Second bite

Following the outing to Richard III noticed at reference 1, I thought to give it a second go, taking the time for a bit more homework this time.

So I learn that the Rose production is not the first to have put a black lady in the leading role, as Danai Gurira did it last year in New York's Central Park, as snapped above and as noticed at references 2 and 3. Roughly half way between the ages of Adjoa Anjoh in the role and Richard III at death. From where I associate to my mother complaining that actors good enough to play the role of Hamlet were often much older than one imagines that he would actually have been. To deal with which, in the immortal words of the late Sir Larry, one could always resort to acting. This, I believe, in the context of a discussion about method acting.

Also that Henry VII, who got his throne by winning at Bosworth, went to some trouble to trash the reputation of the chap who lost, Henry's claim to the throne by right of (male) descent being pretty shaky, even by the standards of the day. A trashing which found its way into Shakespeare's play and which has largely survived to this day. Picture above, of one of Richard's last moments of glory, from reference 9. Which claims that years of research went into this painting, but I wonder, finding it strangely unconvincing. Did noble lords really go into battle at the end of the fifteenth century dressed up in this parade armour?

I wondered about Richard thinking of marrying his brother's daughter, Margaret of York, who ended up as Henry's wife. A marriage which would have been well within the prohibited degrees of the time, not to mention the list at the back of my slightly later Book of Common Prayer.

I was also reminded of the difficulties some people have in adjusting to the peace after the war, a difficulty which might well have been shared by Richard III. A difficulty noticed by both my mother and Agatha Christie, in the context of Battle of Britain pilots.

The resultant crib sheet.

The second go being in the afternoon, a little time to spare in the morning, which started off with a weigh-in at the self-service kiosk at the Ashley Centre Surgery. A weigh-in which seemed a bit easier than the first time that I tried it, some months ago now, so perhaps there has been a software upgrade in the meantime. Weight fairly stable at a touch under 100kg - but a hefty 15kg more than I remember weighing as a student. I think it has edged up steadily, ever since.

Back home via what was the Tchibo operation in Blenheim Road to check on the flowers there. Plenty of cowslips, as previously noticed, but still no pyramid orchids.

On to the polling station at the back of Christ Church, where I learned that my senior bus pass qualified me to vote and that dementia would not have disqualified me. I wondered whether the voting of the demented was a bigger problem than the voting of the unqualified - this last being the problem which prompted the spending of a lot of money to implement pictorial identification of voters. A new rule estimated by the Guardian to cost £40m over the next ten years and by the Electoral Reform Society £180m over the same ten years. I remember reading a figure of £100m or so, but cannot presently trace it. A waste of a lot of money, whatever.

No trolleys on the way to the station, but there was scaffolding going up one of the fairly new blocks of flats there. Perhaps they were affordable flats, built to affordable standards.

On the train to Raynes Park, to be told by O2 that my recently acquired telephone had run out of data. The solution to this problem being already noticed at reference 6. Next up was a rather fat lady eating some kind of white paste out of what looked like a large tube of toothpaste. Most off-putting.

The snap above gives some idea of the long walk at Raynes Park from a town train from Epsom to a country train from Waterloo, otherwise the train to Kingston.

Needing a snack at Kingston, I was pleased to find something called a cheese and olive stick at the stall the Olivier Bakery (of reference 7) were running in the market. Just the thing to knock off before a theatrical performance - the days when one got going with two or three pints of bitter being long gone.

A few fish to be seen in the Hogsmill, along with a couple of grey wagtails, one with a much longer tail than the other. Long tail, adult male; short tail immature female?

Auditorium not as full as the online booking system had suggested. I wondered whether blocks of seats had been held by other systems, other sellers, perhaps without access to central records. Some school girls upstairs.

Dividing the play into three parts, with the first two taken before the interval and the third taken after, I nodded a bit during the second part, although less than first time around. Something which happens to me quite often at both theatres and concert halls - although not when watching television at home. I must make inquiries as to why this might be so.

Nodding apart, the play worked better this second time around: a fairy tale, a morality tale which worked. The improbability of it all did not seem to matter any more. I got on better with the leading lady. And I continued to like the staging. But I did wonder whether all the smoke being blown into the auditorium was good for our lungs.

One phone seemed to go off on two or three occasions. What on earth was the owner thinking of? Fortunately, less disruptive than one might think.

Out to check on the fish and wagtails again. All present and correct.

I had thought to take a beverage on the way back to the railway station, but there was only the one opportunity and the service there was too slow for me. On the other hand, I passed a young lady being photographed outside Bentalls, a lady in full dress from, I thought, Japan or Korea, complete with elaborate head-dress. She looked rather splendid, but I did not think to ask if I could take a snap, despite that probably being what she was there for.

Having failed at Kingston, I joined what seemed the very large number of people getting off at Motspur Park to give the 'Earl Beatty' there a try for once in a while. Which turned out to take rather longer than one might have thought, as the contractor building the new footbridge (with lift option) had blocked off a large chunk of the intervening road. The same as the new footbridges which seem to be springing up at various points on the Southwestern Trains network. Including, as we found in Axminster a few days later, the station there. Not identical, but very much from the same stable.

Into the Earl, which I learned had joined the Greene King family. With whom empty picture frames are deemed to be suitable wall furniture. At least at the Duchess of Cornwall, a Poundbury house run by Hall & Woodhouse rather than Greene King, they print off copies of old masters onto some kind of canvas to put inside the frames.

Home to find that our star had got herself into trouble by commenting, in the course of an appearance on some chat show, that the line-up on the balcony after the coronation looked terribly white. Which checking, I found was indeed the case: all very stuffy and old-fashioned looking. One might have thought, having gone to some trouble in that department at the Abbey, that they could at least have found a black page boy for the day. But then, our star might have thought that that was worse.

Checking again today, I find that Bing cannot manage to turn up the right pictures for the search term 'balcony after the coronation charles III 2023, which one might have thought was easy enough, while Google had no trouble at all. With the one included above coming from Al Jazeera, somewhere in the depths of reference 8. Silly hats or what?

PS 1: I learn in the margins, that Olivier was born in nearby Dorking, his father was a high church parson, while he himself did a stint a choirboy at the church noticed at reference 5.

PS 2: how many readers have got a clue who Earl Beatty was?

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/05/the-twisted-king.html.

Reference 2: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/11/theater/richard-iii-review.html.

Reference 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danai_Gurira.

Reference 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_III_of_England.

Reference 5: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/10/a-new-church.html.

Reference 6: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/05/samsung-day-three.html.

Reference 7: https://www.oliviersbakery.com/.

Reference 8: https://www.aljazeera.com/.

Reference 9: https://www.studio88.co.uk/.

Reference 10: http://armchairgeneral.com/the-guns-of-the-battle-of-bosworth-1485.htm. Argues that while artillery was used by both side in this battle, it was pretty primitive and unlikely to have been decisive. What was decisive were long bows, lances, spears, swords, maces and axes.