Out Of The Comfort Zone
We were about forty minutes away from letting the audience take their seats when the producer decided to tell the piper he had to stand outside in the cold..and boy, was it cold. I'm not sure how cold, exactly, but it was two degrees below zero when I had parked my car and the moor was already frosted with ice and snow.
All this happened last night at the Culloden Battlefield Visitor Centre, just outside Inverness. It was the venue for a special concert involving a quartet from the Ö÷²¥´óÐã Scottish Symphony Orchestra, augmented by harpist Helen Thompson and hardy piper Niall Matheson. It was all linked to the Ö÷²¥´óÐã's Scotland's History project and we were recording the proceedings for a special edition of Classics Unwrapped.
The presenter, believe it or not, was Yours Truly. I'm not sure why, but I think it is just one of those things that happen when you don't read your e-mails properly. When I had agreed to introduce the event I imagined I'd have a walk-on part and the opportunity to say a few words of corporate greeting to the great and the good of Highland society. Instead I found myself so far outside my comfort zone that I almost needed a visa to get home. I was actually presenting the whole show.
I mean I like Classical music as much as anyone, but the format called on me to step up to the microphone every ten minutes or so and entertain the audience with astounding insights into the lives of various composers and then make the connection back to the history of Scotland. Luckily the producer, Bill Lloyd, had done all the research and had presented me with a script that that could have made a chimpanzee look good, if only chimpanzees could speak.
But then, there were times when I lost the power of speech and the only thing coming out of my mouth was a kind of chattering sound. After tackling one paragraph for the third time I threw myself on the mercy of the crowd.
"I'm more used to telling other people how to do this than actually doing it myself," I confessed.
Well, at least it got a laugh. But then, so would a chimp.
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