Westminster Abbey on BBC2

[ardcarp]

This programme included a lot about the choir...and choristers in particular...so may be of interest to readers of The Choir Forum.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01p694q/Westminster_Abbey_Episode_1/

The tradition, the ceremony and the royal connections were much in evidence. In the face of all this, the remnants of my Christian conscience trouble me a bit. If others have similar thoughts, try this as a salve:

http://www.smitf.org/christmas

[David-G]

Also of great interest to me, even though I am not an avid reader of The Choir forum!

Thank you for the reminder.

[ardcarp]

even though I am not an avid reader of The Choir forum!

Why not join us more often?

[teamsaint]

must try to catch the prog, didn't know about it till today.

Some (just some)cathedral websites read more like a corporate hospitality exercise than anything else. Sadly.

[Nick Armstrong]

must try to catch the prog, didn't know about it till today.

Some (just some)cathedral websites read more like a corporate hospitality exercise than anything else. Sadly.

The programme 'read' rather like that too. Bit 'same old, same old', inevitably - various Abbey operatives interviewed, choirboys jockeying for the 'big solo' ... but how else can they make a programme like this. Wallpaper TV - very agreeable images, but if you miss it, I wouldn't worry.

[teamsaint]

The programme 'read' rather like that too. Bit 'same old, same old', inevitably - various Abbey operatives interviewed, choirboys jockeying for the 'big solo' ... but how else can they make a programme like this. Wallpaper TV - very agreeable images, but if you miss it, I wouldn't worry.

thanks for that. I have very deep misgivings about a lot of what goes on, (and i do some business with some major cathedrals FWIW)... I must say that my heart sank, and prejudices seemed to be about to be confirmed(before i player gave up just now) during the intro when a business type said that they "processed" 1000 tourists an hour.....

[DracoM]

Far more interesting would have been to choose a cathedral miles and miles away from metrocentre.
BUT
it stood out a mile that this wasn't really about 'a cathedral' as such, but WESTMINSTER etc etc etc writ very large, and made very specifically for global TV, the American and Far Eastern market.

Pretty, but then it could hardly fail to be, and they made sure that the Queen, Diana clips, Kate beaming et al all parading at regular intervals across the screen.

[ardcarp]

On the plus side, the programme (so far) did show music to be an integral part of the Abbey's daily round. Imagine how cross we, on these boards, would have been had it been sidelined.

[mopsus]

'Processed' in more ways than one was how I felt at the end of singing a service at the Abbey with one visiting choir. We walked out into the cloister at the end of the service, the door was shut behind us and we then had no way of slipping back into the building to hear our organist play the voluntary. It's also impossible as a visiting choir member to pay one's respects at Purcell's monument, as it is only accessible in the few minutes before evensong when the congregation queue up in the north quire aisle.

The reason that used to be given for making visitors move along a precise route and pay on entry, was that Westminster Abbey was otherwise in danger of becoming a waiting room for the Eurostar terminal. But Eurostar has now moved to St Pancras and as far as I know the treatment of Abbey visitors hasn't changed.

[AjAjAjH]

Watched the programme but Westminster Abbey is not what it seems. It gave the impression of an all welcoming place. Not so. Earlier this year, I needed some space to write notes and contemplate between 2 very important meetings (both very close to the Abbey) concerning my future and that of my family. I thought the Abbey would be the ideal place to do this. I was asked for a £16-00 entry fee or I could be conducted to a place of quiet by an official. The fact that I am a Church of England Vicar and was wearing my dog collar was of no avail. I suspect that this grasping side of the Abbey is not mentioned at all in the programme.

A few months later I was in Norwich Cathedral - no entrance fee to pay just a donations box at the door. I gladly left a donation.

So often these days when I visit places of worship -Cathedrals mainly- with their instance on payment before you can enter, I am reminded of the scene in the Barchester Chronicles when The Warden says to the Archdeacon that he wonders what Our Lord Jesus Christ would say about what was going on. The Archdeacons reply,'What's Jesus Christ got to do with it?' I ask myself that question often about what goes on in the Church (particularly the CofE) today.

