Watching George Orwell's Animal Farm + Going to a concert - Lifestyle Monday
Hello everybody and welcome back to another blog post,
If you follow me on Instagram, you would have seen the photos I had put on my stories recently of me going to watch George Orwell's Animal Farm as a play at the Cambridge Arts Theatre and me going to watch a concert with friends at the West Road Concert Hall in Cambridge. Today, I thought it would be nice to tell you about those two experiences.
One of my friends Celena is Russian and she is a very smart, intelligent, and cultured person. When my dad came to pick me, Teresa, and Celena up after the play, it was actually the first time that he had met Celena, and he was amazed by how eloquent and switched on she was. She was talking about how she studied in New Zealand and came to England from Switzerland to study the IB, and also about how she wanted to study psychology in the future. So you can understand why it was Celena who invited all of us girls to these two very intellectual events. 😂💜💜
For Animal Farm, it was actually just me, Celena, and Teresa who went because Maia had Covid and had to self-isolate. It had been a while since I had been to that particular theatre - the last time I went was when I went to see the Jack and the Beanstalk pantomime in primary school. However, I'm really glad that I went in the end because it was a very professional production. There were these actors holding up these giant figurines of the different farm animals, using what seemed like ventriloquism to make the voices of the characters, although it was hard to tell. There was a giant figurine of Buck the horse played by at least four different actors but it was really well executed because you didn't notice that the actors were there even though they were quite visible to the audience. There were also massive walls that slid in and out of the stage and the music was super intense to add to the dramatic effect. I think overall, we all really enjoyed the performance and thought it was a good retelling of a classic story. I'm someone who hasn't yet read Animal Farm (it's on my massive list of books to read) but it was very well portrayed by the cast and easy to pick up. It was authentic to Orwell's message about communism and it was equally interesting as it was entertaining.
Me and Teresa saw our history teacher, Mr Morris, there too supervising what looked like the secondary school there too. Clearly the lower school was studying Animal Farm and came to watch the performance too.
With regards to the concert, I enjoyed that as well, although I don't think I was as hooked onto it as I was by the play. This time, it was me Celena, Teresa, Maia, and Audrey who all went. Audrey is another one of our good friends and she is from Thailand. She is in the year below all of us but she came with us for fun. My mum had to pick everyone up, which was a bit stressful because it ended up being a last minute decision and there were all kinds of problems on the road along the way, which nearly made us late! But thankfully we were able to arrive on time at the concert hall, without too much hassle. The concert was delivered by a choir group which sung these different classical songs in Latin and played these classical instruments. It was quite melodical and I enjoyed the two solo sopranos that took the stage because their voices were so clear and it really worked well with the rest of the chorus. I also was amazed by this one girl who played two different flutes throughout the entirety of one song. She was able to switch between two different mediums in succinct fashion which was endearing to watch. However, whilst I'm someone who likes to learn new things and appreciate different forms of art, I think their was a point in the concert where I did get slightly bored. I do like a bit of fun and energy nevertheless and I think, whilst others would probably disagree, the music did become quite monotone to my ears after a while. Not to mention, there was a slight pretentious tone to the evening as well. At one point, a man sitting in front of us turned around when Teresa and Audrey were talking at a normal volume to tell them to shush, which I thought was very Cambridge of him 😂😂. But at least I was able to laugh a little with Audrey, who seemed to not be into the evening that much either.
Although it wasn't necessarily my cup of tea, it was nice for Celena to have invited us all to these evenings, they were still a lot of fun and nice way to get together. It turns out one of the artists from the concert was from Ukraine so was not able to turn up to that particular evening because of family reasons. The choir group set up a donation point at the main entrance of the concert hall, in acknowledgement of the current difficulties. I thought it would be a kind gesture to give them £5.
In the meantime, Celena has set up a group chat on WhatsApp nicknamed Trashy Girls Group Chat! 🤣💜 There maybe more things happening in the future so stay tuned for that! See you then.
Have you ever read George Orwell's Animal Farm? Let me know in the comments below and I'll be sure to reply to them. I ♡ hearing from you!
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