Summer is officially here not only when the Open Air Theatre and the Globe open their doors, but when the First test Match is underway at Lord’s Cricket Ground in St John’s Wood. Within a day of spending an interval at the Barbican with artistic director Graham Sheffield, I was chatting again to him by the main gates of Lord’s at tea-time yesterday. Resplendent in his MCC member’s yellow and red striped tie, complete with brown leisure wear and picnic hamper, Graham, a lifelong cricket nut, was explainig to me how he’d ruined his own lunch by breaking his wine glass before consuming his bottle of claret. At that very moment, a silver Jaguar purred past us onto the street: it was Mick Jagger, also leaving for the day as bad light had interrupted play.

Jagger’s enthusiasm for cricket is nothing unusual in showbusiness: Tim Rice has indeed been President of the MCC and runs his own cricket team, as does Harold Pinter. Samuel Beckett loved cricket. So do David Hare, Howard Brenton, Simon Gray, Sam Mendes (a cricket blue at Cambridge), Brian Rix and Michael Billington (another MCC member). So did Peggy Ashcroft and Harold Hobson. The trouble with cricket is that it’s either in your bones or not. Like music, really. I once stayed up all night explaining the rules to the American playwright Michael Weller as I was taking him as my guest to a Test Match the next day. It was like unravelling a ball of wool, or painting the Forth Bridge: you never finish.

Yesterday, I watched four hours play from the balcony of a high rise luxury apartment behind the ground’s old pavilion. It is owned by my friend the agent Susan Angel — her grandfather, Vivian van Damm, owned and managed the Windmill Theatre and was played by Bob Hoskins in the film Mrs Henderson Presents. We were joined by that marvellous actor Oscar James, BBC contracts manager Maggie Anson and casting director Emma Style, resplendent as ever in beautiful shoes. We saluted the first day’s play and two hours of sunshine with champagne and smoked salmon bagels. Bliss. Just as we surveyed the gathering clouds, a maroon limo bearing the royal ensign drove smoothly into the alley behind the pavilion: Her Majesty the Queen and Prince Philip had arrived! They sat patiently in their seats waiting for play to resume, but they had to leave, like myself and Mick Jagger, before it did so.

Never mind, the cricket season was well and truly launched. And we, if not Graham Sheffield, were well and truly lunched. And Richard Stilgoe was there, too. Almost my favourite Harold Pinter anecdote is the one about his short poem in praise of the legendary Yorkshire and England opening batsman Leonard Hutton: “I saw Len Hutton in his prime; another time, another time.” That’s it. Pinter sent it off to all his friends and was annoyed after several weeks that Simon Gray hadn’t come back to him. Pinter rang him gruffly and said: “Simon, did you get my poem?” “Yes, thank you, Harold.” “Well, what did you think of it?” “Er, terribly sorry, Harold, I haven’t finished reading it yet…”

This entry was posted on Friday, May 18th, 2007 at 9:26 am and is filed under Michael Coveney. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.