1080 Annie Besant and Gandhi

Last night I went to theatre where only five tickets were sold beforehand and the total when the production commenced was nine. This was very sad because it was a well constructed, sometimes intellectual, sometimes, emotional, sometimes factual work, a little humour, but always interesting work about the life of Annie Besant, during in her time in India, the extraordinary writer of over 100 books about Theosophy and other religions, who had commenced her adult life as the wife of a clergyman, and then progressed into a Marxist, a socialist, trade union activist and fighter for Indian self government, although she believed progress should be made through democratic constitutional means, opposed to Gandhi's use of non violent civil disobedience protest, because it would lead to confrontation and a holocaust. Having said that according to the play when her approach failed she was said to have swung in favour of Gandhi.

I went to the play because of my interest in Gandhi an non violence protest having acquired one of only 2000 first edition translations of Satyagraha in 1960 and the UNESCO work about his life and thoughts, All Men are Brothers purchased on December 1st 1959 and where I wrote on the frontispiece, "this day shall be remembered annually when the way became clear. May the light always shine and may you (I) always have the courage, strength and humility to serve until the end." I was twenty years of age This book helped understand that means to an end are everything and it was three years later that I acquired Huxley's work on the subject. Having gone to the play with one interest and quickly realising it was not about non violence as a means of action to achieve major political and social changes, I had to dig deep to try and remember what I could remember about the principal subject.

What I was reminded in the play and later from the internet was her Marxist, Fabian Socialist, Trade union activist background after breaking from the confines of being the chattel of Clergyman's wife and losing her children to him

Although brought up in a middle class environment by her widowed mother, her mother had no income except which she created from running a boarding house, and it is of considerable interest to me how and why she, having been given a conventional education and upbringing as a young woman expected to marry and raise children, but have no major influence or role in political and social development matters, she rebelled, went to what was then regarded as extremes, and found herself prosecuted over publishing a work promoting birth control and which dared to suggest that working class families would be happier if they could control they number of children they wanted and could afford to raise. She lost her children and became involved with Irish Home Rule, and interest which she maintained after her life became centred on India. She had a relationship with George Bernard Shaw when he was a young man and others and was inclined to change her politics and her views accordingly, Marxism (Edward Aveling), Socialism (William Morris) and Theosophy, where she subsequently took over the leadership from Charles Webster Leadbeater who also achieved international notoriety through his advice for young boys to masturbate as a prelude to an otherwise celibate spiritual life.
The play is written through the eyes of a young India female searcher for the truth, Sidra, (Ruby Sahota) who approaches Annie at the commencement of the play to become a pupil and stayed closely with her "guru" until her death. The play was written by Rukhsana a writer and adaptor of plays, with a first novel and short stories to her credit, and she devised the idea of having an another actor, perform the role of the Sidra, telling the story of her experience, sitting to one side of the stage for each half of the play. This role is played the artistic director of company Dr Vayu Naidu, whose company bears her name and working with the Guildford Yvonne Arnaud Theatre.
The play is also about the relationship between Annie and one of her adopted sons Krishamurti who she had hoped would become an internationally recognised spiritual leader under her direct influence. The plays, I have yet to establish if it is historically accurate, suggest that he was sought out by a visiting seer and warned that he had to find his own truth. This he did after being educated at Oxford and becoming part of the European social scene, announces his approached to an audience which included his shocked mother.

Again I have to disclose my ignorance of his writings until now, but will be something quickly remedied taking precedence over everything else. In the play his statement of belief is its high point and fortunately the programme notes amplify this further. "Truth is a pathless land. Man cannot come to it through any organisation, through any creed, through any dogma, priest or ritual, not through any creed, through any philosophical knowledge, or psychological technique."
For years I have beaten myself up because although I believed I understood the nature of being and how to live and not to do so, I failed in my efforts to integrate into my being all great writings and teachings of philosophy, psychology and spirituality, in so far as I was able to understand, and which has always been limited. I could not justify what I knew to be right or wrong, as a consequence, and here was someone who in 1929, was saying that's Ok, you wont get there by that route alone, the path is a different one. You have to look into yourself and understand your own soul and observe everything in the world around you and then are. You may if driven to do so explain yourself to others if they are interested, but your message must be, do not follow me, accept what I say to you, but find your own solution, this is how I came to be as I am, hopefully something of my experience may of help to you." I now need to find out if this actually what be believed and promoted.
This is not to reject scientific and philosophical knowledge and investigation, for in order to reach an effective and sustaining level of understanding which will enable one to function in different political and social systems, to have satisfying relationships with others and face the possibility of self conscious life ending within a moment, or in prolonged agony of mind and body, one has to acquire and develop abilities to their maximum potential, and this includes removing or quarantining obstacles to making progress,

It is in nature of being that having worked out a truth, the assumption is made that this is the only perspective on truth, that it will not change through further thought and meaningful relationship interactions, and that it will not be different for others. It is not the false prophets without that should be of constant concern, but that of within.

