Tag: Annalisa de Mercur

It’s Not All Black And White: Meet-Ups With Annalisa, Jilly Black & John White, Mid-October 2023

John-Boy Forking Madeleine In Jikoni

Annalisa Redux, Lunch At Antalya In Bloomsbury, 17 October 2023

As part of my Ogblog project, I am writing up events of 25, 40 & 50 years ago from old diaries and records. A few weeks ago I wrote up Annalisa’s wedding from 25 years ago…

A Long Weekend Near Dumfries For Annalisa de Mercur’s Wedding, Then Sharrow Bay For Afters, 12 to 15 September 1998

…and thought I should make a concerted effort to reconnect with Annalisa. I was able to track down Charlotte, Annalisa’s sister, with relative ease. Charlotte put me back in touch with Annalisa, and the result of all that was a very pleasant, long lunch at Antalya Restaurant.

We had a fair bit of catching up to do, so many years having passed, yet in many ways it felt a bit like catching up after two or three months, not two or three decades, except that the news had a longer span, as it were.

Annalisa back then. Shorter hair now.

We’ve resolved to try not to leave it 25 years again. Given the entreaties from my other two mid-October gatherings (see below) that they would love to see Annalisa again, I suspect that we’ll find a way to make it a considerably shorter interval next time.

Jilly Black & The Peculiar Matter Of “Rachmaninov Pulling Nudes”, 20 October 2023

Peculiar Serge (Rachmaninov)

I have for some while been helping Jilly to digitise her family photographs from an assortment of different types of negative, transparency, printed pictures and the like. This occasional project hit the temporal buffers over the summer (not least because Jilly’s chosen days tended to end up as train strike days), so was in need of revival.

I more or less expect to receive a note from Jilly explaining why she will be arriving later than the appointed hour (never really a problem for me, given that we are working on this project at the flat), but on this occasion the WhatsApp message gave me pause for thought:

I had to clean an extremely dirty oven and have a coffee…[something about almond milk]…and some Rachmaninov pulling nudes at the same time

I read the message twice, concluded that Jilly must have taken leave of her senses and hunkered down with whatever it was that I was doing for another hour or so before her revised expected arrival time.

Just before Jilly arrived, another message:

OH NO! It was supposed to be “Rachmaninov Preludes”, NOT “pulling nudes”

A Beautiful Rachmaninov PRELUDE

As I kindly and considerately put it in my reply:

Ha ha. That’s going straight onto the blog at the next available opportunity.

Jilly blames the technology for that verbal mishap, which I must say seems, in truth, entirely reasonable. Annalisa will no doubt have a quiet chuckle to herself about that, as I had been banging on about how much more reliable these technologies have become in recent years…which they have…but when they get it wrong, oh boy can they get it wrong!

Anyway, as always, a very pleasant lunch and afternoon with Jilly, during which we not only digitised quite a lot of her non-standard family negatives but Jilly kindly helped me to identify the locations of my family pictures from Sicily nearly 50 years ago, as Jilly did some tour-guiding there “back in the day”.

Jilly’s Dad from a 120 (60×60) negative – possibly playing a Rachmaninov Prelude

John-Boy Forking Madeleine At The End Of A Fine Meal At Jikoni, 24 October 2023

Dinner with John is always long overdue, because if we were both in town more often and had more time on our hands our get togethers would be far more frequent.

Actually our previous gathering had been all four of us (including Janie and Mandy), which was supposed to have been five of us, but Pady Jalali had to cancel her visit.

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

It was John’s turn to choose and he chose really well with Jikoni. A really charming place with friendly staff and excellent grub.

We ate:

  • Burrata, Bitter Leaves & Figs (with Roasted Muscat Grapes, Pomegranate Dressing)
  • Wild Mushrooms on Toast (with Curry Hollandaise, Autumn Truffle)
  • Roasted Hake & Clams or Butternut Squash Moilee (with Coconut Chutney)
  • Kuku Paka, Sukuma Wiki (with Saffron Rice)
  • Paan Madeleines (see headline picture)

I hadn’t realised, but Bella (John & Mandy’s younger daughter) is really into cooking now, both as a hobby and latterly at work. John spotted the Jikoni cook books and decided to treat Bella to one of them.

Ravinder Bhogal (the chef/proprietor/author) took the trouble to chat with us and make a personalised dedication to Bella in the book, which I thought was a charming touch.

