It’s A Funny New Game by Mark Keegan & John Random, Canal Café Theatre, 10 June 2026

John Random IS VAR (Victorian Animated Referee)

Football is not really my thing, but friendship that spans decades is. I used to write Newsrevue material with these fellas., back in the day…

Happy Tories, NewsRevue Lyric, 26 April 1992

The above is a very relevant early example of my “work”, not least because Victoria (whose father I was spoofing in that lyric) directed and appeared in It’s A Funny New Game.

Anyway, I took the very slight detour from my regular routes twixt W2 and NW8 to revisit the Canal Café Theatre and see friends Mark Keegan and John Random in their football-oriented comedy show, It’s A Funny New Game.

The show is timed to coincide with the advent of a football world cup and much of the comedy is thus topical. What else would you expect from former Newsrevue stalwarts?

It was lovely to meet up with some of the old Newsrevue crowd the night I attended: Barry Grossman, Graham Robertson and even a special guest appearance from Harriet Quirk, which was a lovely surprise.

The show is bound to be funnier to people who understand the football jokes than it was to me. But some of the humour is universal, as are the characters. Egotist Barry Mousetrap – a theatrical football manager who struggles to separate compering a show with managing a football team. The god-fearing, temperance-touting Victorian referee played by John Random, who also excelled as a 120-year-old Uruguayan retired footballer, who recalls being chased by adoring female fans in the style of Pete & Dud: “Calm down girls, back off, form a orderly queue”…or words to that effect.

I enjoyed the video fillers that enabled some costume changes and provided some relief from the on-stage mayhem. The Sense & Sensibility spoof particularly pleased me (I’m partial to a bit of Jane Austen) although the football puns in that one were all wasted on me as I couldn’t contextualise them.

I could contextualise the Mastermind sketch, in which the England goalkeeper takes “inadvertently naming each member of England 2026 World Cup squad” as his specialist subject. This worked so well because, even if you didn’t know the names that were yet to come, you sort-of know that some of the names are going to be quite difficult to dovetail into a simple question and answer. Bellingham made me laugh out loud.

It was a game of one half, this show, as the whole show lasts about the length of one half of a football match. I think that’s about the right length for such a show.

But if you were not sated by my write up or by seeing the show, there is a book, linked below, available through that link or through other reputable and disreputable outlets.

Well done lads. Top performances. Now it’s time for your ice bath.

Are You Watching? by Georgie Dettmer, Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, 30 May 2026

Shakespeare it isn’t. Google Flow picture morphing The Bard with Meself.

I was reminded of one of my favourite Peter Cook quotes, when seeing a preview of this one.

I go to the theatre to be entertained… I don’t want to see plays about rape, sodomy and drug addiction… I can get all that at home.

I also predicted with word perfect accuracy what Janie would say as soon as she felt able to express her opinion on the play:

Everything but the kitchen sink…

…and of course, kitchen sink drama should be what The Royal Court is all about.

I’m being a tad unfair, but only a tad. The core subject matter(s) of this play – sexploitation, sexual violence and the nether worlds where computer/AI fakery morph with human fakery – are hugely important topics in 2026 and worthy of coverage in drama.

The problem I have with a 65 minute long play, depicting 52 (that is not a misprint) different scenes, is that the drama is barely able to emerge through the fog of scene and personnel changes on stage.

It reminded me a bit of Martin Crimp‘s work – but unfortunately the Crimp that baffles us rather than the Crimp that does the business for us.

The actors did their best and several of them are among the best stage actors around at the moment; Lucy McCormick, Maimuna Memon and Nicholas Rowe stood out for me.

This relatively short run has sold out ahead of even opening, so my thoughts on the piece won’t be affecting readers go/no go decisions anyway. In any case, the formal reviews (which are starting to come out and which the search term if you click here will find) are surely less harsh than my and Janie’s judgements.

Georgie Dettmer clearly has a lot to say and is surely capable of saying the things she wants to say through playwriting. I would like to see how she gets on with chunkier scenes, trying to explore some of those dramatic depths.

I go to the theatre to be entertained… I don’t want to see plays that jump around a myriad of important topics at a rate of 50 matters per hour… I can get all that at home.

