Well, I felt drained. As some of you may have guessed, my name indicates Welshness, and ’tis true, my early years were spent in Cardiff. Then we moved north and eastwards to Hull, a strange, unique city beside the wide, grey Humber estuary. Many teenage Saturday afternoons were spent veering between glee and despair, as my mates and I tried to support our local professional football team, who graced the then Third Division. Decked out in black and amber kit, they were nick-named The Tigers, and they would cascade out onto the pitch at Boothferry Park to a crackly recording of “Tiger Rag” with a resonant chorus of “Oop the Tigers, oop the Tigers…” I say try because they were quite hard to support without laughing, as they would nearly always follow flashes of brilliance with spells of dazzling, thumping incompetence. One weekend we arrived cock-a-hoop after a five-one victory the previous Saturday, crowing and jeering at the visiting supporters, whose team then proceeded to hammer us EIGHT NIL….
Fast forward now if you will, several decades. I have settled in the balmy South, but keep in touch with the North, in particular with my friend the actor Clive Kneller, whose wife Bethan Jones (not as far as we know, a relation) is a lecturer at Hull University. Several months ago they pointed out that my two childhood home teams, Cardiff and Hull, were due to play against each other in a Championship game in early May, and would I like to come and visit? Little did we know that this would be a major confrontation, with nothing less at stake than Hull’s promotion to the Premiership. Cardiff already had enough points to guarantee promotion but Hull had to win this match to be sure of joining them. These days City has a real supporter in the Hull-based Egyptian businessman Assem Allem, who has restored the team’s financial base, and they have a fine new stadium, the KC.
But they haven’t lost their ability to make their fans howl with joy and then within seconds scream with despair! Leading the match two goals to one, in the 90th minute the Tigers missed a penalty which would have clinched a certain victory. The Cardiff goalkeeper, having kept the ball out of his net, instantly booted it back up towards the Hull goal. The Hull players frantically back-pedalled – and immediately conceded a penalty themselves, from which Cardiff calmly scored – and the final result was a draw!
But wait! All was not lost….the baroque vagaries of football goal-average calculations meant that 50-odd miles away along the M62, should Watford lose against Leeds United, Hull would still gain promotion. There were still 15 minutes of playing-time left at Leeds, so all 25 thousand spectators stayed in the stadium waiting for news from Elland Rd, where the teams were currently drawing at one goal each. Then news came that Leeds had scored – excitement mounted, people flooded onto the KC pitch – and then that was it, Leeds had won and Hull were after all a Premier League football team!!!
Not since the Rolling Stones concert at Earl’s Court in 1973 have I seen a more ecstatic crowd. The loud pulse of “The Eye of the Tiger” flooded the Humberside afternoon, people leapt, danced, wept and bellowed. The Cardiff City supporters had all stayed too, and we beheld the near-apocalyptic sight of two sets of rival football supporters applauding each other. A final touch of surrealism came as Clive and I were leaving the ground. There were still lots of people in the stadium, and the air was all once filled with the swelling sound of twenty thousand voices singing along to Elvis Presley’s “Can’t Help Falling in Love with You”- some with broad, flat East Yorkshire vowels, others with the rolling resonance of the South Welsh valleys. My cup, thought I, runneth over….
And so back to the relative calm of London’s theatre-land. It’s been a busy week catching up with the Radagrads. On Monday to St Martin’s Lane, to catch Ben Whishaw‘s riveting, thoughtful performance alongside the great Judi Dench in “Peter and Alice”. A real privilege to experience such talent – all of the cast are brilliant as well as the two stars, and there is top-notch directing and design by Michael Grandage and Christopher Oram . The play’s subject is arresting – an encounter between the real-life “originals” for J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan and Lewis Carroll’s Alice – but the script somehow left me wanting more…However an experience not to be missed, and quite rightly tickets are gold-dust.
On Wednesday another rare treat – a play by the author of “Absolute Hell”, Rodney Ackland – “Before the Party” at the Almeida. It’s a corker! What a smashing writer was Ackland – how sad that we see so few of his plays. Matthew Dunster and Anna Fleischle present it wonderfully well, evoking the world of Britain in 1949 with style and panache, and the cast is flawless. In terms of great British actresses, Stella Gonet has to be mentioned in the same breath as Judi Dench, and she is matched with wondrous work from Katherine Parkinson, Michael Thomas, June Watson and our brilliant grad Michelle Terry.
On Thursday another return to the days of my youth – Alexander Marshall’s “And in the End” – a play telling the story of the death and life of John Lennon – at that store of hidden nuggets, the Jermyn St Theatre. Valentine Pelka plays the eponymous hero, and on the opening night members of John Lennon’s original group, the Quarrymen, were in the audience. The memories came flooding back – I’m of an age to have lived and breathed the whole Beatles saga – and there are some real insights and surprises in the play. Andy Grange – a RADA “tech” grad – has produced some fine lighting, there are tantalising snatches of the songs, and in the end you can’t help but leave humming “…the love you take is equal to the love you make….”
And last night – Friday – yet another revival of a masterpiece, Gorki’s “Children of the Sun” at the National, directed by Howard Davies and no less than four grads from my days at Gower St in the cast – Geoffrey Streatfeild, Emma Lowndes, Rhiannon Oliver and Gerard Monaco. Another terrific evening – the script is lively and apt (adaptation by Andrew Upton) – the acting, directing and design all reflecting the NT at its very best. When you go, be prepared for something of a surprise right at the very end…
AND FINALLY, dear readers, another quiz moment. Below are pictures I took in Hull of statues of two local cultural heroes. Who are they? And what link does one of them have to the play at Jermyn St? Please send your answers in via the “Comment” box below.
