In fact, Janie and I were talking through a few ideas during the spring, but events intervened somewhat. John’s mum has been in hospital since April – indeed John had to cancel one of our midweek dinners because of that crisis – so Janie wondered whether they would prefer simply to come to Noddyland for dinner this time; making timings (and even the possibility of a last minute need to cancel) less of a stress.
John and Mandy jumped at the idea.
We reckoned that these two had not tasted Janie’s signature fillet of beef with wasabi mayonnaise, so we opted for that. My job…
…apart from making sure during the event that the beef is cooked to near perfect timing such that lovers of rare and well cooked beef alike get their wishes…
…was simply to get to the Ealing-ish part of town early enough to procure/collect the ordered joint of beef and then get to Noddyland in good time. Normally no problem on a Friday but one or two work matters tried hard to slow my departure from Cityland that afternoon.
But I managed to break free and get to Hook & Cleaver in reasonable time, where Jack sorted me out good & proper with a choice cut.
You don’t mess with these Hook & Cleaver Guys
The weather was set glorious, as it had been for several weeks, which made the dinner at Noddyland idea all the more suitable. We were able to spend most of the evening out of doors, retiring to the dining room only for the main course – which really was a magnificent joint of beef – and afters. The dessert comprised summer berries with some papaya mixed in, the health benefits of which John expounded upon with glee.
The earlier part of the evening was not only blessed with exceptionally good weather, but also with delicious breaded prawn tempura from Atari-Ya up the road together with some tasty wines. No-one was drinking all that much – John & Mandy needed to drive home that night in the circumstances and in any event on a hot evening quality rather than quantity was the order of the day.
It was a lovely opportunity simply to catch up with good friends, relax for an evening and enjoy good food and wine together in the homeliest of home environments. We can do something trendy and/or exciting up town next time…if we so choose.
For some while Janie had been expressing a desire to see Sissinghurst Gardens. So when she saw an article about the place in a Waitrose magazine, together with a rave review for The Milk House as a suitable place to stay and eat in the village, our plot was hatched.
We hadn’t arranged anything for Janie’s birthday weekend and, as luck would have it, Middlesex were to play Kent at Canterbury starting that Monday. A perfect storm at the planning stage, so I arranged for us to stay an additional night and dine at a super-looking place just outside Canterbury – The Iffin Farmhouse.
I didn’t realise, when I arranged the trip, that Sissinghurst is so very close to the Yeandle residence in Frittenden. So when I mentioned to Mark where we were going, he said, “but you must come and visit us, our house is a 25 minute walk from Sissinghurst if you walk across the Sissinghurst Estate.
Sunday 24 June 2018
So, Janie and I played tennis at home early on the Sunday, had a wardrobe-design session with Glenn and Daniel for an hour or so (long story) then showered and set off for Kent. I figured that the roads would be clear while England were playing World Cup football, which was true, but the roads were still very busy for the first 45 minutes or so of our journey, before the football match started.
Still, we got to Sissinghurst soon after 14:00 and enjoyed a super lunch at The Milk House. Prior to lunch, we had an interesting encounter, in the garden bar, which ended up on the King Cricket website – click here or below:
The roast of the week looked like a massive portion ahead of a walk across the estate, so we opted for signature dishes – Daisy for the burger and me for the bangers and mash.
Then a very pleasant walk across the estate. We took the picture (below) the next day, from the top of the tower, but it depicts the top of the archway through which we walked and technically I think you can see the Yeandle House in the distance, probably the size of one or two pixels in the photo.
Superb views of gardens and surrounding area from the top of the tower
Actually the Yeandle House is bigger than a couple of pixels and was awash with family and neighbours sitting around the swimming pool, eating strawberries and drinking Pimms. As Mark put it, “for some unknown reason, the Yeandle House seems to be very popular on hot summer days”.
Sadly, the strawberries were not the local Frittenden ones I have praised in Ogblogs passim…
…yet still they were Kentish strawberries and tasted very good indeed.
