Rice at The Orange Tree Theatre was our first visit to the theatre to see a drama for more than 18 months. There’s been a lot of water under the bridge since then.
The Orange Tree assured us in its marketing that the theatre is “See It Safely” approved, which no doubt it was. The problem with that level of biosecurity in a small theatre like The Orange Tree is that the safety removes much of the warmth, atmosphere and absence of fourth wall that theatre in the round is meant to provide.
It didn’t help that the weather has turned a bit colder on us – well it is autumn – to the extent that even extra layers of clothing and cushions neither made us feel warm nor comfortable while sitting for 90 minutes plus.
The play was not designed to make us feel comfortable of course – it grapples with relationships, inter-generational conflict, cultural conflicts and international commerce – in the hands of two performers, primarily as a two-hander play but each performer also covers several additional, smaller roles.
As we would expect at The Orange Tree, one of our favourite places, the quality of the acting, directing and production was very high. We have been impressed by Matthew Xia’s work as a director before, both at the Orange Tree and elsewhere.
But this complex piece/production did not really warm the cockles of our hearts, to encourage us to rush back to fringe theatre the way we visited regularly and avidly prior to the pandemic. We’ve booked one or two things for this autumn/winter – we might book one or two more .
We’ll keep our (many) memberships going of course – we are still great supporters but we’re just not in a rush to attend very often – not yet anyway.
A real treat of a day out for real tennis – such a long time since I have been able to do one of these.
Selected to represent The Dedanists against The Hamsters (a select subset of the Royal Tennis Court membership), I again, as last time, enjoyed the company of Carl Snitcher on the journey from Central London to Hampton Court Palace.
Carl with ball in hand
Here and below is my write up of the fixture from two years ago:
Again, this time, James McDermott was my partner, but, on this occasion, we were down to play the first rubber rather than the last of the match. That left me available for much of the day to do some match marking – I actually marked two of the other rubbers in the 2021 match.
In between those playing and marking activities, there was plenty of time for convivial chat and eating a wonderful lunch.
Of course the pandemic isn’t over, but this sort of day marks a further return to something closer to normalcy. It was a splendid day and I thoroughly enjoyed the match and the company.
I have an idea for a musical. It is called The Last Five Decades. The musical opens at the end of the story.
Writer, Ivan Hershey, optimistically sings, “Technically Speaking, You Are Not Really A Shiksa, Goddess”, while actress, Leylah Wasp, laments, “Still Kvetching”.
The story goes back in time more than forty years, until a finale, in which we see Leylah’s dad, Jim, in his youth, mournfully singing “Stereotype” at a meeting for budding college journalists. Jim imagines that he looks like Terry Hall from The Specials, but actually, as he is sporting a Spurs scarf and Doc Martens, Jim inadvertently projects the look of a right wing yob. Unaware that five decades of friendship are about to be launched, young Ivan tries to disconcert Jim by cheerfully belting out “Children Of The Wind”from Rags, evoking the intrepid spirit of refugee diaspora people everywhere.
In many ways, going to the Garrick Theatre to see The Last Five Years felt a bit like going to a familiar but occasionally-visited city like Manchester. Although London is of course my home City and under normal circumstances Janie & I see stuff regularly, this was our first trip “up west” for more than 18 months. It was the first time I’d been on the Tube for more than 18 months.
Queues and sanitiser…We did as we were told and got there early
Lockdown of course changed all our lives in a great many ways. One of those ways, for me, was that I started to take singing lessons from Lydia. My early music teacher, Ian Pittaway, says that her work with me has been utterly transformational and he means that in a good way. He even forgave her for blowing out my singing lesson last week, in order to fit in an additional rehearsal for The Last Five Years. Ian says I don’t need a note, Lydia.
The Garrick folk handed us this note
Was Lydia good in this show? Of course she was. Superb. She has tremendous stage presence to add to her technical abilities acting and singing.
Her opposite number for the afternoon, Lenny Turner, a debutante in this production, was excellent too.
In truth, Janie and I are really not musicals people, so the show itself is not to our taste. But we can appreciate a solidly professional and excellent production when we see one, which this most certainly was.
Janie and I found ourselves sitting quite close to “Lydia’s contingent”, with John, Mandy & Bella a couple of rows behind us; Mandy’s sister Mary & her husband Alan immediately behind us. Their daughters next to us…
…I probably hadn’t seen Mary & Alan since John & Mandy’s wedding more than 30 years ago. Nevertheless, Mary apparently spotted me immediately on arrival in the auditorium and told Alan that she had spotted me. So now I know; lying low for 30 years and wearing an FFP2 mask is insufficient disguise if I want to hide from Mandy’s kin.
After the show, we all gathered outside the theatre beside the stage door. As well as the above crowd, Angela (from those good old days) was there, as were a great many other people we were meeting for the first time; one of Mandy’s friends from Saffron Walden, Lydia’s boyfriend Jack, his family, plus many of Lydia’s friends and colleagues.
Janie had a long-standing engagement with her Samaritans cohort that evening, so had pre-warned us that she wouldn’t be able to stay for drinks; she left us about half an hour after the show, at which point we were still waiting for Lydia to emerge through the stage door. I wonder whether we looked like a bunch of groupies? Who cares.
Soon enough, Lydia did emerge to enjoy a further rapturous greeting and we soon set off for Koha in St Martins Court.
The fortunes smiled on us. The weather was mild and dry. Koha seemed able to provide us with as much seating outside as we needed to imbibe and chat at length. A couple of hours simply flew by, before we all went our separate ways.
But the main purpose of the day had been to support Lydia’s performance in the Last Five Years. It really was a delight to see her performing so well and so thrilled at the end of the day with how well it had all gone.
