No 6 -- April 1977 Edited by Michael Walters
IMPERIAL COLLEGE OPERATIC SOCIETY "Field Day", Thursday 24 March 1977.
Two events on the same day made this day a memorable one. The first was a lunchtime concert performance of John Blow's Venus and Adonis with Sally Heslop a memorable Venus and Michael Withers on the rostrum. The music, however, was not really my type. The evening event was the Society's dinner, with a drawing-room entertainment to follow - which consisted in particular of Cox and Box done to piano accompaniment with Richard Wilson as Box, Ian Gledhill as Cox, and Michael Withers as Bouncer. To hear Cox and Box done as it was probably originally intended to be done, in a small room before an audience already saturated with a good dinner and plenty of wine, was a revelation. While, to be truthful, I don't think I would have cast any of the three in the parts in a stage production, for this type of presentation they were just what was wanted; and I found Cox & Box ten times funnier and twenty times more enjoyable than I have ever found it before. Other items, songs, sketches and so on followed, ably compered by Roger Nicholls, doing a splendid take off of Leonard Sachs. Unfortunately I had to leave before the end to catch my train. MICHAEL WALTERS
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