Spinning Into Butter by Rebecca Gilman, Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, 13 January 2001

This was a really interesting play and it was an excellent opportunity to reciprocate David & Rachel’s hospitality from a couple of month’s earlier:

Kinky Friedman Live In Brighton With David Seidel & Rachel Barnard, 12 November 2000

Apart from the quintessentially US nature of the production and the left field approach to tackling racism through performance, it’s hard to see much similarity between the evenings.

Rebecca Gilman’s play was memorable through its “warts ‘n’ all” approach to anti-racism and political correctness on campus. Also memorable was a superb performance by Emma Fielding in the lead role. The supporting cast were also “Royal Court good”, as was Dominic Cooke’s directing.

Our friends David and Rachel found it interesting and we had plenty to discuss over grub after the play.

Our other friend, Michael Billington, gave it a very good review in the Guardian:

Spinning Guardian Billington

Article from 11 Jan 2001 The Guardian (London, Greater London, England)

Paul Taylor did not like the play, describing it as self-conrgratulatory white guilt in search of a play:

Spinning Taylor Indy

Article from 10 Jan 2001 The Independent (London, Greater London, England)

Nicholas de Jongh couldn’t put aside his issues with the play, describing it as mediocre and giving it the dreaded Standard blob:

Spinning Standard de Jongh

Article from 10 Jan 2001 Evening Standard (London, Greater London, England)

Charles Spencer thought the play flawed yet intriguing and well worth seeing:

Spinning Telegraph Spencer

Article from 11 Jan 2001 The Daily Telegraph (London, Greater London, England)

Suzannah Clapp gave it a very balanced review in The Observer, concluding that a play that makes you argue is a play worth seeing:

Spinning Observer Clapp

Article from 14 Jan 2001 The Observer (London, Greater London, England)

Caroline & Alan’s Engagement Party, 6 January 2001

The diary notes simply tell us that we went to The Ruts for this party.

Photography had only just recently been invented back then, so we didn’t take any pictures. Someone might have taken pictures. Someone might even supply me with one from that event in the fullness of time.

I do have a handful of pictures of a young Caroline (see headline picture) and I have seen photographs of Alan from way back when.

I remember lots of people. I remember terrific grub – much of that was no doubt down to Jackie (Caroline’s mum) – and I remember Janie and I having a good time at that party.

Real Millennium Concert, Florilegium & Emma Kirkby, Wigmore Hall, 31 December 2000

Unusually, this was an afternoon, not an evening concert. It had a very geeky name for a very beautiful concert.

Technically speaking – geeky people took great pains to point out when we all celebrated the new millennium on 31 December 1999 – as there had not been a year zero – the real millennium must be 31 December 2000. The fact that calendars had changed, days added and all sorts was put to one side for those who wanted to celebrate the new millennium on 31 December 2000.

Janie and I just wanted to see this lovely concert and we were not disappointed. We were very keen on Florilegium and Emma Kirkby and the programme was enticing:

  • Antonio Lucio Vivaldi – Flute Concerto “La Notte” in G minor Op 10 No 2
  • Johann Sebastian Bach – Susser Trost, mein Jesus kommt from Cantata BWV 151
  • Arcangelo Corelli – Trio Sonata in D major Op 1 No 12
  • Giovanni Battista Pergolesi – Salve Regina in C minor
  • George Frideric Handel – Sweet Bird from L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato
  • Henry Purcell – The Fatal Hour Comes On Apace
  • Henry Purcell – Music for a While
  • Henry Purcell – Suite from The Fairy Queen

Here is a nice vid of James Galway with the Ventian Soloisti under Claudio Scimoni playing La Notte:

Here’s Maria Keohane singing Susser Trost – very Christmassy it sounds to me:

Here is the start of the Pergolesi Salve Regina performed by Florilegium, with Robin Blaze, not with Emma Kirkby. I love this album, which I think I bought at that time – possibly that very night.

Here’s a link to the whole album on YouTube Music.

Here’s Emma Kirkby singing Sweet Bird, with the Academy for Ancient Music under Christopher Hogwood – then Music For A While.

Oh boy, can she sing.

