Boxes

I liked the pattern created by these boxes at the Royal Festival Hall.

We were there tonight for what proved to be a very enjoyable evening (despite my doubts when we booked the tickets). The evening consisted of a performance of the Rachmaninov 2nd Piano Concerto, followed after the interval by a screening of the classic David Lean film from 1945 of "Brief Encounter". The Rachmaninov concerto features strongly in the soundtrack of this film. However, in the version we were shown tonight, the music had been carefully edited out of the soundtrack and it was, instead, provided by the live musicians on stage. The film, despite its age, is still very effective and enjoyable - and there were times when I was so absorbed in it that I didn't even notice that the incidental music was being played live!

The evening started with free entertainment in the foyer inspired by the film: a performance of songs by Noel Coward (who wrote the book and the screenplay for the film) and a mock "elocution lesson" to teach us how to speak in the accent and clipped tones of the 1940s. The film itself was introduced by the actress Lucy Fleming, who is the daughter of Celia Johnson, star of the film. She read extracts from some of the letters written by her mother during the making of the film.

Altogether a different, but successful, evening. And there were rather more people in the audience than this picture suggests!