June 2008 Newsletter
Upcoming Events
Great Annual Re-Creation of Everyday Tudor Life
Step back in time and spend a day in the 16th Century at this glorious 16th C manor.
Kentwell is known worldwide for its Re-Creations of Tudor Life. The Great Annual Re-Creation is the biggest of the year and lasts for three weeks. Each year a different year in the Tudor period is re-created. This year it is 1588 - the year of the Spanish Armada.
What happens at a Re-Creation
The Re-Creation shows people, the rich and the poor, dressed as of that time, talking in a form of Tudor English (which anyone can understand), responding to each other as people did then and following the activities which made the Manor function: Gentry at mostly leisure pursuits; others working in one way or another. As well there may be from time to time be interruptions forming relief to the daily grind: perhaps, a Funeral or Handfast; a Wedding Party or a Muster of the Trained Band; or a play from visiting players.
Two Levels
The Re-Creation works on two levels. First, some 400 of Kentwell's Tudors re-create aspects of everyday life on the Manor: cooks cook, bakers bake, brewers brew, smiths forge, potters pot, ladies sew, women spin, weave and dye wool, alchemists perform experiments, musicians make music, etc etc. People not pretending but actually doing these things just as they were done hundreds of years ago.
Secondly, the Re-Creation is set in particular month of a chosen year and the people on the Manor respond to the events of that year as people then may have done. Just as today everyone goes about their life but to a greater or lesser extent all are affected by matters of national concern: the economy, the price of oil etc. In June/July 1588 the threat of invasion was such an event (and closer to hme, the risk of yet another poor harvest) and this forms the background against which daily life at the Manor unfolds.
The Re-Creation runs for 3 weeks beginning on Sunday 15 June. It is open to the public at weekends only (plus Fri 4th July) from 11am - 5pm. Step back in time to see not only how a great Manor functioned but also how folk responded to the threat of invasion. Some 400 'Tudors' will portray nearly all aspects of daily life the year 1588 and also show their response to the threat of invasion. More information and book tickets
Did You Visit a Re-Creation as a Schoolchild? Over half a million have done so since the first Re-Creation in 1979. This year to mark our 30th anniversary, we shall offer free entry to the Re-Creation on Friday July 4th to anyone who has visited in an earlier year as a child in a school party. All you need do is name the school and the year of the visit.
Concerts and Theatre
Kentwell offers three performances for its summer open air entertainment season (click for more information or to book online).
Puccini's Madama Butterfly on Saturday 19th July at 7.45pm
We are enthusiastic fans of Madama Butterfly. It is such an affecting tale but in some way more real and more heart-rending (and more believable) than most opera plot lines (it is said to have been based on an actual event in 19th C Japan) and Puccini's music is ravishing.
Opera Box have brought Opera to Kentwell for the last 8 years, starting with Madama Butterfly, which returns in a wholly new production. We think Opera Box are quite simply the best Open Air Opera Touring Company. Their singing, acting and staging is of a consistently high quality and they always have a high class live orchestra.
This performance will be played on the Cedar Lawn with the House providing a memorable backdrop.
If you think your taste does not run to opera, think again. Opera is not just for toffs or snobs but for everyone. There is no better opera than Madama Butterfly for a first opera; and no better place to start than Open Air at Kentwell.
Enjoy a picnic in the Gardens (or book supper in the Kentwell restaurant). There will be a one hour supper interval. Gates open at 6.30pm.
Gilbert & Sullivans The Yeoman of the Guard on Saturday 2nd August at 7.00pm
Gilbert & Sullivan's operetta join clever and witty lyrics to levely and tuneful music. The plot is all abouty trying to rescue a prisoner condemened to death. It has plenty of romance, impersonation and near discovery which border on but never quite becomes farce and the music is some of the best Sullivan wrote.
South Angila Savoy Players are some of the best amateurs in the region combine to form this company which returns to Kentwell for a fourth year. The company is one of the very best portrayers of Gilbert & Sullivan's operetta. They have won the Waterford International Festival of Light Music a record 5 times, have been regulars winners at the Buxton Opera House Gilbert & Sullivan Festival and with an earlier production of Yeomen won the International Gilbert & Sullican Festival in Philadelphia, USA.
Their playing is distinushed by casts with large choruses, striking costumes, outstanding choral singer and a some really good leading voices. They always produce a really livel and enjoyable evening.