Equus by Peter Shaffer, Menier Chocolate Factory, 16 May 2026

A very kind invitation from Claudia Lesley, who had scored a clutch of excellent seats for this production early in the run and thought of us. It was a great opportunity for Janie to met up with her old school pals, Claudia and Anthea. Plus what looked to be a very promising production of Equus, a play that I had studied at school but, apart from the movie version, had never seen.

Janie and I are both partial to a bit of Shaffer too. I had read or seen (or both) most of his oeuvre. Actually one of Janie’s and my early dates was a Shaffer:

The Gift Of The Gorgon by Peter Shaffer, The Pit, 12 December 1992

Janie even (perhaps inadvertently) forgave Shaffer for his proclivity for theatrical dames who are not Janie’s favourites. Judy (e.g. Gift Of the Gorgon) and Maggie (in several Shaffers throughout my life, starting with The Public Eye and more recently Lettice and Lovage, which I saw back in the day).

Lettice And Lovage by Peter Shaffer, Globe Theatre, 30 January 1988

Lindsay Posner is a superb director who possibly wanted to continue the family (if not stage dame) tradition for Shaffer plays, by choosing Toby Stephens (Dame Maggie’s son) to play Martin Dysart, the psychiatrist. Great choice. Toby Stephens absolutely smashed it in that role.

Noah Valentine was excellent as the troubled boy. Indeed the whole cast was excellent.

Equus is a long play and the Menier has a bum-numbing seating, but somehow this didn’t seem to matter, as the production was so good, the time seemed to fly by without physical discomfort for us. For the actors, possibly more discomfort, as it was a very well-choreographed production that surely required great feats of strength and dexterity at times, especially from the ensemble “horses”.

This link should find on-line reviewed for this production until the end of the world, if not longer.

Before the show, Janie and I had a hair-raising drive across London with multiple demonstrations and road-blockages in place. I had strategically worked out a route, which worked well, but hadn’t counted on unscheduled (and unconnected) road closures nearer to the theatre blocking off my chosen parking places.

Still, we got to Borough Market on time for a pre-theatre supper of fish at Fish!, with Claudia and Anthea, which was a very pleasant way to start the evening. Not our usual way round for theatre (eating before rather than after) but the only sensible way to have done this one.

I’m Not Being Funny by Piers Black, Bush Studio, 14 May 2026

I suppose this piece “does what it says on the tin” by not being funny. For us, I’m afraid, this play, which we saw in preview, is not entertaining or enlightening either.

We’re huge fans of The Bush and are rarely disappointed when we visit either the main house or the studio, but this one missed the mark for us.

But it didn’t miss the mark for everyone – the reviews have been pretty good – click here for a link to them.

So maybe the problem with it is us, not them.

Which could easily be a line from this play…indeed it could be many lines from the 90 minutes of achingly mawkish conversation and attempts at comedic patter, as the tragedy-struck couple in this two-hander try to use performing stand-up comedy together in an open mic session as therapy.

We thought that both performers, Tia Bannon & Jerome Yates, dragged as much as could be dragged out of the script. For us, it was the conceit of the play and the predictable story that emerged through their attempts at making comedy out of tragedy, that didn’t work for us.

Here’s the trailer.

The run has been extended even prior to the show opening, so the idea of it has clearly sold well. Running until 13 June if you want to take other people’s word for it rather than ours.

A Follow Up Open Letter To Colm Holmes, Allianz UK CEO, Regarding Root Causes & Issues That Led To The Now Resolved Complaint In The Woodfield Avenue Subsidence Case

1980 in Woodfield Avenue; Back When I Thought Cases Were Just For Cassette Tapes

Dear Colm,

FOLLOW UP REGARDING ROOT CAUSES AND ISSUES THAT LED TO NOW RESOLVED COMPLAINT

RE: 3 WOODFIELD AVENUE, STREATHAM, LONDON SW16

You might recall my open letter of 6 April…

An Open Letter To Colm Holmes, Allianz UK CEO, Wondering Why, More Than Six Months After The Financial Ombudsman Ruled In My Favour In The Woodfield Avenue Subsidence Case (2019 To Present Day), I Am Still Fighting A Wall Of Silence, 6 April 2026

…in which I pointed out that, more than six months after a legally binding, final decision from the Financial Ombudsman Service, the matter was still being delayed and ignored by Allianz.  I can confirm that, within a few working days of my public outburst, the outstanding financial settlements flowed in my direction, as did the long overdue warranties and certificates, such that the matter is now resolved.

