I, A Facilitator: Beyond The Library, The Mulberry Bush by Angus Wilson c/w Giant by Mark Rosenblatt, Royal Court Theatre, 29 October 2024

Angus Wilson from Wikipedia, used on the same fair use basis as Wikipedia.

I wonder whether Angus Wilson would have seen the funny side of this?

As it happens I wasn’t working on Monday (the previous day). In fact, Janie and I had just got home from a specialist’s rather gloomy prognosis on my right hip (“got to go”) and were just heading off to play tennis…

…yes I know those two phrases seem incongruous, but if the hip is more or less worn out I might as well wear it out completely before it goes…

…when I picked up an utterly unexpected e-mail from the Royal Court Theatre.

…I found you from your website, as you wrote about Mark Rosenblatt’s Giant. 

I’m reaching out from the Royal Court Theatre’s Living Archive, where we’re working on a series of events called Beyond the Library and I’m hoping you might be able to help us with a last-minute facilitation opportunity tomorrow at 5.30pm.

I know this is very out of the blue and very short notice, but we’d be grateful for your consideration…

Included was the script for The Mulberry Bush and a Facilitator Guide.

I did indeed write about Giant by Mark Rosenblatt:

Giant by Mark Rosenblatt, Royal Court Theatre, 21 September 2024

It was obvious to me that someone had pulled out at the last minute and that the Royal Court was a bit desperate. There was a modest fee to be had, but not at the level that would get me out of bed unless I was interested/intrigued. I was interested/intrigued.

I picked up the phone and explained, truthfully, that my primary emotion was one of imposter syndrome at the thought of helping them with this. Yes, I am a seasoned facilitator, but normally for organisational/strategic topics, not the arts. Yes, I was familiar with Giant. And yes, as it happens, I have read some Angus Wilson in my time – probably more than 40 years ago. But I have never read or seen The Mulberry Bush.

I’m sure you’ll be great at it. Don’t worry about not being an arts facilitator. We’re looking for diversity in our pool of facilitators.

I suppose I offer diversity from your regular drama facilitator, but perhaps not the kind of diversity you are looking for in your stats.

Janie thought I’d get a buzz out of doing it and was prepared to put up with me hijacking the afternoon to prepare the event, so I said yes.

Janie even did some research for me, finding this excellent documentary about Angus Wilson:

I enjoyed reading The Mulberry Bush and then did some digging into how it was received when it was first shown at The Royal Court. Spoiler alert: it was not received well. I was reminded that I have heard of the play simply because it was the very first play that George Devine put on in 1956 when he started up the English Stage Company at the Royal Court. It actually felt like an extraordinary honour to be facilitating the Royal Court’s event on the topic of that seminal production.

Here is the review from The Birmingham Post:

Mulberry Bush Birmingham PostMulberry Bush Birmingham Post 06 Apr 1956, Fri The Birmingham Post (Birmingham, West Midlands, England) Newspapers.com

Here is Ken Tynan’s Observer review – sadly a bit difficult to read from the Newsppaers.com scan, but you should get the gist:

Tynan Mulberry BushTynan Mulberry Bush 08 Apr 1956, Sun The Observer (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Anyway, I got my facilitator notes ready and sent them across on the Monday evening – here they are if you want to read them, and then got on with my other activities for the next 20 hours or so.

Coincidentally, my other activities that Tuesday morning included going through my Autumn 1984 diaries, where I discovered my very first visit to the Royal Court. 8 December 1984, to see The Pope’s Wedding – what a cast! That Living Archive looks like a fabulous project, btw, and I shall no doubt be contributing observations from my 40 years or so of visiting The Royal Court.

When I got to the flat, I was able to locate my copy of Hemlock & After by Angus Wilson, but I didn’t have time to do more than skim it.

Still, I was one step ahead of my victims…I mean, the attendees, and that one step ahead seemed to be enough to get me through on the evening.

It was a pretty lively, bright bunch; a mixture of drama students, young folk new to working in theatre, writers and a few more senior folk who were just interested in having a book club style discussion.

Everyone contributed and I thought the quality of the discussion was very high. But then, what would I know? I’m not really an arts facilitator. The feedback was good, so I think it went well.

Also, I note, that the Beyond The Library series, which had plenty of spaces left for the November & December sessions when I looked on the Tuesday, has now (by Sunday) sold out. I understand that The Royal Court is considering extending the idea into 2025, so watch that space if you are interested in future such events.

