There’s nothing like a good production of an Ibsen play…
…and this was nothing like a good production of an Ibsen play.
It seemed like such a good idea at the time.
Janie and I had not yet seen any Ibsen play together and Janie had never seen Hedda Gabler and it was summer and the idea of theatre in the park sounded lovely.
As it happens, I had seen a very good Hedda (Lindsay Duncan) at Hampstead a few years earlier, but I thought I could never get too much Hedda.
My log simply says:
It was so poor we walked at half time
This might have been the first time Janie and I “walked” together at half time.
On reminding Janie recently (December 2019) about this particular evening she simply said:
OMG it was dreadful
In truth, Janie and I had a tough search for a truly good Hedda. Richmond Theatre (previewing a West End Francesca Annis Hedda) in 1999 was a bit of a staid production. It wasn’t until 2005, Richard Eyre’s production at the Almeida (Eve Best as Hedda) that I thought Janie had seen a good enough production to be able to claim that we had both done Hedda.
So I’ve done four Heddas…in fact I think I might have seen a small town Hedda in my student days, making it five. As Judge Brack puts it:
Good God – people don’t do such things.