With the Royal Court in exile, we missed the original “Upstairs” version of this at the Ambassadors. With all the stuff we had been dealing with in 1998, this one almost passed us by completely when it transferred “downstairs” to The Duke of York’s. So when the Duke of York’s production returned to that Royal Court “home in exile”, at the start of 1999, to kick off a major tour, we booked early and were there at the outset.
Excellent play and production
I wrote.
That was to say the least. It was truly memorable and awe-inspiring drama. No wonder many critics had fawned over it when it first came out in 1997.
We saw a great cast and crew – most if not all the originals – Kieran Ahern, Brendan Coyle, Dermot Crowley, Michelle Fairley and Jim Norton acting, Ian Rickson directing. Here is a link to the Theatricalia entry for the production we saw. It was a privilege to have seen that production.
Janie and I thought this piece and performance was simply superb. In fact, I wrote:
Superb!!
…in my log and I am not normally the double-exclamation-mark type.
This was David Hare’s brave dive into performing a one-man-show on one of the thorniest topics he might possibly choose – the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Talk about high risk, but we thought Hare pulled off a blinder with this piece/performance.
That suggests that we didn’t get a great deal out of this one, unusually for Mamet. Possibly we just felt that we’d seen a lot of material like this before.
Was it three short plays or one play with three somewhat disconnected scene?. I wrote down
The Disappearance of the Jews, Jolly and Deeny.
Splendid cast: Linal Haft, Colin Stinton, Zoe Wanamaker, Vincent Marzello and Diana Quick, directed by Patrick Marber.
I guess neither of us quite got our heads around The Chairs. You need to be in the mood for Ionesco and perhaps we weren’t.
This version was Martin Crimp’s adaptation and Simon McBurney/Théâtre de Complicité’s production, so weirdness was probably very much the order of the evening. Richard Briers and Geraldine McEwan led the cast. Here is the Theatricalia entry for the production.
“What did the papers say about it?” I hear you cry.
Charles Spencer in The Telegraph liked it, while denying that we should read too much into the piece – darned right!
Interesting (weird) evening. Programme missing – only insert sheet.
Actually the programme might turn out to be a play text which might turn up somewhere on my bookshelves.
I wouldn’t mind reading these plays again. This was Caryl Churchill in impenetrable mood.
Gabrielle Blunt, Jacqueline Defferary, Karina Fernandez, Bernard Gallagher, Valerie Lilley, Mary Macleod and Jason Watkins, directed by Max Stafford-Clark.
Then on to Old Park Lane Nobu for dinner. That place was the latest “in place to dine” back then, so we were keen to try it. Who’d have thought that, 25 years later, the signature black cod in miso dish would be something we can obtain from our local (Japanese) fishmonger and serve at home?
That was a lot of sensory stimulation for one evening – Caryl Churchill followed by Nobu. My guess is that Janie was very keen to try the place but could only get a late evening booking, so it sort of made sense to go after theatre.
To add to the excitement, we did it all again (in terms of theatre followed by dinner out) the very next day:
We rounded off our evening with Chinese food from The Park Inn. Quite right too.
The diary suggests that we planned to have Marianne and Anil over for dinner the next evening, the Saturday, but Anil doesn’t get beyond a question mark and Janie is sure she has never met him, so my guess is that the whole idea fell though.
These days (he says, writing more than 25 years later), I do most of the running with regard to booking theatre. But back then, Janie was more proactive.
There are notes in her diary from weeks before, working out when this was going to open and when we might be available. Then, for the day itself (as one might now find in my diary) notes on exactly which seats she’d booked (Row J) and how long the play might be (8:00 to 10:10).
For sure I would have been a willing participant in seeing the latest Mamet – I had been a bit of a Mamet fan for years by 1993. David Suchet and Lia Williams? yes please. Harold Pinter directing? just tell me where I need to go and when. Here is a link to the Theatricalia entry.
My diary is a bit of a confusion for that evening – indeed all that it reads is “Madness”…
…which I’m sure means “The Madness of George III”. But my theatre log is very clear that 17 October was this particular evening with John and Mandy and my diary also shows that “George III” reigned on 30 September for me:
What I think happened was that Bobbie, once again, could not make the planned theatre visit to see Madness of George III on 17 October, but was very keen to see that play. I vaguely recall Bobbie arranging a ticket swap with friends so that she/we could see “Madness” midweek a couple of weeks earlier and her friends got the prized Saturday night tickets that I had procured.
That freed up the evening of 17 October for Janie to meet John and Mandy and for all of us to see Death And The Maiden, which was still one of the hottest tickets in town that year, even though Juliet Stevenson (who had wowed audiences as the lead) had moved on.
Penny Downie played the lead in the cast we saw, which, as super subs go, is pretty darned super. Danny Webb and Hugh Ross played the male parts.