Janie gave the boys (I should now really say young men), Freddie and Sebastian, the benefit of her views on how young men should interact with young women, which I am sure they will find immensely helpful. I’m not 100% sure whether the expression on grandfather Geoffrey Yeandle’s face was fascination, shock or a combination of both.
Later in the day, after we’d had a guided tour of the Yeandle estate and we muttered about leaving, Jane Yeandle offered to run us back to Sissinghurst village. Janie tried to decline this kind offer by suggesting that we would hail an Uber from our phones or – after she was politely told that there is no Uber in deepest Kent – call for a cab. No cabs either. So we gratefully accepted the kind offer of a lift.
Tired and happy, we had an early night.
Monday 25 June 2018
We enjoyed a super breakfast at The Milk House before checking out and driving to Sissinghurst for the centrepiece of our visit.
In the herb garden, one of the many wonderful areas in the grounds, an old seat has been turned into a camomile pot, with a clear message telling less sensible visitors not to seat there. I spotted one bumpkin trying to sit down there nevertheless:
Janie doesn’t tend to linger anywhere, not even beautiful gardens, so we had a thorough walk around making sure we got to see all of the various formal gardens – we’d chosen “peak rose” season in a location that specialises in roses – then had a look at the house – in particular the library and tower.
Another superb view from the tower
We also took some light refreshment and looked at the exhibition about women and gardening – little did we know how closely the women’s suffrage movement was linked to the equally radical notion of women gardening, back then. Janie is fascinated by Vita Sackville-West – almost to the same extent as the Bloomsbury lot whose homes we visited in Sussex last year:
Once replete at Sissinghurst, we drove on to Canterbury – less than an hour cross-country – to check in and freshen up at the Iffin Farmhouse ahead of popping down the road to see a couple of hours of cricket.
One thing I hadn’t counted on when I first arranged the trip was the fact that the cricket match was to be one of those day/night, pink ball affairs, until the pink-ballness of the occasion came up in conversation with Beefy Roberts at Lord’s one afternoon earlier in the season. Whoops.
Still, I learnt of my mistake far enough ahead of time to arrange for us to visit the cricket in two tranches – the second session (late afternoon) on the Monday and then the first two sessions on the Tuesday.
In changing those plans a few weeks ahead of time, I also phoned to see if I could slightly vary our arrival, departure and eating times at Iffin Farmhouse. Thus I discovered that the Iffin people were very friendly and sounded flexible. I also discovered that anyone who answered the phone might be named Sarah but would not necessarily be the same person. (Strangely, our hostess at The Milk House also turned out to be a Sarah).
When we arrived at the Iffin Farmhouse we in fact encountered a man gardening; he was not named Sarah – he turned out to be David who is the man of the house but not really the person with a pivotal role in the hospitality business. Still, he helped us to our charming bungalow and promised that Sarah would no doubt be back to see us some time soon, which she was, so we were able to finalise our dining arrangements just before we set off to Kent CCC, which is just two to three miles away from the Farmhouse.
We were well looked after in the Kent CCC Committee Room for the couple of hours we stopped by on the Monday, although we had said that we didn’t want formal hospitality that day.
Photo taken before Middlesex batted – obviously
We chatted with a few of the Kent regulars (more on them below) but particularly with a couple of MCC gentlemen who were guests of a Kent Committee member and showed signs of having been enjoying the hospitality for some hours before we arrived. One of them, named Rodney, was especially skittish.
Middlesex couldn’t quite finish off Kent before the second interval, but still appeared to be in a good position at that stage. We took our leave of the party and returned to the Iffin Farmhouse for dinner.
David and Sarah present dinner on our terrace at twilight
A very tasty chicken dish in a sort-of Spanish style with rice and a hearty salad. Janie wondered whether we were eating the kin of the chickens who were in full view while we ate, but Sarah assured us that they do not eat their own Iffin chickens. Still, it was local free range chicken with a superb flavour and texture.
Daisy much enjoying her grub in the open air
The only thing that rendered this outdoor dining experience less than blissful was the constant buzz of “wicket alerts” from Cricinfo, letting me know that Middlesex’s batting was falling apart rapidly.
