Strangely, I remember going with Janie to an open day for one of her chiropody suppliers, Footman, in Mitcham.
It was a bit weird.
I think one of the reasons I tagged along was because we wanted to see the movie Much Ado About Nothing and the sensible show time that Sunday was to go straight on from Janie’s trade show.
“But I thought Janie doesn’t like Shakespeare?” I hear you cry. Well, that wasn’t quite so set/established by then and in any case so many people were telling us that we needed to see this movie because the Beatrice and Benedick bit of the plot reminded people of our relationship.
Yawn.
Kenneth Brannagh & Emma Thompson? Do me a favour. Who were we and/or our friends trying to kid?
Not a bad movie though, in that British costume drama/turn a classic into a rom-com sort of way.
It was a quirky, rather corny film with some excellent actors in it.
I am pretty sure we ate and stayed at mine, not least because Janie treated one of her Saudi princess clients in town on Saturday moirning before we went off to Bristol. I don’t suppose they discussed Leon The Pig Farmer.
My diary is not at all forthcoming about the details of this weekend. All I wrote for the Friday evening and then Saturday were a couple of very short words:
PIG.
Hils.
Then some arrows and stuff across the Sunday, implying that we stayed in Bristol, Janie also had a symbolic line through Sunday.
With no other information about where we stayed, I’m guessing this is the one and only time that we stayed at Janie’s sister Hil and Chris Boswell’s house, in the conservatory, on their Z bed. (Sounds like a Cluedo accusation).
Memory suggests that we ate a very good meal with some good wine. Were “entertained” by the boys squabbling with each other and then tried our best to sleep on the Z bed.
Both our diaries say we went to Janie;s friend and former colleague Viv’s place for dinner, but Janie’s diary also has some temporally confounding stuff in it:
7.30 Viv dinner. 6.00 Ian for dinner.
Orlando at 7.00 (film start 7.10)
[then Viv’s Temple Fortune address, redacted for this purpose]
From memory, this scheduled evening at Viv’s was postponed, perhaps more than once, owing to Gray (Viv’s partner) being indisposed. Busy chap was Gray – I think we were supposed to have dinner with him quite a few times but only actually did so a couple of times.
Anyway, I do recall going to see Orlando with Janie very soon after it opened in the UK. Janie was very keen to see it.
Not really our sort of thing, but Kim persuaded me and Janie to join her and Micky at Circus Space on the Caledonian Road.
Now (he says, writing in December 2019) known as the National Centre for Circus Arts and based in Hackney, this training organisation for circus skills has long raised funds by putting on shows for the public.
Kim was a fan and we went along to give it a look-see.
I’m not a fan of circuses, my main beef being to do with making caged animals perform. Kim has an even more profound animal rights thing than I do, so her choice of Circus Space reflected the fact that they do not (or at least did not) do any animal related stuff.
I remember coming away from the evening feeling that the performers were very accomplished and that they deserve a decent audience…
…but it only reinforced my view that circus-type performance isn;t really for me.
Janie barely remembers the evening at all – unusually for her when it comes to performance-related memories. I think the circus was a big turn-off for her.
Where are the clowns?……There ought to be clowns.
Oh well.
We’ll have had a nice meal and will have enjoyed the evening together despite the circus, I am sure.
I don’t have great memories of seeing this opera, but I think my memories of it are more closely linked to my general mood that weekend than to any intrinsic issue with the opera/production…
…other than to say that this experience probably helped to kick off the view, which has become a prevailing one, that opera ain’t me.
Bobbie was there for this one, as was Ashley Fletcher – yes, my memory definitely serves me correctly for this one, as the diary makes clear that Ashley was down for the weekend and stayed in the tower – i.e. the annex to my flat in Clanricarde Gardens – so named, by Ashley, as he felt that the place would be suitable for the detention of a mad and/or elderly relative. That annex now serves as my office – renamed the ivory tower – a more liberal purpose and name.
…a few days before I wrote up this piece, about Don Giovanni.
Postscript after seeing Ashley in April 2019: Ashley has no recollection of that weekend. So we must rely on Bobbie’s memory that I was tripping out on tiredness and rather freaked at the thought of going out to get some additional soap, as there was none for Ashley in the shower of the tower. If I really did say words to the effect:
I did not envisage this weekend as a soap buying weekend…
…that would have to be up there amongst my most autistic utterances ever. I have a dreadful feeling that Bobbie’e memory is going to be bang on regarding that point.
from The Spectator 2 July 1988 – subscribers can click through to the archive and read the whole article.
I don’t recall it seeming like a disaster. I do recall it feeling more like being at a rock concert than at a theatrical production. I think we had good seats but were still at some distance from the action. It was big, bold and in truth not really me.
I don’t think this one was really Bobbie either – she might remember how she felt about it.
Now I’m not one to point the finger or anything like that, but my guess is that it was primarily Bobbie’s idea to give opera a go, not least because so many of her law reporting pals were into opera.
I’m pretty sure my previous experience of opera would have been Carmen in the early 1970s; a semi-professional production by the Putney Operatic Society who chose to typecast me and several of my primary school mates as urchins.
But I digress.