Enjoy a picnic in the Gardens or a Kentwell supper in the Undercroft. There will be a one hour supper interval. Gates open at 6.00pm.
Glenn Miller 1940's Night on Friday 1st August
This will be the eighth successive year in which we have hosted a Glenn Miller concert. This year we welcome the Nick Ross Orchestra for the first time. What makes a Kentwell Glenn Miller concert so special is not just the setting (which is striking - we set our stage in the Courtyard) but the fact that so many of the audience make the effort to don 1940s clothes.
The Courtyard offers a great space for people to dance. What's more we have demonstrations of Jive or Jitterbug steps by skilled masters of the genre who also offer instruction for those who would like to learn the rudiments (or improve their stepping).
Dance demonstration starts at 7.00pm, the Concert at 8.00pm. Picnic on the Lawns as you enjoy the inimitable Miller sound.
News
The Weather
We English seemed besotted by the weather. We never stop talking about it (its the first topic of converstaion) and religiously watch or read endless weather forecasts which we believe as if they were articles of faith. Yet forecasts are as often wrong as right (well they are for Kentwell) but that does not stop us ordering our life according to the next forecast we hear.
Easter
Easter was early this year. (Few people realise that in 1928 Government passed an Act fixing Easter for the second weekend in April. The active has not yet come into force because it provided for consultation with the the Church.) Whether or not it was the early date the Easter weekend produced snow, cold and a biting wind, as much snow, cold aznd biting wind as anyone could remember for thta time of year. Those like we at Kentwell who put on special activities for what is usually the busiest holiday weekend of the year found our visitors stayed away in droves - warm inside some heated space somewhere doubtless.
The recent Spring Bank Holiday weekend felt like another Easter. It was cold, very windy and wet. Here it was not that cold (but it was windy and we lost all power) and not that wet. Worse the weather forecast were full of doom and gloom and warnings of extreme conditions. While the weather was not that bad it was enough (with the forecast) to keep visitors away. Too poor holiday weekends in the space of two months is difficult for places like Kentwell. We have beenOpen to the public for over 30 years now and have had never had one, let alone two weekends like it. Never had one except for the last spring Bank Holiday when the wetaher was even worse and the consequences the same.
Last year the same wet weather continued almost without a break well into July and made that year's Grat Annual Re-Creation very trying. We can but hope for something more clement this year.
The late cold snaps acombined with the rising price of oil have hit us hard too. We have had to fill our fuel tank more often than usual this spring and at prices which have simply leapt.
Animals
It seems that scarcely a week goes by without either another animal disease scare or (almost as bad) nother directive from the Government as to what we must or must not do. Last year we suffered restrictions successively from Foot & Mouth disease, Avian Flu (with the outbreaks in Norfolk) and Blue Tongue disease (again with an outbreak locally). The restriction meant we could not sell live stock nor buy (or swap) rams, boars or bulls. Last summer with the wet was a bad year for fly strike particularly in our sheep and we lost several due to it. There is now a vaccine against Bue Tongue. Well that is not strictly true. There is a vaccine against one strain of Blue Tongue. we hope it isa the strain that now seems to have reached these shores. Scientists argue about how many strains there are. Some say about 10; others fewer. The vaccine is expensive to buy and costly to administer. We hope we don't have to do it ten times.
On top of the animal diseases and all the paperwork and restrictions which have followed the infections, we also have the cost of animal feed with which to contnd. Feed costs this year have been almost twice those of last year.
Rain
As I write, it is raining and has rained steadily, though not heavily, for two days solidly. The Moat is full and even the Pond that leaks (despite every effort to seal it) is full. The Canada geese are back in strength - actually two pairs never went away - to be joined recently by others. Last year's pair have hatched off another 5 goslings which are all thriving, while another pair have just one. Just the weather for geese.
We, like many people, moan about the weather. We want it to rain when we need rain (preferably during the night) to be dry and sunny, warm or cool when those conditions matter on important (for us) days. Yet this spring has produced some wonderful greens. Round us there is a patchwork of fields in green in countless different hues when the new crops come through and trees and bushes burst into leaf. Best of all are the lime trees in our Avenue. Their green is a lime colour but of such delicacy that the tunnel of the Avenue, especially when lit by warm sun, is absolutely stunning. Alas, this delicate colour lasts only a week or two before the leaves darken up and the magic is gone. But for that week or two it is difficult to think of anywhere more perfect. I thank the rain for that but it may be that the two are unconnected. On the other hand last year's late and heavy rain undoubtedly produced the wonderful show of daffodils we enjoyed this year. None of the blind plants which drier Mays produce.
