A slightly unusual Rambling Club this week.
There was supposed to be a lovely ramble with a celebrity guest. Unfortunately, the computer on which the episode was edited has decided that this is not a thing it wishes to participate in. Rather than leave you entirely ramble-less, however, we have opened the Patreon cupboard and brought out something rather special.
So this week we remain firmly inside the Presidential Garden Shed, where Paul and Allan are joined by the ever-welcome Mark Hutchinson, Tony Slattery's partner for almost forty years. This is one of our Patreon-exclusive conversations, in which our patrons provide both the Dewey numbers and the questions and, on this occasion, there is plenty to talk about.
We begin with a question from Linda Craig: which of Tony's performances remains particularly special to us?
That turns out to be rather more difficult to answer than you might imagine. There's Radio Times, and Tony singing \"My Thanks to You\" with nothing but a piano. There's an extraordinary evening of Noël Coward with the BBC Radio Orchestra, a balcony scene from Private Lives with Lorraine Chase and Tony singing Coward with forty musicians behind him. There's Neville's Island, The Head of the Class, I Got News for You and a remarkably obscure Lost in Space VHS voiceover. And then there is the performance that Eric has chosen for entirely different reasons.
In other words, the question is answered.
Sort of.
Then the magic bingo machine produces 787: Stringed Instruments.
And suddenly we're talking about the cello, the violin, Paul Tortelier, Truly, Madly, Deeply, Cynthia Erivo and the extraordinary emotional power of strings. We discover that Paul's mother played the cello, that Allan once played the violin, and that Tony himself encouraged Allan to take his long-neglected instrument out of the wardrobe and play it again. There's even the story of a nine-year-old Allan conducting an orchestra at the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall.
From there we begin wondering whether our tastes change as we grow older. Country music enters the conversation. So does The Archers. So does the extraordinary ability of music to transport us instantly back to another time and another place.
And then we get rather more philosophical.
What was it like being a child who didn't quite fit in? What happens when the thing that makes you different suddenly becomes your superpower? We hear about music teachers, terrifying Welsh women, clarinets, singing in school assembly and the extraordinary moment when being the quiet, awkward child suddenly becomes an advantage.
That leads us into education, opportunity and the arts.
Why is access to drama and music becoming increasingly difficult? What has happened to the idea of education as something more than preparation for employment? And what happens when the arts become something available primarily to those whose parents can afford to support them?
Along the way there are memories of Cadbury's remarkable drama department, Jacqueline Hill, RADA, university life, the social importance of education and the simple joy of learning for its own sake.
There are, naturally, tangents.
There are musical digressions.
There is some fairly robust criticism of the 1990s.
And there is a great deal of affection for the man whose name is on the door of the Club.
It's not our usual ramble.
But perhaps, in the circumstances, it's exactly the ramble we needed.
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