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Today I thought a little bit about the production of The Real Inspector Hound that we put on at school back in (I think) 1985 and as with all such ancient memories it’s filled with happiness but shrouded in dripping darkness and mould as the jolt of realisation that all those kids are in their mid-fifties now hits me. Hannah Griffiths must still be 18 surely? No, even she is 55 (if still alive). Why have you done this to us God?
Mainly nice memories though. It was the summer after our A levels and I think we put the play together in two weeks, sometimes rehearsing in the evening sun on the school field. I just have the sense of golden happiness and a fleeting memory of Julian Cann in a wheelchair (for his character). School was over and life was about to begin, but we had this one last hurrah in the decompression chamber between the two.
It’s slightly punctured by a memory (that I think was from the same time) where out on that school field at night and possibly somewhat drunk, we were subject to an arrogant verbal attack from one of our intellectual but witheringly cruel friends (I have a type and until I rebelled against such toxicity I always seemed to have a friend like this) who told some of us that our lives were pointless and worthless and made me cry. It might have been another occasion actually, but it feels like the same fortnight in my mind. It was a time of intense emotions, mainly good and I was a sensitive soul who should have batted off such nonsense, but there you go.
We’d also planned to do an opening half of weird sketches that we’d come up with, that we thought were hilarious but that mid-eighties Cheddar probably wasn’t ready for. The only one I remember was about a group of unemployed youths who had set up a musical group and whose instruments were two halves of a ripped up beer can that they’d percussion together whilst singing “We’ve got no jobs. We’re unemployed” to the tune of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony. It’s hard to know why that amused us so much and all I remember is the relief on our teacher’s face when we got cold feet about doing sketches and just got on with the play.
Ah well. Happy (apart from the sobbing) days.
Today was mainly taken up with doing some prep and recordings for the Book Club and I got two very enjoyable, though different chats with ex-Edinburgh flat mate Fergus Craig and enthusiastic academic Janina Ramirez. I am really enjoying these, though they do seem to be taking up a lot of my life as there’s much reading involved and no matter how many I do I always seem to have gaps coming up (partly because people want specific release dates that are in the future). But I also love how many books I’ve read or listened to this year - way more than I’ve managed for decades and it’s a real privilege to get to chat with authors. And it’s not quite as much upheaval for the guests, so I am hoping I have a chance of getting some really big names on this one once it’s established (and the people I’ve had already are certainly not to be sniffed at)
We watched the final couple episodes of Severance today - which is a very claustrophobic and tense show that will probably give you nightmares. It’s necessarily pretty slow but explodes into life as things process and it’s an affecting and (I can’t really say enjoyable) riveting show. Apple TV if you can get that.
And more guest announcements
19th Sept, joining Milo Mccable (aka Troy Hawke) is Buzzcocks and Taskmaster star Jamali Maddix
3rd October sees the return of RHLSTP favourite, Sara Pascoe (can she top the coins in face revelation - probably)
10th October I will be chatting to Victoria Coren-Mitchell
