Play: (This is Not a) Happy Room

Yesterday, back with Up in the Cheap Seats for (This is Not a) Happy Room, at The King's Head, Islington. After a hectic day at work in the office, I discovered it was only half an hour by bus up there - lovely. Now, my go-to eatery in Islington is The Bull, which I've never needed a reservation for.. so I headed up there. I got a table down the back - there was plenty of space. On checking, I was astonished to find that it was nearly a year since I was last there - and therefore, nearly a year since I was last in Islington!

I decided on the chicken schnitzel. Now, I have to give kudos to the chips that came with it.. they were spectacular, the equal of any I've had. Triple-cooked, obviously. The chicken, unfortunately, wasn't quite as good as I remember - I might go for the fish next time, which is truly memorable.

A hop, skip and jump from there to the theatre, where I found my group sitting in the (upstairs) bar - downstairs, beside the theatre, wasn't open yet. The bar offered two types of white wine - if there again, I'm having the house white; the Bordeaux Sauvignon (as it was advertised) wasn't great. Anyway, we chatted away until the barrier was removed, and we went down. Several flights! to the theatre. I was the only one seated at the side - the others had seats facing the front. But then, I did only book mine quite recently.

Oh dearie me. I didn't set out to be disappointed.. but I was. Very. Funnily enough, afterwards (there was no interval), the group seemed all to have enjoyed it. You never know, maybe if I'd had a seat facing the front, I would have too..  but I truly hated it. Within five minutes, I wanted to leave - and if I hadn't been on the wrong side, and leaving would've meant crossing the stage, I would have! I seriously could have predicted every single line that came out of the actors' mouths. It felt like a play-by-numbers. Boring, trite - and seriously unpleasant characters.

There's a great twist, and a couple of good lines.. a couple, in about 90 minutes of playwriting. Oh dear. I couldn't warm to a single character, nor care what they got up to.. well, perhaps the aunt with dementia, who was the cheeriest and most likeable. There might have been a decent play in here somewhere - I completely missed it. The guy to my right loved it, the guy to my left certainly didn't laugh at any point - I neglected to ask how he'd found it. I just found the writing cliched, the characters unlikeable.. comedy, as they say, is subjective, and this subject I reject.

At least there was a lift, to extract me from my misery a bit quicker, encumbered with my laptop as I was! My bus stop was literally across the road - and I had to change near Liverpool Street. Oh my, I'd forgotten what a bus hub it is.. should seriously have photographed the glut of buses as I was waiting. Hey ho, got home in due course - but it ran too late to blog.

Today, work was almost as crazy as yesterday - I barely got out in time, and certainly didn't have time to blog! See, I'm back to Ireland for another long weekend.. and by the way, nearly missed my flight, what with last-minute work requests. Made it with minutes to spare - and yay, Ryanair's aircon worked, this time..

This being the weekend of Mother's Day, I'm staying an extra day. I should get to the cinema over the weekend - but lo, all that's new are action films, which I'm just not interested in. Ah well.. Could do with a rest.

Flying back on Monday night then. Tuesday, I'm thinking film - and what's coming up is The World Will Tremble, a fact-based drama about prisoners who tried to escape from the Nazis' first extermination camp, in Poland. Showing in the Curzon Bloomsbury - I'll have to leave work a smidgeon early, but what the hey.

On Wednesday - hey, London Literary Walks is back! This one is The Shakespeare Walk - we're meeting in Shaw's Booksellers - which is actually a pub, apparently disguised as a bookshop.. Now, I couldn't find mention of them selling food, so I'm heading to the nearby Cafe Rouge for dinner - it's years since I ate at one of them!

And on Thursday - heading to see Bernard Casey at the London Irish Centre! I became aware of him through Foil, Arms & Hog - will be very interested to see for myself what he's like, solo.