Jab by James McDermott, Finborough Theatre, 24 February 2024

There’s something gloriously quaint about the Finborough Theatre. Even by the standards of pub theatres, it seems gloriously wedded to the past.

In part, that’s because The Finborough is, at least at present, a few rooms above a corner building that used to be a pub, rather than an actual functioning pub.

But also, it is the sort of place that clings to its roots, even in the matter of archaic ticketing practices. These days we receive, when booking The Finborough, a very modern style e-mail ticketing with a QR code for each e-ticket. On arrival at The Finborough, though, the ticket office still asks for your name and digs out the old-style paper tickets, just like the old days.

Don’t you have a gadget that goes beep and reads our e-tickets?

I asked the nice young woman on the desk.

Do we look like the sort of place that has a gadget that goes beep to read tickets?

She asked in repsonse.

Not really. Except that you did send us -tickets with QR codes on them.

I persisted.

We have no idea why they do that.

The nice young woman thus closed that discussion.

Anyway…

…the reason we go to the Finborough is not to admire the ticketing system. We tend to see consistently good small-scale theatre there.

Jab was no exception. A very good two-hander set during the Covid-19 pandemic, about a marriage that disintegrates during the crisis…although you sense that the marriage had been doing a fair bit of disintegrating prior to the pandemic.

Here is a link to the Finborough Theatre production stub for this show.

Very well acted and directed. Kacey Ainsworth, Liam Tobin & Scott Le Crass take a bow…well, the first two named actually did.

Just 80 minutes long, if you like your shows two hours plus this type of play is not for you. Janie and I have really acquired the taste for shorter plays. Never mind the young folk having short attention spans, we older folk have short buttocks-stuck-in-one-small-space spans these days.

Lots of good reviews for this one and deservedly so. Here is a link to a search that should find many such reviews.

We went home thoroughly satisfied, theatre-wise. After collecting and then, once home, eating our Mohsen dinner, our appetites for food were also thoroughly satisfied.

Koras Of Approval: Tunde Jegede & Friends At The Wigmore Hall, 17 February 2024

Kora up front, with percussion instruments behind

Janie and I loved this unusual concert at the Wigmore Hall, especially the first half during which Tunde Jegede played the 21-string kora.

Here is a link to the Wigmore Hall stub for this concert, which includes the programme. If by any chance something dreadful ever happens to that website, you can find the programme here.

Everything else I want to say about our experience of this concert is contained in my ThreadMash (or should I say in this instance NashMash) piece, entitled The Phone Call, which you can find here or through the link below:

The Phone Call by Nashmash, Royal National Theatre, 27 February 2024
If you want to know why the tale of our visit to this concert is embedded in a story named The Phone Call, you’ll need to click!

A Black & White Evening With Jilly, John & Mandy (But Not Annalisa) At The Punch Room & Pahli Hill Bandra Bhai, 16 February 2024

Jilly, Mandy, John, Janie & Me, in The Punch Room

Long in the planning, unfortunately Annalisa got her weeks mixed up, but the rest of us found our way to the appointed places at the appointed time.

John is keen on cocktail bars these days and was keen to try the Punch Room in the Edition Hotel, which is suitably close to our chosen restaurant, Pahli Hill Bandra Bhai. Ogblog fanatics might recall that John, Mandy, Janie and I went to Pahli Hill relatively recently…

Dinner At Pahli Hill Bandra Bhai With John & Mandy White, 23 June 2023

…and so taken with it were we, that we all agreed it would be a suitable venue for this slightly larger gathering. Which it was.

But first the Punch Room, which had a really good early evening ambiance – good music but not too loud – other trendy people, but not too many and not too loud. Interesting cocktails list. Nice waiting staff.

“Cheers!“, says Janie

A cheery smile from Jilly, who said that she hadn’t seen John & Mandy for some decades

Strangely, I realised a week or so ago that this weekend is the fortieth anniversary of Jilly’s visit to Keele in February 1984:

An Action-Packed Week At Keele In Mid-February 1984

Mandy also looks cheery, while John is seriously choosing cocktails

Did somebody say British Gas?

The waiter took a lot of pictures of us (see headline example). We realised that the gathering included two whites, a black and (in maiden name terms) a browning. I thought we should go for a sepia version of the group photo in recognition of this colour palette.

We all go back so many years…

Then a five or six minute stroll through Fitzrovia to the restaurant, Pahli Hill . When you book, they say that you cannot dictate where you would like to sit, but I requested downstairs, where we had previously enjoyed the ambiance before and they e-mailed back to say that they would be able to comply with that request as ours was an early evening booking. John has been back there himself upstairs since our previous visit and concurs that upstairs has less atmosphere to his taste, so I’m especially glad I did that.

