Friday 24th October.
When I entered the cramped and claustrophobic space that
is the Fortune Theatre, in London’s Covent Garden, one Saturday afternoon about
16 years ago I had no idea what to expect but, because Mum had brought me with
her, I had an inkling it would be a theatrical delight. You will not be
surprised to learn that by the time the show was over I was terrified and a
little bit weepy after what I had seen. (OK, very weepy!)
My Mum was mortified. I don’t think she had any idea of
the impact that The Woman in Black was going to have on this intelligent 10
year old girl. I was convinced we were all doomed to repeat the tragedy of
Kipps and his family because we had all seen a ghost in the theatre. A ghost
that was visible to everyone and who wasn’t an actress because there was no
mention of her in the programme at all! I, and my Mum and everyone else had
been haunted that afternoon. Owing to the nature of the haunting our families
were going to suffer a major and calamitous tragedy pretty soon afterwards.
It took my Mum ages and ages to convince me that it was
all make-believe. The ghost was an actress and the reason she wasn’t mentioned
in the programme was to add verisimilitude to the performance we had just seen.
She explained she had seen the performance at the theatre in Scarborough some
years before and it was exactly the same and she hadn’t had anything happen to
her, nor had the entire audience. By the time our train arrived back in Norwich
I had stopped my tears and begun appreciate that I had been a witness to the
absolute magic of the theatre, which presents make-believe as reality. She told
me I ought to write to Stephen Mallatrat and explain how I had felt after the
show and he would be both very pleased (that his dramatization had worked) and
alarmed that a little girl had been traumatised by it. I never did write that
letter. I did go to masses more shows in both Norwich and London (with my Mum
and with my Mum and her school trips –she was Head of English at my school).
I saw a play about an all-white painting. I saw a play
version of the Hobbit. I saw a play about a robot actress who becomes human
(like Pinocchio). I saw a play with characters all in masks, who made up their
own language to tell the story. I saw three men tell all the plays of
Shakespeare in one hour and forty minutes. The same three people (although one
was a woman) did a musical about the turn of the Millennium – and I got
squirted at by a giant water pistol. I saw Sean Bean and Samantha Bond in
Macbeth. The list goes on and on. All
because of my Mum.
This Friday Mum, Laura and I sat in front of an empty
stage, except for a wicker costume basket and a gauze curtain to watch The
Woman in Black again. It was brilliant once more. I didn’t sob my eyes out
afterwards (I am 27 now) but I did jump and scream along with the rest of the audience,
including Laura and my Mum. Laura, who has not been to as many shows as I have
(probably about 10% of my total) was so blown away by it, she thought it was
the most wonderful show she has seen with me so far. She is right. The play is
the very essence of true theatre (IMHO). It has two people, no set, a minimum
of props yet between them they conjure a world that is believable and frightening
at the same time. If you wanted to show people what makes “true theatre” take
them to see this show. They will be blown away by it. If they aren’t, then they
have no imagination at all and can be left to vegetate in front of crappy
reality television – they deserve each other (mindless pap for morons).
Mum was still aghast as I explained to Laura how the play
had made me sob buckets almost all the way from London to Norwich. I did lay it
on a bit thick at her expense, I must admit. She did say that it was my
intelligence and imagination which had made me so upset, a compliment she tried
at the time but which cut no ice with a sobbing 10 year old. As a ‘mature’
adult I can understand what she means now.
So, if anyone out in the ether is actually reading this
drivel then call up the interweb and search for the Woman in Black tour and get
yourselves tickets. Say I sent you. I promise you, you will not regret it.
Saturday 25th October.
We had a second cultural event this evening with the
second of our Halle Orchestra concerts in the International Concert Season at
the City Hall. (In fact it was the very same ‘we’ who had their bums on the
plush seats at the Lyceum yesterday.) The programme was Schumann, Mozart and
Sibelius, but I bet the majority of the bums on the plush this time were there
for the Mozart. It was the Clarinet Concerto which is one of his more sublime pieces
(IMHO again). The other two pieces were very well done, including the Sibelius
Symphony 2 which is by no means his best – that accolade I feel can safely be
laid at the feet of his 7th Symphony.
