Theatre feast

We’ve been having a very busy time theatre going. We’ve seen five plays in less than two weeks. It’s been brilliant.

Last week, we went to Stratford to see The Witch of Edmonton and The White Devil. They aren’t Shakespeare, of course; The White Devil is written by Webster, and The Witch of Edmonton is written by a consortium of Ford, Dekker and Rowley.

The eponymous witch is played by Dame Eileen Atkins. She is a shrewd, lonely, somewhat embittered individual, and has quite daring speeches to make, which are withering to the men who run things. The interplay between her and her familiar, a black dog, athletically played by an actor equipped with a flexible skeletal tail, was excellent. The subplot was also very well played, particularly when the murder victim’s sister realises her brother in law was the murderer. I was on the edge of my seat then. The writers were pretty ambiguous about the existence of witchcraft and magic, and surprisingly on the side of the women – the sensibility was more modern that I expected, I think.  

The same was true of The White Devil. In that play, women were used by men. They are not better than the men, but they are made to take the responsibility which the men can avoid. Of course the director may bring out this, because it chimes with modern ideas, but they can’t put in something that isn’t there to start with.

It was quite gruesome. It ended with three women murdered on stage – remember we are in the front row – and then one of the murderers cut his own throat. By this time, I was so involved that I clapped my hands over my eyes. I bet the actor found that satisfying, if he happened to notice.

The next day, we went to see Arcadia at the Nottingham Playhouse. We used to have a bit of a thing about Stoppard, but Arcadia came out during the long gap in theatre going occasioned by children. So we were really looking forward to it, and it didn’t disappoint. The cast was mostly young, with a couple straight out of drama school, excellent, and Ilan Goodman,  the actor who had to explain chaos theory and the mathematics, did it very well indeed. Stoppard does make you work, though. But there’s plenty of emotion too.

This week, we’ve had another trip to Stratford, to see Love’s Labours Lost and Love’s Labours Won, as the RSC is calling Much Ado About Nothing. (They have historical justifications for this, if you’re interested.) Well, it was just superb. The plays have been set either side of the Great War – Lost, just before, so the idea of the lovers deciding to wait a year became terribly sad; and Won, just after, so the more mature and serious atmosphere made sense. The whole company were tremendous, although two such wordy plays must be exhausting – and the same company is doing a new play, The Christmas Truce.

The set and costumes were spectacularly good, and both plays were scored by Nigel Hess. The music was integral and wonderfully effective – marches, Ivor Novello type songs, and incidental music which scored the action superbly.

There was a Q & A with the cast after the second play, which we found enlightening. Most of the audience seemed to have seen both plays – only a small minority had only see Much Ado. So most of us had done the marathon – although, of course, it was the cast who had really done the work, the emotions generated take it out of the audience too!

If you can, go and see both plays. They are wonderful.

Seeing Love’s Labours Lost means we are now in search of only three plays, and then we have seen the whole accepted canon. We still need Cymbeline, Pericles and Henry VIII. They aren’t very often performed. But Greg Doran has promised to do all the plays during his tenure – so we just have to live long enough. And there are plenty of plays we’d like to see again, so we’ll be driving a groove to Stratford for as long as we can, I think. 

The Walk- In Centre

Recently I went deaf after swimming (my own fault, diving and underwater swimming in sea water not maybe the best idea). Then after a miserable day or two of continually saying “What?” to everyone and driving people mad, my right ear became seriously painful. This was over a weekend, and, as it was all too obvious what was the problem, and there was no need to turn up at A & E and be a nuisance,  I decided to go to the NHS walk in centre nearby on the Monday morning.

It’s about five minute’s walk away, and I was quite prepared to wait to be seen. In fact, I was seen quite quickly, but the waiting time was quite an experience.

The NHS walk in centres are mainly for people who can’t get to their own doctor (so people not in their home town), or for minor emergencies (a nasty cut, for example) or for people who aren’t registered with a GP.

The sort of people who can’t get themselves organised to register with a GP tend to be the sort of people who really need medical services. So, in the waiting area were a lot of people waiting for a special clinic, and I think, judging by the clientele, it had to be a drugs clinic. A young man was continually and loudly complaining about having to wait, convinced that he had been in some way discriminated against. He was telling everyone he’d come about his feet, alleging that they were causing him agony,  but he kept getting up to dance to music on his headphones; and of course, when he was called through, he couldn’t hear because of the headphones, and the staff had to go over and get him. And he wasn’t polite, even then.

