"Frost/Nixon"

This new play by Peter Morgan opened at the Donmar on Monday and I was privileged to see it on the Thursday matinee. It was a privilege because the play was riveting and the two hours without an interval literally flew by.

I had gone to see the play for the most trivial reasons. It was showing at my favourite London theatre and it coincided with a family visit to London, where I was cast adrift for the afternoon. The idea of a docu-drama has never really appealed and yet I have seen some stunning examples of the genre, "Conspiracy" for example, but these have been usually TV or film vehicles. A stage play, concerned with a television event in which the over-rated David Frost (my own opinion) interviewed the fallen President, Richard Nixon, did not offer me the most appetising of theatrical fare.

The set was extremely sparse dominated by a huge bank of TV sets on the back wall. We meet Richard Nixon (Frank Langella) and his retinue led by Jack Brennan (an impressive performance by Corey Johnson). We are introduced to characters and events by the narration of Elliott Cowan, who plays Jim Reston, a liberal opponent of the Nixon legacy which severely mauled the American system of democracy. This is a clever touch by playwright, Peter Morgan, as the audience (or at least me, but I don't think I was alone) having lived through the Nixon era feel our sympathies totally on the side of Reston and thoroughly antagonistic towards the ex President.

Frank Langella has a tough job. Nixon is an iconic figure with his jowly features (and a permanant five o'clock shadow?) and sheen of perspiration. Langella doesn't go for impersonation and correctly. He succeeds in making us realise the complex nature of both Nixon himself and the reasons for his downfall. We are also given an insight into life for the dethroned President after Watergate.

Enter David Frost as embodied by Michael Sheen. This is an instantly recognisable portrayal at least to a British audience but the economy with which the characterisation is established is brilliant. The vainglorious Frost, a television superhero, had been affronted by the failure of his talk show to take off in America when it wasn't accepted for syndication. The rankling this caused in Frost made him pursue beyond reason and beyond his means the setting up of a series of interviews with the wily and unrepentant NIxon.

Jack Brennan, Nixon's chief of staff, likens the encounters to an ambitious contender working for months to get into the ring with the champion. Once in the ring, the contender realises he has bitten off more than he can chew, and why the champion is the champion.

This sense of a heavy weight contest is admirably caught by Peter Morgan's script and at the end of the play I found myself cheering - not only the play, the cast, but, dare I say it, democracy.

Sheen and Langella give two stunning performances and I would heartily recommend this piece of thought provoking theatrical fare.

Making contacts

Yesterday's post was intended to tell you about the villa where we stayed for a fortnight in Italy and how we got there. Hence the title of yesterday's post, which had nothing to do with the content. I was distracted when thinking about the flight into talking about my fear of heights. I will return to the subject of flying on another occasion.

Today is my wedding anniversary. I have been married to Ingrid, my best beloved, for 31 years. We exchanged cards, which, coincidentally and quite by chance, were illustrated by big cats. In my case because I spent yesterday afternoon at Marwell Zoological Park photographing a lovely female Snow Leopard. My class this term are called the Snow Leopards and we will spend the first week finding out about ourselves and the creature whose name we bear. I bought a stuffed version of the snow leopard to go on display in the classroom. I also bought a card showing two leopards in close up and in close contact entitled "love and affection". I thought it highly suitable and as usual did my own verbose message inside:

My old friend,
There's sometin' I must let you know
I haven't said it much
I guess I've lost my touch
But, my old girl, I love you so
No I know it hasn't all been rosy
We've had squabblin'days when tears were brought about
But in a moment or two we would bill and coo
And never even knew
What we fought about

(Damn Yankees: Goodbye, Old Girl)

This quote is from one of my favourite songs which I hope will form part of my funeral service. I don't think I am being doleful but Brian (my son - in - law's step grandad) passed away on Monday. He was a tall quiet gentleman who I really only got to know over the last few years as part of the new extended family you become part of when your child marries. He was very kind and generous to my daughter, which earned him a special part in my heart.

Besides the card, I bought an external hard drive for my wife's home computer. I know! I know! It doesn't sound very romantic but we had tears last term when work she had composed disappeared off into the ether, never to return. I vowed then that I would increase her memory capacity and get her to save her material more frequently.

As for the rest of the day, I have been researching and starting to write applications for my next big adventure. When I retire at Christmas, I hope to be able to get some film or TV extra work at least occasionally. However I like to do things properly so I have been reading as much material about the job and its outlooks as possible. I have selected four agencies to write to with my application and CV. They all want some photographs so I am working out how to do that with a photographer friend.

