Review – Porgy and Bess, Grange Park Opera

Ok, so we lied. Well sorta. This isn’t so much a review of George Gershwin‘s Porgy and Bess (libretto by Edwin DuBose Heyward from his 1925 novel, lyrics Ira Gershwin)* as it is a take on the whole experience of visiting Grange Park Opera.

Now this is not the The Grange Festival of opera in Hampshire. This is Grange Park Opera at West Horsley Surrey. The Hampshire location is where Grange Park Opera used to be but The Grange Festival which is now there has used the Grange moniker too. Confusing? Yes of course it is. You might imagine that people turn up at the wrong location on occasion. Of course they do.

Review – Crazy For You, Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre

It seemed like the least demanding way to ease the Whingers back into the reality of London Theatre (In the rum world of the Whingers the Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre‘s annual summer musical comedy counts as “reality”).

And it’s usually a dead cert (Hello, Dolly!, Gigi etc.), one of the Whingers’ annual highlights.

And Crazy For You has been showered with five star reviews, the reliable Timothy Sheader directs, it boasts a Gershwin score and – most importantly to the Whingers – it offered a welcome return to the dignity of reserved seating following weeks of queuing (usually in the rain) for shows in the frenzy that constitutes the Edinburgh Fringe.

But having been overindulged by shows mostly lasting no more than an hour, how would the Whingers cope with an interval? Would they depart thinking it was all over? Would their attention spans, unsteady at best, be able to cope or would they be off seeking a late night cabaret to round off their evening before persuading themselves to have “one” for the road in the Gilded Balloon’s Loft bar until 6am (it’s an Edinburgh thing)?