No pictures of Janie in the restaurant, sadly, as she took the following photos, while the rest of us focussed on eating and drinking.

As with our previous visit to Pahli Hill, by the time we’d finished with small plates and grills, we had no space for big plates, although we did find space for desserts.

It was a really lovely evening. Great food and drink, but most importantly very enjoyable company.

Immunotherapy With James Larkin, Gresham College, 15 February 2024

It’s been a while since I attended a Gresham lecture live. In Janie’s case, probably not since the most recent of mine…

…which took place before we met James Larkin in 2013 in the most stressful of circumstances, as Janie had a dismal diagnosis/prognosis of melanoma at that time.

The worst did not come to pass, against the odds.

We had been impressed with James Larkin and were keen to see what he had to say about developments with immunotherapies since our formal interactions with him on that topic.

Here is a link to all of the resources from this February 2024 Gresham lecture. Or if you just want to watch the vid, you can click the vid below:

A few of the usual suspects were at Barnard’s Inn Hall that night, including Basil and Lesley from the Gresham Society.

There was a drinks reception after the lecture, which gave me a chance to speak briefly with James. He hadn’t recognised us, unsurprisingly (just one consultation more than 10 years ago) but the dismal nature of that consultation clearly returned to his mind as we spoke.

So, she’s alright? Completely well?

James asked, looking at Janie with a slightly bemused expression on his face. Perhaps I was reading too much into it.

Anyway, fascinating talk.

There’s a panel discussion on this and related topics as part of the same series on 12 March – we’ve registered to follow that one on-line.

Naturally We Were FoodCycle’s Poster Children For Valentine’s Day 2024

No, we don’t know why we were chosen…

It might have had something to do with one of the FoodCycle head office communications team joining our shift at FoodCycle Marylebone in January. Soon after that, I had a message from someone else in communications there wondering whether we’d be prepared to be featured as a Valentine’s story.

It would have been churlish to say no.

We had no action pictures of us working together on FoodCycle in our FoodCycle shirts, except for some masked-up ones for the pandemic days. I asked if a sofa-selfie would do and we were told “yes”.

Don’t ask how many goes it took for us to obtain the half-decent picture that was used.

Here’s a link to the article on the FoodCycle site. If anything terrible were ever to happen to that link, click here for a copy.

Being FoodCycle, this story ended up all over social media on Valentine’s day. Facebook, Insta…

…we must have looked so down with the kids, me and Janie. We were super-excited.

Book Club Evening At Lord’s, Yorkshire Grit: The Life of Ray Illingworth, With Mark Peel, 13 February 2024

It’s only partly about the food. Also the company and that evening’s book too.

Janie and I very much enjoyed a book club evening the previous year, when Jon Hotten talked about his book on Geoffrey Boycott:

Book Club Evening At Lord’s: Being Geoffrey Boycott With Jon Hotten, 28 February 2023

I should imagine that the library book club occasionally has evenings about books that don’t revolve around gritty Yorkshire cricketers whom I once met. But Ray Illingworth, like Geoffrey Boycott, had the joy of my company once. In Illingworth’s case, for considerably longer than my one-minute exchange with Geoffrey in 1969.

A Short Holiday In Brighton, During Which I Met Geoffrey Boycott & The Yorkshire Cricket Team, 3 September 1969

Indeed, I spent a couple of hours hours chatting with Ray Illingworth at Headingley in 2015:

A Visit To Leeds For Yorkshire v Middlesex, Headingley, 8 to 10 June 2015

Janie’s interest in cricket tends to revolve around the people, so these talks about biographies please her, as does the charming, relaxed atmosphere of a light meal and talk on a winter’s evening.

We were seated next to Alan Rees, who runs the library and who introduced the speaker, Mark Peel, who was seated to Alan’s right. It was fortuitous sitting near to Alan, as he can help me find some rare real tennis history books in the MCC’s extensive collection to help with my research. A really pleasant, friendly and helpful chap.

Alan looks remarkably calm in the above picture, although he confessed to Janie that he feels nervous introducing such evenings. Alan’s calm look in such a photo reminds me of the deceptively calm look on my face when I am doing something that makes me very nervous, such as riding an elephant.

I don’t look terrified, but…

The pachyderm image leads us nicely to the subject of Ray Illingworth, who must have been one of the thickest-skinned cricketers ever to play for Yorkshire and England…which is a cohort of especially hardened characters.

Of course I met Ray in his dotage, by which time he had softened in the way that legends often do. I told him, as I am now telling you, dear reader, that I started taking an interest in cricket in the early 1970s, when he was the England Captain. I couldn’t really imagine anyone else being the England Captain until, all of a sudden, in 1974, someone else was.

Mark Peel’s book, “Yorkshire Grit: The Life of Ray Illingworth” covers all of Ray’s life and career.

Image from and link to Amazon. Other sources of this book are available.

Mark’s talk was excellent. Lots of detail, lots of interesting anecdotes, all delivered with aplomb. Mark also answered all of our questions thoughtfully and in depth.

Undeterred by the “strangely reflected” pictures Janie took last time, she couldn’t resist taking some pictures pointing away from the Writing Room, where the meal takes place. Again, she obtained a rather weird effect but I rather like this one.

A very enjoyable and interesting evening.

This Might Not Be It by Sophia Chetin-Leuner, Bush Theatre Studio,  3 February 2024

Photo of The Bush Theatre by Spudgun67, CC BY-SA 4.0

Our first visit to the theatre of 2024 and it was worth the wait.

Set in an NHS mental health service unit for juveniles, the play tells the simple story of a youngster who enters the workplace imagining that he might make a difference in a hurry.

Then reality bites.

The play is beautifully written by Sophia Chetin-Leuner, and very well directed by Ed Madden, who should, if nothing else, pick up a nominative determinism award for directing this particular piece.

Despite the plethora of short scenes, the story and characterisation develop organically and clearly over the 90 minutes or so of the piece. I had to suspend a fair bit of belief around the central conceit that a youngster might implement an NHS patient administration system alone in just a few weeks without encountering or causing any profound issues, but that only proves that I have spent too much of my working life thinking about informatics.

The cast all performed their parts convincingly, with top marks to Debra Baker who played the “seen it all before administrator” Angela.

Denzel Baidoo was the most comedic of the three, playing the naïve trainee Jay. One short scene, set to music, when Jay thinks he is alone in the office will live long in our memories.

You should be able to find formal reviews here, through this search. Mostly very good.

If you are reading this piece soon after I have upped it, you have a chance still to see this production at The Bush, as it has been extended to 7 March. In Janie’s and my opinion, it deserves a transfer to gain a wider audience. It is a fun piece that made us both laugh a lot, but it also tackles a great many pertinent issues of our times in a thoughtful and warm-hearted way.

Paganini Lunchtime Concert At The Wigmore Hall, Fabio Biondi & Giangiacomo Pinardi, 29 January 2024

This was a lovely way to spend a Monday lunchtime. The Wigmore Hall stub for this concert sets out the programme.

Much of the material we heard can be found on the album “Niccolò Paganini – Sonatas for Violin & Guitar” which looks like the headline picture.

We sat directly behind Andrew McGregor, who presented the concert for BBC Radio 3 listeners. It is the first time we have ever sat in those seats, which was enlightening and slightly distracting in equal measure. We did at least, from there, hear what the presenter is telling the Radio 3 audience, which is often a bit more than can be found on the programme.

Actually, for this concert, most of what we wanted was in the programme, which can be found through the Wigmore Hall link or, if that ever fails, here.

If you are finding this within a month or so of the concert, then you can hear it on BBC Sounds – click here.

In the concert hall we got a sweet encore by Pietro Locatelli, which made me realise that I had paid that composer far too little attention, so we listened to a fair smattering of Locatelli when we got home. We also discussed his football skills and his magnificence as a restaurateur.

One of the finest composers Juventus ever produced? And as for Zafferano…

The MCC Tennis Weekend 2024: The Secret Diary Of Ian Harris Aged 61 and 5/12ths, 26 to 28 January 2024

Me looking to hit a rare winner

I wrote up my experience of the MCC Tennis Weekend as a “Secret Diary” piece which found its way onto the MCC website as the authoritative report on the event.

As everything I wanted to say about that most enjoyable weekend is contained in that report, I replicate it here, with the links to other resources for anyone who might be interested.

The Secret 2024 MCC Tennis Club Weekend Diary Of Ian Harris, Aged Sixty-One And Five Twelfths

I felt excited and fearful in equal measure when I learned that I had been promoted to Group B of the MCC Club Weekend this year. Surely Group C is where I belong.  The pros told me that Group B, this year, would be for 50-60 handicappers, like me.

I was to partner the actor Ian Falconer, with whom I had played a fair bit before. He can exert a calming and experienced influence over me. Anyway, there was no time to fret on Friday morning, as we played two tough matches, both of which we won; the second by quite some margin. My sense of imposter syndrome begone.

Ian Falconer said that I left the ball well in that second match. That reminded me of comments I have oft received about my cricket batting; that my best shot is the leave. Less kindly folk tell me that, apart from the block, the leave is my only cricket shot.

Tennis leaves don’t look very pretty on camera. Here is a link to a “lowlights” video package of our successful leaves in that Friday morning bout, with “musical” accompaniment. To be fair on our opponents, they hit some actual winners – e.g. these two top notch shots.

Our group then had a 24-hour break from the tennis, until Saturday afternoon. I enjoyed the convivial Friday evening dinner, with great company, great grub and surprisingly interesting speeches, not least from the Chairman, Bruce Carnegie-Brown, who broke the good news to us that real tennis play during test matches should be restored henceforward, with just a small risk of occasional interruption for media purposes.

Ian Falconer was unable to attend the dinner, as he is deep into rehearsal for a play in which he plays a domineering father. He was also to attend an audition the next morning, for a film role as Hitler.

Less aware of my partner’s acting techniques than his tennis techniques, I worried overnight that Ian might be a practitioner of The Method. If so, that calm, gentle, encouraging persona I had previously experienced, might be replaced with something…less comforting and more shouty. I decided that we should agree a safety phrase, “who do you think you are kidding, Mr Falconer?”, just in case matters got out of hand for the rest of the weekend. I am pleased to report that neither of us needed to resort to the safety phrase.

Saturday’s battles in our group were really close. We managed one (narrow) win and a draw, leaving us top of the table and qualified for a semi-final before the final day. All groups (including ours) had at least one, if not both, semi-final places up for grabs still on the Sunday.

There were many distractions for tennis-loving MCC folk early that Sunday morning. First thing, at home, I followed the India v England test match, the Australia v West Indies test, the Australian Open (lawn tennis) Men’s final and the live stream from Lord’s of our tournament. “Isn’t this a bit too much stimulation before you play?”, asked my wife, Janie. “Probably”, said I. By the time I set off for Lord’s, I knew that our pair had won Group B whatever happened in our last group match.

I got to Lord’s in time to see the final wicket fall in the India v England test along with my tennis friends in the dedans gallery, which was a wonderful watching moment ahead of playing our final group match.  We lost that match narrowly, despite having been ahead. “Foreshadowing”, as my dramaturge/actor tennis partner might well say.

We enjoyed lunch in the Long Room Bar between our last group match and the semi-final. All three days, in fact, lunch is an informal pleasure as part of this tournament. An opportunity to chat with friends, old and new, in convivial surroundings. The glorious sunshine all three afternoons added to that pleasure.

The tale of the Groups C/D category was one of mostly close-fought matches during the group stages. That characteristic persisted into the finals stages, with, in particular, a nail-biting semi-final Brunner & Vacher v Nelson & Stain. The Group C/D final, Brunner & Vacher v Lark & McDermott was similarly close and exciting to watch. Congratulations to the winners: Peter Brunner & Piers Vacher.

In the Groups A/B category, the main story was the dominance of the Cattermull & Parkes pairing. My own semi-final, Falconer & Harris v Bishop & Whiting, was one of the most exciting matches I have ever played. We had our chances…we came close. The final, Bishop & Whiting v Cattermull & Parkes, was one-sided in the final score, but was an excellent display of good tennis by all four players. It was just the relentless consistency of Paul Cattermull & Rufus Parkes, despite giving up significant handicaps, that saw them dominate their matches and storm home with the trophy.

It was a superb weekend which should live long in the memory. The organisers – Hannah and Dinesh, the professionals – Chris, Chris and Alex, and the tennis committee – especially Giles and Graeme, all deserve our thanks and praise.

If you only watch one of the video clips, I’d recommend this one: six “highlights” that couldn’t possibly be described adequately in words. [alternatively click the YouTube below]

ECM Jazz Series At The Wigmore Hall, 4 January 2024

Everything you might want to know about the concert from a Wigmore Hall perspective can be seen on this link.

In the first half, Michele Rabbia, Gianluca Petrella and Eivind Aarset played their unusual style of electronically-enhanced ambient music, mostly pieces from the album Lost River.

Here’s an example piece – Nimbus

One lady in our row, clearly not keen on electronically enhanced jazz, decided not to stick around for the second half. That’s a shame, because it was very different and not electronically enhanced at all.

Avishai Cohen and Yonathan Avishai have been friends since they were kids and the camaraderie really showed. Their set mostly came form the album “Playing The Room”.

Here’s a sample from that:

Here is a live video of them playing a lullaby, which i think they used as their encore:

Not a concert to set your pulse racing, but two very interesting acts and a good way to start concert-going in 2024.