The River at Greenwich Theatre

There are certain things that I look for when selecting a theatre performance to see and the name Jez Butterworth is one of these. 

It helped that it starred Paul McGann and was on at Greenwich Theatre which I had liked on my first visit to see Vincent River in 2024 (yes, the two plays I have seen at Greenwich Theatre are Vincent River and The River). A front row seat (A27) for £21, thanks to concessions, was an offer that I was not going to refuse.

Greenwich is fairly central but it still took a mainline train, a Jubilee Line train and a DLR train to get there. Luckily the connections were good (though having to climb up the emergency escape steps at Cutty Sark was not great) and I got there in good time for bit of a mooch and a coffee with cake before heading to the theatre where I had a pint of local Meantime beer before the show.

The story to The River is superficially simple, a middle age man has short term relationships with multiple women that follow the same course but while the story is simple the storytelling is anything but and that is what makes The River rather special.

The main technique is to interweave the stories of two of the women so we see similar scenes played out with the two female leads, Kerri McLean and Amanda Ryan, with one leaving the set to be replaced by the other repeatedly. The stories are non-sequential so, for example, we see one woman ask about a drawing she has found and then we see him doing the drawing. This is all done very nicely so that it is not too complicated to follow nor too clever for its own sake.

Making sure that everything was perfect, the stage was very effective as were the sounds (mostly of a river) and the lighting. Greenwich is quite a small theatre and it was punching above its weight here.

I said that the story was superficially simple and some time later I am still thinking through some of the deliberate loose ends and uncertainties. A play that makes you think afterwards is a good thing.

The River was a thoroughly engrossing and stimulating production which I enjoyed greatly.

Goldrush at The Half Moon (6 Oct 24)

Once upon a time Goldrush were called The Honeyslides and I saw them whenever they played at The Half Moon in Putney (which was every six months or so) and I have been carrying on that tradition under their new name. The only difference over the years of seeing them is that they had a new dummer this night and the occasional female backing singer has not been at any of the recent concerts.

There have been other small changes, Luke (on the left) now plays piano too, some of the songs have changed and the music technology has had several upgrades but their concerts essential remain Neil Young and Crazy Horse playing Live Rust, and that is all I could ever ask for.

NT Live: Prima Facie at Olympic Cinema

Like many people I was tempted when I saw that Jodie Comer would be appearing on stage but the pricing quickly put me off.  This happens quite a lot and I though no more of it until it was broadcast in cinemas as part of National Theatre Live where paying £20 was a much more attractive prospect, as was a comfortable and wide seat in Olympic Cinema Barnes.

My almost non-existant research told me that Jodie Cromer was staring in the play but I had missed that she was the only actor in it. I had also avoided any clues as to the story.

Jodie Cromer plays a young rising barrister who understand well how to get witnesses to say what she wants them to say to get the outcome she wants. She narrates her story directly to us and while there is quite a bit of movement and a few props there is little need for either other than to lift it from a story to a play.

All is going well in her life until she is raped which gives her the role of victim in a judicial system she knew so well. The play makes the good point that victims have a hard time in rapes cases as there are usually no witnesses and the victim's sex life can be used to suggest that the incident was consensual. A good point but one which I think is well understood and it did not need a play to make it.

To make that point, and to contrast her role as barrister then victim, this case went to court but, as is also well known, the vast majority of cases do not and there was not enough evidence in this case to justify a court hearing.

With the story compromised, the play relied on the performance of Jodie Comer and while this was good it was severely constrained by the narrative style which took a lot of the emotion and drama out of the story.

I though that Prima Facie was good but not great and I was glad that I had not paid West End prices to see it.

The Band Back Together at Arcola Theatre

I do not get to Arcola Theatre in Dalston as much as I did when I worked within walking distance but it is still something of a favourite and I welcome any reasonable excuse to go there. The very reasonable excuse this time was a new play by Barney Norris. My first exposure to his work was also at Arcola, Visitors in 2014, and since then I have seen productions of his at Bush and Bridge theatres as well as Arcola again.