Janie, my wife, wondered whether I was relieved and satisfied now that the claim is over.  As the days have gone on, I realise that I am much relieved but not much satisfied.  I still don’t understand why my claim and complaint were such an omnishambles over a period of nearly seven years, yet finally resolved so quickly once I barked in public. I am also convinced that most Allianz clients, when faced with such sustained obstruction, would have given up and not achieved a fair outcome.

In my 6 April letter, I requested comments and proposed actions from you.  I still await those.  Let me set out in a little more detail the areas that I think need your attention:

  • In the matter of six months of silence after the ombudsman’s decision:
    • Who in Allianz is responsible for following up with clients following an ombudsman’s decision and why did they go silent on me for so long?,
    • Does Allianz not investigate internally adverse ombudsman decisions to ensure that the matter is properly resolved in the aftermath of the decision?  Also to learn lessons to prevent recurrance of such adverse cases? It should – using staff independent of those who were previously involved with the case.
  • In the matter of the ombudsman process itself, the matter took more than a year, which the ombudsman investigator explained was due to consistent requests for extensions by Allianz and the furnishing, by Allianz, of 12,000 pages of defence documentation. That is clearly disproportionate. I provided some 100 pages to support my original sumbission plus a further 20 to meet the investigator’s requests:
    • Shouldn’t Allianz be working in good faith and co-operation with the ombudsman? It is impossible for me to believe that such a drawn out process, manifestly swamping the process with an excess of detail, might have been conducted by Allianz in good faith.  The only other conclusion I can draw is that the Allianz people assigned to the case were vastly under-skilled and under-trained in handling ombudsman cases,
    • I believe that the ombudsman should have powers to penalise financial institutions (as well as award compensation to and specify actions for clients) when cases are met with delays and obfuscation to the detriment of the ombudsman service as well as to the detriment of the client. Do you agree?
  • With regard to the entirety of my claim, between 2019 and its conclusion last month, there were extended periods of delay and also dishonest conduct by Allianz and/or its agents. The worst example being the false claim that there was separate storm damage at the house in January 2021, whereas the truth was that the agents had done no work on the house for many weeks, even after being notified of water ingress arising from the subsidence damage:
    • Did any internal investigation/intra agency complaints/sanctions occur in the light of that dismal and dishonest performance. If not, why not?  My claim handler at Allianz promised me that it would, as part of his entreaty to me not to take legal action at that juncture,
    • Is part of the problem the lack of clarity in a system that has so many agents from different organisations working on such a case, (seemingly) not communicating well with each other?  The Allianz claim handler, the Crawford loss adjuster, the agents of the loss adjuster doing the remedial work, the Allianz complaints people… Not only was it sometimes unclear to me who was responsible for delays or problems, it was seemingly unclear to the very people who were supposed to be resolving the problems.  But matters are especially opaque here to the client, as the information asymmetries add to the agency problems that abound in such a set up.  My sense is that the several agents are motivated to look after their own corporate corner, e.g. keep the claim within budget or mark some element of a complaint “resolved”, to a far greater extent than they are motivated actually to resolve the claim and settle matters satisfactorily with the client,
    • Without wishing to sound rude or disparaging of the whole insurance sector, my sense is that this byzantine set up is designed to obfuscate, and pass the blame for delays and bad practice back and forth, with no-one taking responsibility. That is shameful.

In short, I sense a massive ethical gap between the claims of the insurance sector – that it acts with professionalism, in the utmost good faith, striving to support its clients at a time of vulnerablility – with the reality of the sector’s practices. Allianz at the moment seems to be an especially bad example, in which case you, Colm, have a massive job on your hands to make good in your company. But I also sense that the whole insurance sector/profession need to take a long look at itself and seek to improve, through self-regulation and/or through substantial strengthening of the ombudsman’s powers.

