Author: Ian Louis Harris

Overboard by Michael Vinaver, Orange Tree Theatre, 1 November 1997

Just me and Daisy this time at The Orange Tree – The Duchess was away on some sort of a bridge holiday IIRC.

Still, this play/production still seemed to last for ever. There is a seven hour version of the play – this just felt a bit like seven hours.

My log reads:

Somewhat rambling but has its moments.

The play is potentially enormously long (7 hours) – unsure of exact length of this production, but it seemed long although it was the short version.

Paul Taylor in The Independent independently reached a similar conclusion:

Overboard Taylor IndependentOverboard Taylor Independent 10 Oct 1997, Fri The Independent (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Charles Spencer in The Telegraph truly hated it:

Overboard Spencer TelegraphOverboard Spencer Telegraph 08 Oct 1997, Wed The Daily Telegraph (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Our friend, Michael Billington, who is usually extremely kind to orange Tree stuff, seems to have omitted to review it. Speaks volumes.

Janie and I no doubt consoled ourselves with some Don Fernando grub afterwards.

Spin Talk Wizard, NewsRevue Lyric, 27 October 1997

I think Peter Mandelson was the main target of this lyric, although the connection between that 1997 Labour Government and spin doctoring more generally was fast becoming evident.

I don’t remember this lyric being used, but I was attending the show a lot less by then.

SPIN TALK WIZARD
(To the Tune of “Pinball Wizard”)

 

VERSE 1

Ever since I was a young man, I’ve addressed the Labour halls,
From Blackpool down to Brighton, I must have roused them all;
But I ain’t seen no-one like him, his tongue’s shaped like a fork;
That slime Peter Mandelson, sure plays a mean spin talk.

VERSE 2

Stands like a statue, he’s the heart of Blair’s machine,
Not one hair’s misplaced cos, he always wears Brylcream;
Spins with intuition, the Tories take a walk,
That geek Peter Mandelson, sure gives a mean spin talk.

CHORUS 1

He’s the Blair spin doctor,
There has to be a twist,
That Blair spin doctor,
Knows how to use his wrist.

MIDDLE EIGHT

How do you think he does it?
(Pure bullshit),
In Armani suits.

VERSE 3 – PETER MANDELSON HIMSELF

Even on their favourite subjects, Tories lose my twist,
My disciples lead me in, even ‘tho’ they don’t exist;
I’m a future Labour leader, anyone can see;
‘Tho’ that damned Trot Ken Livingstone, got on the NEC.

CHORUS 3

He’s the Blair spin doctor,
It has to be a joke;
Cos that Blair spin doctor is,
Such a twisted bloke.

MANDELSON: They mean that in the most positive way. BLACKOUT

The video below has The Who playing Pinball Wizard with the lyrics on the screen:

Submission To Jaspre Bark Re NewsRevue, 27 October 1997

Jaspre Bark
News Revue
27 September 1997
By Fax

Dear Jaspre

Sorry it has taken me a wee while to respond to your message, but I haven’t been around. I enclose one or two rewrites and some new/unused material.

If you want any other older ones rewritten let me know. Also, if you need recordings of any of these, please call and leave a message today – I could drop them crack of dawn tomorrow at the Canal if you need them.

Good luck and I look forward to seeing you soon.

Ian

The following songs are attached

Song Title
Original Title/
Artist Approx.. No. of weeks performed at Canal Cafe
7+ 4-6 1-3 New
gordon brown golden brown / stranglers N
spin talk wizard pinball wizard / who N
vulture in the wind candle in the wind / elton john N
smoke gets in your isles smoke gets in your eyes / bryan ferry 4-6
taliban carrie anne / hollies N
me and paula jones me and mrs jones / billy paul N
feng shui whip crack away N
ffion rave on / buddy holly 1-3
bruce grobbelar’s hat young, gifted and black / bob & marcia N
jack straw my name is jack / manfred mann N
hooray for bollywood hooray for hollywood N
monserrat monster mash / bruce “boris” pickett 1-3

I know the note itself is dated 27 September, but all the temporal evidence including the electronic evidence suggests that this really was written and delivered in late October.

London Philharmonic Orchestra Doing The Lenningrad Symphony And More At The Royal Festival Hall, 19 October 1997

For reasons no-one (not even herself) can explain, Janie is quite partial to Shostakovich, yet cannot abide Prokofiev.

Anyway, a client offered Janie a pair of fine seats at this concert and we said yes.

According to my log, we:

bumped into John and Angela [Kessler] there.

From memory, we encountered cousin Angela and John, rather than actually having a collision with them. I don’t think I knew, at that time, that Angela was on the Board of the LPO and I suspect that Angela and John were too polite to mention that fact.

