Some cultural events

Included in this weeks activities were two concerts (one of which I will write about in the Highland tour post) and a play. On Tuesday Lydia and I went to see Robin Williamson and John Renbourn at the Cabaret Bar. It may have been one of the best concerts I've ever seen. The venue was small and pretty intimate. The opening act was a great two-piece fiddle and guitar combo that was pretty lively. Lydia and I were two of only a handful of people under 50 in the audience. We bonded with the old Scottish men complaining about how awful one of the bartenders was. (I know very little about pouring Guinness, but I know enough to know that the way he was doing it was completely wrong. Criminal even.) Robin Williamson and John Renbourn played two pretty lengthy sets and performed a wide variety of material. A fair amount of it was their own work, but they also played some covers including songs by Blind Willie Johnson and Bob Dylan. Robin Williamson's version of Absolutely Sweet Marie was especially nice. Often they would seamlessly transition from one song into a well known Irish or Scottish folk song, with the audience joining in toward the end. Something I appreciated about the performance was that they maintained a really good balance between playing and talking to the audience. They told the perfect number of amusing anecdotes and always introduced their songs well. I suppose you get the feel for that sort of thing after performing for so many years. All in all it was an evening close to perfection and I'm really glad I got a chance to see them perform.


The next night we went and saw a production of The History Boys and The Kings Theater. I had only ever seen the film, so it was interesting to finally see the stage production. It was especially easy to compare the two since the dialogue was the same almost line for line. The remarkably tiny seats in the theater, which was clearly built in a time when people were much shorter, were a bit distracting though. Hard to enjoy a performance when your knees are crammed up against the chair in front of you. Enjoy it we did though. Aside from a few weird transitions, I though it was very well done indeed.