I don’t recall much about this one and the diary is a mess for it. I suspect that the mention of Bobbie on the Friday and The Wonder on the Saturday ended up being one and the same evening. So I’m guessing that I saw this production with Bobbie on one of those evenings.
There’s the diary page for that week. If any of my friends can help me to unpick all of that, may I just thank you profoundly in advance.
The Wonder. To the extent that I remember it, I think the production and acting was very good but that we didn’t much like the play.
An interesting but now rarely performed playwright from the late Restoration/early Hanoverian period, I’m not sure that Susanna Centilivre‘s plays have dated well. But that’s not her fault. I don’t suppose she even faintly imagined The Wonder being revived in 1989 when she dedicated it to the new king, George I, in 1714.
The Wonder was a huge hit in its day. Here is a link to an on-line preview of the play book.
The Escapade Theatre Company (confusingly not the company that now bears that name) was a group dedicated to reviving plays written by or mostly about women.
Anna Mazzotti played the female lead role Isabella, with great poise and confidence I recall. I managed to track her down in 2019 as someone who did/does many Italian language programmes for the BBC and theatre in Rome -still listing The Wonder on her theatrical cv. Strangely (as she only lists two), she also lists Dealing With Clair at the Orange Tree, which Janie and I saw when the Orange Tree revived it (recently at the time of writing):
The male lead, Don Felix, was played by a young Christopher Eccleston – possibly only his second professional gig. His cv is no longer talking about this one, but it does still mention, amongst many other things, Dr Who.
Any further intelligence on this one will need to come from others, e.g. Bobbie!…
…or Michael Billington! Good old Billy – he reviewed the production in The Guardian:
Billington on The Wonder Sat, Sep 2, 1989 – 20 · The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com
The photo in Billington’s review is of me. The face on the poster is the marvellous much-missed Evie Doggart, who died much too young and was a frequent champion on the pool tables at the notorious Warwick Castle on Portobello Road. The project was enormous fun, especially the costumes which were fabulous. HB @Mataharifilms
Harry – thanks so much for your comment on The Wonder. Michael Billington was clearly taken with your performance, which is quite a thing given that the lead was Christopher Eccleston. I shall have a browse around your “working with Pinter” site, which looks fascinating. Do I detect you in cricket kit while chatting with the great man in one of those pictures? Cricket is another of my passions, as gabbled about at length on my site. Thanks again for the comment. Ian