It was hard work preparing, at such short notice, a discussion around a play I had never read or seen before. I fed back that 28 days would be a more suitable advanced notice than 28 hours under normal circumstances. But then, as Angus Wilson said in No Laughing Matter:

“Life isn’t just to be found, you have to work for it.”

A Personal Tribute To A Mentor & Friend: Ian Theodoreson 1957-2024

Me and Ian enthralled by Ashes cricket at Lord’s, 1 July 2023. Sally resting her eyes ever so slightly. Janie took the picture.

With a mixture of sadness and reflection, I learnt that Ian Theodoreson has died, having bravely fought the onset and relentlessness of muscular dystrophy for several years.

Ian has kept a beautifully written and thought-provoking blog, Living In Hope – click here to see the whole blog, since he retired in 2017. His final message, announcing his own departure in his inimitable style and with his undying faith, is embedded below:

Goodbye, and thanks for all the fish

My personal memories of Ian, as a client, mentor and friend, date back to the winter of 1988/89, as described in the following Ogblog piece about my very first consultancy assignment:

Reduced To Tears By My First Consultancy Assignment, 27 January 1989

Just in case you don’t click, it was not Ian who reduced me to tears on that assignment…it was the assignment. And it is hardly a spoiler in these circumstances to let slip that it all came right in the end.

In work terms, I didn’t come across Ian again until the mid 1990s, by which time I had started up The Z/Yen Group and Ian had moved to Barnardo’s. Ian felt motivated to throw Z/Yen’s name into the pot when Barnardo’s was seeking some strategic advice that was up our street and the rest is history, workwise.

As far as I know, Ian never actually commissioned any work from Z/Yen directly. He would throw our name into the pot when “who might we use for this?” discussions were taking place, presumably with a commendation, but certainly not an instruction to select us. This applied at Barnardo’s and latterly The Church of England, where Z/Yen (and I) remain actively engaged to this day.

I didn’t realise in those early days that Ian shared my love for cricket. True, he had given his blessing to the (somewhat crazy) idea that tiny Z/Yen should take on massive Barnardo’s at cricket…

The Very First Z/Yen Charity Cricket Match, Barnardo’s, 22 July 1998

…but Ian neither played in, nor attended those matches. Once we had conjoined The Children’s Society with that cricket tradition, it ran for many years, indeed into the 2010s.

Ian and I first went to the cricket together at Lord’s in 2009, to see a T20 world cup double-header. I have written that day up here.

Indeed, to avoid the risk of boring the casual reader at this juncture, here is a link to Ian’s tag on my blog, which will pick up every article in which he is tagged, the last few of which (apart from this one which will be at the top) will be visits to cricket matches. Interested readers can burrow away through that tag.

When I started to sense some burnout in my work, in early 2014, Ian was the person to whom I turned for a chat and some friendly advice. Ian claimed never to understand why I was so grateful to him for his advice at that time. As far as he was concerned, we’d had a coffee together and a quick chat, during which he had said, possibly as a sort-of throw away remark…

…it seems to me that you do still enjoy the various work activities that you do, it’s just that you are doing too much of it…

…which was a “penny-drop” moment for me and started me on my path to a more balanced portfolio of work, writing, charitable activities and sport.

I shall forever be grateful to Ian for his support and friendship.

I have tried to return that kindness since and, in many ways unfortunately, had some opportunities to do so when Ian became indisposed.

When the pandemic struck, Ian mentioned on his blog that he felt short of stories. His indisposition meant that his world was becoming smaller and now everyone else’s world was temporarily smaller, so he felt bereft of stories.

That gave me an idea. I suggested to Rohan Candappa, who organised our informal writing club, Threadmash and was planning to take the idea onto Zoom for the pandemic, that we invite Ian to join the club virtually.

Rohan, being Rohan, of course said yes.

This worked brilliantly well for all concerned, as Ian’s first performance piece attests:

The Secret Life Of Ginger Baker by Ian Theodoreson, Originally Performed By The Author At ThreadZoomMash, 29 July 2020

The other thing I was able to do, post pandemic, was arrange a couple of visits to Lord’s for Ian to see some cricket. We had planned to do this in 2020 for Ian’s birthday, as there was to be a test match in June coinciding with that day. But of course that year it was not to be.

