember the strawberries and cream better than the music.

Now I come happily back to the Gravenhurst Opera House on the evening of 14 July 2012, when I at long last heard the Purcell aria as I would have liked to sing it - in fact, as I had not yet heard it sung to my satisfaction. “A Touch of Old” opened with Purcell’s triumphal flourish dedicated to the first Queen Elizabeth of Britain. The piano introduction flowed easily in the hands of Doreen Uren, wafting us lightly into a land of enchantment, where pleased cupids clapped their wings to the rhythm of a voice drenched in magic - Amy Dodington’s. She had a lot of fun with those cupids.

A cluster of art songs followed, Brahms expanding on the elusiveness of poetic inspiration, Reynaldo Hahn’s inspired setting of a poem by Verlaine, Barber’s ditty on The Monk and His Cat and Schubert’s setting of Gretchen’s spinning wheel song from Goethe’s monumental “Faust”.

Verlaine’s “L’Heure exquise” has encapsulated the essence of French Romantic poetry for me and my husband, who kept it on the wall above his desk. This was my first hearing of its evocative musical setting by Reynaldo Hahn. Before attempting any commentary, I went to youtube to listen to several singers' interpretations, and was amazed at how many of the greatest and the best of them fall short of evoking the scene painted by the poet's words. In general the singer was content with intoning the notes in a mellifluous voice.

What about the mystery and the beauty of moonlit woods, where the profound mirror of a pond reflects the silhouette of a black willow and a vast and tender tranquility from the heavens enfolds the scene? Amy Dodington’s voice has a visionary quality, breathing in magic and breathing it out again in “L’Heure exquise”. She seems to be experiencing this poem from within, and inviting the listener into Verlaine's woods under his moon.

Here I would like to highlight another of Amy’s outstanding performances: Gretchen am Spinnrade, an outpouring of enraptured love accompanied by the relentless rhythms of the spinning wheel. In this homely setting for unquenchable passion, Gretchen is on her way to ruin and madness, the victim of Mephisto’s wiles, with Faust as the engine of her undoing.

Glazounov’s “Oriental Romance”, the Irish folk song “She Moved Through the Fair” and the Scottish, “There’s Nae Luck About the House” completed the first part of our travel through space and time. Both Amy and her sister Victoria Banks are gifted unaccompanied singers of Irish songs. I could listen to them all night.

The second part of the program featured tuneful Broadway melodies, including “Edelweiss”, “If I Loved You” and a mischievous “Once in Love with Amy”. Then a costume change was in order from the diva dress to an heirloom outfit dating back to the parlour songs of the early 1900’s. Amy’s flexible voice revives the pathos, the joy and the courage of these nearly forgotten gems. She has unearthed a whole collection, like “When You Come to the End of a Perfect Day”. Her three encores were also of that charming vintage.

Links:

Amy sings Margaret (or Gretchen) at the Spinning Wheel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rO83WErmCPU&feature=channel&list=UL

Amy sings: If I loved you

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_mWT-jlQ7U&feature=channel&list=UL

Amy’s website: http://www.amydodington.com/

Gravenhurst Opera House: http://www.gravenhurstoperahouse.com

NORTH SEA GAS

A Scottish National, and Planetary, Treasure 

The three multi-talented members of North Sea Gas brought to the Gravenhurst Opera House an exhilerating, toe-tapping, heart-warming experience of authentic Scottish folk music on the evening of 24 September 2011.

The stage was set with an impressive array of instruments. We counted two guitars, two mandola, a bouzouki, a bodhran, at least one banjo, and last, but not least, a fiddle. The harmonica was less easy to spot. All these were picked up and passed glibly from hand to hand by a trio of outstanding musicians: Dave Gilfillan, Ronnie MacDonald and Grant Simpson.

These professionals drew us into the informal ambiance of a céilidh, inviting us to sing along in choruses and to add our clapping to the percussion. Some of us could not restrain the occasional whoop during a rollicking dance tune.

Grant Simpson’s fiddle wove the music into a rich tapestry of charm. Masterfully blended vocal harmonies, with and without accompaniment, held me spellbound. Dave Gilfillan’s arrangements are tasteful, colourful and compelling, ranging from unison to vibrant harmonies.

Here is a live performance from youtube: Broom o' the Cowdenknowes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlVBFeyrWPc&feature=related
Lyrics available at:
http://chivalry.com/cantaria/lyrics/broom-cowdenknowes.html

North Sea Gas attracts the Scottish diaspora wherever they perform, and adds more fans as they roll along, with a repertoire of old and new, tragical and comic songs. This bardic flow of energy brings to life brave history from the days of Bonnie Prince Charlie, and calls attention to current issues, like the present plight of the Travelling People.

Scotland’s gypsies, tinkers and anyone else accustomed to the nomadic life are now hemmed in by laws that oblige them to live in towns all winter long, just waiting for the broom to bloom yellow and announce the spring when they can go on the road again. As Dave Gilfillan wryly states, “There are only three of us left now.”

For thirty years this band has toured the British Isles, Austria, Canada, the United States, Turkey, Germany and Estonia. They recorded for Chinese television in 2008 with an estimated audience of 800 million. Regular performers at the Ediburgh Festival “Fringe”, they have received Gold and Silver disc awards and recorded 14 albums.

The North Sea Gas version of the story of Willie aka William Taylor prompted me to go googling. That “brisk young sailor” cropped up  all over the British Isles and in North America, in many variants of the ballad. He really got around, this bridegroom. The basic story is that he was nabbed by a press gang at the church door just in time to stop his wedding. His bride wasn’t about to let him go that easily. (Did she suspect that the press gang was orchestrated by Willie himself?) Dressed as a man, she went after him, found him engaged to another woman and promptly shot him dead. According to the ending of the North Sea Gas variant, the captain of Willie’s ship appointed this enterprising lady as commander of another vessel in the same fleet.

I would recommend that anyone within range of a concert by North Sea Gas be sure to reserve seats, and buy CDs afterward, as they are easily available after a concert, but less so from a distance.

