Prom 8: 21.07.16 - Strictly Prom

[LHC]

I do indeed remember that and wondering at the time who scripted the question - Sarah herself or the programme producer? (echoing a question that's been posed in many contexts in these 'ere parts for ages).

A Top Gear Prom's in the offing next season, perhaps. Well, why not an Eastenders Prom? A Celebrity Materchef Prom? An Archers Prom? Any of these, however awful to contemplate, would be little more or less relevant to a Proms season as a Strictly one.

James May is somewhat different to the run of the mill presenter, in that he studied music and plays piano and flute. When he was on Private Passions with Michael Berkeley, his choices included music by Dunstable, Francois Couperin, Bach, Chopin, Britten and Messaien, as well as his own recording of the Top Gear theme using the noises made by different car engines. A prom reflecting his tastes might be quite interesting, however, as he is no longer involved with Top Gear, and Top Gear's recent relaunch has been a disaster, I doubt we will be seeing a Top Gear prom anytime soon.

[french frank]

James May is somewhat different to the run of the mill presenter, in that he studied music and plays piano and flute. When he was on Private Passions with Michael Berkeley, his choices included music by Dunstable, Francois Couperin, Bach, Chopin, Britten and Messaien, as well as his own recording of the Top Gear theme using the noises made by different car engines. A prom reflecting his tastes might be quite interesting, however, as he is no longer involved with Top Gear, and Top Gear's recent relaunch has been a disaster, I doubt we will be seeing a Top Gear prom anytime soon.

Yes, on both points: JM a good choice for R3 presenter, if available? And no, now that the original team has gone, TG is an unlikely Prom - the BBC won't want to be reminded of the old and not able to make much of the new.

Btw, the concerts are billed a week in advance to enable general chat about them. As the Strictly Prom is tonight, perhaps we can stick to the topic thereafter! The expression of all views is justified, though I suggest that if you neither went nor listened you won't have much to contribute - though you might ask questions, I suppose …

[pureimagination]

"It won't be of a whole lot of use to people listening to it on radio - but then who would listen to Strictly itself in audio-only format?" says ahinton. The blind or visually impaired perhaps or someone without access [at time of broadcast] to a tv?! My point in my previous post was not to say you had to force yourself to listen or heaven forbid enjoy the Strictly Prom but rather that expressing your dislike for this or that Prom [or personal attacks on presenters - Yawn!] is not really going to acheive anything. May I suggest that those who are vehemently opposed to this prom should have a mass switching off of their radio's at the start of broadcast and all concerned should email the proms director or some person high up at Radio 3 to express their distain for proms that don't suit their particularly tastes or fit into the 'classical music' Proms.
Yes french frank I do understand that "It's a thread devoted to the Strictly Prom, deliberately posted in advance so that people can have their say..."

[ahinton]

Given what is on offer this year, why not an I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue Prom? (Replete with massed kazoos and swanee whistles, of course.)

Indeed; its programme could open with the Uxbridge English Overture and continue with an arrangement of Cole Porter's I love you, the ever delightful Samantha. It could include performances by attendees of the Prommers' Ball (except that this might put it in competition with the Strictly one) and by the Jack Quartet of a piece in D. There'd be no need for RAH bars to serve tea, as the audience will already have had theirs. The now almost essential audience participation couldbe done in a piece of pick up song and the whle programme could be full of gnat's crotchets. They could even do a second chamber Prom in an outdoor venue in Mornington Crescent. As points mean prozes, the top prize could be two tickets to the Strictly Prom (and, of course, the second prize four tickets to the Strictly Prom). A pity, though, that such a concert could not feature Colion Sell playing Shostakovich's first piano concerto with Humphrey Lyttelton...

[ahinton]

Or a British Bake-Off Prom, since they knead the dough.

!!! - to include the Flour Song from Carmen, Luto's delightful Chanteflours et Chantefables and Tchaikovsky's Waltz of the Flours, along with the inevitable Bakeoven Symphony; Dukas' La Berry and something by Loaffler would be the icing on the cake.

[ahinton]

James May is somewhat different to the run of the mill presenter, in that he studied music and plays piano and flute. When he was on Private Passions with Michael Berkeley, his choices included music by Dunstable, Francois Couperin, Bach, Chopin, Britten and Messaien, as well as his own recording of the Top Gear theme using the noises made by different car engines. A prom reflecting his tastes might be quite interesting, however, as he is no longer involved with Top Gear, and Top Gear's recent relaunch has been a disaster, I doubt we will be seeing a Top Gear prom anytime soon.

Sure, but I was thinking of Sarah Walker rather than James May when questioning "presenter or producer".

[ahinton]

"It won't be of a whole lot of use to people listening to it on radio - but then who would listen to Strictly itself in audio-only format?" says ahinton. The blind or visually impaired perhaps or someone without access [at time of broadcast] to a tv?! My point in my previous post was not to say you had to force yourself to listen or heaven forbid enjoy the Strictly Prom but rather that expressing your dislike for this or that Prom [or personal attacks on presenters - Yawn!] is not really going to acheive anything. May I suggest that those who are vehemently opposed to this prom should have a mass switching off of their radio's at the start of broadcast and all concerned should email the proms director or some person high up at Radio 3 to express their distain for proms that don't suit their particularly tastes or fit into the 'classical music' Proms.
Yes french frank I do understand that "It's a thread devoted to the Strictly Prom, deliberately posted in advance so that people can have their say..."

