Janie and I both really like Simon Gray’s plays and we really like the Hampstead Downstairs.
So this project; taking all four of Simon Gray’s attempts to write about a quirky pair of brothers in The Vale of Health, seemed like something we should do in full.
We saw them in this sequence/timing:
21 March 2014 – Japes;
18 April 2014 – Japes Too;
2 May 2014 – Michael;
16 May 2014 – Missing Dates.
We’d often see the same faces in the audience again. One gentleman who sat next to us on the last night, we’d seen at least once before. I said to him that it would be like saying goodbye to close friends when this little season ended and he said, “that’s exactly what I was thinking”.
Very intimate plays, beautifully written (it’s Simon Gray after all) and very well acted/directed.
I’m cutting and pasting this same piece for all four evenings; the above and the links below basically apply to all four.
Janie and I both really like Simon Gray’s plays and we really like the Hampstead Downstairs.
So this project; taking all four of Simon Gray’s attempts to write about a quirky pair of brothers in The Vale of Health, seemed like something we should do in full.
We saw them in this sequence/timing:
21 March 2014 – Japes;
18 April 2014 – Japes Too;
2 May 2014 – Michael;
16 May 2014 – Missing Dates.
We’d often see the same faces in the audience again. One gentleman who sat next to us on the last night, we’d seen at least once before. I said to him that it would be like saying goodbye to close friends when this little season ended and he said, “that’s exactly what I was thinking”.
Very intimate plays, beautifully written (it’s Simon Gray after all) and very well acted/directed.
I’m cutting and pasting this same piece for all four evenings; the above and the links below basically apply to all four.
Janie and I both really like Simon Gray’s plays and we really like the Hampstead Downstairs.
So this project; taking all four of Simon Gray’s attempts to write about a quirky pair of brothers in The Vale of Health, seemed like something we should do in full.
We saw them in this sequence/timing:
21 March 2014 – Japes;
18 April 2014 – Japes Too;
2 May 2014 – Michael;
16 May 2014 – Missing Dates.
We’d often see the same faces in the audience again. One gentleman who sat next to us on the last night, we’d seen at least once before. I said to him that it would be like saying goodbye to close friends when this little season ended and he said, “that’s exactly what I was thinking”.
Very intimate plays, beautifully written (it’s Simon Gray after all) and very well acted/directed.
I’m cutting and pasting this same piece for all four evenings; the above and the links below basically apply to all four.
Janie and I both really like Simon Gray’s plays and we really like the Hampstead Downstairs.
So this project; taking all four of Simon Gray’s attempts to write about a quirky pair of brothers in The Vale of Health, seemed like something we should do in full.
We saw them in this sequence/timing:
21 March 2014 – Japes;
18 April 2014 – Japes Too;
2 May 2014 – Michael;
16 May 2014 – Missing Dates.
We’d often see the same faces in the audience again. One gentleman who sat next to us on the last night, we’d seen at least once before. I said to him that it would be like saying goodbye to close friends when this little season ended and he said, “that’s exactly what I was thinking”.
Very intimate plays, beautifully written (it’s Simon Gray after all) and very well acted/directed.
I’m cutting and pasting this same piece for all four evenings; the above and the links below basically apply to all four.
This play was part of a double bill of plays about climate change known together as The Contingency Plan.
We only fancied the first part; On The Beach.
The Bush was still above the pub on Shepherd’s Bush Green in those days.
It was well acted and produced, but we both found the first play a bit long, ponderous and not entirely plausible. We didn’t seek to book nor did we regret not having booked the second part.
On the whole the double-bill was reviewed jointly, so our take is only partial:
This play was good fun. It is basically a comedy about a punk band that fell out in unusual circumstances reforming many years later as Mammon comes calling. It sounds a bot “so what?” and it some ways it was, but it was an entertaining evening at one of our favourite venues.
It didn’t get a west end transfer, but perhaps that idea was b*llocks, never mind. The Bush was still a room above the pub in those days, which seemed a fitting venue for this piece.
