Play: Miss Myrtle's Garden

These two days are something of a Meetup extravaganza. Tonight, I was back with Up in the Cheap Seats for Miss Myrtle's Garden, at the Bush Theatre. Eating beforehand at Shikumen Chinese restaurant. I was delighted to get a text from the theatre this afternoon, with a link to my ticket - so handy..

A long journey, it'd have to be Tube if I wanted to get there in under an hour. Mind you, no danger of me working late - Fridays are known in the company as "patch Friday"s, because that's when they do a bunch of software patches. Which, of course, sometimes banjax the software.. and that's exactly what happened to me; starting at some time around 4.30pm, every time I tried to open a file to work on it, it crashed the software. I submitted a fix request to IT, nearly 5pm on the first day of our company's "summertime" allowance, where they give us an hour off, and legged it, knowing full well that no-one would see to it this evening anyway.

Walked to the station, got on the first train this time - and the Jubilee Line was packed. And airless. Mercifully, I got a seat pretty quickly - this was a longer trip than usual. I could have changed to the Central Line, but that's one I would only take in extremis - no, I was changing at Baker Street. Dragged myself through the station, finally got to the platform - to find that the crowds were so bad, there was a guy at each end of the staircase, directing traffic! An absolute sea of people swarmed against me - I only just managed to squeeze through to my Circle Line train, a few feet away. Managed to squeeze on in time - and oh, glorious air conditioning! Also no problem getting a seat.

I alighted at Shepherds Bush Market - to find the theatre right across the road! Crikey, I'd forgotten it was so close to the station.. anyway, first mission was food, and I carried on around the corner, where a brief walk brought me to the restaurant. Where, of course, I needn't have booked - it was completely empty at that point. But I'd never been here before, so couldn't be sure.

Lovely decor, pretty attentive service. Glossy, book-style menus - the only Sauvignon Blanc they have by the glass is French, and the cheapest on the menu; I was a bit dubious, and had the Pinot Grigio instead. Which was fine, and a bargain by West End standards, at about £10 per glass.

As to the food, most of the menu was a bit too - authentic - for my liking. I hardly recognised anything, and was relieved when I came to kung pao chicken, so ordered that. Naturally, I ordered egg fried rice with it. Now, this is a side dish.. and I have to say, NEVER before have I seen a restaurant charge £8 for it. On top of £21 for the chicken. Thank goodness I didn't fancy a starter! I was hot, so asked for some ice cream - this was a reasonable £5, and wow, two scoops came in the same dish, for a change.. The food was lovely, but honestly, £8 for the rice is taking the mickey. I won't be back.

And so to the theatre - it's years since I was last here, so I'd forgotten how impossible the bar is; I passed the heaving crowd there, and made my way straight through to the library at the back, where our group had commandeered the end of a table, and we chatted briefly before going in.

It's in the round, and the eponymous, circular garden forms the stage. We meet Myrtle, her grandson and his "friend", who've come to stay, and Myrtle's neighbour and old friend, the Irishman Eddie. Takes place somewhere in London.

It soon becomes apparent that Myrtle has dementia, and the "untidiness" of her garden, as described in the blurb, can be seen as a metaphor for her unruly mind. As the play progresses, and her grandson agonises about whether she's getting worse, and tries to anchor her to reality, we learn bits and pieces about her past, cleverly fed to us in nuggets as she reveals this snippet and that. A side story has her grandson trying to hide from her the fact that he and his friend are more than just friends.. and Lord forbid his "friend" should show up at the conservative school where he teaches..!

A nicely balanced play, as one of the group remarked - we are confronted with the reality of a desperately sad situation, but never bashed over the head with it. We don't get a schmaltzy happy ending, but at the same time, it's never really depressing - and periodically, humour pops up. Even if we didn't all agree on when exactly that was. ;-) Mind you, I had the misfortune of having the sort of people behind me who don't seem to realise that there's a way you behave at home that shouldn't be replicated in a theatre - talking, rustling wrappers.. At least they enjoyed it, I frequently heard them guffawing.

The play doesn't try to give us any answers really, but perhaps just to remind us that there's more than one way to define reality. And it provides a loving look at dementia. Very sensitively done - and if we wanted to meet the cast, most of them were in the bar afterwards, as we hung on to discuss it. I bought no drinks there the whole night, though - it was still too crowded at the interval, and with no aircon in the theatre itself, by the time it finished, I was far too hot even to consider it. All I dreamt of was to get home and put myself in front of a fan. Which I now am. Anyway, this runs to the 12th - recommended.

Oh, and when I got home, I decided to try that non-working software again - yep, in the time-honoured tradition, it was cured by turning the computer off and on again. Technology, huh!

Tomorrow afternoon, I'm attending the group's summer social, at The Oxford Market. 

That should be finished in time to head over to the BFI, where The Hideout is seeing Videodrome, a body horror by David Cronenberg, that evening. Stars James Woods and Debbie Harry. Love a bit of Cronenberg.

On Sunday - the only day this month they could make it - I'm meeting Ivan and James (and possibly Martin) for our monthly social, and we've decided to try The Phoenix again.

On Monday, back with London Classical Music and Theatre Group (London Baroque Music Lovers are also going, but I had to pick one - mind you, the same guy is organising) for the opening night of Handel's opera Semele, in the Royal Opera House. And of course, I would start seeing discount codes after I book.. Eating at Cote Covent Garden beforehand.

On Tuesday, thinking film again - and what's looking good at the top of next week's list is Sudan, Remember Us, a documentary about the popular uprising in Sudan following the overthrow of a dictatorship, and the subsequent violent military crackdown. It'll be great to get a view of a country I don't know much about, and am unlikely to visit.. showing, of course, in the Curzon Bloomsbury, the home of documentaries.

On Wednesday, back with the much-neglected London Literary Walks - this one is called The Modernist Walk, and we're meeting in The Garden Gate, Hampstead. You can eat there, but I couldn't book for just one person, so will have to take pot luck.

On Thursday, film again - documentary again - Curzon Bloomsbury again! This time for The Salt of the Earth, about the photographer Sebastiao Salgado, who died last month. Co-written and co-directed by Wim Wenders, it's part of the country-wide Kino Dreams retrospective of his work.

And next Friday - which is, of course, US Independence Day - I'm heading to TunedIn London for the first time in ages, courtesy of The World Music Meetup (whom I've signed up with) and the London European Club, not to mention Curiosity - London Arts, Culture & Walks, for a concert called An American Melt, happening in St. Mary's Church, Rotherhithe.