Apologies for taking more than a week to funnel all the fun and bardic pageantry of the evening of Saturday 24 September into some semblance of a review. This was one of those performances where I just sat back and had a great time, without trying to nail down any details. That came later, as I listened, and danced, to North Sea Gas’s latest CD, “Tak a Dram Before Ye Go” and read the lyrics and comments on the accompanying literature.

Searching on youtube I was delighted to hear the North Sea Gas take on some of the favourites of our local Muldrew Lake Sing Song:

Loch Lomond
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSYlhpdb0eg&feature=related

and Will Ye No Come Back Again?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZvmUaTU81s&feature=relate

and others new to me:
A comic song from their youtube collection:
I Wish They’d Do It Now
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39uoY_CLOcA&feature=related

Cam Ye O'er Frae France
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5yECczRsIk&feature=related

Caledonia http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvFcBm3AEFM&feature=related

More information is available at the group’s website: http://www.northseagas.co.uk.

And now back to
http://www.gravenhurstoperahouse.com/

VALDY - A MAN WITH A THOUSAND FRIENDS

Valdy

Folk minstrel Valdy returned to a favourite theatre, the Gravenhurst Opera House, on Monday evening 12 September as a freshly minted Member of the Order of Canada. We were honoured and delighted to hear his flexible voice and inimitable guitar celebrating herons, Salt Spring Island Buddhist monks, life on the road and - after intermission - the birthday of Nancy in the audience, who sang along, mystified but enthusiastic. In addition to being a magician disguised as a magnificent musician, Valdy has the gift of friendship.

Nancy and I were blown away by Valdy’s guitar gifts, so much so that it has taken me a couple of days to find a few words to capture the experience. I’m going to have to fumble for them, beginning with impressions of Canadian folk singers heard at the Bohemian Embassy Coffee House on Toronto’s Gerard Street in the sixities.

We had a few headliners like Ian and Sylvia Tyson who could both sing and play the guitar very well indeed. Most performers did better on guitar than on singing, and that was OK. The guitar kept them in tune, basically. The better they played the accompaniment, the less it mattered that the tunes were mainly of the one-note variety because the harmonies carried the song.

Sundays were amateur nights, where a friend of mine found out the hard way that you couldn’t get away with just strumming your guitar; you had to be pretty handy with the strings. Her début as amateur performer at the Bohemian Embassy did not go over well with the blasé audience. She vowed never to bring her guitar again, a difficult resolve for an avid collector of folk music since childhood. But she couldn’t stay away, just left the guitar at home. Folk music was stretching its muscles, at an exciting time to live in.

One evening my friend felt like singing a favourite Irish traditional song and found out something surprising. The MC couldn’t believe her when she apologized for having no accompaniment. His eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets at the very idea of anyone simply singing. She didn’t even apologize for being a soprano. She was too far gone to turn back. The MC announced in hushed tones that the next number would be unaccompanied. Into the shocked hush that followed she poured “The Lover’s Curse”. A pin drop silence, then warm applause. This old, old song, fiercely anti-war, fitted in with the Sixties’ crucible of new music of the people. For a brief moment, the room reverted to the most basic instrument - the human voice.

Returning to our own exciting times, on Monday 12 September 2011 at the Gravenhurst Opera House, neither Nancy nor I could think of anyone we’d ever heard who could be so at one with a guitar and make it play in surprising keys, and whose voice can float or growl, who is also a poet with a gamut from pathos to unfettered fun. It would appear that Canada had to wait until the seventies before a minstrel came on the scene who had the gift of melody in his compositions, knew exactly what he wanted to do with his voice and made an orchestra out of his guitar. That was Valdy. And still is.

I may be wrong, but my honest impression of Valdy, gathered from hearing him in person for the first time the other night, is that nobody else can play guitar like that, with a voice so at one with the instrument that there were moments when I could have sworn the guitar was singing too. He delights in establishing rhythm patterns in the accompaniment that convey the movement of an 18-wheeler, a train on track, Rick Hanson’s globe-circling wheelchair or a tall dark stranger shambling into town.

As far as I am concerned, this is an artist who could pick up the Muskoka telephone book and make a ballad out of it that would have hearts beating in tune with an earthy sentiment of local and universal significance. There could be some sharp social commentary to hit a nerve and tickle a chuckle as well.

Now that I have managed, more or less, to describe the vibes of this concert, I’ll give the pen to Valdy himself, as found on his richly informative and entertaining website.

http://www.valdy.com

“Valdy, born Valdemar Horsdal in Ottawa, Canada has been part of the fabric of Canadian pop and folk music for over 34 years. A man with a thousand friends, from Newfoundland to Vancouver Island to Texas to New Zealand, he's a singer, guitarist and songwriter who catches the small but telling moments that make up life.

"Remembered for Play Me a Rock and Roll Song, his bitter-sweet memory of finding himself, a relaxed and amiable story-teller, facing a rambunctious audience at the Aldergrove Rock Festival circa 1968, Valdy has sold almost half a million copies of his 13 albums, has two Juno Awards (Folk Singer of the Year and Folk Entertainer of the Year), a total of seven Juno nominations and four Gold albums to his credit.

“There is not enough music in the world. ... Play for the kids, you adults. Play for the adults, you kids."
 
We loved Valdy at the Gravenhurst Opera House as they will on his tour to Kinkardine, Toronto, Brampton, Port Hope, Goderich in Ontario and Amherst, Shelbourne, Annapolis Royal and Middle Musquodoboit in Nova Scotia, Riverview, Ford Mills, St. Andrew's in New Brunswick, Okanagan Valley, Sicamous in BC, and back to Ontario: Newburgh,Toronto, London, Alliston and the Holiday Train, Montreal to Vancouver, Nov. 26 to Dec. 17. And other places too numerous to list here. This shortened list of engagements gives a general idea of the energy generated by this outstanding Canadian troubadour.