I have heard from your new complaints manager, Michael Torres,  who would like to discuss matters with me. I am happy to do so with him, but the complaints department shortcomings are only part of the problem; more symptom than cause.  The essence of these shortcomings arise from the causes of complaints.  I am willing to speak with relevant senior people at Allianz to help you understand and improve, but not to be fobbed off or to take up yet more of my time to no purpose. If you show serious intent on Allianz’s part to address the root causes of these issues, then I’ll gladly engage with Allianz, purposefully.  I still await your comments and proposed actions with great interest.

Yours sincerely,

Ian Harris

SOLE DIRECTOR & SHAREHOLDER

cc: The Financial Ombudsman Service, BBC Radio 4 ‘You and Yours’ (Investigation Desk), BBC ‘Money Box’ (Consumer Redress Team), Crawford & Company, Michael Torres (Allianz)

1978 in Woodfield Avenue: Back When I Thought I Could Always Pick Up The Phone, Speak With Someone Sensibly & Resolve Issues Promptly.

Heart Wall by Kit Withington, Bush Theatre, 25 April 2026

Janie and I thoroughly enjoyed this simple five-hander, about a purportedly successful young woman returning to her home town near Manchester.

Much of the play is set in the pub, which gives the piece a bit of a soap-opera-like feel, as does the play’s narrative arc. But there is depth to the emotions and interactions in this play that take the piece into dramatic territory that works wonderfully well as live theatre.

Janie and I would highly recommend this production.

The performance starts (or pre-starts) with an element of immersive experience. The Charlene character is singing karaoke in the pub. Bad Romance by Lady Gaga, seeing as you asked. Go on, give it a go. It’s not easy to belt, so hats off to Olivia Forrest for fooling Janie for a few seconds before we walked in.

Members of the audience were invited by barman/DJ Valentine (Aaron Stanley) to give it a go. No, Janie and I resisted the temptation. But one pair of women from the audience gave a pretty serviceable account of Flowers by Miley Cyrus, then a cunning chap volunteered to sing Tequila, which must be the “minimum effort, maximum reward” option for karaoke. Finally , one brave fellow tried singing Crocodile Rock, perhaps secure in the knowledge that his falsetto la, la-la-la-la-las could almost make up for the inadequacy of the rest. That’s karaoke for you.

Mercifully, the play proper started after that. Rowan Robinson, Deka Walmsley, Olivia Forrest, Sophie Stanton and Aaron Anthony all acted their roles superbly well. Well directed by Katie Greenall, whose name was new to us, but we’ll be looking out for that name again henceforward.

Having praised the pre show Bad Romance karaoke rendering, I should also, for balance, praise Sophie Stanton’s karaoke Brass In Pocket towards the end of the play. Not an easy one.

Here’s a link to The Bush resources for this production, which includes some video trailers if you want to see those.

At the time of writing, this production still has a couple of weeks to run.

Here is a link that should yield formal reviews of this production long into the future, if you want to read more about it, or if you don’t take our word for it!

Some 25 Years After Janie & I Started Playing Tennis At Boston Manor Park…Coach Ray Has A Retirement Party At Which He Has Me Bard, 25 April 2026

Ray being introduced by Janice

It is hard for me and Janie to remember a time when Ray was not a constant feature of tennis in Boston Manor Park. We have always played at the weekends. On Saturday mornings, for more than two decades, we would witness Ray enthusiastically showing children the basics of tennis on Court One. On the occasions when we could play during the week, such as Monday mornings, we’d come across Ray again, stewarding some (mostly) women’s doubles.

Ray’s thoughtfulness and courtesy towards other players at the courts was impeccable. One of the many reasons why Janie and I became sure that Boston Manor Tennis Club, is “our sort of place”.

All good things come to an end. Ray has decided to hang up his racket. Would we care to join him and other members past and present for an afternoon party across the way in Blondin Park? Linda Massey was organising a bit of a do. How could we possibly have missed that?