When reviewing the 2005 Ashes series, the great commentator, Richie Benaud, would relate tales from letters he had received from senior people, captains of industry even, describing hiding behind the sofa unable to watch the denouement of some of the tighter matches, such was the level of emotion invested in these incredible multiple-day sporting events that we call test matches in cricket.
The Edgbaston test, which several of us fortunate folk known as the Heavy Rollers experienced live in part, was such a match. While our live experience, which started so brilliantly for us the night before…
…was over as a live experience for us at stumps on Day Two, of course it continued for us as a television and radio experience for the next couple of days.
Before that, someone (often it was Nigel), will have helped me get at least part of the way, if not all the way, to Birmingham New Street for my train and I probably got to Janie’s place around 9:30/10:00 at night for a shower and then some deep sleep.
No doubt Janie and I played tennis in the morning, ahead of hunkering down with the radio and/or television for most of the Saturday.
It was a seesaw of a cricketing day if ever there was one. England looked to have surrendered their second innings for too little, then Australia similarly found it difficult to avoid frequent dismissals.
But Janie and I could not stay at home all day and watch cricket – we had tickets for a dinner and show at The Kings Head, Islington: Who’s The Daddy, a satirical farce. Not the sort of show that Janie would normally want to see, except that this show was largely about a larger than life journalist/editor named Boris Johnson and his affair with fellow Spectator journalist Petronella Wyatt. Without reaching to breach any professional confidences here, Janie had professional reasons (as well as idle curiosity) to see this show.
Janie and I set off for Islington quite early, with England in a good but not yet totally secure position. Michael Clarke & Shane Warne were at the crease together albeit seven down but accumulating runs. I think the only reason that the match was still going on at that hour was because England had taken the extra half hour to try and finish the match, but that idea didn’t seem to be working. I’m pretty sure Janie did the driving, thank goodness. We were listening intently. We parked up near the theatre and sat listening to the last couple of overs. Then Steve Harmison bowled THAT ball to remove Clarke on the stroke of stumps.
That Steve Harmison ball at the end of Day Three is at c22’30”.
Janie and I were in celebratory mode as we entered The Kings Head. Australia still more than 100 behind, just two wickets left…what could possibly go wrong?
No matter, we were in a great mood. England were on the verge of a vital win…
…or were they?
I’m pretty sure we played tennis again, early, on the Sunday morning. Then we hunkered down in the near-expectation that England would quickly take a couple of wickets and we could relax for the rest of the day.
It didn’t quite work out that way
I must say that I personally never got to the “hiding behind the sofa” stage, but there was a lot of oohing and aahing, that’s for sure. I started off watching in the living room, then migrated to the bedroom so I could put my feet up and await what I thought was the inevitable win…then I wasn’t so sure…then I starting to think it was an inevitable “yet again” loss on the way.
Janie kept insisting that it would all come good in the end, but once the lead had been reduced to 20-30 runs, she couldn’t sit still nor could she bear to watch.
By the time the England victory came, I was, by then, absolutely convinced that England were about to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
But in the end we celebrated, Janie reminding me that she had been insisting that it would come good for England all along. Yeh, right.
I had , in a moment of extreme lucidity disguised as madness, procured, the previous autumn, six tickets for Day Five of The Oval test, just in case England were able to take the 2005 Ashes series to the wire. I had kept very quiet about this purchase, just in case the social workers of The Children Society, on learning of this purchase, conspired with a couple of doctors and had me put away for gross insanity.
A coupe of hours after the Edgbaston victory, it felt like the right moment to fess up to this purchase. I called Chas, who was in one of those “trembling voiced Chas” states, but he did make some informed comments on the outcome of the match and immediately said yes to the idea of joining me and Daisy at Day Five of the Oval test, should the series come to that.
I told Chas that I intended to call Nigel next.
Chas told me that it might be best to leave it another couple of hours or more. “I called him a few minutes ago and he still could barely speak”, explained Chas.
Nigel in full flow
Nigel doesn’t lose his voice lightly.
I did speak with Nigel later that day, who was still somewhat of a quiver. It is a shame he wasn’t able to join us at the Oval, but still that Oval story will make for another excellent Ogblog piece, not least because it will be awash with Charles Bartlett’s colourful pictures.
