A Funny Thing Didn’t Happen On The Way To The Theatre Last Night …

Off to The Gate for Pinter’s No Man’s Land last night, where I had the very good fortune to find myself sitting beside Barry McGovern (right, realising who he is sitting beside), the finest Beckett actor of his generation and arguably the finest Beckett actor ever. I told him that I had seen him in Romeo and Juliet at The Abbey a few months ago, when he stepped in at the last minute to play Friar Laurence, and did so whilst carrying the book of the play as if it were some holy relic he’d been entrusted with to defend with his life. “I hope that that didn’t spoil it for you,” says he. “Not at all,” says I, “it only gave it an added frisson.”
  Frisson! What I should have said was, “Not at all, sir, it would have been a privilege to be in the same theatre as you even if you were sweeping out the stalls.”
  But I didn’t. When the play was over, Michael Gambon hushed the applause to announce that Harold Pinter himself was in the audience, which provoked a standing ovation. I didn’t get to speak to Pinter, of course, but that’s just as well, because the conversation would probably have gone something like this:

DB: “Alright, Squire? How’re they hanging?”
HP: “…”
DB: “I’ll get my cloak.”

  Ah, the theatre. The roar of greasepaint, the smell of the crowd, etc.

Uptown Top Rankin

It’s been a busy couple of weeks, certainly, what with all that Bristol malarkey, but there’s still no excuse for us allowing this little nugget to slip under the radar. Colin ‘Master’ Bateman (right) takes up the story:

“Hi there – Thought maybe you should mention for anyone in Dublin and surrounds that I’ll be interviewing Sir Ian Rankin on the stage of the Gate Theatre – as opposed to the dressing room, or the bar, obviously – on Sunday night as part of the Dublin Writers Festival. I have no idea what we’ll be talking about but we may touch on the subject of Rebus, and the fact that I actually created the character for television which he has since ripped off in a series of moderately successful books.”

If Sir Ian’s interview with Peter Guttridge at Bristol is anything to go by, it should be a very entertaining night indeed – although, if Ian starts a joke with “Two paving stones walk into a bar,” plug your ears immediately or you’ll have bad-pun nightmares for weeks after. All the booking details can be found here, although the Grand Viz won’t be able to get along, sadly, as he has longstanding plans to be worshipping at the feet of the other genius gracing a Dublin stage on Sunday night. If you do get along to The Gate, feel free to drop us a line and let us know how it went …