Ellis Jones

Now, since my last rather gloomy post, things have looked up somewhat. Having recently collided with a London Transport bus and walked away leaving it with a shattered windscreen, I reflected on the ambulance-driver’s comment about my perhaps being made of kryptonite, and was thus intrigued to learn that the original Kryptonite Being was about to appear in Walthamstow.

I hastened to Ye Olde Rose and Crown at Hoe St, to take a look at a revival of a 1960s American musical ITS’ A BIRD, IT’S A PLANE…IT’S SUPERMAN! Now to be absolutely frank, the bar for musical theatre in London these days is set pretty high by the West End, and especially the West End transfers from the big subsidised companies like the RSC “Matilda”, and the musicals I’ve seen in pub theatres have been pretty lack-lustre, not say embarrassingly inept, so my expectations weren’t of the highest.

Well, this show is terrific! Neatly directed and tightly choreographed, this has “cult hit” written all over it, so grab a ticket while you can.The script is daft – so was the original comic-strip – but is delivered by the production and its cast with dogged seriousness, without the slightest hint of tongue in any onstage cheek. The songs are delivered with huge, infectious enthusiasm and considerable skill. Both of the leads – Craig Berry as Clark Kent/Superman with Michelle LaFortune as Lois Lane – are strong professional singers, while Craig Berry has a nice line in wry, self-deprecating comedy, and Ms LaFortune’s way with a sexy solo is dynamite. Or do I mean kryptonite?  Don’t delay, it’s only on for a couple more weeks, and the theatre is easily reached from Walthamstow Central on the Victoria Line, or Overground from Liverpool St.

Here’s a link to buying tickets online: http://allstarproductions.ticketsource.co.uk

And so spring comes to London – at least for the time being. Waterside is be-set with daffodils and geese. So far this year I’ve cut the grass twice, which for early March is well, weird. All this unseasonal sunshine is very very welcome, but of course it brings an underlying unease. The floods in the west linger still. Those of us who grew up with John Wyndham’s novels – in particular “The Kraken Wakes”- aren’t surprised by the news that the Thames barrier is having to be checked for wear and tear after its unprecedented degree of recent use. The polar ice-caps really are melting. The day after tomorrow could be morphing into just tomorrow…

But before I set about building an ark in the garage, some more uplifting news. Make a note of this website: www.ceoemail.com Regular readers will know that colour was added to my recent journey to the antipodes by an unscheduled 19-hour stopover in Kiev. What added an unnecessary layer of frustration and annoyance was the attitude of the B.A. ground-staff when eventually I arrived in Singapore. I’d been assured in a phone-call to BA Customer services from Kiev that the fact that the – perfectly understandable and unavoidable – delay meant I had missed an overnight stay at a pre-booked Singapore hotel, plus an important meeting plus the ongoing flight to Wellington via Sydney  – all of this would be fully known by their team at Singapore, who would happily make alternative arrangements.

What actually happened was that the sole BA rep at Singapore appointed to deal with the hundred or so passengers with on-going journey problems, having kept me waiting for well over an hour,  told me that since my tickets were booked through Trailfinders I would have to telephone them in London to sort my on-going flights, that in fact there were no flights on to Sydney or Wellington that night (it was 11.30 p.m. local time) and I would have to go away and find myself a hotel. I shared with her my view that this was far from acceptable – in fact I shared it quite firmly, with a fair amount of breath-support – and that section of the airport went suddenly quiet. With very bad grace she bit her lip, sat down at her computer, and within 20 minutes I was on a plane to Sydney.

When eventually back in London, I was advised by Trailfinders to make a formal written complaint to BA. This I did, but it received no reply, not even an acknowledgement. After 3 weeks someone told me about the above web-site, where I found the contact details for the CEO of British Airways, and e-mailed him a copy of the so-far-ignored letter to his customer services department. There was an immediate response in the form of an assurance that the incident would be investigated. This was on Friday afternoon. First thing Monday morning came an e-mail from the customer services department containing a fulsome apology and a voucher for £200. Which movie was it when the cry was “I just won’t take it anymore!”?  My voucher, however, of course can only be spent on a BA flight….

Anyway, onwards into the springtime. Yesterday was the annual trade fair “Perform!” at Olympia. Despite the glorious weather there was a fair turn-out of young hopefuls investigating options for training, and I was on a panel organised by Matt Barber on the whys and wherefores of applying to UK drama schools, dealing with the perennial question “What exactly do audition panels look for…?” The answer of course being they don’t look for anything, but they tend to know the right mix of talent and character when they see it, so the advice is always “Just be yourself”. The tricky bit of course, is finding out who you are…

The week ahead holds for me events featuring Tom Hiddleston and George Orwell. Here’s your starter for ten. I give my classes for American students at the University of London Senate House beside Russell Square. What link does that building have with Orwell’s “1984”? Or for that matter with the poet John Betjeman and his famous lust for Miss Joan Hunter-Dunn?

I feel I’ve been living in the Book of Job. Since my return from foreign parts I have been thrice struck down with unkind afflictions. Firstly, the evening of the February London Hurricane I returned home at 10.30 to find that while Walthamstow clattered and rattled, and the reservoirs churned and frothed under 80 mile-an-hour gusts, the house had been broken into and ransacked. Secondly, for the first time in years the world of television drama seemed to have rediscovered the once noted Jones flair for comedy with an obviously tailor-made part, which looked oh so promising and then evaporated…and thirdly I got knocked down by a bus! What next, boils?

