FineCity - January 2017

Issue 62 January 2017

Ex-Arsenal ‘keeper Alan Miller explores his journey ‘from Highbury to Holkham’.

Looking Forward

Dipple & Conway help you look ahead for the New Year

Astonishing Asia

Steve Browning reviews Hong Kong and Taiwan

FINEplaces FINEarts FINEFood FINEhome

PLUS

Michael Chandler helps find fantastic foods to recover from the festive season

NORWICH

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Cruise highlights

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or pop in and see Travel Norwich Airport at the airport or Castle Mall, Norwich Book online at www.newmarketholidays.co.uk Operated by Newmarket Air Holidays Ltd. ABTA V7812. ATOL protected 2325. Single supplements apply. Standard phone charges. Subject to availability. Price excludes £10/ adult Norwich Airport Development Fee payable at airport.

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I

f you have a passion for knitting, crochet, sewing, quilting, spinning, weaving, lino cutting, embroidery, drawing or painting, make a note in your 2017 diary to visit Makers’ Month.

SATURDAY 18 MARCH 2017 HAYDN The Seasons Cecilia Osmond soprano Mark Dobell tenor Jonathan Brown bass

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From Monday 30 January until Saturday 25 February The Forum is the place to find inspiration, like-minded company and enthusiastic makers, all of them eager to share tips and techniques.

Makers’ Month is free and is also a great event for families during February half term, with hands-on activities for young people.

A centrepiece of Makers’ Month is the ‘Hardhome’ Embroidery, created by members of the Embroiderers’ Guild. A fifteen foot high character from the HBO hit series, Game of Thrones, will be glaring down on visitors in The Forum’s Atrium. It has been on display at Alexandra Palace, the NEC and Harrogate but this is its first trip to the East of the country.

Makers’ Month takes place at The Forum, Norwich, from Monday 30 January - Saturday 25 February 2017. For more information please visit www.theforumnorwich.co.uk

04 | January 2017

www.finecity.co.uk

10

26

Issue 62 January 2017

Ex-Arsenal ‘keeper Alan Miller explores his journey ‘from Highbury to Holkham’.

LOOKING FORWARD

Dipple & Conway help you look ahead for the New Year

ASTONISHING ASIA

FINEPLACES

Steve Browning reviews Hong Kong and Taiwan

FINEARTS FINEFOOD FINEHOME

FINE Places

52

Michael Chandler

PLUS

helps find fantastic foods to recover from the festive season

NOR WIC H

FINE Arts

Issue 62

56

Your community magazine FineCity Magazine would like to thank all those who have contributed to this issue.

This includes but is not limited to: Pete Goodrum, Stephen Browning, Daniel Tink, Tony Cooper and Michael Chandler Cover Image courtesy of: Daniel Tink

Editor Jonathan Horswell @JonathanHorswel

Administration Luke Keable

Sales

FINE Food

Arron Self

FINE Homes

Collect your free copy of FineCity Magazine from any of our partner locations:

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FineCityMag @FineCityMag Tel 01953 456789 Web www.FineCity.co.uk Address Queens House, Queens Square, Attleborough, Norfolk, NR17 2AE.

© FineCity Magazine Disclaimer: No part of this magazine may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means, either wholly or in part, without the prior written permission of the Publisher.

The views expressed by contributors are not necessarily those of the Publisher.

Every effort is taken to ensure that the contents of this magazine are accurate, but the Publisher can not assume any responsibility for errors or omissions. Whilst reasonable care is taken when accepting advertisements the Publisher will not accept any resulting unsatisfactory transactions.

They will, however, immediately investigate any written complaints. The Publishers reserve the right to amend such submissions and cannot accept responsibility for any loss.

www.finecity.co.uk

2017 January | 05

Alan Miller

Pete Goodrum explores Alan Miller’s journey ‘from Highbury to Holkham’.

A

lan Miller’s journey, ‘from Highbury to Holkham’. I stole that line. From Alan Miller. It’s very much how he sees his life, and in truth, it’s pretty accurate.

It’s at Holkham that we meet. It’s a dank December morning but the interior of The Victoria, on the Holkham Estate, is warm and welcoming. And so is Alan Miller.

We settle into a comfortable residents’ lounge for coffee, and to talk.

The fact is that Mr Miller is very engaging. He’s easy to listen to. And to talk to. My interview rapidly becomes a conversation, and it’s all the more pleasant for it.

I learn that he was born in Epping, - ‘I’m an Essex boy really’ - and that he went to school in Loughton. By the age of 14 he’d had trials with West Ham and Leyton Orient among others.

Enrolled at the National School of Excellence, where he spent 2 years, he’d signed schoolboy forms with Arsenal by the time he was 16.

We talk, and later we will talk more, about being a goalkeeper. ‘In those days goalkeeper 06 | January 2017

wasn’t a specialist position. To be honest it was, certainly as kids, the ‘last pick’. But I was always a big lad and I thought ‘I can do this’’.

He was, he says, instantly at home at Arsenal.

‘It was a family business. It had traditions, and values. As a goalkeeper the presence of David Seaman was inspiring, and he acknowledges his influence. As he does his good fortune to be at Arsenal at a time of change and progress. “It felt right for me’.

We touch on Alan’s place in the record books as the first ever sub to come as goalkeeper for Arsenal.

After 10 happy years he felt it was time to move on, and he went to Middlesborough.

Again he would witness, and be part of, change and progress. Under Brian Robson the team were promoted. ‘It was great to be part of that revolution’. He pauses, and adds,‘Yes revolution is the right word’.

His next club was West Bromwich. In talking of that period I get the first glimmer of how this man could transfer from soccer to corporate life. He says that as good as the club

was he felt that, certainly in comparison to his previous employers, ‘there was no visible leader’. Expanding on the point he says that he probably emerged as a ‘kind of leader there’ himself, without being Captain. And he also feels that he played his best football there.

By 2000 he was at Blackburn. Whilst admitting that Graham Souness was a hard task master he’s fulsome in his praise of the club being ‘light years ahead of its time’. The facilities and attitudes were, he says, impressive, by any standards. What’s more, they got promoted and won the League Cup. ‘It was a good time to be there’.

But it had its downside.

A keen horse feature by:

Pete Goodrum Writer, broadcaster @petegoodrum

www.finecity.co.uk

FINEPeople racing fan and owner he decided one day to miss a race and stay behind to do some work with a newly arrived, Dutch, goalkeeping trainer.

In that session he felt his back ‘go’ and knew it was the return of a disc problem he’d had years before.

‘The surgeon gave me a clue when he said that there were other things in life than football.

When I saw the scan I knew. The playing days were over. I should have gone to the races!’

I’ve done my research prior to the interview so I know what comes next in his story, but I’m interested to learn how it happened.

When I ask him he smiles.“It’s a part of me that not many people knew about. Aside from football and horses I’ve always had a passion for boats. I also had a place in Mallorca, and visiting it I began to think about what I liked, and how others might like it too. A villa, a boat, local knowledge - a sort of full service’. The result was his founding Tailormade Mallorca.

He managed 50 or so luxury villas, and Yacht Chartering. ‘There were some famous guests.

Some wanted to be seen. Others didn’t!’

He enjoyed it, but some legal technicalities resulted in him not being able to advertise the business, which did not bode well for its continued success.

Horse racing played its part in his story again.

Through a trainer he found out about a business in Burnham Market. It was a pub and restaurant which he took over, and renamed.

He called it The Jockey.

‘I think that was a mistake’, he says, with no bitterness. ‘It was wrong to mess with local history’.

What wasn’t a mistake were his efforts at engaging with the local community. He started a cricket team. Then, calling on Ken Brown, who had signed him, and given him his league debut at Plymouth Argyle, he organised a charity match with Norwich City players. It not only proved successful in raising money, it also raised his profile. ‘I think people saw that I was doing things to give something back to the community’.

By now, his partner, Nerida, was working at the Holkham Estate. It was through that connection he joined.

‘My first role was with the Beach Cafe at Wells’.

And with that phrase he shifts gear. There’s a new enthusiasm in his voice as he talks of how he saw the job as very much like running a football team. ‘I had a blank canvass. But I treated it like a team. Planning the rota. Seeing who was best in which positions. It worked’.

www.finecity.co.uk

It certainly did. Because what he also saw was the potential in the dog walking fraternity of North Norfolk. It was Alan who created the ‘Wash n Wag’ dog wash, and dog drinking places, not to mention the ‘K-9 Club’ at the Beach Cafe. ‘I think if you’ve got a happy dog, you’ve got a happy owner’ he says. (He’s right.

I know!).

The result is that people go there in their thousands. With their dogs. They post pictures of their happy dogs there on social media which spreads the word even further. It’s an astounding, award winning, success.

After 3 years in that job he felt it was time for another challenge, and so came the role he occupies today, of Business Development Manager at Holkham.

He sees the role as one of ‘getting people to come here, to see it’. He believes, and I believe he’s right, that no photograph or web page can really do justice to this beautiful location. As a venue for corporate events, and weddings, it’s perfect. But what really sells it is seeing it.

Experiencing it.

To prove the point he takes me over to The Lady Elizabeth Wing. We motor through the grounds, and walk in to the building. It’s astonishing.

Converted from the estate's 19th century bowling alley (yes, that’s right!) the place is jaw-droppingly impressive. Its pale, understated decor is the perfect backdrop for any brand or bride.

‘We’ve already had about 10 weddings here, and an antiques fair, as well as corporate events’ Alan explains as he shows me around. ‘We’ve also had a Monica Vinader photo shoot. Her studio is situated at Longlands on the Holkham Estate’.

It’s here where we part. Throughout our conversation his phone has pinged several times, but he’s graciously never answered it. He gives me his full attention, although the number of calls is an indication of how busy he is. And now he needs to get on. He has meetings all afternoon.

I said ‘graciously’, and it’s appropriate. There is a grace about this man. At well over six feet he’s an imposing figure. He wears the cashmere sleeveless V neck, the good boots, the impressive chronometer on his wrist, with an easy and stylish grace. And he talks with eloquence.

As I leave I reflect on some other parts of our conversation. I don’t know how it happened, given the concentration it takes to be a

goalkeeper, but I think, out there, between the posts, in the loneliest job in the world, he’s somehow had time to develop an innate and gentle wisdom. Let me give you some examples. He says of coming off the pitch, into the players’ lounge, that he worked at always being the same person. ‘If I’d had a great game I brought myself down a bit, to normal. If I’d had a bad game, I brought myself up a bit, to normal’.

When we talked of the impact on a goalkeeper of penalties, especially if a victory depended on the last one he said, ‘I never saw it as a pressure on me, the keeper’. What?!

Excuse me? ‘No’, he says, ‘the fact is the man is expected to score. So if, as the keeper, you save it, you’re the hero’.

These are thoughts worthy of any business inspiration guru. They’re philosophical. And they certainly go a long way to explaining how he’s moved from soccer to business.

But then again, his business drive is not so aggressive that’s it’s lost any sensitivity. He really understands the history of this place. He has a genuine affection for it and, interestingly, sees the developments and commercial interests, so necessary for its survival, as a continuation of the innovation and zeal of Holkham when it was the fulcrum of the agricultural revolution. ‘They were making progress, and the changes necessary to make it happen, just as we are’.

He and Nerida are engaged now, and home is close buy at Longlands. He’s interested in cycling, and wants to do more of it he told me.

It ‘keeps him fit’. As does walking Max and Alfie, his two beloved black Labradors.

He gives talks about his career and, here’s that grace again, he seems genuinely surprised that people ‘are interested’; that he is indeed famous.

He’s certainly well connected. He knows a lot of people, and is a dedicated networker, unashamedly seeing the importance of contacts in business life.

Because that’s where he is now. In business life. The business of developing the jewel of Norfolk that is Holkham. He’d said it was a journey from Highbury to Holkham. I say it’s been a journey from the pitch to the ‘pitch’.

And rest assured, when it comes to pitching the business that is Holkham, he’s good at it. Its future is in safe hands. But then they would be safe hands. They’re a famous goalkeeper’s hands.

And they’re the hands of a genuinely interesting and thoroughly nice man.

2017 January | 07

FINEPeople

Mike & Bernie Winters

From London to Stardom via Norwich Market

M

ike and Bernie winters were brothers who formed a comedy double act. Mike was born 15 November 1926 and died 24 August 2013 with Bernie born 6 September 1930 and died 4 May 1991.

They were born with the original surname of Weinstein, and they were in the public eye from the mid-1950s to the early 1970s.

The boys were born in Islington, London to Samuel Weinstein and Rachel who was a member of the well-known Blumenthal family with her brother Jack being at one stage the light middleweight and heavyweight champion of Great Britain, the British Empire and the holder of the Lonsdale belt. Rachel’s mother was part of the Breuenzlean family who held from Bari in Italy.

08 | January 2017

Bernie’s first promotion was in partnership with neighbour George Marks who would later be famous as glamour photographer Harrison Marks. They would dress up in any old clothes they could find and put on shows in the garden.

Towards the end of World War II, an underage Mike joined the Merchant Navy. A medical issue saw him discharged and he joined the Canadian Legion as a musician where he became an honorary Captain and he was soon joined by Bernie as a drummer.

Both brothers worked hard at school and Mike won a scholarship to Tottenham Grammar School, but soon had to leave as both he and Bernie were evacuated to Wiltshire. Mike ended up at the City of Oxford High School for Boys before earning a scholarship and grant to study the clarinet at the Royal Academy of Music, and whilst there he became one of the founding members of the Royal Academy of Music Jazz Quintet.

After the war the brothers formed a double act involving musical items and impressions.

They soon entered competitions with the prizes being a week of touring variety theatres.

They also played at the Stage Door Canteen.

The brothers found that they were not as successful as they had hoped and went their own ways only to get back together to form ‘3 loose screws’.

Bernie took on an apprenticeship whilst getting a job at the Regency Club in Soho where he was a ukulele playing stand-up comic.

The brothers played at the Norwich Theatre Royal in the early 1950s and fell in love with Norwich, so much that they stayed for about five years and run a stall on Norwich Market selling bags, clothes and stockings and www.finecity.co.uk

FINEPeople The brothers were given their own show which run from 1965 to 1973. It soon became aware that Bernie had an affair with dancer Dinah May who was 20 years his junior and this caused a friction with Mike and their partnership broke up in 1978.

Shortly after this Mike moved his family to Florida and Bernie worked solo signing with Thames Television. He presented ‘The Big Top Variety Show’ from a circus ring. A new partnership soon emerged by joining forces with his St Bernard dog Schnorbitz. By 1987 Bernie was hosting HTV quiz show called ‘Scribble’ before going on to present the UK version of ‘Make Me Laugh’ for Tyne Tees Television which also launched the career of Brian Conley. By the middle 1980s Bernie took over as host for the show ‘Whose Baby’ from Leslie Crowther, of whom he would work with later on in the acclaimed theatre and TV show ‘Flanagan and Allen’.

Bernie Winters and Schnorbitz

the good people of Norwich took them to heart. They lived in Unthank Road and spent evenings playing in Norwich at the Talk in Oak Street as well as King’s Lynn and Great Yarmouth. They continued playing the Talk up to the 1970s and were also known as ‘Yarmouth’s own’.

A young BBC produce Jack Good saw them in 1955 and put them in the hit TV show ‘the 6-5 special’ after being recommended to the show’s presenter Josephine Douglas by Tommy Steele where they stayed until 1958.

They signed up with agent Evelyn Taylor who worked for Joe Collins, father of Joan and Jackie and at one stage co-owner of the Norwich

Theatre Royal. They were then placed on the hit ITV show ‘Sunday Night at the London Palladium and appeared before Elizabeth II at the 1962 Royal Variety Show.

By 1963 they joined Frankie Howard and Tommy Cooper in the Michael Winner film ‘The Cool Mikado’ and TV shows such as ‘Big Night Out’ and ‘Blackpool Night Out’.

The start of the shows would focus on Mike who would appear on his own playing the clarinet and shortly Bernie would pock his head through the stage curtain and say ‘Eeeeh!.’ He would then walk up to Mike, pull his cheeks and call him ‘chooch-face.’ Bernie’s catchphrase was ‘I’ll smash yer face in’.

Mike went on to open a theatre club in Miami with boxing manager legend Angelo Dundee and he also became involved in charity events working with Muhammad Ali, Prince Michael of Kent and Prince Edward and he was awarded the city of Miami keys by the mayor. Mike also co-produced the first ever British pantomime to appear in Florida, which would run for five years. Mike also went on to be an author writing the biography of Angelo Dundee and two novels ‘Miami One Way’ and ‘Razor Shop’.

His last book about his life was called ‘The Sunny Side of Winters’.

By the 1980s the brothers made peace with each other but ever worked together again.

On 14 August 1990 Bernie underwent a stomach operation where cancer was found.

Bernie’s condition was terminal, but he was never told of this and he passed away on 4 May 1991 aged 60 and was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium, London on 8 May and a memorial plaque was put up in the West Memorial Court.

Mike moved back to England settling in Fairford, Gloucestershire and he passed away on 24 August 2013 aged 86.

feature by:

Michael Chandler

Author, Historian & Broadcaster @EastAngliaMedia

www.finecity.co.uk

2017 January | 09

The City in Winter Here is a bracing winter walk around Norwich. Being a compact city, it is ideal for a January adventure either on your own or with friends and family. It is reasonably flat, too, so OK for those who might find walking a challenge or people in wheelchairs. Wrap up warm and have a great time!

