Last Night of the Proms

SALTASH Wesley Methodist Church was bursting at the seams on Saturday, October 10, when the Camborne Youth Brass Band performed their annual Last Night of The Proms in aid of and organised by the Foundation.
The programme was suitably varied to delight the appreciative audience. The youngsters played marches and show stoppers.
Also the Saltash Guildhall audience will be humming to 'Music to Your Ears' on Saturday, November 21, when composer, broadcaster and musician Clive Jenkins and Douglas Clarkson, the outstanding musician of HM Royal Marine Band fame, will add to the enjoyment, playing clarinet and saxophone. Both musicians have a tremendous following of discerning music lovers.
The concert is in memory of the late Pip Miller, who was a well known and well-loved stalwart of Saltash.
The concert starts at 7pm and tickets are now available from Saltash shops Piglets and Saltash News or from Sue Hooper, who can be contacted on 01752 843073 or by email at suehcf@msn.com
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The Foundation, which was set up 10 years ago, supports young people in Saltash and Cornwall who study the performing arts.

(He’s a Very Naughty Boy) Monty Python's Not the Messiah - first night

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And lo, it came to pass that Monty Python’s Flying Circus reached the age of forty years. And verily it was decided by the surviving members of the Python Team (his holiness John Cleese excepted) to give thanks and praise for this sacred moment by descending from their separate starry havens for one night only at the Royal Albert Hall. And their faithful followers did pay through the nose to join them in that joy, preparing themselves to be amazed. For it was decreed that for the first time in human history, an oratorio based on Life of Brian was to be delivered unto them.
Well, were the lucky few who packed the Albert Hall to the rafters last night amazed? Gratitude, I think, was the primary emotion on display. Gratitude that simmered gently at first, announcing itself in warm-hearted laughter and applause at the merest whiff of an appearance by a Python other than Eric Idle, whose show (written in collaboration with his Spamalot partner John Du Prez) this was - and who took to the stage alongside four highly trained opera singers, with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus massed behind them.

That gratitude finally erupted in a tidal wave of affection as Always Look On The Bright Side of Life segued into a semi-surprise reprise of the Lumberjack Song. The audience, forming one barmy army of Python devotees - as if in parody of the Last Night of the Proms - waved fake candles in the air, sang and whistled along, and would hardly let Mssrs Idle, Palin, Gilliam and Jones out of their clutches.
There was little disguising the fact though, that between the start of the show - when we got a fantastic blast of that theme tune (The Liberty Bell) - and the hugely nostalgic finale, there was little to get genuinely worked up about. Or really laugh about. The film - released 30 years ago - is generally held to be comedy perfection. The oratorio swiftly disappointed in comparison: the larky grit of the swords-and-sandals Hollywood pastiche was here replaced by respectable sleekness.
A skeletal structure of the story remained but rather than fleshing it out in surprising ways, the songs - overly reliant on the supposed hilarity of repeated pomp and bombast - felt malnourished. It hardly helped that the part of Brian, the mistaken messiah immortalised by Graham Chapman, was played by well-groomed tenor William Ferguson. Or that Brian’s mum was no longer Terry Jones’ squarking harridan but plush mezzo soprano Rosalind Plowright. Overall, it never felt, well, naughty enough.
But who wants to be the party-pooper? The Pythons have earned their place in history. And they’ve earned the right to muck about with experiments like this. At least they’ve not become a tired self-tribute act, rehashing old material. The whole thing was being filmed - and I wouldn’t blame anyone for digging into their pockets to see what all the fuss wasn’t about. We can’t quite get enough of them, even now.

About The Last Night Of The Proms

The Proms, more generally called as The BBC Proms, or The Henry Wood Promenade Concerts to be had by the BBC, is an eight-week summer season of daily orchestral classical music concerts and other events held yearly, mainly in the Royal Albert Hall in South Kensington, London. Founded in 1895, each season at present contains of over 70 concerts in the Albert Hall, a series of chamber concerts at Cadogan Hall, additional Proms in the Park events across the United Kingdom on the last night, and linked educational and children's events. In 2009 the total number of concerts will accomplish 100 for the first time. In the situation of classical music festivals, Jiří Bělohlávek has described The Proms as "the world's largest and most democratic musical festival".

Proms is short for promenade concert, a term which arose from the original practice of audience members promenading, or strolling, in some areas of the concert hall during the concert. Promming now refers to the use of the standing areas inside the hall (the arena and gallery) for which ticket prices are much lower than for the reserved seating. A number of Prommers are mainly eager in their attendance, and see it as a badge of respect to accomplish the "grand slam" of attending every concert of the season (a "little slam" being every concert at the Royal Albert Hall). In 1997, one programme in the BBC documentary series Modern Times covered this devoted following of fans.