Dozens and dozens of Ray’s friends, family and former tennis trainees stopped by to help Ray celebrate. The April weather smiled on Ray’s party – no more than he deserved. In fact, it was a bit of a scorcher. I decided to protect my head with my new pillbox cap, which I plan to sport when watching cricket and tennis this season.

I have long thought that Janie and I might be the last remaining players at Boston Manor who have been there since before Ray’s time. Very few people played there when we started playing in that park and Ray came along to get activities moving soon after we joined.

Ray confirmed that factoid in his speech, while also making reference to a playful comment by one of the youngsters alluding to my resemblance to a certain well-known writer from days of yore – the short clip below says it all:

No-one had pointed out this resemblance before…at least, not this month they hadn’t.

Ray was far too polite to point the finger at the offending youngster…which is more than can be said for that youngster’s dad, who approached me on the tennis courts a few days later, struggling to suppress his giggles, confessing that his son was the culprit. Hmm.

Have more than thou showest, Speak less than thou knowest…

…as The Bard so eloquently put it, in King Lear.

Boston Manor Tennis Club won’t quite be the same place again without Ray, but his efforts (and those of many others) helped transform that small tennis club, and indeed the whole park, into a thriving and friendly community place.

Ray might well smile with satisfaction

Between The River And The Sea by Yousef Sweid & Isabella Sedlak, Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, 18 April 2026

Gosh, this piece was extremely good.

I guess you might describe it as stand-up theatre. Just one performer, Yousef Sweid, telling and acting out his story:

Yousef was raised as a Christian-Arab-Palestinian-Israeli kid in Haifa, and is now raising two Jewish-Arab-Austrian kids in Berlin. Only he’s facing a custody battle, so things are getting complicated…

This link to the Royal Court resources on the production explains more.

On entering the theatre, Janie and I ran into my old pal from the health club and Lord’s, Stephen Barry, who I hadn’t seen or heard from for quite some time…

Lord’s-related Lunches 6 & 10 April 2018, Then Middlesex v Northants Day One, Lord’s, 13 April 2018

…with his wife, Lindy. Being the Royal Court Upstairs, we were able to sit together and chat a while before the play started. Stephen does wonderful charitable work with refugees from that part of the world, but in any case, it seems, has become even more of a Royal Court regular than me and Janie, although this is the first time I remember overlapping with him there.

Anyway, returning to Between the River And The Sea…

…this beautifully written and performed piece seemed, to us, pitch perfect in illustrating the human side of the tragedies unfolding in the Middle East. Yousef Sweid is highly charismatic and his story is told with eloquence, charm and humour. Not everyone can tell their stories in this way, but everyone from that part of the world has their stories about their childhoods, their friendships, their animosities and their tragedies.

I would challenge anyone who has a heart to hear the final few sentences of the piece without being profoundly moved. I’m sure Stephen wouldn’t mind me letting on that he quietly shed a few tears

This Royal Court run is sold out – it probably sold out soon after I bought our tickets some months ago.

As I often find myself saying, but mean with special intensity in this case – this production deserves to be seen by a much wider audience.

This link will find you reviews of the production, if the “edited highlights” in this Royal Court stub are not enough.

MCC Women’s Day At Lord’s, With Special Guest Star – John Fry, 17 April 2026

The pavilion was a bit less crowded than this…actually a lot less crowded

John Fry and I had not really kept in touch at all after leaving Alleyn’s School back before the dawn of time. We were in the same class for, we think, just one year – the third year for me and the first year for him. We were both fast-tracked into the Bear Pit when just 15 – in John’s case on the grounds of talent and in my case possibly because I was in the right place at the right time to look the part.

Andorra, 23, 24 & 25 February 1978

Anyway, for reasons too daft to explain, John re-engaged with me earlier this year and invited me to a delightful lunch at his club, The Union Club, in late January 2026.

I wanted to reciprocate, but I don’t really have a club. Well, I suppose I do – the MCC, but John doesn’t much like cricket.

The solution was to invite John to Lord’s on a minor match day, when the ground is not crowded, the lunch is still a decent lunch and the cricket is as important or unimportant as you want it to be. John had never seen the place before and liked the idea.

