Curtain Raiser

Today

On Thursday, Paul & I went to the Theatre Royal, Bath to see a performance of "Entertaining Angels", starring Penelope Keith. It was an excellent performance of a play with just the right combination of humour, suspense and passion.

We love going to the theatre and, as part of our retirement plan, have joined the associates of the Theatre Royal in Bath.

This gives us advance booking rights, free programmes and access to an exclusive lounge bar, the 1805 rooms. So, when the prospectus arrives, we're inclined to buy ticket for most things, and take a chance on their being some good.

So, I slept through the first act of Habeus Corpus (easy to catch up with the action in the 2nd half), was enthralled by the Rambert Dance Company and enchanted by Cole Porter's Anything Goes.

In My Day

Early memories of theatre-going are more centred round the opera. When the Carl Rosa Opera company came to the Streatham Hill Theatre, Daddy bought a whole batch of tickets. The theatre was so close to us and, being south of the river, tickets were cheap. So, by the age of 10, I'd seen La Boheme and Aida certainly. We regularly used to go to see the D'Oyley Carte Gilbert & Sullivan operettas and I remember at a relatively early age seeing Tannhauser, Die Meistersingers, Rosenkavalier and Hansel & Gretel, either at Covent Garden or Sadlers Wells.

My experience was further broadened when I became friendly, at the age of about 14, with a girl at school who had an absolute theatre passion Her name was Jill Strudwick and we used to save up our paper round pocket money to travel to the West End for Saturday matinees. We saw "Oliver", "Stop the World I want to Get Off", "The Sound of Music", and many more musicals. Perhaps it was that that has made me, unlike my siblings, so fond of Cole Porter, Gershwin etc. Jill developed crushes on various actors and was one of those people that knew all the details of their lives. (She probably now adores Hello! magazine.)

My love of drama really took off when I was doing A-levels and, later, theatre design. Living in London was like being in a vast drama treasure box and students were treated very well. My friends and I queued at the Old Vic for standing only tickets and in that way saw most of the National Theatre productions (Uncle Vanya, Hedda Gabler, Hamlet, all the classics) for a tiny price.

More adventurous was the Alwych Theatre. My brother David and I joined the RSC youth association and got concessionary tickets to all their productions. And we used to go to the World Theatre festival. With the aid of instantaneous translation headphones we experienced: "The Insect Play" in Polish, Pirandelli in Italian, a Russian dramatisation of "Crime & Punishment" (put me off actually reading the book) and saw Japanese Noh and Kabuki theatre.

At the more raw end, we used to go to the Vanbrugh Theatre to see RADA productions.

I find it hard to keep away from the theatre and marvel that it's outside the experience of so many people.