Here he is on Youtube singing, “Play me a rock and roll song”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtNSljYgDe8

And now back to
http://www.gravenhurstoperahouse.com/

LORNE ELLIOTT'S UPSIDE OF THE DOWNSIDE

JACK WOULD HAVE ENJOYED THIS SHOW. WE DID.


Writer, composer, actor, musician Lorne Elliott has been meandering all over Canada and gathering comic gems about us for nearly 30 years. His performance on the historic stage of the Gravenhurst Opera House Tuesday 23 August 2011 happened one day after the death of a former schoolmate of his in Hudson, Quebec.

Like many, if not all, of the audience at the Opera House that evening, and millions across Canada, I was mourning the rapid decline and sudden passing of Jack Layton, leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition, and an inspiration within and beyond his political affiliation with the NDP. It seemed somehow quite appropriate to carry on with life as usual, and attend a show that I am sure Jack would have enjoyed.

In fact, as we learned with the last sentence from the stage, that whole evening was dedicated to the late Mr. Layton. “This one’s for you,  Jack!” Subtly, Lorne Elliott, a consummate master of searching and gentlemanly humour, had been working up to that quiet ending all evening as he tickled us into gales of laughter.

An evening with this quintessential Canadian comedian is a whirlwind journey “Madly Off in All Directions”, like his former Saturday afternoon broadcasts on CBC Radio. Eager to catch his current show on stage, I had no idea how much more fun it would be to see that rubbery face in action, and the trademark shocked hairdo and baggy trousers.

In fact I just barely caught this live show. Try to sneak inconspicuously into our venerable Opera House from its updated elevator entrance, just below stage right, in a colourful Ghanian print outfit.

Up on stage Lorne was mercilessly wrangling a microphone on a heavy stand, and regaling an already appreciative house with wildly graphic self-deprecations on a home renovation disaster. Next thing we knew it, we were sharing an off-shore breeze off Prince Edward Island in a home-crafted boat that was the epitome of ineptitude.

A typical effect of a stage performance by Lorne Elliott seems to be a certain infectiousness. We have just seen an example of this, as I got embroiled in excessive vocabularizations, as characterized by Lorne’s CBC icon, Rex Murphy.

Thorough enjoyment of an Elliott gig would imply that the audience is familiar with the CBC and its personalities. His contagious flippancy rubs off on his audiences, who come out of his performances feeling funny and quipping merrily. Warmed up by successively more hilarious misadventures in home renovation, landscaping and boat-building, we easily swallowed passing comments like, “Canadian - it’s a wonder we manage to breathe.”

Part of the Elliott mandate is to add the audience’s home town to his itinerary and litany. He kept us neatly skewered in Gravenhurst, and seemed to know intuitively that we are inclined to be “weird”. Funny he should notice that. Other reviewers have noticed his noticing, and reported him as an astute observer of Canadian wildlife, including the humans and super-humans like David Suzuki.

Undoubtedly noting a predominance of grey heads among us, Lorne made sure anyone the least bit hard of hearing was able to capture the rich subtleties of moose, a language he speaks fluently in his alter ego of Morris, the Moose. The guy next to me was joining quite effectively in the chorus of that song.

I idly wonder if Lorne Elliott happened to know that here in Gravenhurst we don’t need to go into the woods, with or without warning bells, but may casually meet a bear strolling around the Opera House or up a tree by the Salvation Army church. At any rate, his comments tend to hit close to home.

In the artist’s own words:  “The one-man show I'm performing now is called "THE UPSIDE OF THE DOWNTURN". ... The way the One-man show works is by not staying in one place too long. It's harder to hit a moving target.”

Here is a sample of Lorne Elliott in action, using some of the ideas that we heard in Gravenhurst. One of two clips from a show at Stephensville, Newfoundland:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3EcO8dSJQY&feature=related

His own website is fun to browse and most informative.
http://www.lorne-elliott.com

Off and on during the writing of this review I was watching CBC television’s coverage of Jack Layton’s lying in state at the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa, and interviews with his close friends and associates. Jian Ghomeshi, a personal friend of Jack and his family, made a shiver go down my spine as he reported NDP Caucus Members vowing “not to go madly off in all directions” but to work together toward their late leader’s visions and goals for Canada.

I didn’t happen to vote NDP in the recent election, and I’m not a member of any party, but I am so sad to see a great leader leave us just after bringing Quebec into the federal fold and taking his place as the first NDP leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition. This one is for you, Jack, for Olivia and your family, and for all of us who have appreciated your decency, responsibility, music and fun in politics and in our lives.

And now back to
http://www.gravenhurstoperahouse.com/

Dragonfly Theatre Presents "Beyond a Joke"

“Just think. If there were no television and no church, none of this would have happened.”

“This” is an escalating series of pseudo disasters visiting the characters of the British farce, “Beyond a Joke”. Popular playwright Derek Benfield is not Shakespeare, but knows how to whip up a light cocktail of summer theatre fun set in the décor of an English country house and garden. Ladders, wheelbarrows and rubber boots lend a rustic air to the action, peppered by dialogue that gathers momentum and wit as it moves along.

As one of the audience on opening night, I can assure you that the set is pleasant and expansive, and the acting and direction excellent, ably overcoming Benfield’s rather stodgy first act and gathering glib momentum in the second. As characters are added  the tempo accelerates.

The macabre theme is, as the title forebodes, not the least funny in itself. And that’s the whole point of the exercise. “After all,” says a central character, “It can happen to anyone.”

Beyond this very sketchy review I cannot go, without letting too many bodies, I mean cats, out of bags, closets or wheelbarrows. The lily pond is almost like a character in the play, gathering sinister overtones as it is pointed at from the stage, off in the invisible distance. As for the summer house ...

I hope I have intrigued anyone who has not seen the play yet, sufficiently to consider investing in a summer evening with the inimitable Dragonfly Theatre Company in the Trillium Court at the Gravenhurst Opera House.

There is still time to join the audience. “Beyond a Joke” completes its run on 13th August.  Dinner is served.