We often meet Lynn Briggs at the concerts; she’s my boss
and has become an avid concert goer again since I started working at XXX &
Y Solicitors in Sheffield (in 2010). I think I sort of piqued her interest in
the genre by my lively descriptions of what I had been to see. (She has even
been known to come to concerts at The University’s Firth Hall venue, which was
a real leap in the dark for her!) She
and her partner have gone to North Wales for the weekend, which is something she
has not been known to do since I have been working there! I just hope she didn’t
get washed away in all the rain when she could have been swept away by the
excellent playing of the clarinet in the Mozart.
I am not going to go overboard about the concert, in the
way I got a little over-enthusiastic about TWIB form yesterday but… I think
that seeing music played live has to be the best way to experience it. My
version of the Clarinet Concerto and Symphony No 2 which I have on CD don’t
hold a candle to seeing and hearing them being played live by real,
concentrating, sweating musicians who obviously enjoy the feedback from an
appreciative audience. (I don’t have a copy of the Schumann at all, in case you’re
wondering.)
Earlier in the day we went for a mega grocery shop and I
was appalled at the size of the bill for the amount (or lack of it) in the
trolley. Over £130! I was dumbfounded. OK, I did spend nearly £30 on food for
Callie as she needed a new sack of Autarky dried food and I always buy her a
packet of cooked ham and some cheese to sprinkle on the top of her meal (I am
mad, I know). This is despite Laura and me sitting down and devising our week’s
menu before we go shopping and not being extravagant at all. I am shocked, TBH.
I wonder how someone like Laura would cope (she is not earning really, being an
undergraduate in her finals year) if she was having to do this by herself. What
really annoys me is the fact we spend a mint on sodding tampons and the like
every month whether we want to or not. I bet if men f*cking bled every 28 days
they’d have made these items FREE centuries ago!
Sunday 26th October.
Today we had a quiet day. The weather was grotty and so
windy. I was scared we might get blown away at one point when we walked Callie
this morning. Luckily, like a crab, we can go sideways and still forwards, so
at one point we were facing into the wind but going sideways down the lane to
avoid being buffeted uncontrollably along. It is lucky Lumb Lane is so
infrequently used by vehicles; we could have been part of a road traffic
accident as we wouldn’t have seen an oncoming vehicle.
Rachel Harrison and her BF came round for Sunday lunch,
she is a colleague from XXX & Y Solicitors and has never been for a meal at
my place, I discovered after looking through my old diaries last week (I
sometimes get an idea in my head and as I keep very meticulous records of all
sorts of stupid items – rainfall days; amounts spent on groceries, when I do gardening
etc – I was looking up previous rainfall amounts and found a note saying ‘Ask
Rachel’ to lunch. That was dated September 2012! So last week I asked her if
she fancied coming round for Sunday lunch.
She asked if she could bring Mitchell, her boyfriend
round as well, so I said, ‘OK’. I have never met the aforementioned Mitchell
and when I was going to ask her way back in 2012 I was sure she was dating
another guy altogether! Still, in the interests of making the workplace a
friendlier place I was prepared for anything.
In the end he turned out to be a bit innocuous and
instantly forgettable. I asked her why she was dating Mitchell (when he’d gone
to the ablution) and she said that she wasn’t really sure. He was a nice enough
guy but lacked and sort of get up and go. Laura had the brass neck to say, ‘He
must be good in bed then?’ and Rache answered, ‘Well not especially…”
It seems that at 31 she was getting worried that she
might be leaving things too late and he seemed like a good idea at the time.
(!!!) In a previous lifestyle and existence I might have offered to have a
threesome with her and Mitchell to see if would inject a bit of spice in his
life but I decided that might not be a good idea any more. We didn’t have time
for any more Mitchell related chatter as he came back from the loo and we moved
to less dangerous ground.
On visiting the lavatory myself a little later on I was
appalled to see that we had left a dildo in the bottom of the shower! It goes
to show how wimpy this Mitchell guy is that he never even alluded to it all the
rest of the afternoon. When I pointed it out to the Lollster after they had
left she collapsed into giggles and said he probably hadn’t said anything as he
might have been scared we’d get it and use it on him! I said I had a much
better idea.
I went and fetched it and showed Laura the better idea, she
agreed (after about an hour and a half) that it was definitely a better idea.
We lay on the bed afterwards cuddling and wondered if when Rachel and Mitchell
got home they’d indulge in sex too. Laura doubted it very much, I have to agree
with her assessment. Why do women chose such unsuitable attachments?
No comments:
Post a Comment