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World Tour of England 2024

Carols from King’s

Today marked my visit to King’s College chapel. This is a place I have seen many times, usually on Christmas Eve when “Carols from King’s” is shown on BBC television. I have long harboured a desire to visit, and this was my real motive for coming to this beautiful city.

The chapel was at least as stunning, and as wondrous in “real life” as it is on screen. Despite being far from the season, I played my recordings of the King’s College choir singing Christmas carols as I explored the building, marvelling at the intricacies of the carvings. The fan-vaulted ceiling was particularly impressive, and there was an informative display explaining why this shape is important not only in terms of aesthetics, but also for support, in a clever engineering move.

As luck would have it, the mobile telephone signal was good enough for me to view footage of the most recent (2023) edition of “Carols from Kings”. This allowed to “get my bearings” compared to what I’d seen on-screen. I noted that the additions put in to the candlesticks to light the faces of the choir members, were not there on my visit and as such must be added by the BBC.

I allowed “O Come All Ye Faithful”, and “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” to ring out on my headphones before taking my departure into the grounds. There, I managed to find where the establishing shot of the programme is taken from, and recreated my own version.  I left with a profound satisfaction that I had done what I intended to do in coming to this place. My watch indicated that I had spent nearly two hours in the chapel, and ground so it was time to take my afternoon vittils.

I did this at a café somewhat off the beaten track from the main tourist area of this city, which was very busy indeed. Thankfully, my often-regarded-unusual request of a cheese scone with jam did not raise any eyebrows or precipitate any calls to the authorities. From my perspective, the jam being apricot was itself unusual but very much enjoyed. Com there I retreated from the rain in a local hostelry, and caught up with some of my correspondence. 

Dinner was taken at “Bread and Meat”. The simplicity, and honesty of the title of this restaurant appealed to me very much, and I was not dissapointed in receiving exactly what it “said on the tin”.

In the evening I walked to the Fellow’s Garden at King’s College for an outdoor performance of “Hamlet”. This was part of the annual Cambridge Shakespeare Festival, which occurs during the summer. It may surprise you to know taht despite the fact that I have performed Adam McNaughtan’s scots version of the play for over 30 years, I have in fact never seen it “live”. The performance ran to 2.5 h including a 15 minute interval, during which mulled wine was served. this was very welcome indeed, and further emphasised the very much out-of-season day I was having.

It really was an excellent show in a spectacular setting. My knowledge of the Adam McNaughtan song served me well in understanding the storyline. I was ready for the “concealed corpus delicti” regarding Polonius as he was “stabbed through the aris”, and I knew when to expect “Yorrick’s crust”. By the end, the young actor playing Hamlet must have been very tired indeed as it is a very intense part to play. He is barely off stage throughout the duration of the play, and the part demands a lot of physical and emotional effort. I left feeling that I had ready had a true Cambridge Experience over the course of the day, and very pleased that I had come to this exceptionally beautiful, and cultural city.

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