W

e could begin in many places but I have chosen London Street by the NatWest Bank which looks more like a Wren Church than a commercial building. Sadly, I hear it is soon to be sold and the main bank moving to Gentleman’s Walk. While it is still open, though, take a look inside at its ornate pillars and pink and white plaster -work as well as the central glass dome which floods the banking hall with natural light.

Exclusive shopping The centre of town can be reached by going down the street either side of the bank, but it is more interesting to go down the cobbled Bedford Street on the right. This is really a continuation of the ‘Lanes’ and has shops to match – you can buy the last word in stereo systems, exclusive wellington boots, designer furniture for your home or a silver hip-flask engraved with your initials which, filled with an aged malt whisky, will keep you warm

10 | January 2017

when shooting on the moor (or going on this walk). If you are hungry and feeling a tad jaded with all those Christmas treats, the Turtle Bay, Norwich’s first Caribbean restaurant, beckons about half way down on your left.

Jarrold Jarrold Department store is on the corner with Exchange Street. This is one of the few businesses in Norwich still controlled by the original family and is a city institution. You may like to enter through the doors on your left and wander down to the very popular book department which has recently been relocated to the basement. In the world wars, Jerrold also owned printers and produced hundreds of thousands of patriotic leaflets and paper gifts of all kinds for the troops on the Front.

The store is very busy and each floor has a particular style. When you leave by the main doors, look up to your left. Here can be seen reliefs by George Skipper – who designed the store in 1903-5 – and they show aspects of life

in the building trades. Yes, there’s also a Gym immediately next to the store, and Pilch sports shop, just in case you are thinking of healthy New Year’s resolutions….

You are now standing at the bottom right-hand corner of the main Market Place, the very heart of this old city, and all features of this walk are contained within, or just around, the area you see in front of you.

The wonderfully named Gentleman’s Walk leads off to your left. It is a busy and largely pedestrianised area today but, in past centuries, it had a somewhat more rarefied air.

This is the street where, dressed in their best finery, wigs suitably feature by:

Steve Browning Writer www.stephenbrowningbooks.co.uk

www.finecity.co.uk

FINEPLACES powdered, perhaps with beauty spot artfully applied, and carrying a silver-topped cane, gentlemen – gentry from the countryside, eminent citizens from other cities, local worthies and assorted ‘beaus’ – would parade up and down in dignified splendour. Now and again, they would drop into a chop house or coffee shop, the latter more ubiquitous in the 18th and 19th centuries than their modern equivalent, Starbucks, is today. Here, they would read the newspapers, smoke pipes and debate current affairs and generally congratulate themselves on being masters of the universe.

Turn left into Davey Place. This is named after Alderman Jonathan Davey (1760-1814), famous chiefly for holding lots of parties. A businessman called J. Murray also lived here and he set out to halt the bodysnatching business which was rife in Norwich by selling iron coffins: once sealed and locked, they were said to be impregnable, but the idea failed to really catch on. Now it is home to a bookshop, a patisserie and, on the corner, Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Money Bank.

Sir Thomas Browne

Another example of the work of George Skipper in conjunction with a ceramic artist from London by the name of W. J. Neatby is to be found in the Royal Arcade which you will come to on your right. It was built in 1899, restored in 2001, and contains some of the finest art nouveau stained glass, sculpture and tiles in the country. Peacocks strut alongside as you pass the bow-fronted shops. The famous Colman’s Mustard shop is on the left. Look up just before you leave to see a gorgeous art nouveau clock.

Turn left and continue your own parade up Gentleman’s Walk. There’s a Pret A Manger and Starbucks just up in front if you’re gasping for a coffee. Go right on Hay Hill. This is a small square where people take a rest from shopping – there are seats and layers of steps to rest on.

At top centre, looking, I always think, somewhat bewildered, is a large bronze by Henry Pegram of Sir Thomas Browne. Details can tell us much.

Note, for example, the fabulous over-sized bows on his Sir Thomas’ shoes: no ordinary man, faced with the everyday problem of

walking from A to B amongst the fish heads, Ox blood and excrement that flowed in medieval streets would have countenanced such frippery.

Here was an important citizen who spent his travelling time in a carriage. Sir Thomas was born in 1605 and buried a few yards away in St Peter Mancroft church. A very eminent scholar of his time, he wrote several books, his first – ‘Religio Medici’, concerning the raison d’etre of the medical profession – making him an international figure. King Charles II knighted him on a visit to Norwich in 1671. The new herb garden in the Cloisters is in many ways his legacy as he contributed in no small way to our understanding of the medical and spiritual effects of rosemary, sage and thyme.

A modern man? Perhaps, to some degree. Yet, on his advice as a ‘specialist’ witness, more than one woman is said to have been hanged for witchcraft and bedevilment of youngsters. He died in 1682 but even then did not find peace.

His skull was stolen from his grave in the mid 19th century and only finally reunited with the rest of his mortal remains in 1922.

After taking a look at Sir Thomas, walk up the slope and St Peter Mancroft Church is on the right. Regarded by many as a church of perfect proportions, and sometimes even mistaken for the Anglican Cathedral, it contrasts strikingly with the glass building to the left of it, Sir Michael Hopkins’ Forum. Here is a visual definition of ancient and modern.

Are Libraries good for you?

The Forum is ahead. Pass up the tiered steps of the performing area in front of the Forum. This is really a mini open-air amphitheatre where all sorts of free events take place at lunchtimes

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2017 January | 11

FINEPLACES library - yes, there is one – is ideal, or you can try the UEA library (proof of Norwich address required).

In the Atrium, you will see a café on the ground floor and a restaurant looking out from the first. The BBC has a regional headquarters here also. The downstairs part of the Forum contains an impressive collection of DVDs. At the back is the 2nd Air Division USAAF Memorial Library, set up to commemorate the hundreds of missions flown by the United States Eighth Air Force during the Second World War.

and weekends: in the winter months, an ice rink is sometimes set up here and there’s usually a Christmas tree in December. At any time during fine weather, you will see people sitting around chatting and having a snack – the market is just below and food is available at very good prices.

Take a dramatic photograph here as the glass wall of the Forum wonderfully reflects aspects of St Peter Mancroft opposite.

The Fine City – or ‘No Mean City’ as it used to be called - was the first city outside of London to have a library, from 1608. Of course, it was restricted to the gentry in those days – let common people have knowledge and who knows what might happen? It was thought at

the time that giving knowledge to the workers, whom God had designed to ‘go up one furrow and down another’, was unkind and would lead to discontent. The present building replaced the Norwich Central Library which was destroyed by fire in 1994. It is horse-shoe shaped and has won several top architectural awards since being opened by Queen Elizabeth II in 2002.

The bricks are handmade.

It was, until recently, the most used library in the country , although this is a bit of a misnomer as a great deal of it - if you take the complete Forum complex into account - is not a library at all but an area for almost anything and everything and often, to the chagrin of some, extremely noisy. If you want to study in peace and quiet, the Anglican Cathedral

On the first floor are contained the bulk of the books for hire as well as a comfortable seating area where people sit to read the day’s newspapers or latest magazines. The second floor is a business, local history and heritage centre where many spend time tracing the family tree. You will see, on both floors, dozens of state-of-the-art computers which are free to use.

The hours for the public have recently been changed – it opens at 10.00 am now although you can come in earlier if you apply.

Food and punishment in the Market Place The Market Place is to the left of the Forum as you come out. The temporary stalls have been upgraded in the last few years – now they are permanent structures which still retain the traditional colourful striped roofs.

The Normans opened the first market here.

Although many other businesses tare there, it is still largely seen by the locals as a somewhere to eat. This is a favourite place to buy mugs of tea and all sorts of food – giant bacon sandwiches, hog’s roast rolls, chicken chow mien, fish and chips, meat pie and mushy peas, speciality cheeses, Norfolk ice-cream and lots more. Browsing for second-hand books, records or videos can also be rewarding. There is a campaign at the moment to attract more stall holders as some parts look sadly barren and unused.

Citizens who misbehaved in a fairly minor way used to be dealt with here. There were stocks, cages for holding miscreants overnight without food or water, and whipping posts.

Drunkenness and violent behaviour were the main crimes dealt with.

Following Kett’s rebellion, forty-five of his lieutenants were hung, drawn and quartered here. Kett himself was hung over the side of Norwich Castle, clearly visible from where you are standing. Women criminals would generally be sentenced to punishment by ducking stool, notably at Fye Bridge.

12 | January 2017

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FINEPLACES

The Marmalade Factory To your left is the ‘new’ City Hall, opened by George VI in 1938. The famous architectural

historian, Nikolas Pevsner, liked it a great deal, but others have not been so sure. Locals sometimes mockingly describe it as having the complexion of ‘Brown Windsor Soup’. I have

also heard it called ‘The Marmalade Factory’.

It seems Lord Haw-Haw didn’t like it much either as he claimed at the height of the Blitz that it was soon to be destroyed by German bombers. He was later hanged for treason.

We are spoilt in Norwich, having so many buildings, mostly ancient but some modern ones, too, that are exceptional and so perhaps the architects (Charles Holloway James and Stephen Rowland Pierce ) were on a hiding to nothing when trying to please everyone. My opinion is that it is a fine art deco structure that provides a happy contrast to the previous centre of government –medieval The Guildhall – which lies just below it.

Take a close look at the two fine art-deco lions which flank the main entrance. One of these was spotted by the architects at the British Empire Exhibition in 1936 and a matching pair was ordered from designer, Alfred Hardiman.

They cost £6000 each. The doors are made of bronze and feature 18 plaques by James Woodward commemorating the main trades of the city – including shoe, beer, chocolate and mustard production. The main hall is well worth a look for the classic art deco interior.

The Guildhall Walk along and down the hill and you will see just down the slope on the left the ancient

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2017 January | 13

FINEPLACES Guildhall. It is both a fine building with some attractive squared and diamond-shaped flint work, and a bit of a fraud, too, as the authentic looking clock tower is, in fact, Victorian. It was started in 1407 as the city was getting a fine opinion of itself by this time and needed a more prestigious headquarters than the existing Toll House. Labour was no problem as special constables were empowered to ‘press’ anyone they chose into working up to 15 hours a day on the project. The prison was in the vaults. It was here that the most famous of the Norwich martyrs, Thomas Bilney, was held before being burnt at the stake. The Courts also sat here, as did the Council .Today, you can have tea while imagining all the important decisions being made ,and harsh sentences being meted out, exactly where you sit and sup.

The Guildhall suffered from construction problems when, in 1511, the roof collapsed and, in 1635, the hall became unsafe due to the saltpetre mining being carried on around it. The hand of man almost destroyed it in 1911 when a motion was put to the Council that it was too expensive to maintain and, furthermore, it was wrong to preserve something just because it was old. This was only narrowly defeated.

Thus both Elm Hill and the Guildhall, two of the city’s most loved architectural treasures, share a bond in that both only just managed to survive the politicians.

This is the end of this particular walk but the wealth of inns, churches, cobbled streets, parks, doorways, gables and associated history suggest many more.

For ideas about walks and trips all over Norfolk, see ‘Norfolk – Exploring the Land of Wide Skies’, from Halsgrove at 16.99, by top photographer Daniel Tink and Stephen Browning. From Jarrold, Waterstones, City Bookshop and other good bookshops as well as all the usual suspects online Here’s what the Norwich Evening News has to say about the book: ‘We need a book like this to appreciate just how lucky we are to live in this part of the country.

Not only are there beautiful photographs to admire, there are also highly entertaining and informative tales to go with them’.

Derek James, Norwich Evening News For more about my books, upcoming publications, articles, blogs, new fiction and to get in touch, please go to the website www.stephenbrowningbooks.co.uk NEED A SPEAKER? I am happy to give illustrated talks on my areas of expertise – pretty much my books.

Please take a look at the website and use the Contact Form to get in touch.

I’ll be straight back!

Even if you have been here all your life, the chances are you will be interested in this new offering – and probably learn something you didn’t know about our city and county.

And we are fortunate to have a double act such as Daniel Tink and Stephen Browning, who have got together to produce the glorious Norfolk – Exploring the Land of Wide Skies.

There are plenty of books about Norfolk but this is a winning combination – a book bursting with stunning pictures – and everyone tells a real story.

14 | January 2017

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FINEPLACES

EACH Make a New Years’ Resolution to support your local children’s hospice

E

ast Anglia’s Children’s Hospices (EACH) is calling upon the people of Norfolk to make an extra special New Years’ resolution for 2016 - to support local life-threatened children and young people.

EACH provides care for children and young people with life-threatening conditions and supports their families across East Anglia. For both families accessing care, and those who have been bereaved, EACH is a lifeline at an unimaginably difficult time.

There are many ways in which you can make New Years’ resolutions which not only benefit you as an individual, but these local families.

Getting healthy is always top of the list, and there’s plenty of ways to do it and raise vital www.finecity.co.uk

funds. You could get sponsored to go on a diet, give up smoking or drinking alcohol and donate the money you save to the charity.

As well as abstaining, you could get active by taking part in a challenge to improve your fitness, register for a 10km run near to you and raise money for your efforts. If you fancy a tougher challenge here are some suggestions visit our website for lots more: • Team EACH Skydive at Beccles Airfield, 7th May •R ide London-Surrey 100 2017 – 6th August •N ormandy Cycle Ride 2017 – 20th September If you fancy something a little less active then why not have a collection pot at home and

collect your loose change in aid of EACH or have a clear out and hold a car boot sale.

Not all resolutions need to have a fundraising element however – you could pledge to donate your time as a volunteer, learn a new skill or help raise awareness of the cause.

If these options are all too much – make a simple resolution to make a donation to EACH: • Visit our website and click on donate – www.each.org.uk • S end a cheque to - East Anglia’s Children’s Hospices (EACH), Suite 5, The Old Dairy, Elm Farm Business Park, Norwich Common, Wymondham, Norfolk, NR18 0SW For more information on EACH, their services and how you can support the charity please visit www.each.org.uk.

2017 January | 15

FOR T H E FI N E R T H I NGS...

Discover the exclusive Lindberg Precious collection at Dipple & Conway, one of only nine UK stockists

dippleandconway.co.uk | 01603 626750 | 19 Castle Street, Norwich, NR2 1PB

16 | January 2017

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FINEPLACES

Dipple & Conway

I

t’s the start of a New Year, and the time when lots of us make the pledge to live a healthier lifestyle for the 12 months ahead.

But one area of our health which can often get overlooked is our eyesight. Something so precious, yet sometimes taken for granted.

Did you know that our vision is the sense we fear losing the most? A survey by the College of Optometrists found that 64% of people value their eyesight over any other sense, yet 36% admitted to leaving it months before getting their eyes checked by a professional, when things didn’t seem quite right.

From top to toe, why not make 2017 the year you really take care of you? And that includes making eye health as much of a priority as eating your five a day.

To help you start the New Year off with a clean bill of eye health, we’ve sought some expert optical advice from Norwich’s longest established firm of opticians, Dipple & Conway.

Founded in 1916, Dipple & Conway is independent and family-run and has branches in Norwich city centre, Swaffham and Diss; www.finecity.co.uk

offering the very best clinical eye care treatments to customers throughout the region.

aware of. The key is to detect and treat issues early, to prevent your vision or wider health from deteriorating.

So, as we all look forward to a happy, healthy 2017; Matthew Conway, director at Dipple & Conway, shares his expertise for maintaining the best possible eye health this year. You only have one pair of eyes, after all. Look after them.

Because eye conditions don’t tend to cause too much pain, you could be suffering from something without even knowing about it.

So don’t delay getting your eyes checked, by making an appointment with a qualified optometrist a priority for 2017

1. Make a date with your optician Did you receive a sparkling new diary or calendar for Christmas this year? Then make an appointment now for you and your family to have your 2017 eye tests, if they are due. But how often should you book in?

Matthew advises; “For healthy adults under 40, the recommendation is to have a sight test undertaken every two years. Forty or older, you may need them more frequently.

“Eye tests are an important part of your overall health and wellbeing checks. Not only will it tell you if you need to wear glasses, contact lenses or change your current prescription, but it could also detect symptoms of more serious conditions; complaints you were not even

2. Healthy diet, healthy vision Eating carrots will help you see in the dark.

Myth or fact?

“There’s lots of research out there proving that a healthy, balanced diet packed with fresh fruit, vegetables, nuts and oily fish can prevent eye sight problems later in life” says Matthew.

“And yes, carrots are fantastic fuel for healthy eyes. Containing beta-carotene, a precursor of Vitamin A, eating carrots can help to absorb the light that passes into your eye. So it’s not just an old wives’ tale.”

“But actually, any orange coloured vegetable butternut squash or sweet potato for example - are just as beneficial. As are leafy greens.

2017 January | 17

FINEPLACES you’ll keep your eyes safe and your style on point, all year long.”

6. Quit smoking for good “Living a healthy lifestyle is the best thing you can do for your eyesight, and smoking is simply one of the worst,” explains Matthew.

“Smoking is incredibly bad for your vision, causing serious damage to the tissues of your eye. It’s been proven that smokers carry double the risk of developing Age Related Muscular Degeneration, and it’s also been linked to the development of cataracts. So make every effort in 2017 to stub out the cigarettes for good.”

