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.

A Couple Of Busy Days Seeing Several Old Friends & Hannah And Her Sisters, 16 & 17 July 1986

Wednesday 16 July – Fairly hectic day at work – met Annalisa for lunch. Met Bobbie after work – had meal at Mayflower & went on to Woody Allen Film after – v nice.

Mayflower was one of the better Chinese restautrants in Chinatown – now (writing in 2020) resurrected as New Mayflower.

The Woody Allen film in question would have been Hannah And Her Sisters, which went on general release in the UK a couple of days later. No doubt we went to a preview at the Curzon West End (just opposite the Mayflower).

I still think Hannah And Her Sisters is a great movie. But gone are the days that I’d complain about a hectic day at work in which I had lunch with a friend and left work early enough to have a meal and then see a movie. Such a snowflakey-sense-of-entitlement-youngster, I was.

Pretty busy at work today. Went to LC [Laurence Corner] etc.

Met Graham Watson for a drink – Mike came too (is leaving office).

(Met Jon Graham on way home).

Earlyish night.

I hasten to add that Laurence Corner was, for me, work – not a fun outing at lunchtime. Mike (he who was leaving the office) must be Mike King, who, by that time, I think was doing much of the work on the Laurence Corner account and who was, presumably, handing over some of the reins to me.

Janie and I met through our mutual friends from Laurence Corner, but that’s a whole different, later story.

Graham Watson was an old friend from school. I vaguely recall running into him in London and thus meeting up. Coincidentally Jon graham was also a friend from school and (if I recall correctly) I didn’t realise he was still hanging in Streatham until this chance encounter. Jon and I met up again more than once, IIRC. I’m not sure whether Graham and I did. Perhaps Graham gave me the bumps…again!

Several years earlier, Graham Watson & Paul Deacon giving me the bumps, Tim Church feigns a lack of interest, picture “borrowed” from Paul’s facebook posting with grateful thanks.

It might have been one of those guys on this occasion who told me about school pal Wayne Manhood’s tragic demise, an event I mis-remembered as having happened some years earlier…

…in truth I don’t remember. More likely, it was Andy Levinson who broke the news to me when I saw him a couple of weeks earlier.

On Learning That Former Schoolmate Wayne Manhood Had Died, c30 June 1981… Correction: 1986

With thanks to Martin Cook, from whom I have “borrowed” the above photograph, depicting Wayne Manhood with soccer ball and trophy, front-centre. Link available only to Alleyn’s Facebook alumni – hence the crossed-out appearance of this link..

Prescript

This posting has generated a lot of discussion on the Alleyn’s 1970s Alumni Facebook Group, not least people pointing out that Wayne died 1985 or 1986 – consensus coalescing around 1986. As I have said on the group:

It’s extraordinary how memory plays tricks. I so clearly remember a maudlin conversation with Jimmy Bateman about the fragility of life on that very first occasion that he and I went to that UCL Bar and then The Sun, summer 1981, but I now realise THAT conversation must have been triggered by the sudden death of my uncle a few weeks earlier…

…I’ll update/correct the blog piece once I have gathered more thoughts – not least my own. Some of the comments are very moving and so many interesting thoughts. Thanks again.

Below is that updated piece, with the original, jumbled piece below that, just for the record.

21 February 2020 – A Better Informed Reminiscence Of How I learnt the News Of Wayne Manhood’s Demise

The collective brains of the Alleyn’s School alums suggest strongly that the tragic event happened in the spring or summer of 1986. At that time, less than a year after I had come down from Keele, I was spending almost all of my time with Keele friends and work colleagues. In fact my first reference for meeting up with anyone from school in 1986 was late June, when I met up with Andrew (Andy) Levinson in Streatham:

Work, Andy Levinson & Watching Football, Possibly The Horse & Groom In Streatham, 28 & 29 June 1986

I’m guessing but the combined forces of Andrew and Fiona Levinson would probably have learnt such news through the grapevine.

However, my diary does note, just a couple of weeks later, a meeting up with Graham Watson and a chance encounter that same day with Jon Graham:

A Couple Of Busy Days Seeing Several Old Friends & Hannah And Her Sisters, 16 & 17 July 1986

What I now know for sure though is that, despite my suggestion that I clearly remembered the event of learning the news about Wayne, the truth of the matter is that I do NOT recall the actual learning of the news. What lives on, though, is the effect the news had on me. The first one of our generation to go. The senselessness of it. Those emotions unquestionably stuck.

