Golden Oldies Rachel Johnson

Handlebar moustache: Elgar statue by Oliver Dixon, Hereford Cathedral

possible model for Britten’s Peter Grimes. Curiously, Glyndebourne will be reviving it in French, the language of the original libretto – despite the existence of a perfectly good English translation by Dame Ethyl herself, and a team that looks worryingly light on Francophone singers, let alone an orchestra who understand French.

No such language problems will trouble Opera Holland Park’s staging of Mark Adamo’s remaking of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women which has been charming American audiences these past 20 years. It’s good news, too, that the wonderful old (1951) Wexford Festival in Southern Ireland is back, tempting true believers with operatic rarities by Halévy, Félicien David and Dvořák. (If you haven’t visited, be advised it’s better to fly to Dublin, with its many attendant delights, than risk the Irish Sea in all its autumnal hullabaloo.)

Rare Dvořák will also be opening this year’s Three Choirs Festival in Hereford. When Dvořák declined the 1888 Birmingham Festival committee’s invitation to set local priest John Henry Newman’s poem The Dream of Gerontius, he wrote a Requiem instead, leaving the way open for Edward Elgar to take up the idea 12 years later. Hence some bright spark’s idea to open the 2022 Hereford Festival with the Dvořák and end with the Elgar.

Three Choirs sceptic George Bernard Shaw claimed to loathe the Dvořák, amazed that ‘any critic should mistake this paltry piece of orchestral and harmonic confectionery for a serious composition’. Yet I suspect that his objections were less to do with Dvořák’s all too personable music than with an age in which, as he put it, ‘Requiems are offered as a sort of treat, whether anybody is dead or not.’

Still, where are we going to hear the Dvořák nowadays, except at a festival?

A list of music festivals and their currently available performance and booking dates can be found on the Oldie website

GOLDEN OLDIES RACHEL JOHNSON JUKEBOX MUSICALS

Jukebox musicals have been popping up in (or should that be ‘propping up’?) the West End for what seems like ever.

In recent times, Hamilton (the Alexander Hamilton one), We Will Rock You (the Queen one), Motown: The Musical (the Detroit one), Girl from the North Country (the Bob Dylan one), Bat Out of Hell (the Meat Loaf one), Beautiful (the Carole King one), Sunny Afternoon (the Kinks one) and Mamma Mia! (the Abba one) have all been happy-customer house-fillers.

In my hunger to see something live, and cram into a red velvet seat eating sour-cream Pringles, I went to see The Drifters Girl for you.

You will need no telling that this ‘brings to life’ the story of the doo-wop supergroup a bit like a football team (the Drifters were like the Yankees, with 60 different players over six decades) – and the good news is it does just that.

It stars Beverley Knight, officially this nation’s Queen of Soul. As Colin, my costermonger on the Portobello Road, would say, she has a pair of pipes on her, and can carry a tune. She plays Faye Treadwell and alone is worth the price of admission.

Why, though, do we go to the theatre to see these ‘journeys’ recreated? Partly because the songs in the jukebox musical tend to be solid-gold hits (in the Drifters’ case, Stand by Me, Save the Last Dance for Me, Saturday Night at the Movies, Sweets for my Sweet and Under the Boardwalk). The productions are slick, the dancing exciting, the sound pure … and loud. As with the popularity of cover bands, it shows we prefer to see the old stuff being done by unknown artists rather than see famous artists doing their new stuff.

And, let’s face it, the old stuff – there are 25 musical numbers in The Drifters Girl – is a string of belters, reminding us that the Golden Age of popular music began in the ’50s, peaked at the start of sexual intercourse in 1963 and ended with the Beatles’ last LP (Let It Be, 1970).

This is why I persevere with jukebox musicals: because they remind me of the way we were. They are a guilty pleasure. They flood my endocrine system with pleasurable nostalgia. And even if I couldn’t (and won’t) tell you which one of the musical numbers was written by the Drifters, it didn’t matter. It was fun to hear them all, belted out by portly singers in their zoot suits and trilbies, while Beverley Knight brought the house down.

I enjoyed it so much that I’m quite tempted to go to see Tina (the Tina Turner one, in case you hadn’t guessed) and even Saturday Night Fever (the Bee Gees one) and I’ll report back if I do.

I hear they’re rather good.

There goes my baby: Beverley Knight with Tosh Wanogho-Maud, Matt Henry, Adam J Bernard and Tarinn Callender as the Drifters