AMY DODINGTON’S “OLD TIMES’ SAKE”

A Diva’s Green Travelogue in Time and Space

The Gravenhurst Opera House felt rather like a Victorian parlor on Friday evening, 22 July, 2011, lending its warm acoustics to the sunny voice and presence of Amy Dodington, soprano. Her program, “Old Times’ Sake”, is a delightful, eclectic, array of gems from opera, music hall, classics, traditional folk music, operetta, musical comedy and parlor songs, encompassing not only hundreds, but thousands of years.

 The program began with the lute of the legendary Orpheus,  and proceeded smoothly and surely through different styles and periods. The magic carpet comes to mind as a perfect vehicle for all this traveling in time. Lift-offs were impeccable, and landings airy on a variety of musical terrains. Amy Dodington’s flexible voice is equally at home in the lyric, dramatic, and - perhaps even more equally - the coloratura repertoire. This much was evident in the first half of the program. Then in the second half, she revealed an affinity with the Celtic tradition as if she’d been born to sing the Irish “My Lagan Love” and the Welsh, “David of the White Rock”. Without a doubt in my mind, she was.

Amy Dodington’s gifts extend beyond her musicianship to the knack of drawing an audience into the charmed world of a carefully crafted program inspired from the heart, where “pin drop” after “pin drop” silences descend between the final note of a song and the applause. I’ve never heard so many such hushed moments in any one concert by anybody.

The more than 100-year-old stage of the Gravenhurst Opera House lent itself to dressing like the diva that Amy Dodington is for the first half of a concert, then stepping out in costume of the early 1900s in the second half. In a few well chosen phrases she shared a family background of her father’s classical records and a tuneful mother with a lovely voice - the latter now silenced forever. When Nora Dodington passed on in 2009 at the age of 65, the Cellar Singers dedicated their performance of the Bach B Minor Mass to her. The second part of her daughter’s concert begins with Dvořák’s “Songs My Mother Taught Me”, beautifully shaped and textured.

Back to Amy Dodington’s musicianship, she delivers each song from the inside out; she is the song, while cloaked in its vintage and style. We may have heard “I Could Have Danced All Night” from “My Fair Lady” adorably sung by a galaxy of great sopranos from Julie Andrews to Audra McDonald. Amy from Port Carling also makes it hers. I suspect that she has more than one feeling for interpreting any song afresh every performance.

The accompanist for this concert was the multi-talented Geoffrey Conquer, who also treated us to four glittering solos that reflected his own personal assimilation of the Russian schools of piano. He has studied with internationally renowned masters like Marina Mdivani, a pupil of the great Emil Gilels. Keep an eye and ear open for the name Geoffrey Conquer.

Thankfully, this review is not an adjudication, but merely an appreciation intended to re-create at least in part a delightful experience. Still, I have to give excellent  German and Italian pronunciation its due recognition. When it is as authentic as Amy Dodington’s it could easily go unrecognized, seamless with the song. German can be a lovely language when lovingly pronounced. In this concert it was easy for the fussiest germanophile to stay entirely enchanted by Wolf’s setting of Goethe’s exquisite poem, “Anakreons Grab”.

I wish I could go on about each tasty morsel of the whole program, “Old Times’ Sake”, and gush about that gorgeous gown the colour of ruby red wine, but rather than get completely carried away, I have one more thing to say before ending this review. Pause for me to get up on a soap box.

More than 20 years ago I put together a list of songs about green growing things like trees, the water and sun that nourish them and the creatures that live in them. Only recently did I begin a blog to suggest to artists that they include “green” pieces in their programs. Something to that effect must be capturing the attention of many who aspire to keeping our planet green.

Amy Dodington begins with a song about Orpheus playing his lute to the trees, the mountains, plants, flowers, the sun, showers, the sea. “Anakreons Grab” depicts a poet’s last resting place, sweet with the scent of roses and the sound of turtle doves, planted with laurels and green bushes and under the care of the gods. The second-last piece is Oscar Rasbach’s “Trees”. The concert ends with a song by "Annie Laurie" composer, Alicia Scott, evoking the sweet perfume of jasmine.

When a graduate from Zoology, Anthropology and Environmental Sciences puts together a program called “Old Times’ Sake”, no wonder it’s green. Thank you, Amy, for a refreshing, reflective evening sparkling with your unique sense of humour.


http://www.gravenhurstoperahouse.com/

ASARO AND HUTTON MAKE MASTERFUL STRIDES ON TWO PIANOS

Jack Hutton can’t get over stride piano player Paul Asaro’s left hand. That’s the hand that can play “Tea for Two” while the right hand tinkles out “Indian Love Song” or whatever other tune takes Asaro’s fancy. Together, Asaro’s gifted hands and equally flexible voice dazzled and delighted an appreciative audience crowding the Gravenhurst Opera House on the evening of Saturday 9 July 2011.

Once again an artist of the ragtime persuasion has triumphed over the Steinway on that venerable stage. Occasional high and mighty visiting pianists may have been overheard complaining about the keys being “stiff”. Yet, magically, the ragtime guys and gals who come to Gravenhurst year after year, thanks to Jack Hutton, manage to electrify the staid Steinway with sheer joy and boundless enthusiasm.

The great Mimi Blais, “Ragtime” Bob Darch and Dick Hyman love to play “stride”, but seemed only to mention it in passing, as if we all knew what it was. To my recollection, they never stopped long enough to spell out exactly what stride is. It sounded big, very masculine like a cowboy marching toward a bull to ride. I was poised with flashlight and notebook for heroic, loud sounds to be diligently analyzed. Those were there, all right, but only when called for. The dynamics were subtle and varied as were the rhythms. I relaxed, entranced.

“Carolina Shout” has a robust and tuneful bass, with a delicate treble accompaniment that occasionally picks up the melody, then throws it back to the left hand. This piece  by “The Father of Stride”, James P. Johnson was “a major rite of passage for aspiring Harlem stride piano players” according to Ted Gioia.