Still, we persevered with our food, enjoying a very nice pancake thing as a dessert and I even got to see a small owl in a suitably distressed-looking tree before we went to bed.
Tuesday 26 June 2018
Next morning, Sarah cooked us a splendid breakfast of Kentish kippers (kippers with a poached egg on top). We took our time, as there was no cricket until 14:00 and Janie really didn’t fancy an outing ahead of cricket. Sarah and David were very accommodating, allowing us to hang around the farmhouse until we wanted to leave. Janie read on the porch while I took the opportunity for a baroq-ulele jam, which David and Sarah’s ageing spaniel seemed to enjoy:
Me and the farmhouse spaniel; old enough to remember some of the songs I sing?
David and Sarah were very interesting and charming hosts. David is a child psychologist who has done fascinating work over the years, while Sarah was a civil engineer who used to specialise in sewers…she told us this after she’d cooked and we’d eaten dinner!
We certainly would and probably shall stay at the Iffin Farmhouse again…if Middlesex and Kent perchance are ever in the same division again.
On to Kent CCC where our host for the day was Kent President Jonathan “Jo” Rice, who was one of the authors of the Guinness Book Of British Hit Singles and Albums, of which I have several editions. Don’t take him on in a pop trivia quiz; he really knows his stuff. Excellent company though and he wore his popular music knowledge lightly…
…possibly just as well, as one of his other guests was the classical conductor Nicholas Cleobury, who was, along with his entourage, also delightful company. He is currently in England planning his return from Brisbane.
We enjoyed an excellent meal together at the rather unusual hour of 16:00 (that’s what day/night cricket does to the catering arrangements), then at the second interval, as if anyone was hungry again by then, scones, cake and a large platter of cheese which perhaps sustained those who were staying on to the final session – no-one was hungry for cheese at 19:00.
Before tea Janie and I had a very pleasant stroll all around the ground.
A different viewing angle but only one conclusion to be drawn on the likely result
Janie and I said our goodbyes and set off for home after tea; we got a pretty easy run through London.
It was a very one-sided cricket match; Middlesex’s performance was shocking – click here only if you dare see the card. The superb hospitality and charming company made up for the paucity of competitive cricket.
But Janie and I had enjoyed a thoroughly entertaining and diverse few days away, so we were very happy indeed with our short break overall. Sissinghurst really is a stunning and unique place.
Janie and I were fascinated by the descriptive rubric about this play, so booked to see it as soon as the tickets went on sale, as oft we do for the Hampstead Downstairs.
A few weeks before our booking, I got a message from Dot to say that “they” would be in England the weekend of 23/24 June and wondered if I could recommend a show for them to see and/or it would be nice to meet up. In the event, there were still tickets for this play available and Dot seemed keen to join us.
“They” turned out to be Dot (who came to Z/Yen from the USA as a summer intern a few years ago, recruited by me while I was experimenting with recreational on-line poker using my first ever smart phone – that is certainly an Ogblog story for another day)…
…plus her beau Randy. Randy came to England on this occasion primarily for work purposes, whereas Dot was in transit, on her way to watch some football World Cup live in Russia.
Anyway, it made a change for me and Janie to go to the theatre with some other people – it is years since we last did that. Dot and Randy made excellent company too, bringing a different perspective to the themes raised in the play and indeed interesting perspectives on the current geopolitical maelstrom on both sides of the Atlantic pond.
Before the show, we had a chance encounter with Ollie Goodwin, who was also at the Hampstead but he was watching the upstairs show…so it proved to be a brief encounter. Still, always good to see Ollie.
In those days (2015) the Downstairs studio eschewed official reviews, but the Hampstead’s policy has changed, so you will find official and unofficial reviews through this link – click here. The official reviews are good but not rave reviews, whereas some of the unofficial noise is unequivocally complimentary. My take on it is that the play has its flaws, not least the rapidity of the scene changes and the amount of walking on/walking off that goes on in short scenes, but that the flaws do not detract from the drama, tension and fine acting within the piece. This production is well worth seeing.