7. Take a break from tech

Spinach is packed with lutein which is proven to lower your risk of macular degeneration and cataracts. Almonds, oranges, oily fish and dark berries are also nutrient packed, eye-friendly foods to introduce into your New Year diet.”

3. Health membership for your eyes January can also be the time we all flock to the gym, paying out for annual memberships in a bid to get fit and healthy. But instead, how about opting for a membership which covers all the eye health checks you and your family could need?

“We offer the Dipple & Conway Vision Care Plan. It’s an eighteen month subscription which bundles in lots of benefits. Starting from £10.50 per month, clients are covered for all their clinical eye care fees, including extra scans.

Plus they get 25% discount off glasses, 10% off sunglasses, extended warranty on spectacles and the reassurance that given any eye emergency, you will be seen immediately. Plus, any children living at the same address, aged under 18, now get all the benefits too, for no extra cost. Contact lenses can also be included in the plan.

“The Vision Care Plan offers peace of mind for all the family that any eye health concerns can be investigated immediately, with access to some of the very best clinical eye care in the county.”

4. See a specialist It’s only natural to dial your doctor with any health concern. But for vision problems to be addressed quickly, Matthew’s advice is to see a professional, qualified optometrist.

“We’re experts in eye health, and eye health only. And our branches are equipped with the 18 | January 2017

latest, cutting edge optical equipment, which will detect problems fast.”

“For instance, all three of our branches have an OCT scanner. OCT stands for Ocular Coherence Tomography. It’s an incredibly sophisticated scanner, used in eye hospitals, which produces a detailed, three-dimensional image of the eye. Completely painless, noninvasive and over in minutes, the scan can give a really through examination of overall eye health, and deliver instant results. It gives us a much better understanding of the condition of the client’s eyes, and can detect early glaucoma, MD and diabetic related eye disorders. If you have any sight concerns, this scan can provide a much better, deeper and more detailed analysis of the health of your eyes.

5. Splash out on sunglasses Although we’re in the depths of winter, protecting your eyes from sunlight remains important. Matthew stresses; “Sunlight can cause irreversible damage to your eyes, particularly if you look directly into the sun. It’s vital to keep your sight protected, even in the winter months.

“My advice is to invest in good quality, dark sunglasses. Look out for frames carrying the CE mark and the British Standard BS EN 1836:2005. This ensures they offer a safe level of ultraviolet protection. Research has suggested sunlight exposure could be a risk factor for cataracts, so it’s essential to take care.

“There are some stunning sunglasses out there, so as well as keeping your eyes protected, you’ll look great too. Dipple & Conway is known in the city as a fashion forward eye wear retailer, stocking some of the most exclusive, high-end brands in Norwich including Chanel, Cutler & Gross and Ray Ban. Invest in a pair now and

And finally, the stresses and strains of everyday life can take its toll on your eyes, so make sure you give them time to recuperate. The overuse of technology, for example, can have a big impact, and is blamed for increasing cases of eye strain.

“Just think about how much time we spend staring at screens nowadays, compared to say five or ten years ago. Most of us spend hours each day looking at smartphones, tablets and PC screens. It’s a strain on our eyes, so take time out and give them a break. Whether at home or work, your eyes need time to rest.

“And make sure you maintain good eye hygiene too. Applying old, out of date make-up, or going to bed without removing mascara can cause irritation or worse, infection. Take a few minutes to give your eyes some TLC at the end of each day and wake up with a bright outlook the next morning.”

Special offer for Fine City readers Want to take better care of your eyesight in 2017?

Fine City readers are being offered a 10% discount when they sign up to Dipple & Conway’s Vision Care Plan in January 2017.

Simply take this article into the Castle Street, Norwich branch by 31st January 2017 and you’ll receive 10% off your monthly fee when you sign up to an 18 month plan.

Please be aware - monthly prices will vary depending on your eye care needs, and quotations are made on an individual basis.

Dipple & Conway have the right to withdraw this offer at any time.

Call the Norwich branch on 01603 626750 or visit www.dippleconway.co.uk/eye-care for further information. www.finecity.co.uk

Looking Back and Looking Forward As we start off in a brand new year, Phil Beck looks at some of the significant changes of the past twelve months and reflects on the challenges of the year ahead.

The year 2016 was certainly an interesting one, with the focal point for concerns about our future financial wellbeing fixed on that landmark vote in the summer that sees us on a journey that will – probably – see us leave the EU. Markets certainly reacted badly to the news of the vote in the immediate aftermath but actually saw a significant recovery within a period of weeks. However, there are undoubtedly some uncertain times ahead as we negotiate our exit and our new terms of business with our European neighbours.

However, 2016 wasn’t just about Brexit. There have been some other important changes too. The year opened with the change to the Deposit Guarantee – ie the amount that is covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) in respect of what individuals hold in any one bank or financial institution. This dropped from £85,000 to £75,000 per person in January.

The new tax year in April 2016 brought us two new allowances: the personal savings allowance grants basic rate taxpayers tax-free savings interest of up to £1,000. Higher rate taxpayers get an allowance of £500 but additional rate taxpayers get no allowance. There is a new dividend allowance too, which replaces the old system of dividend tax credits.

Under the new allowance, the first £5,000 of dividend income is free of tax, whichever tax band you fall into.

Pension flexibility has been around for over a year now and take-up of the new freedoms has been varied. It looks like most pension savers are resisting the temptation to blow their savings on expensive yachts or other luxuries but the freedoms have given new options to those who have specific needs or circumstances. Advice is always critical before accessing the cash that you have spent your working life accumulating to allow you to enjoy your retirement.

The value of an investment and the income from it could go down as well as up. The return at the end of the investment period is not guaranteed and you may get back less than you originally invested. The tax treatment of investments depends on individual circumstances and is subject to change.

For independent financial advice, contact Phil on 01603 706740 or email phil.beck@almarygreen.com. Please remember that the advice here is generic and we recommend that you get individual personalised advice.

Phil Beck

Plans for a secondary annuities market – ie the opportunity for those who have already purchased an annuity to sell it for a cash sum – have been shelved. This is following concerns that annuity holders would get very poor value for money in what looked like being a very limited market.

We’ve certainly been telling clients with existing annuities that in most cases the return would be unlikely to make this route suitable for them.

As we start 2017, there are concerns that our UK economy will continue to be troubled throughout the year and investment values are likely to both rise and fall. However, it is useful to make the point that investments in stocks and shares should be considered as long term investment strategies over a minimum period of five to ten years. What is often most damaging to people’s financial plans is a knee-jerk reaction to bad news.

It is almost always better to keep calm – and talk to your financial adviser.

The New Year is a good time to look at all your financial arrangements and to make sure that what you have in place is still suitable for you and to take any action indicated before the end of the current tax year on 5 April. Changes to rules and tax treatment will affect the suitability of the financial measures in your strategy, so it is important to review your plans regularly to keep things on track. www.finecity.co.uk

2017 January | 19

FINEPLACES

Astonishing Asia

It’s that time of year again – as the cold and dark gets to us we start thinking more and more about holidays - preferably warm and bright.

Have you considered Asia, in particular Hong Kong and Taiwan?

I

t was somewhere over the mountains of Tibet that I realised I had left the milk in the fridge. As I was away in Asia for six weeks, the image of increasingly stale milk rather spoilt the lovely view of the snowy peaks that I could see out of my window seat in the KLM 747. What happened to milk if you left it for weeks – did it move, or even worse, burst? Maybe bacteria would start to seep out and crawl down my fridge door?

As it was, when I returned it was just sitting there (almost) as good as gold, on the shelf and fine apart from the smell when I poured it away. I just mention this to emphasise the importance of keeping to your checklist before going overseas – Passport –check; ticket – check; rubbish out – check; empty fridge – check. My list is now exhaustive and I get it ready a week in advance just in case I have missed anything.

20 | January 2017

So, where to go? I spend a few months of every year in Asia, doing book promos and the like, and have made the journey maybe 30 times. So here is my tuppence worth of comments about this fabulous trip in a Q and A format. Hope it is useful.

Going where? Hong Kong and Taiwan. Hong Kong was under British rule until 1997, and is now a veritable eating and shopping paradise. Taiwan was formerly called Formosa or ‘beautiful island’ and it is situated in East Asia. It has a population of about 23 and a third million.

Visas necessary? For Hong Kong, yes, as it is part of China, For Taiwan, no, as it is a completely independent country and British subjects don’t need a visa at the time of writing, for stays of up to 90 days. It was under Japanese control until their defeat in

1945 and it has been a multi-party democracy with universal suffrage since the early 1990s.

America is Taiwan’s main ally. The Brits come a close second.

Why go to Hong Kong? Hong Kong means ‘Fragrant Harbour’ and is a land mass - lots of islands – of just over 1, 000 square kilometers with a population of over 7 million. It became a British colony after the Opium Wars of 183942, was occupied by the Japanese in the Second feature by:

Steve Browning Writer www.stephenbrowningbooks.co.uk

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World War and reverted to Britain in 1945.

It was handed back to China as a special ‘autonomous territory’ in 1997.

What’s to see and do? Just take a look at the architecture. As the photo from NASA shows, most of the land is mountain forest and so the opportunity to build is limited. This results in the highest density of skyscrapers in the world: awesome to look at.

Living space is tiny – if you have a friend who can show you inside a typical living space it is quite an eye opener.

Then you can shop! Nuff said, except take loads of money as nothing is cheap. Silk gowns, dresses and ties are everywhere, often handembroidered.

And eat – wow! Every type of eating place, from roadside stalls selling wasps, snakes and dogs, to ‘seven star’ restaurants – apparently ‘five star’ is so last year – await. Maybe eat in a harbour boat where you can watch the fish being caught before cooking.

Why Taiwan? Is there a special Norfolk/ Taiwan connection? Yes, indeed. UEA is very much a favourite place for students to come for higher education. There are lots of students wandering around the town wearing UEA tops and a good few of these are from Taiwan.

How has this come about? It started a couple of decades ago when the British Council put on an exhibition about Norwich in Taipei, the capital of Taiwan. One friend of mine, who is now an eminent professor back in Taiwan, was

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so struck by the beauty of the city, especially the Cathedral, that he resolved to come here to do his Doctorate in Linguistics. He has been back every year since and encourages his students to do likewise. Taiwanese students contribute hugely to the local economy.

A literate society by any standards, Taiwan is only just behind the UK in the number of new books per capita which it releases each year.

The UK is way ahead of the rest of the world.

America trails way down the list.

So what’s the climate like? Amazing, especially viewed from the middle of our winter. The first thing you will experience is a warm flush of semi-tropical air as you step out of the air-conditioned airport building. OK, it DOES rain and can be cold but not very often.

If you go for several weeks, one jumper will suffice but you probably won’t even wear it.

Smog is, however, a big problem in Hong Kong and it sometimes, but rarely, affects Taiwan.

And the countryside? The cities? See

above for comments about Hong Kong. In Taiwan, the countryside is breathtakingly beautiful from the mountains of southern Taiwan – you can stay with a local family very cheaply and not feel at all like a tourist – to the natural beaches of Kenting and you will be entranced. The cities of Taipei and Kaohsiung, pronounced ‘Cow-shung’ - although I have never come across any official in a British airport who can say it correctly, preferring to mutter ‘er, you’re destination’ instead – have that indefinable ‘buzz’ only found in the world’s great cosmopolitan conurbations.

The food? Ah, now you’ve hit one of the main reasons I try to stay for at least six weeks at a time. Food from both Hong Kong and Taiwan is awesome but I especially like it in the latter. Bubble tea – tea with tapioca pieces; Taiwanese Ice Cream - an eight inch wheel of sweet ice that whirls away in front of a cutter which deposits whispers of the ice cream onto your plate; hundreds of different types of mushrooms – there is a chain of restaurants which serve nothing but mushrooms for

2017 January | 21

starters, main course and puddings; probably thousands of types of noodles that you won’t ever find in England; steamed bread – so juicy and chewy; soya products for vegetarians that actually taste nice; egg-fried rice made like it should be served with fresh ginger strips; fried ice-cream; hand-made vegetarian dumplings with soy sauce; crispy pancakes with fresh vegetables and plum sauce; pineapple cake; malted beer and kumquat liqueur. Is that enough to tempt you for now?

OK. But it sounds very expensive. In Hong Kong, yes, you will need deep pockets, but it is quite the reverse in Taiwan. You can, if you like, pay a lot in the fancy city-centre restaurants, although you don’t have to at all. It is customary in Taiwan for a house to be built where the ground floor is a shop. Some people do indeed just turn these spaces into another sitting room but a great many try their hand at a business and the easiest type to try is a food shop or family-run restaurant. These are incredibly cheap by our standards – there are several that I and my Taiwanese friends go to where you can have an evening feast for maybe the equivalent of £3 - 5. Of course, you have to be a little adventurous at first and go up to someone who is cooking, which is all over the place, and ask if they serve food to hungry visitors. Some people say to be careful of food poisoning: in the twenty years or so that I have been eating anywhere and everywhere in Asia, I have never had as much as any kind of foodinduced illness of even the mildest kind.

The language? In Hong Kong, you’ll be OK with English but if you speak the local dialect, it will be greatly appreciated and you may get better service in hotels etc. As for Taiwan, it is always a good idea to learn at least a few words of Taiwanese Hokkien – spoken by the majority of Taiwanese – or Mandarin. It is 22 | January 2017

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FINEPLACES only polite to say ‘hello’ – ‘Ni-hao’ – when you meet a new person. However, you will find that everyone is so friendly and wanting to try to practise their English on you that you can become very lazy and get by, at least in major centres, entirely in English. When I first went over to write books about learning English – which is what I do there, by the way – it was twenty years ago and there were not very many Westerners, at least in the secondary towns. It became a very pleasant game to get to the corner shop (almost always a 7-11) and back without meeting a group of children or students who wanted to have a chat! ‘How are you? Are you English? American? How do you like Taiwan?’

Any idiosyncrasies? We are very reserved in the west so it can be a bit of a shock to be asked by someone you have just met ‘How old are you? How old do you think I am? How much money do you earn?’ It’s just the open culture and lovely when you get used to it. This is less likely to happen in Hong Kong, but often in Taiwan. Local signs are also sometimes much more poetic than ours – for instance, the one outside the main railway terminus at Kaohsiung reads ‘Kiss and Ride’ rather than ‘Be quick to drop off your passengers for the train’.

How do you get about? Probably by taxi to begin with in Hong Kong, at least until you find your bearings. Taiwan is a land of scooters. Everyone’s got one, even if they also own a nice car. You will often see a whole family on the back of a lambretta. The big cities have superb underground systems and taxis are cheap. Buses are a bit of a lottery.

Some drivers see traffic lights as optional so you need to be on your toes, especially when

crossing the road.

What else would you recommend to do on a visit? Major bookshops in both Hong Kong and Taiwan are like palaces with a massive section devoted to the learning of English. You will find people sitting all over the stairs, floors and ledges reading the books.

You must also go see – and smell! – the many night markets which sell everything from roast snake to cinnamon waffles. Major cities have

department stores, some 21 stories high, that make our English ones look like corner shops.

In Taiwan, you will also want to see some Daoist and Buddhist Temples of which there are hundreds, each one you see seeming even more intricate and beautiful than the last.

You will hear religious ceremonies, gongs and drums all through the night. There are many religious processions and lots of monks and nuns. Beware, however, as some that you see requesting alms, especially at busy places like shopping centres and railway stations, are not always genuine. I personally have never worked out how to tell for sure so when I want to give alms I go direct to a temple.

To avoid? Smog is a big problem in Hong Kong and obviously cannot be avoided. Noise

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2017 January | 23

FINEPLACES pollution is unavoidable in Taiwan as there is a bit of a situation right now with trucks driving slowly up and down the neighbourhood blasting out adverts for everything from politicians to new restaurants. The national press - The Taipei Times is a good Englishlanguage read before and during your stay and can be accessed online – has recently raised this issue, so maybe there will be some change.

How to travel? You can go direct from Norwich International Airport. The best route is undoubtedly Norwich- Amsterdam-Hong Kong and then on to Taiwan. Amsterdam and Hong Kong are very comfortable airports with easy chairs and ‘full length ‘seats where you can stretch out while waiting your connection.

Amsterdam offers very expensive computers with wi-fi but in Hong Kong they are both free but pretty useless. You can also go via London Heathrow which I have done a few times and, if you can survive the horror of the UK’s most packed airport, you will save a couple of hundred pounds. Good luck with that.

How to book? If you book via the internet you will save hundreds of pounds over a High Street Travel Agent. Try Opodo.com or Expedia. com. The trick is to take a look about 3 weeks

24 | January 2017

or a month before travel, type in NorwichAmsterdam-Hong Kong-Taiwan and track the costs of flights over several days to see if they vary. You should not have to pay more than £750-£900 economy return to Taiwan and about two thirds of that to Hong Kong.

Business Class is about double. Beware – a journey from Norwich to Hong Kong or Taiwan can be anything from 18 hours in total to over 55 hours! The longest and cheapest flights will flash up first on your computer but, unless you can take a 20 plus hour stop-over in an airport, check all the details well before purchasing!

I usually try to have a flight with transfers of about 2 and a half hours which is just right to get everything done and have a cup of tea.

I wish you a very happy trip! Look forward to the pics!