Johnson himself can be heard on youtube playing “Carolina Shout” recorded from a piano roll - hence no scratchy 1920’s recording sounds. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSFGyipsNsg

And so I gathered, at last, that stride is an intricate and sophisticated  school of music that arose in the 1920’s when ragtime met jazz. The blending of these two streams opened out new freedom to improvise, new demands for virtuosity and oceans of fun. The stride style demands more of the left hand than ragtime ever did. The bass no longer thumps out an oom-pa-pa tuba part derived from military marches, as in early ragtime - around the 1860’s and the American Civil War. The left hand of a stride pianist ranges widely up and down the bass register, with the little finger sometimes assigned to a melody of its own. For an example of this, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68c6XrIT0_w&feature=related

No doubt about it, Paul Asaro is, as one reviewer called him, a “one man band”. In fact that’s what a ragtime piano player is, all the more so when s/he moves into stride. You can hear the brass band in the bass, while clarinets, trumpets, flutes and violins warble in the treble. As it happens, Asaro’s is possibly the most colourful piano playing I’ve ever heard, from the classics onward.

Inspired by “Professor” Ragtime Bob Darch, young Paul put on a playful professorial hat to give us a crash course in What Ragtime Is All About. We heard Scot Joplin’s “Maple Leaf Rag” played first in ragtime, and then in stride. After “Riffs” by Johnson we were treated to Willie “The Lion” Smith’s delicate, almost Chopin-like “Echoes of Spring”.

The upright piano on centre stage was all set for Asaro/Hutton duos beginning with “Ain’t Misbehavin’” by Fats Waller. There hadn’t been time for a rehearsal, but it was easy to guess the spontaneity on stage sprang from long experience and pure improvisation. As Jack wrote following the show: “Paul and I have played together twice at Alexandria Bay, N.Y., and have developed a pretty good sense of what the other one is going to play.  We fit together very well because we have both been listening for many years to the same recordings.”
Clip from duo above on 9 July 2011 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuJf1wgO4Lo

All this listening to legacy recordings must be part of the training for ragtime and stride piano players. The first time Jack heard Paul playing in another room, he wondered momentarily whether Fats Waller had come back to life. And no, this was not Jelly Roll Morton either, fitting his fingers into the keys of a player piano at full speed.

After intermission an exuberant Paul Asaro treated us to Jelly Roll Morton’s beginnings in New Orleans, when Mamie, the lady next door, used to play the blues every morning with eight fingers - she was missing two. Mamie’s blues evolved into Morton’s. We heard “The Jelly Roll Blues”, “Mr. Jelly Lord”, the tango-like “Crave”, “Animule Dance” and a roaring “Tiger Rag”. (First time I heard that piece with such a ROAR in the bass.)

Jack returned for a duo “China Boy”, lots of fun for both players, and for us.

Then it was “Aloysius, Do The Dishes”, a haunting tune that you can hear Paul Asaro perform at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8TXge1OKgQ

“Handful of Keys” was a foretaste of the final piece, and “The Blind Pig Blues” is an Asaro composition.

The grand finale was Paul Asaro’s interpretation of Jelly Roll Morton’s “Fingerbreaker”, which Jack Hutton classifies as “an incredibly difficult piece that I will NEVER be able to play. Paul Asaro makes it sound easy. Our audience heard one of the best stride piano players on this planet last night -- and he is only 43!”

Notes from Jack Hutton about winding down in the Trillium Court:

Downstairs, Paul and I played  together until close to 11 p.m. That included “Honeysuckle Rose” by Fats Waller, “Echo of Spring” by Willie “the Lion” Smith and “I’ve Got My Fingers Crossed”, which Fats Waller played in the Lena Horne movie, “Stormy Weather”. That last tune was our best of the whole night --  very close to the way Fats played it!

We did Willie the Lion’s signature tune, “Relaxing”, before we finished.  I started playing it after Paul got up to leave and he rushed back to join me.  Willie used to play it late at night and play it differently with every chorus.  Paul and I had great fun doing the same thing. Have you noticed that many of my concerts last longer downstairs than they do upstairs!

Dale Peacock wrote asking what is stride piano, and I’ve tried to incorporate some notion of this while writing a review, which is something like playing two different pieces with each hand.

Dick Hyman’s demonstration “from ragtime to stride” can be found on youtube at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eo_365T1B2o&feature=related

And finally, here is Paul Asaro playing "Fingerbreaker":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lf3ozxMjsLU&feature=related

Thank you, Paul and Jack for a wonderful melodic, rhythmic evening.

http://www.gravenhurstoperahouse.com/

How to Review the Cottage Country Comedy Festival Without being a Spoiler

At last! The Cottage Country Comedy Festival made it to the Gravenhurst Opera House in 2011 on the evening of 23 June for the Gala Opening of its fourth summer season. In the deeply Muskokan atmosphere of a seemingly simple set, the comedians are encouraged to get their words flowing, with the well-timed silences and human and non-human sounds that are all part of the process. The CBC was filming and recording, and so picked up the boisterous enthusiasm of an audience more than ready for an evening that was clearly beyond their high expectations.

As Bracebridge native Tyler Morrison, Creative Director, and multi-award winner, writes on the CCCF website, the festival brings “comedians together from all over the world for a great weekend filled with laughs and a true Muskokan experience”. The intention here is, “to build shows with a dynamic all killer no filler appeal...  the energy is very tangible, something that the audience can feel through the performances.”

Last night that energy bounced back and forth between audience and comedians as I have rarely seen happen at the Gravenhurst Opera House since Dave Broadfoot's First Final Tour in 2001. When we delighted in Dave, we were witnessing the mature talent of a Canadian icon, ever fresh and youthful.

On 23 June 2011, we heard a performer shout how thrilled he was to crown his career by making it to the stage of the Gravenhurst Opera House. Part of the laugh there included our knowledge that, like all his buddies on stage that evening, he has much to look forward to. And so have we. This is a young show, which perhaps partly explains the thread of pre-occupation with aging.

