The Norman Conquests

As regular readers will know, I spent the past weekend down in London for a weekend built around The Norman Conquests at the Old Vic.

I got down there on Friday morning and met up with my friend Tish Potter for a chat / coffee / hot chococlate / Danish pastry at Carluccio's in St Pancras. We were then joined by another of my friends, Lotty.

Tish headed off and Lotty and I headed to the Thames in search of a beach. For those unfamiliar with the South Bank, there is actually a small, sandy beach just down river from the London Eye. It's underwater much of the time, thanks to the Thames being a tidal river, but it does attract people to it's unlikely sandiness on sunny days. However, most of the time it's just visited by detritus, such as that we found - a rake, a plant pot, a toy dinosaur valiantly trying to claw its way up the beach to escape the rising waters.

After that we went to my hotel so I could check in and dump my ridiculously heavy rucksack, then went to the Old Vic for a quick drink before Lotty took off. I wandered around for a while and killed time before heading back the Old Vic to meet another friend, Doug. We drank fruity alcoholic drinks in the Pit Bar then went to Paradiso for dinner. Somehow, we then ended up in a flat in Brixton with a few people Doug knows and some others neither of us you. We all trudged off to a pub called the White Horse which was noisy and had about forty people waiting to be served and two bar staff. Not feeling the evening, I just had the one drink then caught a cab back to the hotel.

The next morning I was up early and off to do some quick shopping in the West End, before heading back to the hotel and then to the Old Vic for the first play, Table Manners at 11am. I was sat in just the best seat on the front row of the stalls, quite literally in touching distance of the actors from time to time. I was to be sat next to a charming retired couple from Edinburgh for the day, who are Alan Ayckbourn fans and travel around the country watching his plays.

Some back story. The Norman Conquests are a trilogy of plays by Ayckbourn, first performed in 1973. They features the same cast, characters and location and take place simultaneously, but in different areas of a house. People walk out of a room in one play, and into another room in another. Each plays can be viewed as a standalone, or you can see one or both of the others to build up a bigger picture of the whole and how the events in each interconnect. The plays are performed in-the-round, meaning that the stage is a circle in the middle of the theatre, surrounded with seating, as opposed to the Old Vic's usual, traditional, proscineum arch configuration.

The cast for this revival was made up of Stephen Mangan, Jessica Hynes, Amelia Bullmore, Ben Miles, Paul Ritter and Amanda Root. It's all directed by Matthew Warchus, who last 'appeared' at the Old Vic earlier this year directing Kevin Spacey, Jeff Goldblum and Laura Michelle Kelly in the awesome Speed-The-Plow (which, incidentally, they're planning to take round the world).

So, the first play was Table Manners and it was terrific. Very, very funny and it zips by. The male cast in particular stand out. Stephen Mangan as the uncontrolled, uncontrollable, lothario Norman who spends the trilogy working his way through the female characters, Paul Ritter as the henpecked husband who finally snaps in an electric argument with his wife (Amanda Root) and Tom, the hapless neighbour in love with Annie (Jessica Hynes) but suffering from an almost paralytic inability to take action. My closeness to the stage was illustrated when at one point, Amelia Bullmore as Norman's wife Sarah, in a rage, flings a bowl of soup from the table, giving someone along the row from me a small, unwanted shower.

One play down and I was back off to the West End for another quick bit of shopping, which included picking up the first five seasons of Peep Show from Zavvi for £19.99 and Zombie Strippers, starring Robert Englund and Jenna Jameson. Back to drop them at the hotel, a sandwich and a quick dash to the theatre just in time for the next play. It was during this time I managed to injure my foot with all the rushing about in not entirely comfortale shoes. I'm still limping now :(

The second plays was Living Together, in which the action shifts from the kitchen to the living room. Again, Stephen Mangan in fantastic, getting gloriously drunk and frolicking on the rug. The biggest laugh goes to Paul Ritter's Reg for his great, physical tirade against the illogicality of chess.

Two down and it was a walk down the river to Tate Modern for the Rothko exhibition...


Rothko is one my favourite artists, one of my big three including Jackson Pollock and Cy Twombly (who was also the subject of an impressive recent retrospective at Tate Modern). This exhibition of Rothko's later work is stunning, powerful and surprisingly moving and I can't recommend it enough to anyone with an interest in modern art. The Seagram murals in particular, in all their glory, are an elemental, defiant presence. No other works at Tate come close.

I purchased two heavy Rothko books from the shop and, having some time to kill, took a slow walk back up the Thames to drop them at my hotel (Premier Inn, County Hall), partly because it was a pleasant evening to take take in the atmosphere, partly because my foot was killing me so I couldn't walk much faster anyway!

Onto the final leg (and foot) as I hobbled back to the theatre for the final play, Round and Round the Garden (set in the garden, unsurprisingly). I didn't think this one was quite as good as the other two, mainly due to some Chekovian longuers, but it was still very good and Stephen Mangan had the audience in stitches once again. Another example of how close I was to the stage, there's a scene in which four of the characters are playing a ball game. At one point, Reg has to fumble a catch and he does so but the ball escapes the stage and hits me on the foot, sending Paul Ritter into a scramble.

After the play finished (with a much deserved standing ovation for the day as a whole), I got up to leave and someone fell behind me, up on the gallery. There was a little panic and staff running about. I hung around a while chatting to a girl I met but whoever fell didn't get up before I left. I rang Rejane at the Old Vic yesterday and she said that an ambulance was called and the man walked to it himself, so I guess he's OK.

Overall, I found The Norman Conquests to be a wonderful, exhilarating, theatrical experience. The in-the-round format really makes you feel part of the action and creates a strong sense of shared experience with the actors on the stage. For the first time, I think I prefer theatre to film and I never thought I would say that. Happily, I can confirm that the next two plays at the Old Vic will be using the same in-the-round format, though I'm sworn to secrecy as to what those plays are. All will be revealed later this week.

After that last play, it was back to the hotel - via Burger King - and some phonecalls before going to bed. Got up the next morning, skipped breakfast and headed to St Pancras for the train home. All in all, a great weekend and I've never been happier to be a patron of the Old Vic.