Janie and I are struggling to remember what other arrangements we made with John and Mandy around this evening. I think we might have had Chinese food in Soho with them before or after the theatre. Perhaps Mayflower? Or Joy King Lau in those days?
I also realise that my diaries at that time are littered with clues that John and Mandy must have recently moved house around that time:
Guessing that John and Mandy moved to Dangan Road that August, hence the address and phone number scrawled on 12 August……did I really escape the carnival 30 August to join John and Mandy in the George at Wanstead 30 August? Guessing that “birthday thing” 28 August would have been with my parents, but I’m not entirely sure about events of that weekend other than the 29 August hot date with Janie.
Anyway, on the day I am writing this up (29 August 2017), we shall be seeing John and Mandy later in the day, so I’ll pick their brains on these matters this evening and update this piece accordingly.
The play is set in an unspecified nation emerging into democracy from brutal dictatorship. Ariel Dorfman was a Chilean exile during the Pinochet years and the brutal regime is clearly based on that one. It is one of those hugely affecting plays about torture and the abuse of power. It brings to mind also One For The Road by Harold Pinter and Fermin Cabal’s Tejas Verdes.
I’m sure we did something after the play – perhaps we did eat afterwards. For sure we’d have needed a drink. For sure we found a way to discuss and decompress together for a while.
I remember being very pleased that John, Mandy and Janie all seemed to get along so well; in that regard alone the evening was a tremendous success (to use John’s favourite adjective). But it was also an excellent evening of theatre and I’m sure we must have eaten and drunk well…if only Janie and I could remember those details too.
Postscript: A strange coda to this story. Both Janie’s and my diairy say “The Madras House” for this evening, not “Death And The Maiden”. But my log says Death And The Maiden and I have no recollection of going to the Lyric with John and Mandy to see The Madras House – Janie and I saw that play at The Orange Tree many years later. Did we make a late switch of play choice or have the memories and documentary records got into a terrible muddle? I think probably the former.
I don’t remember all that much about this one, which probably means that I found it somewhat impenetrable, as is sometimes the case with Caryl Churchill plays.
I have the play text, so perhaps I should have a read to refresh my memory about this play/production. Or perhaps Bobbie can help.
Postscript
I have now reverted to the text and it sort-of comes back to me. The diary also tells me that we sat in seats D9 & D10 and that they were £10 tickets that Saturday. Good value, I suppose.
A moment in my personal history on that visit to London; my first visit to The Royal Court Theatre.
I was blown away by this production – Bobbie and I returned in the new year to see Saved as well, which was being performed in rep along with The Pope’s Wedding. After that, I returned to The Royal Court many, many times. Most recently at the time of writing (forty years on), strangely, as a facilitator for the Royal Court rather than as an audience member. A strange but true story:
But returning to The Pope’s Wedding, I am sure I have Bobbie to thank for seeking out the opportunity to see that production. She was doing her Bar pupillage in London by then and had no doubt spotted a review and/or an advert for the production. I think we got in on some sort of special deal, which possibly involved queueing up for “on the day” tickets. What I do recall is that we saw both The Pope’s Wedding and Saved from the best seats in the house for very modest ticket prices.
The Royal Court has benefitted from this “drug pusher style sales technique” for many decades since; I got addicted to watching theatre from the best seats not any old seats. In fact, many other theatres have benefitted from The Royal Court’s foresight at snaring potential theatre addicts young.
I quite often say “what a cast” in my theatre visit write ups, but on this occasion I think that phrase deserves a shout: WHAT A CAST!
Tony Rohr, Adrian Dunbar, Mark Wingett, Peter Lovstrom, Joanne Whalley (prior to her becoming Joanne Whalley Kilmer), Gerard Horan, Lesley Manville, Peter-Hugo Daly and Gary Oldman – directed by Max Stafford Clark. Here is a link to the Theatricalia entry for this production.
Have I mentioned that I was blown away by this production? (Yes you have, let the reader see what some real experts say – ed).
Returning to that weekend, the diary reminds me that we went to The Mayflower (Chinese restaurant on Shaftesbury Avenue) after the theatre – one of those places that we knew would still be open at that hour. I’m guessing that we had fancied trying The Swiss Centre but were too late for that, hence we returned the next day to take lunch there.
One habit that I think we started that Pope’s Wedding & Mayflower evening, which we/I continued for several years after, was to pick up the Sunday papers on Saturday night and start reading them on the Night Bus home if in town at that late hour on a Saturday.
I remember back then thinking that this weekend was the height of sophistication which, for the 22 year old me, it probably was, at that time.
Weir Gross Sunday Telegraph 13 Jul 1997, Sun Sunday Telegraph (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com
Weir de Jongh Standard 11 Jul 1997, Fri Evening Standard (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com
Weir Telegraph Spencer 14 Jul 1997, Mon The Daily Telegraph (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com
