This production began its life at The Young Vic in the autumn of 1998, wending its way to several regional theatres before returning to London in 1999, when we saw it at The Richmond Theatre.
Fascinating piece about the production in the Telegraph by Charles Spencer. Joe White assisted Max Stafford-Clark directing this piece after release from Wormwood Scrubbs:
Janie might have got more out of this production had she known all that and had she known then what she knows now about rehabilitation of former prisoners…or lack thereof.
Our verdict on this piece/production at the time:
I liked it more than Janie did
Possibly it helped that I know (and like) The Recruiting Officer better than Janie does/did.
The cast no doubt changed over the year or so it toured, but we saw David Fielder, Stuart McQuarrie, David Beames, Fraser James, Ian Redford, Mali Harries, Ashley Miller, Sally Rogers and Michele Austin. Not bad.
I have no doubt that we ate at Don Fernando’s afterwards…and why not? Well, 25 years later, we couldn’t because the place has now closed down.
Six Sonatas, K404, K474, K60, K462, K394, K477 by Domenico Scarlatti
Aria con Variazioni “Le Frescobalda” by Girolamo Frescobaldi
In truth I was not familiar with the work of Leo Brouwer. Fabio Zanon is clearly a fan and has (far more recently) produced a helpful explainer video about the composer:
We were really taken with the young guitarist’s playing of Scarlatti sonatas transposed for guitar. Here is a video that shows him in the late 1990s playing three such pieces:
We were very taken with Friday evenings at The Wig in those days – it seemed a very relaxing way to round off a hard week. Writing 25 years later…still does.
Image “Diving For A Tie” produced in collaboration with Dall-E
The headline is a little deceptive, because Charles “Charley The Gent Malloy” Bartlett and I were not in Barcelona the City, but we were, along with a great many Z/Yen people and one or two other Children’s Society people, in Barcelona, the tapas and wine bar in The City.
Twenty years later, at the time of writing, Barcelona is still there – click the image for a link.
I had spent the whole day in the City. My diary says we had a PAYE inspection that day. I think it might have been that magnificent day that the inspector challenged us for claiming that we had an expenses procedure dispensation (which of course we did have) as he could find no record of us ever having been issued with such a dispensation. Linda Cook went to the archive files and dug out our dispensation letter which happened to have been issued by “Phil”, the very tax inspector who was before us that day. He almost apologised, claiming that files had been lost in an office move. He didn’t stay long after that.
But of course you don’t win tax inspections; the best you can hope for is an honourable draw or a tie.
Which brings me to the World Cup Semi Final.
But before that I need to explain why Charley The Gent was at our offices that day. You see, Teresa Bestard, who was one of Z/Yen’s first employees and who had done a great deal of work for The Children’s Society under Charley’s auspices, was leaving Z/Yen that day.
Teresa was (is) a Catalan with roots in Barcelona and Majorca. She chose the Barcelona tapas and wine bar as a suitable venue for her leaving do.
I arranged to meet Charley and Tony to go through some business stuff at Z/Yen around 16:00, so they could conveniently join the leaving do afterwards.
On arrival, Chas did ask me if I was aware of the Australia v South Africa semi-final score. I wasn’t. He told me. I said it sounded close, but edging towards South Africa. Chas said he fancied Australia for the match. He wanted to bet. I said I don’t like to bet. He suggested a one pound stake. I accepted, with the proviso that if the match was a tie, both pounds would go to The Children’s Society.
Chas doing his Children’s Society cricket captain bit, back in 1998
We were not expecting to follow the latter stages of the World Cup Semi-Final, but Barcelona had other ideas. They were pumping the match out on big screens throughout the bar.
Great…
…said the cricket tragics, e.g. me and Charley. Teresa did not seem well pleased. She was already vocally irritated with us for a supposed slight; we had invited Mary O’Callaghan along to the event. Teresa saw this as Z/Yen inviting Teresa’s replacement to Teresa’s own leaving do. Actually we had hired Mary before we even knew that Teresa was leaving and had asked Mary along to several events to meet the team before she joined; this was the one she could make.
Some neutrals, such as Jacqueline Goldberg, Michael Mainelli and Linda Cook, used the language of indifference towards the cricket, but in truth couldn’t help but become more and more interested in the final overs of the match, as it became clear that the result was on a knife edge and the match was a real thriller.