For information about my books, upcoming publications, blogs, new fiction and to get in touch, please go to – www.stephenbrowningbooks.co.uk NEED A SPEAKER? I am happy to give illustrated talks on my areas of expertise – pretty much my books.

Please take a look at the website and use the ‘Contact Me’ form to get in touch. I’ll be straight back!

www.finecity.co.uk

Raffles

Serving the Fine City for 25 Years

Jayne and Nigel Raffles will have much cause for celebration in January 2017

C

elebrating its 25 years of running restaurants in Norwich

Twenty five years! From the humble beginning of St Benedicts restaurant or grill as we first named it, to Pinocchio’s, Pulse café bar and finally The Library It is a long time and, to be honest, and feels like dog years in the hyper competitive, always changing, perpetual motion of the restaurant industry. Since our first day, so much has changed. Case in point—when we opened St Benedicts restaurant, you could smoke in our restaurant..

Our guests are loyal, regular and, after 25 years, have developed favorites and strong preferences. When you’ve been around for this long, change is a necessity—we need to keep our regulars engaged and interested. We feel compelled to improve at all times, in all ways.

Plus, tastes, techniques, products and trends are always changing.

We promise to keep innovating and we are committed to listening to our guests and correcting any mistakes we make along the way. www.finecity.co.uk

We feel that both of these traits are a huge reason we’ve been around longer than 99% of the restaurants that have ever opened in the city of Norwich.

On a personal note being married to a chef and business partner certainly leads to an interesting challenge, the phrase never a dull moment springs to mind.

As the new year begins we look forward to another good few years of trading in this beautiful city and very much our home Norwich 2017 January | 25

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Norfolk & Norwich Chamber Music François-Frédéric Guy, pianist – Photo : AMR

Norfolk & Norwich Chamber Music enters the second part of its highlysuccessful 67th season. Norwich-based arts writer, Tony Cooper, checks it out

A

nd what a season it has been so far with visits from the Fitzwilliam and Van Kuijk string quartets, Angela Hewitt and Trio Isimsiz while the established English-born lyric tenor, John Mark Ainsley, came and conquered performing a stunning Schumann lieder recital accompanied

by Roger Vignoles.

But one of the highlights of the season is beckoning - the annual chamber-music weekend held later this month. It gets the Cedric Tiberghien - © Benjamin Ealovega 2007

classical-music calendar of the New Year for Norwich and, indeed, Norfolk, off to a rousing good start.

This year the weekend runs on Saturday/ Sunday, 21st/22nd January, offering an attractive and entertaining programme devised by the acclaimed globetrotting clarinettist, Michael Collins. He has gathered round him a coterie of hand-picked musicians to deliver an exciting and challenging programme that should appeal to all tastes!

Therefore, the opening concert (Saturday, 7.30pm) features Beethoven’s E flat septet and Schubert’s F major octet while on Sunday the traditional late-morning concert (11.30am) serves up a trio of popular works comprising Brahms’ E flat Clarinet Sonata no 2, Weber’s Grand Duo Concertante and Poulenc’s Clarinet Sonata while the afternoon concert (3pm) sees performances of Bartók’s contrasts for violin, clarinet and piano, Stravinsky’s The Soldier’s Tale Suite and Messaien’s Quartet for the End of Time.

Welcome return visitors are the Carducci String Quartet comprising Matthew Denton and Michelle Fleming (violins), Eoin SchmidtMartin (viola) and Emma Denton (cello). Their concert on Saturday, 18th February, 7.30pm, looks promising indeed. Haydn’s D major quartet provides the ‘opener’ while the concert concludes with Beethoven’s F minor quartet.

And

feature by:

Tony Cooper Writer tc@tony-cooper.co.uk

26 | January 2017

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FINEARTS works: Mozart’s D major sonata for two pianos and Olivier Messaien’s Visions de l’Amen, a work that Messiaen wrote in 1943 shortly after being released as a prisoner-of-war and the first of many collaborations he undertook with Mlle Loriod, at the time a student at the Paris Conservatoire, where Messaien was a professor. The work received its première in Paris in the same year.

Michael Collins

somewhere sandwiched between these popular works is Webern’s Langsamer Satz composed in June 1905 but not publicly performed until May 1962 in Seattle. And, I guess, this is the first time that it has been heard in Norwich.

The word ‘langsame’, by the way, literally means ‘slow movement’ and Langsamer Satz originated during a hiking trip that Webern took with his cousin, Wilhelmine Mörtl, in Lower Austria. A romantic-inspired piece, it conjures up an outpouring of love that the 21-year-old composer - whose studies with Arnold Schoenberg had begun the previous autumn - harboured for Fräulein Mörtl, who later became his wife.

Commissioning new works has also been an important part of NNCM’s activity over the years and for this concert the Carducci’s will première a new quartet by the London-based composer, Kemal Yusif. He stormed to success at last year’s Norfolk & Norwich Festival with his large-scale work ‘Cain’ performed by the Festival

Chorus and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra conducted by David Parry.

The penultimate concert of the season forms a mini-weekend programmed by the pianist Cédric Tiberghien - Alina Ibragimova’s musical duo partner. He’ll give a solo piano recital on Saturday 11th March (7.30pm) comprising etudes and preludes by Chopin, Szymanowski and Debussy while on Sunday (3pm) Cédric will be joined by the wind soloists of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra for two grand and entertaining works of the chamber-music repertoire: Mozart’s quintet and Beethoven’s quintet.

The season’s final concert promises a grand keyboard affair featuring the exciting talents and energies of François-Frédéric Guy and Geoffroy Couteau. Their first concert on Saturday 8th April (7.30pm) features two intermezzi by Brahms (op 116 and op 118) followed by the same composer’s F minor sonata for two pianos (op 34b) while Sunday’s concert (3pm) features two great and inspiring

And it’s all change for NNCM’s programme director as the current incumbent of the post, Roger Rowe, bows out following a highlysuccessful term of office spanning two decades.

His replacement is the well-known Londonbased musicologist, Misha Donat. No stranger to Norwich, though, he has presided over many pre-concert talks for NNCM and, indeed, will give three sessions in the current season. The talks (which are free) take place one hour before the commencement of each concert and they last for about 30 minutes.

All of N&N Chamber Music concerts take place at the John Innes Centre, Norwich Research Park, Colney, Norwich NR4 7UH. Box office: Prelude Records, St Giles’ Street, Norwich. Tel: 01603 628319 www.preluderecords.co.uk On-line booking: www.norwichchambermusic.co.uk/ tickets Any further information concerning N&N Chamber Music, please contact the Hon Sec, Roger Rowe, MBE, at 60 Park Lane, Norwich NR2 3EF. Tel: 01603 621169 rrowe@paston.co.uk or visit www.norwichchambermusic.co.uk Carducci

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2017 January | 27

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n internationally renowned Norfolk based choir have announced their next concert to take place in January and brighten up one of the darkest months of the year.

Choir to go Between the Stars New Cathedral show is first section of 2 year Arms of Sleep project

Norwich’s Voice Project Choir will perform their new work Between Stars at Norwich Cathedral on Saturday January 21.

There will be separate performances at 7pm and 9pm.

Between Stars is inspired by the magnificent cathedral as well as the darkness and clarity of the seasonal Norfolk sky. It will be a large-scale promenade performance piece featuring the 150-member choir along with professional solo singers and instrumentalists.

As with all Voice Project performances the event takes the form of a conversation between the singers and musicians and the building that hosts them. Tim Tracey of Tin House has created a spectacular lighting design to reveal hitherto hidden parts of the cathedral and most of the music has been speciallycreated for the event, composed by Helen Chadwick (who has been commissioned by the likes of the Royal Opera House, English Touring Opera the BBC, Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre), Orlando Gough, acknowledged as one of the UK’s most important composers and Voice Project coDirector Jon Baker. The concert is directed by Voice Project co-directors Sian Croose and Jonathan Baker.

Between Stars is the first part of a new ambitious project The Arms of Sleep, a series of pieces exploring ideas around sleeping and waking. Jon and Sian have begun work with sleep scientists and designers to create this sequence of world–class choral theatre that will also see the choir performing as part of the 2017 Norfolk & Norwich Festival before going on to site specific performances at major festivals around the country in 2018.

The January concert will be their first full performance at Norwich Cathedral since 2013. Sian Croose commented ‘Norwich Cathedral has such brilliant acoustics and hearing the choir and soloists in there is always very special. Mid January, at the deepest point of hibernation of the winter, can seem the darkest part of the year following the glitz and gaiety of Christmas so we hope to create a dream-like piece of music that will

28 | January 2017

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transport the singers and the audience to a different place.

Jonathan Baker added ‘We’re looking forward to the opportunity to revisiting this great building with a new group of singers in the choir. Our last project here was Nocturne in 2013 which was very atmospheric and a great success. It’s always a very enjoyable challenge to produce these large-scale shows which use all parts of the cathedral and its wonderful acoustics’.

The Voice Project are twice winners of EDP People’s Choice Award. They have taken their unique vision of what a community choir can be to international jazz festivals in mainland Europe, appeared on prime time French TV and had a London concert broadcast on BBC Radio 3. It is one of the best known choirs in the East of England and is totally open access with no auditions to join. In recent years the choir has given many hundreds of singers the opportunity to take part in unique creative performance projects of high quality new vocal music as well as running workshops designed to build confidence and explore a wide variety of uplifting and inspiring music. www.finecity.co.uk

Tickets for Between Stars are available from www.voiceproject.co.uk and Norwich Cathedral Shop Jonathan Baker and Sian Croose are available for interview, contact Steve Forster steve@sfppr.co.uk 01603 661459 Listings info: Saturday 21st January 2017 7pm and 9pm Between Stars - The Voice Project Choir with soloists and instrumentalists New promenade song cycle performance featuring 150 member open access choir alongside professional soloists and musicians. The magnificent cathedral will be spectacularly lit for the concerts to reveal hitherto hidden features.

Norwich Cathedral, The Close, Norwich, Norfolk NR1 4DH www.voiceproject.co.uk

2017 January | 29

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Iain Paterson

Opera aficionado, Tony Cooper, talks to high-flying Scottish-born Wagner singer, Iain Paterson, whose started his career with Opera North and frequently visited Norwich

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’m relaxing on a smart park-bench in glorious sunshine on Wolfgang-WagnerPlatz directly in the shadow of Bayreuth’s iconic Festspielhaus grandly situated on top of the lush Green Hill overlooking the lovely Upper Franconian town of Bayreuth.

Life couldn’t be better! I’m here, in actual fact, Iain Paterson as himself set against a rugged Scottish landscape.

30 | January 2017

enjoying the company and catching up on the news of Scottish-born Wagner singer, Iain Paterson.

A singer riding a crest of a wave at the moment, Iain put in a commanding and authoritative performance as Wotan in Das Rheingold (the

first opera in Wagner’s epic four-work cycle, The Ring of the Nibelungen) at last year’s famous Bayreuth Festival held in August as well as singing Kurwenal in Tristan und Isolde. And Iain’s gladly back again this year reprising those same roles.

Earlier in the year, however, he sang Wotan in Guy Cassiers’ stunning production for Staatsoper Berlin conducted by Daniel Barenboim.

Devoted solely to the works of Richard Wagner, the Bayreuth Festival was officially launched in 1876 with a performance of Das Rheingold in the company of such distinguished composers as Bruckner, Grieg and Tchaikovsky while the great Hungarian pianist, Franz Liszt, Wagner’s father-in-law, also witnessed the grand occasion.

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Klaus Florian Vogt Photo: Harald Hoffmann

On a historical note, Liszt gave a recital in Norwich’s Assembly House (then referred to as ‘Rooms’) while on a Grand Tour of the British Isles in September 1840. He covered 3389 miles travelling by a

coach and four at an average speed of nine miles per hour visiting 65 towns and cities.

And the current artistic director of the Bayreuth Festival, Katharina Wagner, daughter of Wolfgang Wagner - who was actually born in Bayreuth - is the great-great granddaughter of Liszt and, therefore, the great-granddaughter of Wagner.

Other high-profile figures who attended the first night of Das Rheingold included Kaiser Wilhelm, Dom Pedro II of Brazil and, of course, King Ludwig II (Wagner’s wild and eccentric patron) as well as the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who helped Wagner so much in establishing the festival. History surrounds you here - musically, politically and socially speaking.

The story of the Ring - the cycle of which is completed

by Die Walküre (The Valkyrie), Siegfried and

feature by:

Tony Cooper Writer tc@tony-cooper.co.uk

www.finecity.co.uk

2017 January | 31

FINEARTS Götterdämmerung (The Twilight of the Gods) - is loosely based on characters from Norse folklore and the epic German poem, Nibelungenlied, which chronicles the life of the dragon-slayer Siegfried at the court of the Burgundians and how he was murdered and his wife Kriemhild’s revenge.

The Ring, though, is a work not like any other to be found in the 19th-century operatic repertoire and the drama unfolds over 16/17 intensive and dramatic hours. It’s a long haul!

And it was a long haul for Wagner, too, as it took him the best part of 26 years to complete starting in 1848 but that included an interval of eight years when he took time off for a

Anne Schwanewilms Photo: Javier del Real

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FINEARTS breather. In that time he knocked out Tristan und Isolde and Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg.

Some breather, eh!

However, to sing Wagner, especially at Bayreuth, you have to be top notch and to sing here is the pinnacle, in most cases, to one’s career. As for Iain Paterson he has well and truly hit that mark.

He fondly recalls his first big break: ‘I remember it well,’ he exclaimed. ‘I sang Count Lamoral in Richard Strauss’ Arabella in 2004. It was a great show and it marked my début at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden.’ Written during the collapse of the Weimar Republic, the opera’s about lust, greed and avarice and received its première at Dresden in 1933.

What a break! What a début, too! Other important roles quickly followed at Covent Garden including Le Bret in Cyrano de Bergerac, First Nazarene (Salome), Count Monterone (Rigoletto), Orest (Elektra) and Kurwenal (Tristan und Isolde). That’s big stuff all round!

But to get to the top in opera (or any profession come that matter) you have to work hard and Iain didn’t shy from that responsibility.

He enjoyed good fortune, too, when he met his singing teacher of 20 years, the late Nweilson Taylor, at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama - now renamed the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. The hard and diligent work he put in has paid off handsomely.

Iain’s professional career, however, started where so many singers’ careers start - in the chorus. In Iain’s case it was with Opera North and he often visited Norwich with the company playing the Theatre Royal.

However, in 2007, Iain landed a plumb Wagnerian role when Simon Rattle picked him to sing Fasolt at the Salzburg Festival - a festival in the same league as Bayreuth. He has also sung here the role of Jokanaan in Richard Strauss’ Salome.

Harbouring a wide-ranging bass-baritone voice which he delivers in a smooth-flowing and decisive manner, Iain also reprised the role of

Iain Paterson as Wotan in Das Rheingold lighting up Erda’s fag played by Nadine Weissmann.

Bayreuther Festspiele 2016. Photo: Enrico Nawrath

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2017 January | 33

FINEARTS Fasolt - one of the Giants of the Ring who gets hammered to death by his brother Fafner over his share of the gold in Das Rhinegold - at La Scala Milan as well as at Berlin State Opera and Paris Opéra while other notable Ring engagements have included Wotan for Houston Grand Opera and Gunther (Götterdämmerung) for Metropolitan Opera New York. He has also sung the role at Paris Opéra and Bavarian State Opera and played The Forester in Janáček’s wonderful opera, The Cunning Little Vixen, for Bergen Opera.

Closer to home, though, Iain has taken on such prestigious roles as Amfortas in Parsifal and Méphistophélès in Gounod’s Faust as well as the lead-role in Don Giovanni for English National Opera at the London Coliseum.

A relaxed and convivial person to spend time with, I soon found out that the genre of opera was Iain’s bag right from the start. ‘I realised that when I was studying at the RSAMD,’ he recalled, ‘I was better suited temperamentally to opera. Something in the marriage of singing and acting, the physical embodiment of a character, appealed to me. I have the utmost respect for recitalists but that side of singing has never held the same attraction for me as opera. Maybe, I’m just a frustrated actor, at heart. Who knows?’

Indeed, who knows! But one thing most operalovers know is when they saw their first opera.

In the case of Iain it was Smetana’s The Bartered Bride performed by Scottish Opera in 1978.

‘Seeing this opera, I suppose, got me hooked on the genre and I have to thank my father for it as he dragged me into the theatre. I say ‘dragged’ because I was only five at the time. A year later, I started my musical education on the violin.

‘But the first opera I actually went to see and paid for out of my own pocket was Richard Jones’ 1991 production of Die Walküre for Scottish Opera. It was fabulous! Just a few weeks previous to this I started at the RSAMD and came across Georg Solti’s iconic recording of the Ring in the college library. That’s where my love for Wagner, I suppose, kicked in.’

Since then, Iain has clocked up a lot of prime Wagnerian roles. Here’s a taster!

Biterolf (Tannhäuser), Titurel and Amfortas (Parsifal), Kurwenal (Tristan) and Hans Sachs (Meistersinger) as well as Fasolt, Gunther and, of course, Wotan in the Ring.

