Category: Theatre

Long Day’s Journey Into Night by Eugene O’Neill, Theatre Royal Haymarket, 16 August 1986

I was reminded of this strange 1986 evening at the theatre in December 2019 by two events:

Rodgers & Hammerstein, For One Half Only, With Bobbie Scully, Theatre Royal Hanley, 2 September 1984

What is it about visits to theatres named Theatre Royal with Bobbie Scully, I wondered?

My log records the following from our 1986 visit to the Theatre Royal Haymarket:

This production was notable for the overlapping dialog to speed it up. Despite that mercy, we attended on one of the hottest days of the year and the air conditioning was poor or non existent. Quite literally, a fight broke out in the audience (just in front of us) at one point. Luvvie rage?

Ah yes, I remember it well.

I liked Jonathan Miller’s idea to use overlapping dialogue. While Long Day’s Journey is regarded as a great play, it is normally incredibly long for a play in which pretty much nothing happens. The overlapping dialogue shortens the play a fair bit. Further, it added a sense of realism to the drama. A family pretty much at war with itself probably would comprise people speaking a lot without really listening to anything the others are saying.

This was a Broadway production on transfer to the West End – the Haymarket was doing quite a few of those back then.

Here is a link to Frank Rich’s New York Times review from the April.

Jack Lemmon played the lead in this production and I thought he was very good.

A young unknown (to us) named Kevin Spacey played James Jr – I thought he overacted a fair bit, but then what do I know. In fairness, when Janie and I saw him 10-12 years later play the lead, Hicky, in The Iceman Cometh, I felt he had come on leaps and bounds as an actor.

As for the heat and the poor air conditioning and the flight – that for sure is my most abiding memory of the Long Day’s Journey evening.

The fight broke out towards the end of the interval. I think someone simply stepped on someone’s foot while trying to get back to their seat. So much so normal in those poorly designed, ludicrously-expensive-yet-space-restricted-seats in theatres housed in illustrious 19th century buildings such as the Theatre Royal Haymarket.

I seem to recall that both of the combatants were Americans. Perhaps the stomper was belatedly or insufficiently apologetic to the stompee, but anyway they actually stood there fighting for a while.

I especially remember a rather camp usher rushing to the end of the offending row, waving his arms and shouting,

Stop it! Stop it at once! Please stop fighting!…

…as if arm waving and pleas were likely to stop a couple of audience rage pugilists at that stage of the dispute.

I don’t suppose the fight lasted all that long, nor was anyone seriosuly hurt. Nor did either of the antagonists refuse to sit close to the other once they had calmed down – I think they were only two or three seats away from each other. Far enough, I suppose.

I do recall Bobbie and I deciding that the fight was the most action-packed dramatic incident of the evening. Long Day’s Journey is, in truth, a play in which almost nothing happens.

Here is a link to the Theatricalia entry for this production.

Here’s Michael Billington’r review of this production:

Michael Billington On Long Day's JourneyMichael Billington On Long Day’s Journey Tue, Aug 5, 1986 – 9 · The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com

Below is Blake Morrison’s Observer review – Morrison clearly thought more of this production than did Billington:

Blake Morrison's Observer ReviewBlake Morrison’s Observer Review Sun, Aug 10, 1986 – 17 · The Observer (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com

I had logged this incorrectly as 4 August but actually we went 16 August.

My diary also reminds me that Bobbie and I went to Inigo Jones for a pre-theatre meal, which I describe as:

…fab nouvelle cuisine meal.

Remember Inigo Jones restaurant in Covent Garden? Remember nouvelle cuisine?

I also note that we…

…had coffee at Swiss…

…[i..e. The Swiss Centre] after the show.

Bobbie might now remember some or all about the evening, but last time I asked (17 February 2020) she drew a blank, other than remembering having seen this production with me.

Highs and Lows In Cardiff & London, Including A Dolls House by Henrik Ibsen At St Stephen’s Theatre Space, Early November 1985

Inside of St Stephen’s Reimagined by Nano Banana Lite 2 on my instruction.

Sunday, 3 November 1985 – not a very nice day – mum and dad went to aborted wedding – I did exam (had Chinese after).