One of the items I read was about the wearing of spectacles. Apparently this can be quite limiting on a film set as audiences tend to spot them more clearly than the unadorned human face of an extra. Impulsively (I have been thinking about it for some considerable time now however) I made an appointment and went off to see the optician about contact lenses this very afternoon. To my utter amazement, after the customary check up, I was presented with a pair of practice lenses to try out there and then. The technique for putting the lenses in took me a little while to master but I did succeed without too much fuss or difficulty. I enjoyed the fact that I could see. I had discussed my requirements with the optician, i.e. that I needed to see distance as that is where the assistant director will be operating from behind the camera but that reading could be done by using reading glasses. The optician did describe a situation where you could have a distance lens in your dominant eye and a reading lens in the weaker one. Appparently the brain will sort it out as and when needed, but it sounded too odd to me so I went for the simpler option. When I was then told that I could keep the lenses in and drive home I was flabbergasted. It all just seemed too easy! In the end, I took them out (which seems the more difficult manouevre of the two) while I was in the consulting room. I now have a practice pair until my new ones arrive through the post. The speed of the whole transaction fair took my breath away! (I was going to say "eye-opener" but I thought that would occasion a groan!)

Tomorrow I am off to London with daughters and wife to look at wedding dresses for younger daughter who is getting married in summer 2007. I will travel up with them but will go and see "Frost/Nixon" at my favourite theatre, the Donmar. After the matinee we will meet up for an anniversary meal before catching the train back.

Le Gughe

I am afraid of heights.

Once I had no fear of heights. I walked the parapets of Salisbury Cathedral, I strode across mountainsides like the proverbial goat and I shinned up lighting towers with nary a thought of what disasters could and might befall me (the emphasis being on the "fall" part there).

This all changed one day when I decided I would drive through the Pyrennees to Spain. We were on one of those camping holidays I may have mentioned in previous posts. Wife, two daughters and myself were camped in the western Pyrennees. Opposite our tent were camped a number of Spanish families and the idea crept into my head that we were so near Spain that we could easily cross the frontier from where we were. Even now, the stupidity of what I did next still scares me.

I decided to drive over the mountains and didn't even consider the use of the coastal approach. I looked at the map and the road was certainly serpentine but there wasn't much chance of taking the wrong turning. In those far off days, I didn't really go in for altitude readings or contours. We set off early in the morning in our family saloon, which may have been a Nissan in those days. A great deal of detail has been removed by the terror which was to overcome me later in the day.

I did the driving as I was wont to do at the time, Ingrid was relieved of her usual navigation duties in the front passenger seat and the two girls hunkered down in the back seats. I loved the early stages and the ascent was exciting. The mountain sides soared above us on the left and going up we had to drive on the right of course and the driver's position is on the right of the car. (I had to stop while writing there to lay down on the floor and take deep steadying breaths) I got wonderful views of the valleys below unobscured by the tiny stone walls built along the edge of the roads. Occasionally we would pass through tunnels or stone arches. There was one point at which I delightedly pointed out to the girls a shepherd perched on the stone wall with his goats on the other side away from the road. They were remarkably unimpressed as children often are in the back of the car which seems to have been going nowhere for hours.

It may have been at this point, though I can no longer be sure, that the icicles of doubt began entering my mind. I was beginning to tire of the strain of keeping the car on the road. Too many of the bends to the left had nothing but blue sky in front of them and I began to slow down more and more as I approached them. The sections with right bends showed the road ahead clinging to the mountain. (I have just had to wipe the palms of my hands as they have become very sweaty). There were occasional panoramic viewpoints with minimal parking space but I slowly realised that I couldn't stop but had to keep going until I got to the top of the mountain or at least the pass or col before going down the other side. What if the other side was an exact copy of this side? The car was now unhappy at the low gears continually being selected and I began to wonder if I had spent enough time and attention on its mechanical upkeep - especially the tyres, the brakes, the gear box.....

How long this continued I don't know but it seemed like the proverbial lifetime! My wife became aware of my distress but there was nothing she could do. The drivers behind became impatient as you can imagine. Finally the col was in sight and there was just one stretch of road to complete before we could reach the buildings whose roofs we could see. There was now no mountain side on our left but a small alpine rise and a small steeply inclined alpine meadow to our right before you came to the precipitous drop down to France many, many metres below. Imagine the desperation as I neared the sanctuary.... only to see a herd of long horned cattle wander off the alpine rise to the left on to and into the road where they stopped. Despite the parping of car horns the creatures with their own horns refused to budge. At one stage I actually got out of my car to scream at them in anger, frustration and fear. This seemed to amuse the drivers coming down the mountain from the other side and the ones now lined up behind me. They gestured that I should get back in my car and drive slowly at the cows. I did and had to edge my car around a large steer as a car from the other side edged towards my side of the road. I do not know how I managed to get past the cow as my wheels touched the very edge of the meadow to our right and even now my mind refuses to return the memory from the unconscious to the conscious. I only know that we succeeded in reaching the car park outside the chalet, which offered refreshments, in the col. The col was about the size of a football pitch with building, car park and alpine meadow complete with cows and horses. The road we had just come up was now out of sight around bend to our right if we looked back and the road ahead was round another bend to our right. The view was stunning! I parked the car, stepped outside and literally threw myself to the ground. I lay on the ground because I knew that if I stood up I would make it easier for the overwhelming urge to throw myself over the nearest edge, that was pulsating through me, to take over. That urge to jump has remained with me in high places ever since.

