London 2009 – Day 17 – Beneath The Dress

Last night brought the 3rd of 5 performances of Beneath The Dress, a new cabaret show by Frances Ruffelle.

I scored a ticket to this after having been intrigued by a handbill at a the Pleasance Theatre the other night. Ruffelle has been performing on stage for many years now, having won a Tony award for her turn in Les Miserables several years back. She has heaped up a career’s worth of awards in a fairly short time, and at age 42 has pretty much pivoted to a recording career.

This show was billed with this memorable little poem:

I must confess
there’s an emptiness
each night the music ends ….
underneath the mess
and beneath the dress
I’m best when I pretend.

Well, I can tell you this, she delivered on the underneath the dress bit, performing almost the entire show in her unmentionables; prancing around the stage in various stages of undress, complicated by the numerous costume changes (think Cher) all performed centre stage.

It is worth mentioning that yet again Pawn was one of the few straight men in attendance. Her act was incredibly well put together, with very tight musical arrangements and a very capable band. Accompanying her were sax/clarinet, trumpet and trombone, drums, stand-up bass and keyboards. Her daughter, who goes by the stage name Elisa Doolittle, joined in for one number. Quite nice.

The act felt like a blend of Judy Garland and Sarah Brightman. Brightman, at least in what I have seen, plays the remote diva, while Ruffelle is anything but detached. She obviously loves what she is doing, and that comes across on stage in a way which simply cannot be faked. Her eyes always shimmer, her moves are so sure it is almost surreal, and every little movement seems to have been if not choreographed at least very well considered.

I must give a special nod to her rendition of Mood Indigo, the classic Duke Ellington song. She captured the sometimes difficult minor-key transitions masterfully, and her band never crowded her on the more delicately phrased passages.

There are two performances left for this show, June 3rd and 14th, and I recommend it to anyone who has the opportunity to attend. Madame Jojo’s at 8-10 Brewer Street in Soho are a wonderful venue for this show.

If I’m no longer needed
and I must take my leave
I’ll go with a smile
My exit music please

London 2009 – Day 17 – Markets Galore

It being a Saturday and all Pawn has decided to take in some East End markets; Brick Lane, Petticoat Lane and Spitalfields Market. I hopped on the tube down to Aldgate East station and started the long stroll up Brick Lane. The markets start about half way up the street, so there was a bit of walking involved.

The first big market building had about 150 booths set up with arts and crafts, vintage clothing, new designer clothing, music, food etc. I bought some souvenirs for patient loved ones back home. Met the charming artist behind Polite Furniture with whom I whiled away some time discussing her art and the market day activities.

Bought some CDs of classic Funk, R&B and Soul music ripped from 45s and LPs onto compilation CDs by Small Potato Records – Great riffs!

The markets all around London are so vital and alive you wouldn’t believe it. And each one has its own charm, its own character. Camden Town markets are rowdy and loud. Borough Market is foodie to the nth degree, with wonderful smells. Petticoat Lane is all cheap knock-off clothing and textiles. Truman Brewery Market, where I met Anne and bought the music and souvenirs is more like an artist colony has turned out for a big party. A lot of creative energy permeates the air. Many young designers are all over the place with brash and lovely clothing, bags, jackets, etc. One booth featured classic men’s suit coats which had been painted with stalks of wheat growing out of the pockets or Samurai warriors peeking out from a lapel. Really fun stuff.

Back on the street I was immersed in a flood of people from all around the East End. There are so many cultures here, and on this Saturday, at least, they all seemed to get on quite well. One thing that struck me is that while one finds graffiti all around London, here it is quite advanced and reads more as art than as tagging or vandalism. There are several places where the street art is the focus, and large panels are installed for it. Here are a couple of examples, more can be found in today’s gallery.

Finally reached the top of Brick Lane, after side trips up a couple of other market lanes, and headed west to the top of Shoreditch Hight Street, which leads down into Commercial Lane and the Spitalfields Market. Along the way on Bethnel Green Road there is a large piece of street art called Spaced Out Rainbow which runs the length of a couple of blocks along a works site. Here are some snaps:

Spitalfields Market has been around in one form or another for ever but is now a rather upscale market in a purpose built structure on the old marketplace site. There are several high end and ready-to-eat restaurants here, as well as arts and craft booths, clothing vendors, food stalls, etc. I saw some scarves I really liked, and a shirt which caught my eye, but I was running low on cash and there were huge queues at the cash points, so those must wait.

