Cheltenham Music Festival competition

The Cheltenham Music Festival Family Events poster is finished, and you can win a signed limited edition print with a special competition on the festival website, which features a little interview (wherein you will find the answer you seek!).

The link is HERE: http://www.cheltenhamfestivals.com/news/2013/02/win-limited-edition-signed-james-mayhew-music-festival-print/

Why not have a go? And GOOD LUCK!

Goodbye Mouse: Remembering Richard Briers

Like many millions of TV viewers, for me Richard Briers will always be Tom, in The Good Life. I hope it was indeed a good life for this mischievous actor with an ever present twinkle in his eye, and a warm voice full of cunning and comedy.

And it's his voice I think of in particular, for that was how I came to meet him, when he recorded the role of Mouse in the BBC/Grasshopper TV series of Mouse and Mole.

As the illustrator of Joyce Dunbar's glorious stories, I was invited, with the author, to attend recording sessions in London. I was very young and it was all very exciting.

Originally, the roles of Mouse and Mole had been offered to Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie. Although Mr. Fry accepted, by a chance of fate, this coincided exactly with his rather mysterious disappearance - it subsequently transpired he was suffering from depression and abandoned both a West End play, and Mouse and Mole. Hugh Laurie declined, so a new cast had to be found fast - for a studio was booked.

I suggested a favourite childhood voice: Richard Briers. Miraculously, he was free, accepted the role of Mouse, and the rest, as they say, is history.

It was extraordinarily good fortune that Alan Bennett had agreed to play the part of Mole - together they made an ideal team. It was, in fact, the first time these two venerable voices performed together and they did so with great comic timing and warmth. To meet them both was an incredible thrill. And I felt that the least I could do was give them each an original illustration from the books.

I gave this one, of Mouse with a wheelbarrow, to Richard, for the obvious reason - it reminded me of Tom Good. He chuckled and rolled his eyes...

A lovely man who made so many people laugh, he proved perfect for Mouse (and indeed added other voices to the series, like Rat).

Here's an episode on Youtube: Preposterous Puddle.

The books, sadly, went out of print and the films somehow went largely unnoticed (which was quite unfair as they were superbly done in every way).

But there remains a final posthumous performance from Richard Briers. A year or so ago, he recorded the soundtrack for a final Mouse and Mole Christmas Special, with Alan Bennett and Imelda Staunton. The film, so far, has not been made, but plans are afoot to complete it - and now it must happen, if for no other reason than as a tribute.

I can't think of a lovelier way to remember him.


Goodbye, Mouse.

Noye's Fludde - an image for the brochure

The Cheltenham Music Festival brochure for 2013 goes to press soon, and it will be crammed full of wonderful things. Obviously I'm especially excited about Noye's Fludde. An advance image has been requested, ahead of completed design for the opera. So here's what I came up with, inspired by Medieval carvings and imagery from inside Tewkesbury Abbey, where the performances will take place. I also wanted something clear and easy to see, even if reproduced very small...

Britten 100: a few more arks

I recently bought an old copy of the Opera Magazine - initially it caught my eye as the cover has Maria Callas in her legendary Covent Garden Traviata. But the same issue also reviews (glowingly) the 1958 premiere of Britten's Noye's Fludde at the Aldeburgh Festival. The enchanting set is a lovely realisation of medieval imagery - I just love it!

How will the Cheltenham Festival production compare and contrast? To begin with, Britten's opera was premiered in tiny Orford church. Tewkesbury Abbey is a cathedral sized space. There, it will be performed "in the round", which means that where the original production only needed half an ark, Cheltenham needs a 360 degree ark, which will be assembled on a vast scaffold. Possibly 15 metres long and 7 metres wide! The structure will enclose the orchestra...

On my set design course I am currently undertaking, I learnt in the first week about the importance of communicating intentions precisely. This has proven to be very true in reality, as my early designs have revealed themselves to be ambiguous to others. I know - in my head - what I intended, but that's not very helpful to everyone else!

So I've been back to the drawing board to create something less unbridled, more useful... And here are few of those drawings.

One further concept I had was for the boat to be created out of woven wicker or willow, to create a thoroughly natural look. And I may still use elements from that idea.

The need to have acting space has been queried, and so in my latest scale drawings, the whole platform is the whole deck. The stern and figure head are extras. Probably those characters who remain outside the ark (the saucy Gossips) will perform from the steps leading to the platform. I am mindful that the height of the platform and the depth of the audience surrounding it may make it hard to see, so I am always trying to think of solutions...

Exciting times. Challenging times. I will keep you posted!

Britten 100 - I will begyne to make the shippe

Noah's words in Britten's opera announce the building of the ark (called a "shippe" throughout the text, based on the Chester Mystery Play). And it is put together during the performance.

And so I am drawing, drawing, drawing, trying to find interesting ways of interpreting the iconic ark for the Cheltenham Music Festival production that I'm designing.

I began with free sketches and doodles. What came to mind, time and again, was Tewkesbury Abbey, where the opera will be performed in July. Terrible floods in recent years have spared the Abbey, seen in many pictures rising above the water like a great ship.

And so that has been my inspiration.


To begin with, I played around with a boat decorated like the ceiling of the Abbey. But this wasn't enough for me. I wanted something more striking.

It is likely that scaffolding will be erected in the Abbey for this wonderful event. 15 metres of it! If this is approved and goes ahead, it will make a thrilling platform for the performance to take place on, in the round. Indeed the scaffolding will become the ark and the flood, with the orchestra inside the scaffolding structure.

I am mindful of the need to have areas where people can be seen by the audience, who will be standing and sometimes singing along during the performance - this is very much a community opera (indeed often described as the first of it's kind!).


And so my current thoughts have a castellated ship in medieval fashion, but the stern is based on the Abbey itself. Other decorations and motifs come from the Abbey interior (ceiling mottes, leaf motifs etc). The figure-head is a dove, hence the winged sides. The mast is a tree (from which branches will be cut during the building scene). Canvas will unfurl over the orchestra to show the floodwater. And the sail will unfurl to show a storm... and perhaps the final, forgiving, rainbow.

This is all an early stage. The next is to see what the director thinks, and how much of this can actually work! Something much simpler may be necessary in the end - and visually preferable perhaps - as we have to accomodate a huge number of animals, two by two, and Noah and his family too. So let's call this work in progress...