Entertainer?

Tonight I went into town.

I went in to meet Mirinda and go and see The Entertainer, the final play in Kenneth Branagh’s first season by his new theatre company. I thought it was an actor’s conceit. But before I go into that…

First thing I called the doctor and, unbelievably, I managed to get an appointment half an hour after I called. Extraordinary. This has never happened to me before. Anyway, I hobbled down there and was seen by yet another doctor (it’s as if they get new staff every time I visit) who examined my knee and agreed with both the neurologist and me that it was probably due to overdoing it at the gym and I should just rest it. She ‘prescribed’ me iboprofen gel and anti-inflammatory tablets…though it’s not really inflamed. Still, what would I know.

She also organised for me to have a scan (like the carotid one but on my leg) at the place next door. I just have to wait for them to ring me to make an appointment. I was amazed that she filled in a form on her computer then printed it off then walked to the receptionists and had them fax it over to the scanning office (which is next door in the same building).

There is so much wrong with that. Most importantly, why didn’t she email it? If someone wants to save the NHS some money, stopping the wholesale printing of unnecessary forms would be a start. Not to mention phone charges for fax machines. What, honestly, is the point of using a fax machine these days?

Anyway, she also told me to rest my leg as often as I can with my leg raised higher than my hips. This is in order for any excess fluid on my knee will flow back into my thigh. Weird. Mind you, it does feel better after resting it. I do wonder where the fluid in my hips goes. Though the resting came to an end when I had to leave for London.

Naturally I caught a bus to the station then the Tube to Charing Cross in order to reduce any walking.

I’d booked us into a new restaurant which is directly opposite the Garrick Theatre (which also cut down on walking). The restaurant is called Lotus and it’s chic Indian. I recommend it very highly. What a delicious find. When we go to the Garrick (or the other theatres in this bit of the West End) we’ll have to go back.

Which brings me to the play.

The performances were excellent, as you’d expect. Kenneth Branagh as Archie Rice was very believable but I thought Greta Scacchi was the stand out performer as Phoebe. The problem was the play. Written in 1957 by John Osborne as a savage stab at the last breaths of the British Empire, it is very badly dated. It’s difficult to understand a lot of it given it’s about people who lived almost 60 years ago in a very different Britain.

These people hark back to a Britain that never really existed except in their imaginations, honed over the years by bitterness and a desire to hide from anything new. Fear is big in this play. At the end, it is all very old fashioned.

As I said at the beginning of this post, I think it was an actor’s conceit; Kenneth wanting to repeat Laurence Olivier’s success in the original run of the play. If this is the case then it’s a shame because I’d loved to have seen Branagh in something a little more relevant.

Of course, it was a late night and I didn’t get home until midnight. My knee was not happy but the puppies were delirious.