Unknown to the team, near the back of the hall was an 80-year-old reviewer-blogger who had decided to leave her notebook at home and just enjoy the show. The Cottage Country Comedy Festival with comic after comic prancing onto the stage did not seem an occasion to crouch in the dark making frantic notes in invisible writing.

The CCCF rampage continues at The Rosseau on 24 June and Port Carling Community Centre on 25 June. Bracebridge’s Griffin Pub on 12 August and the Rene M. Caisse Theatre on 13 August, as can be seen and heard on the CCCF website http://www.cottagecomedy.com/

They are updating it as I type. It’s a very generous, entertaining and informative site, with video samplings, also letting us glimpse part of the set, to whet appetites.

Click to return to the Gravenhurst Opera House website.

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Velvet on the Soul

AN ENTHUSIASTIC AUDIENCE WELCOMES JACK HUTTON AND FRIENDS

“Velvet on the soul” were the words that occurred to me, at the Gravenhurst Opera House on Friday evening, 27 August 2010, hearing a smooth and vibrant blend of saxophone, string bass, piano, trombone and banjo by Jack Hutton and Friends. The warm acoustics of the Opera House were perfect for bringing to life music of the twenties, thirties and forties.

The grey-haired, multi-talented quintette played for a mainly grey-haired audience buzzing with renewed energies from their teen-aged years. The musicians evoked memories of Dunn’s Pavillion, where Duke Ellington  played six engagements and lapped up ice cream in between numbers. Now follows the line-up of artists and the pieces they played, with notes by Jack Hutton.

Ric Giorgi, string bass and violin, Toronto

Bob Livingston, trombone, Midland

Brian Bauer, clarinet and every saxophone known to man, Buffalo

Jack Hutton, piano and leader, Bala

FIRST HALF

Black Bottom (E flat)

Written by Perry Bradford, a black ragtime pianist and composer around 1909. It set off the Black Bottom dance craze after being featured in a New York variety show in 1927. We usually play it exactly the way it was originally recorded, but Brian finished with a Charleston ending that came from a recording that none of the rest of us had ever heard. That’s what makes playing with this group so interesting (and unexpected).

Clarinet Marmalade (F) 

The cutting piece which aspiring jazz clarinet musicians had to be able to play in the 1920s and 1930s

Crazy Words and Crazy Tunes, 1927, as performed by the Varsity Collegians at Gerry Dunn’s first dance hall in Bala in the 1930s. In the piano chorus, I put Fats Waller’s stride classic "Handful of Keys" on top of the tune.

Everything I Have Is Yours 1933, performed at the first and second Dunn’s Pavilions. Brian Bauer played it in the style of Frankie Trumbauer.

I’ll Never Smile Again (F)

Bob Livingston solo of the Canadian tune written by Ruth Lowe in 1939 and recorded by Tommy Dorsey in 1941 with a skinny new singer, Frank Sinatra (his first recording).

Mood Indigo (B flat) 

Recalling Duke Ellington’s six appearances at Dunn’s Pavilion

Songs of the Golden Era

Ain’t Cha Glad, written by Fats Waller G (Willie sings). Piano tried to evoke the way that Fats would have played it (he never recorded it, to our knowledge) (Helen cuts in here: And, Jack, the Waller style came across clearly.)

Georgia Cabin (E flat)

Composed by Sidney Bechet (Ric sings)

Nuages (Clouds) Django Rheinhardt 

Beautifully rendered by Will Wilson on the guitar.

　

SECOND HALF

Tribute to Richard Rodgers

If They Asked Me I Could Write A Book 

Will Wilson vocal and also Jack vocal (not scheduled)

Manhattan

Tune that launched career for Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart

You Took Advantage of Me (E flat)

I’m Getting Sentimental Over You (B flat)

Audience request. Bob Livingston plays signature piece of Tommy Dorsey as played at Dunn’s Pavilion.

Michelle sung by Will Wilson

Embraceable You

Gershwin tune played at request of audience member

Body and Soul (D flat) 

Tribute to Hart Wheeler

(Note from Helen: anybody who plays anything in five flats has my awed admiration!)

The Sheik of Araby 

Request of audience member, with audience participation in refrains like “Without no pants on”

Struttin’ With Some BBQ  (E flat)

Lady is a Tramp (Rodgers Hart) FINALE

ENCORE: Lady Be Good (Gershwin) at request of audience member

　　

Thanks to Jack Hutton emailing the playlist and the fascinating background material. Jack also writes: “We had so many requests over the intermission that we could have played till dawn if we had played them all.

“There were a couple more in the second half that were unexpected ones, bowing to audience requests, but I would have to listen to cassette recordings to remember what they were! I am pretty sure that one of them was "Nothing Could Be Finer Than To Be In Carolina" by Walter Donaldson, one of the greatest composers in the 1920s.

“As you probably gathered, there is quite a love relationship between the band and that special audience, some of whom have not missed one of the seven or eight concerts at the Opera House since our first one. Also, a number of jazz scholars drive up from the GTA and New York State every time they hear that we are playing anywhere. They know we play tunes that you will not hear anywhere else, played as faithfully as we can possibly do it from long-lost old 78 rpm records.”

Again, thank you Jack!

Here is Helen to wind up this accolade with, “A grand old time was had by all.”

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Traveling Back in Time

“ENGLISH ROSE” GASSED OUT ON ITS FIRST NIGHT, A GAS ON THE SECOND

From accounts by Helen Heubi in "The Muskoka Times"

Friday 28 September, 2001, was to be the first night of two for Peter Scott’s well-knit play, “English Rose”, starring Muskoka’s own Robin Clipsham. By showtime, 8 pm, the Gravenhurst Opera House was comfortably full, the audience primed for an evening of inspired comedy and the artist ready to prance onto the stage and liven it up as if she were a whole troupe of players. That Friday evening performance, however, simply didn’t take place. Seconds before curtain time the Opera House had to be evacuated because of a gas leak.