It’s not ideally suited for the very squeamish – it is mostly set in a post mortem lab – but I was able to cope with it which means that most people should be OK – the grizzly bits were mostly done with sound rather than visuals. I glanced at one grizzly point to see if our entourage looked OK and assessed that Randy might be as squeamish as me, whereas Janie and Dot were lapping it up. Indeed the two girls looked as though they might, had they lived in late 18th century Paris, have sat in the front row of the guillotine execution sessions, knitting.
After the show, Janie, Dot, Randy and I went to Fora in St John’s Wood for a very tasty Turkish meal and a chance to chat about the issues some more. Randy generously picked up the tab at Fora – he can visit again 😉 – so Janie insisted on dropping the young couple back at the Hotel Intercontinental, bringing a most enjoyable evening to an end. Yes, come to think of it, both of them most certainly can visit again.
I had arranged a fair smattering of away county championship cricket for late June – this visit to Leicester was the start of that sojourn.
Wednesday 20 June
I went to the gym first thing and dropped off a test match ticket at DJ’s place on my way out of town, getting to Grace Road just after the match had started. I saw the first wicket fall as I walked around the ground to find the Committee Room.
The hospitality was warm and friendly at Grace Road. The food was very good too – roast belly of pork being the main dish of choice.
The weather, on arrival, was a bit cloudy and mizzley – indeed play was even interrupted for a few minutes in that first session – but Middlesex did not make as much progress with the ball as the conditions suggested they might. This was to be the story of my visit – the Middlesex under-performance bit – not the weather bit – the weather improved massively in the afternoon and stayed glorious for the rest of all time.
Bob Baxter from the Middlesex Committee was with us that day; it was a good opportunity to chat with him as well as our Leicestershire hosts.
This trip included my first ever use of Airbnb. I drove into town after stumps to my loft apartment in Newarke Street, where Jitesh and Rita met me (the owner, their son, Hersh, works in London during the week).
I simply got my bearings that evening, together with some light bite food for that evening and biscuits for the mornings. I played my baroq-ulele a little and went to bed early.
Thursday 21 June
A relaxing morning with a bit more music before walking to Grace Road today. A similar crowd in the Committee Room again today. Again I spent quite a lot of time talking to Paul Haywood (the Leicestershire Chairman) today…and being quizzed by John Lee, who seemed pleasantly surprised by my cricket trivia knowledge but a little put out that I have no such knowledge of football. Mike & Mrs Soper joined us for the day, somewhat unexpectedly, which added to the interesting mix.
Another very good lunch – this was the one and only time I had a little wine with my food; an excellent soft beef dish was the centrepiece today.
A quick shower and change, then on to The Cosy Club to meet Mike Wardle and his charming girlfriend Zoe. That was a very pleasant evening indeed. The Cosy Club is basically a rather chic bar restaurant which enabled us all to eat as much or as little as we wished – an ideal set up for three people, two of whom had lunched and “tead”.
I had promised to report back to the Leicestershire grandees on this place, which I think they imagined (due to its name) to be a seedy Leicester establishment which had somehow manged to escape their attention all of these years. But in fact they didn’t need my help on the topic of the Cosy Club; Neil Dexter wandered in while we were there, so he can tell the locals all about it in his and their own time.
Mind you, having assured readers that the Cosy Club is not a seedy place, I’d better leave it to Mike and Zoe to explain why they placed a packet of Nude cheese on our table. before our food arrived.
Nude cheese? Oh, madam, please!
Friday 22 June
I went for a stroll around central Leicester – not least to find birthday cards early morning – which were not so hard to find thanks to Mr Google – then I checked out of my Airbnb apartment – both Jitesh and Rita came to get the keys – and presumably get the place ready for the next guest. They might not be the “Bank of Mum & Dad” but for sure they are the “Housekeeping Team of Mum & Dad” when son Hersh is away.
