Peter Shaffer

The kids are alright …

So I get a glimpse of a possible future as we go to see Care at the Young Vic. It’s a harrowing watch, featuring life in a care home for elderly and dementia-affected people. Alexander Zeldin’s play and his own direction of it pull you right into the care home where the brilliant Joan played by Linda Bassett is convinced her daughter Lynn – Rosie Cavaliero – and her grandson have come to take her home.

The confusion of dementia, the emptiness of the days, the loneliness while always being surrounded by others are all poignantly present in the script which has a few moments of humour and one of agonising pathos as one resident mistakes another for his late wife and they hug. As characters die off they join us in the auditorium enhancing the sense of our involvement. The final scenes are horrendously powerful and reinforced my support for the Assited Dying Bill – please get it through!

At the other end of the mortal scale, there were some 80 primary school students, 50 secondary students alongside the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment for its annual community opera Life of the Sea. I was invited as a friend to attend the rehearsal and had also booked for the show in the evening. Devised by Hazel Gould, it takes the form of a TV chat show with young performers as guests. These include young musicians and dancers, a rock band and string players in various stages of school who form the Fiddlers on the Reef. The final guest is an adventurer who had discovered a new island in the Pacific Ocean. This of course transpires to be the vast area of accumulated plastics which we dump all the time and subtly delivered ecological messages are delivered. Given the maritime theme there was Purcell and Handel mixed with sea shanties and sequences written by James Redwood – a regular collaborator alongside writer Hazel with OAE’s Education Director Cherry Forbes. I’d really like all politicians who support cuts to the arts to be made to come and see shows like this as the depth of talent on show, the confidence-building association with professional actors and musicians and the sheer joy of artictic collaboration need to be appreciated by those holding the purse strings. A big thank you to all the kind people who donated time and money to ensure that activities like this can so enhance young peoples’ lives. With adequate resources and places to gather the kids are alright.

Next up were a couple of dining outings – the City Orns first Thursday meeting was small with just Fran, Richard and me at Fish! in Borough Market. On the way (ish) I popped into Yoshino to pick up my next supply of gyokuro from Lisa and had the opportunity to admire Bansky’s brilliant installation in Waterloo Place. How they did it is miraculous and I like this shot with the gilded statue representing the pinnacle of the establishment on the Atheneum Club in the background – shame they couldn’t clear the scaffolding away for me.

During dinner Richard – Surrey cricket member asked if I’d like to go to see Hampshire – my team – at the Oval on Monday. I said that would be lovely and should we go on afterwards to see Glengarry Glenross at the Old Vic after the match. Tickets booked and a pleasant evening ensued with a nightcap in Brindisa Tapas round the corner. Friday lunch at the Union Club – very non-establishment with friends Dede, Yvonne and Gwyn has been known to go on until rather late. Indeed as we left at six, there was an “Are you still here?” enquiry from reception. We had been enjoying their lovely roof terrace so away from the main areas. This was a very responsible visit for us – we must be getting old.

The Oval visit was a washout – Richard never made it at all and I saw 18 overs of cricket amid the rain delays. The weather ensured that the game ended as a draw which I’ll take as this has not been a great start to Hampshire’s season. I met Richard in the backstage bar at the Old Vic and then we went to see Glengarry Glenross. I had seen a version at the NT in 1983 and at the Playhouse in 2017. I like the play for its rapid fire dialogue among unscrupulous estate agents vying for a prize Cadillac, a set of steak knives or the sack depending on their position on the monthly deal closures board. For this revival director Patrick Marber had chosen to go with an all female cast with Indira Varma and Rosa Salazar as the leads.

I found it initially odd that they didn’t change the characters’ genders but followed the text to the letter. Soon it didn’t matter as the drama of backstabbing, conning and horsetrading, burglary and deceit just took over as it had before. It was done in the round as is all of this Old Vic season and it worked well in the office scene but the opening in the Chinese restaurant was a bit sketchy with a couple of hanging lanterns suggesting the space. It occasionally got a bit shouty but in all it was another very enjoyable encounter with a very fine play.