Indeed it wasn’t until 2022 that Lord’s opened up again sufficiently for us to put that plan into action and in 2023, for the Ashes, I managed to arrange not only for Ian and Sally but also for Janie to join us.

Three And A Half Days At Lord’s For The Second Ashes Test, 29 June to 2 July 2023

Ian titled his final blog piece So Long & Thanks For All the Fish. This reminds me of a couple of other anecdotes about Ian. To my shame, in the hardcover (& therefore also Kindle) version of my and Michael Mainelli’s hit book, The Price Of Fish, I misspelt Ian’s name. Ian thought this was funny, especially as he had provided for an earlier book, Information Technology For The Not For Profit Sector, a glowing foreword which, for some years, was the only mention people might find about him on the internet.

I therefore nicknamed Ian “Iain Spellright” for whimsical King Cricket pieces, where everyone has a nickname (mine is Ged, Janie’s is Daisy). The following King Cricket piece is actually one of my favourite memories of spending time at Lord’s with Ian. Published in 2020, it actually relates to an exceptionally hot day in 2014 when Ian and I nearly fried, but still had a good time:

Straight Outta the Upper Compton – a match report

So long Ian and thanks for all the happy memories.

Brace Brace by Oli Forsyth, Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, 26 October 2024

Janie and I were really taken with this one.

Here is a link to the Royal Court resources on this play/production. The advance description pretty much tells you all you need to know/ought to know before you see the play.

We didn’t see any reviews of the play/production before we went. Here is a link that should find most/all of the reviews.

The piece seems to have divided the critics/reviewers. The conventional press focuses on valid criticism that some elements of the plot seem unconvincing. It is hard to imagine a hijacker, who, only by dint of a passenger intervention, fails to kill hundreds of people in a plane crash, being allowed to walk free on the grounds of diminished responsibility.

But we saw through that to enjoy the dilemmas and interpersonal drama between the honeymooners whose life was ripped apart by the incident.

Oli Forsyth clearly has talent as a writer and should persevere; I’m sure there should be better yet to come from him.

But our praise is really for the production. Excellent acting, especially Anjana Vasan as the “have a go hero”, but also Phil Dunster and Craig Els. Also hats off to the production team, in particular director Daniel Raggett, who certainly helped get a quart of entertaining drama out of this pint-sized (70 minutes) play. Big ups also to Alex Payne & George Mann (fight and movement directors respectively), who managed to achieve some excellent effects in an unusually tight and three-dimensional performance setting.

Yes, there is violence in this play, but it isn’t gratuitous violence, as it is central to the story and the unfolding plot. Janie, who is even more allergic to stage violence than I am, didn’t spot the essence of the coup de théâtre at the end of the play…possibly just as well, given her reaction when I explained it to her afterwards. 😜.

Running only until 9 November 2024. It deserves a longer run or a transfer.

Harold López-Nussa: Timba A La Americana, Wigmore Hall,  22 October 2024

Young Harold (2010) Stoemp, CC BY 3.0

Just occasionally we see jazz at the Wigmore Hall that really excites me and Janie. This was such an occasion; we loved this concert.

Here is an embedded video of a similar gig very recently, which gives a good idea of what this music looks and sounds like live:

Luques Curtis (the bassist in the video) was unable to take part in our concert, but we were very impressed with French bassist Thibaud Soulas who took his place.

The Lopez-Nussa brothers and Thibauld Soulas were very jolly souls, whereas the superb harmonica player, Grégoire Maret, didn’t get the “everyone smile” memo.

This type of music works best live and works brilliantly well at the Wigmore Hall. I am now exploring Harold López-Nussa canon of recorded music too. The album Timba a la Americana is for sure very good. I have so far only dipped into the earlier ones. Something to look forward to.

And I also look forward to seeing this combo again live, if we get the chance. Truly excellent.

The Moat by Mark A C Brown, Network Theatre, Preceded By Hamsters v Dedanists Real Tennis Match At Hampton Court Palace, 17 October 2024

Hampton Court Palace – Moat by N Chadwick cc 2.0 from Wikimedia Commons

A long but very enjoyable day.

I had been democratically pressganged into match managing the annual Hamsters v Dedanists real tennis match at Hampton Court Palace, about which I have Ogblogged plenty in the past, e.g. my first encounter with that court and fixture five years ago:

How I Lost My Virginity Three Times In Less Than A Week, Yet Didn’t Lose A Match, 10, 14 & 15 October 2019

There will be a match report from the 2024 fixture in the fullness of time, which I shall be sure to link here once that epic has been written, approved by the libel lawyers and published…

…UPDATE – the lawyers have done their worst – here is a link to a scrape of that Dedanists’ page.