Another stunning piece of writing....Colin have you ever considered being published? Posted by ANGELICLYNORTE on 12:05 - 12:51

1072 Gormenghast

Yesterday I wrote about my often repeated views on the question, who am I? I also suggested the value of talking over the answer with your ancestors. Last night I appeared to be the only Goth at an incredible physical performance of what is regarded as one of the great written works of imagination on the concept of a Gothland created in the twentieth century, Gormenghast, recreated by the David Glass Ensemble at the Newcastle Playhouse. Twice a character asks, what does it all mean? My answer is what you know and what you believe.

This was not a planned visit, although when the season programme arrived, I had made a mental note of this as one of the performances not to be missed. Then MySpace and other matters took over, so it was only on Wednesday that I decided to see what was on at the Playhouse this week, and only then discovered that while there had been a performance that night, there was to be an after performance presentation by the company, on Thursday. I rang at .ten am, when the box office opened, and obtained a seat four rows from the front in a central location.

Usually I undertake research on the company and the play before attending a performance, but because of other commitments, I arrived having only the vaguest recollection of the BBC adaptation and of failing to read the trilogy. For my recent research on the Black and the Goth dimension I had come across countless Myspace sites where I speculated on the depth of commitment of individuals to the cause. On Sunday the majority of the fifty bikers who had gathered on the sea front looked over 30, with a number approaching their sixties. Where are the aging Goths? During the interval, over a cup of strong almost black coffee, I determined to write to 101 Myspace Goths to enquire of if they had read the trilogy of Titus Groan, Gormenghast, and Titus alone. This it will be appreciated as Gothic cheek because I am yet to do so. During the earlier post show chat, where at one point I thought that the audience was going to be outnumbered by the entire ensemble company, an actor commented that there had been occasions when they encountered a row of Goths at the front whose make up was better than theirs, and I wondered if the local tribes would attend Friday or Saturday nights, and if he had spotted that I was dressed in my black sleeveless jacket, black shirt, black trousers and back socks and shoes, or as Benny Hill might say "the oldest Goth in town" although as previously admitted the black hides my overweight and the make up is my natural aging!

I was unprepared for the physicality of this production with its black empty stage, apart from a hidden platform area at the back, and a darkened auditorium so it was impossible to read the programme. You are instantly transported in your imagination to the ginormous Gothic city building of endless corroders, of mystery and gloom and doom. For those like me who had forgotten the story, the first act was primarily an abstract performance art fusion of intense voice, movement, lighting and a visceral sound, live and pre-created, composed by John Escott and Musical Direction by Jonathan Cooper. It was only after one became part of the Mervyn Peake dimension that the story unfolded, and what is in many respects, is a traditional tale, of a situation where the young heir to the throne rebels against the requirements of maintaining the dynasty, imposed by his formidable mother following the disappearance, presumed dead, of his father, and a written constitution of ritual imposed at different times throughout his growing up, coming into conflict with the malevolent designs of a young outsider. Is this really a battle of two opposites, or the struggle within each of us? Is this what our lives are all about?
The characters of the young rebel against his destiny, Titus, is made consistently believable by James Woodbridge, who also plays his father, Sepulchrave, and the bad to his core Steerpike by an equally believable Adam Sunderland, but no one outshines another, except when each is given centre stage, and the others provide support. One way in which Titus rebels is to be drawn to the deliciously ethereal, 'the thing' Played by Elizabeth Collier, whose training as a dancer enabled her to float, while Gertrude Countess of Groan, Sally Mortemore, was convincing, as my mother, in dictating the life of her son, and the protection of the family inheritance, and as one of the damaged identical twin aunts. Elisa de Grey was also convincing as the vulnerable sister Fuchsia who cries out to be savaged by a predator and who switched amazingly into the other identical sister. However she is undone in switching by Eric MacLennan as the grotesque Swelter and the eccentric sympathetic Dr Prunesquallor, and where it was only afterwards I realised it was the same actor. For me the lasting memory will be of Phillip Pellew who as Flay walked the endless corridors in his inimitable and disturbing manner, and who was also the hunchback Master of Ritual, Barguetine, the agent for the rebellion of Titus an also his protector, as is the situation oft in real life. Do not the young always rebel against those with their best intentions at heart? I have mentioned all the cast and by name because of how they fitted into the Ensemble production teams democratic structure, but which only works as well as this when the structure is predetermined by an individual with a singular vision of the script adaptation by John Constable and the overall direction of David Glass. Because I always have found that most live theatre outlives most film experience, and I have spent a lifetime watching most films of substance in the English Language, I am probably being unfair to the BBC drama production, in saying that I suspect this production came closer to communicating the language and intent of the original work. I say this admitting as I have that I am yet to read the text, but will immediately purchase and add to the list of things I need to do before I die.

I read the programme notes when the lights went up for the after show discussion, and rarely, if ever, have I read notes which precisely and comprehensively described the experience I had participated in. Of the ten on stage there was also Associate Director Luke Kernaghan. Others who may have been there but should be mentioned anyway are Rae Smith the designer who drew on the stylised opera of China and Kabuki, Lieustke Visser for the memorable costumes, Spike Mosley for the Original Lighting Direction and Steve Taylor who presumably carried the conception out, Matt Spencer for the technical tricks and Tom Cotterall in addition to holding everything together, along with Marie White made the props, which included a playful monkey whose death caused the young child in the audience to cry out, other parents beware.

I now I turn to the uncanny aspect of this experience. My main reason for always wanting to read the trilogy and also the work on his father by Sebastian Peake, is that as a young man, full of having read the official accounts of the Nuremburg War Crimes trials but before I entered fully into Direct Action and the Committee of 100, I had joined the Local United Nations Associations Association, and was convinced that I had visited the home of Mervyn Peake, in my childhood town of Wallington, when his wife had opened their house for a charity art show. Did I get my idea for ArtmansArthouse then? I had been envious of a full set of drums which I think was in the entrance Hall. I also recollected that the brothers, Sebastian and Fabian went to the St John Fisher School, although I had no recollection of ever having met them.
Before commencing to write these notes as I have done for every theatrical, cinema and entertainment experience since becoming Artman, I did the homework I should done before the performance and on the official Peake family site (see below), I noted that Sebastian had given an e mail address so in the early hours I explained my memory and enquired if could have been accurate. Yesterday I explained that through MySpace I was able to write to departed souls such as Lord Russell and Freda Kathlo, and it was a little scary when they wrote back. This morning only a few hours after sending the e mail, I received an email from Sebastian who confirmed my recollection and asked if he could mention my experience in a work about our mutual childhood town. Now aren't that something and a clue to what it all means?

http://www.mervynpeake.org/gormenghast/
http://www.davidglassensemble.com/

1051 The Night Shift and much else

The Night Shift is a play which been reworked by its author Mark Murphy between stagings and changes in the male character. There have been other Night Shifts, a Stephen King collection of short stories, a 1982 film and a song by the Commodores. I did not enjoy the play because it did not reveal new insights about the human condition and relationships, not did I feel sympathy with its two central characters, yet their performances attracted thirty mins of intense questioning in the subsequent opportunity to meet with the author and actors.

It is possible to explain the basics of the story without ruining dramatic moments and revelations. An ordinary man is living with a woman, who sleeps walks because of something which remains in her subconscious. Such moments are signalled with the use of banks of red lights.

The man cooperates and colludes with the game playing requirements of his partner, and gives the impression of a well meaning person, out of his depths.

The interactions between this couples switches back and forth with the visit of a social worker/counsellor/ therapist figure to a man in a closed psychiatric unit, alleged to have brutally killed his wife in a rage. There is also game playing collusion in this relationship where the "professional" breaks all the rules, compromising her position and the welfare of her client. The story line concerns whether there is a relationship between the event which troubles the woman, the helper and the incarcerated man. There is one explanation given for the behaviour of both women played by the same actor.

My benchmark for drama where someone has the role of a professional doctor/psychiatrist, helper is T S Elliot's Cocktail party, in which the benign father/godlike doctor advises that he can help the woman to get to where she is not but warns it will be different from what she anticipates. He does not disclose what he can see and predict what is likely to happen to her. She will experience a form of salvation. There is no conflict between his professional role and his relationship with the woman. He shows understanding, empathy, compassion for her predicament, but he gets on with his 'normal,' life. This is not to suggest that he does not care about his patient or when what he predicts for her, happens, he not affected.

Most of the audience and those who stayed behind were in their early twenties, but I had noticed two women of a similar age to me and in expert fashion she drew attention that the 'help' figure in the work was a travesty of the role of the average professional, adding that she had some forty years of experience. She reminded me of the woman who headed my professional child care training course, a strict Freudian who discounted behavioural psychology and sociology and with one look into you, penetrated whatever defences you tried to put up, took out your core which she dissected with a clinical effectiveness which made the creations of most sci fi and vampire writers appear cartoons.

