U3A GROUPS
GARDENING
Following a recent episode in hospital with her heart problems Margaret Massey is not going to carry on as Convenor for the new year starting October 2010. The group was advised of this at last week's meeting but there were no indications that a member of the existing group, who have been together for a very long time, was prepared to take over. Stressing once again the vital importance of keeping movement in the membership of groups.


Perhaps a newer member, ideally an active gardener, would put themselves forward to run a Gardening Group. Anyone interested should contact Margaret Massey on 205028 to discuss the task without any compulsion. As Group's Co-ordinator I too would be prepared to help.

OUTING TO STRATFORD Wednesday 7 July
Barbara Garnham 0781 1728 184 is organising this trip. She is considering cancelling unless about 10 vacancies on the coach are reserved. She also needs people to pay her the £14.50 fare in advance so she feels confident enough to book the coach.

HISTORY GROUP OUTING Friday 28 May
They are visiting the National Trust  property Llanerchaeron House in Aberaeron.

There are still a few places available so please contact Rob James if interested on 882508. By this blog I am asking him to include Joan and I on the list.

GEOLOGY VISIT TO CALDEY ISLAND
Joan thoroughly enjoyed this outing though she returned home very stiff after a comparatively easy ramble. King Eric was also there. Not so long ago we regularly attended their monthly visits to sites of interest. The next of which is to the Llandovery area on 17 May 2010 led by Dr Robert Owens, meeting at 10.30 at grid reference SN767342, see OS map sheet 160.


WEDNESDAY  LECTURE 5 May 
Please note the change of speaker to Garethe El-Tawab the Curator of Swansea Museum. She will be speaking on 'Carry on Collecting'


SPECIAL U3A DAY at LLANDOVERY 19 May
Keith Richards, former Chairman of Third Age Trust will be speaking on 'U3As, Past, Present and Future'. If interested contact Mary Mac Gregor by tomorrow 1 May on 01550 720182 or mary@macmyddfai.demon.co.uk



THEATRE
Last week I was pointing up the similarity between the pioneering work done with theatre in the cultural desert of Stoke on Trent to the current tasks facing National Theatre Wales, and in particular to the work of Peter Cheeseman, Stephen Joseph (who died of cancer at the age of 46 in 1967) and Alan Ayckbourn in the early 1960s. I was amazed to open today's Guardian and find the featured obituary was for Peter Cheeseman, who died two days ago. He directed theatre in Stoke until retiring in1998, by which  time the 600 seat Victoria Theatre had been built specially designed for theatre-in-the-round. 

I was struck by the similarity of aims with National Theatre Wales to set up theatre which built on the local community, and was anxious to find the few programs I kept from that initial era. They start, like the obituary, from the touring Studio Theatre Ltd. of Stephen Joseph and a 1961/2 performance of 'A Doll's House' with Alan Ayckbourn in the leading male role. The Victoria Theatre (that name obviously pre-dates the New Vic as it was known later before returning to the original name with the purpose built theatre) had its first season in 1962/3. A season from which I have programs for The Rehearsal by Jean Anouilh directed by Peter Cheeseman and The Caretaker by Harold Pinter directed by Alan Ayckbourn.

A program from 1964 was for Look Back in Anger by John Osborne, but the program missing from that year was The Jolly Potter, a locally written musical staged during pantomime season as I recall, which told the story of the Potteries town which was still manufacturing a very high percentage of world's quality china - manufacturing now sadly virtually entirely transferred to Asia. To my chagrin we had decided to miss that iconic play, a fitting reward for the snob I still was! That was evidently the first of a whole series of productions featuring the concerns and history of the local community, and that is the real link with the aspirations of National Theatre Wales.


To convert the abandoned Victoria cinema into a theatre-in-the-round venue apparently cost £5000 (the price of two good houses in Stoke at the time), affordable and incredibly good value for money, yet provided the platform which together with outstanding artistic talent set theatre in Stoke off to the real success it was to become.

The other performance we remember from that era was a production of Hamlet, a play particularly powerful in 'theatre in the round' format as demonstrated superbly a couple of years ago at The Tobacco Factory in Bristol, with a performance directed by Jonathan Miller.

Theatre to Peter Cheeseman to quote from the Guardian obituary 'meant a permanent company of professional actors living in the town and making theatre that "springs from our contact with this community".'

Stephen Joseph (son of Hermione Gingold) left Stoke in 1966 and returned to Scarborough, the base of his touring Studio Theatre Ltd, and soon opened the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough with Alan Ayckbourn as Artistic Director, which is still active to this day. Like me he had first become an enthusiast of theatre-in-the-round in the USA in the 1950s - another program I found was a memorable Off-Broadway production of The Crucible by Arthur Miller in an upstairs room of the Martinique hotel in New York City in 1958.