I did meet another fine artist, Jenny Rose, whose work crosses several boundaries from photography to screen printing, etching and collage work. She uses unconventional materials boh to print onto and to mount her works. Some are on old piano rolls, for example. Several incorporate sheet music from classics and show tunes into the multi-layered work. I bought a few of these, and now must struggle to get them home 🙁 They are lovely, and will make for some nice souvenirs as well.

Then it was back home to eat some Indian food (finally, first time this trip), do this write up, and get ready for tonight’s activity: Frances Ruffelle, Beneath the Dress in Soho at Madame Jojo’s.

Ta!

London 2009 – Day 17 – Pawn’s Fortune

As I strolled into Petticoat Lane Market today I was approached by a well dressed man wearing a cobalt blue turban and a dark brown suit.  He wore a full, thick, lush beard, and had penetrating brown eyes.  He bore them into mine, and said:

You are a very lucky man
Next month will be very good for you
You will become famous in your field
You are a mastermind
You have one story in your head
Write the book.

I thanked him and walked on, a little bewildered but feeling generally compliant.

London 2009 – Day 16 – In Other News

Today was a work day, but I started out with a delightful breakfast from yesterday’s marketplace acquisitions. Yum yum! After work I settled in for dinner and then to catch up on some news you may not have heard about.

First off, as I mentioned a few days ago, England is gripped with the Exes Scandal. This refers not to ex-spouses, but to expenses. In particular MPs allowance expenses. Members of Parliament are supposed to domicile in the constituencies, but really need to keep an abode in London in order to attend Parliament. Back in the 1970s, MPs earned a relative pittance, and so adopted an expense reimbursement system which would pay rent or mortgage offsets against a secondary residence, as well as allow for maintenance and upkeep of those.

The idea was that if you hail from Bath, and needed to pay for an expensive London flat so as to attend Parliament, the taxpayers should help pay for that. Over the years, however, this privilege has evolved into a massive slush fund.

Well, the scandal has dragged on for 9 days now. The Telegraph, a reliably Tory paper have been serving up little bits of the story in daily doses for over a week now. So far there have been at least three MPs, cabinet ministers or aides who have resigned, and several are under investigation by one or another law enforcement group.

We haven’t heard the last of this, yet. Elections loom just three weeks from now…

Next up in the news is a little scandal of large proportions. I’m speaking, of course, of what is locally dubbed the “Tempest in a D cup,” the Marks and Spenser Bra pricing debacle. A while back, Marks and Sparks decided that since bras larger than D cup require more material and more expensive architecture they should carry a £2 premium. The ensuing outcry was just too much for M&S to ignore, and last week they finally caved. “We Boobed” declared the full page ads which ran in all the papers, in front of an amply filled bra.

In order to make amends, M&S, who celebrate their 150th anniversary next week, will for three days sell 20 products ranging from ties to bags, scarves, make up and others for pennies (reflecting their start as a penny retailer). I plan to be there, at the Oxford Street flagship store, when it all starts on Wednesday morning, with celebrities and big bras in attendance.

Lastly, tonight is the Eurovision Song contest final. England is more hopeful than ever as this year’s entry is Jade, a protégée of Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber. She has been all over the press these past weeks, and the best thing to come from tonight’s show is that this phenomenon will hopefully end quickly in the wake of a final decision.

If you’re not familiar with Eurovision, it is a contest to find the best of the banal. The songs which compete are almost all of the monumental anthem class, at which Lord Webber so excels. You would think that this would make Jade, whom Lord Webber will accompany on piano for tonight’s performance, a shoo-in. Not so fast. Eurovision has complex rules, entirely new this year after last year’s winners, Russia, were chose with huge advantage from almost all former Soviet bloc countries. Up till this year the voting was entirely by the public, with each country’s citizens intelligible to vote for their entrant. Now, given last year’s scandal, half the weighted vote will come from industry insiders.