During my professional and managerial life I worked closely with a number of psychiatrists including one who used a form of LSD to take patients on a regressive bad trip as a means of freeing them from their devil, an experience which I understood was as horrendous as any exorcism. There was also one psychiatrist who insisted on having a detailed social history from me which was then written up in appropriate terminology including whatever conclusions I had suggested. This reflected her lack of confidence in her assessment as much as confidence in my work, although in fairness I did come across individuals whose reports to courts struck me as having only a limited relevance to the individual and their families whose future was under consideration. I soon learnt that simply because an individual successfully completed a course and passed examinations did not mean that any kind of standard or common performance level could be expected. All my subsequent experience confirmed this impression applied across the range of professionals, doctors, lawyers, accountants, educators and professionals in social welfare work. Try explaining the difference between a psycho analyst, a psychiatrist, a psychologist, a psychotherapist, a counsellor or social worker to someone threatening suicide.

This is not to suggest that I ever set myself up as an equal or an effective practitioner, having undertaken only a term of psychology tutorials with a behaviourist among his rats at the Oxford Institute of Experimental Psychology and where most of the time was used to try and get me to abandon going into social work and attempt a Philosophy and Psychology degree at the University. I did buy and read Bertrand's Russell's History of Western Philosophy and understood a little, but John-Paul Sartre’s "Essay on Phenomenological Ontology, Being and Nothingness", which defeated then, and a quick look now confirms that it is still beyond my grasp without a prolonged preparatory study. Fortunately I have had the ability to know what I do not know, although this has never prevented me from doing, or saying what I wanted, such as defining what contemporary art means at this moment and in this dimension. I continues with my studies which including some knowledge of psychiatry, psychology and sociology, passed examination to my amazement and my practical work was assessed as being of a standard sufficient to gain the certificate of approval to function.

Previously I did once stand on a Trafalgar Square platform alongside Lord Bertrand Russell having become a member of his Committee 100, and according to his wife upset him greatly when I wrote to warn that his main lieutenant appeared to have no understanding of Aldous Huxley's work on Ends and Means, forecasting that the project would end in disaster, resigning from the committee, and therefore avoided the round up which sent him and a number of his confederates to varying periods of imprisonment. However performing the role of the boy, or girl, who declares in public that the King or Queen is wearing no clothes, is not to be recommended if you hanker for a normal existence.
I was reminded of my one communication failure with Lord Russell because his posthumous site on MySpace has the except of an interview with him about the nature of fanaticism in which he warns of the dangers of becoming such an enthusiast for or against something that you hate and will do anything to destroy those with opposing positions. He then explains that this is bad enough when restricted to one or a few individuals but becomes dangerous and harmful when adopted by large groups, such political parties, and religions. He points out that it was only when Rome converted to Christianity did the empire become anti Semitic and that the behaviour of the fanatic should be regarded as madness, albeit madness of a collective and possible temporary nature. Even more striking is his argument against action which is illegal. It is Ok to campaign to change a law but in a democracy it is generally wrong to set out to break the law in order to make a point.

Given this extract from an interview (undated) it is understandable that his consistency in argument and ethical integrity was questioned when he gave his name to the Committee of 100 and was successfully prosecuted by the state for his part in promoting mass civil disobedience against the democratically elected government. He answered his critics in the final chapter of an enlarged polemic pamphlet, "Common Sense and Nuclear War," George Allen and Unwin 1959 in which he pointed out that it is not wrong to amend or change policies and approaches according to changing circumstances. He gives the example of someone on a train which breaks down at a station and where there is no prospect of reaching the destination by the required time, and that the sensible action is to get off the train and seek another means of getting to your destination. He argued that the situation had significantly changed once more than one nation possessed a weapon of mass destruction and where the likelihood was that possession of the weapon would spread and would eventually come under the control of lunatics who could come to take power in government, reminding that this had been the situation in Nazi Germany and what would have happened if Hitler had been able to develop an atomic weapon.

