Wednesday, August 17, 2011

A Buxton Blog - 14/8, nearly a day of rest

Technically Sunday started between the show and the cast party, but to me, the day ends when I go to bed. That made Saturday about 30 hours long, interesting...

So I woke up to my alarms (both of them - the phone and the Class 66) and proceeded to encourage Chris and David to get out of bed for church. It's the Sullivan service!

We got there just in time for choir practice at 10:30 and were handed music for a piece called The Day Closes. I try to pick out the tenor line but it's NOT EASY. Like Yeomen's tenor line I guess. No doubt someone could do a doctorate on the progression of Sullivan's music from Pinafore to Iolanthe to Yeomen. Well this piece sits squarely in the third tranche.

With not nearly enough notebashing time we sat down for the start of the actual church service. It bore a remarkable similarity to the equivalent service two years ago! Hopefully we still have the pew sheet from then because it would be an interesting comparison.

As regards orthodoxy of doctrine I think it was about the same as two years ago - if anything slightly more orthodox than the other service we attended at the Metho church but still basically shallow. The sermon was about the tendencies of both Gilbert and Sullivan to carpe the diem rather than worrying about tomorrow. If it was me preaching I'd have said more about Jesus's words referring rather to doing the work of the Kingdom without worrying about tomorrow, rather than living it up hedonistically. But my chance would come...

Lots of people we know were there, and just about all of them had something nice to say about Arcadians. Wow. Once we shook off all the well-wishers Chris went up to the organ and had a chat with the organist. Incidentally, he was the man who runs the lights and sound for the Festival Club. Apparently he's an organist at another church in the area, so he was able to talk randomly about the weight of the keys when they're doing a lot of work with lots of stops pulled out. Fascinating stuff. Chris managed to get himself let loose on the organ! He played Roseleaf, Let Her Go and Graciously and I videoed all three. They're on Facebook.

That afternoon we had a music rehearsal for Yeomen - it never stops! Dick Stockton as MD is great - like David Hulme did for Arcadians he's finding and fixing problems I could never have even put my finger on.

That evening I did a repeat of last Sunday - kerplonk method of choosing a passage, and semi-led Bible Study with a pre-chosen theme. I turned up Psalm 8, which is further confirmation that the kerplonk method is inherently weighted in favour of favourite passages. What does it mean to be ruler over God's creation? Find out on our 44-minute podcast!

And so to the Festival Club. We decided to get there at about 9:45 to make sure we could get a table - getting there at 10 isn't enough it seems. The table was unattended but the doors were open, so we sort of hung around near the table for a bit wondering what to do - and then Neil Smith came up and said "Greetings gentlemen! Welcome, you're guests of the festival today!" I knew what that meant. "Can you gentlemen help us carry the Yeomen set back to the Octagon when the curtain comes down?" Of course we can Neil - it's the sort of thing we do at home for nothing, and if it means we get free entry to the club that's a bonus. Did I ever mention how much I love Buxton?

Unfortunately helping bump out meant missing the quiz, which was a bit of a shame, but I think becoming known as a reliable worker is better. When we finished we found the list of questions on our table (and Jamie filled us in on some) - and as expected they were the rankest trick questions ever posted by some of the lighter hearts on Savoynet! Which show opens with a chorus of Peers of the Realm? Pirates. And that was one of the better ones.

So we get ourselves settled and Neil gets up and pays tribute to "the army of helpers" (there were others as well as us) before introducing the pros for their cabaret. Chris got chatting with some of the pros afterward... despite what Nomie thinks he's got an uncanny knack of getting people to talk to him, when he's got something to talk about. They had to forcibly remove us from the club at 1:30am or so...

I think we're all subconsciously aware that the festival isn't going to last forever so we're carping the diem. And that's how we should be spending a holiday like this.

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