The Russians, as last year’s winners, are hosting tonight’s event. They have spared no expense, reportedly spending upwards of $30 million to stage the event in the 30,000 seat stadium built for the 1980 Olympics. They claim that fully 30% of all LED screens in existence are being used in this production. From what I have seen so far, they’re right about that. The staging is lavishly over the top.

I cannot watch this at my local, as I hate this type of music, and could be counted on to say the wrong thing at the wrong time in a public house. So, I will suffer at home, and silently root for Jade, and her ilk, to fail in favour of some more palatable sounds from some other country. The French entry is singing now, and I like her. Sounds like Marianne Faithful might if she were French… of course, “everyone hates the French,” as the morning papers reminded us all. This audience, from the sound of the applause, didn’t read those stories.

Ta!

London 2009 – Day 15 – North Road Drama

Pawn returned to old haunts today, in more ways than one. The day started with packing and moving out of the two bedroom flat shared with the now absent (and so sorely missed) X. Did I mention just how much she is missed? Boatloads, to be sure.

Okay, now that bit of appeasement is out of the way…

The move to Camden actually went pretty well. The new flat is not as nice as the old one, but has much better views.

A small gallery of photos is here. After getting sorted in the new flat, I decided to head down to Borough Market for some shopping. This is a huge market at the South Bank end of London Bridge, tucked in under the rail lines. They have everything you can imagine, from all over Europe. There are fresh cheese and sausage from France; olives, olive oil, chiles and chorizo from Spain; Parmisian Romanno fresh from Italy (with an aroma which is most arresting) as well as salami and ham that are to die for; from Germany come white asparagus and all sort of würsts; from Portugal come more olives and cheeses; Greece is represented with feta, kefta and korma, not to mention all sort of sweets; Turkey is there with Turkish Delight in forty flavours.

Local growers and vendors bring the pride of England: eggs, cheese, meats, greens, veggies, tubers, seafood (including hand caught and cut scallops, cooked to order). The list go on and on. I heard more than once people complain that their noses were stuffed from allergies, depriving them of the feast of aroma for which this market is famous. I’ll tell you, just to walk from the Italian cheeses to the Parma ham was an olfactory miracle of no small dimension. If only they made a camera which would capture odours!

I loaded up with landjeagger and French smoked salami, English cow milk brie, young Gouda, gem, asparagus, carrots, apples and pears, tin loaf bread, and some other stuff. I was quite loaded down by the time I stopped and went home to the new flat. After getting everything into the fridge (no small feat) I relaxed a bit, napped, made myself a light plate of cheese and sausage, and then headed back out to the Pleasance Theatre in North London for Dying For It.

Dying For It is based on Nikolai Erdman‘s wry comedy, The Suicide, written in Russian in 1928. The Suicide reflects the growing dissatisfaction with life in post-revolutionary Soviet Russia, and was in fact banned there until after Stalin’s reign. Semyon, a young married, unemployed man is down in the dumps. Living in his mother in-law’s hallway, and suffering under her blatant distaste, he decides that his best option is to end it all. As word of his plan gets around, people from all over see in this act a way for them to express their grievances against the state, the church, the proletariat, the bourgeois, the Communists, etc.

Suddenly Semyon is famous and people are lining up and paying a fee, to Semyon’s unscrupulous neighbour Alexander, just to pitch their cause to him in hopes that his suicide note, now as eagerly awaited as the next Tolstoy or Dostoevsky novel. Semyon entertains them all, and as he does he begins to feel a pride and sense of worth he has never felt before. His wife decides to leave him over this daft plan, while his mother in-law starts to see an upside (widow’s fund and all).

I shan’t tell how it ends, but I think you can get a sense of the absurd farce that this is. It made me think of the anti-fascist piece Rhinoceros by Ianesco.

This was an amateur production, with design duties handled by final year students in theatre arts. They performed well for a small budget show, though my one big note on back stage duties would be that future such shows should include at least one make up artist. A big problem with amateur shows like this develops when each actor does their own make up, and what shows up on stage is a muddle to say the least.

So, the show? Well, it was a mixed bag. Moira Buffini’s adaptation was brilliant. The language was exceptional and her finessing of the vernacular was wonderful. She artfully made the plight of these post revolutionary Russians accessible to the British audience. Most skilful in carrying this lovely work to the stage was Daniel Kendrick as Semyon. His was an easy and friendly reading, and his performance was completely naturalistic, not an easy thing given the absurdist nature of the script. The only drawback to his skilled performance was how some of the lesser talents on stage paled next to him.

Emma Pilson, as Maria, Semyon’s long suffering wife, also turned in a stellar performance. Felcity McCormack tried her best to inhabit the role of Serafima, the mother in-law, but was defeated by her age and lack of appropriate make up. Matt Sutton (sorry, not sure on the name), an understudy, filled in for an injured Okorie Chukwu, in the role of Alexander. His performance drifted between brilliant and serviceable. I mention him in respect for the fact that he was stepping into a role for which he had less preparation than his cast mates.

All in all a great night at the theatre, all for £9 a ticket.

I must also mention the brilliant photo exhibition in the lobby spaces at Pleasance. It is collection of Jamie Gramston’s photos from the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2008. I was swept up in the manner Jamie found to bring us backstage and show us moments both intimate and public. His use of light and shadow was masterful for someone who did not control that lighting but had to work with what there was. I have made enquiries to acquire a few pieces in this series.

It is worthy of note that the series was made possible by the donation of a printer, inks and paper from Epson. Thanks to their generosity, proceeds from these sales will go towards the Charlie Hartill Special Reserve a fund supporting theatre education and performance.

So, hats off to Jamie Gramston, Pleasance Theatre and Epson for this wonderful exhibit.

London 2009 – Day 15 – Overheard

Overheard in London:

I dare anybody who is getting on the tube to talk to each other!

Man who was “in his cups” getting onto eastbound Victoria line at Kings Cross – St. Pancras station.

And then this:

It’s the first time I’ve got cast with my original accent.  I’ll have to remember how I talk!

Actor in lobby of Pleasance Theatre, North Road, wating for seating for Dying For It.

Ta!

London 2009 – Day 14 – A Little Tragedy After the Flood

A day of work today, work and writing, and then off to wander Southwark in search of interesting sights, some din-din and finally { EPIDEMIC }, an experimental theatre work at Southwark Playhouse.

After doing a few hours of work, and a couple of writing, I decided to head out early for my show in Southwark. I move tomorrow, from tony Fitzrovia to the more frugal climbs of Bloomsbury/St. Pans. I decided to take a walk to Kings Cross station by way of the new flat, so I could get an idea of what awaits me. It was a nice stroll over into an area, Bloomsbury, with which I am already familiar, having stayed there for a while back in 2000. The sights are mostly the same, just the works are different.

From Kings Cross I took the eastern branch of the Northern line down to Bank so that I could walk across London Bridge to the South Bank at Southwark (say “suth-ark”). After snapping a few photos of the Monument to the Great Fire of London

I took the walk and was prepared to find a right mess on the south bank, as there was a major water mains break early this morning, which lead to 1.5 metres of water in Tooley Street, right outside the London Bridge tube station, and caused hundreds of businesses, hotels and offices (including City Hall) to shut down.

London is currently pox marked with works involving replacing the Victorian era water mains (should sound familiar to Milwaukeans), and a break like this (the second in 3 months) really brings home the need for it.

As expected, Tooley Street, just east of the station, was closed to vehicular traffic, but the various agency seemed to be doing a bang up job of sorting it all. There were fire brigades from all over, Whitechaple, Kentish Town, etc. as well as Plastic Cops, the PCSO support corps., water works lorries, etc. Quite a scene.

Had a walk around and then settled for a dinner of penne carbonara not far from the action.

Back out to stroll around some more, wandered along the southern side of the train trestles to take some photos of the ornate, but sullied masonry. Along the way encountered Pierre Garroudi, a slender French designer who has honed his skills in Manhattan (I’m guessing Pratt) and Milan before settling in London. He introduced me to his cat (who has lived in all of those places with him) and his designs.

Check out today’s gallery for all the photos. “Are you an architect?” he asked, when he saw me photographing the masonry. “No, just an admirer” I told him. We had a nice chat.

The area along the southern bank of the Thames here is called MoreLondon and includes a number of very modern structures in the shadow of Tower Bridge. It is quite vibrant, as most of the old docklands are, and tonight was no exception. A lot of public art, and a lot of people admiring it. I took more photos of that.

