It's time for the review of the year. (N.B. The wargames are right at the bottom for those who wish to skip the cultural bits.) One theme running through the year was Bradford 2025, City of Culture. I confess that I was somewhat sceptical before it started - I don't live in Bradford so was viewing it as an outsider - but I must say that I thought it was all very successful indeed. There were thousands of events, of which I went to a mere couple of dozen, albeit that they included most of the major ones, but had a good time when I did. 

Opera: I've seen 21 operas this year, one more than in 2024. For the second year running the best was a concert  performance of Simon Boccanegra, this time Opera North's contribution to Bradford 2025 at St George's Hall. Honourable mentions go to Owen Wingrave at the RNCM, Mozart's Impresario at the Buxton Festival and The Secret of the Black Spider by ON's youth company. The libretto for the last of those is a touch barking, which was also the case in various other productions seen this year. There was one in which one the characters was literally a turd, one in which someone fell in love with three oranges, one in which an AI powered robot took over the world (maybe because the Luddites had failed 200 years before, but then again maybe not), and one in which someone had to keep turning a handle to prevent the end of the world, but decided to take a bit of break instead.

Theatre: Seventeen plays this year, the best being The Railway Children, once again part of Bradford 2025. An honourable mention must go to Wise Children's North By Northwest, but other good stuff included Mary Poppins, Animal Farm and an odd but very enjoyable circus version of Tess of the D'Urbervilles.

Music: Only nine gigs this year, the best being Bywater Call. I am, as ever, contractually obliged to mention Martin Simpson and the same would be true for Fairport Convention except that shockingly I didn't see them. I do have a ticket for a gig in Harrogate in April, so normal service will be resumed this time next year.

Film: I saw 18 films this year, the most for many years. My favourite was the documentary Becoming Led Zeppelin, but the best non-documentary was probably Hamnet, which I saw at a festival although it doesn't officially come out in the UK until next week. I highly recommend it, but take some tissues. Other good stuff included The Ballad of Wallis Island, A Complete Unknown and Sunlight. The last of those is on very limited release, but catch it if you can. It was directed by Nina Conti, of whom more later. I also enjoyed The Choral which was of course not only filmed very locally to where I live, but also the screen play was by the very much still alive Alan Bennett.

Talks: Nine talks, the best of which was on William Morris and Islamic Art. It was a connection which is obvious when someone points it out but which I'm embarrassed to say had passed me by before.

Comedy: I went to sufficient comedy gigs to add a new category this year. The one I'm going to highlight is Nina Conti and, naturally, Monkey; very, very funny. The aforementioned film also features Monkey, but this time she's inside it. OK, I know she's inside the one in the picture below, but the film she's really inside it.

Exhibitions: I viewed a select number of exhibitions this year, i.e. not many at all. My favourite was certainly not the Turner Prize finalists show, which was inevitably terrible. I concur with those who say that the choice of the winner was nothing more than virtue-signalling. The best was probably We Will Sing at Salts Mill although next time I visit the top floor there I shall take the stairs more slowly. An honourable mention must go to Pigeobition in Keighley and that on gladiators at the Royal Armouries.

Books: I read 163 books in 2025, which is a good indication of how much of it was spent being ill. They include a large number of detective novels and thrillers from the past, perfect for not having to think very much. My favourite was a toss up between Passage of Arms by Eric Ambler or A Kiss Before Dying by Ira Levin. There were lots of the type of non-fiction books which are actually relevant to wargaming, but nothing leaps out as demanding recommendation. If I was forced to pick one it would be The Mexican Revolution: A Very Short Introduction by Alan Knight, but whether that is truly relevant to this particular blog is a moot point.

Boardgames: I logged 208 playings of 110 different games. I'll do a separate post on these, but my favourite game remains Dune Imperium and I continue to think that wargamers in general would like it.

Wargames: I managed 29 games in the year including half a dozen or so which I hosted in the annexe. Many of those were multi week games so all in all I spent quite a lot of time playing toy soldiers, which I have to say wasn't the way it felt at the time. Looking back I think the cowboys were what I enjoyed most; even more regression to childhood than usual.

Event of the Year: I lied, wargaming is not right at the bottom. I'm tempted to choose the carwash breaking down with car covered in lather with me inside. Having got out while the necessary fiddling with the controls was performed by the operative, I stayed outside until the wash completed. As I waited another car drew up behind me and the the look on the driver's face as I got back in and drove off was very amusing. He was obviously worried that he had been doing it wrong all his life. 

