Soulstice

‘Twas Valentine’s day in St Alban’s …

So after a busy start to February, its halfway point was marked with a trip to St Alban’s – the first for a long time for me. The occasion was the christening of the extended family’s newest addition Louisa Deeley. I was delighted to note that her middle names were Denise (my late wife) and her great grandmother Rosemary who was there and I was pleased to have a long chat with her over tea. The party decamped to a pub to watch Scotland demolish England in the rugby – large Scottish contingent present. I made my excuses and went to visit my composer friend Dani Howard who conveniently lives opposite the Mayflower pub in the city centre where we had a lovely few beers with her and her partner Sean chatting about all sorts of things musical and other. Dani has a busy schedule ahead with trips to Hong Kong for the premiere of her Cello Concerto to be played by her former mentor about which she’s a bit nervous, several performances of the Saxophone Concerto for Jess Gillam which I heard in Poole last year and concerts in Germany, the Netherlands and three weeks in Florida in October as a “Master-Artist” at the Atlantic Centre for the Arts Residency Programme working with composers, performers and poets.

Then after a fairly quiet week a hectic weekend was upon us. On Friday I went with my friend Hattie to see Pina Bausch’s Tanztheater Wuppertal perform the amazing Sweet Mambo. With a flowing white drape background which sometimes billowed and was sometimes still and occasionally swallowed the dancers, the dance unfolded with a series of scenes in which women seduce and repel men, in which they find some common ground and other in which they have a laugh together. The fact that there are three men and six women probably indicates where Pina’s sympathies lie. The sound track is eclectic with classical, ambient, jazz and spoken words. As so often with her confections, it sounds like a mess but somehow it works with a mesmerising beauty. We left the theatre with big smiles on our faces.

Fabulous frocks and flowing drapes in *Sweet Mambo*

The next day promised to be a bit of a scramble with a trip to Watford for football followed by a cross London dash to the Arcola Theatre for a play in the evening. My initial journey was complicated by there being no Metropolitan Line trains to Watford – my usual route when not driving – as it deposits me much closer to the West Herts Sports Club, where we meet for pre-match drinks and chat, than Watford Junction. It was all worthwhile as our new manager – third of this season, 23rd since the Pozzo family bought the club in 2012 – coaxed the team to a 2-0 victory over Derby County. After the match two Overground trains took us via a highly complex platform change at Willesden Junction (thank goodness Fran was with me or I’d have got completely lost). We met up with Farzana in the Arcola bar before watching a highly entertaining one-man show with a Watford connection.

Monstering the Rocketman devised and performed by Henry Naylor was originally at the Edinburgh Festival but the excellent Arcola gave it a worthy London run. It featured the dreadful Kelvin Mckenzie’s vitriolic attack on Elton John, the total lack of facts and evidence for which resulted in the biggest libel suit in history with Elton taking on the might of The Sun and the power of the Murdoch empire. With video clips and garish headline displays Naylor told the full story in a variety of characters in a funny, terrifying and eloquent way. He was one of the lead writers for Spitting Image back in the day and his satirical skills enabled him to skewer McKenzie and cronies in a revealing and most enjoyable 75 minutes. As it was still early we three made our way to the excellent Five Fingers for a fine curry.

Saturday 21 was UNESCO International Mother Language Day so it was appropriate that our British Bilingual Poetry Collective (BBPC) group had our regular meeting on Sunday 22 and could focus on the topic with a group of regulars and two people joining us for the first time. I outlined the origin of the Day which started in Bangladesh when five students were executed for speaking Bengali rather tha Urdu and was observed there ever since. Then the government suggested to UNESCO that it should be global which it has been since 1999. I had asked my friend Shumi to bring her delightful poem Banglish about her experience of growing up bilingually in London, I had sourced a number of others I could read and a lively discussion ensued with contributions with many different experiences. We had a technical task to conclude in which all of us suggested two words which I then wrote up on the flip chart. The session’s ‘homework’ was to write a poem incorporating all the words. Three poems resulted which were not bad at all. If you want to give it a try the words are below. As some of the group were observing the Ramadan fast, we repaired to a local restaurant to enjoy iftar the moment the sun set. The chef did a count down for us and then promptly brought much-needed, by some, food.