I found a nice shady spot to park Dumbo for the day at Grace Road,
I spent much of Friday chatting with Jack Birkenshaw, who was very interesting and enjoyable company.
The lunch was once again excellent. We were joined by Glenys Odams, who was the first ever woman to serve on the board of a first class county cricket club and has continued to represent Leicestershire at county level (albeit as a veteran table tennis player) into her 80’s – respect – what an extraordinary person. She was also very jolly company.
Middlesex started to play a little better on the Friday, although it felt like a pretty hopeless cause at the time.
I was advised that the best way to avoid the Friday traffic was to stick around until stumps, which I did…and indeed got a surprisingly quick run back into London, driving straight to Noddyland from Grace Road after saying goodbye to my kind and charming hosts.
Postscript
So sure was I the next day that this match was a hopeless cause for Middlesex, I got on with things without really following the game, until right towards the end, when I switched on the internet radio. Janie and I were then utterly transfixed listening to the last few minutes of the match, huddled together in the Noddyland man cave.
But my main memories of this trip will revolve around the warm hospitality and interesting people I met while at Grace Road for a few days…and the Nude cheese incident in the Cosy Club.
I don’t really have the words to describe how excited Janie was about this exhibition, ever since the V&A pre-announced it about a year ago. Then, when we learnt that we could see a preview of the exhibition and take in a talk by the curators of the exhibition that day, we booked out the Friday afternoon and Janie got even more excited about it.
So perhaps in some ways the afternoon was destined to be an anti-climax for us.
We chose to book our timed tickets to view the exhibition after the talk. We got to the V&A early enough to have a lite bite there before the talk.
The new members’ cafe was heaving with people and a queue, so we went instead to the new public cafe at the new Exhibition Road entrance, which did not have a queue and did have outdoor seating available – a bonus on a glorious sunny June afternoon.
Then to the talk. Here is a link to the V&A resource for the talk. It was a bit folksy and disorganised, as V&A talks tend to be, but in this instance it seemed especially so. The curators, Claire Wilcox and Circe Henestrosa seemed unfamiliar with the microphones, making it hard to hear them at times. Circe in particular moved around a lot, which is fine, but surely the V&A has clip-on mics for roving speakers – I’m sure I’ve seen those used there before.
Frida Kahlo is such an interesting character; the intersection between her life, her personal tragedies and her art work is a fascinating topic. It was intriguing to learn, for example that her photographer father, Guillermo Kahlo, took so many self portraits – he might be seen as the founding father of the modern selfie craze.
In the context of Frida’s work, though, given that so many of her pictures were self-portraits, it seemed an insightful point about her father and his work.
Yet much of the complexity and confusion between the truth about Frida Kahlo and the cultural icon she has become (to some extent through her own design, to some extent through cultural appropriation) was glossed over in the talk.
The central conceit of the exhibition is that it is displaying a large selection of Frida Kahlo’s personal artefacts, which were kept locked away at La Casa Azul for fifty years after her death. The reason for this lengthy secretion was not well explained by the curators. Diego Rivera’s will stipulated that they should remain unseen for 15 years after his death, but they were not uncovered for a further 30.
We tried but didn’t get a chance to ask that question during question time, whereas a Mexican woman with verbal diarrhoea was allowed to waffle on for five or ten minutes raising about half-a-dozen obscure points without pausing for breath or answers from the curators.
In truth, the Wikipedia entries for Frida Kahlo and for La Casa Azul explain matters better than the talk. I guess the truth of the matter is quite mundane. The cult of Frida Kahlo didn’t really get going until after the 2002 movie “Frida” – which Janie and I loved at the time btw. So although La Casa Azul became a museum immediately after Diego Rivera’s death, it was a very low key (and probably low budget) one until this century.
Frida’s tribute in profile
Never mind – then on to the exhibition itself.
At the entrance they hadn’t yet differentiated between those who had acquired timed entry tickets and members who had just turned up, so everyone had to join the same lengthy queue. Unaware of this, we walked past the queue and walked up to the ticket dude who we imagined to be our timed ticket dude.
