SANCTUARY: A little place to escape from the madness ;)

Random posts, recommendations and a little respite. Personal musings from a life of faith. Drop by any time to see if there’s anything new.

June 2025

This month I performed Wynton Marsalis’s A fiddlers Tale alongside the Chineke Orchestra. I have written this little bit below, to explain a tiny bit about my take on it, along with the poster I made, visualising each of the characters.

To explain my interpretation of the fiddlers tale, which I am aware may differ from what the author might have meant and what other narrators may have portrayed. When I was asked to narrate A Fiddler’s Tale , I had not heard of the piece before ( but I am so grateful to know about it now) . At fist glance it seemed like a straight forward morality tale… but on closer inspection , i venture to say it held a deeper and broader meaning … certainly that was my interpretation . I wanted to present further layers to the ‘artist sells their soul to a very obvious devil’ troupe and found that within this piece there was a lot of self snitching, that it opened itself to deeper truths. For example, in the text one of the characters is ‘ the saviour’ , now obviously we know that the actual one and only Saviour is Jesus Christ, so at first I thought that is who the writer meant , but when I read the text about the ‘saviour’, and who was promoting him and what he himself actually says, I realised that this character wasn’t Jesus at all but an imposter! one of the zillion false gurus.. leaders… therapists … heretics…shamans…. healers.. fake Christian leaders etc etc because it is so very far from actual Christianity and not at all biblically accurate. Fascinating, so the title ‘saviour’ is misleading … how to demonstrate this? I decided to add a couple of  props for this character only, first i place an orange wrap around my shoulders, indicating that this is someone playing a role of what people perceive a spiritual person to look like, and then sunglasses to indicate he is a blind guide, leading the blind, and finally in the reading of his lines, i made it sound like a banal guided meditation, full of empty platitudes that ultimately lead nowhere. Which made sense then of the fact that this ‘saviour’ saves no one and the protagonist , who is not seeking Christ anyway but just someone to save herself, finds what she is looking for, a false ‘saviour’, who in turn doesnt save but drives her further into despair and addiction. Then it makes sense of why when she initially goes to see the saviour the devil is there also and not only that but the person who sent her to the saviour in the first place, her musical hero, was in fact the devil in disguise …. Now who knows what the writer meant, certainly other narrators have not taken this line, but having some knowledge of the bible and of Christ, it was obvious to me that this was not just a morality tale but more than that an expose of  the pervasive subtly of the devil in all things including the character of the narrator ( who one naturally trusts as impartial ) and of course in all  heresy. So, The character of the devil is a red herring saying ‘ look her i am’ or ‘ watch me now’ its slight of hand! you’re looking at him here, but he’s every where… brilliant! it also addresses the evolution of the  relationship with  the devil, from carrot to stick, and how it is that which  creates the void she feels , which he himself then seeks to fill, first with fame and or wealth and then when the material fails and she seeks something spiritual instead , he lands her with false prophets . And because this work , for me, was able to express this cultural truth … that is why i readily agreed to take it on. So, If the fiddler is a victim of anything, is it of herself.

Easter 2025

First of all, happy Easter. Thank God for Easter. Iykyk.

As promised a little more about the egg I made for annual elephant family Big egg hunt (through central London) . I was very pleased to have received one of these huge blank eggs to work on as I saw it as an opportunity to explore just a small slice of what Easter is all about

My piece ‘Ascent’ is a representation of a mountain. Dotted Around it you will find twelve little figures climbing the mountain, overcoming various challenges as they ascend. I was inspired by Dante’s Divine Comedy (which I read and enjoyed last year). For me, book two, on which my egg sculpture is based, is about that wonderful moment when Christ reminds us that our first task is to take the plank out of our own eye. Just As the climber ascends the mountain , each challenge represents some moral obstacle, within, some bit of their own plank. And the ascending in each case is therefore a triumph of virtue over vice. So, Reaching the summit represents the ultimate and true freedom. A pure heart. So when Elephant Family asked me to contribute an egg this Easter, there could be no better message, than this allegory.

I am incredibly grateful to Mandarin Oriental for showcasing my egg.

My humble sculpture is me , like the old lady at the temple, putting in my pittance. A reminder that, that’s part of what the climb is all about.

January 2025

Had a wonderful time on mastermind. When they asked me to take part I knew immediately that my specialist subject would be the Gospel of John. I read the Bible all the time, it never fails to amaze me, I think there is no greater anything than reading the Word of God I love it so. I treasure it, it’s my everything iykyk. So Mastermind was a small opportunity to be on screen and actually genuinely representing my faith. TV can be a pretty Godless place, so as I sat in that chair and listened to Clive having to read out bits of the Bible it made me smile. A small thing but it made me smile . I also loved that I didn’t know hardly any of the general knowledge questions, who cares about that 🤓. You can catch the entire episode online or scroll down this page to see my special subject round

This well made, word for word film of the Gospel of John is well worth a watch or two …too 😉

December 2024

Also, if you want to listen to Radio Four Christmas Day broadcast of How to Play ‘Peter and the Wolf’, which I took part in , it’s quite pleasant an d available here