Great Expectations at Christmas

[spasuit]

An all star production of Wynyard Browne's play *The Holly and The Ivy*

[Chris Newman]

Praetorius's wonderful Christmas music and Berlioz's L'Enfance du Christ. I am afraid that Bach's Christmas Oratorio does not match up to either. Personal taste, of course.

[hackneyvi]

A few years ago, there was a broadcast over Christmas of (an ancient seeming) recording of Peer Gynt starring Ralph Richardson. Something about the age of the recording itself gave it an additional majesty, the hints of white noise, of blur gave it an atmosphere of fog, of frost, snow fall.

I'd love to hear a really stupendous piece of ancient radio. A long, great play.

Oh!, and a new performance of The Mask of Time (like that's going to happen).

[Ferretfancy]

hacxkneyvi

Ralph Richardson played Hassan in a television version of Flecker's famous verse play, back in the early days of colour. The largest studio at Ealing was used by television cameras for a change, instead of film, and the production was magical. I still remember the closing scene, as the pilgrims leave Baghdad's Gate of the Moon on the golden journey to Samarkand, a gorgeous procession with real camels and bells. I visited Samarkand recently, and the old city is truly wonderful. I'd love to see Hassan again, better for Christmas than any pantomime.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Praetorius's wonderful Christmas music and Berlioz's L'Enfance du Christ. I am afraid that Bach's Christmas Oratorio does not match up to either. Personal taste, of course.

Of course!

I don't know the Praetorius (always the best reason to support any call for Music to be broadcast!) and I love the Berlioz, too: the pleasure of any Christmas is enhanced by hearing this work.

The Bach "Oratorio" isn't a work as such, and I'm always left disappointed when the six cantatas are played together in a single concert as if it were (? "they was"?). But hearing them separately, on the feast days they celebrate, spreads the joy throughout the whole season in exactly the way that turkey doesn't!

Best Wishes.

[subcontrabass]

R3 christmas as of 20 years ago (ie pre Wright) broadcast as repeats

Perhaps go back a little more to the time when Cormac Rigby would be on duty on Christmas Day.

And for Boxing Day could we have a repeat of Peter Maxwell Davies' Cinderella?