Royal Northern Sinfonia and MeGegan, Stage@TheDock, Hull, review: To drench your audience must count as shockingly bad manners

From Hull’s historic dry dock, the whole programme consisted of music inspired by water, but things got out of hand when the audience got soaked in the rain

The Royal Northern Sinfonia under Nicholas McGegan’s direction perform at the first Prom outside London since the 1930s (BBC/Les Gibbon)

As Britain’s City of Culture for 2017, Hull is putting on an impressive show, with an event of some sort almost every day. Last Saturday the city was showing a gay leg in many senses of the word: while the streets of the picturesque old port were filled with garlanded members of Pride in Hull, and echoing to the sound of clog dancers and Morris men, the historic dry dock hosted the Proms’ first foray north of the M25 since the 1930s.

Moreover, the programme of the Royal Northern Sinfonia under Nicholas McGegan’s direction marked an anniversary of a different sort: 300 years since Handel’s Water Music got its first airing on the Thames for a barge party led by George I. It sounded pretty good here, as did Telemann’s Water Music which had been composed for a civic dinner in Hamburg a few years later. Indeed, the whole programme consisted of music inspired by water, including Delius’s Summer Night on the River, Mendelssohn’s Calm Sea and a Prosperous Voyage, and a specially commissioned work by Grace Evangeline Mason entitled River which, to be frank, didn’t live up to its florid advance publicity.

Two other programmed works were not performed because a gale suddenly whipped up and rain began to fall in sheets. OK for the orchestra, snug under their awning (instruments can’t be allowed to get wet), but not so great for the little audience, who were forced to huddle under whatever individual shelter they had thought to bring, because no awning had been provided for them. They were astonishingly good humoured about it all, but to freeze and drench your audience must count – at the very least – as shockingly bad manners. The Proms should definitely come back – with an extra awning – next year, as this event was hugely appreciated.