It’s Oh So Quiet

Breathe through the heats of our desire
Thy coolness and thy balm;
Let sense be dumb, let flesh retire;
Speak through the earthquake, wind, and fire
O still small voice of calm.

It’s summer, so there’s no Sunday School at my church at the moment. There is, however, a ‘children’s corner’ where they can sit and play. In a somewhat despairing manner I ask: whose bright idea was it to provide a toy gun that makes a loud grinding, rattling noise every time the trigger is pulled? In fact, whose bright idea was it to provide a toy gun of any description, to be honest? I’m aware that I might sound like a grumpy old moo, but one of the things that I go to Church for is to gain some peace and equilibrium. Being shot at by small children doesn’t really cut it from that point of view.

I was discussing this subject with my mother recently. I think it’s great that children come to Church, really I do; but is it too much to ask that their parents explain to them what it’s actually all about and that they should take a little time to listen peacefully? I started at a Church of England boarding school when I was just coming up 9. There were girls there as young as 6 – not all that many, but there were some – and the oldest girls were 12. Anyway, we had chapel every Sunday, which was taken by the Headmaster, a lay preacher, and we all managed to sit quietly, so why can’t the children who come to Church with their parents manage it? And why can’t the parents of these children exercise some control over their offspring? Ignoring them isn’t going to make them go away, y’know.

My grandmother was an advocate of the adage ‘children should be seen and not heard’ when we were small. We soon learnt that to gain her approval we needed to be quiet in her presence – we could run around and shout later on when we got home. We still enjoyed spending time with her and we still had fun, it was just in a different way. To me, it seems that the children that go to my church could do with learning a similar lesson – there is a time and a place for everything and Church is the place to regain the balance and calm that is so often lost in our increasingly noisy and busy world.

The Boy Friend

On a sultry summer’s evening in London, what could be better than going to the Open Air Theatre in Regent’s Park to watch The Boy Friend? Maybe going to Regents’ Park Open Air Theatre to watch The Boy Friend, preceded by jugs of Pimms and catching up with one’s father. Hurrah! Wednesday night was a winner on all counts then.

Dad phoned on Tuesday afternoon to say that he had a meeting on Thursday, so why didn’t he come up on Wednesday night and we could go to the theatre – how about Guys and Dolls? Fine, said I. Wednesday morning dawned as hot as ever, so Dad phoned again to say that he couldn’t bear to sit in a stuffy West-End Theatre (seriously, Andy and Cameron, aircon would be a great idea in this weather) so why didn’t we head over to Regent’s Park? The show is unashamed silly fluff, but sitting outside would be far more pleasant than sweltering inside. Great idea! said I. Of course, as he was paying for the tickets, I wasn’t really going to put up too much resistance, but it sounded like a top plan anyway. The only slight drawback was that every time Dad and I have gone to watch shows at Regent’s Park in the past it’s absolutely bucketed it down with rain and the performances have been cancelled by the time we get to the interval. Ah well – looking on the bright side, a bit of rain would probably have done London good, so we decided to tempt fate.

What a great show! Yes, the content is as light as marshmallow, but in this heat I certainly wasn’t interested in having to think too hard. The choreography was great, the costumes delightfully over the top and there were some fantastic performances as well, notably from Summer Strallen as Maisie Merryweather. Definite shades of Bonnie Langford there, but that suited the role down to the ground. In fact, all of Mme Dubonnet’s ‘Young Ladies’ gave great performances, particularly in their ensemble work. Their timing was spot on and they were silly and giggly without being grating. Wonderful stuff – I highly recommend it.

Hatching, Matching and Dispatching

On Saturday it was my grandfather’s memorial service, at which I was doing a reading – the description of the cricket match in chapter 7 of The Pickwick Papers. When he was imprisoned by the Japanese in WWII he kept a diary, written around the edges of a book in tiny, tiny writing. In this diary, he listed some of the books he really enjoyed reading and Pickwick Papers was one of them. He was also a very good cricketer, so the reading seemed apt. It certainly went down well with the assembled family and friends – the quantities of whom never ceases to amaze me. They all know exactly who I am, but I haven’t a clue who they are. Ah well – ’twas ever so with families.As a thanksgiving service, it wasn’t an overtly sad occasion, although it was moving and my granny was, understandably, upset. She was very pleased with the service though – it really was lovely and I hope, wherever he was watching from, that he approved.