It may be considered that Russell was a serious intellectual, a man apart who in a one sense is so but he was also 'normal.' One of his great essays is "In Praise of Idleness," in which he confessed that he was brought up on the basis that Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do, and that having been a virtuous child he developed a conscience which kept him working hard until old age but although his conscience controlled his actions, his opinions had undergone a revolution and there was far too much work done in the world and that immense harm was caused because of the belief that work is virtuous regardless of what that work involves. Another highly recommended work is the Conquest of Happiness which while accepting that everyone is dependent on external factors, he argues that we can achieve a state of wellbeing by having sufficient food, shelter, health, love, and companionship, satisfying work and social respect. However it is also possible to be happy without a balance of normal ingredients but it takes an exceptional person to do so. His argument in favour of seeking happiness is because happy people tend to have a happy outlook, support happy lifestyles and going in for politics, religions and beliefs which breed happiness, and vice versa. However as he points out at the beginning of "The Problems of Philosophy", is there knowledge in the world which is so certain than no reasonable person can doubt it? And of course being a philosopher he has to answer that this is one of the most difficult questions to answer.

I have tonight used as much time reflecting on aspects of my experience of the life and work of Bertrand Russell, (I also have the Ronald Clark biography), as I spent watching Night Shift although I regret neither because I had a good time in both instances. It is also why I frequently use time watching rubbish, watching others work or watching them just being. Nor did I feel incensed at the portrayal of the professional helper, although I did contemplate attempting to contact the individual to remind that the character in the play was a counsellor, that is someone who supports others and whose role is not to treat or change, and that from my experience the individual who can show caring, however badly trained and lacking in professionalism is a hundredth fold more likely to be help than one who maintains clinical detachment.

My first ever visit to a family, was arranged as a student undertaking my first practical work assignment with a Family Service Unit. The woman was established in the region as heading a problem family of three generations and was one of the first to appear on television in this role. The local authority had knocked two houses together such had been the size of her family who had since grown up, although a few would return later in the afternoon from school. She sat at one end of a double lounge with her husband next to her, and I sat before her with another family member and her offspring, and for two hours I listened as she went through the legion of social workers, students and officials who she had known over two and a half decades, telling me of their good points, their failing and it was as effective a course in human behaviour as you can ever get from a textbook. I grasped the fundamental truth that not only if you look into the abyss, the abyss looks into you, but the abyss will see as much or more of you that you can see of it.

1048 Cymbeline, Kneehigh Theatre Cornwall

In October 2006 I discovered the Cornish Theatrical Company of Kneehigh www.kneehigh.co.uk and remembered my Cornish experiences of forty years ago. The first family holiday could have been something of a disaster because the car broke down on the way, was abandoned to a local garage care of the A. A. and amazingly the struggling gears got us to a car park where it so happened there was a coach taking a break before going to Penzance which was around the corner for fishing village of Mousehole where a cottage had been rented. We arrived about the same time as planned. The absence of the vehicle over the weekend and until repairs were completed meant getting know the immediate area.

The following year or year the year after, there was a return visit, longer in duration, staying near the beach houses on stilts at Hayle, close to St Ives, and which was subsequently discovered to have a similar atmosphere to Gruissan near Narbonne. This was the era when everyone was rushing off to exceptionally cheap holidays in Spain and Greece and even in the heights of summer it was possible to find miles of almost deserted sea coast and countryside and undiscovered artists at work.

Two treasures which evoke memories are a Newlyn Pottery Troika Aztec Vase and a water colour view of Mousehole. One of several vivid memories is a delightful meal at a French restaurant at St Ives, third in memory of great meals with one eaten in France at Beziers, and to the meal of meals at Le Toquet 1981 where although an early arrival the meal spread until the room was crowded with other diners, all French speaking. I can remember starting with a bottle of Sancerre, drunk before the Crabbe de la Mere was demolished, and which had followed a Salad Maison Jambon. The main dish was Roquet Andelouse, followed by crème caramel and coffee, and Port on the house. Of course part of the memory is the company and the ambiance but they were all experiences which cannot be repeated.
Such was the affection for Cornwall that I acquired a historical Map, Arthur's Mee, King's England and a desire to take up sailing.

It was not surprising to learn that in 1980 a village school teacher decided to run theatre workshops in his spare time and in due course a mixture of people, a farmer, and a sign writer from Tesco, several students, a thrash guitarist from a local band and an electrician. but no actors or anyone trained began to make performances.

There was no theatre or arts centre in Cornwall, and this I suspect is their secret, because although they would have gained knowledge, there was no inherited culture either to guide or control their destiny, they had to make their own.

Kneehigh started to perform to families in locations within their communities; village's halls, marquees, harbour sides and less conventional places. They created theatre on cliff tops, in preaching pits, and quarries.

The company now finds itself celebrated as one of Britain's most exciting touring companies. (Yes it is) Spontaneous sense of risk and adventure. A DEFINING THEATRIAL FORCE. "Cornwall is our physical and spiritual home. We draw inspiration from landscapes. History, People and culture." Admittedly only one performance was experienced but everything which was said about them and their interpretation of Cymbeline provided one of the great afternoons in theatre, shared by the young people present a few even older than me. This is the company for introducing children to real theatre a form of pantomime for intelligent and creative adults who retain the child within.