I hope The Children’s Society made good use of the £2 it scored from that bet. The charity benefited from our subsequent charity matches to a much greater extent than this wager.
Below is a video of the highlights/denouement of that match:
Teresa’s leaving do went on for hours after the cricket finished and everyone relaxed into the wine and tapas. It was a very good leaving do for a very special member of the team.
But I’m afraid the cricket tragics amongst us will remember the evening primarily for that astonishing tied World Cup Semi Final, as we lived every moment on those big screens in Barcelona.
This was the first time that Janie (Daisy) ever visited Lord’s.
It was my second ever, and last, visit to Lord’s in the 20th century. It was also the only time I actually bought tickets for Lord’s that century, having been taken as a guest on my sole previous visit there:
Unaccustomed as I was to buying tickets for Lord’s back then…oh boy have I made up for it since…and probably a bit slow of the mark for the World Cup to boot, I ended up getting Lower Compton seats some rows back. All has changed since (he says, 25 years later), but back then the Lower Compton was a wind tunnel affair through which you got a somewhat restricted view and in particular had no clear view on a scoreboard.
Who knew that it can be really cold in London at a cricket match in June? Who failed to learn from this 1999 experience?
Once I became better acquainted with Lord’s for a while I would book the Lower Compton front row, which avoided the wind tunnel and tended to have a decent view. But never again did I make the mistake of buying tickets in the middle or rear of that stand. The new Lower Compton is SO much better.
Returning to 1999, we nevertheless had a great day, despite the ordinary seats. It is so difficult not to have a good day at Lord’s. It was even, somewhat surprisingly, a good match, with Neil Johnson & Murray Goodwin keeping Zimbabwe in the hunt for most of the match. All the Cricinfo resources for this match can be found here.
…we both said. We’re both partial to a bit of Lorca in any case.
Wonderful play, excellent production.
This production had been doing and continued to do the rounds for some time, at regional theatres. A superb cast, including Sandra Duncan, Amanda Drew, Tanya Ronder & Carolyn Jones, directed by Polly Teale – here is a link to the Theatricalia entry for this production.
Our friend, Michael Billington, was also impressed by the production, once it landed at the Young Vic.
…we decided to do that again in 1999 (late July), preceded by a tennis evening, which Janie and I organised, through Larry, at our then spiritual home of tennis, Lammas Park.
The Lammas Park “club” in the 1990s was a very informal place, under the auspices of Larry and his gang. Warm-hearted for sure, Larry was absolutely up for it when he heard that this was a charity event, allowing us a brace of courts for the evening and organising a barbeque for £200, according to Janie’s diary. We organised the drinks separately and naturally allowed Larry and his gang to join us in the libations.
Janie’s diary also suggests that we went to see Dick at the sports shop in Ealing, where we bought balls for the tournament and I am pretty sure I purchased the now-famous cricket scorebook on the same occasion, ahead of the July match.
I was pumped, ready for tournament play.
Me, still pumped, Lammas Park, 2020
I think we had eight to ten people from Z/Yen and a similar number from The Children’s Society that evening.
I am pretty sure the Mainelli family attended and that Linda and Geoff Cook were there. Teresa almost certainly came along. I think Mike Smith ducked out of this one – he usually did for these events. Other attendees – possibly the Rutlands (Geoffrey and Rupert), possibly The Hightons (David & Elisabeth) who live nearby.
For The Children’s Society, Charles “Charley the Gent Malloy” Bartlett was there for sure; perhaps with Nick as well. I am pretty sure that Harish “Harsha Goble” Gohil was also there; I think I had only met Harish a couple of times before this event. One or two from that IT team who were resistant to cricket were less resistant to the idea of tennis and barbeque. Michael and Jonathan I think.
I especially remember Charles Nall, who was new to The Children’s Society at that time, being there. I remember this, because I told Janie ahead of the event that she would meet the new Finance Director. When Janie asked me ahead of time what he was like, I replied, “very tall”.
On meeting Charles, Janie looked up at him and said:
Gosh, you are tall. I’m going to need a step ladder to look you in the eye and talk with you!
