A woman of no importance

Saturday past, back to Guildford to see 'A Woman of no Importance', I think a touring version of the production we saw just about a couple of years ago in the Strand. Noticed at reference 1.

Day started off wet and windy, with all the damp leaves lying around giving our suburban roads a rather woodland smell. West Hill railway bridge still closed to eastbound road traffic, for no reason that I could see, apart from the cones which shut off the space under the bridge the (absent) gas men used to park their vans. Perhaps some industrious citizen will move them.

Permanent notice

Not impressed by what looked like a rather permanent notice fixed to the wall next to what should have been the ladies toilet.

Puzzling notice

While on the train we puzzled about this notice in our local (free) newspaper. What was really going on here? Who was going to turn up to buy all this stuff? I suppose there is money to be made out of this sort of thing if you both know your way around sale rooms and know your way around fancy goods. We failed on both counts.

Chapel with the(lit) sanctuary lamp

Attempt to capture the east end

Made it into St. Nicholas church at Guildford on this occasion, which turned out to be a most unusual place, not converted to an arts centre at all, despite hosting a fringe (and possibly seasonal) play that very afternoon. Built in 1875 or so and rather high church, which may have earned it the comment from Pevsner about beastliness - with Pevsner having been a convert to Lutheranism and possibly rather strident about such matters in consequence. Not a word I have come across in Pevsner before.

The elaborate furnishings of the east end included a Roman-style slab altar (seemingly a throw back to the days of Old Testament with its live offerings to the deity) and a large crucifix suspended from the roof above.

West end and font

The staid exterior, making the interior rather a surprise

The west end was even more elaborate than the east end. There was also a very elaborate font, but we were ejected at that point and will have to come back for more on another occasion.

A proper shot of the strip iron footbridge, Jesus Green style

Maker's mark

Next time we are in Cambridge I shall have to check the bridge at Jesus Green to see if it carries the same mark.

Having opted not to take a picnic on account of the weather, settled for scampi, chips and a dab of salad in the theatre cafeteria. With the scampi taking the form of savoury brown shells containing a smear of something prawny. That said, not bad for a tenner, apart from possibly sending me to sleep in the second act.

The puff

Boxes sticking out of the wall

Inside the auditorium, we wondered about the reinforcing bars inside the concrete slabs supporting the boxes. Much fuller than it had been the American play, noticed at reference 2. Another rather substantial set for a touring production. Acting mixed, musical interludes nowhere near as good as those in London. Roy Hudd replaced by a very tall understudy. Puzzled by the punch line of 'a man of no importance'.

Tide mark

More wine from Marlborough

Dined at the Britannia again, having remembered to book on this occasion. Perhaps not necessary, but the place was still serving a lot of food for 1730 - and they did not look to be people on the way to the theatre. Amused by the tide mark as we came in: have Thames Water got things under control yet? Enjoyed the houmous based starter, rather a bright yellow by the time the kitchen had finished with it. Or did they buy it in from the people at reference 5, presently both in trouble and in the news over their houmous? The chicken schnitzel came with fancy presentation, but the mound of vegetable matter on which the schnitzel was balanced was too soggy and contained too many flavours. While the coating of the schnitzel itself had been strongly peppered, far too strongly for our taste, used as we are to fairly bland food. So disappointing - so much so that I mentioned the matter when I paid - which they were gracious enough about. Wine from that huge refinery on South Island satisfactory, although by the end of the bottle we were noticing a sort of petrolly back taste, possibly the result of careless glass washing rather than of the wine. A taste I associate with mescal and tequila.

Back to the station for our train. On-train entertainment provided by a bevy of school girls on their way to a party, displaying a great deal of leg and talking very earnestly about rugby. Then about parents who did not understand the verb 'hanging out' and wanted to be told exactly what this involved. At least one of them was posh enough to go in for riding horses.

An odd scratch card, picked up somewhere along the way

Back home, where I downloaded a copy of the play from Gutenburg, the first outing for my Kindle for a while, with the play taken from an edition of 1919, interesting in its own right. Rather put out to find out how much had either been cut - or I had missed. But I did find out that it was the second act which closed with 'a woman of no importance', and that the play did indeed close with 'a man of no importance'. And I was reminded that in among all the rather clunky Wildean humour, there was a serious women's issue here, probably a hot topic at the time of the play's writing in 1894 - that is to say the plight of women who got themselves pregnant by men who then refused to do the proper thing. Nor I had not realised before what a cad Lord Illingworth was, despite his smooth and worldly ways. Perhaps only to be expected that BH was much more on this ball than I was.

The stage

Lots of stage directions involving the codes 'L.C.' and 'R.C.'. So I take myself off to Bing, who does not clarify the matter completely satisfactorily, despite turning up lots of diagrams like that above. With confusion about left and right. On the other hand, I am now clear where upstage is and slightly clearer about what upstaging means.

A successful outing. Travelling time not much different to going to the West End and a great deal cheaper. We shall be back!

PS: there was some on-stage smoking, enough that there was a stink of stale cigarette smoke when I opened the programme back home. Can't think where else it might have come from. More evidence of the keen noses of ex-smokers.

Reference 1: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2017/11/wilde-one.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/10/black-power.html.

Reference 3: https://www.saintnics.com/.

Reference 4: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/11/piano-33.html. Notice of the piano at St. Nic's.

Reference 5: http://zorbafoods.co.uk/.