“We have timed tickets”, I said.
“Certainly”, he said, scanning the tickets. We then realised that he was actually the entrance for the Ocean Liners exhibition, so how our tickets scanned for that goodness only knows.
He tried to get us in to the Frida Kahlo, but we were sent to the back of the queue, there to wonder whether our tickets would now scan for Frida Kahlo having been scanned for Ocean Liners.
Somehow we got in. Perhaps those scanners merely go “bleep” without really doing anything.
It was pretty crowded in the exhibition and we found some of the preview members rather too pushy and elbowy for our taste. I’m not sure that members’ preview days at the V&A are such a good idea for us in future, unless we can find a less crazy-busy slot. In any case, the V&A should do something about the lighting of the Frida Kahlo show – some of the exhibits were hard to see and the explanatory rubric hard to read. Hopefully they put that right on the back of feedback from members like us.
Still, many of the exhibits are truly stunning and fascinating. Don’t let my rant about how disorganised the V&A can be put you off seeing the exhibition; it really is worth it. You get to see a lot of Frida Kahlo’s paintings as well as the artefacts and some superb films and photographs taken during her lifetime, providing a great deal of visual context to Frida Kahlo’s life and work.
But don’t ask about the leaflet that explains the artefacts and exhibits in each room, which we strove so hard to obtain but failed in the end to secure. Different members of staff told us that:
the leaflets had all run out (on preview day?),
they had simply run out of leaflets at the desk and they’d have some more for us shortly,
a leaflet would be brought to us once we were inside the exhibition (some hope, despite chasing),
the leaflets weren’t ready yet but would be available in a few days’ time,
there wasn’t to be a leaflet for this exhibition at all…
…I think staff are “trained” (to the extent that the word “training” applies in that place) to make up whatever comes into their heads at the time and say it kindly but with an authoritative tone to mollify the unsuspecting punter.
No doubt Rebecca, who promised to get back to us by e-mail with a definitive answer (and hopefully a copy of the leaflet) will come up trumps for us, if trumps there are to be had. While we were engaging Rebecca in this task, one of the elbowy blue-rinse members elbowed me away from the corner of the members information desk (upon which I was merely leaning to support my aching back) without a please or a thank you. I don’t approve of manspreading, but femshoving of that kind is even more overtly aggressive.
It’s a shame, really, but by the end we couldn’t wait to get out of the V&A that day. Yes, the Frida Kahlo is a fascinating exhibition, but the place seemed so disorganised and we just felt the V&A could have done better with this one.
Janie consults Frida on how to curate herself…that IS Frida’s type of question
…still refer to me as “young man”: Lord’s and the Wigmore Hall.
Janie and I ended up going to both of those places on the same day, but sadly, no-one referred to me as “young man” in either place. Perhaps our mistake, in this regard, at Lord’s, was to take the youngsters, Charlie and Chris (Lavender & Escamillo Escapillo), as our guests. These terms are comparative, after all. In other regards, however, this was not a mistake, because we all four had a most enjoyable day at Lord’s.
Janie and I got to Lord’s really early, to secure enough seats in Janie’s favourite pavilion spot; the upper sun deck. And in order to achieve that, we both got up ridiculously early. Janie was on picnic duty for this one – never a quick and dirty process in the morning however much preparation can be done the day before.
Janie had sourced quite a lot of the food (and indeed other weekend food) at Finn’s – which seemed most appropriate with Steve Finn skippering Middlesex for this match.
Steve Finn congratulating Max Holden for his fine bowling. Holden can bowl – who knew? Image embedded from Middlesex CCC Website
So the picnic basically comprised some cheesy biscuit nibbles, ham rolls, sweet nibbles, beef rolls, carrots, tomatoes and grapes. A bottle of Vouvray and a bottle of Pinot Noir. Yummy.
Our little group got quite jolly and at one point there was a round of hat swapping, which left Chris looking a little unusual in Janie’s big colourful floppy sun hat. I primed my camera for a photo, but Chris felt that, as I am a captain of industry, it would be best not to have a permanent record that showed me to have been in Chris’s company…or something like that.