Then, the automatic doors opened, admitting a blast of stale beer smell, and in them stood an elderly and very disreputable man, swaying, and bellowing at the top of his voice:

“This is the best f**ing walk in centre in Nottingham! I’m telling you, you’re all marvellous! You’re the best in Nottingham! You’re f**ing great, I’m telling you! Do you hear, this is the best f**ing walk in centre in Nottingham!”

Then he tottered off down the street, the doors closed, and I was left feeling great admiration for the staff, who aren’t paid enough, however much they are paid, and a genuine sense of pride in and gratitude for the NHS. I’m so glad it looks after everyone, even people who don’t “deserve” looking after. I don’t mind paying through my taxes for it at all, and I bet that feeling is true of the vast majority of the British.

To finish the story – I saw a nurse practitioner and got a prescription of antibiotic drops for my ear, and can hear again, thank God. 

The Halle

Last night we went to the Royal Concert Hall to hear the Halle Orchestra, and I just have to write about it.

The programme was Brahms’ 1^st Piano Concerto, the overture to The Flying Dutchman and Sibelius 5^th Symphony, so all quite big works. Sir Mark Elder did a preconcert talk, and he’s just great. He’s been doing these talks for a bit now – I don’t know how it started but the concert hall management emailed ticket holders, a long time ago now, and asked us how we felt about a talk he’d done. I’m sure the response was overwhelmingly positive, and so it seems to be becoming a tradition.

He explains the background to the works, and what was happening in the composers’ lives, and the significance of the key signature, and points out relationships between pieces of music and between movements of a piece, so you can listen much more intelligently and get much more out of the music. It’s brilliant. It also makes me wonder why so many concerts involve no one saying anything at all. Youngest son says classical music is elitist, and I don’t think that should be true, but when all the musicians are in white tie and nobody speaks, you do wonder how attractive it is to anyone who’s not already a seasoned concert goer.

In Nottingham the Halle and Mark Elder have got it right; they’ve built up a following and the hall was packed, hardly any spare seats. The BBC were there, thanks to the concert hall’s excellent acoustics, and we noticed the hall has had a bit of a facelift. It wasn’t shabby before, maybe a bit worn here and there, but the city council is looking after it well.

Paul Lewis was the soloist for the Brahms, and it was terrific, sparkling playing; the Flying Dutchman was wonderful; but the Sibelius! – it blew my socks off. It was just amazing, every moment so clear and precise, and with a charge of energy that left me feeling simultaneously invigorated and drained – catharsis, I suppose.  Sir Mark looked drained – it made me feel ever so slightly guilty that he’d done the preconcert talk, when the conducting takes it out of him to that extent.

It was broadcast live on Radio 3, so if you have iPlayer, you can listen and see what you think.

Tarascon and Laon

As we’ve been to Provence pretty often, we’ve visited most of the tourist hot spots. But we’d never been to Tarascon. So we decided to go and investigate.

It’s about an hour’s drive from where we were staying, on the Rhone, which is a very substantial and very industrial river, with the castles of medieval robber barons perched on rocky hills all along it. Tarascon was the favourite residence of Rene of Anjou, who was something more than a robber baron – he had land all over the Mediterranean. He had various elaborate festivities here though, and the castle was really good. Loads to see - there were fascinating graffiti in the dungeons, some showing Mediterranean galleys.

Tarascon castle

The town has lots of old mansions and a very unusual Roman style arcaded street, but is quite down at heel. I don’t quite know why towns with apparently less going for them are slickly, smoothly touristy, and this one isn’t.

The Tarasque

They even have a legend, of the Tarasque, a monster which crept out of the river and ate people.  Like the Lambton Worm – but instead of being vanquished by “brave and bold Sir John”, who kept the bairns from harm by making halves of the famous Lambton worm, the monster was prayed over by St Marthe, which, you have to admit, is less satisfying as a story.

On the journey home, we stopped overnight at Laon, and spent the following morning looking round. (If we had anticipated the dreadfulness of the M1, we might have set off earlier, but that’s another story.)

We’ve seen Laon perched on its hill every time we go along the autoroute, and it really was worth stopping. There is a brilliant little cable car, a sort of funicular, but tiny, to take you up into the old town, which was fun in itself.

The "Poma" - the cable car

Laon was the Carolingian capital, and very important. The cathedral is large and bare, early Gothic – completed in 1230, with a spectacular nave and towers. It also has a lot of thirteenth century stained glass remaining. It was behind the German lines in the First World War, and was used by the Germans as a military hospital, so it wasn’t shelled.

The great west doors of Laon cathedral.

The thirteenth century glass

There’s also a twelfth century pilgrim’s hospital, a huge thirteenth century Bishop’s Palace, and many ancient houses for the churchmen associated with the important medieval university. Abelard studied here. And there’s a twelfth century octagonal chapel for the Knights Templar.

