Play: Acceptance

Tonight, back with North London Friends, at Hampstead Theatre, for Acceptance. The organiser was online beforehand, encouraging people to brave the weather - indeed, it snowed quite heavily for a couple of hours in the afternoon. By evening, at least it covered the layer of slush, and gave me something a bit more solid to walk on! Now, I did mean to leave earlier than I did - but got chatting to a couple of co-workers just back from holiday, and there you go. As I waited for the bus, I checked my times - and realised it was going to take about twice as long as the Tube, and make me quite late for meeting the group. So I said sod it, and headed underground.

Slippier down there, ironically, with the wet floors! There were announcements about closed stations - Euston had been closed completely, because of an unspecified incident; Bank was closed to Northern Line services, because of flooding. Happily, neither was one I needed - in fact, Bank being closed to the Northern Line made my journey through it, on the Northern Line, that bit faster! And so I arrived at Swiss Cottage, slightly after the agreed time - after a bit of dithering, realised that Exit 2 was the one I wanted (the vandalised street map didn't help), and exited into thick-ish snow. The theatre wasn't far away, anyhow.

Took me a little while to spot the group, who'd squeezed themselves into the small seating section in the bar. It turned out that not all of us had made it - can't blame people who stayed away, really, it's not easy in this weather! Anyway, we chatted until it was time to go down and queue - unassigned seating in the downstairs theatre. I might have had a drink - but having managed to down a bottle of wine over the course of the afternoon, I figured I was all right for now, thank you very much.

The play poster was reproduced on the stairwell, painted on the steps! I only noticed it when someone pointed it out from below. In the theatre, we were told that we could sit either side of the stage - so we sat in the front row on the far side. Curiously, the stage itself is enclosed in glass panes! Afterwards, there was some speculation about the reason for these - to stop us storming the stage? to stop the actors falling off in the complete darkness between scenes? Anyway, personally I don't think it achieves any useful purpose - and I found the voices quite muffled at first, although I got used to it after a while.

The play - about 90 minutes straight through - deals with a young music student from Hong Kong, who has come to America to continue her studies, and applied to the particular college where this play is set. She's brilliant, apparently - well, she'd hardly have bothered, otherwise. However, her application doesn't go so smoothly, as something from her past - which she'd rather keep hidden - comes to light. But how will the college deal with it?

I recognised one of the actors - Bo Poraj - from his television work; he plays one of the admissions officers at the college. Apart from the student herself, there are three actors, all playing admissions officers. Trying not to give too much away, I can say this much; the play raises many themes, such as what you should look for in an application, what you ask of the student, and indeed, how prejudices - positive or negative - can colour your opinion of a person. You could write a thesis on how that applies to each different character in this. For that matter, the nature of the student's problem is, shall we say, topical.

For all that, I found it a bit unsatisfying. Yes, there's a conclusion to the story - but one that leaves the issues strangely unresolved. Never mind, it's interesting, as I say, and well acted. Runs until the 7th of next month. Contains adult themes. Afterwards, back upstairs, and the decision of whether to have a drink was resolved by the generosity of one of the group in buying a bottle to share. A nice chat was had, before we braved the cold again. The snow certainly hadn't gone away, but it wasn't stormy - cold, though, as I waited for my bus. I knew I'd have to change - but when I got on the next bus, it wasn't going at all where I'd expected, as I discovered after a couple of stops! (Turns out I was going in the wrong direction - well, Google Maps hadn't told me to change stops!) So, I recalculated my route from where I got off, had a nervous moment when TFL decided my third bus wasn't coming, and had just decided on another when TFL changed its mind, and said my bus would be there in five minutes. And so I eventually got home, and not half as cold as last night!

Tomorrow, after a most welcome lie-in, Up in the Cheap Seats, and Beginning, at the Ambassadors Theatre. For once, not an official ticket for this - got better value with What's on Stage!

On Sunday, I found another Southwark tour - excellent! The "Family Friendly Liberty of the Clink" tour is run by Walking in London.. therefore Funzing.. and Londonist is involved somewhere too. Hard to keep track of everyone involved in walks. The standard code (crazy_fun) is still giving 10% off on Funzing's website. I believe the weather's supposed to have warmed up by then.. here's hoping.

On Monday, London European Club is headed to Monologue Slam, an actors' showcase at the Theatre Royal, Stratford East.

On Tuesday, Up in the Cheap Seats is at Sadler's Wells for a performance by Ballet British Colombia.

On Wednesday, Let's Do This is off to a jazz evening at Two Temple Place. Beautiful venue - should be a lovely evening.

On Thursday, Walking Victorian London is running a walk around Il Quartiere - Tales from Italian Clerkenwell. Excellent - I've had my eye on that for a while.

Next Friday, Helen's in town, so we're headed for lunch, somewhere TBD. In the evening, I'm back to Ireland for the weekend again.

And on the 12th, London Dramatic Arts is at Caroline, or Change, at Hampstead Theatre. As usual, too expensive for me, and I got my own ticket, at about half the price. She's only going with one unnamed guest - maybe she won't go at all!