I’m overjoyed with this surprise turn of events. I’m likely to be in shot for quite a bit of the play, but that’s a problem for everyone else - I’m going to have an amazing time!
I booked the best seat I could afford, one with a railing in the sight line, but close to the stage. I’m not sitting in that seat.
They’re filming the production today, so they moved me to a different seat. Front row. I can touch the stage with my feet.
We even read it as part of my playreading group in Ghent last summer, a truly delightful experience to share my favourite play and ‘perform’ it with friends.
I first read the play as part of A Level English Lit in 1999, a slow read as we dug into the plot and themes of the text. I fell in love with it, and it’s been a consistent answer to the question of what my favourite play is. I’ve owned multiple copies and lent them prodigiously.
Old Vic exterior
Arcadia program, mostly pink, held in front of of the circular stage right in front of me
Notice of filming the production
And so, the reason for the trip, the play I’ve waited the entire century to see performed.
Arcadia, by Tom Stoppard.
You’ve changed…
I’m going to go see a play in two and a half hours that I’ve waited over 25 years to see…
Disappointed they didn’t find more missing Who episodes while I was back at the piano bar tonight.
I’ve jinxed its powers.
Happy birthday mate!
At the Big Belly Comedy Club to see Sean Burke. This venue literally didn’t exist when I used to live in London…
I was sat at a piano (listening, not playing) at an artists bar in soho, about half a bottle of gin into the evening, when the news broke. It still doesn’t feel real even though I’ve seen clips on the BBC and Toby Hadoke talking about it.
It’s nice to not be rejected from a job application by the end of the week. Suggests that my CV is doing much better at passing any AI filters. Might get an actual human to read it now…
From DWM, here's the full story of Doctor Who's missing episodes, with contributions from the experts (and one TARDIS traveller). Except, I'm delighted to say, it turned out to be not quite the full story, after all... 🙂
I was quite a bit drunk last night when this news came through, it may be apparent by my reaction.
I can’t believe I now live in a world where I can watch the first quarter of Daleks Masterplan in its entirety.
MASTERPLAN MASTERPLAN MASTERPLAN!!!!
OH MY FUCKING GOD THEY FOUND TWO EPISODES OF DALEKS FUCKING MASTERPLAN!!!
Program for The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, with the stage in the background. Stage is washed in blue light, with a single chair in the middle.
Hoping for a more successful evening with The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, with Mark Addy and Red Dwarf’s Jenna Russell (and Red Dwarf’s Maggie Service, although they spelt it ‘Ref’ in her programme bio).
I wish the production had been more decisive on if this was a transplant of the play to Wales, or a Welsh production of an American play. It kept flitting between the two, but the weight of the original text made the excursions into Welsh place names and song feel superficial.
Yeah, it didn’t really happen for me. Decent production, some lovely scenic bits with planks to conjure the town - and a lovely moment in the third act where real props were in use - but the play itself remains, to me, simplistic, almost trite in its simplicity.
Revolted to see that Kingston now has a Chick-fil-A. And it has a massive queue. I guess the UK needs to know a lot more about their anti-LGBTQ activities.
It was that which made me decide to grab a (cheap) ticket.
Intrigued by Our Town, a play that seems to hold significant cultural weight in the US and almost none in the UK. We read it last year at my playreading group in Ghent, and it did absolutely nothing for me, so keen to see if an actual production can open it up for me.
Haven’t been to the Rose Theatre since 2013, and what turned out to be the final night of the Hitchhiker’s stage show tour, with Anita Dobson as the voice of the book. The cast were told before going on, the cancellation was announced the next day.
The exterior of the Rose Theatre in Kingston-upon-Thames
Relatively bare stage for Our Town, with a stepladder and some reeds
Made it!
Sat in a pub two minutes walk from the theatre.
I think I’m gonna make it…
Argh! Signalling problems in new Malden, my train is no longer going to Kingston!
Bus from Wimbledon, then…
Last time I tried to see Michael Sheen on stage (Nye, at the National), travel delayed me so much I missed the show. Sat on a train to Kingston to see him in Our Town. I have 130 minutes to make a 50 minute journey.
Wish me luck…
Husband? I was riding a bus, not a husband…
@adarkadaptedheart.bsky.social you’ll be pleased, maybe, to hear that as I’m sitting in a bar where they’re playing What’s This from A Nightmare Before Christmas, I’m naturally finding myself singing the custom lyrics you sang over a decade ago…
Big smile for me as my husband passes the Shaftesbury Theatre, all done up for the imminent return of Avenue Q. So happy to see this back in the West End