I don’t think Florilegium and Emma Kirkby have ever recorded together, so you’ll just need to take our word for it that the combination for the real millennium was the real deal…

…or, as we put it in my log:

Super.

Ancient Lights by Shelagh Stephenson, Hampstead Theatre, 23 December 2000

Janie and I rated this one:

Very good indeed…

…yet it fails to register in my usual lookup places (Wikipedia, Theatricalia) on lists of Shelagh Stephenson’s work.

It looks as though Janie booked this one almost as an afterthought. Perhaps she thought we’d have no time before the Christmas madness and then felt ready and at a loose end just ahead of the Saturday. She’s written:

A9 & 10, £40.35 Joanna Pearce playing Bea.

Perhaps a client recommended it to her.

Let’s see what the critics said. Our friend, Michael Billington, liked it despite its flaws:

Ancient Billington Guardian Ancient Billington Guardian 7 Dec 2000 The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Nicholas de Jongh gave it the dreaded Standard blob as its rating:

Ancient de Jongh Standard Ancient de Jongh Standard 7 Dec 2000 Evening Standard (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

But then again, Charles Spencer really liked it:

Ancient Spencer Telegraph Ancient Spencer Telegraph 8 Dec 2000 The Daily Telegraph (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

I must say the scenario looks like the sort of play we would actively avoid now, so my guess is that it is well writ and was very well acted by an excellent cast, not least Dermot Crowley & Joanne Pearce.

Eye Contact by Neil Monaghan, Riverside Studio 3, Then On To Thai Bistro, With Kim & Micky, 16 December 2000

This was probably Kim and Micky’s idea…

…informed by the fact that Janie and I were constantly unavailable on Saturdays because we were going to the theatre.

Why don’t we all go and see…

…I can almost hear Kim suggesting to Janie.

Why not? I can imagine all of us agreeing to this with ease. This production soon became one of the hottest tickets in town, not least because model and celebrity Kelly Brook was playing the role of a pole/table dancer. Janie sorted out the tickets – presumably ahead of the reviews and brouhaha, £16.50 x 4 according to her diary…

…plus some very specific timings to get all of us from The Riverside to the Thai Bistro for supper after the show…

…as if we would need the heat of Tom Yum after the hot totty on show at The Riverside.

But who would have possibly imagined, at that time, that Janie would, a mere 17 years later, decide to give pole dancing a go herself, with considerable (albeit, mercifully, private) success.

Images from late 2017, written up here.

Dominic Cavendish seems to have hated it…the Eye Contact play, I mean, not Janie’s pole dancing:

Eye Cavendish Telegraph Eye Cavendish Telegraph 12 Dec 2000 The Daily Telegraph (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Rachel Halliburton similarly, was disparaging:

Eye Halliburton Standard Eye Halliburton Standard 7 Dec 2000 Evening Standard (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Irving Wardle was a bit kinder, right at the end of this three review piece:

Far Away Wardle Sunday Telegraph Far Away Wardle Sunday Telegraph 3 Dec 2000 Sunday Telegraph (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

But did we have a good evening? Of course we did. We saw a show and had dinner with Kim and Micky. Simples.

Z/Yen Christmas Do At Efes Restaurant In Great Titchfield Street, 15 December 2000

Not THAT Efes, you twerp. And what on earth were you doing on THAT stage?

Having taken a commercial interest in Milet Publishing that year, it seemed polite and fun to make the Milet team feel at home in a Restaurant named after a nearby Aegean coastal town. Ephesus (or Efes) is about 35 miles north of Miletus.

I had fond memories of that Great Titchfield Street Restaurant from my Newman Harris days, as it was one of the “restaurants of choice” to soak up the beer from an after work drinking session at The Phoenix or The Cock Tavern or both.

Oxyman / The Cock Tavern  CC BY-SA 2.0

Efes was willing and able to supply us with a back room for our Christmas dinner. Not the most salubrious grub we have ever had, but the Turkish food at Efes was consistently good and the atmosphere was great that year.

Efes moved a few years ago, see article below:

Historic piece of Great Titchfield Street goes under the hammer, literally

At the time of writing (2024) I’ve not yet tried its new, posher incarnation in Maple Street.

