It all felt very different on arrival at the theatre, with the space transformed for this piece and entrances to the space where audiences normally fear to tread.
But the piece itself never really took off into the stratosphere as perhaps it should.
We heard a lot from the good-hearted middle class people who felt conflicted by the riots and/or tried to help those who got into difficulties during the chaos. We heard less from the rioters themselves.
To be fair on Alecky Blythe, she took the orthodox view on the play and stuck only to the verbatim material she could gather at the time, so I suppose that would be weighted towards those slightly safer situations…
…not least because people are not normally full of conversation while rioting…
…I imagine; not ever having been in the heart of a riot personally.
The highlight of this weekend – or at least the most memorable event – was me being recognised by Elvis Costello when he and his misses were heading for their seats just behind us at the Albery.
I have written that up in my piece about the play/production:
Prior To the West End, A Jaunt To Lincolnshire & Nottingham
Our diaries indicate a flurry of activity on the Friday and the Saturday, which I only vaguely remember. Janie had a podiatry course at Nottingham University on the Saturday morning and we had chosen to take the Friday off to make that a more palatable affair, not least because Janie didn’t fancy the crack of dawn start to go to Nottingham and back in a day.
We lunched at The George At Stamford, in Lincolnshire, a place I knew and linked from “back in the day” when business took me up that way. Janie checked us in to The Village Hotel and Leisure Club in Nottingham, which enabled me to enjoy facilities while she was on her training course. Janie’s diary reminds me that she arranged for both of us to have massages there on the Friday evening when we arrived, which we both deemed to be a very ordinary “pitty-pat” experience, unlike our regular arrangements in London.
After Janie’s course we legged it back down to London and then on to The Albery. It all reads very hectic in the diaries – we’d for sure avoid such a crush 25 years later, as I write.
And The Next Day…
We went to the Barbican Hall for a concert, which I have written up here, with yet more celebrity name-dropping potential for me and Janie:
A star-studded audience our night: me, Janie, Elvis Costello…
…we didn’t/don’t normally go to celebrity gala preview evenings for productions. Indeed, I think we ended up at this one by accident.
If I remember correctly, Janie booked this one on an early priority booking as she was a member of the Almeida Theatre, which was responsible for (or at least heavily involved with) this production. We tend to like and book previews, because they are usually low key and precede the hullabaloo of press nights and the like. For some reason this one seemed to be different.
We got to the Albery and our seats in good time. Then someone in the row behind me taped my shoulder and said “hello” as he was going past towards his seat. It was Elvis Costello, whom I had got to know reasonably well in the 1990s at Lambton Place Health Club (now BodyWorksWest).
In fact, for several years at Lambton Place, I was aware of this friendly fellow who was obviously in the music business, as indeed were many members at Lambton’s. I had not recognised him as Elvis Costello, despite my having several of his albums and having seen him live several times in the 1980s. On one occasion, a few years before The Albery, he and I were chatting in the steam room and I asked him what he did. He said that he used to be in a band called Elvis Costello and the Attractions. “Oh yes”, I said “I have several of your albums and saw the band live more than once. Do you mind telling me your name?” He told me, and clearly found my embarrassment at my gaff funny.
I even reviewed one of Elvis Costello’s gigs for Concourse, our student newspaper, in 1983. That was only seven or eight years before I first met him.
Anyway, roll the clock to April 1999 again. We were still on “chat quite regularly at the health club” terms, hence Elvis Costello tapping me on the shoulder, saying hello and stopping for a brief chat as he was going through to his seat.
“Who was that?” asked Janie after he and his Mrs had moved on. “Elvis Costello”, I said, quietly and matter-of-factly I thought, but my words caused a flurry among a group of celebrity-spotters in the row in front of us, who proceeded to keep turning around at regular intervals, looking at Elvis Costello and quizzically looking at me and Janie whom, I suppose, they now suspected of being celebrities worth spotting in our own right. I found this more amusing than Janie did.
Unfortunately, the pre-show hullabaloo was probably the most entertaining aspect of the evening from my point of view. I didn’t much like the play and found Cate Blanchett’s character Susan incredibly irritating.
Not as good as we had hoped it would be
…was my log comment, so I am pretty sure Janie felt the same way.
It was all very well produced and had a tip-top cast under Jonathan Kent, but that couldn’t rescue the evening for us. Here’s a link to the Theatricalia entry.
Paul Taylor in The Independent shared our doubts about this play/production, although saying that he would sooner spend three weeks stuck in a lift with Hedda Gabler than have a drink with Blanchett’s character Susan is harsher than I could have been:
We had posh nosh at The Beaumont afterwards. I think it had recently had a makeover at that time – it will have had a makeover or two since (he says, writing 25 years after the event).
Janie and I see a lot of theatre and on the whole go to see productions that we find good or very good. But just occasionally we see something that is a cut above and is truly memorable as one of the best productions we have ever seen.
That is how my memory (25 years later) recalls this adaptation/production of The Life Of Galileo and my log from the time registers the simple phrase, “excellent production”.
Yes, yes, yes! We thought this was a really, really good night at the theatre.
I’d long been a Pinter fan. Janie wasn’t really familiar with his work, but Janie made the running for this night at the Almeida, booking us the front row seats we craved for that place (still do) and jotting down all the details. 90 minutes without an interval. Seats A7 & A8.
This play/production was our first sighting of Pinter together.
I think we ran into Ivan Shakespeare again that night; volunteering for the Almeida selling programmes.
Michael Billington’s review was on the front page of the Guradian – how often does that happen? Along with a luvvie-fest piece (I’m glad we weren’t there that night and a continuation on Page 18.
Also in the Guardian, an Anna Massey interview about Moonlight. Anna Massey went on to become one of Janie’s regular clients, but Janie didn’t yet know her when we saw Moonlight.
Janie and I still say “my dear child” in the gnarley style that Alan Bates delivered that phrase in this production.
This was our first visit to the Almeida together and I have a feeling we ran into my NewsRevue friend Ivan Shakespeare on this occasion and indeed on more than one of our first few occasions at the Almeida. Ivan was a volunteer there and I think he did Saturday evenings whenever he could.
