Posted 7:51 AM by Paul
The Undiscovered Country

We went to the theatre last might and had a fantastic evening. Hamlet in a production by the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Albery on St. Martin’s Lane is a big occasion. We met up first in bar just off Trafalgar Square. London looked beautiful all lit up for Christmas, twinkling in the cold night air. Heather also looked beautiful and I felt a bit manky in comparison. We had a couple of drinks and some spring rolls. It was a treat just to sit and talk, free of work and without the kids for a few hours.

The previous might I had been out with Chris and Steve to a Spanish restaurant and drunk too much. A client who is exhibiting at an event I am organising bought me lunch and we shared a bottle of wine, which got me going all over again. If not exactly dissolute, I felt a bit louche when I met Heather, but she didn’t seem to mind.

Coming into the grand old Albery Theatre,which was built in the last century, you could feel the excitement and the history. Photographs of Laurence Olivier in Richard III, Hamlet and King Lear adorned the walls of the theatre bar. There was a real sense of anticipation in the air. Up in the bar we sat on the same table as Patrick Stewart, a man known to millions as Captain Picard of Star Trek and a fine Shakespearean actor as well. It is a strange feeling sitting next to someone extremely famous because you are ostentatiously avoiding all eye contact in order to to allow them a bit of privacy. In a way, you are a lot ruder than you would be to a regular person. He met up with a younger woman. A girlfriend? Possibly. Possibly not.

It reminded me that most of the actors I know are still really passionate about the theatre. It is a love affair not a job. Patrick Stewart could have afforded to arrive at the last minute at a side entrance in a limo and have the best seats in the house. Instead he was meeting a girl in a crowded theatre bar and taking his seat in the Grand Circle. The most expensive seats are £30. Perhaps he was doing this out of respect for the younger actors. It must be a bit disconcerting if you spot a living legend on the second row when you are half way through you opening soliloquy. My old friend Ian who trained at RADA and enjoyed a load of success in the 1990s in a big soap opera has the same passion. If he sees a great play he is uplifted and can talk about every detail of the show for hours. He will eulogise or criticise aspects of a performance I would never notice.

Listening up there in the dark of the Grand Circle to Hamlet reminded me just how many set phrases and sayings that are now staples of the English language come from this one play. It must be difficult to say lines like “…neither a borrower nor a lender be” which are now clichés with any kind of conviction. One line that did stick in mind was the description of Death as “the undiscovered country” It made me think about my mother and father.

The production of Hamlet was disappointing. The actor who played The Dane was too handsome in a blonde upper class English sort of way. His vowels were full and his consonants clipped. He didn’t so much descend into madness as start off barmy and get a bit barmier. There seemed to be a few people on stage who found it difficult to walk and act at the same time. It was all a bit stiff with none of the vitality and sensuality that you get in a great ensemble piece. The white faced mime ghost looked like he had been trained by Lindsay Kemp. He was also way too young.

The staging and costume designers hadn’t quite made up their mind if they were doing an expressionistic or naturalistic piece. The King and Queen showed none of the creepy lascivious sensuality that I had loved when I saw the play at the Edinburgh Festival in the mid 1980s. You felt like they were having sex on the old King’s grave before he was cold. The Queen on that occasion was played by Jean Marsh who incidentally played Rose, the head maid in Upstairs Downstairs. My friend Ian played Rosenkrantz. I left at the interval because I had to do some illegal fly posting for a left wing comedy gig I was promoting. I kept up this tradition in 2004 by leaving at once more at the interval. I have never seen the second half of Hamlet.

It was my suggestion but Heather (and clearly most of the audience if the overheard intermission comments were anything to go by) felt the same way about the production. We don’t have a lot of time together and we decided to end the evening at a bar together talking about the future and the past. We also had to be back home by 11.00 to relieve our wonderful babysitter Kimberly. When we got home Alice was in a lovely mood. She had told Kimberley that Hamlet was a play about a dwarf who cycles from Peckham to Brixton. She can be very funny. They had made Christmas decorations and watched the DVD of School of Rock starring Jack Black. Emily was fast asleep.

We ended the night eating chocolate and watching U2 on the Jonathon Ross Show. Like Patrick Stewart, they are multi-millionaires but are still passionate about what they do. They still have that air of being people rather than personalities.

A great night and a great time to be living in London and not the undiscovered country.