The next day I was at another rehearsal with the OAE – this time a very special one. Sir Simon Rattle had been one of the earliest supporters of the orchestra back in 1986 and when invited back to play in the 40th anniverary season he accepted immediately and elected to play two Berlioz works – the well-known Symphonie Fantastique and the equally brilliant but less performed Harold in Italy. The rehearsal took place in the Henry Wood Hall – previously Trinity Church until the 1960s and now a favourite space for several orchestras on account of its brilliant accoustic. They were working on Harold in Italy while I was there with the viola soloist Timothy Ridout walking around the space visiting various sections of the orchestra as he played the featured viola parts. It was fascinating to hear the interchange between various members and the conductor about stress and pace, intensity and melody. It seems all conductors demonstrate their wishes through dum de dah vocalisation – most mellifluous! On the way back I was struck by the juxtaposition of the spire of Dickens’ church St George the Martyr from 1122 and the Shard from 2012 both fine pieces of architecture gracing the area 900 years apart.

At a pre-concert talk some of the players shared their delight about playing not just ‘historically informed’ but actually on period instruments. For the baroque and classical periods they have to use excellently crafted copies of period instruments since the real ones would have disintegrated. Tonight they were playing on instruments made at the time Berlioz was writing in 1830. Their excitment was palpable.The concert itself was a huge success. In the first part with Harold in Italy Timothy Ridout with his viola approached the stage from the auditorium, as in rehearsal visited most sections of the orchestra and concluded the piece from a box. He gave a sensitive performance with clear tone and wonderful variations to match the mood of Harold’s adventures through the Italian landscape. The Symphonie Fantastique was a revelation with such clarity from the period instruments and varied dynamics in Simon Rattle’s energetic direction. The talk had suggested things to look out for and it did enhance the experience. Brilliant music performed by expert musicians conducted by a genius they are pleased to call a friend of the OAE.

Focusing on events in the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s Under the shadow at the Almeida is an all too timely reminder of the effects of repressive regimes on women and of life under war conditions. With her husband off at the front, Shideh, played wonderfully by Leila Farzad, is left in her Tehran apartment with her daughter and possibly a malevolent spirit or djinn. Forbidden from continuing her studies to be a doctor because of prior political activism, Shideh is frustrated by her enforced domesticity and becomes increasingly disturbed by physical and psychological damage.

Adapted from Babak Anvari’s 2016 horror film which I had not seen, it was a thought-provoking evening with some very dramatic effects and some fine performances. Especially affecting were the rush to the air raid shelter where all the cast gather below the front of the stage and discuss their fears. And there’s one amazing coup de theatre which I won’t spoil.

The next outing was of a rather different nature. As a patron of the Orange tree Theatre in Richmond, Frances was invited to a sponsors’ dinner in the neighbouring Italian before a performance of Peter Shaffer’s Black Comedy. The meal was tasty and enlivened with theatre chat from various guests. The play is a hilarious farce. What a contrast to the psychological thriller that was Equus! In a brilliant piece of staging alternate scenes are set in pitch blackness representing times when the room was lit and bright lighting when powercuts had reduced the room to darkness. The actors coped brilliantly with this trope delivering witty lines in the dark and bumping into each other in the light. The central plot of a sculptor ‘borrowing’ a neighbour’s furniture to impress a dealer provided lots of fun and some snappy characterisation.

The Courtauld Gallery has an exhibition of Hepworth in Colour. A few years back I had enjoyed a visit to the eponymous gallery in Wakefield. Some of the works displayed in London were on loan from there but, shown in a different contex, took on a new resonance. A number of sculptural works were surrounded by lots of drawings and sketches which I was not familiar with and they gave insights into her approach to colour. In one sphere with panels in yellow, red and black she displayed a surprising side of her as a Watford fan! More common were the pale blues of the sea in Cornwall where she lived most of her life and some elegant painted columns and forms in painted plaster and bronze.