‘My favourite repertoire is, undoubtedly, the 19th century. Putting Wagner aside, I have to say I like mid- to late-period Verdi. Those operas are just incredible! However, one of the downsides of being a bass-baritone is that I simply cannot sustain the higher tessitura (that means the most musically acceptable and comfortable range of a singer) demanded by 34 | January 2017

those late-Verdi bass-baritone roles such as Germont (La Traviata), Di Luna (Il Trovatore), Marquis von Posa (Don Carlos) and Iago (Othello) as well as those two biggies: Rigoletto and Simon Boccanegra.

‘Every one of them is an incredible role with such wonderful music but they are just out of my range. It’s very frustrating but that’s how it is! There are just a couple I can manage, Amonasro (Aida) and Falstaff, but, unfortunately, I rarely get asked for those now that I’m singing bigger Wagner roles. Such a shame, really!

‘Hands down, though, my favourite Wagnerian roles are most definitely Wotan and Hans Sachs. They are just so rich, complex and endlessly fascinating parts to sing. However, I still harbour a lot of love for Fasolt and Gunther as those roles really propelled my career forward.’

Singers who play Bayreuth all have their own individual angle about the place and what they feel about it. This is what Iain had to say: ‘Without doubt, Bayreuth’s an amazing place to sing,’ he said. ‘To be part of that history is, indeed, a great honour but, at the same time, it can be a double-edged sword. Audiences expect the very best, of course, and if they don’t get it, they quickly let you know in the traditional manner.

‘I’ve heard some of the best singers in the world booed to bits here but I’ve also heard some of the most rapturous ovations for the same people! I think it’s down to a sense of ownership. The audience in Bayreuth is not your average opera audience. The majority of them are passionate Wagner fans, knowledgeable and experienced, travelling from over the world to come to the festival. In a sense, they are more like pilgrims than fans. As such, they have certain expectations and as a singer you do your best and hope that you are judged to be worthy.

‘Acoustically, the audience at Bayreuth get the better deal. The acoustic shell over the orchestra is shaped in such a way as to throw the sound on to the stage. This means that the orchestra can sound much larger on stage than in other houses therefore you have to resist the temptation to push your voice and trust that while you might feel like you’re drowning in orchestral sound, the audience can hear everything clearly and easily. As a singer, I’ve found that I need to be strictly disciplined in such an acoustic as you find at Bayreuth.’

I don’t think Iain needs to worry too much about that. His portrayal of Wotan in Das Rheingold hit the mark alright. Not only did he look good on stage attired in a loose-fitting peach-coloured suit but he sounded equally as good with his rich bass-baritone voice

radiating round the vastness of the GraecoRoman-designed Festspielhaus to the delight of a packed house which duly gave him a thunderous curtain-call.

After Bayreuth, Iain packed his bags and left for the Edinburgh Festival for his role début as the Peasant in Schoenberg’s mighty and moving cantata, Gurrelieder, with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra under Donald Runnicles.

And recently he took the lead-role in Der fliegende Holländer for Vlaamse Opera based in Antwerp. Another first!

But with all his gallivanting about the world singing Wagner, Iain stills remembers his time with Opera North and harbours fond memories of his visits to Norwich.

The 2017 Bayreuth Festival runs from Tuesday 25th July to Monday 28th August. This year’s new production - Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg - will be directed by the Australian-born director, Barrie Kosky, currently artistic director of Komische Oper, Berlin. He becomes the first Aussie to direct in the history of this iconic festival.

Kosky’s production, conducted by Philippe Jordan, features Michael Volle in the central role as the cobbler Hans Sachs while the ‘wunder boy’ of the Green Hill, Klaus Florian Vogt, sings Walther von Stolzing with Anne Schwanewilms (Eva) and Johannes Martin Kränzle (Beckmesser).

This year, too, sees the final performances of Frank Castorf ’s Ring cycle first seen in 2013 to commemorate the bicentenary of Richard Wagner’s birth. The English singer, Catherine Foster, who hails from Nottingham, once again sings the pivotal role of Brünnhilde and, I’m pleased to say, has been in the cast in this triumphant role for the duration of the production.

And fellow English singer, Allison Oakes, from Stoke-on-Trent, is cast in the role of Gutrune, sister of Gunther, in Götterdämmerung.

The repertoire’s completed by Uwe Eric Laufenberg’s Parsifal and Katharina Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde - both rich, compelling and imaginative productions which puts the Bayreuth Festival on pole position and a winner all the way to the chequered flag!

For more information visit: www.bayreuther-festspiele.de

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Iain Paterson as Wotan eyeing up the all-important ring thinking, no doubt, of its special powers.

Bayreuther Festspiele 2016. Photo: Enrico Nawrath

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2017 January | 35

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The Witches of Eastwick with the devilish Darryl van Horne (from left) Claire Chandler as Alex, Kathryn White as Jane, Terry Boast as Darryl and Andrea Ferguson as Sukie.

The Witches of Eastwick A Hell of a Musical!

Norfolk & Norwich Operatic Society

January 31 – February 4, 2017

T

he Norfolk & Norwich Operatic Society returns to Norwich Theatre Royal from January 31 to February 4, 2017, with the fabulously wicked musical comedy The Witches of Eastwick.

The NNOS last trod the Theatre Royal boards in January this year with Sunset Boulevard, a 36 | January 2017

story which exposes the dark side of fame, and now they are returning to the ‘dark side’ once again with a tale of a devil-ishly attractive man and three beautiful women who are caught in his magical web.

The Witches of Eastwick began life as a John Updike novel published in 1984. Its success quickly led to a movie version released in 1987 starring Susan Sarandon, Michelle Pfeiffer and Cher as the three witches, alongside Jack Nicholson as the devilish Darryl Van Horne.

Sold using the tagline ‘Three beautiful women;

one lucky devil’, the film was a big hit and was nominated for several Oscars.

Courtesy of musical impresario Cameron Mackintosh, The Witches of Eastwick the musical opened in July 2000 at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane with Ian McShane (of Lovejoy fame) taking the leading role of Darryl Van Horne. With songs such as Make Him Mine, The Glory of Me, Loose Ends and Something, it has since flown further afield to charm audiences internationally and at home, including a UK Tour in 2008-2009 which www.finecity.co.uk

FINEARTS opened at Norwich Theatre Royal and starred Marti Pellow in the lead role.

Hollywood film director Ron Howard after working on his feature film RUSH.

The action takes place in the late 1950s in a quintessentially sleepy and uptight New England town called Eastwick, with suburban streets, bored women, inadequate men and unhappy marriages hidden behind closed doors. So when the devilish Mr Darryl Van Horne arrives in town the excitement and intrigue begins. Seducing each of the women in turn, he teaches them how to expand their powers though a new unorthodox lifestyle which scandalizes the town.

Andrea Ferguson is well-known to NNOS audiences. She joined the society in 1993 and has been in everything from Barnum, Carousel and 42nd Street, to Hello Dolly, Sweeney Todd and Anything Goes. A menswear personal stylist for John Lewis, Norwich, where she has worked for 25 years, she was selected as a teenager to perform at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane as a solo dancer with Alvin Stardust.

The Norfolk & Norwich Operatic Society production will see Darryl played by Terry Boast, and in the roles of the (not so wicked but naughty) witches are Andrea Ferguson as Sukie, Kathryn White as Jane and Claire Chandler as Alex.

Terry Boast is a Norwich admin assistant by day but in his spare time has worked with Mixed Voice, Limelight Studios, Spooky Kid Productions and Knightshift Dance Company.

He has most recently been seen by Norwich audiences in West Side Story at The Playhouse in August (2016) and the highlight of his theatrical pursuits to-date has been meeting

Kathryn White first came to Norwich to study English Literature at the UEA and has lived here for nearly ten years. An office and project manager for a local creative design consultancy, she has been involved with Threshold Theatre Company and The Witches of Eastwick will be only her second performance with NNOS, having appeared in their 2014 production Anything Goes.

Claire Chandler hails from near Cromer and attended Redroofs Theatre School in Maidenhead and then RADA in London. She is a director of her family’s business, Ivy Farm Holiday Park at Overstrand, and has performed in many productions with the Cromer &

Sheringham Operatic Society, including playing Nancy in Oliver. She is looking forward to her very first show with the NNOS. With rousing songs and lots of visual effects, including the witches taking flight, the show promises a magical evening for audiences.

It contains scenes of an adult nature and therefore is recommended for age 14+.

The show runs from Tuesday, January 31, to Saturday, February 4, at 7.30pm nightly with 2.30pm matinees on Thursday and Saturday.

Tickets cost from £7 to £21.50 from the box office on 01603 630000 or online at www.theatreroyalnorwich.co.uk Listing: Norfolk & Norwich Operatic Society’s The Witches of Eastwick, Tuesday to Saturday, January 31 to February 4, 2017.

Eves 7.30pm, Mats Thur & Sat 2.30pm.

Tickets £7-£21.50. BOX OFFICE 01603 630000. Discounts for Friends, Under 18s and Schools. Captioned Performance Thur Feb 2, 2.30pm. For more info or to BOOK ONLINE www.theatreroyalnorwich.co.uk

The Witches of Eastwick (from left) Claire Chandler as Alex, Andrea Ferguson as Sukie and Kathryn White as Jane.

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2017 January | 37

FINEARTS exciting contemporary circus companies Casus. A colourful concoction of explosive encounters, the work touches upon hidden looks and humorous discoveries featuring incredible aerial hoop, rope and swings as well as some impressive acro-balancing routines.

Norfolk & Norwich Festival

After the success of ‘White Nights’ at last year’s festival, the riotous Finnish-based circus troupe, Race Horse Company, returns to Norwich with another super show appropriately entitled ‘Super Sunday’. Big on flying, big on thrills and big on mind-blowing skills, the show contains enough fear-inducing circus stunts to stop audiences looking away even for a split second. Blink - and you’ll miss a trick!

Fusing dance, storytelling, interactive animation and specially-composed music, ‘Chotto Desh’ (performed by the celebrated Akram Khan Company) is a bewitching, thrilling and poignant tale of a young man’s dreams and memories from Britain to Bangladesh.

The term ‘Chotto Desh’ is Bengali for ‘small homeland’ and the show draws on Khan’s unique quality of cross-cultural storytelling weaving together a playful story of a boy who dreams of becoming a dancer and of a mythical child who angers the forest gods by collecting their forbidden honey.

Without doubt, Akram Khan is one of the UK’s most celebrated and influential choreographers and widely admired for his unique style of intimate (yet epic) storytelling.

‘Chotto Desh’, in fact, has been reworked from Khan’s Olivier Award-winning autobiographical show ‘Desh’ and adapted by director Sue Buckmaster of Theatre-Rites thus creating a show that can be enjoyed by everyone aged seven and over.

Driftwood

Norwich-based arts writer, Tony Cooper, offers a glimpse to this year’s Norfolk & Norwich Festival

T

he largest arts festival in the East of England and the fourth largest in the UK, the Norfolk & Norwich Festival has shown its hand by giving a taste of some of the events lined up for this year’s festival running from Friday 12th to Sunday 28th May and building upon the success of last year’s festival which saw 57,000 people attending all sorts of events (free admission and otherwise) over a hectic 17-day period.

38 | January 2017

The festival provides a big boast to the local economy, too, and last year it generated £3.9 million of economic activity to the area while nearly 3000 people participated and well over 900 children and young people took part in educational events.

Headlining the iconic Adnams Spiegeltent in Chapel Field Gardens this year is ‘Driftwood’, the latest show from one of Australia’s most

Grammy and Tony Award-winning artist, Dee Dee Bridgewater - one of today’s leading female jazz vocalists who counts Sonny Rollins, Dizzy Gillespie and Dexter Gordon among her list of past collaborators - will be more than a welcome visitor for the battalion of local (and loyal) jazz fans.

Putting her own unique spin on standards as well as taking intrepid leaps of faith in refeature by:

Tony Cooper Writer tc@tony-cooper.co.uk

www.finecity.co.uk

Super Sunday

envisioning jazz classics, Dee Dee has enjoyed a wonderful multi-faceted career that has spanned over four decades.

A quartet of works about the human lifecycle encompassing living, dying and one’s relationship with time entitled ‘Summer.

Autumn. Winter. Spring.’ promises one of the highlights of the festival. An exciting and invigorating piece of theatre, it comes from the internationally-renowned theatre company, Quarantine, established in 1998 by directors

Richard Gregory and Renny O’Shea with designer Simon Banham.

Comprising three live performances and a film, Summer. Autumn. Winter. Spring. is a marathon event lasting seven hours and merges audience and performers in a piece of mass portraiture that’s fragile, frequently funny, often moving but always human.

Summer. - which premièred to sell-out audiences in a Salford warehouse a couple of

years ago - features 45 performers ranging in age from seven months to those in their early eighties, most of whom have never been on stage before, responding to questions and instructions they have never seen before.

Autumn. provides an interval between Summer. and Winter. where members of the audience are invited to reflect on their place in history.

The piece is almost two hours long and full of conversation, expert voices, explorations of the past and predictions for the future.

Chotto Desh

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2017 January | 39

FINEARTS Dee Dee Bridgewater

Summer. Autumn. Winter. Spring

of opportunities to get involved as we shall be looking for 60 local people to star in Quarantine’s brilliant theatre show: ‘Summer.

Autumn. Winter. Spring.’

Winter. - a delicate portrait of an individual at the end of life - is a film made by Daniel Saul and Rachel Davies while Spring. features a group of women at various stages of pregnancy closing the quartet with a piece asking questions about hope and the future while celebrating the potential of new life and questioning: How do we want the world to be?

From the classical-music side to the festival, the Britten Sinfonia, under the direction of Thomas Adès, will perform a concert centred on the work and influence of Beethoven opening with his witty and tuneful first symphony paired with the composer’s virtuosic second. These works will be complemented by Gerald Barry’s powerful new setting of Beethoven’s famous love-letter to his ‘immortal beloved’. Hearing how one of the most celebrated composerconductors working today will look and interpret these iconic works promises a major and illuminating event of the festival.

William Galinsky, the festival’s artistic director, proudly said: ‘I’m hugely excited to be able to announce some of the first shows for this year’s festival. The programme continues our commitment of bringing an array of amazing international artists to Norwich as well as presenting some of the most exciting UK companies. Once again there will be plenty 40 | January 2017

DRIFTWOOD (Casus Circus Company) Wednesday 17th to Saturday 27th May (7.30pm) and Sunday 28th May (5pm).

No shows on Thursday 18th and Tuesday 23rd May. The Adnams Spiegeltent, Chapel Field Gardens, Norwich Tickets £21 Thomas Adès,

SUPER SUNDAY (Race Horse Company) Monday 15th and Tuesday 16th May (8pm) Norwich Theatre Royal Tickets £24, £20, £16, £10, £7 Recommended age: 12 plus CHOTTO DESH (Akram Khan Company) Thursday 18th May (7.30pm) Norwich Theatre Royal Tickets £20, £17, £14 £10, £7 Recommended age: 7 plus DEE DEE BRIDGEWATER Saturday 20th May (8pm) Norwich Theatre Royal Tickets £28, £24, £19, £8 SUMMER. AUTUMN. WINTER. SPRING. (Quarantine Theatre Company) Saturday 13th and Sunday 14th May (from 2pm to 8pm) The Space, Roundtree Way, Norwich Tickets £25 Recommended age: 14 plus BRITTEN SINFONIA (Beethoven with Thomas Adès) Mark Stone (baritone) Friday, 26th May (7.30pm) St Andrew’s Hall, Norwich Gerald Barry: Beethoven; Beethoven: Symphony no. 1; Beethoven: Symphony no. 2 Tickets £30, £26, £22, £15, £8 The festival box office is situated at Norwich Theatre Royal: 01603 766400. Online booking: www. nnfestival.org.uk. Concessions and Under-26s discounts available. www.finecity.co.uk

FINEARTS

Luke Wright The region’s favourite poet opens his national tour in Norwich ‘The most relevant poet of his generation’ (Exeunt) brings Following the unprecedented multi award winning success of his first stage play, the region’s favourite poet Luke Wright returns to his roots in the first half of 2017 with 25 nationwide dates performing poems from his new collection The Toll. The tour opens on home turf at Norwich Arts Centre on 24 January before heading out to all corners of the country.

This new show features a tightly-wrought look at politics, family and a crumbling society that sees Luke Wright at the peak of his powers.

The poems tour the flat-roofed pubs and half bought couches of Brexit Britain as it struggles with doubt, duty and half-cut nights spent shouting impotently at Question Time on TV. Meet characters like Edward Dando the oysterguzzling hero of the late-Georgian broadsides, witness Iain Duncan Smith being taken to pieces in a poem that utilises only one type of vowel and raise a warm can of Stella with the Essex campers who spot a lion prowling the marshes. ‘funnier than the bulk of the comedy section and more thoughtful than most of the theatre’ The List The characters that populate the poems are diverse and strange but they, like Wright, are all facing tricky moral conundrums. Now one of the most popular poets in Britain, Wright’s poetry ranges from laugh out loud funny to tear-inducingly poignant and back again as he effortlessly takes his audience with him on the ride. www.finecity.co.uk

‘A zestful relish for pump-action wordplay with a thoughtful and deeply felt understanding of just how messed up Britain is’ Daily Telegraph Luke’s grandiloquent and expertly crafted poems tell brilliantly observational stories of the everyday. His vernacular is modern and entirely his own whilst evoking Betjeman and Larkin. The poems are linked into a narrative with his own brand of warm, anecdotal stand-up. In short he makes poetry accessible, normal even.

