We had glorious weather in Stratford-upon-Avon for the Shakespeare Birthday weekend and I completed the half-marathon race in just over two hours — three minutes faster than Meg Dobson, press officer at the Orange Three in Richmond, but twenty minutes slower than my friend and neighbour Neil Cameron, who finished in a personal best time of one hour, 47 minutes.

A crowd of us congregated on the terrace of the Dirty Duck to compare notes. Sam Jackson, the manager of the pub, completed the course in two hours, 22 minutes, an amazing achievement for someone who has battled cancer and obesity and also raised hundreds of pounds for his cancer ward in Warwick General Hospital. 

Michael Billington and his wife were chilling out after church with Nicolas Walsh, chairman of the birthday celebrations committee, and Liz Flower, scion of the great local brewing family who more or less founded the Royal Shakespeare Company.

The whole place was the most wonderful melee of runners, actors, tourists and locals. We met a man who was over seventy who’d run the race in one hour, 36 minutes! Then Neil and I tootled off to see the Cobbe portrait in the Shakespeare Birthplace. It is a marvellous painting, but there is no shred of convincing evidence to suggest that it either is or isn’t the Bard.

A strong case is made for the dating of the tree rings on the wood of the painting, but as Neil — a trained microbiologist and canny television producer — pointed out, you can’t prove anything about the tree rings unless you have the original tree.
 
I bumped into Professor Stanley Wells en route to the theatre on Saturday evening. He’s feeling a bit sore after the mauling from Roy Strong over the identification of the portrait sitter but as he is quick to emphasise, he is making no conclusive claims for the portrait, only suggesting a possibility after what amounts to three years’ extensive research.

His colleague  Paul Edmondson tells me he has taken up running, too, so we make a date for next year’s race on the spot. Paul and Stanley are taking tea in the Shakespeare Hotel with Michael Wood, the television historian and RSC governor, a necessary break between the birthday lunch and the birthday performance of As You Like It.

Neil and I have already encountered Donald Sinden on the street, magnificent in his morning dress, who is retiring for a siesta after regaling the lunch guests with an unstoppable stream of anecdotes; and Geoffrey Freshwater, who is playing Corin the shepherd in tonight’s performance. He tells us to watch out for the skinning of a rabbit, a task he discharges expertly at the start of the second act; it’s almost the highlight of Michael Boyd’s production.

Our base for the weekend is the Swan’s Nest, very convenient for the race and newly refurbished, with a good looking new brasserie. The idea that you can’t get a decent meal in Stratford has taken a bit of knock lately, and our Saturday night “training” dinner in a packed out Lamb’s in Sheep Street is really delicious.

After a Sunday teatime visit to Pam Harris, Sam’s predecessor at the Duck, and a beagle, true bred, who’s making a fine recovery after illness, we head home on the M40, flushed with satisfaction and happy memories.

Even the Rotary Club medals all competitors received were worth the trip, a handsome medallion with a Bardic portrait design (not based on the Cobbe) and the motto “To Run…or Not to Run…” It’s not a question for me. I’m already as good as registered for next year’s jamboree.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 27th, 2009 at 8:55 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.