Play: The Grain Store

Tonight, back with TAC for a play called The Grain Store, set in Stalinist Russia, and showing in the Mack@Mountview - yay, for once, something closer to my new place!

Turned out they have eateries onsite, so I went straight there - there's a variety of buses. And so it was that I finally found myself in the environs of - Peckham! (Famous from Only Fools and Horses..)

Well, I walked a bit down the road until the little blue dot on Google Maps said I was there. no sign! So I looked up the website, it said the entrance was on Library Square - which I had to look up. I walked forward a little bit, clearing the hedge by the side of the road - and there it was in front of me, a huge, modern building. Which I had to walk around the other side for the main entrance to. Mind you, I could have stayed where I was to get to my initial destination - the Skylight is on the top floor, with great views and outside (and inside) seating. And that's advertised as the main food outlet. There's a lift up to it.

You're supposed to wait to be seated, but it really wasn't necessary - it was far from being full. And the manager just said to sit wherever. Service, I have to say, was performed by someone resembling a zombie - he eventually shuffled over with a menu. So, it's not extensive - for mains, I was looking at either roast chicken with mash, or a steak (which was actually cheaper) - but then I thought, I just wasn't in the mood for something big. So I had two of the small plates - karaage chicken, and chips. Which were fine - nothing special, but did the job. The chips, I might mention, were smothered in sea salt. Also a very nice, and very reasonably priced - for London - glass of wine. I was finished in good time, and it was handy that the manager was sitting facing me, and could read my expression, and fetch the waiter again..

And so downstairs, where I got a drink in the ground-floor bar, under the assurance that I could take it in - in plastic. Their food menu looks extensive enough, too - might check it out if I'm back here. I got a second-row seat:

So, we start with a piece of Orthodox iconography. This is set in Soviet Ukraine, and our story begins with the Soviets trooping along in 1929 and sweeping away the vestiges of the old religion - the church, for example, represented by this icon, now becomes the grain store of the title. We meet the characters in a small village, and rejoice in their exuberant music, singing and dancing.

But what the play is really about is the state-induced famine - brought about by disastrously wasteful policies of collectivisation and abolition of the middle-class farmers (the "kulaks"). And I tell you, it is really moving - with a couple of hard-faced Soviet guards in charge to make sure things are done properly, we see the absolute decimation of the community. In a scene later in the play, the forced singing and dancing - to impress an American journalist who then doesn't arrive - forms a particularly shocking contrast to the joyful scenes at the beginning. And a tribute at the end, to those who died, represented by photos on the rear wall, brought tears to my eyes. Really, really powerful - and, of course, so topical. Runs till Saturday - well worth a trip, if you can make it.

Tomorrow, back at last with The Horror Book Club. It's been a while since they were doing anything I was interested in - but I can hardly miss this, a meeting about The Fog by James Herbert. He remains my favourite horror writer overall, and the best descriptive writer I've ever read - to the extent that he literally changed the way I look at the world. And would you believe it, the club has, apparently, never done anything by him! This is, actually, the book that got me back into horror after an absence of years, during which I was traumatised by my reading of another of his, The Rats.. So, well, I can't miss this, can I? And I've just come across a reading of The Fog by Christopher Lee.. listened to the first part already. As someone in the group pointed out, mind you, this version is censored.. Must get back to listening to it. Today was a nightmare, what with Tesco acting up again - at least this time, I got the bank to confirm that it was Tesco's fault - much more helpful than Tesco customer support. We'll see how it progresses. Anyway, no time, therefore, to finish listening to the recording.

And on Thursday, I've booked with CT to see Skin, a play showing at Brockley Jack Studio Theatre - specifically chosen because it was the closest cheap show to my new place.

I'm then back to Ireland again - yes, two weekends in a row - because I need to reschedule my weekends for what's coming up.. watch this space. For the weekend, I think we can assume I'll just be shopping for my mother - nothing on in the cinema over there that I want to see, and haven't already seen..