Just across the courtyard of Somerset House is the blockbuster exhibition of M C Escher, the first comprehensive showing of his work in the UK. I thought I’d better go while I was here. And comprehensive it truly is with over 150 works on display alongside artifacts he used to achieve his trademark tessellations, repetitative patterns and the impossible drawings for which he is mostly famed. It’s very interactive with infinity mirror rooms, scale-distorting rooms and spheres which you hold to view yourself in a very different way. I hadn’t realised how much he had been influenced by the patterns in Arabic art he’d seen on a trip to Spain. I was particularly taken by an etching of the Cordoba mosque with its eerie Semana Santa nazareno-hooded figures and it was interesting to see the famous ‘Relativity’ in the original lithograph form and as an animated screen version.

My friend Graham was down from Bradford and we agreed to meet up in the Black Eel in Dalston for a beer and then go to see Quartet in Autumn at the Arcola theatre. This also entailed a short visit to the excellent Five Fingers for a curry on the way to the theatre. I think this was my fourth or fifth visit and the food never disappoints and service is always interesting. Barbara Pym’s novel enjoyed a vogue in the 70s and has now been adapted for the stage by Samantha Harvey whose Orbital won the Booker prize in 2024. As a thirty-something the four bickering, miscommunicating fogeys on the verge of retirement seemed a long way off. Now not so much!

The humour of Pym’s writing has been retained in the adaptation and the characters each have opportunities to explain their lives of disappointment, underachievement and give rein to their hopes and fears. Four actors sitting talking often with their backs to you is not an easy setting to manage but the experience of Dominic Dromgoole as director and of his four excellent actors makes this an evening of entertainment and emotional engagment.

I think I’ve mentioned before Gitabina, the Bengali musical group curated by my friend Rumy Haque. They had a concert in memory of Rabindranath Tagore at the Brady Arts and Community Centre in Whitechapel on Saturday. I went along with my BBPC colleagues Shamim and Samaha and got a brief hero’s welcome as I had just consulted Cricinfo to see that the Tigresses (Bangladesh Women) had soundly defeated Pakistan Women in the T20 Womens World Cup. Given the political history of the two nations this victory was especially sweet. I met several friends and acquaintances and then went into the main hall for the concert which combined singing with recitations of Tagore’s works. Rumy had helpfully provided translations for several of the songs and the readings were delivered so powerfully that detailed understanding was not required to appreciate the content of the core messages. Another interesting facet was the real time painting of portraits of Tagore in his youth and as an elderly statesman. Like being at Sky’s Portrait Artist of the Year with added music. An enjoyable evening out with a difference.

I set off early for the Henry Wood Hall for another OAE rehearsal. It’s hot and when I arrive at Lee Station there’s a train on the platform and a stream of would-be passengers coming towards me. “No trains from Lee for several hours,” says one so I join the downward flow and get a bus to Lewisham and then a train to London Bridge and walk to the hall in good time for a susprise opening. Conductor Maxim Emelyanychev calls the rehearsal to order and the strains of Happy Birthday ring out. This was a special treat for Rebecca Bell a violinist celebrating her’s today. As before, observing the conductor explain his wishes to the band was fascinating. Lots of da, da, dums and jumping in the air for “more emphasis here”. The concert of Brahms, Dvorak and Hadyn tomorrow looks like being another real treat. Just a block from Trinity Church Square is Great Dover Street along which runs the 21 bus with its destination panel saying ‘Lewisham Shopping Centre’ so no hassle with trains on the way back and a short walk to the blessed 273 to get me home relatively unaffected by the 35 degree heatwave which looks set to continue. I was glad of my gamcha from Dhaka – a scarf of quick wicking cotton that keeps the sweatiest Englishman in the world – me – from the ravages of the midday sun.