[ardcarp]

Watched the programme but Westminster Abbey is not what it seems. It gave the impression of an all welcoming place. Not so. Earlier this year, I needed some space to write notes and contemplate between 2 very important meetings (both very close to the Abbey) concerning my future and that of my family. I thought the Abbey would be the ideal place to do this. I was asked for a £16-00 entry fee or I could be conducted to a place of quiet by an official. The fact that I am a Church of England Vicar and was wearing my dog collar was of no avail. I suspect that this grasping side of the Abbey is not mentioned at all in the programme.

A few months later I was in Norwich Cathedral - no entrance fee to pay just a donations box at the door. I gladly left a donation.

So often these days when I visit places of worship -Cathedrals mainly- with their instance on payment before you can enter, I am reminded of the scene in the Barchester Chronicles when The Warden says to the Archdeacon that he wonders what Our Lord Jesus Christ would say about what was going on. The Archdeacons reply,'What's Jesus Christ got to do with it?' I ask myself that question often about what goes on in the Church (particularly the CofE) today.

Ah. This is something I feel very strongly about! Charging for entry to cathedrals is an outrage. A few years ago our family of five were visiting York and naturally wanted to see inside the Minster. I was so cross about the entry fee AND about the beep beep beep of the cash registers (now silenced, I am told) I refused to go in, made a big fuss, and afterwards wrote to the BBC's You and Yours programme. They took up my case, paid for a train fare and a hotel, and recorded an interview between me and one of the clergy (it wasn't the Dean....they were just changing Deans, apparently). It got about 3 minutes' air time at the end of the show!

Well done to the cathedrals which have held out against a compulsory admission fee and shame on those which choose to ignore the letter and the spirit of the New Testament....and Trollope.

[David-G]

(Re DracoM and some previous posts.) I am amazed by this cynicism, which is not something that I would have expected in "The Choir". One does not necessarily have high expectations of a programme of this type, but this was interesting and very watchable.

Of course this programme was not about a cathedral. Westminster Abbey is not a cathedral. It is a unique, and very interesting, institution. The Abbey is at the centre of national life, and you would expect a programme such as this to reflect that. In any case, the clips of the Queen and of Kate actually only occupied a few seconds.

I attended a service in the Abbey every morning while at school. Naturally I am very familiar with the place. There was plenty in this programme which I found interesting; the choirboys, the library and some of its extraordinary contents, the induction of the new Surveyor of the Fabric, the newly restored Coronation Chair, the Chapter House, the Commonwealth service, the inside of the Deanery, the meeting of the Chapter.

I was amazed to discover that the architectural "ruin detective" of BBC's "Restoration", the engaging Ptolemy Dean, has been appointed Surveyor of the Fabric. He looked like the cat that had got the cream, and rightly so. It is a very important position, and he has some illustrious predecessors.

Incidentally I quite agree about charging for entry to cathedrals - but that is not what this thread is about.

[Sir Velo]

Well done to the cathedrals which have held out against a compulsory admission fee and shame on those which choose to ignore the letter and the spirit of the New Testament....and Trollope.

It does beg the question as to how they are expected to fund the high costs of the necessary maintenance of these enormous, crumbling edifices without some contribution from the public.

[mopsus]

Durham Cathedral has (I think) never had to launch a major appeal, and simply requests donations. It is open to the public long after evensong has finished - I was once told this was because there is some sort of right of way through the building.

[Gabriel Jackson]

It's all very well being outraged at cathedrals charging for admission (a practice that is perfectly common in other countries) but, as has been stated, the huge costs of running them has to come from somewhere. (The music budgets alone in many cathedrals - something very dear to the members of this forum - are enormous.) While the varying needs of visitors need to be met appropriately, and aren't always perhaps, the vast majority treat the most popular as a tourist attraction like any other, and are expected to pay elsewhere. And no one is charged to attend a service. It is also arguable that the most-visited - Westminster Abbey, St Paul's, Canterbury, York Minster - would be even more like a cattle market inside if admission was free. (I don't know where the Eurostar idea comes from, by the way - the old Eurostar terminal was at Waterloo, hardly adjacent to Westminster Abbey.)

Of more concern than admission charges is the way some staff at Westminster Abbey (and St Paul's, for that matter) treat visitors, be they tourists, worshippers or people who have business there.