Dinner’s done, all sorted, stories told. A nightcap in the Hutt now to recount the events, of which there are none. Slow village life. We worked on the show, doing a run-through with all the audio and video cues. Then I walked to the Tuck Shop and took more footage of attractive flowers.
In the afternoon we went to Saxmundham, where there is a Waitrose, my platonic ideal of a grocery store. Mostly for the brand presentation and cohesion. And isn’t that an odd way to look at these things? What about price? Quality? Never mind! My self-adjudicated class status is being reinforced with grace and style, assisted by branding that spans all products with consistent typefaces!
Always strange to see familiar brands in new incarnations.
In the evening we went to a private dwelling, late . . . 18th century? Early 19th. Old but modernized. Had drinks and quail’s eggs with celery salt. You hope the quails are raised on farms, in large pens, because the idea that there are people skulking through the countryside raiding quail nests makes you feel bad.
After dinner we watched a video a local fellow had made about the extraordinary treasures found in the homes of people in town. It was done by Paul Heiney, former Beeb presenter and reporter, one of the King’s circle - we’ve had drinks and dinner before, along with his wife, Libby Purves, who is a Times columnist and also a former Beeb presenter / host. It’s a charming piece and I hope I can embed it soon. It features Astrid, who has Katherine Hepburn’s brownie recipe (the real one, it's on Hepburn's stationery), Denis, who has Stanley Holloway’s piano - the fellow who sang “I’m getting married in the morning” in My Fair Lady. There’s Paul the Architect, whom I also know, and whose attachment to brutalism is a source of great contention, at least on my part. Paul reveals the object he bought one night after a few too many at the pub.
Tony Hancock’s Hat.
I had no idea who Tony Hancock was. But now I do, having watched some YouTubes from his British comedy show, Hancock’s Half Hour. It’s really quite a thing, having his hat. It is in a glass case. Apparently most people are indifferent or indulgent or downright ignorant of its meaning, but I get owning the hat on an elemental level.
In this sketch, there’s a nurse:
She plucked some strings: the mum in AbFab. And many, many other shows. June Whitfield. If you grew up in the UK in the 60s - 00s, of course you'd know her.
I asked if Denis had ever met Hancock, and he’d last seen him at a bar, the Stork Club, late one night, before a mobster from the Richardson gang had smacked him in the gob and knocked out two teeth one night before he was supposed to play the Palladium. The Richardson gang was known for their sadistic reprisals: “Their alleged specialities included pulling teeth out using pliers, cutting off toes using bolt cutters and nailing victims to floors using 6-inch nails”
Which is the origin, I’m now certain, of the line in the Python sketch about the Dinsdale gangster brothers who’d nail your head to a table.
And that's from one merry night around the table.
WEDNESDAY, June 26 10:06
At the point now where Walbers life is the norm, and everything back there, with all its attendant irritations, is a misty memory. One more day of practice and relaxation before the show, and then the great weekend of theatrical triumph and fabulous social events - but I’m not letting on anything about that until it’s time. I want to keep some surprises close to the vest. It’s not as if you all didn’t guess I’d gone to Walberswick, as that’s the plot every time this year.
It is, as ever, lovely.
We went to Aldi’s to get things for dinner, which just infuriates me anew every time. The Aldi’s here are nothing like the downmarket ugly American stores. So many things have the flag, which is always gladdening.
Where else can you get fascinating British product branding discussion two days in a row? I ask you.
I’ve seen more UK flags out this trip than any year. Could be the election. Could be a resurgence of national pride. Many St. George flags, too, honoring that mythical non-British guy of lore and yore.
The evening meal was going to be shrimp, so we stopped at the Fishmongers, where fish was monged.
Two guys, eager to talk about aquatic foodstuffs, standing behind coolers heaped with ice and dead fish. Also a bucket of cockles. You can’t help but want to ask if they are alive, alive-o. Never heard that one before mate
Which reminds me: one of the people I'll be meeting this weekend played Jesus in a famous miniseries, and I was told his friends found endless ways to tease him about it to this day. He puts the ball in a water trap, his mates say oh you can just walk over and play it from there. That sort of thing.
Once back I took a walk in the afternoon to the fabled Thatched Shelter - still has one google review - then decided to look in the Parish Lantern. They had some Tintin items, including a plastic folder that will be good for keeping the script.
Honestly, the days are just practice and fine tuning of the AV program, which is my responsibility. Getting everything into Keynote, and then getting the files piped to my iPad over a sluggish WiFi (the whole Village is complaining, apparently) and then trying to operate it with phone - nothing is working as well as I’d like, and I am curiously blasé about it.
Things will go fine. The only difficulty is reading the script while keeping an eye on the iPad to flick the images and hit the sound cues.
