. . . BUT YOU CAN NEVER TRUST THE BRITISH WEATHER
DID I fancy a 600-mile round trip to the edge of England, to review a touring version of Educating Rita? With no disrespect to anybody involved in Max Roberts’s 40th-anniversary production of Willy Russell’s modern classic at the Minack Theatre near Land’s End in Cornwall, that is an offer that in normal times I could easily refuse. But these aren’t normal times.
After a painfully enforced lay-off, I’ll go to any lengths to see live performances. I’ve reviewed drive-in shows in a selection of car parks, ranging from grotty (Brent Cross) to posh (Henley Royal Regatta).
Besides, who wouldn’t drive some distance to see the witty two-hander about class differences in education (written long before this year’s exams fiasco, imagine) in which Stephen Tompkinson (Ballykissangel, DCI Banks) plays alcoholic academic Frank opposite his real-life partner Jessica Johnson? She stars as gobby hairdresser Rita, his Open University student.
I wasn’t fazed by the fact that every hotel room in Porthcurno and beyond was booked, because I have a handily located cousin with a spare room, so I happily drove from London in incessant rain to review on Press night.
I was feeling quite chipper when Storm Ellen appeared to stop at Exeter and there were clear skies for about, oh, all of 20 miles before the drizzle started again. And then a few minutes after I arrived, the performance was cancelled. Ellen killed Rita. All that way and no show.
Disappointed, I went to look at the theatre — a magnificent, mad creation hewn out of the rock overlooking the stunning Cornish coast. If only the British weather could behave. Mr Roberts was taking Mr Tompkinson and Miss Johnson through their paces on stage, so I saw the principals at least — even if the crashing waves meant I couldn’t make out a blessed word.
Educating Rita runs until august 30, weather permitting.