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I've only ever peeped inside of St. Phillips , the local Church of England.
I've photographed its exterior lots of times (the big elm trees around it
have fantastic autumn displays). Tonight we were attending the first night
of Moya Simpson's concert of her favourite songs 'I've got my standards',
on the Saturday night she was performing at the Southern Cross Club in
Canberra so this was the 'out of town preview'. I've photographed
Bungendore locals John Shortis' and Moya's performances for some time now,
and swapped the resulting photos and video for a regular invite to the
next one for Jan and I. There's a few reports of them in the archive (like
the
Elvis anniversary concert at the Harp Inn). Their satirical political
revues are a regular feature in the area and not to be missed. John has received an Arts Council grant
for research and he is also working on a TV program concept, so Moya decided to enlist the
help of Peter J. Casey a Sydney cabaret artist, to put together a show of the
songs she likes to sing. Moya asked if I'd do a poster and suggested the
'Simpson dumps Shortis' angle and I took it from there. I printed some
flyers and bigger posters and Stan at the Woodworks organised the
publicity and tickets. We thought everyone would understand the joke but
Moya said she apparently had a few people ask anxiously if she was ok, and John said
people crossed the road to avoid him. (In the show Moya said she had
people leave a few casserole's at their door.)
Whatever the attraction was, there was a good crowd filling the pews at
St. Phillips as Moya lead us through her days as a teacher in an
underprivileged English school, her late discovery at 35 that she could
sing, and songs that her parents had liked. There was a running joke of a
'World Music alert' (Moya leads two World Music choirs in Canberra. I've
mentioned that Jan sings in the one called 'Worldly Goods') and John
looked on proudly from the side and was enlisted to play and sing later. |
At interval John announced that they'd asked if the local CWA ladies would
like to 'do
supper' as a fund raiser. The CWA building is opposite the church,
so we all crossed the road for tea and scones. There was an option
to also walk a few more paces to the Royal Hotel if you preferred a beer,
as some did. John then rounded everyone up, and bidding goodbye to Her
Majesty, we went back to the warm church for more entertainment.
(I
photographed the CWA meeting rooms in
autumn 2002, but they've since chopped down the row of
beautiful poplars beside it,
click for popup window of images) |