What better way would there be to round off a day of real tennis at a formerly moat-protected palace than a visit to The Network Theatre in Waterloo seeing one of my real tennis pals, Ian Falconer, perform in a play named The Moat.

If you need proof that Ian and I can form a formidable real tennis partnership, look no further than the following “lowlights” reel from the MCC tennis weekend earlier this year in which, as a strange reversal of the natural state of things, Ian played second fiddle to me in the absurd matter of leaving the ball to win points.

Absurdity being another helpful link between real tennis and the play, The Moat, which is grounded at an interesting junction between the Theatre of the Absurd and the Theatre of Cruelty.

The playwright, Mark A C Brown, describes the play thus on his website – click here for more on him and his work:

The Moat is an absurdist comedy set in the not too distant future in which the world is perpetually ablaze. Those who can afford it live amidst the inferno in moated communities. and one couple is trying to put on a dinner party. It would be going great if people would only stop dying and the fire would stop getting closer and closer.

To get the absurdity started before arrival, it is very clear on the Network Theatre website (and Ian Falconer’s entreaties to his cohort of ticket-holders) that the place is not exactly easy to find.

Network Theatre is rumoured to be difficult to find, so check out the map and directions below before your first visit.

We’re not on maps, but you can find Lower Road under Waterloo Station, leading off Waterloo Road, opposite Sainsbury’s.

Lower Road is a service road under Waterloo Station so you will need to ask for Network Theatre at the security gate (bring your e-ticket confirmation for access) and pass the loading bays before you find us on the left.

This video posted on YouTube shows you the way from Waterloo Station concourse.

If you have three minutes or so to watch the above-linked video, it is a masterpiece of suspenseful hand-held cinema, making The Blair Witch Project look like a Sunday afternoon picnic.

In Ian Falconer’s words:

…go down a long, murky tunnel… hopefully you make it and have time for a drink in the theatre bar beforehand…It’s a crumbling theatre space; don’t expect luxury – it’s very fringe!

Actually I got there in good time and my companion for the evening, Chris Swallow, a senior professional from the MCC real tennis court, had got there even earlier than me. It wasn’t quite as crumbly as Ian Falconer had led us to believe…

…let’s be frank, you can pay three figures for a West End show ticket and find yourself in a fairly crumbly place. And in that West End theatre you are unlikely to find such helpful and mostly friendly people as the volunteers who keep the Network Theatre going.

Imagine a world perpetually ablaze…

Returning to the play and production. The play is unsubtly allegorical, as indeed it is clearly intended to be. The party-throwing couple within the moat are supremely confident that their security systems and their moat can protect them from the incendiary dangers beyond, despite the clear and evident danger from the events we witness (or learn about) in their immediate vicinity. [Insert your own favourite social/political allegory here.]

Despite the characters being absurd caricatures of their types, the play works because it has an integral dramatic arc and a narrative line, with one or two sub-plots, that support that arc. After a while, I was able to “go with the flow” of the absurdity and enjoy the play. I only occasionally feel this way about absurdist pieces; on those occasions they tend to be written masterfully by playwrights such as Eugène Ionesco or Václav Havel.

I sense that director David Whitney has worked with writer Márk [sic] A C Brown before, which will surely have helped make the production flow, as this was not a simple piece to put on in a small fringe theatre. I thought the production values were very high given the constraints. I commend all of the crew as well as the cast – see this link for details; all shall have Ogblog tags.

Ian Falconer was excellent as the the lead character, Andre. I’m not just saying that because he is my friend. Of the supporting cast, I (and indeed Chris Swallow also) would single out Orietta Wanjiru Subrizi who played the part of delivery girl Eden with the right blend of contained gusto.

I do worry slightly about Ian becoming typecast in absurdist, allegorical plays about fire-engulfing situations. I note from his CV Fire in the Basement by Pavel Kohout and Huis Clos by Jean-Paul Sartre.

