The inspector calls yet again

Somebody, probably ATG, sent us an advertisement for the inspector calls visiting the New Theatre at Wimbledon, and we decided to give it a go, with the matinée performance we ended up going for coming around last week. The tickets were of the print-yourself variety, dolled up to remind one of old-style cinema tickets. Or perhaps bus tickets. In any event, the sort of thing that was torn off a roll. But half the price of a London performance - and as it turned out, more convenient and much better value for money.

Elderly snap from Street View

It was a damp, cool day, with a strong smell of wet leaf everywhere, rather as if one was in a damp wood in the autumn, rather than in a damp suburb in the autumn. A day which started off well with my discovering that the convenience store in Waterloo Road sold walnuts. Rather nicer looking walnuts that those from Covent Garden and rather cheaper. And, as it turned out, with rather less of the bitter after taste. So far just two or three duds out of what must be around fifty nuts.

Waterloo Road clearly not on the Google camera crew's must-do list, as this image dates from 2012, while our road was done in 2018. The picture frame shop right is long gone since 2012, but the dentist (my dentist, as it happens) is still alive and well and the convenience store centre has not changed that much. Do they base the camera crew's list on the number of times a stretch of street has been viewed? With our road in a popular estate attracting, I would think, quite a lot of traffic from house hunters.

Several chaps on the platform at Wimbledon sporting tops saying 'trespass and welfare officer' in large white letters on their backs, thus solving the dead pigeon mystery at the end of reference 6, with the officers in question presumably being more concerned with mental health than with animal welfare. Perhaps they also hold keys to the long barriers which protect the fast train platforms from suicide attempts.

Before theatre beverage

We took our before theatre beverage at the old frizzle (of reference 4, a member of the Livelyhood pubco), not having been attracted by any of the other possibles on the way, mostly fast food joints of one sort or another, some very large. And the old frizzle was quite large too, with the two front bars having been knocked together, plus more space back left, complete with stage, but no piano that I could find. So no score there. Presumably it got chucked out when the place was upgraded from being an old-time boozer. Staffed by pleasant young females, who, inter alia, offered for our inspection their Christmas menu, although as far as we could make out, the place was not actual open Christmas Day. But we could have a Christmas flavoured lunch for around £25, exclusive of booze but inclusive of a Christmas Cracker.

Slightly alarmed while we took our beverages to see what seemed like huge numbers of school children arriving outside the theatre opposite, waves and waves of them. We had quite forgotten that the play had been a set book for GCSE examinations since what seems like the dawn of time - which must make the play a good earner for the likes of ATG: enough school children doing the play to keep it in more or less permanent production, touring around the country. But we worried that they might be rather noisy. We also worried about the large numbers of advertisements for 'Cinderella' plastered on the theatre, which was not what we wanted to see, but after search of the frontage and inspection of our tickets, we were relieved to spot a small poster for our play.

The children were indeed rather noisy when we arrived in the full auditorium. And they took quite a while to settle down. But settle down they eventually did, though not before I had wondered how long we would give it before returning to the old frizzle. Full credit to the cast for facing them down.

The luvvies

The play, the same production as noticed at reference 3, had worn well. Possibly helped along by the fact that while I remembered much of the body of the story, I had quite forgotten the twists at the end. More smoke than I remember. Once again, I was convinced that the inspector was John Hannah from Miss. Marple and the 4:50 from Paddington, but finding when I checked at home that he was actually Liam Brennan. At least I had the excuse that they both came from Scotland, possibly both graduating from the RADA of the north at Glasgow at roughly the same time.

And we were left with some interesting moral conundrums. For example, if we all do something bad to someone, is it worse if we all do something bad to the same person than if we each do the same something bad, but to different people? One difference being that if just one person is at the receiving end of all this bad, that person is much more likely to end up dead. With such conundrums being meat and drink to the examiners for GCSE.

I was reminded that the play saw its world premiere in Moscow in 1945 and was impressed how topical it has remained, in this era of concentrated Tory wealth in the middle of distributed Tory austerity. Not to mention sleazy sex mixed in with all the wealth - from where I associated to a comment from the Bengal famine to the effect that all the death and dislocation pushed lots of young women into sex work in the towns and cities. See reference 8 - and although it seems unlikely that Priestley knew that much about the famine, as a lefty he was probably aware of it.

Perhaps all the young people in the audience will notice that things have not changed that much from the time when Priestley was writing and grow up to be staunch Labour voters.

On exit, we decided it was too early to dine at the old frizzle, so headed home to the Café Rouge in Epsom High Street. Where we remembered the waitress, but failed to remember that she came from Cracow rather than Warsaw and that she detested travelling there by bus. Where I found that I had not got my scarf, so spent some minutes wondering where I might have left it. Was it worth going back for a £20 scarf?

Mushrooms on toast to start, half chicken with chips to follow. Washed down with a spot of new-to-us white, the flashy white having long vanished from their menu. But I did remember to steer clear of cheap Chablis and stick with New Zealand. See reference 7. No Calvados despite the Frenchified ambience, so I had to settle for Courvoisier. But all very good. Maybe we will not leave it so long next time.

Home to find that I had not taken my scarf out at all, despite it being a cool day. Perhaps I had spent too many brain cycles on whether to wear a rain coat or a jacket to have any left for scarves. All this despite my having a clear memory of putting the thing on - a memory which must have been left over from my short excursion to get the Guardian, much earlier in the day.

PS: I was impressed to find that the day after the show, our programme still stank of cigarette smoke, which must have been derived from all the fake smoke puffed out in the course of the show. The real smoke from the modest number of cigars on stage did not amount to much, with the actors not really putting their lungs to work on them. Bit squeamish about it probably.

Reference 1: https://psmv2.blogspot.com/2015/09/an-inspector-calls.html. The small screen version.

Reference 2: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2016/10/priestley.html. A different play by the same man.

Reference 3: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2017/02/the-inspector-calls-again.html. The London version.

Reference 4: https://www.theoldfrizzle.co.uk/.

Reference 5: https://www.livelyhood.co.uk/. The parent pubco of the pub previous.

Reference 6: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/11/last-post-for-tippett.html.

Reference 7: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/08/puligny-montrachet-off.html.

Reference 8: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/11/the-bengal-famine-of-1943.html.