A Night In Ipswich And A Day In London

After watching Liverpool's disappointing defeat to an excellent Man City side on Monday night and needing something to cheer me up, I went with Marion on Tuesday to the wonderful Ipswich Film Theatre where you are always guaranteed a warm welcome. Sadly Joe, our film choice for the night, is not exactly the barrel of laughs that my upbeat nature thrives on. That's not to say it isn't a good film- it's an extremely good film but boy is it GRIM. 

Tye Sheridan plays Gary Jones the fifteen-year-old son of depraved and evil alcoholic drifter ,Wade. Despite his background, Gary is a kid with a work ethic and he is taken under the wing of ex-con gang master Joe played by Nicolas Cage and given the job of poisoning trees to clear a forest. The performances from Sheridan and Cage are central to the film and  even boozy, violent, whoring but honest Joe is a better role model for Gary than his irredeemable father. The levels of violence in the movie are, at times, extreme but the underlying theme is one of redemption and whilst Joe and Wade have passed the tipping point there remains hope for Gary to escape to a better future.

The performance of Gary Poulter as Gary's drifter father in this film was so convincing I wondered why I had not seen or heard of him before. It turns out that he really was a homeless man who sadly died shortly after the film was made.

Our choice of entertainment yesterday was a little more upbeat when we travelled to London to see Alan Ayckbourn's 1987 play A Small Family Business at The National Theatre. Having been involved in our own small family business I wondered if it would reflect our experiences in any way. But, apart from a few references to "the lads", Ayckbourn's furniture makers were a long way from Instanta. The play is almost (but not quite) a farce and opens with a very funny surprise party scene where we meet the family. From then the plot darkens as innocent and honest MD Jack discovers that his own scruples are not shared by his co-directors and their spouses. As in Joe, the underlying theme here is also one of redemption but in Ayckbourn's cynical view of entrepreneurship will Jack's incorruptibility prevail or will he jump aboard the gravy (or in this case spaghetti) train along with everyone else?

It was an entertaining afternoon. The suburban detached house set was brilliant, all of the cast were great and there were some very funny scenes but, like A Taste Of Honey which we also saw at The National a few moths ago, the play has not aged too well. Whilst it captures the culture of the tail end of Thatcherism brilliantly things have moved on. 

Before the play we had time to do a little sightseeing and had a look at the ceramic poppy installation at The Tower Of London. This is a very beautiful and poignant artwork and well worth a detour to see before it closes on 11 November by which time 888,246 poppies will fill the moat.

We walked along the Thames path on the way to the theatre. We were very impressed by this building Three Quays which has a surface of rippled constantly flowing water by William Pye.

Although there was a bit of a limescale problem where some of the water had not followed its correct course.

Every time we walk this path we notice something new. Yesterday we were impressed by the splendour of the old Billingsgate fish market - these iron grilles above the gates are beautiful.

We had time for a snack and tried Zorita's Kitchen just below the Millennium bridge. It's a Spanish tapas restaurant and deli and we enjoyed a delicious light and inexpensive (by Central London standards) lunch of cheese, Spanish omelette and sardines on toast with a good glass of Tempranillo. 

After the play we had time to meet up with Paul, Jospehine and Catherine for dinner at Mai Sushi in Chalton St near St Pancras. It was our first experience of a Japanese sushi restaurant. The food was very good, beautifully presented (see above) and we didn't have to push the boat out.

Our journey home was marred by a family of two adults, two kids and a grandmother who decided to spend the entire journey laughing uproariously and thinking it was fun to sing "This is a song that will get on your nerves" in full voice for most of the hour long train journey to Ipswich. Their reaction to commuters who expressed their displeasure by moving carriages preferring to stand for the rest of the journey were howls of derision and "some people are miserable" and "they don't know how to enjoy themselves". Sad thing is none of us had the guts to point out to the tipsy bunch that, whilst everyone loves to see a happy child, some people had had a long day at work.

A Bit Of Culture

We've had a bit more culture since King Lear at the National last week. After a few weeks without a cinema visit we found time to head to the coast on Saturday afternoon for The Past another excellent film from Iranian director Ashgar Farhadi. We loved his A Separation and so were delighted to find his latest showing at the excellent Aldeburgh Cinema. We were not disappointed with another tale of marital disharmony - this time set in France. An Iranian husband Ahmad is invited back to France by his estranged wife Marie to complete the divorce legalities. 

