N.T. LIVE - TRAVELLING LIGHT

I did something new the other night, or rather, I didn’t, but bear with me. Going out into the big, wide and frankly quite scary world always manages to leave me feeling rather confused. It could, of course, just be because it  takes so long to drag myself back towards Lesser Blogfordshire at the end of the evening that I’m far too knackered to process the events of the evening at the time. That couple with my now almost legendary insomnia (if that’s not too immodest...) tends to mean that nights out and social events tend to bombard my subconscious like so many meteors on a particularly airless moon.

Whoops! There I go over-dramatising again, but I suppose that is slightly appropriate because I went to the theatre (or “Fear-ter” if you prefer...) although, technically  I didn’t. I told you that I get confused. I don’t think that I’m explaining this very well. Let’s start again... from the beginning.

A few weeks ago, the beloved booked tickets for an event at the city’s “art house” cinema. I knew that the tickets were booked, and I even knew which date they were booked for, but somehow I failed to take in what the tickets themselves were for. I think I just imagined that a particular movie that she desperately wanted to see was playing for one night only, but I didn’t take in the details of the title or anything.

So, eventually, as these things do, the actual evening in question rolled around and, after a particularly exhausting day, I pointed the car in the general direction of the big city, right in the middle of a torrential downpour, and headed in to meet her.

One nightmare journey later, the car was parked (at great eventual expense) in a city centre car park, and I switched on my phone and received the text telling me where the beloved was waiting for me. Somewhere called “Chouse” apparently, but I didn’t know where that was, and so I said that I’d meet her at the CornerHouse instead.

D’oh!

In my defence for missing the now obvious abbreviation, I was quite stressed from my journey in through the rush-hour traffic on a rainy night where all the road markings to which I had already come a cropper over Christmas (you can look that story up if you like... It’s in January’s adventures...) became all but invisible and, having got myself into town,  I found myself surprisingly heading back out again in an insane jumble of traffic on a road which went past the very car park I was seeking, but which allowed no right turns for a mile and a half, suddenly pleading with whatever town planning gods that there might be to finally allow me to get a sat-nav...

Anyway, I parked and then I walked, and then we ate and went to the cinema to see some theatre.

What we went to see was one of the NT Live showings of one of their plays. I don’t know whether you’ve come across the concept before, so I think I’d better explain. The National Theatre in London stream one of their plays live (or, if you go on other nights the recording played “as live”) to various cinemas around the country, and the world, in order for those of us not “lucky” enough to live in the great metropolis and who would otherwise not be able to get to see them, to see some of the great plays and great performances that they put on. In this way, any number of far distant cinemas can become theatres for the evening, although, because they use multiple cameras, in many ways you get to see far more of the plays and performances than you might get if you were sitting “in the gods” back in old London Town, as it were.

The play in question was called “Travelling Light” by Nicholas Wright and was a satirical take about early cinema and Jewish life in 19th Century Russia, and starring Anthony Sher who, despite the fact that he was performing with an accent that echoed certain Meerkats of advertising fame, managed to be totally mesmerising. There is a moment towards the climax of the story in which a close-up on his face as tears pricked at his eyes, would break anyone’s heart, and that kind of close-up intensity is something that you would also never get if you were sitting in “the gods”...

However, I don’t want to be telling you the plot, but it is a superb production of a rather splendid play and, if you get the chance, and you truly love theatre and performance, it’s well worth seeking out one of these showings and giving it a try, because it truly is a pretty amazing night out, and you get all that is good about the theatre without a lot of the bad. Yes, you still have to listen to people in neighbouring seats being annoying, and, of course, you don’t quite get the same sense of breathing the same air as the actors in front of you, and, rather inevitably, it can never quite be the full on 3-D experience that sitting in an actual theatre gives you, but, to be honest, last night’s show was a revelation to me, and I really do hope to be attending many more of them.

Now, I wonder if the National Theatre will start to release them on DVD and save me all that bothersome “going out” business...?