Parenthetically, my own trip to see Huis Clos, in 1989 (35 years ago…gulp), at the Lyric Studio, was in such a hot situation we the audience felt that we were experiencing the play in sense-around:

Huis Clos by Jean-Paul Sartre, Lyric Studio, 5 August 1989

Mind you, as Ian Falconer’s nephew pointed out over drinks in the Network Theatre Bar afterwards, my regular choice of water bottle, for tennis and theatre alike, might have been designed for the play The Moat:

My thirst extinguishers tend to get dented by cricket balls and hard tennis balls

A Short Autumn Break In A 15th Century Cottage In An Old Market Town Part One: Stratford-Upon-Avon, 13 to 16 October 2024

Mason’s Court, Built c1485, Occupied by me & Janie from c1615 on 13 October 2024

Janie and I both love spending time in Stratford-Upon-Avon and don’t need much of an excuse (usually something interesting at the theatre) to arrange a short visit to the place.

Indeed, our first short break together, just a few weeks after we met, was in Stratford-Upon-Avon – in a B&B of the old-fashioned variety:

A Long Weekend In Stratford-Upon-Avon, 29 October to 1 November 1992

Subsequently we tried most of the better hotels in Stratford, until I discovered Airbnb for some of my/our other short breaks and tried that approach in spring this year:

A Short Break In Warwickshire For Tennis & Theatre, 13 to 17 May 2024

Janie discovered Mason’s Court while e-rummaging on our previous trip and I agreed that I should try and secure that place for our next trip if I was able.

I was able.

You can see from the headline picture that this wonky so-called Tudor design predates the more linear Mock Tudor that followed it:

Noddyland, Built c1930, Occupied by me and Janie c2011

Our hosts had clearly done due diligence on us and wanted to make me to feel at home by putting up a portrait of me in the dining room:

When depicted from the correct angle, it is almost impossible to distinguish between the two images:

But joking apart, we loved staying in Mason’s Court, despite and because of its genuine late-medieval wonkiness and deference to “Shakespeare-pilgrims”, as a large proportion of the house guests no doubt come from that cohort.

We’d thoroughly recommend 3 Mason’s Court – here is an Airbnb link. Don’t be put off if the link looks struck through – it should still work.

On the first evening we had booked to have dinner at The Opposition, as we had tried Lambs for the first time in decades on our previous visit. We like both of those places a lot and were not disappointed by the quality of the food and service at The Opposition, still, after all these years.

Monday 14 October 2024

Despite the promise of good weather for our trip, the weather gods chose to drizzle upon us for almost the entirety of our short visit this time, confounding our planned trip or two to the tennis club. Indeed we left the tennis equipment in Dumbo throughout our stay, as he was blessed with a private parking space and police protection to go with it:

Dumbo is discretely secreted just beyond the police sign

Dumbo was a bit nervous of parking alongside the police station. Despite being a relentlessly honest vehicle and a pandemic hero…

Dumbo, One Of The Unsung Heroes Of The Pandemic Volunteer Effort, Reflects On 2020, 1 January 2021

…as anyone crazy/interested enough to delve into Dumbo’s canon will discover, he was traumatised by an early experience when he was stopped and searched by the fuzz for seemingly no good reason.

But I digress.

We knew we were seeing a long play on the Monday and had brought grub with us for a light meal of smoked fishes on our return from the play.

During one of the breaks in the rain we made a short trip to the shops (five minutes walk) to get one or two additional provisions, including stocking up on cheap confectionary for the impending Halloween invasion at Noddyland:

Nightmare In Noddyland, Halloween Night, 31 October 2017

But I digress some more.

In the evening we went to see The New Real at The Other Place. I have written that up separately.

The New Real by David Edgar, The Other Place, 14 October 2024

Our fishy supper at Mason’s Court was a delight and we both felt we had earned a glass or few of wine after more than two-and-a-half hours of The New Real.

Tuesday 15 October 2024

More drizzle, but heck, we had some lovely provisions in for lunch (including some very tasty bread from MOR.)

We had also made an executive decision to try The Giggling Squid for dinner as a takeaway, given that the restaurant was two or three minutes walk from our place and we had such a lovely environment in which to dine at home.

Further, I had brought Benjy The Baritone Ukulele with me and felt inspired by the Chandos “Shakespeare” portrait in Mason’s Court to lay down a lyric sung to the traditional tune The Mason’s Apron, the lyric being – Oor Hamlet by Adam McNaughton. (The latter link has the original version of McNaughton’s performance and lyrics). My version owes also to Martin Carthy’s version, with the Scots lingo toned down a bit. Here’s mine:

Not my finest performance, but something I felt compelled to get out of my system.