He finds her involved with Samir a new lover whose baby she is carrying and who she hopes to marry shortly. The young lover and his little boy are living in the family home along with Marie's other daughters by an earlier marriage - complicated eh? She hasn't booked a hotel room for Ahmed so he has to bed down in the family house. Throw in the fact that Samir's wife is in a coma and add Marie's troubled teenage daughter to the mix and it's a recipe for a tense and emotional couple of hours of tremendous drama - highly recommended.

Having whetted our appetite for subtitled movies with The Past we planned to try The Lunchbox which is showing in Ipswich but after a glance at our schedule and the cinema's timings we realised we were not going to make it. But all was not lost when we realised it was showing on Sky. It's another relationship movie but far gentler than The Past. Set in Mumbai it tells the tale of Saajan a widowed insurance claims clerk on the verge of retirement. Every day he has his lunch delivered by one of Mumbai's hundreds of Dabbawalas - an army of men who deliver hot meals to thousands of office workers every day. In the suburbs Ila a young woman is trying to spice up her marriage by making more adventurous concoctions for her disinterested husband and uses the Dabbawala service to deliver his lunches. A mix up ends up with the lunches arriving on Saajan's desk (he uses the same delivery service for his meals from a caterer). Within a few days, notes are being passed between the two and a romance by letter develops. It's a very wistful, warm and pleasant love story a bit of a Mumbai Brief Encounter. Lovely.

 And that wasn't the end of the week's culture as today we headed back to London to see A Taste Of Honey at The National Theatre. Lesley Sharp and Kate O'Flynn were both brilliant as a mum and daughter living in a run down flat in 1958 Salford. When it was first performed the play caused a sensation with it's depiction of inter-racial sex, homosexuality and a man who baked cakes. Today it's a fascinating insight into how things have moved on - none of the shocks would raise an eyebrow with a modern audience - so it's a great credit to the cast and the theatre for creating a production that was dramatic, funny and very entertaining.

We've had a busy week on other fronts too. On Monday night we headed up to the college for a fascinating talk about its 150 year history. The castle looked wonderful from the school in the early evening light.

We also found time to check out a few local places that we hadn't yet visited and had a look at Blythburgh church. With its rare 15th Century Jack O' The Clock, ancient pew carvings and spectacular nave it's a true hidden Suffolk treasure.

Life Is Sweet

Although I sometimes grumble on this blog about being too busy, when I reflect on our life at the moment I realise that we're leading quite a privileged existence. After a pleasant Easter Weekend when we managed to cycle to Orford and back, it was a quiet start to the week on Tuesday when I took the car to Bury St Edmunds for a service and then took my recent finds to the County Archaeologist for recording (the silver tag is going to the Treasure people at the British Museum). 

I got back early enough to spend a couple of hours out in the fields again and found this tiny Elizabethan silver half groat dating from around 1590 as well as a number of other interesting bits and pieces.

It was then off to London on Wednesday for King Lear at The National. I bought the tickets as a surprise for Marion who loves the play. I loved the meal at The Terrace restaurant but , although I could appreciate Simon Russell Beale's bravura performance I can't honestly say that I enjoyed the show - it could have been in Polish for all I got from it. But it wasn't my night and I'm pleased to say that Marion was totally moved by it. We're going to The National again next week and I expect that A Taste Of Honey will be more manageable for a Philistine like me.

We stayed overnight at the Ibis near Blackfriars Bridge. It's just a chain hotel but it's near the theatre, the bed was comfortable, the room was clean and the service was very efficient - recommended for an inexpensive stopover.

Yesterday we headed for the British Museum for The Vikings exhibition. Despite the crowds it was a fascinating exhibition and well worth seeing. We got to the museum an hour before our slot and, as a metal detector user, I was delighted to see the Crosby Garrett Helmet (above) one of the best detecting finds in recent years on display. It's even better in the flesh than in the photos - a truly magnificent object. I can always live in hope of matching it. When we got back home there were three certificates from the Scottish Treasure Trove unit thanking me for donating my somewhat less significant recent Scottish finds to St Andrews Museum.

After the museum we met up with son Paul and took our granddaughter Catherine to the super playground Coram's Fields which is a short walk away. After an hour's play we ended the day at Spitalfields Market where we had a good meal at Canteen before heading back to the station and a train back to Ipswich.

With another relaxing weekend around Framlingham planned and plenty of things going on again next week, life really is sweet.