We heard:

  • Bernd Alois Zimmerman – Trumpet Concerto “Nobody Knows de Trouble I See”
  • Dmitri Shostakovich – Symphony No 7 in C, Op 60 “Lenningrad”

Janie and I loved the Leningrad Symphony as performed that night by the LPO under the baton of Kurt Masur. I didn’t see the following review at the time, but Brian Hunt in The Torygraph bore out our assessment – he absolutely loved this concert:

LPO Shostakovich Hunt TelegraphLPO Shostakovich Hunt Telegraph 25 Oct 1997, Sat The Daily Telegraph (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

A belated thank you to the kind donor of our brace of tickets, who I think went globetrotting or something of that kind instead. Look what you missed.

Theatre Stories by Ken Campbell, Cottesloe Theatre, Followed By Dinner At Vong, 18 October 1997

I have long been partial to a bit of Ken Campbell. This one man show comprised “more than a bit” of him, I suppose.

Superb fun.

…was my verdict. I think I got more out of it than Daisy did, but she still liked it a lot.

Patrick Marmion liked it in the Standard.

Theatre Stories Marmion StandardTheatre Stories Marmion Standard 20 Oct 1997, Mon Evening Standard (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Paul Taylor in the Independent was very taken with it.

Campbell Taylor IndyCampbell Taylor Indy 20 Oct 1997, Mon The Independent (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Dinner At Vong

Janie’s thing at that time was for us to go to a posh place for after theatre dinner. This time, we went to Vong at The Berkeley Hotel.

Andrew Lloyd Weber wrote up the place for the Telegraph a few month’s earlier:

Vong Lloyd Weber TelegraphVong Lloyd Weber Telegraph 28 Jun 1997, Sat The Daily Telegraph (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Matthew Fort in The Guardian described the place as too chic and achingly glossy in 1996 when it first opened.

Vong Fort GuardianVong Fort Guardian 24 Feb 1996, Sat The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

I remember finding the food very interesting and the price less scary than Nobu.

International Festival Of Fine Wine & Food, Olympia, 10 October 1997

The Wine Festival by Albert Anker

OK, it wasn’t all that long ago and Olympia didn’t exactly look like the above picture when we went there for the food & wine fair.

I’m pretty sure Janie and I went more than once to this event, but 1997 might have been the first time.

The Standard gave it a short preview here:

Fine Wine & Food Olympia 10 October 1997Fine Wine & Food Olympia 10 October 1997 08 Oct 1997, Wed Evening Standard (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

So there it is – a classy booze fest.

My then-mate-to-be, Alastair Little, doing the celebrity chef bit. I don’t think we went to that bit – Janie and I didn’t tend to go to the big showpiece parts of such events – we just liked going around, picking up ideas and sampling things..

Who’d have thought back then that I’d end up getting to know Al so well:

A Tragedy Of Epicurean Proportions, Saying Goodbye To Tavola, 25 April 2017

Janie barely remembers the event at all, other than the vague recollection of going to such things a couple of times.

It seems they still do something a bit like it at Olympia twenty-five years later, but in the spring…

…and also the late summer for posh grub.

I’m not sure whether it was this occasion or another visit to one of these fairs, but I recall a very beautiful “English rose” of a young woman marketing Kentish wines, persuading me to try her wares. At that time (or at least this particular wine) was very ordinary wine at an above ordinary price. I have a strong memory of trying to find kind, encouraging and positive words about the wine without seeming interested in actually purchasing the stuff. She smiled sweetly throughout the exchange, so I am quite sure I got away with it.

Trying to find the right words in 1997

Electra by Sophocles, Adapted By Frank McGuinness, Richmond Theatre, 9 October 1997

Blooming heck we were culture-vulturing that autumn. This was our third theatre visit in a week – on a Thursday evening, ahead of going to a food and wine fair the next day.

Worth it though. As I put it in my log:

Electric – excellent production. Worth moving ass on a Thursday for.

Fine cast and crew – captured on Theatricalia here.

Nick Curtis wrote very highly of it in the Standard, reviewing it at Chichester. (We saw it at Richmond, on its way from the West Country to the Donmar.)

Electra Curtis StandardElectra Curtis Standard 23 Sep 1997, Tue Evening Standard (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Whereas Paul Taylor, while rating it, compared it less favourably with the Shaw/Warner version a decade or more earlier:

Electra Taylor IndyElectra Taylor Indy 24 Sep 1997, Wed The Independent (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Look, Europe! by Ghazi Rabihavi, Almeida Theatre, Followed By Dinner At Granita, 5 October 2007

This must have been one of our biggest weekends of theatre and dining ever. Following a long night of Caryl Churchill and Nobu on the Saturday…

Blue Heart: Heart’s Desire & Blue Kettle by Caryl Churchill, Royal Court Downstairs At Duke of York’s Theatre, Followed By Dinner At Nobu, 4 October 1997

…we did the “theatre plus big night out dinner” thing again the next night.

