Sunny Theatre Days
In this fine spell of early summer weather in London one hopes a sunny thing will happen on the way to the theatre, and I can offer a few hints from my experience over the past few days. The refurbished Young Vic has an upstairs bar with a terrace looking out over the Cut, and the night-time buzz of the place is pleasantly leavened in daylight by a mixed crowd enjoying drinks, snacks and noisy conversation against the constant ambient sound of the music (you know the kind of music I mean: sounds like Shirley Bassey warming up to sing Goldfinger but never quite making it). I sat outside with Tanya Ronder who has adapted Venon God Little for director Rufus Norris and we nibbled olives and sipped cold beers in the sun. The Cut really is a “happening” boulevard at the moment, with pubs and restaurants filled to overflowing, the lights of the resurgent Old Vic twinkling fifty yards away.
Even more delightful is the terrace out back of the Riverside Studios in Hammersmith, where I stoked up before the visiting Corn Exchange’s Dublin by Lamplight. The food is very good at Riverside; it has to be, director William Burdett-Coutts tells me, otherwise he wouldn’t be sitting there eating it. He was sharing a table with Liz Smith, queen publicity bee of the Scottish theatre, thankfully returning to Assembly Rooms duty at this year’s Edinburgh Festival, and actress Catherine Cusack, last seen as a fine Sonia in Uncle Vanya at Wilton’s Music Hall, who lives nearby. My third “summery” pre-show recommendation is the Princes Head pub on Richmond Green, where I enjoyed a terrific home-coooked hamburger and a glass of Chilean merlot before catching Stephen Tompkinson in Charley’s Aunt at the theatre (one of my London favourites) next door. You can sit outside at the pub, but most inside tables also have great views of the green and that scenic holiday atmosphere I always find in this quartier. Charley’s Aunt itself, directed by Mel Smith, was a bit of a dog’s dinner — none of the characters was quite sure which social class he or she was supposed to belong to; the manservant is as dodgy in this respect as Sir Francis Chesney, the retired Indian army officer — but Tompkinson is brilliant as Lord Fancourt Babberley, kicking up his heels in a Whistler’s Mother costume as Charley’s Aunt from Brazil — “where the nuts come from.” Happy sunny theatre-going: with shorts and sunglasses at the ready, roll on the opening of the Globe and Regent’s Park seasons!