And so to the concert itself. Billed as Brahms’ Last Concert, the programme replicated the concert from 7 March 1897 in Vienna, the last time that Brahms heard his own music performed as he died just a month later. Starting with the massive fourth symphony was completely counter-intuitive to a modern concert going audience – but it worked as it filled the first half of the evening with all the emotions. Joyful dance, slow intensity and a mournful brooding final section with perhaps a hint of hope make this a very emotional ride. In the second half Steven Isserlis played Dvorak’s cello concerto with flair and passion – at the pre-concert talk he said he played the first movement on a record obsessively at the age of ten and still loves it today. It showed. The Haydn symphony gave the evening a lively conclusion with its dance beats and final headlong rush across the fields in pursuit of who knows what. Whatever it is, it gave the work its nickname of The Hunt – the final movement is actually called La Chasse on the manuscript. It was a fitting conclusion to the first half of OAE’s 40th anniversary season which they take up again in October at the Southbank after stints at Glyndbourne and the Proms.

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Maybreak

The momentous decision in early May was to sell my car. So I now have a car-free drive!

I’ve been a car owner for 60 years so this was a big step but insurance and running costs were becoming unsustainable, I travel in London by public transport for free and when I go elsewhere there are trains and buses. And my car insurance premium alone will pay for lots of minicabs when I’m feeling lazy or access is difficult by other means. Big mental adjustment but so far so good. I managed a recording session in Greenwich and my weekly shop three times now by bus – and all for free.

My daughter and son-in-law introduced me to the Venezuelan pianist Gabriela Montero who was performing at Milton Court at the Barbican on May 1st. We met for a pre-concert dinner at Pham Sushi which I’ve walked past many times but never been in. It was excellent! I didn’t know the pianist’s work but she played an exciting programme under the umbrella title Iberia with pieces by Albeniz, Granados, Alicia de Larrocha, Soler and Mompou and Spanish-flavoured pieces from Scarlatti, Chopin, Liszt and ending with Ravel’s Rhapsodie Espagnol. The Spanish aspect appealed of course and she is a vibrant and expressive performer who played with nuance and verve. I’m glad to add her to my list – thanks Jo and Chris.

Then she returned to the stage for the unprogrammed part three of the concert in which she improvises on themes suggested by the audience or of her own choosing. The first suggestion was ‘Mamma Mia’ which she took on board and proceeded to amuse us and herself i suspect with a wonderful set of variations on a theme by Abba! Next she worked around a theme of her own which was a rather introspective, musing piece with a lower tempo but very affecting.

Her final improvision was on the Beatles’ ‘Here comes the Sun’ which started in the Baroque era and reminded me of Purcell before veering off in all sort of directions which echoed at different times the Keith Jarrett Cologne concert, Scott Joplin ragtime and the blues. Brilliant! And who says classical players don’t like to improvise! As Gabriela said Bach, Beethoven and Liszt all just sat and made it up as they went along so why not me?

Having just heard a song about the sun, my walk home from the station was blessed by a wonderful night sky with a Murakami Moon. As fans will know a double moon is a big feature of Haruki’s novel 1Q84. The appearance of this two disc moon took me back to that amazing book and our time spent looking for locations in his novels which, of course, was the original inspiration for this blog. As a classical and jazz music fan, he would also have loved Gabriela Montero’s improvisations.

