Thursday 22 November 2012 – Wednesday 27 March 2013
Double Bill with Cocktail Sticks: Sunday 16 December, Sunday 13 January 2013, Sunday 10 and Sunday 17 March 2013, 2.15pm
National Theatre

Alex Jennings Alan Bennett
Members of Southbank Sinfonia

Alan Bennett Hymn
with music by George Fenton
Alan Bennett Cocktail Sticks

Alan Bennett writes: ‘In 2001 the Medici Quartet commissioned the composer George Fenton to write a piece commemorating their thirtieth anniversary. George Fenton appeared in my play Forty Years On and has written music for many of my plays since, and he asked me to collaborate on the commission. Hymn was the result. First performed at the Harrogate Festival in August 2001, it’s a series of memoirs with music. Besides purely instrumental passages for the quartet, many of the speeches are under-scored, incorporating some of the hymns and music I remember from my childhood and youth.’

It’s a dwindling band; old-fashioned and of a certain age, you can pick us out at funerals and memorial services because we can sing the hymns without the book.

Hymn: Dates
Thursday 22 November
Tuesday 27 November
Wednesday 28 November
Tuesday 18 December
(2013)
Tuesday 8 January
Monday 14 January
Monday 4 February
Monday 11 February
Tuesday 19 February
Wednesday 27 February

Hymn and Cocktail Sticks double bill: Dates
Sunday 16 December
(2013)
Sunday 13 January
Sunday 10 February
Sunday 10 March
Sunday 17 March

Tickets
£12 £15
www.nationaltheatre.org.uk | 020 7452 3000