Ravinder Bhogal by Rahul Arora, CC BY 3.0

Lenny Henry was in the restaurant that night. John reminded me that we had seen him in person before, when he performed at Keele during our sabbatical year. I was able to claim a far more recent sighting – in May when Janie and I went to see Lenny Henry’s excellent one-man play, August In England.

As always with John, the evening flew by and on this occasion we found ourselves the last people in the restaurant. We realised once we spotted that the staff were oh-so-discreetly clearing up around us!

A Long Weekend Near Dumfries For Annalisa de Mercur’s Wedding, Then Sharrow Bay For Afters, 12 to 15 September 1998

Janie and I thought that Dumfries and Galloway was a very long way to go for just a couple of nights for Annalisa’s wedding, so we decided to extend our trip a little, ambling back via Sharrow Bay, a place Janie had long since wanted to try, taking an additional day off work.

Looking at both of our diaries now, 25 years later, that made the rest of the week ludicrously stuffed with work for both of us, but it was worth it, as we thoroughly enjoyed the whole trip and took lots of pictures.

12 & 13 September 1998: Annalisa’s Wedding, Annan & Clarencefield

Looks like we were among the first arrivals that weekend

We stayed at the Warmanbie Hotel, which I learn closed in 2005. It was just outside Annan, quite near to the wedding venue and set in beautiful countryside – Janie and I got there early enough on the Saturday to enjoy some walks and relax around the area before the wedding.

I even took a camera with a close-up lens, primarily expecting to use it at Sharrow Bay but actually the gardens at Warmanbie were photogenic too.

A Red Admiral being snapped

Some people shouldn’t be allowed in the countryside

Comlongon Castle by Angus Townley, CC BY-SA 2.0

The wedding itself was a few miles down the road, at Comlongon Castle, another venue that is, 25 years later, listed as “permanently closed”. Thank you, Annalisa, for reminding us exactly where the wedding ceremony took place.

Me, Bobbie & Janie standing, ? seated left, Charlotte de Mercur seated right

Annalisa reminds me that the formal wedding took place a couple of days earlier – the above picture taken just before the “traditional” ceremonial wedding outside the castle – see pictures below.

“Dad-style dancing” is compulsory at weddings, even for those of us who are not dads

14 & 15 September: Sharrow Bay Hotel

Sharrow Bay, Penrith

Beautiful gardens at Sharrow Bay Hotel

Sharrow Bay Hotel was lovely, although a little twee for our taste. We wanted to relax and certainly felt able to do so on arrival and looking around for a while, but soon it became clear that the hotel was run on a “strict house timings” basis. For example, our request for a slightly later meal time was met with, “but we serve dinner at…” response. Our request simply to miss out on “pre dinner drinks, which are served at sundown o’clock” was met with, “but everyone comes down for drinks at sundown o’clock, that’s how we like it here.”

“Do I have to get up and go down for pre-dinner drinks?”

“I suppose so”

Yummy grub – we were happy

Once all the other dinners had retired early, we could relax in our own way.

“Cosy in ‘ere, ain’t it?”

“Don’t like rules”

When we got back to London the next day, we had dinner at The Chiswick, an offshoot of The Brackenbury. The former didn’t last as long as the latter, which, 25 years later, is still there. The site of the Chiswick is now a Gourmet Burger place. We remember The Chiswick as being quite good. It was certainly a pleasant way to round off a most memorable long weekend.

All the pictures from that long weekend can be found through the Flickr link below or click here.

Scotland_Lakes_A_1998 (21)

Dinner With Annie & Annalisa At Janie’s, 8 October, Then Kim & Micky Also At Janie’s, 16 October 1993

This date hovered around between the Friday 8th and Saturday 9th, eventually settling, it seems, on the Friday.

Janie finished work a bit early and did the honours for an 8.00 meal. It will have been a good one, but Annalisa’s vegetarianism (was Annie also veggie?) will have irritated Janie a bit.

My guess is that Janie will have done something along the lines of the food she tends to serve Kim. Perhaps ratatouille. Perhaps Lebanese style food.

It will have been good. (I know i have said that twice).

Janie and I went to the hygienist the next day. That incident will have been unconnected with the good meal incident.

I think I possibly flew out to Geneva on the Sunday. For sure I was there on the Monday and I think I stayed a couple of nights.

The following weekend, I played bridge at Tessa’s on the Friday then went on to Janie’s place.

On the Saturday Janie cooked for Kim & Micky. That too will have been a good one.

