Just as well, as the showing sold out, so even Frontline Club members were turned away on the day; we ran into Roger Graef outside the club, regretting that he hadn’t booked.
It is a short film. Unlike some at that time, this film was not brimming with unequivocal praise for “The Lady”. Writing in late 2017, that equivocation seems prescient.
Still, it was a very affecting, moving hour of documentary.
Janie and I made a profound sacrifice in the August preceding this event – dining at the Boundary with Anthea and Mitchell, before booking it for the 2010 Z/Yen do. The things we used to do for the sake of the team.
Anyway, the Z/Yen seasonal event started with “Goodbye” drinks at St Helen’s Place – hence the search for a suitable venue quite near that office.
Those of us who had been with Z/Yen from the outset had been at St Helen’s Place since 1995, albeit in different bits of it at times. Still, the move away from there felt a little unsettling at the time.
Janie remembers the meal at the Boundary fondly, despite us being unable to use the terrace (as we had on our previous visit in August) and despite the fact that it was only a couple of weeks after her twin, Phillie, had died.
It was a growing team at that time and it felt that the seasonal events were getting better and better. The house party atmosphere ahead of the dinner helped, I’m sure. As did the excellence of The Boundary as avenue for our sort of event.
With so much going on in our lives at that time, I was neither in the mood nor well mentally equipped for writing a silly song. We revived The Twelve Days Of Z/Yen Training that year.
We don’t normally do musicals. But this one sounded interesting and different so we booked it.
Set in Nigeria in the late 1970s, it is basically a tribute to the life, music and politics of Fela Kuti.
It was at the National, so of course no on-line resource to help navigate all the whys and wherefores of the show. This search term – click here – should find the (mostly rave) reviews and other resources you might want.
I’m not sure we need a subsidised National Theatre to import this sort of hit show from Broadway and make a hit of it in London, but anyway I’m glad it was on there and I’m very glad we saw it. This was just the sort of boost we needed so soon after Phillie’s passing. A life-affirming show, but with real grit too.
A larger audience for this one, at the Museum of London; slightly more intimidating feel to the platform too (Barnards Inn Hall sort-of feels like home).
I can’t remember exactly who was there that year, but Kim & Micky for sure would have been there. Gary & Clifford too, I’m pretty sure. The Selby couple were usually there back then. Jeff Harvey occasionally joined us, sometimes with his latest squeeze, sometimes without.
A bit ambitious, going to the movies after one of DJ’s lunches. No wonder neither of us remember all that much about it. Good movie, I do remember that much.
We don’t book many classic revivals, but we tend to make an exception for Ibsen if it is a play one or both of us hasn’t seen before. Plus, if it is the Almeida, we tend to trust the place to deliver a classic well and with a modern enough feel.
As was the case with this superb production.
We were a little concerned that it might be a luvvie-fest for Gemma Arterton. But she proved well up to her task and the universally high-quality cast worked extremely well as an ensemble.
It was a well-pacey production; an-hour-and–three-quarters straight through, the extra pace worked well with this play. An object lesson for some of the ponderously long, drawn-out productions of early 20th century plays.
The reviews were pretty much universally good and most are linked through the above resource, but this search term – click here – should find reviews independently for you.
Judging by the absence of appointments in the diary, it looks as though Janie and I had planned to take an autumn break that year but then changed our minds. Given Phillie’s state of health by then, the Price of Fish book deadline looming along with my Changing Money Gresham lecture mid November, it was probably a wise move not to go away and yet to have relatively little work in the diaries.
As a result, we also had relatively little cultural activity scheduled for that autumn, but this particular weekend was an exception.
We took the Friday off work and went to this superb Gauguin exhibition, which we both enjoyed enormously.
Michael Mainelli was organising this prestigious event each year at that time. 2010 was the year of Anne Craine, Minister for the Treasury, Isle of Man.
I think this must have been the weekend that Janie and I stayed at Wild Thyme (which was lovely) – I think Tony joined us for dinner on the Friday evening – then the next day we took poor Phillie from the Katharine House Hospice to Stratford-Upon-Avon for the afternoon for the last time.
