Vache Baroque Report
On Sunday 6th October a group of 14 of us went to a (semi) Opera at The Vache, an outing suggested and arranged by Colin Thomas.
This was an event that I had not heard of before, and we were very lucky with the weather, it being a very pleasantly warm (and dry) evening.
It was held at the Vache Estate, a grand manor with extensive grounds in Chalfont St Giles, which apparently dates back to the Doomsday Book.
The grounds were open at 3pm and we all arrived in dribs and drabs between 3 and 5:30, meeting at a table we had booked in the refreshments tent. People brought their own picnics, varying in scale from sandwiches and crisps, to a three course meal with tablecloth and candelabra!
The performance started at 5:30 and featured an ensemble of musicians playing instruments from the 17th century together with an acting troupe called ‘Out of Chaos’.
The Vache Baroque, was formed in 2020 to promote music of the baroque period, and the instruments they played included several that I had not come across before including Bass Recorders, a Bass Violin, a Viola da gamba (like a cello), a Violone (like a double bass) and a Theorbo (an instrument like a lute but with an enormously long neck).
They performed a musical version of Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’ in a lovely setting of a marquee with a backdrop of a lake and woodland, playing music from the baroque period by Henry Purcell, Matthew Locke, Pelham Humfrey, and others adapted from a late-17th-century version of The Tempest.
The singers were excellent, especially the female soprano who played Ariel (a few of the male roles were played by women).
The performance ended at 9pm, and we all drove the short distance home.
What a magical evening!
Thanks to Colin for arranging the event.
There are also some more photos on our 2026 Photo gallery
We were told of tragic stories in which magicians had met their end on stage through various accidents, including that of Chung Ling Soo, who died when a member of the audience tried to see whether the magician could catch a real bullet between his teeth.
Sooty is the only non-human member of the circle, and demonstrated his skills by cutting a lady (Barbie) in half live on TV.
Martin Sheen was wonderful as Nye, appearing in all the scenes dressed in his hospital pyjamas and seemingly bewildered as each scene unfolded before him in random order, as a schoolboy with a stutter, then his fights with Winston Churchill, his open marriage relationship with Jennie Lee and the death of his father (a Welsh miner). Finally he remembers his creation of the National Health Service against very high odds, only winning against the doctor’s opposition by promising them to make them the highest paid professionals in the country (“Filling their mouths with gold”).
The staging was quite clever, the green curtains reminding one of those in a hospital and also acting as the green seats of the House of Commons, whilst hospital beds were transformed into lobby entrances during the parliamentary scenes.
We found our coach at 5:15 and our driver fought his way through the rush hour traffic to get us back to Gerrards Cross by about 6:30 – well behind those who had travelled by train!
onto the stage (not very reluctantly) to take part in an improvised sketch and demonstrate his ability to provide sound effects to the action provided by the comics.