roundhouse to soho
I made a north London sandwich of one of the most depressing plays ever seen last night, when I caught the opening of Aalst at the Soho Theatre inbetween welcoming my friend Pam Brighton on a flying visit from Belfast. Theatre director Pam — she was a fixture at the Royal Court in the early 1970s, then worked in televesion and radio before starting the Dubbeljoint touring company and directing an early version of Stones in His Pockets (she subsequently lost a court case claiming rights in the play when it became a smash hit) — is in town to start work on a new book, join a fortieth anniversary of the student sit-in at the London School of Economics and catch a few shows. Her first was A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Roundhouse, where we were due to meet before I went off to Aalst, but the plane was delayed and we didn’t catch up until I had endured Aalst and hopped on a 24 bus back up to the Roundhouse (I also had time to catch Chelsea’s last two goals against West Ham in a pub on the Chalk Farm Road).
Roger Chapman, one of the Dream’s co-producers and an old friend of Pam, was on hand to usher me in for the last magical ten minutes, which washed away my Aalst-induced depression. The theatre was packed, the applause rapturous, the foyer buzzing with rich arts lovers (Joyce Hytner, Ann Stanton, Alan Yentob, you get the picture) who were attending a Dash Arts (director Tim Supple’s producting company) function in the theatre cafe. Pam and I high-tailed it across the road to Marine Ices. This is our territory. Pam’s fantastic production of Barry Reckord’s Skyvers had transferred to the Roundhouse from the Theatre Upstairs in 1971 and I was a student stage manager on the show. We go back a long way! And we were well on our way there by the time we hit the ice-cream emporium for our pizza and pasta. At the next table we found Declan Donnellan and Nick Ormerod of Cheek by Jowl, winding down after a dinner meeting with their choreographer Jayne Gibson. I love Nick’s chosen form of greeting as he tries to remember what I last said about the Cheekies in print: “Hello, Michael; let me see, are we talking to you or not at the moment?”