I also won £25 on the Premium Bonds, which is never to be sniffed at. However I'm going for the day I spent visiting the Andy Goldsworthy Hanging Stones in Rosedale, which now I think about it I could have included under the Exhibitions heading. Access is limited and the location is a bit remote, but it's a great combination of art and a walk in the Yorkshire countryside.. 

 "When affairs get into a real tangle, it is best to sit still and let them straighten themselves out. Or, if one does not do that, simply to think no more about them. This is Philosophy." 

- P. G. Wodehouse

It's review of the year time. I didn't do one last year because the illness that has plagued me on and off in 2024 started with unlooked for precision on 29th December 2023. That's bad news for posterity, because I had a lot to write about and would no doubt have done so most entertainingly. This year has seen a much reduced programme of activities. Apart from funerals; I don't think I've ever been to so many in such a short space of time.  I won't write about those.

Theatre: Only twelve plays, so another drop year on year. Best was 'My Fair Lady' of all things. Even more surprising was my enjoyment of  'A Midsummer Night's Dream' at York Theatre Royal, with a genuine circus clown as Bottom. This blog normally has a strict 'clowns are not funny' policy. Perhaps as another sign of change I went to two comedy gigs for the first time in decades. 

Film: I only saw five films, must try harder in 2025. I think Conclave was the pick.

Talks: I attended nineteen talks this year, the shortfall being in part because I fell out with one of the groups whose talks I used to attend. I should probably do an annual award for which organisation I have had the biggest row with that year. The best talk was on the subject of J. B. Priestley, which is obviously a good thing, with a special mention for one on the somewhat more obscure subject of Washington Phillips.

Exhibitions: I've seen a few, too few to mention. I would strongly recommend both the Silk Road at the British Museum and the Van Gogh at the National Gallery.

Your bloggist buckles his swash

Books: Obviously, if one can't go out then one stays in and reads, consequently I have read 128 books this year. Too many. My favourite fiction was probably 'Scaramouche' by Rafael Sabatini; I do like a swashbuckler. The best that wasn't a century old was 'Gabriel's Moon', a spy thriller from the ever-dependable William Boyd. From the non-fiction, Bruce Springsteen's autobiography was very good. I'm not sure why I was surprised that he can write. I read lots of perfectly adequate military history, but nothing so outstanding that I'm going to highlight it here.

Boardgames: 168 plays of 91 different games. My current favourite is definitely Dune Imperium, which is one that I would have thought might to appeal to most wargamers.

 "Pretentiousness is the mask of worthlessness and weakness." - Rafael Sabitini

It occurs to me that the thing you will all have missed most due to my my erratic posting schedule is my self-appointed role as the leading opera reviewer among wargaming bloggers. I've seen nine so far in 2024, six of them new to me, and so I'm afraid I can't be terribly comprehensive in my catch-up. Instead I'll briefly cover a couple of highlights.

The best of those I've been to, I would say, was the Hallé's concert performance of the original 1857 version of Simon Boccanegra at the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester, which was sensational and got both a standing ovation and rave reviews. I can't tell you how it compares to the revised 1881 version because I've never seen that, although Opera North are doing it in April 2025 and so readers can confidently expect me to post about that this time next year (*). I shall be particularly interested to know if the plot is any more understandable because this one was impenetrable. The most confusing moment came at the end of the first half when, the lady known as Amelia Grimaldi - who, spoiler alert, turns out to be someone else completely - comes on and tells us that she has, offstage of course, been kidnapped and then managed to get away. At this all the other characters, including those whom we know perfectly well both planned and carried out the deed, start singing "Death to Lorenzo". So far so operatic, except that to that point there had been no mention at all of any Lorenzo; nor, yet another spoiler alert, did he turn up in the second half. As opera critic Robert Thicknesse observed, it is "one of those libretti that heroically rises above explaining anything at all".

It was also at the end of the first half that the most memorable thing in Stravinsky's Rake's Progress occurred. It wasn't that I didn't enjoy the music, singing and acting or, to a lesser extent, the direction and design. It was just that the sight of the bearded lady sitting on a large horse with a cardboard box on her head - you can perhaps see why I had my reservations about what was going on in front of me - wondering why there was neither applause nor someone coming to help her down, was very funny. The reason was that the curtain had malfunctioned, the audience therefore had no clue that the act had finished (**) and it took some minutes before those behind the scenes came up with a plan to put us all out of our collective difficulty.

Other highlights included the first performance I had ever heard sung in Russian: Rachmaninov's Aleko set in a hippy commune and also featuring surprise appearances from some characters who had earlier that evening appeared in Mascagni's cavalleria rusticana, only visible to some on stage. Think Banquo's ghost. It was odd, but it worked. Also worth mentioning was Rossini's scala di seta where the silken ladder was represented by a more solid ladder let down into the pit. It was no shock to see the tenor climbing up it, more so to see the conductor do the same when joining the principals to take his bow.