It doesn’t stop – Monday was off to Hampstead Theatre for the press night of Bird Grove by Alexi Kaye Campbell. It was a fascinating examination of the trials of a radical young woman Mary Ann Evans fighting a rigid father as well as contemporary mores. This radical young woman later still had to assume a male identity, George Eliot, in order to publish her seven novels and a number of short stories. Ironically she was allowed to publish translations under her own name. The play was rooted in the father daughter dispute and her association with some undesirably left wing friends.

A touch of near-slapstick was introduced through her would-be suitor needing a marriage to secure his inheritance. He was sent off with a flea in his ear. It was interesting with Mr Evans pouring guilt onto his daughter about overreaching their funds to put her in the titular grand house and her steadfast resolve to resist being bullied to church but it stirred up a wish for a play that reached further into her later life and success against the odds. Maybe that’s in the works.

Tuesday was deadline day for BBPC to submit its proposals for the 2026 Season of Bangla Drama. We had discussed these as a group but it fell to me to get them in on time. Then on Wednesday I went to Bedford to have lunch with my friend Jossy who I hadn’t seen for a while. How lucky were we! After the murk and mizzle of the year to date we had a sunny day and could lunch in shirtsleeves on the patio of the Embankment pub (thanks to Pete and Julie Bradshaw for the local knowledge) overlooking the Great Ouse with its scullers, joggers, dog walkers and cyclists. The pub had good food and wine and apparently has rooms. We then strolled back to Bedford Station through a less beautiful part of the town but down by the river all was fine and we had a lively discussion on a wide variety of topics.

The Royal Festival Hall was full on Thursday for the OAE’s concert with Robin Ticciati – music director at Glyndebourne and familiar with the orchestra from its residency there. The programme was Mozart’s last three symphonies, 39, 40 and 41. These are pretty familiar items in the classical repertoire but are not often heard together, so a clever piece of programming. Once again, the conductor’s vision and energy, the orchestra’s use of period appropriate instruments made the works sound really fresh and new. The ‘Jupiter’, probably the most famous, occupied the second half and had atmospheric string playing in counterpoint with lush woodwind and powerful brass. A delight.

The evening was rounded off by the news from the Development Director telling me that the OAE’s sensational Breaking Bach project will have a series of performances in the UK next year and will be visiting the United States as well. Stemming from the orchestra being based in a school this ground breaking (sorry!) production deserves this exposure.

The next Sunday I had a music experience of a very different kind with a trip to an arch under Herne Hill Station to wear my SOULSTICE GRANDAD T-shirt with pride and see the group in which my granddaughter (Daisy but Trixi in the band) plays keyboard and flute and sings. Every time I see them they get better – different set list incorporating original material and covers, tighter arrangements and harmonies and tonight they had a guest saxophonist Sam to add to the exhilarating session amid the smoke machines and lighting of the Off The Cuff venue. (Image below contains stills from a video courtesy of Chris Addison as holding a pint in one hand and my coat in the other I couldn’t get my phone out.)

Two intense family dramas were next on the agenda. Richard Eyre’s adaptation of Strinberg’s Dance of Death at the Orange Tree was unremittingly bleak as a couple try to destroy each other. Updating it to the quarantine era of Spanish flu gave it an added claustrophobia as did the cluttered set. It was an evening to be admired for its production and acting rather than enjoyed. I knew a bit more what to expect the next night at the Young Vic as I had been to the Insight session last month. However the actual production came as quite a surprise. I’d seen the beige leather semi circle that forms a large part of the set previously but the red plush carpet on the floor and walls, the observation window and the fact that the audience reamined under the harshest of house lights as the action began were truly unexpected.