“I was all set to step out on the stage,” said Robin Clipsham, “When I peeped through a chink and saw people getting up and leaving.” At first she thought that someone must have fallen ill and had to be taken out. Then the whole hall emptied - in less than two minutes. Robin groped her way in the blacked out stage to the headset to try to find out what was going on, couldn’t see what button to press, so pressed them all. After what seemed like a very long time, but was only a few minutes, she learned why the Opera House was being evacuated. Imagine being about to perform, only to see your audience quietly evaporate. And they didn’t have to scramble out of costume and makeup and into street clothes.

Without waste of time my friend and I had joined the orderly audience gently streaming down the stairs by the elevator and out the south entrance. As I look back I am reminded of one of those dreamlike slow motion sequences in a film, with a slight blurring and little or no sound.Outside, we saw three fire engines strategically positioned. Firemen were shrugging on their coats and heading toward the entrances. Later I asked the fire chief if the sirens had been on, and indeed they had, although we inside did not hear them. My friend and I joined the crowd on the pavements around the Opera House, and waited about half an hour until someone strolled over and said, “Robin’s gone home.”

Two teams of firefighters were sent into the Opera House to discover the source of the strong smell of gas, and found it in the basement under the Trillium Court. They also found three or four people backstage who were not aware of the evacuation, and joined us rapidly outside. Within the hour the gas people had removed the offending boiler and turned off the furnace until repairs could be completed. For the rest of the night, however, no one was allowed back in the building.

Meanwhile, across the street at the Rickshaw for a late supper I reminisced about the Saturday afternoon back in the 1940s when cottagers at Muldrew Lake decided to celebrate our annual regatta by going to the show in town, only to find the movie theatre closed for a death in the manager’s family. The town was full of Norweigian airmen, tourists, cottagers and town residents at loose ends. The younger and wilder of us crashed a dance in the town hall - now the Opera House. Other more sedate members of our party ended up in that very same Chinese restaurant for a coffee and milkshake to fortify us for the three-mile walk back to Indian Landing.

My friend couldn't join me when I saw the full performance of "English Rose". I enjoyed it enough for two people. A full review follows in a later post.

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Three Standing Ovations for Victoria Banks

by Helen Heubi

Thunderous applause and a standing ovation welcomed Victoria Banks to the stage of the Gravenhurst Opera House on Saturday 7 August, 2010. The dazzling evening began with a cymbal salute from the band, introducing “The Wheel”, Victoria’s award-winning single, and ended on an intimate note with “The Other Side”, interpreted by no other instrument than her expressive voice. A final standing ovation had brought on this moving encore, and another followed it.

Victoria couldn’t help repeating from time to time that she always loves to return to Gravenhurst to perform in her native Muskoka. It’s been a long way from Port Carling, where she was born, to Toronto University for a BA in zoology, to Nashville, the “City of Dreams”, where she has worked for the past ten years. Pursuing her greatest passion, song writing, has not been easy. “Nashville gives you a roller-coaster ride of emotions,” she says.

Powerful words and music roll out of Victoria’s life experiences. In between songs, she shared some of these with us. Her songs tell it like it is. What to do with a wedding ring that would not go away by itself, years after the joyous marriage, the painful awakening and the inevitable divorce? The answer came in a song. 

Victoria’s gifts for writing lyrics and music had been discovered not long after she came to Nashville. She tailors her songs to the singers who request them. One artist she collaborated with is Jessica Simpson, whose rendering of “Come on Over” was rated highest charting debut country artist's single in Billboard history. Victoria knew her career had moved up a vital notch when, driving along a country road near Nashville, she heard one of her own compositions on the air for the first time. Her car radio was broadcasting Sara Evans singing “Saints and Angels”.

While flying to flooded Nashville in May of this year, after being away during the worst of its disaster, Victoria wrote a song of courage and survival, inspired by  emails from her friends there. Some had lost everything. Beneath her plane, where she expected to see downtown lights, she saw only darkness. The Grand Old Opry sat in ten feet of water. Other musicians rallied to  produce her song, “City of Dreams”, as a video, now available on the Red Cross site www.CityOfDreamsNashville.com. All proceeds from the video downloads on this site go to the Red Cross for victims of the Tennessee flood. 

You are now reading a review written by someone who grew up steeped in traditional folk music, and plenty of classical, has heard a lot of jazz and kind of gets it, but is basically unfamiliar with Country. Like Victoria's Dad, mine had a large collection of music by Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, and many others whose names are not all easy to spell. Unlike her, I did not have a rock-and-roll epiphany in high school. On this sketchy background are based my perceptions of her powerful 2010 Saturday night concert at the Gravenhurst Opera House.

Despite differences in genre and generation, every song has roots. Listening to Victoria’s compositions arising from her own life, I realized that they come to her from a variety of sources like the blues, rock-and-roll, the simplest of folk melodies and more, all subtly grounded in the classics of her childhood. She speaks many languages of music, has made them her own and invented more, setting herself free to fly into new dimensions. In “Saints and Angels” the melody seems to have upward motions like wings.

In July Victoria Banks was nominated by the CCMA for the categories “Female Artist of the Year” and “Songwriter of the year”. The CCMA Awards show will be broadcast from Edmonton, Alberta, on Sunday 12 September on CBC and CMT. According to the tour destinations on her website, she will be performing in Edmonton on the previous day.

Now I share with you what Victoria and an audience member wrote in Facebook about Saturday’s concert. First Victoria:

“Wow, what an amazing show tonight at the Gravenhurst Opera House! Thanks to my hometown crowd for making me feel so welcome!” 

And now Susan Penwarden from the audience:

“Thanks for the amazing concert tonight. You now officially have one more true fan my husband. You blew him away with your very last song. We both believe a true test of a singer’s ability is to sing with no back up and you passed with flying colours. We will definitely will be seeing you again! Thanks again. You made our hearts happy. 