Ninth century font in the cathedral

Chapel of the Templars

Bishop's Palace

It’s all just a bit seedy, although we definitely felt it’s going up in the world. The Bishop’s Palace houses the law courts, and the old houses are mostly occupied by lawyers and such things as victim support and the probation service, so there were some pretty dodgy characters hanging around, but also some very tempting and smart restaurants. So a really very interesting place to break the journey, and a success.

Marseilles

Our appointment at the consulate was at 9.45 a.m., so we had to get up and creep out of the gite very early. The drive was fine until we got to the city, when it was rush hour and the traffic was dreadfully slow. We almost abandoned our plan of parking near the Vieux Port, but thought better of it, and did get into a underground car park with half an hour to go to the appointment. 

Vieux Port

We thought that using the metro for the first time under time stress was not a brilliant idea, so took a taxi and arrived just in time to swig a coffee before the appointment. The interview was very brief (we look thoroughly honest, I hope, and certainly British) and were given a flimsy, white passport each. So we are no longer sans papier, thank goodness. It only lasts until the day of our tunnel booking, so we have to apply for new passports, and of course I still have no bag, no purse, no cash, no credit cards, no Nottingham City card, no driving licence, and no phone, so there’s still a lot of hassle to be gone through.

The metro is very easy to work, and we returned to the Vieux Port only to find that there were no boats to Chateau D’If. The sea was allegedly too rough. All I can say is it looked OK to us, and I’m sure that in those conditions, no Northumberland sailor would have even considered cancelling a trip to the Farne Islands.  It’s only in the harbour, for goodness sake.  I’m almost more fed up about that than about having the passports nicked.

The Hotel de Ville. King Alexander of Yugoslavia was assassinated in front
of the building, in 1934

Anyway, we toured the old town. Marseilles was the European city of culture last year and there are some impressive looking new buildings which are museums and gallery spaces. But we chose to go round the older museum of the history of Marseilles, and it was very interesting. A number of ancient boats have been found, including Roman era dredgers, with winches to haul up buckets of mud through a hatch right through the middle of the deck.

The remains of the Greek dock

We also enjoyed Fort St Jean – so called because it was manned by the Order of St John of Jerusalem – and the poor house, which was vast.

The counterpart fort to Fort St Jean. There was a chain between them.

The Poorhouse (Vielle Charite)

Chapel of Vielle Charite

There were a lot of deportations and destruction during the war, and a number of monuments to those who died.

One thing we noticed is that the population is very mixed and seems, to the outsider, to be well integrated. We saw white grandparents with clearly mixed race grandchildren, and I’ve only ever seen that in Britain before now. It’s something that gives you hope for us all. 

I think we’d like to go back, as the coast is pretty dramatic, and we liked the atmosphere. I know Marseilles has a reputation, and the gendarmes to whom we reported the theft unanimously warned us to be careful there, but it’s not nearly as threatening as Naples or Barcelona. 

France

Last weekend we went to the wedding of our friends’ son, in Pornichet, which runs into La Baule. I don’t want to talk about the wedding;  although I’m sure the young couple will have posted picture comments and descriptions on Facebook and all sorts of other social media, I feel that it would be wrong. It’s their wedding and their choice.

 It’s very strange. Young people seem to have very different ideas about what is private and what isn’t. Parents post loads of pictures of their children, who haven’t given permission even if they were old enough to do so, and might be troubled by the posts in the future, and at the same time I know young people who won’t have supermarket loyalty cards because “they” will know what you’re buying.

Anyway, La Baule / Pornichet is smashing. Miles of beautiful golden sandy beaches, gently shelving for safe swimming, and warm(ish) seawater, even though it’s the Atlantic.  I had a couple of lovely swims. There seems to be plenty going on there, too. The only problem was that it’s a bit of a palaver getting there from Nottingham. We ended up flying to Paris and then taking a train, which was less of a TGV, more of a TSV, train sans vitesse. It took ages trundling round corners and through tens of stations, and going to La Baule, it was dark, so quite boring. The journey was cheered by the chef du train, who was probably bored too, and came to practice his English. He was quite an interesting bloke, a scrabble champion and member of a re-enactment society, so we enjoyed talking to him. On the way back we could watch the world go by, and decided we should go back to the Loire valley sometime.