Charles Nall looked down at Janie with a puzzled expression on his face – possibly wondering whether or not he was supposed to be angry at this…then burst out laughing.
In truth I had no recollection of how the tournament went. I remember it more as an opportunity for people to eat, drink and make merry. Perhaps for that reason, it seems that Z/Yen, for once, prevailed in this tournament. How do I know? Because it was headline news in Now & Z/Yen June 1999, that’s how. Click here to read all about it…and more. That edition of Now & Z/Yen doesn’t read like one of mine – it has a Mainelli feel to it, either as author or editor. For those who don’t like to click, an extract below:
“We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills…but never, shall we surrender”
Stirring as this is, apparently Sir Winston was not talking about the fifth Z/Yen versus charities sports match. We fought Barnardo’s on the cricket pitch, twice – and they thrashed us. We fought The Children’s Society in the bowling alleys, twice – and they thrashed us. It was looking like the hills when Z/Yen won The Children’s Society challenge on the tennis courts! At our victory roast, the innocent victims were … forced to … watch us gloat. A good time was had by all the winners, and some of the victims who enjoyed some of our particularly sadistic IT trivia games. Sadly, the cricket season is soon upon us.
Janie and I remember being really impressed by Olympia Dukakis’s performance in this one woman play, while finding the play itself “a bit much”.
To be fair, we were a bit numb that weekend – we had attended Jenny Jamilly’s funeral the day before and were possibly not in the mood for high drama. Let alone uber-Jewish high drama, nach.
We saw a preview late May although the play didn’t receive its press night until some four weeks later.
The critics seem to have sided with us viz the performance and the play. Here’s Nicholas de Jongh in The Standard:
Janie booked this one, so I can report that we sat in seats D6, D7 & D8…and that she paid £20 a pop for this excellent evening at the theatre. I suppose £20 really was £20 back then. Still sounds like value.
The third ticket was for “The Duchess” (Janie’s mum).
We’ll have eaten at Don Fernando’s after theatre, because in those days, if we went to Richmond for theatre, that’s what we did afterwards. {Insert your own joke about “the late-dining middle classes” here].
Janie and I both loved this concert. We weren’t previously familiar with the works of this Renaissance composer, Clément Janequin, nor this eponymous Ensemble.
But by the end of the concert we were familiar with both and had thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. All that despite it being a Thursday evening at the end of long working days for both of us and ahead of long working days to boot.
This was the Ensemble’s 20th anniversary programme:
Nous Sommes de l’Ordre de Saint Babouyn by Loyset Compere
Tant que Vivray / Au Joly Boys / Je ne Menge Point de Porc / Vien Tost by Claudin de Sermisy
N’As tu Poinct Mis ton Hault Bonnet / Mon Amy M’Avoit Promis by Ninot le Petit
Bransles d’Ecosse / La Romaine by Guillaume Morlaye
Mille Regretz / Faulte d’Argent / Douleur Me Bat / El Grillo / Nymphes des Boys / Scaramella by Josquin Desprez
Les Cris de Paris / Qu’est-ce d’Amour? / Il Estoit une Fillette / Au Verd Boys/Le Chant des Oyseaulx by Clement Janequin
Fantaisie by Albert de Rippe
Or Vien Ca / O Mal d’Aymer / Ung Jour Robin / L’Amour, la Mort et la Vie / My Levay Par Ung Matin / La Guerre by Clement Janequin
Twenty years after that, they looked and sounded a bit like this:
The above piece formed part of the concert we heard. The following one did not, but is lovely.
Here follows a video of a whole gig post 2020, which includes several of the works we heard in 1999. Renaissance music never goes out of fashion:
As part of a “week off” that Janie and I took in London to see exhibitions and shows, the centrepiece of our Thursday was a trip to the Tate to see the Jackson Pollock exhibition.
The exhibition had been much hyped in the media, with previews and reviews.
Here’s a smattering from the papers.
Bel Littlejohn in The Guardian with tongue firmly in cheek, I shouldn’t wonder:
Blue Room & Our Country’s Good Guardian Billington 19 Sep 1998, Sat The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com
Spencer Our Country’s Good Joe White Telegraph 15 Sep 1998, Tue The Daily Telegraph (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com
