I went to the theatre AGAIN last night. Twice in a week. My yearly quota eaten up, I don’t have to go again til next July. Not that I mind the theatre (very gracious of me, I know, right?) but I find it far harder to ‘engage’ with than movies, which remain my medium of choice by some way. And a shit film wastes 12 quid each whereas shit theatre has pissed away the month’s petrol money (for those cruel and destructive people who still do such things!!!!) and half the food budget too.

But you see we’ve found a ‘source’, possibly a ‘resource’ which sells tickets cheaply. You’ve probably been using them for a decade, but I never said I was ‘switched on’. And so we returned to the Hampstead Theatre, which is of the ‘fringe’ variety, cos who wants to go into town? And you can park, walk and support the community, giving yourself a big, smug, moral pat on the back for being such a stalwart patron of the arts, even though you got the tickets through a dodgy trader for a tenner each. Though it was ‘downstairs’!!!!

The main Hampstead Theatre is… well… upstairs. And rather lovely, big but not west end massive, and quite charming. ‘Downstairs’ is none of them. Though I like it because its such an informal space. Even though, of the 2 actors, one was… A Redgrave!!! A real one. Gemma. Fucking royalteeeeee.

The play was called ‘Octopolis’ and it was a cross between a lecture in anthropology and a David Bowie retrospective. About an octopus. You know, usual kind’a play.

And I’d love to say it was ‘brilliant!!!’ and ‘heart-stopping’, but it really wasn’t. Nor was it terrible. But it was basically a philosophical debate between a professor of biological science and Dr of anthropology as to whether an octopus (called Frances) could believe in God, interspersed with some really fab David Bowie tracks when the protagonists stopped arguing/debating long enough to dance before the rowing started up again. So it was clever. Possibly a touch too technically too clever in its debate, and you learned a lot about everyone’s favourite (edible) cephalopod.

If the measure of a play’s brilliance is its ability to keep my wife and I awake, then this scored 6 out of 10. But we were awake for some of it, so it wasn’t a total disaster.

And as a once in a lifetime (I sincerely hope) offer: in light of events in Israel and particularly the ambivalence of reporting, my lovely son-in-law was inspired to ‘come out’ publicly on his LinkedIn page. And did so with such heart-felt emotion and honesty that I thought it might make a great contrast to the usual trite and juvenile sarcastic bollocks of the usual offerings. Just click here to see it. It is quite wonderful.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx