The Metro seems to have stopped its listings: I wonder why. I must write a stiff letter to the editor; give them a piece of my mind. The Metro listings made my theatre visits a bit of a lottery. They didn't print them every day; they didn't even print them on a regular day. And when they did print them, they didn't always include fringe theatre. So when they did appear, I had to click smartly into gear and make a quick decision, usually on pretty sparse evidence. Which made it all quite exciting.
Now I have to rely on mailings and searching web sites. It's all much more premeditated, and not nearly as much fun. And it means I'm much less likely to find out about someplace new. Which explains yet another visit to the Southwark Playhouse. The Southwark Playhouse is really getting quite smart. It will get 'lovey' soon, then I will have to find somewhere else.
I'm up in town regularly on Thursdays, so it's not much of a journey either. I get on a 521 at Holborn, and it bended its way to London Bridge entirely uneventfully. (But my trip to Soho (don't ask!) on Friday went some way to redress the balance: I was saved from the dread clutches of the TfL Planner by, of all things, a bus driver. It told me to go to bus stop RA, and there get the 19 to Chinatown. I have now learned to pay close attention to the Planner, and note carefully the street name of the mounting stop, and the bus name of the dismounting stop. If the stop hasn't been vandalised, and the bus announcing system is still functioning, I can now contain my fear of London buses. However: when I got to stop RA, it had a sign on it saying "This stop is not in use". Why didn't the Planner know that? I noticed that there was no-one else at the stop, so perhaps it was just sending me there. I was bitching about the Planner, and wondering which direction might have the nearest stop when a 19 appeared: AND STOPPED. The driver clearly had something against the Planner; a result! There was more to come: when we got to Cambridge Circus, some security van had stopped in the road works leaving just not enough space for a bendy bus. So we sat and blocked Cambridge Circus while the security driver walked back and forth to the bank delivering boxes. I could hardly hear myself think for the noise of car horns. I fully expected to see the security man attacked, not for the money, but for his manners.)
Anyway, having got that off my chest, here we are back at the Southwark Playhouse. Where they made a point of giving me the free program (free programs are rare). When I got settled down in the bar with a beer, I found a small post-it note in the program, inviting me to enjoy a pizza later. I realised some putative love affair in the box office might be about to flounder, so, naturally, I took it back and told them about it. The seemed a bit non-plussed, but a chap has to do his duty. When I got back to my beer, I noticed everyone else who was reading the program had also got a post-it! Oh well: turned out to be a significant plot device in the play. In fact, my misunderstanding of it was just right, as it turned out. Before it even started, I had enjoyed a bit of the play
It was quite an unusual play, structurally. It was a bit difficult to start with, but once we got the hang of it, it worked very well. The way I saw it, it was really just a film script, including sound track, which they just ran through in front of us. So there were times when we weren't clear what the scenery currently looked like, and who was actually visible. But the story was so simple and touching that it didn't matter.
A very enjoyable evening.
And, of course, one of the true delights of the Southwark Playhouse is that I can get back to my local in good time for few beers. This play ran for just over an hour, with no interval, so I got back in time for too many beers.
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