I have no recollection of this aborted wedding incident and cannot imagine whose intended wedding it wasn’t. I sense that mum in particular was upset by the business.

Monday, 4 November 1985 – office ok – I suppose – quiet evening at home.

Tuesday, 5 November 1985 – work ok – lazy-ish evening in.

Wednesday, 6 November 1985 – office ok – took folks out for Greek meal in evening (anniversary).

Not just any anniversary – it was their 30th wedding anniversary. A Greek meal might have been more appropriate for the 20th (China), but I’m sure they thought that me taking them out was a pearl of a gesture.

Thursday, 7 November 1985 – work ok – went to backseat drivers class in evening.

Friday, 8 November 1985 – Odd day at work – Sujen send off at lunchtime – long lunch! Went to Cardiff [to visit Jilly Black] in evening – Italian meal etc.

Saturday, 9 November 1985 – Earlyish start but did little – day went quick. Went to see Ibsen Doll’s House and for Chinese meal in evening.

OK, I have managed to find a newspaper clipping about that Doll’s House production in Cardiff. It seems we attended the last night.

Doll's House Argus Doll’s House Argus 1 Nov 1985 South Wales Argus (Newport, Gwent, Wales) Newspapers.com

From another mention in The Argus it seems we parted with £3.50 each, back when £3.50 was real money for a cushioned pew and a cup of cold coffee, unless Jilly’s student status entitled us to a discount.

Strangely, I remember the production as being rather good, although it was somewhat surpassed when Janie and I saw Janet McTeer, Owen Teale & John Carlisle in A Doll’s House more than 10 years later – unfair comparison, I know, I know.

A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen, The Playhouse, 27 December 1996

Sunday 10 November 1985 – early start – went to Polly’s for lunch – left in afternoon – quiet evening at home.

I seem to recall that Polly was a charming young woman with a strident Welsh Nationalist boyfriend, which seemed super-cool at the time.

Monday 11 November 1985 – work ok – studied in evening for home exam.

Tuesday 12 November 1985 – work ok – did some academic work in the evening.

Wednesday 13 November 1985 – busyish day at the office – lousy journey – did home exam in evening.

Thursday, 14 November 1985 work ok-ish – felt pretty low in evening – didn’t go to drivers class.

Don’t worry about me, dear reader – I went to Keele for the weekend the next day and that made me feel happy again for a while. Until the next episode…

Sweet Bird of Youth by Tennessee Williams, Theatre Royal Haymarket, 2 November 1985

Image from e-bay, click here, where this programme can be bought

This theatre visit predates my relentless keeping of programmes and logs. Aspects of it are well-logged in my memory – the fact that Lauren Bacall played The Princess Kosmonopolis and the fact that the production was at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, for example.

It had slipped my memory, however, that Harold Pinter, one of my heroes, was the director. I was probably seduced by that fact, combined with a chance [did you see what I did there?] to see Lauren Bacall in a play that I had studied with dry-mouthed admiration at school; it indeed had been this play that turned me on to Tennessee Williams.

West End ticket prices for hot shows, even in those days, were a stretch for an apprentice professional lad just down from University and would also have been a stretch for Bobbie – just embarking on her second year of pupillage. But stretch we did, and, with hindsight, delighted that we stretched am I.

Here is the Theatricalia entry for this play/production. This tells me that the production had been doing the rounds of theatres royal and palace-like, prior to autumn at the Theatre Royal Haymarket.

Full formal reviews will take some digging, but Harold himself got there before me with a super one-pager summarising the best of the notices – click here to link to that page. In the unlikely event that misfortune befalls haroldpinter.org, click here for a scrape of that page.

I have rummaged for some interesting newspaper stuff on this production as well as reviews. Here’s a reflective piece by Roy Hattersley, of all people, suggesting that this play/production is not for young folk. Try telling that to 23-year-old me and 22 year-old Bobbie:

Bird Hattersley Guardian Bird Hattersley Guardian 31 Aug 1985 The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Here is my friend, Michael Billington’s formal review from The Guardian:

Bird Billington Guardian Bird Billington Guardian 11 Jul 1985 The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

John Bird also reviews positively, adding to Billington’s praise of Michael Beck (Chance), James Grout (Boss Finlay) and Frances Cuka (Miss Lucy).

