London Loop Revisited (Sections 23 and 23)

On Monday 14 September 26 my colleague and I walked London Loop Sections 22: Harold Wood to Upminster Bridge (7km) and 23: Upminster Bridge to Rainham (7km).

For the most part this was following Ingerbourne on tarmac paths through a succession of parks and nature reserves. With a lot of greenery and a proper surface to walk on this was a really enjoyable walk made at a decent pace, around 5.5km/hr.

Being an easy route to follow we took almost exactly the same route as we had done previously. 

The first small divergence (at the top) was when I deliberately went off-route to add a road to my CityStrides Like Map.

The divergence in the middle, by Upminster, was because we had missed the correct turning the first time when following written instructions.

I am not sure how the divergence right at the end happened, we may have taken the easiest route to the station previously or there may have been a change to the route, GoJauntly took us on way, which worked, but we saw no London Loop signs that way.

Unlike the previous day where we failed to find even a cafe, this time we had a big cooked breakfast in Upminster. That is always a good thing to do.

The Truth at Apollo Theatre

I have seen several Florian Zeller plays and films over the years (I even wrote about some of them) and that experience made me want to see The Truth. The names Mangan and O'Hanlon helped too.

Knowing that the dialogue would be the key feature I went for a cheap seat rather than a good one and paid a very modest £35 for Section Grand Circle

Row A Seat 2. I could not quite see all of the stage due to a rail but it was more than good enough and well worth the money.

The Truth is all about when to tell the truth and when to lie, either to protect yourself or to protect the person you are lying to.

The play starts with a simple truth, Stephen Mangan's character is having am affair and we know this because they are in bed together. After that things get more and more complicated as the lies and the truth mix unexpectedly. I don't think it's a spoiler to say that one of the complications is trying to work out who knows about the affair, if indeed they do know, and how they found out.

The dialogue is full of dramatic and unexpected twists delivered brilliantly by the whole cast who twist things further with subtle expressions that we can see but not the person they are talking to.

It is all rather brilliant and extremely funny. The audience laughed, gasped in surprise and clapped all the way through.

Paranormal Activity at Richmond Theatre

xxxxI see almost everything at Richmond Theatre and while Paranormal Activity did not sound like my sort of thing the West End pedigree and my general love of theatre was enough for me to fork out £50 (more than I usually pay) for my usual seat Dress Circle A 24.

As expected, it was a play that used special effects and loud noises to carry most of the drama and little was asked of the characters or of the actors who played them. For some reason a lot of the noise was by grunge legends Soundgarden, and I was happy with that.

The play carried on much as expected with a series of possibly paranormal events that were well staged and often unexpected. Scenes like the one on the sofa got loud gasps from the audience.

Like 2:22 – A Ghost Story, and other similar plays, it ends with a big twist that was most unexpected, in this case that was largely because no clues had been given.

Paranormal Activity was a two-pony, special effects and a surprise ending, and while it was entertaining enough it was not very substantial.

London Loop Revisited (Sections 20 and 21)

I walked the London Loop a few years ago with my usual walking companion when not only did I not write anything about it at the time I also forgot to record some of the the walks leaving gaps in my CityStrides Life Map. For that, and the sheer pleasure of the walks, we are doing the London Loop aagin.

On Monday 7 September 26 we walked Sections 20: Chigwell to Havering-atte Bower (10 km) and  21: Havering-atte-Bower to Harold Wood (7km).

These are sections I had mapped before and I find the differences interesting. Most of these are due to mistakes made on the first walk when trying to follow written instructions we managed to go astray almost every day. This time I was following the route on GoJauntly so mistakes were fewer.

There may also have been some changes to the route, and possibly errors in the map. One of the triangles near Chigwell was where we had walked around two sides of a field previously while this time we walked diagonally across it.

The bug divergence in the centre was where we had gone wrong the first time (all the paths in woodlands look the same) and had found ourselves the wrong side of a fence and unable to rejoin the route easily.

Our original plan was to end the walk at Havering-atte Bower but when we discovered that the next bus to Ronford was in 117 minutes we descided to walk on to Harold Wood and the Lizzy Line.

A Slow Fire at Jermyn Street Theatre

I try to see Simon Stephens'  plays whenever possible (and to write about them here) so when Jermyn Street Theatre (a favourite) announced A Slow Fire I was quick to pay my £28 for a central front-row seat (A5).

I got a bit distracted on the way there and left myself with little time to eat something beforehand so, yet again, I ended up in the pub around the corner, Three Crowns, where I had just about enough time to scoff a couple of starters and drink a pint of Level Head.

Having seen several Simon Stephens plays I am not sure that he has a style, other than swearing, but this still seemed different, possibly because of the post-apocalyptic setting.

The structure of the play fooled me immediately. The first scene had one of the two main characters try to prise the other man away from a gay relationship. I was not impressed by the acting at this point.

But the joke was on me. This was not the actors acting, this was their characters acting as they relived a hopeful scene from one of their lives. They acted out several scenes and had their favourites that they returned to. These scenes of hope were what kept them going in whatever bleak world they were living in.

And somebody was stealing railway tracks.

This strange but stable situation was rudely interrupted by two separate visitors and things changed.

It was not really a story, rather it was about real people in a series of weird situations and the characters, the actors who played them and Simon Stephens who wrote the words they said made it all work beautifully.

... later ...

I deliberately leave writing anything up to give me time to reflect and this time it took a little while for the obvious truth to dawn.

I was trying to categorise this play by thinking of something comparable and finally it hit me, this has the hallmarks of a Philip Ridley play and, to be specific, it owes an awful lot to The Pitchfork Disney, so much so that the connections must be deliberate on Stephens' part. Both have an odd couple living an isolated life in a dysfunctional world that is not explained, both have two visitors who shake things up, one of those visitors is decidedly weird vocally, there is a brother and sister and there is someone called Presley. All that cannot be a coincidence.

The relationship to The Pitchfork Disney was a nice bonus, a little easter egg for Ridley fans, and A Slow Fire remained superb play that was excellently delivered by all involved.