Hence MCC Women’s Day.

I played tennis first thing against Paul Buchanan-Barrow who, coincidentally, had been my doubles partner 18 months earlier in the famous international fixture against the visitors from Newport, Rhode Island. Coincidental, because Paul and I had done battle with a women’s pair that day.

A Joyful Day Of International Real (Court) Tennis At Lord’s, Followed By Dinner, With The Burghers Of Newport Rhode Island, 13 November 2024

Paul wasn’t sticking around for the women’s cricket, so I waited alone for John, taking in a bit of the atmosphere of the day. Despite the early season scheduling, it was actually a bright sunny day which offered to be warm enough to watch in the great outdoors by afternoon.

But first, on John’s arrival, I thought I’d give him the informal pavilion tour. Rather unexpectedly, we ran into the Club President, Ed Smith, who greeted me warmly as we had not seen each other for some time, and later also the Chairman and CEO, all of whom were showing their faces and/or entertaining folk on this quiet but iconic day.

The potentially pompous experience reminded me of the following 2009 evening I wrote up for King Cricket…

Middlesex v Lancashire Pro 40 match report

…in which my old friend Stentor Baritone and I showed young Lavender and Escamillo around the pavilion.

That made me wonder what had become of Stentor, as I hadn’t heard from him since before the pandemic. Nor had he heard from me. I resolved to get in touch with Stentor by e-mail some time soon, but, strangely, Daisy and I bumped into him at The Royal Court Theatre the very next evening. Now that’s weird.

John seemed to be enjoying the cricket more than I thought he would, but I managed to wrestle him away from such distractions from our main purpose, taking lunch in the Long Room Bar, then showing him the library and the tennis court and the Performance Centre. There we took some tea in Filipa’s and watched the sun starting to come out in reasonable force.

That gave us the courage to watch some cricket from the Mound Stand, where normal people sit and watch and where you can take a little early season sun.

The day flew by, as Lord’s days do.

While gently watching on, John mentioned, in passing, that he had “a little bit of cricket heritage” in his family. Somewhere in the cousinhood, he couldn’t quite remember, women cricketers – twins as it happens. He’d try to track down the reference later.

The next morning, this reference/link arrived from John.

THE  BLAKERS OF KENT

I felt a surge of imposter syndrome – wondering whether my guests have more right (at least by birthright) to be hosts at Lord’s than I do – similar to the feeling I had when I took John Random to Lord’s seven years ago. Another friend who claimed no connection with cricket…except for his grandfather Herbert Ireland who was a doyen of Widnes CC to the extent that the function room at that club is named after him. See the Thursday entry “A Random Ramble Around Lord’s” in the diary piece below.

In And Out Of Lord’s For Four Days, Middlesex v Leicestershire, 14 to 17 May 2019

It must be something about people named John with equity surnames and left leanings.

Random as Trotsky

Joking apart, it was a most enjoyable day milling around Lord’s with John Fry.

“And the cricket?”, I hear you cry. Really? You can read all about it here. In fact, if you really want to, you can even watch it all on the stream recording, below:

El Llanto De La Guitarra, Samrat Majumder, Wigmore Hall, 14 April 2026

A delicious lunchtime concert of classical guitar. Samrat Majumder is a young guitarist who is clearly going places. He played an interesting programme of music spanning five centuries, although the 17th and 18th missed out in the jump from renaissance to classical/romantic periods.

We heard:

  • Luys de Narváez – Canción del Emperador
  • Alonso Mudarra – Fantasia No. 10
  • Fernando Sor – Grand Solo Op. 14
  • Enrique Granados – Valses poéticos
  • Manuel de Falla – Homenaje ‘pour le tombeau de Claude Debussy’
  • Antonio José – Guitar Sonata
  • Encore – Isaac Albéniz – Granada (Serenata)

Here’s a lovely vid of Samrat, a couple of years ago, playing the charming Mudarra piece we heard.

After the gig, Janie and I floated a couple of doors down, to look at posh cookers. That hadn’t always been part of the plan, but that mission ended up fitting in with our plans very well indeed.

If you want to know more about Samrat, this video is a mini documentary/interview with him: