Out West at Lyric Hammersmith was a gratifying return to theatre

It is a cautious return to theatre for me and I have deliberately missed several shows that I would probably have gone to in better safer times two years ago. The first show to tempt me back was Out West at Lyric Hammersmith, partially because Lyric is one of my more regular theatres and partially because one of the three plays was written by Simon Stephens. I am enough of a fan of Stephens for him to have his own tag on this blog.

As expected, covid played havoc with my usual Lyric plans, which include eating in the bar there, but the makeshift plan of going to the nearby Hop Poles for a pint an a vegetarian plate. It was also a chance to catch the end of the England v Germany game which had the decency to finish before the theatre started,

It was probably stated on the Lyric website somewhere, which was either unread or forgotten, but this was not a random collection of plays, they all had a connection with Hammersmith (hence, I presume, the Out West title) and they all said something about racism.

The Overseas Student in the first play was Ghandi and it described his time in England studying law, a story I knew nothing about. I liked the way the story was told and it was interesting to learn connections to things I did know, such as the first asian MP Dadabhai Naoroji. I had come across his plaque just off Amwell Street in a road now named after him.

It was also interesting to learn that Naoroji was arguing then that Britain's wealth was at the expense of India's poverty. 

As with all of these plays this was a solo effort and Esh Alladi was excellent as the young man trying to get on in a strange land. The play, by Tanika Gupta, was a simple chronological narrative and that was fine, there was plenty enough interest in the story to not need theatrics.

Blue Water and Cold and Fresh was obviously written by Simon Stephens because of the swearing, though it came nowhere near the record for this that he set in Christmas. It was also obviously written by somebody interesting in the construction of plays and seeing some of the scaffolding added to the fun, as did spotting the recurring themes like sunlight and cups of tea. 

At first most of the interest came from discovering the structure of the story and the geography of Hammersmith then the narrative grew as we learned more about the protagonist and his family's past and then racism entered the story with a jolt.

Tom Mothersdale was measured and convincing as the man trying to understand his father by revisiting his past homes and reliving some memories of those times.

Go, Girl written by Roy Williams and played by Ayesha Antoine also switched between times and in this case it was a mother with a problematic daughter who thought back to when she was her daughter's age and had had the honour of singing to Michelle Obama who made a visit to her school.

Their story was one of both issues and possibilities and, in the end, Go, Girl proved to be good advice.

Three relatively short single-handed plays on a simple set was never going to be an epic but as a cautious return to the theatre this was an excellent and very enjoyable evening.

The Father at Curzon Richmond was superb

I like watching films but am not much of a cinema fan (for reasons that probably make no sense) and am usually happy to wait for them to hit the small screen so it takes something special to drag me out. The Father was certainly special enough to do that.

My primary interest was in the story and the story teller. I had seen the play at Richmond Theatre in 2016 and that had led me to see other Florian Zeller plays subsequently. If any further temptation was needed then the promise of an Oscar winning performance from Anthony Hopkins was more than enough.

It was towards the end of the run at Curzon Richmond before I got organised enough to book and so I found myself going at 8:30pm on a Friday evening.

A pleasant upside of that timing was the opportunity to make a first return visit to Wagamama for a year where a vegan Tofu Firecracker was exceptional. I also had time for a pint in The Olde Ship which was useful after the Firecracker.

This was only my second visit to Curzon Richmond and I had forgotten that I could get a real coffee  to take in, which was a much better option than another beer.

The Father did what I knew it would from having seen the play but it did it in a different way taking advantage of the things that films can do, like change locations quickly.

The simple, poignant, heart-wrenching story was the neurological decline of The Father. It was told from his perspective, though not in the first person, and that meant that characters changed their appearances, changed where they were living and changed what they had said. There were multiple actors playing the same role and also different roles, e.g. two played the daughter and one of those also played a nurse. We were always a little confused as to what was really going on and that gave us just a clue as to how The Father saw things.

Anthony Hopkins was brilliant as The Father as I knew he would be because he had played a similar role with great aplomb in Red 2. He is also a bloody good actor in everything else that I have seen him in.

The rest of the production, including the fabulously furnished flats and the gentle cinematography enriched the experience without ever detracting from the centrepiece of the drama, The Father.

Given the subject matter, neurodisability, it was never going to be an easy film to watch, and nor would it be to everyone's taste, but it held my full attention for an hour and a half and was very rewarding if not, in the usual sense of the word, entertaining. 

Exploring linear parks in South London

In our previous weekly long walk my walk buddy and I did a loop north of the Thames from Embankment to Waterloo vis, amongst other places, Hyde Park, Paddington, Regent's Canal, Clerkenwell, City and South Bank. Buoyed by the success of that walk I proposed that we try something similar south of the river and so we joined the 8:57 Barriers Club and caught the tube to Westminster intending to visit a few of the green spaces shown on the map.

The first part of the journey was an uneventful trek along roads apart from the discovery of Arment Pie, Mash & Eel House somewhere around Walworth, possibly.

Soon after we were in Burgess Park and the walk really began. I had been there before, I quickly realised, but previously I had been going east to west and things always look different in an interesting way when you walk in a different direction. We also wandered off the main path a little to take in a wildflower garden so it was like walking in the park for the first time.

The yomp through Peckham had to be done and at least there was the mix of cultures to study along the way.

From there it was a succession of parks with a couple of steep hills to spice things up.