The bank holiday weekend saw some decent weather for gardening so the place is looking a bit better now and on the Tuesday I was booked in for a lecture by the Guardian editor in chief Katherine Viner at the Conway Hall. However with Spain still in my soul from Friday’s concert I decided to go via the National Gallery and take in the Zurbarán exhibition. It’s the first time a full array of his work has been assembled in London and included works on loan from an impressive number of sources – hats off to the curators we know how difficult loans can be! I had seen his works in the Prado and Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid and a portrait in the wonderful Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. I knew he was part of the great Spanish Baroque era alongside Velazquez and Murillo but had ignored many works dismissing them as being too religious for my taste. He did paint a lot of altar pieces some of which are huge and here; some with panels back together for the first time since their commission, and lots of saints and immaculate conceptions. However I was delighted by what I saw in the gallery. He has a real grasp of chiarosuro second only – if you insist – to Caravaggio. I have never seen painting of fabric done with such detail and emotional effect. The holes in Saint Francis of Assisi’s sackcloth robe give sainthood a whole new dimension. The faces of the characters were so intimate and distinctive, their settings often so scarce that you felt the painting was actually a sculpture. I wasn’t converted but I did feel the power. When he turned from religion to still-lifes the attention to detail and imaginative impact was amazing. The highlight for me was Agnus dei – OK religious title but with a touch of irony – as it depicts a bound lamb ready for slaughter. You could smell the lanolin and feel the coarse wool of the curls on this poor creature’s fleece. And it is possibly not yet dead but aware of its fate. A masterpiece.

A pleasant early evening stroll through Covent Garden and Holborn brought me to the Conway Hall a suitable venue for a talk about independence in journalism given the history of nonconformist and ethical mores of its occupants over the years. Katherine Viner spoke about distinguishing fake news and fake reality, the threats and uses of AI and the importance of the Scott Trust in ensuring that The Guardian remains an independent voice unaffected by media moguls or profit-motivated owners. The commercial model relies on 1.5 million people like me who subscribe to the outlet in the hope that it will continue the fine work it does already. For someone who has been reading the paper since it had Manchester attached to its banner, she was inspiring and cautiously optimistic.

That was my first outing without walking past the car on my drive – no problem as I never use it when going into the centre for concerts, theatres etc. However Wednesday was the appointed day to record the next Robin Reader audio for International Language Teaching Services and Hueber Verlag. The recording engineer Mark Smith and I do a couple of these each year

Mark’s studio is part of Jools Holland’s Helicon Mountain complex in Greenwich to which I normally drive. A quick consultation with Citymapper indicated that I could get a bus to Blackheath and another to Westcombe Park Station right next to the studio. It worked and took me 30 minutes of free public transport as opposed to 20 minutes in the car. The session went well with archaeologist and actor Mandy Weston who showed her voice versatility as a variety of Australians ranging from 5 to 70 years of age and male and female characters. They finish up as downloadable files in books like Joining the Circus that we recorded last year with Gyuri Sarossi.

Then it was off to the Donmar for Mass. This is an incredibly tense watch but great theatre. A church hall provides the setting for a restorative justice session and reminded me a bit of James Graham’s Punch that we saw at the Young Vic last year. But the one accidental punch that caused a death in a night out in Nottingham was overshadowed by a school shooting in the US. Here the parents of the killer and the final victim meet to see if there is any possibility of forgiveness. As a static ‘sitting at a table’ scenario it was enhanced by a revolve operating at different speeds as the dialogue unfolded. We waited to meet the two sets of parents as the room was prepared by church staff and details were checked by the mediator but the tension was palpable from the start. Cast and direction were excellent and it once again made you wonder who on earth could support the right to bear arms for anyone who chose to do so.