Arthur Miller is all over London at the moment, but Broken Glass is a late play and not often performed. The key element is the lower limb paralysis of Sylvia, played brilliantly by Pearl Chanda, a Brooklyn Jewish woman. After reading and hearing news of the Nazi Kristallnacht pogrom, suddenly her legs won’t work and she’s confined to bed. Attempting to explain this reveals all sorts of marital and family issues which see the characters unravelling before us, including a Dr Hyman played by Alex Waldman whose Freudian practices encourage Sylvia to imagine she’s sleeping with him. It was a demanding watch but made us think about current day issues of genocide to which many turn a blind eye – are we paralysed because there is nothing we can do? Leaving the lights on for much of the play was quite distracting as we were sitting opposite both Sir Lennie Henry and mostly significantly the Guardian theatre critic Arif Akbar. What would those hastily written notes revel in tomorrow’s paper? She’s usually quite a harsh reviewer but gave this four stars.

My grandson Jake, somehow turned 20 on Saturday and had decided that he’d like to go back to Yoshino for his annual birthday dinner. Ever happy to oblige I had words with Maitresse D’ Lisa and she came up with a really excellent menu for us. But before that, I decided to go to the National Gallery to see the Joseph Wright of Derby exhibition. I’d seen some of his paintings a few years ago in Norwich and was fascinated by his use of small and focused light sources. I gather his take on chiaroscuro is called ‘tenebrism’. In most of the paintings apart from the canndle or lamp light there was always a glint of moonlight in the background. As a big fan of printmaking as well as painting it was interesting to see mezzotint versions of his paintings which were obviously the main way of making money from your work at the time. Seeing them alongside each other was enlightening and the fact that one featured an orrery when I was about to meet my physics student Jake added another layer of interest. It’s a small show but well worth a visit. Walking through the other galleries it also remoinded me what a wealth of high class art is at our disposal for free still. I must go more often and revel in the Canalettos and Guardis and Turner v Constable without paying £24 for the privilege at the Tate. Oh and there are some favourite Goya, Velaquez and Murillo canvases I hadn’t seen for a long time – and as they say – so much more.

Philosopher Giving a Lecture on the Orrery

Then to the real business of the day. Anybody who has read previous blogs will know how important Yoshino is in my life. Dee and I first went to the old Yoshino in 2009 or 10 (I wasn’t blogging then or I’d know) when it was in Picadilly Place and came to know Lisa the Maitresse D’ quite well. Since then she’s been on a family outing to see My Neighbour Totoro at the Barbican and came to Glyndebourne with me in 2023 and we went as a family to the soft opening (right) of the new premises in Duke of York Street in April last year – minus Chris filming in Dublin and Daisy who didn’t fancy it, plus Rosa and Frances. So Lisa knows us all too.

However when Jake said he’d like his birthday dinner at Yoshino there was rejoicing in lots of the family with a little trepidation on the part of a slightly picky Daisy. So I asked Lisa to book us in and design a menu for us with alternatives for Daisy. She pulled out all the stops and gave us an absolute feast of taste and texture sensations including making an alcohol free campari for non-drinker Jake. And as she had run out of my ‘usual’ sake – I wonder why – she offered me two options to taste before we settled on an excellent dry alternative. Daisy surprised herself and us by being really adventurous and enjoying things she wouldn’t have looked at – sake included. On a previous visit we’d tried a curry dish and had not been impressed. Lisa brought us a bowl of curry and rice saying it was spice combination number 47. Well this variety certainly hit the spot.This wonderful evening concluded with Lisa and her colleague Naomi bringing Jake a birthday cake of ice cream filled chocolates and soy and matcha mochi swiss roll slices all arranged on a raked zen garden. What a night! What service!

