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sadly now out of date, the best of these has been Anna Keay’s The Last Royal Rebel, a riveting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
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