Last Night of the Proms Tonight.

If you like this sort of thing, try the Battle Proms - just google it. Six concerts around the country each summer. All the "last night" trimmings. I have to declare an interest, as my DD and SIL run these, so will forgive HQ if they delete me!

Before I was married my mother and I went to the proms a lot. My father worked for EMI Records and his department used to get 2 sets of tickets for all the concerts. They used to have to do a ballot for the first and last nights and the Gilbert and Sullivan night but we were able to do the first and last a couple of times and pretty much had our pick of the others. If you had been to quite a few concerts during the season you recognised a lot of people on the last night and it turned into a party.

There was excellent singing and most of the good old traditional songs. I do so love Land of Hope and Glory and Jerusalem. There was a certain amount of poignancy in view of the fact that things may not be the same next year.

The first time they included 'You'll Never Walk Alone' I moaned that it was the usual dumbing down we've come to expect of our much loved traditions.

This year they excluded it and I was really disappointed.

I agree about the tenor, Mishap I winced as well.

Just picked it up on iplayer. Roderick Williams is sublime - what a singer; and I loved the way he sang Rule Britannia, taking us back to the Arne style.

How splendid to have the importance of investing in musical education so publicly endorsed - let's hope the government is listening!

I thought it got a bit juvenile last night. All that Mary Poppins stuff!

And the forced jollity. (Look! We're British and we will enjoy this) again

Yes - Ruthy Henshaw added nothing to the proceedings. I am all for a variety of music, but quality has to be the most important thing.

Just in case anyone's interested. The link is self-explanatory.

www.theguardian.com/culture/2014/sep/11/crowdfunding-campaign-william-blake-cottage

Her name is Ruthie Henshall Mishap and she's an MT legend. As a Mary Poppins mash-up was included in the programme, she was the obvious choice. MT sung with an operatic voice sounds awful. Ruthie is MT quality!

Sorry nannanna - I really did not like her voice and felt she contributed very little to the overall quality of the concert. The songs are written to be sung in a much higher register and sounded pretty weird transposed so low. And there were moments when she seemed to be late coming in. I love Mary Poppins, so that is not the problem! I was not looking for operatic voice, just better quality.

"MT"? - what is that? I am being a bit dim this morning!

Yeah. What is "MT"?

Please.

I think it's Musical Theatre.

Didn't like the Mary Poppins section at all - did the washing up.

Yes sue - it did rather stick out like a sore thumb.