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| Sam Shepard and the 30-year drama of my buried memories Sam Shepard and the 30-year drama of my buried memories | |
| (about 2 hours later) | |
| I don’t get to the theatre as often as I’d like; I go about as often as my wife would like – although she would say she goes about as often as I’d like, and rather more than she would like. | I don’t get to the theatre as often as I’d like; I go about as often as my wife would like – although she would say she goes about as often as I’d like, and rather more than she would like. |
| It didn’t take much persuading, however, to get her to come to the new West End production of Buried Child, starring Ed Harris, at Trafalgar Studios. I was able to offer firsthand assurance of the quality of Sam Shepard’s Pulitzer-winning play. “I’ve seen it before,” I told her. “It’s amazing.” | It didn’t take much persuading, however, to get her to come to the new West End production of Buried Child, starring Ed Harris, at Trafalgar Studios. I was able to offer firsthand assurance of the quality of Sam Shepard’s Pulitzer-winning play. “I’ve seen it before,” I told her. “It’s amazing.” |
| I like going to see plays I’ve seen before. It suits my notion of myself as a regular theatregoer and all-round cultured person. Often the second time adds an enriching layer of meaning. Sometimes it’s the first time I figure out what’s going on. But my wife does not have to know that. | I like going to see plays I’ve seen before. It suits my notion of myself as a regular theatregoer and all-round cultured person. Often the second time adds an enriching layer of meaning. Sometimes it’s the first time I figure out what’s going on. But my wife does not have to know that. |
| “What’s it about?” she asks as we take our seats. “It’s hard to describe,” I say. “It’s about the failure of the American dream, in part.” I don’t want to risk any more, because Ed Harris is sitting on stage, in character, as he has been since the house opened. I’m not that close, but I don’t know what his hearing is like. I’m sure I will have recovered the gist of Buried Child by the time we reach the interval. | “What’s it about?” she asks as we take our seats. “It’s hard to describe,” I say. “It’s about the failure of the American dream, in part.” I don’t want to risk any more, because Ed Harris is sitting on stage, in character, as he has been since the house opened. I’m not that close, but I don’t know what his hearing is like. I’m sure I will have recovered the gist of Buried Child by the time we reach the interval. |
| It’s an excellent production. Harris is fantastic, and Charlotte Hope makes an assured West End debut, but one thing is abundantly clear by the start of the third act: I have never seen Buried Child by Sam Shepard. Nor have I read it, or parts of it, as I briefly convinced myself I had between the two intervals. Not one line is familiar. Scene by scene, my false memory of Buried Child is dismantled and replaced by the actual play. | It’s an excellent production. Harris is fantastic, and Charlotte Hope makes an assured West End debut, but one thing is abundantly clear by the start of the third act: I have never seen Buried Child by Sam Shepard. Nor have I read it, or parts of it, as I briefly convinced myself I had between the two intervals. Not one line is familiar. Scene by scene, my false memory of Buried Child is dismantled and replaced by the actual play. |
| Eventually I realise what has happened. A long time ago someone – at this point I’m blaming my college playwriting teacher – vividly described the ending of Buried Child to me. My mind backfilled from there, vaguely and wrongly. I’ve never known anything about the play, except what happens right at the end: a spoiler that’s been lying in wait for over 30 years. And so it came to pass. | Eventually I realise what has happened. A long time ago someone – at this point I’m blaming my college playwriting teacher – vividly described the ending of Buried Child to me. My mind backfilled from there, vaguely and wrongly. I’ve never known anything about the play, except what happens right at the end: a spoiler that’s been lying in wait for over 30 years. And so it came to pass. |
| Happy old year | Happy old year |
| I’m reluctant to join in with the commonly accepted notion that 2016 is a year best put behind us, if only because the future doesn’t seem that bright either. Are you looking forward to 2017 with a lot of hope? Are you ready for the day when we all start waxing nostalgic about how comparatively great 2016 was? Remember when Trump was still the president-elect? When Brexit was just a vote, and not an actual mess? | I’m reluctant to join in with the commonly accepted notion that 2016 is a year best put behind us, if only because the future doesn’t seem that bright either. Are you looking forward to 2017 with a lot of hope? Are you ready for the day when we all start waxing nostalgic about how comparatively great 2016 was? Remember when Trump was still the president-elect? When Brexit was just a vote, and not an actual mess? |
| Everything bad looks worse viewed through the prism of next year. John Pilger’s doom-laden ITV documentary The Coming War on China, broadcast tonight, barely reckons with Trump’s cack-handed diplomatic tomfoolery. Sam Shepard’s bleak dissection of the American dream (that’s true – it was in the programme) runs the risk of being too tame for 2017. Audience members will look at the dysfunctional family with their awful secret, sitting in their crumbling, leaky rustbelt farmhouse, and wonder if they’ve got a spare room going. | Everything bad looks worse viewed through the prism of next year. John Pilger’s doom-laden ITV documentary The Coming War on China, broadcast tonight, barely reckons with Trump’s cack-handed diplomatic tomfoolery. Sam Shepard’s bleak dissection of the American dream (that’s true – it was in the programme) runs the risk of being too tame for 2017. Audience members will look at the dysfunctional family with their awful secret, sitting in their crumbling, leaky rustbelt farmhouse, and wonder if they’ve got a spare room going. |
| Mileage is just a number | Mileage is just a number |
| I’m distressed to hear that James May reckons that he and his Grand Tour colleagues are getting too long in the tooth to present a car show. “We have to accept that fairly soon we will be too old for it,” he told the Radio Times. “Within the next five years, I don’t want to be fart-arsing around.” | I’m distressed to hear that James May reckons that he and his Grand Tour colleagues are getting too long in the tooth to present a car show. “We have to accept that fairly soon we will be too old for it,” he told the Radio Times. “Within the next five years, I don’t want to be fart-arsing around.” |
| It’s not that I despair at the thought of May, Jeremy Clarkson and Richard Hammond retiring, or Grand Tour disappearing. It’s just that May is 53. That doesn’t seem that old to me, because I am 53. I for one have a tremendous amount of fart-arsing around left to do. | It’s not that I despair at the thought of May, Jeremy Clarkson and Richard Hammond retiring, or Grand Tour disappearing. It’s just that May is 53. That doesn’t seem that old to me, because I am 53. I for one have a tremendous amount of fart-arsing around left to do. |