Finally it was time to go to the playhouse to see {EPIDEMIC}, the show I had come for. The story behind how I came to be here is this: A week ago, as X and I were traveling down to South Bank for a show, we encountered a vivacious group of young Thespians on the train. They were quite animated and one girl, maybe 21, was asked by a nearby lad if she was Indian (she obviously was). She was quite a striking beauty, and coyly looked at the young man and without skipping a beat said “No, I’m white, I just tan easily. My name is Emily.” as though that name was enough to establish her racial identity.

natalie

In modern England the question of whether someone is Indian is foolish, to say the least. Indian, as well as Bangladeshi, Pakistani, Afghanistan people have lived here for generations. So, to be Indian here is to say third or forth generation Indian, and with intermarriage (which happens more often than you’d think) it all becomes meaningless fairly quickly. This young woman had the dark ruddy skin and Arian features which I happen to find quite lovely, but I was not the one pestering her, so let’s leave that out of it.

I was more interested in the large hand made drum which the quietest and shyest member of the troupe was carrying, or rather trying to carry. After helping her get settled into a seat so that her drum didn’t obstruct traffic, I inquired what the story was with the drum. She answered, in a accent I would later discover was Greek, and halting English, that they were all with a theatre troupe, and the drum was a vital prop.

ioli

I asked what show, and she said it was an experimental production at the Southwark Playhouse based upon Antigone which would be produced for one night only, May 14th. I went online the next day and got a ticket for the whopping sum of £3.

Life is short, and when you have an opportunity to see some truly new and different perspectives in theatre, I say go for it. Enough of my theatre career was spent producing just that kind of show, so I can truly appreciate it when I have a chance to see it.

The venue was the bar of the playhouse, which itself is under the bridges of the railway interchange at London Bridge Station. In the darkened caverns of space is carved out a little antechamber to the main theatre, and this is where the production would take place. By the time I arrived, almost an hour before the show, the box office was already turning interested parties away as they had a sellout show. Eventually the eager audience prevailed upon the box office workers to sell them SRO spots, so at the start of the show the place was packed. I had three people sitting on my feet for most of the performance.

While the audience milled about and got their drinks and seats sorted the cast started to coalesce in the centre of the bar room, performing stretching and limbering exercises (made my back hurt just watching).

warmup

Then, when the audience was all watered, the actors gelled into a cohesive mass and started the show.

There is nothing grand or unheard of to report about the show. It is an old tale, Antigone, but this was a vital and inventive telling. Props were spare, mostly just a large piece of orange-red fabric and a couple of puppets. Most of the creative work went into the movements of the cast and the turns on the traditional story. Our “Emily” from the tube, Natalie Naomi Bamunuwatte, was stellar as Antigone, Luke Harris shines as Creon and Konstantinos Kavakiotis triumphs as Haemon. Ioli Adreadi, the shy woman with the drum, played director cum ring-master to the cast of eight, and crafted a piece seemingly purpose built for the space.

natdown

natpuppet

That’s the trick, it wasn’t. {EPIDEMIC} are all about constant change within the company of actors and the spaces they inhabit. The cast of tonight’s one-off performance consisted of 4 veterans and 4 newcomers. They will perform, as well, in Athens. They previously performed, with different cast, at Edinburgh and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, both in 2008.

group

I felt honoured to have been amongst the 100 or so people to get to see them this time out.

London 2009 – Day 13 – The Frontline

Yesterday was a slow day by any measure. X left to return to the US and I took some time to relax, read, and generally just be lazy. I did sojourn down to Leicester Square to procure a ticket to see The Frontline , by Ché Walker, at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre down in Southwark, a recreation of original Globe Theatre, and a pretty good one at that.

Lucky for me I had a seat in dress circle (first balcony) and sheltered, as the Globe is open roofed, and the hoi polloi stand up in the courtyard and their only recourse in case of rain (like the light mist at curtain time) is rain coats or ponchos, anyone opening a bumbershoot will be roundly booed, or worse.