Home

Back in the year 2000, Michael and I were in especially festive mood, as Tanya Aslan had pulled off a coup with Clean Business Cuisine marketing; landing us a window slot in Waterstones Piccadilly which was deemed at that time to be hitting the book marketing jackpot

Let’s just say, that particular jackpot did not show in the sales figures – just the bragging rights.

Meanwhile Michael also had delusions of adequacy in the matter of seasonal song writing at that time. The year 2000 concluded a hat-trick of his lyrics for the seasonal song, after which Michael rarely, if ever, returned to rune-writing.

Oh Little Court Of St Helen’s
 
Oh little court of St Helen’s
How swish we see thee lie!
Beneath thy deep and wealthy sleep
Z/Yen’s offices abide
And in these dark deep shadows
The everlasting blight
Consultancy adds to your years
When packed as tight as mice
 
How crowdedl-y, how crowded-ly
Z/Yen dishes out advice
Beside the frozen servers
And other bust device
 Paper’s overflowing
But Linda’s looking nice
And if we get our Seventh Heav’n
We’ll soon trash Number Five

Michael Mainelli – Poet

The concluding apposite but non-rhyming reference in the song referred to our impending move within 5-7 St Helen’s Place, from a small office in the basement of No 7 to a larger one on the first floor of No 5. As usual with Michael’s lyrics, you had to be there…or at least know which door to go to.

A Trifling Family Visit & The First Ivan Shakespeare Seasonal Memorial Dinner, 9 & 14 December 2000

Me eating wonton soup

Why a picture of me eating wonton soup? Because our diary notes for Hil & Chris’s weekend visit are light on detail, other than Janie’s “menu”:

  • Wonton soup;
  • Shin of veal;
  • Triffle [sic].

Despite the trifling spelling mistake, I expect the desert was just as enticing as the other courses. The wonton soup will have been my contribution and it will have been excellent.

I have even less intelligence on the first seasonal Ivan Shakespeare Memorial Dinner. It was a Cafe Rogues [spelling mistake intentional] in Maida Vale. But the soon-to-be traditional sounding of the alarms and post mortem e-mails from John Random were not forthcoming back then…

…or if they were forthcoming, they self-destructed in five seconds or something like that.

I don’t think the tradition of quizzing and trophy awarding got started as early as that first Christmas, but I might be wrong.

I’m leaving it to Random to do whatever archaeology he can, be it excavation of ancient scrolls, old computers or his own brain, to see if any further information survives.

No pressure, John, but this one is all down to you.

Life x 3 by Yasmina Reza, Lyttelton Theatre, 2 December 2000

Janie and I rated this one in my log:

very good.

We also both remeber it quite well, 25 years later. That might have a fair bit to do with the superb cast: Mark Rylance, Harriet Walter, Imelda Staunton and Oliver Cotton. The production was directed by Matthew Warchus. We didn’t recogognise his name then but we certainly do now. Here is the Theatricalia entry for this one.

Yasmina Reza (as translated by Christopher Hampton) was all the rage in the English speaking world back then. This was our fourth go at one of hers – Art having been the piece that kicked off the Reza fashion…

Art by Yasmina Reza, Wyndham’s Theatre, 11 January 1997

…we’d even seen one of hers at The Almeida just 10 weeks earlier:

Conversations After A Burial by Yasmina Reza, Almeida Theatre, 16 September 2000

Anyway, apart from Art, with thought Life x 3 to be the most interesting and memorable of Reza’s works.

Again we went to a preview, so we were ahead of the critics. What did they think? Here’s Charles Spencer who seemed pretty impressed with it, at least as entertainment if not as profound drama:

Life Spencer Telegraph Life Spencer Telegraph 11 Dec 2000 The Daily Telegraph (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Kate Bassett wrote an interesting profile-cum-review with some equivocation about this piece and Reza-ism generally:

Life Bassett Indy Life Bassett Indy 10 Dec 2000 The Independent (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Our friend, Michael Billington, was not at all sure about this piece:

Life Billington Guardian Life Billington Guardian 8 Dec 2000 The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Nicholas de Jongh was impressed, while spotting something a bit Ayckbournish about the piece, which I remember thinking/saying myself at the time:

Life de Jongh Standard Life de Jongh Standard 8 Dec 2000 Evening Standard (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Far Away by Caryl Churchill, Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, 25 November 2000

In my log, we rated this one:

excellent.