‘A rip-roaring raconteur, evoking a Larkin-esque sense of commuter belt ennui’ Metro In the past year Luke Wright has sold out 3 weeks in London’s Soho Theatre and performed in The Houses of Parliament at the invitation of Norwich MP Clive Lewis. He has been the subject of national newspaper features, appeared on several BBC Radio 4 programmes as well as appearing on Chris Evans’ Radio2 Breakfast show, BBC6 Music and BBC TV. All while touring What I Learned From Johnny Bevan to unprecedented audience and critical acclaim.

Luke said ‘My last 2 years have been spent touring the play and I’ve enjoyed that hugely but I’m really looking forward to going out with a new poetry show – and especially to opening the tour in front of a home audience at Norwich Arts Centre’.

The book of The Toll is published by Penned In The Margins on 2 February but advance copies will be available to buy on the night.

‘Quite simply, this is the future of popular poetry’ The Skinny

Luke Wright tours the world each year with his unique brand of poetry. Since 1999 he’s performed thousands of gigs with everyone from Beck to Patti Smith and can often be seen opening for John Cooper Clarke. His verse documentaries on Channel 4 have been enjoyed by millions of viewers and his poems are often heard on BBC Radios 3 & 4, and further afield. He curates the spoken word lineups at The Latitude Festival, Festival Number 6 and The Edinburgh International Book Festival.

‘Cool poems!’ Patti Smith His play What I Learned From Johnny Bevan won a Fringe First and The Stage Award for Acting Excellence, a Saboteur Award, and is currently nominated for an Off-West End Award. Luke is currently working with Archer’s Mark on a film version of the show. His last book Mondeo Man was described as ‘a riot’ by Huffington Post in a five star review. lukewright.co.uk Listings info: Luke Wright: The Toll Spend an evening with a raconteur at the absolute top of his game as he spits out visceral, inventive verse that sweats, bleeds and sings Norwich Arts Centre, St Benedicts Street Norwich, NR2 4PG 01603 660352 www.norwichartscentre.co.uk

2017 January | 41

FINEARTS

Norfolk & Norwich Novi Sad Association

The annual Paul Cross Memorial Concert, promoted by the Norfolk & Norwich Novi Sad Association, falls this month. Norwich-based music writer, Tony Cooper, reports

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his year’s recital - entitled Music of Love - takes place on Saturday 14th January (7.30pm) in the Georgian splendour of the Music Room of the Assembly House, Theatre Street, Norwich, by Serbian soprano Radoslava Vorgić and Serbian pianist Julija Bal. (On a historical note, the great Hungarian pianist, Franz Liszt, played in the same room while on a Grand Tour of the British Isles in September 1840. He covered 3389 miles travelling by a coach and four at an average speed of nine miles per hour visiting 65 towns and cities.)

The Paul Cross Memorial Concert, however, is held annually in memory of Paul Cross, the much-loved former chairman of the Norfolk & Norwich Novi Sad Association and celebrates the long-standing friendship and twinning partnership that exists between the historic cities of Norwich and Novi Sad. The emphasis of Ms Vorgić and Ms Bal’s programme ranges from Baroque to Britten focusing on love with a distinctive Serbian flavour.

Indeed, some of the works are inspired by Serbian folk traditions and Serbian love poetry.

Serbian pianist Julija Bal

42 | January 2017

The programme is filled with riches offering works by such well-known composers as Handel (Armida’s aria from Rinaldo), Tchaikovsky (The Nightingale), Brahms (Maiden’s Song), Villa-Lobos (Aria from Bachiana no 5 especially adapted by Ms Bal for the Norwich concert), Tavener (Epistle of Love) and Britten (On This Island).

Incidentally, the Tavener work was commissioned in 2000 with funds provided by the Lazar Kostić Fund. A Serbian poet, prose writer, lawyer, philosopher and politician, Kostić was considered to be one of the greatest (and brightest) minds of Serbian literature.

He devoted himself to writing poetry and promoted the study of English to balance the German predominance in the Balkans. He was also prominent in translating Shakespeare into the Serbian language.

This enterprising programme also incorporates studies by the highly-rated Serbian composer, Vasilije Mokranjac, which, for all intents and purposes, are virtuosic pieces. There’ll also be works by the Italian-British composer, conductor and music publisher, Muzio Clementi, who was encouraged to study music by his father and was sponsored as a young composer by Sir Peter Beckford who brought him to England to advance his studies. Later, he toured Europe numerous times from his long-standing base in London and it was on one of these occasions (in 1781) that he engaged in a piano competition with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and, therefore, it seems most appropriate that a work by the Boy Wunder from Salzburg is included in the programme.

Interestingly, Mr Mokranjac - who lived from 1923 to 1984 and was professor of composition at the Faculty of Music in Belgrade and a member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts - was one of the most prominent Serbian composers in the second half of the 20th century. He was born into one of the most prominent Serbian musical dynasties, too. His father, the cellist Jovan Mokranjac, was a nephew of the composer, Stevan Stojanović Mokranjac, while his mother, Jelena, of Czech origin, was also an accomplished cellist.

However, following Ms Vorgić completing her studies in Serbia she immediately undertook her master’s degree and postgraduate studies at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany. Here she also made her operatic début with the Junges Ensemble of the Staatstheater, Mainz, as Lucia in Britten’s opera, The Rape of Lucretia. She followed this up by singing the roles of Armida in Handel’s Rinaldo, Abel in Scarlatti’s Il primo omicidio overo Cain, Susanna in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro, Flaminia in Haydn’s Il mondo della luna and the title-role in Offenbach’s Coscoletto.

Last year, Ms Vorgić won the Kammeroper Schloss Rheinsberg competition in Germany which led to a host of concerts as well as a masterclass with Stephan Rügamer, a leading tenor at the State Opera, Berlin. Recently, she undertook a masterclass with Dame Emma Kirkby at Dartington International Summer School. Future engagements include Giuditta in Scarlatti’s opera La Giuditta and Musica in Monteverdi’s Orfeo.

While performing her transcriptions for the piano at the IBLA Grand Prize 2008 competition in Italy, Ms Bal’s originality as a composer and pianist caught the attention of the public and critics alike. As the laureate of the competition and the winner of the Villa-Lobos special prize, Ms Bal performed on the IBLA winners’ concert tour appearing at Carnegie Hall to great critical acclaim. The tour also took in Virginia, North Dakota and Arkansas.

Ms Bal - who’ll play solo pieces by Signor Clementi as well as czardas by V Monti-S Kursanov - has won numerous awards at important and prestigious international competitions such as Bradsaw and Buono (New York), Victoria Caffa Righetti (Italy) and Petar Konjović (Serbia). feature by:

Tony Cooper Writer tc@tony-cooper.co.uk

www.finecity.co.uk

FINEARTS

Serbian soprano Radoslava Vorgić

Three years ago the Association of Guitarists of Vojvodina - under the patronage of the Brazilian Embassy of Serbia and the Museu Villa-Lobos in Rio de Janeiro - released a CD and the score of 12 Etudes (originally written for guitar) by Heitor Villa-Lobos but transcribed for piano by Ms Bal who, incidentally, studied at the Academy of Arts in Novi Sad where she www.finecity.co.uk

now teaches comparative piano. Currently, she’s attending her third year of doctoral studies for piano at the Faculty of Musical Art, Belgrade.

As in past years, all proceeds from the concert will be donated to the educational charity supporting the Milan Petrović School for children and young adults with special needs.

A party of members from the Norfolk & Norwich Novi Sad Association paid a visit to the school in September and witnessed the excellent work that’s being done there.

Tickets £17 (students £6) available from Norwich Theatre Royal (01603) 598688 2017 January | 43

FINEARTS

Brendan Cole

Dancing All Night Long with Strictly’s Brendan February 5, 2017

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V’s Strictly favourite Brendan Cole is all set to quick step it to Norwich in the new year with his brand new show All Night Long which he is touring from January through to April 2017.

Having delighted Norfolk audiences earlier this year with A Night To Remember, which was seen by just under 60,000 people countrywide, one of the most successful Strictly Come Dancing professionals will host another spectacular production with stunning choreography, guest dancers, a new leading lady and a 14-piece band and singers live on stage at the theatre on Sunday, February 44 | January 2017

5, with two performances – at 3pm and at 7.30pm.

Brendan is one of only two professionals to have competed in the entire Strictly Come Dancing TV series - the other being Anton du Beke – and has just competed in the 14th series. He danced the very first dance on the first show and was the first winner to lift the famous glitter ball trophy with his ‘celebrity’ partner Natasha Kaplinsky.

In addition to Natasha, his partners have included Kelly Brook; Lisa Snowdon; Jo Wood; Victoria Pendleton, Sunetra Sarker; Kirsty Gallacher; Sophie Ellis-Bextor; and most recently pop star Anastacia.

Brendan has presented eight concert tours – Live & Unjudged (in 2010, twice in 2011 and

again in 2012), Licence to Thrill (in 2013 & 2015) and A Night To Remember (in 2015 & in 2016), leading to his 9th tour with All Night Long.

For tickets to see All Night Long at Norwich Theatre Royal on Sunday, February 5, performances at 3pm and 7.30pm, call the box office on 01603 630000 or book online at www.theatreroyalnorwich.co.uk Listing Brendan Cole, Sunday February 5, 2017. 3pm & 7.30pm. Tickets £8-37.50.

Discounts for Friends. BOX OFFICE 01603 630000.

For more info or to BOOK ONLINE www.theatreroyalnorwich.co.uk

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FINEARTS

RICHARD ALSTON DANCE COMPANY

Latin passions and a UK premiere from Richard Alston February 10 & 11, 2017

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ringing a touch of fiery Latin passion to warm up Norwich in the chilly month of February is Richard Alston Dance Company with a programme of all new works to delight its many fans in the city.

On stage at Norwich Theatre Royal for just two nights on February 10 & 11, the company which has been coming to the city since 1999 will be dancing three new pieces: Richard Alston’s An Italian in Madrid received its premiere at Sadler’s Wells on March 19 earlier this year, while Martin Lawrance’s Tangent was first performed at the Festival Theatre Edinburgh on September 23 - both to critical acclaim.

And Chacony is Alston’s newest dance and the full 24-minute piece will have its UK premiere at Norwich Theatre Royal.

Chacony is inspired by the powerful Chaconne of Henry Purcell. A chaconne is a type of musical composition popular in the baroque period as a quick dance-song characterized by suggestive movements and mocking texts. It originally emerged from Spanish culture having reputedly been introduced from the New World Every bit as powerful as Purcell’s composition is the Chacony from Britten’s String Quartet No. 2, which was conceived as a tribute to Purcell.

Richard Alston juxtaposes these two pieces

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to make a dance that gets under the skin of the richness and nobility of Purcell, reaching into darker places before reaffirming hope for humanity.

An Italian in Madrid received its premiere at Sadler’s Wells on March 19 earlier this year, and was described by The Observer as ‘one of the year’s finest works’. It is inspired by the sonatas of Domenico Scarlatti, which are played for the dancers live on stage by pianist Jason Ridgway. Scarlatti was a baroque composer hugely influenced by Spanish guitar music, and to explore this fusion of different cultures and styles, Richard Alston invited rising dance star Vidya Patel to join his company for this exciting piece.

Vidya, who comes from Birmingham, has participated in classical Indian dance styles from an early age and is training under the guidance of Sujata Banerjee, one of the most versatile South Asian artists working in the UK. In 2015, Vidya was a grand finalist in the BBC Young Dancer competition and that year also danced in a Sadler’s Wells showcase with other finalists at Suffolk’s Latitude Festival near Southwold and at Wembley stadium for the visit by Indian prime minister Narendra Modi.

‘Forget Strictly - come see these wonderful dancers in exhilarating form’, The Herald advised on the premiere of Tangent which was first performed at the Festival Theatre Edinburgh on September 23 this year. Associate

choreographer for Richard Alston Dance Company, Martin Lawrance, explores the vivid accents and attack of the Tango to music by Piazzolla, an Argentine Tango composer, played live in stage by Jason Ridgway on piano.

“I have always been fascinated by the closeness and passion of the Argentinian Tango language and wanted to explore this in my own vocabulary,” he said. “I have chosen what I think is a really wonderful piano arrangement by Marcello Nisinman of Piazzolla’s Las Cuatro Estaciones Porteñas (The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires). Each couple have their own story, taking different moods from the different seasons.”

For tickets to see Richard Alston Dance Company at Norwich Theatre Royal on February 10 & 11, 7.30pm nightly, call 01603 630000 or see www.theatreroyalnorwich.co.uk Listing: Richard Alston Dance Company runs from Friday 10-Saturday 11 February 2016 at 7.30pm. Tickets £7-£21.50. Discounts for Under-25s and Groups. Pre-performance talk on Friday February 10 at 6.30pm.

Tickets FREE but must be booked in advance at Box Office. BOX OFFICE 01603 630000.

For more info or to BOOK ONLINE www.theatreroyalnorwich.co.uk

2017 January | 45

NT Live: No Man’s Land starring Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart.

Cinema City Norwich-born film buff, Tony Cooper, looks at Cinema City screenings this month Breathless (A Bout de Souffle) Monday 2nd January (1pm) Breathless - digitally restored and re-released - was Jean-Luc Godard’s first full-length work and dates from 1960. The film’s scenario spins pastiche with pathos as joyrider and wandering criminal, Jean-Paul Belmondo, shoots a cop, chases friends and debts across a night-time Paris in tow with his American girlfriend played

by Jean Seberg. The soundtrack mixes Mozart with cool jazz riffs in the night air and, more than any other film, Breathless epitomised the iconoclasm of the early Nouvelle Vague not least in its insolent use of the jump-cut.

Blue Velvet, dating from 1986, written and directed

by David Lynch and starring Kyle MacLachlan and Dorothy Vallens

Together with François Truffaut’s The 400 Blows and Alain Resnais’ Hiroshima and Mon Amour both released a year earlier than Breathless in 1959 - it goes without saying that Breathless, which witnessed Belmondo’s breakthrough as an actor, also brought international acclaim to French filmmaking.

Marc Michel, who would later play the same role in Demy’s The Umbrellas of Cherbourg - is smitten with his former girlfriend, Dietrichesque cabaret dancer, Lola (Anouk Aimée) - but she pines for the lover who abandoned her years earlier. French New Wave mainstays Raoul Coutard and Michel Legrand provide the cinematography and score.

MET Opera: Nabucco

Lola

Saturday 7th January (5.55pm)

Thursday 5th January (6pm)

For the first time in HD, The Met’s illustrious music director, James Levine, conducts Verdi’s early drama which is centred round Ancient Babylon with Plácido Domingo adding a new role to his repertoire starring in the title-role.

Liudmyla Monastyrska sings the tour-de-force role of Abigaille, Nabucco’s wilful daughter, while a strong cast features Jamie Barton, Russell Thomas and Dmitri Belosselskiy.

Jacques Demy’s 1961 feature début was described by its director as a ‘musical without music’ though ‘a love story without love’ may be just as appropriate. Roland - played by

The Night of the Hunter Sunday 8th January / Monday 23rd January (1pm) The Night of the Hunter may be revered today but, surprisingly, it failed on its first release in 1955 and Charles Laughton never recovered from the disappointment. It remains his only film as director. Adapted from the bestselling novel by Davis Grubb, the film’s partexpressionist horror movie, part-luminous fairy-tale. It contains some of the most haunting images to be found in cinema.

46 | January 2017

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FINEARTS with a severed ear leading Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan) into the dark underbelly of his hometown, Lumberton. His new-found relationship with nightclub singer, Dorothy Vallens (Isabella Rossellini), takes him down a rabbit-hole that quickly becomes hard to stomach.

RSC Live: The Tempest Wednesday 11th January (7pm).

Encore showing: Tuesday 24th January (2pm), Simon Russell Beale returns to the Royal Shakespeare Company after a 20-year break to play Prospero in this ground-breaking production of The Tempest directed by RSC artistic director, Gregory Doran.

Donnie Darko - the disturbed adolescent.

The plot focuses on a corrupt reverendturned-serial killer, Harry Powell, played by Robert Mitchum, who put in a powerful, emotive and salutary performance: charismatic and charming one moment; vicious and violent the other. His symbolic ‘duel’ between two sets of tattooed knuckles (‘LOVE’ and ‘HATE’) gave American cinema one of its indelible images. A former criminal he’s convinced that his executed cellmate’s loot amounting to $10,000 lies in the possession of his widow, Willa Harper (Shelley Winters), whom he marries purely in order to get his hands on the filthy stuff.

black-and-white cinematography sets it worlds apart from other Hollywood films of the 1940s and 1950s and, indeed, greatly influenced later directors such as David Lynch, Martin Scorsese, Terrence Malick, Jim Jarmusch, Spike Lee and the Coen brothers.

The novel and film draw on the true story of Harry Powers, hanged in 1932 for the murder of two widows and three children in Clarksburg, West Virginia. The film’s lyrical and expressionistic style lean towards the silent era courtesy of former Orson Welles collaborator, Stanley Cortez. His marvellously-expressive

Blue Velvet

In 1992, the film was deemed ‘culturally, historically or aesthetically significant’ by the United States Library of Congress and was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. The influential film magazine, Cahiers du cinéma, selected it in 2008 as the secondbest film of all time behind Citizen Kane.

