We celebrated our homecoming from the Middle East with a visit to the theatre to see this wonderful production of, coincidentally, Pinter’s The Homecoming.
What a cast. Lindsay Duncan, Michael Sheen, Eddie Marsan, Keith Allen & David Bradley. Roger Michell directed it.
In those days, Ralph Fiennes was one of my buddies as Lambton Place…
…OK, what I really mean is that I’d quite often see him there and we were nodding acquaintances.
Anyway, Fiennes was doing great theatre work in those days, not least at the Almeida, which was having a heyday under the joint leadership of Iain McDiarmid (also one of my nodding acquaintances in the Notting Hill neighbourhood back then, as it happens) and Jonathan Kent.
I wrote in my log:
Very good production. Ian McDiarmid near stole the show the night we went understudying as Kosykh.
…and Di Botcher. Di Botcher who directed Newsrevue in 1994 and seemed so keen on my stuff. Where’s the mutual support?
Well, in truth I do think that Di Botcher can act. Her role in this miserablist piece, as far as I could tell, was mostly to stand around looking miserable. Di stood around looking miserable with aplomb.
Here’s what our friend Michael Billington had to say…and you know for sure that when he uses the phrases “important” and “not an easy evening” that misery must be part of it:
…perhaps we should have stuck it out to the second half after all. But we were about to fly off to Lebanon & Syria just over a week later, so time was at a premium…and they really know how to play for sympathy over there.
My log suggests that I lost the programme and therefore all record of this event, but thanks to those wonderful people at The Questors Theatre who seem to archive absolutely everything, I have been able to retrieve the programme and all the details of the cast and creatives – click here for the Questors archive link.
I have always had a soft spot for Anouilh, ever since I saw his Antigone at Alleyn’s in my first year of secondary school.
I must admit, though, that lighter, lesser Anouilh has not dated as well as his more serious work. The Rehearsal falls into the “lighter work” category. It seems extraordinary today that this play fell foul of the British theatre censors until the 1960s.
Still, my vague recollection of this production was that it was quite eye-catching and held our attention.
The diary is silent on where we ate afterwards.
The deal with Pauline on Questors nights was that she did the theatre tickets, Janie did the interval drinks and I did the dinners. No sign of me putting a credit card down for a fancy meal that night, so I’m guessing that we had a modest dinner at Wine & Moussaka, which I recall us doing occasionally after the Questors.
We were neither of us too sure about this play/production.
Granted, it was extremely well received. Granted, we recognised Martin McDonagh’s talent and said we’d like to see more of his work, which subsequently we have done.
But this particular play/production felt like a pastiche of a pre war Irish play to us and left us a bit cold.
Oh by gosh we enjoyed this one. I wrote in my log:
Great fun. Subsequently, the cast changed every five minutes, but we saw the “original” UK cast.
And what a cast that was: Albert Finney, Tom Courtenay and Ken Stott.
Unusually, it was Janie who booked this one. How do I know – because the details are all over her diary, not mine…and boy did Janie write down details. So I can report that the play was 1 hour 40 minutes without an interval and that we sat in K22 & K23.
While the play/production was a huge hit and ran for yonks, it was not universally praised by the critics.
Fewer than 24 hours after my hive-ridden return from the frozen north of England, Janie and I went to see this Robert Lepage/Ex Machina production from The Great White North (Canada).
In truth I remember little about it. I think I was squirming in my seat only in part because of the hives.
At the time, this sort of multimedia theatrical experience was novel, but it did seem, to us, that the technological wonder of it was rather superseding the drama and/or tension that we normally experience at the theatre.
This was my first visit to The Actor’s Workshop in Halifax.
It was an unusual start to the new year, that year, in several ways. Janie’s and my diaries both suggest that we had planned to attend a party at Anthea’s for New Year’s Eve, but we are pretty sure that party didn’t happen in the end.
After new year’s day, Janie had a diary full of work for the rest of the week, while I got in the motor to do a round trip taking in Halifax for the New Year revels show and then, the next day, a visit to a soft drinks factory in Nelson, Lancashire, across the Pennines.
Naturally I chose a freezing cold, snow and ice early January for that trip.
The journey to Halifax I recall being problem free (motorway more or less all the way) and of course I received warm hospitality from Mike and Lottie Ward when I got there.
I had met Mike in London two or three years earlier and had submitted material to the New Year Revels show for a couple of previous years, but this was my first (of several) visits to The Actor’s Workshop.
I was clearly impressed by the show. My log reads:
Much better than I expected. Did justice to most material and more than did justice to mine.
There were lots of in-jokes in the show and programme about The Ridings School, Halifax, which, in 1996, had:
…received nationwide attention when staff said 60 of its pupils were “unteachable” and school operations were temporarily suspended while the headmaster and other leading staff were replaced.
I don’t think the entire cast and crew were really alums of The Ridings School…but perhaps they were.
I stayed at The Imperial Crown Hotel in Halifax on that occasion. I think we ate a fine meal pre show at the Ward’s House. That must have been the first occasion I met Lottie and I have a funny feeling that Adam (whom I met at NewsRevue and through whom I had met Mike) was there on that occasion – perhaps also Olivia.
Janie (who was not with me, remember) wrote more details and contact numbers into her diary for that trip than I did into mine – including the local Halifax police and the AA – I suspect she scribbled down the latter two after seeing the weather forecast!
The drive across the Pennines from Halifax to Nelson early the next morning (3rd January) was truly nerve-wracking but I got there and did whatever I had scheduled to do at that factory for most of the day before setting off in the still treacherous driving conditions back to London.
In those days I was still driving “Red Noddy” the Honda Civic, which, although air conditioned, was still a late 1980s vehicle not ideally suited to freezing conditions. I struggled to stay warm throughout the journey and started to itch terribly before arriving at Janie’s place…
…covered in Hives.
I itched through Robert Lepage’s Elsinore the next (Saturday) evening, but that, as we say, is another story.
We don’t often go to the theatre “at Twixtmas”, not least because you don’t get a lot of serious drama over that period. But in 1996 someone decided to transfer this superb Theatre Royal Bath production to London over the festive season.
I’m pretty sure it was on this occasion that Janie and I ran into Jacqui Somerville, who was in the audience but I think connected with someone or something to do with the production.
In my log, Janie and I declared this event to be an
…excellent production…
I do remember this production well and especially fondly. Anthony Page directed, Janet McTeer (who won multiple awards for this performance), Owen Teale and John Carlisle were in it. There is a Theatricalia entry for it.
Postscript
Jacqui Somerville was indeed there that evening – she reports and reminds me:
…a light blew that evening above the stage and Janet McTeer was a consummate professional. Giggled for ages then clicked back into character.
It was a superb production. I think I blagged the last seat in the house!
Nicholas de Jongh rated this production/London transfer very good and wrote highly of it:
Billington Guardian Eyolf 21 Dec 1996, Sat The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com
De Jongh Standard Eyolf 19 Dec 1996, Thu Evening Standard (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com
Spencer Telegraph Eyolf 20 Dec 1996, Fri The Daily Telegraph (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com