Here is a checklist of the places we visited, where I remembered to check in on Swarm, in reverse order because that is how the app works:

• Russia Dock Woodland
• Lower Pepys Park
• Upper Pepys Park
• The Dog & Bell (beer break)
• Broadway Fields
• Brookmill Park
• Ladywell Fields
• Ravensbourne Park Gardens
• Blythe Hill Fields
• One Tree Hill
• The Peckham Round (coffee and cake)
• Peckham Rye Park
• Peckham Rye Common
• Burgess Park

This was a slight change from our vaguely planned route which would have taken us into Greenwich Park as on entering Ladywell Fields in Catford we saw signs for Waterlink Way that explained that we were about half way along the 12 km route and we decided to follow the rest of it towards the Thames because it looked pretty and we like to explore new places.

The Thames from Deptford to Rotherhithe is one of my favourite sections because it reeks of maritime history and has managed to resist much of modern London so we took the scenic route up to Canada Water where we had an easy route home.

The statistics of the walk were 22 km in a respectable 4.5 hours.

It was not planned as such but this proved to be a day of long linear parks created either where water used to be, in disused canals or docks, or alongside still running water. That would have been a great plan if only I had thought of it beforehand.

The Honeyslides (abridged) at The Half Moon (20 Jun 21)

It is a slow start moving somewhere back towards "normal" and The Honeyslides at The Half Moon was my first foray back into gigs. The Honeyslides have been a must-see band for me for a while 

Covid restrictions meant the venue was all seating and I was quick to book a table for four and to confirm that I wanted the one just to the left of the centre of the stage where I usually manage to sit thanks to careful planing and long queueing.

The timing of the concert meant that it made sense to eat at the pub beforehand which I had not done before. The vegetarian mock-chicken burger with katsu curry sauce did the job nicely as did the pint of Young's Ordinary (apparently it is called Original now but everybody who knows beer ignores that).

Covid had an impact on Honeyslides too and the previous four piece band plus backing singer was abridged to just Tom Billington, who plays Neil Young, and Luke (surname not found on Google), who plays everyone else.

Covid had also given time for Luke to hone his piano playing and the keyboard was a new feature for Honeyslides. 

With the reduced line-up it was no surprise that the set focussed on Neil Young's acoustic songs, of which there are a great many. Many, like Needle and the Damage Done and Sugar Mountain, were already established in the Honeyslides set and these were joined by songs like Thrasher (from Rust Never Sleeps) which I was particularly pleased to hear.

They also managed to play all of After The Gold Rush along the way, complete with a short break to allow the record to be turned over.

Being acoustic did not mean that they could not rock and we had powerful versions of Like a Hurricane, Powderfinger, Cowgirl in the Sand and Rocking in the Free World.

The Honeyslides are all about the quality of the songs and the quality of their delivery; the quantity was an impressive bonus with the set running for well over two hours.

Covid restrictions brought many changes to the venue, band and setlist but this was still a Honeyslides gig and an excellent one at that.

Il turco in Italia at Glyndebourne (2021)

I will come on to the opera but after a year and a half of covid this was the story of returning to Glyndebourne.

Covid restrictions meant far few tickets available and instead of getting four tickets for six operas, as we usually do, we got two tickets for three operas. That was fine with us bit not so good for our regular guests.

There being just the two of us and we having made the brave, and sensible, decision to get rid of our car almost two years ago meant that we had to go by train, which we had done before. The only slight difference was that we had to pre-book the coach from Lewes Station to/from Glyndebourne.

We allowed reasonable contingency for getting to Clapham Junction, where we joined the Lewes train, and being ready early with nothing else to do led us to set of earlier than our cautious plan suggested. The upshot was we managed to catch the train an hour before the one we were meant to catch. That worked in our favour and we were able to have a leisurely drink sitting in the shade on a hot sunny day.

Arriving at Glyndebourne we managed to get our target bench at the end of the long border. Bench claimed we headed off to find a cup of tea and to explore the gardens. The covid changes were many and obvious, the most obvious being the reduced number of people which meant that the popular lawns looked almost deserted. The Long Bar was no longer selling alcohol but we wanted tea so that was all right.

The gardens were on their usual magnificent form and there was plenty of art, old and new, to enjoy.

Being cautious again we rechecked the weather forecast and the rain expected at 9pm had come forward to 6pm so we judiciously moved to a bench under the cover of the opera house. In the end there was only a little rain but it was enough for umbrellas and enough to have disrupted our sumptuous rolls if we had stayed outside.

Inside we were in Upper Circle Rear seats F25/26. Familiar territory.

I did not know the opera at all and, unlike me, I red the synopsis beforehand. It sounded very confusing, and perhaps it was, though it was so well told that I was able to follow the love pentangle which was the story that the narrator of the opera was struggling to write.

The production was fabulous with all sorts of gimmicks that managed to be clever without being gimmicky. For example, when the author was working on his story we saw what he was writing, and rewriting, on a back projection. I particularly loved the one aria from the fifth man in the pentangle which was done in the style of Freddie Mercury complete with white vest and swirling jacket.

The opera was a farce and the music was more flimsy than dramatic but two things make this an excellent opera, firstly the production which I mentioned earlier and secondly was the singing. The singing was sublime throughout, as it usually is at Glyndebourne.

Despite covid, Glyndebourne was very much the Glyndebourne I knew and loved and it was fantastic to be back there.