Bird Barber Telegraph Bird Barber Telegraph 11 Jul 1985 The Daily Telegraph (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

I didn’t see many productions reviewed by Milton Shulman – our eras barely overlapped. In truth the late-period Shulman said little about this one:

Bird Shulman Standard Bird Shulman Standard 10 Jul 1985 Evening Standard (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Here is an interview by Nicholas de Jongh with the lauded Michael Beck:

de Jongh Guardian Standard de Jongh Guardian Standard 9 Jul 1985 The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

In short – do I remember this as a production and night at the theatre that cut the mustard? Unequivocally yes.

Topical Heatwave (Cambridge Footlights Revue), With John White, Bloomsbury Theatre, 16 October 1985

Bloomsbury Theatre in 2005, Frankieroberto, Public domain

The diary note reads:

Met John after work – went to see Topical Heatwave (footlights review) – then for meal – nice evening.

I remember the show rather well. We thought it was quite good. Not vastly better than the Ringroad stuff I just finished doing at Keele, obviously, apart from the more significant production budget of course.

I learn, from searching that the cast was Bill Cashmore, Chris Luscombe, Alison Cook, Daniel Strauss, Kathryn Crew, Graham Wynne, and that the director was Charlie Pattinson. One or two familiar names in there.

The diary is silent on where we went for our meal – not even a mention of the type of meal we ate. Probably a modest eatery along Southampton Row. Italian perhaps.

Jumpers by Tom Stoppard, Aldwych Theatre, With Annalisa, Johnboy & Mandy, 27 September 1985

The diary entry for that day reads:

Full day on [Financial Training] course – went to Annalisa’s -> meet John and Mandy. Saw Jumpers and had Chinese meal.

Again, nothing specific about the Chinese Restaurant. Probably Mayflower or Joy King Lau, is my guess.

Jumpers. I remember enjoying the play and the production without being bowled over by it. The cast was very 1970s/early 1980s sitcom heavy, which made them familiar, perhaps to excess. At least in those days you didn’t get sycophantic audiences giving “stars” standing ovations simply for turning up and walking on to the stage.

Here is the Theatricalia entry for the production. Peter Wood was a fine director and was especially adept at Stoppard, amongst others.

Here is some professional take on what we saw. Firstly, my friend, Michael Billlington, who liked it:

Jumpers Billington Guardian Jumpers Billington Guardian 2 Apr 1985 The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Francis King in the Sunday telegraph also liked it:

Jumpers Telegraph King Jumpers Telegraph King 7 Apr 1985 Sunday Telegraph (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

I sense that John Barber in The Daily Telegraph liked the production more than the play:

Jumpers Telegraph Barber Jumpers Telegraph Barber 2 Apr 1985 The Daily Telegraph (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Michael Radcliffe in the Observer, perhaps bedazzled by Felicity Kendall, had this one down as a “don’t miss”:

Jumpers Observer Radcliffe Jumpers Observer Radcliffe 7 Apr 1985 The Observer (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

I do remember the evening as a memorable and enjoyable night out with friends. One or more of them might chime in with memories of their own about it.

Three Strindberg Premieres, The Gate Theatre, 10 September 1985

I always was partial to a bit of Strindberg and had avidly read all the Strindberg I could readily get hold of. But I hadn’t read these short plays and thought this triple bill looked most enticing.

Annalisa was partial to this sort of theatre and herself brought authentic Swedish upbringing into the equation too. For sure she was up for this idea.

At that time, Annalisa, who was still at Keele, lived with her parents in Harley Street, just a stone’s throw from Cavendish Square, so meeting up with her while she was still on her summer vacation was a doddle.

This evening was especially memorable for me. It was my first ever visit to The Gate, in Notting Hill. Little did I realise in 1985 that, three years later, I would make my home just around the corner from there.

I remember this particular evening of theatre well, as it was so darned good. Typical Strindberg themes. I remember one scene with pipe-smoking women which seemed terribly Scandinavian.

