SIXTEENTH SEASON - 2021
Existing Subscriptions Waived this Season
Members £40 single £75 Couple for 2022
Hopefully from SEPTEMBER 2021
"Jennie Churchil: Style Icon,Pushy Mother and Ambitious Seductress"!
Wednesday 1st September 2021. Jenny Jerome was born in America with the belief that it was her destiny to make a great marriage and achieve something in the world. Anne Sebba has written a book about the life of Lady Randolf Churchill and feel that she has been treated unfairly in history, as a woman who took over 200 lovers; but in the 21st C, almost 100 years after Jennie's tragically premature death, surely it is time to re-evaluate her legacy.
"A Life in Music: West to East and back"
Wednesday 5th October 2021. The well known jazz Saxophonist Chris "Snake" Davis is a UK Solo Artist and Session Musician. His lecture will include live demonstrations of a large selection of saxophones, flutes and ethnic woodwinds. He will talk about the business, the art of music and life on the road, and how his love of music has opened the doors to Japanese Culture.
"Denys Lasdun & the National Theatre:"
Wednesday 3rd November 2021. The architecture of the National Theatre divides opinion. Famously, Prince Charles once described it as a nuclear bunker! Was he right? In this lecture Alan Read looks at the life and work of Denys Lasdun and pleads for an appreciation of the austere beauty of this architectural masterpiece.
"It's not just Tchaikovsky!!"
Wednesday 8th December 2021. Nigel Bates takes us on a wide-ranging exploration of the music chosen by ballet choreographers through the years; proving that the right piece with the right moves, and the right designs, can create modern masterpieces and timeless classics.
SEVENTEENTH SEASON - 2022
"BOOBS, BOMBAST and GIN - the Restoration & After"
Wednesday 5th January 2022. Given by Giles Ramsey is an independent Theatre Director and Producer. His directing credits are too numerous to mention! He is a Course Leader in Theatre at the V & A Museum. This talk is a fascinating slant on History - how the theatre of the day reflected this most saucy of eras.
"Indians, Buffalo and Storms: the American West in 19thC Art"
Wednesday 2nd February 2022. Artists were never very far behind the explorers who opened up the west of America in the 19th century. This is a story on a big scale, and who better than Toby Faber to use paintings to illustrate and chart the history of the arrival of the railroad, the confinement of the native American into reservations and the extermination of the buffalo.
"A Provocative Beauty - the Art of Grayson Perry"
Wednesday 2nd March 2022. Grayson Perry who won the Turner Prize in 2003, is close to becoming a "National Treasure". His beautiful, finely crafted pottery, which frequently has a sting in the tail, and his colourful, imaginative and often amusing tapestries are enormously popular in the fine art world. In his lecture Frank Woodgate will look at his work in some detail, as well as considering his cross-dressing alter ego, Claire, and his fondness for his childhood teddy bear Alan Measles..
"Rooms and Views - filming in Florence with Merchant Ivory"
Wednesday 6th April 2022 - For more than 40 years Sarah Quill has been photographing the architecture and daily life of Venice creating and a unique and ever growing photographic archive. She is a Trustee of the "Venice in Peril Fund" and a new edition of her book "Ruskin's Venice - The Stones Revisited" was published in 2018. We are fortunate that she had the opportunity to attend and photograph Florence during the making of the film "Room with a View".
"From Downton to Gatsby" - Jewellery & Fashion 1890 - 1929
Wednesday 11th May 2022.
Andrew Prince is a respected craftsman, historian and lecturer and has created some of the finest crystal jewellery in the world: he was commissioned to make many of the jewels worn by the main characters in the acclaimed TV series "Downton Abbey". His lecture explores the extraordinary era when great couturiers collaborated with the finest craftsmen to produce creations of outstanding quality and glittering opulence. He promises to bring some examples of his craft for us to examine.
Andrew Prince is a respected craftsman, historian and lecturer and has created some of the finest crystal jewellery in the world: he was commissioned to make many of the jewels worn by the main characters in the acclaimed TV series "Downton Abbey". His lecture explores the extraordinary era when great couturiers collaborated with the finest craftsmen to produce creations of outstanding quality and glittering opulence. He promises to bring some examples of his craft for us to examine.
"Founders and Treasures of the Wallace Collection"
Wednesday 8th June 2022 - Stephen Duffy - recently retired as Senior Curator of the Wallace Collection; he will relate how this collection of paintings, furniture,porcelain, timepieces, arms and armour was brought together by five generations of the same family. This lecture tells the fascinating story of its formation and presents many of its finest treasures.
