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Thursday 27th February 2025 – Club Meeting – Speaker Roger Browne with his talk ‘The Great American Songbook’.
This presentation to the club was by musician Roger Browne.
This was Roger’s second visit to the club at Mere and he didn’t disappoint with his excellent talk ’The Great American Songbook’! Roger told the meeting how he’d mimicked Al Jolson as a youngster and the subsequent talent competitions his mother had sent him to eventually developed into an involvement with the North Cheshire Amateur Operatic Society’s shows at Manchester’s Palace Theatre.
Referencing these shows, In the early days of the 20th Century, the musical shows were in fact variety shows. Developing out of Gospel and jazz, the new musical genre created the ‘Blues’ particularly in the Southern States.There was no impetus to develop the styles commercially until mass immigration from Europe to the USA led many Jewish immigrants to set up music publishing houses in New York city, particularly on West 28th Street where the original ‘Tin Pan Alley’ was born. Roger described the interwoven careers of Jerome Kern, P G Wodehouse, Oscar Hammerstein, Cole Porter and Irving Berlin. A particular mention to Edna Ferber who wrote the story ‘Showboat’ about the river showboats plying America’s major rivers like The Mississippi. It was a sad story about oppression and continuing slavery but Jerome Kern to the story and converted it into what became the beginnings of modern Musical Theatre. Roger was keen to laud the functions within Musical Theatre of the Orchestrators and Choreographers whose work contributed greatly to the success of many shows. Roger embellished much of his talk with his excellent keyboard playing and singing.
Thursday 27th February 2025 – AGM
Minutes of the AGM may be found on our Members Page. President Peter Clegg welcomed Terry Parkinson as Chairman for 2025.
Thursday 13th February 2025 – Club Meeting – Speaker, Peter Turner, who gave a talk ‘Curiosity Killed the Cat’.
Peter thanked members for inviting him back for what is his third visit to Knutsford Rex Probus. He hoped to tell of the big secrets of Magic!
Peter described how he had become interested in magic while on a family caravan holiday in Rhyl when his father bought a magic book in the local Woolworths.
His parents were ‘Wowed’ by his skill and served as valuable encouragement. Peter still owned the book and showing that over time it had become rather fragmented and ‘Dog eared’. Nevertheless, Peter showed the first trick he had learnt from the book using extra large playing cards. Following the trick, he disclosed how it had worked.
Very often a helper/volunteer from the audience was key to diverting attention away from his management of a trick or illusion. One of the issues Peter highlighted was the younger generation’s lack of experience of playing cards especially the designs of the picture cards.
It was interesting to hear Peter’s admiration for some of the Masters of Magic like David Copperfield and Dynamo. Peter described the amazing organisation involved in putting on major illusions where sometimes millions of Dollars were spent creating slowly revolving stages, firework decoys and attention diversions. Dynamo did a major trick on the Thames which hadn’t gone entirely to plan but was rescued by some clever video editing prior to broadcast.
Finally Peter showed another trick featuring 5 cards where, interestingly, there were 5 possible outcomes hidden away depending on which card his audience chose in answer to Peter’s questioning.
Overall, a really interesting and enlightening presentation!
Thursday 6th February 2025 – Walk – Tatton Park
Member Alan Ferrier’s escorted the Walking Group for a walk around the Tatton Estate from the Knutsford Gate, where they circled the main mere clockwise and eventually peeled off via Dog Wood to The Moor and into Knutsford with a finish back at Alan’s house.