Men of the World

Men of the World, Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds, 2002

Cast: Dicken Ashworth, Robert Angell, Sarah Parks

Writer & Director: John Godber

More Hull Truck. This seems to be about a coach holiday but beyond that I have no idea at all.

An Inspector Calls

An Inspector Calls, Norwich Theatre Royal, 2005 

Cast: Nicholas Day, Sandra Duncan, David Roper, Timothy Watson, Katherine Tozer, Jamie de Courcey, Diana Payne Myers.

Writer: J B Priestley

Director: Stephen Daldry.

The play test for this is currently in my unread book pile, bought after seeing The Mousetrap and seeing the similarities between them. I know feel quite an idiot for seeing this only once despite having more changes to do so in the meantime. I seem to remember a house on the stage and the walls collapsing to reveal the set but that feels a bit spectacular for a touring production. There's some notes in the programme from Tony Benn MP about the political context of the play, which is something you don't get often.

Stepping Out

Stepping Out, Cambridge Arts Theatre, 2005

Cast: Patsy Palmer, Norma Atallah, Nicky Callahan, Suzie Chard, Yvonne Edgell, Chrissie Furness, Sarah Haynes, Yvonne Newman, Matthew Phillips, Sara Weymouth.

Writer: Richard Harris

Director: Martin Connor

For about fourteen years I did a tap class where I was the only man in a group of woman so this play, about the same thing, is just my cup of tea. There's a film of it of course starring Liza Minelli and Julie Walters but this was I think the first, and so far only, chance I've had to see it on stage. Another production was announced more recently but got cancelled. Surely there are enough people who've done Strictly... to make this viable again? It's very much on my want to see again list.

Dusty

Dusty, Cambridge Arts Theatre, 2000

Cast: Mari Wilson, Chrissie Cotterill, David Streames, Susannah Bray, Jayne Nesbitt, Tim Clarke, Gordon Kenney, Robert Rawles, Debbie Paul, Elizabeth Hill, Alison Burrows, Claire Bryan, Brian Douglas.

Writer: Paul Prescott

Director: Bob Thomson

I have absolutely no recollection of this at all. I'm not surprised it exists because she had an interesting life and of course the songs are great. But I don't suppose they're the kind of songs that will ever make a Mamma Mia type show. Interestingly there's a couple of pages in the programme about her life written by Neil Tennant of Pet Shop Boys, but if it hadn't said so I'd have never guessed - he writes about her work with them in the third person and there's no personal memories of her in it so it could almost have been written by anyone. I wonder if Mari Wilson, whose early career owed a lot to Dusty, was any good?

September in the Rain

September in the Rain, King's Lynn Arts Centre, 1995

Cast: Andrew Bennett, Barbara Darnley

Writer: John Godber

Director: Zoe Seaton

The Hull Truck theatre company were a really big deal in the nineties. They always seemed to have a play on tour somewhere near me, often written by John Godber who is probably most famous for Bouncers. His stuff could be formulaic but it was a formula that worked. Inside the cover is a list of all the dates this played which numbers nearly sixty venues. Nobody tours that much now. Nobody could afford to and probably some of those venues don't exist any more. And that's a real shame. There are pictures of Blackpool in the programme so I'm guessing the couple on the cover go there for a holiday and it probably isn't as nice as they'd hope (as you'd imagine in September).

Southwark Fair

Southwark Fair, National Theatre, 2006

Cast: Margaret Tyzack, Rory Kinnear, Michael Legge, Rhashan Stone, Simon Gleeson, Con O'Neill, Madelaine Potter

Writer: Samuel Adamson

Director: Nicholas Hytner

I wonder what interested me enough to go and see this? The writer certainly hadn't done anything I'd have known so I guess there were interesting reviews. I think it was the first time I went to the small space at the National Theatre (then called the Cottesloe, now the Dorfman) and I would like to go back to it more often. I remember nothing about the plot but for some reason always remember that Con O'Neill is in it. Turns out it was also my second time of seeing Margaret Tyzack and yet another for Rory Kinnear (plenty more of him to come).

That Day we Sang

That Day we Sang, Manchester Opera House, 2011

Cast: Rachel Bingham, Andy Brady, Lorraine Bruce, Raif Clarke, Ruth Carr, Jemma Drake, Vincent Franklin, Dale Gerrard, Gerard Horan, Ian Marr, Tim Morgan, Alison Pargeter, Jenna Russell, Martin Savage.

Writer & director: Victoria Wood

Musical director: Nigel Lilley

This was the reason for my only overnight stay in Manchester, by coincidence staying in a hotel that had been made from the building where the events in this play took place. It was part of the Manchester International Festival which does really interesting things but wants to mix the local in with the international. I don't remember much about the production although I remember the plot as Victoria Wood later made it into a TV drama (with Imelda Staunton and Michael Ball). It's never been revived.

The musical director gets a mention because I grew up in the road behind the one my family home was in (where my Mum still lives). He was a bit younger than me so I didn't know him but I certainly knew his family: his parents were big in the local AmDram, and his Dad owned a music shop in a nearby town. He worked with Victoria so much that there's a picture of him in the recent biography of her, and since then he's done Sondheim. I strongly suspect I wasn't the only gay in the village.