Tag: Mark Lucek

Quatermaine’s Terms by Simon Gray, The Questors Studio, 23 May 1998

We went to this with Pauline “The Duchess”, who will have sported the theatre tickets (which she got free), which she saw as fair exchange for Janie to buy the drinks and me to buy dinner afterwards.

We went to Gilbey’s for that dinner. Gilbey’s was a small chain run by honourable people, if the companies house dissolution records (which is all I can find on-line) are to be believed.

As for Quatermaine’s Terms, I remember reading and liking this Simon Gray play a lot, so was keen to see a production of it. As always, The Questors did a competent job and that theatre company is especially to be commended for its on-line archive, which has preserved everything you could possibly want to know about that production (and quite possibly more besides).

The Rose Tattoo by Tennessee Williams, Questors Studio, 17 January 1998

We went to the Questor’s with The Duchess (Janie’s mum) that night. Unusually, there is no mention of a meal in a restaurant afterwards, but Janie’s diary has lots of notes about her mum going off to Tunisia on holiday the next day, so my guess is that we agreed to just go to the theatre and separately had light suppers at the respective homes afterwards.

As for the play/production, I noted that this was a:

…very good Questor’s production

Janie and I are especially partial to Tennessee Williams – it is a credit to this production that we liked it, as we sense that Williams is not easy to produce well. The Rose Tattoo is not Williams best/easiest play either.

The Questor’s has a super archive for all its productions – here is a link to the archive for this one.

I have downloaded the inside of the programme which includes a handwritten note that tells us this was the first night of the production.

A decade later, Janie and I saw a top notch professional production of this play…

The Rose Tattoo by Tennessee Williams, Olivier Theatre, 9 April 2007

It is inappropriate to compare the two – Zoe Wannamaker played the lead at The National. Suffice it to say that I remember both productions well and fondly.