The set was simple but also elaborate, a metal structure representing enclosed palace/ Italian Brothel/Night club, which can be climbed, with levels. including the musicians platform also used to represent rooms. This group makes their own music and records which adds to their comprehensiveness of performance. They also sing well. They act without appearing to act.

The performance manages to communicate the complex story which is often difficult to grasp in Shakespeare comedies without having prior study of the text, they retained something of the original poetry translated into a contemporary context. The music and song is good, and I bought the CD and theatrical devices clever an appealing to all ages. The horror and tragedy is similarly covered, so real that when the soft toy heart of a small deer is taken adult cried out in genuine anguish which made the children laugh.

The show lasted two and half hours plus an interval at two thirds way sufficient for the majority to get some refreshment but not everyone. I had my regular seat.

I sent a letter saying how much I had enjoyed the experience, registered as a Friend which brought a Christmas card signed by the company, and later from the National Theatre on line bookshop, I was able to buy a copy of some of the plays previous performed, such was the enthusiasm generated.

It would be good to return to Cornwall, retracing memories and attending a performance of the company in their homeland, but where in the queue of the others, is this experience to be placed? All those Isles of Greece still to visit, Rome, Montecassino, Venice and Sorrento, Paris, and a dozen towns, or a score other French places, Uppsala, the Anne Frank Museum, the battlefields and cemeteries of Belgium and North France, Munich because I once drove through after not finding the municipal campsite, Salzburg and the Gross Glockner and all those places of memories in the Uk? I managed to return to all the places where I lived, studied and worked. I suspect I will have to settle continue to what I am doing, which is to recreate the experience in this way.

1040 The History of the World in Two Hours

I begin the search for me with a search for others. In the beginning there was a man called Adam and a woman called Eve, and then there was me, and then there are you, and we are connected. Adam and Eve are concepts, just as Genesis is a document of faith and not a history of the world in ancient times. In an average life there are two billion seconds of time to experience and remember. In the autumn of 2006 I witnessed the Enforced Entertainment company attempt to perform the history of the world in two hours: The World in Pictures.

The performance commenced with a bare stage and a long prologue. The stage was traditional with the second area of Stage 2, used as an epic stage for Son of Man, closed off.

The performance that followed is remembered against having spent two and a half hours in excruciating uncomfortableness experiencing the company's presentation of the Performance Artwork of Sophie Calle's Exquisite Pain. A visual extravaganza of movement and sound during which I wanted to cheer, clap, get up and join in Rocky Horror show style, forgetting my age and appearance as the oldest foggy present among very young audience, who I guessed had come without much prior knowledge of what was take place. There was plenty of nervous giggles when one of the actors went nude and at some of the vulgar (in the nicest way) gesturing but there was no joining in which I find confusing.

Perhaps by the time the majority have come to university they are already doing their own thing freed from the kind of parental institutional controls we experienced in the fifties and sixties, when first there was, shock horror, dancing in the aisles of cinemas when middle aged Bill Haley Rocked around the Clock and then there was the invitation to join the cast dancing on stage at the end of Hair, and where the general nudity was secondary to the emphasis on drugs so that two LPs had to be issued, the first excluding the songs about drugs, although I still hear plays of the Mick Jagger and the Stones extolling the virtues of Brown Sugar.

Perhaps some did go to excess but there was some justification childhoods with the prospect of death and injury from bombs, the deprivations which lasted into the later 1940’s and then the threat of nuclear annihilation or the slow death from radiation. Now the young just have to worry about a few terrorist atrocities and a student loan, although they do have the guilt that a third of the world starving and the general misuse of the planet.

So how were these, and the preceding events, of world history covered? Enjoyably, but with the serious intention to give the audience at least one concept which would survive the subsequent layering of new experiences, a point which was emphasised in the epilogue as the audience made to depart. We were reminded that what seems important, enjoyable, painful, challenging, or whatever changes, as soon as we move to a new experience the previous is altered, ad ion and on until experience is often lost to immediate recall, although not its influence.

Within the space of a few days I had seen one performance which comprised going over and over one short experienced of a few hours in a hotel room, and then an attempt within two to cover the experience of human beings on the earth planet.

My understanding and belief is that all experience continues to exist through the transfers of memory between generation biologically as well as through speech, writing, and recording of sound and vision and that the experience can be viewed by everyone, everywhere throughout the universe who have the technology and other abilities to do so. Such is experience is good and beneficial and evil and harmful swinging one way and another depending on the accumulated actions of everyone with the implication that every good deed however unnoticed is of value as is every contested act of evil.