The staff at Giggling Squid were delightful and helped us to choose a very tasty meal. We’d certainly be happy…keen even…to try some more of their Thai food on a future visit.

Wednesday 16 October 2024

Still drizzling in Stratford but the weather forecast told us that London would be different…

…which it was.

So we did finally get a game of tennis during this short break, but back on our regular courts in London. Which is sort-of how the break started, as we played on Sunday morning before setting off for Stratford. So it goes.

We have another short autumn break in a 15th Century cottage in an old market town lined up very soon…watch this space, readers!

The New Real by David Edgar, The Other Place, 14 October 2024

Not to be confused with The Other Palace, in Westminster, which I visited with my old school pals a few days earlier…

“You’re Only Young Once But You Can Be Immature Forever”, Dinner With Fellow Alleyn’s Alums, Then Tink by Lizzy Connolly & Kat Kleve, The Other Palace, 8 October 2024

…this visit to The Other Place, in Stratford-Upon-Avon, was the excuse for me and Janie to take a short break in that wonderful town this autumn.

A Short Autumn Break In A 15th Century Cottage In An Old Market Town Part One: Stratford-Upon-Avon, 13 to 16 October 2024

We’re big fans of David Edgar’s plays. Indeed, this was our second David Edgar premier in the past few weeks – his plays seem to come along with the regularity of London buses these days (nothing for ages, then two together):

Here In America by David Edgar, Orange Tree Theatre, 14 September 2024

But in truth I cannot rave about The New Real the way I raved about Here In America.

There was a lot to like about The New Real. Terrific cast who all acted superbly well. Excellent production using the traverse stage and screen effects well. But the overall effect of this rather long play was a sense of over-stimulation by the end of it. So many ideas about politics. So many screen and stage effects. And relatively little human drama to illustrate rather than declaim the points David Edgar wanted to make.

Anyway, despite both coming out of the experience with headaches of over-stimulation, we’re both glad that we have seen this play.

Here is a link to the RSC resources on this one, which will tell you all about the cast and creatives and that sort of thing.

Here is a Google search which should find reviews for this play/production. I believe many/most reviews express a similar view on this play/production to ours…but perhaps with a bit more critical heft than I choose to muster.

“You’re Only Young Once But You Can Be Immature Forever”, Dinner With Fellow Alleyn’s Alums, Then Tink by Lizzy Connolly & Kat Kleve, The Other Palace, 8 October 2024

Olly Goodwin having received his Olly-Vier Theatre Award from Rohan Candappa

The above quote comes from Germaine Greer. It is apposite to both elements of the enjoyable evening I am about to describe.

“It was Candappa’s fault, Sir”. That non-quote is nevertheless true – this evening would not have happened, had it not been for Rohan Candappa doing his thing, both in terms of keeping us ’73-’80 Alleyn’s alums together and in helping to promote writing and theatrical talent.

Kat Kleve first came into my orbit when she worked with Rohan on One Starts in a Barber’s, One Starts in a Bar, which several of us Alleyn’s alums first saw at the Gladstone Arms in the autumn of 2018, after which it went to Edinburgh the next year and ultimately Kat’s bit ended up being Rohan’s first Lockdown Theatre production, And You Are? You can read all about it by clicking here or the link below.

And You Are? by Rohan Candappa, Lockdown Theatre Company, 24 March 2020

At the time, I gave that piece the wildest praise I could conjure at the time:

Better than watching Boris Johnson telling you what to do and what not to do – Ian Harris, Ogblog.

Strangely, neither Kat nor Rohan latched on to that quote for promotional purposes at the time. Pearls…

…anyway, this time around Kat is performing her own show, written with Lizzy Connelly, named Tink. The play did famously well at Edinburgh in 2023 and now has a London run at The Other Palace. Book early to avoid disappointment.

Hence Rohan’s idea for us alums to meet up there for a bite, a drink and a show.

As coincidence would have it, Olly Goodwin was a Trustee of The Theatres Trust back when The Other Palace was just an idea. Olly was instrumental in helping that project get its planning permission. If you have ever wondered why that building has a glorious but perhaps incongruous-looking marble staircase…

…ask Olly. And if you have ever wondered why Rohan thought fit to award Olly Goodwin with an Olly-Vier Theatre Award…see headline photo…the answer is intrinsically connected to the above coincidence.