In fact the benighted house-robbers made off with only a few items, but they did include my best camera and most annoyingly a box-set of audio recordings of Charles Dickens’s “Dombey and Son” read by my chum David Timson. Vile felons they may be, but at least they showed some taste…

My survival from colliding with a double-decker was something of a miracle. My abject apologies to those whose journey home last Tuesday was stymied as the New Oxford St rush-hour traffic ground to a halt in a flurry of flashing blue-lights. No excuse, all my fault – I’d forgotten that what was once an eastbound one-way street now has a single westbound lane just for buses, and was simply looking the wrong way as I set off to cross the road. My profound thanks to the bus-driver who instantly called the ambulance from behind his shattered windscreen, to the kindly passer-by who picked me up and sat me on a nearby bench, and to the cheerful ambulance crew who pronounced that almost all such cases result in fatality, and that since all I seemed to have was a badly bruised shoulder they would ask the UCH accident and emergency nurses to check if I was made of kryptonite… And lastly regrets to my pals from the RADA Enterprises team, with whom I had so looked forward to spending the evening reuniting over a glass or two at Truckles Wine Bar.

But hey, I’m on the mend, and it’s St David’s Day…here’s my window-sill this misty morning, complete with obligatory daffodils, and an apologetic salute to Transport for London via my red bus money-box:

Meanwhile, the new season of theatre-going with bright young Americans from New York University is well under way. We’ve been to Turgenev”s “Fortune’s Fool” at the Old Vic, to Dawn King’s “Ciphers” at the Bush, to Samuel Beckett’s “Happy Days” at the Young Vic, and to Nick Payne’s “Blurred Lines” at the National Theatre’s stand-in space for the Cottesloe Theatre, the Shed. To use an American phrase, the “stand-out” shows so far have been the Beckett and “Blurred Lines”.

Beckett is very much a Marmite writer – I’m a huge fan, though tend either to leave the theatre feeling sad and anxious for the human race, or filled with a sense of cautious hope, and marvelling at the compelling language and imagery. Juliet Stevenson’s Winnie (admirably supported by David Beams, and skilfully directed by Natalie Abrahami) is gloriously perky, spirited and brave as she deals with her predicament, up to her waist – and then up to her neck – in gritty sand.

We don’t get to see Juliet Stevenson in the theatre too often, so here’s a chance to witness a seriously fine artist at the height of her powers. The night we were there the place was full of young people, who were all clearly riveted, and all my New Yorkers were entranced. It’s the kind of writing that only works if it’s brilliantly acted – the Late Dame Peggy Ashcroft declared Winnie a challenge for a female actor on a par with “Hamlet” for a male. 

Which leads neatly to more Radagrad news – if you live in the north, book now for “Hamlet” at the Manchester Royal Exchange, where the noble Dane is about to be given a fresh work-over by the dazzlingly talented Maxine Peake. When Maxine first joined us at Gower St, the South Bank Show did a piece on this young Lancashire lass coping with getting into RADA, and intended to follow up 3 years later with a film on her struggles finding an agent and getting a career under way at the end of the course. However, before she’d even finished training Maxine had been spotted by Victoria Wood, and was already well on her way to being a star…

Another always watchable graduate from my time is Sinead Matthews, who was one of a team of high-octane women performing at The Shed in an angry response  to the notorious “Blurred Lines” pop-music video, scripted by Nick Payne and directed by Carrie Cracknell. The cast were all quite stunning – they included Marion Bailey, Ruth Sheen and Claire Skinner – and the stage crackled with brilliant creativity. It’s finished now, but it was a great example of, well, almost what we used to call agit-prop theatre, a polemic show that knows its cause is just and true, and doesn’t take any prisoners. At all. It was a short run, and it’s over – but hurray,  we can catch Sinead again very soon, in a new two-hander by Vivienne Franzmann, “Pests” at the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs from March 27th. Anyone who saw her haunting work in the Complicite version of “The Master and Margarita” will know that a spring-time trip to Sloane Square has to go into the diary.

My 2014 diary is beginning to bulge. I’ve just found out that two more of my favourite grads, Ed Bennett and Michelle Terry Brown are going to team up for “Love’s Labours Lost” and “Much Ado” for the RSC at Stratford this summer.  When last in Warwickshire Ed scored a huge success taking over from David Tennant as “Hamlet”, and Michelle was a gloriously sexy Titania in “The Dream” last season at Shakespeare’s Globe. 

While both are outstanding performers, both Ed and Miche are wonderfully eloquent. (Ed is sometimes available as a tutor via teachyourselfacting.com, and Michelle co-wrote and starred in the lovely Sky sitcom, “The Cafe“.) You can watch them each being interviewed about acting in Shakespeare if you click on their names in the paragraph above.

So, back to the Avon in the summer time. I can’t wait – maybe I’ll go by boat…

Before I sign off, a mention of the Bath half-marathon, which takes place tomorrow March 2nd, and my daughter Cressida is running on behalf of Alzheimer’s Research. If anyone would like to sponsor her for this sadly all too prominent and worthy cause, the link is: http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/fundraiser-web/fundraiser/showFundraiserProfilePage.action?userUrl=CressidaJones