It was very early in the run and my preview ticket for front row seat A11 was just £20. 

Dalston may be gentrifying but my pre-theatre eating operations have reduced over the years, e.g. I had been to Farr's before and their website was promising but on that night they were not doing food. Not for the first time I was forced into The Speakeasy, a semi-outdoor space, where the food and beer did the job nicely. It is really time that I started thinking of this place as a proper option for eating rather than a fall-back.

The play was downstairs in Studio 2 which has a nice cosy feel in which the front row seat added to the intimacy.

The simple premise behind the play was that three people who had been in a band eighteen years ago (half their lives) were coming back for a once-off performance having had no contact in the meantime. 

The eighteen years of catch-up provided a lot of rich material. They had parted as little more than children and had become adults in the meantime with adult jobs and adult families. Their experiences had been mixed and there were both light and dark stories.

It was a touching story of three people leading three separate lives each with their own joys and frustrations. The way those stories were told was intelligent which kept me engaged and natural so it felt real. That realness helped to hide the clever things going on in the script, which only reinforced its cleverness.

The play was set in their rehearsal sessions and we got a reasonable amount of music which was a bit punky and interesting lyrically and musically. It was a far step from the standard fare delivered by most musicals. I liked it.

Barney Norris was there to see how things went and it was good to be able to share a few words about this and his other shows. The chance to speak to a creative is one of the joys of smaller theatres.

The Band Back Together was my sort of play in my sort of theatre. A wonderful evening!

Walking from Becton to Crystal Palace (37km)

One of the reasons that I wanted to walk Capital Ring again was that I had not always mapped my walk (using, er, MapMyWalk) the first time so sections of it did not appear in my City Strides Life Map leaving a lot of white space in the Lewisham area.

Another reason was that I would not have gone to Woolwich if not for walking Capital Ring and I liked what I saw there, enough to want to see it again.

Capital Ring is 15 sections and 126km and my rough plan was four days of 30km each but that was a hard square to circle as the sections are of uneven lengths and SE London has two long sections (over 12km) which brought the four Sections 15 to 3 up to 37km.

I suspect that the sections are longer in SE London because of the relative lack of public transport for convenient start/end points and that certainly made this day harder than the others, it took me best part of two hours to get to the start point and more than that to get home.

Woolwich was again my highlight of the walk and I would have liked more time to explore (the app actually made me walk further than I needed to, which was a bonus!).

Woolwich is one the up and there is no greater proof of that than this collection of sculptures, Assembly by Peter Burke. There was also a trendy cafe next to it where I had a coffee and cake break.

After that it was a succession of parks and hills, none of which were particularly remarkable.

This is Oxleas Wood and, to be honest, is not the sort of view I go walk for; give me buildings any day.

The relentless stream of parks and suburban roads meant no pubs for several hours and I finally got a much needed pint in a Wetherspoons in Brixton; why Brixton and why a Spoons is a story that does not need to be told.

That only leaves three sections of Capital Ring to go and, while that is essentially home turf, I am quite looking forward to it.

The Biba Story at Fashion and Textile Museum

I was only vaguely aware of Biba at the time though the pull of its brand was enough to entice my sister up from Weymouth when she was still in her teens. Most of my awareness was to do with the branding and little to do with the fashion but the Fashion and Textile Museum has a good habit of telling interesting stories about fashion so I was keen to see this exhibition.

The simple plan for the day stumbled a little at the start as I was going to have lunch at their cafe but I forgot that it had been closed and the space converted to something else. Luckily there was plenty of choice nearby and I settled on Al’s Cafe where I rejected the option of a veggie breakfast because it came with chips and, instead went for Al's Breakfast which was much the same but without chips. It was very much a working person's cafe but the knew to do poached eggs and smashed avocado. It hit the spot perfectly and I would go there again.

As usual, Fashion and Textile Museum crammed quite a lot into a fairly small space and it was a slow walk around the exhibition looking at all of the garments (it was mostly garments) and reading the stories behind them.