Look, Europe! was, I think, a one-off awareness and fundraising evening for anti-censorship campaign Index, done under the auspices of Harold Pinter and primarily aimed and about Iranian censorship.

Fine cast too – joining Harold Pinter were Joseph Bennett, Anna Friel, Rhydian Jones, Andrew Lincoln, Roger Lloyd Pack, David MacCreedy, Nadia Sawalha, Nadim Sawalha, Christopher Simon and Malcolm Tierney.

David Lister wrote the event up brilliantly as a preview in the Independent:

Look Europe Lister IndyLook Europe Lister Indy 03 Oct 1997, Fri The Independent (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Janie and I were both very taken by the evening at the theatre, which was good drama and very thought provoking for its cause.

Dinner At Granita

Then a few doors down to Granita in Upper Street, which we had been meaning to try for ages. Apparently the spiritual home of New Labour, as Tony Blair and Gordon Brown are said to have made their leadership pact there a few years before our visit.

Tragically, not only were there no cabinet ministers to be seen in there on that Sunday evening, we didn’t even see Harold, Antonia and Co “after show”, which we thought must be a racing certainty.

We did still have a very good meal, though.

And to prove her superwoman credentials, after that action packed weekend, Janie went off at about 6:30 the next morning to treat her first domiciliary patient of the day. 25 years later – not a chance – we’d probably take the Monday off, if not the Monday and Tuesday!

Blue Heart: Heart’s Desire & Blue Kettle by Caryl Churchill, Royal Court Downstairs At Duke of York’s Theatre, Followed By Dinner At Nobu, 4 October 1997

Our take on this:

Interesting (weird) evening. Programme missing – only insert sheet.

Actually the programme might turn out to be a play text which might turn up somewhere on my bookshelves.

I wouldn’t mind reading these plays again. This was Caryl Churchill in impenetrable mood.

Gabrielle Blunt, Jacqueline Defferary, Karina Fernandez, Bernard Gallagher, Valerie Lilley, Mary Macleod and Jason Watkins, directed by Max Stafford-Clark.

Paul Taylor in The Independent was impressed:

Blue Heart Taylor IndyBlue Heart Taylor Indy 25 Sep 1997, Thu The Independent (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Nick Curtis from The Standard reviewed it a few week’s earlier in Edinburgh, also finding it good:

Blue Heart Curtis StandardBlue Heart Curtis Standard 22 Aug 1997, Fri Evening Standard (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

We are all agreed them – weird but good.

Dinner At Nobu

Then on to Old Park Lane Nobu for dinner. That place was the latest “in place to dine” back then, so we were keen to try it. Who’d have thought that, 25 years later, the signature black cod in miso dish would be something we can obtain from our local (Japanese) fishmonger and serve at home?

This was a couple of years before the Old Park Lane Nobu became infamous for Boris Becker’s broom cupboard romp and many years before Boris ended up in jail.

In 1997, Nobu had just opened to rave reviews. Here’s Fay Maschler in The Standard:

Nobu Maschler StandardNobu Maschler Standard 25 Feb 1997, Tue Evening Standard (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Helen Fielding in The Independent also waxed lyrical in amusing fashion about Nobu

Nobu Fielding IndyNobu Fielding Indy 09 Mar 1997, Sun The Independent (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

That was a lot of sensory stimulation for one evening – Caryl Churchill followed by Nobu. My guess is that Janie was very keen to try the place but could only get a late evening booking, so it sort of made sense to go after theatre.

To add to the excitement, we did it all again (in terms of theatre followed by dinner out) the very next day:

Look, Europe! by Ghazi Rabihavi, Almeida Theatre, Followed By Dinner At Granita, 5 October 2007

Smoke Gets In Your Isles, NewsRevue Lyric, 29 September 1997

Terrible forest fires in South East Asia is not really a funny subject and slow numbers don’t usually work in NewsRevue, but somehow this one did work and I recall it went down very well in the show.

SMOKE GETS IN YOUR ISLES
(To the Tune of “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes”)

VERSE 1

They asked me if I knew,
Why Sumatra’s stewed;
I of course replied,
Once a forest’s died,
It cannot be deep fried. (oh no).

VERSE 2

In archipelagos,
Each must hold their nose;
Through the forest fires,
Indonesia riles,
Smoke gets in your isles.

MIDDLE EIGHT

Those Malays,
All want to go away,
As none of them can breath now;
In the main,
Don’t take Garuda planes,
Because they cannot fly now.

VERSE 3

Those clouds will drift and go,
To Northern Borneo;
Through the darkened sky,
How that smog will fly,
Smoke gets in Brunei.

VERSE 4

This smog will run amok,
Soon to reach Bangkok;
Thailand, you’ve surmised,
Punchline’s no surprise,
Smoke gets in your Thais.

Below is a video with The Platters singing Smoke Gets In Your Eyes, with the lyrics on the screen: