I Blame 3 for 2

Last night was date night where the Hubs and I forced ourselves out of the office to see Waiting For Godot at the Theatre Royal Haymarket (harder than people may think). I have always loved this play and was thrilled when I realised it was going to be put on. Even more so when I heard that Ian McKellan (who may well have one of the most expressive faces, ever) and Patrick Stewart (who may well have one of the best voices for the stage, ever) were to play Estragon and Vladimir. I did realise that I would probably have at least five moments where I would think "Magneto!" or "Professor!", but that was unavoidable. I'm sure Beckett wouldn't mind too much.

I'm not enough of a theatre goer to offer much of critique. All I can say is that it was two hours of dialogue and my mind didn't wander once. When I saw Kevin Spacey in Moon for the Misbegotten, he was such a strong presence on the stage that all but one of the remaining cast were shadowed (Eve Best held her own and then some). The skill that I thought was the most striking last night was how balanced the cast was. Simon Callow, playing Pozzo, commanded the stage as Pozzo should in his scenes, and Ronald Pickup took people aback with his solo. There was a definite sense at Godot that people were there to see who the better actor was. Several people asked me what I thought on that front at the end of the play, and I have to say - I didn't. McKellen and Stewart had a wonderful natural comraderie and it really lent itself to this play. It must be slightly less difficult to act as though you have 50 years of friendship between you when you actually do (or close, they were definitely on stage together in the 70s). The play is mammoth and everyone in it was so good that it seemed like it wasn't extraordinary. It was only later when I thought about how it could have been bettered or what could have been done more effectively and realised that there was nothing, that I realised how good the production actually was.

After the play the Hubs and I headed for a late dinner at St Alban. I will go back and go back again. We'd had great intentions of hitting up the £20 post theatre menu, but I was absolutely side-tracked by the Mixed Grill of Fish for Two, which was accompanied by my all-time favourite green to go with fish - samphire. The diet also got shelved in favour of a lush Rioja Blanco. Hubs was pretty much instantly converted by the world's best bread selection, delivered to the table with the menus.















Having had a lengthy conversation with the Hubs about my favourite plays of all time, I decided to buy myself a copy of Godot so that I could tap into the pleasure at will. My attempt to purchase a copy of Godot ended up with these:

Samuel Beckett - Waiting for Godot
William Shakespeare - King Lear
Henrik Ibsen - Four Major Plays (bought for A Doll's House and Hedda Gabler)

I also succumbed to these:
Mohammed Hanif - A Case of Exploding Mangoes
Bret Easton Ellis - The Informers
John le Carre - A Murder of Quality
Lawrence Hill - The Book of Negroes
Stephen Fry - in America
Steve Toltz - A Fraction of the Whole

I will be living on words because I can no longer afford food. Maybe I'll lose some weight.