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 one of the characters , along with the poster I made, visualising each of the characters.

*** spoilers **** this won’t make sense unless You have seen this piece but To explain my interpretation of one of the characters in ‘A fiddlers tale’ . I had not heard of the piece and at first glance it seemed like a straight forward morality tale… but on closer inspection , it held a much deeper and broader meaning … certainly that was my interpretation . For example, in the piece one of the characters is called ‘ the saviour’, now obviously we know that the actual one and only Saviour is Jesus Christ, so at first I thought that He is who the writer was referring to. But then then text about the ‘saviour’, and who was promoting him and what the character himself actually says, none of it was Christ like in the least , so I realised that the character wasn’t supposed to be Jesus but an imposter! How clever !! A representation of one of the zillion false gurus.. leaders… therapists … heretics…shamans…. healers or fake ‘Christian’ leaders etc etc. so I decided I needed to add a couple of  props for this character only. An orange wrap around my shoulders, indicating that this is someone playing a role of what people perceive a spiritual person to look like, a costume if you will , and then sunglasses to indicate he is a blind guide, leading the blind, and also to indicate his ‘celebrity status’ finally in the reading of his lines, i made it sound like a banal guided meditation, emphasising the characters empty platitudes that ultimately lead the fiddler nowhere. Which made sense then of the fact that in the piece 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 doesn’t save but disappoints and the fiddler further into despair and addiction. 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 another ‘talented artist sells their Soul ‘ morality tale but it was an expose of  the pervasive subtly of the devil. Thus The character of the devil is a red herring saying ‘ look here i am’ or ‘ watch me now’ its slight of hand , because he was actually everywhere. It’s a brilliant piece of writing and The music is fantastic also , but that’s for another day . All in all I found A fiddlers tale to be an extraordinarily piece. To read the reviews of my performance head on over to my narrator page

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