No comment on this one in my log. Not necessarily a bad thing but also not necessarily a good thing.
Fabulous cast – including Tim Pigott-Smith, Lizzy McInnerny, Gina McKee & Linda Bassett. Ian Brown directed. But in truth I remember little about this one – even after looking at some of the reviews.
We must have really fancied this one, as we don’t (and didn’t) much go to the Wigmore Hall for this type of concert midweek. Our work diaries were so full back then.
Janie was on a bit of a countertenor kick back then; that would have clinched it.
Anyway, what an interesting concert:
Johann Rosenmuller – Ascendit Christus in Altum
Giovanni Legrenzi – O Mirandum Mysterium
Giovanni Legrenzi – Sonata in G major ‘La Pezzoli’
Giovanni Antonio Rigatti – Nunc Dimittis
Giovanni Antonio Rigatti – Cum Invocarem
Claudio Monteverdi – Iam Moriar, Mi Fili (Pianto Della Madonna)
Alessandro Grandi – Ave Maris Stella
Alessandro Grandi – Amo Christum
Biagio Marini – Sonata Quarta in A minor
Francesco Maria Marini – Jesu Dulcis Memoria
Dario Castello – Exultate Deo
Giovanni Rovetta – Salve Regina
Here is one of the pieces they performed that night:
Janie is especially partial to a bit of Tennessee Williams. Although I suspected that I would not be seeing a better production that the one I saw in 1988. the lure of Helen Mirren and Saskia Reeves was enough for me. Also involved, a young Stuart Townsend in the male lead, a yet-to-fall-foul-of-my-displeasure Nick Hytner directing, ably assisted by a young Josie Rourke.
Our friend, Michael Billington, was quite impressed:
The first ever picture of The Heavy Rollers, taken, quite brilliantly, by “that joker of a supervisor steward”, Paul Guppy. From left to right starting with, in the green shirt and shades: Nigel, Charles, Jeff, Me (with Hippity & Henry The Duck), David. I have often wondered about the person two seats to the right of David. Did he not want to be seen on camera? Was he having a Sneed-snooze?Had he existentially expired?…
…or perhaps the chap with his head down had just heard one of Paul’s terrible jokes
…at some point a decision was made to make it two days rather than one for 2000. That decision was as yet unmade in early December 1999, when Nigel wrote:
Whatever your reasoning-to see Charles take money off Jeff, Ian’s mascot/s, the cuisine, the cricket even….the time has come to believe in the future. Things can improve.
England v West Indies, same place, Thursday June 15th and possibly 16th too?
Let me know,soon.
Nigel
I cannot see my reply or even any e-mail replies on the e-mail trail, yet somehow we must have all communicated to Nigel our considered opinion on expanding the adventure to two days: YES PLEASE!
We were all working together a lot in late 1999, so my guess is that everyone had the opportunity to discuss the matter with Nigel and for all the arrangements to be communicated by means other than e-mail. An extraordinary thought 20+ years later.
In the absence of a swathe of photos and documentary evidence, memory evidence is thin. The traditions described in the above two pieces (1998 and 1999) would have been pursued without doubt. We will have stayed at Wadderton, certainly on the Wednesday and Thursday night. David will have done the honours with the picnic on both days. Jeff will have done Edgebaston [sic] betting sheets. I would have trained home on the Friday evening.
One strong memory I have of this episode was a moment of fame for one of my mascots, Henry the Duck.
Same location, same two teams, four years later
I’m pretty sure it was on the TV highlights we saw at Wadderton on the evening after the first day’s play. I’m guessing it was when Graeme Hick was out for a duck, the camera panned to Henry for a few moments and Michael Holding said, words to the effect of:
that just about sums it up.
Traditions take a while to settle, of course. Even The Heavy Rollers. So there was some fragmentation and controversy that summer.
No-one has ever managed to establish why Nick “The Boy Malloy” Bartlett wasn’t there. Nick is convinced he wasn’t invited. Nigel insists that he would only have needed the nod from Chas and Nick would have been an automatic pick. There are rumours that some indecision might have been involved. The truth will never be established.
That event might inadvertently have kicked off the short spate of ill-conceived attempts by senior Children’s Society folk to join The Heavy Rollers and the resulting accusations of elitism.
On Day Five of the fifth test, Jeff Tye called me in the morning and suggested that we “walk up” and see the day’s play together, as it promised to be potentially historic – indeed it turned out unquestionably so. As I explain in the above piece, to my regret since, I let work get in the way. Jeff was smarter and/but went to the Oval on his own that day.
