All Or Nothing

This year, I bought a diary for the first time in - well, I can't recall the last time I had a diary. It is one of the conceits we have that we can remember things without having to write them down, but with age, that conceit is shown for exactly what it is, a vanity because now, without a shopping list I would return from the shops without the single most important item I set out to buy, and without a diary I would forget appointments and regularly double-book myself.

When it comes to double-booking, everyone must be familiar with the frustration that comes with going weeks, or even months, without anything special planned, only to find that two equally attractive opportunities present themselves on the same day. Less frustrating, but much more tiring, are the times when it seems that every day there is something happening - this usually follows a period in which one's diary has been stubbornly blank for weeks. Me, I've just had one of those 'all or nothing' periods as in the last fortnight I have been to three concerts and five BBC Radio recordings.

The Friday before last, I was at the London Palladium to see Steve Hackett in concert. One time member of prog rock giants, Genesis, the first half of Hackett's show featured his solo material, including tracks from his latest - and in my view, best - album, The Night Siren, while the second half was dedicated to Genesis material, with songs from Wind and Wuthering featuring prominently. It is remarkable - and not a little scary - to note that Wind and Wuthering is forty years old this year: where did that time go? As seems increasingly common at concerts I go to, especially where the average age of the audience is north of forty-five, the show featured a very necessary interval for comfort breaks!

Steve Hackett (centre) and band at The London Palladium

Two days later, and Val and I were at the BBC Radio Theatre at Broadcasting House in Regent Street for a recording of The Vote Now Show featuring Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis. A topical version of The Now Show aimed squarely at the upcoming General Election, The Vote Now Show includes an element of audience participation, with members of the public asked for jokes - ours was read out in the theatre, but did not make the edit, so if you heard the show, you would not have heard our contribution. It being a lovely day, Val and I supplemented our regular walk to the BBC from Liverpool Street with a walk back along the Thames to Tower Pier and then a boat to North Greenwich before getting the Tube.

From Victoria Embankment

The following evening I was at the Islington Assembly Hall to see Polish prog rock band, Riverside.  I got into Riverside just after discovering, about ten years ago, that prog had not quietly slipped away into the night, but was in fact flourishing. The only issue I have with the band is that for some reason, I can never remember the names of their songs. Still, it was a great show on a balmy, hot evening at a great venue I had not visited before. It was not until the next morning that I learned of the terrible events in Manchester at Ariana Grande's concert the same night.

Riverside at Islington Assembly Hall

Twenty-fours later, and it was back to the BBC for Val and me, to see Quote...Unquote, the quotations panel game hosted by Nigel Rees. It's been going for over forty years and is one of those whimsical, witty shows that the Beeb do so well and in which the play-write and screenwriter Julian Mitchell was a thoroughly engaging and entertaining member of the panel.

After a night off, it was back to the BBC for the both of us to see The News Quiz. Unsurprisingly after the events of Monday evening in Manchester, security had been tightened and a suspicious package found in the adjacent Caffe Nero resulted in the building being evacuated and a late start to the recording. The News Quiz is a show for which it is quite difficult to get tickets, and although it is very popular, goodness knows what BBC Radio 4's stereotypical listener thinks of it. While many on the left-wing of the political spectrum often accuse the BBC of pro-Tory partiality, this show is so ardently left-wing and virulently anti-Tory it is a wonder the Labour Party don't use it instead of party political broadcasts. Dominated by the overbearing Jeremy Hardy, the show also featured the woefully unfunny Andrew Maxwell, whose main contribution was to witter on about those members of the population who are over seventy-five years old, and according to him have an obsession with riding around on buses all day. Laugh? I thought I'd never start.

Caffe Nero at BBC Broadcasting House

Friday dawned hot yet again, and after never previously visiting the Islington Assembly Hall, I was back for the second time in five days, this time to see Israeli singer-songwriter Aviv Geffen and his band, Blackfield. Geffen's collaborator in Blackfield, the ubiquitous Steven Wilson, had not been due to appear, or so it said when I booked my ticket, but a message he had tweeted the day before suggested that he would be playing, and so he did, although on only three songs. Had that been known in advance, I reckon the audience - which was a good few smaller in number than had been present for Riverside - would have been much greater. Considering my limited knowledge of Blackfield material, the show was really excellent, as was the support act, a guy by the name of Pat Dam Smyth, who seems worth checking out.

Steven Wilson (centre) plays with Blackfield. Aviv Geffen is on the right of the picture.

Three days off before the next event, one of The 2017 Reith Lecture series, and a talk given by the author Hilary Mantel (best known for Wolf Hall) at the fabulous Middle Temple Hall. Built between 1562 and 1573, the hall survived The Great Fire of London and both World Wars unscathed and was where Shakespeare's Twelfth Night was first performed, in 1602. As is our custom when going to these sort of events, Val and I had walked to the venue from Liverpool Street, crossing The Millennium Bridge to walk along The South Bank, where, near Tate Modern, we had seen the actor Mark Rylance, who played Thomas Cromwell in the TV adaptation of Mantel's book. As it transpired, he was in the audience, along with a number of other famous faces, including Ben Miles - who has played Cromwell on stage - and Tristram Hunt, who until recently was Labour MP for Stoke-on-Trent, but is now director of the Victoria & Albert Museum. Hilary Mantel's lecture, which was on the historical novel, was engaging and entertaining, albeit that the acoustics in the hall had me straining my ears at times. One small point; when questions from the audience were taken, more than one person asked something that had been covered in the lecture. Dame Hilary was far too polite to point this out and happily reiterated her points of view. So interesting was she, I'm putting Wolf Hall on my reading list.

Middle Temple Hall, outside and in.

Finally, for the moment at least, it was back to Broadcasting House last night (Wednesday) for another recording of Quote...Unquote, in which Sally Phillips and Matthew Parris were particularly entertaining - especially Phillips on the subject of clown school.

I cannot recall a time when I've seen so many shows in such a short space of time, and as enjoyable as it has all been, I'm looking forward to a not having them come quite so thick and fast for a while.

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The Now Show and The News Quiz, being topical shows, have been broadcast on BBC Radio already, but remain available in the Radio iPlayer. The 2017 Reith Lectures given by Hilary Mantel (there are five in total) will be broadcast in June, while Quote...Unquote will be aired in October and November.