Last broadside?

Last week to the Rose Theatre at Kingston. According to blogsearch, the first visit for just over a year, the last being noticed at reference 1. Which seemed like a long time, but which was confirmed by googlesearch of my email records.

A damp, cold evening and I managed to hit three out of four ramps on my way to a parking slot at the adjacent car park. Clearly need more practise.

The fish were still present in the adjacent river, at their usual station on the left hand side of the river - the Hogsmill - facing upstream. We wondered whether they slept, whether they could see much in the dark and whether predators - like pike - hunted in the dark. A topic which I have so far failed to pursue.

The play, 'For love or money' was being offered by Northern Broadsides, a company of which we have seen a fair bit at the Rose, and we had heard rumours of their demise. Rumours which were confirmed by one of the volunteers at the door. It seems that the actor-manager, Barry Rutter, decided that enough was enough when what was left of his Arts Council grant was withdrawn. I don't know for how long the theatre has been subsidised from the public purse, but guessing I would think for less than a hundred years. Is it yet another case of our modern, well-educated, provincial public not being prepared to pay what it costs to put on theatre? But prepared to go at half price, or whatever? Just another form of sponging off the government?

There seemed to be new décor for the café and new operators, their sauvignon blanc was fine but their selection of cakes was a bit limited.

The play involved a lot of thick northern speech and slang, probably better understood up north where most of the performances were being put on, with Kingston-upon-Thames and Bury St. Edmunds being the only places down south that I remember from the list (now lost).

It was also a farce and involved some very clever acrobatics from the two young spivs in the course of their swindling everyone in sight, including each other, despite their being partners in crime. Jumping around with chairs which I would certainly not have attempted at their age. Quite good, although, as with the recent Wilde, the gaps between the gags were often too long, making the thing sag a bit.

Reasonably full house downstairs. Audience reasonably enthusiastic. More so at the end that at half time.

PS 1: the Hogsmill might rise outside the Spring Tavern just next to Bourne Hall in Ewell, more or less the place where Millais painted the background to his Ophelia. The painting which involved his model catching a chill in the bath in which she had had to lie for hours. One branch of the Hogsmill is the stream which runs along Longmead Road and which is regularly noticed here. See, for example, reference 2. A stream where I have never seen any fish although I did, just once, see a kingfisher.

PS 2: a fine picture of the Badlands of South Dakota is being offered by Bing this morning, Friday 10th November. They really do achieve a high standard with their pictures of the day; a fine bit of public service.

PS 3: blogger has started putting accents into commonly used French words such as 'décor' , so I can no longer claim the merit of going to the bother of going to fetch them for myself. A reasonably complicated sequence involving both 'Character Map' and 'Notepad', this last being needed to stop unwanted text formatting getting into the post.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/good-canary.html.

Reference 2: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/autumn-visit-and-tweet.html.

Group search key: rta.