Following the service I headed straight off to my best friend’s hen weekend in Suffolk. I had thought I wouldn’t be able to make it, due to the difficulties of getting from Dorset to Suffolk via public transport, however my second cousin Will (well, I did say I have a ridiculously large extended family!) fortuitously turns out to live about 10 miles away from Ali, so I hitched a lift with him. It was good to spend some time with him – I haven’t seen much of him for probably the last 15 years, so there was plenty to catch up on!

When I arrived at Ali’s house for the hen, everyone was WAY too sober. They’d been punting in Cambridge during the day but there had definitely not been enough alcohol consumed. Kim had an excuse, due to being pregnant, but the rest of them were just being lax. I soon put an end to that situation by mixing cocktails (well, chucking most of the contents of the alcohol cabinet into a jug with a bit of fruit juice) and initiating some party games, in which we discovered some fascinating titbits of information. I could tell you – but then I’d have to kill you; and, of course, what goes on the hen stays on the hen. I just hope Ali manages to keep Nick away from her digital camera. I think he’d be so excited by those particular photos that he might explode *ahem*.

A poker game was started at about 2.30am. Luckily we weren’t playing for money, as I’d be broke as well as knackered if we had been. Gossip was the major currency of the game – and it kept the hardcore few going until 5am. Sarah disappeared at one point and never reappeared – when she came down for breakfast the next morning still wearing her party dress we discovered that she’d gone upstairs for a cardigan and just passed out. Good girl!

When Ali and I finally retired (the boys were very excited to find out the next day that we’d shared a bed) we then carried on talking until probably 6am. I haven’t had a night like that in way too long – in fact I think the last one was probably Liz’s hen night 2 years ago. When did we all get so grown up?

Mood: Nostalgic
Currently playing: ‘I Wish I Could Go Back to College’ from Avenue Q

When I Grow Up

I long to be elegant, but it’s one state that I don’t think I will ever attain. I can do well-dressed and fashionable if needs be, but elegant has always been a tad beyond me.  There’s a certain je ne sais quoi about some people that marks them out as being that little bit more striking than us mere mortals.  It’s not necessarily beauty – Leslie Caron, for instance, is not beautiful, but she most certainly is elegant. Nor is it the actual clothes that they wear – my friend Liz manages to look elegant even in cropped trousers and a teeshirt, damn her!  It’s something about the way they hold themselves, the way they move, the way they wear clothes.  Being slim helps, as does being tall, but neither of these are enough if you don’t have that certain something else.  That indefinable aura.

I do wonder if elegance is a slightly old-fashioned trait.  I don’t mean old-fashioned in a derogatory way, but I really can’t think of many modern women in the public eye who are elegant in the same way that, say, Audrey Hepburn or Grace Kelly were.  Modern clothes don’t really lend themselves to it, to be honest.  Catherine Zeta Jones is probably the closest we have to a modern day elegance, and her style owes much to the 40s, with perfectly waved Veronica Lake-style hair and classically cut dresses.  However, when I searched for her on google images I found many, many photos of her looking utterly dreadful and very far from elegant, so I have dismissed her arbitrarily.  Sorry, Cath – them’s the breaks.

One day I hope to discover the secret of true elegance, and when I do I plan to bottle it and keep it close to my heart.

One day…

Brand Snobbery

For the past month I have been blind-trialling a new foaming moisturiser. I was reading Vogue the month before last and was sucked in by the promise of a free goodie-bag and the possibility of my words of wisdom *ahem* appearing in said glossy magazine, so decided to give it a go. I sent in my details and promptly forgot that I’d done so until the package arrived a few weeks later; however having just run out of moisturiser it arrived at a very opportune moment and I decided to give it a go.

I must say that I was pleasantly surprised by it – it comes in a pump applicator like the ones that styling mousse come in, and my skin really did look and feel better after the first week. I was given a diary to fill in, crammed with leading questions which clearly indicated to me that this was a product for *coughs* older skin. Not that wrinkles are generally my problem – spots have been much more of an issue recently, which is depressing when you’re nearly 30, but I digress. Still, it seemed to be doing good things so I carried on with the trial, always spurred on by the thought of getting my goodie bag at the end of the trial, and hoping that it might be a Clarins or Estee Lauder product.

Imagine my disappointment, therefore, when the freebies arrived this morning and they turned out to be Olay products. Imagine also my utter horror when I read in the letter that the new moisturiser will retail at £24.99. Twenty-four bloody ninety-nine?! It’s a nice moisturiser, but, to be frank, there’s no way I’m paying that much for Olay. Clarins, yes, but Olay? Olay still has connotations of grandmothers for me, no matter how much they try to rebrand it with funky packaging.