The next week we set off to visit the bridegroom’s parents in Provence. It was simpler to return to England and start again. We had decided to drive, as whenever we fly, we keep hankering after wine which we can’t have. Phil had booked the tunnel, which I’m not at all keen on. The ferry is quite fun and gives the opportunity for a walk around and fresh air. On longer routes we used to have a meal, so we could drive straight on when we disembarked and the children used to look forward to the mini adventure.  Of course, we have had a few grim crossings when the weather was bad, when we have had to fix our eyes on the horizon and the crew spend their time hoovering up vomit. One time, Will came out of the gents after an extremely rash visit to announce that he thought someone was dead in there. Phil went to investigate and found a young man alive, but totally incapacitated by seasickness, to the extent of lying full length on the less than clean floor of the gents. My worst journey was not actually a rough one – it was a Scandinavian ferry which served an all-you-can-eat smorgasbord, with at least two dozen sorts of pickled herring. I felt obliged to taste them all, and then had to spend the rest of the journey on deck, breathing deeply and fighting to control my stomach, and with a raging thirst.

Maybe the tunnel has advantages in winter, but otherwise you don’t get a break. You can only get out to stand beside your car, there’s obviously nothing to see, and this time, they had over booked, or more likely, cancelled trains. We weren’t allowed on an earlier train, and then were bumped off the train we actually were booked on, and had another half hour’s wait. So next time it’s the ferry.

While we were hanging about, because of course we had set off allowing loads of time in case of traffic problems round London, we went to Hythe for a walk and some fresh air. It’s one of the Cinque Ports and has a lovely promenade along the sea. The weather was glorious, the sea a deep greeny turquoise, so it was very pleasant. We did feel young as almost everyone seemed to be well past retirement. The café served us a mug of instant coffee to the recorded strains of Mrs Mills on the piano. It was like going back to the sixties.

So we drove down to Troyes to spend the night, and then the next day on to past Lyons and into Provence. Unfortunately just before we reached our destination we stopped at a service station to use the loo and change drivers. When we returned to the car, I unlocked it and got into the driver’s seat, and before Phil could get into the passenger seat he was accosted by a young man who immediately began asking weird questions in a rather aggressive manner. Almost immediately, we were suspicious and Phil got into the car and I moved off – but only a couple of feet, because then Phil said, “Where’s your handbag?”  And of course it had gone. While we were looking at the bloke on the passenger side, someone on the driver’s side had opened the back door of the car and taken my bag. We were furious with ourselves, but the problem is that the thieves are practised and we are not. So then we had to go to the gendarmerie. The gendarmes were as helpful as possible, and it emerged that the same thing had just happened to some Germans.

 Now, I am sans papier. Phil at least has his driving licence but his passport was in my bag too. The gendarmes provided us with the address and phone number of the British consulate in Marseilles (the nearest), and we have an appointment there on Wednesday. I can’t say we are thoroughly thrilled to have to drive to Marseilles, but I would like to go to the Chateau D’If.  Also we don’t want a row at the tunnel, and I most definitely don’t want to end up camping out at Sangatte and trying to climb into a lorry.

The Gite - a beautifully restored Provencal mas.

Grounds of the gite - there are about 170 olive trees.

The good thing is that our friends have arrived safely and the gite and the weather are both lovely. We’ve had a day out in Vaison-la-Romain, where an excellent market was going on. It covers everything – fruits and veg, sausages and hams, cheeses, olive oil and all its derivatives, lavender, herbs, honey, tablecloths, and for the locals, hi vis underwear. French markets all seem to stock bras in fluorescent colours. Goodness knows who buys them, but a lot of people must do so. I bought a lovely pair of sandals, prompting my friend to remark “No passport, no credit cards and she still buys shoes.” I have never thought of myself as frivolous before. 

The Lakes again

We had an uneventful drive up, stopping at the Bowes Museum for a picnic lunch and to break the journey for the boys. It was better for this purpose than we remembered; there is an excellent, large playground and picnic tables, which were not there last time we visited, years ago. Have a look:

http://www.thebowesmuseum.org.uk/

The boys had a good time climbing and swinging, and then we went into the museum. Obviously, taking two young boys to a museum for fine and decorative arts means you have to be pretty responsive to what interests them, and also to help them engage with the exhibits. Luckily the museum has acquired two large Canalettos of Venetian festivals, and they really enjoyed the plethora of interesting details, and the explanation of the ceremony of the Doge wedding the sea. They were also fascinated,  without any prompting at all, by a thoroughly gloomy, grimly Spanish, altarpiece showing the crucifixion and the deposition from the cross, which led us into theological discussions  which I didn’t expect to be having with a five year old.

The best bit was the silver swan. If you haven’t been to the Bowes Museum, it is an automaton, believed to date from the eighteenth century, of a stunningly beautiful, life size, incredibly detailed silver swan, which “swims” along the “water” and catches and eats a small silver fish.

