This play/production had enjoyed rave reviews and lengthy transfers. Unusually for us, more than a year after it first came out, we decided to book it and see what it was like.
We’re not usually shrinking violets as far as “no holds barred” serious theatre is concerned, but we found this play intolerable. Perhaps our emotions were heightened by the recent shock news about Janie’s twin, Phillie, whose radical cancer surgery had taken place a couple of week’s earlier.
My logged verdict:
Ghastly – we walked out at half time.
Charles Spencer was pretty plain about the piece in The Telegraph:
At that time, along with Fung Shing, one of our favourite up market eateries in Chinatown, this is yet another fine place that didn’t make it into the 2020s.
“8:00 Valentine Night The Square Restaurant” 6 Bruton Street W1 Karine”
…reads Janie’s more helpful entry.
Janie’s diary also informs me that we went to Sound On Wheels in North Harrow that morning, where the indomitable Maurice & Ray will have sorted out the latest arrival in our household, my souped-down Honda CRX, Nobby, with a sound system.
25 years on, Sound On Wheels has gone. As has The Square, which presciently closed down just before the Covid 19 pandemic.
When we went it was all the rage, having relatively recently moved to Mayfair. It was in the process of collecting its second Michelin Star had it not done so already.
Janie remembers this as one of the finest meals we have had, with superb service too. It was a very special evening.
Naked by Luigi Pirandello, Almeida Theatre, 21 February 1998
There had been a lot of hype about Juliette Binoche coming to tread the Almeida boards, so we were really looking forward to this one.
Our review:
Not as good as we expected – the critics were more convinced by Ms Binoche than we were
My recollection is that we found it hard to hear what she was saying despite the fact that we were sitting in the front row.
The critics fell in love with her, though. My friend, Michael Billington, going a little overboard. I agree with him about Juliette Binoche’s “eccentric inflections” and that Oliver Ford Davies put in a blinder of a performance.
David Benedict in The Independent leapt to Juliette’s defence, like a knight in shining armour, denying even the accusation that the inflections were eccentric:
Nicholas de Jongh in The Standard hated the play but loved Juliette Binoche. I would agree that part of the problem was the play – not one of Pirandello’s best:
I stand by our own review – we couldn’t hear clearly what Juliet Binoche was saying in a play that, in any case, would have been a fairly difficult watch.
We ate at Pasha afterwards. Another once-excellent eatery that is no longer there 25 years later:
I’ve never been a huge fan of Rattigan and I recall that this play/production didn’t really change my view.
On the Sunday, somewhat on a whim I seem to recall, the Mainelli’s invited us over to their place as they had several people already scheduled to visit and they wanted a butchers at my new motor.
My abiding memory of that visit was how cold it was that day, but the assembled throng (especially Rupert Stubbs) insisted that we remove the roof of the car and drive off demonstrating the open-toppedness of the thing.
Dall-e thinks we looked a bit like this
When we got home, while we were eating a camembert salad supper, Janie’s twin sister Philippa called to let us know the bad news that she had been diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer. That news dampened our mood considerably and turned our world upside down for quite a while.
I am writing in January 2020, on the day the U19 Cricket World Cup in South Africa is starting.
Last time the U19 Cricket World Cup was in South Africa was early 1998. That was also the last time (and so far the only time) that England won the U19 World Cup.
Rob Key had a fine tournament, although not such a magnificent final.
It was Stephen Peters who topped the scoring/batting averages for England in that tournament and who scored the “man of the match ton” in the final.
It turns out that Peters was Essex in those days and hails from Harold Wood – Charley “The Gent” Malloy territory.
That thought made me realise that, in February 1998, I had only recently met Charles through our work at The Children’s Society and I had neither met Nigel “Father Barry” nor “Big Papa Zambesi” Jeff…yet. At that juncture, Charles was working mainly with Mike Smith. Coincidentally, Janie and I spent the evening with Mike and Marianna less than two weeks ago as I write:
It wasn’t until that summer, 1998, by which time I was also working with Nigel and Jeff, that I learnt that Chas, Nigel, Jeff…they all had a passion for cricket.
It must have been July, that topsy-turvy 1998 test series between England & South Africa was well under way. Jeff and I were going to visit a project in Mitcham – I had arranged to drive over to Clerkenwell, meet to plan the visit and then drive Jeff out to Mitcham.
When we got to the car, I tentatively asked Jeff if he would mind if I put the test match on the radio while we drove out there. Jeff’s trademark big beaming smile appeared on his face and he said,
I’d been trying to work out how to phrase that question politely to you…
…we listened all the way to the project (while also discussing cricket of course) and then again when we left the project. I arranged to drop Jeff at one of the Northern Line Tootings or Balham before I went on to see my folks.
It was a very hot late afternoon and I took the roof off Nobby – one of the very few times I did that. Big Papa Zambesi Jeff must have been grateful for the extra head room in a topless Nobby (as it were).
Janie, with Nobby, at his last resting place
I recall England taking a wicket when we were stopped at traffic lights somewhere around Tooting and we must have looked a right pair of charlies in that car leaping for joy at an announcement on the radio.
But returning to the U19 World Cup Final match on 1 February 1998, I realise that Nobby was just a twinkle in my and Janie’s eyes on that day. I think we had seen Mack the day before that final and arranged to buy Nobby. The deal was done the following Saturday…
…and I think it was the Saturday after that, in deep midwinter, that Janie and I visited the Mainellis in Nobby to see their newborn baby, Xenia, at the end of which Rupert Stubbs and the other visitors insisted on seeing us drive off with Nobby’s roof off. We drove round the corner, put the roof back on and tried to stop shivering all the way home.
I was trying to recall how I followed the tournament and that 1 February 1998 match.
To some extent, I think
No on-line all the time Cricinfo in those days. Ceefax was the only source of constantly updating cricket scores.
But I think also, in those days, Janie and I could hear sky commentary on her Videotron cable TV arrangement. She didn’t have the additional Sky sports subscription in those days – most of the cricket was terrestrial, free-to-air, but the scrambled channels, such as the sports ones, had sound all the time with the picture scrambled. I have a feeling we followed bits of that final that way.
But my main reflections are of how long ago all of that was and the journey I have shared with so many of those characters over the decades…
…and of the cricket careers that have come and gone for those (then) youngsters who fought that final. Most of the finalists went on to professional careers, many international ones. Some glorious, some less than glorious, but all interesting.
Shopping Spencer Telegraph 03 Oct 1996, Thu The Daily Telegraph (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com
Shopping Taylor Independent 03 Oct 1996, Thu The Independent (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com
Shopping de Jongh Standard 02 Oct 1996, Wed Evening Standard (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com
Shopping Billington 1 of 2 03 Oct 1996, Thu The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com
Shopping Billington 2 of 2 03 Oct 1996, Thu The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com
