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# REVIEW: Seven Ages @ Brighton Dome (Brighton Festival)
- URL: https://www.scenemag.co.uk/review-seven-ages-brighton-dome-brighton-festival/
- Published: 2023-05-30T12:00:12.000Z
- Updated: 2023-05-30T10:52:33.000Z
- Description: Brian Butler finds the ageing process entertaining
- Author: Brian Butler
- Tags: Brighton Festival, Benjamin Britten, Brighton Dome, Shakespeare

**Shakespeare**’s *As You Like It* is best known for its marvellous soliloquy ‘the seven ages of man’, and it’s the perfect platform for what I would describe as “good old-fashioned entertainment”. And nothing wrong with that.

It’s the basis for a recital of 36 pieces of verse and song, delving into a rich treasury of items, some of which were new to me. And **Brighton Festival** was graced with stage royalty for this performance. Baritone **Roderick Williams**, fresh from singing at the King’s coronation, gave us liquid magic in a sort of vocal equivalent of hot cherry sauce.

Tenor **Mark Padmore**, at 62, has a high tenor voice to die for – even in **Benjamin Britten**’s strident, dissonant pieces. Actor **Rory Kinnear** is currently starring in the film about a Northern community banker, and on Netflix as a loony, war-mongering British PM in *The Diplomat*. Here he gave us a very varied set of poems.

**Pandora Colin** shared the narration but got very few gems, though her throwaway humour worked well in enchanting items like **Thom Gunn**’s *Baby Song* with its lovely line “things were different inside mother”. The Shakespeare original covers a human life cycle, starting with the infant and ending with second childishness, and the material largely though not entirely mirrored this progress.

I can’t review all 36 items but highlights for me included: Roderick singing the enchanting **Copland** lullaby *Little Horses*; Mark’s rendition of Britten’s darkly haunting *Midnight On The Great Western* – about a small boy travelling from an unnamed place to another unnamed place by train in the dead of night. The magic was enhanced by the train rhythms in pianist **Julius Drake**’s dramatic accompaniment.

A word about Julius’ playing – it’s a bit thin to call him an accompanist – he added greatly to the evening with playing that perfectly set the mood for each song, be it thunderous or gently subtle: a masterclass at the keyboard. Rory gave two outstanding items – the marvellous *Chorus* from *Henry V* where we can see the English fighting the French on horseback in vivid detail, and the sad, haunting *Death Of A Poet* by **Charles Causley**, with its wry humour and vicious observation.

A pretty memorable evening all round.