The Orange Penguin by John Random, Risk Theatre, 30 July 1993

This period of 1993 was “peak Random”, with John perennially, heavily involved in NewsRevue (where he helped to get my comedy writing career going the year before) and also his show Sex In My Anorak, which had played in June.

Sex In My Anorak by John Random & Others (Including Me), Opening Night, Canal Cafe Theatre, 2 June 1993

Then, just a few weeks after “Sex”, a London production of John’s play from the previous year’s Edinburgh Festival, The Orange Penguin.

It had been well received, at least by The Independent it had – click here…

…or if that page goes walkies, try this scrape.

The theatre was a sort-of public hall in Hoxton, near to Annie Bickerstaff’s place. Janie and I went to see this play along with Annalisa and Annie. We all very much enjoyed the play. I think we ended up back at Annie’s place for dinner after the show.

It was my first ever sighting of Brian Jordan, who was known to me because he had taken The Ultimate Love Song to Edinburgh in his show Whoops Vicar, Is That Your Dick? at the same time that John took The Orange Penguin (with Iain Angus Wilkie in the lead).

Anyway, it was a very good evening, our evening in Hoxton seeing The Orange Penguin.

I wonder whether John still has the script and whether he thinks it might be time for a revival?

Annalisa’s Party, 6 December 1992

Writing 27 years later, there is no way that Janie and I would dash from the airport to a party these days.

But the postscript to Janie’s and my first little sojourn away from Blighty – to see Venice…

Janie and Ian’s First Holiday Together, Venice, 3 to 6 December 1992

…was just such a dash – to Annalisa de Mercur’s party.

I hope it was a good one. They usually were.

This one was on a Sunday, so I’m guessing it was lunch/afternoon into early evening that time.

Quite possibly it went on quite deep into the evening.

Janie’s diary suggests that we arrived back at heathrow at 11.05, so I suppose that did enable us to dump our luggage, wash and dash into Marylebone (probably via my place) to the party by early/mid afternoon.

There will have been bagels.

Annalisa usually served lots of mini bagels.

There will have been lots of people too – many of them former Keele folk.

This was probably the first time that Janie met many of the people there; Kate Fricker (probably) and Annie Bickerstaff (almost certainly). Were John and Mandy there on that occasion?

Postscript: John has chimed in by message witha confession that he and Mandy were there. But no additional information was forthcoming.

Other details lost in the mists of time.

Up The Creek With Janie & Annalisa & Gerry Goddin But Without A Paddle, To See Ben Murphy, 28 November 1992

Times change. These days (he says writing in late 2019) Up The Creek Comedy Club is located in trendy Greenwich and is perceived as a happening place on the comedy scene.

In 1992, Up The Creek’s was deemed to be located at Deptford Creek and its reputation was seriously edgy. When people spoke of an act dying there, it was quite possible that there was need for a post-mortem and funeral thereafter. Back then, the place was quite new, having replaced Malcolm Hardee’s famous (or should I say infamous) The Tunnel Club only a year or so earlier.

Mark Ahsmann [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)]

So what in the name of common sense were Janie, me, Annalisa and Gerry Goddin doing going to that place on a Saturday night?

We went to see the west-country comedian Ben Murphy perform. Ben had recently engaged with some of us Newsrevue writers and had especially taken a shine to some of my lyrics, which he was proposing to try out at Up The Creek that night.

Here is a link to my first letter to Ben – only a week or so before the Up The Creek visit – a very business like and quite counter-cultural letter viz the Ben I subsequently got to know rather well. Perhaps that is why I tended to get paid by Ben, whereas some less commercially-minded writers are (I believe) still waiting for their royalty cheques.

Here and below is a link to Ben’s subsequent recording of The Ultimate Love Song, one of several of mine that he used regularly live and also recorded:

The Ultimate Love Song, Ben Murphy Recording, 1993

Menawhile, back in November 1992, Janie and I actually moved an appointment to eat with Janie’s mum, plus twin-sister Phillipa and niece Charlotte, which was due to happen that evening. If my memory serves me correctly, we all went for a Chinese meal at North China on the Uxbridge Road at lunchtime the next day instead. I think that was the first time I met those three.

So, if I now point out that seeing my material, in the hands of Ben Murphy, doing battle with that seriously-arsy Deptford comedy crowd, was a far LESS daunting prospect than the thought of meeting Janie’s mum…

…but then you wouldn’t have tried mother-in-law/my girlfriend’s mother jokes at Up The Creek in 1992; that would not have ended well.

