Doctor Who Prom Review

This Prom seems rather apt, as I am literally listening to it across time and space. Proms/performances like this can be hard to listen to on the radio, as they do have quite a visual aspect to them, which is of course lost, so certain laughs, cheers, etc seem a bit odd to one merely listening, but oh well. The crowd at the Doctor Who Prom was very enthusiastic, much more like your Last Night crowd, rather than just the average Prom crowd.

The show began with “Sad Man with a Box”, which was a great start to the Prom. I really like this piece, and this was a fantastic orchestration of it. Next was “I Am The Doctor”, which included the Doctor’s speech from The Pandorica Opens, which I also really liked (yes, alright, I liked everything, but still, I especially liked this with the speech added).

These opening two pieces were followed by a skit with the Doctor and Clara, which eventually saw them in amongst the orchestra. The crowd were very excited at this point. I do love Matt Smith, but someone needed to proof-read his script better: Conductor Ben Foster’s first name is Benedict, not Benjamin! I’m also quite a fan of Ben Foster, as I’ve mentioned before.

After this minor interlude, the BBC National Orchestra of Wales – the orchestra for this Prom, and the orchestra who record all the music for Doctor Who, played the Second Carmen Suite by Bizet. Next characters Vastra and Strax entered the stage in the first of a number of appearance from these two for the Prom. Strax referred to the musicians as “armed humans”, which got a good chuckle. Up next was the Companions Suite, featuring the Themes of Rose, Martha, Donna and Amy, and was very nice.

Then we had “Don’t wander off!” and the Cyber Chard (spelling?), the Bach Stocatta and Fugue which I liked, the Weeping Angels Theme, then the lullaby from The Rings of Akhenaten, which was good, but is one of the few pieces that I preferred in the show to on it’s own. Maybe it was better live?

This brought us up to interval, and I will admit to skipping that interval chat today, on account of the fact that I didn’t have time to listen, and I desperately wanted to get through the rest of the Prom! Act II started with a slightly different arrangement of “All The Strange, Strange Creatures” (one of the main themes during the 10th Doctor’s time), which I enjoyed. Love it with the choir! Next came “The Impossible Man”, and then Peter Davidson, the 5th Doctor shows up! He introduced a suite of music from Classic Who.

Following the Classic Who suite, came real ‘next generation’ stuff, with two pieces composed by teenagers that have featured in the show. I had no idea that these pieces were not by Murray Gold; both are fabulous, so well done kids!  This was followed by Daleks and a suite of their theme tunes through the years. Up next was “The Name of the Doctor”, which I particularly like the introduction to.

The night concluded with a new composition by Murray Gold especially for the Prom, called “Song for 50”. My goodness it was good. This was then followed by the beautiful “Vale Decem”, originally written for the Tenth Doctor’s farewell, but in this Prom featured all the Doctors (each getting a huge cheer as they appeared). The very last piece was the orginal Doctor Who Theme Tune from 1963.

Do I wish I was there? Oh yes.

All photos from the BBC. Remember to visit the Proms website and listen on iPlayer!!

Things I Like, v2

Here are another three things that I like very much, and believe the world should know more about.

1. Ben Foster. Not many people have heard of this guy, but he is the composer of the score for Torchwood and Scott and Bailey. He is also the arranger and conductor of all the music for Doctor Who (Murray Gold writes it, Ben Foster does everything else). He has conducted all of the Doctor Who Proms, as well as the Wallace and Gromit Prom in 2012. Ben has also conducted the Doctor Who Symphonic Spectacular in Australia, and Wallace and Gromit’s Musical Marvels, which I had the pleasure of seeing him conduct in Melbourne earlier this year, and I must say, he’s a fantastic conductor and MC. And to top it all off, he’s a really great guy. You can listen to his music here (I especially like The Edge of Infinity). (Photo owned by the BBC)

2. The Wonderful World of Disney. The Disney Channel is only available in Australia via Pay-TV, which we do not have, but my grandparents do. I remember so vividly watching the sequence below before a film began. It’s almost my childhood in a YouTube clip. It’s just so magical and wonderful and watching the clip makes me feel so warm and happy. They don’t make ’em like that anymore!

3. Converse. I’m much more of a fan of the classic styles, rather than the crazy new ones. I own two pairs of black All Star high-tops (one old pair for work, and a ‘good’ pair for the rest of the time) and a pair of grey One Stars. One Stars are great to wear when flying, because they have no metallic parts at all, so don’t set anything off when going through security! I could easily own more pairs of Converse in many more colours (red, white, navy, bright blue…) but I don’t really need them 😉  (Photo of the Tenth Doctor from Favim.com)