As Steve Butterworth so eloquently put it in the e-mail he sent me – I’m sure he won’t mind me reproducing these words:

…It was not fair but Wayne was the unlucky one that night. 

I still visualise the flowers that we’re strapped to the offending lamppost that he crashed into, when travelling on the South Circular!

I expect you’re right about June, as the sun shone brightly at his funeral, but the year was 1986.

None of the above detail (or at least my memory of it!) changes the sentiments in your piece. Thank you for that.

Below is the original, flawed, jumbled-memory piece below unchanged, just for the record.

My 13 February 2020 “Original”, Jumbled Memory Posting

I’m not entirely sure why this tragic event has popped into my head lately. Possibly because I have recently learnt of the demise, or near demise, of several contemporaries (from walks of life other than school).

Wayne Manhood was the first of my contemporaries I learnt had died.

People of our parents’ generation often talk about “remembering what they were doing when they learnt that John F Kennedy had died”. My generation has a similar thing with “the day Princess Diana died”. My guess is that many people from my Alleyn’s School cohort can remember what they were doing when they learnt that Wayne Manhood had died.

I learnt that Wayne Manhood had died from James “Jimmy” Bateman in a bar in UCL, where Jimmy was doing a holiday job in a bubble chamber research laboratory.

I’m pretty sure it was the first time we thus met up that summer, 30 June 1981, because I think the tragic event had occurred before I got back from University. But I will stand corrected if I have got the actual dates confused.

Don’t ask what I’d been doing in Braintree, Essex that day. That’s a different story.

Neither Jimmy nor I knew Wayne Manhood all that well…but everyone in our year knew Wayne. Almost everyone in the school knew Wayne Manhood, not least because he represented the school in so many sports. And also because he was an outgoing and thoroughly nice fellow. Wayne and I had been in the same class in the first year:

My First Class At Alleyn’s School, 1S, And Some Nicknames, guessing 8 January 1974

In truth, I don’t remember whether or not we were in the same class again after that. Was he in 4AT/5AT? Someone out there will know.

In the later years, I only really remember talking to him at cricket matches, on those rare occasions that he wasn’t on the field of play for more or less the whole match. He could bat, could Wayne, much as he could play football and field hockey to very high schoolboy levels.

I remember Wayne encouraging me to play cricket rather than score and umpire so much, refuting my suggestions that I was no good, wisely saying that I could enjoy playing that game (and other games) at a reasonable level.

Yes, it was Jimmy Bateman who broke the news to me that Wayne had died. I’m not sure how he had heard the news, nor even how much detail he was able to share with me. I still don’t know much about what happened. A night out with some old boys from the school. A motorcycle. A fiendish bend in the road in Forest Hill. Am I remembering this correctly? Others might correct me or add detail. The detail matters little.

I remember Jimmy Bateman and I sinking quite a few beers that night. We’d no doubt have done that anyway. I suspect we started in the UCL bar and progressed on to The Sun in Lamb’s Conduit Street, a favourite real ale pub with a fine selection of ales back then (no more, in February 2020), which I continued to frequent for many years.

I remember the song David Watts as an earworm for the news of Wayne’s death. I had acquired a second-hand copy of All Mod Cons by The Jam a few weeks earlier and had been listening to it a lot in the preceding weeks. It was not the tone of envy nor the gay subtext of the David Watts song that resonanted about Wayne, of course, but the notion of a boy most likely from school, a young fellow who was good at everything he attempted:

…he is the captain of the team…

… I dream I could fight like David Watts…

Lead the school team to victory,

and take my exams and pass the lot…

Of course, we are a lucky generation. My father, who was 20 when the second world war started, lost many friends who were in the flower of their youth. Our grandparents’ generation similarly lost so many of their young in one or other of the world wars.

But in some ways, the very fact that losing a compadre at such a tender age was so rare in our generation made Wayne’s death all the more tragic, unexpected and shocking. Life isn’t fair and life is fragile. I hadn’t yet reached the age of 19 in June 1981, but I learnt a little more about those aspects of life when I learnt about Wayne Manhood’s death.