I expect the Italian meal that Annalisa and I had afterwards was at the Notting Hill incarnation of Il Carretto, which was a reliable Italian place in that 1970s mould.

Let’s see if I can find some professional reviews of that excellent Strindberg production at The Gate.

Yes! Of course I can.

I knew I could rely on my friend, Michael Billington, who wrote highly of the evening, although he didn’t like the play with the pipe-smoking women by the looks of it:

Strindberg Guardian Billington Strindberg Guardian Billington 4 Sept 1985 The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

RS in the Sunday Telegraph also wrote well of the triple bill:

Strindberg, Telegraph, RS Strindberg, Telegraph, RS 8 Sept 1985 Sunday Telegraph (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Ros Asquith in The Observer loved the production but found these stripped down Strindberg pieces too slight:

Strindberg Observer Asquith Strindberg Observer Asquith 15 Sept 1985 The Observer (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

I wonder whether Annalisa remembers this evening? I’ll ask her.

We Interrupt Keele Festival Week To Dice With Death On A Strindberg Theatre Trip To London, 28 June 1985

Petra: “I wonder if someone here does advanced driver courses?”

The appointment diary reads “day off” in big letters, but I latterly inserted:

11:00 Day Nursery

Despite the fact that my term of office was over, I was still taking my students’ union duties very seriously and the meeting will have taken a good couple of hours – I have written about my experience of such a meeting previously:

Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Ronnie Frankenberg & The Keele Day Nursery Nurses But Were Afraid To Ask – Plus Other Tales From The End of Spring Term 1985

As a result, Petra and I set off from Keele for London a fair bit later than we had intended.

My personal diary entry skims over the details of this…

…but I remember the hair-raising aspects of this episode very clearly.

We took this trip in Petra’s car, as the idea was to have a Chinese meal in Soho’s Chinatown, see The Dance of Death at the Riverside Studios, and then return to Keele at night. That sort of round trip only makes sense in a car.

It also only really makes sense to do that sort of road trip if you allow plenty of time for the journeys and know your way around London by road. We were more than a little deficient in both of those regards.

Imagine the scene – Petra driving east along the Marylebone Road in Friday afternoon traffic, by which time we realised that we had not allowed enough time to eat before heading out to Hammersmith to see the play. I was trying to work out, by landmark and road sign, where we should turn off for Chinatown…or perhaps we now meant to turn off for Hammersmith…

…to be fair, my directions might have been less than perfect…to be equally fair, Petra’s knowledge of the road layout of the Marylebone Road must also have been less than perfect…

…but in truth, I couldn’t fathom then and certainly couldn’t fathom now how the next bit happened. We continued driving east along the Marylebone Road…on the wrong side of the dual carriageway.

I asked DeepAI to reimagine the scene for us. I did suggest that I should be depicted head down in the crash bracing position, but the technology wouldn’t depict that.

I think I adopted the crash bracing position. For sure I covered my eyes at least and no doubt expressed orally my terror. I vaguely remember Petra saying reassuring stuff like:

Don’t worry, don’t worry. It’ll be OK. I’ll get us out of this.

I think she must have manoeuvred across all of the lanes and turned right onto Judd Street, although how she managed to dodge all of the Friday rush hour traffic while doing that I can barely imagine.

I asked DeepAI at least to show me covering my eyes. Not much joy there. You’ll have to imagine the terrified gestures and sounds for yourselves. Still, thanks to DeepAI for the images

The irony of having diced with death ahead of going to see The Dance Of Death might have been wasted on me then, but it is not wasted on me now.

I also recall how bad the traffic was between Marylebone “Dice With Death” Road and The Riverside Hammersmith, such that we were cutting it fine ahead of seeing The Dance Of Death. But we did make it to the theatre in time and by gosh was it worth the trip and the trauma.