Monday 9th January (1pm) From jarring and the other-worldly mind of David Lynch comes the surreal tale of voyeurism, criminal investigation and violence,

On a distant island a man waits. He has been robbed of his position, power and wealth and his enemies have left him in isolation. But this is no ordinary man and no ordinary island either. Prospero’s a magician able to control the elements and bend nature to his will.

When a sail appears on the horizon, he reaches out across the ocean to the ship that carries the men who wronged him. Creating a vast storm he wrecks the ship and washes his enemies up on the shore. When they awake they find themselves lost on a fantastical island where nothing is as it seems.

In a unique partnership with Intel, this production will be using today’s most advanced technology in a bold reimagining of Shakespeare’s magical play thus, hopefully, creating an unforgettable theatrical experience.

NT Live: No Man’s Land [15] Thursday 12th January (1pm) Following their hit run on Broadway, Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart return to the West End starring in Harold Pinter’s No Man’s Land broadcast ‘live’ to cinemas from Wyndham’s Theatre. One summer’s evening, two ageing writers, Hirst and Spooner, meet in a Hampstead pub and continue feature by:

Tony Cooper Met Opera: Romeo and Juliet featuring Vittorio Grigolo and

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Diana Damrau

Writer tc@tony-cooper.co.uk

2017 January | 47

FINEARTS their drinking into the night at Hirst’s stately home nearby. As the deuce become increasingly drunk, their stories become increasingly unbelievable, too, and their lively conversation turns into a revealing power game, further complicated by the return home of two sinister younger men played by Owen Teale and Damien Molony. The broadcast will be followed by an exclusive Q&A with the cast and director, Sean Mathias.

Donnie Darko (original cut) Saturday 14th January (11pm) Donnie Darko is a disturbed adolescent from a semi-functional upper-middle-class family. After escaping from near-death because he hears the voice of a six-foot-tall bunny, Donnie’s led by the bunny to create havoc that is both destructive and creative.

Philosophers at the Cinema: Citizen Kane Sunday 15th January (5pm) From the opening sequence, Orson Welles’ first film - the most famous début in all of cinema - is replete with stylistic tropes and flourishes which evoke the German cinema of the Twenties and Thirties. Long recognised as the ancestor of the modern sound film, the fragmented biography of an American newspaper magnate is as sophisticated in the aural as in the visual dimension, marking the most striking technical and stylistic advances since Fritz Lang’s 1931-made film, M.

The Italian Job Monday 16th January (1pm) In this all-time cult favourite feelgood movie made in 1969, Michael Caine heads a team of criminals in a heist to end all heists, beating the Mafia at their own game by stealing gold bullion from right under their noses. Most famed for the absolutely classic getaway in a squad of red, white and blue mini-cars, The Italian Job is simply great fun and, really, a film not to be missed!

MET Opera: Romeo & Juliet Saturday 21st January (5.55pm).

Encore showing: Monday 23rd January (1.30pm) The electrifying team of Vittorio Grigolo and Diana Damrau reunite for a new production of Gounod’s opera based on Shakespeare’s well-loved play. Damrau, in fact, is making her role début as Juliette in Bartlett Sher’s new production staged for La Scala Milan and conducted by Gianandrea Noseda. Elliot Madore sings Mercutio and Mikhail Petrenko, Frère Laurent.

Bolshoi Ballet: The Sleeping Beauty Sunday 22nd January (3pm) The scenario of The Sleeping Beauty (being relayed ‘live’ from the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow) surrounds the beautiful Princess Aurora celebrating her 16th birthday but spoilt

by a dreaded curse dealt by the evil magician, Carabosse, which causes the princess to fall into a deep slumber for 100 years. Only the kiss of a prince (a handsome one!) can awaken her. In the purest style of classical ballet, the Bolshoi’s peerlessly-sumptuous staging with luxurious sets and costumes, brings Perrault’s tale to life as never before while Tchaikovsky’s sumptuous score is luscious to the core.

El Dorado Sunday 22nd January (1pm) Hawks’ effortless 1967 Western, El Dorado, gathers together a gunfighter, a drunken sheriff, a young hopeful, a couple of tough women and sets them up in a jail fighting for their lives against a cattle baron and his hired killers. Sounds familiar? In many ways the plot resembles Hawks’ earlier film Rio Bravo and several of its themes are once again prevalent here: the importance of group solidarity, selfrespect, professionalism and acceptance of other people’s faults.

However, the tone of the piece is transformed by the emphasis on the two central heroes’ infirmity: not only is Robert Mitchum (Sheriff J P Harrah) a drunk but John Wayne (Cole Thornton) suffers badly from age and a gun wound. Seemingly, a lazy, leisurely coast towards the final shoot-out, the film is, in fact, an elegy on lost youth assuaged by friendship, moving from lush pastures to dusty township and from light to darkness. This is an old-man’s movie only in the sense that it deals with the problems of approaching the valley of death.

Bolshoi Ballet: The Sleeping Beauty

48 | January 2017

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FINEARTS Ghost-in-the-Shell starring Scarlett Johansson.

In other words, it’s a witty, exciting and deeplymoving masterpiece.

Ghost in the Shell (Japanese with English subtitles) Wednesday 25th January (9pm) First there was Akira and now Ghost in the Shell being screened on the ‘big screen’ in glorious HD as it was always intended to be.

The scenario surrounds a female cybernetic government agent, Major Motoko Kusanagi (Scarlett Johansson), who’s hot on the trail of ‘The Puppet Master’, a mysterious and menacing computer virus capable of infiltrating human hosts. Together with her fellow agents they embark on a hi-tech race against time to capture the omnipresent entity. A movie that questions human existence in the fast-paced information age, this award-winning cyber thriller - written by Jonathan Herman and Jamie Moss and based on the Japanese manga of the same name by Masamune Shirow - is one of the best-selling Japanese animation films of all time. The film also stars Pilou Asbæk, Takeshi Kitano, Juliette Binoche and Michael Pitt.

Made in East Anglia: In Love with Alma Cogan Sunday 29th January (1pm) www.finecity.co.uk

Filmed in Cromer, this gentle comedy-drama in the mould of Little Voice and Local Hero revolves around the declining fortunes of a pier theatre in a run-down seaside resort. Theatre manager Norman (Roger Lloyd-Pack) clings to past glories, particularly to the ghost of 1960s singing star, Alma Cogan, whom he casually once met. He eventually decides to leave behind the relics of a bygone entertainment era and help his long-suffering but devoted assistant Sandra (Niamh Cusack) to achieve her ambition of becoming a professional singer, unexpectedly enjoying a late-blossoming romance in the process.

An American in Paris Monday 30th January (1pm) This well-loved American musical dating from 1951 but inspired by the 1928 orchestral composition ‘An American in Paris’ by George Gershwin boasts a glittering cast comprising Gene Kelly, Leslie Caron, Oscar Levant, Georges Guétary and Nina Foch and directed

by Vincente Minnelli from a script by Alan Jay Lerner. George’s brother, Ira, wrote the libretto while additional music came from Saul Chaplin, the show’s music director.

The scenario is interspersed with a host of quality dance numbers choreographed by Kelly while some of the show’s hit numbers include

‘I Got Rhythm’, ‘I’ll Build A Stairway to Paradise’ and ‘Love is Here to Stay’. The climax to the film, the American in Paris ballet, is a stunning, evocative and dazzling 17-minute piece with Kelly and Caron on top form.

ROH Live: Il Trovatore Tuesday 31st January (7.15pm) International opera superstars Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Anita Rachvelishvili, Lianna Haroutounian and Gregory Kunde lead a superb cast in this Verdi classic loved by opera aficionados the world over and one of the great works of the 19th-century opera repertoire. A story of passion and blood, love and vengeance, disaster and murder, Il trovatore is new to the Royal Opera House’s current season.

The atmospheric and poetic staging is by David Bösch who firmly sets the opera against the backdrop of war. Fire and snow in the landscape echo the cruelty and love of the story: soldiers and gypsies clash, a mother reveals a terrible secret and two men are engaged in a deadly fight for one woman.

The famous Anvil Chorus is just one of the highlights of Verdi’s exceptionally fine and lyrical score which imaginatively captures the shifting emotions of the drama through impassioned love duets, fiery solos and stirring choruses.

2017 January | 49

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ward Winning Local Family Business – we offer customers value for money products with a personal service, which often cannot be found in the bigger high street stores and the national companies. Voted runner up Bed Retailer of the Year 2016-2017 at the National Bed Federation Awards 2016.

Mattress Specialists – with over 50 years experience in mattress manufacturing and retail, we have expert knowledge on all aspects of mattress technology. All mattress specialists at Sound Sleep have first hand experience in mattress manufacturing so we are best placed to advise just what products will ensure you have a better nights sleep.

Over 100 Beds on Display – with a huge choice of beds and mattresses on display in store, we are able to help you make an informed decision on which mattresses meet your sleeping needs.

No High Pressure Sales – we want our customers to feel comfortable when buying their new bed, so we are on hand to assist and provide advice without any pressure to buy.

Stockists of leading Brands – we are the only Silentnight Sleep Centre and official stockist for Rest Assured in Norfolk & Suffolk, plus we stock the fantastic new range of beds from Myers which are made right here in East Anglia.

Other brands available in store are Sealy, Salus, Breasley, Norfolk Feather, Fine Bedding Company, Dunlopillo Pillows amongst others to provide a wide variety of beds and bedding.

We are very proud to be one of the first local bed stores to stock the brand new Hilary Devey Collection and the new Slumberland Sleep Solutions Collection. This range of beds feature unique patented products which feel like no others. More information on these sumptuous beds can be found on our website www.soundsleepbeds.co.uk Stock – we hold a wide variety of mattresses, divans and bedsteads available to take away or for fast free local delivery.

National Bed Federation Approved – all beds and mattresses stocked by Sound Sleep are all approved members of the NBF so you can

sleep safe knowing that your mattress is safe, clean and is exactly what it says it is.

December 27th sees the launch of our biggest ever sale, we have a huge variety of brand new and exclusive beds and mattresses including the brand new Myers Comfort and Myers Natural Collections and the truly sumptuous and luxurious new beds from Slumberland, which just have to be tried to be believed.

We have free drawer offers across Slumberland, Myers and Sealy Beds. In our brand new Silentnight Sleep Centre you will find up to £200 off Silentnight Beds and mattresses. Plus when buying one of the new Slumberland beds or mattresses we will upgrade you from a double to a king size free of charge, so you can sleep like a king when you buy from Sound Sleep Beds.

We are open every day from Tuesday 27th December 10am until 4pm including New Years Eve and New Years Day, so don’t delay – come to Sound Sleep where dreams can come true. www.soundsleepbeds.co.uk

0% Interest Free Credit – buying a bed is one of the most important purchases you will make in the next eight years. A comfortable and supportive mattress is the key to a better nights sleep, which helps you look after your body and live longer. So to help make that new bed more affordable, we offer interest free credit on orders over £400. Terms and conditions apply. Subject to status.

Fast Free Delivery – all of our deliveries are made by our own delivery team to ensure you receive a service level of 100% and no less.

Free Parking – Ample free parking right outside the showroom doors. We are also wheelchair accessible.

50 | January 2017

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www.finecity.co.uk

2017 January | 51

MY 34 FOOD TIPS TO BOOST YOUR LIVER AFTER THE FESTIVITIES

I

t’s now the start of 2017, the festivities are over and it is now back to work, but like most of us did you overdo it during the Christmas period with far too much alcohol?

A toxic liver can cause diabetes, arthritis, and high blood pressure, along with hormonal imbalances which can cause headaches and depression. This can all change by incorporating some of these super-foods into your every-day diet.

APPLES Apples are the same as berries in the way they contain phenolic compounds, which include flavonoids along with pectin, a source of soluble fibre which helps eliminate toxic build-up.

ARTICHOKES Cynarin and silymarin are two phytonutrients that are found in artichokes and they have been proven to nourish your liver and also increase bile production and prevent gallstones.

AVOCADO Avocados are a vital source of monounsaturated fat rich in oleic acid and also contains glutathione which is an essential nutrient for a healthy liver.

52 | January 2017

BERRIES Berries contain phytochemicals which is an antioxidant-rich plant that compounds to help the liver protect the body from free radicles and oxidative stress which is linked to chronic diseases and aging. The anthocyanin and polyphenols found in berries have in recent tests been shown to inhibit the proliferation of cancer cells in the liver.

milligrams of calcium, 10 grams of healthy fat and 12 grams of fibre.

CARDAMOM This comes from the ginger family and its main job is to improve digestion by stimulating the flow of bile which is critical in fat metabolism, it also helps to accelerate the gastric emptying rate by relaxing the stomach valves to prevent food from entering the small intestine and then allowing nutrients to pass to the small intestine without excess effort.

COCONUT OIL A healthy saturated fat that is easy to digest and is quickly broken down by the enzymes in your saliva and gastric juices and this places less strain on your liver.

CAYENNE This goes a long way in helping to detox the circulatory system and increasing the pulse of the lymphatic and digestive rhythms and this allows heat in your body to get the gastric juices flowing to enable the body to metabolize food and toxins.

CHIA SEEDS An all-round nutritional powerhouse and three tablespoons contains 5 grams of protein, 200

CINNAMON This has been used in medicines and in flavouring. It helps to keep sticky platelets forming clots in the arteries to boost metabolism and it also works to prevent candida which is part of a yeast overgrowth.

COLD-PRESSED, UNREFINED EXTRA VIRGIN OLIVE OIL Rich in phenols that is also found in apples and berries and it is known that daily consumption of olive oil supports the liver by decreasing oxidative stress in the body.

CORIANDER The seeds help the liver lower blood lipid levels among those with diabetes and obesity, lowering triglycerides and LDL (‘bad’) cholesterol, and at the same time increasing HDL (‘good’) cholesterol. The coriander leaves that are known as cilantro goes towards removing heavy metals from the www.finecity.co.uk

FINEFood body, mobilizing mercury, cadmium, lead and aluminium that has been stored in the brain, spinal cord and central nervous system.

CRUCIFERS These contain vital phytonutrients to help the liver neutralize chemicals, pesticides and carcinogens.

CULTURED FOODS These can be found in dishes containing fermented cabbage, radish, garlic, red pepper, onion, ginger and salt. Fermentation is an old form of preservation where the food is transformed by microorganisms that break down all of its carbohydrates and protein and aids digestion.

CUMIN Cumin has been shown to boost the liver’s detoxification power and at the same time stimulating the secretion of the enzymes from the pancreas that helps the body absorb nutrients.

DARK LEAFY GREENS These include kale, sprouts and cabbage and these help support the liver in the detoxification process in removing free radicals along with other toxic chemicals.

EGGS Eggs provide some of the highest quality protein with all eight essential amino acids, cholesterol, and the essential nutrient choline.

The liver requires these essential amino acids for detoxification processes. Choline is a coenzyme that is needed for metabolism and is found in the egg yolk which protects the liver from toxins and detoxifying heavy metals.

FENNEL The essential oils in fennel help to lower inflammation in the digestive tract at the same time allowing the body to absorb nutrients more efficiently.

FISH Fish is healthy and protein-rich. Wild-caught fish such as Atlantic mackerel from Canada

along with sardines and anchovies are known for their omega-3 fatty acids and low level of contaminants. Wild salmon is known for its source of protein.

GARLIC This is one of the oldest land-based medicinal foods on the planet that contains an active sulphur based compound called allicin which is a major supporter of liver detoxification. It goes a long way in helping to rid your body of mercury, many food additives along with the hormone estogen.

GINGER Ginger has antioxidants that possess antiinflammatory, antiviral and antimicrobial properties that support detoxification by nourishing the liver along with promoting circulation, unclogging arteries and it can also lower blood cholesterol by up to 30%.

HEMP SEEDS These are a mixture of omega-6 and omega-3 fats that lower dangerous blood fat levels.

LAND-BASED PROTEIN Cooked lentils, chickpeas, black kidney, and pinto beans contain around 15 grams of protein per cup. A quarter cup of sunflower seeds contains 6 grams of protein. Greens count to with a cup of cooked spinach and broccoli have around 9 grams of protein.

MARINE-BASED PROTEIN Microalgae have high levels of chlorophyll that helps to remove toxic deposits along with heavy metals in the body that help to improve liver functions and neutralizing carcinogens.

MEAT If eating meet, please use grass-fed land animals that are raised without the use of feed grown with pesticides.

MUSHROOMS The likes of Maitake, shiitake and reishi provide many healing nutrients that nourish and support the immune system. They also contain an antioxidant called L-ergothioneine that neutralizes free radicals and at the same time increasing enzymes to boost antioxidant activity.

ONIONS, SHALLOTS, AND LEEKS These items contain sulphur compounds which support the liver in its production of glutathione, a compound that neutralized free radicals.

PREBIOTIC-RICH FOODS These are indigestible fibres that feed the beneficial gut flora and they include asparagus, leeks, cruciferous vegetables and root vegetables such as burdock, chicory, dandelions, beetroots and Jerusalem artichoke.

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SEA VEGETABLES These detoxify the body by preventing assimilation of heavy metals along with other environmental toxins.

SPROUTED SEEDS, NUTS, BEANS, AND GRAINS Energy that is contained in a seed, grain, nut, or legume becomes ignited by soaking and sprouting. The sprouts become super-high in enzymes from proteins that act as catalysts for all of the body functions.