It will soon be 40 years since my cohort left Alleyn’s School. It makes no sense that Wayne saw hardly any of that time.

I have no idea why this subject popped into my head a week or so ago and refused to budge without me writing it up. But write it up I now have. I very much welcome other people’s memories of Wayne Manhood and his passing.

Work, Andy Levinson & Watching Football, Possibly The Horse & Groom In Streatham, 28 & 29 June 1986

Saturday 28 June – Worked hard today – went to Levinsons briefly – [squiggle] etc. Mainly work.

Sunday 29 June – Did exam in morning – went to G [Grandma] Jenny in afternoon – watched cup final early evening – went for drink with Andrew after – met Mary etc.

I was working hard at that time, doing my accountancy exams (presumably that Sunday morning thing was a self-administered mock) while working full time and helping to bring dad’s business (he had sold the shop in Feburary) to a graceful closure with the tax authorities.

This was still less than a year after I left Keele; my diaries suggest that I almost exclusively spent my spare time with old friends from Keele apart from my work crowd and some of my old BBYO crowd.

This reference to spending time with Andrew Levinson is the first reference to an old friend from the street or school in 1986 (unless I’ve missed saomething on the skim).

It might well have been Andrew who told me about the sad fate of Wayne Manhood, which I misremembered as something that happened about a year after I left school…but I have it on authority now that it happened about a year after I left University.

“Mary etc.” I think must be a lovely young woman I knew at Keele named Mary who kept popping up wherever I happened to be in that first year after I left Keele. I remember bumping into her when I was doing accountancy courses in Latimer Road and also that she ended up in Streatham for a while.

I dread to think where Andrew and I went for that drink and therefore where Mary etc. were also hanging out back then – our end of Streatham was not great for pubs and I doubt if we wandered far. Horse and Groom most likely – it’s had a makeover fairly recently (he writes in 2020) but was well grimey back then.

Not this type of grime…

…but no doubt you get the gist.

Minutes of a Strange Meeting From 10 June 1985, Typed Up 30 December 1985

I have published the hand-written version of these “minutes” under the date of the “meeting”.

Here is the typed up version, scanned from what I think must be carbon copies. Is there anyone else left on the planet who remembers what carbon copies were?

I guess I prepared these for our glorious return visit in January 1986 for the traditional UGM/AGM thingie.

10 June 1985 Spoof Minutes Side One10 June 1985 Spoof Minutes Side Two

An Order To Attend A University of Keele Students’ Union General Meeting, Letter From June Aitken, 13 December 1985

I might have some notes or other artefacts from the meeting itself which I’ll post separately if/when I find them. I know I did attend the meeting. I’m pretty sure several/most of us did. If June said you had to be there, you had to be there.

UKSU Letter 13 December 1985

University of Keele Students’ Union, Letter Requesting Help, 1 November 1985

I remember Nigel Dempster writing a whole load of factually inaccurate stuff about Keele Students’ Union generally and me in particular. I also remember writing a rebuttal, which the Daily Mail, surprisingly, published.

This letter request from June Aitken probably explains why I cannot find copies of the rebuttal and other materials – I suspect that I simply sent them to her without making further copies for myself. In 1985, photocopying/scanning was not the simple, almost automatic thing it is today.

Perhaps this letter from June is now all that remains of the Dempstergate debacle.

UKSU Letter 1 November 1985

 

A Letter From Keele, Professor Les Fishman, 2 September 1985

I have no idea what must have gone wrong with the earlier correspondence, unless it turns up in a pile I have not yet excavated. I got on well with Les, both in my capacity as a student and as a students’ union officer. He was, in my experience, a wonderful lecturer and steward of his undergraduate students. So my comment about the long-forgotten faux pas would have been tongue-in-cheek on my part, as would Les’s rebuttal have been on his part.

Les Fishman Letter 2 September 1985

In 2008 I went to the memorial mini-conference Professor Peter Lawrence and others held in Les’s honour. I ended up meeting and hiring Les’s grand-daughter, Leo, who thus worked at Z/Yen for a few happy years.