The Dance Of Death by August Strindberg, Riverside Studios

All we had forfeited was one day of Keele Festival week (and nearly our lives), but it transpires that the great Alan Bates gave up a Hollywood movie for the chance to play Edgar in this production. Here is a preview interview piece from The Standard:

Dance Bates StandardDance Bates Standard 17 May 1985, Fri Evening Standard (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

I had long wanted to see some Strindberg, having read plenty of it at school and then more during my working summers, when I tended to read plays voraciously while commuting to work. The opportunity to see Alan Bates opposite Frances de la Tour in a Strindberg play, albeit one I hadn’t read at that time, had been enticing to say the least.

Dance Of Death Promo Southall GazetteDance Of Death Promo Southall Gazette 17 May 1985, Fri Southall Gazette (Ealing, London, England) Newspapers.com

I don’t suppose I saw that advert in the Southall Gazette. I suspect I saw a review in The Guardian or The Observer.

Michael Radcliffe in the latter loved it:

Dance Ratcliffe ObserverDance Ratcliffe Observer 02 Jun 1985, Sun The Observer (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Nicholas de Jongh in The Guardian seemed less sure but still positive:

Dance de Jongh GuardianDance de Jongh Guardian 01 Jun 1985, Sat The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

John Barber in The Telegraph was not so sure about the play or the supporting cast, but waxed lyrical about Alan and Frances:

Dance Barber TelegraphDance Barber Telegraph 03 Jun 1985, Mon The Daily Telegraph (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

That last article reminds me that the production we saw was The Dance Of Death Parts One & Two, barely expurgated, so it ran for a bum-numbing four hours.

That’s FOUR HOURS on those excruciating seats they had in The Riverside Studios back then.

Still, my review of The Dance Of Death was a one-worder:

Excellent

Petra and I will have arrived in Chinatown around midnight, by which time the choice of eateries was limited to say the least – I suspect the choice was either Yung’s or the notoriously and relentlessly rude Wong Kei.

Yung’s in Wardour Street

Extravagantly, and wisely, I plugged for Yung’s, sparing us the indignities and lesser food of Wong Kei. Clearly I thought the meal at Yung’s was very nice as I described it as such in my diary.

I like the diary description “returned through the night” for the drive home, which was, as far as I can recall, relatively incident free.

So was it good manners or post traumatic stress related amnesia that made me miss out the details of the “driving the wrong way along the Marylebone Road” incident from my diary? It’s hard to recall my diary entry mindset, forty years on, although my memory of the incident remains very clear indeed.

Oh yes, (DeepA)I remember it well…

Saved by Edward Bond, Royal Court Theatre, 9 February 1985

Bobbie and I had been blown away by The Pope’s Wedding before Christmas…

A Weekend In London, Including The Pope’s Wedding by Edward Bond, Royal Court Theatre, Dinner At The Mayflower After Theatre & Lunch At The Swiss Centre The Next Day, 7 to 9 December 1984

…we were very keen indeed to see the companion piece for this Edward Bond revival, Saved. I’m not sure how Bobbie managed to score tickets for this, but she must have found a way. Perhaps we queued up for the release of top notch cheap seats on the day, but I do recall that, once again, we were in excellent seats near the front and utterly absorbed by being there.

I waxed lyrical about the stellar cast in the piece about The Pope’s Wedding. Same cast for Saved, but different director – Danny Boyle no less.

And when I say “stellar cast” I really do mean stellar cast: Peter Lovstrom, Adrian Dunbar, Mark Wingett, Tony Rohr, Peter-Hugo Daly, Lesley Manville, June Watson, Gary Oldman, Joanne Whalley, Gerard Horan…

…here is the Theatricalia entry for this production.

To cut a long story short, we were blown away again. It is a truly shocking paly – no less shocking for knowing in advance what is coming in the ultraviolent ending.

Michael Ratcliffe in the Observer loved it:

Saved Ratcliffe ObserverSaved Ratcliffe Observer 23 Dec 1984, Sun The Observer (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

My friend to be, Michael Billington, also spoke very highly of this production:

Saved Billington GuardianSaved Billington Guardian 21 Dec 1984, Fri The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

John Barber in the Telegraph was less effusive but still very positive:

Saved Barber TelegraphSaved Barber Telegraph 21 Dec 1984, Fri The Daily Telegraph (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Milton Shulman in the Standard also concurred – this was great stuff.