News

Another quiet week …

The week started with an interesting journey acrosss south London to see my granddaughter perform with the band Soulstice at BrockFest a music festival organised by Junior Open Mic which arranges monthly sessions for bands under the age of 18. This was a much bigger event in Brockwell Park in Herne Hill which I reached via a bus from home to Crystal Palace and then another to Brockwell Park. My daughter had equipped band and parents with branded merch. I had complained about being left out so today I was for the first time able to pull on my tee with SOULSTIC E GRANDAD appliqued on the back and keyboards on the chest as Daisy (Trixi in the band) plays the keys and flute. After some heavy metal and a plaintive female singer-songwriter it was time for Soulstice to perform their three-song set. The organisers had brought heir start time forward and there was a moment when they thought they may have to start with out their bass player. However she did make it on time – just – and they rocked the audience with a cover of Raye’s The Thrill is Gone and original compositions Still I Rise and Supersonic. As the applause rang out and they prepared to leave the stage the MC called them back for an encore and then a second one. A great start to the week and a proud grandad retired to the pub with some of the band and their parents to congratulate ourselves for the talent our genes had bestowed!

The next day it was me on the stage. I had been invited to read some poems at the Bangladesh Book Fair at the Brady Arts Centre in Tower Hamlets. I had a ten minute slot that I filled with a couple of poems inspired by my visits to Bangladesh back in 2009 and other more recent efforts which were politely received by the, fortunately, largely bilingual audience.

On Tuesday it was off to the Hampstead Theatre to see the transfer of Titus Andronicus from the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford. Having seen it there with Simon Russell Beale in the titular role it would be interesting to see how John Hodgkinson filled the space after SRB was sadly unwell and unable reprise his performance in London. Hodgkinson had apparently had only two weeks to learn the part and only one other public performance before we saw him. He was magnificent. His taller stature and natural authority gave the part a different feel. Despite the mutilations, murders and children-in-the-pie mayhem, you felt a degree of sympathy for Titus. The set had transferred to Hampstead slightly reducing the thrust which made it even more intimate than the Swan. Once again protective blankets were provided for front row guests against the blood spatter. The brilliance of Max Webster’s direction in using blackouts and audio to cover the goriest actions was still highly effective and the wardrobe choices for Romans and Goths worked really well. It was a stunning evening of theatre – again!

Then it’s off to the Kiln to see a play that Frances missed at the Galway Arts Festival last year but which has now happily got a run in Kilburn. The Reunion gathers a family on a remote island – maybe they used to holiday there when younger but I didn’t quite catch it – some coming from Dublin others from London – to commemorate the anniversary of their father’s death. After a cordial start, the cracks begin to show and develop into fissures and then chasms as sibling rivalry, jealousies, disapproval of lifestyle choices and parenting start to surface through the evening and into a nightmare of a night. There are a couple of great coups de theatre that I won’t reveal but alongside all the grief and misery there is a lot of humour, both verbal and physical.

And afterwards Fran had a chance to catch up with Paul Fahey the director of the Galway Arts Festival who remembered her photographer uncle Stan who used to photograph the festival for the local newspaper, about whom they chatted so it made for a great end to a fun evening.

I had missed Inter Alia at the National Theatre so was delighted that NT Live had recorded it and were showing it at the Greenwich Picturehouse on Thursday so I got three plays in three days albeit one of them on a screen.

The play is an amazing follow up to the sensational Jodie Comer spectacular Prima Facie and has an equally staggering performance from the central character Judge Jessica Parks played by Rosamund Pike. Unlike Jodie Comer, Rosamund is not alone on stage but still has the most incredible amount of stage business with props and costume changes as the awful story of a teenage rape unfolds through hints, evasions, suspicion and eventually confession. It’s a very moral exploration of social media’s effect on adolescents, understandings of consent and appropriate sexual behaviour – a theme explored in the eponymous Adolesensce on TV in 2025 and Micaela Coel’s I May Destroy You a couple of years ago. It’s a hot topic at present with toxic masculinity promoted seemingly unfettered by the big tech platform owners. The play calls for acting of a high order with both sides of dialogue in conversations, being an ever-present mother and a high-powered judge. Rosamund Pike delivers brilliantly with great support from her husband and son and a cast of children who pop in and out. It was most excellently filmed as NT Live shows usually are with enough wide shots including the audience to give a sense of being in the theatre but with the telling close ups of moments of joy and anguish that you don’t get when you are actually in the room. Shocking content, stunning performances, superb evening, applause in the cinema.