 

Memorial Conference for Les Fishman, Management Centre, Keele University,15 October 2008

A Letter from Peter Held soon after I left Keele, 24 July 1985

I got to know Peter Held on several of the University committees; he was a prominent member of the University Council. I remember being pleasantly surprised when he invited me and Kate to a Lichfield Festival concert towards the end of our term of office, that summer. I’ll write up that concert in the fullness of time; I’m pretty sure I have the programme.

I would have written quite promptly to Peter to thank him for his (i.e. Marling Industries’) hospitality. This letter is his thanks for my thanks, with the offer of a little bit of employment insurance tucked in there, which I remember pleasing me when I first saw the letter.

Not that I can really imagine a career in industrial textiles, looking back, but who knows where life might have been taking me back then?

Marling Industries Letter 24 July 1985

 

A Risky Drive To Lichfield With Professor Fuller As Keele University Guests At the Lichfield Festival, 13 July 1985

Kate Fricker: “Would you like me to drive, Professor?” Watson Fuller: “No. Why do you ask?” AI actors images provided by DeepAI.

One of my most memorable Keele days, right at the end of my time there. Kate (now Susan) Fricker and I were invited to join the University guest pack at the Lichfield Festival, courtesy of Peter Held of industrial textiles behemoth Marling Industries plc.

Ironically, Marling Industries was best known for seatbelt materials. Ironically, because Kate and I were treated to a rollercoaster ride from Keele to Lichfield with Professor Watson Fuller and Mrs Fuller.

I was very fond of Professor Fuller. And I think he was also fond of us. He’d certainly heaped praise on one of my least challenging pieces of research a few month’s earlier, in his capacity as Chair of Foundation Year Committee:

Why Oh FY? – My Most Highly Praised Piece Of Statistical Work Ever, Plus Other Keele Happenings Such As Opening The Real Ale Bar, Early In The Spring Term, 1985

Professor Fuller was Professor of Physics, so he really should have had a profound grasp of the potential physical effects, were a large object travelling at speed – e.g. a car with four passengers doing 60 mph on a duel carriageway – go out of control and hit something. Yet, he did not seem to have a profound grasp of the steering wheel most of the time, nor did he seem to be paying much attention to the road when, frequently, he turned around to us, waxing lyrical about this, that, or the other.

I suppose, as Fuller was a biophysicist, credited with vital supporting work on X-Ray diffraction with Watson & Crick, that his head was always in far loftier thoughts than mere road safety. Or should I say that driving without paying fuller attention to the road was in Professor Fuller’s DNA.

Mrs Fuller did not look terrified. Perhaps she was used to it. But apparently, on arrival, Kate and I looked a little ruffled. I remember Professor Philip Boden and his good lady taking us aside before the lunchtime concert.

Has Watson offered to take you home after the evening concert? Thought so. Not many people want a second lift from Watson, bless him. Reputation precedes him. Would you like us to rescue you? Thought so. I’ll tell him we’ve invited you back to our place for coffee after the concert. Easiest that we take you back.

We were grateful. And Professor Boden was good to his word, not only giving us a lift home but also providing us with some warm hospitality and enjoyable chat at Chez Boden before taking us home.

To the concerts. First up was a lunchtime concert at St Chad’s Church, Lichfield.

St Chad, Lichfield. User:Bs0u10e01, CC BY 3.0

We saw the Lindsay String Quartet perform:

  • Joseph Haydn –  String Quartet No 3, Op 33 (“The Birds”)
  • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – String Quartet in G (K 387)

Very charming it was too. The setting. The fine quartet and the non-challenging nature of the music.

After plenty of hospitality in the afternoon and a migration to the Cathedral, we enjoyed a bigger deal concert in the evening. The Chamber Orchestra of Europe, under George Malcolm, supported by András Schiff, Yuuko Shiokawa and Heinz Holliger.

  • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Wind Serenade in C Minor
  • Alban Berg – Chamber Concerto for Violin, Piano and Winds
  • George Frideric Handel – Concerto Grosso, Op 3 No 2 in B flat
  • George Frideric Handel – Music for the Royal Fireworks

I must confess to have struggled with the Alban Berg. Always have, probably always will. The rest was easy listening by serious music standards.

Here’s the programme: