What a treat! Legally Blonde on stage at LiveWire 3’s school and LiveWire 3 there with the best of them – a cracking show! 
Category Archives: theatre
Legally Blonde and A Reminder
The Nutcracker and My Dad
Today Daughter no 2 and her daughter, LiveWire no 3 went to see The Nutcracker at The Royal Ballet and Opera House in LondonĀ and this evening we have been to see the livestream of the same performance. It was wonderful and I love the idea that, despite being hundreds of miles apart, we have just shared the ballet experience together.
Today too, I remember my wonderful Dad who died on this day in 2004 after a very hard nine months and his final, even harder ,17 days in St John’s Hospice in Doncaster. where he, and I, were extremely well looked after with love and understanding.
Performance, Ukraine and Singing
Yesterday was so busy that two important things were missed!
After the delightful party for J, 90 years old, in the evening we went with friends to see a fabulous Christmas show called Christmas.Time. This is the third time we have seen the show and loved it every time. It’s the 18th year that the two very talented young men who are Near-ta Theatre have performed the show which has become a staple hereabouts. If you, Dear Reader, live nearby, there are shows still to be seen at The Poly, Falmouth. Here’s the link.You won’t regret it!
I have ordered a beautiful jigsaw puzzle from Ukraine for the family to do together when they are all here over New Year.Ā I am here reprinting the whole message I received from the company yesterday. At the end you can hear The Ingleheart Singers with their first rehearsal this year of Carol of the Bells.
While our capacity to produce and to ship puzzles from Ukraine has been severely impacted by power outages caused by the constant shelling of Ukrainian power infrastructure by Russia (that’s why most of puzzles are shown as out of stock on our website), we still can continue telling about Ukrainian culture.
This weekās email is about Mykola Leontovych (13 Dec 1877 ā 23 Jan 1921), the Ukrainian composer and author of the famous āShchedrykā / āCarol of the Bells,ā whose birthday we commemorate today.
Mykola Leontovych, the son of a priest, was also a conductor and teacher who specialized in a cappella choral music. He is best known for composing “Shchedryk,” which later became famous around the world as the Christmas classic “Carol of the Bells.” That happened thanks to enormous efforts of cultural figures and some politicians of the Ukrainian People’s Republic in the last months of its existence before the Soviet occupation of Ukraine in 1919. This treasure had all chances to be demolished and buried, as it happened with Boychukism and many other phenomena of Ukrainian culture, but in some miraculous way, it overcame all the obstacles along with the Ukrainian Republic Capella under the leadership of choral conductor Oleksandr Koshyts.
On January 23, 1921, while audiences in Paris were triumphantly applauding the newly discovered āShchedryk,ā its composer, Mykola Leontovych, was shot in his own home by a Chekist (a Soviet state security agent).
Important to note that Leontovych wrote “Schedryk” in the town of Pokrovsk, Donetsk region, which currently is one of the key battlefields in Russia’s war against Ukraine.
So, please keep the Ukrainian Warriors who are now defending Pokrovsk and all of Ukraine in your thoughts each time you hear “Carol of the Bells” this holiday season.
Concert and Soup
We’ve been out this evening to The Hall for Cornwall to a concert by the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. It was brilliant and the conductor, Enyi Okpara, was a delight to watch, so expressive and very entertaining.
A quick, rather blurry shot as they were tuning up
We had our home grown Pumpkin soup for supper.
Family, Circus and Singing
Another lovely family day with Daughter no 3 joining us, and the family already with us, for the day. Lunch in the garden, a trip to the circus, my second to see the brilliant No Fit State Circus, and a breathtakingĀ time was had by all nine of us. Dinner was cooked for us by our son-in-law and then I went off to sing shanties with my choirs joined by LiveWire3 who has sung with the Suitcase Singers on each holiday here since she was five years old. It’s always a special joy to have T in the choir with me. The rest of the family came along to join the audience. 
I’ve said it already but if you are local, don’t miss this treat on our doorstep. The circus is here until the end of the month and locals can get tickets for only Ā£10! I wrote about my first visit here.