Given my comments about religion in the context of Zurburán it may seem a little odd that I’m attending the opening concert of the London Festival of Contemporary Church Music in a church in Knightsbridge. Well the concert is given by the choir Pegasus in which my son Tom sings. So I met up with my friend Jadwiga in a nearby pub, The Grenadier, for a catch up before the concert. Good beer and wine, good atmosphere inside, sun shining outside – what’s not to like. The concert was filled with interesting music from composers I knew of and three new commissions for the LFCCM festival. Two of the composers Cassie White who wrote one of the new pieces and Roxanna Panufnik spoke about the motivation for their pieces. Roxanna was particularly interesting in the context, being a practising Catholic who is also a Jew and her Love Endureth showed her concern for interfaith music-making with Spanish Jewish elements woven into this two-choir piece. Cassie White’s Arise my Darling was a lyrical flowing setting of the Song of Solomon. There were one or two familiar items but on the whole the music was fresh and new to me. One of the highlights was a piece by a young Polish composer Zuzanna Koziej setting the Lord’s Prayer which was followed later by another of her works with a setting of William Blake’s The Lamb – they are becoming a thing this week! She is clearly a talent to watch. We had a chance for a chat to Tom and several of the musicians and composers after the concert with a glass of wine so all in all a rather lovely evening. The only flaw was when, hidden behind another bus I boarded what I though was a number 9 bus to take me to Charing Cross which when it started going up Shaftesbury Avenue I realised was actually a number 19. The extra walk from Cambridge Circus probably did me good.

Matthew Altham conducting Pegasus in St Paul’s Knightsbridge

After a heavy football-free weekend of gardening, it’s back to the theatre to see the new NT production of Les Liaisons Dangereuses. Oh what a contrast to my memory of the 1985 London original! That was in the dark bowels of the Barbican’s Pit studio theatre with a louche set all cream silk and warm lighting – actually the NT’s poster makes you think there will be a reflection of this – although Valmont (Aidan Turner) and Mme de Merteuil (Lesley Manville) are appropreiately lying in letters rather than sheets – it was an epistolary novel by Laclos before Christopher Hampton adapted it for the stage.

But no! As I walked in I thought I was in for Michael Frayn’s Audience as we were all reflected in a massive mirrored set. The mirrors proved to be the facade of boudoir rooms on casters that were swirled about throughout the production by a series of dancers with some elegant choreography. The production might heve been called Les Liaisons Danses Heureuses as music and movement were an essential part of the concept. What emerged was the sadistic rivalry of the two principals played out in this this great reflective space which pointed up the multi-perspective nature of the novel where you never knew who was telling the truth – if any. What shone throughout was Christopher Hampton’s pithy dialogue delivered well by all the characters. As with Indian Ink at Hampstead last year it was interesting that tonight’s lead Lesley Manville had played the ingenue role of Cecile in the original with Lindsay Duncan and Alan Rickman as Merteuil and Valmont. Were notes given in rehearsal to Hannah van der Westhuysen this production’s Cecile?

I am glad to have seen this new interpretation of a fine script, but I suspect it will not last as long in my memory as that evening in the Pit where we were intimately involved in the vicious tussle of love and loathing so elegantly played out. In Marianne Elliott’s version there were a few very effective transitions, breathtaking ballet and excellent acting by all – Monica Barbero grew impressively into her debut stage role as the object of Vamont’s lust-turned-to-love as Madame de Tourvel and the dancer Lucia Chocarro was all sinuous sexuality as Emilie. Lesley Manville was outstanding. Aidan Turner was fine but up against Alan Rickman!

In the middle of a hatrick of theatre outings was the press night for Stage Kiss at Hampstead. What a feast of bad acting, dreadful scripts and fun slapstick! But in Sarah Ruhl’s writing there’s always a serious note as well. When ex-partners are called on to kiss passionately in the play they are both cast in, will old feelings return? Directing farce well is quite a trick and Blanche McIntyre pulls it off brilliantly. Sets, wardrobe and wooden acting take us back to the bad old cliches of “acting” – stilted, mistimings and collapsing the props all detracting from the drama. But the cast also have to act in the real world as well as the artificial one. Within the two very bad plays which Ruhl must have loved writing is a serious examination of what actors are asked to do, what theatre means to its audience and how relationships develop, diverge and reconvene. MyAnna Buring and Patrick Kennedy as She and He were brilliantly supported by the other cast members. A very funny evening but one which also made you ponder some fundamental attitudes about life and the theatre and relationships. And afterwards Frances and I had the pleasure of sharing a tube ride back towards our various homes with Blanche and her partner Gyuri.