It is wound up only once a day, and the performance lasts only about thirty seconds, so every visitor to the museum takes their place around the swan well before. It was worth the wait, though. The boys loved it, looked at the films explaining the workings and went in search of a clockwork mouse, also lifesize, made in gold all set with small pearls. It has garnet eyes. It’s a lovely thing.

After this highly enjoyable break, we drove on, with the wind getting wilder and wilder, through flurries of rain. We had just unloaded the bags and got safely inside when the heavens opened.  The evening got chillier and chillier as the wind got wilder and wilder, and I must say our hearts sank rather. But we got up to a lovely day, sunshine and clouds, and dry.

So we decided to do open air things. First we went to Aira Force.

Aira Force

 We went there last year, but it is a lovely walk with lots of boy appeal, and it was very quiet in the morning. After the walk we had a picnic lunch and the car park was really filling up, so we’d had the best bit of the day.

The water - older grandson decided it was actually
beer, being mixed a la Willie Wonka

Then we drove down Ullswater and climbed Hallin Fell. Younger grandson was very keen to climb a mountain, preferably Helvellyn, since older brother has climbed it, but Phil isn’t up to it, and I feel it would be rash for me on my own to take both boys up a proper mountain. Hallin Fell is a mountain, but only just, and it’s possible to get a reasonable distance up from the lake by car. So we all four climbed the mountain, and younger grandson was very pleased with himself indeed. Actually, it was worth doing anyway as the views were spectacular. The Lake District really is beautiful.

The view from Hallin Fell

The next day, rain was forecast in the afternoon, so we decided to go to the Roman Army museum. The morning was fine, so we drove over to the Wall, and went  for a walk along the wall at Walltown Crags. 

It was a bit windy, but I don’t think I’ve ever known the Wall not to be windy. The museum was aimed at kids and was great value – fun, highly educational, and for the pedantic (Phil and I), completely backed up with archaeological evidence.

We drove back to Penrith via the A686, which is the most spectacular road, especially heading towards the Lake District mountains. The A66 across the Pennines has fantastic views, too. It's just as good as the Beartooth Pass, even if it is lacking in snow, and the great advantage of sightseeing in England is that you are never far from a pot of tea and a scone. 

 When we came out of the museum, it hadn’t rained and so we had a go at kite flying, but, naturally, the wind had dropped and we weren’t very successful. The weather is completely different from the forecast. As it’s erring on the side of being much better, I don’t mean to complain.

On the Wednesday, we were booked in to see a puppet show. There is a puppet theatre near Penrith, which has an excellent vegetarian café attached, and the proprietors have recently acquired, with the help of a lottery grant, an entire puppet circus, dating from, I should think, the 1950s. There were clowns, dancers, an elephant, jugglers, tightrope walkers, a lion and tiger act (cages were erected round the big top, which made us laugh) a trapeze artiste which was a triumph of the art of the puppeteer, and the grand finale was Zippo, the human cannonball, which was frankly hilarious.

The wind was stronger, so we had another go with the kites, and this time were  highly successful, and some other children came out to join in. Thinking that they would get on better without me, I went in, only to hear shrieking. A little girl had been given a go on the delta kite, and had let go. We could see it, flying strongly at the very end of its line, which was caught in a tree, but it was completely out of reach. So we dealt with the very embarrassed father of the little girl, and promised the boys, that when the wind dropped, we would try to retrieve the kite.

The next day we went to the Lama Karma café, where they have lamas, naturally, but also lots of other animals, which you can handle – under supervision of course. The excellent guide tried to tell us that Madagascan Hissing Cockroaches make good pets.  Her commitment is commendable, but I much preferred the miniature donkey.

Madagascan Hissing Cockroaches

Lama, donkey and miniature donkey

Then we had to make good on our promise to try again for the kite. By now, it was caught in a silver birch. Phil hurled up a big lump of wood, over and over, and it did drop lower, but we still couldn't reach it. A boy of older grandson's age assured his dad would help, and the poor dad was forced to take down the awning of their caravan in order to obtain poles. It was all a bit embarrassing for us, but I have to say that all the kids had a whale of a time. Anyway we eventually did manage to grasp the kite. And, the very helpful dad even managed to reel in the string - all of it! I really didn't think we had a hope of getting it back.

On the way back we stopped at another museum, where a violin maker was working. He clearly loved his work, and we were there ages. He has a plane which is doll’s house size, and he showed us the raw wood and the templates and thickness gauges he uses, and it was truly interesting, but perhaps not so much for the boys, although they were actually very well behaved and attentive. I would have liked to ask about making the neck, but I didn’t dare.

So all in all, a highly successful week.