A suitably sensible-looking photo
The occasion was, in part, timed to coincide with Chris’s birthday. He mumbled about producing a birthday honours list, on the basis that, if the queen could have such lists, why couldn’t he?
Meanwhile Charlie (the only one of us not drinking) occasionally went into schoolmarm mode in a vain attempt to restore decorum. She seems to quite like that role these days.
Also meanwhile, Middlesex bowled really well, we felt. At no point did Australia really get away and we kept revising our estimates of the potential Aussie score downwards. Nathan Sowter took an absolutely stunning catch to secure the first wicket and perhaps settle the nerves of some of the younger players such as Barber, off whose bowling that catch was taken.
The Middlesex batting looked a little weak on paper for this standard of opposition and so it proved on grass. It’s a shame that one or two of the more senior batsmen didn’t dig in a little more, which might have given the less-experienced players a bit less to do. Still, young Holden batted beautifully and the Middlesex players for sure did not embarrass themselves. They gave the Aussies a good workout and the crowd a good match to watch.
The weather smiled on us – the sun was out much of the time but not too hot – it was warm throughout the day, even when the sun went in.
We sat and chatted in the members’ lounge for a few minutes after stumps, to let the crowds subside then walked together to St John’s Wood before going our separate ways; the youngsters further north-west, while we went two stops south to Bond Street and on to “The Wig”, to see Django Bates Belovèd and guests play jazz.
An interesting mix of bluesy, Charlie Parker type jazz and more modern, experimental (almost free) jazz – the latter type pleasing us (especially Janie) less.
Below is a vid of the trio performing without guests.
One of the guests was an incredible saxophonist, Marius Neset. Below is a vid of him performing, but not with Django:
I liked the female vocalist, Claire Huguenin, more than Janie did – I thought her vocals added subtle texture to the music, whereas Janie felt that her voice got lost in the instrumentation. Below is a vid of her performing with her own crew:
Django Bates traditionally wears hats and has adopted the beanie in recent years. His beanie on the night had a sort-of blood and vomit colouring that might have been in honour of the MCC and our earlier visit to Lord’s…
…but on the other hand the colour match was almost certainly a coincidence.
One thing I do realise about no longer being so prone to the description “young man” is that days that start early and end as late as this are no longer in my comfort zone – nor Janie’s. We were ever so happy at the end of a successful and enjoyable day, but also ever so knackered…
…and both of us feel some sense of trepidation about taking our aching backs onto the tennis court…we’re leaving in five minute’s time as I write.
Postscript 10 June
Well, Janie managed to get her body moving again marginally better than I did. But as we came off the tennis court after a long session trying to get moving again, we saw Gerry – an elderly Irish dog-walker, with whom we quite often converse.
Good morning to you, young man, good morning young lady,
said Gerry. So there is a third place where we might still, just occasionally, be addressed in that manner – Boston Manor.
We thought this was a fabulous piece, beautifully portrayed.
The synopsis sounds like a great many plays; a domestic drama about a woman trapped in an unsatisfactory marriage, struggling to keep the household together domestically and financially.
This is kitchen sink drama to such an extent that there is even a kitchen sink with a somewhat intrusive window as part of the set. I think the theatre had accidentally withheld two decent seats (our usual favourites) and sold the two that were restricted by the set; so we made a late seat swap to return to “our” regular seats. Minor stuff for previewistas like us – I’m sure the Orange Tree will resolve/have resolved for post preview audiences.
In short, the play is extremely well written and the performances are all excellent, making this an exceptional production well worth seeing.
All of the performances were excellent, but Robyn Addison as the lead role, Amber, was a standout performance in this piece.
Formal reviews have just started to come in at the time of writing, but they seem to be coming through as deservedly good ones – click here for a link to find them.
Did Janie and I go to Don Fernando to chew over the issues and some Spanish food afterwards? By heck we did.
If you get a chance to see this production of Utility, we suggest you take it.
