Priestley

Last week to a Priestley farce - When we are Married - at the Rose at Kingston, brought there by Mr. Rutter and his Northern Broadsides. Appropriately, a play set among the now-lost mills of their northern home.

Another bad start, with a big queue onto the Portsmouth Road at Kingston. Due to roadworks, but I think not those to do with the fine new cycle lane which has been given a good third of the road. A reminder that Kingston was a western outpost of the land of Boris, lately the clowning mayor and now our Foreign Secretary, charged with navigating our fine country through the presently murky waters of the big wide world.

But I did well at the car park, not hitting any kerbs on our way to the top. I can't remember when I last managed to pull this one off.

We also did well with the fishes, scoring two behind the county court and a lot from our usual spotting post on the bridge (over the Hogsmill). Odd how the fish so seem to like that particular spot. Does it have something to do with it being where the fresh water of the Hogsmill meets the salt water of the Thames?

Boasting about seat numbers at reference 2 was quite premature as it turned out, as we got into almost as much of a muddle on this occasion. Some consolation from the lady in front of us who explained that one had to learn the row numbering afresh on every visit. I had even got the leg room wrong, with that in row A, where we were sitting, being adequate if not plentiful. On the other hand, some quirk of the layout meant that I had the luxury of my own seat, rather than sharing a two seater - who might or might not be one's companion - being fairly sure that the seating diagram you get when you book does not show the pairing arrangements. One supposes that paired seats come a lot cheaper than singles.

Reasonably full house for this matinée performance, at least downstairs. Clever set, while remaining mobile for this touring production. Clever also in that one had the sense that the play was taking place in an appropriately small inner space, despite the size of the space actually being used. Play good, but better in the second half than the first and I thought it needed a bit more work to make it a bit more slick. Too often in the first half I had the sense that the play had stopped for a few seconds: farces are supposed to be brisk without such gaps, such longueurs. Play all the better for having a happy ending with the topsy-turvy world being put back together again. Some nice touches about the servant difficulties of the times in which the play was set, the very beginning of the twentieth century, some years before the world was turned upside down by the first war. And a wonderful description of the elaborate, off-stage high tea with which the action starts.

Some exercise of smoking privileges, with some of the cast being keener on their cigars than others. I wondered at the time whether they reused them, despite the unpleasant flavour that cigars so acquire - while I wonder this morning whether one actually enjoys this kind of smoking at all, when one is at work, as it were. Perhaps that is how the Harriet Harman's justified allowing this so-gross exemption from the rules to themselves: the actors might be allowed to smoke on the stage, but it doesn't matter because they won't enjoy it.

Out to find a trio of coaches outside: one regular, one small and one very small, perhaps a people carrier rather than a coach. And BH lost the car park game by clipping several kerbs on the way down.

Quite a lot of traffic on the way home, it now being around 1700 on a Thursday, but once clear of Ruxley Lane we were able to speed along to the new-to-us fish and chip shop at Horton Retail, to find them doing a roaring trade. We carried our fish and chips back home to find that they were very good: best fried cod that I have had for a while and even the chips managed not to taste stale by the time that I had got to the end of them. There was a lot of stainless steel in the shop, which made me think that one needed a fair bit of capital to start such a place, with my understanding being that in a new build such as this was, the first tenant pays for all the specialised fittings, in this case stainless steel frying gear, Landlord just supplies the basics: at least that was the story at the Manor Green Road butcher when he moved into his new shop.

PS: more senior moment: I started off this morning quite sure that we had seen another Priestley play at the Rose, probably Northern Broadsides again. But careful inspection of the record reveals nothing but reference 1. Very irritating.

Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/an-inspector-calls.html.

Reference 2: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/good-canary.html.