Nottingham Playhouse

"She just fainted into my arms. Honest."

I think J believed me. We had just seen a particularly realistic eye-gouging scene in King Lear at Nottingham Playhouse. As we headed for the bar at the interval, the lady in front of me keeled over right in my path. I'm sure she was grateful I caught her.

That must have been my most eventful evening at the Playhouse. We had gone there on an outing from Keele University in about 1969, not long before we were married, and it was therefore a special trip in more ways than one.

My first trip, thee years earlier, had been equally special. The English teachers at school had arranged for us to travel from Merseyside one Saturday to see Julius Caesar and Anthony and Cleopatra. It was rare to get the chance to see the two plays on the same day. It was a treat to see Barbara Jefford in the lead role. Nottingham Playhouse was cutting edge; the artistic director, John Neville, a distinguished actor himself, was making a name for provincial theatre. The modernistic-looking building had been built in 1963 by the City Council from the compensation it received from the nationalisation of its gas supply business. And we got to visit a pub in the interval. At 17, that is significant.

The Playhouse has held me in its spell ever since. I've lost count of the number of visits I've made there since moving to Nottingham in 1974. Many actors I saw were, or soon became, well-known: Michael Hordern was the knock-out Lear but there was also Jonathan Pryce, Beryl Reed, Zoe Wanamaker, Peggy Ashcroft, John Hurt, Ian McKellen, Ken Campbell and the amazing Anthony Sher. I was amazed to see from old playbills that I'd seen  stalwarts from TV classics like Bill Frazer (The Army Game and Bootsy and Snudge), William Russell (Sir Lancelot and Dr Who's assistant in the first series), Sylvester McCoy (Dr Who himself) and Alun Armstrong (New Tricks) in various plays.

However, Nottingham friends and neighbours did not seem particularly aware of, or enthused by, their producing theatre. The Playhouse had a reputation in the 1970s and 1980s for being highbrow and serious, unlike the Theatre Royal, the touring theatre across town. There were some seasons, I have to acknowledge, when I did little to boost their attendance figures.

Over the years, thankfully, productions have diversified and there have also been folk music, dance and comedy evenings. In 1984, I took the children to Kenneth Alan Taylor's first Playhouse-produced panto, competing directly with the Theatre Royal. He's still going strong 25 years later. And we saw Sandi Toksvig in a hilarious re-write of Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream, with actors from the TV programme Whose Line Is It Anyway. I'm all for TV crossovers if they help keep theatres alive.

Theatre has the ability to constantly innovate or reinterpret, showcasing the talent and skill of directors and actors. I saw Steven Berkoff's On the Waterfront last year and loved the slow-motion fights. A classic film made to work in the theatre. Stephen Lowe's Old Big 'Ed in the Spirit of the Man, on the other hand, was brand new, a wonderfully witty tribute to Nottingham Forest's legendary manager Brian Clough who had recently died. It certainly brought in the punters.

This is the first season I've been to all three of the autumn productions and they symbolise why the Playhouse still appeals. We've had the bourgeois world of Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit and Brecht's communist message in the Caucasian Chalk Circle. Such a contrast but there are delights of language despite a nonsense plot in the one case and a belief in common humanity in the other. In between, a realisation of Graham Greene's novel Our Man in Havana, played for laughs with TV ex-stars Philip Franks and Norman Pace taking multiple roles. Old fashioned, yes, but still good theatre and a good night out.

The Planets in the Year of Astronomy

2009 is the International Year of Astronomy. I didn't know that when we booked to hear Holst's The Planets in Birmingham (another trip to hear the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra) but the coincidence is pleasing.

What a piece. It is so well known, through the popularity of Mars and Jupiter, that hearing it live has never seemed necessary in 46 years of going to concerts. Thinking about it, I don't think I've often been aware of it being performed live. Now I know why.


It is written for a huge orchestra and must cost the earth to stage. It has instruments I have never seen on stage together before : bass clarinet, bass oboe, contrabassoon, cor anglais, tuba, euphonium, two harps, alto flute, 7 kettle drums, celesta. I counted 116 players altogether, not to mention the 60 or so female voices who sing only in the last piece, Neptune. I suppose Mahler would be a comparison for sheer size but the Holst is exciting and subtle at the same time. The noise, and length, are not quite so overpowering.


The colouring of the sound is fascinating - the way the unusual instruments are combined and can be heard clearly in solos or small groups. Like the 4 flutes at the beginning of the last movement, Neptune the Mystic, when the alto flute helps set the etherial, eerie tone that is perfected by the offstage voices which bring the work to a close.


Gustavus von Holst, the grandson of a Russian emigre with Swedish ancestry who came to England via Germany; whose father, Adolphus, settled in Cheltenham to teach music; producing a Suite that everyone regards as typically English. It struck me as so unlikely. One of those stories that makes you see things in a new light and listen afresh.


YouTube has the whole work at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6NopU9K_8M , starting with Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity. Use headphones. It is fantastic.

Remembrance Day

It's November and the week of Remembrance Day. It's a sobering thought that we've had them for 90 years now but they seem to be as relevant and important to the public as ever, no doubt reflecting the prominence of the Afghanistan war. Two of our friends went to London on Sunday to join the parade and another went, as she always does, to the service in Nottingham parish church and to see her dad, a WWII soldier, march through the city. J and I were in London on Remembrance Day last year and had a couple of hours before catching the train home to watch from the back of the crowd on Whitehall. It was an impressive and moving spectacle.

I'm reminded of the event after listening to an Eric Bogle song on Folkwaves tonight. Eric has written some fine anti-war songs, especially And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda, famously recorded by June Tabor, but tonight it was No Man's Land, which has equally haunting lyrics and a memorable melody, especially the chorus: "did they beat the drum slowly, did they play the pipes lowly, did the rifles fire o'er you as they lowered you down..?" Poetry, as Ian McMillan would have said, that hits you in the guts.

I see from Eric's website that he emigrated to Australia from Scotland in 1969, just before my family did the same, from Cheshire. Hence his caricature. He's currently on a world tour of 88 gigs and is planning a 2010 tour of Australia. These folkies just keep going, thank goodness!