I do recall warning both Janie and Annalisa that it would be seriously risky for us to “take on the audience” if they turned against Ben. In those days, even Gerry Goddin was able to quell his instincts to chirp back in such circumstances, but I wasn’t so sure about the girls.

In the event, Ben went down pretty well at Up The Creek and we all survived the experience. Some acts that night were less fortunate than Ben…

…but then most of those acts were less naturally talented and less able to control an audience than Ben Murphy.

I have managed to find a video of Ben Murphy performing live, many years later, in less edgy circumstances – on that south-west coast circuit that he made his own for a long time:

I remember that Janie insisted on driving to Up The Creek and that we dropped Annalisa and Gerry home, as both of them, in those days, lived conveniently en route or near to Janie’s place.

This evening was an unforgettable experience that certainly helped forge my links with Ben Murphy…

…but it did not stoke a desire in me to write comedy for or see comedy in edgy clubs like Up The Creek.

Ossobuco At Janie’s Place, 16 August 1992

Ossobuco – picture by Stu Spivack via Wikipedia Commons

Since I published my “25th anniversary of meeting Janie” piece last week, I have had, literally, several people ask me how Janie and I ever got it together after she refused to give me her telephone number the first time we met.

The answer, of course, is “ossobuco”.

It happened like this.

After Janie’s refusal to give me her telephone number, I simply assumed that she wasn’t interested at all and I got on with my next week. My next week looked like this.

My guess is that I was actually out every evening that week apart from the Monday – I probably had impromptu drinks/food with work colleagues Thursday and Friday evening.

Saturday evening I can see was a dinner with Caroline at the Pavilion in Poland Street. This will have been her birthday bash on the eve of that landmark day. (Happy birthday, Caroline, if by chance you read this piece on the day I post it).

I noticed that The Pavilion is still there and still run by Vasco & Piero – click here for their website (which for sure wasn’t there in 1992).

I have had an exchange of messages with Caroline to establish what happened – I’m sure there were quite a few of us there at The Pavilion that evening. She replies:

I have to say that with the help of your diary your memory is much better than mine. The restaurant is in fact exactly the same now as then. It was a local from when I was working at the Burton group. Vasco and Piero ran it all those years ago. The food was always excellent. The decor was very pink! It’s amazing how quickly 25 years go.

I’m not sure what I ate at the Pavilion but I am sure that it was an Italian dish but not ossobuco.

The other thing I remember clearly, although the diary is silent on this matter, is that I went out for an impromptu lunch on the Sunday with Annalisa. We went to Lee Fook on Westbourne Grove, a Chinese restaurant near my flat which was very much one of my favourites at the time. The excellent chef there was named Ringo, I remember that wonderful fact too.

The restaurant is, sadly, long gone now, but there is an Evening Standard review of that place from the late 1990s on-line – click here.

If that review ever bites the dust on the ES site, I’ve saved the Wayback machine the trouble on this one by scraping it here.

In short, by mid-afternoon I had eaten my fill that weekend and ambled home after lunch.

The telephone was ringing off the hook as I walked through the door.

I should point out, at this juncture, that, in those days, I had no answering machine for my phone. No cellphone either. Just the one, old-fashioned telephone.

“At bloody last”, said a female voice.

“Hello”, I said, “who’s calling?”

“It’s Janie, we met at Kim’s party last week.”

“Oh, hello”, I said, intrigued.

“You are impossible to get hold of”, said Janie, “I have tried to call you loads of times. Your answering machine isn’t switched on.”

“I don’t have an answering machine”, I said, while thinking to myself that if she had given me her telephone number in the first place she might have spared herself these difficulties.

“I have been out rather a lot this week”, I continued, “in fact, if I sound a little out of breath, it’s because I have just been out to lunch and heard the phone ringing as I came up the stairs.”

“Oh, that’s a bummer,” said Janie, “I was going to invite you over for ossobuco with Kim and Micky this evening, but if you have already eaten you obviously don’t want…”

“…no, hold on a moment”, I persevered, “I love ossobuco and I’d very much like to join you, Kim and Micky for dinner. But if I don’t eat a vast quantity of food, you’ll know the reason why. Is that a deal?”

“OK”, said Janie.

“You’ll have to give me your address and telephone number now”, I said, trying hard not to sound triumphal about it.

“I realise that”, said Janie.

