Travel, Theatre, Music, Cricket, Tennis, Writing, Life
Very interesting play, this one.
Lots going on, mostly in Australia, spanning eighty years. We saw this play before the Ashes started, so did not breach our “Aussie abstinence vow” during the Ashes, I’m pleased to report.
Andrew Bovell is a very good playwright; worth looking out for. Excellent cast and production too.
Here is the OfficialLondonTheatre.co.uk stub on this play/production.
We were more than a little disappointed with this one.
We’d fallen out of love with the Hampstead Theatre during this Anthony Clark era, so hadn’t been going there as much. But this cast looked terrific and the play sounded interesting…promising more than it delivered.
Here is the OfficialLondonTheatre.co.uk stub on the play/production.
What a difference once the Ed Hall era started.
Anyway I’m sure we enjoyed our dinner at Harry Morgan’s before the show.
Janie might try to deny that she attended Michael Mainelli’s last Gresham lecture in his series as Professor of Commerce, but all the evidence suggests she was there 21 May 2009. Her diary. My diary. Worst of all, CCTV evidence if you merely look at the thumbnail of the video – click here.
Back then, of course, that four year series of lectures was the bedrock of what would become a joint magnum opus between me and Michael, The Price Of Fish. So that last lecture of the series was both a milestone and a landmark personal event. I suspect we all ended up at The Cheshire Cheese for a Samuel Johnson-inspired meal afterwards.
But before that, we held a reception in the Headmaster’s Study at Barnard’s Inn Hall, during which someone without question will have told me I look like the Chandos portrait of Shakespeare, a copy of which hangs in that study. I’d been handling that quip in that place since 2005 and at the time of writing (2020) am still handling it there and in other places.
I did some work in the morning before heading down to Balham/Streatham Hill, where I treated my mum to lunch at a delicatessen named Fat. Now long gone. I rather liked it, but mum had her favourite places (by that time I think there was a Parisian-style cafe, also in Balham, which she favoured) so I don’t think we went there a second time.
Postscript: actually it looks as though Mum, me and Janie went to Fat together the following Sunday (31 May), so I have a feeling I might have posited the idea of Fat with mum on 22 May without us actually having vivited it that day.
In any case, I think I went straight on to Sandall Close, where Janie and I had a quiet evening in.
Phillipa and Tony arrived. They were staying in the Crown Plaza, on the Hanger Lane gyratory, very near to Sandall Close.
We went to Chez Gerard in the evening; no evidence as to which branch; Janie’s and my combined brains reckon Chiswick most likely.
Both our diaries say “Barby” or “BBQ” at Kim’s. That will have been the main purpose (or at least the focus) of Phillie and Tony’s visit. In truth I don’t remember this particular Sunday lunchtime gathering especially well. We wouldn’t have known it at the time but it was to be Phillie’s last such visit to Kim’s place.
The following picture was taken just a few weeks later in Sandall Close. I prefer its look in B&W because the colours, not least the red eye, were not so good:
This is one of those rare plays about the workplace; in this case a suntan lotion business. The impecunious Orange Tree is one of the few theatres with solid production stubs going back as far as 2009 – click here for all the details on this one.
As is often the case with workplace plays, this one didn’t quite work for us. The stage was incredibly busy – a huge cast for the tiny Orange Tree. The humour didn’t quite translate/make the grade either.
Still, it was well acted and did provide some interesting points for us to discuss over a Don Fernando Spanish meal afterwards.
This turned out to be one of the most exciting days of cricket I have ever witnessed.
It was one of those strange situations in which everything worked out for the best.
Janie and I were all dressed up / picniced up with no place to go that Saturday, as we had Day 4 test match tickets for a Lord’s match which had somehow managed to conclude in three days.
So we went to the Oval and saw a screamer of a Day Four County Championship day there instead.
We attributed the resulting MTWD piece to Daisy feat. Ged:
Here is that Daisy Feat. Ged MTWD report: Bore Draw – NOT!! – click here.
Just in case anything ever happens to MTWD, I have scraped the piece to Ogblog – only click the link below if the link above doesn’t work:
The details for this play/production are set out at OfficialLondonTheatre.co.uk – click here.
I only vaguely remember this creepy play/production. It had a fine cast and I think we felt that it was all very well done but we found the play a bit impenetrable.
It was a shame, really, as it was almost a very good play/production, but there just wasn’t enough to grab hold of in the play.
We sometimes struggled to find reporters MTWD reporters for away matches, so ended up resorting to somewhat detached reports.
It seems that “Hippity volunteered” to report on this particular day, from his vantage point on the bed at the flat.
Younger readers (or older readers with early stages of memory loss) might need to resort to this Wikipedia link to learn/remind themselves what Ceefax was.
It is sad to reflect on Phillip Hughes, who played such a huge part in that early part of Middlesex’s 2009 summer and who was so sadly cut down in his prime just five years later.
Over to Hippity: Anything Hughes Can Do (Ramps Can’t Do Better) – click here.
Just in case anything ever happens to MTWD, I have scraped the piece to Ogblog – only click the link below if the link above doesn’t work:
Middlesex till we die – Anything Hughes Can Do (Ramps Can’t Do Better)
In case anyone was wondering about the England v West Indies match – click here for the scorecard from that one.
