Petroc's Holiday Blog

Even Proms presenters get to take a break...

I’m back at the Proms after a week’s holiday in Cornwall. Not that I ever felt far from the Royal Albert Hall. Driving down with my niece and nephew, (aged 9 and 13) the back of the car came alive with the sound of music as they sang along to the tunes in the Horrible Histories Prom. Their spirited impressions of Rattus Rattus became a kind of chorus to accompany the holiday, the HH team and Aurora Orchestra easing us through the back streets of Bristol as the sat-nav did its best to get us away from motorway chaos on the M5.

We got to our destination eventually – stopping at a relative on the way, where the television was on, Midori playing the Walton Violin Concerto. The HD pictures showed every stray hair on her bow, every tiny bead of perspiration on the faces of the CBSO players. But the quality does take you even closer to the action; more than ever before like watching from the Arena. From then on the Proms seemed everywhere. An afternoon repeat playing in an antique shop in Penzance, two ladies behind me on the train home discussing seeing the Four Last Songs on BBC4. ‘I’m sorry we’ve missed the Verdi Requiem’ said one. But for the fear of exposing my ear-wigging, I’d have leapt in to tell them they hadn’t - it’s not on TV until August 21st.

Rented holiday cottages have changed much since the days when I earned pocket money cleaning one in Coverack. Gone are the bring-your-own sheets and chipped pyrex crockery. It’s all cotton and dishwashers and cafetieres these days, and a digital TV, even a stereo system in the sitting room. But it was my sister-in-laws trusty mono radio that gave me the most pleasure, as I sat in the garden, glass of wine poured, overlooking a patchwork of fields on the Lizard Peninsula and enjoying Stephen Hough playing Saint-Saëns 5th Piano Concerto. And chuckling as Martin Handley described the fez Stephen put on as he came out to take his bow. 

It was grey, rainy and quite chilly for most of the week – not that that stopped us swimming daily, at Coverack or on the Helford River. As we drove home, sniffing gently one night, I turned up the car radio for a ravishing performance of the Prelude à L’apres-midi d’un faune, cursing slightly at the end as Andrew McGregor described the sweltering heat that the Prommers had had to endure as they waited for the doors to open.

As well as hearing the Proms on the radio, and seeing them on the TV, I kept running into its stars. A performance of Die Walküre in Truro was not something to be missed. DIE WALKÜRE. In TRURO. Sorry for the capitals, but this was a once-in-a-lifetime event. ‘What was that like ?’, asked a London friend, sneer forming on their lip. Amazing I replied. But then it did have Susan Bullock singing Brünnhilde (ahead of her appearances the Comedy Prom and the Last Night), and was conducted by Martyn Brabbins (post his Havergal Brian triumph). The St Endellion Festival production’s starry cast also included Richard Berkeley-Steele, Sara Fulgoni and Robert Haywood; when Robert got a throat infection and missed his final performance as Wotan, John Tomlinson flew in and took over. That’s Cornwall for you. 

In a pub in St Keverne, the local auctioneer, who’d just been selling off slices of beef in the annual Ox Roast, came over to say hello. ‘Like your work - but you talk too much’. I was about to launch into my general defence of complicated stage moves/lost artists/producers instructions - but suddenly it didn’t seem worth the effort. ‘Pint’, I thought, my eyes wandering to the bar, and the pump serving Trelawny, a fine new ale, brewed in St Austell. Now that’s something that would improve conditions at the Royal Albert Hall. Cornish beer on draught.