It seems that Janie and Kim had done some scheming since the telephone number request rejection incident the week before. I subsequently discovered that Kim had given Janie an “are you determined to be single for the rest of your life?” lecture, once Kim had found out what had happened.

Given that the only way to resolve the matter was now for Janie to phone me, they came up with this “chaperoned Sunday evening meal at Janie’s place” idea. The only problem with that grand scheme was that Janie had tried and failed many times to phone me; basically because I wasn’t at home much and only took telephone messages through work in those days.

But all’s well that ends well.

The evening was a great success. I didn’t have room for seconds but I did discover that Janie can cook a mean ossobuco. Even to this day, we think of slow cooked shin of veal (not always done ossobuco style but all variants qualify in our book) as “our dish”.

Just feast your eyes on it again. Yum.

Osso Bucco – picture by Stu Spivack via Wikipedia Commons

Playing With Trains by Stephen Poliakoff, The Pit, 11 November 1989

I remember this play, production and indeed the whole evening very well.

I had long been a fan of Poliakoff’s plays when I went to see this one, having read a great many of his plays and seen a few of the filmed versions of his works, but this was I think only the second time I’d got to see one of his plays on the stage.

My log says:

Very good. We sat next to Poliakoff himself and went on to Daniel [Scordel]’s party afterwards.

“We”, in this instance, was me and Annalisa de Mercur. The evening we attended was a preview – I think possibly even the first or one of the first previews.

I recall us getting to The Pit a little late and struggling to see any available pairs of seats once we got in. Annalisa made a bee-line for some empty seats that were clearly marked “reserved” with Stephen Poliakoff himself sitting next to those reservations.

“You can’t sit there”, I said to Annalisa, “they’re reserved”.

“It’s OK, you can sit there”, said Stephen Poliakoff.

“Are you sure it’s OK?” I said to him.

“Yes, they won’t all be needed”, he said.

“Are you something to do with the production?”, asked Annalisa, in the sort of questioning tone that only she might use in such circumstances.

“Stephen’s the playwright”, I said to her, “so I think he knows what he’s talking about”.

“Thank you”, I said to Stephen.

“That’s all right”, said Stephen. Then he said, “I wish they wouldn’t put my picture on the programme. I don’t like being recognised”.

“I’d have recognised you anyway”, I said.

Stephen Poliakoff half-smiled at me.

I really liked this play and the production. It is not Poliakoff’s finest, but it was a very interesting play, covering (as Poliakoff often does) societal issues and family issues in one fell swoop.

Superb cast, including my first live look at several truly excellent stage folk: Michael Pennington, Simon Russell Beale, Lesley Sharpe and Ralph Fiennes to name but four.

Here is the Theatricalia entry for this production.

Here’s Michael Billington’s Guardian take on it:

Billington on TrainsBillington on Trains Fri, Dec 1, 1989 – 36 · The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com

Below is Kate Kellaway’s take in The Observer:

Kellaway on TrainsKellaway on Trains Sun, Dec 3, 1989 – 43 · The Observer (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com

Annalisa was not as keen on this piece as I was. To be honest, she wasn’t very interested in theatre, but tended to come along to stuff I’d booked with Bobbie in mind if/when Bobbie wasn’t available.

I think it might have been during the interval of this one, in reference to a family row during the piece, that Annalisa commented, “I don’t much like this sort of drama – I can get all this at home.

It reminded me of one of my favourite Peter Cook quotes:

I go to the theatre to be entertained… I don’t want to see plays about rape, sodomy and drug addiction… I can get all that at home.

Playing With Trains did not have rape, sodomy or drug addiction as far as I recall. I do also remember suggesting that Annalisa keep her opinions to herself until we were clear of The Pit given that it was a preview night and it wasn’t the cast and crew’s fault that I had taken a guest who was not so keen on theatre.

We legged it across town to Daniel Scordel’s pad on Trinity Road, where the party was in full swing once we got there. I think Daniel was going out with Maz (Marianne Tudor Craig) by then, but I think that relationship was still quite new. I don’t remember much about the party other than it being rather a good one.

I do specifically remember Daniel’s kid sister, who was I think 17 or 18 at that time, grooving to a particular dance tune that I liked but did not recognise, so I asked her, after the record finished, what it was.

“You haven’t heard of it?” she said, “but it’s been in the charts for weeks. You’re sad”.