Kindness Calendar, Coincidences and Sweetcorn
From Action for Happiness: “In a world that feels divided, kindness is a quiet but powerful act of hope. Whether you’re supporting a friend, helping a stranger, or simply listening with care, your actions matter. Every kind choice makes a difference.”
We went today to have the staples removed from my lovely Mr S’s new knee and had really interesting conversations with the two nurses who looked after him. They asked where we lived and when we said where, the older one said she’d been to St Euny Church just near us, to see a wonderful production in the churchyard in 2017. That was our Until the Day Break! She said she absolutely loved it and that now she views graveyards in a very different light and likes to think of the real stories behind each gravestone. If the production is new to you Dear Reader, check it out on the red links here.
The second coincidence was that when we were asked where we used to teach and said Doncaster, the younger Nurse said her father had been to Uni there at the old School for the Deaf as he is profoundly deaf. My Mum trained at that school in the 1930s but even more coincidental was the fact that when a youngster, her dad was taught at the special unit for deaf children at Roskear School in Camborne and it was my Mum who set up the unit and who would have taught him! Ellie, the nurse is going to ask him if he remembers Mrs Wiseman. One of her old pupils commented on my blog when I wrote about my Mum and her work here.
Our Sweetcorn is coming along well, flowers on almost every 5′ high plant and some tassels indicating a cob getting ready.
Sweet-peas, Twelfth Night and Another Birthday Cake
The sweet peas on the trellis outside the kitchen window are beginning to flower. The geranium is the best its ever been. 
We’ve been to see Twelfth Night this evening and laughed all evening. What a terrific interpretation of the play and just five actors playing all the roles!Ā Miracle Theatre are touring Cornwall so if you are a local reader, do try to catch it, all outdoor performances and utterly delightful.
The set
Our dear friend for whom I made the cake on Tuesday, celebrated her actual birthday this evening with a trip to the show and a fabulous chocolate cake made by her lovely husband. 
Posy, Stone and Award
Our lovely LiveWire has done the blog for a couple of days so I didn’t mark 14th April as I would have done. Our Dear neighbour Bill Mitchell died eight years ago and I always take a posy to mark the day to Sue-next-door. LiveWire 4 made the pretty bow to tie the posy up.
Sue took some beautiful flowers to his memorial stoneĀ in St Euny Churchyard.
We recently listened to a repeat of a brilliant programme, The Reunion, on BBC Radio 4 all about the people who made the production, The Passion, in Port Talbot fourteen years ago. Bill and Sue, Wildworks,Ā worked with Michael Sheen to bring this piece to life. The programme will be repeated on Good Friday morning and can also be heard by clicking on the red link.Ā It’s really well worth listening to. Bill and Michael Sheen won a Best Director award for their remarkable work.
If you missed my blog eight years ago about Bill, click here.
White Horse
We are just back from seeing the brilliant White Horse by o-regionĀ Ā at our local theatre –Ā an entrancing performance with live music, puppetry, film and story telling. It’s written and directed by Simon Harvey, based onĀ Michael Morpurgo’sĀ White Horse & Other Stories. As the Radio 4 Today programme said a week ago when interviewing Michael Morpurgo and Simon Harvey about their show, “It’s being premiĆØred in the West End (in Redruth!)”.Ā They plan on taking it on tour next year so find it if you can. 
New Moon, Soup and Hope
Last night my lovely Mr S spotted the tiniest sliver of the new moon, above it Venus and below a richly red sunset sky and I caught the photo with the better of my two cameras.
Friends came for soupy lunch today before we went together to see the live streaming of Macbeth by the Donmar Warehouse. It was absolutely brilliant! Catch it if you can.
Leek and Potato Soup with some of the last leeks from our allotment.
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer gave me permission some time ago to post her lovely poems as long as I credit her properly. This one seems so particularly apt after the last few days.
Hope by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer University of Arizona Poetry Center. Thank you for this one.
