Should a London theatre be named after the great playwright?
‘But the world is a dark enough place for even a little flicker to be welcome.’
That’s a great line from a great play – Terence Rattigan’s The Deep Blue Sea – currently playing at one of London’s great theatres (possibly the greatest), the Theatre Royal, Haymarket.
The theatre is in my good books at the moment. It’s the first to sign up to a campaign I have launched. This might seem trivial to you – but, if successful, it will make a lasting difference to theatre- lovers and future theatre historians.
As a rule, since they were introduced 200 or so years ago, playbills and theatre posters advertising a show have featured the month and the day of the show’s opening, but not the year. This means you can’t date a production from its poster.
When you next go to a theatre where they have posters of past triumphs framed on the walls, check them out and you will see what I mean.
By the bar at the London Palladium at Christmas, I saw a glorious poster for an old Aladdin. Top of the bill were Cilla Black and Leslie Crowther. Alfred Marks and Terry Scott were in it, too. ‘Twice Daily, 2.45 and 7.30,’ says the poster. ‘Opening December 22nd.’
But it does not give the year. Maddening. I’m going to change all that.
I went to see The Deep Blue Sea because my friend Selina Cadell is in it – and wonderful. You will know her: she’s the one who wears the neck brace in Doc Martin.
I went also because I love Rattigan’s work. I once played the boy in The Browning Version and I have directed Harlequinade. And I am sort of supporting another campaign that’s just got going: to get a London theatre named after Rattigan.
I say ‘sort of’ because, while Terence Rattigan is undoubtedly one of the English ‘greats’, wearing my amateur-theatre-historian hat I find it quite annoying when theatres keep changing their names. You don’t know where you are. The Noël Coward used to be the Albery. Before that, it was the New Theatre.
I have real reservations about the Harold Pinter, which used to be the Comedy. If the theatre’s called the Pinter, it makes you think twice before you book.
London’s theatreland has a Shaw and a Sondheim and an Ivor Novello, but why not a Sheridan or a Wilde or even a Ray Cooney?
I remember passing a row of unsightly dustbins by the stage door of the National Theatre a few years ago.
‘Yes,’ said the great Sir Donald Sinden who was with me, ‘they’re planning the Samuel Beckett Studio.’
I need to lose weight. I must get into my morning-suit trousers for Royal Ascot.
Last year, I spent a humiliating day in the Royal Enclosure, unable to study the race card, unable to follow the form, because my left hand was permanently engaged trying to keep my trousers up while my right hand was busy pulling down my waistcoat to hide my exposed midriff.
I need to lose three inches round the waist. I am getting help at Auriens Chelsea, and their health guru Gideon has given me some dietary tips: increase protein intake; incorporate colourful, antioxidant-rich plant food at each meal; swap some saturated fats (I’m a glutton for cheese!) for omega-3 fatty acids (include sources like oily fish and chia seeds); prioritise carbs earlier in the day, at breakfast and lunch, rather than the evening.
I am just sharing because it seems to be working. To date I have lost 4lb.
What I really need is a live-in nutritionist-cum-housekeeper to look after me.
The other day, I was with Chris Patten (Lord Patten of Barnes, KG, CH, late of Oxford University and Hong Kong). He was telling me about the day when, in the late 1960s, as a youngster working
in the Conservative Research Department, he was sent, with Ronald Millar (playwright and later noted speechwriter to Margaret Thatcher) to help the then Leader of the Opposition, Ted Heath, with a speech.
Patten and Millar were up early, working on a first draft. They’d had no breakfast when they arrived at Heath’s flat at Albany at 10am, as appointed. They waited for the great man to appear, hoping there might be tea or coffee (and even a biscuit) on offer. There wasn’t.
Heath duly arrived. He remembered the theme of the speech: ‘It’s Care and Compassion, isn’t it?’
They set to work. Three hours later, they were still at it. One o’clock struck and into the room came Ted Heath’s housekeeper, bearing a silver tray, with a bottle of Chablis and a lobster salad. Their eyes came out on stalks. ‘You must be hungry, boys,’ chuckled Ted, not offering them anything as he cheerfully tucked in. .
Gyles’s podcast, Rosebud, is out now