The plot of The Frontline is the life in the direct vicinity of an underground station somewhere in the East End of London:

There is an underground strip club; a couple of food vendors, one selling hot dogs and the other selling Korma, locked in friendly competition; a religious group; a handful of drugs dealers, and various other habitués of the area. We watch them all interact and most of the time the beautifully sculpted dialogue is taking place on two, three or four levels at once. A drug dealer is taunting his rival while a stripper is teasing her bouncer while a evangelist is converting a sinner while the hot dog vendor is berating the Afghani vendor. That we can make any sense out of this at all is testament to the skillful direction of Matthew Dunster and the cast’s remarkable sense of timing.

I loved this show. It handled many of the same issues that English People Very Nice did, but with more humour, grace and effect. It did not aspire to the full throated assault on English bigotry that show did, but it still handled the subject deftly, as in a scene in the first act where a black stripper and a white drugs kingpin get into a debate about British society and who has a right to claim priority.

A rolicking good night at the theatre, and a show I would love to see transition to film or video. One interesting thing overheard at interval; one usher to another “This one gent just left, said he was only two days off the plane from the States and couldn’t understand a word of it!”

While the promotional materials all warned about rough language and subject matter, none of them warned about the thick cockney accents and sometimes impenetrable language. But the script is so masterful, so well written, so peppered with intelligent, sophisticated, vocabulary stretching words and turns of phrase that Shakespeare’s own theatre was certainly a well deserved home for this production. Ché Walker has brilliantly earned the right to put his characters on Shakespeare’s stage.

London 2009 – Day 12 – Off West End Drama

Pawn had a business meeting today, which entailed remembering just what his business really is, after all, and much other preparation. X took advantage of this to laze about for once before heading off to the National Galleries for the Picasso retrospective there.

Pawn’s meeting went well, and dwelt on longer than expected, eating up the entire afternoon. Back home, then, to rendezvous with X and dinner, which consisted of some yummy broccoli and a chicken and asparagus pie, followed by biscuits and grapes. Then off to the Arcola Theatre production Monsters up at Arcola’s creatively green theatre in Hackney.

This show has generated it’s fair share of controversy in the press, for a variety of reasons. The basic idea of the show, by Swedish playwright Niklas RÃ¥dström (translated by Gabriella Berggren), is to examine the events which lead to the death of 2 year old James Bulger, in 1993, at the hands of a pair of 10 year old boys. How could this happen? How could so many people witness these events and not intervene? How could so many CCTV cameras record this, and nothing was done to stop it?

It is difficult subject matter, to be sure, and while I am not sure that the best approach was used in all instances I can attest that the show is masterful and quite effective in making the audience squirm and find defect in their own behaviour. I, for one, was made to think of how many times I may have been complicit, though my own lack of action, in crimes which while less heinous still crimes. The show opens with the four actors, two men and two women, asking a series of questions, almost as Greek chorus. These questions are academic, rhetorical, but probing:

I don’t know

I don’t know why you came here

I don’t know what you expect from a performance about two children who kill a third

I don’t know what you expect to hear

You probably want to know why

Why did that which soon will happen here already happen?

How could such a thing happen: children killing children, brutally, ruthlessly, planlessly destructively?

That situation must surely be so from anything I know that it would never happen anywhere near me.

Someone must tell me why, so that I need never think about it.

And on in that vein. The actors eventually break out of chorus and into a series of 33 scenes, punctuated by flashes of fluorescent lighting and loud bursts of static. There are video monitors suspended from the ceiling of the performance space, a space which itself is a rectangle deliniated by a thin line, and with seating on all sides. There are video cameras which the cast members periodically re-aim and refocus these cameras on other cast members, the audience, etc.

The action alternates between direct exposition on the sequence of events, reënactment of the police interviews, statements by the parents, and more of these probing questions. The actors take turns playing the roles of the 10 year olds, their parents, the police, the victim’s mother. All the while we see video from CNN, the BBC, films (Lord of the flies is prominent at one point) and other sources on the video screens.

Despite the frequent references in the script to “that which soon will happen here” or “that which has just happened here” there is no effort to actually reënact the crime itself, just the interogations. This leads to an oddity in the script, as throughout the show we are being questioned as to whether we would have gotten involved, should the authorities have done so, etc. At the end we are nearly chastised for not having done so:

CHORUS: How can any of the responsibility be ours?

