Sunrise, Sunset - being in the audience part two

For those of you familiar with musicals and song lyrics, the title of today's post does not mean I went to see Fiddler on the Roof. Much as I love that musical, it was my intention to see the sun actually rise and later set on the same day. It didn't quite work out but I had fun trying. The picture at the top was taken during a sunrise service on Easter Day, looking along Eastgate Street from Chester Cross.

What I have been to see and hear in March were two amazing performances in Chester. Firstly a Cathedrals Group Universities Choir Festival 2024 based on the music written especially for the 2023 cycle of Chester Mystery Plays by Matt Baker. Hearing that music again was sheer joy. I had the privilege of being one of a large cast of actors who took part in the Mystery Plays last year, a tradition which dates back to the Middle Ages. It was a concert in which each of ten very different university choirs performed a piece of their own choosing, and sang the highlights of the Mysteries as ensemble pieces. An evening to remember.

Secondly I watched a live performance of new play The Motive and the Cue by Jack Thorne, filmed at the National Theatre in London but shown on screen in Chester. I've been to both the theatre and the cinema many times before, including that theatre and that cinema, but never both at once. If you like theatre I wholeheartedly recommend this play, based on a true story of the sometimes uneasy relationship between veteran actor and director Sir John Gielgud and legendary actor Richard Burton, while rehearsing a production of Hamlet for the West End.

And so we come to sunset. On Easter day I drove to the northwest tip of the Wirral peninsula to watch the sun disappearing into the sea from West Kirby promenade. Unfortunately the weather did not cooperate, despite a fair forecast, and all we saw was a pink strip of sky below banks of grey cloud. British weather scuppering plans, whatever next? I'm going to have to try again before I can include seeding the sun rise and set on the same day in my list of seventy things I've never done before.

#16 & #17 of 70