The thread has been launched in order to ascertain members' views; that's all.

[Hornspieler]

19:30 Thursday 21 Jul 2016 ON TV
Royal Albert Hall

Styne arr Martin Yates - Gypsy: Overture
Rodgers, arr Don Walker - Waltz from Carousel
Satie arr. Debussy - Gymnopédie No.1
Bizet - Farandole from L'Arlesienne Suite No. 2
Arr. Paul Hart - Roaring Twenties Medley
J.Strauss II - Die Fledermaus Overture
Walter Earle Brown, arr Richard Balcombe - If I Can Dream
Richard Rodney Bennett - Overture, Waltz, Finale from Murder on the Orient Express
Ginastera - Malambo from Estancia: Four Dances
Harry Warren, arr Balcombe - 42nd Street
Khachaturian - Masquerade Suite: Mazurka and Waltz
John Barry - Somewhere in Time (main theme)
Antheil - Archipelago
Piazzolla, arr Gareth Glyn - Libertango
Tchaikovsky - Grand Pas de Deux in G (Adagio) from Nutcracker
Ary Barroso, arr John Wasson - Aquarela do Brasil
Falla - Ritual Fire Dance (El amor brujo)
Irving Berlin arr. Gordon Langford and Gavin Sutherland - Selection from Top Hat


BBC Concert Orchestra, conductor Gavin Sutherland
Presenter/Dancer: Katie Derham
Strictly Dancers: Joanne Clifton, Karen Clifton, Kevin Clifton, Janette Manrara, Giovanni Pernice, Aljaž Skorjanec
Choreographer: Jason Gilkison

Katie Derham dons her dance shoes and ball gown once more, joined by some of your favourite professionals from Strictly Come Dancing, who will whisk us from Vienna to Latin America and back in the company of the BBC Concert Orchestra and conductor Gavin Sutherland.

OMG!

When does the next flight leave for Istanbul?

[PJPJ]

I think there's only one John Wilson Prom this year - where there have been two. This is presumably the substitute 'light Prom', with the BBC keen to use the 'BBC Proms' to give one of its own popular programmes a bit of a boost. Just a variation on a theme rather than anything new.

Next year's offering will be an "Embarrassing Bodies" Prom.

Followed by one on "Today in Parliament" and another on "Eastenders".

[ahinton]

OMG!

When does the next flight leave for Istanbul?

Why do you ask? Had you thought to try somehow to get Ms Derham, the other dancers and the conductor and orchestra on it before it's due to commence tonight?

If so, I wonder how Turkish Airlines' reputation stacks up in comparison to others when it comes to the handling of musical instruments in its cabins...

[ahinton]

Next year's offering will be an "Embarrassing Bodies" Prom.

Some might consider this year's Strictly Prom to be just that...

Followed by one on "Today in Parliament" and another on "Eastenders".

I'd already suggested that someone might devise an Eastenders one, although quite how a Today in Parliament one could be structured I have no idea.

That said, a Just a Minute one might be better than any of the other suggestions since it will at least have the virtue of being mercifully short; a few measures of Britten's St. Nicholas followed by a few more by Michael Parsons, a hesitation, repetition and deviation or two, a bell sound and it would all be over...

[french frank]

Yes french frank I do understand that "It's a thread devoted to the Strictly Prom, deliberately posted in advance so that people can have their say..."

Good, I'm glad that's clear. As I said, once the concert takes place I would encourage ONLY THOSE WHO LISTEN to contribute further. Those who don't intend to have had plenty of time to contribute during the past week.

[marvin]

That SCD prom should be good for us with eclectic tastes and who aren't snobs. My life is Classical music but cannot for social reasons listen to every concert, nor would I want to as it wouldn't be fair on my partner to disappear every night in to the music room.
I'll record the SCD prom as I am interested In what now goes for dancing nowadays, referring back to the Strictly series in question.

[Maclintick]

Next year's offering will be an "Embarrassing Bodies" Prom.

Followed by one on "Today in Parliament" and another on "Eastenders".

I'm looking forward to next year's "Crimewatch" Prom, with starring roles for the bankers who've run off with all our money ( Oops ! Politics creeping in....Sorry !)

[ahinton]

I'm looking forward to next year's "Crimewatch" Prom, with starring roles for the bankers who've run off with all our money ( Oops ! Politics creeping in....Sorry !)

Nice one! But that's surely not so much "politics" as "finance", n'est-ce pas? Anyway, if, in the spirit of such premonitory assumptions, the Strictly Prom were to include an encore in which the professional prancers with or without Ms Derham do The Referendum Tango, it might almost seem worth tuning in if only for that but, since no one's commissioned me to write the music for it and I don't think that it would be worth holding my breath in case anyone else (like, for example, David Matthews, who seems to have something of an obsession with tangos) might instead have been so commissioned, I'll probably give it the miss that I would have done anyway.