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Prayers and thoughts: The Inseparables @Finboroughtheatre

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The Inseparables brings Simone de Beauvoir’s posthumously published novel to life. It traces a lifelong friendship between Sylve and Andrée, two unconventional girls who grew up in a stifling world where being a woman meant getting married or entering a convent. With a quick pace and engaging performances from the two leads, it is a journey back into the 20th century that captures two unconventional women trapped in a conventional world that will have you reflecting on how much or little things have moved on in the last century. It’s currently playing at the Finborough Theatre .  We’re introduced to Sylve praying for her country, France, to be saved from the war and indoctrinated into the world of faith and obedience. But too smart for all that, her life was full of detached guilt and boredom. But when she meets Andrée, a new arrival at her school, she is struck by how different she is from everyone else. She was burned in a fire and had a passion for life that nobody else she knew...

Scenes from SW4: Abbeville Road Fete Saturday 13:10



The annual summer fete was a time for people to enjoy the sun and meet the neighbours. The streets were closed around Abbeville Road and there were the usual stalls and family events.

And speaking of neighbours, a conversation I overheard went something like this:
Lady with children (to two scruffy-looking men with beers): Excuse me do you live in the flat upstairs from us?
Scruffy Man #1: Uh yeah...
Lady with children: Um you were a bit noisy last night, is it possible to keep the noise down?
Scruffy Man #2: Uh sorry yeah there were all these people that just came over for like a party and it sorta got outta hand...

And there is an insight into part of the demographic make up of the little part of Clapham that I live in: Bugaboo parents and scruffy types... Incidentally I only knew what a Bugaboo was after my sister got one. Only then did I realise that all these parents in my street with these prams bearing the same distinctive logo on them were not part of a cult... Or maybe they are??

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