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Somalia On Sea
Feb. 26th, 2007 02:45 pmTo the wilds of Shepherds Bush last night to meet the Youngster (en route to Oxford) and to attend the recording of a couple of National Theatre Of Brent shows. The actual recordings had their moments, but also their periods of longeur. I think that Patrick Barlow puts a lot into his writing (certainly more than he puts into his rehearsing), but a more dispassionate eye might be useful to say "I think you might have gone on a bit long, here".
Still, his retelling of how the Taj Mahal was built ( and why, and when, and, indeed, where) plus their version of the Bronte sisters ("We're broke, Bronte Daughter sisters". "I know what we'll do, let's turn the house into a museum". "One small problem, we aren't famous". "Let's become famous nurses then". "Florence Nightingale lives down the raod; she's beaten us to it".) went well enough.
Beforehand we visited a restaurant on the Uxbridge Road. Mr DY, being DY, was totally unperturbed by the fact that we were directed downstairs to a room that appeared to be occupied by seven or eight Somalian warlords, amongst the normal collection of Somalian families out for a late Sunday lunch. We were the only white people there. People accuse the Youngster of all kinds of right-wing lunacy, but one thing that you can't accuse him of is preaching through ignorance or prejudice. He gets out there and talks to everyone.
The food wasn't spectacularly exciting, although it was good value, and the (Somalian) waitress was very pleasant -- presumably surprised at the first visit from white people since the place opened. The bill, when it arrived, was scrawled on a bit of exercise paper. I got the feeling that the supplying of bills wasn't quite how things were normally handled in this particular place. The warlords left only shortly after we arrived, presumably on the grounds that they suspected we were plain-clothes policemen. On leaving, the eating area upstairs was packed with what I can only assume was the Somalian government-in-exile. More bemused looks. And DY, of course, utterly unperturbed.
As we both observed, the audience for The National Theatre of Brent was somewhat incongruous for the Uxbridge Road, being exclusively white, middle-class and aged mainly between 25 and 50. Meanwhile a few drug dealers hung around the next street down. It looked like the kind of place where you could buy a Kalashnikov, a revolver, a silencer and all the drugs you can eat, all without making more than a couple of phone calls.
Great times. London is fun, occasionally.
Still, his retelling of how the Taj Mahal was built ( and why, and when, and, indeed, where) plus their version of the Bronte sisters ("We're broke, Bronte Daughter sisters". "I know what we'll do, let's turn the house into a museum". "One small problem, we aren't famous". "Let's become famous nurses then". "Florence Nightingale lives down the raod; she's beaten us to it".) went well enough.
Beforehand we visited a restaurant on the Uxbridge Road. Mr DY, being DY, was totally unperturbed by the fact that we were directed downstairs to a room that appeared to be occupied by seven or eight Somalian warlords, amongst the normal collection of Somalian families out for a late Sunday lunch. We were the only white people there. People accuse the Youngster of all kinds of right-wing lunacy, but one thing that you can't accuse him of is preaching through ignorance or prejudice. He gets out there and talks to everyone.
The food wasn't spectacularly exciting, although it was good value, and the (Somalian) waitress was very pleasant -- presumably surprised at the first visit from white people since the place opened. The bill, when it arrived, was scrawled on a bit of exercise paper. I got the feeling that the supplying of bills wasn't quite how things were normally handled in this particular place. The warlords left only shortly after we arrived, presumably on the grounds that they suspected we were plain-clothes policemen. On leaving, the eating area upstairs was packed with what I can only assume was the Somalian government-in-exile. More bemused looks. And DY, of course, utterly unperturbed.
As we both observed, the audience for The National Theatre of Brent was somewhat incongruous for the Uxbridge Road, being exclusively white, middle-class and aged mainly between 25 and 50. Meanwhile a few drug dealers hung around the next street down. It looked like the kind of place where you could buy a Kalashnikov, a revolver, a silencer and all the drugs you can eat, all without making more than a couple of phone calls.
Great times. London is fun, occasionally.
