Theatre, theatre, theatre

I was at Sadlers Wells last night watching the Alvin Ailey company strut their glorious stuff. I sat next to an old friend who used to do dance class alongside me every Friday morning.
" Of all the people who could leave London, " she said," I never thought it would be you."
" you went to the theatre all the time. Every night."

I don't really remember. But she is probably right. I lived in Clapham. In Larkhall Rise. I had a bicycle and I had the 77 bus. At seven o'clock I might be pacing around my kitchen having eaten my bowl of brown rice and vegetables..and I would think , "I could get there in 15 minutes if I pedal hard." And I pedalled and  turned up at the Garrick/ Queens/ National/Aldwych and I would get a seat in the upper circle. Chain up my bike. climb the many stairs and lean over to watch.









When I didn't work as a actor, and nobody works all the time as an actor, I would struggle to fill my days. I would swim at the Latchmere pool. I would take tap dancing classes at the Actors Centre. I would do mime or Johnny O'Brian's dance class at the City Lit. I would read plays. I would learn speeches. I would clean houses. I would "wench" at the Shakespeare Tavern.

Swimming was cheap. So were tap classes. Mime and Johnny O'Brian were minimal. and learning sonnets was free. But going to the theatre meant I had to have pound notes for the tickets. And that is where the cleaning of houses and the wenching comes in.
Actually I don't think wenching is a verb.
But me and Jillie, both of us in Larkhall Rise with brown rice and vegetables, and Barry Manilow singing loud to motivate us to hoover the flat. The both of us cleaned houses in Clapham and '
"wenched" at the Shakespeare Tavern.
She and I put on mob caps and low cut polyester blouses and brought in cauldrons of Knorr packet leek soup pretending to the tourists that it was a medieval recipe. She still remembers the song we had to sing when we carried it in. I don't.
There was an evening when the two of us set out from Larkhall Rise to go to our shift as wenches.
And I stopped on the bridge. Jillie stopped too.
I said, " I can't go. I can't go."
And she said something like, " it's okay. Go home. I'll tell them you weren't well." or whatever.
And she bicycled on to Blackfriars to take the flak for me.

I had reached my own  dramatic T junction.
Wenching and cleaning was about having the money to go to the theatre. To see  Alan Rickman and Lindsay Duncan in " Liaisons Dangereuses." To see the five hour, " Strange Interlude." To see a whole day of " Nicholas Nickleby."  To see Travesties and Jumpers and the Real Thing byTom Stoppard. To see Plenty and Pravda by David Hare.

That's what I did when I had the bicycle and the 77 bus.

And now.....

Now I get the 87.  I go to the last stop on the Strand and I walk over Waterloo Bridge to the National.
" Do you have a single seat for tonight's performance? " I ask.
The other week, the sweet young man at the desk said,
" Are you...?"
I said, " Yes, probably."
He said, " An actor?"
I waited for a second.
"Yes," I said. With the breath support of a three year training a long, long time ago......
 " I have a ticket for you " he said.



This week. Yes. This week.

I went to a spectacular musical based on a film called Groundhog Day

Old Vic. Outside

Old Vic. Inside

 I went to an odd  play at the Dorfman  at the National. ....Brutal. Too loud. well acted.
Went to the Almeida.Saw a fabulous play about the Congo set in the Congo and in London.

Went to Sadler's wells and saw the aforementioned ballet company with the aforementioned friend who talked about my love of theatre.
Tonight I went to see Nina Conti at the Criterion Theatre. I have been chasing her for years.
The daughter of an actor who is now the most brilliant ventriloquist ever...don't have another word for her...ever.
















Last week went to "The Entertainer" Laurence Olivier slamming into Kenneth Branagh.

Garrick. Outside

Garrick . inside
And an Opera about Nelson Mandela from the Capetown Opera at the Royal festival hall.

The Almeida

The congo at The Almeida

I don't want to have to clean houses again.
But you know, it wasn't hard.
And when you know why you do what you do, then houses = theatre tickets.
Wenching however......