In April 1966 I left English Electric-Leo-Marconi in Stoke to further my career with The Steel Company of Wales at Port Talbot. 
Apologies to Newcastle-under-Lyme which might lay claim to the theatre, but like it or not it is physically part of Stoke, which in any case consists of five towns according to Arnold Bennett author of The Five Towns - though I remember it as six, Tunstall, Burslem, Hanley, Longton, Fenton and Stoke. 


ELECTION
So the final TV debate by the candidates for Prime Minister is over. A series of three debates which for me began so engagingly ended disappointingly without exposing the plans of any of the parties for dealing with the UK's debt crisis. It was far too repetitive. If I hear again of the £6 billion pound immediate cuts ( sorry for earlier error) by the Tories or the proposals of the Liberals to exclude everyone earning under £10,000 from Income Tax (in the wrong direction), or the National Insurance Increase (in the correct direction but delayed) of Labour, then I will wretch - as for differing reasons I so nearly did during my presentation of last Wednesday's lecture! All are minor changes in the face of the cuts to come, whoever wins the election. I tend to agree with the commentator who said 'it is a good election to lose', for I feel that whatever the result a decade of austerity lies ahead.


As for the election Nick Clegg seems to believe the result in this election is to be judged as though proportional representation is already in place (ie by the number of votes cast nationally rather than the number of seats won), and if Labour come third in votes (looking likely according to the polls) he is going to work with the Tories. Well that was the situation at the last posting of this blog, but since then he has rowed back from that position and said he could work with Labour but not with Gordon Brown, no doubt in part from the pressure of so many left-leaning colleagues. In effect his price now would be to appoint a replacement leader of the Labour Party (very democratic, I don't think!).

If this were truly an election conducted on the proportional basis, which I have long favoured, if only to enfranchise voters in all seats, then I would be voting Liberal, who for me have got the best and most explicit policies. But I doubt that the Liberals can win the majority of seats under the current 'first past the post rules'. I also feel a Tory-Liberal coalition would fly apart on fundamental policy differences but that a Labour-Liberal coalition would be much more secure, since in the most important areas like the economy they are singing the same tune. Many of the liberal values of the Liberals ought in my view never have been ditched by the party of Blair and Brown. I believe there will be plenty of Labour MPs who think likewise. 


I think it salutary to remember to be very thankful that Gordon Brown was at the helm during the eye of the 'credit crunch crisis'. The Tories were all over the place at that time. Vince Cable was perhaps ahead of Gordon at times but then he did not face the responsibility of making the decisions and he did not face the obstacle of returning his party to the policy Nationalisation. In the going Full Nationalisation was avoided when that would have been the best mechanism to alter bank behaviour in the long term (including salary and bonus for senior employees), instead of which we are left with a running sore. The Liberals want to break up the banks - but will they ever be able to do this from here.

As for Gordon  Brown's temperament I don't find it attractive either, but I as I think anyone who has worked in high pressure industrial environments will have come across managers with volatile tempers to say the least, but on reflection will remember them also as being passionate and effective, if not pleasant to work for. Being Prime Minister is a high pressure occupation at the best of times, during a world crisis of the scale he encountered must have been very hard, fainter hearts may not have coped. That crisis is not yet over, the current problems faced by Greece are a pertinent warning.



So how to vote. If you want to see a Tory Government then vote Tory, or Liberal as the positive way to a Tory-Liberal coalition.
If like me you want to see a Labour-Liberal coalition then there is no doubt you should vote Labour. It will not occur if the Labour vote falls further than now predicted by the polls.


JAZZ
Don't forget the 'Mumbles Mostly Blues and Jazz Festival' this weekend from 7.30pm Friday 30 April, from 1pm to 11.15pm Saturday, Sunday and Monday.


If you want to hear good jazz then I suggest Saturday 1 May at the Conservative Club to hear the Oliver Nezhati Quintet at 5.30 for £6 or my choice Simon Spillet with the Dave Cottle Trio for £10 at 8.45pm. If you enjoy Saturday then think about attending the fine concerts on Sunday.

Oliver Nezhati, a saxophonist from Llandeilo, is currently a student at Trinity (music college) in London and his band will be of similar ages. The audience for jazz in Swansea may well be long in tooth but there are many great young UK musicians coming through and many appear at Jazzland (St James Crescent, Uplands). The stand-out example is Welshman Gwilym Simcock who is already entering the higher echelons of world jazz, and like so many of his era was classically trained to the highest level.



Jazzland have just issued their May-August program. On Wednesday 26 May singer Tina May will appear with the backing of the Dave Cottle Trio. Last year that partnership, with the addition of London based saxophonist Mornington Lockett, gave, on May Day  Holiday,  perhaps the most enjoyable concert I have ever heard. Though  that occasion owed something to a glorious weather on the seafront at Mumbles and the 'Great American Songbook', although not helped by motorcyclists making as much noise as possible.


Next Wednesday 5 May at 8.30pm guitarist Fabian Farnandez will appear with his trio £8 but only £6 for members. Arrive early for a better choice of seats.