We weren’t even there.

CHORUS LEADER: We are here.

It has also just happened right here.

CHORUS: This was just an enactment.

When it happened it was for real.

CHORUS LEADER: We are all guilty of what we did

or didn’t do.

Where there is evil

it thrives on indifference, contempt,

self complacency, arrogance…

Human beings kill other human beings

Children kill another child

The conclusion or moral to be found in this

cannot undo that it is, was and has been happening

CHORUS: Is, was, has been, happening

Is, was, has been, happening

CHORUS LEADER: And it has happened,

without any of us being able to prevent it

I’m not saying that makes us responsible for this

I’m saying it makes this part of our fate.

Had they in fact enacted the grisly event, no doubt there would have been no end of protest, but then to carry on as though we had just witnessed this even seems duplicitous.

No matter, I guess. The show, as I’ve stated, was powerful and effective. The use of the space and video and sound technologies was wonderful. The cast: Lucy Ellinson, Sandy Grierson, Jeremy Killick and Victoria Pratt were all brilliant.

All in all a good and effective piece of social criticism wrapped up into an impressive play. Oh, and this bears mentioning: The program for Monsters includes the full script (which explains, for those of you wondering, how I’ve been able to quote so extensively). For a play which aims to educate and inspire thoughtful reflection and discussion, this is a wonderful thing.

London 2009 – Day 13 – Cheese Toastie Memories

Hurtled back in time to his days as a young lad, learning at his father’s elbow, Pawn is given to reminiscences, all due to the power of a simple cheese toastie. J knows not what she has unleashed with her seemingly simple edict…

Eat a cheese toasty for me. I’m not kidding.
J, in a recent message

cheese-toastie-271x300

One finds, when traveling, that friends will often make seemingly simple, banal or odd requests. “Bring me back a…” [insert obscure object of desire here]. “You must take a picture of…” [insert obvious snapshot locale here]. “Please, oh please, you have to…” [insert impossibly touristy act here]. When J made her request, however, I was a little surprised, and immediately started a little trip down memory lane…

My father was sort of a stranger to us kids on most workdays, until well after dinner. He would be gone well before we were off to school; his presence in the breakfast kitchen mostly confined to making and decanting coffee with the seemingly ancient Melitta. The filters he would pull from a large square box, and carefully fold into quarters, then pop out, into a cone. I marvelled at the topographic implications of this act every time I saw it. He may butter our toast, or threaten to spread his marmalade on it (Yuck! To my young pallet) before applying a suitable slathering of jelly, for me, or jam for my elder sister.

But then he would be gone, and mom would step in to fill out the breakfast routine for the five of us kids, before sending us off to school. My friends, many of them at least, had the added rituals of bag lunches being prepared (before the school lunch program started, about the fifth grade for me) but we lived close enough to school that we were expected to make the trip home and back every lunch hour.

At night dad would get home in time for the evening news, and then it was supper time. My parents would eat in the dining room, where they would talk about their mutual scientific pursuits, what colleagues were up to, and various other impenetrable topics. When one of us children had done something particularly good, or excelled at school or chores, we would get to eat in the dining room, too, where we would try to act as though we understood what was being discussed (my big sister would no doubt claim otherwise), while the rest of the wolf pack ate in the kitchen. This separation of parents and children at dinner time, weekday dinner time, was a core dynamic in our household. It is a large part of what made a holiday dinner so different – it wasn’t just different dishes, or a fancier table cloth, it was our presence all at table together, which made for a holiday meal.

After dinner would come homework and projects and all those little pieces of busy-ness and work which make the life of a young and growing family tick. My father liked to make things from kits. He made our hi-fi, television, harpsichord, grandmother clock, etc. He would buy no end of tools and equipment and justify it by what he would save by hand-crafting our Christmas gifts (I still covet my younger brother’s red and black wooden steam roller). I would hang around and “help” dad with the kit projects. He was rigorous about following every step and instruction and it drove me batty, but to have the time with him made it worthwhile. Though, to be perfectly honest with you, I still, to this day, bridle at following instructions.