The food was pretty good and the serving staff delightful at The Other Palace, even when Olly exclaimed:

Hey, why have you served Ben with his drink before serving mine, which I ordered earlier?…

…ignoring the large glass of wine that the waitress had placed in front of him a few moments before serving Ben. That wine glass is also commemorated in the headline picture.

Here is the whole scene just before we went into the theatre…except that my lens isn’t wide enough to have captured all the group and I have cruelly left out our ringleader, Rohan.

You’ll just have to take my word for it that Rohan is like a kid in the proximity of a candy store on such occasions.

Ah, there he is…

Actually, we all tend to display our inner overgrown schoolboy modes when we get together, which is at least some of the point behind getting together. As Germaine Greer said:

You’re Only Young Once But You Can Be Immature Forever.

Anyway, recollecting our youth over dinner will have helped prepare us for the coming of age musical, Tink, which we then went down the Olly Goodwin Memorial Marble Staircase to see.

Tink by Lizzy Connolly & Kat Kleve

Here is a link to the Other Place information and resources on this show.

Here’s the trailer:

The conceit of the piece is that the central character – this is a one person show – is a modern Tinkerbell, growing up in the early 21st century rather than the early 20th century character in Peter Pan.

Not in truth my type of show, but Kat Kleve is a very talented and versatile performer, so there was plenty to enjoy in the performance.

It’s basically a coming of age story set in a fairies and elves context, which seemed startlingly like a human context to me. I liked the agonies Tink goes through around trying too hard to be the best at everything (which, it seems, is not guaranteed to make you popular – who knew?) and the social mores around how to dress and behave at teenage parties.

Especially interesting, to me, was the business around social media, which hadn’t been invented when we were kids. I’d long suspected that it is probably even harder to bee a teenager now than it was back in our day – this play illustrated some of the reasons why.

The songs are not really my type of songs either. They reminded me a little of Ed Sheeran and Meghan Trainor style singer-songwriter songs. Very well delivered, though. Here is an example of one of the songs:

That style of song might be spot on for the intended audience for this show, which I imagine to be a bit younger than me. We were there for the opening night and didn’t feel out of place, but I suspect that the average age of the audience will come down a decade or two on most other nights…

…apart from the nights for which Rohan is taking a posse of his friends.

The show runs until 20 October, so if you are reading this in time you might well want to click this link and grab some tickets, before dynamic pricing takes Kat Kleve out of your price range.

Beryl Cook: A Private View, Written, Performed & Painted by Kara Wilson, Finborough Theatre, 5 October 2024

Tea In the Garden by Beryl Cook, Copyright The Artist, fair use for this piece, low quality image via Wikimedia Commons

This was an interesting and enjoyable visit to the Finborough, albeit not the most drama-strewn visit we have ever made to that place.

Beryl Cook is an interesting character in that she found art later in life and lacked both the inhibitions of her generation and the pretentions of her chosen field. But she basically led a conventional provincial middle-class life that lacked drama. The play is therefore a collection of Beryl Cook’s own comments and things said about her in interviews. Interesting, but not dramatic.

The thing that makes this performance piece unusual is that Kara Wilson, in the persona of Beryl Cook, paints an artwork during the hour of the show. That aspect was truly fascinating.

As we understand it, The Finborough arranged this run with Kara Wilson at relatively short notice, when the theatre’s autumn plans went awry.

This engaging theatrical work enjoyed a successful run at Edinburgh – many of the formal reviews you might find about it relate to that run, although several are now emerging from The Finborough run too. Click here for reviews.

We also enjoyed the discussion afterwards.

Don’t you find it difficult to perform a solo play and paint at the same time for an hour?

…asked Janie, which I imagine was a question that had passed through everyone’s mind, but no-one had yet asked the question.

Yes, very.

…said Kara.

Good answer.

If you get to this review in time, this run is on until 26 October at The Finborough – click here for tickets and/or The Finborough’s stub on this production if you are interested in that.

Oud Have Thought It?: Rihab Azar Session At Wigmore Hall (Learning Room), 4 October 2024

We were keen to see this solo early evening concert by the virtuoso oud player of Syrian origin, Rihab Azar. The oud is a basically a Middle-Eastern fretless lute – indeed the instrument from which the Western lute derived.

We were not disappointed – the concert was truly lovely.