1008 Thatcher The Musical

Because of a frustrating day of more downs than ups I was not in the mood for any form of a theatre in the evening. An account of what happened during the day is covered my AOl Blog ( to be added when the item is located).

I had become anxious about several matters, and was tired having no nap earlier (26.02.2007). I has also undertaken no preparations regarding the company or type the production, except that it was a musical about the life of Lady Thatcher, called Thatcher. I was going to the first performance at the refurbished Newcastle Playhouse.

The Newcastle Playhouse had been transformed after a long closure, reopening the previous year and one change is that the entrance was now opposite the Student Union Building of Newcastle University, involving a climb of several flights of stairs, either from the Metro station or the car park. There are two car park level entrances but one is for performers and theatre staff and the other had only been used as a safety door. On my visit on Saturday for Lypsynch, using the Metro, I noticed a sign which said that the car park level door could be used as an entrance, so on the evening taking the car, I used this entrance and the lift.

Although it was the first evening the foyer and theatre restaurant and bars were quiet and there were only a handful of others in auditorium. I struck up conversation with an attendant who said that some 200 were anticipated about half full. It was quickly evident that 95% of these were students in groups who knew each other. I appeared to be about thirty years older than everyone else, something I had in common with the actors. For many in the audience Thatcher was already history.

I met a Member of the Theatre Management in the lift during the interval and commented that perhaps the political fans of Lady Thatcher were staying away because they anticipated a negative portrait, while those hostile were not likely to want to be reminded of all the things which made them so angry during her 10 years of Premiership. She said that there would be a more mixed audience over the week so it appeared their had been some kind of special offer issued to the two Universities in the city.

The style of the production was revealed in the free programme notes which listed all the characters in the production, (with one exception) as Margaret Thatcher in her various phases as young woman through to the present day.

The first reactions were not positive because the portrait appeared more of a populist caricature than the clever woman who captured a political party from backward looking men and who had earned the respect of political opponents even though they hated her policies. This had been said to me by leading members of the national Labour Party Parliamentary team prior to the 1990’s
The “hit” list against her was comprehensive beginning with her call for unity and healing divides made on winning the first General Election and then alienating almost everyone, including Members of her own cabinet and Party.

I met Thatcher only once in passing when she the guest of honour at the annual dinner of the Association of Director of Social Services when I think she was the Minister of Education although she may have become the Tory Party Leader in opposition. I have the information somewhere. I was advised afterward that she was unenthusiastic about the role of social workers and the new service, wanting to expand the role of the private and voluntary sectors. Just how far she was determined to make these pubic policy, I, and my colleagues, were not to find out until 1979.

In the play her passion against all aspects of communism and socialism was covered. In 1970 the man who was to become her chief advisor, Sir Keith Joseph, had been my dinner guest at the first conference of the Family and Child Care Section of the British Association of Social Workers, and on learning of my background and political learning advised that I should have taken my protests to Russia to which I had responded that when the revolution came I suspected we would both be among those asked to stand against the wall to be shot. Three years after this discussion, in the Autumn of 1973, Sir Keith was the Minister of Social Services in the Heath Government and was required to approve my appointment as the First Director of Social Services at South Tyneside. I took up the appointment officially in April 2004, although I had been full time with the authority since January as the designate chief officer. In February The Labour Party formed the National government after the General Election with a narrow majority. The political administration I was to serve comprised sixty Labour Councillors out of sixty six and the future looked good as the council effectively doubled the budget previously drafted for the new authority. In October the Labour Party won the second General Election held in that year. The rates were doubled in May 1975 with some lost of seats although this was mainly because people from South Shields had been rehoused in Jarrow and Hebburn.

Originally Sir Keith Joseph who represented the right wing of the Tory Party, supported by Margaret, was to stand against the centre left candidate, Sir William Whitelaw. When Sir Keith dropped out, Margaret replaced him and successfully became the Leader on the first ballot. She made a point of emphasising her determination to abolish the rating system when her party formed the government.