Having seen a part of the technical rehearsal for Creditors at the Orange Tree a couple of weeks ago it was now time to head off to Richmond to see the whole thing. Fortunately the journey time allowed me to watch the Red Roses complete their victory over France in the Womens’ Rugby World Cup and seal their place against Canada in next week’s final.

It’s been a week in which crucial issues have been aired in the theatre. War, power and empire building; family intrigue and betrayals; rape and social media and now Strindberg’s take on coercive control. The cast are outstanding in bringing a terrifying text of mysogyny and manipulation to us with compelling performances that deliver humour amid the horror and which draw gasps from the audience as Charles Dance’s Gustav ties Nicholas Farrell’s ailing artist Adolf in knots with a tissue of lies and innuendo. Missing for the first scene but the centre of the play is Geraldine James’s Tekla. She enters in scene two with comic flirting and her own level of manipluation of her husband Adolf to allow her to pursue other conquests in an ‘open marriage’. It all turns grim as Gustav’s poison pours out of Adolf in an attack on Tekla. Finally Tekla and Gustav play a scene in which many revelations occur. The adaptation by Howard Brenton and direction by Tom Littler make this a compelling evening in the theatre with actors at the peak of their powers. It appears that the three actors last worked together 20 years ago in the TV series The Jewel in the Crown. Their chemistry is intact.

And when I got home, there on the doormat was the latest edition of POL (Poetry Out Loud – Issue 7) in which I have a short story published. The magazine has a Bangladeshi slant and my story has a female British-Bengali protagonist in a tale of lost lovers reunited during a male lecturer’s trip to Yorkshire. You can get it from Amazon if you are interested.

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No Mow – No Blog – May

Well the lawn didn’t quite escape the mower despite the warm weather and slow growth of grass but it had to have a tidy up. What did escape was the keyboard – too busy to type this month! It all started on Saturday 3rd with the last game of the season – unlucky draw – followed by a farewell to the season lunch at L’Artista and then Frances, Rose and myself whizzing off for a pre-concert Guinness in the Toucan with Ian Prowse (he didn’t have one) before he took to the stage at the 100 Club. It was as always with him a brilliant evening’s entertainment.

Then on Monday 5th Fran and I went to see the new Conor McPherson play The Brightening Air at the Old Vic. It’s a wonderful depiction of dysfunctional Irish rural family life with a standout performance from Rosie Sheehy as the disruptive Billie. The next day I had to record one of the English Language Teaching audiobooks that I do a couple of times a year. My voice over actor John Hasler (doing 16 different voices in Aussie accents around an RP narration – amazing) is about to rejoin the cast of Fawlty Towers at the Apollo Theatre with a bigger role than he had in the first run so I’ll probably catch that at some point in the run that starts late June.

Next up was a favourite ukiyo-e printmaker Hiroshige at the British Museum. I am familiar with most of the images displayed but seeing the vibrancy of the originals compared with reproductions was astonishing. The exhibition also included several indications of the complexity of making multi-coloured woodblock prints, inking them up and making sure paper is accurately registered. A technical triumph but also witty, emotional and dramatic scenes of love, life and landscape. It was interestingly curated too with prints fixed to scrolls which themselves were often the destination of woodblock prints.

With my mind firmly back in Japan I spent the evening downstairs at the Hampstead Theatre in the midst of a video game. The play was Personal Values and combined characters’ real lives with their personae in the game they were endlessly playing. As a non-gamer it left me a bit confused but others enjoyed it very much.