Saved Shulman StandardSaved Shulman Standard 21 Dec 1984, Fri Evening Standard (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

A Weekend In London, Including The Pope’s Wedding by Edward Bond, Royal Court Theatre, Dinner At The Mayflower After Theatre & Lunch At The Swiss Centre The Next Day, 7 to 9 December 1984

Image from The Royal Court Theatre Living Archive on a fair usage basis.

A moment in my personal history on that visit to London; my first visit to The Royal Court Theatre.

I was blown away by this production – Bobbie and I returned in the new year to see Saved as well, which was being performed in rep along with The Pope’s Wedding. After that, I returned to The Royal Court many, many times. Most recently at the time of writing (forty years on), strangely, as a facilitator for the Royal Court rather than as an audience member. A strange but true story:

I, A Facilitator: Beyond The Library, The Mulberry Bush by Angus Wilson c/w Giant by Mark Rosenblatt, Royal Court Theatre, 29 October 2024

But returning to The Pope’s Wedding, I am sure I have Bobbie to thank for seeking out the opportunity to see that production. She was doing her Bar pupillage in London by then and had no doubt spotted a review and/or an advert for the production. I think we got in on some sort of special deal, which possibly involved queueing up for “on the day” tickets. What I do recall is that we saw both The Pope’s Wedding and Saved from the best seats in the house for very modest ticket prices.

The Royal Court has benefitted from this “drug pusher style sales technique” for many decades since; I got addicted to watching theatre from the best seats not any old seats. In fact, many other theatres have benefitted from The Royal Court’s foresight at snaring potential theatre addicts young.

I quite often say “what a cast” in my theatre visit write ups, but on this occasion I think that phrase deserves a shout: WHAT A CAST!

Tony Rohr, Adrian Dunbar, Mark Wingett, Peter Lovstrom, Joanne Whalley (prior to her becoming Joanne Whalley Kilmer), Gerard Horan, Lesley Manville, Peter-Hugo Daly and Gary Oldman – directed by Max Stafford Clark. Here is a link to the Theatricalia entry for this production.

Have I mentioned that I was blown away by this production? (Yes you have, let the reader see what some real experts say – ed).

John Barber in The Telegraph was very keen on it:

Pope's Barber TelegraphPope’s Barber Telegraph 29 Nov 1984, Thu The Daily Telegraph (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Michael Billington also rated it highly:

Pope Billington GuardianPope Billington Guardian 29 Nov 1984, Thu The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Pope Shulman StandardPope Shulman Standard 28 Nov 1984, Wed Evening Standard (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

While rummaging, I loved this preview piece from The Standard, not least the fruity headline:

Other Bond GirlsOther Bond Girls 23 Nov 1984, Fri Evening Standard (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Returning to that weekend, the diary reminds me that we went to The Mayflower (Chinese restaurant on Shaftesbury Avenue) after the theatre – one of those places that we knew would still be open at that hour. I’m guessing that we had fancied trying The Swiss Centre but were too late for that, hence we returned the next day to take lunch there.

One habit that I think we started that Pope’s Wedding & Mayflower evening, which we/I continued for several years after, was to pick up the Sunday papers on Saturday night and start reading them on the Night Bus home if in town at that late hour on a Saturday.

I remember back then thinking that this weekend was the height of sophistication which, for the 22 year old me, it probably was, at that time.

That production of The Pope’s Wedding…wow!

Rodgers & Hammerstein, For One Half Only, With Bobbie Scully, Theatre Royal Hanley, 2 September 1984

Richard and Oscar, unaware of how their work might be abused 40 years later

Sunday 2 September 1984 – a memorable evening at the theatre for all the wrong reasons. And let me be honest about this; it was my own darned fault.

Got up late -did nothing much all day – then went to dreadful show in Hanley. Walked out & had an Indian meal.

This debacle of an evening was at the Theatre Royal Hanley.

It happened like this.

The Theatre Royal Hanley wanted to encourage Keele University students to attend their theatre. They offered me a pair of free tickets to see any show I fancied over the summer. I was a new Student Union sabbatical and it was a new (or I should say revived) venue. I suppose they thought people like me might have some influence over the “yoof” audience.