I’m pretty sure it was Ride On Time by Black Box

Like Daniel, I was just 27 at that time. It was the very first time I remember feeling old.

Huis Clos by Jean-Paul Sartre, Lyric Studio, 5 August 1989

John White loves a bit of existential angst, so what could be a better choice for a Saturday night out than Huis Clos? Mandy was up for it. Annalisa was up for it. Off we went to the Lyric Hammersmith – the small Studio theatre there.

The play is set in hell, which is said to be a hot place.

It really was o-t ‘ot that evening. Clammy August and naturally the air conditioning system in the Studio wasn’t working.

Here’s my database/diary note for this evening:

The air conditioning had broken down on one of the hottest days of the year.  The Lyric gave us all free squash in the interval because it was so bad.  It did make the play about hell truly multi-sensory.  The line “it’s so hot in here” had the whole audience in stitches.

You don’t need to take my word for this. Here’s a link to a review from “The Stage”.  As Maureen Paton puts it in that review:

…the oven-temperature heat in the Studio does the rest. Hell is too many other people in the audience on a hot night.

Still, we had a good evening as far as I can recall and all four of us dined out on that story for some time. Indeed John still seems to be talking about it as I write in October 2016, as John’s comment on my piece about I, Daniel Blake – click here – confirms.

The rest of the programme follows – heck it was quite a job this evening to dig it out, so I thought I might as well scan the lot while I was at it.

huis-clos-2-of-4-tiny

huis-clos-3-of-4-tiny

huis-clos-4-of-4-tiny

 

Listings Huis ClosListings Huis Clos Fri, Aug 4, 1989 – 30 · The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com

Huis Clos ListingHuis Clos Listing Mon, Aug 7, 1989 – 35 · The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com

Hamlet by William Shakespeare, Olivier Theatre, 18 March 1989

This was the famous (or perhaps infamous) National Theatre production of Hamlet which took Daniel Day-Lewis to the very edge of reason and from which he quit part way through the run.

I went very early in the run – in fact it might even have been a preview – with Annalisa. I suspect that I had booked the thing with Bobbie in mind, but so long before the appointed date that Bobbie could no longer make it.

Let’s just say that, back then, I thought of Shakespeare as more Bobbie’s thing than Annalisa’s thing. Annalisa has latterly assured me that theatre, including Shakespeare, was very much her thing.

Anyway, I recall that we sat right at the front of one of those side wedges in the Olivier – you are very close to the action there, especially when the action is on your side of the stage.

I also recall that Daniel Day Lewis was a very wet Hamlet – by which I mean sweating and spitting his lines. Annalisa remarked afterwards that we should have taken umbrellas with us had we known.

It was a superb production, with a great many big names and several names that weren’t big then but went on to be big. National productions were a bit like that in those days – some still are I suspect.

I was motivated to write up this theatre visit while sitting at Lord’s in September 2018 watching, for the first time, Ethan Bamber bowl live. His father, David, was Horatio in this Hamlet production, nearly 30 years earlier.

Other big names/fine performances included Judi Dench, John Castle, Michael Bryant, Oliver Ford Davies & Stella Gonet. A young Jeremy Northam had a small part in the version we saw but stepped up to the plate when Daniel Day-Lewis walked out. Later in the run, Ian Charleson took on the role to much acclaim, just before he died.

I think this was still quite early in Richard Eyre’s tenure at the National and he directed this one himself, extremely well.

My only other recollection is a quote that Annalisa picked up from an American visitor to the National, who told his wife that he didn’t think all that much of the play – “too many of the lines were clichés”. I guess you can’t please everybody.

Below is Michael Billington’s Guardian review:

Billington on HamletBillington on Hamlet Sat, Mar 18, 1989 – 21 · The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com

Below is Michael Ratcliffe’s Observer review:

Ratcliffe on HamletRatcliffe on Hamlet Sun, Mar 19, 1989 – 46 · The Observer (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com

Postscript: An Enthusiast From Across The Pond Sought Help…

…in March 2024 I received some unusual correspondence from a gentleman in the USA, wondering whether I still had the programme (or playbill in his terms) as he was keen to see Daniel Day-Lewis’s biography notes from that production.

I have mentioned before that Ogblog serves as a fifth emergency service on occasions and this felt like such an occasion. No sirens or speeding vehicles through the streets of London needed, but I fortuitously was able to lay my hands on this particular programme with relative ease, having not yet returned that batch to deep storage.

Without further ado…

…drumroll…

…THAT page: