23/09/2025 by Peter Viney
The latest AROUND AND AROUND article: Tempo (follow link to the page) was Decca’s jazz label between 1954 and 1960, releasing seminal British jazz. It had started as an independent. Though the basic trad material at the start is of declining interest, the collectability of artists like Tubby Hayes, Victor Feldman and Ronnie Scott is staggering (as are the prices), one of these is worth £1500.
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22/09/2025 by Peter Viney
At AROUND & AROUND. Impulse! (follow link to article) was the jazz part of the ABC group, but I’ve started that section with Impulse! because it’s simply the most interesting. The label can boast two of the three critics poll ‘Greatest Jazz Albums of all time,” A Love Supreme by John Coltrane and The Black Saint & The Sinner Lady by Charles Mingus. For most of its classic period, it was EMI distributed. It thrives on high quality reissues nowadays.
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14/09/2025 by Peter Viney
Follow the link to my review if HAMLET at Chichester Festival Theatre (LINK), directed by Justin Audibert and starring Giles Terera as Hamlet. This is Chichester’s first ever Hamlet, and the fourth version this year for us. This is highly unusual in eschewing the heavy cutting in recent versions. This one restores many speeches, and ones that are so often cut nowadays that they arrived fresh-minted.
L to R: Hamlet, Claudius, Gertrude
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12/09/2025 by Peter Viney
Review of Samuel Beckett’s ENDGAME at Bath Ustinov Studio (follow link to review). Directed by Lindsay Posner, with Douglas Hodge, Matthew Horne, Selina Cadell and Clive Francis. It’s down to how much you like Beckett really. The production and performances can’t be bettered. But what about the actual “masterpiece” the play is claimed to be?
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05/09/2025 by Peter Viney
A new culinary rant by me, following my rants on chorizo and halloumi, we now have Triple Cooked chips everywhere. Do we need them? No! READ THE ARTICLE (follow link)
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04/09/2025 by Peter Viney
THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR at the Globe. Follow link to the review. Some don’t like the play, but i love it. I’ve never seen an unfunny version. This was lively and the story worked, though I have a couple of niggles.It’s still on. There were plenty of seats on the afternoon I saw it. Well worth a visit. Picture: Mistress Ford, Falstaff, Mistress Page.
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31/08/2025 by Peter Viney
This year’s shortened popular Shakespeare at the RSC is Two Gentlemen of Verona (follow link to review) The concept of 80 / 90 minute Shakespeare for families, tourists and first time viewers started in the Garden Theatre. This year’s third production moves indoor to The Other Place at Stratford. We loved it. The second five star highly entertaining production in two days. Two clowns: Launce and Speed plus the dog. The only Shakespeare play with a dog.
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31/08/2025 by Peter Viney
Follow link to the Royal Shakespeare Company production of FAT HAM. The play by James IJames won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2022. It’s a ‘kind of version of Hamlet’ set in the Southern USA, at a barbeque to commemorate the death of a father / marriage of the mother to her brother-in-law. The Hamlet figure is a young gay African-American. It’s very different (the deceased dad is a villain), hilarious and I can see why it did so well in awards. It’s running at the Swan Theatre until September 13th. Two weeks to go. Well worth the effort to see it.
Karaoke replaces the Payer’s Scene. Here Tedra (the mother so ‘kind of Gertrude’) lets it rip, watched by Opal (the kind of Ophelia), Rabby (the kind of Polonius) and Rev (the kind of Claudius).
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26/08/2025 by Peter Viney
Added to the Music and Artists section at Around and Around (follow link). I found their two LPs from 1968 and 1969. US import on the Columbia label. They were never issued in the UK or Europe, but they were San Francisco psych era and she was already famous from her hit We’ll Sing In The Sunshine, It started me looking to find out about them and the two albums. It became a new section.
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25/08/2025 by Peter Viney
Not a review but comments on the history I learned from Episode One of BBC TV’s expensive eight part series. Follow the link here.
Photo: Illegal immigrant arrives on beach near Dover from France in a small boat after crossing the channel. People traffickers in background.
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