I spotted what looked like quite an interesting play – with Tom Conti in it if I’m not mistaken, which I thought Bobbie and I would both enjoy when she was up for a long weekend at the end of August/start of September.

Problem was, I chose the Sunday evening (probably because we were otherwise engaged on both the Friday and Saturday evenings) and failed to check whether the Sunday evening show was the same show as the Monday to Saturday show.

It wasn’t.

You cannot blame the box office – they had been instructed to issue me with comps for whatever evening I chose…and I chose the Sunday evening.

The Life And Music Of Rodgers And Hammerstein. I am 95% sure that the show we saw was Hella Toros and her ensemble. A grande dame by 1984, widow of John McLaren, who had been in the original cast productions of Rodgers and Hammerstein shows in the 1950s…

…here’s how she looked and sounded in 1940, before sadness and illness struck her life for some while:

Correction: it wasn’t Helen Toros’s ensemble, it was the Newcastle Amateur Operatic Chorus. The following clipping from the Evening Sentinel confirms why/how I got the “They’re Playing Our Song” offer (Peta Toppano and Barry Quinn, not Tom Conti) confused with Rodgers and Hammerstein, plus confirms exactly who performed:

Rodgers & Hammerstein Evening SentinelRodgers & Hammerstein Evening Sentinel 01 Sep 1984, Sat Evening Sentinel (Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England) Newspapers.com

The Evening Sentinel doesn’t seem to have reviewed the show, but I found the following clip in the Lichfield Mercury – click here and see “Life Story In Song” article – which describes Toros’s half-a-dozen shows of similar type.

It was the most stilted show imaginable. Imagine a heavy European accent dramatically stating

Rodgers and Hammerstein, the most wonderful musicals in the whole world…

…I bet she said that about all the composers of such works in all of her shows…

…Ivor Novello – the most wonderful writer of musical shows in history…Sigmund Romberg, the most exquisite operettas ever written…

Between numbers, Hella gave us bits of her life story tentatively connected to Rodgers and Hammerstein. Her late husband’s involvement in the original stage productions of the musicals was bigged up to the extent that one might have imagined that John and Hella were round Oscar and Richard’s places all the time back in the 1950s.

In short, Bobbie and I had turned up at the theatre expecting to see “our sort of play” and found ourselves instead watching a static recital of songs from musicals, delivered in an exceptionally old-fashioned style.

The audience was almost as stilted as the performances. Not that everyone in the audience was about three times our age. Dear me no. Some of them were at least four times our age.

Bobbie and I didn’t know where to look. Actually we did…not at each other, lest the giggles get the better of us.

To be fair, we mostly won the struggle to keep straight faces for most of the first half of the recital…

…until the rather elderly and minimally mobile grande dame of the show, Hella Toros, attempted to sing Happy Talk with appropriate movements…lifted from the movie…

…our struggle with retaining our composure was lost. For good.

We felt we owed it to the audience, who were, after all, our elders and betters, to withdraw during the interval, ahead of the second half of the show, rather than inflict the inevitable giggly disturbances on the audience throughout the second half.

The exact nature of the Hanley-based Indian meal we devoured in place of the second half of the show is lost in the mists of time. It was probably quite good food and reasonably priced – there were some decent Indian restaurants in the Potteries by then.

This show was almost certainly not the only blot on the Theatre Royal Hanley’s choice of billing at that time. This link provides an excellent summary of the Theatre Royal Hanley’s less than special recent history. If anything ever happens to that history blog – and goodness knows the history it is recording is chequered enough – click here for a scrape thereof.

Is it possible that, but for my choice of night/wrong show error, I might have been able to influence the student body to frequent the Theatre Royal Hanley and helped turn around the disaster-prone institution? Unlikely.

On reflection, Bobbie & I probably shouldn’t go to any theatre with “Theatre Royal” in its name…I recall a peculiarly incident-rich visit to the Theatre Royal Haymarket with Bobbie to see Long Day’s Journey Into the Night. There’ll be a link here once I have written that one up.

Long Day’s Journey Into Night by Eugene O’Neill, Theatre Royal Haymarket, 16 August 1986