TURMERIC The curcumin compounds have been shown to heal the liver and at the same time strengthening the whole body.

VEGETABLE PROTEIN We all have to eat protein to build new cells, maintain tissue, and to synthesize new proteins to perform basic bodily functions.

WATER Next to oxygen the body needs water more than any other substance and you should be consuming up to 8 glasses per day. When drinking between meals do not add ice.

WHEY PROTEIN POWDER For dairy eaters, whey is an excellent source of protein. It is a by-product of milk and cheese and it has been promoted for its health benefits since the days of the Greek physician Hippocrates. It provides key amino acids for glutathione production which protects the liver along with the entire body.

feature by:

Michael Chandler

Author, Historian & Broadcaster @EastAngliaMedia

2017 January | 53

54 | January 2017

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FINEFood

Easters of Norwich

This is Our Story

frozen, dried goods, in addition to oils and Mediterranean products.

The bespoke, hand-prepared vegetable service, Easters offers is unique and they are committed to supplying local produce in all categories and whenever possible. Easters customers choose them because they supply good quality, fresh products and provide a reliable and unbeatable service.

Peter Easter started out in 1975, in a small shop called Magpie Stores, in the St. Augustine area of Norwich.

Peter sold the retail shop in 1990, to expand and increase the fresh produce range. This became possible by concentrating on selling to restaurants, pubs and hotels.

E

of produce, at a competitive rate and with a reliable service, to some of the best loved places in Norwich.

The business has resided in Northumberland Street Norwich for 7 years and signs are that they will be there for many many years to come.

For more than 40 years, Easters has been at the forefront of supplying a wide range

Easters offers an extensive range of fresh fruit, vegetable and herbs as well as dairy,

For more information please visit www.eastersofnorwich.com

asters is a family run, high quality, food wholesaler, operating in the heart of Norwich City Centre.

Fresh

01603 622890 www.eastersofnorwich.com www.finecity.co.uk

Local

156-158 Northumberland St, Norwich, Norfolk, NR2 4EE

Family Run

01603 760565 sales@eastersofnorwich.com 2017 January | 55

Plants vs technology?

I

’ve always tried my best to embrace new technologies.

As I proceed through life it sometimes feels that shiny new gadgets, blinking pretty blue lights come hurtling towards me through a black vacuum of progress.

Most of the time I keep up, but occasionally sharper and more often it seems younger, people guide me through alt, command, romeo and papa with lightening fingers.

So…early on a sunday morning as my line is investigated and my router is re-booted I find myself considering my surroundings.

A family of four roe deer cross the field, unaware of my techno turmoil. I’m instantly calmed by the green stillness of nature.

levels of stress can be reduced by the addition of some interior plants, maybe, in my case a little more tech knowledge as well!

But, seriously…scientific studies have proven that having greenery around us can: 1… reduce stress levels and improve productivity…

The science editor for the Sunday Times recently wrote that “for office workers the seeds of success could lie in installing pot plants around their desks…scientists have found that a little foliage boosts people’s productivity by almost a fifth.”

2… absorb toxins and filter the air…

Indoors, I surround myself with a forest of lush interior plants…large palms, trailing spider plants, ferns and most recently a new money plant, well more of a tree really! The previous owner of 26 years is down sizing and needed a loving home for her… lovely to have her here!

It is known that interior upholstery, office equipment and all the high-tech gadgetry we have in our homes and offices can release tiny particles that affect air quality. Plants will absorb not only carbon dioxide but also other substances, potentially harmful in high concentrations, such as formaldehyde and benzene.

The greenery all around me brings me back down onto a more even keel.

Plants act as filters, cleaning the air, leaving indoor air fresher.

In homes and offices all across the land similar

3…increase humidity…

56 | January 2017

Humidity in the workplace or home can be increased by 10% to 15% by having some water loving plants. A high percentage of the water absorbed by plants is released back into the atmosphere through their leaves. This helps to accomplish an ideal climate, especially in the winter when the heating is on.

Plants look great and make our environment a more pleasant space in which to live and work The deep rooted relationship between mankind and nature should be nurtured and respected and never taken for granted. It is a connection we simply cannot afford to damage.

If you would like to improve your surroundings and lift your spirits, an investment in greenery is just what you need!

I am always happy to give a quote for any plant requirements, large or small.

Sue Huckle Posh Plants Seven Acres Nursery Common Road East Tuddenham NR20 3NF Tel: 07703 347014 email: sue@poshplants.com www.poshplants.com www.finecity.co.uk

Posh Plants

Award Winning Landscaping and Design

topiary, plants, shrubs and trees to hire or buy

Sue Huckle is the inspiration behind many award winning gardens, offering a professional and creative approach to the art and science of garden design.

At Seven Acres Nursery we have a range of lovely plants and containers for sale, as well as our beautiful collection of large topiary plants available to hire for weddings, parties and your workplace!

Paving and Pathways Ponds and Water Features Lawn Laying Walls and Brickwork Timber and Decking Driveways, Fencing and Screening Garden Design by Georgina Read

07703 347014 email: sue@poshplants.com website: www.poshplants.com

Posh Plants, Seven Acres Nursery, Common Road, East Tuddenham, NR20 3NF

T: 01953 852139 E: info@lifestylelandscaping.co.uk W: www.lifestylelandscaping.co.uk

Is Your Conservatory Is your Conservatory Too Hot in Summer or Too Cold in Winter?

Transform your conservatory with Conservatory Roof Insulation!

The most lightweight Tiled Roof on the market

50mm continuous external thermal barrier

A U-Value lower than 0.10 W/m2k

50mm internal insulation

The widest choice of Tapco Slate Tile colours

Suitable for all conservatory styles and sizes

Structural integrity as standard

Dry fit slate effect standard with 50 year guarantee

19 layer thermal barrier quilt

01603 301100 • www.comfortableconservatories.com Your Local Branch: 16 Alston Road, Norwich, Norfolk, NR6 5DS Showroom Open 9:30am - 4.30pm 7 Days A Week

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2017 January | 57

Trinity Stained Glass

www.trinitystainedglass.co.uk 01603 622099 103 Ber Street Norwich NR1 3EY

Service only your local independent electrical retailer can provide

FREE LOCAL HOME DELIVERY

For over 125 years, the Bosch name has been synonymous with engineering excellence. Bosch home appliances are renowned for their quality, reliability and performance which derive from their inherent, unflagging commitment and the painstaking thoroughness with which every unit is made. There are no gimmicks or frills with our products – just pure, clean lines and beautiful, functional simplicity that will enhance any kitchen.

Delivered direct to your door with our free home delivery service from your local independent electrical retailer when you buy a selected Bosch home appliance.

Terms & Conditions apply.*

‘Bosch have won a Which? award 4 years in a row – another reason to have Bosch in your home’

ards 2014 Aw

Yeomans Electrical 65 North Walsham Road,Sprowston, Norwich, NR6 7QA Tel: 01603 426294 *T&C’s Apply. Ask Instore For Full Details.Selected Models Only. Sold As An Agent For Euronics Limited

58 | January 2017

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FINEAdvice

Marketing Join in our Success Story Welcome to the ‘FineAdvice’ section of FineCity Magazine About Us:

In a fast moving world, where the media seem to be ever more distant from people’s real concerns, it is vital that community lifestyle magazines like FineCity Magazine find and print the information and news that is important to local people.

That’s where we come in; two years ago we added FineCity Magazine to our portfolio of publications which include; Dispatch Magazine in Attleborough & Diss and a second publication in Wymondham & Dereham. We also publish Norfolk on My Mind for North Norfolk and Suffolk on My Mind for Suffolk. Over the fifteen years we have been publishing magazines our publications have become some of the most well respected community lifestyle magazines, and a “must-read” across a Norfolk & Suffolk.

Our distribution is enormous; Dispatch is delivered Free of Charge Door to Door to 30,000 homes and businesses. FineCity

Magazine is delivered or collected around the City centre by 12,000 people each month, and Norfolk on My Mind has 10,000 copies available for pick up across 800 pick up locations. Suffolk on My Mind is seen by 10,000 people in Bury St Edmunds and across Suffolk. This gives us a combined readership of 155,000 every month.

FineCity Magazine is growing throughout Norwich, now with a 12,000 print run every month, and available for pick up at our prestige partner locations which includes; John Lewis, Waitrose, Jarrold, Cinema City, MadderMarket, The Theatre Royal, The Forum, Norwich Library, The Norwich Tourist Information Centre, Norwich Airport, Castle Mall and Intu Chapelfield, and further copies are delivered Door to Door around Eaton, Cringleford, Easton, Newmarket Road and The Golden Triangle area of Norwich.

FineCity Magazine: Promote your business in our ‘FineAdvice’ section in our rapidly growing FineCity Magazine. We are inviting just one company from a few specialist market sectors, to feature in our new ‘FineAdvice’ section with a combination of editorial and an advert on a full page, in the same design and layout as this page is being presented to you. We are offering you the full page (normal cost £505.00) for just the cost of a half page advert £295.00. You pay for the advert we’ll give you the editorial (425 words) for FREE.

Come and join FineCity and be part of our success story!

The FineAdvice section is designed to offer readers advice, and enable your company to be the exclusive provider.

Advice by:

In addition to the above, we will also include your company within our daily tweets and Facebook page completely free of charge.

FineCity Magazine @finecitymag 01953 456789

Meet The Family FineCity Magazine

Dispatch Magazine 2016

Dispatch Magazine 2016

Norfolk On My Mind Magazine 2016

Suffolk On My Mind Magazine 2016

Issue 62

Januar

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Ex-Ars ‘keepe enal r Miller Alan his jouexplores ‘from Hrney to Hol ighbury kham’ .

LOOK IN FORW G ARD Dipple &

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2017 January | 59

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FINEAdvice

Health

Treating Hearing Loss Can Help Keep Your New Year’s Resolutions

By Karen Finch, audiologist and Managing Director of The Hearing Care Centre

E

very New Year brings with it a sense of renewal. For many, this renewal may include New Year’s resolutions pledging that the next year will prove better than the last. The challenge is not making these resolutions, but making sure they do not melt away with the snow as winter turns to spring.

issues. Finding a solution could help you reduce some of your daily stress.

Some common resolutions might include reducing stress levels, staying in touch more regularly with family and friends, and being more socially involved.

For those who struggle with hearing loss, keeping these and other perennial resolutions may prove challenging. Here are a few examples of how treating your hearing loss in the New Year can help you achieve your resolutions and improve your life.

Staying in touch with family and friends Staying connected with family and friends is difficult whether loved ones are spread across the country or live just around the corner. If keeping in touch with the important people in your life tops your list of resolutions, addressing your hearing concerns may be a step in the right direction. Being able to communicate with family and friends without worrying about what was said by a loved one over the phone, on Skype, or face-to-face is of the utmost importance. Not only does it put your mind at ease, it makes conversations with loved ones that much easier.

Reducing stress Staying stress free in the New Year may seem like an insurmountable task, but we can all do a few things to make sure stress doesn’t dominate our lives. Hearingrelated stress can present itself in everyday situations with the potential to significantly increase your overall stress level. If you have become nervous to speak up when clarifying what was said in a conversation, or avoid loud places for fear of being cut from the conversation, it may be time to address your hearing

Branching out Hearing loss may hinder you from branching out and meeting new people. If you are nervous to extend your social circle because of your hearing loss, addressing the issue in the New Year could be the push you need to make new friends and experience new adventures in the coming year. Have you always wanted to volunteer with an organisation or join a club but have been too self-conscious about your hearing loss? Don’t let apprehension and worry keep

60 | January 2017

you from meeting new people and enjoying all the sights and sounds that the world has to offer.

Starting a new hobby Starting a new hobby, whether by yourself or in a group setting, can be both challenging and entertaining. If you would like to learn how to play a new instrument and want to better hear the notes, or if you are taking a class at your local college and want to be able to contribute to the discussion without feeling nervous, having the confidence to address your hearing issues can lead to new talents and friends.

Taking action If any of the above scenarios resonate with you, your hearing loss could be a barrier to accomplishing your resolutions. It may be time to add another resolution to the list: book a hearing assessment. Seeking help, advice and ultimately treating your hearing loss will benefit not only your physical health but your mental and social health as well. Placing priority on your hearing health will not only help you to achieve your New Year’s resolutions, but will give you a renewed confidence in your hearing and social life. Invest in your hearing. Invest in yourself.

Karen Finch is the Managing Director and lead audiologist at The Hearing Care Centre in Ipswich. The multi-award winning, family-run company has 22 centres across Suffolk and Norfolk.

To find out more information Freephone 0800 096 2637 or visit www.hearingcarecentre.co.uk

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FINEAdvice

Utilities

Utility Warehouse

Have you claimed your FREE energy-efficient LED light bulbs yet?

I

live locally and I represent a company that will replace every light bulb in your home with the latest energy-efficient LED bulbs, completely free of charge, thus saving you around 11% OFF your electricity bill forever!

Free LED light bulbs typically worth £300-£500 They are bright, fully dimmable, light-up instantly, and use around 15 times less electricity than traditional light bulbs.

Free expert installation by a team of professional fully trained fitters; they’ll visit your home and install your new LED light bulbs at a convenient time for you — completely free of charge.

Free lifetime guarantee If a light bulb ever needs replacing, you’ll be sent a new one in the post — so you’ll never have to buy another light bulb again!

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Lower electricity bills - forever!

In addition to helping to save the planet, your new LED bulbs will reduce your electricity bills by around 11% — FOREVER Who’s behind this initiative?

It’s being provided by Utility Warehouse, the Nation’s most trusted utility supplier. In addition to gas and electricity, they provide landline, broadband and mobile giving you the convenience of all your utilities on one monthly bill.

Utility Warehouse is operated by Telecom Plus PLC, a major British company whose shares are listed on the London Stock Exchange.

The company provides its members with great value, great savings and the best possible customer service. Perhaps it’s not surprising that, in a survey, 93% of Utility Warehouse customers said they would recommend them to a friend.

Utility Warehouse is very different to other suppliers because they’re a club - a Discount Club. They don’t have any high street shops and because (unlike their competitors) they don’t spend customers’ money on expensive

advertising campaigns on TV, they can afford to charge their customers less for the same services.

They have also received numerous awards from Which? Magazine and Moneywise, and have around 600,000 satisfied customers.

As a member of Utility Warehouse, you SAVE...

• Single supplier for all your utilities • Award-winning customer service • Value that’s unbeatable • Easy to switch • Ready to claim your FREE LED light bulbs?

Please don’t hesitate to contact me today.

I’ll be delighted to explain how it works.

Advice by:

Jonathan Horswell Mentor @jonathanhorswel 07802 690589

2017 January | 61

FINEAdvice What does success mean to you?

If you want things to be different, YOU have to do it. Life doesn’t have a remote control, you have to change it!

A

re you looking for a change? Looking for something different? Need more money? Want to take control of your life? Or perhaps you’re bored or broke?

There are lots of massive opportunities out there if you’re energetic & ambitious and if you really want to create a better life for yourself and your family.

If that sounds like you, I’d like to introduce you to a fantastic business opportunity that you can work around your other commitments, like your current job or childcare etc.

Just choose one of the following which is most important to you?

• Extra income • Financial freedom • Get out of debt • More free time

62 | January 2017

Money • Have your own business • Personal development • Help others • Early retirement

of his how this business works. Last month he got paid for that conversation for the 216th time for that 35 minute chat, 18 years ago.

That’s Residual Income explained!

Now, just ask yourself these few questions, and be completely honest with yourself when you answer them; Why did you pick that one?

Why is that important to you? What are the consequences of not having that opportunity?

And Why would that worry you?

So… how soon can you spare 10 minutes so I can answer all the questions I know you’ll have, and explain how this award-winning and trusted company can help you achieve what you want?

Do you fancy earning ‘Residual Income’ with my full help and support and the backing of a fast-growing FTSE 250 PLC, which provides the opportunity to build a substantial longterm “Residual Income” alongside your other commitments?

Residual income (also called passive income) is income that continues to be generated after the initial effort has been made.

Compare this to what most people focus on earning: linear income, which is “one-shot” compensation or payment in the form of a fee, wage, commission or salary which is directly proportional to the number of hours invested in it - 40 hours of pay for 40 hours of work.

Here’s an example of Residual Income; In 1998 my college spent 35 minutes showing a friend

Remember this: “If you think it’s to good to be true, I still get paid. If you take a look and join me, we BOTH get paid. If you don’t join me, well I still get paid!”

I can help you, but you have to take the next step, which is call or text me now: 07802 690589 or visit my website for more information: www.

JonathanHorswell. co.uk

Advice by:

Jonathan Horswell Mentor @jonathanhorswel 07802 690589

www.finecity.co.uk

FINEDirectory Shepherd’s Crook

All the girls wore yellow, her favourite colour.

Shepherd’s Crook is extremely sumptuous with full-size double bed, freesat flatscreen TV, and fully equipped kitchen including fridge and dishwasher. And unlike a lot of shepherd’s huts, our WC and shower is truly en-suite - you don’t need to go outside!

Based on the edge of Framlingham Suffolk

Call Becky on 07778 381953 for availability.

It’s the little things that make a funeral special

Here for you every hour of every day

01603 625495

for your local funeral director www.eastofengland.coop/funerals

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2017 January | 63