It would appear that I really am a brand snob. If anyone needs me I will be partaking of retail therapy at Chloé and Christian Louboutin and having an Elizabeth Arden facial before drowning my sorrows in Bombay Sapphire.

“I woke up only slightly shocked that I’d defrocked a priest.”

A few weeks ago I went to see Avenue Q (fab – go see) at the newly renamed Noel Coward Theatre (previously The Albery) with my friend Alex. Alex is, like me, a jobbing actor but she very generously bought my ticket with the proviso that I give her a singing lesson in preparation for an audition which she has coming up. In our usual happy fashion we forgot to organise this until she phoned me the day before yesterday in a right flap, because it’s in 10 days’ time and she had no idea what she was going to sing – panic!

So last night she came around and we spent the evening going through songbooks. This was great fun – it’s been a while since I really went through a lot of my music. I have a few favourite songs that I tend to wheel out for auditions but have got a bit lazy in terms of learning new stuff. (I could do with getting myself along to a singing teacher every once in a while for a kick up the arse so if anyone knows a good one in London then let me know – however, I digress….)

We eventually decided she should sing You Can Always Count on Me, a song from City of Angels by Cy Coleman (click here for links to song samples). This brought back lots of memories for me – it was one of my standards at drama school, and I performed it at pretty much all of our first year presentations. Unfortunately the powers that be decided that I shouldn’t sing it at our final graduation showcase and it was given to another girl, while I sang Only He from Starlight Express, which really doesn’t do me many favours at all vocally. The jazzy style of You Can Always… suits my voice much better, as does the character – a cynical secretary, unlucky in love; as opposed to a starry-eyed singing railway carriage – er, yes, moving on…

City of Angels is a fantastic show, and I only wish that I’d had the chance to see it on stage. It’s set in 1940s LA, in the world of gumshoe detectives and seedy movie directors. The premise is that a struggling writer, Stine, is writing a film script centred around an ex-cop, Stone, who is looking into the disappearance of Malory, a poor little rich girl. We therefore have a play within a play situation and can see both stories unfolding throughout the show. Cleverly, all of the actors, apart from the ones playing Stine and Stone, double to play their alter egos in real-world versus film world. To prevent confusion, the show is colour-coded, with the film characters being in black and white. At the end of the show the two worlds merge, when Stone steps out of the film into the real world and confronts his writer, Stine. Sounds complicated when written like that, but the book is great and the music and songs are wonderful – one day I’d love to put it on, but it’s far from cheap to do, due to the complex sets and costumes, so I think I might have to find myself a millionaire sponsor first!

Alex is coming round again next week so that we can work on the song further once she’s had a chance to look through the music and learn it properly. She’s not a confident singer, but she’s one heck of an actress and it will be really interesting to see where she takes it. Despite me being theoretically the teacher, it’s going to be a learning experience for me too, as I try to look at the song from another point of view: I’m thoroughly looking forward to it.

My Mate Sondheim

Ladies and Gentlemen, let me present two strange bedfellows:

1 Stephen Sondheim
2 Marmite

On first glance these two appear to have nothing in common. However, I would argue that they’re surprisingly similar, in that you either love ‘em or you hate ‘em. There is no in between. Now, I happen to love Marmite, but I’m afraid I just can’t stomach Sondheim. I’ve tried, believe me – I have many friends who are Sondheim fanatics and they’re constantly trying to convert me, but they’ve all failed. I find him dull musically and a bore lyrically. I’m not interested in how many words you can cram into one bar of music, nor how many clever synonyms you can use in one phrase, Steve – what’s wrong with writing a damn good tune and some truthful words that strike a chord in your audience’s hearts and minds?

I went to see Sunday in the Park with George at Wyndhams last night and I was really hoping that this might be the breakthrough show that proved my dislike wrong. It’s had fantastic reviews and I’m a fan of Daniel Evans, who plays George, so the stage was set for a good evening. In many ways, it was a very good evening – there were excellent performances from the entire cast, the show had been thoughtfully and humourously directed, the story is great and there were the most amazing special effects. Unfortunately, however, none of these points were enough to get over the sheer boredom of Sondheim’s knowing erudition. There’s very little I dislike more than someone trying to prove how much cleverer they are than everyone else, and unfortunately that’s what I feel Sondheim is doing with his writing.

I think I shall stick to just spreading my Marmite on toast in future.