Noises off

About a decade ago we went to a production of Micheal Frayn's 'Noises Off' at the Old Vic, as noticed at reference 1, in the days when Kevin Spacey was still respectable. Then a week or so ago we were tempted out of theatrical retirement to go to a production at the Haymarket's Theatre Royal. A play which has been very successful in its forty year's of life and must have earned Mr. Frayn a good deal of money.

Proceedings started with my having a first encounter with Open Table - having thought that the Archduke on the Southbank might be a problem on a Saturday evening. Some trouble with Open Table, but I got there in the end, to find that while the Archduke was heavily booked, they could fit us in around 17:45, which suited well enough. Just as well that I was able to use my laptop rather than my telephone.

BH, who has two votes in these matters, voted for the No.139 bus rather than the Bakerloo line to Piccadilly Circus. Which resulted in our getting as far as Lancaster Place on the London side of Waterloo Bridge, from where we walked. I forget what went wrong: perhaps it was a change of driver.

We passed what was described as a refugee feeding station in William IV Street, more or less outside when Terroirs used to be. Looked busy.

Then a demonstration in favour of the Palestinians in Cockspur Street, attended by lots of police vans and a handful of geostationary police helicopters - which I have found intimidating, ever since I came across them over Belfast back in the 1980's.

A tuna roll to keep us going from the Pret on Pall Mall East, former grand inside, all looking a bit temporary. A pop-up Pret? Probably something grander in the past, possibly to be something grander in the future. Almost certainly my first visit to a Pret for some years.

Probably being confirmed at reference 2, turned up by Bing fast enough. No.5 used to be occupied by the Society of Painters in Watercolour, now more or less taken over by the Royal Watercolour Society, led for the 20 years straddling the second war by one Sir William Russell Flint, best known for his tasteful soft porn, of which a sample is reproduced above. I believe that they still fetch a good price.

Demonstration still coming down the Haymarket when we came out, more or less filling the road.

Theatre more or less full for this matinée performance and I had forgotten how ornate the theatre was, not least the safety curtain snapped above. A theatre we had not visited since 2017 for a play that I don't think we would turn out for now, although we appeared to have liked it well enough at the time. See reference 4.

I nodded a bit in the first half. BH explained after the event that the first half was supposed to set the scene, to go through the play-within-a-play so that we knew what was supposed to happen when the action really kicked in in the second half. One knew when it was being messed up and laughed appropriately. Failed.

Second half rather better, in that I stayed fully awake, but I was still a touch bored. And I was rather puzzled by the amount of cheering and whooping coming from behind me. What on earth were they getting so excited about? It seemed a bit unlikely that it would be a claque.

There was a good programme, with lots of interesting stuff about the theatre, even if I only got to look at it after the event. Including the programme of the play-within-a-play, snapped above. What it did not do is tell us about the intervals. This being a three act play with one interval after the first act, leaving us wondering whether there was going to be a second interval, which, in the event, there was not.

Quite a lot of large people. Very little dressing up.

Outside, the demonstration was still present, but winding down. Still lots of police and police vans. Helicopters still overhead. All quite good humoured, including quite a lot of young families. Mainly young Muslims, some whites. Leaving their cause aside, an impressive bit of organisation to get so many people on the streets so quickly. Perhaps that is the power of social media.

Strolled down to and over Hungerford Bridge, passing one of Dame Trace's depots of detritus on the way, presumably stored up against her next commission from the GLC or one of the London Boroughs. Local councils do seem to be a very soft touch for these arty people.

Impressive sky to the west. New sewer works right.

Pit stop in the RFH where there was some sort of a film festival going on. Rather more dressing up than there had been in the theatre.

And so to the Archduke, which was indeed quite full. A substantial, reasonably priced meal.

Starting with the white wine, a Condes de Albarei Albarino, just two minutes before our scheduled arrival time. The only other time I have noticed the place it came from - Rias Baixas - being when we took a rather grander wine at an Epsom establishment, then on what is now the site of a stalled cinema redevelopment for Picturehouse, in Ebbisham Square by the library. See references 5 and 6.

Followed by a half chicken for me and a chicken salad for her. Good stuff, but at the top end of what I can manage volume-wise these days. Not getting enough exercise. So I doubt whether we took a solid dessert, although there may have some bread and olives or something of that sort to start.

All very satisfactory. Followed by our train to Epsom.

It may have been the occasion when I picked up at Raynes Park a fat and glossy magazine called the 'New Straits Times Annual', advertising the pleasures to be taken in Malaysia - but taking the form of a series of short articles interspersed with a fairly modest amount of regular advertising. A sort of National Geographic focused on one country. Perhaps the sort of thing that gets scattered about hotel lounges. Lots of heritage, lots of traditional crafts and lots of nature.

In the middle I found a clutch of articles about past funerary customs of Sarawak. One of which was erecting large totem poles - and to do the job properly you had a live - if drunk - slave or captive in the bottom of the hole, to be crushed as the base of the pole slid into it. They also went in for putting the skulls of enemies slain in battle on poles in front of the victor's hut.

I think this sort of pole is called a klirieng and the idea is to put large round stones - presumably taken from a river bed - on the platform at the top.

Perhaps the sort of thing that colonial administrators wrote monographs about in their retirement? Complete with digressions about the various local languages they had taken the trouble to learn during their stay.

PS: in the margins of this post, I picked up the article about syringes at reference 8. It seems that the US gets through around 10m of them a day and is keen to maintain a domestic source of supply. Supply chain resilience and all that. However, the Chinese, thanks to cheap contraband oil from Russia, oil being where the plastic tubes come from, are able to undercut US manufacturers, most of whom have gone out of business, leaving just two. Furthermore, the inspection regime for these Chinese supplies is not that great - not that there have been any complaints. The combination of the workings of the free market and the difficulties of applying sanctions to trade in a joined up but troubled world.

References

Reference 1: https://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/2012/01/noises-off.html.

Reference 2: https://www.british-history.ac.uk/old-new-london/vol4/pp226-235.

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

Reference 4: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2017/10/venus-in-fur.html.

Reference 5: http://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/02/epsom-at-play.html.

Reference 6: https://condesdealbarei.com/.

Reference 7: https://www.artoftheancestors.com/blog/kelirieng-antonio-j-guerreiro.

Reference 8: What the ubiquitous syringe tells us about US supply chains: Domestically made products like syringes currently cost more than those produced in China - Willy Shih, Financial Times - 2023.