Both of us had really busy weeks in the run up to this Friday night at the theatre, with Janie taking patients early and late that week. In my case, as well as many client meetings, a very late night for me the previous evening due to the traditional Children’s Society v Z/Yen cricket match in Regents Park:
I had seen Mountain Language before – a most memorable production in 1988 with Michael Gambon, Eileen Atkins, Tony Haygarth and Miranda Richardson, directed by Harold himself..
Returning to 2001, our friend Michael Billington reviewed Alive From Palestine, but not the triple bill, giving me the sense that the piece might have had a greater effect on us had it not been preceded by the two Pinter pieces.
To be fair, she reviewed the Pinter double bill ahead of the short late night run of the third play started. And at least The Standard had the good manners to trail the Alive From Palestine one:
Charles “Charley the Gent Malloy” Bartlett and I had sloped off to the nets a couple of times ahead of this fixture, if I remember correctly. The tuition paid dividends for both of us. We both achieved scores of 20 not out (retired).
But…
…on this one occasion on Regent’s Park, Z/Yen was to prevail.
David Highton, with his reliable medium paced dobble-bowling, took a hat-trick for Z/Yen, ripping the heart out of the Children’s Society batting line up.
Charles kept his pads on, as the “retired not out” batsman was permitted to resume if the innings would otherwise be complete.
On resumption, Chas somehow managed to lob the simplest of catches to me at midwicket.
“Tell anyone about that catch and Tony The Tarantula will pay you a visit. He knows where you live, know what I mean?”
I wrote to Chas early the next day, a long and rather dull e-mail about work stuff, in which I concluded:
Look forward to seeing you Wednesday – oh and I have not yet told [anyone] about the dolly catch.
Chas replied that morning with one of the worst, laugh-out-loud excuses for a dismissal I have ever read:
As I recall I was being verbally abused by some of your close-in fielders – and to my dismay some of my own team on the sidelines!
In an attempt to satisfy everyone (low scoring but wickets tumbling around me!) and finding it almost impossible to get a bat near any ball. Wides, no balls and balls trickling along the ground. I attempted a pull shot to leg, only to be temporarily blinded by a shinning white vision, which turned out to be Ian’s brand new cricket whites!!
That is pretty much as I remember it!!
That “e-conversation has since been immortalised on the King Cricket website -a mere 23 years after the event:
If anything were ever to befall King Cricket, you can read that piece here.
One other vital matter that emerges from this piece of cricket archaeology is proof positive – we might call it silicon dating – that I bought my cricket troos that spring, 2001, confirming that they are significantly older than England cricketer Rehan Ahmed, which was a matter of some conjecture and debate in King Cricket circles when that lad had his debut. Indeed they are older than I suspected when I estimated 2002 or 2003 as the purchase date.
Özer-like restaurant image generated with Nano Banana 2 via Google Flow
The diary is light on details. Frankly, the memory is similarly light on some.
Meeting Up With John White, Starting At “FOB Office”, 19 June 2001
John was Chief Executive of The Federation Of Bakers at that time. My e-mail archive, usually so good at digging out details, draws a blank on this one. Perhaps John had just started there and we set up the whole thing by phone. For sure I scribbled down the Catherine Street address and telephone number in the diary. I suspect that we had a drink somewhere more than half decent in Bloomsbury, followed by a meal nearby in a restaurant that was also more than half decent.
Janie & I Visit Brendan & Fi For Dinner, 22 June 2001
Brendan was a client in his capacity as Chief Executive of the Marine Stewardship Council. Fi also worked there. Brendan & Fi very kindly invited me and Janie to their pad in Farringdon for dinner. I recall a very jolly evening.
In particular, I remember that Brendan had a very grand piano – I think it might actually have been a mini grand – around which we stood and sang some spoof songs. Brendan was really a classical pianist, so we spoofed pop songs that have been written to classical tunes. Billy Joel (This Night), Eric Carmen (All By Myself) and Barry Manilow (Could It Be Magic) all got the treatment.
Özer Restaurant With Kim & Micky To Celebrate Janie’s Birthday, 26 June 2001
I remember this meal very well. We all wanted to try this new Özer Restaurant in Langham Place and we were not disappointed – the food was excellent. I came hot foot from a Z/Yen boat trip, upon which I had been suitably abstemious so as not to impede the birthday celebrations.
I always was happier on dry land in a middle-eastern restaurant than I was on a boat trip and probably always will be.
I recall everyone being on good form and a super midweek evening.
I can see from my diary that I had a busy day the next day, including a return to Marylebone for rare business lunch at Caldese.
No wonder I had more trouble maintaining my weight back then, than I do now.
Our friend, Michael Billington, suggested that this play was not as good as Roy Williams earlier material and that he needed to branch out a bit. I think he was probably right, as we really went for some of William’s later plays even more than this one, but it was good enough to get us hooked:
Despite the fact that we thought it was excellent, our friend, Michael Billington, really didn’t like it, bemoaning the fact that the only Synge that ever gets revived is this one.
An early example of John Random organising an Ivan Shakespeare Memorial Dinner (gathering of 1990s NewsRevue writers) by e-mail, in John’s inimitable style.
The day after the event, the following e-mail arrived from Random:
Thank you all those came to The Cafe Rouge and to those that didn’t, hope to see you next time, whenever that is. You missed a great evening, especially the surprise visit of Bill Clinton who interrupted his golf game to come over and say how much he’d enjoyed Billy Don’t Be A Hero (February 1994) no he didn’t.
John was no doubt referring to this lyric of mine – quite possibly because Mike Hodd had waxed lyrical [did you see what I did there?] about it at the dinner.
I think I have identified, from the e-mail addresses, all the people to whom John wrote. Presumably not all attended, given the words John chose. Anyway, here is the Random hit list from June 2001:
Me
Random
Jonny Hurst
Graham Robertson
Mike Hodd
Jasmine Birtles
Barry Grossman
Sheila Hyde
John Cowen
Colin Stutt
Neil Watson
Terry Franks
“Ivan Shakespeare” – presumably Elspeth, Ivan’s partner, who only attended once or twice but I suspect that John kept her informed on the circulation list, regardless of whether or not she was attending, for quite some time.
Debbie Barham – I don’t remember Debbie ever attending one of these dinners; she was already very seriously ill with anorexia by the time Ivan Shakespeare died. I had stayed in touch with her, sporadically, by e-mail, as had John, presumably. Debbie’s trademark “skcollob.win-uk.net” e-mail domain name was one of a kind. Like me, for business reasons, in the very early e-mail days, she’d gone with a WinNet e-mail account so she could name her own domain. Mine was sensibly corporate, whereas Debbie’s was bollocks backwards. Typical.
This was an unusual double-bill of short plays at the Orange Tree, both women-oriented, I think directed by some young women on an apprenticeship scheme.
We rather enjoyed it.
The Women Of Troy is hardly a bundle of laughs. But the second play was an interesting take on modern web-based technologies, quite prescient I should think from the turn of the century if we were to see it again today.
I can only find one local review, which rated the evening pretty highly:
Excellent cast, led by Ron Cook. We loved Closer, so were keen to see more Patrick Marber, who directed this one himself (not always the best idea…) Here is a link to the Theatricalia entry.
Nicholas de Jongh did not like it, awarding the production the dreaded blob:
Dinner Standard Marmion 29 Jun 2001 Evening Standard (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com
Dinner Guardian Billington 5 Jul 2001 The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com
Dinner Observer Clapp 1 Jul 2001 The Observer (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com