More Weather
Over Easter we were snowbound. We looked very pretty but not good for visitors. Whit weekend just gone was wet, again too wet for visitors. It certainly seems that visitors are more easily deterred by wet or cold (or, perhaps more to the point, by forecasts of wet or cold) than they were a few years ago. Are we as a nation getting softer ? Reluctant to leave the comfort of central heating to which we have got used in home, car and office ?
Fuel & Costs
Like everyone we are feeling in spades the effect of the rising cost of fuel and wheat. The prolonged colder temperatures which stretched well into May meant we had to keep our heating on longer. 1,000 to 1,500 litres a week is extremely costly. We run a diesel car as it is less polluting than a petrol one, yet diesel fuel has risen far more steeply than petrol. Government attempts to encourage control of carbon emissions seem empty rhetoric when diesel users are penalised so . High wheat prices meant that food costs for animals doubled this winter and again the weather meant we kept animals in longer than we would have wished. There is no sign of meat prices rising sufficiently to compensate.
Kentwell 1588
Our main Re-Creation this year (from June 15 to July 6) is set in the year of the Spanish Armada. The weather saved England from invasion; keeping the Spanish fleet in harbour long enough for the English fleet to prepare. The weather then blew the English fire ships into the Spanish Galleons and eventually what remained of the Spanish Fleet up the East Coast on a long journey round Britain to get home but very few made it back. The country was greatly threatened but, lacking media, I reckon that the people did not feel as threatened as in 1940 but just as threatened they really were. A strange side effect of the Armada was that Raleigh's settlement at Roanoke, the first English settlement in the New World, went unsupplied during 1588 because all vessels were needed to face the Armada. Probably for want of supplies the settlement failed. How would history have turned out if Roanoke had succeeded and the English did not have to wait another 20 years for Jamestown and the first settlement that survived ? Probably events would have unfolded much as they did but they might not have done. During our Re-Creation we shall re-create Tudor life at the time these momentous events were unfolding.
Concerts
We have two Opera and our Glenn Miller 1940s Night this year. Madama Butterfly brings us my favourite opera. The tale is believable and very affecting, the music is sublime and in Opera Box we have a company which we know will do it justice. Their Butterfly here a few years back was as good as any I have seen, a quite wonderful evening that we hope will be repated this year. The Yeomen of the Guard has a complicated plot (well complicated for G&S) and does not resolve with everyone marrying everyone else as usual for G&S. It also has some of Sullivan's best music. The South Anglia Savoy Players are to my mind the very best interpreters of the genre. There have been a few commercial successes with G&S (I can think of Papp's Pirates of Penzance and the Black Mikado and another Mikado) but prfessional productions are usually too stilted, tired and knowing to work well. Good amateur productions are far better. They only play a night or two and give it there all. The SASP are supreme here and its little wonder they have won so many awards internationally. I'm looking forward to this production. This year for Glenn Miller we shall welcome the Nick Ross Orchestra for the first time. Why do so many of us never tire of Miller's music ?
Obviously, because it is good but more I feel because it evokes in many of us a nostalgia for a past age. Its a curious nostalgia because you do not have to lived through WWII to share it. Its a nostalgia for a view of the past that's gone (and may never in truth have existed) but in some ways one for which many of us hanker to some extent. No Shakespeare, no Last Night of the Proms and no Tribute Bands this year. The weather and the economy are too uncertain, we feel. Our caution may appear justified when it seems Glastonbury has not sold out immediately as in recent years and elsewhere theatres, concerts and Festivals are struggling. However, in addition to the above we are hosting the Festinho Festival at the end of August this year. Small boutique Festivals of this sort fit us well. Especially Festinho which is charity driven to help the street children of Brazil.
Ghost Tours & Scaresville
Our Ghost tours in October have proved very popular over the years but last year we created a wholly new event to provide the scares some claimed the Ghost Tours lacked. The Ghost Tours were never intended to scare but this new event, Scaresville, is. Many of those who came last year have told us it was the best scary event they had experienced anywhere. By way of example, there were four girls who screamed hysterically for about 90 minutes almost without stop and could be heard wherever they went. Afterwards, they said it was one of the best experiences they had had. It takes all sorts ! Try it for yourselves. Its the chaps who usually can't take it, the women seem to thrive on it. Tickets will be available soon from our website.
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Kentwell Hall