The Journey to Venice at Finborough Theatre

Everything about this play could have been designed to attract me, it is a modern foreign (Norwegian) award-winning play about two old people who love to travel growing old being performed at Finborough Theatre. A bargain at £20.

As always the evening started with a small meal at Cafe du Coin in Earls Court Road where my order of Eggs Florentine and a Magic fruit juice was rewarded with the comment. "your usual", which it was.

Sadly the bar downstairs, The Finborough Arms, remains closed and shows no sign of reopening so I was unable to loiter with a beer beforehand. Instead I went upstairs and claimed a front row seat and sat in my thick winter coat because of the cold.

The premise of the story was that an old couple (older than me!) who used to travel a lot but could no longer do so (health and expense) relived some of their travels at home by watching old home movies, dressing up and describing the scene to each other. It was a sweet story.

Complicating things a bit were some negative memories and the impacts of their old age and poverty. Those memories included hints of affairs and their lack of children. (They did have a lot of cats though and they made a lot of noise off-stage.)

At times the dialogue between the couple got a little probing and testy but it was never argumentative and it was clear why they had stayed married for so long.

Other complications came from the visits of a plumber and a care assistant, the later being relentlessly chatty and bubbly. These intruders helped to put the couple's position in perspective and also gave them a glimpse of what having children might have been like.

I would not call The Journey to Venice an up-beat play but it gave a reasonably reassuring perspective or growing old gracefully and imaginatively despite all the messiness in the past.