Tuesday March 15, 2005

Journey's End

Saw Journey's End last weekend which after a season in the West End is now doing a national tour. It was on at the Hexagon theatre in Reading.

The play is based in a dugout in the first world war. There is only one set of scenery which is the officers 'mess' in the dugout. The characters show the different ways men were affected by the terrible events; one officer who is trying to throw a sickie to get home, an older officer who seems to be unaffected (but is), the head officer who is clearly suffering battle fatigue and drinks far too much and his friend from school who has just joined them who thinks this is all jolly good fun. There is also a Sergeant, a Baldrick type person. As the play progresses we are shown more about these men and how they all interact. Without spoiling it for anyone I think it is clear the end will be tragic and is so. The ending of the play features all the cast standing in front of a war memorial with the last post playing.

Before we went to the play we went to a bookshop to buy my father in law a birthday present. We got him Tommy by Richard Holmes . The book covers the life of a British soldier in the first world war.I looked over the book on the way home on the train. The pictures reminded me graphically how horrible it must have been.

On a lighter note we walked into the village later that night and had an excellent curry at the Haweli . Strange a village like Twyford which is not large has four curry houses. The UK's love of this food is clearly alive and well.

Fred Dibnah Steeplejack

A series on BBC2 started last week and continues tonight. It is the last TV series made by Fred Dibnah before he died. He was a very interesting person with a constant mug of tea to hand. His knowledge of old technology now disgarded by us was awsome. I remember seeing him build a well in his garden. I don't suppose people build wells now and he did it because he wanted to see how they did it years ago and because he could. He spent a lot of his time pulling down old tall chimneys which seems strange to us, given his love of industrial heritage.

This series is all about his journey around the UK on a traction engine he rebuilt. During the journey he also collected his MBE from Buckinghamn house but they would not let him drive the engine along The Mall . It took him twenty odd years to rebuild the engine and he said if he had not talked so much to visitors who came to see him it could have been done a lot quicker. It promises to be an excellent series.