[231.1] WHEN HANDEL MET HENDRIX

I can't believe I missed out on this. Careless. And tragic. Hope it isn't the last ever performance.

The Handel-Hendrix Experience is a fascinating comedy about a surprising meeting between musical revolutionaries Handel and Hendrix, who lived in adjoining houses on Brook Street in London but over two centuries apart. For one night only, the dramatised reading took place at the splendid Handel House Museum on Sunday 2 September, with two performances at 5pm and 7pm.

The Handel-Hendrix Experience is a play by Perry Pontac, from an idea by Jack Rosenthal, directed by Maureen Lipman and starring Timothy West as Handel and Joseph Mydell as Hendrix. Laurence Cummings performs on harpsichord.

The play imagines how both immigrant musicians might have influenced and changed each other's musical careers. Some comic moments include Hendrix helping Handel to finish Messiah, and Handel advising Hendrix how to dress like a rock star and play the ‘guitar’ with his teeth.

See also: From Handel to Hendrix – The Composer in the Public Sphere by Michael Chanan, Verso, Londres, 2000, 342 pp. ISBN 1-85984-706-4 (Hbk)

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