The fashion exhibitions that I usually see, mostly at V&A, are on high-end fashion, e.g. Alexander McQueen, and in contrast to that I found most of the fashion uninspiring, though it was interesting to see some very period outfits. A lot looked like they could have come from M&S but that probably tells you more about what I know about fashion than it does about Biba.

Amongst the fairly average dresses and suits were a few stunning outfits. My favourite was a unisex trouser suit which a psychedelic pattern and widely flared trousers. I like to think that I have the courage to wear something like that. There was also a spider dress, so called because it looked as though it was covered in webbing, that was distinctly glamorous.

Biba's style changed quite a bit over the years and the texts listen all sorts of influences so there was little commonality across the outfits other than they were designed for tall thin women with few curves.

It was a fashion exhibition so while it mentioned the designs of the various shops there was only one photo of one and I do not recall reading anything about the production process, other than the sourcing of fabrics. The high turn-over of designs suggests something like today's fast fashion but that was an untold story.

On nice thing about the exhibition was that many people had clearly dressed for the occasion and the visitors were almost as interesting as the exhibits. One was even wearing a Biba trouser suit and I took the opportunity to say how much I admired it.

My simple metric for exhibitions is how long I spend there and this one occupied me for all but an hour which, given the size of the venue, was quite an achievement.

Walking from Hendon to Becton (33km)

My aim of walking Capital Ring for a second time took a good step forward with another four sections, 11 to 14, taking me from Hendon to Becton.

The walk was something of a mixed bag for me as I have walked parts of this several times, including the somewhat long and dull section starting south of Olympic Park.

I also took a different route through Highgate Woods from the last time and I failed to find the nice cafe there. I took the easy option and made up for this my going to the cafe in Finsbury Park and having their all-day veggie breakfast, not for the first time.

There were some highlights and I liked walking through the new development on the lakes at Woodberry Down. I also enjoyed the slight detour through Middlesex Filer Beds Nature Reserve thanks to the industrial remains. Previously I had always continued along River Lee and I do not know how official the detour is regarding Capital Ring but I am glad I took it.

The stop for the veggie breakfast through y schedule and after almost six and a half hours I called it a day; I was tempted to do Section 15 too but I had to get home and leave it for another day, another day soon.

Grayson Perry: The Vanity of Small Differences

While I have enjoyed all of the Grayson Perry art that I have stumbled across at places like V&A I had never gone to one of his exhibitions before but this one was so easy to get to, just a simple 65 bus ride, so it would have been strange not to go. The extensive research I did beforehand told me that the exhibition was six large-scale tapestries, which was enough to get me to part with £6.60 (thanks to the Art Fund discount).

The venue was Pitzhanger Manor Ealing, a place I know well because I spend a lot of time in Walpole Park and the several other parks in that area. I had even been to the cafe there but that was the only place inside that I had been to; another good reason for going.

If I had done even the slightly bit more research I would have been even keener to go as The Vanity of Small Differences was inspired by William Hogarth’s A Rake’s Progress and the original paintings were bought by the wife of the architect of Pitzhanger, Sir John Soane, to be displayed at Pitzhanger. 

opens at Pitzhanger Manor & Gallery this July–December 2024. For the first time, this exhibition brings the Turner-Prize-winning artist’s six large-scale tapestries to a building where William Hogarth’s A Rake’s Progress, the inspiration behind Perry’s tapestries, were purchased for and displayed. The tapestries were most definitely at home.

For a description of the exhibition, I can do better than quote from the "Taking Hogarth’s famed series as a starting point, Perry’s tapestries depict a corresponding fable of class, taste and social mobility. Weaving the complex ‘class journey’ of the fictional protagonist, Tim Rakewell.".

This is just part of one of the tapestries and you can see how rich the picture is in symbolism; they make a big impact at a distance because of their size and colours and then as you get closer there is more and more to see. Each tapestry takes a little time to study and enjoy.

No spoilers, but the last tapestry is in a darkened room on its own with a content warning at the entrance.

I really enjoyed the exhibition and, as my sister wants to see it too, I will be seeing it again soon.