Finally finished the initial testing today. Feels like it’s been years. I’ll just wait for the retesting of problems now.
I went to the Yvonne Arnaud and saw Hannie Rayson‘s Life After George. It was excellent. Mirinda didn’t come because she was frantically searching for accommodation in London during the strikes next week. Then, of course, the strikes were suspended. So she stopped her frantic searching.
Anyway, the play was very good. Most of the cast did Australian accents and they were surprisingly good. They are generally pretty cringeworthy but, no, this was good. Just a few words very occasionally.
Some great acting as well. Richard Hope who played Duffy, stood out, as did Susannah Wise, playing the daughter.
The George of the title, was played by Stephen Dillane, who we saw as Henry in The Real Thing at the Donmar, along with Jennifer Ehle. He was pretty good, except for the strange scratching thing he kept doing under his shirt. I thought it was going to turn out that he had some sort of disease but, no, probably his shirt was scratching him. Whatever it was, it was annoying.
The play made me feel very proud to be Australian. Rayson also wrote Hotel Sorrento and co-wrote two episodes of Seachange which makes her pretty special in the house.
I had to hang around Guildford station for 40 minutes, waiting for a train. Awful. Packs of wild children roaming the platforms, hooting, swearing and generally trying to survive.
There was an interesting juxtaposition in the carriage home: In the seats in front of me there were two groups of girls. One set was dressed in ‘nice’ clothes (ie real jeans, little tops, shoes, etc) and the other was dressed somewhat chavvy (tight black stretchy pants, tight plunging tops, runners).
The ‘nice’ girls chatted and giggled, like any normal girls after a good night out, but not loud enough to actually hear what they were saying. On the other hand, the chav conversation was easily understood, consisting mostly of monosyllabic complaints and the word ‘fuck’. All the girls seemed to be about the same age.
The chavs went into Aldershot, the nice girls continued on to Farnham.
At Farnham, I waited ages for a taxi so didn’t get home until 12:30.
Watched Jimmy White beat Ronnie O’Sullivan in the last frame of his quarter-final in the B&H Masters. Brilliant!
Then, finally, to bed.
“Men who believe themselves immortal, tend to die intestate.” Hannie Rayson.
