14 May: Travels with my Aunt by Graham Greene

 We last read this in 2019, pre-pandemic!

 

Travels with My Aunt by Graham Greene, adapted for the stage by Giles Havergal

Not just a play - also a film starring Maggie Smith.

While attending the cremation of his mother's remains, London bank manager Henry Pulling meets eccentric Augusta Bertram, a woman who claims to be his aunt and announces that the woman who raised him was not his biological mother. She invites him back to her apartment, where her lover, an African fortune teller named Zachary Wordsworth, is waiting for her. Shortly after she receives a package allegedly containing the severed finger of her true love, Ercole Visconti, with a note promising the two will be reunited upon payment of $100,000.

Augusta asks Henry to accompany her to Paris and he agrees, unaware she actually is smuggling £50,000 out of England and transporting it to Turkey for a gangster named Crowder in exchange for a £10,000 fee she can put toward the ransom ... and I will not spoil it for  you by saying any more!

 

16 April: Go Back for Murder

  Please Note:  We will meet on 3rd Wednesday of the month in April

In April we will read Go Back for Murder by Agatha Christie 

Agatha Christie, of course, needs no introduction!

 

After receiving a letter from beyond the grave, Carla Crale believes her mother, who died in prison, was wrongly convicted of her father’s murder. In a passionate attempt to clear her name, she persuades those present on the day of her father’s death to return to the scene of the crime and “go back” 16 years to recount their version of events.   An unusual take on the traditional murder mystery, the action of the play slips seamlessly from past to present, examining the danger of relying on personal testimony warped by time, prejudice and perception. By studying each suspect’s testimony, and the various inconsistencies between them, the drama arrives at a disturbing and terrible truth.

 

 

5 March: The Sailing City

 

This month we will be reading a play by a Belgian playwrite, Paul Willems.

 

My friend Malinda has introduced me to his work, and she writes:  Willems, 1912-1997, was born in Edegem, a suburb of Antwerp, on a domain called Missembourg, to a cultured, French-speaking family. His mother, Marie Gevers, was a novelist; and he learned to read from his grandmother, using Telemachus by Fenelon. He studied Maritime Law at the ULB, and after WW II, in 1947 he began to work at the Palais des Beaux Arts in Brussels, where in 1984 he became its Secretary-General. He travelled widely for his work, but was writing novels and plays at the same time. The first staging of one of his plays was in 1949; he wrote regularly throughout his life; The Sailing City won a literary prize in 1966 and was first staged in 1968. His most famous play, It’s Raining in My House, had been written in 1962, and was staged repeatedly thereafter (its first production was in Germany, where he became popular).

The playwright’s original style combined whimsy, fantasy, and word-play; but many of the texts have a darker undercurrent. The sea is frequently evoked, as well as Belgian cities like Antwerp and Ostend, which have seafaring associations.

 

Indeed, The Sailing City takes place in Antwerp, and I think that this may have been a familiar term for Antwerp, not entirely Willems’ invention. 

 

The play takes place in a brocante shop owned and run by Mr. and Mrs. King, both in their fifties. Mrs. King is however referred to as “Paysage”, because of her skill in selling oil paintings depicting the countryside. Paysage speaks succinctly, often leaving her sentences unfinished. They have an 18-year old daughter, Anne-Marie, who is in love with Dile, aged 25-30. Their shop employee goes by the name of Agreeable.

 

During the play, three other characters come into the shop: Josty, who has returned to Antwerp after an absence of more than 40 years; Fram, the same age as Josty, who “resembles a defrocked priest”; and Feroe, a florist and former lover to Josty all those years ago.

 

Although not a live character, an important feature of the play is a shop mannequin, referred to as Fenetre (she has often appeared in the shop window, although she is currently located inside).

 

The main plot concerns Josty’s decision, prompted by Mr. and Mrs. King, to marry Anne-Marie.

 

Characters

 

M. King: 50

Mme King: 50, nicknamed Landscape

Anne-Marie: 18, their daughter

Agreeable: 20-25, M. King's helper

Josty: 58

Fram: Nearing 60

Feroe: 60

Dile: 25-30, Anne-Marie's lover 

Paul Willems

 

 

 

 

 

Duets

By Peter Quilter

 

A friend has recently brought this quartet of plays to my attention, and indeed the first, Blind Date, will be performed in Brussels in April (by ETCetera).

 

Duets is a hilarious tribute to the strength and madness of the human heart:  Four pairs of characters; Four crucial moments.

 

Jonathan and Wendy are on a blind date and hoping to get it right this time even though they've never got it right before; Barrie is not really interested in women but Janet sees that as no reason to stop trying; Shelley and Bobby have decided to holiday in Spain to finalise their divorce whilst drowning in cocktails; Angela is marrying for the third time to the dismay of her brother Toby and amidst a barrage of bad omens and a dress resembling a parachute.

 

“Duets” has played in 20 countries and has been running for over two years in Brazil. 

 

Peter Quilter

Peter Quilter is a West End and Broadway playwright whose plays have been translated into 30 languages and performed in over 40 countries. He is best known for his Broadway play End of the Rainbow, which was adapted for the Oscar-winning film Judy (2019), starring Renée Zellweger. He is also author of the West End comedy "Glorious!" about the amateur opera singer Florence Foster Jenkins. Peter has twice been nominated for the Olivier Award (Best New Comedy and Best New Play) and his Broadway debut was nominated for 3 Tony Awards. 