Back at Hampstead the following Monday saw a very different set of games presented. This was an adaptation by Richard Bean of David Mamet’s 1987 film, Mamet’s debut as both writer and director. It was powerful, twisty, scary and shocking but immense fun. I hadn’t seen the film for ages but recall it being altogether darker and while there were some elements of that here, it was as you’d expect with Richard Bean rather more about the laughs. I’m looking forward to more card games and sleaze when we see Dealer’s Choice at the Donmar next month.

Music started the month and gave me a real highlight in the middle. Sunday 18th found me in the Temple of Art and Music in Mercato Metropolitano, the sprawling food fest at the Elephant and Castle. The group in which my granddaughter plays keyboard, flute and does backing vocals – elegantly called Soulstice – were asked to headline a Youth Open Mic session. There’s a clip here – not very well recorded and not by me! They are usually an all girl band but their drummer couldn’t make the gig so a brother kindly stepped in. I’m prejudiced of course but they are actually rather good with a soul-tinged mix of their own originals, Sade, Amy Winehouse and so on..

Different but no less enjoyable was the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment’s concert at the Royal Festival Hall with Sir Andras Schiff conducting from the piano in a Schumann programme with a little Mendelssohn in between. It started with the Konzertstück which is a very lively piece for piano and orchestra and was followed by familiar passages from Mendelssohn’s Midsummer Nights’ Dream and Schiff played Schumann’s only piano concerto after the interval. He had talked last year at an open rehearsal of his pleasure in having a brown Blüthner fortepiano rather than the shiny black Steinways that are usually provided.

He had it again tonight and did us proud, not only in the opening piece and the concerto, but gave us a solo encore of Brahms’ Albumblatt and then closed the piano lid very firmly and got the whole orchestra to play Mendelssohn’s Fingal’s Cave as a bonus encore. Coming at the end of an eight day tour to Vienna, Graz, Antwerp, Amsterdam and Munich the energy of Sir Andras and the orchestra was quite amazing. And with even more bonuses – a preconcert talk with Laura Tunbridge, professor of music at Oxford, and an interval drinks reception for friends – it was a night to remember.

Sir Andras Scxhiff leaves the stage, leaving behind his favourite instrument.

On my way to the OAE concert I went to the National Portrait Gallery to see the exhibition of Edvard Munch portraits. These were very impressive with clear characterisation of friends and family placed in relevant environments. He obviously didn’t like several of his subjects as these were not flattering portraits but reflected Munch’s relationship with them and indeed with himself. I couldn’t escape the musical theme of the month of May as my two favourites were The Brooch which is a lithograph of an English violinist who styled herself Eva Mudocci and a quick stetch of Edward Delius at a concert in Wiesbaden. I also liked his walking self-portrait and a double portrait of the lawyer Harald Norgaard and his wife Aase with whom he had a lengthy relationship. It’s an unusual composition and was quite striking. Munch knew Harald from his youth and painted Aase separately on a number of occasions.

I also made it to another British Museum exhibition after being a radiotherapy buddy to a friend who is going through the final stages of cancer treatment. She is great company despite the circumstances and we have spent some good times together. As I remember myself radiotherapy leaves you pretty wiped out so she declined the offer of accompanying me to the BM understandably preferring home and rest. The exhibition was mostly of objects from the museum’s own collections but shed a fascinating insight into the religions of India – Hindu, Jain and Buddhism through their artefacts and what they symbolised. The galleries also had birdsong, tolling bells and chanting played quietly to make it a multisensory visit.

Dancing Ganesha a fixture in all three religions

My next adventure was into the world of words. The British Bilingual Poetry Collective resumed our Bi-monthly Poetry Meets at Bard Books on Roman Road in Bow. Shamim Azad and I led a session of poetry readings, discussion, translation and an open mic session which was much enjoyed by all present.

