The Importance of Being Earnest

I was enjoying the performance too much to take any pictures at the time and by the time I thought about it full cast in costume were not around.
I loved the way Witness Theatre interpreted this work.  Played out in an impossibly small territory (including on top of the counter) at the Red Roaster Coffee Shop in Brighton the play spills into the audience quite skilfully from time to time (without scaring or embarrassing anyone).  The immediacy of the action enhanced the experience for me although I think the idea of the characters introducing themselves to the audience as they were settling into their seats is quite daring.  It could have backfired with patrons not familiar with the play.  Had I known to expect to meet Miss Prism and Mr Worthing before the performance started I might have been put off going but in retrospect this rather bold idea got me engaged with the performance right from the start.
The script of this play is a dream to work with and I'm sure the actors had as much fun with it as the audience did.

Alone in Berlin - Hans Fallada

Published in Germany in 1947 and in the UK in 2010 this fictionalised account, based on a true story, of an ordinary German couple and their campaign against Nazism in the early 1940's.  Translated into English 62 years after it was first published in Germany the story has also been dramatised a few times but not yet in English.
As WWII moves further away from us and the number of people with any personal experience of those times diminishes it's likely that a more balanced view of he period will emerge.  History is always written with some bias and usually by the victor (or one presented as victor however precarious or accurate the presentation is) so its important to consider all sides of a story and this book has been a good start for me.  It took me to a Berlin of deprivation and fear where the tacitly understood hierarchy of society has turned on it head and upstart thuggish children have the power of life and death over their formerly respected neighbours.  Life seems to have become cheap, a formerly well ordered society is disordered and petty thieving and delight in violence is disguised and excused as political necessity.
The collection of people you meet in this story are from a wide range of Berlin society, Fallada brings them to life using them skilfully to reveal different perspectives on the story he is telling.
One of the best books I have read for a long time, can't recommend it highly enough.

Get your hankie out

It was Morris Festival time again in Horsham this Saturday last.  The town was knee deep in groups of people drinking suspicious looking home brew poured from 5 litre plastic bottles, withdrawn from under tables and within wicker baskets, into pewter tankards.  The cacophony of bells worn from the knee down was deafening but the sun shone and good fun was had by all.