The play discussed her approach to monetarism, towards the trade unions and the Miners, the Falklands and the sinking of the Belgrano, the demolition of state controls and the ending of the independence of Local Government, the development of the private ownership of housing, her stubbornness in relation to Northern Ireland issues, her attitude to Europe and her bonding with President Ronald Regan. The disaster of the Poll Tax was highlighted and the venom towards her by sacked members of her Cabinet. Most of her famous sayings were mentioned although I could not remember afterwards if what for me was the most significant, in that she was ask of anyone not previously met, ‘Are they one of us, and you knew you had problems if the answer came back, No,

The musical brought out the reality that there was not much difference between the public persona and the private lady. As the show progressed I became more and more impressed with the style, with several individual performances, and its overall impact. The contrast with Lypsynch was striking where nothing was as good as the opening aria and first act, but with Thatcher there was a gradual winding up with a memorable song marking an aging self assessment of Lady Thatcher before a splendid finale. The audience response at curtain call was boisterous which appeared to be genuinely enjoyed by the cast. Gone are the days of decorative safety or other curtains thought!

The authors did not miss the opportunity to contrast her reign with that of Tony Blair and contemporary politicians and politics. The most effective point was that she had responded to an attack in the Falklands rather than initiating one. However where the work had its greatest impact on the audience was to remind them of how effective her fundamental political positions have been, with the defeat of communism and socialism, the defeat and role change of the trade unions and the promotion of corporate capitalism as the savour of states developed, and underdeveloped.

At one point in the performance Lady Thatcher also moved into the audience to challenge the young people with her views. I wondered what the composition of the audience would be like during the rest of the week and how they would react to the show overall as well as responded when she came into the audience. I was tempted to go again but did not do so

It could be argued that it was her policies which led directly to the near collapse of the banking system and capitalism.

1034 And death has no Dominion Dylan Thomas

In the autumn of 2006 I attended a one man performance which merited a significantly larger audience as those present would have fitted comfortably into auditorium two, and better still the bar lounge atmosphere of the stage three area, given the subject of show. The life of Dylan Thomas told through his verse.

The soul and the sin of the man filled the place for a couple of hours and then we went our respective ways. I sometimes wish I had the kind of mission of the Sin Eater, cleansing souls, or even that of Soul Collector which appeared in a fantasy series, Star Trek next generation, whose concept was to protect and nurture souls, although in this the Collector messed up and collected from a planet that we not ready to give up its ghost.

What have I have done, and continue to do, is to try and collect something of the creative genius of others so that it inspires, stimulates and modifies my existence, stretching its dimension. I think John Betjeman came first, Miss Joan Hunter Dunn furnished and burnished in the Surrey sun of my home county, and then there was my own Brideshead of Byron Shelley and Keats although T S Elliot, Waste Land, Four Quartets and his play the Dinner Party heard on steam radio and then read and read avidly as I tried to help myself to get where I was not, knowing it would be different from what I anticipated and hoped for.

I cannot remember or recorded when, also on the radio, I heard that Welsh voice rage raging against the dying of the light which fitted into my anarchistic subversive protesting tendencies, and it was sometime in my late thirties, (I could look it up as I have the programme) that I experienced a theatrical performance of Under Milk Wood and the Newcastle Theatre Royal, and rushed off to read and later acquire a video, and a voice recording, and then later still in my fifties there was a trip of a few days to South Wales and Laugharne, to his cottage with Caitlin, going to one of the pubs and bookshops. His voice still fills the cottage fifty, now sixty years after souls departed and I acquired duplicate voice recordings to occasionally recapture the moment of that experience.

Unsurprising in the autumn of 2006 the majority of the audience was as old, some even older and quite a number were solitary men.

If you can't paint the way you want the word pictures can be just as good and less expensive to replicate.

Because we were so few in number there was room to stretch and enjoy the conversation which developed between a university student, and a young women, and then an older person of my years who sat between them and could not resist joining in, so I did too when the opportunity arose.

The talk was not of Dylan but what had been done to the theatre with millions of pounds acquired when the city hoped next year they would become the European centre of culture although the main developments have been created on the bank of the Tyne in Gateshead. We lost out to Liverpool, punishment I suspect for rejecting the offer of regional government.

We were generally enthusiastic about the changes and developments, but not one other young man who breathed black fire on what had happened.

The performance was simple, the actor standing at a lectern or sitting on a chair, mixing the poems and excerpts with stories and some chronology. If this was the turn out for one the great sons of Wales and poets in he British Language what hope had I for imagining that any one would to come and hear me ramble incoherently about my experiences, although there had been time when I could keep the attention of a sympathetic group for an hour and more about a subject of interest to them.

I have not mentioned the actor who was to the same for Truman Capote the following day. I am even lazier so I will endeavour to mention his name another time. He was excellent and enabled the soul of another to live on. And death has no dominion and I no longer rage about the dying of the light

This is a poor note on an important evening and I will make amends by writing about the work and the life at greater length on a future occasion, as long as death remains to have its dominion. I no longer rage but experience sadness and regret at the dying of the light.