Brian Sewell was his spokesman – and for the first time the British public heard the exquisite, fluting, vowel-attenuating music of his unique voice (so much posher, everyone said, than the Queen's).
So: the clothes are contemporary/ timeless; the casting is more what you would get for a play at the Royal Court (and there are some terrific performances but not of the laughter-through-a-mist-of-tears, fluting kind that fool the givers of awards).
As tenor Ian Bostridge curls his fluting, anxious voice around the tender words of the text, standing in the curve of Julius Drake's grand piano, actor Edward Evans carefully sets a table for breakfast for two, enchanted and intimidated by his new, more confident, more handsome lover (Edward Evans).
"When you get the exhaust spitting flames out, it does seem like a Turner sunset in November," he enunciated in that uniquely fluting delivery that is straight out of Oscar Wilde.
It is ornate, as Persian monuments tended to be, featuring the deeply incised, regular, concave grooves known as fluting.
Fluting and ribbing resembled the decoration of metal vessels and was especially characteristic of the southwest.
Where his pictures seemed smart and ironic and a little hard, the artist had a reedy, fluting, birdlike quality--a Lewis Carroll bird, like the mome raths in Tenniel's illustration.
At one of the parties, Marion Brewster-Wright Deborah Rushh), the boozy, fluting wife of a bank manager, inspecting the dial of a new washing machine that has been neatly installed under a D.I.Y. shelf, says, "What's this?
"Your father is pro-life, did you know that?" she tells Felicity, at one point, adding, in fluting tones, "He loves all those stem-cell things.... Wants to give them the right to vote, just about.... Wants to register them as Republicans".
"Her performance goes beyond physical imitation, though she has the rounded shoulders and the fluting voice down perfectly".
THE Streetscapes column is not big on terminology, but some is necessary; instead of embarrassing yourself by saying "those grooves on the side of a column," impress your dinner partner and use the real term, fluting.
