Tag: Deirdre Halligan

The Long Way Round by Peter Handke, Cottesloe Theatre, 8 July 1989

Whether or not I went the long way round from Oxford to London that morning is lost in the mists of time and probably the fog of a hangover…

Music At Oxford At The Sheldonian Theatre & Bodleian Library, 7 July 1989

…but for sure I got back to London in time to see this preview at the Cottesloe.

Bobbie might say, “more’s the pity”, as my log notes that Bobbie absolutely hated it. I merely found it long and hard to follow. That’s how I remember it and that is exactly what I wrote in my log.

Super cast – Tilda Swinton is always very watchable but does often do weird stuff. Also Aidan Gillen, latterly very well known indeed. David Bamber was in it too – thirty years on I tend to watch his son, Ethan, bowling for Middlesex instead.

The play is described as a dramatic poem in the English language text and/but it was basically a family drama.

Here is the Theatricalia entry for this play/production.

Anyway, it wasn’t for us.

Postscript One -A Coincidence That Very Evening

I wrote the above piece on 14 February 2019, basically because it had been on my mind after writing up Music At Oxford a few days earlier. By strange coincidence, Bobbie Scully turned up at the Gresham Society Dinner that evening, as Iain Sutherland’s guest.

I mentioned the coincidence. Bobbie started to quiver with indignation:

I’d forgotten the name of that darned thing, but it was surely the very worst thing I have ever seen at the theatre…I think we walked out at half time…

…she said. Actually I don’t think we did walk out at half time. I’m sure I would have recorded that fact in my log whereas instead I recorded that the play was long and impenetrable.

I think we stuck it out tho the bitter end…

…I said. I also volunteered to dig deeper into the programme to see if there were in fact two halves.

Yes, there were two halves and they added up to a whopping three hours of hurt for Bobbie.

I’m not sure why we did stick it out. Perhaps I was still wet enough behind the ears to imagine t hat such a piece might yield in the second half all the answers it withheld in the first. I know not to do that now. Perhaps I was so tired and hungover from the joys of Oxford the night before I was reluctant to move on yet.

More likely, we had booked a late night eatery and jointly thought we might as well see the thing through rather than kick our heels somewhere.

Anyway, the whole experience clearly had a profound effect on Bobbie who was shaking with the trauma of recalling that evening and remembered it so well she even said…

…I seem to recall it was only on for a short run…

…which indeed it was.

Nearly 30 years on, Bobbie might wish to read the short essay from the programme too. The least I can do, upload the material, after all I put poor Bobbie through with regard to this play/production.

Postscript Two: Bobbie Chimes In With A Recovered Memory

An e-mail from Bobbie 24 hours after our encounter at the Gresham Society:

I was casting my mind back to that dreadful so-called play (it wasn’t, it was a string of tedious monologues) and had a recollection of being there after the interval in a (suddenly) half empty theatre. So I reckon that, although we did not leave at half time, about half the audience did.


And, indeed, I think that is why we stayed. We came out at the interval, intending to leave, but had pre-booked interval drinks to consume. As we did so, we watched more than half the audience exit the building. I think we went back out of sympathy/solidarity/courtesy towards the cast.


Does this ring any bells with you? Did we really watch the second half because we felt sorry for the actors? Personally, I can think of no other reason …

My response to Bobbie’s considered recollection was as follows:

Yes, we were young and foolish back then. We might well have stayed on for compassionate reasons. There’d be no such snowflake nonsense from this quarter these days. I do recall the second half seeming to drag to an even greater extent than the first half. I also remember an incredible sense of relief when the ordeal ended.

Postscript Three: Here’s a professional view…I don’t think Nicholas de Jongh in the Guardian exactly liked it either:

de Jongh on The Long Way Roundde Jongh on The Long Way Round Tue, Jul 11, 1989 – 38 · The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com

Juno And The Paycock by Sean O’Casey, Lyttelton Theatre, 22 February 1989

A midweek visit to the theatre with Bobbie. How on earth we ended up at the National for a major production on press night I have no idea – perhaps a couple of Bobbie’s journalist friends/colleagues had to divest themselves of a pair of tickets at short notice.

Midweek theatre was a habit we had acquired during my quieter months in late 1988 but this was not a sensible idea once my Binders career got going, as I might be deadline-ridden or out of town at the drop of a hat in my new career – so such mideweek jaunts became rare.

Having said that, it seems that February 1989 was a relatively quiet month for me, in terms of client contact anyway, certainly compared with the frantic few weeks I spent on my first major assignment in December 1988 and January 1989:

Reduced To Tears By My First Consultancy Assignment, 27 January 1989

I don’t recall being quiet at work, though, so I must have been immersed in something or things that didn’t require meetings. I think I ran a tendering process or two, got involved with some proposal writing and helped out on a few projects staffed by people who didn’t really “get” accounting.

One thing I most certainly wasn’t doing was strutting around the office like a “paycock”. Which brings us back neatly to the matter at hand – a Wednesday evening visit to the National to see Juno and the Paycock with Bobbie.

It’s a good play – one of O’Casey’s best in my opinion – a synopsis and the play’s provenance can be found here. The 1989 Lyttelton production was a good one to be sure – that’s what I wrote in my log anyhow.

Linda Bassett played Juno and Tony Haygarth played the Captain. It was a very good cast altogether, in fact – see this Theatricalia entry for details.

Below is Michael Billington’s Guardian review:

Billington on PaycockBillington on Paycock Fri, Feb 24, 1989 – 34 · The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com

Below is Michael Ratcliffe’s Observer review:

Ratcliffe on PaycockRatcliffe on Paycock Sun, Feb 26, 1989 – 44 · The Observer (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com

Strangely, it was revived again at the Lyttelton in 2011 with Ciaran Hinds and my neighbour, Sinead Cussack. Here is a link to a list of many productions.

It is hard to find any information on-line about the 1989 production, although some of the 2011 reviews hark back to the earlier production. But take my word for it that the 1989 production was good. I’m pretty sure it got good notices. Bobbie might remember yet more about it than I do. I’ll ask her.