Progress by Doug Lucie, Lyric Hammersmith, 22 March 1986
Saturday 22 March 1986 – At home lazy — met Petra late afternoon — had some tea etc — went to see Progress in eve -> Lebanese restaurant after.
I remember rating this play/production very highly. I believe I had recently read the play as part of my extensive play-reading-fest, via the public library, at that stage of my life. Who needs large language models when you can read at least one play a day when commuting from Streatham to the West End or beyond.
Progress was originally produced at The Bush a couple of year’s earlier, to rave reviews it seems:
Progress Bush Hudson Standard 3 Jul 1984 Evening Standard (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.comMilton Shulman gave a pretty good review to the Lyric production of early 1986:
Progress Standard Shulman 13 Feb 1986 Evening Standard (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com
In time-honoured Grauniad fashion, its review of Progress went under the wrong headline and photo caption, for which the paper apologised the next day. Still, Nicholas de Jongh seemed to dislike…whatever it was he saw…wherever it was he saw it:
Giles Gordon in The Observer reckoned that it worked better at the Bush than at the Lyric but still rated the play/production very highly.
Progress Giles Gordon Observer 16 Feb 1986 The Observer (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.comNot sure which Lebanese Petra and I ate at after that show, but I am guessing Maroush, which is the only Lebanese place I remember frequenting in the late 1980s. Edgware Road presumably, back then.
Sunday: Resins To Be Cheerful – Pizza Express Jazz Club With Petra, Her Brother Christian & Slim Gaillard
Sunday 23 March 1986 – Easyish day at home — had Chinese lunch with folks — met Petra & Christian [Petra’s brother] in evening — went up to town etc. Not terribly late night.
I only remember going up to town on with occasion with Christian as well as Petra, which was a memorable evening for several reasons.
Soon after we set off from my parent’s house, Christian let out a yell because he realised that he had mislaid a small packet of resin which meant a great deal to him and guessed (correctly) that he had dropped it in the street as we got into the car outside my parents house. We drove back to the spot, where indeed a small packet of reddish/golden brown resin was lying in the street.
I’m so glad that we/he found it.
Then we drove into Soho (remember when you could sensibly do that of a Sunday evening) and went to the Pizza Express Jazz Club on Dean Street, which Christian had chosen as one of the few lively places you could go on a Sunday evening.
It was pretty lively, although we were probably the youngest people there. Parenthetically – roll the clock forward 40 years – Janie and I are still sometimes among the youngest people attending jazz gigs when we go to the Wigmore Hall – e.g. the event we attended a few days before I wrote up this 1986 event:
…but I digress.
In March 1986, I’m pretty sure we saw the Pizza Express House Band playing on a Sunday night and were not expecting anything too special. But one of the members of the band spotted Slim Gaillard in the audience and invited him to join the band for a while. This caused a great deal of excitement among the afficionados, some of whom were keen to make sure we knew that we were witnessing an absolute legend play jazz piano.
Frankly, it looked as though the band had invited a rather frail old chap to join them, until Slim Gaillard started to play and we realised that he was for sure a virtuoso musician.
I don’t remember what he/they played, but this clip might give you an idea:
One of the more memorable weekends, that one.