And, the acclaimed Simon Russell Beale.
What an amazing an event for SJD Events Limited to sponsor at this years Henley Literary Festival sponsored by the Daily Mail/Mail on Sunday.
For the full hour the Kenton Theatre was silent, apart from the laughter when it was required and the applauses for the magnificent performances.
We started with Craig Brown who is Britain’s greatest parodist, talking on his latest book ‘One on One’ which is based entirely on fact —and meticulously researched.
He gave us a brilliant insight to the book and with the assistance of two highly acclaimed actors, Eleanor Bron and Simon Russell Beale who were simply delightful the setting was created. I was told later that we were very lucky to have Simon Russell Beale performing as he had to receive special permission to be excused from a performance in London so thank you Nicholas Hytner.
Craig Brown entertained us with some of his great chance meetings in the book ‘One on One’ from the famous to the infamous, the artistic and the philistine, the pompous and the comical, the snobbish and the vulgar all of which are told with 1,001 words and within a time span of the 19th to the 21st century. The extracts from the book we heard varied from, 23-year-old Sarah Miles having her leg squeezed by the nonagenarian Bertrand Russell to the oddity of encounters with the Royal Family who start giggling during a recital by T S Eliot, and many more which were really interesting and thought provoking.
Thank you to everyone who came along to listen to this performance at the Kenton Theatre and I do hope you enjoyed the chocolates.
But, a personal thank you must go to Sue Ryan and her amazing team for creating once again a wonderful evening for 2011’s Henley Literary Festival.
This event was great and thank you very much Sarah for inviting me along as your guest.
I especially liked the last sketch by Eleanor and Craig on Downton Abbey and chuckled to myself as I sat down last night to watch it.