So, two recent visits to the Barbican Theatre, handy for Whitecross Street market, to see King Henry IV Part I, a play to which I am attracted in part for its having been a favourite with my father. Both matinées - and I puzzle now why we use a French word for morning for a theatrical performance in the afternoon, by definition no longer the morning or forenoon. Google not very helpful on the point and the usually helpful OED neither - beyond the observation that Catholic clergy often say Matins, properly said at dawn, on the more convenient afternoon before, so giving us an improbably relevant afternoon connection.
Breaking my usual chronological convention, I shall deal with the visits in this post and the performances in the next.
So, on visit one, I particularly noticed a careful and colourful graffiti executed on a building site hoarding on Wyke Road, visible from the train when standing on the northbound & northmost platform at Raynes Park. I wondered whether there was a convention amongst graffit artists that one did not deface the quality creations of others, at least while they were fresh and new. But a convention perhaps not much observed by the more pikey end of the fraternity. That being as it may, this one, on this day, was still pristine and was not without merit.
From where, by some invisible chain of association, I got to wondering about the confession of state secrets to a priest. How was the conflict between the seal of state and the seal of the confessional resolved? Does the confessional of the Catholic Church, that is to say not the church established by the state, have some special standing in the eyes of the law? If the state got to know about the confession, what then? If someone tells me something which I know to be a state secret which he or she should not have told me, is there some theoretical duty to report the matter to the police? Or to Special Branch?
On which note I arrived at Waterloo, from whence I Bullingdon'd from Waterloo Station 1 to Roscoe Street, the only point of note on the journey being a rather dodgy right turn into Golden Lane. Just the one Bullingdon on the stand at Roscoe Street when I arrived. Whitecross Street market busy, as was the Market Café, to the point of being full apart from a group of tables pushed together, decorated and reserved for a dozen or so. Not the sort of thing one expects in a café where the main business was various forms of fry-up. For example, Special 1 through to Special 8. Perhaps the owner has ambitions to match the bottles of wine stored above the counter. The two slender & distinctive waitresses, probably from somewhere in eastern Europe (the owner of the café, I think, being Turkish rather than European), replaced by one, possibly one of the original two, but I was not sure. Bacon sandwich spot on. Outside, in the busy street food scene, a noticeable number of small & cheerful Chinese ladies dispensing their grub. Ladies who managed to strike a nice note of cheerfulness & politeness without being in the least servile or otherwise irritating. Walnut man present (see reference 1), with his lorry, but I desisted on the grounds that walnuts in the theatre might be a bag too far. Possibly a mistake, as walnuts turned out to be missing thereafter.
As it turned out, I was allowed in the auditorium with jacket, helmet and bag despite the warning about enhanced security. An auditorium which seemed remarkably smart for its fifty or so years and which I did not remember at all. It must have been many years since I was there - as one might think one would remember the unusual arrangement of a separate entries to each of the rows of stalls, one on each side, arranged down two flights of stairs from the foyer.
Stalls about three quarters full, giving the lie to the Barbican booking system which claimed to be more or less sold out. Maybe they dish out blocks of seats to resellers, which they cannot easily recall when unsold. My neighbour was a chap who lived in a village near Aberystwyth, a village which had recently become home to a dozen refugees from Syria; refugees who were very grateful and who had promised to learn Welsh, still quite widely spoken in the area. I was able to reminisce about my time with the Outward Bound, just up the river at Aberdovey. His plot was Shakespeare on day 1, Travelodge at Kew (he had not realised how far out Kew was), then Goya on day 2. Maybe something in the university at Aberystwyth but I did not get around to asking. Maybe a timely reminder for me to go to the Goya.
After the show, Bullingdon'd back from the Barbican Centre, the stand right outside the entrance, to Waterloo Bridge, South Bank. Dark and wet but I managed not to get lost on a slightly unfamiliar route down to Blackfriars Bridge. Nor to run into one of the many pedestrians popping up all over the place. In their defence, I imagine that Bullingdons, nipping in and around the motor traffic, are not, despite their flashing lights, that visible in the press of the traffic, in the dark, in the rain.
On visit two, Bullingdon'd from Waterloo Station 3 (confusingly, the first of the three stands one comes to when exiting Waterloo Station by the taxi stand) to Roscoe Street. Honked at the turn into Golden Lane, not altogether unreasonably. Market a bit quieter than on the last visit, walnut man missing, the café a bit fuller and no more slender & distinctive waitresses. I got an older lady who might have been the proprietor's wife, all smiles, but with a limited command of English which resulted in my bacon sandwich turning up on regular rather than crusty bread. A disaster which was compounded by overcooked bacon. But I let them off this once as they were very busy - to the point where the proprietor had to turn out a couple of lads, perhaps sons or nephews, to make way for me. Some of their space being taken by a couple of holy rollers, one fat and rather ugly, one thin and rather delicate looking. Possibly once good looking but ravaged by care, nerves or something. Kind and decent people, but probably hard work in larger doses.
Security kerfuffle at the Barbican where they would not let me into the auditorium with the same baggage as last time. Strict enforcement of the new one item of luggage rule with my cycle helmet counting as an item. For some reason I don't quite understand, I got rather angry, almost to the point of rudeness - which didn't do a lot of good as I still had to troll off to the left luggage. And it took quite a few minutes for me to calm down, I suspect yet another effect of getting older. What on earth will I be like in ten year's time?
Stalls about three quarters full again. Lady to the left with part of her family, all geared up for the second half later in the day. She also told of a version of Henry IV staffed up by ladies and set in a ladies' prison at the Donmar Warehouse. I wonder if I would have tried to go, had I heard about it at the time? Lady to the right from Australia, all geared up for lots of shows while she was in town, including the second half later in the day. She explained that Sydney, while not bad from a culture point of view, was not a patch on London or New York, both of which places she appeared to visit on a regular basis. While Canberra sounded about the same as Ottawa; good facilities but a bit weak on content.
On this occasion, tube back to Tooting after the show to try for walnuts in the indoor market there. This was a complete failure, so I consoled myself in Wetherspoons. No aeroplanes at Earlsfield, but I did meet a chap in a wheelchair who had been to the Eastman Dental Clinic (where my father did some or all of his training) to see about his wisdom tooth, now scheduled for removal. As well as being chair bound, he had some kind of a speech difficulty, which last did not, as it happened, get very much in the way and we had quite a good chat. A salutary reminder that people in chairs vary as much as people who stand up - and they must get a bit tired of all being lumped together. As it happened, he was also a beneficiary of the sort of (more or less) independent living mentioned at reference 2.
PS: I have only just noticed, while snipping from Street View, that the Market Café, is actually the Market Restaurant. Has it always been so? Or did I assume, without looking, that it was the Market Café on the basis of the menu? Clearly not a reliable witness.
Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/portuguese-connection.html.
Reference 2: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/independent-living.html.
Reference 3: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=finest+five+year+old+whisky for the last visit. There have been others, perhaps before blog life. The DVD at http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/chimes-at-midnight.html only scores half a point.
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