Venusberg | That's not your heart, it's a piece of helicopter casing

Friday, June 06, 2003

So, Wednesday night, while I was delivering a friend to the Galileo for a quick drink before she went to see the London première of the Adrian Noble Brand at the Theatre Royal opposite, I bumped into my sister.

This was extraordinary, given that she lives in Paris and was last seen marooned in the Shetland Islands by fog (took the overnight ferry, apparently). We were both a little shocked.

Anyway, she was going to see Brand as well, as a guest of the Norwegian Embassy, and insisted that I come along, her friend having cancelled. She'd called the LRB to ask if another fellow wanted to join her, but he hadn't called back. So, she dived back into the Norwegians to retrieve the ticket she had just returned, and we headed for the foyer, only to see said other fellow.

Cue sister retrieving ticket from me with apologies, and going over to proffer it to SOF, who had in fact not been contacted by the LRB and was there on his own recognizance, and thus slightly confused by this interruption. Anyway, finally made it into the theatre and by further ludicrous chance found myself sitting one row directly in front of my friends who were going to see it independently. Absurd...

Mind you, the play was fairly absurd too. I have some questions over Noble's direction generally - sometimes it workes very well, sometimes it is excruciating, and this was more like the Joe Fiennes Troilus and Cressida than the Ralph Fiennes. Ralph F. seemed to have been given the playbook of expressionist acting - everything was gestures, cowering, grand movements, presumably to communicate Brand's greatness of spirit. Everyone else tended to go for naturalism. The result was a bit like seeing Olivier doing Richard III in an episode of The Good Life. Continuing the sitcom theme, something in Fiennes' long face, coupled with his sideways staggering and hangdog expression, was terrifyingly Leonard Rossiteresque. Which didn't help. An interesting spectacle but not, for me, a great performance. Good fun, though, and with some great stage effects, and the Mayor was terrific.

We were invited to the first-night party, but were both tired, I wanted to grab a drink with the Barbeloids, it was just going to be the cast and crew and a few dignitaries, and what do you say to Ralph Fiennes anyway? "Hi, Ralph. We kept bumping into each other, literally, at Kokomo's when you were doing Shakespeare in Shoreditch. And we spoke briefly at the RSC. But I'm not stalking you, honest. Here are three of my eyelashes. We are now engaged"?

So, yes. All a bit odd. And then yesterday I retired to my sickbed, feeling decidedly under the weather, and am still not on top form today. Thank god for B3ta, and specifically for Skippy the Goth Kangaroo.

Skippy understands the suffering.

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