Roll the clock forward some 15 years and, like buses, it’s not one but two that come along at more or less the same time – i.e. two opera visits during June 1988. That’s quite a lot of opera just a few week’s before my Accountancy finals. The Magic Flute was the first of them.
Jeremy Sams directed it – I have seen a great deal of his work in the theatre of course. Nicholas Hytner produced it – I’ve seen a lot of his theatre stuff too. The production was sort-of revived many years later and the trailer for the revival is embedded below, so that should give you a feel for it.
We went midweek – on a Tuesday – which will have been quite a late night. I was on study leave by then I think, so I suppose I felt that I was master of my own time management.
In truth I don’t remember all that much about this production, other than lots going on and rather liking the music because it’s Mozart and I rather like Mozart.
Bobbie might have more profound memories of it than me. I’ll ask her.
Wednesday 16 July – Fairly hectic day at work – met Annalisa for lunch. Met Bobbie after work – had meal at Mayflower & went on to Woody Allen Film after – v nice.
Mayflower was one of the better Chinese restautrants in Chinatown – now (writing in 2020) resurrected as New Mayflower.
The Woody Allen film in question would have been Hannah And Her Sisters, which went on general release in the UK a couple of days later. No doubt we went to a preview at the Curzon West End (just opposite the Mayflower).
I still think Hannah And Her Sisters is a great movie. But gone are the days that I’d complain about a hectic day at work in which I had lunch with a friend and left work early enough to have a meal and then see a movie. Such a snowflakey-sense-of-entitlement-youngster, I was.
Pretty busy at work today. Went to LC [Laurence Corner] etc.
Met Graham Watson for a drink – Mike came too (is leaving office).
(Met Jon Graham on way home).
Earlyish night.
I hasten to add that Laurence Corner was, for me, work – not a fun outing at lunchtime. Mike (he who was leaving the office) must be Mike King, who, by that time, I think was doing much of the work on the Laurence Corner account and who was, presumably, handing over some of the reins to me.
Graham Watson was an old friend from school. I vaguely recall running into him in London and thus meeting up. Coincidentally Jon graham was also a friend from school and (if I recall correctly) I didn’t realise he was still hanging in Streatham until this chance encounter. Jon and I met up again more than once, IIRC. I’m not sure whether Graham and I did. Perhaps Graham gave me the bumps…again!
Several years earlier, Graham Watson & Paul Deacon giving me the bumps, Tim Church feigns a lack of interest, picture “borrowed” from Paul’s facebook posting with grateful thanks.
This image from Concourse, depicting a show several months earlier
A couple of weeks ago (May 2017) I wrote an Ogblog piece about my first forays into Ringroad Revue – click here. Quick as a flash, John Easom at “Keele Alumni Central” put Frank Dillon in touch with me, triggering e-mail exchanges, arrangements to meet up and of course a flood of more memories.
Frank wrote/asked:
I was particularly intrigued to learn that you are in possession of The Cornflake Box – or The Holy Grail as Olu Odunsi and I have dubbed it these past 30 years(!) or so.
Any chance you could scan me the contents?
The actual box (which I suppose I inherited from Frank in the summer of 1984) disintegrated during 1985 while it was living in my flat (K block Horwood). I think it was probably replaced by another similar box.
My collection of scripts is now in a file – a mixture of original hand-written scripts and photocopies – a fragment of the Holy Grail with some facsimile elements.
I don’t think that I even took the actual box with me…not that it was THE actual box any more, unless we accept that this particular Holy Grail of a Cornflake Box regenerated every few years – a bit like Dr Who…just more funny, less animated and with fewer enemies.
I suspect it will be autumn (2017) before I get space to take on the Ringroad File/Cornflake Box/Holy Grail Fragment for comprehensive scanning and sharing – otherwise I’ll be interrupting my current/future life by spending a disproportionate amount of time wallowing in the past…and that won’t do.
But I do have, already digitised, a recording of the Finalists Revue from 1985, which I have uploaded in two chunks (due to WordPress file size restrictions).
I cannot remember the name of everyone who appeared in the 1985 Finalists Revue – apologies to those whose names I only half remember or forget.
Frank was gone by then. Olu Odunsi was still around and was a delight to work with on the boards, including this show. John Bowen, who was on the research//academic staff, also joined with us for Ringroad that 1984/85 academic year and was similarly good news to have in the team.
Indeed the whole cast was fun and friendly. Dave Griffiths (who also wrote very good material) and three fabulous lasses, Jo, Jackie and (I think) Karen. Possibly there were others, but I think that’s it. Please help me to fill in the gaps if you are able, dear reader.
I have not re-listened to the recording in full myself yet, but I think the second half might be a tad better than the first half. The recording is poor as we had a microphone shortage, so some bits are less audible than others and some sketches sound a bit shouty.
I was pretty hopeless as a performer, really, but I think it was seen as a bit of a coup to have a union sabbatical on the Ringroad cast taking the pee out of union politics. I wrote little back then – my comedy writing was to blossom later, in the 1990s, at NewsRevue.
Enjoy the recording(s) below and please do comment.
Ringroad Finalists Revue 27 June1985 Part One of Two
Ringroad Finalists Revue 27 June1985 Part Two of Two