The late May bank holiday was spent having an early supper with Rosa and then a visit to the Wigmore Hall to hear the amazing percussionist Colin Currie. I wish they didn’t have a photo ban because the array of drums, marimba, vibraphones, glockenspiel and other thing you can bang to make music filled the entire stage. A varied programme showcased his ability to make exciting, moving, thoughtful and adventurous sounds emanate from this staggering collection of instrumental forces.

My main motivation for going was the world premiere of Vasa a Concerto for Solo Percussion by Dani Howard, a young composer I’ve been pleased to call a friend for a few years now. It was a complex piece featuring a series of different tempos, emotions and melodies. Dani had worked with Colin to devise the final form and told us later that she had to have a diagram of the stage layout of the marimba, two vibraphones, cymbals, drums and other devices, many of them foot-operated, so that she could ensure she was writing things Colin could physically move around the instruments to execute. It was a very rewarding evening concluding with some excellent conversation in the pub.

Bass drum and woodblocks were foot operated and 1-5 are various cymbals

I had intended to give After the Act at the Royal Court a miss as I’m not a big fan of musicals. However the indisposition of Fran’s intended companion meant that she asked me to go. The content should have been – and was – of real interest. The ‘Act’ was the appalling 1985 Section 28 that forbade taechers in schools and colleges to mention homosexuality, Equally appallingly it was only repealed in 2003.

The play contained some verbatim quotes from individuals – teachers, parents and students – who had suffered from the act, recreations of protests including a daring 1988 abseil in the House of Lords and, for my taste, too many occasions when serious issues resulted in the cast of four bursting into song accompanied by onstage keyboardist and drummer.

The next evening was far more satisfactory. Because Terrance Rattigan’s The Deep Blue Sea was on at the Theatre Royal Haymarket we were able to pop into Yoshino for a quick pre-theatre sample of Lisa’s excellent cuisine and hosting. Some analysts feel that the doomed love affair represented in the play was Rattigan’s sublimation of his own homosexuality – still illegal when he wrote it in 1952.

Starring the wonderful Tamsin Greig with a fine supporting cast, this was a faithful period-set production that allowed the play’s veiled messages space to emerge from the context and the conversations around love and death, suicide and survival, protest and resignation, passion and comoanionship were brilliantly done, very moving and affecting.

Thursday saw Fran and I make our hat-trick of theatregoing with a trip to Islington to see Ava Pickett’s debut play 1536. The setting is sixteenth century Essex where three friends indulge in gossip – has Henry really ditched Anne Boleyn? – their own relationships with men and each other and the role of women in a patriarchal society. It’s bold, it’s funny. it’s sexy and it makes you wonder how much better things really are today. The rolling changes in friendships are brilliantly delivered in crisp dialogue and while history is all around, the play tells us a lot about today. As a writer on the brilliant The Great on Channel 4, Ava Pickett is clearly a name to watch out for.

The month’s finale was a trip with Frances to see Simon Russell Beale in Titus Andronicus at the Swan Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon. After a pleasant drive up we had a late lunch, checked into the hotel and then made our way to the theatre. It was my first time in the Swan and we were a bit surprised that this production was in the smaller space, not the main hall. However the intimacy of the location made the horrors of Shakespeare’s most violent play (or is it Coriolanus?) very clear.

The production certainly didn’t stint on Kensington gore but used brilliant lighting and sound effects to protect us from witnessing the worst atrocities. SRB was his usual excellent self but was by no means outstanding. The whole cast under the direction of the versatile Max Webster was superb and brought the subtleties of the text into play as well as the torrid drama. And on reflection, yes this is the most violent of Shakespeare’s works.

We went out to Anne Hathaway’s house next morning for a walk around the orchards, had an enlightening tour of the house from excellent guides and then made our way back to London. A fine ending to a full and varied month of culture. As Shakespeare’s contemporary Thomas Dekker put it “O, the month of May, the merry month of May”.