This came through in our other big projects, my model making and the train table. I got into making models – cars, planes, war machines, etc. – when I was quite young, and in my father’s eyes that meant that he had to help me. I couldn’t be expected to complete one of these things on my own, and I will grant that this was often borne out in fact when I tried. It was on one of these instances, when I had decided to make an aeroplane model by myself, that dad walked into the kitchen (almost all projects were assembled on the kitchen table, which necessitated that all washing up be completed first). When he saw what I was doing, and I remember this quite clearly to this day, he looked, for just a moment, crestfallen. He quickly regained composure, and asked me what I was up to, and I felt guilty, like I had betrayed him. I ended up asking him for his help, and after playing a little hard to get he eventually assumed his seat at table and got down to the hard work of fixing everything I had mucked up and then progressing, step by careful step, through the instructions. It was at times like this that he would then break the tension by uttering a single, simple term, his term of endearment for me. He would call me “Revere Ware,” or more typically “Copper Bottom.”

Dad was Cockney, and though little of his English heritage showed through (he was a dedicated assimilationist) but the Cockney have a grand tradition of rhyming slang; of constructing new terms through a process of rhyming and contrasting, recombining, etc. My nickname started with my given name, Nicholas. This sounded to dad like “Nickel Ass” which to his Cockney mind could easily be shifted to “Copper Bottom” which was what a Revere Ware pot had, so that’s how you get from Nicholas to Revere Ware.

The train table process was the same as the models. I would have been perfectly happy with a bunch of track and cars and rearranging it all every now and then; add some curves here and there, some switches, etc. Dad, however, took one look at the Kalambach train book I brought home one day, and all he saw was verisimilitude. Next thing I knew we were building a 4′ x 8′ train layout with realistic hills, streets, a pond and bridge, trestles, mines, etc. It was epic, and just never seemed to end. To be honest, it never really did. I lost interest after a few years, and then after dad passed away, when I was 13, nothing more happened with it. Much the same fate for the harpsichord.

Weekends, however, were a different story. On weekends dad would make us breakfast, and often make us lunch as well. He would eat dinner in the kitchen with us, “Eating with the animals,” as he would put it. He had only a fairly limited repertoire of dishes. He could make all sorts of holiday treats: puddings and cookies and bars and such. Or jams and marmalades, etc. But breakfast? That would be soft boiled eggs and soldiers, pancakes or waffles (alternating Sundays). Lunch? The casual sandwich, of course, and then my favourite: grilled cheese. Out would come the griddle, an open and close affair with reversible griddle plates, one side for pancakes and the other for waffles.

A proper grilled cheese, or cheese toastie, starts with some soft bread, butter (though dad used margarine, may he rest in peace) and cheese. Dad would use cheddar or Colby. My more adult tastes have drifted to combinations like Gruyère with white cheddar. You start by buttering one side of each slice of bread, these will be the sides against the griddle plates. You place the first slice butter-side up on the cutting board, and then the next slice butter-side down on top of that. Then, on top of each of these little stacks, you place the sliced cheese. I think that it is better to use more thin slices than fewer thick ones, but your mileage may vary.

Anyway, enough of recipes. Dad’s great contribution to modern sandwich making was the day that he brought his natural gifts of Cockney lateral thinking to the business of sandwich making. We had had a breakfast of waffles that Sunday morning, and for whatever reason – the washing up hadn’t been done or he just had an intuitive flash – whatever it was, the result was that he decided to make the usual cheese toasties with the waffle side of the griddles rather than the flat side. Thus was born the wafflewich and sandwich history would never be the same again.

I have loved and enjoyed the wafflewich ever since that pivotal day, and it has been important to my life. The first meal I made for my prospective wife was wafflewiches (“What wine should I bring?” she asked. I wasn’t quite sure how to answer.) and I have served them to friends at parties and sporting events.

So, to dad, a toast to the humble cheese toastie. I may venture into any number of restaurants, pubs or food stands here in London, but nowhere will I find anything as good as dad made that one Sunday so long ago, when he used the wrong side of the griddle and made one giant step for cheese toastie kind.

[Editor’s note: Pay no attention to the modern poseurs who would have you believe that a wafflewich is a sandwich made with two waffles, rather than bread.  The original and only true wafflewich is made only as described herein.]