Theatrical tales

An entry to recommend a rollocking good theatrical read.  I have just finished Sir Peter Hall's diaries from the time when he was director of the National Theatre, struggling to move it from the Old Vic into the new South Bank building. I found them unputdownable. His almost daily entries from 1972 until 1980 tell the  compelling story of him taking over as director of the National Theatre from Laurence Olivier (fraught as it was with politics and intrigue), his unrelenting efforts to get the new building finished, his frustration with the power of the unions once established on the South Bank and wrangles over public funding with the Arts Council and the Governments of the day.  This was the backdrop against which he built the theatre company (from the relatively small concern that played from the Old Vic), established a repertoire and planned for the future..... not to mention directed some memorable plays.  The entries, dictated early each morning for the previous day, are often frazzled and distraught with the politics and pressures of the job...... but remain delightfully gossipy and candid as well.  His pen portraits of many theatrical greats (Olivier, Richardson, Gielgud, Ashcroft, Pinter, Beckett, Ayckbourn and so many more) are a treat although I wonder how many of them he fell out with after publication.

The diaries transported me back to the 1970s - Wilson resigning (I remember the Evening Standard headline on my way home from school), Callaghan and endless, endless strikes, Thatcher, a politicised Arts Council. I also recalled with excitement the opening of the National Theatre on the South Bank and going to some of the early plays including seeing Albert Finney in Tamburlaine the Great which opened the Olivier and Amadeus (Simon Callow as Mozart and Paul Scofield as Salieri). Love it or hate it, Lasdun's National Theatre building is now so much part of the landscape that it is easy to forget the impact it had when it opened - all that public space and foyer music was a novelty.

What this book provides is an insight into the characters and incidents at key moments in the National Theatre's history. It also is a revelation in its description of the creative process of giving life to a play. It was a delight to follow No Man's Land from Pinter's enigmatic text to success on the stage (with Richardson and Gielgud) and then to New York and the development of Amadeus from an idea to a script to research in Vienna to a read through in the rehearsal room to a huge hit. Loved it!

Champagne discussions

A depleted group of 5 of us christened Catherine's very nice new flat last night with champagne and a good discussion about The Hand That First Held Mine. We agreed that it was a really enjoyable read but disagreed about whether or not it was superior to The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox. The majority view was that whilst Maggie O'Farrell's technique of interweaving two separate but ultimately connected stories is clever and intriguing, in this case, Lexie's story is much more engaging than Ted's and therefore the book is a little imbalanced. There was a view by some that the post-partum boredom and misery in Ted's story was rather dull although it is an valuable contrast to Lexie's own competent and vibrant experiences during and after the birth of Theo. I confessed to having fallen in love with Innes - a hopeless soul but utterly romantic, bohemian and mesmeric. All thought that O'Farrell's descriptions of rooms and interiors were wonderful (the Soho scenes being particularly enjoyable). It was definitely a good book group read and there was much to discuss.

In the absence of an agreed genre for our next meeting, we defaulted to Evelina by Fanny Burney, the alternative title to which is The History of A Young Lady's Entrance into the World.  I'm looking forward to it already!  We are meeting at Caroline's but at the time of writing this, we are struggling to find a date.  We were hoping to do 7th June but that may not now happen. Catherine, in a flash of brilliance, suggested that our next book should have a South American theme - which led us to consider how few South American authors we knew; Marquez (Columbia)  and Allende (Chile) sprung to mind but then we had to resort to Wikipedia. So Caroline will be mixing the margaritas sometime in early June.

Local bookshops

The time has come to plug our local bookshops, on the off chance that anyone new to the area (or important and influential) is reading this.  Obviously, our much loved Kew Bookshop has pride of place in our community, right in the heart of the village, next to the tube. Mark and Isla have an uncanny knack of getting to know the tastes of their customers and are never short of suggestions; their pithy reviews on the shelves are always a pleasure.

However, only this week did we visit their other shop in Barnes and what a delightful visit it was.  The Barnes bookshop looks just like the Kew Bookshop (as you can see) except it's bigger and has a far wider selection of books. There is loads of space including a fabulous downstairs area where you find the back catalogue, many specialist sections (including cookery, travel, sport, history) and a wonderful array of glossy coffee table books (popular in Barnes, not in Kew, we were told, an indication perhaps of relative drawing room sizes?).  It is well worth a visit.  A trip to SW13 and lengthy browsing in the book shop should always be combined with a restorative lunch...... and we found on a Saturday that Sonny's fitted the bill nicely.

Chatting to Mark and Isla about their two shops and the knowledgable and personal service they offer made me feel very protective of the Kew Bookshop (and not a little guilty at my occasional Amazon purchases).  I'm sure it's a case of "use it or loose it"...... hence this entry to encourage readers to do just that.