More theatre about theatre on Friday when a former colleague of Fran’s from Boston, Vicky and her husband John, joined us and Farzana for a delightful and delicious dinner at Yoshino followed by Grace Pervades by David Hare at the Theatre Royal Haymarket starring Ralph Fiennes and Miranda Raison as Henry Irving and Ellen Terry. There’s a trend here as we had the Divine Mrs S about Sarah Siddons at Hampstead last year and a while back Kean and The Dresser which Ronald Harwood based on Donald Wolfit. I wonder who is writing the play about Laurence Olivier or Peter Hall – characters large enough to fill the stage posthumously. As the previous evening the intermingling of professional and personal lives was a key factor in the story which was extended with contributions from Ellen Terry’s children during her fame and in her dotage in her Kent home of thirty years. This involvement of the Bloomsbury set with Edith played by Ruby Ashbourne Serkis, who was so good in Indian Ink last year, and is in a lesbian throuple one of whom has been dumped by Vita Sackville West, sets the play in an much wider context. The other child Edward Gordon Craig is a narcissitic self-proclaimed genius who has some great scenes with Stanislavski in Moscow – more exploration of theatrical styles. There are some moments of great hilarity as when Terry suggests to Irving that he might perhaps look at other actors rather than the audience and when chided about his deliberation Irving says he will ‘strive to be more last minute’ and his expletive rendering of the name of the new radical playright Shaw epitomised his contempt for all things modern.

Through the trials and tribulations of Irving’s running of the Lyceum Theatre Hare makes some pertinent points about patronage and funding, staffing levels and audience expectation. The design with animated backcloths, stage within a stage and period costumes were excellent and it was a thoroughly engaging and entertaining look at the nature of theatre and its importance in society. And about relationships with actors and with families.

Godot’s To Do List by Leo Simpe-Asante was a curtain raiser at the Royal Court before Gary Oldman took the stage for Krapp’s Last Tape, itself originally a curtain raiser for Beckett’s Endgame when it first played at the Royal Court in 1968. The 19-year-old music and drama student Leo won the Royal Court’s first Young Playwright Award in 2025 and now has the accolade of his work appearing alongside that of Beckett. At the post-show Q&A he said the motivation was to wonder what kept Godot so late. So his play sets Godot a series of increasingly surreal tasks to detain him from his appointment. It is very funny, prefigures the Beckett perfectly and was delivered splendidly by Shakeel Haakim on stage and the ephemeral taskmistress voice of Flora Ashton who we only see at her deserved curtain call. A truly stunning piece of work for a 19-year-old and finely directed by the Court’s Resident Director Aneesha Srinivasan.

And so to Krapp. Gary Oldman was magnificent in every aspect. He designed the set, directed himself and performed the musing monologue with his younger selves superbly. The pregnant pauses, the occasional moves from his desk from light to darkness all added to the impact of this most personal of Beckett’s plays. In the Q&A he revealed himself as a thoroughly likeable person with a great rapport with the young playwright sharing the stage with him and Artistic Director David Byrne. Asked about directing himself he said that having not been on stage for 30 years he’d had plenty of preparation as “you don’t get much direction in films”.

Before making my first visit to Camden People’s Theatre to see Nomakhwezi Becker’s Holding Ground, I went to see The Christophers at Picturehouse Central. The performances of Michaela Coel and Ian Mckellen were absolute magic in a film that examines quirky relationships, the nature and value of art and is a whole lot of fun as well. James Corden and Jessica Gunning as grasping children are great support.

I had heard some of the themes explored in Nomakhwezi’s workshop at the Whitechapel Gallery last month and was interested to see how she would entertain and educate us in an hour-long solo show. With a mixture of Xhosa, German and English she took us on an exciting journey across countries and cultures. We joined in at times copying her movements cued by a blast of her whistle. She talked of culture at home in South Africa and the inability to touch both sides of her life simultaneously now that she’s based in London. Beading, fabric dying, cooking and storytelling were all prominent in what turned out to be both informative, entertaining and engaging combining continents, customs and cultures in a fascinating way.

