Concert: Liana Isakadze

Well, it's nice to actually get something from ShowFilmFirst for a change! I checked, and it's September since I last went to something with them. You see, they offer free tickets to various events - but it's become a habit of theirs to send out the offers - at least to me - so late that the tickets are already gone, or indeed, that the show has already started! Their latest gimmick is to offer "premium membership", which guarantees you'll get the email in time to go to the show. For a fee, of course. Huh.

Well, this was an email that came in time - yesterday, to be precise. A classical concert - lovely! Also probably the reason it hadn't sold out already. In Cadogan Hall. I jumped at the chance, then checked where the place was. Easy-peasy - Tube to Sloane Square, turn right out of the station, and it's straight ahead, down a side street. The building with the clocktower, which, tonight, was illuminated in blue and green. A short walk.

Entering by the door marked "Box Office", the stalls are up the stairs to the right, but they were still roped off when I got there. Down the steps to the left is the box office, and beside that, a bar. Where, for the first time in my life, I saw an orderly queue form. At a bar. Unheard of. You can tell you're in an affluent neighbourhood. In England. Anyway, by the time I got my large glass of wine, I hadn't even had time to start it when the announcement came that the auditorium was open and we could take our seats. So it got drunk fairly quickly..

We had to climb stairs - a notice at the bottom warned us that there were 62 steps, but I certainly don't think we had to climb so many. Everyone was seated in the stalls. My free seat was nice and central:

 

 

Seats are lovely and comfy, plenty of legroom. Yes, this is a nice venue!

 

The Japanese guy to my left was hardly off his phone for the first half. Not only was he taking photographs every time anyone took a bow, but I swear he was recording a lot of it as well. Tsk. The show itself was what you might call populist, with the usual suspects - Mozart, Strauss, Vivaldi, Brahms: and some less usual - Saint-Saens, Gershwin. The star, Liana Isakadze, seemed to thrive on having an audience, and all players had great fun with the livelier numbers. A very enjoyable night, and a nice change - it's ages since I was at a classical concert. Mind you, not everyone was so impressed - the little girl in front of me got very bored in the second half, and decided to occupy herself by practicing origami on her ticket stub. Which meant that every pause in the music was punctuated by the rustling of paper. Grrr...

 

So. It's looking like I'm back to films again tomorrow night.. and what's coming top of the list? Why, The Grand Budapest Hotel, of course! At last.. watch this space!