Ingrid had to drive down the other side of the mountain and that is when we discovered her ears have problems with high altitudes. She is subjected to lots of pain. But she drove down the mountain - on the more alpine side admittedly. I have since learned that mountains are like that - a sheer drop side and an alpine side. Meanwhile I cowered and whimpered in the passenger seat. Going down the mountain the right hand drive car has the driver next to the rocks on the mountain side and the passenger has the other side of the road before the drop. I think that is what probably kept me sane enough to descend - otherwise I may still have been up that mountain. Eventually as we descended we came to a junction where we would have to ascend some more if we were to make Spain or descend to the Valleys of France and return at almost sea level if by a more circuitous route back to our campsite. My fear and Ingrid's eardrums and the unpleasantness of the experience at the top of the mountain made the decision easy to make. We returned to the tent but I was a changed man.

Ever since I have had this fear of high places.

Recreation

So, loyal and patient reader, I am returned from my foreign sojourn refreshed, relaxed and recreated.
I spent two weeks in a villa in Italy with nine other people. It was a refreshing experience and I did relax, which is something I don't find easy. I also recreated in that I knew a great deal more about myself when I came back than when I went away.
The villa was Le Gughe, a few kilometres away from Palombara Sabina in the Sabine Mountains. This is only a half hour commuter train ride to the east of Rome itself. The villa was set in gorgeous grounds with gazebo and pool and depp shady terraces. Three bedrooms were part of the main house and Ingrid and I had one of those and the other two were occupied by our friends, the Penroses and the Woodwards. We were the "grown ups"! The "children", our two daughters and their partners, were our neighbours in the gatehouse, a short walk away across a lawn and the driveway. Most luncheons and evening meals, if people were on site, were spent on the enormous terrace of the gatehouse as they also had the kitchen. There was a small kitchenette available to the grown ups but was only really suitable for those early morning cups of tea followed by the breakfast coffee. Breakfast was usually the three "grown up" couples sitting on the small terrace accessed directly from our three bedrooms.
The holiday idea was inititated by Jacquie, who is a remarkably bright and energetic person, who not only comes up with bright ideas but carries them through as well. She is also half Italian and is a fluent speaker of the language. Her passion and enthusiasm made the holiday happen and made it so successful. The idea had come as a result of one of our trips up to London to see a show and the children had come to see the show with us. (Probably the show had been a musical and the girls ahd seen the show with us while the two "boys" went off to see another show before rejoining us). As is quite usual with us, all ten of us took ourselves off for an evening meal at Da Mario's, an Italian restaurant discovered by David and Jacquie, before catching a late train out of Waterloo. During the meal we discussed the possibility of the Corrigans, Penroses and Woodwards hiring a villa together and it was Jacquie who then said why don't we ask everybody sat around the table if they wanted to come as well. I expected there would be lots of reasons put forward as to why it wouldn't be possible. We are a very close knit family and our daughters were subjected to family camping holidays in France perhaps a little longer after their sell by date (the holidays not the daughter), i.e. their mid teens (that is the daughters though might also apply to the number of holidays. Help! I am lost in my own rhetoric!) than was comfortable for all concerned. We were delighted therefore when the idea was unanimously agreed to and the summer of 2006 was the anointed time. It has been a long time coming and the anticipation has mounted steadily ever since the idea was broached over the pasta course in Da Mario's.

Vacation Time

I was really worried that I had forgotten how to gain access to my blog as it is so long since I published a post.

It took me a while to remember my password but finally here I am back in print.

I had a lovely time acting in "Art". The cast was great and the director sublime. The support backstage was excellent and Ruth was a marvellous dresser.

Audience figures weren't great but that could be accounted for by the heatwave. In a couple of the performances I truly felt I was going to expire in a flood of my own perspiration.

I remembered all my lines during most of the performances with one or two minor glitches and that felt like a real achievement, especially as the play coincided with the end of term.

Term has been finished for about two weeks now but I have been in school for seven of the working days preparing my classroom and planning for my final term as a teacher before retiring at Christmas. Today is day ten but I am not going into school as I am preparing to fly off to Itally for a fortnight and boy am I looking forward to it! So, arrivederci, for now, most patient and loyal of readers and bene venuto Roma.