Les and Sue

P.S. best of luck at the CCMA's”

Victoria Banks has an informative, user-friendly website, where you can find her music, tour details, journal, store for CDs and t-shirts, and her biography in written and video form. This video really drew me in with its warmth and brilliance. Hers is an attractive, tuneful site to enjoy, and to keep in touch with her and her career path as it gathers more and more glitter overlaying the gold of her life story. 

http://www.victoriabanks.net

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Celebrating Dave Broadfoot, Nine Years Later

DAVE BROADFOOT’S “FIRST FAREWELL TOUR” OF 2001

from the archives of “The Muskoka Times”

by Helen Heubi

“Dave Broadfoot’s First Farewell Tour” stopped for three sold-out performances August 30 and 31 at the Gravenhurst Opera House near the end of the Straw Hat Festival of 2001.

This was not the first time that the Dean of Canadian comedy has trod our boards, and we may hope it is not the last. I have muzzy memories of him in earlier Straw Hat days, about the era of the Davis family, Barbara Hamilton and Charmion King, to mention a sparkle of the outstanding theatre folk steeped in the Muskoka tradition.

Oddly enough there was a moment when a lock of my hair near the back of my crown lifted, as if some other personality were also haunting the place, the better to see how Dave is working the audience in 2001, some fifty years after first appearing here.

“He sneaks up on you,” remarked one fan. A master of timing, Dave also manages to be always a heartbeat ahead, still checking our reflexes. “Am I speaking too quickly?”

Another signature jibe, in the middle of a  diatribe, “Am I touching a nerve?”

That’s the whole idea. Dave’s got an irreverent finger on the pulse of Canada and of an audience. This “old dog”, as he calls himself at 75, is always teaching himself, and us, new tricks. For half a century he has been constantly refining his unique vision of our country and its world.

“I think of Gravenhurst as the gateway to -- Bala!” may touch a nerve -- the one on the funny-bone.

A ticket to a Broadfoot show entitles us to what amounts to a three-ringed circus. At centre stage: one spry commentator on our life and times, who has us laughing before we know it at very unamusing topics, like pollution.

Stage right: a parade of real-life animals, notably our politicians, expertly caricatured.

State left: Dave’s own creations -- characters so numerous that he can afford to be selective in customizing each show, and fine-tuning to each audience. The line-up in the current  show includes the fuzzy-minded hockey player, Big Bobby Clobber; the sharp TV evangelist who’ll made sure of your credit card number; the memory expert who plaintively inquires of us, the audience, whether we’ve seen a set of keys. Heroic Sergeant-Major Renfrew of the Mounties copes with California, while, back home, homeless Bartholomew X can’t wait to get deported so he can see the world.

Probably by popular request (or did I strike a nerve complaining that the MP from Kicking Horse Pass was missing from the 2000 show?) the cowboy-hatted parliamentarian was back. You’d never know he’d been in mothballs.

After the warm standing ovation of Dave’s opening performance, a few of us matinée types trickled down to the Trillium Room in hopes of the artist coming out to sign videos, which he graciously did. After a short old home week with a long-time fan from the Beaches and earlier days, Dave was on to preparations for the night’s performance.

And I was out into the sunlight, wondering how I would recreate this delightful afternoon beyond writing, “Wunnerful!” all over the page -- shades of this Canadian icon’s first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1955.

“We grew up with him,” said one of a group lingering outside. “His timing was always impeccable,” she added. “I thought it couldn’t be improved, but in this show it’s the best ever.”

“But does anyone else know him besides our generation?” piped up an anxious voice. I rather thought so, according to my impromptu survey at the hair stylist’s the day before.

“Hang on a moment, and we’ll see,” I said, and asked two passers-by to help us out. The teenager admitted ignorance, then looked toward her mother as to an oracle. Mother, who didn’t look old enough to have a teenaged daughter, had been waiting with an indulgent smile to settle the matter beyond all doubt.

“Dave Broadfoot,” she pronounced slowly and clearly for us all to hear, “Is the quintessential Canadian comedian.”

Posted in "The Muskoka Times" Sept. 7, 2001

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Dinner Theatre with "Pools Paradise"

POOLS PARADISE IS A MERRY MIXUP

“Every bell in my belfry is cracked,” complains the Rev. Mr. Lionel Toop early in Act One of “Pools Paradise”, and the stage is set for whacky doings in the vicarage. The same vicarage was the scene of Philip King’s 1945 hit play, “See How They Run”, also inhabited by the same couple - Lionel and Penelope, and occasionally dusted by the same excitable maid, Ida.  

The vicar makes his first entrance with all the dignity that he can summon up, while surrounded by levity and silliness. His wife, a former actress, cannot curb her gift for barbed repartee and her sense of the ridiculous. The maid keeps popping in and out, babbling excitedly about ships coming in. The vicar, exasperated by the frivolity around him, welcomes with temporary relief the arrival of a humourless pillar of the church - the inevitable local spinster. All too soon it is the vicar who will embody the ridiculous - but that is enough from me. Too many further hints of the action to come would spoil the suspense. I can give only a few pencil strokes.

Expect to hear a creative clutch of sound effects - telephones and alarm clocks being mistaken for each other by the characters, with comic  effect, and every degree of decibels from a genteel doorbell buzz to Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries. Afficionados of the British vicarage farce will not be surprised to see people disappearing into closets, rushing madly in and out, chasing and evading each other and appearing in all kinds of disguises, in a complicated plot that you really don’t need to fathom very deeply.

Not to worry. In Act Three, Mrs. Toop’s uncle, the Bishop of Lax,  appears when everything has gone totally out of control. It is time for this august and kindly figure to save the day, like the British cavalry or the American Marines. He has to go through some amazing new experiences for a bishop before the rescue is complete.

The audience is just along for the comedic ride, having fun, as the actors of the Dragonfly Theatre Company do, under the direction of Pru Davidson.

The show opened on Tuesday 27 July in the Trillium Court of the Gravenhurst Opera House, continues for two more evenings this week, and returns August 3-5 and 10-14. Doors open at 5.30 pm and a mouth-watering dinner is served from 6 pm. Either the beef or the salmon by Riverwalk have been highly recommended by more than satisfied audience members. The show follows the meal.

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