 

 

 

 

15 January: The Daughter of Time

 Happy New Year!

Well, at time of writing it's still ... MERRY CHRISTMAS

And many many thanks for your generous Eurostar voucher.  I will enjoy using it to go the the theatre in London!  And I will try to go to something that isn't Operation Mincemeat!

But to January's reading.  I think it's possibly different from things we've done before but it is a wee bit old.  However, it's a subject that is of some interest to me and indeed this summer we visited Leicester, viewed the car park and hole where the body of King Richard III was found and visited his new tomb and the wonderful modern museum.  We had done quite a lot of research before we went, but this didn't spoil the enjoyment!  I'll put some holiday snaps on the blog below (yay! I hear you all cry!)

The Daughter of Time

by Josephine Tey

 

The Daughter of Time is a 1951 detective novel  concerning a police officer's investigation into the alleged crimes of King Richard III of England. It was the last book Tey published in her lifetime, shortly before her death. In 1990 it was voted number one in The Top 100 Crime Novels of All Time list compiled by the British Crime Writers' Association. In 1995 it was voted number four in The Top 100 Mystery Novels of All Time list compiled by the Mystery Writers of America.

Scotland Yard Inspector Alan Grant is feeling bored while confined to bed in hospital with a broken leg. Marta Hallard, an actress friend of his, suggests he should amuse himself by researching a historical mystery. She brings him some pictures of historical characters, aware of Grant's interest in human faces. He becomes intrigued by a portrait of King Richard III. He prides himself on being able to read a person's character from his appearance, and King Richard seems to him a gentle, kind and wise man. Why is everyone so sure that he was a cruel murderer?

With the help of other friends and acquaintances, Grant investigates Richard's life and the case of the Princes in the Tower.  

4 December: Jeeves & Wooster

 

This month we will be reading a play based on the Jeeves & Wooster stories of P.G. Wodehouse, so silliness and mayhem are ensured!  We last read this in 2018, and if memory serves we had fun.

To make it slightly more confusing the play that we are reading has a plot which revolves around Bertie Wooster deciding to stage a one-man show revolving around his recent experiences at Totleigh Towers, only to discover on the evening that, in typical Wooster fashion, nothing has gone to plan and the show is not ready to be staged. In desperation, he enlists Jeeves and another valet, Seppings, to help him stage the production, with Bertie as himself and both Jeeves and Seppings playing multiple characters. Both in the story Bertie is narrating and the play as it is being performed, events quickly spiral out of control, prompting Jeeves to step in to make sure all ends well.

Still with me?

Although a cast of 3, they perform a host of other roles - which we will not replicate!

As everything is explained, sort of, in the play I will not give a breakdown of the characters here!

I hope you will enjoy it!

 

 

 

6 November: The Real Thing

 my thanks to Val for suggesting we do another Tom Stoppard. I have not had the chance to reread it yet, but from memory this is one of his more accessible and humorous plays. I am certain you will enjoy it.

 

As always I am stealing some text! 

The Real Thing 

by Tom Stoppard that was first performed in 1982. The play focuses on the relationship between Henry and Annie, an actress and member of a group fighting to free Brodie, a Scottish soldier imprisoned for burning a memorial wreath during a protest.

The Real Thing examines the nature of honesty and uses various constructs, including a play within a play, to explore the theme of reality versus appearance. It has been described as one of Stoppard's "most popular, enduring and autobiographical plays."^[1][2]

Characters

Max: "40-ish" male actor who begins the play married to Annie. Acts in Henry's new play, House of Cards.

Charlotte: "35-ish" actress who begins the play married to Henry. Appears opposite Max in House of Cards.

Henry: "40-ish" playwright who, at the beginning of the play, is married to Charlotte and conducting an affair with Annie. Both believe in love and yet approach it with cynicism.

Annie: "30-ish" actress who begins the play married to Max. She has been conducting an ongoing affair with Henry while also working as an activist for Brodie, a soldier who was arrested and imprisoned for setting fire to a wreath at the Cenotaph.

Billy: "22-ish" young actor who plays Giovanni to Annie's Annabella in 'Tis Pity She's a Whore. Openly shows romantic interest in Annie.

Debbie: "17" year old daughter of Charlotte and Henry who nevertheless spends very little time with them.

Brodie: "25" year old soldier imprisoned for setting fire to the wreath at the Cenotaph. Annie takes him up as a cause.

 

Given the subject matter of the play, I am also going to include Wikipedia's brief summary of Stoppard's own, perhaps complex, love life:

Stoppard has been married three times. His first marriage was to Josie Ingle (1965–1972), a nurse. His second marriage was to Miriam Stern (1972–92); they separated when he began a relationship with actress Felicity Kendal. He also had a relationship with actress Sinéad Cusack, but she made it clear she wished to remain married to Jeremy Irons and stay close to their two sons. Also, after she was reunited with a son she had given up for adoption, she wished to spend time with him in Dublin rather than with Stoppard in the house they shared in France. He has two sons from each of his first two marriages. In 2014 he married Sabrina Guinness.