Good spirits

On Saturday afternoon to 'Blithe Spirit', not the first time we have seen the play but the first recorded. This one from the Torch Theatre Company of Sutton, an amateur group of long standing, while I had thought it was to be from a semi-professional group from Kerry. Which is now something of a puzzle as while I can find a thriving theatre company with this name in Milford Haven (reference 1), not a flicker from the other island. This torch has a more modest google presence, but they do appear to have made it to Bradford at some point, or at least to the Telegraph & Argus of the town of that name. It also has the nerve to have a producer whose surname, Voller, is only one letter removed from my own.

Given in the Myers Studio rather than the Playhouse proper for some reason, a smallish space which they managed to fill on this Saturday afternoon, mainly with pensioners like ourselves but with a sprinkling of people of working age. Rather a jolly atmosphere, rather village hall, the down side being the very hard seats. I shall take a cushion if we ever grace the place again.

Set and costumes spot on. Ladies all good, leading gent. not so good. He had the right sort of languid presence, but he could not do the lines. Sometimes they came out in a tired monotone and he missed nearly all the one liners. Perhaps they need a professional, with a better sense of pace and timing. But we did get the sense that Elvira, done up as a plumpish, pretty blonde, had great fun bounding around in her nightie and plenty of make-up. Maid, medium and wife all good too.

I was quite surprised at the amount of prompting that was needed, perhaps made more conspicuous by the prompter sitting with us, albeit far right.

Out to take dinner at the nearby ASK, a dinner which was well served by a cheerful crew, all from east of Lyon, say spread out on a line from Wroclaw to Trincomalee. The young man who mostly served us was as keen as mustard, working twelve hours a day, seven days a week against his forthcoming marriage in the spring. In the meantime he did gym four days a week, Remembering my own gap year, I warned him of the dangers of glandular fever, in my case brought on by a couple of months of such a working regime. Along the way he said that the Epsom ASK was doing very well and he knew all about its turnover & the way that the turnover was sensitive to events in the world outside. One suspected that he might get on in the world.

All in all a very jolly meal at a very reasonable price. Good décor and atmosphere, busy without being crowded. Not so many small children as to irritate rather than amuse.

A place which was once a NatWest bank and after that 'The Old Bank', a place we sometimes used to use on Friday evenings, before moving on to eat elsewhere. They used to have loud music later on and the drill was that when it was time for us old-uns to go, they used to turn the music up. Worked every time. A place from which I could, on one occasion, have abstracted Morley's three volume biography of Gladstone, parked on a dark shelf somewhere at the back, but didn't. I think I subsequently borrowed the work from what used to be the fine library at the Treasury, shortly before it (the library that is) was auctioned off. The olden days when lots of big businesses had good libraries with professional librarians.

From where I associate to the fine but ancient library at the Royal Astronomical Society, in Burlington House. What on earth can you do with such places, now that the world has moved on? Should such famed societies flog off their heritage for filthy lucre?

Reference 1: http://www.torchtheatre.co.uk.