Category: Theatre

Tamers

Now I know why I have never seen The Taming of the Shrew – it is another of Will’s “problem plays”.

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Miss Julie

There are glaring gaps in my education and one of them was filled in on Monday evening at the Jermyn Street Theatre.

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Box of Delights

In Salad Days a magic piano is entrusted  to Jane and Timothy by a passing tramp. Frodo Baggins inherits the Ring from his cousin Bilbo and is told by Gandalf to take care of it. For Bertie Wooster in The Code of the Woosters the MacGuffin is an 18th century silver cow-creamer. It is an… Continue reading Box of Delights

Books & Theatre

Underneath that pile of unread books is what I grandly call my library steps, although it came from IKEA where it is called a step stool. The pile has grown since my trip to Wales where I went to charity shops in Pembroke and LLandeilo. 

Japan

The Japanese economy has been stagnant for the last thirty years. The Nikei 225 index was briefly above 38,000 in 1989; today it is about 20,000. Unsurprisingly my previous forays into Japanese stocks have not ended well. However, when I wrote recently about Emerging Markets a reader commented that Japan was worth a look too.

Heart to Heart

It’s 8.25 pm on Thursday 6th September 1962. You switch on the TV and all around Europe the same programme is being broadcast by the BBC (UK), RTE (Ireland), RTF (France), ORF (Austria), SRT (Sweden), NRK (Norway), RAI (Italy), NTS (Netherlands) and YLE (Finland) as part of a project called The Largest Theatre in the… Continue reading Heart to Heart

Moray

Old Etonian actor and good egg, Moray Watson, died earlier this month aged eighty-eight. He was an excellent supporting actor, often stealing the show. As he got older parts weren’t so easy to come by and he started doing one-man shows.

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Assassins

LAMDA’s new theatre is almost finished. The first production is a musical, Assassins by Sondheim.  The eponymous assassins are the men and women who have attempted, successfully or not, to assassinate Presidents of the United States and the music is a reflection of popular music in their times.

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Travesties

Do not fancy that an intermission of writing is a decay of kindness. No man is always in a disposition to write; nor has any man at all times something to say. (Johnson: Letter to Boswell)

Hugging

On a Friday in November 1957, Rupert Hart-Davis was invited to lunch by Cecil Beaton at his house in Pelham Place. There was a butler and the other guests were Nancy Cunard, Mrs Ian Fleming and Somerset Maugham.

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