The hottest (at that point) May day ever made me reach for my sweat-repelling Bangladeshi gamcha (thanks Zaki) as I headed off to the Betsey Trotwood in Farringdon to see Ian Prowse perform his annual intimate show here. The show got underway with a set from the excellent Banjo Jen a Sheffield-based singer-songwriter and excellent dancer. Then TUC Secretary General and folk singer Paul Nowak did a guitar-based set with Heidi Smith on violin with a Palestine support anthem included. That line-up was perpetuated as Laura Macmillan brought her violin to join Ian for a rousing session for the Pele-Prowsey family that had gathered in this fabulous little pub where I had previously only been for poetry sessions upstairs with BBPC and Exiled Writers Ink.

Laura Macmillan, Ian Prowse and Banjo Jen at the Betsey Trotwood 24 May 2026

The highest May temperatures ever recorded in the UK were the talk of the Bank Holiday weekend. I was lucky enough to spend a couple of days pressure washing my patio to remove a year’s worth of algae and dirt. Lots of cooling spray mingled with the sweat! It had cooled a litlle for my Wednesday trip to the Royal Festival Hall to hear the OAE play Haydn’s The Creation under Czech conductor Vaclav Luks. The blog is getting quite a lot of religious input this month one way or another. I’d heard this oratorio before but with the appropriate period instruments and a modest choir, the clarity of Haydn’s brilliant writing was totally apparent. In a pre-concert talk Luks and Dr Rachel Stroud explained the complex origins of the work’s libretto – turned down by the more famous Handel – with versions by various hands in English and German and the decision to perform tonight in German. Luks argued that the music was written to accompany the sounds of sung German and that trying to fit it to the different rhythms and cadences of English lost a lot of impact and empathy. Certainly his work with the orchestra and singers was such that I thought I was hearing this work for the first time. It contains descriptive writing of the highest order – quite what audiences in 1798 made of that massive opening note and the subsequent discordant portrayal of chaos from which the creation was to ensue, I can’t imagine. However they clearly loved the rest of its depiction of water, light and especially the humorous treatment of the creation of animals and man followed by Adam and Eve’s blissful time in Eden, since it ran for many performances and is a firm part of the current orchestral repertoire. Emotional tugs at the heartstrings, belly laughs at some of the musical tricks and the sheer energy of the finales to each part had the hall erupt with applause. A truly stunning creation.

The revivals keep on coming don’t they? My last culture trip in May was to Peter Shaffer’s Equus at the Menier Chocolate factory. Frances and I had a delicious tapas supper beforehand at Brindisa in Borough Market and walked along Southwark Street to the theatre. I’d seen the original NT production with Alex McCowen and Peter Firth as psychiatrist and patient, then the controversial 2007 revival with Richard Griffiths and Daniel Radcliffe – both fresh from Harry Potter fame and people were shocked to see Daniel naked on stage. Tonight Toby Stevens played the psychiatrist and Noah Valentine the young Alan Strang who was being assessed after blinding six horses. The theme has never been an easy one but this production by Lindsay Posner was truly outstanding. The cast were all excellent – as written in stage directions they were all present throughout, as audience members in this production so you were right in the thick of the action, especially as the space is tiny with only 180 seats.

The boy’s father was played by a fellow Watford season ticket holder and Hornet Heaven podcaster Colin Mace with whom we enjoyed a post show drink and a chat. A striking feature of the show was the horses portrayed by six actors whose movements were brilliantly choreographed by James Cousins. At one point they all combined to form one horse with a rider astride and your breath was just torn away. Shaffer’s psychiatrist’s teasing out of the reasons for the boy’s horrendous act were twisty and unconventional and left you with lots to think about current mental health issues with the young obsessed with social media. A fine play and a very fine revival.