Just caught the tail end of Kenneth Branagh as Wallander on Masterpiece Mystery. Very stylized and full of symbolism…I’m guessing. I’m assuming that the dead white horse at the fair was symbolism.
Anyway, after that ended, I was delighted to see aerial footage of London pop up on my PBS. The accented narration then started into West End theatre talk. TV, you have my attention.
It’s Theatreland, a show about the backstage workings of the Theatre Royal Haymarket. It is the first season of new Artistic Director Sean Mathias and his first production as the head is Waiting For Godot, starring…wait for it…no pun intended…Sir Ian McKellen and Sir Patrick Stewart! The theatre is very optimistic for this production. And so is the narrator: he at one point says of the seats, “There will be a bum in every one of them.”
Sir Stewart calls learning Beckett’s play “beastly” which is an awesome word that I would like to incorporate more into my vocabulary. The narrator also comments about Stewart’s and McKellen’s friendship. Stewart says they are connected by not only their buddy-ness but also the fact that they both starred in big Sci-Fi and Fantasy films and that they are close in age. There was more to it than that…
While the Two Sirs were meeting and rehearsing with the four 11 year olds that will be rotating the role of Boy, the Master Carpenter and his assistant have to rip out the ceiling in one of the dressing rooms. The theatre bought a new washing machine for Wardrobe but as was explained so gentlemanly by an employee, “It wasn’t installed correctly.” Cue water damage in the ceiling of the dressing room. Keep in mind that this theatre is close to 300 years old.
The poor carpenters also have to continually fix broken seats. The seats are a young one hundred years old but as the Master Carpenter says, “the seats were made for small people. We’ve got fat people now.” Ah, bless him.
After a pre-curtain seat fix, the first preview goes up…and ack! Theatreland is a series. Balls. Now I have to watch them all…
What did I learn from Theatreland? The narrator called the theatre, Theatre Royal. The employee who answered the phone said, “Haymarket”. Potayto, potahto. The carpenters, who according to this episode do all the work in this joint, installed brass name plates on the dressing room doors. Then after the production ends, the plates are given to the actors as a “thank you”. The carpenters, however, get a lung full of dust from tearing out the damp ceiling.
