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Sidmouth Manor Pavilion Theatre - An Inspector Calls (with James Pellow)

Folks who know me very well often say, kindly I think, that I should get out more. I’m a grumpy old sod at the best of times and in the ...

Monday 20 March 2017

Shingle Bells - A Winter of Discontent


Just had a quick look at this blog. Haven’t posted a thing since Company of Ten’s magnificent London Wall.  That got more hits than a mad machine gun at a big barn door, so pretty happy. But six months ago? Come on, I ain’t died or lost the plot totally, so what has happened. In a word, shingles. That’s my excuse anyway. Six weeks of pain and six months of rashes, the latter still lingering, had blunted much of my limited social activity and some of my irrepressible humour. What? Never made me laugh, some say. Except his racing tips and, a la Harold Hobson, frequently barking up the wrong theatrical tree. Google him if you must but bear with me on the horseracing, much my main entertainment through cold months bereft of theatre and other pleasures. It culminated in a beloved Cheltenham Festival which gathered more returns than a demented polling officer at a dreary election count. A couch potato lifestyle has its compensations.

Wish I could say the same about TV in general but, showing my age, the more channels there are the less there seems to be to watch. The Moorside was very good with a couple of excellent female leads and Appletree Yard with the superb Emily Watson eminently watchable. But SSGB frustrates for its undeveloped characterisation and wavering plot, I will ignore the sound, and Broadchurch still seems to me to be little more than glorified soap. And I say that having nothing but praise for its two spiky leads. But The Killing and The Bridge they aint. None of them. So I watch Only Connect, University Challenge, and Masterchef and yearn for those days when we had three channels and a plethora of real plays. Dennis Potter, Alan Plater, Jack Rosenthal, where are you?

Given that I am a five star grump with eyesight that would challenge Mr Magoo, my general inactivity has resulted in even more book reading than usual. Putting aside The Cheltenham Festival Guide, sadly now out of date, the best of these has been Anna Keay’s The Last Royal Rebel, a riveting history of Charles II’s bastard son the Duke of Monmouth. A must read for anyone interested in the Stuart era and overfull of the Tudors. Val McDermid’s Forensics, a fascinating insight to science in murder, Michael Blakemore’s Stage Blood, wonderful lively spats at the National under Olivier and Peter Hall, and Diana Preston’s absorbingly detailed book, Wilful Murder, on The Sinking of the Lusitania, head my list of the rest. All different, all beautifully written. I could also recommend Peter Longerichs’s fascinating insight into Goebbels, based on his diaries, but I doubt if anyone other than me or obsessive students of twentieth century German history would read it. No novels, not generally my thing in reading, except on holiday when Agatha Christie, Robert Goddard, Val McDermid and Mark Billingham figure fairly high. But not Martina Cole. Love her factual murder programmes on TV but her books and unsympathetic characters leave me cold.

So having shingles has had its compensations. I have wide reading tastes, from The Beano to Fifty Shades of Grey, no don’t ask, and they and the horses have manfully filled the void of theatre. I will scribble again in the near future, whether some want it or not, probably because most of the evening TV fare is enough to drive anyone with half a brain out of the house. Saturday Night Takeaway anyone?

 

Roy Hall