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No country for old women: Old Ladies - at Finborough Theatre

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The day after seeing The Old Ladies at the Finborough Theatre , I was describing the play to someone in great detail: about three old ladies who lived in a rickety house in southern England in 1935. Based on Hugh Walpole’s novel and adapted by Rodney Ackland, it is the sort of story with enough believability, humour and mild thriller to stick in your mind. Perhaps it is the lure of this dark, forboding tale of a life without money, to be alone and to be old, that makes you feel attracted to this poverty porn. But then again, given the state of the world, the cost of living, an ageing population, or just the fact that it’s a dog-eat-dog world, it might as well be an every little old lady-for-herself, too. It’s a well-acted and staged piece that moves at a brisk pace, so there isn’t much time to think about it too much. And in the intimate (or should that be claustrophobic?) space of the Finborough, there’s nowhere to avert your eyes. Even if you wanted to.  The scene is a grim Cathe...

Left Baggage

On Saturday catching a tube back home someone left a bag in the car I was travelling. The first thing I knew of this was when a passenger pulled the emergency alarm. The rest of us just sat there as the passenger informed the driver of the situation. He must have been awfully worried about this piece of left baggage as he took off while the rest of us just stayed on the car. The driver appeared. He asked the car if anyone owned the bag. Nobody did. I looked at the bag. It was just across from me. It looked very thin. There was a small child sitting there earlier, maybe it was hers. Anyway, surely it was much too thin to hold an Indian Tupperware containing some sort of explosive device. So I just sat there like everyone else. Surely it was harmless.  Station security must have thought so too as after a few minutes a man appeared and grabbed the thing and the journey continued on…

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