ENTERTAINMENT THROUGH THE GARDEN GAT E


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THROUGH THE GARDEN GATE PLANTS AND PERFORMANCE


This month Camilla Bassett-Smith shares a personal partnership between plants and performance


It was on Cheltenham’s Everyman Theatre stage upon which I first performed my first Gilbert and Sullivan lines back in 1990, in a Cotswolds Savoyards Production of ‘The Mikado’. Many performances followed on stages across the county, including one of my favourite roles as Mabel in ‘The Pirates of Penzance’ for Cheltenham Operatic and Dramatic Society. My Mother had always been keen on their works and I often skipped around, Barbie doll in tow, to the airs from Pinafore. My darling dwarf lop eared rabbit was even named Gilbert! I did not at that time, or indeed, for decades, realise that my adoration of these creative geniuses would so wonderfully combine with my other huge love – horticulture!


I had often visited W.S Gilbert’s former home in Harrow Weald – ‘Grims Dyke’, now a hotel, and was kindly gifted a cutting from his grape vine – still flourishing in my Gloucestershire garden.


Imagine my joy when in 2022 I was given the chance to make a film there for ITV’s ‘Love Your Weekend’, the programme I have now been a part of since 2020. Plants and performance, hand in hand (or gardening glove in dramatic silk glove?!). Giant redwoods there still watch over proceedings as they did in Gilbert’s day and Mrs Gilbert’s rose garden is still bloom laden and beautiful, but this wasn’t the end of my botanical operetta journey. An on-going G&S appreciation thread weaves its way through many of my appearances on screen with the fabulous Mr Titchmarsh, who is also a fan of the dramatic duo. We often reference their works and I’ve even been known to sing a line


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or two amongst the foliage! Alan reminded me of a particularly plant-based quote in The Gondoliers, when Don Alhambra sings that “Prime Ministers and such as they grew like asparagus in May” - a crop we know locally all too well, as asparagus sea- son is still in full swing in Evesham until its culmination on 21st June. If you are lucky enough to grow your own, well worth investing in an asparagus knife from Burgon & Ball!


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