Red Kew

This Autumn has been mostly grey wet and miserable, like you expect Autumns to be, but there have been a few bright days in which to enjoy the seasonal colours.

And where better to go on a day like that than Kew Gardens?

Trees dominate large areas of Kew so any walk through it is going to be impressive but choices have to be made so I went in through the Lion Gate.

The next hour or so was spent tramping through the gardens from one colourful tree to the next.

Autumn is rich with colourful leaves and berries and Kew was thick with yellows, browns, greens, reds and oranges.

Faced with such an embarrassment of riches, I've chosen to highlight the reds.

Not as a homage to our next Prime Minister (that's Red Ed, in case you've not guessed) but because they shrieked for attention above their more numerous but less glamorous neighbours.

As leaves fade and fall the berries burst in to life to the delight of the wildlife for which they are food and of the visitors, like me, who appreciate their colour and the way that they cluster together like giggling girls at a party.

The absent leaves also open up the gardens to different views revealing what the trees once tried so hard to hide so Kew changes shape as well as colour, making every visit there pleasingly different.

Winter is now starting to announce its coming with morning frosts and dark evenings but Kew knows what to expect and how to respond. I'll be back there soon to tell that story.

Meet The Doyles is not at all funny

That's four hours of my life that I'll never get back. And it seemed a lot longer than that at the time.

The omens were good, the ticket offer promised "a brand new modern, fast-moving family comedy", the cast includes Will Mellor and Warren Clarke, and the team behind the show have worked on the Cosby Show, Roseanne, 3rd Rock from the Sun,The IT Crowd, I'm Alan Partridge and Green Wing.

Add to this that the tickets were free and Teddington Studio is a short walk from home it seemed like an opportunity not to be missed so one wet Friday I trudged along, collect my green armband (No. 64), went back to the pub for a quick pint then went in to the studio around 7:30.

Being a single person, and with a fairly low number, I was able to get a seat in the front row albeit on the left-hand side of the stage. Things went downhill rapidly from there.

The first problem is that, unlike all other TV recordings that I have been to, the sets are completely enclosed so all you can see in the studio audience are the wooden frames. We had to watch the takes on the monitors, and there are not many of those at Teddington.

The question you have to ask about Meet The Doyles is "why?". Family sitcoms are hardly new and the BBC already has My Family and Outnumbered which take two very different approaches to exposing the strangeness of families. Surely a "a brand new modern, fast-moving family comedy" would do something quite different?

Well, no. The family is tradition writ large, a happily married couple, a teenage girl who is just discovering boys, two younger mischievous boys, a well meaning but off-script grandparent and a brother. There is nothing unusual or unexpected about any of the characters or any of the relationships on which to hang any humour or any interest.

Part of the reason for this is that we are told so little about the people, there is simply no cover story at all. Having watched the episode I have no idea what jobs they do, how the kids are getting on at school, whether the brother is married, how wealthy they are, whether the grandfather lives with them, etc. etc. I know a lot more about the characters in My Family and I never watch it!

There was nothing unusual or unexpected in the script either. There were three concurrent plots (the father's vasectomy, the daughter and the pizza boy, and the son's theft from the local shop) none of which were particularly interesting, believable or funny.

In-between the scenes we were kept warm by Patrick Monahan. I've been warmed by Patrick a couple of times before, at recordings of Two Pints ..., but he was off form on this night and was not helped in his attempts to keep us awake by the extraordinary long waits between takes and retakes that made the evening drag on until 11pm.

The one bright spot in the whole evening was the cameo appearances from Warren Clarke as the grandfather.

It's a complete mystery to me how shows like this get commissioned. Apparently it's due on BBC TV sometime in January but on this evidence it will be on BBC Three at 2am and will sink quickly and unnoticed out of sight.

The Company Man at the Orange Tree Theatre

The Orange Tree delivered an intense evening with The Company Man, a new play by Torben Betts.

The Company Man, now retired, is surrounded by his dying wife, her long-term friend Jim, their grown-up daughter who is caring for her mother, and his son who makes a surprise visit looking for refuge and help (i.e. money!).

We are then treated, if treated in the right word, to an in-depth view of the workings of the family, warts and all. We have alcoholism, terminal illness, breakup and infidelity ranged against the joy of children and some hope for the future.

The dark side wins, but it's a close fought thing.

We are told the tale non sequentially and the cast move between the ages seamlessly. The set remains the same and the time changes are achieved simply by great acting.

I have no idea what the playwright was trying to achieve with the play but the theme that I picked-up on the most was opportunities lost and taken.

The Company Man started at the bottom and took his opportunities to rise to the very top. His son threw away the opportunities that his privileged upbringing gave him. His daughter seized the opportunity presented at the end, made possible by her mother taking her own opportunity, having turned one down some years ago.

The play leaps from crisis to crisis (there are some slow bright points, but not many) in a way that is exhausting to watch but exhilarating too and when the climax is reached (and then surpassed) it is with same buzz that you get at the end of a ride at Alton Towers.

The emotional turmoil that swirls and loops menacingly around the stage is made that much thicker, deeper and personal by being served in the round. It's very much like being one of the family with all the discomfort that that brings. The climax I mentioned earlier happened just 1/2 metre from me.

Some recent visits to the Orange Tree have been a little off their normal high standard (despite being well worth going to) but this is a storming return to form. The experience is hard to describe but the memory the evening it will haunt me for a long time, but in a nice way.

The pond on Ham Common

There are several good reasons for living in Ham, and this is one of them.

Ham Common is just a short walk away at the far end of Ham Parade and from their the greenery opens wide in both directions, like a butterfly's wings, with Richmond Park on one side and Ham Lands on the other.

Ham Pond tries to hide in a corner of Ham Common but the willows and the playful children give the game away.

Get a little closer and you'll soon see the swans, ducks, geese, coots and, if you are really lucky, a turtle.

If you like this then you can find more pictures of Ham Common on my other blog.

A short burst of SecondSight

Live progressive rock in a good local pub has to be worth going to. So I did.

The venue was the Grey Horse just down the Richmond Road that has a justified reputation for delivering live music for many years and the headline act was SecondSight who I had seen play there before.

I arrived a little early to give time to mix etc. and made the mistake of seeing some of the penultimate act whose rambling Texas rock did absolutely nothing for me.

Somebody asked me who I was there to see and when I said it was SecondSight he moaned that they were useless old farts, or words to that effect, before confessing to being their lead guitarist! Nice one Norman.

Not liking the music I retired to the bar with fellow prog rock fans Pete and Adrian to pass the time with musical conversation and some decent beer.

Time passed and so did the official start time and it was quite late before we were back in the room ready for SecondSight to entertain.

The late start meant a reduced set of around forty minutes which, being prog rock, meant only around five songs.

Genesis got us going and popped up again in the middle. Not my favourite band but good enough and SecondSight do them well with two guitars and keyboards.

I felt that the Yes song, Siberian Khatru from Close to the Edge, was less successful but that's because I associate the voice of Jon Anderson so much with Yes and few other singers sound anything like him.

Jethro Tull's Aqualung was another strong song and a welcome addition from the previous set that I had heard.

And all too quickly the cruel curfew fell and that was it. Nick (bass) then said how angry the band were with the reduced timing but it is to their credit that this anger was not at all apparent during the set and they played with obvious enjoyment, love and skill.

SecondSight may have been short-changed this time but they are getting out more now and I hope that they get a better crack of the whip when they play Central London in early December. A chance to hear the rehearsed but unplayed Dogs perhaps.