Janie and I were very taken with this creepy three-hander at the Royal Court. I remember us agreeing that it was Pinteresque at the time – without the influence of reviews I hasten to add.
I think this was our first sighting of a Martin Crimp play and for sure we were intrigued enough to seek out his work several times subsequently.
Owen Teale, Juliet Stevenson and Indira Varma, directed by Katie Mitchell. All people who had impressed us before and/or since.
My friend Michael Billington in the Guardian shared our fascination with this piece and also saw the Pinter parallels:
This was a great production. I recall gently persuading Janie to see Macbeth again – she’s no fan of Shakespeare and felt that she had “done” Macbeth when seeing the 1994 Jacobi version.
It was the pull of Tony Sher and Harriet Walter that won Janie round, firstly to attending and in the end to admitting what a fabulous production this production at The Young Vic was. It was fast, it was furious, it was very memorable. Greg Doran knows a thing or two about doing Shakespeare.
The Theatricalia entry reminds me that the 2000 version was an RSC touring production that started at the Swan in late 1999 and ended up at The Young Vic in mid 2000.
My take on these two short plays is clearly documented in my log:
The Local Stigmatic: Dreadful.
The Dwarfs: Much better than the Stigmatic!!
That’s all he wrote, folks.
We liked the Lyric Studio back then and quite often went there for interesting new works or (as in this case) rarely seen revivals. Mandrake Theatre Company seems to have been in the business for that sort of thing, although I don’t think we saw their work too often.
Despite being in the low-key studio, this double bill was reviewed by The Standard. Nick Curtis did not agree with my comparative take on the two plays, giving both the dreaded Standard “X”:
We were still at the stage that I thought Janie might just be converted on to Shakespeare, so I booked a couple of Bard productions that spring: Ralph Fiennes playing the title role in this one and Tony Sher playing the title role in the Scottish one.
The idea didn’t really work on Janie – especially Richard II, which she found long and dull, despite a great cast and very solid production.
If I remember correctly, Gainsborough was a pop up theatre on the site of a disused film studio in Hoxton. This was one of the Almeida’s homes for a while, during which time the theatre was being poshed-up a bit.
Ralph Fiennes was a nodding acquaintance of mine back then – one of several actors who frequented Lambton Place in those days. This I disclose in the interests of openness and transparency, not that nodding acquaintanceship might affect my judgment.
I thought this production was very good, but I have always had my doubts about Richard II as a play. It is one that I “studied” at school, as a precursor to Henry IV Part one being my ‘O’ Level text. If Michael Lempriere couldn’t make it interesting for me, even Ralph, Jonathan Kent directing and an excellent supporting cast were going to struggle.
Paul Taylor in The Independent liked it but was a little underwhelmed:
I recall this play/production doing less for me than I had hoped. I was expecting something quite visceral from the author of Rat In The Skull, which I had read with wide-mouthed interest back in the day.
We were keen Hampstead goers, even back then when the venue was still a portacabin down the road from the current high-class venue.
We dined at Harry Morgan’s ahead of the show, getting a fix of Jewish deli grub in St John’s Wood on our way to Swiss Cottage, as was our occasional wont back then.
The cast comprised John Gordon Sinclair, Miranda Pleasence, Andrew Woodall, Rob Spendlove, William Chubb and Kenneth Colley. The actor Denis Lawson directed the production.
I didn’t think about this play when I saw Giant by Mark Rosenblatt, but reflecting on it now, I can see how Rosenblatt managed to make similar subject matter come alive…
…whereas Burning Issues by Ron Hutchinson, a playwright who had proved that he could write good plays on tough topics, somehow couldn’t make this subject matter fizz.
An unusual Sunday evening performance, this by a theatre company of prison inmates, performing through Synergy Productions, now known as Synergy Theatre Project. I sense from the website archive that Dealers Choice at The Orange Tree might have been their first ever production. 25 years later, Synergy is still going strong.
Esther Baker directed the cast, who came from HMP Latchmere House.
I remember we thought the performances and production was very good. Similar quality to the “semi-professional” productions we might see at The Questors Theatre with The Duchess, e.g.
Dealer’s Choice was an early Marber play that we missed when it was first produced. We are both so glad to have seen this production of it at The Orange Tree, as part of a small audience, witnessing the early stages of Synergy Theatre Project’s fine work.