* If the Lord spares me, and if I can be arsed.

** Beyond the fact that the orchestra had stopped playing; it's a good job they weren't on the Titanic.

 And so to the opera. In my recent review of 'Frida' I forgot to mention that it was the first opera I had ever seen which was originally written for an orchestra which included an accordion (*). I have now seen a second, sort of. In fact Astor Piazzolla's 'Maria de Buenos Aries' was written for the bandoneon, but I defy even the most passionate rivet-counter amongst this blog's readership to spot the difference between the noise made by those two things.

That's an accordion

Obscure instrumentation aside this piece - which I really enjoyed - goes straight to the top of the list as the most bonkers storyline for any opera I've ever seen, and that is of course a very high bar, as realism and opera librettos are often strangers to one another. I shall attempt to provide a synopsis:

Maria is born in the slums of Buenos Aries, but, lured in part by her love of tango, escapes poverty by becoming a sex worker. 

[So far this is is unremarkable, indeed it could be the backstory to La traviata. This section ends with one of the highlights of the whole thing in which Maria loudly affirms who she is, an which is reminiscent in spirit of the party scene in Verdi's opera. However, things are just about to become weird.]

Maria then falls in love with an accordion and yes, I said accordion not accordionist (**). This proves a transgression too far even for those in the sleazy milieu in which she moves, and so they kill her. However you can't keep a good woman down and so she comes back to life, or possibly reappears as a ghostly spirit; it wasn't terribly clear. For reasons that were also somewhat obscure she is taken down to an underground cabal of psychoanalysts. When she escapes their questions - they don't seem to offer much in the way of therapy - she is pursued through the streets of Buenos Aries by three marionettes (***), who have been hired to impregnate her with their seed. This having occurred she gives birth to herself and yes, I said to herself not by herself.

So, what's it about? The director chose to play up the religious elements (she's called Maria, she rises from the dead) and the queer elements (let's face it, there aren't any, but what opera director has ever let something like that stand in their way?). Despite all that it worked a treat. The playing, singing and dancing were all great and, once one gave up trying to follow what was happening, it was a delightful evening.

The most lucid interpretation that I have subsequently read is that the piece is actually lamenting the decay of tango as a form of music and dance. Having been born in the slums of Buenos Aries, it moved to the mainstream where it was contaminated by the accordion (or perhaps the bandoneon) and other foreign influences; commercialised by the US mainstream (e.g. Hollywood), it was eventually influenced by the Avant-garde and was reborn as nuevo tango, whose prime exponent was none other than Piazzolla himself.

Is this a bandoneon? Actually, I don't think it is: 

* Although, for the record, not the first opera I had ever seen which actually included an accordion in the orchestra.

** Regular readers may at this point be reminded of this post from a few years ago.

*** These weren't real characters in the story played by puppets on stage, they were marionettes in the story played by real people on stage.

 I like getting questions about blog postings, despite them usually being along the lines of "Why do you bother?" or "I suppose you think you're funny?". I am glad to say that I have received one which is marginally more constructive, an observant reader asking why I spelled 'gaily' as 'gayly' in the title of the previous post. Don't blame me, blame Sir Walter Scott. The quote comes from his narrative poem 'The Lady of the Lake'. I haven't read it - Scott is one of those authors who I firmly intend to read when the time is right, but as to when that time might be I can't say - but I have just been to a performance of Rossini's 'La donna del lago'.

The lady and, believe it or not, the lake

I'd never seen it before, and have read various theories as to why it isn't put on more often: either the staging and set requirements are too demanding or it's difficult to assemble the combination of voices needed seem to be the favourites. This production was a bit odd, but the music and singing was excellent and I enjoyed it thoroughly. 

The oddities included archaeologists and museums, neither of which appear to feature in Scott's original and no kilts or tartan, both of which certainly (*) did. The driver of the plot is the apparent real-life tendency of James V to wander around in disguise. He was, of course, the father of Mary Queen of Scots, but if you can guess 16th century from the pictures then you're doing better than me. The chap on the chair is the baddie, who bears the fine Scottish name of Rodrigo, and as whom John Irvin stole the show, brilliantly portraying the character's MacHeath-like psychopathic tendencies. The eponymous lady was wonderfully sung by Máire Flavin, whose Violetta for Opera North this autumn I am very much looking forward to.

* For 'certainly' read 'probably'; hard to know for sure without putting in the effort of actually reading it.