Play: Our Public House

Tonight, back with CT for Our Public House, a play about politics at a local level (in the pub), playing in Marylebone Theatre. Tickets with CT are actually the same price as the cheapest with the theatre, but with CT there's a chance of a better seat.. mind you, I was emailed my ticket today, and got one that would have been the same price direct. Eating in Mumtaz, across the road, beforehand - earliest booking I could get was for 6pm!

It's far enough away that I was on the Tube - a bus to the station was just pulling up as I was passing, so I thought it'd be churlish not to take it. The Tube wasn't too bad - I got a seat after one stop. A short walk, then, to the restaurant, where I arrived 10 minutes early. This was unfortunate - because, despite Google Maps' claim that it opens at 5.30, there's a sign with opening hours that says it's closed till 6pm. Not to mention the "Closed" sign on the door, and that all the lights were off.. so I walked up and down outside several times.

Nice decor, if a bit shabby.. anyway, it was a relief when the lights started to come on, and the electronic "OPEN" sign.. and at about 5.59pm, the sign on the door flipped to "Open" as well, and I went in and was shown to a seat in the window.

I had my usual - lamb samosas, followed by butter chicken with peshawari naan. And a glass of Sauvignon Blanc. The wine was very nice, and I had a second glass. The food.. was passable, I'm afraid - the samosas, like the last Indian I was in, were greasy, and I didn't like the texture of the naan either. The butter sauce was a bit tasteless. So, disappointing, in all - although the service was faultless.

The couple at the next table were headed to the same play, the lady emphasising, twice, to the waiter that they had to be out quickly. No problems there - I said nothing to him, but we were all out at the same time. We were across the road together, but they weren't inclined to talk, albeit giving me a cheery smile. In the theatre, they were just calling for us to go in, so I did.

Well, the story is that there's a political hustings on the evening of the play, in a small town that's famous for nobody at all casting a valid vote in the last election. In town for the hustings are the new Labour candidate and her handler, who drop into the pub first - the publican, recently widowed, is teaching, of all things, a class on political rhetoric there that night. She's stoked because her daughter, who usually lives in London, is in town for a week. Also present for the class are a young woman, an old flame of the daughter's, it seems, and a gruff fellow who plays music and talks loudly.

I had a number of problems with this play. Firstly, it's a good job that most of the dialogue is reproduced (almost faithfully) in surtitles above the bar, because a number of the actors have terrible diction, and even in the second row, I couldn't hear them. I think this was for the benefit of the party candidate, who - also in real life I think, as she was wearing hearing aids - is hard of hearing.

Caveat - a number of actors are not professionals - they're brought from the local community, and given a platform to express the issues that are important in their locality. Which is actually a great idea! Mind you now, I left at the interval, and given that I can account for everyone I saw from the cast list, I don't think I saw the local actors. Which makes it all the stranger that I found some of the acting wooden - but then, I found a lot of the script very wooden. And you know, maybe it's taken from real people's words - but could they not have spliced it together a bit better..?

And then - and I guess it's in the interest of letting everyone speak their truth - but Lordy, the girl who lives in London gets to do a vitriolic, aggressive piece about how "old "people don't want to give the young a chance.. and the musician announces that he's going to run for Reform, so we have to listen to his platform.. perhaps if I hadn't had to sit through the play's other problems.. but as it was, by the time the interval had come, I'd had enough, and left.

I did enjoy the turn of the young woman, a recovering drug addict and ex-con, staying on her mum's sofa and trying to get her own place so she can recover custody of her daughter. Beautiful singer. And you know, it is a lovely idea, to bring all platforms together on one stage, to show we're all still neighbours. I just didn't think the execution was very good.

Runs to Saturday.

Tomorrow.. well, appropriately for London Museums A-Z's Dracula activities, the 1979 Nosferatu, with Klaus Kinski as Dracula (he's certainly scary enough), Isabelle Adjani as Lucy (sic.) Harker, and Bruno Ganz as Jonathan Harker, written and directed by Werner Herzog, is showing in Cine Lumiere..! And I've never seen it, would you believe. Part of a season of her films. Watch this space.. I flagged it to the Dracula group, and now three of us are going!

On Friday, back at Backyard Comedy Club with CT - double the price of other nights, for whatever reason, but still cheap.

On Saturday, back with Laurence Summers and the 45+ Not Grumpies for a walk around Breathtaking Bloomsbury.

Then a run of three films - becoming quite the habit! On Sunday, I'm thinking of Blue Heron - set in the 1990s, it sees a family move to Vancouver Island, only to have serious problems with the increasingly erratic behaviour of their teenage son. Showing in the Garden Cinema.

On Monday, finally thinking of Toy Story 5 - still in Everyman Borough Yards.

And on Tuesday, I found a new Meetup group - The DocHouse Documentary Adventurers Group: seems they head to the Curzon Bloomsbury for documentaries, which makes perfect sense with their dedicated DocHouse. With no reviews yet, it seems like a very new group! Anyway, they're off there that day to see The Day Innocence Died, a documentary about Bloody Sunday - so I thought that sounded interesting, and I'd give the group a shot.

Next Wednesday, a friend of mine cleverly got in in time to invite me to The Ladyboys of Bangkok, a burlesque in the Sabai Pavilion - he got free tickets. I've booked dinner beforehand at The Sindercombe Social.

And on the 9th, back at last with Movie Roadhouse London for The Invite. Delighted they advertised it - the trailer looks promising. Based on a Spanish film, in this, Seth Rogen and his wife decide to invite the enigmatic couple upstairs - Edward Norton and Penélope Cruz - for dinner. They have no idea what they're letting themselves in for.. showing in the BFI, and we're meeting there beforehand, and for drinks after.