Janie’s diary reminds me that we had dinner the night before with Jamil and Suad Amyuni at Home House, which was also a very memorable evening in its own way.

Janie’s diary also notes, beside Far Away

1/2 hour.

It was short, but not quite that short. I know we saw a preview, but I trust my memory and the reviews that, even the preview, ran to more than 45 minutes, but probably less than an hour.

I had first seen Linda Bassett in A Place With the Pigs:

A Place With The Pigs by Athol Fugard, Cottesloe Theatre, 20 February 1988

There is a lovely interview piece with Linda Bassett about this production, which I found whilst rummaging for reviews:

Bassett Feature Standard Bassett Feature Standard 4 Dec 2000 Evening Standard (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Fabulous cast – not only Linda Bassett but also Kevin McKidd and Katherine Tozer, directed by Stephen Daldry. I only realise now what a hot ticket this must have been and how privileged we are/were, as Royal Court members, to grab hot tickets like this before they all got grabbed.

Predictably, Charles Spencer didn’t think much of it – he didn’t tend to get Caryl Churchill:

Far Away Spencer Telegraph Far Away Spencer Telegraph 5 Dec 2000 The Daily Telegraph (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Whereas Irving Wardle in the Sunday telegraph wrote highly of it:

Far Away Wardle Sunday Telegraph Far Away Wardle Sunday Telegraph 3 Dec 2000 Sunday Telegraph (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Nicholas de Jongh in The Standard got it:

Far Away de Jongh Standard Far Away de Jongh Standard 1 Dec 2000 Evening Standard (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Rhoda Koenig was not so sure:

Far Away Koenig Indy Far Away Koenig Indy 1 Dec 2000 The Independent (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Even giving the casting vote to our friend Michael Billington doesn’t really help, as Billy-o gives the production four stars but his review is somewhat equivocal.

Far Away Billington Guardian Far Away Billington Guardian 1 Dec 2000 The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Strangely, the productions that tend to float our boats the most tend to split the reviewer jury. I guess Janie and I like controversial stuff. And as the now late (25 years on) Jamil Amyuni once famously put it in a different context:

why the bloody hell shouldn’t we?

Europa Galante, Fabio Biondi, Wigmore Hall, 18 November 2000

A lovely concert of fairly standard baroque fare, beautifully performed by Fabio Biondi and Europa Galante.

We heard:

  • Antonio Lucio Vivaldi – Concerto in G Minor for Strings RV 157
  • Wilhelm Friedemann Bach – Sinfonia in F major F67 Die Disonanzen
  • Johann Sebastian Bach – Violin Concerto in G minor (after BWV 1056)
  • Antonio Lucio Vivaldi – Violin Concerto in B flat major op 8 No 10 La Caccia
  • Antonio Lucio Vivaldi – Concerto in D minor Op 3 No 11 for two violins, cello & strings
  • Antonio Lucio Vivaldi – Concerto in G minor for 2 violins and cello Op 3 No 2

There’s not much video of Europa Galante from that early period of their existence – but this one of them performing the delicious Vivaldi RV558 gives a good idea of what they looked and sounded like back then.

The inclusion of some WF Bach was a bit unusual. Biondi hasn’t recorded it and I’m not allowed to embed the linked vid, but you can click through to a video of some other Italian geezers performing it – here.

The Vivaldi RV157 also seems to be a bit rare – Biondi has not recorded it. It’ a very sweet piece. Here is the Iris Ensemble performing it.

If you are in search of the sound of Europa Galante with Fabio Biondi playing lots of Vivaldi of the Op 3 and Op 8 variety, then this playlist of mine on YouTube Music will be for you.

Alternatively, if the orchestral works of WF Bach float your boat, then this playlist is for you. I am pretty sure I bought the first album on that playlist on the back of hearing that sinfonia at The Wig that night.