Here is a link to the Wigmore Hall resources on this concert.

For those who cannot be fussed to click, this is what we heard:

  • Ahmad Al Khatib – Extract from Suznak Rhapsody
  • Rihab Azar – Enchanted Weavers
  • Adnan Abul-Shamat – Hatiha Ya Sah
  • Rihab Azar – Biography of a Bubble
  • Rihab Azar – Samaie
  • Rihab Azar – Questions
  • Rihab Azar – The Pull of Time
  • Anouar Brahem – Parfum de Gitane
  • Rihab Azar -Indulgence
  • Rihab Azar -Sand, Roots & Blossoms.

Here is a charming video of Rihab Azar playing one of the lovely pieces we heard, Indulgence, on the very same seven-course oud that we heard:

The concert was held in the Learning Room (formerly known as the Bechstein Room), which the Wigmore Hall team had set up beautifully in a “jazz club with tables” style and some suitably Middle-eastern-looking drapes. Very atmpospheric.

Soon after the concert began, an old twerp with a massive Canon camera and several large lenses came forward from the rear of the room and sat next to us at our table, fiddling away with his camera and snapping with seeming abandon. Janie thought he must have been an official publicist or something, until a member of staff stepped forward at the end of the piece and politely but firmly told the geezer that it was not permitted to take pictures during the performance – a fairly obvious point that, in the main hall, would have been made as part of the pre-announcements these days, now that everyone has cameras (smart phones) on them all the time.

The old geezer feigned surprise and confusion. Then he proceeded to fiddle with his equipment ceaselessly during the performance and snap with reckless abandon between each piece.

The staff clearly made a decision, rightly or wrongly, that further intervention would be more disruptive than letting the old git have his way.

Rihab Azar took all this with great grace. She even took with great grace the same geezer stopping the concert just before she played her last piece, with a request for “something old school”, because he hadn’t been expecting her use of the loop pedal and wanted to hear the oud without it.

Rihab sweetly said that she had to play her planned last piece, but that she would additionally play a short traditional piece without loop pedal (I cannot remember what it was, but it was delightful) before the last scheduled piece (which was also but differently delightful).

If you, like the old git, want to hear “old school” oud, here is the Parfume de Gitane piece played by the composer, Anouar Brahem, and his mates back in 1997:

No wonder Rihab Azar was insistent on playing her closing number – it was especially charming and is her latest piece, Sand, Roots & Blossoms. designed to accompany an art exhibition,  “The Universe Within”. here is a link to the performance she posted, from that exhibition, a few days after our gig:

At the end of our concert, several members of the audience let the witless git know how they felt about him. One said that he had ruined their enjoyment of the concert, which seemed a bit extreme. We were the closest to his fiddling and we just thought he was a twerp.

Mr Twerp engaged us in conversation once he had beaten back his detractors. He clearly wanted us to know that he was a guitar player (he must have said “Fender” three times) and spoke in critical terms about the loop pedal back-tracking (which we rather liked) and the fact that Rihab Azar “looked at the neck of her instrument too much”.

“Have you ever played a fretless instrument?”, I asked. He hadn’t, but pointed out to me, entirely counterfactually, that the oud has frets…or at least Rihab Azar’s did! (Oh no it doesn’t…oh no it didn’t).

Janie then wondered, given his desire for “old school oud playing”, whether Mr Git had ever been to Syria. Of course he hadn’t. “Oh you should, you’d find it fascinating”, said Janie.

Janie correctly remembered seeing oud playing at Abu Al-Azz in Damascus in 1997

I quietly wondered whether the old geezer would survive 20 minutes in Syria these days. Even in 1997, some diplomacy was needed to navigate the political regime and local sensitivities wherever we went. Perhaps that was in Janie’s mind when she recommended the place to Mr Twerpy Git, the amateur photographer-guitarist.

After we parted company with the fellow, Janie told me that she had wanted to take a picture of him for the blog, but thought him so mercurial that the request might lead to an argument and that permission to publish would probably not be granted. I agreed that her decision was a wise one.

I decided instead to help you visualise this geezer by prompting the DeepAI image generator with the phrase:

Silly Old bald Man taking a photo with a telephoto lens camera

The following image, very much of the right kind, emerged:

We had a lovely time at this concert and for sure will return to “Learning Room Sessions” if the subject matter pleases us.

Let’s leave the last word to Rihab Azar’s beautiful oud-playing: